BOOM!
The explosion shook the air of the Black Tiger Gang's compound.
"What is happening?!"
The Fierce Tiger Captain charged down to the inner courtyard in a single bound.
He was a true martial artist who had been with Yeop Ji-chang long before the gang had even set foot in Yichang—and aside from the Gang Master himself, he was the strongest fighter the Black Tiger Gang possessed.
"W-wait! Captain! Fierce Tiger Captain!"
Yeop Gun-pyeong came scrambling after him, shouting.
"Where are you going?! You're supposed to be guarding me!"
"Young Master, now is not the time."
"Is my word a joke to you?!"
Yeop Gun-pyeong shrieked, nearly hysterical, and grabbed the Fierce Tiger Captain by the collar.
"Let the grunts fight! You stay and protect me!"
"......"
The Fierce Tiger Captain looked as though he had seen enough. He wrenched his collar free and snapped.
"Stop acting like a child. Are you that frightened?"
"Wh-who! Who says I'm frightened......!"
"Stop interfering and fall back. Report, now! What happened?!"
A gang member approached, bowed his head, and delivered a calm report.
"An explosion went off in the outer courtyard. Appears to be gunpowder."
"Just an accident? Or an attack?"
"An attack, most likely."
"Walked right into the tiger's den on his own two feet. All units, prepare to......"
The Fierce Tiger Captain cut himself off, turning his head.
"I haven't seen your face before."
"......"
"Who...... are you?"
Silence fell.
Beads of cold sweat trickled from temple to jaw.
Then the man who had been delivering the report slowly raised his head.
"Caught me."
At the lukewarm voice, the Fierce Tiger Captain's eyes flew wide.
In the very next instant.
His left hand seized Yeop Gun-pyeong by the scruff and hauled him back, while his right drew his saber like a thunderbolt and swung.
CLAAANG!
Blade met blade, and a shower of sparks erupted in midair.
"Gkh!"
Skidding backward across the ground, the Fierce Tiger Captain whipped around.
"Are you alright?!"
"I-I'm f-fine......"
Yeop Gun-pyeong, who had been thrown face-first into the ground, was still blinking dumbly, not yet registering what had happened.
"Run! Now!"
The Fierce Tiger Captain spun back around—and froze.
Gone.
The man was nowhere to be seen.
It had been less than a heartbeat, yet the enemy who should have been right in front of him had vanished like a specter.
WHOOSH!
In that instant, the Fierce Tiger Captain saw it.
A black thread drawn across the air from nowhere.
The thread widened, and before he knew it, it was hurtling toward his face.
Up close, it was the gleaming edge of a blade.
"......!!"
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG!
The Fierce Tiger Captain swung his saber in a frenzy, without a moment to breathe.
The bladework was fast and vicious, as befitting underworld saber arts.
But equally befitting underworld martial arts, it lacked precision.
WHAM!
The Fierce Tiger Captain was launched off his feet and crashed to the ground.
"Grrgh......"
His skull rang. The world spun.
Blood streaming from his mouth and nose, he managed to raise only his head, expression dazed.
"Wh-what......"
BOOM!
A short, sharp impact.
The Fierce Tiger Captain crumpled and lay still, face pressed to the earth.
That was when.
"Over here!"
"The intruder!"
Gang members flooded into the inner courtyard.
Jin Cheong-un swept his gaze across them, left to right—and spotted Yeop Gun-pyeong hiding behind a pillar in the distance.
Their eyes met across the open air.
Jin Cheong-un spoke.
"The price for burning someone's home must be paid."
"......!!"
TAP.
Jin Cheong-un took a light step in that direction.
TAP. TAP.
A leisurely, unhurried gait, like a man out for a stroll.
TAP. TAT. TATATATAT!
But the strides lengthened, and in a flash he accelerated, crashing into the wall of gang members.
Yeop Gun-pyeong screamed.
"S-stop him!"
SLASH!
A dozen blades tore through the air in a savage volley.
But there was nothing there. The blades tangled with nothing but each other in the empty space.
'Where?'
In that instant, they felt a shadow fall over them from above.
Before they could look up, the blade descended like a thunderbolt.
CRAAACK!
A sound like a war drum splitting open shook the air.
THUD THUD THUD THUD!
They collapsed.
"Falling" or "stumbling" did not capture it. "Crumbling" was the only word that fit.
