“A demonic… art…?”
Perhaps because he had let the anger out of him once.
Clatter, clatter.
The debris drifting in the air came down again, and the pressure closing off Seo Woojin’s breath began to ease.
The Crazed Fiend sighed faintly and looked up at the sky.
“Yes. To set down decades of hatred… my anger is not a small thing.”
The voice was full of regret, with a great deal folded into it.
Barely getting his breath back, Seo Woojin glared at him and asked again.
“You said just now — a demonic art?”
The old man lowered his head and glared back.
“I did. A demonic art is by nature one that defies heaven. Growth in it is unreasonably fast, and the side effects are inevitable. One of them is exactly the symptom you described.”
Seo Woojin shook his head against it.
“Couldn’t it be something else? A form of qi deviation, quite literally—”
The Crazed Fiend snorted.
“Had it been that, she would have gone on slaughtering until the internal energy in her dantian was gone, then drawn on her innate qi and been left a cripple. Did that happen?”
“…She only lost consciousness.”
“Then she was satisfied. Either she vented demonic qi to her heart’s content, or she was drenched in blood enough.”
Seo Woojin pressed a hand to his forehead and made a low sound.
If the old man was right, this was no longer a simple problem.
A demonic art was a card that could hand the Murim Alliance its justification. Justification to erase the dark path from the Central Plains.
‘Insane…’
What in the world had the Cheon Clan’s head done? What did he want, that he would have his daughter learn a demonic art?
Seo Woojin was at a loss.
Could it be raised against the Cheon Clan officially? And what if they decided they would all go down together?
“Now you speak.”
Seo Woojin had to gather himself before he had finished untangling any of it, because the voice that came into his ear was colder than a north wind in snow.
He raised his head and looked at the old man.
“Make me one promise.”
“I will not.”
Had he already guessed what was coming? The refusal came before the thing was even said.
But Seo Woojin could not give way here either.
“Then I can’t open my mouth.”
“Do you truly—”
“I’ll guarantee it.”
“…?”
“My grandfather could never break my stubbornness either. Whatever you do, my mouth won’t open. Not before you promise.”
The Crazed Fiend flared up and took a step forward. Then he saw that Seo Woojin’s eyes had not wavered, and his face twisted.
“Damn it all. As if anyone could mistake whose grandson you are.”
He sighed deeply, and warned him.
“Do you know how dangerous a demonic art is? In the war with the Demon Cult, the reason we struggled and the reason we won were one and the same.”
“…?”
“Growth. A third-rate warrior who took one up would reach first-rate in no time, and some of them the pinnacle realm. Picture it. Thousands of pinnacle-realm masters coming at you.”
Seo Woojin swallowed hard.
Surely it could not have been thousands, as the old man said — but even a few hundred would have been hard to hold back.
“But that is exactly as far as it goes. That is the limit of the thing. Going beyond it is impossibly difficult — of those thousands, perhaps ten crossed the wall.”
“Haha… surely not…”
When Seo Woojin showed his disbelief, the Crazed Fiend gave a small laugh.
“Shall I tell you something harder to believe? More of them died mad than fell to the blades of the righteous and dark alliance together.”
“…!!”
“Yes. That is what these arts are. Growth beyond anything, and a limit next to impossible to pass. They all go mad and topple before they reach the wall.”
Seo Woojin ventured his doubt carefully.
“But she loses her reason at intervals and always comes back to herself, they say.”
“Hmph. That is the beginning. The interval will grow shorter, and at some point she won’t come back at all. And when that happens, I promise you this: a demon will be born inside this Dark Alliance, one who butchers people. And demon folk do not care whether their victims know martial arts or not.”
Seo Woojin could not hide his alarm.
Cheon Suryeon had already tried to kill an ordinary woman sitting collapsed on the ground.
If she failed to come back—
She would become a killing machine in the true sense of the word.
“Do you still want to talk about promises? If you feel how serious this is, then speak. I’ll go and crack the demon’s skull open right now.”
The old man was right. Killing her now would leave nothing behind to deal with.
And even so.
Seo Woojin shook his head.
