Chapter 788: Bloodline (22)

BEEP-BEEP-BEEEP—

With the whistle, the palace martial artists began to withdraw all at once.

More precisely, they backed off ten jang from Beom Yakgong and formed a circular encirclement.

Qing swept her gaze around.

On what remained of the Hall of the Supreme Pole’s roof—about seven jang up—and on the walls of the Hall of the Supreme Pole plaza beyond the cordon, dozens of guards in glossy black silk had bows in hand, strings drawn, sights fixed.

Maybe they were the “true power” of the government offices that the Son of Heaven said the martial world didn’t understand.

Compared to the way he’d talked, a force of maybe fifty was... modest, if you wanted to call it that.

But if they were precision snipers who could punch projected force straight through a chaotic one-versus-many melee and land it exactly, even from that far away?

Yeah. That made pricing this out impossible.

Or maybe there were other special units prepared besides those. Like... internal-energy artillery or something?

The black-clad snipers stared at Beom Yakgong.

Meanwhile, every palace martial artist who’d fallen back into the ring had their eyes drilled into Qing.

Mm. This. Yeah, it’s probably that, isn’t it?

Qing took one step toward Beom Yakgong.

Then another.

Then another.

No one stopped her, and Qing’s judgment hardened into certainty.

Right. They want me to do the killing.

Only... there are kind of a lot of spectators for a show like this.

Beom Yakgong’s gaze was still jammed into the ground.

Her footsteps rang out—those bright, cheerful clicks unique to this plaza where little stones skittered underfoot.

The Hall of the Supreme Pole plaza was built by stacking seven different kinds of stone in layers, designed so that walking across it produced crisp, lively sound.

It was paranoid architecture meant for the “just in case” of assassins: no matter how you tried to deaden your steps, the seven layers of blue-green flagstone rubbed against each other and made noise.

And if the captain of the guard who lived and slept in the Hall of the Supreme Pole had a realm around Manifest, then no one in the world could possibly approach unseen.

But what good was all that construction.

When the guard captain himself was the traitor bastard.

At the footsteps sounding close, the traitor lifted his head.

“Still... my hand is stinging from that swordsmanship. What in the world was it... that Thrown-Sword?”

Qing raised her guard.

What—was he trying to stall for time?

But only for a moment.

As a Therapist, her read was simple: he was already a walking corpse with no chance of recovery. A last flare before death. A final complaint from someone staring at the end.

“Martial Celestial. Lonely-Without-Equal Sword—first stance, No-Poison, No True Man.”

“If you aren’t poisonous, you aren’t a true man. Not exactly a stance that suits you.”

“It wasn’t originally Thrown-Sword. It’s a thrust. And it’s an ambush. At least, to Martial Celestial. He could’ve flicked it out as lightly as reaching with chopsticks.”

“Ahh. So that’s why.”

When Martial Celestial completed the Lonely-Without-Equal Sword, he’d already gone beyond Number One Under Heaven—he’d reached the level of the greatest under heaven and earth across past and present.

Would a monster like that ever need something as petty as an ambush?

So: No-Poison, No True Man—meaning that even so, you still had to know how to be poisonous.

In the first stance, Sole Supremacy, you had to haul the heavens down, climb up, and stand on top.

In the third stance, Master Wherever You Stand, you had to trample the earth and keep it forever under your feet as the foundation.

And between the first and the third, between heaven and earth, there were people—

and people had to be poisonous.

People had to be vicious things.

That was Martial Celestial’s ideal of “a person.”

“That’s right,” Beom Yakgong said. “I should’ve been more poisonous.”

“More than you are now?”

Beom Yakgong’s expression twisted.

It was a smile that wasn’t a smile at all—a deeply self-mocking grin.

“I wasn’t poisonous enough. The Master said that if one learns the Way in the morning, dying in the evening is fine... but I should’ve killed you and fled long ago. If I’d stopped your suffering sooner, it wouldn’t have come to this. I wasn’t poisonous enough.”

He meant Yeonsul—the Yeonsul who’d been sick.

This old man, for some reason, had been convinced that if Yeonsul died he could obtain the Formless Art. He’d probably assumed that if he just sat still, Yeonsul would die on her own.

