Chapter 106: The Snipe-and-Clam Stratagem (4)

The guest hall.

The room given to Soyak and Eunsong.

Zhuge Cheokwol and Zhuge Sakhyeon stood in front of it, unable to move.

“...What is this?”

“So it was true.”

Even from outside the door, they could feel the fierce vortex of internal energy.

She must be doing circulation practice in there.

This was not the time to disturb her.

The two brothers waited until the raging torrent of qi subsided.

Only then did they carefully open the door.

Soyak was in the middle of drawing the internal energy she had circulated through her grand circulation back down into her dantian.

She quietly turned to look at them.

At the two pairs of eyes that had gone wide as they stared at her.

Then her small lips parted.

“Did my master call for me?”

“...Yes. You need to come now.”

“Understood.”

Soyak straightened her clothes neatly, picked up the sword lying beside her, and silently followed behind the two of them.

From the second floor of the guest hall to Zhuge Won’s Family Head’s office.

It was not that long a walk.

And yet, in that short silence...

Zhuge Cheokwol realized that she truly was a martial artist who, like him, had already passed the opening stage of Transcendent Apex.

“When did you first begin learning martial arts, Young Hero Soyak?”

He asked it casually.

Soyak looked up at him and blinked.

Her face plainly asked why he would want to know something like that.

Still, there was no real reason not to answer.

“I believe I was around seven.”

“...Seven. So was I.”

They had started at the same age.

But the speed at which they had reached the same realm was far too different.

Zhuge Cheokwol was thirty-two years old.

Physically, he was in his prime, and anything he had failed to learn by now would be hard to awaken to later.

And yet he had still not reached the middle stage of Transcendent Apex.

But the small, delicate girl walking beside him was only fourteen.

The age people commonly called adolescence.

The most sensitive and unstable time in life, and yet also the time when thought could expand and turn most freely.

An age that could grow faster than anyone else.

And absorb what had to be learned with the greatest flexibility.

For a moment, Zhuge Cheokwol was struck speechless by the fact that in only a few more months, the girl walking beside him would likely surpass him.

“...Young Hero, you were born with talent beyond words.”

“Do you envy the Heavenly Killing Star?”

“To be honest... I do envy that talent itself.”

“Brother. What are you saying?”

Zhuge Sakhyeon, who had finally had enough, cut in to stop him.

That was the moment.

Jang Yul appeared in the corridor leading to the Family Head’s office.

“What is the problem, Second Young Master?”

“...Jang Yul. How can you think this is not a problem?”

“Even if one bears the destiny of a Blood Calamity, is it not the essence of a martial artist to take up a sword, win fame with that sword, and become someone the world can never forget?”

Jang Yul looked straight at Cheon Soyak.

Soyak did the same.

“...Jang Yul, you really do understand me.”

Jang Yul gave a hollow smile.

Then he looked toward the First Young Master.

His eyes were rather bitter.

“I am fifty-five years old. The First Young Master is thirty-two. And that child is fourteen.”

“...So?”

“Strangely enough, the realms of all three of us are not that far apart. The feelings the First Young Master has toward that child—how could I possibly never have felt them myself?”

With those words, Jang Yul stepped aside.

At the end of that corridor, now plainly visible, stood the door to the Family Head’s office.

“The First Young Master is a martial artist, and the Second Young Master is a strategist. Do not try to fully understand each other’s hearts. You only need to cooperate for the sake of a better result. That is how it looks to me.”

“...You are right.”

“I think so as well, Brother.”

Zhuge Cheokwol and Zhuge Sakhyeon both nodded.

Soyak watched them silently, then stepped forward first.

So that the two young masters would follow behind her.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

With her small hand, she took hold of the handle and knocked on the door herself.

“Soyak. Come in.”

“Yes, Master.”

She opened the door herself, stood between the two young masters, looked at the people gathered inside, and brought up her small fist in a proper salute.

Then she spoke.

“I heard you called for me.”

From behind, Jang Yul watched the sight.

The two young masters following after that little child.

That child opening the door with her own hand.

“What a truly audacious child.”

Then he slowly turned and went to carry out the task the Second Young Master had asked of him.

He, too, had a duty to fulfill.

*****

The explanation was over.

Soyak quietly thought over the duty that had been given to her.

“...I understand.”

She was composed.

She showed no disappointment, no despair at the role placed upon her.

She only considered whether it was possible.

“If I draw out the Dark Emperor, will Elder Cheongpyeong and the Family Head move against him?”

“That is correct.”

