All Gongheon left behind was a single old, cracked wooden tablet.
He did not even leave a last will.
The request that, should the chance ever come, the martial learning he had restored be delivered into Shaolin's keeping had been made only once, long ago, in passing.
Jeong I-shin could not know Gongheon's intent, but he carved Shaolin into one corner of his heart.
And the carving of another name beside it...... came very quickly.
"Do not cling to our deaths. And do not so much as dream of revenge."
"Elder Tang, that......"
"Do you remember the bastard's name?"
"......Yes."
"Tsk. It would have been better had you never heard it."
Tang Mu-jeong, lying on his sickbed, told him to forget the name Jaegal Gi-cheon.
Of course, it was not something Jeong I-shin could accept, so he could only smile awkwardly.
There was no chance Tang Mu-jeong did not know that. In the end he let out a sigh and simply wished for Jeong I-shin's well-being.
"I cannot precisely predict the state of things outside either. But I have taught you to respond to any situation whatsoever, so I shall not worry overmuch."
"Of course. I'll conduct myself properly according to how far the orthodox murim has fallen."
"......Yes, that will do."
And so Tang Mu-jeong departed.
As with Gongheon, Jeong I-shin did not cry.
He simply gathered up the belongings Tang Mu-jeong left and carved the Tang Clan into his heart.
Parting with Yeo Hwi was the same.
"......"
No — with Yeo Hwi he did not even manage a farewell.
There was no life in the hut he visited when the man was late to rise.
What greeted Jeong I-shin was Yeo Hwi, who had quietly breathed his last, and four characters carved sharply into the table.
"......One road, ever forward."
It was a parting truly in Yeo Hwi's own style.
After three burial mounds appeared at the dwelling, following Namgung Baek around became Jeong I-shin's daily routine.
Yeo Hwi's parting had been truly like him, but leaving without so much as a farewell was, from the standpoint of those left behind, far too cruel.
"Haha! Sparkles, I told you I'm still fine. I was the strongest of them, you know."
"Stronger than Monk Gongheon?"
"Of course! ......Well, we were about the same, but Gongheon went first, so doesn't surviving make me the winner?"
Of course, no life could be felt in Namgung Baek's voice as he said it either. And so several days passed with Jeong I-shin trailing along behind him.
KRUMBLE—
Outside the dwelling, far off, came the sound of thunder. Only two things in the Bottomless Abyss handled lightning qi.
The human was Jeong I-shin; the beast was the Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel.
Which meant that thunder was the sound of the flying squirrel fighting the Blood-Armored Centipede.
His eyes met Namgung Baek's squarely.
He tried turning his head aside, but it was no use.
"Off you go, Sparkles."
"......The flying squirrel might win."
"Once you're left on your own, is this how you'll manage the inner core?"
"......I'm sorry."
At a coldness he had never seen in Namgung Baek, Jeong I-shin flinched.
He forced his unwilling feet to turn south.
He pushed off the ground hard.
TAP—!
The Bubbling Spring Point. The hollow at the very center of the sole that sinks in when the toes curl.
Tang Mu-jeong had taught him it was the acupoint at the heart of any step method. With the force of true qi burst from there, explosive movement became possible.
The same was true of Jeong I-shin's Unhindered Step. A single strand of Heavenly Thunder Qi reached the ground through the Bubbling Spring Point.
KRAKOOM! WHOOSH—
He tore roughly through the murky fog and pressed on.
An environment that deceived the five senses no longer meant anything to Jeong I-shin.
Arriving at the Thunder Tree Forest in an instant, Jeong I-shin narrowed his brow.
"It's not here?"
Ever since Jeong I-shin took charge of managing the Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel, the creature had always come out to the edge of the Thunder Tree Forest and waited for him whenever the Blood-Armored Centipede attacked.
A spirit beast being a spirit beast, it amounted to using Jeong I-shin, but for Jeong I-shin, whose objective was the inner core, that was quite all right.
KRUMBLE!
The place from which the thunder burst next was deep inside the Thunder Tree Forest.
It was a place Jeong I-shin had never gone out of his way to enter, but there was nothing to shy from now.
He kicked off the ground and crossed the forest in an instant.
Before long a clearing appeared where dozens of trees had been sheared away.
SCREEEECH—!
Jeong I-shin swallowed a breath.
The last time he had seen the Blood-Armored Centipede was a mere fortnight ago.
Yet the thing was smashing the surrounding trees at twice its previous size.
