53. Heavenly Wolf Sect (4)
Heavenly Wolf Sect (4)
53. Heavenly Wolf Sect (4)
After disposing of the remaining enemies, we hurried toward the rear building. The few survivors had already realized what was happening and fled. The Flame Emperor smashed the door open, revealing wooden cages and the women locked inside them.
Six women who looked like village girls occupied one side. Across from them was a woman in her thirties dressed in leather.
"A face I haven't seen before. Is it my turn now? I won't resist, so once you're done, just kill me. All right?"
The woman spoke listlessly, her eyes utterly dead. She must have been the woman from White Tiger Fortress. Unlike the village girls, her face wasn't bruised. The village girls, however, were in truly terrible condition.
Heuk Cheon-gyeon. That insane bastard. White Tiger Fortress was a fellow unorthodox power, a member of the Eighteen Green Forest Strongholds—what the hell had he been thinking? Ignoring her, I stepped forward little by little, until a voice I wanted so desperately to hear reached my ears.
"J-Junior Brother?!"
Lee Eun-ha stared at me in disbelief. The violet palace-style dress she'd taken such care to make was torn and filthy.
"What? Junior Brother?"
At Lee Eun-ha's voice, Jeong-hyang and Cho-ryeong poked their heads out across the way to confirm it, and from the prison further inside, my master finally showed her face.
"H-how... how did you sneak all the way in here? Ah, no! Hurry! Run, Disciple! Please run away!"
My master, whose face was as gentle as a puppy's, had already fallen into despair and was screaming at me with the last of her strength.
It hurt. I had sworn to protect them, yet this was all I'd managed. If I hadn't wasted time fooling around after learning the Spirit-Binding Art and had met the Flame Emperor even slightly sooner, they wouldn't have suffered this pain. Guilt closed my throat and left me unable to speak. The Flame Emperor swung his blade and severed the bars holding Master and my Senior Sisters.
"D... Disciple?"
At last, my master showed her usual face, her eyes round like a rabbit's.
"I'm sorry, Master. Senior Sisters. I came too late."
Fuck. A tear slipped free. I understood the reality: in a world ruled by strength, Heuk Cheon-gyeon was no different from a natural disaster. Even now, things like this happened throughout the martial world as ordinary, trivial tragedies. But there were people in this world who refused to yield even to such disasters. I could have been one of them, yet I had been late.
"Wh... what is this? A Flame Sword? Th-this... this is Qi-Guided Sword, isn't it?"
"It's a little different, but similar."
"Heavens! Disciple! You gained a great encounter in order to save us!"
Unlike the ugly people of the martial world, Master remained innocent enough to believe in things like miraculous encounters. I could barely look at her brightened face.
"You're not late. Not even a little. Everyone, this is no time to stand around in shock. We must leave before that terrifying Black Heaven Wolf arrives."
At those words, my senior sisters came to their senses and hurriedly scrambled out of the prison to gather at my side.
"S-Senior Sister Son!"
Unlike the others, whose faces were relatively unhurt beneath the grime, Son Yeong's entire face was covered in bruises.
"There's no internal injury. This is no time to be shocked, so hurry and get out."
As she said that, she swayed on her feet. Lee Eun-ha caught her.
"When those people suddenly came to Yeongsan Sect, Senior Sister Son resisted to the very end to protect us. I'll tell you the details later."
"Junior Brother..."
Cho-ryeong clung tightly to my sleeve, her eyes brimming with tears.
That son of a bitch.
Even in an emergency, killing him with one stroke had been far too merciful. Had he become an earthbound spirit? I sincerely hoped so. Later, I could use the Spirit-Summoning Art and torment even his soul. The women, normally accustomed to hunger, staggered and could barely stand. Their suffering must have been severe.
"Junior Brother. It may be the last time, so I have to tell you at least this one thing."
Jeong-hyang's voice was earnest.
"There's no way it's the last time."
"Even so, I have to say it now.
"Junior Brother. My chastity was never sullied, not one bit. So please, smooth out that frightening face and let's get out of here."
"My virtue is likewise intact."
Following Jeong-hyang, even my master spoke with resolute eyes.
No... that wasn't what mattered right now. No, it mattered, but these women had suffered terribly and were still worrying about my feelings. They had mistaken my fury at arriving late for the rage of a man whose women had been taken from him.
