Gehenna
Thick clouds blanketed the night sky and poured rain upon the world, so that the only light left upon the earth came from the occasional bolt of lightning.
The moon had long since hidden its face. The sun showed no intention of rising. The stars, with their feeble glow, dared not claim any place at all.
Heaven and Earth are not benevolent.
The universe is neither kind nor merciful.
As the woman once called the manifestation of the Medicine Buddha—Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva—had said: only humans can save humans.
And likewise, as her only son had said: only humans can punish humans.
And so a being who stood in Heaven’s place towered here.
He saved those Heaven had carelessly abandoned, and punished the sinners even Heaven turned from.
Beneath the dark night sky, the name Dark Heaven Venerable was not wasted upon him.
The moment their first exchanges of blows met, the falling rain scattered in a single shockwave.
This is insane…!
The hall master of the True White Martial Hall, who commanded the right wing of the Third Young Master’s temporary decapitation unit, ground his teeth.
The hand gripping his sword trembled. A single exchange—just one—and he was certain the bones of his arm had cracked.
Monster. Sorcerer of forbidden arts. Aberration. Unnatural prodigy. Fiend of the wilds.
Countless words for the cursed existence before him flashed through his mind, yet none of them fit perfectly enough.
Still, he had no desire to elevate the monster the way the others did by calling him Venerable.
If we trade the next blow like this, defeat is certain…!
Sensing defeat, he shouted to his men.
“All of you—swarm him!”
The warriors who had formed a tight wall of blades around them thrust as one.
“Hap!”
Like their roaring battle cries, the sword formation moved as a single living thing, blades lancing out from every direction at once.
“……?!”
Yet not a single sword reached him. Every edge only scraped empty air.
Having claimed front and back, left and right, even above and below, he stood at leisure atop a tower of blades, and the Dark Heaven Venerable sneered.
“Is this truly all it takes for you to call yourselves warriors of the Sword Family that rules Luoyang?”
The answer came from behind him.
“Shut your mouth!”
And the hall master’s sword, aimed at the Dark Heaven Venerable’s back, was faster than his voice.
Phantom Annihilation — Single Severance
It was the same stroke he had reflexively unleashed moments earlier when the Dark Heaven Venerable had taken his back. That absolute technique which had, even on pure reflex, sheared through the rain in a single instant was now released with body and soul fully committed.
“……!”
The hall master of the True White Martial Hall was no fool who shouted before he struck. His cry of “Shut your mouth!” had only burst out like a battle shout after the sword had already been launched—
So how?
How could the enemy evade that all-out blow so easily, as though he had eyes growing from the back of his head?
Two ghostly flames met the hall master’s gaze and twisted as if mocking his blade.
“So this is the level at which you trade on the Sword Family’s name?”
Even while he locked eyes with the hall master and laughed at him, the warriors’ formation never stopped. Swords stabbed and stabbed again, trying to cage him.
“How amusing. Truly amusing.”
Like a salmon climbing a raging torrent, the Dark Heaven Venerable’s body remained only at the very peak of the mountain of swords. His feet danced as if performing some elegant measure, treading the tips of the blades as lightly as flower petals.
“Shut up! Be silent, you monster!”
The hall master’s form shot upward once more. He had used the shoulders of the warriors waiting outside the formation for successive wave attacks as stepping stones.
Steel Lotus Iron Barricade
If one sword would not suffice, use two. If two would not suffice, use ten, a hundred.
Blindingly fast phantom blades embroidered the air like scattering cherry blossoms. Each strike smashed falling raindrops into mist.
“Uaaaaah—!”
A battle cry tore from the hall master’s throat before he could stop it.
Faster. Still faster!
His sword, forced beyond its limits with internal energy, screamed white-hot and left hundreds of afterimages.
How?! How?!
His breath was gone. He was burning even the true essence said to be the root of life—yet that monster called the Dark Heaven Venerable climbed the mountain of swords and flicked aside every single one of his blades.
As if toying with him. Tapping those razor nails one by one.
Every last afterimage embroidering the air was blocked by the Dark Heaven Venerable. The white-hot remnants shattered, mixed with the torrential rain, and scattered on the rough wind.
“Khuh?!”
In the end the hall master was struck in the chest by a single palm the Dark Heaven Venerable extended almost casually, and was sent flying out of the formation.
“…You… you bastard!”
Caught by his men before he could roll ignominiously across the ground, he shouted.
“You know the martial arts of our hall!”
At first he had thought the monster simply overpowered them with a body that far surpassed human limits. Next he had believed a peak master was merely toying with him.
But it was more fundamental than that.
The enemy’s movements showed he knew every one of the hall master’s arts inside and out, and saw straight through them.
“How?! How do you—?!”
The Dark Heaven Venerable casually redirected the blades of the squad leaders who had leapt into the air as one to fill the hall master’s place.
“…Kh?!”
“…Hah!”
These warriors were currently bound together as a single decapitation unit, yet their original affiliations were all different. Naturally the martial arts they used were different as well.
Yet the Dark Heaven Venerable’s nails drove precisely into their wrists at the exact starting point of each sword stroke—as though he had known every one of their arts from beginning to end.
“Do you think the only arts I know are those of the True White Martial Hall?”
The Dark Heaven Venerable’s laughter rolled out, ominous. That laugh, which seemed to shake the very soul, rang with unnatural clarity through the rain and the battle cries.
The hall master of the True White Martial Hall screamed as if the sound were tearing him apart.
“Just what the hell are you?!”
Luoyang Sword Family.
An old man walked through the sheets of rain. Strangely, his steps seemed to tread the surface of the flowing water itself, and his gait passed between the heavy raindrops as though they were not there.
A leisurely stride like that of an immortal. The body technique that blended with nature itself spoke of a realm that had crossed the wall long ago.
