Chapter 301

He quietly took a tightly rolled paper from the inner sash and tossed it to the floor.

Keeping his eyes fixed on Mae Wuidong, he spoke softly.

“This is a co-signature scroll to join the Heavenly Alliance and share the future.”

“...”

“Sign it.”

Yu Myeongsan of Suncheon Sword Sect said,

“We can’t just be forced into signatures out of the blue...”

“Senior Yu.”

“...”

“I understand you came with authority enough for this.”

“...”

“Above all, anywhere else might be different, but if it’s Suncheon Sword Sect the story will get a bit complicated. Do you want it to get more complicated here?”

Yu Myeongsan ground his teeth.

Unhwi’s gaze swept from Yu Myeongsan to the others, one by one.

At the end he looked to Han Cheolsu of Mixed Path Demon Flame Palace and spoke slowly.

“The reason you formed the Nine-Gate Assembly and the reason you stand here now—wasn’t it, in the end, to take profit?”

“...”

“Lay ropes on both sides and attach yourselves to the side that wins. You have one task. Silence.”

The air turned frigid.

“The moment our Heavenly Alliance finishes its fight with the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect, in whatever form it ends, you will profit.”

Unhwi’s tone was adamant.

“I’ll say no more. Sign.”

***

Having signed and stepped outside, Han Cheolsu, the Blood-Bearded Ghost of Mixed Path Demon Flame Palace, was still stunned.

He looked around.

Judging by the faces of the envoys who were now returning to their home sects, they looked just like him—roughly grasping the same thing.

What had just happened inside?

A full war between the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect and the Heavenly Alliance had begun.

With the board this big, things wouldn’t de-escalate unless one side collapsed completely.

And if it did de-escalate, at least one head of a faction would have to fall.

When matters reach this scale, bluntly, it’s better to just watch.

Wedged in the middle, there was no point in lending a hand anywhere; it would only invite useless damage. Hence the signatures on Unhwi’s scroll.

As he said, keep silent and follow the side that wins.

That’s right.

With that thought, Han Cheolsu moved—then halted.

His nose caught it.

The metallic tang of blood.

All his senses pricked.

He wasn’t the only one. The representatives of the envoys all broke into a run with grim eyes.

Han Cheolsu ran as well.

There was no special reason.

The blood smell came from where their retinue warriors were gathered.

It goes without saying: those who entered Heavenly Dragon Hall were envoy leaders.

None of them had come alone, but it would have been stranger to stuff tens or hundreds into such a seat.

So the envoys’ warriors had been gathered at a pavilion in the Outer Villa on the Alliance’s perimeter—and now the blood smell wafted from there.

Han Cheolsu sprinted that way and swallowed hard.

What spread before his eyes was a massacre.

The warriors of the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect’s envoy lay strewn everywhere.

Between pools of blood and bodies with limbs torn or heads severed, warriors in black uniforms stood in crisp ranks.

The Martial Righteous Unit.

The Heavenly Alliance’s strike corps.

A man stood firm at their center—tall, broad-shouldered, built like an iron tower.

Killing intent radiated from him, yet his face was unexpectedly calm.

Division Chief of the Martial Righteous Unit, Wei Tianhu.

He looked at Han Cheolsu and the other envoy heads and spoke in an even voice.

“It seems your talks are finished.”

There was no emotion in Wei Tianhu’s tone. He might as well have been speaking of the weather.

“As you heard, from this point the Heavenly Alliance enters a state of war with the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect.”

He continued,

“By the fact that you are seated here today, you’ve formed a ‘temporary alliance’ in all but name. I look forward to working together.”

Wei Tianhu cupped his fist, and the dazed Han Cheolsu nodded.

Wei Tianhu offered the same courtesy to the other heads; they nodded, wearing expressions no different from Han Cheolsu’s.

Then it happened.

Han Cheolsu’s gaze fixed on a man standing off to one side of the Martial Righteous Unit.

That man...

He looked perhaps in his early twenties.

His cultivation at best was no higher than a lower grandmaster tier, and his eyes and outward aura were very sharp.

For now, he was no different from ordinary warriors, yet Han Cheolsu could not help but stare holes into his face.

I’ve seen him somewhere...

The memory wouldn’t clear.

He couldn’t say when or where, but he had definitely seen that face.

Or not...

Nothing came. It might be a mistake—someone who merely resembled another.

There were many similar faces in the martial world.

Yet something was odd. The man was looking back at Han Cheolsu—and before long a smile drew at the man’s lips.

Han Cheolsu flinched.

That smile felt eerily like the smile of the Heavenly Arbiter Seol Unhwi he had seen in Heavenly Dragon Hall.

The man slowly took his eyes off Han Cheolsu, stepped to Wei Tianhu, and offered a small greeting.

“Thank you for your work.”

“No. I only did what was natural.”

Han Cheolsu started again.

Wei Tianhu was a Mythic-Stage warrior, and yet he answered so courteously to someone scarcely past a low tier?

What was this.

Was he seeing {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} wrong?

