A Mere Inch of Distance
To those who walk the martial world, an epithet carries no small weight.
Not everyone who sets out upon the jianghu earns one. There is a reason people speak of nameless nobodies. Nine out of ten martial artists who leave home chasing dreams of wind and cloud die without ever receiving an epithet — and that remaining tenth does not mean they all possess one.
A true epithet is one the people of the martial world bestow. Of that remaining tenth, nine-tenths simply invent some grandiose title for themselves. Which leaves a mere one percent. Only they traverse the martial world bearing names given by those who delight in such things.
That is what an epithet means. One must accomplish feats worthy of recognition by countless people and spread one's name far and wide. There is an essential condition. One must be strong. Exceptionally, outstandingly strong.
Bestowed not by the man himself, but by the martial world he had shaken in a matter of days.
To wander the martial world an entire lifetime and die without a single epithet — that is the ordinary fate of those who walk it. Sun Wukong had acquired one in a matter of mere days.
What that meant was unmistakable. His deeds had struck the region with a shock so fierce it still rang in the air.
"And yet the bastard still hasn't shown his face."
Sun Wukong drew the steel staff from his back and set it on the ground. He placed it lightly, yet the earth sank beneath its weight.
He had left a searing impression on the region — and of course he had. Drawing every eye had been the entire point. Bait had to look tempting.
But the one who had taken that bait was not the black-clad men he had been angling for. It was the Butterfly Immortal.
Wukong rolled his shoulders left, then right.
Not that the black-clad men are over with Namgung Muyoung either.
This was Sun Wukong — a being who could sit in one place and see a thousand li, ten thousand li.
"There was no trace of the black-clad men heading toward where those people are!"
Escaping Myodu-eung's gaze from the sky was no easy feat. No matter how meticulous a man might be, he would never think to hide himself on the assumption that something was watching from above.
"They keep watching Great Sage Sun!"
Myodu-eung called down as it circled through the heavens. Wukong nodded.
Sly bastards.
Countless gazes followed him wherever he went. Most were mere onlookers, but martial artists moved among them, and mixed in with those were eyes that stung with a particular sharpness.
They're confused — but they're suspicious too.
The gazes clung to him without cease, as if determined to watch every step he took. Reading their minds was an easy matter.
They want me to clash with martial artists and reveal something. This whole region has gone up in flames far worse than they bargained for.
A plan was only a plan if it unfolded as prepared. When an unforeseen variable threw it into disarray, confusion was only natural.
The variable named Sun Wukong. They had been watching that variable with painstaking care — and not once, thus far, had they let him out of their sight.
Wukong inwardly applauded their patience. Even in the urgent scramble to pursue Geumgak, they had the forbearance not to recklessly bite the bait named Sun Wukong. For a fisherman, this was a clever fish — not an easy one to land.
"Well then. The bait's gotta move."
If they wouldn't bite the bait — well, the bait could always bite the fish and haul it in instead, couldn't it?
KWAANG!
Wukong's form shot upward like a thunderbolt. In a single bound he leapt through space, and a black-clad man's startled face filled his vision.
The man reacted fast. A white streak of light surged from his waist.
KWAJIK!
The steel staff was half a beat faster. Before the sword was even halfway drawn, the staff slammed into his chest. A wet crunch — ribs shattered, the breastbone caved in. He tumbled away, coughing up black blood.
Wukong drove the steel staff into the earth and swept the surroundings with his senses.
Nine, ten… twelve.
Twelve black-clad men, all told. Wukong spoke with a note of genuine disappointment.
"Guess I didn't play bait very well. Not many took the hook."
The black-clad men paid his words no mind. They encircled him with practiced ease, knuckles white on their sword hilts, eyes gleaming with murder.
"Eyes."
Wukong muttered it out of nowhere.
SHWIIK!
In the same breath the steel staff moved like lightning, threading the gaps between them and scything through. A few of the black-clad men reacted, swinging their swords — only to have them catch on the heavy staff and bounce away.
KAGAGAGAGANG!
"Let's open those eyes a little prettier, kids. Yeah?"
The steel staff whirled in a dazzling blur. A thud. A crunch. Sounds to turn the stomach — the sounds of human bodies crushed and torn like so much meat — and two of the black-clad men went flying, soaked in blood.
Yet no one flinched. No one gave ground. They used their comrades' sacrifice as a foothold and stabbed for the openings it created.
Wukong snorted a laugh.
"It'll look like just an inch of distance, I bet."
A staff's virtue was its length. His steel staff was long enough to just catch at his eye level — and that virtue, turned inside out, was a fatal flaw. Slip deep inside the staff's effective range, and there was nothing the wielder could do.
In a one-on-one fight, dodging a staff's assault to close that gap was no simple thing. Many against one was a different matter. While someone sacrificed themselves to pin the staff, the rest could close right up to your nose.
The black-clad men exchanged no signals, yet they all knew this principle and moved as if they shared a single mind. The two or three weakest drew Wukong's staff out; the rest plunged in deep. A textbook classic for facing a master of staff or spear.
Wukong grinned.
"It'll be just an inch of distance."
In their eyes, a single inch. Close that much, and they would think they had already won.
"But you know."
That mere inch. That truly short, short distance — to close it—
"Does the sacrifice you'll have to pay look so small?"
Wukong's smile deepened. The steel staff, heavy as a millstone, spun as swiftly as if it were a tree branch.
