Leaving the flustered Kwon Taehyuk alone, Cha Seohu’s eyes sparkled as he looked him up and down.
“Oh, so that’s what the clothes look like. Your hair got long like ours, too.”
He even started patting and touching his body without the slightest hesitation. A faint heat rose in Kwon Taehyuk’s cheeks.
But if you asked whether he disliked that touch... it wasn’t quite that either, so he pretended not to notice and asked,
“What is the Wudang Sect?”
He knew the word “Wudang” itself, but the meaning Cha Seohu was using didn’t seem to match what he knew.
Was the group he’d been with for the past two days called the “Wudang Sect”?
Just as he was thinking that—
“Y-you...!”
A sharp voice cut in.
When they turned around, the Wudang Sect men who had tried to attack Cha Seohu were standing there with faces drained white.
“Y-you, that... how...!”
What the man pointed at with a trembling hand was Kwon Taehyuk’s weapon—more precisely, the four blades floating in midair.
“How could a punk like you use martial arts like that?!”
Kwon Taehyuk blinked, puzzled, not understanding what the problem was. Beside him, Cha Seohu grinned and folded his arms.
“Oh my, Taoist masters. ‘A punk like you,’ really? From Taoist to Taoist? You attack an innocent person who’s just eating, you smash up a shop that’s done nothing wrong... are Taoist masters allowed to act like this?”
“What did you say?!”
The face that had gone white flared red at Cha Seohu’s single provocation.
The man gritted his teeth and this time jabbed a finger at Cha Seohu as he shouted,
“Y-you wicked demonic bastard, how dare you...! A demon lord who’s thrown in with the heretics, and you’re picking a fight—do you even know before whom you’re talking?!”
Kwon Taehyuk stepped in front of Cha Seohu.
It was an action meant to shield him from the threat—and at the same time, it was because the idea that they were “seeing” Cha Seohu as “wicked” irritated him so much he wanted to block it from view.
Seeing that, the man twisted one corner of his mouth and sneered.
“Hah. Now I understand. So that’s why that wicked aura clung to you—turns out you’re a lackey of the Demonic Cult as well. You dare hide your true colors and infiltrate our Wudang?”
The man who had been shoved down earlier by Kwon Taehyuk’s weapon lifted his sword back up, glaring with eyes burning with hatred and inferiority.
“There’s no way the likes of you could have achieved that level of prowess—so you must have laid hands on some depraved demonic art! I’ll personally rip off that disgusting mask and expose what you truly are!”
As the man looked ready to lunge again, Ryu Sunghyun hurriedly sent Cha Seohu behind him and stepped up beside Kwon Taehyuk.
The civilians who had been watching shrieked and fled, and the instant killing intent slammed into killing intent—
“H-hey! Hey, you there!”
Someone came running from far away in a frantic rush. He was an unfamiliar man in shabby clothes, with a thick beard covering his chin.
“Hey, Taoist masters!”
“An old beggar?”
Another Wudang Sect member recognized him and frowned.
“It’s bad—this is bad!”
“What is it?”
The man who’d been interrupted clicked his tongue in annoyance and turned toward him.
The old beggar panted, barely catching his breath, then opened his mouth in urgency.
“Right now—huff—right now, you have to run from here!”
“Run?”
“It’s coming down!”
The old beggar’s wide-open eyes were steeped in deep fear.
“The Demonic Cult... the Demonic Cult is moving! They’ve left Xinjiang and they’re coming south into the Central Plains!”
“What...!”
A flustered Wudang Sect member protested as if arguing back.
“That’s nonsense! How could the ninety-thousand-li vast skies of Xinjiang be narrow? We’ve long known the Demonic Cult’s movements aren’t ordinary, but there’s no way their ranks could reach this place in a single day!”
“An urgent report flew in from Qinghai!”
The old beggar shouted, cutting off the rebuttal.
“Everywhere those Demonic Cultists’ feet touch, pitch-black demonic energy is covering the mountains and rivers. Qinghai is already...!”
The old beggar’s face, pale as if he’d seen a ghost, made the three Wudang Sect men—who’d been forcing out sneers, refusing to face reality—gradually lose their expressions as well.
“The speed... the speed is too fast. Something’s wrong.”
With eyes opened wide, the old beggar muttered as if bewitched by something.
“No way, no way... the Heavenly Demon... the Heavenly Demon is personally leading the campaign...”
Trembling with fear, the old beggar turned around and ran off before the Wudang Sect could even grab him.
“We have to evacuate immediately. If not, then we have to gather the martial comrades as fast as we can and set up a formation—even if it’s only for a quarter-hour!”
“W-wait!”
The air sank cold.
