A New Power

The thought had been with me a long while, but I had never tried it, for fear that working the two at once would set them clashing. The more I handled my internal force, though, the plainer it became that spirit energy could be worked alongside it without trouble. The spirit meridians are a part of the meridians too, and still no clash arose between internal force and spirit energy. Perhaps this, too, I owed to my constitution being the Heavenly Martial Sacred Body.

Hm?

As internal qi and spirit energy brushed past each other in the thirteen spirit meridians, I understood what those thirteen had become. Filled full of the spirit energy I had come by at Hwaryeong Village, they were something like a dantian now.

Good heavens, are spirit energy and internal qi fusing with each other?

In the other meridians the two would not mix, like water and oil; each kept clear of the other’s path. And yet, on reaching the thirteen spirit meridians, were they not fusing together?

But can this be put to any use?

Turn it over as I might, I could find no particular use for it.

Ah — unless!

Then a thought went flashing through my head. Spirit energy had its limit where matter was concerned. The Samadhi True Fire it could manage; powers like the Empty-Air Grasp or the Plucked-Leaf Flying Blade were past it. Only the inner elixirs, being crystallized spirit energy, answered the spirit energy I sent out and let me bring the Empty-Air Grasp into play. On anything that had weight, spirit energy could bring no force to bear.

But if internal force and spirit energy have fused, then might the Empty-Air Grasp and the Plucked-Leaf Flying Blade — impossible with spirit energy alone — not be possible now?

I gathered my internal force in and opened my eyes. Then I led it into the thirteen spirit meridians, sent it out toward the teacup I had left half drunk, and raised my hand. The cup, half full of tea, slid smoothly up into the air.

“Oh!”

The moment the cry of wonder left me, the cup dropped with a small thud and spilled its tea. My breath had gone out with the cry, and the energy had lost its force.

An Empty-Air Grasp on something the weight of a teacup is a feat only transcendent-peak masters can manage. In practice a man has to enter the Transformation Realm before he can work the Qi-Driven Sword.

That was basic common knowledge in the murim. Encouraged, I looked about me and drew a sheet of paper out of the writing case.

— Rrrip!

I tore off a corner of the paper, set it between my fingers, and worked the Nine Nether Spirit-Snatching Finger, one of the Ghost Immortal’s martial arts. It was a finger-flicking art worked with ghost qi, and a supreme art I had given up on, since however many times I tried it, spirit energy would not bring out the flicking qi. Its principle agreed exactly with that of ordinary martial arts, which load internal force onto a hidden weapon.

I set the torn scrap of paper between my index and middle fingers, loaded it with the internal force that spirit energy and internal qi had fused into, and threw.

— Zip!

The paper, taking the internal force, turned hard as a plate of iron and flew through the air.

— Thock!

The paper lodged squarely in the pillar of the room.

A power like that could never be worked on internal force short of thirty years’ worth. It had become possible because the twenty years’ worth held in the Flying Dantian had fused with spirit energy. The field was one I had opened up for myself, so had the Ghost Immortal known the art could be turned to such a use, they would have treated me as their senior.

All at once I felt grateful to Hohyeon Byeok. Had I not stepped forward to help him, I should never have brought off a fusion of internal qi and spirit energy such as this. Perhaps it was a gift for the loyalty that had set me out to save a friend.

Life is such that goodwill sometimes comes back as ill will — but there are plenty of times it comes back as kindness, too.

I took it for the fruit that a heart set on a friend had borne.

I went on tearing paper and working the Plucked-Leaf Flying Blade until white paper stood packed thick in the pillar.

“Not the Plucked-Leaf Flying Blade — the White-Leaf Flying Blade, I ought to call this.¹”

The paper being white, the name suited it.

“Somehow I seem to keep growing stronger without knowing it myself. As strong as this, who would believe me if I said I was not of the murim? I may have to live hiding a little of my strength.”

In the murim, wherever martial strength was great, followers sprang up and formed a faction. So the thought came to me that I might have to hide my martial standing.

“What is this?”

Even with three spirit energies turning, my sense for qi had struggled to reach past a thousand feet. I had been astonished enough when the spirit energy I took in the cavern widened it out to two thousand. And now, with internal qi and spirit energy fused, it opened out to three thousand feet, and I flinched in shock. My field of view spread until it was as if I had become an eagle and were looking down at the ground from the azure sky. For a while the mass of information the widened sense caught was enough to make my head ache.

As the water qi took shape within it, the flow of water came through to me clearly. Once I had grown used to the further widening, I could make out the blood flow within three thousand feet.

