After bidding farewell to the Abbess, Jin Cheon-hee stepped outside. A group of young Putuo swordswomen, who had been laughing good-naturedly amongst themselves, startled at his appearance and quickly snapped into the one-handed palm salute.

‘When they’re like this, they just seem like normal kids their age,’ he mused.

Just then, in the far distance, a different swordswoman, having apparently broken something, was sprinting across the courtyard with Abbess A-bi in hot pursuit. Another nun who saw this immediately joined the first, and he could hear a faint shout—

“Senior sister! We’ve been caught!”

—they must have been partners in crime. Abbess A-bi’s roar followed, promising that if she caught them, they’d both face wall-gazing meditation.

Her expression was truly a match for the Avici, the Avīci Hell itself.

With the illness gone, it seemed the entire temple was overflowing with life. It was truly bizarre. Despite the calamity they had just endured, the Putuo Temple was carrying on with its day as if nothing had happened.

‘You know… I think Abbess A-bi should just be the Sword Empress…’ Jin Cheon-hee thought. ‘Does she really need a successor? With that much energy, she could probably even achieve eternal youth.’

The ‘form’ she displayed as she chased them down, launching streaks of sword-light, was just that incredible. And the swordswomen who were fleeing from her at full-speed were just as unhinged.

‘So that’s what it was. The only reason it was so quiet before was because everyone was sick.’

He had actually believed it was the profound solemnity of a martial arts temple from the novels. Another one of his wuxia illusions had just been shattered.

‘No matter how deep the sea, the island will never sink.’

Indeed, he had confirmed the true strength of the Putuo Temple.

***

Jin Cheon-hee descended Mount Putuo, sent off by many of the nuns. From here on, the Putuo Temple would have to walk its own path. He slipped the Putuo Token into his sleeve.

Now, one more task remained for him.

“Can you guide me to the contaminated water source?”

Keong! — The place with the strange water smell, Master?

“Yes.”

When Jin Cheon-hee nodded, Hwang-gu lifted his head, sniffing the air for a long moment before giving a short bark, as if to say, “Follow me.” He then took off at a run.

Jin Cheon-hee followed Hwang-gu toward the contaminated well.

‘Once I purify this well, my work here is done.’

He just needed to use the energy of the Five-Elemental to purify the filth. It was a task his Master could have done without difficulty, but for him alone, it would take some time.

‘And one more thing. What if the Blood Cult is the source of this plague?’

It was just a hypothesis, so he didn’t say it out loud. Furthermore, an accident caused by a natural disaster is different from one caused by malicious intent. If the enraged Putuo nuns were to charge out of the temple, there would be no way to stop the plague from spreading. He couldn’t risk saying something so inflammatory based on a mere hypothesis.

‘To hunt the Heavenly Thunder Hawk,’ Jin Cheon-hee thought, ‘the Blood Cult needed to tie down the Putuo Temple.’

The Orthodox Sect’s swordswomen wouldn’t just ignore the Blood Cult, who were worse than any Unorthodox Faction or Demonic Cult. They were a group whose very existence was still unknown to the Murim. If they were discovered like this, it would “cause flowers of difficulty to bloom” for all their future schemes.

‘In my humble opinion, this hypothesis seems very plausible.’

And what’s the best way to test a hypothesis?

You check it yourself.

Wang, Wawawang! — Master, this place is too rough!

After running up a mountain so deep and steep it made Hwang-gu pant, they finally reached the target. It was a small, hidden spring. Submerged in the spring was a wooden box, riddled with holes.

And Jin Cheon-hee saw what was inside it.

A rotting human arm.

“Urk…”

The box was haphazardly covered in talismans, which gave off a chilling, sinister aura. They looked like part of some malevolent curse.

“I’m not touching that directly. Hwang-gu, stand back. You’ll need to disinfect your paws after this, too.”

Keong! — Understood.

Jin Cheon-hee waved Hwang-gu back and drew his sword. He slowly circulated the Wind-Cloud Art of his Five-Elemental Divine Art, and just as his Master had once done with his fan, he was able to create a wind.

Swinging his Ice Clarity Sword instead of a fan, Jin Cheon-hee lifted the cursed wooden box from the water and sent it flying into the air. As the box floated toward him, he shrouded his Ice Clarity Sword in Fire Qi. The cold-natured sword, forged from Northern Cold Iron, obediently yielded itself to his Five-Elemental Cultivation Art. He swung the blade over the box, not even touching it, just grazing the air above it.

FWOOOSH—

The Wind and Fire of his art met, and the soaking wet wooden box ignited with incredible speed. In moments, he had reduced it to ash.

‘It’s not true Void-Grasping Art, but I can use the Wind of the Five-Elemental Divine Art to do something similar.’

‘And that wasn’t true Samadhi True Fire, but it was a good lookalike.’

‘Wait… Is this why the Zhuge Clan has a reputation for being scammers…?’

Not the real thing. Just a “similar product.”

‘Hmm…’

Jin Cheon-hee-hee frowned, then decided to stop thinking about it. Instead, he set up a Five-Elemental Formation at the spring and began to purify it. His skill was nowhere near his Master’s, but he was still quite proficient.

Several shichen later, Jin Cheon-hee had completely purified the spring.

Keong. — Master.

“What is it, Hwang-gu?”

Kreung. — Come to think of it, that rotting meat from before… it moved at the end.

Krrreung. — It’s strange, but when Master burned it, it moved on its own. I definitely saw it.

“How could it possibly move?”

It wasn’t just a rotting corpse?

