Dam Hyun, Baek Ha-jun, Peng Mu-ah.
Those three were the entirety of the search party.
It could be said to be modest.
But judging it by the headcount of three alone would overlook the reality.
All of Murim decided to help them.
No matter where you went in the Central Plains, there were sects with a foot in the Murim Alliance or the Heretical Alliance.
Even if you took mountain paths or rivers, there were the Green Forest bandits and the waterway bandits.
With their support promised, there was nowhere the search party couldn’t go.
And what about the lineup itself?
After obtaining the Demonic Qi Art, Ha-jun gained authority on par with an Absolute master.
Peng Mu-ah was also a Transcendent master, known as the Peng Clan’s Blade Princess.
Dam Hyun was Azure Forest’s next Grand Library Master, a prodigy who had mastered countless Taoist arts. He still had several treasures tucked away.
There was nowhere they couldn’t reach.
Peng Mu-ah, who had joined the search party due to a request that was almost forced, was overflowing with motivation.
Unlike the other two, she had been trapped inside the Crouching Dragon Basin.
She had sat there doing nothing for a little over four days, while outside, important matters about whether the world would end or not were unfolding.
If it weren’t for those who fought prepared to die, she might have died without knowing anything.
Like the others trapped in the Crouching Dragon Basin, Peng Mu-ah also carried a sense of debt toward those outside.
‘Good job, Peng Mu-ah!’
Peng Mu-ah clenched her fist tight.
But there was something catching in the corner of her heart.
Why hadn’t Yi-gang shown up yet?
If he was alive, he would have sent word at least.
Was he too far away to do that?
Or maybe…
Had Yi-gang died?
That suspicion kept surfacing.
And the more it did, the more impatient she became.
“I’m in command of the search. Anyone with a problem can drop out now.”
Dam Hyun suddenly said that.
His attitude wasn’t just confident, it was arrogantly so.
“I’m smarter than you, and I know more too. If you get snippy and butt in for no reason, we’ll just make things annoying for each other. I warned you, got it?”
In truth, Dam Hyun was being fairly kind by his standards.
Didn’t he even explain why anyone with complaints should leave?
Ha-jun nodded, as if he understood.
But Peng Mu-ah looked shocked.
‘What’s with him?’
She’d heard he was eccentric, but his tone was unbearably arrogant.
The problem was that Ha-jun nodded meekly.
As far as Peng Mu-ah knew, Ha-jun wasn’t someone to be taken lightly either. Was Dam Hyun that trustworthy?
‘…Yeah. I should trust him.’
Peng Mu-ah had barely spent time with Dam Hyun, but she knew he was capable.
“Good. First, let’s find the place Yi-gang went to.”
When there was no further pushback, Dam Hyun smiled in satisfaction.
Finding Yi-gang’s location wasn’t complicated.
The most reasonable call was that Yi-gang had been where the pillar of light erupted.
And witnesses to the pillar of light were everywhere in the Central Plains.
It was probably already roughly figured out, but Dam Hyun acted personally.
He started by going from house to house in Henan, knocking.
“That pillar of light? Yeah, I saw it.”
“Where did you see it from?”
“It shot up from beyond that ridge over there.”
The young man, who seemed to have been enjoying a nap, wiped drool from his mouth as he said it.
He raised a finger and pointed at the mountain behind them.
“Somewhere around there.”
“No. I’m asking exactly where you saw it from.”
Dam Hyun made an annoyed face.
“Exactly! Where? Where on the mountain?”
The young man looked bewildered, then swallowed when he saw Dam Hyun’s companions wearing swords.
“See that second peak? It rose from right at the top there.”
“You really saw it from this house?”
“Yes. From right here where I’m standing.”
“How thick was it? About as wide as that lightning-struck tree and the rock?”
“You’re quite precise. Yes.”
“Thanks.”
Dam Hyun handed him one silver tael.
The young man, who’d stumbled into unexpected fortune, walked off grinning ear to ear.
“Hmm. Should we check just one more place?”
“How long are you going to do this? This is already the third.”
Peng Mu-ah finally said it.
As for a pillar of light rising into the sky, there were over ten thousand witnesses in Henan alone.
The direction had been figured out long ago, yet Dam Hyun had visited three places today to pinpoint it.
Peng Mu-ah couldn’t understand why he kept delaying when she wanted to leave as soon as possible.
Dam Hyun stared at Peng Mu-ah and said,
“Didn’t we agree you wouldn’t complain?”
Peng Mu-ah pressed her lips shut.
Dam Hyun, who had been scribbling something on paper, spoke as if he’d decided.
“Yeah, fine. We can start moving now.”
Only then did Peng Mu-ah’s face brighten.