Its dark red exoskeleton in particular had darkened as though scorched, and that was deeply alien and unpleasant.
He was studying the creature when it happened.
CRACKLE—!
A golden flash lodged itself in the enormous centipede, which had to be more than ten meters long.
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel was striking the Blood-Armored Centipede over and over.
SCREEEECH!
The enormous centipede twisted its body this way and that.
Astonishingly, that dark red exoskeleton, which had looked so hard, was being gouged inward in places.
But the difference in weight class was vast.
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel was smaller than one of the Blood-Armored Centipede's legs.
However much it wrapped itself in lightning qi to strike and gnaw, against the whole it amounted to a very small part.
Even so, the creature stood and fought without giving an inch.
But its strength was not what it had been.
Unlike the Blood-Armored Centipede, which had suddenly grown stronger, the creature had for some reason grown very weak.
He did not like that.
'Kill it. The Blood-Armored Centipede.'
It was a somewhat impulsive decision, but not a wrong choice.
Tang Mu-jeong's teachings had included a use for the Blood-Armored Centipede's inner core as well.
The moment his resolve was set.
RUMBLE—
The Heavenly Thunder Qi rising from his qi center plunged straight into the Bubbling Spring Point.
He trod the Unhindered Step, with one road, ever forward as its key principle, without hesitation.
KRAKOOM!
Radiance burst from the stamped step. A shaft of light stretched long, all the way to the center of the clearing in an instant.
The dark red exoskeleton filled Jeong I-shin's vision.
At a moment when anyone would instinctively have slowed, Jeong I-shin instead took the key principle of one road, ever forward into his mouth once more.
KRAKOOM!
With that driving footfall, the Unhindered Step's speed compounded once again.
SCREEEEECH!
The Blood-Armored Centipede, only now noticing Jeong I-shin, twisted its body.
'Now.'
TAP—!
He kicked off the ground in time and lifted himself into the air.
Hundreds of legs came sweeping toward Jeong I-shin in a rippling wave. But not one of them reached him.
Having let hundreds of dark red scythes flow past, Jeong I-shin landed on the Blood-Armored Centipede's glistening back.
RUMBLE—
Unlike the Blood-Armored Centipede thrashing and twisting, the Heavenly Thunder Qi in his qi center cried low.
Without a moment's hesitation, Jeong I-shin drew his right hand back to his flank.
CRACKLE—
The sensation of the Heavenly Thunder Qi reaching the center of his palm was distinct.
A wave of condensed true qi spreading like ripples from the center of the palm to its edge.
It was the sensation that signaled the end.
Jeong I-shin drove out a single palm strike.
Thunder-Severing Myriad Transformation Hand, second technique.
Thunderclap Wave.
CRAAACK—
It was a palm technique that ravaged an enemy's interior with a wave of true qi condensed in the palm's center.
The traces of Heavenly Thunder Qi were etched like ripples into the dark red exoskeleton he had thought would merely crack, and then.
FWOOOSH!
The Blood-Armored Centipede's belly burst open in a single stroke.
The ground was fouled with fluids and gobbets of flesh.
It was the extreme of the internal heavy-hand method and the pinnacle of penetrating force.
THOOOM!
The Blood-Armored Centipede, its belly burst, toppled over without even a death cry.
Listening to that sound shaking the ground, Jeong I-shin looked down at his own hand.
'Two-tenths gone.'
A year ago it had cost more than three-tenths. His attainment in the martial was plainly changing by the day even to his own sense, yet his accumulation had scarcely changed.
At least it had increased a little thanks to the ring of lightning encircling his heart.
"Well, they say there's a way."
For the moment, the greater problem was the giant carcass steaming beneath his feet.
"......So in the end I handled this thing with my hands."
Come to think of it, the reason he had learned the sword from Namgung Baek was that he hated touching this giant centipede.
It was a moment when the resolve of days past became deeply hollow.
SQUEAK—
A familiar cry reached him. Turning his head, he saw the Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel perched atop the Blood-Armored Centipede's head.
"What's this, you look better than I expected?"
SQUEAK!
The creature was smacking the Blood-Armored Centipede's head with its paws, tap tap.
Jeong I-shin was about to speak at the incomprehensible behavior.
"What am I supposed to......"
KRUMBLE!
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel, wrapped in golden lightning qi once more, began burrowing into the Blood-Armored Centipede's head.
"......"
