Until They Get Hit
Trait: Immortality — Ageless and Deathless
"Can you really trust that fellow?"
Honghaea smirked at the distrust packed into the question.
"You mean Dongbang Sak?"
"That's right. That old monster who's lived far too long for a mere human."
"And that's why you don't trust him, Uncle Gyoma?"
"You're saying you do?"
"Think about why he's still alive after stealing the Queen Mother's peaches."
"Dongbang Sak's talents need no explanation."
"What I mean is, he's exceptionally good at running away."
"And being good at fleeing is useful for what we're doing now?"
"Dongbang Sak became immortal, and yet he's a pathetic creature who lives in constant terror that someone will take his life. Then again, what else would you expect from a human? A being that was meant to die, clinging to an immortal existence — of course he's terrified."
Uncle Gyoma inclined his head, slowly.
Dongbang Sak was not even a reincarnated demon like themselves. He had been born human, and he remained a mere mortal still — a cunning creature who had plucked the fruit of eternity, a prize far above his station.
"He's a genius at keeping himself alive. He slipped Heaven's hunters his entire life, and lately he's been giving the Grim Reapers of the Underworld the slip too, Uncle Gyoma."
"And what does that have to do with anything?"
"Oh, come on. Has our dear uncle been eating nothing but fish at the bottom of the sea until the parasites started growing in his brain?"
Uncle Gyoma's brow furrowed at the insolence.
"Watch your tongue, Honghaea. I am one of the Seven Great Sages, the same as your father."
"Aigoo, why so scary all of a sudden, Uncle? It's simple. That Dongbang Sak knows that siding with us is the only way he'll survive."
"……"
"The day the King's great work is complete, the hierarchy of Heaven and the Lower Realm will be overturned — and then the hunters coming to kill Dongbang Sak will vanish. He's staked his life on that goal."
"……"
The argument made a certain sense. Uncle Gyoma's mouth twitched, as if he meant to say something more, and then went still.
If he joined us because he saw a path to survival on our side…
If that was the only reason.
A thin thread of unease settled in Uncle Gyoma's chest. He buried the question that rose with it. It was a supposition he had no wish to speak aloud. He simply stepped back, and watched.
"This is your plan. The responsibility is yours as well."
"Heh heh. Don't worry, Uncle."
Honghaea flicked a hand through the air. Killing intent ran dark through his eyes.
"I haven't forgotten a single thing. Not since my previous life."
It had been another life, and yet a part of his chest still seemed to carry those fierce memories. They throbbed in him, sunk deep as a brand still burning.
"That disgusting Monkey King will regret ever coming down from Heaven. Because he's going to die in the Lower Realm."
Honghaea's smile was thick with it.
It was like chasing a ghost.
"Ah, you slippery little loach."
Dongbang Sak always seemed just within reach, and yet he never was. Even the great Sun Wukong had to admire the talent — and on some level, he understood it.
"Then again, a bastard like this would have to be good. That's how he stole the Queen Mother's peaches and lived to tell about it."
Never mind that Sun Wukong had stolen and eaten far more of those peaches himself. He didn't care. When it came to running away, Dongbang Sak could run circles around most immortals.
Even so, Sun Wukong was not about to let him go. If anything, the chase had sharpened his appetite.
"This is a real opportunity."
Dongbang Sak was Sama-ssi. Which meant he was the agent who had commissioned the assassination of the Wudang Sect Leader — a piece moving at Honghaea's command.
"So this bastard showed up targeting the Grand Assembly of Murim."
Sun Wukong's eyes narrowed to slits.
"Honghaea will already know I'm here, thanks to the letter Samcheong sent."
He had given up any hope that Honghaea would come in person. A reaction, though — that he had expected. And that reaction was Dongbang Sak.
"Sending Dongbang Sak into Anhui… he's planning something."
Honghaea was using the old immortal to cook up some scheme right here. Sun Wukong stroked his chin.
"The question is what."
Nothing came to him immediately.
"It's not as if Dongbang Sak is all that strong."
