There was a disturbance at the gates of the Peak early next morning, before the bell had even rung. Gyuvin awoke to the sounds of hushed talking from the other side of the wall; his living quarters were close to the entrance of the training camp grounds, and he could hear people gathered outside and talking even before he opened his door.
It had been another one of those nights. Though Gyuvin didn’t wake till morning, he hardly felt like he’d gotten any rest, which made even less sense today of all days considering he hadn’t even ended up sparring with Ricky last night in the end. The sun beaming down hurt his head a little, and he lifted his hand to shield his eyes as he crossed the courtyard to peek outside and see what was going on.
There was a small group of people gathered at the front gates of the training camp grounds, though it was growing by the minute as more people heard the noise and came out of their rooms to see what the commotion was about. Gyuvin craned his neck to catch a glimpse between the other heads in front of him; there was a man dressed in simple farmer’s clothes standing at the gates, one of his sleeves soaked with blood. The other cultivators looked on with worried expressions on their faces, but the farmer couldn’t enter the Peak grounds without the entry tassel, and the disciples just stood around, not knowing if they were authorized to do anything without a senior present.
“Is no one going to help him?” Gyuvin asked, a little incredulous, pushing past the other disciples who were standing there uselessly, crossing the threshold to attend to the farmer, who was holding his still-bleeding arm.
“Can I take a look at the wound?” he asked gently, coaxing the farmer to let go of his arm so he could peel the blood-soaked fabric away. There were several claw marks raked down the length of his arm, positioned just right to look like fingers.
“Can you tell me how you got injured?” Gyuvin could sense very mild traces of demonic energy radiating from the wound. It seemed like, as unlikely as it seemed for a fierce corpse to appear in Raintree Town, there was a possibility these claw marks had been made by one.
The group of gathered cultivators at the entryway to the grounds parted suddenly, and Gyuvin looked up just in time to see three seniors heading towards them; Ahn Yookyung, Han Seungho, and the female senior from Seven Star Manor who’d administered his placement test, Lee Eunyoung.
“Kim Gyuvin, step away,” Han Seungho ordered, with a dismissive nod of his head. “Disciples aren’t allowed to leave the Peak grounds without permission. Get back inside.”
Part of Gyuvin wanted to argue back that all he’d done was step outside for a second so he could help the injured farmer, and that such technicalities should be overlooked considering the circumstances, but the more sensible part of him decided not to say anything at all, heading back inside to join the other disciples.
“Go and eat breakfast at the dining hall first,” Lee Eunyoung turned, addressing the rest of them. “We’ll sort this out.”
“But he’s injured,” Gyuvin began to protest, only to be silenced by a sharp look from Ahn Yookyung that seethed “why do you think I’m here, then?”
Right, he’d forgotten Ahn Yookyung was one of the most renowned healers in the cultivation world. He was comforted by that thought, as he headed off to find Hanbin so they could eat breakfast together, but not long had passed before they were called away again by a communication array, in the middle of their meal, with instructions to speak to the seniors at the Assembly Hall immediately.
Gyuvin abandoned his food to step out of the dining hall. He bumped into Zhanghao and Ricky in the corridor outside; it seemed like they’d all received the same instruction. Several of the seniors were standing together at the Assembly Hall discussing quietly amongst themselves when the four of them appeared. Gyuvin looked around. The injured farmer was nowhere to be seen.
“There’s been a problem at Raintree Town,” Lee Eunyoung said, her expression solemn. “It seems that every person buried in their graveyard has been reanimated into a fierce corpse. The village is under attack, and we need to send an envoy down the Peak to handle this.”
Han Seungho fixed Gyuvin with an accusatory look. “You were the person who last visited the graveyard. You must have screwed something up, of course.”
Gyuvin wracked his brains trying to think back to every step he took. He wondered if there was really a possibility he’d made a mistake and unsealed every other corpse in the graveyard in the process, but it made no sense to him. Fierce corpses required a decent amount of demonic energy to create. Not only had Gyuvin never used even an ounce of demonic energy in his life, he wasn’t even sure he could figure out how to if he did want to. The only other possibility was if the corpses themselves had already been imbued with demonic energy, and something that had happened had simply set them free, but he didn’t recall sensing any demonic energy in the graveyard either, and it just seemed too far out in left field that something like that would even happen in a quiet town like this.
“I apologize,” he said immediately, bowing deeply. “But I don’t recall there being any complications with the sealing of the corpse girl. There were no traces of demonic energy in the graveyard last night either. How could this have happened?”
“You’re trying to shirk responsibility?” another senior asked, his tone reprimanding. “Are you prideful enough to think that you are such a talented cultivator there is no chance you could have made a mistake?”
“Sunbae-nim, that’s not what I-“
Han Seungho interrupted him, turning to walk away. “I don’t care what happened last night. This mess happened because of you, so fix it. All of you will go, since it is clear Kim Gyuvin is not competent enough to finish a simple task which was assigned to him.”
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