Chapter 151

Flying Swallow blinked a few times, then burst out laughing.

“Hahaha! What’s with that stance? Are you actually serious?”
“I told you I am.”
“You won’t even graze me.”
“You’re free to think that.”
“Do you even know who I am? I’m the eighth-generation descendant of Shadowless Thousand-Hand!”

Flying Swallow planted both hands on her hips and declared proudly.

“You’ve heard of him, right? The genius thief who was the greatest master of movement arts in history. That was my ancestor.”
“And he still got caught by the Heavenly Demon, didn’t he?”
“But you’re not the Heavenly Demon.”
“And you’re not Shadowless Thousand-Hand. You’re just some half-baked descendant desperate to get your hands on the Thousand-Li Roaming Body manual.”

Flying Swallow’s eyes narrowed.

“Hmph. Your tongue’s faster than your feet. Mine aren’t.”

Flying Swallow patted her thighs twice.
She seemed extremely confident in her movement art.
She had every reason to be.
Even a Transcendent master would have trouble catching Flying Swallow.

‘I need to crush that confidence.’

I had said she could afford to lose a limb or two, but I didn’t actually want to go that far.
What would I gain from that?
The best option was to subdue her as intact as possible and make proper use of her afterward.
I needed to make her spill everything she knew about the Heaven Rebelling Society, lead me straight to whoever had written the proclamations, and thoroughly impress upon her just how badly she had screwed up by plastering those things everywhere.
To do that, I would have to break her mentally.

“Try your best to dodge.”
“Come at me all you want. Just keep a good grip on that manual.”

Paang!
I shot forward like an arrow with Lightning Step.
In the blink of an eye, I was right in Flying Swallow’s face.
Her already round eyes went wide as saucers.

“Eeeek!”

Flying Swallow twisted her body in alarm.
My hand sliced through empty air by the narrowest of margins.
Perhaps because she had nearly been caught on the very first move, alarm appeared on her previously confident face.
I stuck close and lashed out with both arms.

“Huk, huk!”

Flying Swallow dodged again and again with bizarre movements.
Apparently deciding that wasn’t going to work, she turned her back and ran outright.
When I chased after her, Flying Swallow bent her knees and leaped with all her strength.
With a spin, she sailed over my head.
She intended to land behind me and escape my relentless assault.

‘Not getting away that easily.’

I didn’t turn around.
Instead, I swept backward across the ground as though sliding with Reverse Step.

“Insane!”

I swung an arm behind me.
Flying Swallow had just landed and begun to relax when her lower body buckled awkwardly.
But she used the momentum that nearly sent her onto her backside to flip through a tight arc like a swallow instead.
I pivoted on my left foot to face her and advanced, thrusting my arms out again and again.
Syuk, syuk.
The attacks kept coming.
Flying Swallow evaded them with strange movements, zigzagging in the shape of the character 之.
Her lips were clenched tight, and cold sweat beaded across her forehead.
It was obvious she was struggling.

“Hey! Take it easy!”

Flying Swallow shouted in a strained voice.
Suddenly, I found it a little funny.
To think I was hearing someone say to me what I had occasionally said to others since regressing.

But I didn’t let my guard down.
By now, I should have caught something, whether her clothes or her hair.
Yet my fingers touched nothing but empty air.

‘At this rate, I wouldn’t catch her even after an hour.’

I needed to change the situation.
Little by little, subtly enough that she wouldn’t notice, I began creating openings.
I would leave my shoulder slightly open or slow my leg movements by the smallest amount.
After I kept it up for a while, Flying Swallow’s gaze gradually regained its composure.
She was probably getting accustomed to my footwork and attack trajectories.

‘Now should be good.’

I provoked Flying Swallow.

“What happened to the person who told me to keep a good grip on my manual?”

She had just regained her confidence.
The moment she heard the word manual, greed returned to Flying Swallow’s eyes.
The corner of her mouth curled upward.

“You know something? Among thieves in the martial world, there’s a custom.”
“What?”
“An advance-notice heist. You announce beforehand when, where, and what you’re going to steal.”
“And?”

Flying Swallow extended her right arm and pointed directly at me.

“Within seven or eight minutes, I’m taking that manual from you.”
“…….”

I forcibly held back the laugh threatening to burst out.
Wasn’t she playing into my hands a little too perfectly?

Then Flying Swallow’s entire demeanor changed.
Her gaze became not merely serious, but almost solemn.
In the next instant, Flying Swallow’s body blurred.

‘……Afterimages?’

