Dosung, the leader, turned sharply toward Jaha, confusion and disbelief in his eyes. Although he couldn't see anything, he felt a powerful energy emanating from Jaha.
Meanwhile, Baek Junghwa watched with a smirk, fascinated by Jaha's incredible ability—refined, elegant, and deadly.
Jaha's technique, qi bullet manifestation, allowed him to condense his qi into high-speed projectiles, transforming him into a living weapon. Unlike traditional ranged attacks, these bullets were pure manifestations of refined qi, capable of piercing defenses with deadly accuracy. This technique, which he developed during his travels in the western region, has become synonymous with the title of first guardian.
Wooyun, who had been observing Jaha intently, instantly recognized the power—or what it was trying to emulate. "A gun." It was a qi-based gunslinger technique with a supernatural edge to it. Wooyun laughed in disbelief. "Seriously?"
Baek Junghwa, with his super hearing, caught Wooyun's comment and frowned. Normally, no one could identify Jaha's ability unless he explained it, but Wooyun did so quickly.
"Hm, this little chick is quite resourceful," he muttered.
Meanwhile, Jaha remained focused on the leader, unaware of Junghwa's remark. He continued eliminating the remaining men, leaving only the leader, who had gone pale as he watched his men fall.
"J-Just who the hell are you people?" He yelled.
Jaha tilted his head slightly, eyes still trained on Dosung, but said nothing. It was Baek Junghwa who answered instead, his voice laced with chilling amusement. "We're merely travelers," he said simply.
Dosung's eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets when he heard this.
Even from where Wooyun sat, he could see the veins protruding from his left temple and neck. It was obvious the leader of the bandits didn't believe the demon lord's words one bit, as shown by his reply. "Bullshit, you guys are no ordinary travelers, you're probably one of those disciples or whatever from those big sects aren't you?!" He roared.
Wooyun winced. Please use your inside voice, old man.
Junghwa found his words amusing as he lifted a brow. "Oh? And what big sect do you think we derive from?"
Jaha looked back at the demon lord as if asking "Why are you wasting time on this big oaf?" But the young man disregarded the look.
"From those righteous guys, the sun one." He yelled back.
Jaha narrowed his eyes while Junghwa let out a big laugh. Even Wooyun nearly scoffed.
If he knew the person he was talking to was the leader of a demonic sect he'd surely cut his own mouth and take a vow of silence for the rest of his life. "Ah," Junghwa smiled, stepping forward with casual grace. "Wrong answer. But that's alright, I'll give you another chance to guess correctly."
Dosung staggered back, now fully realizing the magnitude of his mistake. This wasn't just some rich merchant passing through nor a disciple of a righteous sect. For one, he didn't look like the kind of man who would belong in such a sect. His cold, calculating eyes, regarding him as just another animal that needed to be slaughtered made even a dull-witted person like Dosung see Junghwa for who he really was. These were monsters in human skin. "P-Please," he stammered, dropping his club as his knees gave way beneath him. "Have mercy. I-I didn't know—"
"Ignorance is a luxury men like you can't afford," Jaha said quietly, walking forward until he stood just a few paces away. "Your kind poisons the roads, and preys on the weak. We are simply doing our due diligence of wiping out the scum."
Wooyun then watched as Jaha placed a finger directly in front of the leader's face. And without hesitation, fired. The man fell to the ground, his thud the loudest of them all.
There was no mercy in the act. As soon as he hit the floor, both men turned and proceeded to walk back to the carriage where Wooyun was left completely and utterly stunned.
Lee Wooyun was a modern man living in a world ruled by laws that punish those who break them. After a few childhood run-ins with the law, he turned his life around after high school, vowing to be a law-abiding citizen while contributing to society and earning a good income. Even during his rebellious days, Wooyun led a sheltered life. He'd seen bloodshed after a big fight, even a couple of bone-breakings. But this was his first time seeing people die. Actually, die in front of him.
This was something he certainly wasn't prepared for, even though he should have expected it. This is a cultivation world—a cutthroat society where the weak have no means of survival. The strong dominate, and those at the top are not bound by any rules. It was somewhat similar to his own world, yet different in many ways. Wooyun's skin turned pale, but not because of the sight of the dead bodies in front of him. But because he realized that there would come a day, where he would have to take a life too.
And that thought alone terrified him.
~*~
Kang Choon-hee had been reeling since Wooyun's departure. She forced herself to forget the moment between the two had ever happened. How could Han Seo-Yoon, the boy who used to flinch whenever she entered a room suddenly have the guts to talk back to her? Not only that, he even dared to threaten her. There was no way she could let something like this stand.
"But when did this rebellion even start?" She muttered to herself. She paused as realization took over her face . "That's right. It happened that day. The day when that boy stood there without any fear in his eyes." She couldn't help wondering what had changed. Where that fire suddenly came from. Or perhaps the fire was already there and he was only keeping it hidden. But why?
So many questions plagued her mind as she sat there drinking her tea that had since gone cold. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to piece them together as that old man Jegal was hounding her for results. If she didn't procure those tomes soon, their family and Han Beom-seok's fortune wouldn't be taken from her. Then she would've truly lost everything.
