O Duseok gaped in bewilderment for a long moment before managing to speak.
"You...... were a woman?"
"You did not notice, it seems. I would have expected a master of your caliber to detect it through scent and bearing alone."
"Ahem!"
"There is no need to be so embarrassed. I did take my own precautions."
"To trick me, you mean?"
"Quite the opposite. I revealed the truth to earn your trust, Branch Commander."
"It amounts to the same thing in the end."
O Duseok grumbled, though his bluster had deflated somewhat without his realizing it.
The moment he learned the figure in black was a woman, a certain fact had surfaced in his mind.
"I heard the Strategist has a sharp-witted niece. They say she is a talent who could rival even that Jegal Seoyeon."
"Is that so?"
"Hmph. Do not play coy. I know full well you are that very woman."
O Duseok clicked his tongue quietly.
"So, your name is......"
"Sama Ran."
"Sama Ran. Right, now I remember."
"Niece and confidant of Martial Alliance Strategist Sama Jin, and formerly a member of the Martial Alliance advisory staff."
"Mm......"
"The Gansu Branch's affairs will be handled by our people."
Sama Ran, now firmly in command, continued in a tone that was gentle yet brooked no argument.
"And so, I would ask the Branch Commander to return to Xi'an and support Dan Sahyeok."
"Tch. Now you are giving me orders outright."
"It is a proposal, not an order. Whether you follow it is entirely your choice, Branch Commander. However......"
Sama Ran lowered her mask.
The beauty laid bare beneath it left O Duseok momentarily dumbstruck.
"I simply feel confident that you will not make a choice so foolish as to let this payment go."
"......Tch. Is everyone in the Sama Clan a fox, or what?"
O Duseok shrugged and set off walking.
Not toward Gansu, but back the way he had come.
"Thank you. Then, please take this......"
"No, keep it."
Sama Ran, who had been about to hand over the item, hesitated.
"Pardon?"
"I can see at a glance that it is a hideously expensive piece of jadeite, and I know full well it is far too generous."
"What do you......"
"It is too valuable a price for a job this trivial. In short, I would rather not owe the Sama Clan a debt."
Sama Ran looked blank for a moment, then spoke.
"But if you accept no payment at all, then it is we who would owe you a debt, Branch Commander."
"Hmph. Having the Sama Clan in my debt is not such a bad arrangement. Well, if it weighs on you, send over a few bottles of the good stuff sometime."
"......Understood. I will relay that to my uncle, then."
"Good."
O Duseok answered curtly and launched himself back down the road he had come.
Sama Ran watched his retreating form for a while, then began sprinting toward Gansu herself.
***
"Quite the chaotic move, if I may say so. Though of course you bore the brunt of it alone."
"......"
"On behalf of the other Alliance members, I offer my thanks for sending everyone off without harming a single one."
"Quite a few ended up scratched or bruised, so I cannot claim no one was harmed."
"A few scrapes and bruises? If one is going to whine about that, one has no business calling oneself a martial artist. Would you not agree?"
A ramshackle cottage somewhere in Xi'an.
At a glance, it could easily have been mistaken for an abandoned house. In its modest courtyard, Dan Sahyeok and Great Master Gomok sat facing each other.
A simple tea setting rested on a weathered bench.
No one else was in sight, yet Dan Sahyeok had no trouble detecting the presences of Shaolin warrior monks concealed in every direction.
Not that the fact stirred any particular feeling in him.
He knew well enough that they had come with the pure intent of ensuring their Abbot's safety.
'Besides......'
Even if every one of them joined forces, they would not match Great Master Gomok alone.
In truth, the one person within the Martial Alliance who had possessed the ability to stop Dan Sahyeok was not Namgung Un, but this old monk.
"Do you not resent me?"
"If I were going to resent you, I would not have taken your side in the first place. You know that."
"That is true. Even so, I thought you would keep the Martial Alliance intact."
"Why is that?"
"Because throwing away a long and venerable history overnight would be too great a waste."
"History and tradition. Ha ha."
Great Master Gomok laughed and savored his tea.
"Where there is a beginning, there must be an end--that is the way of the world. And what has vanished can appear again--that, too, is the natural order. If the time comes and the world has need, the Martial Alliance may well return."
"But not now."
"Of course not. Is that not why you did all this?"
At Great Master Gomok's question, Dan Sahyeok shrugged.
"I simply wanted to claim Yellow Dragon Fortress. I had no desire to destroy the Martial Alliance itself."
"I see. Well, it is all beside the point now."
"......"
"So, what will you do next?"
"Who knows. For now, I will have to wait and see how things unfold."
"Ha ha, the other luminaries would be stupefied to hear that. The man who accomplished the unprecedented feat of claiming Yellow Dragon Fortress, and yet he is leagues away from any meticulous plan."
"......"
"Well, that is not necessarily a bad thing. You simply took what was yours to take, as the natural order dictated."
A faint shadow fell across Great Master Gomok's wrinkled, smiling face.
"This is nothing more than the meddling of an old worrywart, but I cannot help saying this. Xi'an as it stands is no different from a den of wolves. Ravenous, greedy wolves at that."
