Danger Met On The Way

Yu Seong bought a small estate in Three-Without County with his own money. He paid the price of the house to its former owner, and paid the price of the land to me.

He and the Thunder Dragon Sect’s warriors lodged there, and most of them had been put to keeping the peace in the county. I told him not to bother, but Yu Seong was in earnest about order in Three-Without County and threw himself into it, so there was no stopping him. So I paid them for the work in the form of a stipend.

Whatever the business, working men for nothing is the sort of thing that breeds trouble.

I bought the building beside the estate and had it made over into an office for Hohyeon Byeok, who would be coming to the county soon. Word had come that the business of the Hohyeon Estate was mostly settled, and that with Hohyeon Jun recovered and managing it he would soon be able to get himself free. I had written out in advance the work he was to do and made a booklet of it, and I meant to hand that over to Yu Seong, so that when Hohyeon Byeok came the two of them could talk it over properly and carry it on.

Lightning kept striking over Yu Seong’s estate, so I went in quietly and had no one announce me.

“I shall inform the young master.”

“No. I shall go to the training ground myself, so do not tell him.”

I set off for the training ground, where the lightning was coming down.

Yu Seong, one with all things, unfolded the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique. His internal force converted into lightning power, and lightning cracked from the tip of his sword. The trees around the garden had been burned away to the last one, so the bolts shot up into empty air, and all at once it had the look of lightning striking out of a clear sky.

Even when he had run through the whole of the sword technique, Yu Seong’s face would not clear.

There is just one thing that will not come loose. It is almost within reach and it is killing me.

It was like a sneeze that rose and then stopped, and he had had the feeling some hundreds of times already.

If I could only break this wall, I think I would have the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique complete.

He was still frowning when he felt someone there and turned to look.

“Elder brother!”

Yu Seong’s whole face opened up, as though he had never been frowning at all.

“What brings you here?”

Cheon Tae-san thought he knew where Yu Seong’s trouble lay, and he wanted to hand him a clue to the wall.

“Yu Seong.”

“Yes, elder brother.”

“What do you think is the strongest sword technique in the murim?”

“Hm, that would have to be the murim’s three great sword learnings, surely? The Bodhidharma Three Swords¹, the Taiji Wisdom Sword, the Purple Mist Divine Sword. Is that not so?”

“Just so. But the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique shares a principle with those three. What do you suppose it is?”

“I do not know the oral formulas of the three, so I have no answer.”

Cheon Tae-san had never seen the whole of the three techniques’ oral formulas, only parts, and from those parts he could guess at the ultimate truth running through all three.

“What I mean is, the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique doesn’t fall short of those three. It may even surpass them.”

“Truly?”

Yu Seong had never thought the technique he was learning was sword learning of so high an order, but it was his elder brother speaking, a man of broad learning, and so he believed it.

“Of course. The proof is that nobody in the Thunder Dragon Sect has ever awakened to the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique to its utmost.”

“How do you know that? It is a secret of our sect.”

“Eh? Didn’t you tell me that yourself, before?”

“Did I?”

Yu Seong scratched his head, and Cheon Tae-san went on.

“But you’ll be the first to awaken to it to its utmost, and you’ll go down in the histories. Not the Thunder Dragon Sect’s alone, but the murim’s.”

“Bwahahaha! It sounds magnificent only to hear it. Tell me what it is I lack, elder brother.”

Since the Heavenly Slaughter Star’s energy had been drawn out of him, the thick air of killing intent that used to hang about Yu Seong was well and truly gone. With that dankness lifted, his looks had come into their own.

“There is a principle that goes into every move of those three techniques without fail. It’s One Moves, All Move, and Unbroken Continuity.”

One Moves, All Move means that when one part moves, the whole moves. Unbroken Continuity means that everything is joined into one and never breaks off.

Yu Seong turned his eyes up to the sky at that, thought a moment, and smiled.

“Elder brother.”

“Do you see what I mean?”

“Yes. I see the sense in which you said it. But I should like to hear you say it out.”

“The Taiji Wisdom Sword, the Wudang Sect’s foremost sword art, makes a taiji and sets it colliding, and uses the force that comes of it. Your technique likely runs on the same principle. But instead of moving your internal force in one stroke, you break it off strand by strand. That’s why you don’t get the power you have in mind.”

“Well, that is because if I move the internal force all at once it is spent in an instant…”

Even as he spoke, Yu Seong caught hold of something and looked into Cheon Tae-san’s eyes.

“Have you ever seen lightning break off strand by strand? It drives straight down from sky to ground in one stroke. It’s the same. You have to draw the internal force up in a single pull and push it out. Once you do, even a little pushed out is enough to make a strong bolt of lightning.”

Cheon Tae-san said no more and waited for Yu Seong to feel it.

“Elder brother, only now have I grasped the heart of it. I thank you. Will you see my enlightenment?”

Yu Seong was the owner of a Heavenly Slaughter Star, sure enough, and his comprehension went past the human. What Cheon Tae-san had said was in truth hard enough that a man born with outstanding martial talent would have had to fathom it a long while before it came clear, and Yu Seong had it the moment the clue was put in his hand. That genius of his surpassed anyone holding the wheel-energy of the Seven Stars and Seven Primes.

That is why the owner of a Heavenly Slaughter Star is dangerous. Let one fall into the road of evil, and hundreds and thousands of lives must be spent to kill him.

It is a comfort that a fellow like that is my younger brother and not my enemy.

Yu Seong set the Overlord Thunderclap Sword Technique going at once, and with every move the lightning came whirling, flashing strong enough that anyone standing near would have been struck and burned black and killed.

— Ku-rroooom!

— Ka-rroooom!