Even if the man had somehow acquired a terrifying martial prowess he never possessed in the old days, Sun Wukong felt not the slightest tension. And if the other side had actually resolved to crush him by force—
"I'd prefer it that way."
The mutter was low. There was not a trace of humor in the coldness of his voice. Sun Wukong would have far rather settled it in a straight fight. The sly mind games, the schemes whose insides he couldn't read — all of it bored him to death.
"Show yourself."
His grip tightened on the iron staff.
"Hiding your face won't make you disappear forever."
He would appear. Sun Wukong intended to cling to this until the end, and he intended to find him. This was the first real thread connecting him to Honghaea that he had managed to get his hands on.
He hated tedious work — but when the mood took him, no one in creation was more persistent than Sun Wukong. He threw every method at his disposal into the hunt for Sama-ssi.
He wrung the Hao Clan's Anhui branch for everything they had. He opened his Alayavijnana and listened to every voice of the natural world pouring in from every direction. He even borrowed the eyes of Myodu-eung, circling high above the city.
"Great Sage Sun, there are so many humans…"
The young owl mountain deity sat on Sun Wukong's shoulder and chattered away.
"In all my life, I've never seen so many powerful humans packed together like this!"
Sun Wukong sighed.
"What are you, a sparrow?"
"A sparrow?! Are you comparing me to one of those tiny little things?"
Myodu-eung's already enormous owl eyes went even wider, and the bird puffed itself up to its fullest. It was still a paltry scrap of an owl compared to the previous Myodu-eung. Sun Wukong snorted. The way it prattled on really did sound like a sparrow chirping in his ear.
"Anyway. You can't find him."
"No. I just can't."
Even Myodu-eung's vast aerial view could not pick the man out. Sun Wukong's brow tightened.
"Tch. He noticed."
"I suppose he would have, yes?"
"He's a furtive bastard. When it comes to escaping, he has no equal."
"I heard even the Queen Mother's fairy maidens gave up the chase."
"That's not the half of it. The Underworld mobilized every Grim Reaper they had and still couldn't catch him."
Honestly, when it came to running away, Dongbang Sak was better than Sun Wukong himself. From the gift for deceiving people to the speed with which he could vanish — there was a reason Wukong, as a young monkey, had once sought the man out and casually asked for advice.
He had been so pleased with himself for finding the unfindable Dongbang Sak. Only now did he understand that he had found him so easily because Dongbang Sak had wanted to be found.
Why is Dongbang Sak on Honghaea's side?
Of course, Dongbang Sak was a criminal.
"Stealing the Queen Mother's peaches and gorging himself! He deserves Heaven's punishment! A wretch like that should be fried by lightning—"
Myodu-eung's rising voice trailed off. The owl had felt, somehow, the distinctly cold look Sun Wukong was giving it.
"You talking about me?"
"Ah, th-there's no way! D-Dongbang Sak stole them, but y-you, Great Sage, received them as gifts!"
"That's right."
Sun Wukong grinned, shameless as the sunrise. Myodu-eung finally managed to exhale.
The truth was that Sun Wukong had done the same thing — but stealing peaches from the Queen Mother's orchard was a crime of the highest order. Heaven's laws were not merely strict. They were cruel.
Look at Sha Wujing, who had once been the Curtain-Lifting General guarding the Jade Emperor. He had broken a single wine cup at a banquet, and for that he had received eight hundred strokes of the cane, been turned into a demon, and been banished to the Lower Realm.
Heaven was a place ruled by regulations so severe they bordered on the sadistic. That Sun Wukong lived there exactly as he pleased was, in itself, proof of how strange a creature he was. He ignored every rule that existed, and no one could make those rules stick to him.
Stealing the Queen Mother's peaches, though, was a matter of an entirely different scale. They were treasures so rare that even the Jade Emperor received only one, and only at banquet time. Dongbang Sak had committed that great crime in a human body.
And he had survived.
Even Sun Wukong, once he became Heaven's target, had endured only so long before deciding he could not live like that anymore — and had flipped the table and gone to all-out war. A man with the talent to give that same Heaven the runaround was not going to be caught in a single afternoon. The idea was almost funny.
