What's the Problem?
The hall was spacious enough. That much was certain.
This was the estate of the Wudang Sect, one of the great orthodox factions of Murim. And this was no ordinary residence within those grounds — it was the dwelling of the Samcheong, the Three Elders themselves. Save for the Sect Leader and the Master of Mugok Pavilion, no one in Wudang commanded greater authority.
How could such a place possibly feel cramped?
And yet the moment the fighting began, the hall seemed to shrink to nothing. Or rather, that was how the Samcheong felt.
I can't even get close!
Hocheong's face flushed a deep, furious red. Among the Three Elders, he was the one who specialized in the fiercest, most aggressive swordplay — and right now, he could barely breathe. Closing the distance in a single burst and severing an opponent's pulse was his specialty. But he could scarcely find an opening to display that talent.
Damn it. Since when was a staff this terrifying a weapon?
The length of the steel staff, its trajectory, its range — every aspect of it constrained the space in which they could move. That was why the hall felt endlessly cramped. The instant he tried to slip inside, a dark afterimage would sweep past. This was not the kind of attack one simply blocked.
A tremendous clang rang through the hall.
"Ghk!"
He dove inward, then angled his sword to deflect the staff as it came whipping around.
This is insane!
The corners of Hocheong's eyes twitched. The rebound traveling through his wrist left his entire shoulder throbbing. He had deflected it as softly as he could, and still the pressure was this crushing.
If I take that head-on...
Hocheong's face went rigid.
I die. No question.
The two characters for certain death seemed to shimmer in the empty air before his eyes.
On the surface, there was nothing wrong with the Samcheong's martial arts. This was the pinnacle of Wudang martial study — Using Softness to Overcome Hardness. The exquisite principle of controlling strength through yielding unfolded before him in full.
Sun Wukong laughed without a sound.
Not bad. These Daoists fight like Daoists.
The most accomplished Daoists always looked frail on the outside, almost pitifully so. But the Daoist arts they unleashed were like flowing water. No matter how powerful a demon might be, it could not swim forever against a current that never stopped. Sooner or later it would be swept aside — or tire, and sink.
The martial arts the Samcheong were displaying now were much the same.
No wonder Wudang's standing is so solid.
Skill of this caliber, paired with such a thorough command of Wudang's martial philosophy. He could see, at a glance, why three elders held the entire sect in the palm of their hand.
In the end, this is Murim too.
He had felt it clearly enough at the Namgung Clan. They draped themselves in righteousness and moral principle at every turn, but at its core this was a world ruled by the logic of raw power.
Respect for the strong outstrips even reverence for a venerable Daoist, I suppose.
Wudang had begun as a Daoist order — and was no longer merely one. Sun Wukong could not have cared less. Whether Wudang was this or that was none of his concern.
There was only one thing he cared about.
Are they useful to me?
Could they become his hands and feet, the way the Earth Deities once had? Could they become a blade, the way the Namgung Clan had? Or, failing that — could they serve as bait to catch the ones he was hunting?
Sun Wukong's eyes curved into amused crescents.
Knowing my luck, they might just be all three.
He smashed aside every sword that came at him from three directions at once.
A cascade of shrieking metal filled the hall. The Samcheong grimaced as one and were driven back in a single sweeping line, pain flashing raw across their faces.
The Wudang principle of controlling hardness through softness.
What in the world...
Hocheong swallowed dryly. He was deflecting the attacks, that much was true — yielding like a passing breeze, like a quietly running stream. And yet.
I can't counter.
Why? The entire foundation of the art was to receive an attack by softening it, then slip into the opening that created. But a counterattack was impossible.
Was his own level simply insufficient?
Then what about my senior brothers?
Hocheong's gaze flicked to the other two. For an instant their eyes met across the air.
Same as me.
They were the same. Not one of them had even considered the possibility of striking back. The reason was simple, and the only reason it had taken him this long to name it was that he had not wanted to believe it.
This power is so overwhelming it steals even the will to counter.
A counterattack required leftover strength. Simply yielding against this man's strikes was already consuming every last shred of their focus and inner energy. There was nothing left for a riposte. They were not even succeeding at softening and redirecting the attacks — pain was accumulating in their wrists, their shoulders, their chests.
If this is what happens when we push the principle of softness to its absolute limit...
