The Most Primitive Lightfoot Art (3)
A basin opened up before them, walled in on every side by sheer cliffs. Trees over ten jang tall stood packed so densely together that the place called to mind the jungles of the far south.
Beneath those trees, buildings could be glimpsed here and there through the gloom.
After so many long years, each structure seemed to have become part of the trees themselves.
"Let's go in."
The two of them descended into the basin. From below, everything looked different than it had from above. Under the trees there was nothing but thick drifts of fallen leaves and dead branches—not a blade of grass anywhere.
"This isn't the Celestial Empire itself, is it?" Je Chuyeong asked.
"The Celestial Empire is in the Central Plains. This must have been a stronghold," Jin Yigang replied.
Before long they reached the center of the basin, where a single colossal building stood. It was square in shape, each side stretching a full twenty jang.
Pillars as thick as an adult's waist still held the roof aloft. But the building stood empty—there was nothing inside at all.
"There are stairs here."
Je Chuyeong pointed to a staircase leading downward.
"Let's go down."
The lower level was an armory. A considerable number of weapons remained, though nearly all of them were rusted through.
Jin Yigang walked along, tapping the weapons with his Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella. Those still standing upright crumbled to dust at the slightest touch. He tested every last one, and not a single weapon was serviceable. Outside again, they searched the other buildings as well.
The trees had claimed every structure for their own. Not an artifact remained, nor a single bone.
Truthfully, having obtained the martial legacies of the Ten-Thousand-Year Sovereign and the Mad Demon Yama King, they already possessed everything that mattered. While they were looking around, dusk had fallen without either of them noticing.
"Climbing over there would be difficult, wouldn't it?"
Jin Yigang pointed at the cliff face.
"We know the way through. There's no reason to scale a cliff when we don't have to."
"Fair point."
The two retraced their steps and exited through the waterfall. Getting out was far easier than getting in had been—a blessing of their greatly strengthened martial arts for both of them. The rain had stopped, but the swollen stream thundered down the gorge with terrifying force.
They climbed the rocky ridge, scanned their surroundings, then leapt down.
"Yesterday I fled along this road, and yet…."
Jin Yigang gazed quietly at the road swallowed in darkness. Only a single day had passed, and yet the feeling was entirely different. Yesterday he had looked at it with a vague, gnawing unease. Today it looked like a broad, open highway.
"Let's go."
The two of them leapt down the slope.
The moment they landed, they threw themselves forward. To catch up with the party that had gone ahead, they had to run without rest.
Had they covered twenty-odd jang?
Tswip! Tswip-tswip! Tswip-tswip!
Fifty-odd men rose up to bar their way. They were Seon Cham, vice commander of the Blood Evil Army, and fifty of his soldiers.
"Waiting for you was well worth my while."
Seon Cham grinned broadly.
"Hey, I've seen that one before. What was your rank again?" Jin Yigang asked.
"I am the Great Red Demon, Seon Cham, vice commander of the Blood Evil Army."
"So you're willing to give me your name, then."
"Dead men have no need of names."
Killing intent spilled from Seon Cham's body.
"This is a genuine question, so bear with me. By now you've surely figured out that we stragglers don't have the treasure map. So why are you still so dead set on killing us?"
"You two murdered our men."
"So this is about settling a debt, then."
"Correct."
"Admirable attitude. Unfortunately, we're rather pressed for time. So if you could skip the theatrics, I'd be grateful."
"Kill them…! Kill them!"
Seon Cham roared.
Pwak! Pwak! Pwak!
Blood Evil Army soldiers hurled themselves straight at Jin Yigang and Je Chuyeong.
Pwak!
Jin Yigang charged to meet them.
Thud! Crunch!
"Gwaaack!"
"Kruk!"
The first two soldiers to reach him screamed and collapsed in heaps.
Crunch! Thud-thud! Crunch!
The dull impacts came in an unbroken rhythm, and the screams followed one after another. Jin Yigang's movements were simple. He weaved left and right, up and down, by the smallest of margins, and drove his fists into the faces and torsos of everyone who lunged at him.
"Kkeok!"
"Aaagh!"
"Uwaaaaagh!"
Screams erupted without pause.
"What in the hell are you lot doing?"
Seon Cham bellowed.
"Hmph!"
With that contemptuous snort, an enormous surge of energy came crashing down from above like a bolt of lightning.
"—!"
Seon Cham threw himself into a roll just in time.
"Gwaaaak!"
"Aaaaagh!"
The men nearest Seon Cham fell screaming. The one who had struck them was Je Chuyeong.
Tap.
