The Young Genius
Outskirts of Shenyang.
A rocky cliff overlooking the city.
"Report from the observation unit regarding the fire."
A martial artist in black martial robes and light armor—Baek Cheong—sat leaning against the rock, sipping tea, and let out a short snort of laughter.
"Another fire report? I told you not to bother me with petty blazes."
Smoke drifting all the way out from the city had already smothered any trace of the tea fragrance from the leaves cultivated on Wudang Mountain itself.
"You should see this one for yourself. The smoke is considerable this time."
The martial artist dumped the remaining tea onto the ground and rose to his feet.
"Haa…"
He let out a heavy sigh.
"It had better be nothing."
"If you go look and it turns out to be nothing after all, you'll walk the entire way back without a horse."
"You're the one who said it first. Don't try to take it back later."
Before the sound transmission had even finished, his body seemed to vanish from where he stood.
Taat! Ta-taat!
Movements as if he possessed no weight at all.
"Hup…!"
His form sprang across the great rocks like a cloud drifting idly over a mountain range.
Cloud-Ladder Steps — the essence of the Wudang Sect's divine arts, executed with dazzling mastery.
"Right! Let's see what kind of smoke has you all so worked up that—"
Baek Cheong's voice trailed off of its own accord, as if someone had gently laid a hand over it.
Fwoooosh—!
In the very heart of Shenyang, a colossal pillar of flame and smoke was surging skyward.
From the position of the Wudang Vanguard camped outside the city, they could not have known.
That smoke had begun in the Moyong Family rebels' underground stronghold.
"…Oh, for fuck's sake."
Is the Moyong Family trying to burn the city with their own hands…? Or is it the Mount Hua Vanguard…?
Baek Cheong's face hardened as he spoke.
"I'll report this one to the Elder myself."
"Cough, cough…!"
Black smoke packed the low ceilings of the underground stronghold, growing denser no matter which corridor they entered.
"Vice Leader!"
"Can you secure an escape route that way?!"
"This side is finished! There are too many enemies!"
The oil lamps hanging from the ceiling, which had dimly lit the corridors, had already lost their light within the black smoke.
Given the nature of an underground space, the Moyong Family had poured every possible resource into ventilation—but against a fire of this scale, it was useless.
"Enemies on all sides!"
"These rebel bastards are charging like madmen!"
"Support! We need support…!"
The disciples of the Mount Hua Vanguard who had somehow survived crawled and clawed their way back into formation.
Centered on Vanguard Leader Gam Woo-hyeon and Vice Leader Mae Ok, they fought desperately to punch through an escape route.
"They've got me! Help!"
"Please…! There's too much smo—!"
They were fighting with everything they had simply to stay alive.
How did it come to this?
Vice Leader Mae Ok stood in a corridor where, without inner power, she could not see even an inch ahead.
We came all the way to the North to earn merit on the battlefield…
Even in the Mount Hua leadership council, the most critical elders had agreed that armed intervention in the North was worth attempting.
"The Northern Grand General's Office has lost its strength."
"This is already a fight the Duke of Merit has won."
"Our Mount Hua will topple the existing power, the Moyong Family, and carve up their place among ourselves."
"It will be an achievement that proves to all of Zhongyuan that Mount Hua still stands strong…"
"And it will be the springboard for our great Mount Hua Sect to leap once more to the rank of the foremost sect."
Mae Ok.
Her own heart had swelled with grand dreams and ambition.
No—she had been starving for it.
Fully Blooming Sword Phoenix.
How elated she had been more than a decade ago when she earned that beautiful epithet at the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering.
How many congratulations she had received as a newborn genius.
But what awaited her was nothing more than the desolate plains and mountain ranges of the frontier even within Shaanxi—lands no one in Zhongyuan paid any mind to.
Bandit packs that thrived no matter how many she cut down.
Peasant uprisings that rose again no matter how many she crushed.
