So You've Lost Your Mind, Have You?
"Is no one there?!"
So Cheon-jeon's face had gone rigid as stone.
"Bring me every disciple who went to Eagle Sorrow Gorge yesterday. At once. And... bring Yi Yeok as well!"
A short while later Dong Pil and Mok Geom-in appeared, their expressions hopelessly tangled. Ju Uk came with them and stood before So Cheon-jeon.
"Master, these two are the ones who went to Eagle Sorrow Gorge yesterday. Has something happened?"
"You. Step back."
Ju Uk took in the crushing weight that filled the great hall and asked nothing more. He withdrew to one side. So Cheon-jeon turned a savage glare on Dong Pil and Mok Geom-in and roared.
"What happened at Eagle Sorrow Gorge?"
Both of them were drawn tight with dread. They had known this moment would come, but the air was far more murderous than anything they had braced for.
"Speak!"
Dong Pil hesitated, then forced his mouth open.
"We only... matched ourselves in the lightness arts..."
"Then what became of our disciples? Are you saying every one of them leapt from the cliff and died?"
"Our sect's disciples went only to judge the contest! There is no way they died!"
"If no one had played a dirty trick, Ju Jin would never have died! I know that boy's lightness arts better than anyone!"
"Was it not Nokhyeon Sect that struck? Unwilling to swallow a defeat!"
The masters of the four sects shouted one after another, and every eye poured onto So Cheon-jeon at once. Killing intent pressed in on him from all sides.
So Cheon-jeon rose and spoke with a hard-won calm.
"Compose yourselves. I will bear full responsibility for this matter."
"If you cannot give a proper account, your Nokhyeon Sect will not walk away from this unscathed!"
Dozens of inner disciples were dead. Every one of them had been the future of his sect.
So Cheon-jeon rounded on the two disciples again.
"If the two of you do not tell me the truth, I will abolish your cultivation on the spot and hurl you off the cliff!"
Mok Geom-in shook with fear and blurted the words out in a rush.
"Sect Master, we truly had nothing to do with it! This is how it happened..."
He spilled the facts as fast as he could, with no exaggeration where Yi Yeok was concerned — only the situation as it had been.
"Nonsense!"
The explanation had barely ended before the Sect Master of Sungwol Sect bellowed, voice raw with fury.
"Ju Jin was one of the three finest disciples in all of Sungwol Sect. You expect us to believe a single outer disciple did that to him?"
"Restrain yourselves. Our disciples have no reason to lie. When Yi Yeok arrives, we will sort truth from falsehood."
"You all see it, don't you? This is precisely Nokhyeon Sect's attitude!"
Dong Hyo, the Sect Master of Sungwol, the Sect Master of Yong-a, and the Sect Master of Pyeongheung let their blood qi erupt one after another, fury laid bare. The disciples they had brought drew their weapons, poised to attack at any instant.
Then a figure appeared in the doorway. Supreme Elder So Cheong-ha.
His arrival overwhelmed the hall in a single breath. The four sect masters' faces tightened. Low-rank Daoist sects were, for the most part, of a similar level — but Nokhyeon Sect was the exception, and the reason was So Cheong-ha.
"What is the meaning of this? Was today not meant to be a day of friendly sparring?"
"Senior So Cheong-ha, nearly a hundred disciples of our sects are dead. The work of your sect's disciples. And yet the Sect Master of Nokhyeon means to pin the entire affair on a single outer disciple. Do you truly find that reasonable?"
Dong Hyo answered in a low voice. The other three sect masters traded glances. If it came to it, they meant to strike as one and close in from every side. Without So Cheong-ha, they had no reason to fear Nokhyeon Sect.
Sensing the mood turn delicate, So Cheon-jeon shouted in haste.
"Where is Yi Yeok? Has he still not come?"
"I'm here. I'm here."
Yi Yeok strolled in at an unhurried pace. Days of relentless cultivation had left him looking worn, but his manner was perfectly at ease.
"That boy, alone, killed dozens of our disciples?"