“No.”
“Boy! Did you hear what I said and still not understand!”
“No. I understood. But if you act on it yourself, it becomes a headache in several directions.”
“You—!!”
Seo Woojin held up three fingers.
“Three questions first.”
The Crazed Fiend was ready to burst, and at the set look on Seo Woojin’s face he could say nothing.
Was it because he saw his friend’s face in it? Or because the boy’s manner had thinned his hatred a little?
He raked a hand roughly through his hair and answered curtly.
“Damn you. Ask.”
Seo Woojin breathed out a little in relief and folded one finger down.
“If she stopped using the demonic art now, would the side effects stop too?”
The Crazed Fiend shook his head.
“Too late. A demonic art is powerfully addictive — which makes the premise wrong to begin with, that she could stop. And even supposing she could, it would delay the symptoms and nothing else. The end would be the same.”
Seo Woojin gave a small nod and folded down another finger.
“When I treated your madness before, my true qi must have helped.”
The old man’s face crumpled — he evidently remembered it.
“I remember perfectly well. That unpleasant feeling isn’t easy to forget.”
“I cut the flow of corrupted qi leaking from your middle dantian and bought time for the upper dantian to heal. Could the flow of demonic qi be slowed the same way, or stopped?”
The Crazed Fiend frowned and tilted his head.
“Mm. That’s less clear. Before I’d been through it myself I’d have said flatly impossible… Come to think of it, the Sword Saint made an absurd art of that.”
Having voiced that small admiration, he shook his head and went on.
“Supposing it were possible, the result still wouldn’t differ. You might ease the addiction, but the demonic qi in her body would go on stimulating this. The head.”
He tapped his own head with a finger.
Seo Woojin swallowed hard and folded down the last finger.
“Then what if she passes the limit?”
“What have you been listening to. I said crossing that wall is—”
“What if you helped her?”
“You are telling me to help a demon I loathe? You don’t know my temper, boy. Your own grandfather never dared such insolence in front of me.”
As the Crazed Fiend made to show his anger again, Seo Woojin got there first.
“What if she—!!”
“…?”
The old man checked himself. Watching for a reaction, Seo Woojin went on.
“What if she was forced to learn the demonic art?”
“What…?”
“Is one who was forced to learn a demonic art also demon folk?”
The Crazed Fiend had no answer for that.
He hated demon folk. His creed that every last one of them should be beaten to death was unchanged.
But he had his share of ordinary human decency too.
Seo Woojin let out a breath. At the least, the man chasing blind hatred a moment ago was no longer in evidence.
“You said you came to repay a debt. Then I’ll give you the chance to repay it. Set the hatred down. In exchange, I’ll give you the chance to lay a demonic art bare, down to the last of it.”
“What in the world are you—”
“What will you do?”
The Crazed Fiend kept silent a while.
He closed his eyes and breathed slowly. With one breath he set down his anger. With another he let go of his fixation.
And with the last, he forgot his hatred.
When he opened his eyes they looked clearer than ever, and he wore that hearty smile of his.
“I promise you this. I’ll show you hell.”
A smile came to Seo Woojin’s mouth as well.
The hell the old man spoke of frightened him. He truly did not want to face it.
“I’ll look forward to it.”
He would bear it gladly.
And the demon’s identity came out of his mouth.
“The Cheon Clan’s daughter. Cheon Suryeon.”
Then he explained in detail what he had witnessed.
Having heard all of it, the Crazed Fiend said nothing at all. For a long while. Until the dark came down over the Dark Bamboo Court.
The Cheon Clan was seated in Hangzhou.
Their base had originally been elsewhere; they had moved here when the Dark Alliance was founded. A house with a shorter history than the Woon Clan’s, grown fast on overwhelming martial strength — and now, in name and in fact, the foremost house of the dark path, feared by everyone.
Deep within the Cheon Clan was a place of a familiar kind — much like the Dark Bamboo Court, the Dark Alliance Lord’s private ground. Thick with black bamboo, this too was reserved for the Cheon Clan’s head alone.