"W-wait? So you came to rescue the women? R-rescue me too! I am Ban Ho-jeong of White Tiger Fortress! I'll be sure to reward you properly, so get me out of here, quickly!"
The White Tiger Fortress woman had overheard us and hurriedly called out. Her situation was pitiful, but why should I rescue a bandit bitch? White Tiger Fortress was another pack of unorthodox mongrels that deserved to be destroyed. Still, with the Heavenly Wolf Sect annihilated, she could probably escape by herself.
"Junior Brother. Please help that woman too. The ones who kidnapped us said we were defiant and stopped giving us food in order to tame us into being obedient. Worried we might starve to death, they gave us only a bare minimum—a few beans—but that woman always shared her portion for the sake of the injured Senior Sister Son."
Had she glimpsed the cold contempt in my eyes as I looked at the woman from White Tiger Fortress? Lee Eun-ha quickly spoke to me, shielding her.
—Elder.—
The moment I addressed Flame Emperor, he flew around the cramped prison and smashed apart not only Ban Ho-jeong's bars but all of the bars.
"Thank you. One more person will make escaping easier. More importantly, how did you enter this place?"
"I killed every last one of them and came in. Heuk Cheon-gyeon and the Black Swordsmen, all of them. So you can just head back to White Tiger Fortress at your own leisure."
"Whaaat?!"
The one who was shocked wasn't the woman from White Tiger Fortress. The ones who were shocked were our Yeongsan Sect women. Ban Ho-jeong of White Tiger Fortress brushed the dust from her leather clothing and bowed her head to me in greeting.
"I thought so. A Qi-Guided Sword and Extreme Yang Sword Aura... no matter how great Heuk Cheon-gyeon was, your martial prowess is clearly far beyond his. I sincerely thank you, noble one."
For a mere bandit, she thanked me with surprising grace.
"Let's get out for now. I want to get out of this shitty place fast."
I stepped outside with the five women of Yeongsan Sect clustered close around me. Ban Ho-jeong followed quietly, while the terrified village girls simply trailed after us as instructed.
Suddenly, Ban Ho-jeong seized the wrist of a village girl who'd been following with her head lowered. Her strength belied her slender frame; she wrenched the woman forward and hurled her hard to the ground.
"Have you properly lost your mind? You dared sneak all the way in here? Did we look like fucking morons to you?"
The woman looked up obsequiously at Ban Ho-jeong's wrathful words. That woman—wasn't she the woman from Seven Fingers Sect? Had she been captured too?
"J-Junior Brother. Your sword. Lend me your sword."
The moment we got outside, Son Yeong asked me for a sword.
Flustered, I handed her Heuk Cheon-gyeon's sword. Gathering the last of her strength, Son Yeong stood upright and leveled the blade at Cheon Myeong-hwa of Seven Fingers Sect.
"Miss Cheon. I challenge you to a life-or-death duel. Draw your sword."
At those words, Cheon Myeong-hwa flinched in surprise and hunched her shoulders deeply.
"W-wait. You're really badly hurt right now. Let's... let's take our time later..."
"Miss Cheon, this is not a spar. If you will not draw your sword, I will strike first." Cheon Myeong-hwa panicked. "W-wait! I'll do it. I'll fight the life-or-death duel! But you said you were a martial artist, right? Let's settle this between the two of us, as martial artists. Make sure that man doesn't harm me if I lose!"
Panicked, Cheon Myeong-hwa pointed at me and drew the sword at her waist. It was Son Yeong's treasured sword, the one Murong Rin had given me. Strange. Why did a supposed prisoner have a sword? Looking again, I saw that she alone was clean and tidy, just as she always had been.
"Junior Brother. I ask this of you. Even if I am defeated, please do not lay a hand on her."
Son Yeong looked straight into my eyes and spoke calmly. Murong Hyeok-jung. The Four Heroes of Dong-o. I had only ever seen that gaze in martial artists who had transcended ordinary humanity. Why did it appear in this seemingly insignificant woman?
"What is this about, Senior Sister?"
"If you refuse me, Junior Brother, then I shall set down my sword for life and live as your concubine. Please, I beg you, help me preserve a martial artist's pride."
—Hmm. That's the face of a true martial artist. What she said is probably the truth.—
Flame Emperor's fascinated voice carried from a distance.
