Into the Tiger's Den
"Haah. Haah."
When storytellers speak of peerless masters, they claim such men traded ten bouts within a single breath, or fought a full two-hour watch without pausing for rest — but those words apply only to those who have truly attained peerless martial skill.
Even with the aid of internal energy, combat devours stamina at a merciless rate.
"Haah. Haah."
That tendency runs especially strong in late-generation disciples like Ma Yu-han, starved as they are for real combat experience.
Mimicking Ma Yu-han's genuine gasping, I let out ragged breaths of my own. With every lengthening exhale, I could see the fury deepen across his face.
We were almost there now.
"Will you not apologize to our Ranmae?"
A line like that should be enough, I judged. Anger and impatience numb the mind — most of all in men of small nerve.
My plan would not fail. Had I not investigated both his temperament and his background down to the last thread?
Ma Yu-han glanced briefly around. He had arranged this spot precisely because it drew no passersby, and sure enough, not a soul was in sight.
"You bastard — I'll kill you."
Just as expected.
Ma Yu-han acted exactly as I had steered him to act. Black vapor rippled across his entire body — an unmistakable sign of demonic arts manifesting.
"Brother Chun-baek, did you see it?"
"I did. You were right."
Yi Chun-baek's frost-cool voice claimed the air.
"What—?!"
Startled by a voice he had never expected, Ma Yu-han whipped his head about, but he could not find Yi Chun-baek anywhere — for Yi Chun-baek had arrived without a breath of sound and taken up position squarely behind him.
Grab.
"Gahk—!"
All my goading had been rendered moot: Yi Chun-baek subdued Ma Yu-han without the slightest effort. His rough hand had closed on the back of Ma Yu-han's neck and lifted him clean into the air.
Like a kitten carried by its mother's teeth clamped on its scruff, Ma Yu-han dangled with both feet off the ground, unable to so much as squirm.
Yi Chun-baek's free hand pressed against the Mingmen point on Ma Yu-han's lower back.
"Khh."
It was a far more certain — and far rougher — way of verifying than seizing the pulse at the wrist. The Mingmen, called the Gate of Life, lies far closer to the dantian than any pulse point does.
With the manifestation of demonic arts already confirmed, nothing remained to hold Yi Chun-baek back.
A short while passed.
"Just as you said. He's one of them."
Yi Chun-baek's verdict fell, and his gaze turned from Ma Yu-han to me.
"Shall we kill him, then?"
As if to answer the question, Ma Yu-han thrashed violently — but Yi Chun-baek's grip would not release him.
"Don't kill him. We hand him over to the Murim Alliance."
At the words Murim Alliance, Ma Yu-han's face drained white — for a heartbeat.
Thud.
Yi Chun-baek's strike to his nape knocked him out cold.
Whump.
Yi Chun-baek dumped Ma Yu-han onto the ground like a sack of luggage. Where demonic cultivators were concerned, the man truly knew no mercy.
"So what do we do now?"
The Yi Chun-baek who had balked at dressing up as the Flowery Young Master was gone — he had followed my plan and reaped a fine result for it, after all.
"For now, let's head to the Beggars' Gang."
"Good."
Of course, the plan was only just beginning.
"Heroes of the Beggars' Gang — I'm in your debt."
"It's a brother's business. Trust only us, Lord Lone Dragon."
We laid out the whole story for the beggars and handed Ma Yu-han over. The young sect master of Black Water Gate — an established local power in Shanxi — had trained in demonic arts, and once that news broke, the beggars' uproar was a foregone conclusion.
"Jao-gae, this is urgent. Make for the Murim Alliance's Shanxi branch at once."
"Yes, sir!"
Beggars may have looked shabby, but their lightfoot art was a consummate skill counted among the marvels of the entire jianghu. The news would reach the Shanxi branch in no time.
We saved our time; the beggars earned their achievement.
Besides, word would spread through the gang that Yi Chun-baek and I had flushed out and subdued a demonic cultist — and our renown would ring through the jianghu. A stratagem worth three birds with one stone.
The only flaw was that we would have to hurry if we meant to claim the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root.
Not that it posed any problem.
I was not alone this time — I had Yi Chun-baek at my side.
I was certain we could finish Black Water Gate faster than Jao-gae could reach the Shanxi branch and march back with Alliance forces. Why else would we have stopped at the Beggars' Gang first?
"Brother Chun-baek."
"What is it?"
"Where has your cultivation reached these days?"
I asked it as though it hardly mattered. Not because I was ignorant that asking after another's realm can be a rudeness in murim — I was simply certain we had grown close enough that the question cost nothing.
