Extraction Operation
"That's right."
The air around Baek Cheong—disciple of the former Wudang Sect Leader, the master known as the Steel Dragon Fang—shimmered and warped as if the very space around him were buckling.
"I am Baek Cheong."
His eyes burned like twin fireballs. His robes billowed against the wind. It was fighting spirit made tangible—qi so dense it was visible to the naked eye.
"Incredible…!"
Yeon Seo-rin admired that aura without the slightest pretense.
"They said that if he ever entered the lists, there was a genius swordsman on Mount Wudang who would turn the entire Yongbong-jihoe on its head…!"
The Mount Hua Sword Dragon and the Full-Bloom Sword Phoenix were masters already well into their prime. But Baek Cheong was a master still in his twenties—the same age as her. That blazing, indiscriminate combativeness, that arrogance that refused to flinch before anyone standing in his way—those were the privileges of young martial geniuses.
"I raced north in a single breath just to see the Eldest Young Master of the Sword Clan," Baek Cheong said, his expression hardening. For all of Yeon Seo-rin's praise, there was not the faintest trace of excitement in him. "Never imagined I'd find myself facing the Sword Clan's own Cheonui Mubong here instead…."
And he had every reason. What held his gaze now was none other than Mount Hua's famous Sword Dragon.
"…Ghk."
A crushing defeat. Gam Woo-hyeon lay half-buried in the muddy water, thrashing without consciousness, bloody foam bubbling from a face that looked utterly shattered.
To reduce the Mount Hua Sword Dragon to that in so short a time…
Of course, Baek Cheong himself never once thought he would lose to the Mount Hua Sword Dragon. But could I finish him as cleanly as Cheonui Mubong did…?
Yeon Seo-rin bore wounds here and there, but every one of them was slight.
"What?" she said, looking up from the bottom of the crater with a crooked smile. "Getting cold feet?"
"Hardly."
It was no bluff. Confronted with a true strong enemy, the Steel Dragon Fang's fighting spirit surged even higher—frighteningly so.
"Haha. Good." Yeon Seo-rin smacked her fist into her palm as if loosening up, then laughed with pure, open pleasure. "Will you give me a chance to recover my sword?"
Her blade, along with the Mount Hua Sword Dragon's, was still lodged in the underground ceiling.
"Forgive me." Baek Cheong offered a bitter smile at her request. "I'd like nothing better than to grant it—but time and place being what they are…."
"Whatever. Doesn't matter." Yeon Seo-rin didn't care in the least. "Except."
In the underground dark, her smile vanished.
"Mount Hua has already disappointed me plenty."
The raindrops falling around them seemed to hang still for an instant under the sheer force of the tension she radiated.
"Wudang will not disappoint me…!"
That force alone felt like an explosion going off in the depths of the crater.
"……!"
"……!"
Those of lower cultivation blenched and recoiled on pure reflex.
"…You as well." The Steel Dragon Fang, by contrast, sank into a lower stance. It was not to bleed off her pressure. "Show me the true measure of the skill that broke the Mount Hua Sword Dragon."
It was the stance for drawing steel.
"…Huuuup."
With a deep inhalation, his lead foot pressed down heavily into the floor. The solid stone rooftop sank like wet clay. It was a posture that promised, the moment she came surging up, he would split her in two with a single stroke. He stood on the roof; she stood underground. He had no intention of surrendering the positional advantage.
"I see. So that's how you'll play it?" Yeon Seo-rin planted her feet wide, twisted her whole body, and drew her fist back. "Then I'm coming…!"
At her words, the Steel Dragon Fang—who had reflexively driven his concentration to the absolute limit—felt something off by pure instinct. Why announce the attack out loud—?
His eyes found the Mount Hua Sword Dragon sprawled on the floor. Don't tell me—?!
"Hryaaaaaaaaah—!"
A battle cry so fierce the building shuddered and stone dust rained down. KWAANG! A stomp powerful enough to sink the basement floor by a full chi. And then—the same overwhelming flexibility and raw strength the Mount Hua Sword Dragon had felt with his own body—her frame compressed to its limit and began to release.
