The Black Dragon Sect harbored no grandmasters within its walls.
At best, the Sect Leader, Black Earth Dragon, and his deputy, Black Snake, might scrape by with the title of “martial artist”—boasting a thimbleful of internal energy and a clumsy, albeit practiced, grasp of the sword. The subordinates beneath them were merely incompetent lackeys; uncultivated muscle without a speck of Qi. Yet, as members of an Unorthodox Path faction, they possessed sturdy builds and raw physical strength. More importantly, even as the dregs of the Murim, they were quite proficient at killing people.
The problem, however, was that their victims were usually powerless commoners.
One such lackey, known as Black Head—a moniker born from the sect’s obsession with the color black and a superstition that the character for ‘Head’ would ward off baldness—lounged at the front gate. He was a creature of base instincts, living hand-to-mouth, squandering his earnings at brothels, and deriving joy from tormenting the weak. Currently, he was nursing a bottle of liquor, lamenting a lost bet with his colleague, Black Sickle.
“Ah, fuck. I should never bet with that bastard again. Losing that damn wager… what is this life? Argh, shit.”
He sat slumped in a chair, neglecting his duty. The gate was illuminated by a solitary lantern, casting a pool of light against the pitch-black surroundings. Suddenly, a foot stepped from the boundary of darkness into the light.
Black Head, his judgment clouded by alcohol, blinked his round eyes. A figure walked calmly toward him—a beauty so striking that even in men’s clothing, she captured the eye. His brain, sodden with drink, bypassed caution entirely.
“Hey, pretty thing! How much? Come here. If you play with me for a bit…”
Smack!
Black Head never finished his sentence. His head snapped to the side, and he went tumbling from the chair, blood gushing from his mouth where several teeth had been forcefully evicted.
“Gaaah! Ah, it hurts!”
It was the sticky, calloused palm of Man Seon, the Fourth Squad Leader of the White Qilin Unit, that had struck him.
“How dare you harass the Young Pavilion Master!” Man Seon hissed, stepping over the groaning man. “Will you only come to your senses after you are dead?”
“Squad Leader Man. Stop,” a calm voice interjected. “Hahaha, I’m fine.”
“Brother. Still, wouldn’t it be better to cut off his tongue at least?”
“You call yourself a Taoist… Have some mercy. Just put him to sleep.”
“I will do as commanded, Young Pavilion Master.”
Man Seon struck the man’s pressure points with clinical precision. Black Head, having lost his teeth for a drunken mistake, slumped into unconsciousness, spared from witnessing the calamity that followed.
Crash!
The heavy main gate shattered into splinters.
Jin Cheon-hee stepped through the debris of the entrance. According to Man Seon’s reconnaissance, the Black Dragon Sect housed roughly thirty martial artists. He hadn’t bothered to get a precise count; accuracy was irrelevant when the outcome was inevitable. Today, they would all be crushed.
Step. Step.
The sound of the gate’s destruction had alerted the sect. Bustling noises erupted from within the compound as Jin Cheon-hee surveyed the layout: one large, clean building, two ordinary structures, and one dilapidated warehouse.
“Brother. Over there…”
“Yeah. I sensed it too.”
Dozens of faint presences huddled near the warehouse—children, stuffed into that narrow, filthy coop like livestock. As Jin Cheon-hee turned his gaze, large men wielding weapons began to spill out of the ordinary buildings, hesitating at the sight of the intruders.
Jin Cheon-hee drew a breath and spoke.
“Hearing there are patients here, the White Qilin Medical Pavilion has come for a house call. Those belonging to the Black Dragon Sect, please come out quickly.”
He mixed Sound Arts into his voice. Though he did not shout, the Thousand Li Voice Transmission carried his words clearly, whispering directly into the ears of every man in the compound. The gathering crowd flinched, unnerved by the display of internal energy.
“White Qilin Medical Pavilion?”
“Wait… Isn’t that where One Light is?”
“Come to think of it, I heard One Light opened a relief center in Hangzhou. Is that him?”
“He looks young?”
“They said One Light is young. And freaking handsome.”
“Then is that pretty bastard really him? Handsome and pretty are different, you know.”
As the thugs whispered amongst themselves, the leadership finally emerged. Black Earth Dragon, the Sect Leader, stormed out with alcohol-fueled bravado, unaware of the predator standing before him.
“Who comes to our Black Dragon Sect and causes trouble!”
