This Is Insubordination
The elders' faces went rigid.
"......!"
Gowol raised his voice, his expression grave.
"What do you think you're doing?"
Sun Wukong didn't answer. Leaning at an angle against his iron staff, he took in their faces one by one. Through the deep, settling silence, tension slowly began to rise.
He had driven that vicious-looking iron staff into the floor and was openly blocking the door. This was no mere prank.
The hands of Gowol and the other elders drifted slowly to their sword hilts. In the heavy, sinking air, murderous gazes flashed like naked blades. A taut strain of killing pressure mixed with martial aura and filled the hall to bursting.
Even if they were half-baked Daoists who committed every manner of corruption rather than living with any real integrity, they were still, without question, martial artists of the jianghu. When they deliberately unleashed their auras, the pressure itself was tremendous.
Yet Sun Wukong seemed not to feel it at all. He was perfectly at ease. A faintly languid gaze turned toward the elders.
"You lot can leave."
"What?"
"The ones I've got business with are those three old fossils over there."
"......!"
The elders' eyes flew wide enough to split.
"Y-you insolent—!"
"How dare you — do you know where you are?!"
Even the Master of Mugok Pavilion, who stood at odds with the Samcheong, would not dare defy them. Looking beyond the sect walls, it was no different. They were the senior elders of the Wudang Sect, martial brothers of the Sect Leader — their status and seniority were unassailable. Who would dare call them old fossils?
"Even if you have inherited the lineage of Patriarch Jang Sambong, this insolence cannot be dismissed as the hot blood of youth! I shall personally take a rod to you and beat some manners into that hide of yours!"
A flash of white light as a sword was about to leave its scabbard—
CLACK!
"......!"
Gowol's face twisted in shock. A crushing weight transmitted through his wrist. Goosebumps erupted across his skin. By the time he registered the presence right in front of his nose, his hand was already seized.
Sun Wukong had approached like a ghost and simply pressed down on the sword Gowol had been about to draw.
Wh-when did he—?
Horror spread across Gowol's face. It wasn't simply that his opponent had closed the distance quickly. The gap between him and Sun Wukong was ten feet. Would Sun Wukong close that gap faster — or would the instant of drawing a sword be faster? Obviously, it should have been the latter.
He just... stopped my draw?
The sword-draw was a vital study in the martial arts. There were masters who had reached the very pinnacle of the martial world through the art of drawing the sword alone. You draw, and in the same motion you take the opponent's life. Even swordsmen who did not specialize in it regarded the technique as essential. That was how much principle was packed into its concise motion, its lightning speed.
"You pull that blade, and there'll be blood. Got it?"
Sun Wukong's smile was close. Gowol's eyes shook wildly.
Sun Wukong had closed in faster than a sword-draw and locked his wrist. How many things was there to be shocked by? A thunderbolt movement that caught a draw mid-birth. A seizing lock that had somehow already closed around his wrist.
Gowol's face flushed red, as if it would burst. His tightly clenched lips were crushed until blood welled thickly through them.
I— I, the Great Elder of Wudang, cannot even draw my sword? Is that even possible?!
He poured everything into drawing it. It would not come free. He poured his inner energy into it. It would not come free. Faced with that overwhelming gap, Gowol's shock curdled into a sudden, creeping fear.
Just what is this man......
And it wasn't only him. The other elders, who had grasped how the situation was turning, could not step in either. Sun Wukong's back was wide open, and still they could not draw their swords. If they drew and swung, they could cut his back, slash his waist, pierce his head — and still they could not.
He was only one man. Four of Wudang's Great Elders had him surrounded, and it was the many who were overwhelmed, not the one. It felt as though they, who had cultivated martial arts their entire lives, had been thrown back to the moment they first stepped onto the path.
A reversal of momentum. A phenomenon that had begun from the simple act of stopping a man from drawing his sword. Sun Wukong had won without even swinging his iron staff. There was not a soul in the hall who failed to understand this.
"That is enough."
It was Nokcheong, the eldest of the Samcheong, whose low voice unraveled the tension. In an instant, the aura that had dominated the surroundings scattered. Even the pressure Sun Wukong had been pressing down on Gowol faded to a faint haze.
Not bad.
Sun Wukong's eyes curved into crescents. Nokcheong Zhenren fixed him with a hard, unwavering stare.
"I do not know what purpose drives such insolent words and deeds, but it cannot be helped. Elders, please step outside."
