The Way Forward - 6
I followed the commotion to its source and found the place in utter pandemonium. Honestly—what in the world was this, first thing in the morning?
At the entrance to Changungwan stood a man, striding in as bold as brass, demonic energy on open display, his face brimming with confidence.
And trailing at his heels...
...were jiangshi.
"How in the world did he get jiangshi in here?!"
How, indeed. Palseon Village was a place merchants flocked to from every direction. They hauled in all manner of strange curios under the pretext of showcasing wares from across the continent, and with that much cargo came, naturally, a great deal of inspection.
More work meant more cracks to slip through—that much was inevitable. Or perhaps whoever ran the inspections at the gate was already a mole. Or maybe the Demonic Cult simply had its own special tricks for the job.
But what did any of that matter right now? What mattered was that the cultist and his jiangshi, surging toward Changungwan with their morale blazing, made for a genuinely threatening enemy.
Jingle! Jingle! Jingle!
They answered to the bell—which made them corpse jiangshi, beyond any doubt. Monsters raised from actual corpses.
And the countermeasure...
"We must seize whoever is holding that bell!"
Correct. One of Changungwan's Taoists had shouted it.
Corpse jiangshi moved at their handler's bidding, plain and simple—so rather than smashing down every last one of them, taking the handler was simply faster. That was how it worked in Cheonsang Myeongwol, too.
"Someone fetch the Monastery Master! Hurry!!"
Now the real event began. The Changungwan Assault Defense—a repeatable event—was about holding this attack back until the monastery's master emerged. Fell the invading cultists before then, and you earned your pick of three rewards; fail to finish them off in time, and all you got was a modest bump to your Changungwan achievements.
If there was a reward to be had either way, better to earn the good one.
"Innkeeper, please stay back."
"Don't you worry. I can at least keep myself in one piece."
Hong Ryeon already had her sword drawn. Nor was she alone—several of the martial artists and Taoists present had likewise bared their weapons and readied for battle. Tension spiked, and fear took root on the faces of everyone who wasn't a fighter.
Fair enough, really. Martial artists might carry themselves with bravado, but to ordinary folk, a Demonic Cultist—and a jiangshi above all—was nothing short of a horrific monster.
Perhaps he savored that very terror.
Wearing a cruel, thoroughly entertained smile, the cultist whirled his bell, and at that signal, seven jiangshi came bounding through the gates.
"Kyaa—KYAAAAH!"
People scattered. Thank goodness it was early morning and the grounds were all but empty; had the crowds been out in force, no pandemonium on earth could have compared.
"Sa Yun. Protect the innkeeper."
With that one calm instruction, Hong Ryeon shot toward the cultist, and the jiangshi scattered.
The cultist threw back his head with a roar of laughter and swung his blade at her.
CLAAANG!!
So it wouldn't end in a single exchange. This one had some real skill, then. Which meant our job was simply to hold back those jiangshi?
"Ah—?!"
Changungwan's Taoists, along with the young martial artists who looked to be out on their first journeys, moved to intercept the jiangshi.
But they had missed one.
"WAAAAH!"
"Seon-ye!!"
Among the fleeing crowd, a child had tripped and fallen. The instant a man—her father, by the look of him—lunged to gather her up, a jiangshi appeared before them both.
A jiangshi was a monster made by reanimating the dead. Of course it burned with hatred for the living, and seethed with the malice of a thing that lived to trample the weak. Seizing a fallen child—one who had never learned a single martial technique—was nothing it would hesitate over. It was something it would savor.
KYAAAAH!!
Teeth gleamed sharp inside that gaping maw. Claws like awls bared, one jiangshi sprang to tear them apart—
WHAM!!
Sa Yun and I didn't exchange a word. We simply ran.
Sa Yun arrived first, kicking the creature square in the chest; as it staggered back, she pressed the opening with a rapid flurry to drive it further off, and I, closing in on her heels, hooked its legs with my left foot. Already wobbling from her assault, the jiangshi lurched harder at my sweep—and I took the opening, catching its chest with my right hand and pressing down, light as a feather.
Perhaps because the force packed into Sa Yun's blows was no ordinary thing?
KA-THOOM!!
I hadn't put all that much strength into it. I had merely bent its direction, its flow—and still the jiangshi went tumbling across the ground. The sensation lingered in my palm. Like striking seasoned wood.
Well, of course. A jiangshi's body was made from a corpse pickled in every drug and treatment imaginable; it stood to reason the thing would be as hard as a gnarled old tree.
