Where Sin Pools
"If any among you wish to hold discourse with this First Young Master, step forward."
After Yeon So-hyeon had shattered the red-armored cart of the Sam-o Tongbang, not a single soul dared to answer at once.
"...."
The shock at the martial might he had just displayed was no less among the personnel of the forward base.
The First Young Master possessed such prowess all along? Did you know of this?
When the bald monk Ttaengjung sent the transmission, Malko shook his head with a drained expression.
I had no idea either.
Ttaengjung slipped the prayer beads from his neck and began to chant.
...Amitabha. Could it be that the First Young Master is truly the one the shamans spoke of—the figure named in the Rock-Leaf Pottery Fragment Text?
...It may well be so.
Ttaengjung and Malko, senior officers of the House of Mercy and the ones responsible for its outpost in the Valley of Sin, recalled the shamans' words and swallowed dryly.
"Great Monk. Great Taoist."
Those who had recovered from the impact of the First Young Master's display now gathered around the two men.
"Would you explain the situation to us as well?"
"What did you mean earlier when you said those people are agents of the Sword Family?"
Malko—more commonly addressed as the Great Taoist—let out a long sigh. Since Yeon So-hyeon, the pillar and leader of the House of Mercy, had already acknowledged the truth, there was no longer any reason for them to keep silent.
"...Everyone knows that Luoyang swarms with slums, and that where there are slums, the underworld inevitably thrives alongside them."
Ttaengjung, called the Great Monk, took up the thread.
"And among those slums, the five worst—known as the Five Evils—each possess their own reason why the destitute cannot stop pouring in."
"In such places the underworld organizations naturally multiply all the more."
This valley was no exception among the Five Evils.
"By now you all understand why the poor keep gathering here in the Valley of Sin and why the underworld outfits are raising such havoc."
Those who had been stationed at the base for the past few weeks nodded.
Narcotics.
The Valley of Sin was the source of the raw material for Moksok—the infamous wood-poppy drug known not only throughout Luoyang but across all of Henan Province—and at the same time one of its principal refining grounds.
The refining process was a lowly, lethal occupation that claimed lives without cease. The same held true for distribution and street sales.
Yet from refining through distribution and sale, the destitute still flocked to it, calling it work.
"After the northern war, the flood of refugees reached unprecedented levels, and the problems caused by the underworld reached their peak."
Malko's voice was bleak.
"...Then one day, someone in the Sword Family had a thought."
If the underworld could not be eradicated, would it not be better to step forward, control it, and put it to use?
"...!"
"Amitabha," Ttaengjung murmured bitterly, closing his eyes.
"And so, beneath the Sword Family's tacit permission, the underworld of Luoyang was left free to run wild."
For a time the underworld organizations merely traded transmissions among themselves or muttered in huddles.
"Ahem, ahem!"
Whatever conclusion they had reached, the deputy chief of the Black River Gang—stepping in for the Sam-o Tongbang that had just lost its sub-leader—cleared his throat with theatrical noise.
"If this humble one may be permitted a word!"
Perhaps unnerved by the sight of the red-armored cart exploding, he not only kept a considerable distance from Yeon So-hyeon but shouted from behind his subordinates.
"You may speak."
When Yeon So-hyeon answered from atop the banner, the man wiped cold sweat and called out cautiously.
"Should Your Lordship desire tribute money separate from the usual, the Black River Gang is prepared to offer whatever sum is required!"
In other words, he was proposing a private line of bribery to Yeon So-hyeon alone.
At that, officers from the other two organizations hastily raised their hands and shouted as well.
"W-we of the Sam-o Tongbang also...!"
"The White Bone Faction is of the same mind!"
Yeon So-hyeon burst into loud laughter, then immediately snorted in contempt.
"Tribute money, you say?"
The heads of the two officers who had shouted after the first man simply burst.
"...Hiiik?!"
The deputy chief of the Black River Gang, who had first mentioned tribute, recoiled in terror and ducked behind a subordinate.
Yet through that very subordinate's body Yeon So-hyeon was still visible.
"Huh?"