Yeop Gun-pyeong could not believe his eyes.
'Wh-what am I looking at?'
The vanguard had disintegrated in an instant, and the formation was rendered useless.
Every time the man's form shifted, the armed men around it toppled like sheaves of grain.
"Huh? What?"
"Where is he...... URK!"
Gang members who had been swinging their weapons could not find Jin Cheong-un standing right beside them. They fumbled blindly and were struck down.
From a distance, it made no sense. A small shift of the eye should have spotted him, yet they kept missing and paying the price.
'He's threading through their blind spots to punch through the gaps?'
That was not......
That was not the way a martial artist fought.
He had never seen anyone fight like that.
'Huh?'
Yeop Gun-pyeong jolted.
'When did he get so close?'
A moment ago, the man had been far away.
Only now did the belated realization hit.
Plenty of gang members still stood in the inner courtyard, but they were all paralyzed with fear, none daring to step forward.
A path straight to him had already been carved open.
"No!"
He spun and bolted.
No one dared to move.
No one except Yeop Ji-chang, who had appeared at Jin Cheong-un's side without a sound.
SHREEEEE!
A massive saber carved a wide arc and whipped past Jin Cheong-un's nose.
Jin Cheong-un kicked off the ground several times to create distance and lightly touched his cheek. A thin line of blood trickled down.
"F-Father!"
Yeop Ji-chang flicked the saber clean and spoke, voice lethal.
"I will not hear that word from you anymore, so shut your mouth."
"......What?"
"This mess exists because of you, yet you abandon the Fierce Tiger Captain, discard your men, and run? You dare call yourself the son of Yeop Ji-chang?"
"F-Father."
"Shut up! Get out of my sight this instant!"
The roar sent Yeop Gun-pyeong's mouth working soundlessly before he turned and fled.
Jin Cheong-un, who had been watching, spoke.
"Taking it out on the easy target."
"What?"
"You watched from afar while your men fell too. Like father, like son. And now you step forward because the odds look good enough—save the bluster."
Yeop Ji-chang faltered.
"Goading the general? You have changed."
"......?"
"Do you not remember me?"
Yeop Ji-chang slowly leveled his saber.
"Of all the places to run to, it had to be here—Yichang. To think I would meet you again on this soil. Yes...... I have long been prepared for this day."
A murderous gleam flashed in Yeop Ji-chang's eyes.
"Sword Ghost!"
***
The courtyard fell silent in an instant.
Two masters, face to face. An atmosphere sharp enough to freeze blood—no martial artist could fail to read the scene.
A grudge.
That wondrous and wretched thing that was the martial world's everything.
Two enemies had met on a bridge too narrow for both.
"Since that day's humiliation, I have kept my ears tuned to your every movement."
"......"
"Not a single day have I forgotten. With fury carved into bone and bile clenched between my teeth...... I have waited for this day of reckoning!"
Yeop Ji-chang felt dread and anticipation in equal measure.
This was the moment he had not forgotten even in his dreams.
What would the man say?
Would he be surprised? Shaken? Or would he look down on him with the same arrogance as that day?
But Jin Cheong-un's answer was nothing Yeop Ji-chang had imagined.
"Who are you?"
Silence.
After staring blankly for a moment, Yeop Ji-chang began to tremble, teeth grinding.
"Do you mean to keep mocking me with your petty provocations?!"
"Have we met before?"
"YOU INSOLENT......! You dare say you have forgotten Yeop Ji-chang?! Guard captain of the Heaven and Earth Society's leader! Yeop Ji-chang, the Fierce Tiger Blade!"
Jin Cheong-un furrowed his brow.
'As if I would remember the target's guard captain—some nobody like that.'
The Heaven and Earth Society. So this grudge traced back to his Black Dragon Corps days.
But how many grudges like that did he carry? If he had the memory to recall them all, he would have been assigned to the strategist's office, not the secret guard.
None of that mattered now, though.
"So you set fire to the estate to take revenge on me?"
Yeop Ji-chang's face twisted.
He realized that Jin Cheong-un was operating under a misunderstanding.
"In a situation like this...... you care about some estate?"
"Some estate."
Jin Cheong-un murmured the words as if turning them over in his mouth.
Then he let out a short sigh.
"Right, to men like you who wreck other people's homes for a living, it would be 'some estate'...... But to some, it is a home that took an agonizing decision to build."
