Confusion

The situation was taking a strange turn.

The passage narrowed, then widened again, repeating the pattern several times. The movements of the ones ahead were changing little by little. The intervals between their groping shortened, and the number of times they stopped decreased. It meant their direction was becoming clear.

I followed from behind as I had been. I kept my distance.

The passage bent once more. Then again.

The space opened up all at once.

It was a station.

The ceiling was high, and the walls on either side were half torn away, exposing their frames. The edges of the raised structures like platforms had collapsed in places, and below them stretched a broad, smooth transit groove. It must have been where vehicles once came and went. Now everything was ripped apart and sunken in, so it was hard to tell at a glance what was floor and what was debris.

The problem was in the very center.

A gigantic structure that did not suit the station at all was embedded there.

At first I wondered if it was a collapsed research facility. But that alone did not explain it. Beneath surfaces that looked like metal, layers as dry as stone were exposed, and between them, translucent walls and unknowable frameworks were tangled together. It looked like a laboratory, and also like a long-buried ruin half revealed.

Above all, that thing had not originally belonged there.

The floor had been lifted from below. The platform and transit groove had twisted and torn apart, and there were clear traces of the enormous structure having forced its way up through the gaps. It looked as though it had been shoved up from underneath.

I stared at it for a long while.

To the naked eye, it was broken wreckage. But that was not all. As I kept my gaze on it, another layer beneath the surface faintly caught my eye. Inside the collapsed outer walls, between overturned frames, among fragments that did not fit together, an unfamiliar flow showed through.

Familiar, yet unfamiliar.

It resembled traces of seals or formations I had seen in my days as a Daoist. But it was not exactly the same. Rather than being woven neatly in the way I knew, it looked as if something similar had been forcibly stitched together by another principle.

It resembled them.

That was all. I could not say exactly what to call it.

The stranger part was them.

They were gathering around it, but they acted as if they could not see the center itself. They passed right beside it and moved on, groping only beneath the collapsed outer walls or around the cracked gaps. They were drawn to something, but could not pinpoint the heart of it.

Was it concealed?

I was not certain. Still, the thought that it was not merely a ruin grew stronger and stronger.

My insides hollowed out again.

Hunger swept through me once more. I had no time to keep watching. If I wanted to continue observing, I first had to deal with at least a few corrupted entities nearby and keep myself alive.

I turned.

Just as I was about to take care of the closest one first, a long tearing sound came down from above.

Riiip.

It was the sound of metal and structure splitting apart at once. And it did not happen only once.

Crack.

Craaaack.

Something skimmed along the ceiling in a long line, and a series of cutting sounds burst out, as if the upper structure itself were being ripped away whole.

My body froze first.

A beat later, the explosion fell.

Kwaaang.

Two streams of energy pressed downward first.

One was refined.

It was not crude. A regulated flow. An energy resembling the Daoist side.

The other was different.

Heavy, dense, closer to beast than human. It was connected in some way to those armor-type grotesques I had seen before. Only this was far more refined than them.

Part of the ceiling collapsed, and bent frames and panel debris poured down.

Crunnch.

Dudududuk.

Through the gaps, two figures fell below.

One came down badly twisted. He stepped on the debris and slid, then twisted his body at the last moment to bleed off the impact. He was a man with a bold impression and long hair tied back. Beneath his martial-style robe, an exoskeleton was visible, and the auxiliary devices around his shoulders and arms spat out brief flashes of light.

The other was not like that.

It had not so much fallen as descended straight down while cleaving through the ceiling.

It was humanoid.

The fact that it had the shape of a person made it even more ominous.

On one side, there was something like a black single-edged blade. The longer I looked, the less I could tell whether it was holding it or whether it had sprouted from its body. I had not seen a sheath, nor any motion of drawing it. It had simply been there from some point onward.

The moment it touched the floor, I felt as though the air had split very thinly.

Sssrk.

I immediately curled myself in.

Behind the shadow of a pillar, deeper into a crevice. My current state was a mess. If my energy had been even a little more alive, I might actually have been detected. But right now, my presence was dead, almost like I was on the verge of hibernation. Perhaps because hunger had scraped out my insides, even to my own senses my trace was faint.

Thanks to that, neither of them looked my way.

And so I ended up wedged right into the middle of this fight.

The black blade passed.

A beat later.

Tchak.

I had thought it was a distance it could not reach, but the end of the man’s robe split belatedly. The frame he had just been standing on slid sideways and fell at the same timing. The slash had come first, but the result only followed now.

The man exhaled shortly.

“Huh.”

It was a lightly uttered sound, but his body was already retreating. The toes braced on a broken panel seemed to bend once, and the next moment, they had turned at an entirely different angle. The exoskeleton did give him a brief push, but that was not what caught my eye first.

It was a movement ingrained in the body after someone had walked one path for a very long time.

It was not very far from the martial artists I had known in my days as a Daoist.

The man clicked his tongue briefly as well.

“Well, would you look at that. Of all places, I run into you in the shadiest one.”

There was no reply.

He seemed not to care at all that there was no reply. His tone suggested it did not matter whether his opponent understood him or not.

“Still, I ought to leave my name. Mudang Corporation’s Demon-Subduing Unit, Yeon Mujin.”

Mudang Corporation.

It was a name I had never heard before.

But his movements were not unfamiliar. A flow resembling the Daoist side. Movements left in the body by long years. The name was unfamiliar, but the inside of it was not.

Yeon Mujin looked the creature over, then rolled one shoulder.

Bzzzt.

A brief spark sprang from the gap in his severed exoskeleton frame.

“Tsk. Never mind. You don’t look like you’re in any state to answer.”

The moment those words ended, the black figure moved again.

This time, it was even shorter.

