The Overlord's Debt
Swish.
The pinnacle of Transcendent Movement.
Zeng—!
A tearing crack split the air.
What remained behind was Ma Pyeong-sam, who had somehow widened the distance once more, and Ma Sok, rooted to the earth as firm as a mountain.
A battle of extreme speed against extreme solidity.
The clash of relentless offense and unyielding defense left nothing behind but the snap of splitting air.
"Your sword is light."
Ma Sok spoke as he straightened the blade he had been wielding like a shield. It sounded like a provocation at first glance, but it was also the truth.
Perhaps it was because a reverse-grip dagger was, by its very nature, no different from a mutual-destruction gamble.
The reverse grip was a hold that focused not on cutting the enemy with the edge, but on driving the blade deep into their body. It meant there was no retreat — so calling it a mutual-destruction style was no mistake.
Either I kill, or I die. That, and nothing else, was the martial art of the reverse-grip dagger.
Seen another way, Ma Pyeong-sam's instant retreat after each attack meant he had never committed his full strength in the first place.
That was precisely what Ma Sok had pointed out.
"No need to go all out, I suppose."
Ma Pyeong-sam, his lips moving as lightly as his Lightness Skill, surged forward once more.
Zeng!
An upper reverse slash was knocked away.
Kagagak!
A chained horizontal cut raked across the edge of Ma Sok's diagonally swung blade.
Seupat!
Ma Sok twisted his body aside to evade a dagger slicing in from an angle.
Tuk!
A kick darting through the gap was blocked at Ma Sok's knee.
A relentless exchange with no room to breathe.
Ma Pyeong-sam was clearly the one attacking one-sidedly, but anyone with a discerning eye would have raised their hand for Ma Sok's responses instead.
That was how solid, how unbreakable, Ma Sok's defense was.
Soul-Chasing Life-Taking — Ma Sok.
I knew that epithet was, in truth, a tribute to Ma Sok's tenacious patience.
Strictly speaking, it is orthodox doctrine that weapons are useless to a martial artist of the Ascension Realm. But the world does not always flow according to doctrine.
Weapons are, after all, a crucial factor that shapes the very form of one's martial art.
It meant that Ma Pyeong-sam, dagger in hand, would find it far from easy to pierce the defenses Ma Sok had sealed shut with tight, interlocking footwork.
And the one who knew this fact best was Ma Pyeong-sam himself.
As proof, the Lightness Skill that had been silently carving through the air came to a halt before anyone noticed.
"This won't do."
"Surrendering?"
Ma Sok asked back with an expression devoid of expectation. It must have been a habitual formality.
"I mean to face you properly."
And with those words—
Bulgeun!
Ma Pyeong-sam's muscles, which had boasted such agile grace, swelled.
I knew the identity of that art, so reminiscent of the widely known Bone-Shrinking Art.
"Qi Ignition Art..."
Its formal name was the Latent Power Ignition Art.
An Ascension demonic art that amplified one's strength for a short time without any loss of Origin Jinqi — a secret martial art of the Biyeong Ma Clan.
One might call it a divine art granted so that the martial artists of the Biyeong Ma Clan, inheritors of the assassin's lineage, could carve out their legend under the sun.
At last, a true master of the full Demon-Severing Realm had manifested here.
The full Demon-Severing Realm was no different from the Five-Stage Art I had achieved — worthy, without question, of being called a true monster of inhuman strength.
"I'll take it from here."
I stepped in front of Ma Sok.
Quite apart from how much I trusted the man, letting a master of the Harmony Realm fight a life-or-death duel against a master of the Demon-Severing Realm would not have been right.
It was right for me — my Jinqi restored in the time Ma Sok had bought — to step forward.
And then—
Teong—
"Kkeok!"
Kuung!
The monster of inhuman strength, his Ignition Art fully unleashed, went flying and slammed into the ground.
"My, my. I barely tapped him and he went flying. Was he a weakling?"
Overlord Martial Emperor, Wiji Han.
The true manifestation of inhuman strength.
— Alliance Leader, I have a request, though it may be presumptuous.
— Speak.
— It is...
Having heard Yi Chun-baek's request, Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han promptly summoned the Chief Strategist of the Sado League — Heavenly Thunder, Sama Ui.
Was his position not Alliance Leader of the Sado League?
