Chiak Mountain (1)
Climbing was training in its own right.
Ha-wol, clearly dissatisfied with something, drove the members even harder on their footwork.
Get that one to straighten his back. Crouching just because the terrain is rough only chokes the flow of qi! Especially Hwang Dae-un—look at him! The placement of his steps is a complete mess!
Hyun Si-woon executed the Moon Shadow Steps while still watching over the others.
This, too, was part of the training—maintaining his own footwork flawlessly while at the same time spotting and correcting their mistakes. Seeing them through a master’s eyes was also a way of reviewing his own martial arts. Because of it, his Moon Shadow Steps grew more refined with every passing day.
“But…”
Baek Yeon-ho, bringing up the rear, gasped for air as he spoke.
“There really isn’t a single monster?”
On the outskirts of Seoul they would have run into dozens by now. Here, though, the silence was almost unnatural.
And then there was the wind.
Whoooooosh!
It howled with ferocious strength, strong enough that one could almost believe a typhoon was bearing down on them.
“This is getting in the way. The wind’s way too bad.”
Jang Cha-yul scowled, brushing hair from her face as it whipped wildly around her.
Is it?
Hyun Si-woon felt the strangeness as well, but he had no intention of stopping.
“Think of it as part of the training. Working through something like this will definitely help us later.”
Taah!
He kicked off the ground and stepped as if entrusting his body to the current of the wind. The motion was strange yet fluidly elegant.
“Got it! I’ll try it too!”
The climb continued. But the higher they pushed along the ridge, the more brutal the conditions became.
“Ugh!”
“Kugh!”
It was no longer merely strong. Calling it a storm would hardly have been an exaggeration. Stretching fully upright felt as though their bodies might lift clean off the ground. A pebble flung by the wind grazed a cheek; sharp pain followed, and blood welled.
“H-hyung-nim! Is this really okay?”
Hwang Dae-un pressed himself flat against a boulder and shouted, voice raw with strain. Even his massive frame was being shoved and rocked by the gale.
“We’re all going to get blown away at this rate! Shouldn’t we just head back down?”
Baek Do-hee cried out as well, barely keeping her footing.
The danger was plain. Hyun Si-woon furrowed his brow. Even Ha-wol made no effort to hide her unease.
This is strange. This lady has never seen a phenomenon like it. Approach the summit rashly and who knows what calamity might strike. Still… you are that curious fellow who comes back even when he dies, are you not? Trying once would not be so terrible.
Is that really something to say?
Hyun Si-woon muttered inwardly. He had made himself a promise: from now on, he would treat his life as something precious.
What do I do?
Push through regardless? Or fall back and wait to see how things developed?
Right then—
“Huh?”
Kang Si-a, braced in a crevice of rock, called out softly.
“Oppa, over there…!”
A faint tremor ran through her voice. Hyun Si-woon turned toward the direction she indicated.
“What is that?”
Beyond the ridge, at the very heart of the raging wind, an impossible sight was unfolding. Palm-sized translucent beings that looked like fairies danced and frolicked on the currents. Their mouths moved as though they were laughing in high, giggling peals.
Swoosh—they appeared.
Poof—they vanished.
Like mirages. Or like heat haze shimmering on a spring day.
“……”
Hyun Si-woon’s eyes flew wide.
Wind spirits…?
Those… why were they here?
Hyun Si-woon sank briefly into thought.
The seventeenth floor of the Tower.
Clearing that floor under the right conditions opened a path into a hidden zone. He remembered it with perfect clarity.
Whirlwind Blade Canyon, was it?
A hellscape of sheer cliffs where razor-edged winds never ceased their endless howl. Somewhere within it lay a secret space that opened only when precise conditions were met. The requirements had been so perversely twisted that no one but Hyun Si-woon would ever have found the place. That was why the memory remained so sharp. Even after he discovered it, the absurdity had left him speechless.
But…
What he could not understand was this: why were the spirits he had only ever seen inside that canyon of the seventeenth floor appearing here?
They were not monsters. They never attacked Climbers. They were simply a phenomenon—like an aurora that manifested wherever the wind blew fiercest.
Could it be…
A lightning bolt of insight cracked through his mind.
Does that mean the opportunity that could be seized in Whirlwind Blade Canyon… can also be obtained here?
His heart hammered hard for a moment. Then he shook his head. Did that make any sense at all—a hidden route from inside the Tower and its reward simply dropping into the real world?
Then again… it isn’t impossible.
Hyun Si-woon gave a wry smile. Monsters from the Tower already wandered freely outside it. Just as the Tower’s systems had been overlaid onto reality, nothing said the opportunities hidden within the Tower could not be linked to specific places in the real world.
If he was curious, the only answer was to test it.
Ha-wol.
Hmm?
You can pinpoint the location of a spiritual beast, can’t you?
At the question, Ha-wol’s brows lifted slightly.
Hoh? Are you testing this lady? Of course I can. At the source of that madly raging wind, at its very center, an immensely strong and pure energy is coiled. However…
Her gaze fixed on him.