The moment her feet touched the ground, she lifted her right leg high and drove her spear forward and down, thrusting with terrible force. The spear tore through the empty air with a fearsome aura.
Pwaaaak!
In that instant, a dazzling white light exploded from the tip of the spearhead.
It was no thicker than two fingers—and it was, astonishingly, spear force. A spear is more than three times the length of a sword or blade, which makes generating force with one vastly harder. Aura force can only be produced once one can fill the entire interior of a weapon with inner energy.
Packing inner energy down a spear shaft nearly a full jang long was never an easy feat.
And yet Je Chuyeong had done it.
Thud! Thud-thud-thud!
Three bodies were punched clean through in succession.
Keok! Kkuk! Uk!
She swept her spear sideways as she listened to the three men's death cries. Her spear spun with terrifying momentum.
It was the technique known as the Whirling Kill.
Kang! Kang-kang-kang! Kang!
Swak! Swak! Swak!
She first batted aside her enemies' weapons, then carved through their bodies. The screams rose up in another chorus.
As she cut down the soldiers around her, she stole a brief glance at Jin Yigang. She was worried about him.
'Huh?'
Her eyes went wide. Jin Yigang's body was vanishing and reappearing, moment by moment. Each time he vanished was precisely the instant he drove a finishing blow into an enemy's face. The art he was wielding now was the Ghost Shadow Dance she had witnessed in the stone chamber.
Thud! Thud-thud! Thud!
The impacts rang out in an endless string, and his enemies flew three or four feet into the air before crumpling to the ground.
Jin Yigang's movements were like drifting clouds and flowing water—never pausing, never ceasing, punching his fist straight into the faces of everyone in his path.
'This maniac!'
She grimaced. He was learning martial arts on the fly, right in the middle of live combat.
'Fine, then!'
Impatience flared in Je Chuyeong's chest, and she swung her spear with everything she had.
"Aaagh!"
"Uwaaaagh!"
"Gwaaaak!"
Her spearhead began dealing death anew. In her wake, a road was being paved out of corpses.
Jjeong!
"Gweok!"
Jjeong!
"Kkuk!"
Jjeong!
"Uk!"
"Hm…?"
Je Chuyeong tilted her head. She had heard that chime before. It rang out whenever Ji Yakran unleashed her ice arts—which meant it was the sound of ice arts being used. But Ji Yakran was not here.
Then who…?
Swiip!
Thud! Thud-thud-thud! Thud!
'Small.'
Je Chuyeong's eyes widened. A tiny figure darted past, trailing a flash of white radiance. And then five men collapsed, frozen solid into blocks of ice.
"Look out!"
Thud!
"Gweok!"
Right in front of her, an enemy fell screaming. He had been killed by a stone Jin Yigang had hurled.
"Chaha!"
Je Chuyeong shot toward the enemy line with a sharp cry. In the blink of an eye she soared three jang into the air, then hacked her spear downward like an axe falling on a tree.
Space split open on either side, and every soldier in the spear's path was cleaved in two.
Crunch!
The spear slammed into the ground and bowed like a drawn bow.
Tong!
As the bent shaft snapped back straight, Je Chuyeong rode the rebound and rocketed skyward.
"Taha!"
She plunged down along with the spear.
Pwak!
The spearhead burrowed into the earth first, and the force erupting from it spread out in every direction.
"Gweok!"
"Kkeak!"
"Uwak!"
Horrid screams burst out all around. The energy the spear had unleashed bored through the Yongcheon points on the soles of their feet and flooded into their bodies.
The spear force, which had thrashed wildly through their limbs, raced upward toward their heads—and exploded.
Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch! Crunch!
There were no screams this time.
Like flower buds blooming in an instant, the heads of a dozen men detonated simultaneously in a riotous burst.
It was the sixth form of the Ultimate Spear Ten Formulas—Burst.
A faint smile touched Je Chuyeong's lips. Once, she had never even dreamed of performing Burst. Forget the sixth form; she had never managed the fifth, the Piercing of Heaven, properly either. But now she felt she could perform not only the seventh form, the Sky Slash, but even the eighth, the Hurling Kill.
"I can do this!"
Je Chuyeong wrenched her planted spear free and swung it in a wide arc. From the spearhead burst a spear force a full jang long. A weapon of tremendous reach—jang-long shaft plus jang-long force, two jang in all—swept the field around her.
"Gweeeok!"
"Uwaaaagh!"
"Aaaaaaagh!"
Excruciating screams ran in an unbroken line, and the stench of blood rose thick in the air.
Crunch!
"Gweeeok!"
At a scream from her side, Je Chuyeong turned her head. The enemy commander Seon Cham was rocketing into the air, blood gushing from him like a waterfall.
