The wind was cold.
A thick morning mist lay over the mountain path.
Visibility was less than five zhang.
People walked through the mist.
No, to say they were walking would be an overstatement.
A man with only his right foot.
Men limping, supporting one another.
A man with vacant eyes, mechanically moving his feet.
Even those on two feet were more like they were being dragged along.
About two hundred men.
Not one in ten among them was whole.
The rest borrowed shoulders, were carried on backs, or used their swords as canes.
Their once-white robes were stained with blood and dirt, and many had broken scabbards, their blades half-exposed.
The Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect.
A pillar of the Orthodox Murim.
It was a procession unbefitting of that name.
The man at the front stopped walking.
He was in his mid-thirties.
His left arm was gone.
A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped tightly where it had been severed from the shoulder, and dark, bloody fluid was still seeping from its edge.
Jin Hagyeong.
The Manor Lord of the Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor, a branch of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect.
Now, he was neither a Manor Lord nor anything else.
The Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor had vanished four days ago.
At dawn, the invaders had come, chanting the Buddha's name.
Madmen in black kasayas, twirling prayer beads of human bone, had slaughtered over a hundred members of the sect in less than two hours.
Jin Hagyeong had barely escaped with one arm and thirty of his men.
Of those thirty, ten had fallen during the escape, and though their numbers had swelled after joining with the defeated soldiers of other branch sects on the mountain path, they had dwindled again.
The pursuit by the Dark Rakshasa Way was relentless.
A small-group unit of the Rakshasa Monk Corps.
They relentlessly hunted us in the name of a Buddhist service.
Slowly, yet steadily, they were hunted.
Even when wounded from other branches and collateral families joined, swelling their numbers, they would quickly diminish again.
Because the enemy's 'Buddhist service' seemed to have no end.
In the midst of it all, he had lost an arm.
Fortunately, he had cut down nine enemies.
It was a decent price for an arm.
Communication with the main sect had long been cut off.
If the rumors that the Branch Sword Corps had disappeared were true, it meant the entire defensive system for the branches of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect had collapsed.
There was nowhere to go.
So he walked south.
There was no reason.
The north had enemies, and the east had enemies.
The West was teeming with another Unorthodox Faction.
After eliminating all possible directions, only the south remained.
Having joined forces here and there, their numbers, once over five hundred, had fluctuated, and now barely exceeded two hundred.
The number of those who had died in their own sects without even putting up a proper fight was likely well over two thousand.
The only encouraging sign was that no one had been lost in the last two days.
'...Is there no more pursuit?'
Jin Hagyeong looked back.
The fishy, sticky aura he had constantly felt had vanished since the night before last.
Had they given up the chase?
Or had they gone after bigger prey?
Either way, it didn't matter now.
They were still alive.
"Manor Lord."
A low voice came from behind.
"I smell water."
Jin Hagyeong raised his head.
A sliver of silver faintly shone through the mist.
'A lake?'
"I believe it is Colorful Lake, Manor Lord."
"Colorful Lake?"
"Yes. I recall there being such a lake in this area."
"Anything of note?"
"...I heard it was originally a place where many mountain bandits were based."
"Mountain bandits?"
"Yes, Manor Lord."
"...Enough. This is no time to worry about mere mountain bandits."
Jin Hagyeong said forcefully, suppressing his pain.
"Let's go. We will replenish our water. If we see any mountain bandits, cut them down without mercy."
A sigh of relief escaped from behind him.
It had been three days.
They had walked for three days without rest.
Those who could not walk were carried, and those who could not be carried… were left behind.
He hadn't forgotten.
Jin Hagyeong remembered the faces of all those he had left behind.
But he had to be able to walk on with those memories.
The luxury of stopping to remember was not for the survivors.
Each time, Jin Hagyeong gritted his teeth but did not look back.
To look back is to stop, and to stop is for everyone to die.
"Go and fetch some water first. Let the wounded drink first."
Jin Hagyeong ordered curtly.
Two men staggered down the mountain path toward the lake.
Just then.
Jin Hagyeong's ear twitched.
It was not the wind.
And it was the sound of quite a few people.
It came from somewhere beyond the mist, at the edge of the lake.
"Hup!"
"Haat!"
Shouts of exertion, followed by the dull sounds of impact.
Training.
That was the sound of martial artists training.
Jin Hagyeong's eye narrowed.
"Was there no information about a sect being here?"
"Not that I am aware of, at least."
'Then who… who are they? Have the mountain bandits really come out?'