"It's not over yet!!"
Sa Yun's expression was grave. She knew a jiangshi wouldn't fall to something this slight. She leveled her sword at the creature, and I settled into my Chae Family Tai Chi stance and spoke.
"Take the child and withdraw."
"WAAAAH! Hic—! WAAAAAAH!"
"Th-thank you!"
Gathering up his wailing daughter, the father hurried away. What remained was the jiangshi—and Sa Yun, ready to meet it with everything she had.
"You could stay back, you know, sir!"
"Even so, two is better than one, wouldn't you say?"
"Ahaha... Yes! But please be careful!"
"Mm."
Sa Yun was young, and I was nothing more than a man who knew a smattering of Chae Family Tai Chi. But every soul here who could fight was already fighting. Hong Ryeon was holding down the cultist single-handed, while Changungwan's Taoists and the unmistakably greenhorn martial artists kept the other jiangshi from reaching anyone else.
Which meant someone had to stop this one. And neither Sa Yun nor I was under any illusion about who that someone would be.
"Hooooh..."
I breathed out slowly and raised my hands. Right hand yang, left hand yin. The raised yang held high, the yin extended and aimed—reaching out to lead the incoming force. My right foot rooted as the axis, my left advanced, laying a foundation from which I could move freely the instant I needed to.
"After you."
KYAAAAAAH!!
With a hideous shriek, the jiangshi lunged for my yin hand. As I'd thought—this one wasn't especially strong. Its attack was linear, crude. Fingers tipped with dagger-sharp claws shot out, gathered together, toward my left palm.
Meet it head-on and I would lose. But the genius of Chae Family Tai Chi lay in governing flow—bending it, redirecting it. There was no need to defy that current at all.
Simply.
Change its direction.
I dipped my left hand just enough to slip past the clash, then let it glide onward—and the base of my palm met the jiangshi's wrist.
The jiangshi's strength was tremendous. It might have rivaled the surging waters of the Yangtze.
But the Yangtze does nothing more than flow, serene and unhurried—and to turn even that current takes no more strength than a single feather's weight.
Reciting the forms of Chae Family Tai Chi in my mind, I laid a whisper of my own power atop its force. I released the strength gathered in my right foot and poured it into my left; pivoting on it, I shoved the jiangshi's arm aside—and the instant its claws raked empty air, I bore down hard on its leg with my right foot.
Its balance already crumbling, the creature's frame buckled and it lurched further off-center. A light nudge of my shoulder was all it took to shatter its equilibrium completely—and in that opening, I caught the jiangshi clean and heaved it skyward.
"Now."
A single word. It was enough.
Sa Yun had trained long and hard enough to make that pretty sword of hers blaze with light—this much was well within her.
"Hah!!"
With a low cry, she leapt.
One of the anti-air techniques of the Hongseong Divine Art's first half.
The jiangshi caught by that leaping kick flipped head over heels in midair, and Sa Yun, wheeling her body around to meet it, drove the Star Breaking Palm—the palm art that shatters stars—into its abdomen.
KWA-BOOM!!
A crack like thunder burst from the jiangshi's body as the palm—an internal-school technique—detonated against it. Even so, the creature still had fight left and swung its arms—
—but her sword was already flashing.
Yes.
It flashed.
An effect born of the blade's own mastery deepening in step with its wielder's growth. The moment that soft radiance settled over her sword, Sa Yun loosed a single stroke at the jiangshi's chest.
A sword form from the latter half of the Hongseong Divine Art.
KWAAANG!!
Caught beneath that enormous cleaving blow, the jiangshi was hammered straight down into the ground—so hard the stone floor cracked. Even a jiangshi, it seemed, could not easily endure a strike like that; it lay where it had fallen, unable to rise.
And then—
"GAAAAAAH!"
A scream tore out behind us. Sa Yun and I turned toward it—and relaxed. There lay the cultist who, mere moments ago, had rampaged as though the world were his plaything—now folded over Hong Ryeon's greatsword, body cleaved nearly in two, chest split open as he crumpled.
"Hoo... You two all right?!"
The instant the cultist dropped, Hong Ryeon came running straight for us. She had evidently been quite worried about the two of us—Sa Yun and me—holding off a jiangshi on our own.
"We're fine. I hardly did anything, really."
I gave her shoulder a pat, and only then did Hong Ryeon look around. The jiangshi that had moved to their handler's every command now lay slumped where they stood, utterly still.
