Chapter 97: Demon-Subduing Awakening (9)

Eunbyeok’s bloodshot eyes flew wide open.

Then he pressed down on his own left hand with his right.

He turned his head away by force.

As though it were nothing at all.

“Senior Brother. What happened?”

Instead of answering, Eunbyeok shook his head.

Because his teeth were clenched tight.

He drew up the power of the Primordial Origin Clear-Heart Method from his dantian.

Once that power, unwound strand by strand, had swept through all of the Eight Extraordinary Meridians,

only then...

only then was Eunbyeok able to suppress his left arm again.

“It’s... it’s nothing.”

“Then leave.”

Eunsong narrowed his eyes.

He had asked what had happened.

Asked if he was suffering badly.

Then asked again what had happened.

He had asked three times, so that was enough.

“What?”

“Didn’t you say it was nothing? Then leave. Or else we’ll be on our way first.”

Eunsong turned to look at Soyak.

Soyak nodded.

Then Eunsong started forward.

Step by step, he drew closer to Eunbyeok.

And then, just as they were about to pass one another,

Eunsong murmured quietly.

In a voice only Eunbyeok could hear.

“Do not reach for what is beyond your station.”

It was quite sincere advice.

Though rather than coming from concern for his senior brother...

it was for the sake of his disciple.

*****

The Shandong Ak Family.

The branch estate.

Ak Taegyu, the Family Head of the main house, stood there.

Ak Seo-il, who had become the Family Head of the branch at a young age, was directing the household retainers.

“Yes. Please take care of that over there. No, those stone blocks need to be brought this way. Thank you.”

“No, you said this side earlier! Brother Jang!”

“The Family Head would know better!”

“Damn it!”

Ak Taegyu was the Family Head of the main house.

And the Shandong Ak Family’s branch house was not subordinate to the main house.

They were only first and second among equals.

But things were a little different now.

The branch had lost its Family Head, and its twenty-two-year-old young heir had inherited the position.

And even Ak Jupae, the Flame-Saber Lord, the supreme expert who had nearly reached the Transformation Realm, had disappeared.

The Demonic Cult’s Left Luminary Guardian, Seon Byeok-il.

According to Alliance intelligence, he was a man whose name had spread terror during the War of the Righteous and Demonic fifty years ago.

But how could someone not age at all?

He had clearly used some evil rite that belonged to the demonic path.

But there was something even more frightening than that.

If it truly was the Left Luminary Guardian Seon Byeok-il himself,

then the Left Luminary Guardian Seon Byeok-il had already been an absolute master at the threshold of the Transformation Realm fifty years ago.

So now...

just how strong had he become?

Ak Taegyu clicked his tongue bitterly.

At the sound, Ak Seo-il looked this way.

“Ah. Uncle. You’re here.”

“You’ve been working hard, Seo-il. If you need it, you may ask the main house for help.”

“I don’t want to incur a debt.”

“Do not say something so cold. I’ll help as much as I reasonably can. You do not have to repay it.”

Ak Seo-il’s eyes widened.

The main house and the branch had never been on especially good terms.

That was why they did not share martial arts.

The main house’s Ak Family Spear had originally come from the military.

Its calmness and solidity were like a mountain of stone, yet when it struck, its force resembled a landslide.

But what of the branch house’s Flame-Dragon Saber Canon?

It was swift and tyrannical, like holding fire in one’s mouth, and the force of its saber path resembled the track of a dragon.

The two martial arts were completely different.

One had not been derived from the other.

The circumstances went back quite far, to a matter involving two brothers in Shandong...

but this was not the time to bring it up.

“...Why are you willing to do this much for us, Uncle?”

“Because we share the same blood.”

“The same blood...”

“Even if our martial arts are different, we bear the same surname, the same blood runs through our veins, and we live close to one another. If we still do not help each other, then with what face could we possibly go around speaking of righteousness and chivalry?”

It was a matter of first principles.

But precisely because it was first principles, it could not be denied.

And it was also renewal.

A proposal to tear down the old emotions and the old wall between them this time.

Ak Seo-il thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Then I’ll shamelessly accept your help.”

“Good. One day, we may be the ones receiving it. Let’s live that way.”

The workers were gradually raising the walls and pillars again.

The Shandong Ak Family too would be rebuilt.

Though it would take quite a while to recover its former might.

They had already finished speaking with the Hwangbo Household.

The two houses no longer had any interest in dominance over Shandong.

They had already worked through the calculations on their abacuses.

Neither side had enough strength to swallow all of Shandong Province alone.

But not everyone agreed with that conclusion.

There were people everywhere who wore a human face and carried the heart of a beast.

*****

Flower-Haze Hall, the room for female disciples.

Inside the room, only two bedrolls had been laid out.

The light had already been extinguished.

Soft breathing could be heard inside.

‘...Senior Sister Cheonhwa is already asleep.’

Soyak slipped in quietly, rising onto her toes.

Then she slowly spread out her own bedding and pulled the blanket over herself.

There had once been a time when she thought she was the only female disciple.

That was not long after she had first come to Mount Hua.

She quietly gazed out past the wooden window at the night sky.

It was full of stars.

All the more because the moon was only a dark crescent.

The Demonic Cult’s Left Luminary Guardian had appeared.

And Ak Jupae, the object of her vengeance, had gone with him.