In their current state, even mountain bandits posed a threat.
But still, mere bandits were manageable.
They could be driven off with a little show of force.
However.
Please, let them not be an Unorthodox Faction....
If they were, encountering them in this state meant certain death.
Or, if they were an Orthodox Faction… could they ask for help?
Help.
The word was bitter in his mouth.
To ask for help in the name of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect.
Until recently, that name was the law.
With that name alone, mountain bandits would kneel, and government offices would clear the way.
Now, even after fleeing this far south, he couldn't be sure if that name would even serve as a shield.
What could be protected with a sword that was nothing but a hilt?
Even as a branch sect, a disciple of the strongest sword sect in the Orthodox Murim might have to bow his head to an unknown mountain force.
Pride tried to rear its head, but Jin Hagyeong looked back.
The blood-stained faces of two hundred men.
Among them, eyes that were still lucid were fixed on him.
Eyes waiting to see what their Manor Lord would do.
Ah, what is this pride?
Built upon the blood of my subordinates, is it just for this handful of pride?
Pride cannot save people.
"Halt."
Jin Hagyeong stopped the procession.
"Wait here. I will go and check first."
"Manor Lord, you can't go alone…"
"It's fine. I still have one arm, don't I?"
Jin Hagyeong gripped his sword tightly with his right hand and… walked into the mist.
Thump.
The procession of broken swords stood still on the mountain path, watching the precarious back of the man. ● ● ● The mist began to lift.
As he left the mountain path and descended to the edge of the lake, his field of vision widened.
Sunlight shattered and sparkled on the water's surface.
And then.
He saw people.
Jin Hagyeong's feet stopped.
It wasn't just one or two.
In a wide clearing on the north shore of the lake, with an empty mountain fortress at its back, quite a number of martial artists were exchanging blows in pairs.
The source of the shouts he had heard earlier.
The way they were sparring was very systematic.
'They are not mountain bandits.'
Mountain bandits do not train like this.
Paired up, at regular intervals, even matching their shouts.
This was the training method of a sect.
However.
The skill levels of the members were uneven.
There were those whose fists carried internal energy in their trajectory, and those who were just punching the air.
Men whose footwork showed a foundation in martial arts were mixed with those who were just charging in with their bare bodies.
A new sect?
But why would a new sect be training all the way out here at such a remote lake?
Just then.
He felt something from behind the clearing.
At first, it was faint.
A subtle change, as if the direction of the wind had shifted.
But with each step he took, it became clearer.
The air was getting heavier.
More accurately, it wasn't that it became heavier, but that its density had changed.
It was as if he were stepping into water, his breathing growing heavier with each step.
It was Qi.
Someone's Qi was filling the area without any gaps.
It was not an imposing pressure.
It was certainly not killing intent.
It was just there.
Like water filling a river, like air filling the sky, that energy permeated the space as if it were only natural.
Jin Hagyeong's gaze moved to find the source of the energy.
Under the shade of the mountain fortress.
A man was sitting there.
His back was against a tree, a sword lay across his lap, and he was looking down at the training ground.
He was just sitting still.
And yet.
'…!'
Jin Hagyeong swallowed dryly.
Sweat beaded on his right hand gripping the sword, and his knees trembled slightly.
It wasn't just due to the exhaustion of the past few days.
As the Manor Lord of the Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor, he had met countless masters.
He had, of course, encountered the elders of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect's main headquarters and had met the leaders of the Branch Sword Corps countless times.
But that man was different.
They would project their Qi whenever necessary, deliberately revealing it.
That was something any master could do, whether from the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect or the Dark Rakshasa Way.
Projecting Qi, imposing pressure, sizing up the opponent.
That man was not projecting anything.
He was just sitting there, yet the entire space was his domain.
He could tell just by looking.
The shade of the mountain fortress, the wind from the lake, even the dust in the training ground, all revolved around that man.
'...What is that?'
He couldn't be categorized.
A Supreme Master?
The Transformation Realm?
The inability to gauge him might have been due to his own lack of attainment, but it was more that the very 'texture' of that energy was the problem.
It was completely different from the Vast Heaven Qi.
It was also different from Evil Qi.
It resembled no kind of Qi that Jin Hagyeong had ever sensed in his life.
Immortal?
He had never met an immortal in person, but… it felt as clear and cold as a mountain spring, yet with a depth that seemed endless.
Just then, the man's gaze turned towards him.
His hand gripping the sword instinctively tightened.
He barely managed to suppress the trembling.
He barely managed to not avert his eyes.
