Assassination of the Emperor
There was no plan.
There was no special strategy.
He trusted his martial attainment.
He reached the imperial capital after riding through the night, while it was still completely dark.
The outer city gate (外城) had long since closed and had not yet reopened.
Without even surveying his surroundings, Soun leapt the deep moat before the gate in a single bound, stepped on a narrow gap along the curved and towering barbican wall, and vaulted upward, rising lightly onto the city wall in one motion.
He spun once above an arrow slit, landed softly, and ran like a cat.
He brushed past guards dozing while leaning on their spears beside the watchtower, then descended like the wind and touched down upon the stone road of the city.
Beyond the inner gate, a broad Vermilion Avenue stretched toward the imperial palace, glowing pale under the waning moonlight.
The empty boulevard lay silent, bathed in cold light.
The Milky Way arched across the sky, scattering countless constellations, and in that hour before dawn the world felt unfamiliar, as if belonging to another realm.
Even the night patrols that should have been making their rounds were nowhere to be seen.
Soun ran at full speed along the Vermilion Avenue toward the northern palace.
The footwork described in the Compendium, said to cover a thousand li (千里) in a single breath, was no lie.
He glided forward in one continuous breath, swift as wind.
His body skimmed forward with an unreal smoothness, as though slightly lifted from the ground.
The technique required mastery at the level of Huagyeong.
A Huagyeong master might truly traverse a thousand li in a single breath using that method.
He slid low like a drifting cloud borne on the wind and completed the long Vermilion Avenue within a single breath.
With that nameless technique, his feet scarcely touched the earth.
He was faster than a horse, faster than the wind.
Soon the walls of the imperial enclosure came into view, spreading wide to the left and right.
Before each government office stood three or four guards dozing by torchlight.
Large plaques hung above every grand façade, and pairs of guards stood beneath them.
Even had their eyes been open, they would not have perceived Soun streaking past.
Reaching the end where the Vermilion Avenue met the inner city, Soun kicked off a lower wall beside the imperial enclosure and leapt upward.
He rose like the wind, spun in midair, and dropped into the palace grounds.
No one stopped him.
There were guards, but they likely thought only that a gust had passed.
Just inside the main palace gate stood a series of tall transverse walls erected to block intruders.
The iron gates there were tightly locked.
By day only high officials used that path; those of lower status were forbidden from entering.
At night it was sealed entirely to prevent assassins.
Anyone wishing to pass without using the gate would be forced to wind east and west through the maze-like walls shaped like the character 'ㄹ.'
Soun did not follow the maze.
As lightly as vaulting a backyard wall, he lifted himself, rolled once in midair, and cleared more than ten high barriers in succession.
After the final wall, a vast courtyard before the main audience hall opened before him.
The hall where the emperor held court stood upon a raised platform built in successive terraces.
Each terrace rose higher than a man's height.
At every level lay a broad courtyard, followed by another terrace.
Five such tiers had to be crossed to reach the great forecourt of the main hall.
At the edge of each terrace stood two Imperial Guards on watch, and unlike those outside, they did not sleep.
Attendants moved back and forth, maintaining strict vigilance.
There was no reason for the emperor to be in the main hall at this hour, yet the security was tight.
The main hall was less for daily affairs than for great assemblies of all officials.
Most routine matters were handled behind it.
Soun vaulted onto one terrace, rolled forward, then leapt again to the next, rolling once more.
Two guards stood at each side of the hall's entrance.
There was no need to touch them.
He approached with silence so subtle it could not be sensed.
They might stand blankly now, but if the alarm bell rang, hundreds would pour forth.
Perhaps thousands.
Circling to the side, he clung to a pillar supporting the tall hall and peered through a gap in the rear door.
Even raising his senses, he felt no one inside.
An old eunuch struggled to move something, panting with effort.
There was no need to concern himself with what an old eunuch did at such an hour, though the sight seemed pitiful.
'Why worry about such things.'
Too many guards stood below.
Though he moved with secrecy, perfect concealment was impossible.
A master's gaze would not be fooled by speed and silence alone.
Soun passed the main hall and sprinted toward the far end of the massive stone platform, then leapt again toward the next wall.
The roof would be better.
He soared up onto the roof of the main hall, the emperor's working chamber.
He rose lightly as a night bird, breath free as wind, making no sound.
He had come without pause from Seokgajang to the emperor's chamber.
When he stopped upon the roof, the world that had blurred past him at speed suddenly fell still.
The countless passing scenes became unmoving objects.
He steadied his breath and surveyed his surroundings.
Moving to the rear of the roof, he hung from the extended eaves, pushed open an upper wooden window, and slipped silently into the chamber.
Lowering his posture, he scanned the room.
The emperor was not there.
Behind a wooden partition behind the throne, he sensed two presences.
Their breaths were thin and faint.
Not assassins.
