“Where are you now?”
When Bi Sa-in returned empty-handed from investigating the outskirts, not only Geom Mu-geuk and the Geugak Soma, but even the Fighting King and the woman inside the palanquin had vanished. Seeing that the palanquin itself remained, he thought they must be fighting within the dark sorcery.
The fact that they had not emerged despite so much time passing meant a difficult battle was still ongoing.
Moreover, Jin Ha-gun and the Myeolma Unit, who had fallen into the formation, had yet to come out. Jin Ha-ryeong and the Cheonhwa Tower Master were nowhere to be seen either.
“We have to uncover the secret of that palanquin.”
Those who had fought him while connected to that palanquin had truly unleashed internal energy without end. There had to be some secret hidden within it related to internal energy.
Even so, they could not simply destroy the palanquin at random. The aura emanating from it was far from ordinary, and the disappearance of Geom Mu-geuk and the Geugak Soma might very well be because of that palanquin.
“How about expanding the search area a little farther?”
Bi Sa-in shook his head. He did not think that monstrous internal energy could have been sent from far away.
“It’s definitely somewhere nearby.”
Then Bi Sa-in’s gaze turned toward one place.
One place they had not searched.
The place they had been unable to search.
It was where the warriors stood in the darkness, only their eyes revealed.
The only place nearby they had not searched was right there.
As Bi Sa-in stared at them quietly, a strange gleam passed through his eyes.
“Don’t those fellows seem suspicious?”
They were confronting the Faceless Guests, showing only their eyes. Strange eyes with white rims around the pupils.
“I heard that those who cultivate the Dark Heaven Night God Art have eyes like that.”
At Il-rang’s words, Bi Sa-in nodded. He knew that as well.
“That’s not why I said it.”
Il-rang looked at Bi Sa-in with an expression that asked, Then why?
“Aren’t those fellows gathered too tightly in one place?”
Indeed, they were. Even the Faceless Guests confronting them seemed to be scattered here and there at random, but in truth they were naturally spread out in preparation for the enemy’s attack.
By contrast, those men were lurking in the darkness, huddled closely together. Everyone had been so focused on those bizarre eyes that they had missed it, but Bi Sa-in had pointed out precisely that.
“You’re right. If concealed weapons were poured into them, the damage would be great.”
Not only that, something about them felt strange. They subtly pricked at Bi Sa-in’s instincts.
“Let’s take a look behind them.”
Moving stealthily, Bi Sa-in kept enough distance not to be detected and approached their rear.
Both Bi Sa-in and the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path were shocked.
It was different from how it had appeared from the front. No matter how far back they went, there were still more of them. The eyes gleaming at the front were only a small portion of the whole.
Because of the distance, and because these men did not reveal the slightest trace of their presence, they had not realized from the front that there were this many of them.
Like a fish in the dark depths luring prey with a glowing protrusion, their true body lay elsewhere.
“Could they be troops hidden to strike us if the situation turns urgent?”
When Il-rang whispered the question, Bi Sa-in shook his head.
“If that were the case, they would have hidden them better.”
They were too easy to spot for an ambush, and too tightly clustered to be an attacking formation.
“Normally, when a force of this size moves, there should be people posted on the outer perimeter. But there isn’t a single one.”
Quite literally, they were gathered in one place. They looked like one enormous mass.
As they stared at them in silence, Chil-rang whispered.
“The way their eyes blink is strange.”
Chil-rang had always had a sharp eye and knew the bizarre martial arts of the unorthodox factions well.
“There’s a fixed pattern to their blinking.”
At his words, everyone focused on the blinking of those eyes.
Indeed, once they looked at it as something strange, it was strange.
They closed their eyes, then opened them.
Once closed, they did not open for a long time; once opened, they did not close. The sight was truly bizarre, and there was a definite pattern to it.
Just then, the moon that had been hidden behind clouds briefly revealed itself.