Even the madmen steeped in the crooked paths of the unorthodox schools, the demonic heads who practiced grotesque and deviant arts.
There was nothing there of the murim she had vaguely imagined and longed for as a child.
No glittering renown.
No dazzling glory.
No beautiful life in a great city where every gesture drew eyes.
No chance to burnish Mount Hua's name and honor.
"Vice Leader…"
What dragged Mae Ok back to reality was the disciple who had crawled over and seized her.
"C-can't… breathe…. Please. S-save me…"
The disciple choking on smoke clung desperately to her legs.
"Two critically wounded! Two critically wounded!"
"The enemy keeps pouring in!"
Strength drained from the hand that held Mae Ok's sword.
To die like this… in this underground tomb… like this…?
No.
That could not be allowed.
"Vice Leader…"
She had to live.
She had to survive.
She had to live and claim her glory.
"Master…!"
Even at the voice calling for its master, she never looked back until the end.
When she came to herself, the disciples were gone.
Senior Brother Gam Woo-hyeon's presence was gone as well.
She had already been separated from the main force.
…It doesn't matter.
Disciples who could not help were nothing more than a massive burden now.
Foolish Gam Woo-hyeon would never abandon the disciples to the end—and that choice would make it hard for him to survive.
Stupid Senior Brother.
They had already failed.
Maintaining the vanguard any longer was meaningless.
She would not sink into that swamp with them.
Even if I have to abandon them all…!
"There! Mount Hua!"
With a roar, rebels who looked anything but healthy by even the most charitable standard came flooding out.
"Kill her!"
Like fanatics who had already thrown their lives away, they charged at her.
"For the Moyong Family's new era…!"
"Offer up your lives…!"
She raised her sword.
"Hup…!"
With a low shout of focus, violet lightning flashed in her eyes.
I alone will survive somehow!
Sparks leapt from her clenched teeth.
I must…!
"Entry into Shenyang is forbidden."
Baek Cho Jin-in, Elder of the Wudang Sect and final authority over the vanguard, was absolute.
"But Elder…!"
Baek Cheong—Steel Dragon Fang, representative of Wudang's younger martial artists—tried once more to persuade him.
"Nothing is gained without risking danger. If we enter even now, we can rescue survivors from the Mount Hua Vanguard and earn their gratitude. And also—"
"—And also?"
Baek Cho Jin-in cut him off.
"An opportunity to earn merit and make your name known throughout the world, is that it?"
"……"
Baek Cho Jin-in was hardly ignorant of the competitive spirit and hunger for glory that had made this young martial artist run wild as if Wudang Mountain itself were too small for him.
"If the Mount Hua Vanguard has already escaped Shenyang under their own power, that would be one thing. Otherwise…"
Baek Cho Jin-in raised a hand and pointed toward Shenyang as he continued.
"That place is a tiger's maw."
"Senior Brother!"
Baek Cheong exploded with frustration.
"I'll fillet any tiger with this sword of mine!"
Disciple of the previous Sect Leader.
This young genius of Wudang—a master high enough in seniority to call an Elder "Senior Brother"—had more than enough right to speak those words.
"Junior Brother."
Baek Cho Jin-in turned and regarded his junior brother, still only in his twenties, and asked in a low voice:
"Is this because of the rumors about the Eldest Young Master of the Sword House?"
"……"
Yeon So-hyeon, Eldest Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House.
When the first rumors of a youth not yet twenty reached even Wudang, Steel Dragon Fang Baek Cheong had paid them no mind.
Emperor of No Sword, was it?
Even as the politically shrewd elders began speaking the Eldest Young Master's name with increasing frequency, Baek Cheong ignored it.
Well. If you lack talent in the martial path, you at least need a sharp mind to survive in this harsh world.
But then—
"Have you heard the news?!"
"I have! Fresh intelligence says the Sword House's Eldest Young Master has already crossed the boundary!"
"So the rumor was true…!"
