Running on a horse and running with lightness skills reach about the same speed, but they aren’t the same.
Of the differences, the biggest is this: riding leaves your hips and lower back sore after a long stretch, while sprinting with lightness skills works your whole body to exhaustion. It was enough to make you think that’s why true long-distance lightness arts never developed. Jang Geon himself wouldn’t choose to pound the ground like this if a horse was handy.
He steadied the breath that wanted to turn ragged and circulated his inner energy. It swept his frame, washing away fatigue, then flared out from the tips of his toes and hurled him forward. He looked like a low-flying bird.
After a long run he stopped to pick up Ju Yeorang and Jojo’s trail. He found the hoofprints fast, checked their line, and took off again. The sun had climbed to its peak and watched him from overhead.
“Jojo, you little shit…”
The beast was too crafty to worry about. He’d manage anywhere, working whatever angle he needed. But Jang Geon wasn’t ready to trade mounts. Jojo was still young and stout—good for another ten years at least—and it wasn’t easy to find a horse that smart.
He was thinking about how he’d tan the idiot’s hide once he caught him when, the instant he sprang off a small rock, a white, snaking streak flashed for his head.
Most would’ve panicked. Jang Geon kicked hard at empty air, using muscle and inner energy to torque his body. It looked like he stepped on the sky and spun. The white streak grazed past and smashed into a pine behind him, carving it almost halfway through.
He came out of the spin and landed, set, looking toward the attack. A man in a white training coat stood there, surprised his strike had missed, a long whip in hand.
So the white streak had been a whip. Given the cut it put in the pine and the line it took, the man was aiming to kill. Jang Geon closed his hand on the hilt slung across his back. The body stoked by lightness skills was ready to move again, hard.
“Wait!”
Ju Yeorang’s voice checked both of them. She stepped from behind a tree, sighed, looked between the man in white and Jang Geon, then fixed on Jang.
“…How did you follow me? I even took your horse.”
“I’m a fast runner.”
She let out a disbelieving laugh. “Then why were you riding all this time?”
“Running is hard.”
“…Fair enough.”
The man with the whip spoke. “So this is the idiot you wrote about in the courier note?”
The sound of his voice tightened her face a little. Not the question—him.
“Yes. We crossed blades with Je Unseong two days ago, and that night he helped me deal with Je Family assassins.”
“And you promised him Imperial Army methods in return?”
“He doesn’t seem tied to any house or the Martial Alliance, so I judged he’d want martial arts.”
“Then why is he still breathing?”
She cut a glance at Jang Geon. “…Je Unseong’s pursuit was looser than expected. After he gauged this one’s skill through Je Family fighters on the first day, he never attacked again. I thought he’d wait for us to split rather than handle us together. And judging by his lukewarm posture, my operation isn’t fully exposed—”
“So you just dropped him. Not worth the trouble to ‘handle,’ eh?”
“…Yes. I thought if I led the horses away he couldn’t follow.”
The man in white smirked. With his long, slitted eyes and thin lips, the smile was chilling. “Too soft, Yeorang. You should’ve kept dragging him. If you couldn’t finish it yourself, we could have.”
He flicked his wrist. The whip writhed like something alive and scored the ground. Ju Yeorang stole another look at Jang Geon: low stance, one hand to the earth, the other on his hilt; the same calm eyes.
“…You don’t know him, and you don’t know the operation. I thought it acceptable—”
The whip snapped the earth again. She flinched and shut her mouth.
“Too much unilateral judgment, Yeorang. Yes, fast action matters in the field, but this was sloppy. When you return to the house, you’ll be disciplined.”
“…Understood.”
Jang Geon rose slowly. The man in white addressed him. “What was it—Jang Gon? Jang Goon?”
“Jang Geon.”
The curt, low answer made the man grin. “Right. Drove off Je Unseong without crossing blades, I hear. He’s always been light on pure technique, but still—impressive. And you’ve never learned from the Imperial Army or an ancient house, they say.”
Jang Geon began to unlace the sword from his back, unhurried. “I’m a bit of a genius.”
The man laughed again, a little incredulous. “Amusing. If this were a different meeting, I’d invite you to be a guest retainer of the house. Ah—call me Yeon Yangjeok. A warrior of the Yeon Family. You have a rough idea what you’re caught in, don’t you?”
The Yeon Family. An ancient house like the Je Family. Unlike the Je—hounded onto the New Continent—the Yeon had deep roots in the Central Plains. Which meant Jang Geon had blundered into the shadow war of two ancient houses straddling the continents.
He rehitched the sword at his waist, slow, and looked to Ju Yeorang. “You figured I’d die in the middle?”
Her face had been tight. At his eyes and words, she sighed. “…Je Unseong’s reputation among the houses isn’t for martial arts. It’s for gathering scraps of information, reasoning them out, and finding the lever. His technique is still above most, but it wasn’t easy to imagine you as some peerless master. How strong can a roadside swordsman really be?”
She glanced at Yeon Yangjeok. He seemed content to let them talk, idly rubbing his chin with a mocking look. She met Jang again. “But after that first clash, Je Unseong never struck. Maybe that famous mind of his figured something out.”
