The Seven Great Sages
Sun Wukong let out a long breath and drew his hands away.
He wiped a bead of sweat that had traced down his brow.
Seowol, who had been watching in silence, rushed forward to ask. They were cousins, and her eyes were full of worry.
"Did it work?"
"Yeah. He just needs rest and recovery now."
The others hurriedly gathered around. The Butterfly Immortal and Namgung Doga examined Namgung Muyoung, then let out sighs of wonder.
"This can't be..."
"He didn't take any internal injury medicine, nor any spiritual elixir — and yet that raging inner energy has settled."
"Not even a divine physician could have done this."
"Just who is Master Sun..."
Their voices trembled. The eyes that turned upon Sun Wukong held nothing but awe.
I knew he was no ordinary man, but this!
Namgung Doga's eyes shone. He had thought there was nothing left that could surprise him. This man had cut down the Left and Right Lions in a single stroke, then beaten every last remnant who stood in their path into the dirt. Namgung Seowol and the Butterfly Immortal had each done their part, but Sun Wukong had been overwhelming — so much so that one could almost believe Heaven's own judge had descended to deliver divine punishment.
A true master of inner energy.
This was no mere expert with exceptional movement. This was a genuine inner-energy master, one who could seize and command even another person's qi.
Namgung Doga's eyelid twitched.
I have never seen the Patriarch look that desperate.
The iron-blooded martial artist. Lord of the Namgung Clan. Overlord of Anhui. The star that shone alone at heaven's edge. Every title had fallen away, and Namgung Jinbaek had been nothing more than a father terrified for his son.
Namgung Muyoung's wounds had been that grave. A hair's breadth more and he would have suffered qi deviation — and it would not have been merely his life as a martial artist at stake. His actual life had hung in the balance. There was a reason the iron-blooded Heavenly Edge Sword Star had seized Sun Wukong's hands in both of his own. Every expert present had known just how critical the boy's condition was.
And Sun Wukong had resolved all of it in a matter of moments, using nothing but his inner energy arts. It was a feat no one of ordinary caliber could have accomplished.
Sun Wukong waved off the stares pouring onto him as if shooing flies, then rose to his feet. He turned his head toward the direction the mysterious master and Namgung Jinbaek had gone. His eyes sank low.
Not far.
He gauged the distance.
A clash of auras. Fortunately, Namgung Jinbaek has managed to pin him down.
A fierce pressure seeped through the air like a blade pressed to the skin. Two supreme forces were colliding, and the violence of it was staggering. Sun Wukong's gaze grew cold and still. The flow of those auras told a story he did not like.
Namgung Jinbaek is in real danger.
Namgung Jinbaek was strong. Even Sun Wukong acknowledged that. The first time he had laid eyes on the man, he had nearly mistaken him for a great demon sitting there in human skin. Had Namgung Jinbaek lived in the age of yaoguai, he would have been more than capable of cutting down one or two great demons on his own.
But his current opponent was no ordinary foe.
Not all great demons are created equal.
The traces left behind in Namgung Muyoung's body. Sun Wukong had pushed them out with painstaking care, suppressed them, held them down — and in doing so, he had read their nature.
Yoryeok was not all the same. There were common threads, yes — the sinister, the twisted, the violently abrupt. But every demon left its own signature. Great demons, having long since mastered their demonic energy, found that energy taking on the cast of its master's temperament.
Sun Wukong had read that temperament.
"I had a feeling. And of course I was right."
Hair so white it was nearly transparent, like hoarfrost. Eyes of pale, cold white. That familiar scent rising from the man's body. Sun Wukong felt a strange swell of feeling rise in his chest.
But the feeling lasted only a moment. He shoved every memory of the past to the far side of his mind. He needed to reach Namgung Jinbaek, and he needed to do it now.
This was a bond tied by a pure white thread. Sun Wukong was not the sort to stand idle while one of his own was in danger. That was what a bond meant to him. This was the same Sun Wukong who had once erased the names of mere beasts — fellow monkeys — from the Book of Life and Death, simply because they were his brothers. That was what a bond meant to Sun Wukong. Without his permission, not even death was allowed to take them.
