Chapter 90: Demon-Subduing Awakening (2)

Shaanxi Province, Mount Hua.

In the courtyard of the Sect Leader’s Red Tile Pavilion.

A night with no moon, and no eyes upon it.

At its center, Eunbyeok sat alone.

“...Gghhh.”

“Endure it.”

Myeonggon stood before him.

Eunbyeok sat cross-legged, as if trying to regulate his breathing and settle his circulation.

But his right arm was not.

A pale, bloodless arm.

That arm was trying to strangle Eunbyeok’s throat.

Eunbyeok drew up the internal energy of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method.

Only then did the arm begin to quiet down.

But...

At the same time, he coughed up blood.

Because he had turned his internal energy through Heaven-Toppling Cultivation.

“Hah, khk, hhhk...!”

“You’ve improved quite a bit anyway. If it only ends with coughing blood.”

Myeonggon looked down at Eunbyeok with cold, inorganic eyes.

In his hand was the manual of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword.

“Continue.”

“H-how long must I keep doing this?”

“Until Heaven-Toppling Cultivation becomes natural to your body. You need only keep circulating your energy according to the mnemonic verses of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword.”

Eunbyeok ground his teeth.

Of course, the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword was not a false manual.

When he operated his internal energy according to it, then even if the direction was that of overturning heaven, his body did not burst apart.

And then there was his right hand.

The Young Cult Leader’s right hand, which had attached itself on its own to the part that had been severed.

That thing was gradually devouring his body.

The acupuncture points already consumed had reached the point where it was actually difficult to turn his internal energy in its original direction.

“...The last page is missing.”

Myeonggon ran his eyes over the manual of the Great Net of Myriad Plum Blossoms Sword, then frowned.

Ordinarily, the last page was where the ultimate move would be.

And an ultimate move was, by law, the secret essence that contained everything in that martial art.

“Where in the world did that last page go?”

*****

A month.

She had spent at least a full month in recuperative rest.

It should originally have taken only half that, but Ak Taegyu had kept her planted there.

“So you really are leaving now.”

Ak Taegyu looked at Soyak, Cheonjeong, and Cheongak with a regretful expression.

All three stood beneath the hanging signboard in their Black Outer Coats.

Cheonjeong stepped forward and answered.

“Thank you for treating us so generously and warmly all this time. We will not forget this kindness.”

“No, I’m the one who should be grateful. Especially you, Young Hero Soyak.”

“Pardon?”

Soyak blinked.

Because he had called for her.

And Family Head Ak Taegyu... astonishingly, made the first cup-fist salute and bowed his head.

“Thank you for rendering the Ak Family such great aid.”

“...No. As a member of the righteous path, I only did what should have been done.”

“If everyone in the world did only what should be done, why would righteous men and heroes be so rare? The Ak Family will not forget it.”

“I also will not forget how the Ak Family worked to restore this inadequate body of mine.”

Soyak returned the salute.

And it was just as they were about to leave.

“Family Head!!! Family Head!!!!!”

Someone came running in a panic toward the main gate of the main house.

It was a face familiar to Soyak’s eyes.

A face she had definitely seen somewhere once before...

“Young Hero Ak Seo-il?”

The young head of the Shandong Ak Family branch.

The nephew of the Flame-Saber Lord, Ak Jupae.

It was Ak Seo-il.

“Young Hero Soyak, do you know Seo-il of the branch estate?”

“Well... we originally came to Shandong together with the Flame-Saber Lord.”

“...Oh?”

“And it was Young Hero Ak Seo-il who told us that the branch estate had come under attack by the Demonic Cult.”

Ak Taegyu silently stroked his shaggy beard.

The Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae was an expert at the entrance to the Transformation Realm.

A former Heaven-Net Platform Lord.

A man with a realm far above even Ak Taegyu’s, and in actual martial strength as well, supreme.

To about the same degree as that black-gatted swordsman who had cleaned up Sword Ghost.

“So then why have you come? The Sura Unit has collapsed, so the branch estate should be fine as well.”

“T-that is not so.”

“Why not?”

“U-Uncle Flame-Saber... Uncle Flame-Saber...”

Ak Seo-il’s complexion was deathly pale.

As though every trace of blood had drained from it.

Maybe that was why.

Everyone there was staring at him as if he had come carrying a death notice from a ghost.

And the information he had brought...

Was news close to a death notice indeed.

“...He followed the Demonic Cult bastards.”

“What?”

Ak Taegyu’s eyes widened.

Soyak, Cheonjeong, and Cheongak as well.

Everyone there failed to understand the situation.

*****

Soyak, Cheonjeong, and Cheongak’s departure was postponed.

Because they were people who had traveled together with the Flame-Saber Lord just recently.

It was not that anyone suspected the three of being Demonic Cult lackeys.

But they had to determine Ak Jupae’s state of mind, and the reason for his actions.

“...Can you think of anything?”

The Family Head quietly asked the three of them.

Cheonjeong and Cheongak both fell into repeated thought.

Soyak silently raised a hand.

“Young Hero Soyak. Please, speak.”

“Family Head, I’m certain you said this before. That the dead Thirteenth Unit Commander was of the branch family’s bloodline.”

“I did. He was a man who would have been the Flame-Saber Lord’s son.”

“Then is it not possible they swayed him with the promise of revenge?”

Soyak calmly laid out her opinion.

The Flame-Saber Lord was a man who had abandoned even the post of Heaven-Net Platform Lord and retired to the countryside after his son was killed.

Why would that be?

Naturally, for revenge.

In the martial world, blood could be repaid only with blood.

Anyone who received a kindness and did not repay it was a degenerate.

Anyone who let an enemy remain unpursued was unrighteous.

