Battle On The Water (1)

They had no food and nothing clean to change into—the sorriest of beggars.

That was how the party looked as they wandered through the jungles of Mount Aenae. Avoiding the Miao meant they had little choice.

Old Man Kang found a route different from the one they had taken in. If Yang Wi-ryeong learned they had survived, that would be the first path he checked.

To elude pursuers who knew fast passages Kang didn’t, they had to blaze a completely new trail—and so their pace slowed.

They ate whatever they could catch or gather, edible or not. Go So-jeong suffered the most; a woman had hardships men didn’t, and to make it worse, her monthly “guest” had arrived, leaving her with a constant deathly grimace.

“Let’s rest a little.”

They had reached a ravine, where a thin runnel of water trickled. Without the occasional stream or spring like this, thirst would have tormented them more than anything else.

For all its trees and thick undergrowth, Mount Aenae at least had plenty of water. That much, they were grateful for.

Go So-jeong asked to stop first. Neung Je-gang nodded. By now, they had fled far enough that he felt somewhat at ease.

He knew the real problem. Their destination was the Black Alliance—where the Iron-Blood Sect, Yang Wi-ryeong’s true base of power, stood, along with many minor factions allied to him—and the Necromancer Cult’s commoners’ network ready to report the party’s every move.

Evading the Cult’s eyes—hidden among ordinary folk—would be grueling.

When the forest fires burned out and no corpses were found, Yang would race to the Black Alliance, deploy his subordinates, and bar every road, intent on killing them before they arrived.

Only by breaking through that net could Je-gang say he had fulfilled the mission entrusted to him by the Black Alliance.

“Phew…”

Old Man Kang tired the most. He had another worry: would Yang’s people leave the old man’s household in Sinpyeong alone?

Je-gang couldn’t bring himself to say aloud the fear that Kang’s family might already have been killed. It only made his guilt heavier.

Go So-jeong slipped downstream, out of the men’s sight. Men could take care of business anywhere with a little cover; women couldn’t. It was maddeningly inconvenient. The rest quietly thanked fate that none of them, at this moment, were women.

She was late coming back—womanly matters, after all. When she returned upstream, she had taken a quick wash and even rinsed her clothes.

“How much farther until we’re out of the mountains?”

“Hmm… five days, perhaps?”

“If we exit this way, what’s the nearest town?”

“Cho-ung. It’s about 400 li from Sinpyeong.”

That was a long way off. In that sense, they could more easily slip past the Grove’s first sweeps, which would focus near Sinpyeong.

“Once we’re down, we should split up.”

“Eh?”

They looked at Je-gang, puzzled. Even united, breaking Yang’s blockade would be uncertain—yet he wanted to divide?

“What I mean is: I’ll go to the Black Alliance alone. Find a safe place and lie low—”

“Chief, me too?”

Majil looked at him with pleading eyes. But Je-gang couldn’t take him.

“Me moving alone is the surest way. It’s also the fastest way to accuse Yang Wi-ryeong before the Black Alliance.”

“But can you withstand their attacks by yourself?”

Jo Gwang-yeong shook his head. However strong Je-gang was, alone he wouldn’t fight through all of Yang’s forces… or so Jo thought.

“I won’t fight. If I decide to disappear, no one can catch me.”

He was Secret Shadow. A shadow, true to the name. Unless someone marked him with a track-scent like they had used on Go So-jeong, no one could tail him.

“You all just wait somewhere safe until I return from the Black Alliance.”

He already had a plan to bring Yang down; if it worked, he might even sweep away the Necromancer Cult’s agents lurking around the Alliance in one stroke—if it worked.

The party traded looks at his confidence—none of them thrilled.

But when Go So-jeong nodded, the rest knew they couldn’t object. If they were truly shackling Je-gang’s feet, they had to let go.

“Let’s go.”

They rose and plunged back into the jungle. As Old Man Kang had said, they finally broke free of the forest after five days.

Four days after the fires were set, rain fell and doused them completely. Yang Wi-ryeong sipped tea and waited for reports, a woman clinging to his side and cooing like a wife.

He felt the time had come to grasp everything. The Black Cloud Demon, Lord of the Black Alliance, had no faction—an isolated general; remove him, and that was that.

In the other two great sects, his agents were placed perfectly in key posts. At his command, they would sow chaos, and in the confusion, once Cheon Jang-myeong and Jo Je-hun were removed, the Black Alliance would fall into his hand.

“Then I’ll join with the Mountain Lord and strike the Martial Alliance, and I will rule Jiangnan. Hahahaha!”

As he smiled, dreaming of what lay ahead, the scavengers returned from the charred forest.

“Whaaaaat? After them! They can’t have cleared the mountain yet. Find them and kill them! Kill them before they get out!”

He had relaxed too far. Certain they were dead, he had babbled out all his secrets. The dead told no tales, and even the living, then, had been as good as dead.

“A tunnel… a tunnel!”

Yang had to think.

“If they reach the Black Alliance, what happens to me?”