It was an exceedingly odd and bizarre sight.
Jeong I-shin, at a loss for words, could not even blink.
SQUEAK SQUEAK!
Soon a small head popped up out of the hole, and then the Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel leapt out.
Clutching a dark red sphere the size of its own body.
"Ah!"
Jeong I-shin let out a sound of amazement. His thinking, halted by the grotesque sight, began to work again.
From the look of it, it was unmistakably the Blood-Armored Centipede's inner core. And at the same time a thought struck him.
'It's not going to run off with it, is it?'
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel was looking back and forth between the inner core and Jeong I-shin. Its little head swung diligently to and fro.
By anyone's reckoning, the look of something weighing its options!
"Hsss! Bring it here while I'm asking nicely."
SQUEAK!
"Come now! I've given you plenty of food! No more from here on?"
SQUEAK! SQUEAK!
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel, flapping its flat tail over and over, finally took its paws off the inner core.
Jeong I-shin wrapped the inner core carefully in cloth and tucked it into his robes, then held out a finger to the creature.
"There. Still, you dug it out so I had to see less of the filth. Eat up."
A strand of Heavenly Thunder Qi came wafting from the tip of his index finger.
But the creature's reaction was decidedly strange.
The thing, which ordinarily would have buried its head and chewed away, passed the finger by and climbed up Jeong I-shin's arm.
Before he could stop it, it slipped in through his collar and settled into the inner pocket of his martial arts uniform.
"What are you doing? I'm going home. Come out."
SQUEAK!
"......?"
It was a reaction he had never seen.
This was a creature that did not even maintain contact for long except at mealtimes.
And yet look at this reaction. It was behaving as though the place were its own home.
Watching the creature curl itself up entirely, Jeong I-shin shook his head.
"I give up on understanding you. Still, Elder Namgung will be pleased."
***
Jeong I-shin returned to the dwelling with a somewhat swollen heart, but he could not confirm Namgung Baek's reaction.
"Elder Namgung, open the door!"
Whatever he had done to it, the door, which did not even have a latch, would not open.
But the reason Jeong I-shin had not yet smashed it was that Namgung Baek had promised one thing for certain.
"You're really not ill, are you?"
"Haha, I'm not. There are some things I need to prepare, so wait quietly outside, Sparkles."
"All right. I won't move a single step from here, so tell me when you've finished preparing."
"Do that. Hehe."
"......"
Namgung Baek's hut opened exactly ten days later.
"You really didn't move, huh?"
In the hand of Namgung Baek as he stepped out of the hut was a sword with half its blade gone. But that did not draw Jeong I-shin's eye.
It was because the bearing of Namgung Baek, wearing his bright smile as ever, was completely different from before.
As though he had become a single sword outright, he was giving off a livid sharp aura from his whole body.
Namgung Baek felt more like a sword than the half-sword he held.
SQUEAK!
The Heavenly Thunder Flying Squirrel inside Jeong I-shin's robes scrambled out and fled far away.
Namgung Baek did not spare it even a glance.
Jeong I-shin bit his lip.
"......Old sir?"
"Turn around and sit, Sparkles."
"......"
Jeong I-shin could not refuse the old men's words. He could not, even knowing full well how it would end.
Just as when he promised to send his grandfather off with a smile.
"There's a good boy."
A voice as though soothing a grandchild.
Right after, there was a touch at the Gate of Life Point on his back. Soon a strand of energy flowed in through that path.
'......!'
Energy far too familiar...... no, energies.
They were bundled together in a rough tangle, but there was no chance Jeong I-shin would fail to know each of those energies.
'The old men's true qi......'
Gongheon's grand true qi.
Tang Mu-jeong's thick, well-rounded true qi.
Yeo Hwi calmly settled true qi.
And Namgung Baek's clearly shining true qi as well.
The true qi of the four of them bundled together and soon became true qi bearing a resplendent amber light.
HUMMM—
The instant the ring of lightning cried low, Jeong I-shin pressed it down. It was not something that dared bare its teeth here.
The amber true qi seeping in through his back was...... truly warm.
The true qi naturally began circling near his heart. But it did not rotate with the heart as its axis, the way the ring of lightning did.
The true qi took its place alongside the ring of lightning. They met.
The two energies did not mix. But neither did they push each other away.
They simply turned in their own directions. Like meshed gears.
When one turned, the other turned with it through the point where they touched.
HUMMM—
The ring of lightning cried low. It sounded like a welcome.