Jin Cheong-un smiled quietly. A hollow, self-mocking sort of smile.
"Granted, I was swindled into buying it, and a pair of siblings came attached, and it turned out the children belonged to someone I knew, and the walls creak and the place reeks of mildew...... But it was still my home. The first home I ever earned with my own hands."
Yeop Ji-chang's face contorted.
"And what of it?"
A fathomless silence stretched between them.
Jin Cheong-un regarded Yeop Ji-chang with eyes so calm they were cold.
Then, abruptly, he spoke.
"You should have run."
"What?"
"If you had not known who I was, that would be one thing. But once you did...... you should have run."
In the next instant, Yeop Ji-chang's eyes flew wide.
The voice that had been coming from far away was suddenly right in front of him.
Jin Cheong-un's blade had closed the gap in the blink of an eye.
CLAAANG!
Their weapons collided, and a detonation cracked the air between them.
WHOOSH!
Yeop Ji-chang was driven backward, skidding.
Jin Cheong-un was pushed back roughly the same distance.
"It was true!"
In that moment, Yeop Ji-chang shook with elation and screamed.
"The rumors were true! Injured and diminished! Ah ha ha ha!"
They had clashed head-on and been driven back equally. What could that possibly mean?
He was weakened!
The man had been a shadow.
A specter with form but no substance—a shade from the netherworld that absorbed all light, no matter how brightly it was cast.
Without inner arts, without a weapon, with bare hands, hemorrhaging blood from terrible wounds—the monster had accomplished every mission without fail.
But the presence before him now was nothing of the sort.
Yeop Ji-chang had not fully recovered his own martial arts from their peak either, but the man before him was unrecognizably diminished.
The man standing here was no longer the Black Asura, nor the Sword Ghost, nor the Blue-Eyed Yama!
"No one interfere! I will kill him myself!"
Killing intent exploded from Yeop Ji-chang's eyes.
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
Sparks flew in every direction.
The two figures' forms crossed in a flash.
BOOM!
A short detonation.
A thread of blood leapt from Jin Cheong-un's forearm. Yeop Ji-chang, by contrast, suffered only a loose flap of his lapel. The implication was unmistakable.
"KYA HA HA!"
Confidence surging, Yeop Ji-chang roared with laughter.
CLANG! CLANG! CLAANG!
Attack. Attack. And attack again.
Their blades locked in midair, grinding against each other.
"Your martial arts and your inner arts are out of sync. Have you just learned some new art from scratch?"
Yeop Ji-chang grinned and threw his full weight behind both arms, shoving Jin Cheong-un back.
STUMBLE!
Jin Cheong-un, who had been holding firm, was driven three full steps backward. Yeop Ji-chang pressed forward as though there were nothing left to see.
"......"
Jin Cheong-un's brow furrowed slightly, as if mildly annoyed.
The man was right, in truth.
The Underworld King's Ten Techniques—once his signature art—had been a martial discipline whose strengths lay in stealth, deception, and unpredictability. Jin Cheong-un had spent his entire life fighting to those strengths.
But that Jin Cheong-un was gone.
Against ordinary gang members and even the Fierce Tiger Captain, his skill sufficed. But against Yeop Ji-chang—a genuine peak-level master—the gaps were laid bare.
SLASH! SPURT!
A beat too slow on the dodge, and blood flew from Jin Cheong-un's forearm.
'I have to accept it.'
The martial arts he had spent a lifetime cultivating were gone.
'I would rather not use something I have not yet mastered, but.'
He let out a short breath.
In that very instant.
"Now die!"
Yeop Ji-chang unleashed his most devastating technique.
Fierce Tiger Emergence.
The saber fell like a butcher's cleaver. Jin Cheong-un merely extended one hand, as though the gesture were futile.
WHAM!
For an instant, Yeop Ji-chang was bewildered.
He had expected either a shattered blade or a severed arm—one or the other.
Yet the saber was caught in the open palm, frozen, unable to move.
'What?'
Then.
HUUUUUMMM!
From Jin Cheong-un's body, barely visible, a white luminescence rippled outward—like the shimmering of a flame.
A tremendous surge of inner arts swallowed Yeop Ji-chang's blade energy whole.
In the manual of the Eight Desolations, it was written thus.
Eight Desolations, Volume One: Sovereign Heaven Art.
The martial technique paired with the Sovereign Heaven primal energy was called the Celestial Net Wall.