Elder Cheongpyeong, the Empty-Fist Elder, answered in a rather heavy voice.

It was one thing when he had not seen her face in person.

Now that he had, his feelings seemed far more tangled.

...So young. So terribly young.

If he had met her without first hearing her age, he might have guessed she was no older than twelve.

Not even five feet tall.

Wrists that looked as if they did not even measure a handspan around.

A pale, frail, undersized body.

“Then let me ask.”

“You may ask whatever you wish.”

Zhuge Won answered in a gentle voice and nodded.

“With all due respect...”

Soyak looked back and forth between Elder Cheongpyeong and Zhuge Won, the Heaven-Communing Enlightened One.

Then she dropped a bombshell squarely into the middle of the table.

“If the two of you joined forces, could you defeat the Dark Emperor?”

It was only natural for her to ask.

As the person being asked to offer her life as bait in this plan.

In judging whether it was worth doing, and necessary at all, whether the Dark Emperor could be subdued mattered enormously.

But for a fourteen-year-old third-generation disciple to throw that question at an elder of one of the Nine Great Sects and the head of a great household was no small thing.

It could easily have come off as rude...

“...Hard to say.”

Zhuge Won looked toward Cheongpyeong.

After all, the one with more experience concerning Kill Veil assassins was Elder Cheongpyeong.

He had no choice but to rely on his answer.

And yet his answer had been this ambiguous.

“So it is not certain.”

At Soyak’s reply, Elder Cheongpyeong honestly nodded.

“Of course, the head of the Zhuge Household has reached the opening stage of the Transformation Realm, and I as well am a master of the Transformation Realm who has already passed the opening stage. But the last I remember, the Dark Emperor was at the middle stage of the Transformation Realm...”

The higher one climbed, the greater the gap between each step.

It was not uncommon for someone at the opening stage of Apex to defeat a master at the middle stage of Apex.

But once one entered Transcendent Apex, it became something one might see once a year, if that.

And in the Transformation Realm, it became something one might witness once in ten years.

There was a reason people said an absolute master was an army unto himself.

They were superhuman, beings who flatly denied the old saying that no man could stand against overwhelming numbers.

“By now, he may even have passed the middle stage of the Transformation Realm.”

Soyak took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

It would have been a lie to say she felt no fear at all.

What if the Dark Emperor had already reached a realm far beyond the middle stage of the Transformation Realm?

What if, despite that aged body and bones long past their prime, he had achieved something even higher?

He would not have reached the legendary Mysterious Realm, the realm said to restore youth.

But even if he had only reached its threshold, he would already be something beyond easy imagining.

The Sword Sovereign Namgung Ak alone was said to be a martial artist who had reached the very end of the Transformation Realm.

“There is a way, Soyak.”

At that moment, Eunsong spoke in a low voice.

Everyone’s eyes turned to him.

There was only one way to deal with a stronger master.

Bring in someone of the same level.

And Soyak already knew whom Eunsong would choose.

“...If we call Grand Master, it should be possible.”

“Yes. We call Great Grand Master Jeonggang.”

For an instant, a silence fell over the room, one too difficult to describe.

The foremost of the Three Emperors among the One Sovereign, Three Emperors, and Five Lords.

He was saying they should summon Elder Jeonggang, known as the Mount Hua Sword Emperor.

Zhuge Won was the first to speak, carefully.

The plan itself did not sound realistic.

“...Even so, would he really come just to save a single third-generation disciple?”

“If it is Great Grand Master, he will come. Soyak is not just any third-generation disciple.”

A martial artist who had passed the opening stage of Transcendent Apex at fourteen.

A genius who had shattered the wall of Apex in only three or four months.

The supreme prodigy who had defeated Namgung Seon...

And the blade being prepared to stand against the Sword Sovereign.

Thinking of all the names resting on Cheon Soyak’s delicate shoulders, Zhuge Won slowly nodded.

Elder Cheongpyeong did not.

“Even if Jeonggang dotes on young talent, would that really be enough?”

“You know what our Great Grand Master is like. He is not exactly the type to care much for dignity.”

“...Should you really be the one saying that? Still, yes, I know that well enough... but is he still like that now?”

Elder Cheongpyeong clicked his tongue.

Eunsong recalled Jeonggang suddenly appearing to witness a wager built on their senior-junior relationship.

A snort of laughter escaped him.

“Yes. He still is.”

“Then I suppose there is nothing to worry about... But who is going to travel all the way to Mount Hua in Shaanxi?”