"He's probably changed his face and his name and slipped himself into some crowd again."
"Hmm…"
Ordinarily, anyone suspicious would have been caught in Myodu-eung's sight. Not today. Far too many martial artists had poured into the city. Just this morning, the formal envoys of the Beggars' Gang and the Mount Hua Sect had arrived. Every one of the Five Great Clans had assembled, save only the distant Tang Clan.
A truly staggering number of martial artists were still gathering. Even the Hao Clan's intelligence network could not easily identify them all.
"Tch. Looks like I'll have to dive in myself."
The Grand Assembly of Murim. Anyone with eyes could see it was going to be a nest of complications. Sun Wukong had meant to keep well clear of the whole mess and just look for Sanzang.
If that Honghaea bastard is using Dongbang Sak to scheme something here… tch. Nothing I can do about it.
A faint light began to kindle in Sun Wukong's eyes.
"Go on, then. Run as wild as you like."
Everyone had a brilliant plan.
Hefei, in Anhui Province, was so packed that a man could scarcely find room to put his foot down.
The Namgung Clan Estate was vast, and empty buildings were not in short supply, but there was a hard limit to how many people it could hold. There were not even enough places for the envoys of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans. No matter how diligently the Namgung Clan had prepared, physical limits were physical limits.
The greater problem was the pretext itself. The Grand Assembly of Murim. Even a third-class martial artist could predict that a Pan-Orthodox Alliance, encompassing the entire righteous path, was about to be born. How much standing each sect would claim in the new alliance, what advantages they would secure — a fierce collision of interests was inevitable.
And what was true power in the martial world? Strength. Influence. And so the great sects had sent not only their key figures, but massive delegations packed with proven experts — on a scale that exceeded even the Namgung Clan's projections.
If the great sects had done that, what of the mid-sized and lesser ones? Hefei itself was not enough. The smaller cities nearby, even villages barely worthy of the name, had been swallowed whole. Lodgings had run out so completely that martial artists were pitching tents on the outskirts and sleeping rough under the open sky.
And being crushed by people was not a problem confined to the inns. The restaurants and wine houses were the same. So were the pleasure houses. And so, here, was Yangha Ironworks — the finest smithy in all of Anhui Province.
"What a madhouse."
Namgung Jeok could not hide how tired he was.
"We're even handing out numbered tokens at this point…"
Nearly everyone who had come to Hefei was a martial artist. When it came to coveting fine weapons, the distinction between master and novice meant nothing. And it was not only a matter of buying something new. A weapon left unattended for even a moment would start to go bad. It needed constant, devoted care — and if you were going to entrust your cherished blade to anyone, you wanted the finest craftsman alive.
That Yangha Ironworks, with a reputation like its, had come down with a raging fever was only natural. And that fever had spread to the Namgung Clan, which managed the ironworks, in a way no one had quite expected.
Wherever martial artists gathered, quarrels and brawls followed. The trouble was that the Namgung Clan was already drowning in work. Even the warriors of the Azure Heaven Corps — a unit whose sole duty was to hunt down and exterminate those of the unorthodox demonic path — had been pressed into running errands.
Which meant that no matter how badly Yangha Ironworks overflowed, there was only one man who could be spared to stand watch over it. Namgung Jeok.
Under ordinary circumstances, his presence alone would have been enough. No one arrogant enough to start a riot would have done so with a Namgung warrior planted squarely in the doorway. The problem was that a considerable number of martial artists who did not fear the Namgung Clan's prestige had gathered in the city.
A tremendous crash tore through the din.
The entrance. Namgung Jeok's face twisted.
"Damn it, not again!"
He kicked off the ground, qinggong carrying him across the yard in a heartbeat. He arrived to find the situation already well underway.
Several martial artists had drawn their swords. Facing them stood two young men radiating the easy arrogance of people who had never been told no. Namgung Jeok's gaze flicked over them — and his eyebrow twitched.
Plum blossom patterns, stitched into their sleeves.
Mount Hua Sect?
Namgung Jeok's eyes flew wide.