Left. Right.
Afterimages followed Flying Swallow’s movements as though several people were moving at once rather than one.
I was inwardly impressed.
Despite her cultivation not being particularly high, she had refined her movement art to this degree.
When it came to movement arts alone, perhaps her talent even surpassed Shadowless Thousand-Hand’s.

Pat.
Flying Swallow vanished.
I reflexively heightened my senses.
My eyes had already lost track of her.

‘I can feel it!’

In that split second,
I saw a line.
I saw a trajectory.

Death-Line Step.
A footwork art meant to slip into the paper-thin space between death and survival.
I assumed there would be killing intent at the end of Flying Swallow’s movement.
The principle was the same.
Whether it was an attack flying toward me to take my life or Flying Swallow rushing in to steal the manual I carried.
So I sensed that trajectory and took a single step.

“……!”

For the briefest instant, Flying Swallow’s eyes met mine.
Despite her obvious shock, her hand continued toward the front of my robe.
She was determined to steal it no matter what.
I answered that determination in my own way.
I slipped diagonally aside and reached for Flying Swallow in return.
Flying Swallow and me.
Our hands shot toward each other.
Which one would land first?
Who would be laughing at the end?

“Fuck!”

Flying Swallow cursed and spun her body.
Her hand swept through empty air as we brushed narrowly past each other.
But I didn’t let that instant slip away.
Her wrist had been my target from the beginning.
I clamped down hard on it. Or so I thought.

Jjiiik!
What my fingers caught wasn’t her wrist.
When I turned around, one of Flying Swallow’s sleeves had been ripped open lengthwise from shoulder to wrist.

Flying Swallow’s mouth fell impossibly wide open.
A piece of her sleeve was caught between my fingers.

I had nearly caught her arm.
I could have caught her.
Flying Swallow knew that better than anyone.

Perhaps that was why.
Even her face turned white.
Her earlier confidence vanished completely, her face filling with fear.

Flying Swallow took a step back.
Her trembling lips parted.
I wondered what she was about to say.

“……Let’s call it here for today.”
“What?”
“See you around, Seventh Young Lord!”

Flying Swallow twisted around and bolted into the darkness.
Apparently, her survival instinct had finally outweighed her greed for the manual.
As she ran, she shouted,

“Hey! Stop Seventh Young Lord!”

Apparently, she had brought those men along from the beginning just to buy time for her escape.
But the men merely stood there awkwardly, unable to decide what to do.
Because now they knew I was Seventh Young Lord.

I didn’t chase Flying Swallow.
Unless I could use Lightning Step six or seven times in succession, there was no way I could catch her right now.
But that didn’t mean no one else could.
I had planted people along the approaches beforehand.

“Guard Im!”
“Yeees!”

Im Yeon burst out of the bushes.
Instead of a sword, she held a net in her hands.
This was what I had prepared as soon as we left Twin Phoenix Inn. No matter how quick the loach, it was bound to get caught in a net.

Syuak!
Im Yeon hurled the net with all her strength. It spread wide through the air and covered Flying Swallow’s escape route.
But Flying Swallow wasn’t so easy to catch.
She dropped so low that her body nearly touched the ground.
The lower edge of the net brushed her hair.

This time, Ak Mu-jin threw a net.
We had more than one.
But this one failed to catch Flying Swallow as well. Perhaps too conscious of her speed, he had thrown it too early.

Yang Woo-yeon threw the third and final net.
Both the timing and angle were flawless.
Just when it seemed certain she would be caught, Flying Swallow made a bizarre movement.
She tilted her upper and lower body in opposite directions and slipped cleanly through.

‘What kind of movement art is that?’

What mattered was that this had failed too.
Flying Swallow left Dragon-Severing Falls behind and vanished into the darkness.

“Hah.”

I was genuinely impressed.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say she had been born to steal.
Maybe she even had what it took to rob the Murim Alliance or the Unorthodox Alliance and get away clean.

“Young Lord, shall we pursue her?”
“It’s already too late.”
“I’m sorry, Young Lord. We weren’t good enough and let her escape……”

Im Yeon lowered her head dejectedly.

“It’s fine.”

I answered briefly.
It wasn’t because I was disappointed or angry.
It was because of the piece of sleeve Flying Swallow had left behind.

‘This……’

Something was stuck to the edge.
It looked like black powder.
I rubbed it between my fingers, then smelled it.

‘Iron?’

Iron filings.
Dust inseparable from those who worked with iron.

‘Iron-Soul Workshop.’

There was only one place in the Black Spirit Division that worked iron.
I had wondered why she chose an inn near the Iron-Soul Workshop as the meeting point. Apparently, she had a reason.
She was probably hiding there under a false identity.
With so many smiths around, anyone with the right skills could hardly ask for a better place to lie low unnoticed.

