Chapter 98 - Site One

Eulji Tae looked out. Just as Dong Bongsu had said, the crowd’s heads surged forward, jostling this way and that, rather like waves.

“Once you’ve thrown yourself into the sea, how can you avoid the waves?”

The old Dong Bongsu would never have wasted so many words on such pointless talk.

If the waves of troubled times had already swept him away, what harm was there in trying on the mask of a hero? The mask Eulji Tae wanted to see now would probably speak as Dong Bongsu just had. And in a way, these were things he genuinely wanted to say.

“Once the waves have struck, isn’t there nothing for it but to ride the current and swim safely back to land?”

Apparently quite pleased with the answer, Eulji Tae cleared his throat to hide an unaccustomed smile.

“Ahem. Indeed. Let us go, then. If we’re going anyway, the sooner the better.”

Their conversation over, Dong Bongsu and Eulji Tae plunged into the sea of people and were swept toward the Murim Alliance.

Just as Jong Jihang and Dong Bongsu had disappeared, the ship that had brought them soon departed as well.

Another ship drifted in from the opposite direction, filling the berth just vacated. Aboard it was someone who, like the two men before him, waited for the other passengers to disembark before setting foot in Zhengzhou.

Of medium height. Dressed in a light black martial outfit. Hair cropped short. A sword slung diagonally across his back. And a striking scar slashing across his left cheek.

He looked little different from the other martial artists here—apart from that scar.

Like any other martial artist, he mingled with the crowd and walked south for some time along the bustling main street. It was the very road Dong Bongsu and his companion had taken, leading toward the Murim Alliance.

Was he another martial artist who had come to visit the Alliance?

After a long walk through Zhengzhou’s bustling streets, he came upon an estate as vast as a palace: the Murim Alliance. Naturally, a crowd thronged its entrance.

Those carrying missives were entering through Martial Harmony Gate, while the rest gazed up in awe at this preeminent institution of Murim, seeing it for the first time.

The man joined the latter group and stood in one spot for a moment. Then he promptly turned and left.

That was all he did after coming right up to the Murim Alliance...

Yet a tiny dot remained where he had stood. At a glance, it looked scarcely different from the grains of sand scattered nearby. A closer look, however, revealed that it did not move and was clearly a depression of a particular shape in the ground. As though someone had deliberately pressed a seal of that shape into it...

A droplet rolled down.

Droplets trickled down the woman’s white-jade skin.

Her slender hands ceaselessly scooped water from the tub, wetting shoulders and breasts so gracefully shaped they seemed sculpted by a god. The sight of the droplets sliding around the raised emblem at the center of her breasts was mesmerizingly sensual, at odds with her pure body.

Slightly diminished after passing the protrusion, the droplets traveled down the valley between her breasts, ever downward. Passing her smooth lower abdomen, they finally reached their destination, a small pool.

In that intimate place where the droplets seeped in, a small marking lay hidden, visible only to the droplets.

It resembled the faint shadow of a person...

Hidden from view was a small marking resembling the faint shadow of a person...

Before long, the woman finished bathing.

The newly risen moon sent its light to caress her naked body, as though reluctant to let it go, but could not stop her from dressing.

RUSTLE, RUSTLE.

Soon, most of her beautiful body was concealed beneath her clothes. Her most private parts, of course, were covered too...

As she emerged from the bathroom, a rather tall female warrior in a light purple martial outfit approached. It was her bodyguard, Jang Gaheun.

Normally, maids would have been waiting for her to finish her bath...

She immediately realized that Jang Gaheun had a special message.

“What is it?”

“My lady. A Cloud has arrived from the organization.”

“Who is it?”

The woman’s voice grew softer and lower still, lest any ears hidden in the walls overhear.

“We haven’t confirmed that yet.”

“Where?”

“Site One.”

“Site One!? Did you say Site One?”

“Yes, my lady. And...”

The woman was already quite startled, but Jang Gaheun continued, evidently with more to report.

“And?”

“Two more unidentified individuals entered the Alliance today.”

“Two? Were they personally sent invitations by the Alliance Leader?”

“One appears to have been, but I don’t believe the other was.”

“Explain.”

“One went straight to Heavenly Unity Hall upon arrival and is meeting privately with the Alliance Leader. The other... reportedly headed for the Guest Pavilion with the Heaven-Splitting Tyrant Saber, whose whereabouts had recently been unknown.”

“One is meeting privately with the Alliance Leader? And the other appeared with the Heaven-Splitting Tyrant Saber and headed for the Guest Pavilion?”

“Yes, my lady.”

A curious smile spread across the woman’s face at Jang Gaheun’s answer.

