Still Fooling Yourself You Might Live?
Shown to his room, Yi Yeok flopped straight onto the bed. There was not a shred of tension in him.
His trade had always demanded nerve, and reading what a man said and did was its foundation. Their reactions alone told him the lie was holding.
The ways of the demonic sects were little different from those of the street rabble—only meaner, crueler, more vicious, and far stronger.
Toward evening the innkeeper brought a man to Yi Yeok's door and knocked.
"Young master, your visitor is here."
The innkeeper bowed low. The man he had brought was pale and beardless, middle-aged, and he watched Yi Yeok with a cold, wary eye.
Yi Yeok struck first.
"You've got some nerve, making me wait this long."
The middle-aged man inclined his head a fraction, his face blank.
"I am Gwan Gyeom of Black Phoenix Hall. I beg you, set aside your anger. I came running the moment I heard. Since you have descended in person, what command would you give?"
Yi Yeok considered a moment. Memory stirred of the Black Phoenix Hall he had met at the secret tomb in the Heaven-Center Immortal Realm, and of the name Jin Seo.
"Robbed that tomb and came away with nothing, did you?"
Only then did Gwan Gyeom's face go bloodless. The matter had never even been reported to the main mountain. Cold sweat beaded on his brow.
"Tripped up by a nothing sect like the Yangcheon Sect? And if I hadn't come, you'd have kept it buried. Isn't that so?"
Yi Yeok rose and struck him hard across the face. Gwan Gyeom was flung toward the door, blood dripping from his split mouth.
He dropped to his knees at once, shaking.
"Spare me! This humble one never dared even think such a thing. We meant to report to the Sacred Hall the moment anything was recovered from that place. Something unexpected ruined the job, and we only covered it for the time being."
He knocked his forehead against the floor. His fear seemed almost visible, rising off him like blood qi.
"It was the Hall Master's decision. We only followed. We meant to leave it buried a while, then watch for another chance to recover the items."
The innkeeper knelt as well, hunched small and holding his breath. Unlike the orthodox sects, the demonic path required not even the thinnest pretext. If they wished to kill, they killed.
"The Hall Master's decision, you say?"
"Y-yes. All of it was the Hall Master's order."
Shifting the blame. Whatever organization a man belonged to, it was an essential art of staying alive.
Yi Yeok waved a hand.
"Get up."
Gwan Gyeom hauled his trembling body upright. The moment he had entered, he had read Yi Yeok's qi and blood and judged him no higher than the Creation Qi-Blood Realm. That was strange. A man come out of the main mountain—the Sacred Hall, heart of the demonic sect—could not possibly be of so modest a rank.
But the instant Yi Yeok moved, every doubt vanished. What Gwan Gyeom felt was a pressure beyond any realm.
It was the fastest thing he had ever seen in his life. No—more precisely, he had seen nothing at all. It had simply been too fast.
"What was in that tomb looked rather precious."
Yi Yeok went on, perfectly calm.
"If you lot can't get it back, I'll step in myself. Before that, spill every scrap you know."
In truth, Yi Yeok had no idea what use the dagger and the bronze box he had taken from that place might be. The bronze box in particular had no lock at all, and he had no way to open it.
Gwan Gyeom nodded in a fluster.
"Yes, of course. First, allow me to escort you to Black Phoenix Hall! Question the Hall Master yourself! Let us leave tonight. I will guide you."
"Fine. Tonight, then. We leave for Black Phoenix Hall."
Yi Yeok studied him for a long moment.
"Guide me well. Don't lose the way. Otherwise you'll never again have the chance to guide anyone but me."
When night fell, Gwan Gyeom led Yi Yeok quietly out of Nak-wol City.
Black Phoenix Hall lay, as expected, deep within the Heaven-Center Immortal Realm. Even by the standards of that realm the mountains were savage, the land so tangled that no eye could take the whole of it in at a glance.
At some point Yi Yeok realized they were being watched. Gwan Gyeom glanced that way and paid it no mind at all. They were nearing Black Phoenix Hall's domain.
They passed through ravines that crossed and recrossed, and came at last to a peak several hundred meters high—featureless, nothing to look at.
Soon a cave mouth veiled in vines revealed itself. They followed the winding path a long while, and then, all at once, a vast underground space opened before them.
Lanterns and night-shining pearls set throughout flooded the cavern with light, and shards of crystal embedded in the walls threw that light back until the whole place blazed.
Pavilions stood through the underground fortress hollowed from the mountain's belly, and caves had been cut into the walls. Through the Hidden Soul Divine Spirit Art, Yi Yeok sensed roughly a hundred people living within.
The entrance was low and narrow, but the ground rose the farther one went, and there, it seemed, the upper ranks of Black Phoenix Hall kept their seats.
Killing the Hall Master alone won't be easy.
The place was well appointed, yet the whole of it was not large—packed so tightly that a shout from anywhere would be heard at once.
Gwan Gyeom led him upward. A few hall members cast puzzled looks their way, but Gwan Gyeom's standing in Black Phoenix Hall was high enough that he hardly cared.
On the upper level a man hung from a torture frame. A bonfire burned before him, and on a rough chair sat a gloomy-faced man with a thick beard. His voice was thick with mockery.
"Still fooling yourself that you might live?"
Several subordinates ringed the scene, and one of them held a rawhide whip soaked in water.
Gwan Gyeom hurried forward, whispered in the bearded man's ear, then bowed his head.
"This is the Master of our Black Phoenix Hall, Sama Sa-cheol."
Sama Sa-cheol flicked a glance at Yi Yeok.
"Come from the Sacred Hall, have you?"
He showed no intention of rising. Yi Yeok read his qi: mid-stage Dao Grandmaster.
"That's right, Hall Master Sama. How about showing a little courtesy?"
"Some mistake, is there? With skill like that, you couldn't even run errands for the Sacred Hall."
"Need proof?"
In the next instant Yi Yeok was behind him. Sama Sa-cheol understood only when a palm was already resting on the crown of his head.
The subordinates drew their weapons a beat too late. Yi Yeok did not so much as shift.
"Harboring treason against the Sacred Hall? Or did you want to die, and think a fine chance had just walked in?"
Terrible force poured from his hand. The grip threatened to crush the skull, and at the same time blood qi was draining away.
Sama Sa-cheol clenched his teeth and tried to endure. It did no good. His face grew paler and paler.
"The bronze box."
Sama Sa-cheol's expression hardened further. At the same time he understood that the draining of his blood spirit was no illusion. It was a technique only the high personages of the Sacred Hall could use.
Yi Yeok repeated the words Sama Sa-cheol himself had spoken. The Hall Master jolted awake.
"I was wrong! I have a secret—one that can make good the Sacred Hall's losses!"
Interest flickered in Yi Yeok's eyes. He seized Sama Sa-cheol by the hair and hurled him to the floor.
Thud!
Sama Sa-cheol collapsed in a stagger and, through pain and fear, barely lifted his head. Yi Yeok's voice was cold.
"Choose your words carefully. They might be what gets carved on your tombstone."