‘Well, if the enemy is the Blood Cult, it’s not that strange.’

Weren’t Jiangshi the proverbial “licorice in every herbal remedy”—a monster that appeared in every story? Since the Blood Cult were villains, they could probably use Jiangshi easily.

“This is turning out to be a real handful from the start, huh?”

As he said it, a slight smile tugged at his lips.

‘Ooh, am I going to see a Jiangshi?’

Jiangshi. When he was a kid, Jiangshi movies were everywhere. A dead corpse. You might think of them as zombies, but they were very different. They were corpses with stiff limbs that held their arms straight out and hopped around. He remembered a Daoist priest shaking a staff with a bell, and the Jiangshi moving to the sound.

His own cell phone strap from his past life had been a little Jiangshi. When he switched to a smartphone, he couldn’t use it, but that little Jiangshi strap was always in his desk drawer.

‘No, it’s not that I want to see one. It’s just… I might be forced to encounter one, you know?’

He tried hard to deny the thought that would have made his Master’s “mental” explode.

‘I’m not trying to see one! If it’s unavoidable, it’s unavoidable!’

The soul of his inner wuxia maniac was boiling over.

‘If I had a phone, I’d totally take just one picture…’

***

After purifying the contamination source, Jin Cheon-hee got a ride on a Putuo Temple boat. An fisherman then delivered a letter from the temple. It listed the location of an island the Heavenly Thunder Hawk frequented.

Jin Cheon-hee burned the letter immediately, ensuring no one could see it.

The fisherman was a local who had fished these waters his whole life and was a master of the currents. He navigated around submerged reefs without even looking. Thanks to him, Jin Cheon-hee could rest easily on the boat. Finally, they arrived at the island where the Heavenly Thunder Hawk was thought to be.

“It’s an uninhabited island, but there’s a small hut where fishermen rest. I’ll be waiting there, so just come down when your business is done.”

Jin Cheon-hee offered a fist-and-palm salute. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothing compared to the grace you’ve shown our island, Little White Dragon. This old rustic is just happy he can help in his own small way.”

It wasn’t just the Putuo Temple that was grateful. The village, too, had had its own share of patients from the plague. There wasn’t a person in the village who didn’t know that Jin Cheon-hee had treated them all without a single sign of hardship.

Jin Cheon-hee gave an embarrassed laugh. “Thank you. But… could you just return home for now? Let’s meet again tomorrow, at this same time. You can sail back then.”

The fisherman nodded. “Understood. I’ll be back at this time.” He didn’t even ask why. It seemed his trust in Jin Cheon-hee was absolute.

‘It’s probably nothing, but if a fight with the Blood Cult breaks out, I don’t want an innocent civilian caught in the crossfire.’

He could handle himself, but he didn’t have the luxury of protecting the fisherman while fighting.

When the boat was far enough away, Hwang-gu spoke.

Keong. — Master, I found the tingly feather smell. But there’s another strange smell with it.

As I thought. They must be close.

‘If I had ignored Sama Hyeon and the Putuo Temple, I would have found this place long before the Blood Cult.’ And he wouldn’t be in this danger.

But he didn’t regret it.

He scratched Hwang-gu’s head and tossed him a piece of jerky.

Chomp chomp. — Wow, tasty! Loyalty, loyalty!

“Alright, Hwang-gu. Lead the way.”

Keong!

Hwang-gu’s tail shot straight up. He began to track the scent, and Jin Cheon-hee followed him with his lightness art.

***

How far did they run? Not far, before lightning struck from the clear sky.

RUUUUMBLE!

The Heavenly Thunder Hawk was a spiritual beast said to call lightning. He thought it might just shoot sparks from its body like an electric eel, but it seemed to be on another level entirely.

‘Ahhh, then again, I shouldn’t be comparing an electric eel to a Murim spiritual beast.’

Knowing about it and seeing it were completely different. The lightning streaking from a dry sky was awesome and terrifying. His heart pounded.

Keong! — Master, it’s nearby!

How much further did they go, through a sheer-walled canyon?

Finally, he saw the enormous hawk.

KKIIAAAAA!

The Dharma Treasure he was carrying vibrated. It was trying to translate the cry, just as it had for Hwang-gu, but they were still too far away for it to be clear.

‘Incredible.’

The hawk was so large it defied perspective.

As Jin Cheon-hee drew closer, he saw a man in black robes standing there. Around him lay the bodies of other men in black, clearly dead, struck by lightning. Next to him stood another grotesque man, from whose body steam was rising.

“Kwahahaha, Heavenly Thunder Hawk! If you don’t want to see your chick die, then surrender quietly!”

In the hand of the man in black was a small, baby bird.

Pyak! Pi-pi-pi-pi! — Mom! Mom!

That chick was also a spiritual beast, and its cries were being translated. The chick struggled, but it couldn’t move, held in a crushing, crude grip.

‘Looks like the chick can’t shoot lightning yet.’

Pi! Pi-bi-bi-bik! — It hurts! Help me! Mom! Mom!

‘Tsk. If I couldn’t understand it, maybe… but now that I have, I have no choice.’

‘Is this why that bastard Yoo Ho gave me this thing?’

He clicked his tongue and gave Hwang-gu a hand signal.

Keung! — Black-robed human. Attack sneakily!

As expected of a spiritual beast, Hwang-gu understood his intent. He dropped into a low crawl, moving so stealthily Jin Cheon-hee might not have noticed if he hadn’t given the order himself.

Just then, the grotesque man seemed to sense something and started to turn his head.