The Price of a Wish

Gulp—

The star essence within him blazed with so brilliant a light that, without meaning to, Wi Su drained in a single swallow the Yojaseolgok he had been rationing sip by sip.

"Mmm—"

The fragrance of the Yojaseolgok sliding down his throat drew an involuntary hum from him. Reaching for the wine to offset his tangled feelings had been an excellent choice. But he knew, too, that a soothed heart did nothing to change the flow of celestial secrets.

"This is not good."

A star he had never known existed—no, a star that had most certainly not existed—now swelled as large as the stars of the Five Great Divine Demons. If anything, its light might by now burn more brilliantly than any of the Five. That was why, even having turned the misfortune of the Yin Blood into a blessing, Wi Su's mood would not lift.

His lament lasted only a moment.

"Pour me a cup as well."

Seol Cheon-sang, the Heavenly Demon, who had not been there a heartbeat before, was suddenly seated across from him.

"You have come."

Wi Su accepted the marvel as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world. For as long as he had chosen to gaze upon the same places as the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang, the road the man walked had never been an ordinary one to begin with.

Swish—

Seol Cheon-sang did not return the greeting; he simply held out his cup. Wi Su set down the Yojaseolgok he had been holding.

"I refuse."

"Why?"

"It is too precious."

"Did I not give it to you?"

"Which is precisely why it is mine."

At that answer, Seol Cheon-sang let out a soft chuckle—a rare and precious sight indeed.

"I shall pay its price, so grant me a cup."

"And what will you pay with?"

"I shall grant you a wish."

Their exchange flowed without a hitch, as though scripted in advance. In any case, at the Heavenly Demon's words the crease between Wi Su's brows smoothed away. The god had bestowed a whole bottle upon him, and now a single cup would buy him a granted wish besides—a bargain that could only profit him.

"Any wish at all?"

"Any I am able to grant."

Glug-glug—

Wi Su nodded and poured the Yojaseolgok for Seol Cheon-sang.

Gulp.

Unlike Wi Su, who had merely wet his lips, Seol Cheon-sang swallowed the wine in one clean draught.

"Good."

With that brief verdict, the Heavenly Demon's gaze came to rest on Wi Su.

"What is your wish?"

Wi Su answered without hesitation.

"Erase my star essence."

"Hahahaha."

At the audacity of the request, the Heavenly Demon laughed aloud, and Wi Su smiled back at his lord in kind. This was Seol Cheon-sang. He was the Heavenly Demon. The sovereign of ten thousand demons. Wi Su's god. And because of it, Wi Su could tell: the Heavenly Demon had known his wish long before he ever spoke it.

The answer that came after the laughter was...

A flat, absolute refusal.

"Is erasing the star essence impossible?"

"It would not be impossible."

"Is it very difficult?"

"Come to think of it, not so very difficult."

At the Heavenly Demon's answer, Wi Su quietly nodded. For anything to be difficult for Seol Cheon-sang was, in truth, nearly beyond imagination.

"Then erase it. You have already had your cup of wine, have you not?"

"Impossible."

At that resolute voice, Wi Su smiled ruefully and pressed on.

"May I know the reason?"

At the question, the Heavenly Demon's gaze moved, sweeping over Wi Su's body.

"For now, you cannot shake it loose."

Then the gaze wandered off through the empty air.

"And there are many eyes you cannot escape."

Wi Su gave a quiet nod.

"So it is as I suspected."

The Heavenly Demon, too, only gave a quiet nod.

In truth, Wi Su did not clearly understand. He did not know precisely what could not be shaken loose, or whose eyes could not be escaped. Nor could he reconcile a man who called the task not difficult with a man who called it impossible—had he said simply that he was unwilling, Wi Su would have grasped it at once. Wi Su read celestial secrets, yet the world the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang beheld remained unknown territory even to him.

But he did not press with further questions. There was no need to know it precisely. Seol Cheon-sang's words were always right; it was enough to believe and to follow.

In any case, the conclusion was reached: the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang would not be granting Wi Su's wish. For he knew that the sovereign of ten thousand demons never spoke empty words. They said the words of Seol Cheon-sang, who had crossed into the very threshold of demigodhood, carried law within them—and there was no mistake in that.

Either way, it was more correct to think not that Seol Cheon-sang had refused him, but that Wi Su had asked for a wish the man could not grant. The condition ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of a single cup of Yojaseolgok had been "a wish I am able to grant," after all.