"You're sure you're not hurt anywhere?"
"Not at all."
All I'd done was shove a jiangshi around a few times with Chae Family Tai Chi. Sa Yun had done the rest. But Hong Ryeon took my wrist and checked my pulse, examined me here and there, and only then looked satisfied. Then she turned to Sa Yun, and let out a breath of relief that she, too, had come through unscathed.
"Um..."
Just then, a voice rose behind us—young, a whole group of young men and women by the sound. I turned to find the martial artists who had rushed to join the Taoists the moment the jiangshi appeared, holding the line against them. Perhaps it was the shock of the sudden battle; every face had drained white.
"Thank you for your aid. I am called Namgung Hwa."
The one who bowed with a deep, polite dip of her head was a woman with a strikingly youthful face. Namgung Hwa. The youngest daughter of the Namgung Clan's Second Elder, if I remembered right. She'd appeared in Cheonsang Myeongwol, too—though her path never crossed Sa Yun's.
"Seeing the Chae Family Tai Chi, I took you for someone from Moon Lotus Pavilion..."
"Yu Wol, innkeeper of Seomhwa Village."
I returned her cupped-fist salute. She tilted her head at me—then started, eyes widening.
"Seomhwa Village? Wait—you're not even a martial artist?!"
"I'm not. I've merely learned a bit of Chae Family Tai Chi, that's all."
"But... even so... you weren't afraid? Even we found fighting the jiangshi rather terrifying..."
Apparently the others behind her were just as curious.
"It needed doing, and I was able to do it—that's all there was to it. Besides, Sa Yun here is a disciple of Hongseong Sect, and the cultist was being handled by Hongseong's eldest disciple, the Sun-Falling Sword herself. What was there to be afraid of?"
"Hongseong Sect!"
She whirled toward Hong Ryeon in astonishment. Hong Ryeon, who had been watching with a distinctly unimpressed expression, gave a slight nod.
"Hong Ryeon, eldest disciple of Hongseong. So you're Namgung Hwa—Namgung Se's little sister, yes? I've heard plenty about you."
"Y-you've h-heard so much... about me... from my sister?"
"Mm. And I hear you're meaning to apply to the Murim Alliance's Inspection Department? Hehe. I expect we'll be seeing each other again."
Namgung Hwa hunched her shoulders. No—not just her. The others behind her did exactly the same. So this was what it was like, meeting someone whose name carried real weight in the murim?
I glanced at Hong Ryeon. She mulled it over a moment, then smiled brightly.
Once the awkwardly bowing martial artists had withdrawn, she folded her arms. It was then that the child from before came up, along with the man who seemed to be her father.
"Oh, good sir... sir... thank you, truly..."
"Mister! Thank you!"
"It was nothing. You're not hurt from that fall, are you?"
"No!!"
"That's a brave girl. Then all's well."
I ruffled the child's hair. While the little one—six or seven, by the look of her—beamed up at me, the man hesitated, then drew something from inside his coat. He seemed to debate between Sa Yun and me, then handed it to me. Presumably he'd decided that since I was the adult, it belonged with me.
"I-I don't know if this is thanks enough, but..."
What he had produced was a tablet—a plaque bearing his family's crest, by the look of it.
"Should you ever have occasion to visit Gaebong, please do stop by the Cheon Family Manor."
The Cheon Family Manor? Where in the world was that? It had never once appeared in Cheonsang Myeongwol, so I honestly had no idea.
Well—Gaebong, then. I'd have to make the trip someday regardless. I might as well promise him that much.
"I'll look forward to it."
"Thank you. And you, my lady—thank you. Truly. If not for you..."
"Oh, n-no! Protecting the weak is simply what a disciple of Hongseong must do!"
"Then I pray you will honor the Cheon Family Manor with a visit as well, my lady."
"Bye, big sis!!"
As I watched him lead his child away, bowing with such earnest formality, Sa Yun came up beside me and murmured, her cheeks faintly flushed.
"...Eldest Sister. Innkeeper. Is this... what they call a chivalrous deed?"
Intoxicated by the thrill of it, she spoke in a trembling voice. Hong Ryeon and I looked at each other—and snorted.
Just then—
"What in the world...!!"
Nam Chae-hyeon, master of Changungwan and a talisman-caster of rare skill, stood rooted, unable to contain his astonishment.
Either way, the event was cleared—which meant it was time to collect my rewards in full.