Everything in the world had its own color, and people were no exception.
Their eyes, their expressions, the distinctive qi surrounding them—all of it revealed who they were.
The moment Jin Mukyung saw the man before him, he knew instinctively what he was.
A demon.
The two syllables flashed through his mind.
There was no mistake. The eyes drunk on killing intent. The corners of his mouth lifted in a lazy smile. The scent of blood seeping from his entire body was so strong it stung Mukyung’s nose just to stand before him.
What… is this bastard?
Mukyung watched him, his gaze steady.
He could feel it in his skin. He understood it in his mind. This new enemy was nothing like an ordinary villain.
Even Pung Yang, the Red Wind Band Leader who had once raided the Mount Heng Sword Sect and inflicted a serious internal injury on Mukyung with his unexpected martial prowess, seemed like a mere mounted bandit beside this man.
A different breed. A different class.
In the lives he had taken, and in his martial prowess.
Chinggen looked back at Mukyung and grinned.
“Just as I thought. You’ve got good eyes.”
Step. Whish!
Chinggen took a light step, as though out for a stroll. Mukyung instantly sprang back and raised his sword at an angle.
“Your Qi Sense is useful, too.”
Chinggen nodded with satisfaction.
He had let only the faintest trace of killing intent slip, yet the young man had reacted without an instant’s hesitation.
Enemy though he was, Chinggen liked the young Sword Demon more than he had expected. It almost seemed a waste to treat him as mere prey.
“You’re as gloomy as an old man on his last legs, but you’re still just a brat… Who are you? Want to be my Disciple?”
No one had expected that. The battlefield, briefly stilled by Chinggen’s arrival, stirred with alarm.
More than anyone, the hundred or so nomads groaning amid the gaps in the collapsed rocks stared wide-eyed at their Great Chieftain, doubting their own eyes and ears.
They belonged to the western grasslands ruled by Temur and Chinggen. They knew both young Great Chieftains well, which made the offer all the harder to believe.
Chinggen had become Khan through strategy and leadership rather than personal martial prowess. Yet here he was, offering to take as a Disciple the man who, through extraordinary martial skill, had single-handedly slaughtered hundreds of their brothers from the grasslands.
“K-Khan!”
“What are you saying…?!”
Cries of shock rang out from every side.
The joy they’d felt at the arrival of Chinggen and the Keshik had vanished long ago.
Chinggen smacked his lips at the sight of the nomads staring at him with wide eyes, each nursing injuries of varying severity.
“Come to think of it, this is a strange time to make the offer, isn’t it? Especially with people watching.”
The short sword in his left hand blurred.
Shk. Rrrrrumble!
A cold slicing sound rang out. The pile of rocks, barely holding together, collapsed onto the nomads.
Their screams as they waited for rescue were swallowed by the roar, then disappeared completely.
“Useless things. Never any help, but they sure do run their mouths.”
“……!”
“Now that no one’s watching, let’s get back to our conversation. Hmm?”
In the sudden silence, Mukyung fixed Chinggen with a steady gaze.
“So you’re Chinggen, you bastard?”
“Hey, now. Is that any way to address me?”
Chinggen clicked his tongue.
“You may be a brat, but that’s no way to speak to your Master. I ought to rip your tongue out.”
The swaggering manner. The ease of a man certain of his strength.
Mukyung had little trouble seeing that the man before him, wearing a nomad’s distinctive hairstyle, was hiding a great many secrets.
“You’ve disguised yourself. Where’s the real Chinggen?”
Chinggen thought for a moment.
“Who knows? Probably inside an eagle’s belly by now.”
“And the other one?”
“The other one? Oh, I left Temur alive. Had to keep one of them around to control the westerners.”
He answered without hesitation.
The Keshik controlled everything within several dozen jang.1 Jamukha had spent years raising them as his personal guard, and they would never betray their master.
Even the fiercest hunting dog did not bite its owner.
“Well, that should satisfy your curiosity. What do you say to my generous offer?”
Chinggen was looking at Mukyung with great anticipation when—
“Impossible.”
A low voice cut in. Chinggen frowned at the face he saw over Mukyung’s shoulder.
“Impossible? Why? No, first—who the hell are you?”
The uninvited guest answered calmly.
“How could a wolf serve under a mangy dog? He’s my little brother, whom I’ve cherished like my own son. As his older brother, I can’t let that happen.”
“Little brother? Older brother?”
Chinggen’s eyes widened slightly as he looked at Jin Wikyung. Then he let out a short laugh.
“The Jin brothers… This is a much bigger catch than I expected.”
A big catch.
Wikyung’s gaze grew heavy at those words. He remembered the old fisherman who had laughed heartily before the battle and promised to bring back a big catch.
“What happened to Senior?”
He had his suspicions, but he wanted to hear it from Chinggen himself.
What had become of the Dongting Fisherman, who had willingly risked his life for the Jin Family of Taiyuan? Of the owner of that dark fishing rod lying on the ground?
His worst fears were seldom wrong.
“Oh, that old man.”
Chinggen smiled faintly.
