Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Mount Hua's response was extremely keen and swift.

And —

"The killer uses yin-cold qi arts!"

"He'll head straight for Taewon! Move!"

"Yes!"

They moved precisely as predicted, without a hair's breadth of deviation.

'Not even a shred of suspicion.'

While he browsed bolts of fabric in a textile shop at the roadside, the Mount Hua Daoists — boasting nimble movement arts — had already gone thundering off to the east in a mass.

Their number was one hundred, and every last one of them was a pinnacle master with piercing, luminous eyes.

'A hundred Plum Blossom Swordsmen.'

Though they wore the same Plum Blossom Swords at their waists as the one Myeong-u had carried, they were worlds apart from the brat he had killed yesterday — Mount Hua's genuine article.

As if personally proving the common assessment that the Nine Great Sects fielded forces half again as strong as the Eight Great Families, they projected an overwhelming might that dwarfed even the Jinju Eon Family's Black Net Unit he had observed five years ago.

'With that kind of strength, they should be able to put up quite a fight against the Sun and Moon Gate.'

If what he knew was correct, Mount Hua currently possessed roughly a hundred Plum Blossom Swordsmen.

And just now, precisely one hundred pinnacle masters had swarmed past before his very eyes — which alone revealed the sheer magnitude of the fury Mount Hua had conceived over Myeong-u's death.

Shaolin and the Jinju Eon Family, who had been trying their utmost to end the war, would find this a most unpleasant development.

But with the flower Mount Hua had been most painstakingly cultivating trampled underfoot, quelling and calming the resulting wrath would be no easy task either.

He, meanwhile, needed to finish the real rehearsal within that window and move swiftly to the scene in Taewon.

'It's become easy now.'

The absence of all the Plum Blossom Swordsmen also meant that the security level within Mount Hua's main grounds had been conspicuously weakened.

Under these conditions, there was no need to lure the target outside Mount Hua's walls at all.

"This one, please."

After paying for the jet-black garments and an ashen traveling cloak he had already picked out —

Yul Hwi began a leisurely change of clothes as he drifted away from Hwaeumhyeon, now buzzing with nervous energy over the previous night's grim events.

***

The tail end of the Ox Hour — around three in the morning — when even the mountain birds that had chattered all day long had fallen into deep sleep.

Trudge. Trudge.

A figure slowly ascending Mount Hua's rugged peaks emerged abruptly beneath the hazy moonlight.

It was Yul Hwi, embarking on his rehearsal in earnest after what amounted to a seclusion in all but name.

'What a viciously treacherous mountain.'

There was good reason he had chosen not to use his movement arts and was instead slogging up the hard way.

It was not uncommon for the inner sanctums of Daoist sects famed across the martial world to conceal ingeniously wrought formations in unexpected places.

Being trapped in a formation and breaking free was not the problem — the true danger was having his presence exposed to the target as a result.

Any being who would set up a formation and dwell within it would have more than enough awareness to notice such a disturbance.

'Which is precisely why I deliberately chose Sunrise Peak.'

Mount Hua was organized around Jade Maiden Peak at its center, with four cardinal peaks each housing key facilities to the east, west, south, and north.

True to its towering reputation across the land, it went without saying that Martial World Registry masters resided on all five peaks.

For that reason, Lotus Peak to the west — the most critical hub — and Falling Geese Peak to the south, which connected to it, were swiftly eliminated from consideration.

Cloud Terrace Peak to the north, said to serve as the hermitage of monstrous elders from the previous generation, was likewise purged from his mind without delay.

What remained was the very peak he now approached: Sunrise Peak, the eastern summit.

'Even by a cold assessment, the probability of failure is less than twenty percent.'

Sunrise Peak was where the residences and training grounds of Mount Hua's younger third-generation disciples were concentrated.

The most strategically vulnerable peak within Mount Hua, one might say.

And the figure who bore overall responsibility for that place was none other than —

'Martial World Registry, rank one hundred eighty-nine. Fallen Petals on Flowing Water, Baek Yeong.'

The weakest among the supreme masters Mount Hua currently possessed, and an eccentric who had volunteered the embarrassing epithet Fallen Petals on Flowing Water for himself.

Yet contrary to his epithet — "fallen petals drifting on flowing water" — the Plum Blossom Sword Art he wielded was surely not something to be dismissed lightly.

As if Mount Hua, renowned under heaven, would ever seat so careless a figure in the role of training the pillars of its future.

'Fortunately, there are no formations.'

Was it because young third-generation disciples lived here, constantly coming and going?

Despite having drawn close to the cluster of halls on Sunrise Peak before he knew it, not the faintest sign of anything binding or toying with body or mind could be felt.

This alone was enough to be proud of having chosen Fallen Petals on Flowing Water of Sunrise Peak as his target — a meaningfully sound decision.

'Where is he?'

But Yul Hwi, the seasoned assassin that he was, did not lower his mental guard until the very end.

He was neither Annihilation the Soul-Severing Wanderer, nor was this the time — he stood at a level still far short of a proper assassin, and he did not forget that.

Moreover, today's rehearsal was only complete when he made it out of Mount Hua alive and in one piece.

'I eliminate the target swiftly and head for Taewon.'

Slide. Sliiide.

His eyes flashed with a piercingly cold blue light as he ghosted back and forth across the deathly silent Sunrise Peak.

***

'Found him.'

Knowing only that Fallen Petals on Flowing Water, Baek Yeong, resided on Sunrise Peak — without knowing the precise location of his quarters — Yul Hwi had to spend more time searching than expected.

