Mount Hua and Namgung
The ring of hammer on iron always carried a faint, lingering echo.
Deep within the ironworks, the heat surged so fiercely it was hard even to draw breath. Sun Wukong stood with his arms folded, surveying his surroundings at his leisure.
"They must be pretty damn busy. That's why it took this long to hear back."
"Every martial artist who sets foot in Hefei stops by this ironworks at least once. That's only to be expected."
With a great event looming, martial artists were consumed with servicing their weapons or replacing them with something finer. That Yangha Ironworks — hailed as the finest in all of Anhui — sat at the top of every shortlist was only natural. The smiths were so swamped they barely had time to blink, which was precisely why the commission Sun Wukong had placed the moment he returned to Anhui had run late.
"I heard that even with all this chaos, they put everything else aside to handle your work first. That's out of reverence for you, isn't it, Great Hero?"
Sha Wujing's flattery drew a snort of laughter from Sun Wukong.
"You can suck up all you want. Tonight's sparring match is still happening as planned."
"...Man, you really don't look the type, but you're surprisingly diligent."
"The smiths aren't martial artists. Why would they revere me? They're revering what I brought them."
"Don't tell me those scraps of junk were all meteoric iron too?"
"Yep."
"Good lord... Where do you keep pulling meteoric iron from like that? It's supposed to be impossibly rare."
"I still need to find more."
What Sun Wukong had brought was half of the Seven Star Sword he had received from Geumgak. It was a quantity on an entirely different scale from the fragment he had delivered last time — genuinely about half a longsword. The moment he walked in with it, Yangha Ironworks was turned upside down. The sight of every smith in the place rushing out with gleaming eyes was enough to make even the legendary Sun Wukong feel a little overwhelmed.
"You're not wrapping it around the staff this time?"
"No need. There's no point using it that way."
The Seven Star Sword fragment he had given the ironworks last time had been small, and his options for using it had been narrow. The best they could manage was wrapping it around the tip of his steel staff like a dark band.
"Honestly, it didn't look all that useful."
"Huh?"
"Whether you get smashed by the part wrapped in meteoric iron or the solid iron part, dead is dead. What's the difference?"
"Well... you've got a point."
Sun Wukong gave a wry smile. The steel of Yangha Ironworks was exceptional to begin with — there was a reason it held the title of Anhui's finest. Add to that the vicious demonic energy Sun Wukong poured into it, and the picture was complete. The only one who had ever blocked that steel staff more than once was Baekgwiwang, and even then only barely. Hadn't even the greatest under heaven found their bodies shattered and ruined before they knew what had hit them? Slathering the entire staff in meteoric iron would not have added any real utility.
"So you had them make a toy instead?"
Sha Wujing's eyes narrowed.
"A toy? Please."
"Honestly, you'll be the first person alive to melt down a lump of meteoric iron and use it like that."
"As long as it does the job, what does the shape matter?"
The smiths approached carrying an antique box. It was remarkably small — nowhere near large enough for a sword. More the size of something meant to hold a precious ornament.
"The item you commissioned, Great Hero."
The smiths opened the box with respectful faces.
A violent rush of air—
A piercing cold surged out in an instant. The way a vessel of precious spiritual medicine would flood the nose with a dizzying fragrance — a suffocating chill filled the air all around them.
The head smith exhaled roughly.
"They say meteoric iron holds the cold of the cosmos. Turns out that's true. No matter how hard we worked the bellows or how high we stoked the heat, the cold only grew stronger."
In truth, Yangha Ironworks had set every other commission aside and thrown itself entirely into this one task. Refining the metal had been so difficult that it had taken a long time. But the result was worthy of the name Anhui's finest.
Sun Wukong picked the thing up without the slightest hesitation.
"Hhk... with his bare hands!"
The smiths stared in shock. They themselves could only handle it with tongs or gloves. Otherwise, their hands would frostbite on the spot.
"Wow. To call this a mere dagger... using a solid piece of meteoric iron like that, I'm not even sure 'dagger' is the right word."
It was a bit long for a dagger. At a glance, it was only slightly shorter than a short sword. But the keen blade and the round ring at the pommel made it unmistakably a throwing dagger, not a sword.
Sha Wujing looked impressed, yet faintly disappointed.
"Doesn't it feel like a bit of a waste, though?"
"A waste? It's beautifully made."
Even to Sun Wukong's eye, the dagger was a magnificent piece — a blade that radiated a cold so intense a mere graze would freeze the breath in your lungs. And it had been forged from the meteoric iron that once formed the Seven Star Sword, no less.
"A dagger's a one-and-done throw, isn't it? Sure, if it sinks in, you're dead on the spot... but it can get knocked aside too. Feels like a waste of meteoric iron."
A fair point. Who would use something as precious as meteoric iron for a dagger — a weapon treated as little more than a consumable?
Sun Wukong grinned as if he had something in mind.
"Everything in this world exists because it has its use."
"...You know, for someone who looks the way you do, you can sound surprisingly wise sometimes."
"Anyway — what's going on outside? Why's it still so loud?"
"Isn't it obvious? These are martial artists who'd draw steel over a bumped shoulder. Standing in line gets boring, so of course they're carving each other up."
Sha Wujing answered with a cynical tilt. Shouts stabbed at their keen hearing. Fighting spirit pressed against their bodies. Several auras were tangled together out there.
Sun Wukong slipped a finger through the dagger's ring, spun it lazily, and grinned.
