The Assassin's Identity
In the span of a single breath, the assassin had formed sword qi, and now he grinned down at me.
What was I supposed to do with that?
He looked like he was showing off, and I had no idea how I was meant to react. When I gave him nothing, his face twisted and he readjusted his grip on his sword. Judging by his stance, he intended to launch the sword qi straight at me. I'd been planning to shatter it head-on anyway, so this worked out nicely.
Azure energy gathered into his blade. The assassin and I both compressed our qi and shaped it into sword qi at once, and the azure light deepened into something far richer.
"!!"
His triumphant expression flooded with confusion. He looked like a man demanding, what in the world is THAT?
I didn't answer the silent question. To be precise, I couldn't. Even I didn't know exactly what this was.
Taking qi with the properties of hard qi and compressing it into hard qi itself. It sounded simple enough in words, but understanding it was another matter entirely.
Crack!
During my closed-door training I had absorbed roughly half the energy of the Hoyong Divine Pill, and now my pure qi alone could rival hard qi in density. So what happened when you compressed qi that concentrated and shaped it into hard qi a second time? The sword simply couldn't bear it anymore.
A faint creaking began to rise from my blade. Unless it was an exceptional named sword, it wouldn't last long.
I lowered the heavier blade until its tip brushed the ground. Watching me, the assassin broke out in a cold sweat.
A brief standoff. He had drawn his own sword qi to its fullest as well, and his blade trembled violently.
Hmmmmm!
The resonance between hard qi and steel echoed in every direction—and at the moment it reached its peak, the assassin's eyes flew wide open and he swung his sword.
Shaaaaak!
It was the fiercest sword strike I'd seen since my reincarnation. There was no doubt he had stepped beyond the threshold of Peak Realm—the form of his strike carried no wasted motion whatsoever. No doubt it was a sword strike blended with some proper sword art.
In answer, I drew out one more of the Wang Clan's secret arts. I gripped my sword in both hands until it groaned, pouring my raw strength into it.
Just as his strike closed the final distance—I swung the lowered blade skyward.
Great King's Sky-Shattering Conquest.
KWAAAAAAM!
With a thunderous roar, azure hard qi blotted out the sky. The assassin's strike ahead of me, and the assassin himself, were swallowed whole by the azure flood and vanished from sight. It was a strike meant to crush, not to cut.
An instant that stretched like an eternity finally passed, and the azure qi at last dispersed.
"Whew...."
Taewang Pacheongeuk had two flaws: it devoured an enormous amount of internal energy, and it destroyed whatever sword it was channeled through. Then again, in terms of raw destructive power from a single blow, nothing I had matched it.
Crsssh…
I looked down at my sword. Not only had everything past the hiri shattered—the blade had crumbled to powder and was scattering on the wind.
That was a decent sword, too. A shame.
Tsk.
Clicking my tongue, I peered through the choking dust. As it slowly settled, the assassin's fallen body came into view.
Just in case, I approached warily, and when I reached him I pressed my fingers to the vicinity of his heart.
He's dead.
Well, of course. If he'd survived a direct hit from that attack, he wouldn't be a Peak Realm master—he'd be a Transcendent.
My tension drained away, and I examined the face that his hood had hidden. I needed to identify him.
Testing the Wang Clan's secret arts was one thing, but now that I'd crossed blades with an assassin, I had to know who sent him.
Would've been nice to keep him alive.
I supposed the old duel-and-die spectacle had gotten me worked up. If I hadn't insisted on Taewang Pacheongeuk, he might have drawn breath still.
Swallowing my regret, I studied the man's face and clothing—and something itched at the edge of my memory.
Which meant he wasn't a complete stranger, at least. Not someone close to me, but a face I'd passed by at least once. Fairly tall, too. Almost like…
The Kim Clan's bodyguard!
It came back to me. The tall warrior who always stood beside Kim Yeonju. That was who this assassin was.
He'd clearly said last time that he had come to fetch Kim Hobu—so he wasn't her guard. He was Kim Hobu's.
But why?
Kim Hobu had desperately tried to stop the fight between me and Kim Shin. Whether from goodwill or not, he had.
And now that same Kim Hobu had sent an assassin after me? None of it made sense.
Kim Shin. Don't tell me it's you.
If it was Kim Shin, the possibility existed. If the man who'd made his bargain with me had finally lost his patience and done something reckless—well, that I could understand.
Bullying us to the very end. Unbelievable.
These days, merely thinking about that family was enough to make my blood boil on its own.
I had just risen to my feet, the assassin's identity confirmed, when—
"Young Lord!"
"Mujin!"
Ansong and Seonhwa came bursting through the dust, worry written across their faces.
"Why so worked up? You two worried about little old me?"
Seonhwa quietly raised a hand and covered my eyes so I couldn't see the dead assassin.
"Mujin. You can't see anything."
"That's your way of saying don't look at anything, isn't it."
"I want to look too."
"Tsk."
Why did this girl want to look at a corpse?
Absolutely determined not to let her, I slipped free and stepped away from the spot.
"That thing. What on earth is it?"
Ansong asked, pointing at the assassin's body lying far away.