“Then I’ll go up now.”

“Yes. Go safely.”

The man set his steps toward Heavenly Dragon Hall.

Han Cheolsu’s eyes followed his back. The gait seemed ordinary, yet an indefinable, uncommon air clung to him.

Just as Han Cheolsu tried to puzzle out the man’s identity, Wei Tianhu’s voice rang again.

“I apologize once more for showing you an unseemly sight, seniors.”

Wei Tianhu cupped his fists gravely, then released them and spoke firmly.

“In the near future, I wish to host a banquet for all of you. I beg you to watch the outcome until then.”

For all his words, Wei Tianhu seemed to harbor no doubt in the Heavenly Alliance’s victory.

Having accepted that, they began to disperse one by one.

Han Cheolsu also moved his steps, but the man’s face still turned in his mind.

***

When all had left, only two remained in Heavenly Dragon Hall.

The silence between them bore a weight beyond description—and rightly so.

“Are you satisfied now?”

“Do you mean me?”

“Our Heavenly Arbiter won’t harbor a personal grudge against me. But it’s clear you had questions...”

Mae Wuidong paused, slid his sword back into the scabbard at his hip, and went on.

“I showed you. The old Heavenly Alliance was precarious. I am fifty-four this year... I have served as Vice Alliance Lord for near on thirty years.”

The Alliance had always been large, but in the past its strength was not what it was now.

Its rapid growth had begun after Mae Wuidong became Vice Alliance Lord.

Twenty-four.

To become Vice Alliance Lord at that young age was a shock appointment in every sense, but he proved it with results.

So why had he joined the Heavenly Alliance?

“For thirty years I thought of one thing only—and that will aligned with the Heavenly Alliance’s. Yes. The Heavenly Alliance is a body that embraces all martial ways. I also wish to embrace them all. I let a trace of demonic current leak earlier; you must have noticed it, Heavenly Arbiter. I can use not only demonic current but even the heterodox and the tyrannical.”

“Yes. I noticed.”

“Then is there no misunderstanding between us now?”

Unhwi smiled gently.

“If there is no misunderstanding, there must also be no falsehood between us. Yes?”

“Wouldn’t that be so?”

“I see. I understand.”

The corner of Mae Wuidong’s eye twitched.

“Understand.”

The word grated a little, but he let it rest.

Unhwi turned his gaze toward the broken entrance of Heavenly Dragon Hall, and Mae Wuidong’s eyes followed.

There, a man in a black long robe—Han Murin—asked carefully,

“Did I intrude on your conversation?”

Mae Wuidong and Unhwi shook their heads.

Unhwi looked to Mae Wuidong and spoke.

“Just as well. Han Murin.”

“Yes, Heavenly Arbiter.”

“How went what I ordered?”

Han Murin looked at Unhwi a beat, then answered firmly.

“Pung Muhwi, Chief Heavenly Commander leading the detachment, annihilated the enemy in Sunward County; Seong Yangho assassinated Clear-Wave Sword Hyang Cheol of Pure Fragrance County; and Seo Hyo annihilated the enemy in Spirit Spring County.”

Mae Wuidong regarded Unhwi with a curious look.

“Did I mishear?”

“No.”

“Huh... Sunward County—that would be where an Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect branch stands, and you wiped them out?”

“We killed Hyang Cheol of Pure Fragrance County and annihilated the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect branch in Spirit Spring County.”

Like other great sects, the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect planted branches in other regions; those three were the closest by the measure of Un’guk.

The problem was that those places were in the neighboring state—territory of the Jin State.

“...Must we worry about friction with the Jin State?”

“I’ve already asked the Crown Prince of Un’guk.”

“...”

“And if you add the Alliance Lord’s view to it, at least while our Heavenly Alliance wages war with the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect, the Jin State will shut its eyes.”

“...You prepared this before today’s conversation even took place.”

“You granted me full authority.”

“So I did. Hm... yes. I did.”

Mae Wuidong scratched his head and asked quietly,

“Then what will you do now?”

Unhwi smiled faintly.

“Fifteen days.”

“Fifteen?”

“Within fifteen days, I will force the Ihwa Sword Heaven Sect to surrender.”

Mae Wuidong’s eyes flashed.

“Surrender...?”

“Whether we take the head of their Sect Master Yeon Songbaek or exact a different indemnity—only that, Alliance Lord, I ask you to decide.”

“Ho... You will shoulder every step alone, and I, as Alliance Lord, will choose the victor’s spoils?”

“Something like that.”

Mae Wuidong could no longer guess how far the youth before him had sketched his design.

At first, he could. But as time passed, it grew stranger, more ambiguous.

And in the instant he sensed that “strangeness,” a feeling came.

Even if he could not see the picture, he could feel where the line was pointing.

...A difficult one. Not easy at all.

He smiled gently, belying his thoughts.

“Very well. When it’s time to choose the spoils, tell me then.”

“I will. And from today for fifteen days, I intend to take a dispatch to Calmheart County. Will you approve?”