Chapter 43: Azure Sky and Ninefold Heaven (7)

Training in martial arts all night was, by nature, not good for the body.

It was obvious that with an overtaxed body, you couldn’t show your true ability.

And yet Namgung Seon was still striving in the rear garden of the detached quarters.

He cycled through the Sky-Vault Unfettered Sword and the Jade-Sky Sword, and then the Sovereign Sword Form.

As if none of them was more important or less important than the others.

Moonlight shattered and glittered along the arc of his swinging sword.

The blade tip split the sweat drops that ran down and let them fall in halves.

Far off, dawn broke.

The red sun was rising.

Only then did Namgung Seon stop.

Now it was time to wash up and cool his head.

“Did you get results?”

Namgung Hyeong, who had been watching, spoke.

He must have been watching him for some time.

“Well, my senses have sharpened quite a bit.”

“Can you win?”

“I won’t lose without a fight.”

He still didn’t give a definite answer.

He could win, and he could lose.

He could win, but the chance of losing was higher.

But his eyes were brimming with exhilaration.

Until now, among his peers, he had never met someone as strong as him, or stronger than him.

Those who were stronger because they were older didn’t interest him.

They had simply spent more of the years they were given.

What he wanted was a brilliant star.

A rival with talent that poured out radiance.

“Staying up to train would make things worse.”

“That’s why I have this, don’t I?”

Namgung Seon opened a small wooden case hanging at his waist.

Inside were two rows of four sky-blue herbal pellets, each only as big as a pinky joint.

Clear-Scent Pellets.

A kind of tonic made by the Namgung Clan.

It dispelled fatigue, loosened a stiff body, and cleared the head.

“Then I’ll see you later.”

As if it were routine, Namgung Seon tossed one into his mouth.

Then he went into the bathhouse to wash.

Water that Mount Hua Sect’s attendants had already heated by stoking the furnace.

When the sound of him entering the water came, something sprang out from the bushes.

“...I greet the clan lord.”

Night-Heaven Hall’s Deputy Hall Lord, Gisan Gwang, knelt on one knee.

The area around his ruptured left shoulder was soaked in blood.

But blood was no longer flowing.

He had pressed his acupoints to prevent being tracked by the bloodstains left on the ground.

“Looks like you failed.”

“I disappointed you. Please kill me.”

He wasn’t joking.

It wasn’t like some polite eastern country where you say that to make the other person indulge you.

He truly meant it. Kill me.

For Night-Heaven Hall, serving the clan lord’s line was a lifelong duty.

No matter what the instruction was, if you disappointed him, you had betrayed that duty.

And the price was death.

He entered Namgung as a disciple from the age of fifteen.

They called it a “clan,” but the clans of today had already grown too large to be sustained by bloodline alone.

He, too, had been accepted as a Namgung swordsman that way.

Taken in from childhood, he was raised by the retired clan lord.

It wasn’t a sect, but—

He learned the Namgung Clan’s martial arts.

Not merely the Jade-Sky Sword that was handed out broadly, but even the life-blood secret art, the Sky-Vault Unfettered Sword.

In exchange, he had devoted his life to the Namgung family.

That was why he became a Night-Heaven Guest.

“...Kill you, huh.”

“Yes. I disappointed my lord, so I have no lingering attachment to the life I have left.”

It was education at an unfathomable level.

Rather than education, it was closer to brainwashing.

The way of thinking that treated oneself like a consumable had taken root deep.

“No. You can’t die.”

Namgung Hyeong let out a small chuckle.

Then he calmly set a hand on Deputy Hall Lord Gisan Gwang’s shoulder.

“Do you know how much money it took to raise you?”

“...I don’t.”

“Then how could I waste you so meaninglessly. Hide yourself until I call for you.”

“I will obey, my lord.”

Having received the grace of having his life spared, Gisan Gwang bowed deeply to the floor.

THUD— his forehead struck the ground.

Only after that did he rise and hide his presence.

“Extreme-Night Full-Shadow Steps... Assassin Organization arts really are useful.”

Even the Sword Sovereign, and even he, still hadn’t found the Assassin Organization’s base.

But the Assassin Organization and the Demonic Cult were originally in a cooperative relationship.

Among the Demonic Cult bastards, they captured those who possessed the Assassin Organization’s martial arts.

And the Sword Sovereign diverted them to the rear and interrogated them.

The Assassin Organization’s killing techniques were extremely useful.

Even Dark Sovereign, who made a name alongside them in the days when the Demonic Cult was alive, was a man of the Assassin Organization.

It was also a famous story that he horrifically killed the young expert Yang Junhwi, the Spear Star.

That was why, even now, the Divine Spear Yang Family was scouring the entire martial world to find the Assassin Organization.

Namgung Hyeong leaned back in his chair.

In today’s fight, the chance that Namgung Seon would defeat Cheon Soyak was low.

That was something he had to accept.

Then he just had to plan what came after.

Another way to behead that monster before it grew any larger.

There were as many ways as he wanted.

