Silk Road 9
For an instant, the world went quiet.
It lasted less than a heartbeat. Every gaze turned at once.
But under Jin-wol’s fierce look, the kind that said they had no business caring, they all lost interest.
Her spear had struck into the dirt beneath the Grand Leader’s groin.
“Y-you insolent— What do you think you’re doing? No matter who you are—”
“Grand Leader.”
I spoke softly.
At my words, he reined in his temper. He fixed his gaze on me and stood there as stiffly as a wardrobe, not moving an inch.
It was false anger, a mask to hide his confusion.
How did she see through me? That was the look in his eyes.
I glanced at Jin-wol. She looked back at me, flicking me a glance that said I could speak freely.
“She’s the Cult Leader’s Palace executioner.”
I introduced Jin-wol in a somewhat formal tone. She had her arms folded.
Her blazing eyes were still locked squarely on the Grand Leader.
The Grand Leader dusted himself off and got to his feet.
“I’m Jeong-mu, Grand Leader of the Heoguyan Merchant Group. Please forgive the discourtesy of a believer.”
His original voice. It was hard to believe this was the same man from a moment ago.
Once he heard her title, he immediately bowed his head.
The look in his eyes suggested he understood why his identity had been exposed.
Even I felt my scalp prickle.
Her intelligence network ran so deep I couldn’t even begin to guess at its extent.
It was clear enough: trying to fool that woman was just asking for disaster. Just like now.
“How dare you hide your identity. Were you plotting slander with this girl?”
“Ow, ow...”
It hurt. Her hand stretched the skin on my cheek.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
The tension was awkward.
How was I supposed to handle this? Should I gamble everything on the Grand Leader’s quick thinking?
Jin-wol was by no means easy to deal with.
But from what I’d seen, the Grand Leader wouldn’t be bowed that easily either.
Did I really need to force myself into the power struggle between two seasoned officials?
No.
I did need to interfere. We hadn’t coordinated our story.
The Grand Leader didn’t know why I’d ended up traveling with the executioner.
Naturally, he also had no idea what I’d told her.
If she noticed the gap between the information he might casually let slip and the false details I’d given her, then things would really go...
They wouldn’t end well, that was for certain.
“I ran into the Grand Leader by chance half a month ago. It was near Red Lotus Manor. It wasn’t a mirage or anything... but yes, we really did meet then.”
My pronunciation had gone a little awkward from having my cheek pinched.
I protested to Jin-wol. But—
“Shut your mouth, girl.”
Her attitude had changed.
And the weight of that pressure now fell squarely on the Grand Leader’s shoulders.
I swallowed hard. There was no point in saying another word now. If I did, nothing good would come of it.
I could only leave the rest entirely to him.
As a member of the Hyeolsadae, I had to trust him.
At last, the Grand Leader opened his mouth.
“Yes. It’s true I met the young lady then... In fact, we were chasing a debtor together.”
“A debtor.”
Jin-wol repeated it sourly. The meaning was clear: Try and convince me.
“There was a man who vanished six months ago—the one who once led our group’s northern caravan route. After falling prey to lust, he even racked up gambling debts under the merchant group’s name. We’ve had people searching for him ever since. This young lady has been helping us as well.”
“A caravan leader from the northern route? You mean the head of the Tian Mountains’ northern road? And he ended up in gambling debt because of women?”
To my surprise, it was all true. The bastard really had been exactly that pathetic.
“That’s right. But no matter how thoroughly we searched, the merchant group’s intelligence network alone wasn’t enough, so when we heard he might be connected to a man named Kang Du-ho...”
Swish!
Her spear flicked forward again, pressing against his throat.
“You dare spout lies. Do you think you can fool me? Or do you not know how precious your life is?”
Ah. She didn’t believe him.
The mission ended here.
What a shame. And yet, very likely, this would not end simply as a shame.
The Blood Heart Pill was the Blood Demon’s rightful inheritance.
If it couldn’t be recovered, then even if the Blood Cult were rebuilt in the future, it would be hard to win support.
Having failed at such a crucial mission, if the Left Guardian truly lived up to his nature, he would surely try to dispose of me.
Then—
“Did you fail to mention that the Banghosa is already dead?”
A voice rang in my head. It was Jin-wol’s voice.
I had no idea what was going on, so I shook my head. I even touched my ears.
She wore a frost-cold expression. Expressionless, with only her pupils sliding toward me.
It wasn’t some hallucination. It was her doing. She had directly touched my consciousness.