"For now... Immortal, get everyone somewhere safe."
The Butterfly Immortal nodded, her face set. Sun Wukong had already slaughtered every last remnant, so there should be no danger — but it was still wiser to take shelter, just in case.
Sun Wukong glanced at Geumgak. He could see the thread of fate that bound them — a faint cord of pale red light. A ghost of a smile touched his lips.
We tried to kill each other, and it still isn't that terrible a grudge.
Sensing the stare boring into him, Geumgak rose quietly and offered a bow.
"Thank you. I have heard that you took a blackened name upon yourself for the sake of this humble priest and the Wudang Sect. I do not know how I can ever repay such kindness."
Sun Wukong's face twisted in disbelief. This was the same vicious creature who had swung the Seven Star Sword and bound his legs with the Golden Cord, doing everything in his power to bring him down.
"You've gone full immortal, haven't you."
Geumgak's eyes went round. Sun Wukong had plenty more to say to him, but it would have to wait.
"Seowol. You stay with Muyoung."
"...!"
Namgung Seowol opened her mouth as if to protest, then let it go. She had already understood that there was no place for her in the fight to come.
Sun Wukong gripped his steel staff tight, drove his foot into the earth, and launched himself skyward.
The ground cracked with a thunderous boom.
In an instant, the place where his companions stood shrank to a speck. Sun Wukong did not look back. He stretched forward, eating up the distance in great leaping bounds.
"It's not just because I'm worried about the Patriarch."
The landscape around him transformed in a blur. He left the valley behind, and the green of the forest deepened.
"Call it personal business. I've run into an old friend. We ought to catch up."
Sun Wukong's form came to a halt. Namgung Jinbaek stood there, soaked in blood, barely keeping his feet. Across from him, equally drenched, the mysterious master was just as barely standing.
"A demon ought to settle old scores the way a demon does. In blood."
Sun Wukong muttered it under his breath. The mysterious master's head turned slowly at the sound of that voice. Eyes like white frost. Translucent pupils.
"Isn't that right, Elder Brother?"
A bitter smile rose to the mysterious master's lips.
"So you've come, Younger Brother Sun."
Namgung Jinbaek dragged in a ragged breath. He lifted his trembling gaze to the mysterious master. His opponent's condition was equally wretched. Blood soaked the man from head to foot, and one eye was sealed beneath a dark crimson scab where a diagonal wound had split it open.
Only one eye, then.
Namgung Jinbaek smiled bitterly. The fingertips dripping blood trembled faintly. To any observer, this would have looked like Namgung Jinbaek's victory. He was exhausted, yes, but his visible wounds were not severe.
His insides, however, were in ruins.
"Demonic energy?"
"Hardly. That paltry stuff doesn't even compare."
"It did feel like an abyss."
"It can't be helped. You are only human, after all."
"You talk as if you aren't."
A lonely light flickered in the mysterious master's remaining eye.
"What matters is identity. The body is nothing more than a vessel."
"Talking in riddles — is that a habit of your kind?"
"Sa Hyeol-cheol-gwi, Honamdo, Gunei Nosa. Those fellows were never much for speaking clearly."
Namgung Jinbaek swallowed a groan. He could feel his dantian boiling in turmoil, and his tightly pressed lips quivered.
So it was this one.
The recent incidents around the Namgung Clan Estate. The culprit behind the Wudang Blood Incident. Namgung Jinbaek quietly turned his awareness inward.
Demonic energy. No — something deeper than that. Something like an abyss.
The same force that had shredded Namgung Muyoung's meridians. As the fight had worn on, the mysterious master's inner energy had accumulated, slowly, inside Namgung Jinbaek's body. He had been pouring out his own power just as fiercely, and he had not been able to push all of it back. In the end, he had taken a grave internal wound. The real problem was that treating it would not be easy. His instincts told him it would take a long, long period of rest and recovery to drive this out.