What would become of them if they met this power head-on? How much longer could they keep yielding like this? And he was doing it to all three of them at once.
Their strength was draining at a visible rate, and the pain was growing sharper by the second. Hocheong understood exactly what that meant.
A hardness that softness cannot control...?
A dark steel staff carved a blood-red arc through the air, and his thoughts shattered with it. The moment that trajectory caught you, the force of it felt as though it would pulverize every bone in your body.
Overwhelming hegemony!
An extreme hardness that smashed even softness to pieces.
Hocheong's sword screamed as it caught the staff's path. A sword had neither will nor soul — and yet he could have sworn it was shrieking like a living thing.
A sickening crack.
Hocheong's eyes flew wide. A fissure split the blade, though it was reinforced with inner energy. Once that first crack appeared, the sword shattered into fragments with a sound that made the skin crawl — a power so absolute it annihilated even the inner energy Hocheong had spent a lifetime accumulating.
And it was not only the sword that broke. His wrist erupted in a wet, bursting crack. Inner energy scattered in ruin through the disintegrating blade, and the agony raced from his wrist through his entire body in a single merciless surge. The softness that had been holding extreme hardness at bay tore apart in an instant.
The very thing Hocheong had feared most had come to pass. He had taken Sun Wukong's full power head-on.
"Khahk!"
A stream of blood burst from his mouth. Even as every bone in his body felt as though it were being ground to powder, Hocheong staggered and somehow stayed on his feet. He was one of Wudang's Samcheong, after all — even though, standing at the very front, he had taken the worst of it.
That did not mean the other two had escaped unharmed. Yangcheong's sword snapped cleanly in half, and though Nokcheong's blade remained intact, a deep internal wound twisted his face into a grimace.
Sun Wukong, unfortunately, was not the sort of man who felt pity at the sight of suffering.
His steel staff smashed into the back of Hocheong's thigh.
A meaty, sickening impact. Hocheong's knees buckled. He had been clinging stubbornly to his feet even as he swayed — but a thigh beaten like a slab of butcher's meat could not be expected to hold a man upright.
Yangcheong and Nokcheong's eyes went wide. Before either of them could counter, Sun Wukong's hands moved without the slightest hesitation. The steel staff shattered Hocheong's shoulder. A nauseating crack, and Hocheong's body listed sideways.
His mouth worked soundlessly. A scream with no voice behind it. Yangcheong and Nokcheong, who had been charging in, froze where they stood — as if their feet had been driven into the floor.
Sun Wukong regarded their bloodless faces and idly stroked the steel staff. Tap. Tap. Tap. The staff, which looked heavier than a timber beam, bounced in his grip as lightly as a switch. To the men watching, there was nothing light about it at all.
Tap. Tap.
The staff brushed the crown of the kneeling Hocheong's head, lifted, and came down again. Yangcheong and Nokcheong's eyes followed the tip as it rose and fell.
"Guess you didn't hear me the first time. I'll say it again."
A cold resonance spread through the hall, low and quiet.
Feeling the cold, crushing weight of the staff against his scalp, Hocheong squeezed his eyes shut. The agony screaming through his body meant nothing. A martial artist lived through pain like that at least once. But the strange sensation flooding every inch of him was something else entirely.
It was fear itself.
Tap. Tap. The icy kiss of steel against the top of his skull. Hocheong understood, with terrible clarity.
The ones who talk about dying with dignity have never seen death standing right in front of them.
His entire body had gone rigid. And he was not alone. Even the two senior brothers watching held their breath and could do nothing but stare at Sun Wukong.
"So I'll be collecting that now."
The instant the steel staff began to rise, Nokcheong wrenched a voice from somewhere deep in his chest.
"...If we die here, it will cause problems!"
"The problem already started a while ago."
"What do you think will happen if Wudang elders are killed inside the Wudang Sect?"
What Nokcheong meant was simple.
"The entire grand design will come apart."
"Grand design?"
"It means you will lose Wudang as a tribute offering. If we die, how do you expect anyone to seize control of the sect?"
"So?"
"And if we die, won't things get tangled for you here as well?"
Sun Wukong clicked his tongue. The staff, which a moment before had looked ready to take Hocheong's head clean off, drifted away.
Nokcheong let out a breath of relief, certain his words had landed.