Yeon Seo-rin…!
At the same instant, the Steel Dragon Fang moved as well. I will not let you do as you please…!
A flash—!
Wudang Sect. Taecheong Sword Method. First Origin: Flash Sleet Form.
It looked exactly like a sheaf of white-hot lightning bolts pouring down, too bright to look at.
Kwaduk! Kwadudududuk!
Sword-light rode the fractured cross-sections of the collapsing building like a coiling dragon and drove downward. Those blades did not aim at Yeon Seo-rin herself; they skimmed past her side. It didn't matter. From the start, his purpose had been to stop her from finishing the Mount Hua Sword Dragon. His sword-light successfully cut the space between Yeon Seo-rin and Gam Woo-hyeon.
And yet—
"……?!"
Yeon Seo-rin had never moved from the spot where she had first planted her stomp. What? What is she after?
If this had been a ploy to force the Steel Dragon Fang into intervening for the Mount Hua Sword Dragon and then exploit the opening, she should already have been charging him. The hidden contingency Baek Cheong had prepared just in case proved utterly pointless.
"Hap!"
What she struck was nothing more than the floor—her fist slamming down out of nowhere.
Kung!
For the time she had invested in that single blow, the sound was absurdly small and the force almost laughably insufficient. But before the bewilderment in every watching eye could fully form—
Wajijik! Ujijijijik!
The entire building groaned and began to collapse.
"G-get clear…!"
"The building's coming down!"
The Wudang martial artists vaulted through the air as if treading clouds and fled to the neighboring rooftop.
"No…!"
"We have to save Master…!"
The Mount Hua disciples cried out in fear for the Sword Dragon below, but the Steel Dragon Fang seized them by the shoulders and hurled them clear of the crumbling roof.
"Don't worry! The Mount Hua Sword Dragon is unharmed!"
"…What do you mean?!"
The absolute certainty in the Steel Dragon Fang's voice made it hard for the Mount Hua disciples to accept. But there was no choice. Kururururung! The building was already coming down in earnest, and there was nothing left they could do.
"……."
"……."
All the Mount Hua disciples could do was watch from the opposite rooftop, faces tight with anxiety.
Paat—!
Then, punching through a colossal cloud of dust, a figure in black martial robes appeared.
"Cough…!"
Slung over the old man's shoulder was the Mount Hua Sword Dragon, Gam Woo-hyeon.
"As expected." Confirming the old man's face and Gam Woo-hyeon's condition, Baek Cheong waved. "This way, Senior Brother!"
The old man gave a short nod, then—without so much as a foothold—spun in midair and shot upward like a swallow.
"……!"
"……!"
The Mount Hua disciples' eyes went round at that uncanny movement art. The old man turned a full circle in the air and landed lightly on the rooftop. It was the Wudang Sect's signature movement technique, the Je-unjong, cultivated to its absolute peak.
"Take him."
"Th-thank you!"
The Mount Hua disciples hurriedly received Gam Woo-hyeon from the old man.
"B-but who is this…?" A Taoist who hadn't been traveling with them, suddenly appearing from below?
"This is my senior brother—Elder Baek Cho Jin-in of the Wudang Sect."
The old man was none other than Baek Cho Jin-in, the ultimate commander of the Wudang vanguard.
"…Hyeonhyeon-ja!" The Mount Hua disciples immediately moved to offer formal courtesy.
"Enough." Baek Cho Jin-in waved them off. "Check the Mount Hua Sword Dragon's condition and keep watch on the surroundings."
Once the Mount Hua disciples had withdrawn, the Steel Dragon Fang asked in a low voice, "Senior Brother. What of Cheonui Mubong…?"
"Already gone." Baek Cho Jin-in shook his head. "She seemed to have sensed me even though I had killed my presence and was lying in wait."
"Tch…!" The Steel Dragon Fang clicked his tongue. "Something felt wrong the moment she suddenly struck the floor and brought the building down."