'Seriously, though!'
Je Chuyeong shook her head. Jin Yigang didn't seem fast enough to be truly impossible to land a blow on, and yet none of them could touch him. However she turned it over in her mind, it could only be called a mystery.
She moved to his side.
"Who took down those ones?"
Jin Yigang asked, pointing at the men shattered into ice.
"That's my question to ask, isn't it?"
"Definitely not me."
Jin Yigang shook his head.
"I did see something. A very small figure—and I couldn't tell if it was a hand or what, but there was a flash of white light, I think."
"Small, you say?"
"Yes."
'Could it be….'
It suddenly reminded her of the tiny jiangshi they had left behind on the mountain.
'No, it can't be. A mindless jiangshi has no reason to help us.'
She shook her head almost at once.
"If it's deliberately helping us, it'll show itself eventually."
"I suppose so."
"Let's move."
"We'll have to run without resting to catch up, won't we?"
"Right."
Jin Yigang nodded.
The two launched themselves forward. Jin Yigang simply ran, while Je Chuyeong unfurled her lightfoot art—and yet their speeds were nearly identical.
"Shall I teach you a proper lightfoot art?"
"Isn't lightfoot art just a method for running fast?"
"That's right."
"Well, I'm running fast right now, aren't I?"
"…."
Je Chuyeong had no answer to that.
She was currently propelling herself at considerable speed, yet she couldn't shake him off. It looked like he was running ordinarily, which could only mean Jin Yigang was employing a lightfoot art of his own.
"This is the most primitive movement art there is, after all."
"Like throwing a stone?"
"Exactly."
Jin Yigang nodded and kept running ahead.
"Hah!"
Je Chuyeong laughed despite herself and chased after him. Before long the two were running side by side.
"That's remarkable."
She clicked her tongue. Even after two full hours, Jin Yigang's pace hadn't slowed a whit from when they'd started.
"Tell me if you get tired."
"Aren't you the one getting tired, Lady Chuyeong?" Jin Yigang asked.
"Not even slightly."
"Then let's keep going."
"Understood."
Je Chuyeong pushed her speed even higher.
She had committed her full strength, wanting to see just how long he could keep pace. She couldn't run at her true speed here—she had to weave around the trees barring the way—but even at this tremendous pace, she could not drop Jin Yigang for even a moment.
As though a rope bound their bodies together, Jin Yigang followed her at an unvarying distance.
Three hours. Four.
The hours of running kept piling up, but neither slowed their pace nor stopped to rest.
Only after a full day of running did the two finally take a break—not from exhaustion, but because nature called.
"How much farther?" Je Chuyeong asked.
"Half a day more should do it."
"Whereabouts do you think they are?"
"They'll reach their destination around tonight, so they're probably about four hours ahead of us."
"Let's hope nothing has happened to them…."
At that very moment.
The party that had gone ahead—the Jicheon Physician Clan—was entering the Black Mist Gorge. They were running without slackening their pace, planning to rest only after they had passed through the gorge.
"Halt!"
Je Ha-yeong, leading the way, threw her hand up. An enormous number of pillars stood planted across the floor of the valley. The gaps between them were considerable, but there were so many that it looked like a forest of columns.
"What are they?"
Je Chuyeong turned to Na Hujeok and asked.
"Hard to say…."
Na Hujeok shook his head. Nor was he alone—no one among them knew anything about the pillars planted in the Black Mist Gorge.
"We'll have to go in, won't we?"
"There's no other road…."
"Understood. Let's hurry through."
Je Ha-yeong nodded toward Mak Hong and Na Seok-jin.
"We cross this place at full power!"
Mak Hong and Na Seok-jin bellowed the order.
Soon the Jicheon Physician Clan party unfurled their lightfoot arts and plunged into the forest of pillars.
"Hold on—is this really pillars we're looking at?"
Mak Hong tilted his head. No matter how he looked, they didn't resemble pillars at all.
"Here."
He stretched out his hand toward one of them.
"—!"
Mak Hong let out a groan.
"What is it?"
Na Seok-jin looked at him.
"This."
Mak Hong pointed at his own hand. His right arm was sunk halfway through the pillar.
"That's…."
Na Seok-jin stared at Mak Hong's hand, mystified.
"This is…."
"Ah!"
"Ugh!"
Groans escaped from everywhere at once. The pillars that had filled the entire valley were dissolving, scattering away from the top down, all together.
"Good heavens."
"Don't tell me…."
Ssssss! Ssssss!
As the pillars vanished entirely, white mist began to bloom up from the ground all around them. The mist that leapt into the air spread slowly outward in every direction.