The place the pillar was seen was to the southwest, toward where Tianzhu was.
It was far, but they could ride hard and get there.
But at the words that came out of Dam Hyun’s mouth, Peng Mu-ah’s expression hardened.
“Let’s stop by Nanman for a bit first. The place we fought.”
Stop by?
Nanman wasn’t someone’s front yard. What did he mean, ‘stop by for a bit’?
She shot him a look as if he was joking, but Dam Hyun seemed serious.
Dam Hyun really set out for Nanman.
It was a journey that required a long detour by boat.
“Ueup!”
Peng Mu-ah covered her mouth with a pale face.
She felt like she was going to vomit.
She got terribly seasick.
With help from the Yangtze Waterway Fort, they reached Nanman quickly by river.
They rode as soon as they disembarked, and the nausea wouldn’t go away.
“Don’t puke. It’s disgusting. If you’re going to, go do it far away.”
At that one line, Peng Mu-ah ended up grabbing her saber.
If Ha-jun hadn’t gently held her shoulder, she might have started swinging.
Even so, Peng Mu-ah, who was about to snap back, had no choice but to shut her mouth.
Because of the devastation before her eyes.
“It’s been smashed to pieces.”
This was the Evil Cult’s main base.
It was where Kangho Murim and the Evil Cult fought their final battle.
Everything in sight was shattered miserably.
There were traces everywhere as if a meteor had fallen.
It looked less like humans had fought and more like giants had.
She looked up.
There was a building constructed between cracks in the cliff.
A huge hole was blasted through the wall.
They said Dam Hyun fought riding a dragon inside there.
“I saw the pillar of light standing here.”
Saying that, Dam Hyun turned to the southwest.
“The diameter was… about this much. Hey, Baek Ha-jun.”
Dam Hyun called Ha-jun and went over the sighting again.
Thinking, ‘Here we go again,’ Peng Mu-ah squatted down.
What could he possibly judge from that?
It was far too tedious if all he wanted was the exact direction.
They had already pinned down the direction well enough.
Just as she thought she really had to say something—
“Now, shall we go to Yunnan?”
That one line finally exhausted Peng Mu-ah’s patience.
“What are you doing!”
“This isn’t the time to waste like this. What if Yi-gang got hurt? We have to find him as soon as possible.”
“That’s what we’re doing.”
“If you’re just going to keep wasting time checking directions, I’ll go on my own.”
“We found the direction ages ago. We figured out the exact location. And we’re not going to Yunnan to find the direction.”
“Then why?”
Dam Hyun scratched his head hard, annoyed.
Then his face hardened.
Even Peng Mu-ah, who had been angry, flinched and stiffened.
Dam Hyun’s eyes were emitting a sinister hostility.
“I’ll explain one last time. If you understand, then from now on, shut your mouth and follow. If you don’t like that, get lost.”
“Fine.”
But Peng Mu-ah wasn’t the type to back down.
When she snarled back, Dam Hyun gestured for her to come closer.
“Here. Look.”
Dam Hyun took out something like a scroll from his luggage and spread it on the ground.
Not only Ha-jun and Peng Mu-ah, but even the waterway bandits from the Yangtze Waterway Fort crowded in.
“It’s a map…”
It was a map.
A detailed map marking the Central Plains and beyond, even the coastline and islands.
It was a precious item borrowed through King Gye-yeong.
And Dam Hyun suddenly said,
“The place where Yi-gang is, no, where the pillar of light rose, is right here.”
And he pointed to a spot.
It was over the sea.
“What?”
Peng Mu-ah asked back with a dumbfounded face.
Even if the direction was roughly similar, there was no way to know the exact location.
It looked nearly ten thousand kilometers from Henan.
“See this archipelago where islands are clustered? It’s definitely one of these islands.”
“How do you know that!”
“My ears hurt! There’s a method for everything!”
At that moment, one of the ship captains they’d come on exclaimed in admiration.
“Don’t tell me you learned navigation? You calculated the distance. Wow…”
Dam Hyun responded as if pleased.
“Something like that. That’s why I gathered precise eyewitness accounts.”
“Then, this distance is…”
“It came out to about eight thousand two hundred fifty kilometers from this point. But that crosses the coastline… so if it isn’t the middle of the open sea, then this archipelago beyond Dhampa makes sense.”
“Wow! You’re brilliant. Amazing.”
The two of them chatted back and forth, perfectly in sync.
Peng Mu-ah couldn’t hold back and asked,
“What are you talking about? How can you figure out the distance to Yi-gang just from the direction you saw the pillar?”
“Well, you see. It’s a technique also used in navigation to estimate the distance between the shore and a ship. It’s an application of something called triangulation…”
The captain was a bandit, but he was very smart.