But I had no intention of telling him. If word of this ever spread, the Wang Clan would find itself facing Choe Chunghon and the Kim Clan both at once.
"No idea. Apparently somebody out there holds a grudge against me."
"A man who never left the estate or Dansewon made a Peak Realm master come after him over a grudge? That's absurd."
"Enough, you rascal. Let's just get going."
"But—"
"Take a beating, or walk away quietly."
"……Yes, sir."
Judging that my stubbornness was not to be bent, Ansong answered meekly.
He'd spent enough years at my side to know me rather well by now. I'd have to keep making use of that.
"Ah—one thing. Keep an eye on Seonhwa for me."
I handed Seonhwa back to Ansong and headed for the assassin's body.
The assassin—no, Kim Hobu's bodyguard—lay before me. Looking down at him, I drew a piece of cloth from my coat. It was the cloth Seonhwa had given me four years ago.
It's a waste, but it can't be helped.
I dabbed a fingertip in the blood pooling from his wound and wrote upon the cloth.
Then I dragged the body into the brush at the edge of the clearing, dumped it carelessly, and laid the inscribed cloth gently over its face.
That should do it.
Under normal circumstances, the guard who killed me would have returned to the Kim Clan. But when he failed to come back for a long while, Kim Shin's patience would run dry and he would send men out to search. That was when they would find it.
Tap. Tap.
Once I'd brushed off my hands, exhaustion finally crashed over me. No matter how I looked at it, I shouldn't have used Taewang Pacheongeuk.
Yaaawn.
With a long, drawn-out yawn, I made my way back to where Ansong and Seonhwa waited.
I'd best turn in early tonight.
"Why has he not returned! WHY!"
CRASH!
Kim Shin bellowed and slammed his fist down on the armrest of his chair with all his strength, and the armrest simply exploded.
Kim Hobu, sweating cold, moved to restrain his father.
"Compose yourself, Father. We released the Sea God Corps exactly as you ordered. News will come soon enough."
"Ggghhh…."
Watching Kim Shin groan in anguish, Kim Hobu's eyes grew complicated.
Being bested by the Young Lord of the Wang Clan wounded his pride, hasn't it.
His father had always harbored an inferiority complex toward Wang Inho, the patriarch of the Wang Clan. Now he'd been beaten by that man's son as well—Kim Hobu could well understand his pride being wounded to the breaking point.
Worse, the Jang Clan was expanding its influence too, which must have weighed on his father's mind all the more.
Kim Hobu nodded as though he understood—yet a corner of his heart nursed a grievance of its own. It wasn't because he'd been struck while trying to calm Kim Shin earlier. That had been happening since he was very young; it didn't even register anymore.
Attacking Lord Mujin was a mistake.
Had Mujin simply died, it wouldn't have mattered—the Wang Clan would have grumbled and been forced to let it go. But if Mujin survived even by chance, and if it came out that the assassin was Seo Guson, disaster would follow.
They should have hired a professional instead. Then even if the target somehow lived, no one could have pinned it on the Kim Clan.
If only Father hadn't pushed so hard…
The Great Enterprise could have been ruined over something as trivial as this. Kim Hobu sighed inwardly and dropped his head—and at that very moment,
"Patriarch!"
A voice calling for Kim Shin rang out from far down the hall, then the door burst open. Kim Shin, who would ordinarily have erupted in fury, rushed to meet the Sea God Corps halfway.
"Oho! What happened!"
"Well, you see…"
One of the corpsmen trailed off and looked back over his shoulder. Something was being carried toward them from a distance.
What is that?
Curiosity stirred, Kim Hobu looked that way too. Something wrapped in white cloth was being borne toward them.
Could it be Mujin's corpse? His heart leaping, Kim Hobu ran toward it.
The Great Enterprise was not yet lost. With something like hope quickening his steps, Kim Hobu drew closer to the body—and the moment he saw its face, he went white as a sheet.
"Huaaack!"
"What is it! What…!"
Kim Shin, who had run after him, could not hide his shock either.
"This… this cannot…"
Unable to finish, Kim Shin stared down at the body. It was Seo Guson—Kim Hobu's own bodyguard.
And laid across Seo Guson's face was a cloth bearing words written in blood.
"This matter never happened. You will honor the bargain we made—without fail. There will be no next time."
Kim Shin read the blood-written words slowly, then staggered backward.
Seo Guson had been a man long seasoned at the heights of Peak Realm. A master whose skill stood in a different dimension from those who had only just crossed its threshold.
And the Mujin who had killed such a man was, in Kim Shin's estimation, at a level equal to himself—or a hair below.
At that age! Already!
His hands trembling violently, Kim Shin suddenly clenched his fists.
"This whelp dares to MOCK me!"
Enraged, Kim Shin smashed a qi-infused fist into the floor.
KWAAAAAM!
"Father…!"
Only then did Kim Hobu and the Sea God Corpsmen rush to hold him back.
"Let go! LET GO OF ME!"
And watching it all from the shadows, worn down and hidden away, Kim Yeonju found a faint smile stealing across her lips without her meaning to.
As she thought of Mujin—the one who had hidden her away from Kim Shin.