Or rather — he was about to.
The steel staff split the air with a shrieking whistle.
"Gahhk!"
Yangcheong screamed. Before he could even react, the staff that had been launched in that same instant tore one of his arms clean off.
Nokcheong's face went white as paper. Sun Wukong smiled, and there was nothing warm in it.
"You think I'm scared of something like that?"
The moment those words reached him, a groan escaped Nokcheong before he could stop it.
Ah. So that's the kind of man he is.
A man who feared nothing in this world. A heaven-shattering tyrant who, if something displeased him, simply smashed the laws and the rules and everything else and stood alone in the wreckage.
So this is what he is. A man like this could never be a mere guest of the Namgung Clan. He could never be some ordinary martial artist. He has the will to overturn the world — he really is one of ours.
He knew the Samcheong's true identities. He knew about Honghaea. He even had a clear picture of an organization that had not yet revealed itself to the martial world, one that not a single outsider knew existed.
Power like this, and that utterly matter-of-fact attitude...
It meant he was someone so far above them that they could not even guess at his existence.
And we dared to doubt a man like that.
It felt unfair, in a way. How were they supposed to trust him so easily?
But does an elephant ever trouble itself over the grievances of an ant stuck to its foot?
The strong were capricious. The very Honghaea whose orders the Samcheong followed was proof enough of that.
Sun Wukong's cold gaze settled on the back of Nokcheong's kneeling head.
"Hmm."
He stroked his chin, surveying a situation that had already been brought to a complete and total heel.
"Even I feel a little bad about beating someone else's subordinates to death."
"...!"
"You seem to be working pretty hard, in your own way."
He said it as if he were commenting on the weather.
"But I can't just let insubordination slide, either."
Every time his voice sounded, the Samcheong's bodies trembled in fine, helpless shivers. Sun Wukong seemed to find the sight thoroughly entertaining, because he let out a low, snickering laugh. The sudden burst of amusement left their faces blank with bewilderment. They could not get a read on this man at all.
"I just figured I'd drop by and say hello, since I was in Wudang anyway."
"...!"
"Plus I was curious what you were plotting."
His utterly casual tone sent a fresh shudder through them.
"With Baekgwiwang dead, I figured you might be cooking up something big. Oh — you know Baekgwiwang, right?"
Sun Wukong's gaze sharpened. Nokcheong gave a faint nod.
"You know that guy's dead, right?"
"...Is that true?"
Nokcheong's voice shook as he asked it.
"You didn't know?"
"We heard the Nanheo Escort Agency had been suddenly disbanded, so we assumed something had happened. We were only instructed to arrange for Daoist Hyeonjeong to be sent down the mountain..."
"That's right. He killed your Wudang people trying to kidnap Geumgak after he left. Then he failed and paid for it. You know why he failed, don't you?"
"...!"
"The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, Sun Wukong. That's my name. Heard of it?"
Nokcheong's body trembled.
Sun Wukong grinned.
"Looks like you have. The way you reacted to 'Great Sage, Equal to Heaven' gave it away."
"Of course I know it. There was a warning — if the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven appeared, we were to stop whatever we were doing and go into hiding..."
Sun Wukong's eyes lit up for a fraction of a second.
Is that so.
A faint smile touched his mouth. So word had been circulating among them to vanish the moment the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven showed his face.
They've been watching for me.
They had anticipated that the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven might appear someday. And why would that be?
So they really did take Sanzang.
The prediction that the Great Sage would come looking for him one day. Their leader had issued a warning based on that very prediction.
Only then did Sun Wukong understand why they had been so unusually wary of him. They had been trying to determine whether he was the real Great Sage, Equal to Heaven — the one whose name was circulating inside their organization.
An amusing thought flickered through his mind.
"I killed Baekgwiwang."
Confusion flooded the Samcheong's faces. Was he an ally? Or was he truly the Great Sage whose name had been whispered through the organization? And if he was, didn't that make him an enemy? If he was an enemy, then of course he would have killed Baekgwiwang.
A dozen thoughts tangled together at once. Pure chaos. And Sun Wukong used it.
Tang Sanzang used to tell him not to lie.
Sun Wukong ignored that advice without a second thought.
The Golden Tightening Fillet isn't on my head right now, is it?
So if he told a few lies — what was the problem?