But then—
The mysterious master's mouth opened.
"I'll give you this. An unyielding will that never retreats. A blade that never hesitates. The resolve to step forward without a flicker of doubt. Rare, among humans. Which is why I have no choice. If you remain at the Great Sage's side, I suspect you will become a grave threat to us in the days to come."
The mysterious master leveled his sword. Namgung Jinbaek smiled grimly and raised his own to meet it.
"I have the same strong feeling — that if I don't kill you here and now, you'll become a grave threat to the Namgung Clan."
"It can't be helped. This is Murim, after all."
The mysterious master laughed, almost pleased. But the laugh faded, slowly, into silence.
Namgung Jinbaek noticed the change a beat too late. He was so exhausted that his senses had gone dull. His gaze turned, gradually, toward the source.
A man strolling toward them as if he had come out for a walk, utterly at his ease.
The mysterious master's eyes locked onto Sun Wukong and would not let go. Namgung Jinbaek caught the shift.
He's afraid?
That monstrous master was afraid. A hollow laugh escaped Namgung Jinbaek before he could stop it.
So this is the one Master Sun has been hunting.
Muhwa had spoken of it once — a grudge. The reason he had killed Honamdo had been a grudge. These two looked like they knew each other.
Namgung Jinbaek called out to the approaching Sun Wukong.
"Master Sun..."
Sun Wukong flicked him a glance, then immediately returned his gaze to the mysterious master.
"Muyoung's sleeping soundly, so don't worry — just rest, Patriarch."
"But..."
"You've fought well enough. I've got a lot to talk about with that one myself — mind giving me the floor so we can catch up?"
Namgung Jinbaek found himself smiling despite everything. This was a fight he had lost. In the end, he had no choice but to step back. He was the Patriarch. He could not throw his life away here in a mutual kill.
He had never been so glad to see anyone as he was to see Sun Wukong appear at this moment. But a martial artist had his pride. Sun Wukong was asking him to yield the field — and in doing so, he was protecting that pride.
A faint light kindled in Namgung Jinbaek's eyes.
This man, truly...
He had thought him merely eccentric, merely extraordinary. So powerful, so sharp of mind and scheme, that a wary caution had crept in even as he imagined how formidable an ally such a man would make.
But setting all of that aside...
He was a man worth calling a friend. Namgung Jinbaek accepted the consideration hidden beneath that offhand manner.
"Old scores ought to be settled properly. I shall withdraw."
"Get some rest. If we're going to have a drink afterward, that body of yours won't hold up."
"A drink, is it... I'll have to send word to the estate and have them bring what we drank last time."
"See? This is why we get along."
Sun Wukong cackled. The mysterious master, who had been watching the exchange in silence, let out a sigh he could not quite suppress.
"Younger Brother Sun. So you've come."
It was a peculiar voice — something like gladness threaded through with reluctance. Sun Wukong snorted a laugh.
"So you are the Elder Brother I think you are?"
"What need is there for introductions between fellow monkeys?"
"I had a hunch. That Yoryeok of yours — it reeked."
"That nose of yours hasn't changed."
"Of course it hasn't. I'm still the same Great Sage, Heaven's Equal — Sun Wukong."
"..."
The mysterious master closed his mouth. Sun Wukong was still in the body of his former life. A prickling energy radiated from him, head to toe — the same demonic power, the same presence, the same Great Sage, Heaven's Equal.
But he himself was trapped in human flesh. No matter how hard he honed it, a human body could never match a demon's. Sun Wukong had just driven that point home.
The mysterious master sighed and spoke.
"Shall we walk a while?"
"We've got plenty to talk about. Don't we, Fifth Elder Brother?"
"...We do. Youngest."
A distant past. Sun Wukong had gathered the seven strongest demons in the world and given them a name of their own.
The seven sworn demon kings of the ancient world
The mysterious master smiled faintly. That old form of address — Fifth Elder Brother — called up memories from a time almost too far away to reach. And with them, he remembered his own title.
The Great Sage Who Pierces the Wind.