From the beginning, Wudang's plan had never been a frontal contest. Their purpose had been to eliminate Cheonui Mubong Yeon Seo-rin—a serious threat to the iron-withdrawal campaign—by ambush, right here. And Yeon Seo-rin had seen through it, collapsed the building, and escaped.
"How in the world did Cheonui Mubong know you were there, Senior Brother…?"
That was the strangest part. Baek Cho Jin-in was a master of every Wudang art, and his skill in concealment and assassination ranked among the very highest. Until he revealed himself, even Baek Cheong had been unable to pinpoint his position.
"…I don't know." Baek Cho Jin-in stroked his rain-soaked beard. "And that girl underground suddenly talking about how the tide of battle had shifted, how the color of the air had changed…." His eyes deepened until they truly suited the epithet Hyeonhyeon-ja. "They say the world is full of strange and gifted people, thick as grains of sand. It seems this Cheonui Mubong child was also born with some special talent."
Those deep eyes narrowed with killing intent. "If we'd cut her down here, the gain would have been considerable…."
It was a murderous aura no proper Taoist should ever wear.
"Um…." A first-generation Mount Hua disciple approached to report. "Senior Brother's emergency treatment is complete. However…." He added carefully, "If the escape process subjects him to a continuous series of severe shocks afterward, whether he'll be all right—"
"That child has also broken through the wall." Baek Cho Jin-in cut him off flatly. "His life is not in danger."
His life might not be in danger—but other things could still go very wrong. The Mount Hua disciple who had received Wudang's aid, however, had nothing else he could say.
"…Yes. Understood."
With a cold expression, Baek Cho Jin-in turned and ordered the Steel Dragon Fang, "Release our disciples and send them ahead."
In the old man's deep eyes, far off through the dark, lay the landscape of Shenyang's streets that they would have to cut through. Every quarter of the city was a chaotic tangle of clashing forces—a living hell.
"…It will be a harsh road."
Rain and wind lashed his face.
At that same hour—
The Eldest Young Master's temporary command tent.
"The forces of the Neutral Tribal Alliance have suddenly pushed in…?"
"Yes, my lord." Se-a, Master of the Hyeonwol Pavilion, asked again. "Together with the Wudang vanguard, they have begun charging through the suddenly breached section of the wall."
A messenger who had just arrived from the front tapped several points on the tactical map with wet fingers. "Here, here, and here—our forces had no choice but to fall back."
The Hyeonwol Pavilion Master's expression hardened. "Then you're saying our interdiction lines have effectively collapsed?"
The messenger answered with a grim face. "From the inside, the surviving martial artists of the Mount Hua vanguard are responding with desperate resolve, and the remnants of the rebel army are also throwing themselves into the fray as if they mean to die."
"……."
Under those conditions, the idea that Yeon So-hyeon's side—composed mostly of government troops—could stop a frontal charge by the Wudang vanguard and the Neutral Tribal Alliance was pure nonsense.
"…How on earth did Wudang and the Neutral Tribal Alliance, who were at each other's throats, suddenly—?"
"That part is interesting, true."
The hand that settled on her shoulder as she murmured belonged to the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon.
"What we need to care about right now is the battle situation here in Shenyang."
To her, his words sounded like a warning that the true cause of the enemy's sudden assault lay not in Shenyang, but somewhere much farther away.
"Relay this to Moyong Ho, who is commanding the government troops."
"Your orders…!"
The Eldest Young Master spoke to the messenger in a calm, utterly unshaken tone. "There is no need to force troops in and overextend yourselves just to rebuild the interdiction lines." He issued the order with perfect clarity. "From the beginning until now, our objective has never changed."
A smile touched the corner of the Eldest Young Master's mouth. "Our objective is to inflict maximum damage on the retreating enemy."
The smile deepened. "Wudang and the Neutral Tribal Alliance have driven a wedge in, you say?" He shook his head, still smiling. "It doesn't matter."
His voice dropped until it was chillingly low. "It only means more volunteers have arrived to experience the iron-withdrawal campaign from hell."