They were the emperor's shadows.
They did not move.
'So those are Heukgeom's assassins… I'll deal with them later.'
He retraced his path and flew toward the building housing the emperor's bedchamber.
The deeper he went, the more walls barred his way.
The doors multiplied and grew smaller.
Countless silent steps of the Imperial Guards continued without end.
One misstep would mean discovery.
Even widening his perception to gauge distance became difficult amid so many people.
Above was better than below.
Climbing onto the roofs where no one walked, he spotted the bedchamber among the sprawling palace.
The place with the densest guards behind the main hall.
That was it.
The bedchamber glowed brighter than the rest, and guards stood thickly around it.
The rumor that the emperor feared darkness and kept many lamps lit seemed true.
He would be there.
Imperial Guards in layered armor stood shoulder to shoulder in groups of ten or more.
Entry from the ground was impossible.
'There.'
He leapt like a night bird from roof to roof.
Upon the bedchamber roof he removed several tiles, brushed aside the old packed earth beneath, and sliced through the wooden panel below with precision like cutting paper with a razor.
He slipped between the supporting beams and looked down.
He did not need to see.
He could sense through distance more clearly than with his eyes.
Yet confirmation was necessary.
The emperor was not alone.
Several bodies were tangled together in strange entanglement.
Not one.
Not two.
'What are these bastards doing… like beasts…'
First he confirmed the emperor.
The naked man bore the dragon hairpin.
The women attending him were also naked.
Red and blue curtains hung thinly around the bed, glowing in brilliant candlelight.
Wide-sleeved silk robes lay scattered outside.
At the corners of the chamber stood eunuchs with swords.
Upon the beams hid martial artists unlike the Imperial Guards—two in front, two behind.
Heukgeom.
They had helped seat the emperor on the throne.
Now they guarded him.
The Imperial Guards watched outside.
Eunuchs guarded within.
Heukgeom warriors hid in secret places.
Different forces checking one another.
Because none trusted the others.
'Hoh.'
If that truly was the emperor.
Soun reached for his sword, then confirmed once more.
Five women lay entwined around the emperor in the pale hour before dawn.
The scene was difficult to behold.
'Is this how he lives.'
He steadied his breath.
There was no turning back.
All would have to die.
He would have to kill at the closest range to be certain.
He would have preferred to kill only the emperor, but the naked women entangled with him made it difficult.
A brief hesitation.
If that were not the emperor…
No.
The circumstances left no doubt.
He wished he had brought a bow.
With three arrows fired simultaneously high, middle, and low, he could kill without the target even knowing.
Then the others would not need to die.
Those women… what crime had they committed.
He remembered his vow to set things on the right path.
Was that vow about not killing.
He remembered the promise he had made before General Jin Mugwang.
He was a body forged in war.
His thoughts were short.
A bow was not necessary.
He drew three leaf-shaped coins from his pouch.
Though currency, they were fashioned to serve as arrowheads at any moment.
One woman holding the emperor's arm pulled his hand to her breast, exposing his left chest.
Another straddling his legs revealed the lower abdomen and lower dantian.
Through the shifting bodies, half-veiled by a naked back, the emperor's head came into view.
He infused internal force and hurled the three coins.
He chose a moment between movements to avoid harming others and struck swiftly.
A sharp tearing sound cut through the stillness as they split the air.
He doubled the force, adding speed.
Papapapahk.
Chest.
Dantian.
Head.
No one could survive.
The chamber of pleasure became a scene of carnage.
One coin pierced through the skull.
Another tore through the heart, sending blood spraying.
The last shattered the lower dantian.
Life ended without even the space of a blink.
A scream tore through the air.
White sheets bloomed red.
Naked women, splattered in blood, shrieked and scattered.
Eunuchs rushed from every direction toward the bed.
Imperial Guards outside flooded in like a pack of hounds.
"Protect the Emperor!"
"Assassination!"
"Find the enemy!"
Soun hurled another coin at a eunuch rushing toward the alarm bell.
He bought a moment, but his position was exposed.
A Heukgeom warrior on the beam saw him and lunged upward.
Blade and body united.
Fast.
But Soun flicked the sword aside.
With nothing to brace against, the man fell powerless below.
There was no reason to linger.
Soun burst back through the roof tiles and launched himself toward the rear of the palace.
Moments later the alarm bell rang.
Imperial Guards poured from east and west.
The palace grounds filled with soldiers like swarming ants, shoulder to shoulder, leaving no space to step.
'The emperor is dead.'
Soun savored the words in silence.
One thing ended.
Now Heukgeom.
He had been told their master resided in the siheyuan beyond the palace rear.
He would come.
Soun propelled himself upward toward the high ground behind the advancing Guards.
Heukgeom might be the true architect of all this.
They called him "Old Master."
A man without official rank who walked the palace at will.
Some said he was the true master of the palace.