Twisted Fate

Yeo Wol, Mistress of Hwawollu. One of the five hidden branch lords of Haomun. And in the timeline Myeong-gae had lived through, a woman of genuine power—one who had risen to the seat of next Haomun Matriarch on her strength alone.

The news Ma Sok had brought me was that this very woman had been abducted.

Right through the guard of Ma Sok, a master of the Harmony Realm.

"…Please. Save our Lady."

The desperation in Ma Sok's voice proclaimed the news to be true.

As I mentioned before, of all the powers in the realm, the one the Beggars' Gang watched most keenly was Haomun. It meant that where Haomun was concerned, not a single gesture went unscrutinized.

Of course, Haomun was no easy mark either—no organization to be stripped bare by the Beggars' Gang at will. They were not called the twin peaks of the information world for nothing: when Haomun resolved to hide something, there was scarcely a way under heaven for the Beggars' Gang to pry it out.

And so the Beggars' Gang never did manage to learn much about Haomun's five hidden branch lords. Of those five, all that was known amounted to Yeo Wol, who had seized the seat of next Matriarch, and Geom Bigak, the man once considered the likeliest for the lordship who had contested her to the very end. That was the whole of it. The Dragon Head Sect Leader Musan-gae or the elder Chwipung-gae might have known more—but for Myeong-gae, a mere three-knot beggar, this was as far as it went.

Put the other way, it also meant the Beggars' Gang held a wealth of information on Yeo Wol the Matriarch herself. Unlike Haomun's jealously concealed branch lords, the sect's lord moved extensively in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the public eye.

Given the Beggars' Gang's spotty records, I could not claim to know every step of her past—but the broad sweep of it, yes. Yeo Wol, after all, was a woman whose name was written in the Thousand Roster of Jianghu Figures. It was only natural.

And so I could be certain.

Nowhere, in any record, was there a single account of her ever being abducted.

That the Beggars' Gang might have overlooked, or failed to record, a matter of such gravity was flatly impossible.

My best guess: fate itself had been knocked askew.

Quite possibly in a direction most unfavorable to me.

Ma Sok was pleading, over and over, for me to save Yeo Wol—but there was someone who needed saving first.

The man standing before me.

"Here. Eat this."

"…And this is…?"

Not every martial artist can be an expert on elixirs, after all. So in a sense it was only natural that Ma Sok did not recognize the thing I held out as the spirit fruit called the Stability Immortal Fruit.

It was a high-grade elixir of supreme efficacy for replenishing qi and blood and mending internal injury—one of the three great elixirs gathered in the Garden of Delight, alongside Brother Chunbaek's Five-Leaf Immortal Orchid. All of it had been set aside against an emergency. And this, I judged, was that emergency.

"Trust me, and just eat it."

There was no time for a proper explanation; Ma Sok's condition was far too poor. The seething of his qi and blood looked to me like the first tremors of qi deviation.

A master of Ma Sok's caliber would not lose his life so easily, but this could yet leave grave aftereffects on his martial arts. For the record, among the supreme masters of the realm there are those who say that losing one's level of skill to the aftermath of qi deviation is a worse fate than death. I did not think a man like Ma Sok would make so extreme a choice over Yeo Wol—but better, at any rate, if the possibility never arose at all.

Crunch.

Ma Sok met my eyes for a moment—then chewed and swallowed the Stability Immortal Fruit without a flicker of hesitation.

That was how deeply he trusted me.

"Endure it."

Without delay, I brought the heart of my palm to Ma Sok's Gate of Life acupoint. Short of immediate family or a bond of master and disciple, laying hands on another's Gate of Life is counted a taboo—but such scruples had never once slowed my hands. Partly because the matter was urgent, and partly because I trusted he would forgive the presumption.

"What are you—"

"Hold still."

Energy refined through the Yakseon Heart Decision poured from my palm and traced the Gate of Life down into his dantian.

"Ngh."

I was forcing my way through his churning qi and blood, and pain flooded Ma Sok's face—but in the end, he bore it.