"Well now. I just got a new toy, and look — a playground popped up to go with it."
The Namgung Clan was run off its feet dealing with the problems that had sprung up around the Grand Assembly of Murim. And of all those headaches, one stood above the rest.
"You wet-behind-the-ears brats dare—!"
Steel hissed from scabbards in a rapid, ringing cascade. Warm sunlight shattered against blade-tips and scattered in cold reflections. A bone-chilling killing edge froze the air even as it set it ablaze. The malevolence the martial artists carried — a fighting spirit ready to ignite — packed the crowd to bursting.
They say a scholar debates righteousness with his brush, while a martial artist proclaims it with his sword. In other words, when things go sour, a martial artist settles the matter with steel. These are people who decide justice and chivalry by the blade, by blood. That is what it means to be of the murim.
And the streets were thick with them. Seven out of ten people you might bump into while walking were fellow martial artists. Unless the gap in strength was overwhelming, most of them were racing toward the same wall — the Peak Realm. First-class and Second-class. Those two ranks made up the vast majority of the martial world.
Which meant that, in one another's eyes, they all looked manageable. And so a bumped shoulder, a raised voice over drinks, a stare held a moment too long, a muttered what are you looking at? — any of it could explode into a fight. It happened constantly.
The same held true at Yangha Ironworks. A martial artist who wore a sword had been an object of fear since ancient times, and their pride was correspondingly lofty. That was true across the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions, and the Evil faction besides. The only reason such people were standing in line in front of an ironworks was the prestige of the Namgung Clan.
But not everyone submitted to that prestige.
"You miserable bastards — cutting in line because you've got a little internal energy sitting in your dantian?"
The vicious aura rolling off the middle-aged martial artist was no ordinary thing. A sword scar running diagonally across his face made his presence even rougher — and it was not merely a matter of atmosphere. The cold killing edge flowing from his drawn blade marked him as at least a well-honed First-class, if not a man standing on the very threshold of the Peak Realm.
He was not alone. The four martial artists at his back — friends or subordinates, it was hard to say — had clearly all stepped into the First-class as well.
The young men opposite them did not so much as blink.
"We asked for your understanding. We came on urgent orders from our Elder."
The two young martial artists, arrogance mixed into their expressions, casually turned out their sleeves.
"Mount Hua Sect!"
"Ah, no wonder. Their presence was unusual for their age."
"Oh, they've picked the wrong fight. Crossing Mount Hua martial artists..."
"Wrong fight? Don't you recognize those faces? Aren't they wanderers from the Demon-Purging Society?"
"The Demon-Purging Society?"
"Hell. If they're wanderers of the Demon-Purging Society, they're no one to take lightly..."
The onlookers murmured among themselves. The moment the name Demon-Purging Society reached their ears, a curious light crossed the faces of the Mount Hua martial artists as well.
"I hadn't realized you were the chivalrous heroes of the Demon-Purging Society, formed solely to destroy the Sama Order."
The older of the two Mount Hua men took a step back. The words sounded polite enough. The attitude did not. There was a downward glance in it, a looking-down that men who had survived every trial the jianghu could throw at them were not about to miss. The younger of the two even wore a faint sneer.
"I never imagined the heroes of the Demon-Purging Society would draw steel so readily against fellow Orthodox martial artists — not even the Sama Order."
The Demon-Purging Society martial artist let out a hollow laugh.
"Hah. They say Mount Hua's prestige has been piercing the heavens lately — and now mere junior disciples dare act this insolent before their seniors of the jianghu. I see Mount Hua teaches martial arts but not manners."
"I don't understand why a so-called senior of the jianghu would oppress his juniors like this. We simply asked you to make way on urgent business, under our Elder's orders."
"Does a Mount Hua Elder wield some kind of absolute power? An Elder is an Elder only while he's holed up on Mount Hua. The moment he steps into the jianghu, he's no different from the rest of us — one sword-stroke from losing his head."
"...Watch your tongue. Mount Hua is not a name some mere wanderer can insult like that."
The atmosphere was vicious. From the start, neither side had the slightest intention of yielding. The Demon-Purging Society had already swallowed their tempers and held back for a long time under the Namgung Clan's iron prestige. The young martial artists of Mount Hua carried the pride peculiar to a great Orthodox sect. The spark had been nothing more than a petty act of cutting in line — but it had long since become a flame hungry for kindling, ready to leap into a blaze.
That flame fed on the martial artists' fierce competitive fire and spread, slowly, into a conflagration. A problem that was always going to erupt had finally done so. Pack hot-blooded martial artists into a cramped space and keep them colliding, and this was the inevitable result. The misfortune was that the two sides who had locked horns happened to be the Mount Hua Sect — a great sect — and the Demon-Purging Society, a gathering of chivalrous heroes.
Fortunately, Namgung Jeok arrived before it was too late.
The booming cry of a man who had reached the Peak Realm hit the crowd like a bucket of cold water.
But Mount Hua did not fear the Namgung Clan.
"Hah. Namgung, is it? Tell me — can the Namgung Clan back down from those who have drawn steel against them?"
"...!"
"They drew first. If you're going to stop this, stop them."
The Mount Hua martial artists' attitude toward Namgung Jeok was sharper than the one they had shown the Demon-Purging Society they were quarreling with.
"Ah. Then again, the Namgung Clan has a habit of drawing steel first and asking questions later. I suppose you're no different from these wanderers."
It was a small sneer, but the words landed in every ear with perfect clarity.
A deathly cold aura filled the air.