Everything he had built would turn to foam. Even if he seized the Alliance, once word spread that he had joined hands with the Necromancer Cult, most of the Black Alliance would draw blades against him—joined by the righteous paths of the Martial Alliance.

“No. No—before that, the Mountain Lord won’t forgive me. He never forgives failure.”

The one he feared most in this world wasn’t the Black Cloud Demon—it was the Mountain Lord himself. Even Yang didn’t know the man’s identity for certain.

But he knew the strength of the forces beneath him, and how ruthless they were.

Even an “ordinary” sub-chief of the Hwangdong Command who had come to kill Secret Shadow—an “ilgae” deputy—had martial might not far off Yang’s own. In the Mountain Lord’s ranks, men like that were common as gravel.

“I have to get back to the Black Alliance. I must reach it before Secret Shadow and lock down the approaches so he can’t meet anyone.”

Yang left Mount Aenae in haste. He had never expected the Grove’s rabble to capture Secret Shadow and company. The Grove’s task had been to delay as long as possible—nothing more.

Secret Shadow hadn’t exited the mountain yet. No matter which way he went, Mount Aenae was hell itself; at least ten days of travel to get out. Yang would surely arrive first at the Black Alliance.

He had a private road—a hardened corridor carved through the jungle with vast labor—that let him clear Mount Aenae in a single day.

In Cho-ung they found a shabby but adequate hideout. They had money; the funds Lord of the No-Poison Sect had provided before they left the Alliance were far from spent.

Once he had secured a safe nest for the others, Je-gang left for the Black Alliance, Majil’s yearning gaze at his back.

He ran day and night, his face altered to a stranger’s. He had even left the Unfeeling Sword with Majil; a known weapon could give him away.

He could have taken some knife or sword, but he had hidden daggers—and other special arts that let him face anyone empty-handed.

Whenever drowsy or exhausted, he slipped into a grove or a decrepit shrine, practiced breath cultivation for a short while, and recovered. Sleep-debt would make him pay later, but he accepted it as training.

Yang had garrisoned every highway and guarded them tight. Had Je-gang moved together with the entire party, they would have been caught somewhere and forced into a major battle.

When Je-gang finally reached the Black Alliance as fast as humanly possible, he found Yang Wi-ryeong already back—exactly as before.

“How is he already here? A double?”

He hadn’t expected this. Even if Yang learned early that he had survived, he shouldn’t have outpaced Je-gang, who had flown like the wind once out of Mount Aenae.

By what sorcery had Yang returned? It could be a fake. But he couldn’t risk checking; if it was Yang, exposing himself would ruin everything he meant to do.

He turned away from seeking the Lord of the Hall of Ten Thousand Sounds. Even if Yang’s own words had cleared the man of collusion, something about him still smelled wrong.

He had withheld information, that much was fact. With no certainty they were on the same side, Je-gang excluded him from this move.

He went instead to the Lord of the No-Poison Sect first. As always, Cheon Jang-myeong was in his quarters.

Srrrk—

Je-gang entered without a sound; Cheon, busy painting a portrait—one that oddly resembled himself—didn’t notice.

“Ahem.”

Only when Je-gang deliberately made a sound did Cheon look up.

“Oh?”

Je-gang had resumed the face of Secret Shadow before entering, and Cheon recognized him at once.

“What happened? Why slip in like—… Forgive me. We couldn’t reinforce you—the second wave ran into trouble. I’ve felt miserable about it ever since. That you came back alive, even so, eases my heart a little.”

“I know why they couldn’t come. The Necromancer Cult.”

“Yes. The madmen rioted without warning in Namnyeong, smashed our branch, and wrecked the magistracy as well. We had no choice but to divert. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. It couldn’t be helped. In any case, even without the second wave, I learned the Grove’s backers.”

“Truly? You learned the hand behind them?”

Blood shot through Cheon’s eyes. He had wanted the true murderer of his child—the face he sketched day after day out of longing.

“The culprit is the Necromancer Cult.”

“Ah! As I thought. I will never forgive them—not until their seed is scorched from the earth.”

His rage made the chamber’s furnishings shiver.

“And… there is more.”

Cheon’s eyes returned to Je-gang.

“More?”

“A Black Alliance figure who clasped hands with the Cult.”

“You found him as well? Who?”

“Yang Wi-ryeong.”

Boom-boom-boom—

Thunder seemed to roll. Cheon’s face went ash-grey.

“Wh-why would he? Are you sure? Absolutely sure?”

It was hard to accept. How could it be otherwise? The man had been like a lifelong companion.

“This is how it unfolded on Mount Aenae. So…”

Je-gang calmly recounted almost everything from their entry into the mountain—especially the exchange in the Grove’s basin with Yang, and what he’d learned through Cheong Yeon.

The truth was too immense. Even after Je-gang finished, Cheon could not speak.

“I have no choice but to believe you. Hah… a foster son? Even so—how could he kill the one he raised as a son…”

“What will you do now?”