You are not entertaining the foolish notion of forcing your way through those blade-like winds to reach it, are you? That is no mere natural phenomenon. Wind steeped in energy is a sword that will slice your flesh. Step into it carelessly and your entire body will be shredded to ribbons.
Her warning did nothing to blunt his resolve. If anything, his eyes burned brighter with certainty.
I have to check.
If his guess was right, the reward could be enormous.
He turned to the others.
“Everyone stay here and wait. I’ll go alone.”
Shock flooded their faces.
“Hyung-nim! That’s far too dangerous!”
Hwang Dae-un cried out in alarm.
“He’s right, Si-woon. It’s too risky. We should fall back and return once the wind dies down…”
Baek Yeon-ho pleaded just as desperately. Hyun Si-woon’s stubbornness, however, did not yield.
“It’s fine. I won’t push myself past the limit.”
Swoosh.
He moved forward, murmuring under his breath.
Ha-wol, keep watching and guide me. Keep me from getting blown away by this wind. You can do that, right?
Have I ever seen such a lunatic…
Curses spilled from her, yet her eyes had already turned deadly serious.
Very well. This lady is curious what is rattling around inside that head of yours as well. Let us try. Listen carefully and keep your wits about you. I will teach you how to open a path through the wind.
Even while she spoke, Hyun Si-woon kept advancing. The wind only grew fiercer.
“Heup!”
It was hard to breathe now.
Feel the flow! Do not resist—simply entrust your body to it!
Relax my strength?
Wouldn’t that just send him flying? Against a raging current you grab hold of the nearest rock. Yet Ha-wol’s instruction was the opposite—let go and drift.
Foolish brat! A rigid tree snaps in the storm, but a supple reed bends and does not break! Opposing the vast force of nature with your meager strength is the height of folly!
The words struck home. She was right. Enduring this wind by brute force had never been possible.
Swoosh.
He released the tension in his braced legs and surrendered his body to the current exactly as she directed.
That’s it! Drift three steps left! The instant a great current of wind passes, a fleeting pocket of calm appears. Seize that gap and you can turn the wind’s own power to your advantage.
At first he staggered and lurched, yet little by little he made progress. Even when the gale shoved him backward he somehow found himself farther ahead.
This is…
It was nothing short of wondrous. Was this truly the Moon Shadow Steps? That even his rudimentary skill could carve a path through the wind was excellent news.
Concentrate, you brat! Be grateful this is a mountain—had it been open ground you would already have been flung halfway across the province!
I know, I know.
How much time passed, he could not say. His entire body was raw and tattered from the wind’s claws.
“Haaah… haah!”
Still he forced every scrap of focus to remain. Could this even be called wind? It felt exactly like leaping bare-bodied into the heart of a great mage’s wind spell. Invisible blades carved his flesh; the crushing fists of a giant seemed to grind his bones.
Almost there! Just a little more!
Without Ha-wol’s guidance he would already have been hurled off the mountain and smashed to death far below.
“Hyaaaaah!”
Hyun Si-woon wrung the last dregs of will from himself. The instant he hauled his body over one final boulder—
“……?!”
As if by magic, every crushing pressure vanished.
Whoooooooosh!
The shriek that had threatened to rupture his eardrums still echoed, yet no wind touched his skin. It was as though he had stepped through a transparent wall; the raging storm had instantly become a gentle breeze.
“Haaah… haaah!”
He dragged in ragged breaths and lifted his head. The sight before him was uncanny and beautiful.
Within a radius of roughly ten meters the air lay calm. One step beyond that invisible boundary, the world remained hell. Massive pines screamed and reeled as though they would snap at any moment; shards of rock and clouds of dust spun upward in violent spirals.
The eye of the storm.
The phrase rose unbidden. Only this small circular pocket stood perfectly shielded from the maelstrom.
This is the place.
Ha-wol’s quiet voice carried a note of open awe.
The source of the spiritual land lies right here.
Hyun Si-woon walked slowly toward the center of the stillness. There he found what waited at its heart.
A tree.
Two trees, growing as if locked in a lovers’ embrace, had twisted into a single living body. Branch had fused with branch, trunk with trunk, rising as one toward the sky.
Yeonriji—the rare phenomenon in which trees of separate roots grow until they merge into one.
The moment he saw it, Hyun Si-woon’s eyes blazed.
It’s the same!
A memory, sharp as yesterday, cut through him: the seventeenth floor, the hellish Whirlwind Blade Canyon, the single sanctuary he had discovered inside that mad storm. At its center had stood a yeonriji of exactly this strange form. The thrill and joy he had felt then flooded back as though no time had passed at all.
Hoo…
Ha-wol breathed in wonder.
So the spiritual beast was this tree! For a living tree to govern energy of its own accord and raise a barrier of this caliber… truly marvelous. It stands on a plane entirely different from any spiritual wood this lady has ever known.
“No.”
Hyun Si-woon shook his head.
“That isn’t a tree.”
What?
“It’s a bird.”
……?
Ha-wol’s eyes went round, as if she had just heard the purest nonsense.
“I’ll show you.”
He already knew. The yeonriji was nothing more than a doorway—an entrance leading to the true opportunity.