"B-but, Venerable Elder!"
The elders were startled. Not a single technique had been exchanged, yet every one of them had felt it keenly — Sun Wukong's terrifying martial prowess. But Nokcheong spoke in a voice without rise or fall.
"Surely a man who may be regarded as having inherited the lineage of Patriarch Jang Sambong would not harm the Samcheong — the elders of Wudang — within Wudang's own grounds."
Sun Wukong looked at him as if this were entertaining.
Even now, he's playing a move.
Nokcheong was right. Harming the Samcheong, the elders of Wudang, within Wudang's own grounds was absurd. It would make one an enemy of Wudang, a public enemy of the Orthodox Faction. Attack without evidence or justification, and you simply become a villain. That was why Sun Wukong, even after hearing everything from Dangrang, had not been able to act rashly.
He could see through the Samcheong's methods perfectly — and that was precisely what made them so effective. A brilliant move you could see coming and still could not counter.
Faced with Nokcheong Zhenren's unshaken resolve, the elders glared at Sun Wukong as if they wanted him dead, and filed out.
"Tsk. I told you to just leave."
Sun Wukong clicked his tongue. Countless presences moved outside, making no effort to hide the sound. The elders had gathered Wudang's martial artists in droves and stationed them around the building like a siege. They even openly leaked a blade-sharp aura. The intent was to pressure him — a warning that if he tried anything inside, he would not leave in one piece.
Sun Wukong snorted a laugh and flicked his hand lightly.
"......!"
As crimson energy flowed from his fingertips, the Samcheong's bodies wavered for an instant. Even at a glance, this was no orthodox inner energy. A viscous, unholy death qi. Hocheong Zhenren gasped at an energy rarely seen in the Wudang Sect and shot to his feet.
"How can such a sinister energy—! Are you not of the demonic heretics?!"
"What are you talking about. We all know the score here."
Sun Wukong snorted and swept his hand. A stream of crimson energy lightly wrapped the surroundings. A qi barrier.
"No sound's getting out now, so you can drop the whole 'elders of Wudang' mask, yeah?"
A flinch. The instant the words left his mouth, Hocheong's body jerked. Yangcheong Zhenren's eyes twitched. Nokcheong Zhenren's nostrils flared. Reactions that appeared and vanished in a flash. They immediately reset their faces, but to Sun Wukong's eyes it was all perfectly clear.
Sun Wukong sighed as if he were tired of this.
"Listen, you bastards. Baekgwiwang is dead. You think you're in the clear? Why are you so damn calm? What the hell are you plotting now?"
"......!"
In that instant, three energies shot toward Sun Wukong at once. Crimson, azure, and black — vivid sword-qi fired in unison. Magnificent inner power, drawn up and unleashed in the same breath. The Samcheong had more than enough time in a single respiration to pour out their sword-qi, and they did it with a lightning speed that should have swept anyone into a storm of force before they could think.
But Sun Wukong's reaction speed far exceeded anything the Samcheong had anticipated. The iron staff planted in the floor was yanked free in almost the same instant, leaving a trail of dull metallic afterimages.
KRA-KOOOOM!
The iron staff and the sword-qi collided all at once. A violent shockwave swept the surroundings. Energies torn and flung in every direction mixed together and exploded at random. The Samcheong each moved to dodge or block. At the same time, swords flowed from their hands like water, scattering rays of light as they poured out sword strikes — from the left, the right, the center. A perfectly linked combined-sword technique, flowing like water, with no path of escape.
Had Sun Wukong been a swordsman with a single blade, his hands would have been too full. He would have been forced to leave an opening. But the trajectory and range of the iron staff were more than enough to seize the space in a single sweep.
KRANG-KRANG-KRANG-KRANG!
He spun the iron staff and smashed them aside. Over the dull metallic afterimages, the sword trajectories shattered to pieces.
"......!"
The Samcheong's faces went rigid. Not only had the inner power they'd unleashed in a surprise attack failed to leave a scratch — the sword strikes that followed had been stopped cold as well. And simply being blocked wasn't the problem. A ferocious rebound transmitted through their wrists as they were thrown back.
"Nngh!"
It was fierce enough to tear their wrists off. The Samcheong had charged in together, and all three had been shoved back the same way. What did that mean? Their gazes crossed in midair. They had all felt the same thing.
"Just what are you......"
Yangcheong stared at Sun Wukong, his voice trembling. Overwhelming martial force — that, one might understand, given the vastness of the martial world. But......