“We must remove Yang Wi-ryeong—down to the root.”

“How?”

“How… yes, that’s a problem.”

If they crashed in blindly at Yang’s entrenched power, the Black Alliance could drown in blood and scatter to the winds.

“Will you hear my plan?”

“You’ll take part in this?”

“I return what I’m given. He tried to kill me; I shall try to kill him. That is only natural.”

A chill flickered in Je-gang’s eyes.

“Ahem. Very well—what method?”

“Here is my thinking.”

Je-gang and Cheon spoke at length.

Smack.

Cheon slapped his knee in admiration.

“But if it goes awry, you could die.”

“To take them all in one sweep, we have to accept that risk.”

“Mm. If Secret Shadow wills it, so be it.”

It cost Cheon little; Je-gang intended to shoulder the dangerous tasks himself. The plan was set.

“What of the Hall Lord?”

Unwilling to judge him yet, Je-gang asked. Yang had called him a fool; Je-gang wanted Cheon’s take.

“The Hall Lord?”

“Won’t we need him for this? If so, I must know whether he can be trusted. As I said, there are too many suspicious things about him.”

“I’ve asked the Alliance Lord the same—what if the Hall Lord betrays us? The Lord said this: the Hall Lord is his man. We can trust him.”

“What?”

“In truth, the Hall Lord entered the Alliance alongside the Lord. Do you know his sobriquet—Demon-Steed Branch Master?”

“I do. They say he earned it because he used to be the Alliance Lord’s ma-dong—stable boy.”

“St… stable boy?”

Even Je-gang was taken aback. The man in charge of the Alliance’s intelligence had once been a stable hand.

It was a secret that could do nothing but harm if it leaked. To hold another’s secret felt uncomfortably heavy.

“You may not know it, but the present Lord of the Alliance appeared as if from nowhere. As soon as he stepped into the world, the name Black Cloud Demon spread; soon he challenged the former Lord and defeated him. He brought the Hall Lord—his former stable boy—along. That’s why he gave him the sobriquet Demon-Steed Branch Master.”

Only now did Je-gang grasp the Hall Lord’s story. But a new question rose.

If the Hall Lord was the Alliance Lord’s man… then what sort of man was the Alliance Lord?

“What kind of person is he?”

“Ordinary, you might say.”

“The Black Cloud Demon—ordinary?”

“More or less. He happened to learn martial arts, grew strong, made a name… and now wants to return to his true self. He plans to step down as Alliance Lord. Ah—come to think of it, the one he defeated for the seat was Yang Wi-ryeong’s father. No wonder Yang lusted so for power.”

The more Je-gang heard, the less he understood the Black Cloud Demon.

“In any case, if the Hall Lord can be trusted, consult him and proceed.”

“Understood.”

“This time, even if something else flares up, you cannot pull back.”

That jabbed at the diversion of the second wave. If word of their plan leaked, the Necromancer Cult might interfere again. If they turned forces aside a second time, the situation would spiral out of control.

Je-gang finished and vanished—springing from sight before Cheon’s eyes.

He sprinted back to the party in Cho-ung, pushing himself just as hard as before.

“Chief!”

“Y-you’re already back?”

Majil’s welcome and the skeptical faces of Bae Ji-sang and Jo Gwang-yeong made it real—he was with them again.

Je-gang slept in place the rest of the day. Breath cultivation had staved off fatigue and drowsiness, but nothing restored him like honest sleep.

The next morning, he woke to find Majil asleep on the floor of his room—something unimaginable back in the Forbidden Demon Prison. Who would have thought their fates would knot into this?

Hearing him stir, Majil blinked awake and beamed.

“Chief, you’re up?”

He scampered out to tell the others Je-gang had awakened.

As Je-gang ate, the party lined up around him, eager for news from the Black Alliance. Whether they could walk the world free hinged on that result.

“In short…”

Gulp.

Someone swallowed audibly.

“We must stake our lives—again.”

That was Je-gang’s conclusion.

“Chief, what does that even mean?”

“What are you saying?”

He summarized the outcome of his trip.

“S-so we have to run again?”

Bae Ji-sang looked worried.

“Yes. And Elder, you must stay here until it’s all over. They know your face and identity; it’s best to remain hidden.”

“I’m fine—but I worry for my family in Sinpyeong.”

“They should be safe. If anything happens to them, I will personally avenge them. For now, that is all I can promise.”

If Kang’s family survived until Yang was removed, they would likely be safe thereafter.

‘Hmm… When this ends, I’ll go to Sinpyeong myself,’ Je-gang thought.

He rested one more day. They could have left at once, but for Kang’s safety, they chose to depart under cover of night.

“Majil, make a hidey-hole in this house, just in case.”

“I already made one while you were gone.”

Majil’s tone said Je-gang worried too much.

With night as their ally, they moved out. Neung Je-gang, Majil, Go So-jeong, Cheong Yeon, Jo Gwang-yeong, and Bae Ji-sang—six figures slipped into the dark.