Because the Dark King had entered the Space-Time Transposition Art, moonlight had finally appeared outside.
At that moment, Chil-rang discovered something.
“Look over there.”
There was something cutting through the air. A certain aura, rising like a heat haze, extended from the darkness where the eyes were gathered to the palanquin. Beneath the moonlight, it was a flow of energy visible only if one looked very closely.
“It’s them!”
The secret was not far away.
They were transmitting internal energy to the palanquin. Those with their eyes closed were replenishing their internal energy, and those with their eyes open were transmitting it through some sinister grand art of their own.
Now he knew for certain why they had not come out of the darkness.
Once he learned the secret, Bi Sa-in grew anxious. Right now, Geom Mu-geuk and the Geugak Soma must be in the worst battle possible, facing that endlessly supplied internal energy with their own internal energy emptied.
“Wipe them all out!”
At Bi Sa-in’s command, the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path drew their swords in unison and prepared to attack.
“We strike with sword qi at the same time.”
After approaching as close as possible, Bi Sa-in launched himself toward them.
Shiiik!
Bi Sa-in’s sword emitted sword qi.
The Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path following behind him also unleashed sword qi all at once.
Because the enemy was clustered together, they intended to sweep them all away with sword qi in a single blow.
Whooooosh!
Black smoke suddenly surged up around them.
Thud! Thud! Thudthudthudthud!
The incoming sword qi was blocked by the pitch-black smoke. Just as it had become protective energy guarding the Fighting King’s body, it was guarding these people as well.
As if declaring that what it received would be returned.
This time, sword qi flew out from within the smoke.
Shwikshwikshwikshwikshwik!
Papapapapak!
The Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path scattered left and right to evade it.
“Close combat!”
Bi Sa-in took the lead and rushed toward them. He instinctively understood that a battle exchanging sword qi from afar would ultimately become a contest of internal energy, and that they would be at a disadvantage.
The black-clad warriors at the front thrust out their swords in unison. They had not been standing clumped together at random. They had formed a formation capable of blocking an attack if someone came at them.
Clang!
The internal energy carried in their swords was tremendous. At the unexpected power, Bi Sa-in nearly lost his grip on his sword.
“Everyone, be careful!”
As he knocked aside the incoming blades, Bi Sa-in could tell. Just as in the earlier fight against the four black-clad men, the internal energy contained in these men’s swords was not that of a single person.
Shwaaak.
The enemies split to the left and right, and the black-clad warriors behind them launched sword qi.
Bi Sa-in threw himself aside and dodged the sword qi. The black-clad men on that side also poured out sword qi.
Bi Sa-in accepted the danger and charged toward them.
Shiiik!
Exploiting their opening, Bi Sa-in drove his sword into the chest of the black-clad man standing before him.
Puk!
The eyes of the one whose heart had been pierced instantly turned pure white, and his body blackened as he collapsed. He was no ordinary human.
Whiririririk!
As he fell, the group of black-clad men began spinning all at once. The fallen corpse was swept away somewhere, and as they revolved, they scattered sword qi.
Bi Sa-in threw himself aside to evade the sword qi.
When he had first given the order to attack, he had thought they could wipe them all out in one go.
But they could not. The enemy was not easy. Above all, the internal energy contained in their attacks was tremendous.
“Fine. If you’re going to use internal energy, use it all over here!”
However, the flow of internal energy running through the darkness toward the palanquin still continued.
Papapapak!
While running to avoid the sword qi, he looked at the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path. They too were unable to break through easily.
“Back!”
At Bi Sa-in’s command, the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path retreated for a moment.
Bi Sa-in drew up his internal energy and unleashed the Hegemon Heaven-Shaking Sword Art, the exclusive martial art of the Evil Path Alliance Leader.
First Sword: Hundred Heavens Form.
A wave of energy emitting a pure white radiance swept toward them.
The Hundred Heavens Form pierced through the smoke protecting them and swept straight over them.
