Wudang Sacred Scriptures

A single figure walked through the temple gates, the sound of their steps echoing thunderously through the monastery grounds.

The vice-captain and members of the Special Blood Unit all turned to look at Kwak Yeon in unison.
“Who the hell is that?”
Kwak Yeon asked the overseeing officer, Yi Gwal, who was following behind him.

“Is that the captain?”
“That man is the vice-captain.”
Kwak Yeon’s brow furrowed.

“Didn’t you say they were all together?”
“I... That’s what I thought…”
The Special Blood Unit vice-captain recognized the man standing behind Kwak Yeon.

“Overseer Yi, what the hell are you doing here? And who’s the brat next to you?”
Yi Gwal had turned deathly pale and could do nothing but tremble.
Seeing that, the vice-captain and his men realized something was off.
― Whiiit!

As the vice-captain whistled, the unit members surged forward, surrounding Kwak Yeon and Yi Gwal.
Kwak Yeon quickly counted their number.
“Ten are missing.”

“...Daoist, I don’t know anything.”
Kwak Yeon turned to the vice-captain and asked.
“Where are the captain and the rest of the unit?”

“What would you want to know that for? Start by telling us who the hell you are. We should at least know who we’re killing.”
“I planned to. I’ll need to report to the Primordial Celestial Honored One whose hand I died by, after all.”
The mention of the Primordial Celestial Honored One made the vice-captain’s eyes twitch.

“You bastard... are you the Cave Daoist?”
Kwak Yeon replied.
“Even if you’re a demonic bastard, this is no way to talk to someone’s face. Still, I’ll give you this—you’ve got a good eye. I am Kwak Yeon, a lay Daoist of Samnyeonggung on Mount Wudang.”

A sneer briefly twisted the corner of the vice-captain’s lips.
“Well now, look at that. You just walked right in on your own. Saves us the trouble of having to find you.”
Kwak Yeon said calmly.

“Looks like I’ll need to save some time. The captain and the rest seem to have already left—if I’m to catch up, that is.”
“You bastard Cave Daoist, you’ll be buried here today. No need to worry about that kind of trouble.”
Kwak Yeon ignored the vice-captain’s threat and looked around.
Seeing that the monks of Yeongheung Temple had quietly withdrawn from the courtyard, he drew his Cheonggang Sword.

Shhrring!
“Overseer Yi, your words weren’t wrong. I’ll keep my promise.”
―Shlick!

With a single stroke, Kwak Yeon severed Yi Gwal’s neck and then chanted.
“Immeasurable Life Buddha.”
―Thud!

Yi Gwal’s severed head rolled across the courtyard as the vice-captain shouted:
“Everyone, attack!”
The Special Blood Unit members, already armed and in position, lunged in unison.

They were less than three jang away—close enough for them to close the distance in an instant.
In that moment, Kwak Yeon took a single true step.
Boom!

The shockwave of his qi rippled toward the onrushing unit members.
Snap!
They each heard a sound like a thread snapping inside their bodies.

It was bizarre—but since their bodies seemed fine, they dismissed it.
Their qi continued to flow, no external injuries appeared, and their movements were uninterrupted.
Or so they thought.
Suddenly, everything slowed. Their limbs dragged through the air as if submerged in syrup.

Their minds had already commanded the blades to strike down—but their arms still hadn’t moved.
‘What the—?’
The subtle discord between thought and action was something they had never experienced before.

But the strangeness didn’t end there.
The Cheonggang Sword wielded by the youth known as the Cave Daoist was the only thing in that slowed world moving at full speed.
They saw it coming. Tried to block it.

But their own blades were still halfway through their downward swing.
One of them was certain—I blocked it!
Yet the Cheonggang Sword had already passed clean through his waist.

The world spun wildly as that soldier saw it.
His fellow soldiers, all torn to pieces and flying through the air.
Only then did he realize what that thread-snapping sound in his body had really meant.

