From far beyond the northern wall, Pung Hyeon had sensed it through the Cheonroe Divine Steps—a faint, mysterious blue light bleeding silently into the sky.
It was one of the countless secrets this great clan kept buried within itself, and it was unmistakably a lead on the Thunderclap Sword he'd been hunting.
Pung Hyeon immediately dropped low and put his scheming brain to work at full throttle.
*Right now the front gate's a mess—those Beggars' Sect bums are throwing some kind of loud festival out there. It'll take them a while to track me down. Maybe the old geezer's insane little map is actually closer to right than I thought. Might as well trust it.*
He coiled his body and leaped, soft as a falling leaf.
Whether it was the thousand-year snow ginseng fully merging with his energy center, he couldn't say—but his body felt light as a feather now without him having to consciously wring out his inner energy.
On top of that, every time the Cheonroe Divine Steps activated, blue thunder energy seemed to frost across his entire body, as if shielding him.
*Yeah. This is why you get stronger.*
He ran back through the postscript his master Cheonbija had left in what was simultaneously a debt ledger and a salvation ledger.
Head north until you hit a dead end, then right. Then left. After that, feel it out.
"…'Feel it out.' Real helpful. That's just a fancy way of saying he got lost too."
Grumbling under his breath, Pung Hyeon launched himself northward with perfect precision.
He skimmed past the clan's ornate artificial rock gardens and towering pavilions, and the deeper he pushed into the heart of the estate, the heavier the air grew against his skin.
An ordinary thief would never have slipped past the hidden trap formations or the patrolling guards.
But the Cheonroe Divine Steps were something else entirely.
They guided his body instinctively—sensing every danger in his path and steering him clear before he even registered the threat.
It had never been enough to simply be fast. To catch the Somersault Cloud, you needed more than speed. You needed the sensitivity to dodge every trick and illusion that came with it.
That training had left its mark on Pung Hyeon.
*Shhhk—*
Each time his toes grazed the dew on a blade of grass, his body glided forward as if the ground itself were ice beneath him.
More remarkable still: when he kept the Cheonroe Divine Steps restrained, he moved without even disturbing the air.
Dodging trap formations, threading through the exact blind spots of every guard—Pung Hyeon ran until a massive wall of blue-gray stone rose up and blocked his way.
A dead end.
*Right from here.*
He cut right, passed through a narrow corridor of bamboo, and immediately a massive iron gate loomed before him.
*Then left.*
He turned left.
And found something that had no business existing inside the Namgung Clan's elegant grounds.
A dense, dark jungle.
Thick fog clung to the ground. One look told you it was dangerous.
Pung Hyeon stopped at the edge.
"So this is the 'feel it out' part."
He narrowed his eyes and stared into the mist.
Strangely, a faint afterglow of the blue light he'd spotted earlier was still drifting along the earth, barely visible.
The trail led toward the deepest point of the jungle.
The instincts of a sharp-minded opportunist whispered to him.
*That's where the sword is.*
*And that's where my way out is.*
*I need to minimize the risk—but the stakes on this one are huge. If I get the Thunderclap Sword, I feel like I could shake off a Demonic Cult leader or an Alliance Lord. I don't know why, but I do.*
Pung Hyeon swallowed and stepped into the fog.
*Crunch.*
Inside the jungle, the silence was uncanny.
Not even birdsong. Just stillness.
He moved slowly, every nerve concentrated in his feet and ears.
And at last.
He arrived before a massive stone cave at the heart of the jungle.
The entrance was wrapped in thick iron chains hung with ancient, weathered talismans, and through the gaps, pulses of blue lightning energy leaked out at irregular intervals.
"Found it. A treasure vault—no, wait. This looks more like some kind of sealed cave?"
He was stepping carefully forward when it happened.
A killing intent exploded at his back.
Not human.
This was the predator that ruled the earth itself.
A beast's savagery that existed outside every rule of the martial world.
*Grrrrrrrrrr—*
A low, heavy rumble traveled through the ground and shook the tips of his feet.
Pung Hyeon turned his head with the stiff, rusted motion of a puppet.
A massive shadow emerged from the fog.
Three times the size of any ordinary tiger.
Its entire body was covered in silver-white fur, and along its spine all the way to the tip of its tail, blue arcs of electricity crackled and spat.
Its eyes burned violet.
Every time it opened its mouth, blue thunder energy poured between its fangs.
The mythical sacred beast the Namgung Clan had kept for generations in this hidden place, set to guard the Thunderclap Sword.
The thunder tiger.
The color drained from Pung Hyeon's face.
In that instant, the notebook's words flashed through his mind like a lightning strike.