But at the very moment the energy crashed down, the single mass split in half in an instant.
Pubeobeobeobeok!
Three or four black-clad men were caught in the energy and sent flying, but as if nothing had happened, they merged together again.
From within the darkness, all of their eyes stared at Bi Sa-in at once.
They looked together, then blinked at the same time.
The sight was truly grotesque.
Their movements were not like a sword formation or a combined attack art.
Bi Sa-in could feel it. They were connected like a single organism.
This time, they attacked first.
Like the legs of an octopus, more than ten branches shot out from the large mass and thrust their swords all at once.
Clangclangclangclangclang!
Caught in the sudden attack, Sipil-rang, whose shoulder had been injured, was driven into a corner.
The nearby Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path tried to help him, but the black-clad men clung to them viciously.
“Careful!”
Just as Sibi-rang, who was closest to him, was about to throw himself toward him despite his injuries—
Shukshukshukshukshukshukshukshukshukshuk!
Finger winds poured down on the black-clad men like rain.
The black-clad men pressing Sipil-rang all flipped over and collapsed at once.
When Bi Sa-in looked back, he saw the Faceless Guests.
Seeing the warriors of the Evil Path Alliance strike at the eyes in the darkness, the Faceless Guests had stepped in to help.
Bi Sa-in shouted to the Faceless Guests.
“These things are sending internal energy to their leader.”
Those words were enough. It meant that because of them, the Young Cult Master and the Geugak Soma were in danger.
The Faceless Guests exchanged glances, then drew daggers all at once. As they used finger winds as their main martial art, they used daggers in close combat.
The Faceless Guests surged forward like white crests of waves on a night sea.
Once even the Faceless Guests joined the fight, it truly became a scene of carnage.
The Faceless Guests seemed like people with no fear at all.
They fought while swinging their daggers madly, then suddenly fired finger winds at the opponent’s face with their other hand.
It was like watching an even stranger creature hunt a bizarre, enormous lifeform.
Then one Faceless Guest who had gone too deep into the enemy had his connection to his comrades cut off.
The black-clad men surrounding him from all sides attacked him together.
It was an assault that could not be withstood with small daggers and finger winds. He endured by doggedly striking them down, but—
Puk!
In the end, he was stabbed in the waist and sank to his knees. A black-clad man swung his sword down toward his face.
Puuk!
Blood splattered across the Faceless Guest’s mask.
A sword had emerged from the chest of the black-clad man who had been about to kill him.
When the black-clad man collapsed, Bi Sa-in stood behind him. He had broken in from the other side and saved him.
“To think the day would come when I save a Faceless Guest!”
That was Bi Sa-in’s honest feeling.
Then, from another side, the Faceless Guests broke through and entered.
Bi Sa-in disappeared back the way he had come, and the Faceless Guests silently watched his back.
As the battle continued, the tightly clustered black-clad men began to split apart. No matter that they had cultivated the Dark Heaven Night God Art, their opponents were Bi Sa-in and the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path, and added to them were the Faceless Guests, who did not fear death.
Bi Sa-in saw it. The internal energy transmitted through the air had been severed.
“The internal energy has been cut off! Push harder!”
The black-clad men tried to send internal energy no matter what.
One group tried to send the internal energy while another tried to protect them, and Bi Sa-in and the Thirteen Wolves of the Evil Path desperately tried to stop it.
“That internal energy will become the internal energy that kills Geom Mu-geuk!”
Swaaaaaak!
Bi Sa-in charged like a bull and broke through them. Sword qi flew in at him, but he blocked it with protective energy.
After rolling across the ground, Bi Sa-in sprang back to his feet and rushed toward another group. When the one sending internal energy died, the energy flying through the air failed to reach the palanquin and vanished.
“Stop them over there!”
It was truly a desperate struggle between those trying to send and those trying to stop.
In the end, perhaps deciding this could not go on, the black-clad men made their final decision.