“He was a decent fisherman, but he wasn’t strong enough. Hooked something too big for him and snapped. Just like that rod.”
“……!”
“Actually, ‘snapped’ isn’t enough. More like crushed to pieces. He was slammed more than thirty jang2 down.”
Wikyung swallowed a groan.
The black-wood fishing rod, soaked in dark red blood and cracked in several places, showed how fiercely the Dongting Fisherman had fought.
The old fisherman had often said that when he died, he wanted his remains scattered in a blue river. Today, he had laid his bones in this gray gorge instead.
He had given his life for the Jin Family of Taiyuan, repaying the life he owed them.
Now the Jin Family owed him a debt. Him, and everyone else who had died here.
“Give me your name and title.”
“What?”
“I need to know who you are, so I can speak with my head held high when we offer a memorial rite for the dead in the future.”
Wikyung met Chinggen’s eyes with a cold gaze.
“So we can say we personally tore apart and killed the bastard who dared invade Shanxi Province and harm you all.”
“……!”
“No matter how rotten the world gets, isn’t that what people ought to do?”
Chinggen blinked his wide-open eyes, then suddenly burst into loud laughter.
“Ha! Hahahahaha!”
His laughter boomed through the gorge, pressing down on everything around it.
No—it was no longer mere sound.
Vrrrrm. Rrrrattle!
The air swelled. An immense pressure shook the ground and cliffs as though an earthquake had struck, drawing groans from all around.
“Urgh…!”
Was this what it felt like to be caught in a giant’s grasp?
The tremendous qi carried in Chinggen’s laughter made those nearby stagger. Some of the lower-level martial artists, whose internal energy was meager, went pale and coughed up blood.
“A Supreme Peak master…!”
The words slipped from someone’s lips like a groan. They gave voice to everyone’s shock.
And yet even that did not go far enough.
Just as mountain peaks differed in height, the man wearing Chinggen’s face could not be fully described by the words Supreme Peak.
Sssssss.
At that moment, the martial artists of Shanxi Province could hardly believe their eyes.
Fragments of broken rock were rising into the air as though suspended on invisible threads. There were a hundred or so of them.
Their jagged edges were hidden weapons in their own right, and the man standing tall at their center was nothing less than a monster.
A monster of endless change, wearing human skin.
Crack. Crrrunch!
Bone shifted and flesh compressed with sickening sounds. His appearance changed by the moment.
Everyone stared, stunned by the sight. Then three streaks of light flashed from somewhere.
Shwaaa!
The air split.
Three figures crossed the space like lightning, too fast for even the Keshik to react. As though they had planned it, all three struck at once.
Whoom. Whish!
A mighty punch and two swords blazed with brilliant light as they rushed toward Chinggen—
“How dare you!”
KABOOM!
With an enraged shout, an enormous surge of qi erupted like lava, driving everything around him away. A violent gale whipped through the gorge.
Fwoooooosh!
A thick cloud of pale dust rose, obscuring everything beyond arm’s reach.
The three attackers were thrown back three jang3 by the irresistible force. They exchanged deep, steady looks—when—
Pop!
A sharp crack cut through the air, and Chinggen appeared before them.
No. Not Chinggen. Someone none of them had ever seen.
Thud.
A heavy footstep.
The old man was as bulky as two or three ordinary men put together. He wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve and muttered, “Damn it. I just can’t get used to this.”
The man who had been called Chinggen moments ago felt his own face, restored after so long, then the flesh that seemed ready to burst from his body.
Old and ugly.
That alone was unpleasant enough. Being ambushed while enduring the painful reversal of his disguise technique and Bone-Shrinking Technique had made his mood far worse.
“You ungrateful little bastard…”
The old man glared at the rats who had dared to ambush him. His eyes were so narrow and buried in fat they seemed impossible to see.
He was furious—especially because Jin Mukyung, the first person in a long while to catch his interest, was among them.
“You dared ambush your Master? You’re expelled.”
At the old man’s declaration, Mukyung found himself wondering how his troublesome younger brother would have answered such nonsense if he were here.
Then he came up with a likely answer.
“Go suck a dog’s dick.”
“……!”
“Oh. And you’re a pig bastard, too.”
The old man’s eyes reddened with rage. Reflected in them were the two men smiling on either side of Mukyung.
“And who are you two?”
The two men, one young and one old, answered readily.
“Ghost Sword Wipeng.”
“Tiger of Mount Heng, Cheol Mubaek.”
At the answers of the two Peak masters representing the Jin Family of Taiyuan and the Mount Heng Sword Sect, the old man licked his lips with a tongue surprisingly quick for his size.
“So, one of you’s about to die and become a ghost, and the other’s a dog from Mount Heng. Good to know.”
Shing.
Metal scraped coldly against metal. The old man crossed the two swords in his hands.
“When you reach the underworld, tell them the Demon Bird sent you.”
Those words were the signal.
The battlefield’s suspended moment ended, and the wick that had barely kept burning caught in a blood-red blaze.
Waaaaaah!
With a great roar that woke the deep night, two waves crashed into each other.
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