In truth, his setting foot outside was equivalent to raising an army, and there was also the matter that proper procedure had to be observed.
"You're... leaving the League again?"
"I am."
At Wiji Han's resolute answer, a sullen air settled over Sama Ui's face.
It was rare indeed for Sama Ui, so full of devotion, to show such a look.
Hm.
Seeing it, Wiji Han could not help but admit that his departures had grown frequent of late.
"..."
Worse still, the man said nothing and only shot him a glance, which made it all the more awkward.
Withstanding that pressure, Wiji Han spoke again.
"I have no intention of changing my mind."
"...If the Supreme Leader wills it, then so it must be."
Enduring the pressure and pressing his will through — was this not the true stride of the Sado Sovereign?
In truth, summoning Chief Strategist Sama Ui had not been to ask permission.
The Sado Sovereign stood alone and apart; he was a being who had no need to obtain anyone's approval.
But Wiji Han knew.
He knew that the keen insight of this brilliant, loyal strategist had aided him many times over.
His intuition, sharpened as his divine sense expanded, had sensed something disquieting — though he could not tell what it was — and he had simply thought it right to discuss it with his strategist.
"What is your thinking?"
At Wiji Han's question, Sama Ui ran a finger along his jawline.
"Haomun, is it..."
Murmuring as he stroked his jaw was the peculiar habit of Heavenly Thunder Sama Ui whenever he wrestled with a problem.
When Sama Ui's brilliant mind combined with the Sado League's vast stores of intelligence, his ability to catch fragments of the truth was second to none.
After a moment's deliberation, Sama Ui spoke.
"That much is hardly unusual in a succession struggle, is it?"
"True enough. But then there would be no way to explain that young man's involvement."
Wiji Han countered.
An equal exchange between Chief Strategist and Alliance Leader.
It was the method the two of them most often used when pursuing the truth.
"It is known that he has a close relationship with the Matriarch of Hwawollu."
"That may be part of it, but there will be another reason."
"At what point?"
"Just a hunch."
"I see."
Wiji Han had called it 'just a hunch,' but Sama Ui took it seriously.
The Alliance Leader, having reached the supreme realm, often lumped together things he could not put into words under the label of 'hunch' — and Sama Ui knew from experience that those hunches struck true at an uncanny rate.
"Perhaps it is because of that young man."
"Hm."
At the repeatedly mentioned 'that young man,' the furrow between Sama Ui's brows deepened slightly.
Dancheon Myeong.
The benefactor of the Sado League's leader.
Sama Ui had met him in person as well, yet the man was impossible to measure.
He was a youth barely past his majority, and yet he gave off the weathered air of the hardened beggars of the Hao Gate.
His duplicity was obvious, and yet there was nothing sinister in his bearing. That was precisely what made him so unknowable — a mysterious figure.
In any case, the important thing was that Sama Ui, too, shared the belief — just as the Alliance Leader had said — that a man like Dancheon Myeong could not possibly act rashly.
"That he summoned me, the Alliance Leader, over Haomun's succession struggle simply does not add up."
Wiji Han was right.
Summoning the leader of the Sado League over an escalation in Haomun's succession fight was clearly strange.
Of course, if one shrugged and thought it could happen, then it could — but the strangeness could not be denied.
Had the Haomun Matriarch herself made the request, he might simply have shrugged it off. But the one behind it was Dancheon Myeong, second son of an upright, orthodox clan — and so there was need for careful thought.
As he conversed with the Alliance Leader, the scattered fragments of information in Sama Ui's mind began to weave themselves into a pattern.
The interlaced threads of intelligence became words, and the words revealed themselves to the world.
"Black Water Gate, Yeomhwa Bang, Iron Mountain Demon Lord, the Heavenly Demon..."
Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han was clever enough in his own right to grasp what those murmured words had in common.
Come to think of it, Dancheon Myeong's path had always—
"The Heavenly Demon Cult."
Their traces were entangled with his to an eerie degree.
As if mirroring Wiji Han's mood, the great banner on his back fluttered faintly. A divine weapon raised by sheer aura alone, without a single cycle of internal energy.
"Those bastards reached into Haomun?"
"It is not confirmed."
"Then we confirm it."
Wiji Han rose to his feet at once.
"I'll be off."
Sama Ui did not restrain his lord.