Choon-hee was born into the disgraced Seo Clan, which lost everything during a sect war. Her father was executed for "heresy," and her mother, weakened by illness and shame, abandoned her at a market when she was just nine.
After waiting in vain for her mother, Choon-hee survived in the slums outside the eastern capital by stealing, begging, and pretending to be mute. She quickly realized that in poverty, dignity mattered little; power came from wealth, names, and secrets.
Eventually, she found work with a small merchant family, using her wits and charm to rise in the ranks. She married a son of the Kang family, despite being called a viper and an opportunist. She vowed never to return to begging.
For Choon-hee, control meant safety and wealth meant power. Han Seom-bok's fortune was her shield against returning to her past. If she didn't find that tome, she'd risk going back to a life she wanted to leave behind—especially for her sons.
The problem was that there was nowhere else to look. She looked everywhere but couldn't find them. The Han estate was grand. It was why she ordered all the servants to check everywhere. For anything that might look like a precious relic, tome, or scroll. That's when she remembered there was a place she hadn't checked yet.
The attic.
Jegal Ryu-sun sat at his desk, frowning as the clan heads discussed unimportant matters. His mind wandered to Kang Choon-hee and whether she was fulfilling their bargain to secure her family's safety in exchange for old relics. Despite his threats, she still hadn't delivered anything.
Impatience growing, he dismissed the meeting and summoned a subordinate. "Keep an eye on the Kang family and report any suspicious activity," he ordered. The man nodded and vanished into the shadows.
Alone, Jegal leaned back in his chair and sighed. He needed to find those tomes quickly.
Jegal wasn't pursuing these scrolls solely for power. His true goal was to restore balance in the Empire, particularly in the Central Plains, where cultivation was central to martial arts. With the rise of the demonic sects, the once-dominant righteous sects had become increasingly concerned. They had enjoyed a long period of strength and influence, but now they faced declining enrollment in their academies.
The Martial Alliance Association was failing to address this issue, and if the trend continued, the demonic sects could seize control. As a leading figure among the righteous sects, Jegal could not allow that to happen. Driven by greed and ambition, he delved into the connections of the Han Clan, uncovering a fusion technique hidden within their archives. This martial scripture, once deemed heretical, combined the precision of the righteous sects with the ingenuity of the demonic sects.
More importantly, it was the only known method to reach the Primordial Genesis stage without relying on divine inheritance. Jegal had only seen fragments of this technique through old, faded texts, but it convinced him that the martial world held deeper secrets. The ultimate art, Heaven's Vein Requiem, could manipulate both yin and yang, allowing one to shape qi in ways that even the heavens had tried to suppress.
Despite its grandeur, the technique was said to have driven its last user insane, which is why it was hidden and the Han Clan cut ties with the cultivation world. Jegal didn't care; the power it promised was unimaginable. With it, he would dominate the crumbling sects and control the balance between spirit and flesh.
The Han family remained the last keeper of the completed scroll, secretly passed down after their ancestors abandoned cultivation out of shame or fear. Jegal only needed their estate to uncover its secrets.
Meanwhile, Choon-hee climbed the creaking stairs of the Han estate's oldest wing. Dust clung to her sleeves as she forced the narrow attic door open. The smell of age and sealed air hit her immediately. Cobwebs dangled like warning threads. Her face scrunched in disgust as she wondered how this place could've gotten this dirty.
"I can't believe that brat was able to survive here for this long." She had to hold her breath as the smell of molded wood and mildew entered her sinuses. She stepped inside, candle in hand, scanning the mess of heirlooms and forgotten treasures and artifacts. Things she hadn't paid much attention to before as they were useless to her in the past.
Her eyes flickered to the ceiling where she saw even more cobwebs gathered there. She quickly diverted her eyes before she could get the chance to see a spider crawling somewhere around her. "Ugh, all this filth, just where could that stupid relic be?"
Then she saw it. A lacquered chest tucked beneath an old ceremonial robe, its edges carved with dragons biting their tails. The Han family crest glinted faintly in the low light. She knelt before it, her breath catching in her throat.
The lock had long since rusted. With one sharp tug, it gave way, the lid creaking open to reveal its contents: faded scrolls, wrapped in silk, sealed with wax bearing an unfamiliar insignia—half sun, half moon. "…Could this be?"
Her hands trembled as she reached for one. The wax cracked under her touch, revealing words penned in a language she couldn't read—but the pressure it gave off, the sheer weight of qi embedded in the parchment, told her this was no ordinary text. She didn't need to understand it to know what it was.
A slow, wicked smile curled her lips. "So this is it," she whispered. "That sneaky bastard acted like he didn't know anything but here it was all this time. If it wasn't for him being dead already, I would've killed him with my bare hands for daring to lie to me, his own wife!" She hissed.
Outside the estate, unseen by Choon-hee, a shadow moved through the trees. The subordinate sent by Jegal watched from afar, his presence cloaked by a concealment technique. He narrowed his eyes, watching the candlelight flicker from the attic window.
He vanished into the dark, already composing the report that would change everything.