“This is what an Overlord Thunderclap ought to be.”

Yu Seong’s face was drawn, perhaps from having spent all his internal force, but his look was bright.

“Now polish this a little finer and there’ll be nobody left to stand against you. Don’t be idle in your training while I’m away. There’s no telling when we may have to fight the Demonic Cult.”

There would not be many men who could take a thunderbolt and stand.

“Are you going somewhere far?”

“Mm. I have to go to the Dang Sect of Sichuan soon. I came because there’s something I want to ask of Brother before I go.”

Yu Seong said, out of nowhere, “Elder brother, may I not go with you?”

“No. Sichuan’s a long way off.”

“That is exactly why I should go. Ought I not to attend my elder brother?”

That warmed Cheon Tae-san’s heart. Yu Seong meant it in earnest.

“The thought alone is thanks enough. But the more important thing is that you press on here, and gather martial artists, and make elites of them. The Thunder Dragon Sect may have to take the field one day too.”

“I have already sent word to our sect by carrier pigeon of what my elder brother spoke of. And since the Supreme has given the order besides, it will be going well.”

“You’re the only man I have to lean on. I’ll send word if I need you, and then you move at once.”

Yu Seong let out a sigh, sorry to be left, and answered.

“I understand. This younger brother will build up his skill here and wait for word from his elder brother. And do not trouble yourself over Three-Without County. I shall look after it well.”

“Right. Whoever else I might doubt, I trust Yu Seong.”

At that Yu Seong broke into a wide smile.

Until now there had been only people who shrank from him and kept their distance because of the Heavenly Slaughter Star’s energy. Even his own family had avoided him. His elder brother was the first man who had drawn that energy out of him when he might well have died of it, and who had troubled himself over him at all.

If he would not follow a man like that, whom would he follow? And so he was the only man Yu Seong called elder brother. There would likely never be another in his life, he thought.

I shall go into closed-door training for a while and make this enlightenment wholly my own.

For the first time a passion welled up in him to train harder than he ever had. He had come to want to grow strong and protect someone.

I told Cheong Yo and Song-ran too to mind their health, and set out on the road with the Dang house’s people. Mak Yeo-heun had put out for me a carriage of the kind only the Dark Heaven Sect’s Elders ride in. The cart carrying the poison men slowed the journey somewhat in any case, so the Dang house’s people made no complaint. The coachman, besides, was a first-rate master, so he might be called coachman and escort both.

Yeo-seol was in high spirits, as though she took this for a journey the two of us were making alone together. Nobody would have taken her for the same child who had clung to Cheong Yo and Song-ran and wept as the carriage pulled away.

“Sisters, keep well while I’m away.”

Cheong Yo and Song-ran had offered to keep Yeo-seol while I was gone, but I refused. Going into the Dang Sect’s forbidden ground called for a poison-warding bead, and I had none, so I needed Yeo-seol’s power. Much as I would have liked to leave her with the two of them, I had no choice but to bring her along.

“We shall go by way of Hunan and Chongqing and so into Sichuan. We shall follow the official road, so it will not be greatly hard going.”

The route had been laid out with me in mind.

Yeo-seol had grown, no question of it, since before. She was taller and bigger in the body, but above all her mind had matured.

The Dang Sect’s people were not friendly the way the Namgung Clan’s were, and gave little answer even when spoken to. One of their warriors went so far as to glare, and after that Yeo-seol stopped putting out that friendliness of hers. In the old days she would have worked at getting a word out of them somehow.

This is how one learns the world. Simply to know that it is not made up only of people who dote on you is already to have grasped something of it.

The moment you learn that there are people who will dislike you no matter what is also the moment you grasp how heartless the world is.

When such wounds of the heart pile up until they make a hill, the thing gets dressed up under the name of knowing the ways of the world.

I was glad they took no interest in Yeo-seol and me. The more a man has to hide, the more interest comes at him as a burden.

We reached Changsha, the provincial capital of Hunan, without mishap. The official road gave no great difficulty, just as Dang Jin-ok had said. We made a little time and went out to the market street for what we needed.

“I shall go with my little sister and buy a change of clothes.”

When I said it to Dang Jin-ok he nodded.

“We set out after the midday meal, so you must be back before then.”

“I understand.”

We had bought several sets of clothes for Yeo-seol and me and were on our way out. Among the people passing along the market street were several warriors in broad-brimmed hats, shouldering their way through the crowd. The one at the very back had a veil over the broad-brimmed hat as well, so the face could not be seen.

But to my eyes that face showed plain. Since spirit energy had filled all thirteen spirit meridians and turned them into so many dantians, my eyesight could pierce a veil of that thickness with ease.

What is that one doing here?

Here was someone who should never have been in this place.

I bought bamboo hats in haste from a market stall and put them on Yeo-seol’s head and my own.

“Why’d you buy bamboo hats? We’re going by carriage, aren’t we?”

“Yeo-seol. We’re going to follow someone quietly now. So still your presence as much as you can.”

Even as I said it, the living energies flowing off Yeo-seol’s body dwindled. Her martial standing had risen far enough now that she could carry out what I said at once.

I looked about me and bought one thick book from a stall selling them. Just then a book was the nearest thing to a weapon I could lay hands on. The weapons I had on me came to one folding fan, my inner elixirs, and a book. I had come out to buy clothes, and I had left the Azure Sky Sword behind.

Why in the world has Oh Ju-hyang, the Demonic Cult’s Fourteenth Pavilion Master, turned up here?

They were playing at being a merchant’s armed escort, but they could not get past my eyes. The aura of the Demonic Cult’s martial artists came through plain.

I followed after Oh Ju-hyang at a good distance.