A hole the exact size of a grown man's fist had been punched clean through the subordinate. And when the deputy chief looked down, he found an identical hole through his own chest.
Had he truly believed distance would keep him safe?
"Huuu..."
Yeon So-hyeon withdrew the fist he had extended and regulated his long breath.
Shaolin's peerless technique—striking true across a hundred paces.
"U-uwaaagh?!"
The underlings nearest the fallen officers staggered backward in panic; the sight filled Yeon So-hyeon's downward gaze.
"Tribute money—how distasteful!"
His voice rolled across the plaza like thunder.
"Did you take this First Young Master for one so fallen that he would accept gold from back-alley thugs like yourselves?!"
The Lion's Roar of the Taoist school crashed beyond the plaza and rebounded from the cliffs on either side; the faint-hearted simply collapsed where they stood.
"It seems there is no one present of sufficient standing even to hold a conversation."
Yeon So-hyeon regarded them with open scorn.
"Previously, one known as Amcheonjonza swept this valley clean, leaving it masterless."
He continued.
"And you lot have been eyeing the chance to claim that vacant throne."
A meaningful smile curved his lips as he surveyed the throng.
It was time to probe the gap.
"In the end, what you desire is that Second Young Master's 'Sword Family Token,' is it not?"
"...!"
No answer came.
Yet the way the faces of those who were clearly officers hardened among the crowd was answer enough.
Just as I thought.
Yeon So-hyeon never referred to the Second Young Master by name or as younger brother. To him the Second Young Master was merely the Second Young Master—never acknowledged as family, never ranked as second, and certainly never to be called by personal name.
"...This humble one truly cannot grasp what Your Lordship means!"
When no one else spoke, someone whose feet had grown cold offered a belated denial.
Yeon So-hyeon cast the fishing line once more.
"I am aware that the Second Young Master promised the Sword Family Token as the price of loyalty to whichever organization alone survives this valley."
"...."
"...."
At those words several officers' gazes turned quietly vicious. They were clearly senior officers who knew the inner truth.
Having watched every reaction, Yeon So-hyeon now held certainty.
In the past, the Black Bone Faction's Golden Lord had suddenly possessed a Sword Family Token. No matter how rotten the Luoyang Sword Family had become, even Yeon So-hyeon had drawn a sharp breath inwardly when he saw a vast underworld syndicate that dealt in human flesh holding such a token.
Since then he had gathered every scrap of intelligence from the Hyeonwol Pavilion to test the hypothesis he had formed. And with today's exchange the entire chain of events lay clear before him.
...A method of managing the underworld like this could only have come from that woman.
Behind the doctrine established after the northern war—of controlling and exploiting Luoyang's underworld—that woman had surely been the hand.
"...If Your Lordship already knows this fact, then I cannot understand why you oppress us so!"
The shout, laden with internal energy, came from the rooftop of a building far at the plaza's edge.
"Does the First Young Master not fear the Second Young Master's wrath?!"
"The Sword Family will remember this day!"
Similar energy-charged shouts rose from rooftops at other corners of the plaza.
The field commanders of this uprising.
Their positions were now fixed.
Yeon So-hyeon's fingers flicked three times in an instant.
The field commanders of the three organizations, each sheltering behind thick stone parapets on rooftops they believed safe while shouting with internal force, suddenly sprouted holes through their skulls in perfect unison. Their corpses slumped against the walls they had used for cover; blood from the pierced heads drew long lines down the stone. Each parapet bore an identical fingernail-sized hole.
One of Shaolin's seventy-two peerless arts, twin to the Hundred Pace Divine Fist.
"Th-the commander has fallen!"
Uproar erupted from the rooftops each organization had used as field command posts.
"...."
The throng filling the plaza could do nothing now but swallow dryly and break into cold sweat.
Yeon So-hyeon laughed heartily from atop the banner.
"Is there any who still wishes to bark?"
"...."
In that moment one senior officer suddenly understood.
"...Th-that man never wanted dialogue!"
He screamed it like a death cry.
"From the beginning he was targeting the officers of the organiza—!"
His head burst.
A smile laced with killing intent stretched long across Yeon So-hyeon's lips.