—Elder! Isn't this dangerous?—
—She can barely stand. Even aside from her injuries, her internal energy and martial arts are both inferior to her opponent's. The other woman carries a sword, but her specialty is probably a finger art, not swordsmanship. Ordinarily, your Senior Sister could never win.
—Still, give your permission. You may see something interesting.—
The Flame Emperor spoke with obvious delight. I didn't understand the details, but one thing was certain: just as Hwangseong's divination was absolute in matters of Daoist arts, the Flame Emperor's judgment was absolute in martial arts. Trusting him, I answered Son Yeong.
"Understood. Even if you lose, Senior Sister, I will not touch this woman. I don't know what happened, but please don't push yourself too hard."
"Thank you. Junior Brother."
With those words, Son Yeong closed the distance to Cheon Myeong-hwa with light footwork. Cheon Myeong-hwa sneered at her.
"You've really lost your mind, haven't you? Did you think you could beat me?"
Son Yeong advanced without replying, opening with her usual first form of the Three Talents Sword, a horizontal slash. Cheon Myeong-hwa easily knocked it aside and thrust at a surprisingly exquisite angle. The Seven Fingers Sect Leader had claimed martial prowess comparable to Commander Kang of the Baek Clan Estate's White Horse Unit, meaning Seven Fingers Sect's arts were inferior to those of Baek Clan Estate. Cheon Myeong-hwa was no dullard like me, however. Despite being only slightly weaker than I was, she handled Son Yeong with ease.
Then Son Yeong avoided the thrust not with the Three Talents Sword, but with a variation of the Snow-White Sword. She slipped past it beautifully and abruptly turned to a fierce offense. Ah... so the Snow-White Sword could be used from that posture in such a way.
Momentarily flustered by the sudden attack, Cheon Myeong-hwa hurriedly blocked. Son Yeong had already seized the initiative, chaining one move into the next and gradually forcing her back. But only for a moment. As the Flame Emperor had noticed, swordsmanship was not Cheon Myeong-hwa's only art. She thrust her left index finger toward Son Yeong like an awl. Even I, slightly stronger than Cheon Myeong-hwa, might have fallen for an ambush that concealed her true specialty. Son Yeong was no fool like me. As though she had been waiting for it, she calmly slipped past the finger art and continued along her sword path—sharp yet supple, shallow yet unrelenting.
"Junior Brother! That woman is a really, really wicked woman. She beat Senior Sister Son savagely and stole Senior Sister Son's sword too. Right in front of us while we were starving every day, she'd eat food, taunting us. That woman, she's a really bad person."
Cho-ryeong had calmed down a little and spoke while clutching my sleeve. I still hadn't grasped a single thing: why the hell that woman was in the Heavenly Wolf Sect, or why our Senior Sister Son had launched a life-or-death duel with her the moment she stepped out of the prison, and in the midst of it, the two women's duel neared its end.
Son Yeong was a genius, but both her internal energy and swordsmanship remained meager. That she could fight Cheon Myeong-hwa evenly with the Snow-White Sword—the most elementary art, available to anyone who paid a martial hall—was remarkable in itself. By then, however, Cheon Myeong-hwa had realized that it was the only sword art Son Yeong possessed. Its forms had been simplified for common people. Son Yeong linked them fluidly through subtle variations, but once the entire art had been read, it could no longer threaten a stronger opponent. Cheon Myeong-hwa confidently launched her finger art, perfectly predicting that the ninth form, a diagonal downward slash, would follow the eighth, and struck with what she believed was a decisive counter.
But what followed was not the Snow-White Sword's ninth form. It was the second form of the Three Talents Sword. Son Yeong converted her momentum into an extremely simple downward slash from above. It was almost too plain to call a martial art: a left slash, a right slash, and a descending slash. The Three Talents Sword consisted of only those three paths, yet it contained every drop of Son Yeong's blood and sweat over the years. With an unbelievable degree of perfection and not the slightest error, it cleanly severed the wrist Cheon Myeong-hwa had extended for her finger art.
Flesh, skin, bone, and artery parted together. Blood sprayed like a fountain against the night sky. By the time Cheon Myeong-hwa's scream rang out, Son Yeong had already sheathed her sword and collapsed.