*P.S. — Got bitten by a wolf-looking sacred beast at the third turn.*
*How is this anything like a wolf, you crazy old geezer?!*
*It's a TIGER! A TIGER THAT SHOOTS LIGHTNING!!*
Cheonbija had been bitten by this monster thirty years ago and had written that it was *fun*.
Pung Hyeon wanted to shred that notebook into confetti.
But the sacred beast wasn't about to give him the time.
*ROAAARRR—!!!*
The thunder tiger bellowed.
The entire cave shook as if it might collapse.
The sound wave and thunder energy reduced the surrounding bamboo and boulders to powder in an instant.
"Oh HELL—!"
Pung Hyeon threw himself backward on pure instinct.
*BOOM—!*
The thunder tiger's forepaw slammed down where he'd been standing.
The stone floor crumbled like tofu.
Blue current crackled through every fragment.
*Fighting it means dying!*
*Run. Just run!*
He abandoned any thought of standing his ground immediately.
He pushed the inner energy of the Cheonroe Divine Steps to its absolute limit.
The vital energy of the thousand-year snow ginseng, not yet fully absorbed, came flooding into his legs like a waterfall.
*FLASH!*
Pung Hyeon's silhouette split into dozens of afterimages in the fog.
Off the boulder on the right.
Grazing the bamboo on the left.
Treading air itself—dodging the thunder tiger's strikes by the width of a single sheet of paper.
The thunder tiger only grew more furious.
Its silver-white fur stood on end, and a massive curtain of electricity began to expand across the entire area around the cave.
*CRACK! SNAP!*
"OW! That's hot!"
"Agh! That stings!"
The air itself was saturated with current.
The hem of his clothes began to smolder.
Pung Hyeon felt it in his gut.
He was going to die if this kept up.
*There's nowhere to run!*
*Then—inside!*
His eyes snapped to the cave entrance.
The narrow gap between the iron chains.
The one place that massive thunder tiger couldn't follow him through.
【The moment your toes touch the grass, your body becomes lighter than a feather, and the earth itself pushes you forward.】
Pung Hyeon summoned every scrap of focus he had ever possessed.
Grass-Skimming Step.
And the Cheonroe Divine Steps.
Two supreme arts merged into one.
*CRACK—!*
Blue lightning exploded from his feet.
He became a single bolt of thunder light, shooting toward the cave entrance.
*THUD—!!!*
A moment too late, the thunder tiger slammed into the cave entrance.
But the ancient formation and the iron chains didn't budge an inch.
Outside, a furious roar echoed through the jungle.
"Ha… hah… I'm alive…"
Pung Hyeon collapsed flat on his back on the cave floor.
His heart was hammering like it wanted to break through his ribs.
But the relief lasted only a moment.
Something cold and heavy touched his fingertips.
He slowly raised his head.
At the center of the dark cave.
A single great stone altar stood waiting.
And on top of it.
A sword, driven into the stone point-first.
No ornate decoration. No flourish.
But the entire blade radiated a soft, blue-white glow.
The very air around it trembled.
The blue inner energy nestled in Pung Hyeon's energy center began to resonate wildly, as if it recognized something.
The sacred treasure of the Namgung Clan.
The legendary sword that commanded lightning.
The Thunderclap Sword.
It revealed itself before his eyes at last.
"…So this is the real Thunderclap Sword."
Pung Hyeon reached out, as if in a trance.
At that same moment.
Outside the cave, at the edge of the jungle.
Namgung Ryeo and the Beggars' Sect's Mageon had arrived, having tracked Pung Hyeon's movements.
The sound of thunder and the thunder tiger's roar that had erupted from the direction of the cave drained the color from Namgung Ryeo's face.
"Don't tell me… he went into the forbidden zone?"
Her voice shook.
"The sacred beast is in there—!"
Mageon, on the other hand, looked moved to the point of reverence.
He gazed toward the cave and murmured with solemn awe.
"As expected of the great hero Pung…"
"He faces the clan's own sacred beast directly, seeking to enlighten it—and to awaken the truth of the Thunderclap Sword, hidden beneath layers of hypocrisy."
"First he broke through the front gate, and now a confrontation with the sacred beast itself."
"What a magnificent cause this is!"
Namgung Ryeo's heart began to pound again, hard and fast.
The Thunderclap Sword was a sacred treasure even they could not control—which was why it had been sealed away.
That was why she had never imagined Pung Hyeon would go that far.
And yet this man.
Had walked into the forbidden zone without a moment's hesitation.
*Even someone that strong shouldn't be able to get past the thunder tiger…*
Her gaze wavered.
Maybe.
Just maybe.
Exactly as Mageon had said.
Pung Hyeon had decided the Thunderclap Sword had no business staying in the Namgung Clan's hands—and had come to take it back himself.
That terrifying misunderstanding.
Like a contagion.
Began to spread slowly through Namgung Ryeo's heart as well.