First the guiding of true qi, then the Pursuing Blood Path. Trusting in Ma Sok's constitution and the fruit's potency, I wrestled his rioting qi and blood roughly under control.

In truth, this was no remedy that one trained in an orthodox heart technique could ever apply to a master of the heterodox path.

Had it not been for the Yakseon Heart Decision, that is.

Hurk—

"Khhak."

With the fruit's potency joined to the Pursuing Blood Path, Ma Sok brought up a mouthful of long-stagnant, turbid blood.

Thankfully, the crisis had passed. The Stability Immortal Fruit's efficacy would still be working in him; before long he would return to his former state.

"Thank you, Young Master Myeong."

Aware now of his own condition, Ma Sok bowed to me with clasped hands. I gave him only a small nod in reply.

Yeo Wol, Mistress of Hwawollu. My benefactor, who without a moment's delay had rushed Ma Sok and Haomun's men to the Dancheon Sword Clan's hour of peril.

In other words—a friend.

That's right. Yeo Wol and Ma Sok were my friends. My heart had willed it so, and my heart does not err.

In truth, I owed her a considerable debt as well. Even so, leaving Haomun out of the Garden of Delight affair had never quite sat right with me. They would have caught the scent of it, surely—yet through the entire business of securing Hwanragwon, not so much as a shadow of Haomun had shown itself. I could not fail to read what that meant.

"Explain the situation to me. In detail."

Repaying the debt would be the right thing to do. And now, perhaps, was exactly the time for it.

"Then I will help you."

A twisted fate, it seemed, was not entirely a curse.

THWUNG—

A sound of impact, sharp and yet muffled all at once. Before the question could even form, Ma Sok's body gave out beneath him.

"Khhak!"

Only once his body had collapsed did a groan escape him, the pain having driven a spike deep into his lungs. His body had reacted faster than his mind. An ambush that came with no omen, no presence at all, was beyond even the perception of a master who had attained the Harmony Realm.

The mercy in it was that Ma Sok was not so naive as to be thrown into panic by the ambush and let everything slip away. The road he had grown up on, the road he had survived, had always been an arena of struggle.

Swiftly taking measure of his own body, Ma Sok caught the crucial fact: the blow had landed near his Gate Pass acupoint. His breathing had stopped, it seemed, partly because his lungs had seized.

Even in that desperate instant, the first thought to surface in Ma Sok's mind was—

'A fist-and-foot art? No—a palm technique?'

That was it. The instinct of a martial artist tempered over long years; nothing to be done about it.

The correct answer was: no idea. How could he classify an attack he had never even perceived? He could only give thanks that it had not been a blade.

Truthfully, the question hardly mattered. What mattered was that he had been struck without warning and suffered grievous harm, and that he was still drawing breath. That much was enough.

So the real question was whether to contain the damage and respond—or to abandon containment and, in his present state, attempt to take his enemy down with him in death.

Ma Sok's mind moved with razor speed.

'Penetrating Force.'

The point of impact was the Gate Pass acupoint near the lungs; the method, a supremely refined Penetrating Force. Exquisitely covert and utterly lethal—it was the assassin's way. His muscles and bones were comparatively whole, but the state of his insides, shaken to pieces, proved the fact.

If there was mercy, it was that no immediate follow-up strike came. Whether his foe had grown careless or was deliberately savoring the moment, he could not tell.

'Then first—contain it.'

For a master of the Harmony Realm—or, put another way, of the Three Harmonies Apex—the manipulation of true qi was said to move at the speed of thought. Having mapped the extent of the damage, Ma Sok raced his qi to seal off the meridians flowing near the Gate Pass acupoint.

Emergency treatment of the very swiftest order.

"Khh—haah—"

Whether the measures held or not, his breath mercifully returned. Fresh air flooded in and his head cleared—and only then did his thinking turn rational again. Until a moment ago he had been Ma Sok the martial artist, salvaging his body on pure instinct; now he was Ma Sok once more, Haomun's information operative and Yeo Wol's personal bodyguard.