To take revenge on her.

Would the Demonic Cult know about Falling Plum Elegy?

No answer came from thinking about it.

“...Haa.”

Soyak set her mind straight.

It had happened several hundred years ago.

There was no way she could grasp the outcome just by turning it over in her head for a moment before sleep.

Just as she closed her eyes to try to sleep,

“...Soyak.”

She heard Cheonhwa’s voice.

When she glanced over, Cheonhwa’s eyes were open.

It seemed she had heard her sigh.

“Yes, Senior Sister.”

“Is something bothering you?”

Soyak thought quietly for a moment...

then told her about this Roaming Pillar Journey, leaving out only the fact that she had killed Ak Seowon.

There was nothing especially secret about the rest of it anyway.

Ak Jupae, the Flame-Saber Lord, had once been the Heaven-Net Platform Lord and one of the One Sovereign, Three Emperors, and Five Lords.

The rumor that he had gone with the Demonic Cult’s Left Luminary Guardian...

would probably spread across the Central Plains within a month.

As she listened, Cheonhwa gradually moved closer.

At times startled, at times eyes shining, at times swallowing dryly.

Then she sat down on the same bedding and nodded.

“That’s insane.”

Cheonhwa’s eyes went round, and she covered her mouth.

She truly looked shocked.

“But... they said the Flame-Saber Lord strictly followed the Alliance’s orders.”

“They say he changed after his son was murdered.”

Even as she said it, Soyak smiled bitterly.

Because she herself was the cause of that change.

In other words,

it meant he had felt no regret for his actions until he saw his own son dead.

“Then, uh, did you fight the Demonic Cult?”

“Yes, Senior Sister.”

“...Were you okay?”

Cheonhwa asked quietly.

She looked at Soyak with careful eyes.

Carrying a certain fear, and dread.

Soyak understood what Cheonhwa was asking.

What it was she meant by asking if she was “okay.”

It would be killing.

“I was okay.”

“Weren’t you scared?”

“Less than I expected.”

Cheonhwa lowered her eyes quietly.

Then she nodded.

Soyak watched her silently.

Cheonhwa and Cheonju had not come to Mount Hua of their own will through resolve.

They had been “selected” for their talent...

by Eunbyeok, Myeongjeok, and Sect Leader Jeongyang.

So what Cheonjeong had said was not entirely true.

That every martial artist who wore a sword was prepared to kill.

No matter how peaceful all under heaven had become,

the duty of righteous martial artists remained the same.

To cut down and kill the unorthodox and the demonic, and set righteousness and chivalry upright.

All of it was made from blades and spears, from blood and sweat.

Soyak thought of her Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge resting right beside her bedding.

Beside Cheonhwa’s bedding too lay the sword Soyak had given her.

That longsword, full of the wear of her senior sister’s hands.

“You can do it too, Senior Sister.”

Soyak’s tone softened gently.

Then she pointed with the tip of her chin at the sword she had given her.

Cheonhwa quietly took the sword and drew it into her arms.

“...Right. I can do it too.”

The Left Luminary Guardian had moved.

Soon, the Demonic Cult would rise.

And even if it did not rise openly, it was certain to be moving beneath the surface.

This time, it had shown its fin above the water.

Next time, it would probably show the jaws spread wide.

If things broke early, then in half a year,

all under heaven might once again be thrown into chaos.

“Head Senior said something like that.”

“What did he say?”

“That every martial artist who wears a sword is someone prepared to kill.”

Cheonhwa’s body flinched.

Soyak let her go and looked straight into her eyes.

“...You can do it.”

“I believe you.”

Soyak remembered it.

Her spar with Cheonhwa.

That had definitely been a fierce killing move.

Of course, it had been a desperate struggle brought on by the threat that her senior brother would be killed...

but still.

If someone could kill to protect another person,

if they could carry killing intent and place it on the tip of a blade,

if they had resolved to stain their hands with blood,

then that was enough.

*****

Beneath the same sky, at the same hour, under the same moon,

the Namgung Household Family Head’s Office had been turned upside down.

Because of Namgung Hyeong.

“...Ak Jupae, that man really followed the Left Luminary Guardian?”

“Yes. That appears to be the case.”

The man kneeling as he delivered the information was trembling.

Even though he was one of Night-Heaven Hall’s Night-Heaven Wanderers.

Namgung Hyeong’s fury was that great.

“Has he gone mad with vengeance?!”

“...Shall we pursue him?”

“Pursue him. No matter what!”

The man nodded, then hurried out of the Family Head’s Office.

Then he let out a sigh.

Hall Lord Byeoksagok and Deputy Hall Lord Gisan Gwang were dead.

Night-Heaven Hall was now left with only the Namgung loyalists...

but it had declined to the point where it did not even have a Transcendent Apex martial artist left.

So how, exactly, were they supposed to track two masters who had reached the Transformation Realm?

Just then, someone emerged from the shadows and came to a stop in front of him.

“...Who are you?”

The core of the Household, the Family Head’s Office—and this quietly?

Who could possibly enter this place without anyone knowing?

But that man could.

“I need to know who killed my disciple.”

A legend from one generation ago.

Pushed aside by the Sword Sovereign, he was no longer called the Dark Sovereign...

but he had once been the ideal of all assassins, and the former master of the Kill Veil.

It was the Dark Emperor.