"Travel safe—"
Swish.
Before he could even finish, Wiji Han's figure had vanished — so it was not wrong to say he had failed to restrain him.
"Sigh."
Today, too, the documents bearing the Alliance Leader's seal would have to be handled by his strategist.
Sama Ui grew a little sad.
Just a little.
The place where Wiji Han, having concealed his presence before the Alliance Leader's hall, revealed himself was — as ever — the roof of that pavilion.
"Gaji."
"Yes."
Yi Chun-baek answered Wiji Han's call. The composure he could maintain before the foremost Sovereign of the Unorthodox Path under heaven was impressive.
"The future of the orthodox murim looks bright."
Hidden in Dancheon Myeong's shadow, he had not realized it before, but he saw anew that Yi Chun-baek, too, was no ordinary man.
At those words, Yi Chun-baek smiled faintly.
"I am merely a vagabond swordsman."
A vagabond was, strictly speaking, one who drifted between the orthodox and the unorthodox — an answer laden with many meanings.
"You mean to say we have our chance as well?"
Yi Chun-baek only smiled, and did not answer.
"Could you keep up with me?"
"I will do my best."
"Good."
For a moment, energy gathered at Wiji Han's Yongcheon point.
Tuhwaok—
Faster than an arrow, tearing through the great qi of heaven and earth, Wiji Han's figure shot forth.
He knew that Yi Chun-baek was clinging to his wake, right behind him.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
Time returned to the present.
"My, my. I barely tapped him and he went flying. Was he a weakling?"
Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han, having flat-out kicked away a martial artist who was unmistakably of the Heavenly Demon Cult, murmured the words.
Passing up the chance to press a fallen enemy with another strike, Wiji Han's steps turned toward Dancheon Myeong.
It was the nonchalance of an absolute being who held unshakable confidence in his own martial prowess.
"I greet the Alliance Leader of the Sado League."
The salute, delivered with a fist wrapped in the palm, had the look of a man who had anticipated his descent. That audacity was both unsettling and, somehow, welcome.
"Explain."
"Ma Pyeong-sam. A commander of Eunyeong, the intelligence arm of the Heavenly Demon Cult."
"A big fish, then."
Wiji Han answered, swallowing his admiration for his strategist's brilliance.
"He colluded with Geom Bigak to swallow Haomun whole and seal the eyes and ears of the Sado League. That was the intent."
Two sentences, and the entire situation was explained.
For Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han, who despised clutter, it was a most satisfying report.
Had that young man been of the Unorthodox Path, he would have wanted to make him his own successor someday.
"I owe him another debt."
He had built everything with his own two hands over a lifetime, and yet, strangely, he kept finding himself in Dancheon Myeong's debt.
"With the Martial Emperor having graced us in person, it can hardly be called a debt."
"The decision is mine to make."
In the midst of that exchange, one sturdy martial artist bowed in respect to the Overlord Martial Emperor.
A face Wiji Han knew well — Ma Sok of Haomun.
"I greet the Alliance Leader."
Having paid his respects, Ma Sok lifted his head squarely and continued—
"However, that one is mine."
That, too, was the spirit of the Unorthodox Path.
Ududuk—
Ma Pyeong-sam, kicked to the ground by Wiji Han, had somehow risen and was realigning his battle stance.
He had folded away any intent to attack, but the audacity of re-forming his stance in the heart of enemy territory — and before the foremost Overlord Martial Emperor under heaven, no less — was beyond all permission.
"Hm."
Martial prowess is a composite thing.
Unleashing one's own skill in full knowledge of it may be called martial prowess, but truly seeing and measuring another's skill is martial prowess as well.
Wiji Han's eye, ever drawing nearer to the end of the martial way, could not fail to see the difference between that Demon Lord's seed and Ma Sok.
"I hold your spirit in high regard. But will you not uphold the dignity of an Alliance Leader who stepped forward for his own League's martial artist?"
In truth, it was a command disguised as a request—
"...Understood."
Ma Sok accepted the command, and upheld the Alliance Leader's dignity.
Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han's gaze lingered on Ma Sok for a moment — and then, at last, came to rest on Dancheon Myeong.
A master of the Demon-Severing Realm stood before him, and yet Wiji Han could smile with perfect ease.
"Watch closely."
For this debt, he could repay right away.