Behind Ryu Sunghyun, Cha Seohu—who had been watching the exchange—slowly turned his head.
His gaze went far off, toward the shadow that covered the sky.
Just as the old beggar had said, the distance of that shadow spread across the sky was far clearer than it had been in the morning.
And at that same time.
Inside the wrecked shop, one figure that had been holding its breath moved cautiously.
A shop employee—who had watched everything, from Cha Seohu’s group and the Wudang Sect to the words the old beggar had delivered before leaving.
Having skillfully hidden his presence, the employee quietly left the shop through the back door.
After the old beggar left, the Wudang Sect who had been glaring at us hesitated... and in the end, they sheathed their weapons and left as well.
Information from the Beggars’ Union is solid. Rather than fighting us—people they couldn’t even be sure were truly a band of demon lords—they were going to return to Mount Wudang at once and come up with countermeasures.
‘Still, thank God they’ve got their heads on straight.’
If they’d started screaming about fighting us even in the middle of this, it would’ve been annoying.
Thanks to that, we didn’t waste time and could move again right away. If what the Beggars’ Union man said was true, and Cha Sahyeon really was moving...
‘Is it because of me?’
I couldn’t be sure. I still didn’t know what condition Cha Sahyeon was in, since I hadn’t been able to meet him.
It was just... somehow, I had that feeling.
‘...Is it a premonition, or is it hope—hope that it’s true?’
If Cha Sahyeon had even the bare minimum of consciousness and was looking for me, and that was why he was coming directly toward where I was—
He’d attached a shadow bird to me, so he’d probably know my location.
But if it wasn’t that.
If Cha Sahyeon had been swallowed by his own power, moving and acting unconsciously, purely on instinct—
My mind became complicated.
All the more because I knew that no matter what result was waiting, there was no way to look away or run.
Either way, since things had come to this, we had to increase our pace again.
‘Still—if Cha Sahyeon’s side is moving too, we can meet him faster than I expected.’
There was no mood to sit back down and eat now, anyway.
And besides, maybe because the rumor that the Demonic Cult was coming had already spread, everyone was in a full panic—making it hard to do anything more here.
“Ha... seriously, what kind of damn suffering is this?”
Carried on Kwon Seoyul’s back, Hyun Dowoon let out a sigh and complained.
I was on Kwon Taehyuk’s back, too. At least it was a relief that Kwon Taehyuk had joined us safely.
‘This is reassuring.’
As I leaned against that broad back and wrapped my arms around his neck, Kwon Taehyuk said,
“We’ll depart.”
Kwon Taehyuk kicked off the ground and started running at high speed, with Ryu Sunghyun and Kwon Seoyul following behind.
“Damn, I wanted to carry you, hyung. Not Hyun Dowoon hyung!”
Ignoring Kwon Seoyul’s grumbling, I lifted my head.
At the end of the clouded sky, a dark shadow was spreading like ink.
Pure darkness, with not even a single speck of light.
Within it, a tall man moved.
His speed was extremely slow, but each time his body blurred as it dyed into the darkness, it was as if he folded the ground as he walked—moving forward in an instant.
Curly black hair that hung long past his waist rippled like waves whenever he moved.
Between those strands, green eyes would flash and appear—then vanish again and again.
‘It’ made no sound.
It simply kept moving.
Each time ‘it’ moved, the thick shadow energy that spread out swallowed the earth and the sky, staining everything into darkness.
It felt like someone screamed.
It felt like a child cried.
Those who raised swords and shouted warnings, when ‘it’ continued to do nothing but walk without any reaction, retreated as if fleeing.
Endlessly—without knowing where it was going—moving only as instinct commanded, ‘it’ thought.
Where is this place?
Everything around was dark because of the shadows it spilled out, so nothing could be seen.
And yet, it could tell.
This was a different world from the one it had originally been in.
Then when had it come here?
There was only one being that could move the world without letting it perceive it.
「Oh, you’re fairly smart.」
The moment it finished that thought, a voice filled with ridicule rang inside its head.
「Keep moving. Don’t stop.」
‘It’ suddenly noticed a small, golden cluster of light flicker in front of its eyes—then disappear.
「It’s impressive you still have enough consciousness to think. Is it the influence of the ‘present’? Or were you like that to begin with?」
「Right. There’s no point in arguing that now. But didn’t you say it yourself? ‘All shadows are connected.’」
The ‘it’ that had paused for a moment started walking again at those words.
「Shadows are your power, and your instinct. The place they desire is the place you desire.」
‘It’ did not open its mouth. It stayed quiet, only giving a short nod.
「This is even better. With this, I can run an experiment.」
With a short laugh, the voice that had been ringing in its head faded.
「I hope something meaningful comes out of it.」

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