"You only realize it now?"
When he raised his hand, the subordinates of Tang Baek who had melted into the plaza through concealment and form-hiding arts revealed themselves all at once. In each raised hand a dagger gleamed; from the razor-curved tip of every blade a long jet of blood still arced, having just erupted from a victim's carotid artery.
A few officers of considerable personal cultivation had barely avoided fatal wounds—yet death already raced through their veins in the form of extreme poison.
"R-retreat!"
One surviving officer of some organization shrieked.
"Retreat!"
He had ordered only his own men, yet the reaction exploded from the entire throng packing the plaza.
"R-run!"
"Fall back! Fall back!"
Some tripped. Some rolled. Some even flung away their weapons as they fled. Regardless of organization, the underlings began racing upstream like a swarm of ants.
And one man had been waiting for precisely that moment.
Above the heads of those who were pouring onto the road that led upstream for retreat, the god of death appeared.
A middle-aged man with a face of pure ice—Tang Baek.
The secret ultimate art of the Sichuan Tang Family—death raining from the sky.
Hundreds, perhaps more than a thousand, ox-hair needles poured down. Whether a needle merely grazed a fingertip, buried itself in a thigh, or tore across a brow made no difference. The poison that raced through the bloodstream paralyzed muscle, constricted the throat, and stopped the heart.
In a single breath the lives of the countless enemies who had already entered the road from the plaza—or were about to—vanished.
Then, stepping over the corpses into the plaza, Tang Baek set his chain-sickles spinning in his hands.
We shall charge!
With the transmission from Hyang, captain of the maid corps, the Ironclad Fortress thundered into the plaza. It was the First Young Master's procession, guided by Il-ryeong's scouting to a circuitous route.
"------!!"
What force could possibly halt the Ironclad Fortress?
Spirit beasts painted crimson with blood howled as they carved a long river of gore across the plaza.
"Counterattack! Counterattack, damn you!"
"Do not show your backs!"
A few officers who had finally come to their senses shouted, but the plaza—already stripped of far too much of its command strength—was pure chaos.
The armored carriages that had followed the Ironclad Fortress ringed the forward base and poured down a rain of iron bolts. Maids of the maid corps leaping from the procession mercilessly cut down the backs of enemies still fleeing in confusion.
Even so the enemy numbers remained overwhelming, and the Valley of Sin was riddled with countless alleys. Like cockroaches they began to vanish into every side street and cranny—into underground passages, into drainage tunnels, seeping away through the maze-like back alleys.
Pursuit beyond the plaza is forbidden!
At Yeon So-hyeon's order, everyone concentrated on slaughtering those who had not yet escaped the plaza.
Listening to the screams of enemies plunged into hellish pandemonium, Yeon So-hyeon cast his gaze far toward the upper reaches of the Valley of Sin.
"...."
Beyond the midstream the slope rose sharply as one entered the upper reaches. The streetscape no longer resembled a mere slum; at a glance it took on the aspect of a fortress. Beyond it loomed the vast rock cliffs of Eunhyeong Mountain, and beneath those cliffs countless rock caves honeycombed the stone like an ant nest. Those caves, shielded by fortress-like terrain, were the true strongholds of the underworld.
Today's victory is a clear triumph, yet...
By tomorrow their strength would begin to swell again as though the losses had never occurred. Tens of thousands of the destitute already lived here, and more poured in without end.
The gaze of the man standing atop the banner narrowed.
Amcheonjonza cannot solve everything.
In the territory where the Black Bone Faction had vanished, the White Bone Faction had grown. In the Valley of Sin that Amcheonjonza had swept clean, sin had once more pooled and gathered.
Amcheonjonza could pass judgment, yet he could not change the world—could not alter its systems.
Now that this Yeon So-hyeon has come, there will be no tomorrow for the underworld in this Valley of Sin.
From the very beginning, Amcheonjonza's cleansing of the Valley of Sin had been an indispensable part of the plan, and as always that plan was still advancing even now.
But for today, this is enough.
He stepped down from the banner and turned away without a shred of lingering attachment.