“You were rattled.”
“Of course. I didn’t actually have Imperial Army methods to give you.”
Jang adjusted his belt. “And the Je Family young master story? A lie too?”
“…That was my operation. Seduce the fledgling, steal the Je family papers, then make him realize what he’d done so he’d take his own life. Honestly, I thought suicide was a long shot, but he was more naïve than I expected—and afraid of his father. It worked.”
“So the fiancée—Seom Jiyeong—was right.”
A bitter smile. “I’ve done similar things before, but I didn’t expect a seventeen-year-old to catch me. Sharp girl. Or maybe it’s time I quit.”
Jang cinched the belt and took the scabbard in his left hand. Yeon Yangjeok, who’d been watching, spoke. “Do you know why I’m letting Yeorang say all this, Jang Geon?”
“Feels like you’re minting a pretext to kill me.”
The smile deepened. “Quick study. The note called you a knight-errant—I expected an utter fool, but your head isn’t completely ossified.”
Jang didn’t answer. With the same unhurried motion he’d used to unlace the sword, he settled the bamboo hat on his head. Half his face vanished; only the bristled jaw showed. Yeon Yangjeok clicked his tongue—he recognized the posture you take the breath before blades meet.
“You chased off Je Unseong and got cocky? A vagrant of the wilds daring to raise steel at a Yeon warrior.”
“What other choice do I have?”
“There is one!” he shouted. “Be grateful for the chance to broaden your horizons—if only a little—by tasting the Yeon Family of Hebei’s arts, and stretch your neck out without resisting!”
“…Fuck off.”
Jang Geon laughed through his nose and squared the scabbard with his left hand. He meant to break this man and then ask Ju Yeorang where Jojo was. But he halted. Another man in white stepped out behind him, a short spear as tall as himself in hand, smiling like Yeon Yangjeok.
“Resistance is pointless, Jang Geon. Think of this as the bill for your childish knight-errant game, and come quietly.”
Flanked front and back by two ancient-house warriors—nothing like bandits. In a world where one exchange can end it, this was stepping onto a go board already surrounded by enemy stones. Even if he beat one, the other from the opposite line would take him. It was bad.
“…So talented, and you still need a joint attack?”
“No, no,” Yeon Yangjeok said. “This isn’t a duel—it’s an execution. Je Unseong will follow the tracks and find only your headless corpse. He’ll chew on it and ‘reason’ until his brain aches, and we’ll buy even more time.”
He snapped the whip against the ground. “You’ve safely delivered Yeorang and even hobbled Je Unseong’s feet. On behalf of the house, my thanks. Much obliged, Jang Geon. Good work.”
Jang Geon promised himself he’d make that smug face twist, then looked to Ju Yeorang. She stood there with a faintly downcast look. Catching his eye, she gave a small, apologetic smile. “I am sorry. I told you not to follow and even stole your horse… It’s a shame it came to this.”
“It is.”
She seemed at a loss for more, and turned her head away.
Jang Geon lifted his chin and looked up. A puff of cloud sidled over the sun and laid a wide shadow. The forest darkened and a cool draft moved.
If these were broadleaf trees they’d have shivered and sung in that breeze. But the conifers only let the air slip through their needles, a faint tremor and no sound at all.
The four of them held their breath with the trees. The smiles were gone from the Yeon warriors; they watched him without expression, every sense trained on Jang Geon. Even Ju Yeorang, face knotted with mixed feelings, watched him. He alone still looked up.
He spoke. “Figures… being reborn as a cloud would’ve been better.”
The cloud gave the sun back as slowly as it had taken it. Just as the light returned to the dim grove—
Yeon Yangjeok’s white whip stretched out like a ray and screamed for Jang Geon’s head. At the same time the warrior behind him kicked off, a flash, driving the spear for his back. He was so fast it seemed the thrust would land the same instant the whip hit.
Jang Geon moved with them. He twisted like lightning, flung his hat into the spearman’s line, and hurled himself at Yeon Yangjeok’s whip.
The spearman kept the force of his thrust and tried to tear the hat to rags—but the instant the spearpoint met bamboo he felt a powerful counterforce and balked.
In that beat Jang Geon drew, inner energy running down the blade. The blue-white edge snipped the far end of the white whip to pieces. But Yeon Yangjeok rolled his wrist and the whip writhed like a serpent, coiling his sword. He smirked and heaved to rip it free. The moment Jang Geon braced not to lose the blade, the spear would punch through his back—
—but a sharp tingle surged up the whip’s hilt into Yeon Yangjeok’s arm. He flinched, shocked, and locked himself to hold against it, inner energy surging—just for a heartbeat.
In the same heartbeat, now close, Jang Geon slammed his left palm into Yeon Yangjeok’s chest.
“—Kuh!”
The spot he hit looked fine, but a dull thud sounded and the man’s back split his coat.
Jang followed with a spin and a cut. The Yeon warrior, clear of the hat now, was driving the spear for Jang’s heart. Jang meant to beat the thrust aside.