The sect masters wore looks of pure disbelief. It was difficult to credit that a green youth in the early Daoist realm could have done any such thing.
Only Dong Hyo, Sect Master of Yangcheon Sect, went abruptly rigid. He hurried over to Yi Yeok, lowered his head, and spoke with careful courtesy.
"Heavens — the Young Master. I never imagined I would meet you here. It is an honor."
Yi Yeok studied Dong Hyo with a brief flicker of puzzlement, then smiled.
"Ah. So you were here. It's been a while, Sect Master of Yangcheon."
He remembered the spirit stones Dong Hyo had given him after the clash with Black Phoenix Hall.
Everyone else who watched could only stare, utterly at a loss.
With every gaze in the hall fixed upon him, Dong Hyo could not hide how tangled his feelings were. Yi Yeok was the man who had brought down Jin Seo, an elder of Black Phoenix Hall — so why was he nothing more than an outer disciple of a low-rank Daoist sect?
The Sect Master of Yong-a Sect roared, his voice thick with rage.
"Is it true that you killed our disciples?"
He looked ready to raise a storm of blood on the spot. Had So Cheong-ha not been standing there, he would already have moved.
So Cheong-ha frowned and fixed his eyes on Yi Yeok.
"Was this truly your doing? If it was, no one will be able to protect you today. And if it was not, then make that equally plain."
Rage surged through the other sect masters at those words. They heard in them a clear intent to shield the boy.
Yi Yeok drew a thick life-and-death pledge from his robes and held it up.
"Have a look. They all signed it. Live or die — each man answers for himself."
"What did you say?"
The Sect Master of Yong-a Sect flew into a greater fury and unleashed a violent surge of blood qi. The pledge tore free and scattered in every direction.
"So you admit it was your doing?"
"They tried to kill me, so I hit back. Simple as that."
The Sect Master of Sungwol Sect demanded an answer.
"Then why did you throw the corpses down into Eagle Sorrow Gorge?"
"I only scrambled their qi and blood, then tossed them. I don't kill people first if I can help it."
So Cheon-jeon's head began to pound.
The Sect Master of Yong-a Sect manifested his Blood Spirit. Keen as a whetted blade, the gleaming spirit leveled itself at Yi Yeok.
"So Cheon-jeon. Have you anything left to say?"
For the sect masters, the losses had already passed beyond anything they could bear, and the life-and-death pledge no longer meant a thing.
So Cheong-ha considered for a moment, then looked at Yi Yeok and asked, slow and quiet.
"Yi Yeok. What do you think? How do you believe this ought to be settled?"
Yi Yeok let his gaze travel the length of the great hall, and his mouth crooked into a grin.
"Settling problems like this happens to be my specialty."
He went on, perfectly sure of himself.
"When I was eight, Wolgye Castle had five gambling dens in all. Too many dens crammed into too little ground — there wasn't a day they weren't at each other's throats."
The Sect Master of Pyeongheung Sect could endure it no longer.
"Enough! What matters now is how you mean to settle this. Not even your life is enough to pay for it!"
Yi Yeok smiled with easy leisure and continued.
"If you want more coin without widening your ground, there's only one way. The strongest den swallows the other four."
For a moment, no one in the hall could find a word.
Mad. He's completely mad.
The same thought passed through every mind.
At last the Sect Master of Yong-a Sect burst into loud laughter.
"A brat who doesn't know his place, puffing himself up."
"You don't imagine we brought only this many men, do you?"
"Strutting because you trust Senior So Cheong-ha? However strong the senior may be, we are Daoist sects as well. Do you truly believe the gap is so vast?"
Yi Yeok's voice dropped low.
The Sect Master of Yong-a Sect's laughter died, and rage lit his eyes again.
"So you've lost your mind after all. If you think offering up a wretch like you as a sacrifice will put this matter to rest, you are gravely mis—"
He never finished. In the instant he realized Yi Yeok had vanished, blood fountained up at the corner of his vision.