SHWEEEEEK.
A fierce tearing of air bored into the black-clad men's ears. The sensation of the very atmosphere being ripped apart. A few of them raised their swords in shock, inner energy flooding the blades.
It was useless. Every sword either split or went spinning away. Something that could be neither blocked nor dodged — like a natural disaster — the steel staff came on.
KWAANG!
A tremendous blast shook the world in every direction. Three of the black-clad men flew away as a single lump of meat.
The bodies of those who had been charging without a shred of hesitation locked in place. Pupils trembled.
Only then did Wukong realize that the hood hiding his hair had come partly undone and slipped down. A glimpse of gold showed through.
He smiled faintly and threw the hood off entirely. The well-groomed gold flared out like a mane. Then he snapped open even the eyes he had been keeping shut.
Red irises. Pupils flashing gold. Through that gaze, the black-clad men's bodies trembled by the finest of margins.
The corner of Wukong's mouth lifted.
"You lot. You know who I am, don't you?"
The black-clad men's expressions twitched, just barely. Wukong laughed.
"Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi. Honamdo. Gunei Nosa."
"……!"
"So you really are the ones who know those guys."
There was no answer — but he could hear the reply all the same. Through the Fiery Golden Eyes, their minds were violently roiling. Wukong was certain. These men were part of the shadowy organization that had come after the Seven Star Sword and stolen Sanzang's soul.
At last, he had drawn one step closer to them.
Wukong's staff moved in a dazzling whirl. The sound it made was a light little spin — but the results were anything but light. The black-clad men deployed a coordinated formation as if it were second nature, yet no matter what they did, they could not stop the steel staff's weight. Whoever it caught was thrown off, no exceptions. An overwhelming force that dismissed the very premise of blocking or dodging.
Still, the formation somehow held.
"More of you hiders keep popping out."
Wukong giggled as if this were the most entertaining thing in the world. The moment he revealed the golden hair and the Fiery Golden Eyes, black-clad men began bursting from the distance in a steady stream — as if they meant to finish him on this very spot.
The ones who appeared next were of a higher caliber. As if those he had faced first had been mere watchers. The skill of these newcomers was in another league entirely.
Wukong's gaze swept the surroundings, sharp as a blade. Namgung Seowol, who had arrived late, was fighting without giving an inch against a three-man coordinated formation. The Butterfly Immortal, too, had already taken two lives with his bamboo staff and was holding his ground against four.
"Well, they keep pouring in, so it finally feels like something took the bait — which is nice, but—"
A faint smile touched Wukong's face.
"What's your boss doing, not showing up?"
The steel staff cleaved through the charging black-clad men. One of them reacted nimbly — and his arm was torn off and sent flying. The staff did not stop. It plunged onward and drew a wide circle, and everyone caught inside that circle was swept up and hurled away as they stood.
"Maybe they think they can catch me by sending small fry."
The word small fry did not really fit. Namgung Seowol was being held at bay by a three-man formation, and the Butterfly Immortal's fight was no easy one either.
Six of them had fastened themselves to Wukong. And those six moved as a single body. Their swords suddenly blurred, spawning countless sword-shadows.
Six swift swords as one. Dozens of blade-shadows thrusting from every direction — a formation that would throw anyone into chaos.
Every last one of them used a swift sword. So fast that dozens of blade-shadows bloomed in the air — a combined formation of no fewer than six swift swords, dozens of points stabbing from every side at once. A formation that would throw anyone who faced it into confusion.
Wukong spun his staff as if it were nothing at all.
CHAECHAECHAECHAECHAENG!
The countless sword-shadows all scattered, and the true killing techniques hidden among them were bounced away, every one. The swarm of shadows vanished, and gold rippled in their place.
Wukong's hair streamed in the energy-waves as a golden tide inundated everything. Waves caught on the tip of the staff. The staff moved, drawing in every current, and the flow gathered at its end swallowed the surroundings whole. The slashing strike that gathered every energy-wave and swung them consumed all things.
KWAANG.
A roar — and a thick cloud of dust billowed up. When the dust at last cleared, the only one standing on two feet was Sun Wukong.
The black-clad men swallowed by the golden current all lay collapsed, bleeding. One of them, groaning on the ground, looked up at Wukong and coughed up a mouthful of blood. The gaze with which they stared at him was only one thing.
Astonishment. And terror.
Wukong smiled as if the look were an old friend.
"My martial arts aren't half bad, huh?"
The black-clad men trembled. Well — of course they did. This, too, had been conceived from the traces Namgung Ryong had left in the hidden grotto.
The sky is like the sea. Just as the sea's waters surge in waves, the sky's atmosphere undulates in waves as well. If one could gather those waves at the tip of a staff and swing them — could there be a more intense destructive force?
He glanced aside. The Butterfly Immortal, having smashed every one of his own opponents, was already helping Namgung Seowol bring down the rest.
The fight was over.
Wukong's gaze snapped around. With a sidelong glance he snorted a laugh and lifted the steel staff. He planted his feet, arched his waist powerfully backward, and drew the arm that held the staff all the way back. Tension surged fiercely through the tautly drawn muscle.
He drew in a single breath — and as he exhaled, he hurled the staff.
SHWEEEEEEEK—!
At the tip of the staff that tore the atmosphere apart as it shot forth, a faint strand of white hair was caught.