Chapter 51: North Venerates Shaolin (1)

It was a principle that you did not see someone off for a Roaming Pillar Journey.

Because it wasn’t going to do something grand.

They were only going down to learn the Way and awaken to the world, then return.

That was why Eunsong could not see his disciples off.

He only stayed seated at his lodge, looking after Cheonju, Cheonhwa, and Cheongu.

No matter that he was called the White Plum Scholar, a man of piercing insight and judgment...

could he have imagined that Ak Jupae—his and his disciple’s enemy—would enter the Mount Hua Sect and end up accompanying his disciples on their Roaming Pillar Journey?

It was absolutely impossible.

And so, he could not step in and stop it.

“Soyak. Did you eat something wrong at lunch?”

Cheonjeong examined Soyak with a worried voice.

The color had drained from Soyak’s cheeks and lips.

And they hadn’t even fully left Shaanxi yet.

“...I’m fine. Thank you for your concern.”

She couldn’t meet Ak Jupae’s eyes.

Because she was afraid her agitation would be exposed.

She had to force even that agitation down, yet it was difficult.

“Is this your first time traveling?”

Ak Jupae asked Soyak.

Soyak stiffened for a moment, then steadied her mind and answered.

“...It isn’t my first time. I’ve only had the experience once, though.”

“To go from Shaanxi to Shandong, you have to pass through Henan, so we should stop by Shaolin.”

“If it’s because of me, you don’t need to go that far...”

Soyak shook her head.

Even if her body suffered a little, she wanted to end this Roaming Pillar Journey as quickly as possible.

The more they rested here and there, the longer the journey became.

And then she would have to look at that man’s face for longer.

But Ak Jupae was stubborn, and he lacked tact.

“You said you’re fourteen, yes? You’re smaller and more delicate than your peers. No matter how strong your internal power is, if your bones and sinews aren’t sturdy, your body will suffer. We’ll rest often as we go. I have no desire to hear later that I harmed Mount Hua’s cherished disciple.”

He was like the massive saber strapped to his back.

In righteous hands, he could become a powerful justice—

but in a hegemon’s hands, he became a blind butcher’s blade.

Arguing more would only tangle their words further.

Soyak had no skill that could persuade a man past forty.

Worse, he was a master at the early Transformation Realm.

It was impossible to overpower him by force.

So there was only one method left.

“Yes. I will do that.”

Answer every question with “yes,” and cut the conversation short.

That was Soyak’s best option.

It was also every child’s best option when they didn’t want to listen to an adult.

*****

Contrary to Eunsong’s worries, the Roaming Pillar Journey was exceedingly peaceful.

Because anyone who saw the massive saber on Ak Jupae’s back had no choice but to run.

It wasn’t that they never encountered bandits or mountain brigands...

but fighting had no meaning.

The road was long, but the wind was cool.

The route that wound along the mountain slopes toward Shaolin was peaceful beyond measure.

After three or four such incidents, no one even tried to pick a fight first anymore.

“Head Senior. Doesn’t it feel like we’re traveling way too comfortably?”

“Isn’t that all because the Flame-Saber Lord is looking after us?”

Thanks to that, Cheongak had loosened completely.

And the Flame-Saber Lord unexpectedly let Cheongak be.

Because right now, he didn’t have the presence of mind to care about something like that.

‘...Oaths you can’t keep.’

It might not be wrong.

If, for vengeance for his son, he had to kill someone again?

He would kill without hesitation.

And even after that, the karmic retribution of vengeance would come around again.

There was only one way.

To abandon vengeance first.

But that, at least, he could not choose.

Because it was utterly impossible.

“Huh. What’s that?”

Then Cheongak pointed at something jutting out of the brush.

It was caked in mud, filthy with grime, and a complete mess, but...

it was a human foot.

“...Cheongak. Take Soyak and fall back.”

Cheonjeong drew his sword.

A neatly forged Black Iron Sword revealed an elegant form.

Ak Jupae accepted the surrounding sense of presence—

then left Cheonjeong alone.

‘I don’t feel any dangerous presence.’

There was no master nearby.

That was probably just a corpse.

Either someone foolish who resisted so they wouldn’t lose their belongings to thieves...

or someone who talked wrong and got slaughtered.

But both were wrong.

Cheonjeong, who had approached, murmured in a trembling voice.

“This is... a monk’s robe?”

The one lying there—

was none other than a Shaolin disciple.

In an instant, the Flame-Saber Lord’s brow furrowed.

“A monk’s robe? Step aside.”

He closed the distance in a breath and went to the young monk.

Not childlike anymore, but still not an adult.

A monk who looked to be in his mid-to-late teens.

The problem was that blood was pouring from his mouth.

When he loosened the collar, there was the imprint of a single palm strike just below the solar plexus.