"My, my—most impressive."

A Haomun branch lord: Geom Bigak. His rival, even now locked in contest with Yeo Wol.

At ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the sound of that bastard's oily voice, Ma Sok's mind went cold as though doused with ice water. And in the same breath, the chain of events that had brought him here flashed through his head like a revolving lantern.

Objectively speaking, Ma Sok's worry had bordered on needless fear. There were any number of safeguards in place.

Haomun's branch lords trusted in more than the law barring them from harming one another. In truth, the thing Ma Sok trusted most was himself. Geom Bigak was hailed the frontrunner because his faction was the largest—not because he was some peerless master. Under his command stood no martial artist who could stop Soul-Chasing Life-Taking Ma Sok single-handedly; if it came to it, he was confident he could gather Yeo Wol and escape. No—even if Geom Bigak staked his life to bar the way, Ma Sok was confident he could see Yeo Wol out, if no one else.

He was himself a master who had reached the very extreme of the Harmony Realm. Ma Sok's confidence was never mere conceit.

And yet—

"Who… what are you people?"

Who were they?

Ma Sok had no way of knowing. Among all the beings capable of ambushing a Harmony Realm master from beyond his perception, no such figures existed anywhere in his web of information.

"Can we not simply kill this one?"

The one who had reduced Ma Sok to helplessness ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠paid him no further mind. The attacker's gaze was fixed not on Ma Sok, but on Geom Bigak.

A chill crawled over him.

A voice utterly without rise or fall, enough to raise gooseflesh. Uniqueness of that degree was itself information that could pinpoint an opponent—and before he knew it, Ma Sok had committed it to memory.

"Hmm."

Geom Bigak did not answer at once; he looked Ma Sok over instead. Ma Sok recognized the greed seeping through that gaze.

"We had best not kill him."

Geom Bigak smiled thinly and went on.

"He's Haomun's property. Best keep him alive for now."

An answer entirely befitting the Geom Bigak Ma Sok knew—and one that delivered a humiliation so profound it burned.

But Ma Sok sealed the feeling away. This very instant was the golden opportunity to strike back.

"Geom Bigak, you bastard!"

With the qi flowing through his Gate Pass already sealed off, Ma Sok gathered what remained and hurled himself at his opponent. It was his last chance to turn the situation around.

But—

He stopped short.

Ma Sok drew back his own ultimate killing strike of his own will. Because in that sliver of an instant, Geom Bigak's sword tip had come to rest against the vital point at Yeo Wol's waist. Sometime while Ma Sok was being overwhelmed, she had been subdued—Yeo Wol lay entirely unconscious.

"Truly befitting the property of our sect."

Geom Bigak laughed.

"Ngh……"

And Ma Sok's expression crumbled.

Blood trickled down. Forcing his killing strike back into its sheath while his body was anything but normal sent the qi and blood he had barely stilled churning once more.

"…Son of a bitch."

Swallowing the pain, Ma Sok spat the curse at Geom Bigak. There was simply no other way to vent the fury boiling in his gut.

"Property does not harm its master, after all."

WHAM—CRASH!

"Khhagh!"

Ma Sok could not evade even Geom Bigak's sluggish kick. Not because his qi and blood were in turmoil—but because Yeo Wol's safety had to come first.

"Let's go."

Leaving Ma Sok's dimming consciousness behind them, Geom Bigak and the unknown figures were gone in a flash.

A short while later.

"Ugh……"

Mercifully, Ma Sok came to before long—thanks to the unyielding will to protect Yeo Wol that would not let him go.

"My lady……"

He had to beg help from someone. For reasons he himself could not name, the first face to surface in Ma Sok's mind was Dancheon Myeong.

Ma Sok hurried himself along. He had no leisure to tend a body whose qi and blood had been drained to the dregs.

"That is what happened."

Ma Sok's face, having finished the telling, was grieved beyond all measure.