This was a little sudden, but I thought back to what the Left Guardian had done.
A blood-red horizon unfolding in an instant. My father turned into a monster by some incomprehensible scheme.
An inexplicable force that had even blocked my suicide.
The so-called masters among martial artists were beyond common sense.
You could never, ever try to understand them.
This situation was exactly that kind of thing.
I looked at her and nodded twice. Jin-wol turned her head as if to say she understood. The voice vanished.
“Tell me about Kang Du-ho. I won’t tolerate any more scheming.”
The spear’s icy tip slid beneath the Grand Leader’s Adam’s apple.
It wasn’t deep, but it was close enough to be deadly. A thread of blood welled up and ran down.
Wheezing, he finally began to confess.
“He’s a vicious bastard who tried to sell off his own office by luring in the northern route leader, that’s what he is. We’d just submitted a request to the Hao Clan to find his whereabouts, in fact...”
Jin-wol withdrew the spear.
The blood soaking into the ground had already turned black.
“A group of masked men suddenly tried to kill me. I was staying for a while at the inn over in that corner, and they attacked me there. So I had no choice but to disguise myself...”
Jin-wol turned to me, pinning me with a look that demanded I prove his words.
What I showed her was the plum-blossom mirror.
-Garyeong Gorge. The second estate from the south entrance.
-Being pursued by assassins.
On the small black field on the back, that was exactly what was written.
The Grand Leader had even anticipated that I might show her the mirror and built his story around it.
I had no way of knowing whether the assassin attack was true or false.
“Not bad at all.”
Jin-wol’s brow furrowed. She looked like she was weighing things carefully.
She was probably assembling the countless possibilities in her mind and deciding which outweighed the others.
“I’ll let this pass. Help us find Kang Du-ho.”
“I’m grateful for your generosity beyond measure.”
“This once only. Since you know the Left Guardian is closely involved.”
“We only deliver goods to Red Lotus Manor. Nothing else.”
“Hmph. You do sound like a merchant.”
I couldn’t even count how many times I’d quietly pressed a hand to my chest.
-
The night sky was crowded with stars.
Fireflies drifted into view one by one beneath my eyes.
I rose from where I’d been lying quietly.
As I brushed the dirt from my back, scraps of grass fell away in a flurry.
There had been no assassin attack. At least not tonight.
Tomorrow, I would head to Garyeong Gorge.
I would assault Kang Du-ho’s residence and obtain proof of his bribery and corruption. I would recover the Blood Heart Pill.
If I could truly do that, everything would be over.
There was an inn behind me.
It was a secluded one, chosen precisely to guard against any sudden attack.
Well, even if assassins came, it probably wouldn’t amount to much.
I looked away from the high, unreachable stars.
The chirring of insects fluttered dangerously in the breeze.
Even that sound carried the unmistakable color of winter.
“Hoo...”
My breath fogged white.
-Because I’d opened a sea of blood in the sky with the Asura Sky-Treading Steps pushed to its limit.
Asura Sky-Treading Steps.
So it was the advanced footwork formed from Red-Walking Soul Displacement and Windless Piercing the Void.
Fortunately, I already knew those two footwork techniques.
Red-Walking Soul Displacement was similar to Bow-Body Rebounding Shadow. The body bent and snapped back, using recoil to move.
Windless Piercing the Void, widely known as the Left Guardian’s secret technique, let you gather inner force at the tips of your feet and step once upon empty air to launch yourself forward. But because it burst forth with overwhelming force, you had to endure the pain it caused.
And then there was innate true qi.
Of course, I hadn’t learned that.
Even if I’d had an ideal master instead of that Left Guardian bastard, I still wouldn’t have been taught it.
There was probably no teacher willing to instruct someone in a crooked method that burned away their own lifespan just to kill other people.
Asura Sky-Treading Steps required innate true qi. It was the fusion of Red-Walking Soul Displacement and Windless Piercing the Void.
I didn’t know whether he had hidden innate qi inside it, but I had seen the Left Guardian use it on the training grounds.
I knew its shape. I roughly understood the principle. If I could just use innate true qi, I might be able to imitate it.
At the cost of my lifespan, no doubt.
There was no point in thinking too hard. Whether it became rice or a lump of dough, I had to try.
I ran. The scenery around me blurred and flowed. The open ground behind the inn was wide.
Then I leapt.
Paang!
I stepped on the empty air with Windless Piercing the Void and sprang upward.
And in mid-flight...
Swish—
I twisted my body in the air, trying to use Red-Walking Soul Displacement...