"Enough to unfurl Sword Silk."
Which meant his realm had crossed the Peak and touched the Transcendent Peak.
Knowing humility was his cardinal virtue, I could tell the Harmony Realm could not be far from him. Truly worthy of the Divine Flight Sect's line.
"And you?"
"Well — about the same."
Under Uncle Yeo Baek's forging, empowered by the Yakseon Heart Decision, I too had only recently set foot in the Transcendent Peak.
"Brother Chun-baek — how about the two of us have one grand, proper bout?"
Laughter bloomed across Yi Chun-baek's face at the question.
"Nothing would please me more."
He had swallowed seven days and nights knowing a demonic cultist walked among us; no wonder the question now pleased him to his core.
"Let's go — to earn our merit."
We traveled on lightfoot art that had reached the Transcendent Peak itself.
Our destination: Black Water Gate.
A sect is, in the end, a collective.
As a rule, strength is born of assembly, so common sense holds that a sect outweighs any individual.
But then, is the murim of the jianghu not precisely the place where mysteries and prodigies teem without end? Individuals stronger than entire collectives do exist there — beings who shatter common sense.
We call them all sects, yet no two sects are truly alike.
There are great sects like the Nine Great Sects and One Gang, hiding monstrous powers in their depths; there are also small sects who count a single Peak master as their proudest treasure.
No ruler-straight standard exists, but broadly speaking: several Peak masters made a small sect; the emergence of a Transcendent Peak master, a small-to-middling one; several Transcendent Peak masters, or a master of the Harmony Realm brought into the fold, a mid-tier sect.
Groups that could not secure even one Peak master generally did not call themselves sects at all — they settled for names like gang or guild.
"Will the two of us truly be enough?"
Yi Chun-baek asked at Black Water Gate's threshold.
"More than enough."
"If you say so, then so it must be."
Ten years from now, at the time of the Great War of Righteousness and Evil, Black Water Gate would have grown into a mid-tier sect standing for all of Shanxi — thanks to the money from selling off the Ten-Thousand-Year Fleeceflower Root and the demonic cult's covert backing, which had the whole war in its calculations.
A dagger hidden in their sleeve, holding several Harmony Realm and Transcendent Peak masters — no wonder the murim of Shanxi had been routed so badly.
Naturally, for me and Yi Chun-baek alone to oppose such a mid-tier sect would be absurd.
But that was then, not now.
Black Water Gate's might had come together only after they sold the root. The sect as it stood today was nothing more than a humble little school that had lingered in Shanxi for generations.
Of course, even for a Transcendent Peak master — no Harmony Realm master — facing an entire sect alone is no simple affair. Even if the enemy fielded no Transcendent Peak master of their own, a frontal clash against numbers carries a hundred variables.
And if, as befitted demonic cult agents, they held hidden reserves, I might well have met disaster going in alone.
But I was not alone.
I took in the sight of Yi Chun-baek nodding before me.
One and two are different things. Split hairs as you like, two people are a collective as well — so this would be a battle of collective against collective, and I had every confidence we would not lose it.
"Let's go."
"Let's."
Together, Yi Chun-baek and I set our steps toward Black Water Gate.
Our walk into the tiger's maw was beyond calm, beyond proud.
Remembering his awkward shuffle entering the beggars' hovel, I could tell which of the two he found far more natural.
"Who might you be?"
The guard posted at Black Water Gate's front gate asked me.
I had already cast off the Flowery Young Master's fluttering long robe, but the martial uniform I wore now was fine Dancheon Clan cloth worth a small fortune on its own — so the guard's deference was only the natural response.
"You don't know me?"
"My apologies."
I tipped my chin up a shade toward the bowing guard, and the composition settled itself: me looking down on him from on high.
"I am Dancheon Myeong, second son of the Dancheon Clan. Remember the name."
An insolent face, a domineering voice — the very model of a great clan's heir, rude and without restraint.
All it took was a slight exaggeration of the man I had been before I lived as Myeong-gae the beggar. The acting came easily.
"Did you arrange an appointment?"
"Would I bother with something like that?"
Announcing oneself before visiting another sect is both rule and common sense. Yet the guard bowed lower still, again and again, and pressed on.
"Forgive me. Would you wait just a moment?"
Even at the guard's respectful plea—
"What right does the likes of you have to bar my way?"
I flung the scorn at him, brushed past, and crossed the gate.
"Ah—"
The hand raised to stop me never found its mark, wandering pointless through empty air.
One look was enough to see that I was the scion of a great clan; to lay hands on me was to strike chords whose consequences he could not even guess.
