Descent

"You claim to be the greatest under heaven. Let's see it."

The moment consent was given, the spectral form of the Spirit of Seeking Justice vanished.

And with it, Ye Hajun lost control of his own body.

His spine straightened like a spear shaft. His hand clenched and unclenched twice, and then a grin spread across his face.

"You've been working hard."

The voice that followed was unmistakably Hajun's—and yet not his words at all.

Before him stood thousands of Jeonggoe.

When Ye Hajun slowly lifted his head, the green, death-threshold venom of a greenhorn no longer burned in his eyes.

What remained was only the absolute stillness of a man who had crossed the line of death a thousand times over.

"I'll show you war."

In a voice like cold, congealed iron, the general declared the opening of battle.

His foot stamped down with a heavy thud, and the Yeongseok scattered across the ground shattered into powder.

The energy rising from that scattered dust gathered into the general's hands.

With a low, humming resonance, what took shape in his grip was a massive, thick axe of metallic light—

an axe-blade of force that looked as though it had been forged from a star itself. Axe Gang.

Axe in hand, the general took one great step forward and swung in a long horizontal arc.

Along the axe's path, the thousands of Jeonggoe that had filled the horizon to the edge of sight were sheared clean in two in a single instant.

————!!

Space itself screamed—but the scream came after the cut.

Ignoring the Rift in the Void as if it possessed a will of its own and was shrieking in protest, the general calmly harvested the Yeongseok that spilled from the fallen Jeonggoe.

Hajun's dantian, empty only moments before, filled to overflowing. A terrible agony surged through every fine meridian of his body like a flood.

"Hrm."

The general settled it in a single breath.

Gazing into the distance at the Eye of the Rift, still standing, he spoke.

"Juddak. As I told you at the start, martial arts have six simple stages. Form, Pattern, Technique, Energy, Method, Dao."

Internal force raced madly through every meridian. His heart pounded like war drums rolling through ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a camp.

Hajun's muscles swelled as if about to burst, and the edge of the Axe Gang in his hand blazed with light.

When the sheer volume of internal force warped space itself into a scream, the general took one step forward and said:

"This is the ■ that comes after."

The ultimate secret of the greatest under heaven.

Ye Hajun, still a novice, was not even qualified to hear it. He could not even register the word.

And then—

The instant the general swung the axe, silence fell over the world.

Far in the distance—so far it had felt as though it lay beyond the horizon—the Eye of the Rift was already cut.

The general's axe had leaped across distance itself and cleaved the Eye of the Rift as cleanly as if it had been an enemy standing right before him.

Split left and right, the Eye of the Rift slowly parted and collapsed, and beyond it the blue sky appeared.

A familiar sky. The sky Ye Hajun knew.

As if he had finished what he had pledged to do, the general spoke.

"See that, Juddak? This is the view we get to look at."

So this was the scenery the greatest under heaven beheld.

"How do you like the view granted only to an undefeated general in life?"

The surreal sight of the sky split open.

As his consciousness drifted away, Ye Hajun answered the general's words with a smile.

In the slow drift of his floating consciousness, the first thing Ye Hajun registered was the smell of medicinal herbs.

Next, when he opened his eyes, came the sight of those same herbs hanging in clusters from the air above him.

An apothecary, then.

Awake, Hajun carefully scanned his surroundings.

No sign of Han Yumae. Did they keep the men and women separate? Or had she not been hurt?

What caught his eye next was the bandage wound tightly around his right arm.

Just in case, he tried to move his right hand—and felt nothing at all.

Hajun let out a sigh.

I knew it was bad when my hand started going pins and needles.

Wondering whether the gallery might even be able to teach him one-armed martial arts the way Instructor Doksu used them, he checked the gallery.

Amid a gallery already buzzing with all sorts of chatter, Ye Hajun made a post of his own.

He was passing the time chatting with the gallery people when he felt a presence, and his eyes met someone else's.

"Oh? The corpse got up?"

"…Excuse me?"

"Just a joke. Name's Sado Myeong. Physician, as you can see."

The physician who introduced himself as Sado Myeong smiled, pulled over a chair, and sat down beside Ye Hajun.

"Have you ever dug a drainage ditch, by any chance?"

"A drainage ditch? Like, a channel for water to run off?"

"That's right. That kind of ditch."

"Yes, I have. On rainy days, if you don't dig them the water just pools up, so…"

Drawing on his experience working for an unorthodox faction, Hajun answered, and Sado Myeong nodded as if that was exactly right.

"See, when you're cutting a ditch into a dirt path, the soil keeps getting washed away by the water and the ditch gets wider and wider."

"It does."

"Meridians expand on the same principle. That's why martial artists practice circulating their qi every day."

As he spoke, Sado Myeong began unwinding the bandage on Hajun's right arm.

"The reason you circulate qi day in and day out is to keep moving your internal force so the meridians grow stronger and branch out into finer channels. But if you skip all that and just dump internal force around however you like—what do you think happens?"

When Sado Myeong finally finished peeling off the bandage, a horribly mangled arm was revealed.

"This happens."

"…It's completely shredded. No wonder I couldn't feel anything."

"Ah, the reason you can't feel anything is because I dusted it with paralytic powder. If I hadn't, the agony would have made you want to end yourself on the spot."

"…"

With that, Sado Myeong sprinkled more paralytic powder over Hajun's arm and wound on a fresh bandage.

"This is why I don't much care for people of the Jianghu. The whole lot of them never learned how to look after their own bodies."

"…I'm sorry."

"But then again, if they did, how would I keep a job around here?"

Finished with the bandage, Sado Myeong looked at Hajun and smiled.

"I do rather like the ones who throw themselves in to save someone else. Of course, it'd be even better if they looked after their own bodies while they were at it."

"Sorry?"

"Meaning Disciple Han Yumae is safe. She overdrew her internal force so her true qi is a bit depleted, but a little rest and she'll be fine soon enough."

"That's a relief."

Watching Hajun let out a breath of relief at the news, Sado Myeong smiled.

"You're an odd one, as I thought. Figured we'll be seeing each other often enough that I might as well introduce myself."

"Isn't it better if we don't see each other often?"

"I think so too, but bad premonitions of mine have a habit of coming true. Anyway, now that you're awake I'll go fetch someone. Rest a bit."

With that, Sado Myeong left—and a new post appeared on the gallery.

A little more at ease, Ye Hajun lay back on the cot.

It wasn't as though the fear that his arm might never return had been completely gone.

Come to think of it, Sado Myeong had said he would go fetch someone—who was he bringing?

The question rose unbidden, and Hajun ran through the possibilities in his head.

Han Yumae might come. Or Namgung Gyeom, who roomed with him. Or maybe Instructor Baek Mudan, who had been in the Rift with them.

Thinking that, he fought off the drowsiness that kept washing over him and waited for someone to arrive—

Someone here?

He felt a presence and started to sit up.

"Ah, stay seated."

"Huh? Grandpa, what are you doing here?"

An unexpected visitor had appeared.

Wasn't this the beggar old man he had given alms to before the entrance exam?

But was he someone who would come here?

"Came to give you something."

"Ah, if it's repayment for the alms I gave you earlier, that's fine. I didn't give it expecting anything back…"

Hearing that, the visitor looked briefly blank, then broke into a broad smile.

"So you still don't know."

"Pardon?"

The old man smiled and introduced himself.

"I'm Jin Soya, principal of Cheonmu Academy."