Only Wi Su was left the poorer for it. He had thought the trade could not lose; it seemed he had been wrong.

But it did not matter. He still had moves left to play.

"I will make use of Eunyeong."

"That is your charge."

Eunyeong. The hands and feet wielded directly by Wi Su, the Demonic Divine Conduit. Hard to call a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠purely martial organization, yet a hidden blade of the Heavenly Demon Cult that would not be found lacking even against the Five Great Demonic Clans.

"What say you?"

Like a supplicant awaiting a shaman's oracle, Wi Su asked with care.

"It will serve."

"I see."

Wi Su knew. He knew the Heavenly Demon had not answered good. But he would act all the same.

"Best to conjure a variable by any means necessary."

With schemes of his own making, Wi Su set about bending the grand design that aped the flow of celestial secrets. He was a thief of heaven's secrets, yes—but that had never meant he placed no faith in the strength of men.

"It has been some time since I last came here as well."

After descending from the Demon Sky Tower, the place Wi Su's steps had carried him was a nameless mountain—one of the deepest reaches of the Tianshan range. The sun had long since set and the night was late, yet he had turned back the steps that had been carrying him home, all to practice the ancient sages' counsel of striking while the iron was hot.

The Tianshan range was vast. Not merely vast—rugged and towering besides, for the harsh mountains held many regions where human life was simply impossible. It was most accurate, then, to call the Tianshan the Cult's domain. The places where the cultists lived—the main altar of the Heavenly Demon Cult, the residences of the Five Great Demonic Clans—were all basins scattered through the rugged range, flat and rich with converging water, the only places where people could survive. Ringed by soaring peaks, the basins also kept their locations well hidden. There could have been no better ground for the Heavenly Demon Cult to root itself in.

Basin or not, the land was barren and poor all the same—yet the difference between barely livable and utterly unlivable was a great one indeed. If Wi Su's guess was right, the lands where the cultists roamed amounted to no more than a sliver of the Tianshan.

Tat!

With a light shift of his body, Wi Su unfolded his lightfoot art. Even in daylight the place was dangerous, yet the steps of a man crossing it in the dead of night knew no hesitation.

Tat!

Where Wi Su now walked was indeed within the Cult's domain, but it was wild mountain untouched by any development—a place without so much as a trace of human presence. The slopes were so sheer that nothing short of winged beasts could reach them; there was no human path here, nor even a trail for wild beasts.

Tat!

As though following some fixed marker, Wi Su spread his swift, elusive lightfoot art and pressed far onward. When at last his running steps came to rest, a thatched hut soaked in moonlight stood before him. Set in the heart of the wilderness, it blended into its surroundings as though its pillars were the thick trunks of trees.

"Ahem."

The moment Wi Su cleared his throat and approached the hut's door—

"What business have you here?"

A voice came from behind him. Wi Su turned by reflex, and there stood a man. Judging by where the man stood and how he was dressed, he had been following Wi Su the entire way. It meant that a martial artist of Wi Su's caliber had been tailed without ever sensing it. No doubt the man had erased his presence perfectly and matched Wi Su's stride for stride. Had he not spoken of his own accord, Wi Su might never have noticed him at all. It was right to call it a concealment art perfected to its utmost extreme.

"It has been a while."

Wi Su, now aware of the man, offered a greeting; the man only dipped his head in silence. Though Wi Su watched the movement with his own eyes, he felt no presence whatsoever. That air resembled the dead more than the living.

In any case... the man's presence resembled the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang's, and yet was quite different from it.

"Still as disagreeable as ever."

Especially in how it made its observer uneasy.

"I was born this way."

The man replied. His voice held no rise or fall at all, and so no trace of emotion could be read in it. Perhaps that was why the man's concealment art felt uniquely unpleasant.

But it was fine. Or rather—it had to be fine. The man before him possessed singular ability even among Eunyeong, the hands and feet Wi Su could command. A chief strategist of the Heavenly Demon Cult could not go discarding a prized piece on the board merely because it felt a little off-putting.

"I have come to make use of Eunyeong."

At Wi Su's words, the man nodded and moved past his side.

Creak—

Unlike the man, who made neither presence nor sound, the hut's door opened with a rough scrape.

"Enter."

"I will."

