Wudang Sacred Scriptures

Chapter 211

Kwak Yeon steadily unfolded Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes, treating it as cultivation of the First Sword Form itself.

—Clang! Clang! CLAAANG!

With clamorous, ringing steel, sparks flared again and again.

The First Sword Form of the Falling Star Nine Swords—Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes—was an ascending ultimate composed of twenty-eight maneuvers within a single sequence; its drain on inner true qi was not small.

Yet as he tempered Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes in live combat, over and over, something astonishing happened.

The consumption of inner true qi gradually diminished.

Kwak Yeon judged it an effect gained as his execution ripened into true skill.

His mind cleared.

Until now, he had thought that with the three jiazi of inner power he presently possessed, the limit of what he could deploy lay at the Third Sword Form; he had set aside training the Fourth and beyond.

If proficiency reduces inner-qi consumption like this, there’s no reason I can’t train the Fourth Sword Form!

Beyond the Fourth, he could train the Fifth, the Sixth—and more.

As, within the samadhi of real combat, he grasped insight into true execution, the downpouring slashes of the madmen—like thunder in the rainy season—began to dwindle, one by one.

—Thud! Thud! Thud! THUD...! Thud...! Thud...!

Corpses lay strewn everywhere—those who had spent all Latent Force and collapsed of themselves. Only three madmen remained.

Moreover, the faint sword-qi clinging to their blades had vanished; even their thrusting speed had markedly slowed.

And yet the frenzy in their eyes was unchanged.

Demonic or not, to strip away even the least shred of humanity...

An intolerable fury rose in Kwak Yeon toward those who had unfolded such an evil grand art.

—SHWAAAA!

He swept Cheonggang Sword and granted rest to the pitiful humans devoured by frenzy.

—THUMP! THUMP! THUD!

Headless bodies toppled. The battle that had raked the temple court at last came to an end.

“This leaves a foul taste.”

Scowling at the ghastly corpses littering the court, Chwi Dugae suddenly thought of the Blood-Chant Demon Monk.

“Damn it! That old demon bastard!”

He sprang up the stone steps and sprinted for the Great Hall.

—KWA-AANG!

He smashed the doors wide and peered inside—then swore again.

“Son of a dog! He bolted, just as I thought.”

“...”

“Kwak—shall we give chase even now?”

Kwak Yeon shook his head.

“It’s far too late for pursuit. And there’s something more important.”

“True enough.”

Finding the abducted came first.

“But what are you doing now?”

Chwi Dugae, seeing that Kwak Yeon hadn’t come up the steps but was instead raking the corpses with Cheonggang Sword’s tip, asked in puzzlement.

In fact, Kwak Yeon wasn’t raking the corpses; he was turning back their sleeves.

He recalled the red snake tattoo he had seen on the forearms of the shadowy henchmen who had stirred the Hao Sect uprising.

—Sssk!

Cloth slit—and on a bluish forearm, a red snake tattoo appeared.

“...!”

On another corpse’s wrist, he found the same red snake.

“Huh?”

At some point Chwi Dugae had come up beside him, head tilted.

“Why do these bastards have this snake tattoo?”

“...?”

When Kwak Yeon looked over, Chwi Dugae said:

“You asked me back in Agyang to look into that tattoo. I investigated—but turned up nothing, so I didn’t report back.”

“Then why are you surprised?”

“Because the Gathering Demons Division’s men are tattooed.”

“Is that surprising?”

“Of course it is. Ah—Kwak, you haven’t been long in the rivers-and-lakes, so you don’t know the demonic lot.”

Chwi Dugae nodded and went on.

“Cheap tattoos like this are a black-path taste. They need to flaunt affiliations to bully people—how else do they make their coin? Demonic men don’t do this. Why would they carve a badge to show their identities to the whole world?”

Kwak Yeon knew demonic practitioners were proud. Apart from learning demonic arts by any means necessary, they too could be called martial men.

“Still—their policy could have changed.”

“That’s what makes it shocking. Demonic men live by their own self-regard—yet they all got tattooed?”

“In any case, it increases the likelihood that the black hand behind the Hao Sect upheaval is the Gathering Demons Division. No—the Demonic Eight Divisions as a whole seems even likelier.”

“If the Demonic Eight Divisions are acting in concert, they may have resorted to tattoos simply to distinguish friend from foe.”

Chwi Dugae’s nod stiffened into a grim set.

“Heh. Looks like the Demonic Eight Divisions are grinding their teeth and readying a revenge war for the Great Upheaval of the Eight Desolations. Stealing the orthodox sects’ arts—to find counters, most likely. And if they’re swelling their people’s power with extreme sorceries...”

At that, Kwak Yeon looked over the corpses of madmen filling the court.

“Their turning into madmen would be the side effect of that sorcery.”

“Surely. Kwak—surely you don’t think... that making madmen was the sorcery’s primary aim?”

“The Blood-Chant Demon Monk knew his underlings would turn and waited for it. And he himself was an empty body with no inner power. I can’t shake the thought.”

“No matter how demonic—would he plan to turn his own men into madmen? That’s abandoning humanity...”

Chwi Dugae realized he was trying hard to deny it.

Fighting the madmen earlier, he had suspected that the Gathering Demons Division had deliberately been turning its own into madmen.

Even if not—that in a pitched battle against the Demonic Eight Divisions, the orthodox side would suffer grievously was certain. Those demonic men, once turned, were that formidable.

And if that was truly the demonic leadership’s intent...

Chwi Dugae quailed to imagine what it would mean if demon lords at Peak Master level turned into madmen.

“Brother, let’s search the temple now.”

“Ah—let’s.”

“The meditation cells were empty; we should start with the Great Hall and the adjacent halls.”