In the middle of the grove, a man sat cross-legged with his eyes closed.
The Cheon Clan’s absolute — Cheon Baekhyeon.
He breathed out slowly and opened his eyes.
“Forgive the interruption.”
A voice came from somewhere out of sight. It said forgive, but the tone was stiff enough that nothing of the sort came through.
Cheon Baekhyeon answered shortly, without moving.
“Your business?”
The voice held a moment, then spoke slowly.
“The Crazed Fiend has returned. We confirmed him as far as entering the Dark Bamboo Court with Young Master Seo.”
“…”
“The reason for his return is unclear, but considering where he came from, we suspect he may be moving under secret orders from the Murim Alliance Lord.”
“…”
When Cheon Baekhyeon kept his silence, the voice rose a little.
“I don’t understand why the Clan Head does nothing. We could take this chance to kill the Crazed Fiend and put the blame on Young Master Seo. If that’s troublesome, we could deal with them both. We could have carried out the plan the moment the Dark Alliance Lord died—”
The voice stopped mid-sentence.
It had stopped the moment Cheon Baekhyeon’s gaze turned toward a certain point.
His own came low.
“Noisy.”
“…”
“Withdraw. A guest has come.”
“…But—”
The voice hesitated. Then Cheon Baekhyeon turned his gaze on it, and it sighed, resigned.
“I’ll come again in a day or two.”
And in an instant the presence was gone.
An unfamiliar voice came immediately after.
“Tch. A pity. A few more words and I’d have had him.”
Footsteps came from behind him. He guessed at the man’s identity without turning.
“I didn’t expect you to come to me.”
The Crazed Fiend snorted.
“Hmph. You had no interest in it either.”
Cheon Baekhyeon gave a small nod.
“True. I had no interest.”
The Crazed Fiend came slowly around in front of him and sat down there, facing him.
He looked into Cheon Baekhyeon’s face and grinned.
“You’ve aged too.”
“Years have passed.”
The Crazed Fiend looked around them.
“It resembles the place where Woojin was. Did you want to be the Dark Alliance Lord?”
Cheon Baekhyeon shook his head.
“The Alliance Lord liked this place, so the court was made at the Alliance as well. If it matters, this is the original.”
“Heh heh. You didn’t care to be told you’d copied the Alliance Lord, I see.”
Cheon Baekhyeon sighed faintly.
“What is your business with me.”
The Crazed Fiend folded his arms and made a small sound.
“I’m deliberating. Whether to kill you here, or think of the old connection and settle for a warning.”
The violence of it changed nothing in Cheon Baekhyeon’s face.
“Do as you like. Have you not always lived as you pleased?”
The corner of the Crazed Fiend’s mouth drew slowly upward.
“Interesting. It sounds rather as though you don’t fear me now.”
Cheon Baekhyeon let out a breath.
“I’ll confess something.”
“…?”
“I never feared you in the past either. The Alliance Lord and I feared the Sword Saint, if anyone.”
“Oh, did you.”
The Crazed Fiend laughed under his breath.
Killing intent shot invisibly toward Cheon Baekhyeon, and again nothing about him changed.
The old man gave a small nod.
“Fine. I’ll grant it. You’re no longer the stripling I knew.”
“…”
“But don’t forget. This tiger’s teeth are all gone, and its claws are always kept sharp. I may die, but I have strength enough left to take hold of your heart.”
He lifted his chin.
“So keep it in mind always. That I am at Seo Woojin’s side. That if you mean to block that boy’s road, you’ll have to face me first.”
Cheon Baekhyeon read a great deal in the old man’s eyes.
The largest of it was restraint. That he was barely holding back a hand he wanted to extend that instant was plain to see.
Cheon Baekhyeon gave a faint smile.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
The Crazed Fiend held him in a look of displeasure a long moment, then left without lingering.
Only then did Cheon Baekhyeon close his eyes again.
As though the meeting with the Crazed Fiend had been a dream. Or as though it did not trouble him in the slightest.
He was slowly regulating his breathing once more.
In the middle of a black bamboo grove, with the dark lying thick.
(End of Chapter 43)