The man stood up.
Slowly.
As if there was no hurry.
Thump, thump.
With each step closer, the weight of the air changed.
It didn't get heavier.
On the contrary, it became lighter.
A strange sensation of calm, not pressure, came over him as the man approached.
That was even more frightening.
He could have defended against killing intent.
He would have faced imposition with his sword.
But this was like a drowning man unable to resist the water.
It was not something to be resisted in the first place.
The man stopped five zhang away, and… he met his eyes at close range.
They were deep.
Pupils that seemed to hold nothing, yet at the same time, seemed to hold everything.
No hostility, no goodwill, no wariness, nothing could be read from them.
He was just looking.
As if looking at the rain.
As if looking at the wind.
As if looking at something whose presence or absence made no difference.
Jin Hagyeong knew instinctively.
'To this man, I am not a threat.'
The Manor Lord of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, standing with his sword drawn and projecting his energy, yet there was not a trace of wariness in the other's eyes.
It was not disrespect.
It was simply a fact, and for that reason, it stung even more.
Once, under the name of the Heaven Reflecting Sword Manorr's Lord, he had occupied a seat at the branch sect assembly and sat across from the elders of the main sect, drinking tea.
Even as a branch manor lord, as long as he had the name of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect behind him, people would make way wherever he went.
That name now had no meaning.
A manor lord with one arm, clad in a blood-stained robe and holding a broken sword, stands before someone he doesn't even know.
What could be protected with a sword that was nothing but a hilt?
The man spoke first.
"Where have you come from?"
His voice was calm.
Neither high nor low, a voice as level as the wind.
Jin Hagyeong bit his lip.
Should he state his name?
To an opponent he didn't even know was Orthodox or Unorthodox, would revealing himself as from the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect be advantageous or disadvantageous?
But he had no leeway to lie.
Nearly two hundred wounded men were waiting behind him.
His damn pride tried to rear its head again, but Jin Hagyeong deliberately killed it.
He repeated it to himself once more.
Pride cannot save people.
"...I am Jin Hagyeong, Manor Lord of the Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor, a branch of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect."
The man's expression did not change.
He was not surprised, wary, or welcoming at the name of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect.
There was simply no reaction at all.
Weren't they the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, after all?
The calamities of war couldn't have reached this far south yet, so it was simply none of his business.
To that man, it meant nothing.
'...A frightening man.'
"Your injuries are severe."
It was not a question, but a diagnosis.
The severed left arm, the blood-soaked bandages, the unsteady footwork, the trembling tip of his sword.
His eyes must have already read it all.
"...They are."
Just the fact that he felt no hostility in the other's voice was a relief.
"There are about two hundred more wounded men behind me. Most of them can barely walk."
The man's eyes briefly glanced behind Jin Hagyeong, towards where the mist was clearing on the mountain path, before returning.
'Did he know?'
He couldn't be sure.
But it was clear that the man's gaze had pinpointed the exact location of the two hundred men.
Even with Jin Hagyeong's Qi Sense, it would be difficult to gauge the position of two hundred men from this distance.
It meant that the man had read it from where he was sitting.
Cold sweat ran down his back.
"Were you attacked by the Dark Rakshasa Way?"
Jin Hagyeong's eyes widened.
"...You know of it?"
"I heard a war was imminent."
A short answer.
But Jin Hagyeong read much into it.
The fact that he 'heard news of the war' meant that this man and his followers were not just a simple mountain sect.
It meant they were reading the currents of the Jianghu.
He hesitated for a moment, his lips and head twitching, before finally bowing his head.
"...This lowly one dares to ask."
Jin Hagyeong turned his sword upside down and stuck the tip into the ground.
A gesture of sheathing his sword.
"Where is this place, and who are you?"
The man smiled.
A slight upturn of his lips, a subtle change that could hardly be called a smile.
But that smile was strangely reassuring.
Whether his instincts read the lack of hostility or the extremity of the past few days had dulled his judgment, he couldn't tell.
"We are the Hero's Sect."
The Hero's Sect.
It was a name he had never heard.
As the manor lord of a branch of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, he knew most of the large and small sects in the southwestern region, but the name Hero's Sect was nowhere among them.
"...I've never heard of this sect."
"Because we were founded recently."
It was stated calmly.
Not a boast, nor an excuse, but a statement of fact.
"And I am the Sect Leader of this sect, Kim Rae-won."
Kim Rae-won.
Jin Hagyeong's breath caught.
'Kim Rae-won…?'