And after a full quarter of an hour of that search, he detected the target's presence.

Judging by the slender breathing rising and falling in an even rhythm, the target was unmistakably in sound sleep.

'......A strange feeling.'

This was his first killing mission since the assassination of the Fist God at Shaolin.

Was that the reason?

An inexplicable, peculiar tension tickled its way down his spine.

Somehow, killing a man ranked one hundred eighty-ninth was producing more tension than killing the one ranked third.

'I need to finish quickly and get out.'

This kind of inner turmoil and stray thought was never a good sign.

So Yul Hwi maintained caution to preserve his concealment while also quickening his pace.

Swish.

His form slipped through the thin gap of a door he had opened with painstaking slowness.

"......"

He gazed down at the old Daoist lying neatly on his back with a tranquil expression, then swiftly swept his eyes across the surroundings.

The opponent was not someone who fought with fist, foot, finger, and palm — he was a swordsman through and through.

So Yul Hwi needed to pinpoint the location of the sword in advance, against any possible variable.

But nowhere around the bed could a scabbard be found.

'What a foul hobby.'

With a creeping sense of dread, Yul Hwi trained his attention on Baek Yeong's right arm and clicked his tongue inwardly.

When he focused his senses, the faint contour of something long and slender became dimly visible beneath the thick blanket.

This changed everything — advancing straight on would elevate the risk of failure to thirty percent or more.

So the wiser course, even if somewhat more cumbersome, was to circle around very slowly toward the head of the bed.

Across his thousand killing missions, cases like this had not been unheard of. There was nothing to be uneasy about.

'......What if?'

But just as he was about to take that step —

A single hypothesis flashed through his mind and seized his foot mid-stride.

'What if I use extreme yin qi to briefly lock his right hand, then immediately go for the head?'

A fact he had failed to realize until now, having been focused exclusively on the Phantom Slaughter Demonic Art and treating it as his primary weapon.

It was the proactive, aggressive application of his newly gained weapon: extreme yin qi.

He knew not a single martial art for wielding cold qi, true — but what did that matter at this point?

The demonic qi that should have been accumulated through the Phantom Slaughter Demonic Art had already been wholly transformed into extreme yin cold qi.

There was also the minor issue of his somewhat lacking proficiency in palm techniques, owing to the absence of relevant training, but that too was not a particularly critical factor at this juncture.

All he needed was to obstruct the target from gripping his sword and mounting a defense — for just one moment, one brief instant.

'A method I've never once attempted.'

For an assassin who ought to regard variables with the utmost wariness, it was a deeply dangerous stance.

'But this changed body itself is already a monumental variable.'

Having undergone a shift in thinking and freed his mind far beyond what it had been, Yul Hwi decided to make more aggressive use of the enormous energy coiled within him.

'Here I go.'

The instant his will solidified, his feet glided across the floor like flowing water.

Approaching the target who lay a mere three steps away, the hands of Yul Hwi — who had reached the most critical moment of the killing mission — held no sharp blade.

Having resolved to make extreme yin qi his primary weapon, he judged that finishing the job with bare hands would plant an even deeper misunderstanding and hostility in Mount Hua.

At last —

Hissssss.

"?!"

Startled awake by the indoor air freezing with abrupt, drastic cold, Baek Yeong reflexively clenched the sword hilt beneath his palm with all his strength — but,

CRACK, CRACK, CRACK—!

"Wh— what?!"

The thick blanket, his right hand beneath it, and the sword hilt it gripped had already been frozen stiff and rigid, utterly beyond salvation.

Clamp.

"GAKH!"

Almost simultaneously, a snow-white palm seized his face in a brutal grip.

On top of the jade-like skin, the even more translucently white current of qi streaming from the center of that palm bored into Baek Yeong's seven apertures in an instant — freezing his breathing, his internal power flow, and even the flow of his blood solid.

"Hrrp! Hrgh!"

Squirm, squirm!

He thrashed and struggled on the bed with every ounce of his remaining strength, but the extreme yin qi that had already poured in through his seven apertures was in the process of freezing not only his upper qi center but his heart and every one of his five organs and six viscera as well.

No matter how renowned a supreme master one might be, under such circumstances there was no way to fight back — let alone any opportunity to do so. That was simply the way of things.

In the end —

"Ghhhhh...!"

With a single, strangled moan squeezed past his frozen lips, a Martial World Registry master of Mount Hua met a truly futile end.

"Hah...!"

Even Yul Hwi — who had involuntarily stumbled back two full paces — could not hide the shock that surged through his heart.

'So this is extreme yin qi...!'

It was astonishing.

No — beyond astonishing, it was staggering.

All the way here, he had allocated a full twenty percent probability to failure in light of this new body's shortcomings — and now that felt laughably hollow.

'......Now I understand how the Sun and Moon Gate can act so freely between both the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions.'

If extreme yin qi alone could accomplish this much —

And they possessed the diametrically opposite supreme art of extreme yang qi on top of it — what faction, Orthodox or Unorthodox, could possibly measure up?

'Choosing to tie the Sun and Moon Gate to the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult was an excellent decision.'

At this level, they could more than create a two-pronged structure against at least the Orthodox Martial Alliance alone.

"I'll need a bit more research and experimentation."

After a brief downward glance at the corpse of Baek Yeong — frozen rigid and tinged a ghastly blue —

Yul Hwi departed the scene without the slightest concern, already making incremental adjustments to his future course of action.

Where he had stood, not a single footprint from the intruder remained. That went without saying.