He was drunk, his grasp on the situation slipping. He looked at Jin Cheon-hee, then at Cheon Woo standing nearby.
“Only three? What? With a pretty face like that… are you a male prostitute? And you, brother over there with the eye patch. Seems we work in the same field. What kind of trouble is this?”
Cheon Woo bristled, stepping forward to answer the insult, but Jin Cheon-hee raised a hand to stop him.
“Are you correctly the Sect Leader of the Black Dragon Sect?” Jin Cheon-hee asked, his eyes cold.
It was a moonless night. Without torches, the darkness was absolute, and though the sect members held lights, shadows danced wildly. Perhaps it was the darkness that emboldened him, or perhaps it was the liquor.
“Who are you to come to another’s sect and cause trouble? Do you think our Black Dragon Sect is a pushover!” Black Earth Dragon roared, drawing the broadsword from his back.
He couldn’t afford to look weak in front of his subordinates. White Qilin Medical Pavilion? Why would they be here? Probably just some impostor capitalizing on the name ‘Little Physician’. These greenhorns messed with the wrong people.
He made up his mind. I’ll sell the pretty one to a brothel and the crazy one with the fishing rod as a slave.
“Hey. Do you think you can return safely after smashing our sect’s main gate like that? Guys! Block the gate!”
At his command, a few lackeys moved to cut off the retreat. The intruders showed no reaction.
“I’m telling you. Do you think I’ve seen only one or two greenhorns like you? I don’t know where you’re from, but you’ll come to your senses only after being sold off! Guys, catch them without hurting—”
It was then, as Black Earth Dragon shouted without understanding the gravity of his error, that the world shifted.
“Ugh!”
“Gah!”
The two men standing to the left and right of the handsome young man vanished. In the blink of an eye, they reappeared amidst the subordinates. One fist connected with a jaw, spinning a man around; a fishing rod struck a leg, shattering bone with a sickening snap.
Shit! Was this really One Light!?
Panic seized Black Earth Dragon, freezing his logic. In his drunken haze, he chose violence.
“Guys, attack!”
He charged forward, rushing straight toward the handsome young man, and swung his broadsword down with all his might. It was an instinctive, foolish move—the courage of a dog emboldened by alcohol.
And then, the impossible happened.
Clang!
“What—?!”
A pale hand had caught the thick blade of his broadsword. Empty Hand Entering White Blade.
Black Earth Dragon was a large man, his muscles thick, his weapon heavy. Yet, two delicate fingers had arrested the blade in mid-air. A chill ran down the spines of the onlookers; the lackeys who had been preparing to charge froze in terror.
But the true horror was just beginning.
Creak.
“Th… What is this!? Le… Let go!”
Black Earth Dragon tried to pull away, but the sword wouldn’t budge. Instead, he felt himself rising. Jin Cheon-hee, still pinching the blade, lifted his arm. The sword rose, and the Sect Leader, gripping the hilt, was hoisted helplessly into the air.
It was the Void-Grasping Art reaching its zenith.
To the ignorant bandits, it looked like magic. Black Earth Dragon dangled above the ground, his face pale as he finally realized the magnitude of his mistake.
“Th… Great Hero White-Robed Divine Dragon. I apologize for speaking recklessly earlier. Could you please put this down?”
It was a lightning-fast change of attitude. Jin Cheon-hee looked up at the dangling man and laughed.
“Hahaha. Did you sober up a bit?”
Snap. Tink. Snap. Tink.
Black Earth Dragon’s eyes bulged. Jin Cheon-hee was tearing the broadsword apart with his bare fingers, breaking the steel as if it were a dry cracker. The blade grew shorter and shorter, and as it did, the Sect Leader’s body was pulled closer and closer to the monster holding him.
Finally, only the hilt remained. Black Earth Dragon’s feet touched the ground, but fear paralyzed him. Jin Cheon-hee smiled brightly, a look of beatific terror.
“Patient. It is time to receive treatment.”
“Tr… Treatment?”
“Yes. Where on earth did the action of breaking children’s arms for not earning money come from? It came from this head, right? So, I plan to treat it with a specialized method I learned from Young Hero Namgung Woon of the Namgung Clan.”
“Yes? What does that…”
Crunch.
One of his arms was twisted to a grotesque angle.
“Aaaaargh!”
Black Earth Dragon screamed. Staring intently into the man’s agony, Jin Cheon-hee asked softly.
“Does it hurt?”