‘Dear heavens... what is that?’
And with that question burning in his mind, he plunged into the dark abyss.
Thirty-nine members of the Special Blood Unit collapsed like straw in less than half a breath.

And not one of them had managed to block the Cheonggang Sword. They had merely flailed and then been cut down.
The vice-captain didn’t even have time to be shocked—he was beyond comprehension.
“You... what kind of sorcery did you use?!”

To him, it had to be sorcery. No—he needed it to be sorcery.
How could any human cause such a ripple with a single step?
And how could the mere impact of that ripple render all the men sluggish?

“Sorcery, huh?”
Kwak Yeon flicked the blood from his Cheonggang Sword and continued.
“I suppose it could look that way.”

The martial art he had used unraveled Taiji Nine Palms into Collapse Force.
Driven by profound sorrow, the Primordial Harmonious Art had surged to its peak. The dormant meridians in the Collapse Force’s blood pathways responded all at once.
And Kwak Yeon had already resolved to go all-out to save time.

“I made a promise to Master Hyunam. I can’t afford to be lenient.”
As a result, the explosive release of force carried his internal energy—worth three full cycles of breath—into the qi wave.
The Special Blood Unit members’ meridians were shocked into paralysis.

Their limbs simply wouldn’t move the way their minds commanded.
“But why does that even matter? Sorcery or martial arts—either way, death is the same. I’ve no need to explain it to you.”
At those words, the vice-captain nodded slowly.

“You’re right. Death is death. But if it is sorcery, then the story changes... at least for me.”
“How do you mean?”
The vice-captain raised his sword and pointed it at Kwak Yeon.

“No sorcery works against someone at the peak.”
Kwak Yeon let out a soft chuckle.
“I’ve never heard that calling yourself ‘the peak’ makes it true.”

The tip of the vice-captain’s sword trembled.
To read one’s level from their presence alone... even the highest masters struggled with that.
And the vice-captain knew it.

“Then your level must be...?”
Kwak Yeon let go of the Cheonggang Sword and said:
“We should save time. Allow me to show you a technique.”

The Cheonggang Sword floated in midair.
―Shuaaak!
 

The Cheonggang Sword shot forward like a streak of light, stopping right at the vice-captain’s throat.
“Igi Yugeom?”
This was beyond Sword Guided by Qi. He hadn’t even formed a sword seal or pointed at the Cheonggang Sword.

And it wasn’t that the sword was moving on its own as if alive. Which meant...
“Ah!”
The vice-captain’s entire blade trembled.

“Even if it is sorcery, don’t you think it deserves some recognition at this level?”
“……”
The vice-captain of the Special Blood Unit couldn’t move—like a bird caught in a net.

Kwak Yeon glanced toward the center of the courtyard where a cow’s carcass had been violently dismembered and said,
“Looks like you were offering meat as alms. I imagine you don’t want to end up like that.”
“Then... the reason you’re sparing me is...?”

Kwak Yeon nodded.
“If you tell me everything you know, unlike that overseer, you won’t suffer.”
“...!”

“You must already know that silence is useless. I didn’t find this place by luck.”
―Thunk!
The vice-captain’s sword fell from his hand and stuck into the ground.

 
****
“What a disgrace at my age.”

Danmok Seong had been gazing northward along the official road for half a day.
He’d endured countless puzzled stares from passersby.
As if he were an old man with nowhere to go, cast out from home.

Even so, he had to stand tall.
He’d heard that the Cave Daoist of Mount Wudang was heading north.
The head of the Danmok Clan had gone into a frenzy, demanding they send elite troops to avenge his son.

The clan’s elders had opposed him, saying such a move would bring enmity with the Wudang Sect.
And so, this unsavory task ended up falling to Danmok Seong, the Danmok Clan’s greatest expert.
“If the Supreme Second Master of the House defeats him in a one-on-one duel, Wudang will have no grounds for protest.”