Wi Su followed the man inside. Despite its cramped exterior, the hut held a tidy, spacious interior. Tidy, in this case, meant that no one could be seen—and yet Wi Su could feel covert gazes fixed upon him from every quarter.

"Show yourselves."

Rustle—

The instant the order left his lips, three figures appeared at the center of the hut ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and prostrated themselves before Wi Su. The man who had entered with them knelt as well. There was no reverence in his bow, but Wi Su paid it no mind; he knew that at times form must come before essence.

"It has been a while, all of you."

Wi Su was the head of Eunyeong, the intelligence corps of the Heavenly Demon Cult. They followed the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang and him alone—yet that very Heavenly Demon had himself ordered them to take Wi Su's commands, so Wi Su was indeed their head.

"We greet our lord."

The Demonic Path prized hierarchy under the principle of revering the strong, and Eunyeong could be no exception to that law. Nor did strength refer to martial might alone; Wi Su was strong in his own right, for the Heavenly Demon's favor was his power. That was why the members of Eunyeong bowed so readily.

"Give us your command."

That same toneless voice, devoid of rise and fall, asked after its task. For a moment, Wi Su recalled the exchange he had shared with the Heavenly Demon Seol Cheon-sang.

His thoughts settled, Wi Su asked.

"How do matters stand with Haomun?"

The question omitted every scrap of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠context, but the man produced his answer without difficulty.

"We have made contact with Geom Bigak, the leading candidate."

"Contact?"

"We have not brainwashed him, but it would not be wrong to call him under our control."

"You have done well."

Contact with Haomun. It was one of the covert schemes Wi Su had nurtured and prepared over long hours—a design to shut Sadomeng out of the Great War of Righteousness and Evil. It was also why he had not been greatly dismayed when the plan to detonate the Ten-Thousand-Year Supreme Blood Treasure slumbering in the depths of Yeomhwabang and plunge Zhejiang Province—one of Sadomeng's principal sources of revenue—into chaos had ended in failure. Haomun was the eyes and ears of Sadomeng; to seize it from the shadows alone would be enough to throw Sadomeng into great disarray. A plan, properly made, is woven double and triple like this.

"Did the proud Geom Bigak come over so readily?"

"The stiff-necked one bowed his head and came to us first. By my read, he can no longer bear the Matriarch of Hwawollu's rise."

The target of recruitment had been Geom Bigak of Haomun—because he was the most likely candidate to become the next Sect Master, and, at the same time, because he was the one who most resembled the Demonic Path. The inflexible beggars, and the Matriarch of Hwawollu with her nobility unbefitting the Sadomeng, did not mesh with the Demonic Path's grain. Such types were difficult to recruit short of outright force, so leaving them untouched was the right call under present circumstances. And now that contact had finally succeeded, Wi Su's choice of Geom Bigak had proven sound. With the man recruited, they could reap the harvest without lifting a finger—a satisfying outcome by any measure.

"We shall have to shut the Matriarch of Hwawollu out."

"Yes."

At Wi Su's words, the man did not ask why. Questioning nothing of his master's will, he was the very model of a reliable tool.

"Kill her?"

"No."

But only a master who teaches his tools the proper path may be called a true master.

"Lend Geom Bigak strength and nothing more. And at no point in the process may the Cult's existence come to light."

It was not yet time for the Cult to set itself in motion. Were they to bare their demonic colors rashly, the colossus called Paeryeok Muje would likewise come to stand at the Demonic Path's far opposite—and that would mean more loss than gain, hardly a masterful scheme.

"I will not explain the method. You will manage it well enough on your own."

Not the slightest change crossed the man's expression from the beginning of Wi Su's words to their end.

"Can it be done?"

"If it is ordered, it will be done."

True. Ordered, they accomplished anything. That was Eunyeong.

"Then I shall entrust it to you with full confidence."

"Yes."

"Carry on."

Leaving a satisfied smile behind him, Wi Su stepped out of the hut. Such was the depth of the impression the man left that his afterimage would not depart from Wi Su's mind.

The man's name was Ma Pyeong-sam. As one could deduce from his family name, he was a martial artist of the Biyeong Ma Clan, one of the five great houses of the Demonic Path. True to the name Biyeong—Flying Shadow—he was a killer by natural gift besides. That he had never risen to the seat of Biyeong Sinma was due not to any deficiency in his own attainment but to matters political—and so he would never fail to meet Wi Su's expectations.