Chapter 784: Bloodline (18)

“Heavenly Flower Sword has dared to impersonate the Heavenly Dynasty and falsely claim the title of princess! She declares that the palace’s Princess Yeonsul is the fake, and that she is the true princess. What crime under Heaven could be more absurd and monstrous than this!”

Qing’s brow twitched.

Why would the kindly sword teacher who’d smiled at her as Yeonsul suddenly start slandering her?

Or could it be that someone didn’t want to let her back to the martial world—no, not the Son of Heaven; maybe the Empress had played some trick?

If they decided she really was royal blood, she’d be stuck in the palace as a princess with no way out.

Qing turned her head back toward the Son of Heaven’s dais.

On the Grand Tutor’s throne atop the highest three steps, the Son of Heaven’s eyes were round and bulging, his mouth hanging open in utter stupefaction.

On the step below, the Empress and Crown Prince wore the exact same expression.

One big happy family, collectively stunned.

While Qing watched for cues, the ministers went stone-faced, turning over the Hwanggeuk Hall Grand Captain’s grave accusation in their minds.

It was an accusation that Ximen Qing had brazenly impersonated a member of the imperial house.

In the Central Plains, among the worst of the worst crimes that earned execution on the spot with no questions asked, one of them was impersonating Heavenly Dynasty.

However—

“Grand Captain, what are you saying? Falsely claim? In what way, exactly, has Ximen Heavenly Flower falsely claimed the title of princess, and what gain is she supposed to have sought from it?”

The Empress spoke in a tone that acted calm—though it trembled ever so slightly—as she asked the question again.

The ministers felt the same.

Why, out of nowhere? And this was the same Ximen Qing who had already heard the news that she was to receive the Crown Princess’s seat.

Not knowing the Son of Heaven’s intention to shove her into a corner, they would have assumed she thought she was going to enjoy unparalleled splendor as the future consort of power.

Why would someone like that bother impersonating a princess?

“This lowly servant cannot know what plots such a heinous traitor may be weaving! But she has already committed the capital crime of false claim—would she not also dare to play tricks on me by claiming to be Yeonsul to my face!”

Qing was speechless.

I never—

“She even bragged openly before the maids of Hilbang Hall! Saying that Her Highness Yeonsul was the fake, and that she would drag Her Highness down and seize that false place for herself so she could revel in wealth and glory—such are this criminal’s attempts at seduction!”

All the ministers’ eyes turned to Qing.

Their looks seemed to ask if she had any response.

Qing found herself tongue-tied.

Oh, she had plenty to say.

When did I ever? That was you. I told you I wasn’t Yeonsul, and you insisted I really was, practically rubbing it in—now you’ve got the gall to say this? And what’s this about the Hilbang Hall maids? I’ve never even opened my mouth to them about any of this.

But it was hard to answer carelessly.

Was she supposed to stand here and declare that she was the real one?

*****

Beom Yakgong was desperate.

If Yeonsul received the rank of Crown Princess and Lady and got sealed up somewhere like a prisoner, he would only have needed to bide his time and slowly look for an opening to reclaim the Formless Art.

Perhaps she would come to her senses about her situation and hang herself.

Or even if she insisted on clinging to life, no matter how close she had come to the Realm of Union, how hard would it really be for a Manifest Realm master to dispose of a Flower-Realm one?

If it came out that she truly was Yeonsul after all, that was fine too.

His original role had been to guard the princess. He could just request demotion as punishment for failing to distinguish between the fake and the real, resume his post guarding Yeonsul, and afterward reclaim the Formless Art. That would be enough.

Either way, Yeonsul would remain in the palace. Beom Yakgong had never been in a hurry.

But then—

Even a bolt from the blue had its limits.

As Hwanggeuk Hall Grand Captain and covert security chief, Beom Yakgong had been watching the throne hall from the rafters when he heard it.

Ximen Qing was to be made Royal Censor of the Twelve Circuits?

Ordinary censors were assigned to specific provinces and worked in those designated regions.

But the Royal Censor of the Twelve Circuits was a unique post with no fixed province—a censor who roamed the entire Central Plains.

On paper, it was only a low rank, a simple seventh-grade official. But its clout was considerable, because their reports went by letter straight to the throne, bypassing the Censorate and connecting directly to the Son of Heaven via the Office of the Imperial Household.