They clung to a hope: the Demon Monk, busy fleeing, would not have had time to act against the abducted.

Assuming, of course, the abducted still lived.

Behind the Great Hall, in a storehouse, they finally found them. And despaired.

They were all dead—skin-and-bone, like mummies.

Bodies in monks’ robes were stacked like bundles; beneath them lay Taoists in training robes, crushed under.

Kwak Yeon stood dumbstruck before the appalling sight.

He had fought to deny it, but time had passed; he had sensed they were likely lost.

He had told himself that with luck, finding even the bodies would be a blessing.

He wished instead that he had been unlucky—that he were not seeing this now.

He wanted to deny the reality before his eyes.

Tell himself it was a nightmare.

But no matter how he waited, he could not wake.

It was as if the dead, with one voice, told him to accept that this was no nightmare.

From a corner of his chest, a black, clammy shadow stirred and rose.

The shadow slowly took human shape.

It was only a human outline—but he knew who it was.

It was the Blood-Chant Demon Monk’s shadow.

And soon he heard the shadow’s voice.

—I left them on purpose, so the one who ruined my business could see.

The shadow laughed.

Then it changed—into countless human forms.

Kwak Yeon realized the shadow had given shape to his disappointment in, and fury at, humankind.

Passing over his whole body, the clammy shadow left a dark, cold film along his blood pathways and acupoints.

He knew it was a shadow of his own making—and yet he let it run riot.

If he did not, he felt he would choke and die.

Why should such evil men deserve forbearance?

Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!

The farther the shadow spread through him, the easier his breathing grew.

Yes. There’s no need to force my anger down any longer.

These people lie piled like trophies in part because I dawdled—padding my paltry conscience.

He kept crawling into the shadow’s black embrace.

The deeper he went, the easier, the freer his breath.

Then a voice called him.

...Yeon-a!

At the edge of the black curtain, he saw the Sage Taoist standing on Samryeong Peak’s saddle, looking back.

Then, he had been too far to be sure of what he saw.

Now he could see the Sage Taoist’s smile, bright and clear.

So calm. So bright.

During all his time at Samryeong Palace, the Sage Taoist’s face had been dark and heavy.

Kwak Yeon could not [N O V E L I G H T] understand why he smiled at him so.

No—he understood a little.

For more than ten years, the Sage Taoist had lived shut inside a veil of mistrust and anger toward humans, just as Kwak did now.

He had drawn that veil back and learned to smile; before he left Samryeong Peak, he had wanted to show Kwak that face.

Beside the Sage appeared the Hyeonhae Taoist. Then the Cheongmu Taoist came, grinning, a child riding on his shoulders.

Kwak Yeon knew the child was the Infant—an avatar of the Unseon Taoist.

Seokjangsan glared, all irritation; Hyeonmun Dojang shook his head.

His peers from the Martial Arts Hall, the burial ground, Assistant Instructor So Jin-sam—everyone he had crossed paths with—kept appearing.

Elder Jo Chunyang of the Hao Sect and Gwaa, Danmok Seong and the White-Haired Demon Queen all watched him, eyes full of worry.

He wondered how so many could fit in that narrow space.

Then a thunderous bellow crashed down.

“Why is there nothing in the pot?!”

As Jang Noya lifted the cauldron lid, thick steam whooshed up.

Only then did Kwak Yeon realize he was weeping.

Hot tears beaded, traced his pale cheeks, and fell.

Plink!

Chwi Dugae saw a tear drop from Kwak Yeon’s chin-tip catch the torchlight and glitter.

Hooo...

Only then did he let out a long, quiet breath of relief.

From the instant the pitiless corpses came to light under the torches, he had felt Kwak Yeon’s grief and rage, entire.

He felt guilty for breathing easy.

Yet he could not console him rashly. Clumsy comfort would only fan the flames.

He stilled himself as much as he could and waited for Kwak Yeon to climb out of the bottomless pit on his own.

At last, seeing him weep, he eased.

Unvoiced grief leaves the deepest wounds—and the longest marks.

Chwi Dugae slipped out of the storehouse to let Kwak Yeon grieve to the full and shed every tear.

Outside, he raised his eyes to the night.

Black cloud, like ink, swallowed the scattered stars and filled the sky.

—Tick. Tick.

A few drops, then true rain.

—Patter. Patter.

He had fled the tears inside the storehouse—only to meet the sky’s tears.

Damn it.

Still, it wasn’t so bad.

He could blame the downpour for the wet at his eyes.

—SSSHHH!

As he stared blankly at the temple roofs veiled in the rain’s gray curtain, the storehouse door opened.

—Thunk!

They moved every body from the storehouse to the Great Hall. Then they put them to the flame.

It was easy to think the Buddha would refuse to dwell any longer in a place stained with villains’ blood.

As the Great Hall went up in a sheet of fire, Chwi Dugae said quietly:

“Kwak, I’ll send a Gaemok to the Wuyi Sect to collect the Sage Taoist’s effects. I’ll have them carried straight to Samryeong Palace with the message—so write what you want conveyed.”

“I’m grateful in heart, but I don’t wish to trouble the Beggar Clan.”

“...”

“It’s something I ought to deliver myself.”

Chwi Dugae started.

“You mean to go to Wudang right away?”

Kwak Yeon shook his head.

“How could I go, with any face, as I am?”

“...?”

“I’ll go and report after I’ve taken the Sage Senior Brother’s revenge.”

“Then you’ll have to go to the Martial Alliance.”

Kwak Yeon nodded.

“For now, that’s my thought.”

The Martial Alliance had been preparing to subjugate the Demonic Eight Divisions for years; surely they had gathered intelligence—the location of the Gathering Demons Division’s main altar, and the rest.

And he had to meet Elder Begs-for-All, the Supreme Patriarch’s friend.