He couldn’t. Too fast. Before he could shove it fully off line, the spearhead punched through his right shoulder. His left fist crashed into the man’s jaw. The man’s neck whipped; he spun half a turn and crumpled.
Only then did the shy sun ease fully down onto Jang Geon’s head.
In the clearing light, Jang stood with a spear through his shoulder, arm still outstretched from the punch, settling his breath. The spearman with the snapped neck didn’t so much as twitch. Yeon Yangjeok was on his knees. He vomited blood.
“…Heaven-Quake Fist? No. Close, but different. Rougher. Stronger. A fine art.”
As he muttered, Jang Geon yanked the spear out and sealed the points with bare-hand point sealing. When he tried to put strength in his arm, pain ran from the shoulder through the whole right side. He swore under his breath. Yeon Yangjeok looked up at him from his knees.
“Doesn’t feel like demonic arts. Remarkable, Jang Geon. A level beyond your years. Do you have a sect?”
“I do. The countless seniors who could only forge martial arts with imagination.”
“…An odd sect. Well—not that it matters…”
His head sagged. His breath stopped there.
Jang Geon looked at him a beat, then turned to Ju Yeorang. The tang of her straight short-sword caught his eye. He met her gaze. “Are you confident?”
“No. Not at all.”
She smiled and kicked off, drawing a cold blue line. The next moment she was past him, back turned, arm still outstretched.
Then she sank down. “…A master is different.”
Red spread fast along her flank, soaking her trousers. She let out another long breath. “…Only two days, but it was fun. Three, if we count the first meeting?”
He didn’t answer, but she smiled thinly and went on. “…You said you had an eye inside you that looks at you. I had something like that once. On my first mission, when I killed the man I’d seduced that night. There was an eye watching me then.”
The red at her side darkened. “It wasn’t one eye. Four. Four pairs. Bright, pure eyes. My brothers and sisters. The children I loved most in the world… I killed them, in me, with my own hands.”
She tilted up at the sky. Hard sun and thin clouds drifted slow. “…Like you said, they didn’t vanish at once. Slowly—so slowly it felt like I could still pull them back. But unlike you, I didn’t protect them.”
Jang Geon, still turned from her and looking into the trees, sighed softly and flicked the blood from his blade. He started to sheathe.
“Don’t.”
His hand stopped.
“It’s been too long since I faced those eyes. Hearing you yesterday made it clear. When those eyes faded, I died. This body breathes, but I’ve been dead a long time.”
She let the sunlight press across her face and closed her eyes. “Let me see my siblings now. I’m sorry to ask this. Thank you, Jang Geon.”
He looked at her. He could stop the bleeding with point sealing, and he’d aimed to miss the vitals. He’d meant to save her.
But with her face lifted to the sun like that, he couldn’t put the sword away.
She said, “Finish it.”
He did.
The blade flashed short, he shook it clean, and slid it home. Steel met wood with a dry rasp, then a crisp click.
He stared at the ground for a while, saying nothing.
Ahem.
Someone cleared his throat. Jang Geon looked over. Je Unseong stood there in black, hands clasped behind him, eyes bitter. Masked men in black eased out of the trees behind him.
“…I didn’t expect it to end like this. The Je heir—Je Sangcheon—who’d been hanging by a thread, woke up. Thanks to that we confirmed what she did and the Yeon Family’s collusion. And that you were just a drifter swept up by the road.”
“Does that change anything?”
Je Unseong opened and closed his mouth at the flat question, then went on. “Originally… I intended to roll up her whole network. So I only shadowed. When you were in mortal danger, we’d save you and clear the debt. All wasted effort, it seems.”
A blood-rimmed eagle beat down from the sky then, a courier bird clutched in its talons.
Je Unseong lifted his left arm for the eagle and said, “That wound looks bad. I have medicine.”
Jang Geon snorted, didn’t answer, and gave a short whistle. From the far trees Jojo trotted out holding his own reins in his mouth.
“You sorry bastard. Next time this happens I’ll sell you as a farm nag.”
Jojo snorted, uncomprehending. Jang Geon stroked his neck and moved to mount—then the world tilted. He caught himself and checked within: poison.
His eyes went to the Yeon spearman’s short spear. Je Unseong said, “The Yeon Family’s clandestine arm doesn’t hesitate at poison or dirty tricks. You look like you could use help.”
Jang only sighed, shook his head, and swung into the saddle. He gave the faintest smile. “Check the pipa.”
He touched Jojo’s belly and eased into the woods. One of the masked men spoke to Je Unseong as they watched him go. “…Shall we take him? If he’s poisoned it’ll be easy. Or we can wait and collect him when he drops.”
Je Unseong smiled. “I doubt he dies that neatly. Forget it. Check the pipa.”
Inside the instrument rolling on the ground lay a trove of Je Family secrets: terms with other powers, the house’s own scandals, dirt they’d gathered on rivals. Jang Geon had handed it over without asking anything in return.
Je Unseong peered through the trees after the man already gone from sight and murmured, “…In the end, do you break—or do you break through? I find I want to hear the rest of your story.”
Small clouds slipped over the sun and laid mottled shadows across the forest.