I turned to Im Yeon, who had come closer without me noticing.

“Guard Im.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
“How long has it been since you got your new sword from the Iron-Soul Workshop?”

Im Yeon tilted her head.

“About fifteen days, I believe……”
“Hmm. Perfect. Let me see your sword.”
“Ah, yes.”

As Im Yeon handed me her sword, I drew my cold-iron dagger.
Then I lightly scraped the blade of her sword. A small nick appeared.

“Y-Young Lord?”
“Looks like it needs repairs. Shall we go tomorrow?”

Though she clearly had no idea what I was doing, Im Yeon blankly nodded.

Hidden Cloud Pavilion.
I lay on my bed, lost in thought.

‘How do I catch Flying Swallow?’

Figuring out where she was hiding was all well and good.
The problem was what came after.

I considered several possibilities.
I had dealt with fast opponents in my previous life. The easiest way to subdue them was simply to move faster.
But I couldn’t do that right now.
Even with Lightning Step, I couldn’t catch her.

‘What if I bring a whole crowd?’

I immediately shook my head.
I couldn’t march a large force into a business operated by the Iron-Gold Wi Family and demand that they hand Flying Swallow over.

‘What if I bring an Extreme Demon Realm master?’

With a master of that caliber beside me, even Flying Swallow wouldn’t be able to do much.
But where was I supposed to find a master like that?

‘So in the end, I have to handle this with just me and my guards.’

My head started to ache.
I couldn’t think of any clever solution.
I was desperate enough to consider using hidden weapons even though I was terrible at throwing them.

Of course, there was no real need to rush.
As long as I had the Thousand-Li Roaming Body manual, Flying Swallow could never bring herself to leave the Demon Cult.
If anything, she would keep buzzing around me like a gnat.

‘Setting a trap and waiting would work too.’

But I wasn’t particularly keen on that.
I wanted to meet the proclamation writer as soon as possible.

“Haaa.”

Just as a sigh escaped me,
my eyes fell on the manual sitting on the table.
I still hadn’t properly read it since bringing it out of the No-Return Cave.
Other things had simply taken priority.
But perhaps the manual Flying Swallow had searched for so desperately contained the clue I needed.

I sat down at the table and began reading the manual.
At first, nothing particularly struck me.
I had assumed Thousand-Li Roaming Body was merely a lightness art for running fast and far.
I had been wrong.
Its principles went far beyond what I had imagined.
And it also held the answer to something that had been bothering me.

‘Her movements were too strange.’

There was something about Flying Swallow’s movement art that defied common sense.
She frequently twisted and contorted her body in unnatural ways.
I had thought it was simply a peculiar movement art unique to Flying Swallow.
Now I saw that it was because the art was incomplete.

Thousand-Li Roaming Body had been lost when Shadowless Thousand-Hand was unexpectedly captured by the Heavenly Demon.
That was why Flying Swallow wanted this manual so badly.
But what if part of it had survived within Flying Swallow’s family?
What if Shadowless Thousand-Hand’s son had remembered his father’s movements and somehow tried to reconstruct them?
What if only a tiny fraction of Thousand-Li Roaming Body’s principles had survived that way, and even those had been reconstructed incorrectly?

‘And if Flying Swallow learned the movement art passed down that way.’

That would explain those bizarre movements.

‘That’s it.’

I didn’t need to match her speed.
I didn’t need to block every escape route either.

Flying Swallow’s movement art was precarious.
Its balance had to be razor-thin.
The more twisting involved, the more precarious it would become.

I only had to create a moment when that balance broke.
Just once.
Make her falter a single time, and it was over.

I smiled and closed the manual.
I had figured out how to subdue Flying Swallow.

That night, I went to bed with an easy mind.
Then the next day came.

“Y-Young Lord!”

Early in the morning, I woke to a flustered shout.
Wondering what was going on, I went outside and found the maids and guards gathered in front of the Hidden Cloud Pavilion wall.

“What is it?”

A sheet of paper had been brazenly pasted onto the wall.

[Advance-Notice Heist]
Don’t get cocky just because you had the upper hand for a moment.
I’ll reclaim my manual within a few days.
—The Divine Thief of This Age

A disbelieving laugh escaped me.
This woman was seriously ridiculous.

“Guard Im.”
“Yes, Young Lord.”
“We have somewhere to go after training, so keep that in mind.”
“Ah, yes!”

But what a shame.
I had no intention of waiting around for days.
Smiling, I pulled the notice off the wall.