At last the old man reached his destination: a great hall so massive it dominated its surroundings.
“…….”
Once he stepped inside and removed his rain cloak, the light of the oil lamps revealed the face that had been hidden. He was none other than the Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee.
“Oh my, you’ve arrived, sir!”
The one who hurried to help him hang the cloak was the duty page who had been dozing at the entrance.
“That will do. I can manage my own affairs. You rest.”
“How could I possibly, sir!”
At the old man’s usual kind words the page hastily shook his head and insisted on taking the cloak.
“While the Director was away, a number of inquiries came in.”
“They would have been about improvements to martial arts, I expect?”
“Yes, sir. Exactly so. So as usual I told them the Director was away on business and to entrust the matter to the other martial scholars.”
For some reason the page addressed the Chairman as Director. That was because he had no way of knowing the Chairman’s true identity, and because the Chairman’s public office was that of Director of the Martial Arts Academy—the place that stored, transmitted, researched, and refined every martial art of the Luoyang Sword Family.
“…And why is that pile sitting there like that?”
The Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee—and Director of the Martial Arts Academy—pointed to the heap of martial manuals stacked on one side of the elegant desk.
“Ah! Those were returned from Wongak Pavilion the day before yesterday, sir. Sorting them again has taken quite some time, so the scholars haven’t finished yet.”
At those words the old man recalled the face of Yeon So-hyeon, whom he had met as the Dark Heaven Venerable, and gave a bitter smile.
“…I see.”
So that Yeon So-hyeon had once again carted off a mountain of secret manuals and then returned them all in a heap. In that moment the source of all the rare secret arts that had been lying around Wongak Pavilion—Yeon So-hyeon’s residence—became clear.
“The staff are properly observing the rules concerning Wongak Pavilion, I trust?”
“Yes, of course, sir!”
The page nodded vigorously.
“Wongak Pavilion may take any manual it wishes, and no one is to speak of it!”
The old man stroked the page’s head and asked,
“And the other rule?”
The page smiled as though the touch pleased him.
“Any additional documents that arrive from Wongak Pavilion are to be stored in the Director’s study so that no one else may see their contents!”
He added,
“Heheh. The documents that came in this time I carried to the study myself and secured them carefully.”
“Well done.”
Those documents were the research results of the martial arts Yeon So-hyeon had refined as a hobby from time to time during his seclusion. And that was the reason the old man knew the creator of Flash Shadow Instant—whose inventor no one else could name—was Yeon So-hyeon.
“Continue exactly as you have been.”
“Yes, sir! Leave it to me!”
“Kill him! That monster—that thief of martial arts—must die here!”
The warriors charged, and charged again. They charged without end to kill the monster called the Dark Heaven Venerable.
But—
“Hahahahaha—”
As time passed the Dark Heaven Venerable’s booming laughter shook the surroundings ever more powerfully, and their swords cut only air and rainwater with ever greater futility. The sight of dozens of warriors floundering in the rain was almost comical.
There were scarcely any martial arts of the Sword Family that Yeon So-hyeon did not know. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that no art of the family had failed to pass even briefly beneath his hands and eyes.
The swords of the Sword Family were counted among the finest in the entire Central Plains. Yet before Yeon So-hyeon they were the most pitiful and powerless blades of all.
“Khuh—!”
Stamina and internal energy hit bottom. Uncontrolled, ragged breaths left the warriors’ mouths as white vapor.
“Is this the full measure of you?”
A warrior who had been trying to slip quietly out of the endlessly spinning formation locked eyes with the Dark Heaven Venerable’s ghostly flames.
“……!”
Looking into that gaze, the Dark Heaven Venerable’s lips twisted.
These men lacked pride. They lacked the will to overcome fear. They were filled only with the greed to cut down the necks of the poor and claim merit. They were nothing like the warriors he had been forced to kill at the entrance of Geomga Jeonjang—the ones the Second Young Master had planted.
“If this is truly all you have…”
A black nail lightly flicked the neck of the warrior who had tried to flee. It looked like the barest touch—yet the man’s head separated from his body and blood fountained upward.
“Then all of you die.”
One head leapt into the air for each of the Dark Heaven Venerable’s nails. There was no mercy in those hands. Headless bodies began to collapse to the ground, pouring blood.
“Parasites that gnaw at the Sword Family.”
The moment the Dark Heaven Venerable began in earnest to kill, the battle turned. The warriors poured every last scrap of strength into the finest arts they knew—but those broken swords, the swords of men who had failed to recognize the true master of the Sword Family and dared to attack him, fell from every hand to roll among the corpses.
“Gyaaaah—!”
Another death cry was swallowed by the thunder. Yet far more died without even leaving a final scream.
“Those who hold power always slip away so easily…”
The Dark Heaven Venerable’s killing intent was like that of a malevolent rakshasa, and the way he unfolded his martial might was like that of a divine general.
“…and only those who became their running dogs are discarded this lightly.”
The sword formation had long since collapsed. The corpses of dying warriors began to pile up.
“But do not feel wronged. It is only a matter of timing…”
In his vision, far down the street, he saw the man responsible for the right wing—the hall master of the True White Martial Hall—fleeing.
“…those who gnaw at the Sword Family, whether late or soon—”
The man who had even abandoned his sword and was fleeing with pure body technique suddenly leapt in place. The Dark Heaven Venerable’s icy breath had touched the back of his neck.
“—all of them—”
Like a beast the Dark Heaven Venerable lunged on all fours, seized the man’s head in his jaws, and whipped his neck, spinning the body once through the air. Head and trunk tore cleanly apart.
He spat the head out, ghostly flames trailing from his eyes, and spoke as though delivering a decree.
“—will follow in your footsteps.”