“This is bad. The internal injury is severe. At this rate, soon—”

North venerates Shaolin, south honors Wudang.

Even before an Alliance Leader bound the martial world together under the Alliance’s name, that had been truth.

It was still the same now.

To go so far as to lay hands on a Shaolin disciple...

you had to be either an utter fool,

or someone with overwhelming power,

or else a remnant of the Demonic Cult, shattered to pieces.

The last was the most likely.

The Flame-Saber Lord scattered his sense of presence again.

Not the slack, sparse probing from earlier.

This time it was a dense, intense net of presence—no different from real combat.

Yet still, nothing snagged.

The Flame-Saber Lord lifted the young monk into his arms and stood.

Then he began issuing instructions to Cheonjeong.

“I will carry this child and go straight to Shaolin. You will follow behind me, but if you fall behind, do not force yourselves—rest and come after. Time is urgent. I have no leeway to match your pace.”

The Flame-Saber Lord himself was not a master who had perfected Lightness Arts.

But even so, compared to Third Generation disciples who were only seventeen and fourteen, he was incomparably higher.

If he matched their speed...

he might not reach Shaolin in time.

“It’s a severe internal injury. And the vicious aura leaking from this single palm strike...”

It wasn’t demonic energy from a Demonic Cult art.

But he had felt something like this before.

A sect that devoted everything to killing the opponent.

The Assassin Organization’s martial arts were like that.

“...It’s the Assassin Organization’s Instant-Kill Certain-Death Palm. Time is urgent. Do you understand!”

“Yes, hero Ak. I’ll keep Soyak and Cheongak in order, so please go on ahead.”

The moment the answer came, the Flame-Saber Lord launched [N O V E L I G H T] himself with Lightness Arts.

A martial artist at the early Transformation Realm.

Despite that huge body and Lightness Arts he hadn’t even cultivated with particular diligence, he vanished from sight in an instant.

After the time it took to blink a few times—

Cheon Soyak sank to the ground.

Cheongak and Cheonjeong didn’t know why she was doing this.

“Soyak?”

“W-what—what’s wrong with you? Huh? Hey, snap out of it. Hey!”

She hadn’t lost consciousness.

But she had definitely—definitely—felt that same aura before.

She had felt killing intent with the same nature as that Instant-Kill Certain-Death Palm.

A sticky, chilling aura that felt unpleasant.

When she had taken the Purple Firmament Pellet and circulated her energy—

it was the same kind of aura as the one belonging to the person who attacked Master Eunsong.

“...Head Senior. Cheongak.”

Soyak called the two quietly.

Then she pulled them close, pressing their heads together as if embracing them.

Cheongak and Cheonjeong were still flustered, not understanding why—

when an unignorable sentence slipped from those small lips.

“I have experienced the Assassin Organization’s martial arts before.”

A tiny voice, barely audible.

She was wary of someone eavesdropping.

At those words, Cheongak and Cheonjeong’s bodies went rigid.

They, too, had heard the Assassin Organization’s name.

They had never faced it themselves, but...

the sect of assassins that vanished from the martial world along with the Demonic Cult’s collapse.

Even now, from time to time, some formidable martial artist would die for no apparent reason.

Whenever that happened, people believed an assassin from the Assassin Organization had come.

“...At the One-Branch Gathering.”

It was then.

From the brush across from where the monk had fallen, someone rose.

A black martial outfit.

A black hood.

And a short sword dulled of shine with a mixture of hide glue and ash.

The Namgung Clan’s shadow corps.

The Night-Heaven Hall Deputy Hall Lord, Gisan Gwang.

“Seeing you again, little girl.”

Gisan Gwang spoke in a low, wintry voice.

At the same time, Soyak, Cheongak, and Cheonjeong all drew their swords.

But Gisan Gwang only snorted.

“I know all your abilities. The girl in the middle is at the edge of Apex, and the other two are playing at the edge of First-Rate. I may be an assassin, but I am a Transcendent Apex martial artist. Do you think you can get out alive?”

As he poured internal power in, Sword Qi wavered and leaked from his blade.

Its form wasn’t straight or complete.

But there was no room for doubt that he had stepped into Transcendent Apex.

“If you wish to kill me, then do so.”

Soyak straightened her posture and spoke firmly.

“But why did you harm an innocent Shaolin disciple?”

“So that the Flame-Saber Lord at your side would leave, of course.”

In that instant, Soyak’s pupils shook.

She hadn’t measured that cunning.

But she steadied herself again.

When she set her resolve and raised her internal power, the black qilin’s force flowed through every meridian in her body.

“...I am not afraid of you.”

“It doesn’t matter. Die.”

At that moment, Gisan Gwang’s body blurred for the span of a blink.