He just never imagined that after that, the Yoga Order from India would appear, claiming they would save Yeonsul, and then carry her in and out beyond the palace walls.

But even so—

Qing had watched the palace martial artists fight.

The red-eyed ones weren’t unlike those Blood Cult monsters—something that had been made, closer to a constructed thing than a person, shaped by some method into charging an enemy.

It might’ve been tied to Heavenly-Maiden Temple sorcery, or it might’ve been a berserker concept produced by brainwashing education inside the palace.

But they weren’t the real fighting strength.

They were just for binding the enemy’s feet—holding them in place. If they’d been created through Heavenly-Maiden Temple sorcery, maybe it had even been a kind of performance test.

Those things had shown up before Yeonsul died, which meant whatever had been made hadn’t been properly validated, right?

The palace’s real strength revealed itself after those bodies stalled the enemy for a moment.

A terrifying Combined Assault Formation built around the assumption of one-versus-many.

A strategic doctrine created to face experts—experts above Manifest, even.

And with snipers added, the coordination was too polished to have been built in a day or two.

Ten years? Twenty? Longer?

Or maybe... ever since Martial Celestial tore them apart, handed down across generations and refined.

“Didn’t you know?” Qing said. “Even if you killed Yeonsul, I don’t see how you’d live. Honestly, even if you’d killed me, you wouldn’t have made it out of the Forbidden City alive.”

“Once you leave Beijing, how wide is the world?” Beom Yakgong said. “And if one obtains a Divine Art and becomes an absolute expert, why would one need to avoid soldiers at all? Just as Martial Celestial did in the past.”

Mm. Martial Celestial, you crusty old bastard.

This ragged old man was Martial Celestial’s legacy—Martial Celestial’s “understanding” left behind in the world.

That once your martial art touched the heavens, there was nothing in this world you had to fear. Do whatever you wanted. Do whatever the hell you pleased.

Because Martial Celestial had lived just fine and died just fine, even after grabbing the Central Plains by the throat and shaking and humiliating its sky.

He’d proven it was possible.

To the martial world, Martial Celestial was “Martial Heaven”—the one whose martial art reached the sky.

But the palace’s “Martial Celestial” was “No Heaven”—a man without heaven at all, nothing but a traitor to the realm.

“Will you condemn me?” Beom Yakgong asked. “Would you truly let go of the chance to become such a supreme being? Would you live as a weakling forever, never becoming poisonous, because you were trapped by petty affection?”

Qing blew out a sharp snort through her nose.

“I can say this with confidence. If being a ‘true man’ means being a dogshit bastard like that, then I’m not being one. That ‘petty affection’—that’s why you learn martial arts in the first place. If it’s not, what are you even learning martial arts for? A hobby?”

If anyone knew Qing’s hobbies, they’d call it convincing—coming from someone whose murderous streak made her better than anyone at turning “hobbies” into practical use.

But Beom Yakgong didn’t know her hobbies.

“You already possess Divine Arts,” he said. “Someone like you, who can take any Divine Art in the world if you set your mind to it, would naturally say that.”

“And you can’t?” Qing said. “You were walking in and out of the Martial-Arts Archive. And you said every Divine Art under heaven gathers there.”

“And now the successor of Martial Celestial, inheritor of his legacy, says such things.”

“You keep dragging that old bastard into this, but in the first place, he couldn’t be a ‘true man’ either.”

Martial Celestial had left the Central Plains a grave harm—more specifically, a shift in thinking so obscene it shouldn’t have been possible.

That if you were strong enough, there was no way to touch you no matter what you did.

Even if what you were insulting was the sky itself.

The martial world was already arrogant and lawless. Then it was handed the ultimate pardon: do whatever you want, and as long as you become strong, it’ll all be waved away.

A terrifying poison.

But was Martial Celestial really that kind of unhinged strongman—an emotionless man who lived entirely alone, a vicious “true man”?

No.

If he were the type who threw everything away and lived only for his own martial study, he wouldn’t have gone around beating the hell out of everything in sight just to cut off the possibility that he might have to care.

If the Demonic Cult, the Blood Cult, and the palace ran wild, blood would flow through the world.

Then Martial Celestial would have to stop pursuing the completion of the sword he wanted so badly and come back into the world again—and he knew his own limit: that he would care, that he wouldn’t be able to endure it.