And the Flame-Saber Lord, Ak Jupae, was a very “typical” martial artist.

“...If it was Demonic Cult bastards, then yes, they could have done that.”

“Do you know something?”

“As you know, the Flame-Saber Lord used to be Heaven-Net Platform Lord. He was the Alliance Leader’s right hand. And the Alliance possesses information on almost every martial art.”

Cheonjeong and Cheongak tilted their heads.

They could not understand why talk about information on martial arts had come up.

Ak Taegyu immediately resolved that question for them.

“And yet, the Flame-Saber Lord was unable to find out what martial art had killed his son, Ak Seowon.”

Cheonjeong’s eyes went round.

“Even though the sword path should have remained on the corpse?”

“Yes. Even the head had been buried elsewhere. I heard that if luck had gone against them, they might never have found it.”

“Who would do something that horrific...”

Soyak quietly lowered her eyes and looked at her own hand.

The hand that had killed Ak Seowon.

The blood of those she had killed until now probably would never wash away.

And to her Head Senior and senior brother as well... someday, she would have to tell them that it had been her.

“Well, whoever it was, we believe it was one of those ruined by the Flame-Saber Lord.”

“Why is that?”

Cheonjeong asked quietly.

He truly seemed not to know.

And from that alone, Soyak understood that he was not from a sect or household that had been exterminated.

“Whether it’s the One-Under-Heaven Corps or Heaven-Net, when they behead someone for the crime of irreverence, they take the severed head with them.”

“When you say they take the severed head...”

“That’s right, Young Hero Cheonjeong. It means those left behind must hold a funeral for a corpse with no head.”

Only then did the color drain from Cheonjeong’s face.

The grudge was even more vicious than he had imagined.

Was it not exactly like having what one had done returned upon one’s own head?

“In any case, the Flame-Saber Lord could not trace the martial art from the sword mark left on Ak Seowon’s corpse.”

“Not even the Alliance’s martial scholars could?”

“They couldn’t. They said it was a martial art they had never seen before. Not once.”

Of course they hadn’t.

Because the Falling Plum Elegy was a martial art that had never once appeared in the martial world of the Central Plains until now.

An arrangement left behind by Mount Hua’s Grand Patriarch for the future.

A blade prepared for the day when plum blossoms did not fall, when natural order was brought to a standstill, when even heaven’s law ran in reverse.

A hidden dagger entrusted to the Heavenly Killing Star.

“Then would it not have seemed to be a Demonic Cult martial art?”

Ak Taegyu’s assumption had gone wrong.

But there had been no other answer available.

Who would ever imagine the existence of the Harmonization Scripture and the Falling Plum Elegy?

Who would assume there existed a righteous-path martial art unknown to the Alliance?

“...That may be so.”

“You think so as well, Young Hero Soyak.”

“Yes.”

Soyak went along with him at an appropriate pace and let it pass.

The Falling Plum Elegy was a secret art she had no intention of showing until the very end.

Until the day she struck the Sword Sovereign.

Or, if not that, until the day she became someone capable of striking the Sword Sovereign.

“Anyway, Demonic Cult bastards use all kinds of bizarre martial arts, don’t they? They could easily have told the Flame-Saber Lord that if he followed their words, they would tell him what martial art it was, and who used it.”

“But, Family Head.”

“Speak, Young Hero Cheonjeong.”

“The Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae I knew was not someone ruled to that extent by emotion.”

Ak Taegyu gave a bitter smile.

The corner of his mouth twisted upward.

“That is only because you saw too little of him.”

“Pardon?”

“Can’t you tell from the fact that he threw away the post of Heaven-Net Platform Lord and walked out?”

“...I see.”

“But there is one thing I still find strange.”

His gaze slid over to Soyak.

It looked as though he wanted her to answer.

“How in the world did you come to travel together with the Flame-Saber Lord?”

“The Flame-Saber Lord visited Mount Hua while the Ilji Gathering was being held.”

“Oh...? That’s not the kind of place he’d ever take interest in.”

Ak Taegyu muttered with an intrigued expression.

Soyak tilted her head.

“Is that so?”

“Did someone from the Zhuge Household happen to come?”

“Yes. A woman named Zhuge Yeon came. She was the one who oversaw the Zhuge Household’s Internal Affairs Pavilion.”

Only then did Ak Taegyu slap his knee.

He seemed to have roughly guessed the whole story.

“Zhuge Yeon! So that was it!”

“What connection... is there?”

“The Flame-Saber Lord’s younger sister married into the Zhuge Household. Which means Zhuge Yeon would be the Flame-Saber Lord’s niece.”

Only then did Soyak understand why the Flame-Saber Lord had suddenly come to Mount Hua.

It had baffled her.

There had even been moments when she had nearly failed to hide that from her face.

“So the Young Hero who won the Ilji Gathering went out on the Roaming Pillar Journey, and since the Flame-Saber Lord happened to be on the road to Shandong anyway, you ended up traveling together. Is that the shape of it?”

“Exactly.”

Only after hearing the entire course of events did Ak Taegyu have Ak Seo-il brought in.

The young head of the branch estate, Ak Seo-il, sat on both knees.

“I pay my respects to the Family Head of the main house.”

“There’s no need for such formality. Sit at ease. So then—which bastards did the Flame-Saber Lord follow?”

It would not be the Sura Unit.

They had been crushed to pieces, commander included.

So now the question was which remnant group had taken him away.

“...That is...”

“Speak.”

“He himself said... that he was the Demonic Cult’s Left Luminary Guardian.”

The Left Luminary Guardian.

One of the Left and Right Luminary Guardians who guarded the Heavenly Demon, leader of the Demonic Cult.

At the sudden appearance of so great a figure, the air in the room turned cold.