That was the elders’ suggestion. Even so, he’d tried to excuse himself—dueling a fledgling just stepping into the martial world felt shameful.
But after seeing the horrific state of Young Lord Danmok Cheong, he couldn’t stay uninvolved.
That child was the future of the clan—his beloved grandnephew.

A brilliant young man who aimed to raise the Danmok Clan’s prestige by leading the Hwayeong Assembly.
And yet that Cave Daoist had dared not only to interfere with the Assembly but also to beat the young lord to a pulp.
Danmok Seong couldn’t let this stand—not the clan’s honor trampled, nor the boy’s revenge ignored.

He also couldn’t bear further rumors that he was idle, ignoring clan matters.
As an elder of the martial world, he intended to give this reckless junior a light correction and reminder of his place.
And yet... the Cave Daoist from Mount Wudang showed no sign of appearing.

‘Did he take another route?’
The information hadn’t come from just the clan’s own spies—it was confirmed even through the Hao Clan. It couldn’t be wrong.
But he couldn’t exactly go wandering about like a foolish old man looking for a boy, so he’d told himself to wait just a little longer—and that had already been over half a sijin ago.

‘Tch! This is enough. Even a funeral dog shouldn’t be gawked at forever.’
Just then, as he cast one final glance far down the southern road, Danmok Seong’s eyes widened.
“There he is!”

He spotted a lone figure approaching at a pace distinctly different from everyone else.
He wasn’t running, yet his movement was swift beyond measure.
To the casual eye, it might seem like he was just walking briskly—but blink, and he would already be far down the road.

“Not flashy, but exceedingly fast. This is supreme-level movement technique.”
Danmok Seong heaved and lifted himself off the rock he was sitting on.
Before long, he was standing in the center of the official road.

With the wooden sword in his hand, he drew a line across the road—and waited for the Cave Daoist.
Kwak Yeon, too, had spotted the elderly man descending to the road.
He immediately recognized that the old man’s aura was no ordinary thing—and also that he had been waiting for him.

As he reached the line drawn across the road, Kwak Yeon came to a halt.
He had sensed a fluctuating wall of qi emanating from that line.
Though the pressure was faint and not enough to block his path outright, it felt wrong to trample on the efforts of a martial elder—so he stopped.

“Kwak Yeon, humble student of the martial world, greets the elder.”
Pressed for time, he didn’t bother to introduce himself as a lay Daoist of Mount Wudang. He didn’t want the conversation to drag out.
“I am called Danmok Seong of the Danmok Clan.”

Danmok Seong intentionally refrained from introducing himself as the clan head’s uncle or the Supreme Second Master—he didn’t want to use status to pressure him.
“Are you a Daoist of Samnyeonggung on Mount Wudang?”
“Yes. A secular Daoist, having returned to the world to pursue cultivation.”

At the mention of the Danmok Clan, Kwak Yeon guessed what this old man had come for. But his demeanor and posture clearly marked him as a senior master—so he did not speak lightly.
Danmok Seong tilted his head slightly.
“How odd. The words and conduct of the young warrior are quite different from what I’ve heard.”

Kwak Yeon quickly replied.
“I do not know what teachings the elder intends to share, but I must beg your pardon today. My matters are urgent. If you would remove the prohibition from the road, I shall visit at a later time to humbly receive your guidance.”
Danmok Seong gave him a curious look.

“I’m afraid that’s a bit difficult. I have matters of my own... and I’ve waited quite a while. If you wish to pass through, you must exchange at least one move with me.”
“If this is about Young Lord Danmok Cheong, I ask for your understanding. Please return to your clan and review the sequence of events. Once you have done so and decide I bear responsibility, I, the humble student, will come to you at any time.”
By the line drawn across the road, Kwak Yeon {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} had already discerned Danmok Seong’s level at a glance.

He had clearly surpassed the peak realm—and might even be at the threshold of Hwagyeong.
Moreover, the aura embedded in the line revealed that the elder’s cultivation of ascending-level techniques had matured to a depth far beyond Kwak Yeon’s.