So he smashed everything, caused a proper rampage, and then went into seclusion.

Because Martial Celestial was the kind of senior who practiced looking cool so his juniors would think he was cool.

And if you’re trying to look good for someone, that’s proof of affection. Always.

That’s why he nagged me, too.

Adults nag because they’re aching over the frustrations and failures they’ve already lived through.

“And more than anything,” Qing said, “a decent person doesn’t make excuses.”

She let her sword hang low.

There was no fun in cutting down a dying old man.

And it would hurt more if she did.

Even to the end, the ragged old man had been hoping Yeonsul would cut him down.

Filthy, cowardly atonement—an ending that meant nothing, for no one but himself.

“To that kid, you were a gentle teacher who’d stayed by her side her whole life, a dependable guard, family—no, just family. Grandfather. Back then, you were that kind of person. Not anymore. Now you drew a blade at her. Because you hated her. Now, to you, she was nothing but the enemy who stole what was yours.”

Qing smiled coldly.

“So what’s left now? Say you escaped like you wanted, and fine—say you became an absolute expert with some grand nickname like ‘Invincible One.’ Then what? Who’s beside you? To everyone you ever knew, you’re a traitor. You going to ‘start over’? Use your lofty realm and Divine Art to raise disciples again? This time you’ll pick disciples you don’t have to kill, yeah?”

Qing tossed her sword with a flick.

CLANG—

Beom Yakgong stared blankly down at the sword that had fallen before his knees.

“At least Martial Celestial—whether he was Martial Heaven or No Heaven—had a martial study he wanted to complete with his own life. But if all you wanted was to steal someone else’s Divine Art just to live a little longer, and you threw everything you had away to do it... what meaning is there in a life like that? Ugh. Disgusting. If it were me, I’d shove my face into a bowl of thin soup and kill myself. Tsk.”

Qing turned away as if she didn’t care.

But with her sensory field covering even behind her, she was actually wound tight, pushing her senses up.

Qing was a coward—and she had no desire to leave this world behind while the people she loved were still here.

Of course, that worry only lasted an instant.

In the sensation behind her, growing fainter as she walked away, she caught the shape of a person gripping the blade in reverse and flashing it high overhead.

Because now, he had thrown away even that single life-goal of “living longer.”

It was the last choice of someone who had truly, absolutely nothing left in his life.

*****

The traitor Beom clan were originally descendants of the traitor Jang clan, and infiltrated the imperial family for that sacrilegious goal.

However, the Young Hero Seomun Cheonhwa discovered the horrific plot and stepped forward in loyalty and righteousness, beheading him and presenting the head—so the Son of Heaven was greatly pleased.

Thus, to make use of that loyalty for the benefit of the realm, His Majesty bestowed upon the Young Hero Seomun Cheonhwa the post of Royal Censor of the Twelve Circuits.

The ministers, this time, had no grounds to oppose it.

It was the granting of office to a righteous man who had saved the Son of Heaven—so even while lamenting that the Beom clan had finally lost their minds in old age and gotten properly fed a mouthful of shit, they had no choice but to let it pass.

Qing had no choice but to accept, too.

Just as Chunbong had said, she tried everything to avoid taking it—saying she wanted to rest now, saying couldn’t she be given land instead, trying to wriggle out of it any way she could.

But—

“If we do not treat the hero who safeguarded the imperial house with honor, how will the world look upon us? Seomun Cheonhwa, do not commit the disgrace of disloyalty against loyalty and righteousness—take that chivalrous spirit and make the world better.”

It was Her Majesty the Empress’s betrayal.

Well. It was a mother’s heart, wanting to grant her wandering daughter a plausible office.

Royal Censor of the Twelve Circuits was more than just “plausible,” but it was still far beneath Princess—so from the Empress’s perspective, it honestly wasn’t enough.

And besides, she must’ve had her own angle, too: using the excuse of the censor-seal awarding ceremony to keep her held here a few more days.

And so, with palace life extended by several days—

Inside the Forbidden City.

Heavenly-Maiden Temple.

Qing crossed the courtyard of the Heavenly-Maiden Temple.

Because there was something she needed to ask Ashiya, the abbess of the Heavenly-Maiden Temple.