HUMMM!
The second ring gradually took on an outline. It was still a slender ring, not at all thick. Thin enough to scatter at any moment.
And sure enough.
The true qi flowing in cut off abruptly.
WHIIINE—!
The very faintly formed ring trembled and cried.
At the same time a sound that had been held back burst out behind him.
"......Ngh! Guuurgh!"
"Elder Namgung......!"
Namgung Baek shook his head at Jeong I-shin as the boy hurriedly turned.
Covering his mouth, he spoke with his eyes.
Settle what we gave you first.
"You......!"
Jeong I-shin clenched his teeth and closed his eyes. Using the frustration that had nowhere to go as fuel, he raised the true qi of the Sinew-Transforming Marrow-Cleansing Scripture.
He hurriedly added strength to the second ring, flickering as though about to go out. Since one of its four axes was Gongheon's, stabilizing it was easy.
But he could not complete it.
WHIIINE—!
The ring of lightning rotating with the heart at its center, and the faint amber ring touching that ring and rotating with it.
Only after confirming that sight could Jeong I-shin open his eyes.
"Really......!"
The gaze of Namgung Baek, lying on the ground looking up at him, was far too cruel.
He could feel that always-lively look cooling moment by moment.
Before Jeong I-shin could say anything more, Namgung Baek grinned.
"The Thunder Ring. We'll be your second Thunder Ring. Beside you, always. Good name, isn't it?"
"How can you talk about that now......!"
"Sparkles, I don't know what the others said before they left, but I'm going to ask you for something."
"Anything...... just say it."
Namgung Baek barely managed to turn his head and point at the broken sword driven into the ground.
"It's called Vast Plain. Someday, if you have the time, I'd like you to toss it over to the Namgung Clan."
"Vast Plain......"
"Mm. It's broken, but it's the mark of having withstood the Heavenly Demon's sword. Whatever they get out of it will be their business."
As though that much was enough, Namgung Baek let out one long, shallow breath and went on.
"You're planning revenge, aren't you? You're more stubborn than you look. You're only listening because it's us telling you."
"......"
"Jaegal Gi-cheon. He's no ordinary bastard. Even we were taken in. He might well have become a hero out there."
"That's absurd!"
"That's the kind of man he is. So, Sparkles. Find our clans. Ask for help. And after that...... do as you see fit."
"......Sorry?"
Namgung Baek grinned and raised his left arm to point at the fog overhead.
"The truth is I've known for a while. That this fog can't affect you anymore. It must be the power of your Ultimate Heavenly Thunder Art."
"That's......"
"Climb. Climb up the Bottomless Abyss. Mu-jeong predicted that moment would come decades from now, but as I see it, three years isn't far off. If you spend five or so, you won't even need the flying squirrel's inner core."
Get out of the Bottomless Abyss like that, and live happily. Doing what you want to do.
The unfinished words scattered from Namgung Baek's mouth.
The left arm he had raised dropped. No — it was caught by Jeong I-shin.
"......"
Jeong I-shin buried his face in Namgung Baek's left hand.
He wanted to say thank you, truly, but the sobs were about to break out and he could not open his mouth.
***
RUMBLE—
Beyond the boundary of the White Silk Web Forest, in the deep interior where not even the forest's master, the Human-Faced Spider, could set foot, a strong vibration arose.
That place was originally where the source of the Demonic Wind that lashed the Bottomless Abyss lay, and this tremor was unlike the usual.
KRIK! KRRRIK!
It was the moment the Human-Faced Spider, sensing something amiss, turned its body.
CRAAAACK—!!
A pitch-black wave of qi burst out and burned everything around it.
The Human-Faced Spider, the trees of the White Silk Web Forest, and even the fog of the Bottomless Abyss were no exception.
Out of the blackly burning flames walked a man draped in a dark red outer robe.
"......"
The man swept his surroundings with an indifferent gaze, then drew one of the two swords hanging at his waist and flung it away.
Looking for a moment at the sword driven into the ground, he snorted a laugh.
"The First was nothing much either."
HUMMM—
Sneering at the trembling sword, he soon drew the sword at his waist and cut through the air.
Along the sword's trajectory a line was drawn straight through empty space, and it gradually parted to left and right.
Before long a gap wide enough for one person appeared, and the man stepped across the space without a backward glance.
In the place the man left there remained only a single trembling sword and a split in space that had not yet closed.