Chapter 38: Azure Sky and Ninefold Heaven (2)

Like any other mountain, Mount Hua had a small pond.

A place where the young Third Generation disciples could splash around in it as much as they wanted without ever turning it muddy.

Because it was always clear, it was called Everclear Pond.

Aside from being clear, it had no particular distinguishing trait.

It was not large enough to call a lake.

Even the fish that lived there, at most, amounted to a few tiny ones.

Above all, you could not really say the scenery was all that beautiful.

That was why, when Eunsong said he would build a hut there, use Everclear Pond as his back garden, and take disciples, even Jeongyang had not objected.

The place had no value whatsoever.

At best, they could draw drinking water from it.

Jegal Yeon stood there now.

A light mountain breeze blew through.

The eternal plum blossoms of Mount Hua, which had been blooming for thirty years, drifted gracefully and adorned the water’s surface.

People might say this place was not much of a scenic view⋯⋯

But Jegal Yeon felt this was more than enough to call good scenery.

However, she was not exactly a welcome guest with regard to this hut alone.

Behind Jegal Yeon, Eunsong stepped into view.

“How did you end up drifting all the way here, Young Lady.”

“Is there anything special to it? I thought I’d look in on Everclear Pond, like I usually do, and dip my feet in.”

“⋯⋯Go back.”

Eunsong issued an expulsion order in a low, frigid voice.

But Jegal Yeon lowered her eyes quietly and held her ground.

In martial skill and in raw strength, Eunsong was far stronger.

But how could he simply shove a woman away and drive her off?

Eunsong let out a long, heavy sigh.

“I have nothing left to say to you.”

“I’m still here. I am.”

“It has been seven years since then. It has already been seven years since Yeora died. And every time there has been a One-Branch Gathering, you came and dropped by here. Just what could you possibly have left that you still haven’t said?”

“You never heard a single word of it.”

Jegal Yeon looked straight at Eunsong.

For a moment, his gaze wavered.

“You never once gave me the chance to apologize.”

“Do you not understand that it is because I do not want to receive an apology? Leave.”

“But, but⋯⋯.”

A Heart Demon crept in.

He had struggled to cut off and bury his desire for revenge, his resentment, his killing intent.

Since burying it would not cause a speck of rust to form on it anyway, not until the day he brought about Heaven-Toppling’s great endeavor⋯⋯

He had tried to keep it buried.

“Enough.”

Eunsong waved his hand.

With the other, he clutched his forehead and shook his head.

“Please, just stop. Do not test my patience.”

“Yeora is⋯⋯.”

“⋯⋯She must have told you to stop.”

The next instant.

Eunsong’s eyes changed.

That gentle, kind, embracing gaze was gone without a trace⋯⋯

What remained was a fiend that had even dragged the Heavenly Killing Star to accomplish slaughter.

The eyes of a demonic fiend, a rakshasa.

“So. What is it you want to be forgiven for? For following his words and throwing my little lover out as bait for Demon Cult scum?”

“I, I didn’t know. Eunsong, I never⋯⋯.”

“Is that so?”

Eunsong unfastened his sword, scabbard and all, and flung it aside.

It was to sever the impulse in his heart that kept reaching for the sword.

He clenched his empty fist until his nails dug into his palm and drew blood, and ground his teeth.

“When you parroted the Flame-Saber Lord’s orders like a Western Regions parakeet, did you truly not know? When you said to put the wounded strategist corps in the very rear of the line instead of taking them in and seeing to them, do you truly claim you could not imagine how that would end?”

“⋯⋯I did anticipate it. That a few remaining Demon Cult remnants would come charging out, trying to drag someone along with them to the netherworld. But⋯⋯.”

“Make your excuse. Go on, try.”

“⋯⋯I thought the Flame-Saber Lord had anticipated it too, and ordered things that way after making his preparations.”

Jegal Yeon finally sank down onto the ground.

She could no longer bear her own sense of guilt and sin.

The Sword Sovereign revered the martial and despised the civil.

He had never proclaimed it openly, but you could tell by the supplies given to the strategist corps.

Even the simple fact that Jegal Clan held the lowest ceremonial rank among the Five Great Houses showed it⋯⋯

“Yeora, Yeora was a girl I cherished as well.”

“And you still followed that order.”

“Because it was the Flame-Saber Lord!”

Unable to endure it any longer, Jegal Yeon cried out with her throat laid bare.

It was not because she found Eunsong’s coldness unfair.

She had herself been deceived by the Sword Sovereign as well.

“He had reached Transformation Realm, he was the famed Flame-Saber Lord. I thought that even if the strategist corps, wounded and limping, were in the very last rank, he would still protect them⋯⋯!”

“You trusted him?”

“⋯⋯Yes. I trusted him.”

“That is right. That is your sin, Jegal Yeon.”

Jegal Yeon lifted her head.

She stared straight at Eunsong’s eyes, which flashed like those of a demonic fiend, and answered.