He could ignore it no longer.
No—far from ignoring it, his mind could hold nothing but thoughts of that Eldest Young Master.
"They say he split the entire Elder Council Hall of that vast Sword House with a single stroke."
"Haa…! As expected of the son of the Greatest Sword Under Heaven? Insane."
He had joined the Wudang Vanguard faster than anyone else.
There was no need to wait for the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering.
It was a chance to catch that Eldest Young Master of the Sword House.
"…I fully understand how you feel, Junior Brother."
Baek Cho Jin-in spoke in a weighty voice.
"But moving an army must be as heavy as Mount Tai."
He pointed again toward Shenyang.
The soaring black smoke was swelling ever larger, as if it meant to blot out the night sky.
"You want me to throw our disciples at once into a place from which even Mount Hua's Sword Dragon and Fully Blooming Sword Phoenix have yet to emerge?"
"……"
Baek Cheong could not bring himself to answer yes. Baek Cho Jin-in turned away from him.
"Trust Sama Dae-gunsa."
Hands clasped behind his back, he gazed up at the pitch-black sky.
"If it is him, he will certainly—"
Then the wrinkled corners of his eyes twitched.
"That is…!"
Baek Cheong's eyes also clearly caught the form of a pure white hawk.
"The Grand Military Advisor's messenger hawk…?"
"Huu…. Huu…."
Through the hellish underground flames and rebels who were little better than madmen, Fully Blooming Sword Phoenix Mae Ok managed to climb back to the surface.
"Huu…. Huu…."
Even with black muzzles trained on her, she did not hurry.
After taking a long, controlled breath, she opened her mouth.
"I was wondering how I would handle the aftermath if I escaped alone after losing the entire vanguard…"
Using the gunmen as her backdrop, she looked at the figure standing before them and smiled.
"How fortunate."
It was not composure.
Her survival instinct was screaming warnings stronger than anything she had ever felt.
"Did the host find it too regrettable to send a guest away empty-handed?"
Her eyes sharpened as she spoke the identity of the man before her.
"Eldest Young Master of the Sword House."
Eldest Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House.
The one who had sealed the Mount Hua Vanguard in that hellish place so they would destroy one another with the rebels.
"Oh…?"
Yeon So-hyeon shrugged, hands still clasped behind his back.
"You recognize me before I've even introduced myself. Impressive."
He gave a short laugh.
"Have I become famous enough now that every major sect has already secured a portrait description of me?"
"Famous?"
Mae Ok let out a hollow laugh at that.
"It is rather amusing to hear such words from the man whose name is spoken more than any other across all of Zhongyuan at present."
"Is that so?"
"It is."
While they exchanged words, she had fully steadied her breathing. She slowly raised her sword.
"Then…"
With her concentration honed to the absolute limit, even the fingers of the gunmen resting on their triggers stood out with crystalline clarity.
"Would the Eldest Young Master who crossed the boundary before even coming of age kindly allow me to witness that sublime martial art of yours? Or surely…"
The corner of her red lips curled upward in a light provocation.
"Having come all this way in person, you will not claim you refuse to face a weary woman, will you?"
A cheap provocation—but against a young martial artist, few tactics were more effective.
"Haha. My apologies, then."
But of course, Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon was no mere young martial artist.
"I came here today solely as an observer."
He extended a hand.
Stepping forward from his side was—
"……"
—his chief maid in night-operation attire, Jeong-a.
"This is my chief maid. She will be your opponent."
"……?!"
The eyes of Fully Blooming Sword Phoenix Mae Ok trembled violently.
"…Are you seriously putting forward some child without even an epithet as my match?"
The rage of a Boundary Crosser rolled outward like a wave; a chill ran through the bodies of the maids whose fingers still rested on their triggers.
"Is that so? And yet…"
As if completely untouched by that aura, Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon smiled with easy leisure.
"Even legendary geniuses who leave behind historic achievements begin without an epithet."