And Peng Mu-ah barely understood what he was saying.
But she could tell Dam Hyun hadn’t been doing something pointless.
“Then why Yunnan…”
That was the last lingering question, but Dam Hyun answered lightly.
“You’re going to ride horses all the way to somewhere this far? People there won’t even speak the same language. How are you going to ask around?”
“……”
She didn’t know Yi-gang would be that far.
“If you don’t know the way and you can’t communicate, what are you going to do? You find someone to help.”
“Is that person in Yunnan…?”
“No. But they’ll pass through Yunnan at least. There aren’t many merchant caravans in the Central Plains that trade beyond Dhampa. If we search Yunnan, we can find them.”
Peng Mu-ah felt like she was turning stupid.
She even regretted the days she’d scolded Peng Gu-in and Peng Gu-hwi for being ignorant.
“And if I were Yi-gang, and if there was a reason I couldn’t return to the Central Plains, I’d at least send a letter. I’d probably pass it through a caravan that trades down south. It’d be good to check that too.”
“So from now on, just shut your mouth and do what you’re told. There won’t be many times you’ll need to use your blade.”
Dam Hyun gave a final warning.
Only then did Peng Mu-ah understand everything.
At least until they found Yi-gang, she would follow him quietly.
They headed for Yunnan.
And there, they learned that there was only one merchant caravan that traded beyond Dhampa.
Coincidentally, it was the time when that caravan had finished trading and was resting.
The group rode without rest from Nanman to Yunnan.
Their bodies reeked of sour sweat, and dust clung pale all over them.
In that state, they knocked on the caravan’s door.
The merchant who opened the door reacted simply.
“What? You bastards look like beggars.”
No matter what, wasn’t that too rude?
And the guy who came out claiming to be caravan crew had a shaved head full of scars, looking like a bandit.
Then again, if they traded as far south as that, where speech barely carried, they wouldn’t be ordinary men.
As if he really had been to Dhampa, he had a cigarette clenched in his mouth.
“We came to ask something. Let’s make a request.”
Dam Hyun answered with what he considered manners.
But what came back was a truly disappointing response.
The man blew cigarette smoke into Dam Hyun’s face.
“Get lost. Unless you want to get beat.”
Then he slammed the door shut and went back inside.
Dam Hyun fell silent for a moment.
Peng Mu-ah, who had been snickering, flinched and answered,
“…Ah, yes!”
“It’s time to use the blade.”
“Gladly.”
And Peng Mu-ah kicked the main gate in at once.
The bar snapped, and the gate flew wide open.
“W-what the hell, you bastards!”
Inside, merchants who looked more like bandits than a caravan were gathered in a swarm.
As if used to it, they all drew blades at once.
Peng Mu-ah and Ha-jun charged in with good momentum.
It didn’t even take fifteen minutes for them to submit, after resisting with curses at first.
The caravan leader sat at a table in a tense posture, and the one who’d blown smoke at Dam Hyun earlier was kneeling, being punished by the wall.
“So. You’re saying you didn’t hear anything.”
“That’s the right direction for where the pillar rose. There are many islands that way too. We go as far as the coastal cities, but we’ve never gone to the islands.”
“And you’ve also heard lots of talk about an island-like thing flying through the sky?”
“It’s strange. At first I thought it was nonsense, but there aren’t just one or two witnesses.”
The caravan leader couldn’t have been more cooperative.
Not just because he’d been subdued by force, but because he realized Dam Hyun’s group had all of Kangho behind them.
Even though his guess had been right, Dam Hyun’s expression wasn’t bright.
“You didn’t hear anything about the Blue-Eyed Sword Immortal either.”
“No… Finding one person won’t be easy. That place isn’t normally wide, it’s vast.”
He hadn’t heard the most important thing, news of Yi-gang.
“We’ll go check in person. I’d appreciate it if you take us along with the caravan.”
“Not at all. If heroes from the Murim Alliance join us, we’re grateful.”
Cooperating with the Murim Alliance was important for the caravan.
It was the moment Dam Hyun was about to stand.
Ha-jun, who’d been the quietest until now, sprang to his feet.
His eyes were blazing.
With movements swift like a tiger, he grabbed one caravan man by the collar and hoisted him.
“Ugh, aahk!”
The caravan man screamed as his body dangled.
Everyone was startled by Ha-jun’s sudden action.
“This!”
Ha-jun had recognized the man’s necklace.
“Where did you get this?”
It was a necklace with an orange-colored gem.
For Ha-jun, it was unmistakable.
Because it was the Pixiu’s Eye that Yi-gang had always worn since he was little.