If I put internal qi and spirit energy together, and killing intent on top of them, and worked the Boundless Azure Sky Sword Technique — might an azure dragon of a clear shape not come out of it?

Fighting Oh Ju-hyang, the Demonic Cult’s Fourteenth Pavilion Master, I had brought out the shape of an azure dragon, faint though it was, and for a time that had even got me called the Azure Dragon Scholar.

It was then.

All at once more than a hundred blood flows were caught inside my sense for qi.

Human blood flow.

For more than a hundred men’s blood flow to be sensed at this hour meant one thing. I hurried outside and told Hohyeon Byeok and Myeong U-jong that the enemy was attacking.

At my words Hohyeon Byeok was at first half in doubt.

“Is that true? Then how is it there is not one thing caught in my own sense for qi?”

He was a master close to first-rate himself, and perhaps that was why he heard me out and wondered at it. Myeong U-jong caught on at once and spoke.

“Brother Hohyeon, Scholar Cheon is a master who killed ten first-rate masters of the Demonic Cult in a single instant.”

“What? Tae-san?”

Since coming to the Hohyeon Estate we had not talked of martial arts, so there had been no occasion to bring up my standing. He knew only that I had come to help him; that I might be a master had never once occurred to him. And no wonder. Two years ago, when we shared hardship and ease at the Murim Alliance, I had been near enough a pale-faced bookworm who could not perform so much as the smallest scrap of martial arts. In truth I had even then read and mastered nearly every secret manual in the Alliance’s martial repository, but I had never once let it show.

“In the old days you were a friend who did nothing but lose himself in medicine and love a tune. When did you learn martial arts?”

I put him off with a rough answer.

“I kept steadily at it after you went home to the country. And on top of that I came by a fortuitous encounter and grew strong.”

“They say you killed ten first-rate masters as easily as that? That is a hard thing even for a peak master.”

“Part of it was that the fellows grew careless because I was a scholar, and part of it was that I used hidden weapons.”

“Even so, it is remarkable.”

Hohyeon Byeok said it as a man who knew how vicious the Demonic Cult fellows were.

“There was a fortuitous encounter.”

He would be watching me fight before long, so I gave him a word of warning in advance, that he might not be startled.

“This is no time to be picking at that; we must think how to meet it. There are more than a hundred of them.”

Mak Ji-mong spoke to Hohyeon Byeok, who was still doubtful.

“Believe what Scholar Cheon says. He is a formidable master.”

Hohyeon Byeok answered with a serious face.

“There is nothing to call a plan. Nothing but to strike them as they come over this estate’s wall.”

Mak Ji-mong spoke to his escort warrior.

“Bring that.”

The escort warrior came carrying one great pack. Mak Ji-mong looked at the pack and spoke proudly.

“I looked for a large-scale fight myself, so I have something ready. It cost me a bit of money to bring these along. The Hall Master of the Armory Hall would not listen to a word, so I even had to hand over a bribe. Coming in a hurry, I could not gather up many. Had there been more time, I would have brought twenty or so more.”

“Thank you, Young Sect Leader. I shall repay this kindness later.”

Mak Ji-mong, with a preening look on his face, rattled off a saying much used among the unorthodox sects.

“A man of the unorthodox sects carves his grudges into rock and his kindnesses into sand. A thing like that is nothing. Give it no thought.”

Watching Mak Ji-mong lay on so much bluster and then swell with triumph at himself, I thought there was something rather endearing about him after all.

I have the feeling I have heard that somewhere.

I called Mak Yeo-heun to mind and gave a snort of a laugh.

At Mak Ji-mong’s order to his man, he opened the pack and drew something out. Hohyeon Byeok knew the thing at once. From the end of a long bamboo tube a cord stuck out, and on the tube was written Scorpion-Tail Rainburst Tube.

The scorpion-tail in the name meant a hidden-weapon tube carrying scorpion venom. The Hyeoncheon Sect made these tubes for itself, and a single one carried power enough to do the work of a first-rate master. The thing was dangerous, able to deal a blow to a great many enemies in the opening moments.

I looked at the hidden-weapon tube and spoke.

“These we ought to hand out one apiece to the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps and have them used just before the clash at the outset.”

“Do that. It being night, the fine needles will not be seen, so they will be the more powerful for it. Managed well, it could cut their strength in half.”

“Just so. If only it is managed well.”

Mak Ji-mong clicked his tongue.

“It is a pity about Corps Chief Gwanryong and the ten and more Hyeoncheon Asura Corps elite who went to the Ilji Sect.”