“... A Cloud appears out of nowhere, and now we have two more variables. Hehe. Wonderful. How wonderful.”

“I was worried the All-Under-Heaven Youth Sparring Tournament might prove terribly dull, but it seems my fears were unfounded. This tournament may be unexpectedly entertaining.”

Perhaps very, very entertaining...

“... When will you go to meet them?”

There was no need to specify whom. It was merely a question of order. She would meet all three eventually.

“I should go out to welcome our visitor now.”

The woman left the bathing area and walked slowly toward Martial Harmony Gate.

Her choice of the word “welcome.” And Martial Harmony Gate.

Those two things settled which of the three she would meet first.

The man was waiting for her at Site One.

Arms folded and eyes closed, he stood so utterly motionless that he might almost have been dead.

Site One.

This place had existed for a very long time, but few knew of it, and most of those few had died. Now only a few dozen people knew about this secret place, and fewer still could enter.

The man’s presence here meant he was one of them.

Was its radius perhaps thirty jang?

The entire space inside Site One rippled as though alive, like the writhing scar on the man’s cheek.

Trees, stones, earth, sand, and sky—everything around him was distorted like a desert mirage. He alone retained his full shape in this mysterious space.

Then, at some point, a small hole opened somewhere in front of him with a strange noise.

One small foot stepped through it into the space. The hole gradually widened, revealing the foot’s owner in full.

Another person had entered this bizarre space, Site One.

It was the woman who had left Martial Harmony Gate only a short time earlier.

“You’re here.”

The man’s voice was as rough as though he were speaking with a fistful of sand in his mouth.

That voice brought his identity back to her. His appearance had changed enormously from what she remembered, but that harsh voice, which seemed to scrape at one’s heart, remained the same.

“Mad Cloud. So it was you.”

Mad Cloud. That was what she called him.

The man, Mad Cloud, regarded her with eyes as rough and unrefined as his voice.

“The Weapon Monster has come to the Murim Alliance.”

Mad Cloud came straight to the point without so much as a greeting. The woman did not mind. She knew all too well that this was simply how he was.

More important was the fact that the Weapon Monster had appeared at the Murim Alliance.

There had been the “Three Sacred Lights Incident” during the operation against the Namgung Clan.

Afterward, Flying Cloud, Ash Shadow, and Water Shadow had descended to the foot of the cliff in search of the person responsible for the Three Sacred Lights, who might still have been alive...

But their search had failed.

In the end, those three and many other Clouds and Shadows had focused their efforts on tracing the Three Monsters’ movements. Those efforts must finally have borne fruit.

“Where is he?”

He meant the Weapon Monster. That was easy enough to deduce without asking.

“Well, who knows? Quite a few people of uncertain identity have entered the Murim Alliance lately. Even I can’t tell who everyone is.”

Two more had been added to their number today. But the woman saw no need to mention that.

“Do you want to die?”

Was saying “who knows” some terrible offense punishable by death? A pitch-black murderous gleam burst from Mad Cloud’s eyes.

Yet even in the face of his overbearing presence, which seemed capable of killing an ordinary person with a look alone, the woman laughed aloud instead. What was more...

“Hahaha. Yes. Now that’s the Mad Cloud I know.”

The voice had changed. What had been soft and delicate became deep and masculine... No, it had become a man’s voice outright.

At that, killing intent far more intense than before streamed from Mad Cloud’s body.

A suffocating weight instantly descended over Site One.

“My sword does not waste words, Shifting Shadow.”

Shifting Shadow. That was what Mad Cloud called the woman.

The woman, Shifting Shadow, clenched and unclenched her fists as though itching for action, then spoke. She—no, he—had always enjoyed adventure and fighting. But only when the outcome was assured. As far as he knew, few within the organization could defeat that “mad cloud” with a sword. That had been true more than a decade ago, so the gap must have grown even greater by now.

“Hehe... Haha. I honestly don’t know either. As you’re aware, people have been pouring into the Murim Alliance practically every day lately.”

It was no lie. The All-Under-Heaven Youth Sparring Tournament had brought a great many people flooding into the Alliance recently. Most had been identified, but a tiny minority remained unknown. There were even a few who had slipped into the Alliance without passing through Martial Harmony Gate. No one could tell whether they were spies planted by the Heavenly Demon Castle or people the Murim Alliance Leader had secretly brought in... Perhaps they even included some of the Shadows Mubon operated in secret...

More interesting still, the Taoist Sage of Heaven knew a considerable amount about this. Yet he was leaving them alone, so he must have something up his sleeve.

‘The Weapon Monster must be one of them too.’