Feeling nothing out of place, Tang Yu-hyeon quietly swept his eyes over the noisy interior of the Azure Flower Pavilion.
Who belonged to the Azure Flower Pavilion, and who was a guest or one of the exploited.
Who could use inner arts, and who could not.
Then, with his gaze fixed on Geum Yu-sang, he laid a hand on his sword.
"Whatever happens, protect the child."
"Of course."
He meant to turn the Azure Flower Pavilion upside down, and it would be a disaster if a hostage were taken on their side.
"How many can you handle?"
"One who uses martial arts, or about three who do not."
"Good."
The number had risen from the answer he had given before, but Tang Yu-hyeon paid it no mind.
In a joint attack with someone whose rhythm you have never matched, what matters is how many you can safely send the other's way.
Each fighting in his own place in his own manner, so long as no enemy is left behind.
"Then I leave this side to you."
"Leave it to me."
Tang Yu-hyeon snorted a laugh and kicked hard off the ground.
THWAAAAACK!
Appearing before Geum Yu-sang's eyes in an instant, Tang Yu-hyeon kicked away the guard at his side.
"Gaack!"
At a force that caved in the spot just below his solar plexus, the guard collapsed in agony.
Without stopping, Tang Yu-hyeon used the rebound to seize the collar of the musician on his left and drove a knee up into his jaw.
CRACK!
Then, while still in the air, he twisted his body and drew his sword.
SHIIIING.
He had been using nothing but throwing blades, so it had been a long while since he had held a sword, yet it wrapped naturally into his grip.
SLAAAASH!
Sword qi that flew even as the blade left the scabbard swept over men who, half a quarter-hour earlier, had been snickering over whom to buy.
"Aaaaaargh!"
"Sp-spare meeee!"
At the screams begging for their lives, Tang Yu-hyeon smiled crookedly.
Some live only because they cannot die, and cannot even bring themselves to say those few words, spare me. Others say them far too easily.
"They're all the same sort anyway, so there's no need to spare any of them."
Turning his back on the girls who had frozen like stone at the sudden turn, Tang Yu-hyeon twisted and drew his blade down on a diagonal.
Moon-Severing Sword Art, Half-Moon Shattering Cut!
FWOOOOSH—!
The qi poured into the sword spread outward in a half circle.
Broad as a wave and sharp with it, the sword qi cut down every man who had yet to grasp the situation and every man who raised a sword too late.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
"Guhaaack!"
The sword qi stretched on without knowing an end and swept away the enemy to Seon U-yun's right.
"Leave this place and find the Cloud Dragon Trading Company. Say you fled from the one who attacked the Azure Flower Pavilion and they will help you."
"Y-yes!"
The girls flung down the lutes and lengths of cloth in their hands and fled the Azure Flower Pavilion.
THWACK! THWAAAACK!
Tang Yu-hyeon glanced at Seon U-yun fighting, then turned his eyes away again.
The small fry were dealt with.
Now his opponent was Geum Yu-sang.
"You dare, in my Azure Flower Pavilion.......!"
Geum Yu-sang gripped his sword, body shaking with rage.
The regulars of the Azure Flower Pavilion, the wanderers said to have made names for themselves in Sichuan, and the warriors sent from the Moon-Crossing Pavilion.
All of them had died to a single stroke.
Geum Yu-sang furrowed his brow at a sight he had not even imagined.
"What is that bastard?!"
"What else? A bastard who came to kill you."
WHIRL-WHIP!
Tang Yu-hyeon turned his wrist and shook the sword out lightly.
"Have you had a fine time these years, wringing out innocent people?"
"What?"
"Roaming Sichuan like your own house, buying and selling people, extorting their wealth, killing them when it displeased you — was it enjoyable? That is what I am asking."
"What nonsense! What is the problem with taking what is rightfully mine?"
"Ha ha. Look at this."
Tang Yu-hyeon laughed low.
"You say that, knowing who I am?"
"......."
No one reveals his identity in the middle of covert movement.
Geum Yu-sang held that as a cardinal rule when handling wanderers and when facing spies sent from other territories alike.
But Tang Yu-hyeon had revealed his identity all too easily.
That was not stupidity.
It meant he was confident of winning against a Geum Yu-sang who knew exactly who he was.
"You dare swagger before this Drunken Gold Ghost Lord Geum Yu-sang! You will repay your arrogance with your death!"
A sword glinting sharply leveled at Tang Yu-hyeon.
But Tang Yu-hyeon did not shrink back in the slightest; he lifted his cheeks and made his eyes mocking.
"You think one alias makes you some great man? A dog of the Mistress of the Moon-Crossing Pavilion, no less."
"You beeeeeeeast!"
Geum Yu-sang swung his sword fiercely.