Before there was time to see and follow it, the result appeared first. The area behind where Yeon Mujin had just been standing split thinly, and then the debris behind it came pouring down. It resembled a person’s sword stroke, but it did not stop at resemblance. The distance, the timing, and even the way the result followed were somehow warped.

Yeon Mujin moved first.

The moment his foot touched the broken frame, his body flowed diagonally. It looked as though he was digging forward, but in reality, he was half a beat to the side. The tip of his sword grazed low.

Swish.

A thinly refined energy swept over the debris. Three corrupted entities that had been closing in were split at the same time.

Yeon Mujin did not even look back at the collapsing things.

“Even the small fry are getting excited.”

The black thing remained silent.

The tip of its blade lifted very slightly. At that one motion, the air split first. Yeon Mujin stepped aside. The corner of the pillar behind him slid down afterward.

Craack.

The mirth in Yeon Mujin’s expression faded a little.

“That’s a filthy way to fight.”

At that moment, the black thing’s body twisted once.

Everything below its waist stayed still, but only the section above it turned in another direction. If it had been human, its spine would have gone first. Yet the thing continued its blade from that posture.

It was monstrous.

There was one more thing.

Its back was strange too.

At first, a black strand that looked like a torn hem or a fragment of exoskeleton followed a little late whenever it twisted its body. It looked like cloth fluttering in the wind, and then the next moment, it was attached like flesh. That was not decoration.

Yeon Mujin seemed to have seen it too.

His eyes narrowed once.

“……Huh. So you had one more hanging off your back.”

His mouth was still moving, but the undertone of his voice sank.

“Then I can’t just let you go.”

The black thing did not answer.

The blade rose again.

This time, two points came together in a single beat. The blade in front lengthened by half a span, and the black strand behind its back shot out like an awl. Above and below. Front and side. Two points closed in at once.

Yeon Mujin’s exoskeleton split first.

Craack.

It was his abdomen. The black blade drove in deep. Half a beat later, a streak of hot energy seemed to leak out, followed by a black stream of blood.

“……This one hurts a bit.”

His knee buckled once. I thought he would go all the way down to the floor. But he braced against the broken frame and regained his footing.

The smile disappeared.

His mouth closed. The playful slant of his eyes sank. It made me wonder whether this was really the same man who had been clicking his tongue and spitting out jokes just moments ago.

Blood flowed from the corner of his mouth. The black blade in his abdomen slowly pulled free. A streak of hot energy leaked from the wound, then was immediately drawn back inside.

The blood that was about to spill stopped.

The energy that was about to scatter gathered.

I was hungry.

My insides were scraped hollow. I could not take my eyes off them. But I knew I could not last long. If I left things like this, no matter who won, the victor would sweep through this place.

If they swept through, I would be discovered.

If I was discovered, it was over.

One of the two had to die. It would be even better if both of them did.

Yeon Mujin adjusted his grip on his sword.

The tip of the sword moved once.

That was the first point.

A second point appeared beside it. A third point slightly above. A fourth point below. Fifth, sixth, seventh.

The points were marked rapidly. Thin places formed one by one in the air, and at each place, the tip of Yeon Mujin’s sword passed once. It was too fast for my eyes to follow all of it, yet the places where the points were marked were distinct.

Eighth. Ninth. Tenth.

I was watching while counting them.

The fact that I could count was strange. It was clearly a speed my eyes could not follow, and yet there was a breath that paused one beat at each place where a point was marked. Each move was aiming only at the precise spot. It was the handwork of striking acupoints.

Eleventh. Twelfth.

Only one remained.

Yeon Mujin drew a long breath.

Blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth again.

“Cloud-Cleaving, Moon-Shattering Sword.”

His voice was low and clear. It was not the same voice that had been throwing out jokes a moment earlier.

“Thirteenth Form, Single Flash.”

Along with those words, the final point was marked.

The twelve points marked before it were released at the same time. From each point, a streak of energy burst out. Twelve streaks rose half a beat late and surged toward the final point.

Swaaaaa—

The air in the space rushed in one direction. Dust piled on the debris floated into the air, and a torn piece of cloth caught on a collapsed pipe fluttered in one direction.

A single streak of energy shot out.

It was thin. All twelve points from before were carried in that one streak. The blood, energy, and breath that had tried to leak from Yeon Mujin’s abdomen were all contained in that one line.

It was his final move.

And it was literally his last.

I saw it.

One span. Yeon Mujin had already tilted halfway over. The end of that single streak was one span off from where it should have been. If it continued as it was, it would pass just beside the black thing’s chest line.

One span.

That was enough.

Something stretched out from within me. I could not tell whether I had extended it or whether it had gone out on its own from inside. Once. With that one time, that one span returned ever so slightly.

The converged streak found its proper place along the point that had returned.

And drove in.

Craaaack.

The black thing’s chest line split open diagonally. The black strand writhing behind its back was cut along with it. Black fluid spurted up late and soaked the floor.

But it did not end there.

At the edges of the split wound, black energy wavered for an instant as though being pushed away. The inside of the severed place overturned as if boiling. It had not simply been cut. It seemed as though the turbid thing clinging inside was being burned away together.

The black thing took one step back. Its split chest line opened. The severed strand behind its back sagged, scraping the floor. The blade tilted downward.

Craack.

Its body twisted.

Then it buckled sideways and collapsed.

It did not move.

Yeon Mujin watched it to the end.

Blood overflowed from the corner of his mouth. A sticky sound came from the black blade wound in his abdomen.

Splatch.

His knee buckled first. This time, he did not brace himself on the debris.

One shoulder touched the floor.

“……Heh.”

With blood caught at the corner of his mouth, Yeon Mujin laughed low.

“Couldn’t protect it this time either.”

“……I said I’d protect it for sure this time.”

His head slowly bowed.

That was the end.