“It is no matter. We have the Scorpion-Tail Rainburst Tubes.”

The others still had not sensed the Demonic Cult fellows’ attack.

“They have come within a thousand feet now.”

Hohyeon Byeok stared at me as at some marvel, seeing me make out what he could not sense himself. I had turned into something like a peak master in no time at all, so it was only to be expected.

“The fellows’ presence is sensed.”

Only now did Mak Ji-mong’s escort open their mouth.

“There are more than a hundred.”

Only then did my words gain credit.

“With the Scorpion-Tail Rainburst Tubes there is no need to fight a battle of holding the walls. Far better that we go out and fight. To use the rainburst tubes freely there must be nothing in the way.”

“Now that I think of it, that is so. I too shall lead the Hohyeon Estate’s warriors out. There are only some thirty of them now, but we shall join you.”

“That will be enough.”

When I said it, Hohyeon Byeok came over to me.

“Tae-san, be careful. If it looks dangerous, get yourself out of the way. I do not want you hurt. Do not force yourself on a man you are no match for. Even if my house is wiped out root and branch, I will not watch you die.”

He left me with his charge.

“You be careful yourself. Do not go putting yourself at the front of an attack. I have already opened the killing precept for a friend²’s sake.”

I left Hohyeon Byeok behind me and went over to the men of the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps.

“The Young Sect Leader has given me command of you gentlemen for a time. From this moment, in order to use the Scorpion-Tail Rainburst Tubes, we shall form the Hyeoncheon Sect’s Great Roc Rends the Heavens formation. I shall be the great roc’s head, so take the left wing, the right wing and the rear wing between you.”

Mak Ji-mong and the martial artists of the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps started in surprise. The Great Roc Rends the Heavens was a charge formation they were fond of using, original to the Hyeoncheon Sect and to no one else.

He knows this?

That was the look on every face.

I told Hohyeon Byeok to take the rear of the formation, since the Hohyeon Estate’s martial artists stood at a lower level of attainment than the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps.

“When I give the order Wings Off, you must not go beyond thirty feet; and when I give the order Wings Back, you must return at once.”

Wings Off meant the wing coming away, that is, breaking out of the formation; Wings Back meant the broken-off wings gathering together again.

“When I give the order Wings Off, fire the Scorpion-Tail Rainburst Tubes.”

That instruction went to the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps. At my words the men gave a single nod, showing me their trust. Seeing that I knew the formation as exactly as Corps Chief Gwanryong Jin did, they were not uneasy.

“The Hyeoncheon Asura Corps are elite indeed. With a Demonic Cult horde before them they do not shrink in the least.”

I said it to Mak Ji-mong deliberately, meaning to lift the men’s spirits.

“It goes without saying. The world reckons the unorthodox sects fall short of the Demonic Cult in martial strength, but that is the nonsense of ignorant fellows who have never seen the unorthodox sects’ true strength. The unorthodox sects are strong. It is because they take up every advantage of the orthodox, unorthodox and demonic martial arts.”

There was reason in what he said, and I nodded. That is why the unorthodox sects’ martial arts are also called crude; yet by the same token, arts of real originality and terrible power have been born of them.

“They are coming.”

“The Young Sect Leader had best go into the estate now.”

“No. I shall stay here and watch my men at their work.”

I looked at Mak Ji-mong and laughed inwardly.

Bluster it may be, but it is the sort of word that gives his men strength.

And sure enough, at the word that the Young Sect Leader would be watching the battle, the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps rose to the very height of their spirits. The other side would have caught some inkling of us in any case, and it was time to take that lift of spirits for firewood and set the hearth alight.

“The wicked are many and hell stands empty! Who will send the wicked to hell!”

“We will! We, the Hyeoncheon Asura Corps!”

When I shouted it, the ten and more martial artists answered back without thinking.

Naturally.

This was the war cry Mak Yeo-heun, the Unorthodox Supreme, was forever saying. As I broke into a run forward, the martial artists came after me in the shape of a phoenix spreading its wings.

“Haa. A corps chief and no mistake. But how does that scholar know the war cry of our Hyeoncheon Sect’s armed body?”

“This subordinate wonders at it too. He is like a martial artist of corps-chief rank who has knocked about the Hyeoncheon Sect above ten years.”

Far off, the Demonic Cult horde running to meet them showed itself little by little in the moonlight.

“The moonlight will turn red before long.”

Mak Ji-mong muttered it in a tone of no little grimness.