Having left the guard behind, I strode boldly for the heart of Black Water Gate — ignoring the man who trailed after me in an agony of nerves.
Anyone watching would have laid the fault at my doorstep, not Black Water Gate's.
But this was intended theatre.
Observe every procedure of a guest visiting a sect, and we could never finish what we came for within the time we had.
Still, procedural convenience was not my only aim.
It was to rob the demonic cult's agents of any margin to think, any time to prepare — so you might as well call my discourtesy a force beyond my control.
And to add an honest heart to it: I also had no intention whatsoever of showing courtesy to demonic cult agents.
"You really are an unknowable man."
Yi Chun-baek said the words I had often heard from Ma Sok of the Hao Gate.
"Mystery only makes a martial artist all the stronger."
I flashed him a grin.
I understood him. Watching the Dancheon Myeong who mingled freely with beggars and the Dancheon Myeong who was an arrogant heir of a great house within the same half day would have confused me as well.
Head high, stride proud, I swept through Black Water Gate's grounds — and not one soul moved to bar Yi Chun-baek or me.
"This the place?"
"Looks like it."
Before long our steps arrived before Black Water Gate's largest hall.
One glance at its scale told anyone that this was the sect's core.
And I did what I had long since resolved to do.
I gathered the internal energy brimming full in my Yongcheon points—
THOOOM!
I drove down a mighty stomp and shook the ground in every direction.
This was no stomp as a preparatory motion for a technique — the stomp itself was the aim — so its force was on another level altogether. As if a ten-thousand-pound hammer had fallen, the earth caved beneath my foot and the hall shuddered.
"What is the meaning of this!"
An effective move indeed. Startled by the commotion, the disciples of Black Water Gate snatched up their weapons and swarmed before the hall in an instant.
Shallow as their reserves were, they had not neglected to build a proper sect — the faces that met me belonged to practiced swordsmen.
"I am the second son of the Dancheon Clan — Myeong."
At my words, a man who looked to be their leader stepped forth.
"The second son of the Dancheon Clan — are you not Lord Lone Dragon? What outrage is this?"
Truly, the epithet of Dragon and Phoenix needed no proof — even a man who had never met me knew who I was.
I slammed straight into the heart of the matter.
"I've caught one of the demonic cult's agents."
He recovered his composure at once — but my eyes did not miss the instant flinch. That one, at the very least, was involved.
"Now, about this agent of ours."
I drew the words out on purpose, yet no murmur of any kind cut in — the whole courtyard hung on my conduct alone.
"When I looked into his identity, he turned out to be Ma Yu-han, the young sect master of Black Water Gate. Anything you would care to explain?"
The faces of the disciples barring our way froze into something fearsome. At the same instant, their killing intent flooded upward.
"Ah — I'll take your silence as your answer."
Now I could be perfectly certain: not only the sect master's direct kin — every single disciple standing here was a demonic cultist.
"Does anyone else know this?"
The leader asked, his expression hard as stone.
"Not yet."
A lie. Where on earth would I find the reason to tell these men the truth?
"Well done. My thanks."
His words were quiet.
Everyone in the courtyard understood what they meant. He had, at this very moment, resolved upon slaughter — to kill every witness and bury the secret.
Kill the witnesses, and none of it had ever happened; then it would not matter who I was.
"So in the end, you will make that choice?"
The smile steeped into my face deepened.
At the same moment, every disciple of Black Water Gate took up a ready stance.
A hair-trigger standoff.
Perhaps having Yi Chun-baek beside me put strength in my arm — for some reason, I found myself wanting to strut a little further.
"I am Dancheon Myeong, newest newcomer to the jianghu, come to cut down the demonic cult's agents."
So saying, I folded my hands into the cupped-fist salute.
A newcomer's usual exploit amounts to sweeping up a few low-grade Green Forest raiders — with the feat of purging demonic cult agents standing right before us, this was hardly an extravagant boast.
My gaze turned to Yi Chun-baek.
"Shouldn't you introduce yourself as well, Brother Chun-baek?"
"...Must I?"
"If we're doing this at all, best to keep the flourish, no?"
Shring.
Yi Chun-baek, who had been shaking his head, drew his sword.
"Yi Chun-baek. The Vagabond."
Scarcely had his introduction ended—
"Kill them!"
The Black Water Gate disciples came surging at us.
"Let's go."
"Let's."
Tak.
Yi Chun-baek and I leapt at the disciples of Black Water Gate.
It was too breathless a moment to confirm properly — but I believe a smile had settled on his face and on mine alike.