They gathered toward a single focal point, and for a moment an unpleasant silence flowed. The white rims in the black-clad men’s eyes began spinning all at once.
Whiiiiiing!
Black smoke began whirling around them like a tornado. A mournful sound like the wailing of ghosts rang out, and an evil aura spewed in every direction.
“Danger! Everyone, back!”
Bi Sa-in had thought it would be fine as long as they did not send internal energy to the palanquin.
Whiiiii.
The whirlwind vanished, and an astonishing sight unfolded.
All of the black-clad men had fallen. Their eyes had turned white, and their bodies had turned pitch-black.
The aura flowing out from those corpses began moving toward the palanquin.
It was not the ordinary internal energy from before. It was a bizarre and powerful energy paid for with death, and black smoke whirled around it as it enveloped the power.
“No!”
Bisain swung his sword at the energy. The blade merely cleaved through it and passed on; that was all. Just as one could not kill air, he could not stop that energy.
He sent sword qi flying, but that too was useless. Rather, the black smoke struck by the sword qi began to move even more vigorously.
As though following an invisible trajectory, it drifted slowly toward the palanquin. The sight was truly astonishing and bizarre.
Bisain launched himself forward and stood before the palanquin. He could feel it. If this power was transmitted, Geom Mugeuk would die.
“I’ll have to block it with internal force.”
That energy, in the end, was also a power that would become internal energy; he thought only internal energy could stop it.
Illang rushed over and tried to stop him.
“You mustn’t. You can’t overcome such a powerful force, and even if you do, that black energy will inflict grave internal injuries on you! No—you may die.”
“If this power is transmitted, the Young Cult Leader will die.”
“Then would it not be better to destroy the palanquin?”
As if Bisain had not thought of that.
“What if the Young Cult Leader and the Wicked Little Demon are inside?”
If that was the case, it would mean killing his friend with his own hands.
“We will leave the fight inside to the Young Cult Leader. We must stop that energy.”
Whiiiiiiing.
In the meantime, the energy had drawn close.
“Then I will block it.”
Illang stood in front, and behind him the Sado Thirteen Wolves lined up one after another.
Of course, Bisain was not someone who would stand behind them.
Bisain stepped in front of Illang.
“Young Alliance Leader!”
“Illang, if the Young Cult Leader and the Demon Venerable die, our lives cannot be guaranteed either.”
It was true. If those who had killed the two of them appeared and began sweeping through this place, they would not be able to stop them.
And then came an even more decisive sentence.
“That friend would have done the same.”
Illang knew better than anyone how Bisain regarded Geom Mugeuk. And so he also knew he could not stop him.
Bisain drew up his protective qi aura and turned around.
There was no time to argue. The energy was already right before them.
Illang placed his palm against Bisain’s back. Behind Illang, Irang did the same; behind Irang, Samrang. In that way, all of the Sado Thirteen Wolves placed their palms against the backs of the men before them. On their faces appeared the resolve to die together if they died, and live together if they lived.
Whiiiiiiiiii!
It was like a black shooting star flying toward them.
Bisain raised his internal energy to the limit and extended his hand.
Only now did he realize that he could stake his life for Geom Mugeuk without the slightest hesitation. For someone who made him dance and teased him every time they met.
‘I will cut off that internal energy no matter what, so you must win and come out!’
At the very instant the thing that had flown toward them was about to touch Bisain’s palm—
An astonishing scene unfolded before his eyes.
Saaaaaaa.
With an unknowable sound, the oncoming energy seemed to slow for a moment.
Then the black smoke wrapped around the energy turned transparent and began to shine like ice.
He thought it had changed into white smoke, but it had not.
Ssaaaaaaa!
A cold chill that seemed to freeze the lungs swept over them.
Then, as if time itself had stopped, the movement of the smoke coiling around the energy began to halt as well.
Crack, craaack!
Everything that had been flying toward them froze in midair.