******

“I’m back, my lady.”

Jang Yul, the Eye-Gap Severing Sword.

He knelt on one knee before Jegal Yeon.

That posture looked no different from the relationship between Namgung Hyeong and Gisan Gwang.

But the eyes they looked at each other with were different.

“So, what were the results?”

“With Eunsong Dojang, you didn’t have much to worry about, my lady.”

“I see. That’s a relief.”

Jegal Yeon let out a breath of relief.

“A suspicious man attacked the lodge, but Eunsong Dojang blocked him.”

“Even though he had to protect his disciple?”

The Purple Firmament Pellet had been awarded, and the spar with Namgung’s young clan lord was the next day.

Anyone could infer that she would melt it down and digest it that night.

“Yes. And more than anything... that disciple stays on my mind.”

“...Even the word ‘genius’ was not enough for that skill.”

“She’s at least at the Apex level. And in less than two hours, she melted down the Purple Firmament Pellet completely.”

Jegal Yeon furrowed her brow.

She was the Inner Pavilion Lord of the Jegal Clan.

In other words, she held a position that oversaw the clan’s major and minor affairs to a degree.

Even if she didn’t cultivate martial arts...

She was thoroughly familiar with the fighting strength of the martial artists her clan operated.

Of course, her “general knowledge” of martial arts was excellent as well.

“It wouldn’t have been possible before dawn.”

“I don’t understand it either. And impurities didn’t come out through the skin.”

“...What?”

With a precious elixir like the Purple Firmament Pellet or the Great Supreme Pill,

as inner power circulated through the body, it pushed out the impurities piled up in the meridians.

It wouldn’t be perfect.

But even partially, you gained an effect similar to Rebirth and Renewal.

“Instead, she breathed out something like black smoke.”

“...That’s strange. Was there anything else special?”

“The masked man who attacked Eunsong Dojang used the Assassin Organization’s martial arts.”

Jegal Yeon’s eyes narrowed.

There wasn’t an orthodox sect without a grudge against the Assassin Organization.

Everyone had lost at least one person.

In the case of clans like the Jinju Eon Family or the Hwangbo Clan...

They lost brilliant late-generation prodigies with talent that could have led their era.

They still hadn’t risen into the ranks of the Five Great Clans.

“Then perhaps...”

“The one who killed Ak Seowon, the Flame-Saber Army man?”

“Yes. The Shandong Ak Family’s aberration, the son of Ak Jupae, the Flame-Saber Lord. The Thirteenth Unit Captain of the One-Under-Heaven Corps. I heard he was found in a horrific state.”

“I heard. With only the body left behind, and the head buried far away somewhere else.”

“And even a sword path no one could match, too.”

There was much about the Assassin Organization’s martial arts that remained hidden.

Their true base hadn’t even been revealed yet, so even more so.

So Jegal Yeon had no choice but to suspect that culprit.

And naturally, the highest probability was the Assassin Organization.

The Demonic Cult had been completely shattered, with only remnants remaining.

Of course, it was true that among them, old-era great fiends who still hadn’t been put down remained.

But they were busy preserving their own forces and trying to unite with each other to rise again.

There was no reason for them to provoke the One-Under-Heaven Corps, the Alliance Leader Sword Sovereign’s official direct force.

The moment they did, the First Unit Captain through the Twelfth Unit Captain would go out to hunt them.

And the Demonic Cult’s martial arts were, for the most part, already laid bare.

Even if it were a rare art, could there really be a sword path that even she, of the Jegal Clan, couldn’t recognize?

‘...I even memorized the sword path of that Heavenly Demon Divine Art.’

From the start, during the Heavenly Demon subjugation, it was the Jegal Clan’s Strategist Corps that handled the interpretation of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

The head of that Strategist Corps was her elderly father.

And the old man had forced Jegal Yeon to memorize the sword path of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art until she wanted to die.

Even though the Heavenly Demon was dead.

‘Father believed the Heavenly Demon would never end like this...’

And yet, it wasn’t even the sword path of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.

Jegal Yeon let out a deep sigh.

“It’s still too early to tell Hero Ak Jupae, isn’t it?”

“Yes, uncle. I think so. For now, only we should know. It’s only a guess.”

“Understood.”

At Jegal Yeon’s gesture, Jang Yul slowly rose.

A bodyguard who guarded and cared for the Inner Pavilion Lord.

Even if he was normally sly and joked around...

He was the Jegal Clan’s single strongest force.

“If that assassin, suspected to be from the Assassin Organization, went where—”

“His Extreme-Night Full-Shadow Steps were quite skilled. Unfortunately...”

“It’s okay. I’m not blaming you, uncle. I couldn’t do even that.”

Jegal Yeon quietly adjusted her clothes.

Soon, the spar between Namgung’s young clan lord Namgung Seon and the winner Cheon Soyak would begin.

She had to see with her own eyes who the Dragon-Phoenix of this era would be.

Wearing the Jegal surname and failing to witness an event that might become the scene of a generational turnover...

That would be dereliction of duty.