The sword qi came on ceaselessly, yet it did not run unbroken like an endless thread; it seemed clean, yet looked at closely it was coarse.
In a word, it was crude.
So crude that one could not believe it belonged to a man who, with proper training, could have reached the beyond-peak realm without trouble.
"It seems you have never properly learned the sword."
"Unlike you, who ate and dressed well surrounded by sword manuals from birth, I grew up in the streets, so I have no fixed forms!"
CLAAANG! CLAAANG! CLAAANG!
Sword qi struck sword qi.
Through collision after collision, neither man gave ground.
"It is not that you have no fixed forms. You were never taught them."
And that would have been Gwak Hwa-ran's intent.
To keep a man beneath her and use him, his martial attainment had to be lower than her own.
Cut the promising sprout while it is still a seed leaf.
But Geum Yu-sang, who did not know this, shrieked when his pride was scraped.
"What would you know! Do you know a life of eating dirt for want of food, of holding a stick because you could not learn to write, of gripping a sword to survive?!"
"Perhaps I do."
He was the one who wanted to ask.
Have you ever known a moment when even sleep was a luxury?
Have you ever known a hell where the dead crowd in when you close your eyes, and the living come to kill you when you open them?
Just as one man does not know a life of scratching up roots to eat in poverty, another does not know a life lived where death would be rest and yet one cannot die — so what meaning is there in arguing over who suffered more?
"Even if I do not know it, clinging only to your own position is no different from caging yourself in a mold."
Tang Yu-hyeon tilted his brows sharply.
"And yet you have not only caged yourself, you force it upon others."
Then he beat the sword low so that his own expression could be clearly seen.
"How pitiable. You do not even know what you do wrong."
At the light prod to his pride, Geum Yu-sang's face twisted savagely.
"Tang Yu-hyeon! I will not let you live!"
FWOOOOSH—! FWOOOOSH—!
Sword qi rushed in from both sides.
Tang Yu-hyeon twisted his body and drew his sword across in a level stroke.
Moon-Severing Sword Art, Full-Moon Slaughtering Cut!
Blue-green sword qi spread out in a circle and swept Geum Yu-sang's sword qi away.
With his attack undone in one stroke, Geum Yu-sang forgot his techniques entirely and swung his sword at random.
Blinded by rage, there was no longer anything of the martial artist to be found in him.
"I am in the wrong? Who says so?"
"I do. I, who know how the Azure Flower Pavilion treats those with talent, say so."
"Securing talent first is only natural for a pavilion master. I am upright in what I have done!"
"Upright men buy and sell people?"
Tang Yu-hyeon drove his sword qi down into the ground as he asked it.
"A foolish question. It is not selling; it is distributing them where they belong. Should they not rather be grateful to me? For placing them where they can be properly used, I—"
THWACK!
A fist drove into the mouth thrown wide with arrogance.
Teeth and jawbone broke, and the skin around his mouth tore raggedly.
"Ah.......?"
Geum Yu-sang wore a stunned expression, unable to believe the sight before him.
And no wonder, for the owner of the fist was not Tang Yu-hyeon.
It was Seon U-yun.
"Shut your mouth!"
Only Tang Yu-hyeon knew when Seon U-yun had closed in and what moment he had waited for.
It was for that very reason he had beaten the attack downward.
"It is too early to be surprised."
FWOOSH—
Then flames rose between his fingers and burned Geum Yu-sang's skin.
"Gyaaaaaaaah!"
A horrific scream rang out.
Even afterward, as though his fury had yet to break, Seon U-yun drove his fist into Geum Yu-sang's face again and again.
Though the difference in build was considerable, Geum Yu-sang, held by the scruff of the neck, could not resist properly.
THWACK! THWACK!
Only when the face was scorched by fire arts, swollen and smeared with blood past all recognition, did Seon U-yun rise.
Tang Yu-hyeon waited for Seon U-yun to calm and asked quietly.
"Finished?"
".......Yes."
When he leaned in to check Geum Yu-sang's condition, Seon U-yun let go of the neck he was gripping.
THUD.
The body, with not even the sound of breath left in it, dropped limply.
"He's dead."
"So he appears."
"And now we are dead men too."
"I do not see why you think so."
"Because you do not know the Moon-Crossing Pavilion, Master. The Moon Orchid Enchantress torments anyone who touches what is hers, horribly."
"Haa. This is exactly why people ought to talk to one another."
Tang Yu-hyeon clicked his tongue and picked up a clean cloth to lay over Jeong So-hui's head.
If he took her to the Cloud Dragon Trading Company like this, the Tang Clan would see to her protection.
"The commoners' safety is secured, at least."
Tang Yu-hyeon jerked his chin at the window, meaning for the other to follow him out.
"Now let us have what you would call a proper talk."