"How do I know you lot are the same breed as Baekgwiwang, you mean?"
Sun Wukong smiled faintly. The swords in the Samcheong's hands bristled with killing intent. Sun Wukong shook his head.
"Come on, seriously. I said I had something to talk about. How about listening to the end? You call yourselves learned men, and your swords come out before your words?"
He spoke as if lecturing them. His smile spread through the wariness blazing in their eyes.
"I know everything. The fact that the ones who caused the Wudang Blood Tragedy — and the ones in league with them — are none other than the three elders of the Wudang Sect."
Sun Wukong grinned. The Samcheong's faces turned vicious. They looked every bit the incarnation of malevolence — faces no one would take for Daoists. A terrifying killing intent poured out of them.
Sun Wukong waved both hands with a look that said yow, that's hot.
"Hey, that killing intent's stinging a bit — tone it down? You still don't get it, looking at this?"
He grinned and turned his palm toward the sky. Crimson demonic energy writhed as if dancing.
"......?!"
In that instant, the Samcheong's eyes all shook at once. How could they not recognize it? Hocheong had already leapt to his feet in shock, but that viscous, utterly unholy energy did not fade. A formidable power that martial artists could not wield. A strange force of unknown origin.
"Just what are you?"
When people witness something they cannot comprehend, they fall into confusion. The Samcheong were no different. The moment they saw the demonic energy dancing on Sun Wukong's palm, all three of them clamped their mouths shut.
Through blade-sharp wariness, Sun Wukong spread both hands.
"Whoa, settle down. We're on the same side."
"The same side?"
Confusion piled onto the Samcheong's faces. Hocheong's face had gone completely red. Yangcheong's cheeks were so rigid they trembled with a bluish tinge. Only Nokcheong stared at Sun Wukong with a hard face.
Hocheong shouted, his voice thick with passion.
"Just who are you — no, what kind of scheme is this?"
"Did you think you were the only plants the organization had?"
"......!"
The confusion filling their faces thinned, and shock spread in its place. Sun Wukong shrugged with shameless ease.
"You think you're the only sleeper agents in the world? You think you're the only ones the organization planted?"
"That means......"
The Samcheong looked at each other. The killing intent directed at Sun Wukong gradually thinned.
"You know it too, don't you? The organization's reach extends all across the Central Plains."
"......Where did you come from?"
"Would you even know if I told you?"
Sun Wukong just smiled quietly. Silence settled heavily over the hall. Eyes narrowed to slits, he did not open his mouth. He simply watched, as if observing. No one spoke. But from the faint vibration of the Samcheong's throats, they were exchanging something through sound transmission.
Sun Wukong simply waited.
Humans. A species with such rich imaginations.
Endless imagination. They think for themselves, imagine, and derive possibilities. Sun Wukong waited — to see how far their imaginations would reach. With only the faintest of clues, with nothing more than passing chatter, humans piled imagination upon imagination and constructed a story. What would they decide he was, as they whispered through sound transmission?
How much time passed? Yangcheong, the second of the Samcheong, asked quietly.
"So then... you are saying you are on our side?"
Sun Wukong answered with a smile. Was that enough of an answer? Or was it not?
"To which faction do you belong?"
But at the question that followed, Sun Wukong smiled inwardly.
"I don't belong to anyone."
"......We would prefer you explain yourself in a way that lets us trust you."
"I've never told a lie. No one can bind me. Not the Crossing-Seas Faction, not the Crossing-Mountains Faction, none of that crap."
The Samcheong's eyes trembled faintly. The sharp wariness that had stood between them thinned. Sun Wukong did not miss the opening.
"I also know you've been operating in secret within the Wudang Sect, following Honghaea's orders."
"......!"
At the mention of Honghaea, even the unshaken Nokcheong developed a faint crack.
"Honghaea. How's that brat doing?"
The Samcheong's reactions grew violent. They still had not lowered the swords they were pointing, but the tremor running through all of them was plain to see.
"You......"
"I used to beat some sense into that Honghaea kid when he was little. Sounds like he's been cooking up some interesting schemes?"
The Samcheong's faces turned strange. They stared at Sun Wukong with trembling eyes. Meeting each of their gazes in turn, he spoke.
"Still haven't figured out the situation?"
His voice grew gradually colder. Sun Wukong flicked the sword-tip pointed at him with a finger and said quietly,