And precisely because they were always wandering from place to place, once appointed, they almost never returned to the Forbidden City.

To Beom Yakgong, shackled to Hwanggeuk Hall even within the Forbidden City, that news might as well have been Heaven collapsing.

Let Yeonsul go—just like that?

It wasn’t impossible that she might return someday. But how much time did he have left?

A Manifest Realm master could rejuvenate their body and reclaim youth, but that did not mean time itself reversed or that they regained that many more years of lifespan.

No matter how long a person lived, sooner or later, the limit came.

And when that limit was reached, the reclaimed youth decayed rapidly, notifying you that it was time to prepare for your return to Heaven—that your allotted years had ended.

Beom Yakgong was at that point.

He was one hundred and three years old this year. The youth he had once regained had been fading at an alarming rate; every morning he woke up, his body felt heavier than the previous day.

So he had to choose.

He could accept that surpassing a hundred in a human body was enough and submit to the natural end.

Or he could smash through the wall and push back his destined end a little longer, rebelling against the natural order.

Most Manifest Realm martial artists chose to recognize their departure and accept it.

Once you reached Manifest Realm, you understood where your limits lay, and how harsh the next step would be.

It was the moment when a warrior, who had lived his whole life struggling, finally gave up in the face of the invincible mandate of Heaven.

But... what if there was another way?

What if there was a method that made it feel like you could reach the next realm that your own talent and ability could never grasp?

The blank volume Beom Yakgong kept against his chest, the empty storage-case of the Formless Art’s manual, was that method.

And now, just as Beom Yakgong reached out to seize this last chance, a voice slipped into his ears by sound transmission.

–Grand Captain Beom, there seems to be some misunderstanding. Ximen Heavenly Flower is truly of Heavenly Dynasty blood—Her Highness Yeonsul herself. How could revealing the true nobility of Heavenly Dynasty blood be a fault? It is only that Heaven’s will leads Us to release her into the world outside.

It was the voice of the Son of Heaven’s bodyguard, the Shadow Guardian Captain.

–Yet it is only natural that the Grand Captain charged with guarding Heavenly Dynasty would be outraged by such a claim. His Majesty will surely show you lenience as well, so let us leave it at this and withdraw.

The Shadow Guardian Captain could not act on his own judgment in sending such a message, which meant this was the Son of Heaven’s will.

Don’t make a scene and step back. We understand your feelings, and will act as if this never happened.

Beom Yakgong murmured inwardly.

Ah... mul-sil-ho-gi. Don’t miss a good opportunity.

He had had plenty of chances up till now.

As someone who could enter the Imperial Library at will, if he had been bent on raising his realm, he could have pored over the manuals there and seized the Formless Art’s scrolls long before Yeonsul ever did.

But he hadn’t.

He had already decided that his attainment only reached this far, and hadn’t felt desperate enough to go rummaging for more martial arts to train.

And now?

When Yeonsul had walked into the palace of her own accord, if he’d just ignored what people might think and reclaimed the Formless Art immediately—

Beom Yakgong slowly closed his eyes.

If he let this chance slip, when would another come?

If he waited and a chance came someday in the future, and he did lay hands on the Formless Art then, how much longer would this worn-out body be able to hold up?

With a THUD, Beom Yakgong fell to his knees.

But his mind was clear.

If he drew his sword now, the Son of Heaven’s secret bodyguards would have to escort the Son of Heaven to safety and shield him.

Which meant he would not have to face the Shadow Guardian Captain, another Manifest Realm master like himself.

And if that was so—how hard could it really be to kill one Flower-Realm girl and run?

Of course, afterward, he would be a grand traitor to the realm, with all the armies of the Central Plains at his heels.

Qing’s homeland had a joke.

“Borrow as much money as you can from every person and place you can reach right this instant, and then buy yourself a tank.”

“What? Then how do you pay back the money?”

“Why would you pay it back? You have a tank.”

If he obtained the Formless Art and reached mid-Manifest Realm, who in the world could stop a great martial master?

Even if he failed to reach the next realm, his life didn’t have much time left anyway. It would just mean he was paying for having let earlier chances pass—how big a loss was that, really?

If this was how it was going to end, he should have steeled himself a long time ago.