"Is it?"
"It is. And that is not limited to the martial world alone."
Dan Sahyeok nodded at Great Master Gomok's weighty words.
"For the Shaanxi government, the Martial Alliance and Yellow Dragon Fortress must have been a goose that laid golden eggs all this time."
"A goose that lays golden eggs! What an amusing metaphor. Is that your own?"
"It is a fable from the western lands."
"The western lands? A story passed down from the far west?"
"Yes."
"How do you come to know of it?"
"It was told to me."
Dan Sahyeok said only that.
Great Master Gomok did not pry further.
"Would you tell me the story?"
Dan Sahyeok inclined his head.
"It is a simple tale. There was a goose that laid one golden egg each day, but its owner was not satisfied."
"Hmm. And then?"
"He cut open the goose's belly, hoping to find many golden eggs inside, but the belly was empty."
"A world-class fool. He destroyed with his own hands a treasure that would have provided for him his entire life."
"That is why it is a fable."
"I see. Hmm. But that story seems a touch different from your situation, does it not?"
"From the perspective of those who have lost their goose, it may not seem so different at all."
"True, I suppose that could be the case."
Great Master Gomok smiled affably and downed cup after cup of tea.
The sight of him tossing back tea as though it were liquor struck even Dan Sahyeok as memorable.
"And knowing all that, you went ahead and seized Yellow Dragon Fortress."
"I did."
"Countless people will descend upon this place, one way or another. Most of them will not come with good intentions."
"I expect not."
"And still you chose to become the Lord of Yellow Dragon Fortress."
When Dan Sahyeok said nothing, Great Master Gomok smiled.
"I cannot fathom the mind of the Sword Ghost who bested even the Blood Sky Demon, but one thing seems certain: his path will bring a great storm down upon the martial world and the Central Plains."
"......"
"All this old rascal can do is hope that path is guided by a higher purpose."
"I am not sure there is a higher purpose."
Dan Sahyeok spoke in an even tone.
"But I can tell you this much: those who deserve to die will die."
"Death. Debased rascal though I may be, it is hard to hear talk of killing with any gladness."
"It cannot be helped."
Dan Sahyeok's resolve was absolute, even in the face of Great Master Gomok's words.
"The place I came from was that kind of place."
"......Indeed, you are the Sword Ghost who returned from a battlefield more perilous than any in the martial world."
Great Master Gomok's bitter smile lingered as he continued.
"At any rate, you must know this as well...... by now, they have already begun to move."
***
"This is unbelievable!"
The western gate of Xi'an, at its front avenue.
A crowd several times larger than usual was teeming in the streets.
The same would be true of the south, east, and north gates.
It was the result of those suddenly expelled from Yellow Dragon Fortress pouring out like a receding tide.
Gwak Doyeong and the Yichang Sect disciples had crammed themselves into a nearby inn.
They were among the lucky ones, at that.
They had snatched up a spot at the inn quickly enough to at least tip back a cup.
Those less fortunate would be sleeping on the streets tonight, or camping along the road home.
"Is this really, truly possible?"
Gwak Doyeong drank himself into a stupor and poured out an endless stream of lament.
A single man had driven out thousands.
Could there be anything more preposterous in all the world?
That they would become the laughingstock of future generations was as plain as day.
No--perhaps it had already begun.
The whole story had already spread through every inn and tavern.
Passed from mouth to mouth, the Martial Alliance and its members had been reduced to cheap drinking-table gossip. Could there be a greater humiliation?
And the talk was already drifting in from all around them.
"As it turns out, the Martial Alliance was nothing but a rotting tree! The trunk looked sound, but the inside had decayed!"
"Of course! How else could thousands be driven out by a single man?"
"The only one with the spine to stand and fight was Namgung Un, from what I hear."
"Well! The man who felled the mighty Azure Sky Sword King--I would be shaking in my boots too."
"Even so, thousands of people unable to do a thing about one man and getting thrown out? Does that even make sense?"
"At any rate, the age of the Martial Alliance is well and truly over."
There was no closing one's ears, and even fingers stuffed in them would be useless when people bellowed that loudly.
The other Yichang Sect disciples already had killing intent etched across their scarlet faces.
"Those bastards......"
"Dregs who could not even qualify as a Martial Alliance grunt, flapping their open mouths!"
"Senior Brother, we need to teach those wretches a lesson today or I will never be at peace!"
"Enough. Do you intend to drag our sect's reputation through the mud along with the Martial Alliance's?"
Gwak Doyeong restrained his juniors for the moment, but his own insides were boiling just as fiercely.
Just then, a shadow fell over them.
"Might I have a word?"
"......Who are you?"
"That is not important. What matters is that we need to band together."
The man answered, then dropped into an empty chair.
Gwak Doyeong eyed him warily.
"Band together? What do you mean?"
"Is it not obvious? The Alliance members. The rightful masters of Yellow Dragon Fortress."
The man answered with a loaded expression.
"Surely we cannot withdraw like this?"