“Trusting was a sin? Having faith was a sin?”

“Then, was it not?”

“How can you speak so mercilessly. I, I⋯⋯.”

“Merciless. You call me merciless.”

Eunsong quietly sat down on the ground and brought his eyes level with Jegal Yeon’s.

There was only one emotion in those eyes.

Resentment.

“If I were merciless, my tears would not have run dry like this.”

Eunsong lightly tilted her chin up.

“Look. I can’t even cry anymore. I’ve poured out every tear I had for a lifetime and broken myself.”

“You, you are⋯⋯.” ℯ

“If I were merciless, I would have forgiven you. What gain could I possibly get from treating you this harshly—Inner Pavilion Lord of the great Jegal Clan, youngest daughter of the family head—to this degree?”

“That’s⋯⋯.”

“I am not merciless. I am someone who was warmer than anyone, who knew love.”

Slowly, Eunsong rose to his feet.

His voice was so dry it had gone hoarse and cracked.

As he dry-washed his face, he finally spat out the words that had been stuck in his throat like thorns.

“⋯⋯That is why I am this cold and grieving.”

When he lowered his hand, Eunsong’s eyes were bloodshot red.

As if the tiny vessels would burst at any moment and tears of blood would flow.

“For the same reason, I cannot forgive you.”

Jegal Yeon no longer begged for forgiveness.

Because she knew as well.

Yeora had been her handmaid.

Her origins were low, but her mind was as keen as any direct-blooded Jegal.

When she had just turned twenty, she crossed the family’s wall for the first time, came to Mount Hua to wait on Jegal Yeon, and there.

She saw Eunsong.

In those days, the two of them were everything to each other.

Eunsong had been ready to return to secular life if Mount Hua would not allow it.

He was a main-branch disciple of a great orthodox sect.

That man had been prepared to step down to become the husband of a Jegal family handmaid, of all things, from a house that sat at the tail end of the Five Great Houses.

Jegal Yeon had once asked him as well.

Could he endure that kind of fall.

He had answered that it was not a fall.

That it was merely flying somewhere else, to the cozy cradle he wanted.

No one, he had said, called it a fall when a bird flew from one branch to another.

“If that answers it for you, then go. Go and do not come back. I do not want to see you.”

And when Yeora died.

Jegal Clan did not help Eunsong, who was denouncing the Flame-Saber Lord’s actions before the Alliance Leader.

*****

Inside the tent.

All the Third Generation disciples learning under Eunsong were staring at Soyak.

Because of the Black Iron sword held in her hand.

“⋯⋯Gulp.”

“Cheongak, swallow your spit.”

“But Head Senior, aren’t you curious? It’s a Black Iron sword, a Black Iron sword.”

How could they not be curious about everything from the weight to the balance.

Surprisingly, Soyak did not seem particularly satisfied with the sword.

She even looked faintly displeased.

“What don’t you like about it?”

Cheongu asked quietly.

It seemed he could not hide the sense for reading people that flowed in the blood of merchants.

Soyak gave a slight nod.

“⋯⋯It’s too heavy.”

Cheonju nodded.

Black Iron was certainly a material that was heavy for its volume.

Even swords with only half their mass in Black Iron were like that.

“Your wrist throbs, doesn’t it?”

“Not yet, but if I swing it for long, it definitely will.”

Soyak held Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge in one hand and the Black Iron sword in the other, comparing their weight.

The Black Iron sword was overwhelmingly heavier.

Even though Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge was somewhat longer, its blade was thinner, so their volume was similar.

“This is⋯⋯ no matter how I look at it, it doesn’t feel like my sword.”

Soyak quietly set the Black Iron sword down on the table.

The sword was dressed in restrained elegance.

From guard to hilt, it was built of bright silver-shining white copper and hard ebony.

It was as practical as could be.

“Then what will you do with it?”

When Cheonjeong asked softly, Soyak instead handed the sword over to him.

Cheonjeong’s eyes went round.

He accepted the sword in a rush, but his eyes would not leave Soyak.

“⋯⋯Soyak?”

He was so flustered the tail of his voice even shook.

It was only natural—swords whose entire body was forged from Black Iron were rare in the martial world.

Not just any master carried one around.

Even if their rank with words alone was low, Jegal Clan still held one seat among the great orthodox sects.

And this was a gift that its Inner Pavilion Lord had sent to Mount Hua.

It meant it was a precious item appropriate to that stature.

Most likely, it was on the level of matching gold of the same weight⋯⋯

“Head Senior should keep it.”

“But I’m⋯⋯.”

“Head Senior is still the biggest among us.”

That was true.

Soyak was fourteen, Cheongak and Cheongu were fifteen, and Cheonjeong was seventeen.

But even if they were the same age, Cheonjeong would probably be the tallest.

Even at his current age, he was already a six-foot giant.

“More than that, there’s another reason.”