THUD—his knees hit the floor.

“Your Majesty, this lowly servant speaks only out of loyal devotion!”

At that, some of the rigidity left the Son of Heaven’s face.

But Qing’s eyes narrowed.

Beom Yakgong was wearing a sword.

One could say it was daring to wear a sword in the throne hall of the Son of Heaven, but it would have been even stranger if the security chief tasked with guarding that hall weren’t armed.

And Qing never let her guard down when someone kneeling before her had a sword.

Far from letting her guard down, she felt vigilance she hadn’t even had before spike up, her whole body tightening in readiness.

Because to her, kneeling was never an act of begging for forgiveness.

To her, kneeling was what that famously, legendarily terrible courtier, the great general Han Xin, had done—enduring humiliation for the moment, prostrating himself so he could lay the groundwork for the future.

In other words, kneeling was how you got the momentum to launch forward.

And this old man—he’d been all “Princess, Princess,” acting delighted to see her whenever they were alone.

Now he was pulling this?

Suspicious. Suspicious as hell. Suspici—

In that instant, Beom Yakgong’s figure flickered.

That was the only way to describe it—his body shivered left and right, his outline splitting like a mirage into two and then dissolving, vanishing into thin air.

An instant later, the sharp gleam in the old man’s eyes drew a long straight line straight toward her nose.

At the exact same moment, Qing’s body split apart.

Forward, back, left, right, and the four diagonals between—eight Qing figures flew, leaped, and whirled away like swallows scattering.

WHOOSH—the sound of a blade cutting through empty air.

Behind Beom Yakgong’s fully-extended arm, Qing spun up like a top and, despite her spinning, came down in an effortless light landing.

But as she turned, Beom Yakgong’s body left another afterimage and vanished a beat later.

A legendary movement art that left afterimages where you’d been as you crossed the distance in a single instant—this was the realm of footwork people called “moving the form and changing the position.”

Ripple-Stepping Footwork’s natural trait of appearing at an opponent’s back kept her in a continually disadvantaged position against a master like this.

Why is this old man suddenly flooring it like this—augh.

Qing dropped flat like she’d been cut down.

She might not have had eyes in the back of her head, but she could sense what was behind her back.

“Jungpil! Take the Crown Prince!”

The Shadow Guardian Captain roared, seizing the Son of Heaven’s body, and with his other arm he scooped up the Empress, tucking them both under his arms like sacks as he shouted.

The Crown Prince’s own Shadow Guardian, called Jungpil, dropped from the ceiling and hurriedly lifted up his master.

“Subdue the Grand Captain! You have Our leave to execute him!”

That was the Son of Heaven’s order.

At that, the Empress’s mind snapped into focus.

“Let go—let go! Yeonsul—!”

“Please forgive this insolence!”

“No! Let go, Yeonsul...!”

Her scream-like cry receded in an instant.

The Son of Heaven’s bodyguards had only one duty: preserving that body under Heaven.

A Manifest Realm master had dared to swing a sword before the Son of Heaven, attempting to murder a princess; the bodyguards’ mission was to get him to safety and guard his side.

So by the time Qing rolled and sprang to her feet, chasing after the enemy who’d just flown over her torso, there was no one left on the steps above.

What, they ran already? That fast!?

But that was almost a relief.

It meant she might actually be able to get out.

If it came down to it, she’d run.

As Qing always thought—she’d always been confident in her ability to escape. And right now, too.

Qing stepped into the Eight Trigrams once more.

The imperial family had been carried off by their guards, but the ministers still stood there, not yet understanding what was happening. Qing picked one high official she didn’t recognize and targeted him, setting Ripple-Stepping Footwork’s mysterious formation whirling.

Of the eight Qing figures that split apart, one reclaimed its true colors beside a pillar on the west side of Hwanggeuk Hall.

From there, she stomped down hard and shot forward.

The floor of Hwanggeuk Hall, the largest single structure in the Central Plains, CRACKED underfoot, splintering into chunks of wood as black mist-like energy seeped out.

One step, two steps.

Then, on the third step, she hit maximum speed.

Right as Qing sprinted straight for the Forbidden City’s outer edge, behind her back—

SSSHRAAAK—

a sweet, intimate sound brushed her ear.

The sound of a blade cutting into human flesh.