Crash!
No use.
After using Windless Piercing the Void, I couldn’t use Red-Walking Soul Displacement.
It wasn’t because I lacked inner power.
I crashed to the ground before I could even gather the inner force needed for Red-Walking Soul Displacement.
Windless Piercing the Void used qi at the tips of the feet. Red-Walking Soul Displacement released qi from the dantian.
Those two things had to be done almost simultaneously.
Now I understood why innate true qi was needed.
Even if I could somehow achieve it through sheer effort, footwork was still just footwork.
It meant I had to prepare an attack separately.
Unless I was willing to spread a true sea of blood, this alone would never be enough to kill someone.
To travel through the sky with Red-Walking Soul Displacement and Windless Piercing the Void, while also unleashing a proper strike?
That was outright madness. Which meant they used innate true qi, separate from ordinary inner power.
And yet it was still just footwork. So exactly how monstrous was it?
I wished the Left Guardian, if only for once, would show me a properly executed Asura Sky-Treading Steps.
Not some vague phrase about “opening a sea of blood.”
“Do you know the Asura Sky-Treading Steps?”
I leveled my axe.
Toward the unknown voice that drifted out of the darkness far away.
Keeping my senses taut with tension, I said, “Show yourself. Now.”
A human shape sharpened into view.
It was a faint old man.
Long gray-white hair, greasy and stringy, and a blackened beard. His face was dirty, as if smeared with ash.
His proportions were somehow wrong. He looked less like a person than a grim reaper or some kind of spirit.
There was no color in his eyes. There were black pupils there, but that was how it felt.
“How do you mimic it? Truly, the Asura Sky-Treading Steps is...”
The old man clicked his tongue.
“Not that sort of shuddering thing. Tsk tsk.”
I tightened my grip on the axe. For an ancient fossil, he talked awfully annoyingly.
He sounded like a decrepit old woman who could barely lift a knife, let alone a sword, yet there he was, blathering on as if he were some great authority.
Still, there had to be a reason he spoke that way.
Maybe it was because he knew something.
With that hope in mind, I asked, “You know the Asura Sky-Treading Steps?”
I didn’t particularly want to use honorifics with some old man who was rude to me and had no real power to his name.
“Know it? Of course I do. That day—on that day, I still remember how Blood Heaven personally displayed Asura Sky-Treading, ah, ah...”
At those words, a feverish light suddenly came into the old man’s eyes.
There was even a kind of madness in them, as though the pale whites had been set ablaze red.
Blood Heaven? Was he talking about the Left Guardian?
“I was his servant. On that day, when the crimson sky spread wide, Blood Heaven descended. He wore the robes of a celestial maiden, and with him came a sea of blood! Ah, the Blood-Sea Calamity... truly, what a lovely name.”
“Who are you... and what are you talking about, the Blood-Sea Calamity?”
He was dangerous. The Blood-Sea Calamity was something from more than five hundred years ago.
That thing might not even be human. It might be a ghost.
“Now, now, come sit here. I’ll teach you how to use innate qi. It’s only a stopgap, but...”
With an oily smile, the old man beckoned me over.
I stepped back. This was wrong.
However much I wanted revenge, following that thing’s words felt like it would strip me of myself entirely. It was an instinctive rejection.
But.
I couldn’t refuse his gaze. My body moved on its own. Had I been bewitched by a ghost?
I sat down. Full lotus position.
Black-red qi surged from the old man’s hand.
Thud!
“K-kyaaaagh!”
A single finger as sharp as the tip of a dagger pierced straight into my heart.
Something black entered me.
The demonic qi that had stabbed into the center of my chest spread through my body via my meridians.
My whole body seized up.
From the old man’s fingertips, that foreign demonic energy poured in and began to fuse with the inner power I had gathered in my dantian, as if trying to devour it.
My vision went blurry. The world lurched.
By the time I managed to come to my senses, dawn light was greeting me.
-
So-yeon collapsed.
In the complete darkness, the old man’s outline disappeared.
Crack!
A grotesque sound rang out.
The old man’s joints twisted. His hunched back straightened. The gray hair that had hung down like a clump of dead roots turned black. His beard crumbled away in bits.
Wrinkles smoothed from his face, and vitality bloomed across his features.
It was a technique called facial shifting.
Black-red demonic qi. Long, disheveled hair.
A gaunt face with red eyes and a handsome, refined appearance.
The person So-yeon hated most in the world—her master and sworn enemy.
The old man was the Left Guardian.