Chapter 40
Part 15: The Night of That City
Jeong-ah untied the bundle she had brought.
What she took out from inside it was Yeon Sang-hyeon’s thick winter coat.
She approached her master and respectfully draped the coat over him.
“The weather is still cold, my lord.”
“…Thank you.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon’s entire body was covered in a great amount of blood, and it was still dripping from him, but Jeong-ah did not seem to mind in the slightest.
The blood that had been flowing gradually turned into black ash and scattered.
The remaining remnants of a woman were also pulled by those white hands and sank into the darkness.
It was a bizarre and horrifying sight, but Se-ah did not turn her eyes away from any of it.
Yeon Sang-hyeon smiled at her.
“You must have something you wish to ask.”
Putting many questions aside, Se-ah asked what she wanted to know most.
“…Why did you reveal your identity to me?”
“I do not think I specifically revealed it.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon played innocent, but Se-ah did not get caught up in it.
“But you did not hide it either.”
“…That is true.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had closed his eyes for a moment, slowly nodded.
“I did not.”
Did even someone like him, who always seemed to have nothing holding him back, have something weighing on his mind?
Se-ah found that side of him unfamiliar.
“…I will need many people from now on.”
Se-ah licked her drying lips.
“Are you speaking as the Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan? Or as Dark Heaven Venerable One?”
“If the goals of the Young Master and Dark Heaven Venerable One align, then you may regard them as one.”
This answer came immediately.
“What kind of people do you need?”
At Se-ah’s question, Yeon Sang-hyeon looked at her.
His eyes were clear and spotless.
So clear that it felt dissonant when she recalled the sight from moments ago.
“…People who will not break. People who will not change. People who will sacrifice everything.”
Se-ah paused for a moment and organized the conversation.
“Are you saying I am such a person?”
“Yes.”
His voice was firm.
As though he were declaring that she was exactly that kind of person.
“How can you be certain of that? Do you trust your eye for people that much? Enough to reveal a secret that could put you in the greatest danger to someone you have known for only a few days?”
It sounded like she was pressing him, but as always, Yeon Sang-hyeon did not mind.
Instead of rebuking her, he answered with a smile on his lips.
“Spring of Luoyang.”
“…!”
At his words, Se-ah was left speechless.
It was a name she had never dreamed would come from his mouth.
And the next instant, she felt fierce unease.
As if he had read her thoughts, Yeon Sang-hyeon spoke first.
“You need not worry. The Sword Clan still does not know of your existence.”
Some color returned to Se-ah’s pale face.
“How…? How do you know that name?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
“You have still not given me an answer.”
Se-ah recalled it.
The Netherworld Demon Path, where a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood unfolded like an inhuman demonic realm.
Was she prepared to walk together on the path Yeon Sang-hyeon walked?
“I…”
Just as she was about to answer, Yeon Sang-hyeon turned around.
“Wait…!”
Yeon Sang-hyeon’s voice cut off Se-ah’s words.
“Think carefully. This is the last chance I can give you.”
“We shall continue the rest of the conversation later. I am hungry, so I should go have some late-night food.”
As though she had known this would happen, Jeong-ah bowed her head.
“This humble maid has already prepared it, so once it is heated, you will be able to enjoy your meal immediately.”
An expression of genuine surprise appeared on Yeon Sang-hyeon’s face.
“…Impressive.”
“You flatter me, my lord.”
He shook his head from side to side, then finally began walking away with long, loose strides.
Was she prepared?
“Pavilion Master!”
From far away, the voices of her subordinates searching for her echoed over.
But for a long while, her feet remained rooted in place as though nailed there.
Jeong-ah sent her sister a glance in farewell, then turned and followed her master.
Se-ah watched their backs disappear beyond the far side of the cave.
Then she asked herself.
Deep in the night.
Yeon Sang-hyeon was sitting atop the highest roof of Hyeonwol Pavilion’s safehouse.
From the safehouse on the hill, Luoyang’s enormous pleasure district spread across the flatlands below could be seen very clearly.
With an expression that made it impossible to know what he was thinking, he gazed at that sleepless city.
Without even turning around, he opened his mouth.
“I did not think you would come looking for me already.”
The one who had climbed up to the roof by ladder was Se-ah.
Carefully stepping on the roof tiles, she approached and stood beside him.
“We went through such chaos, yet Luoyang remains the same.”
The streets seen from far away were beautiful.
It felt as though the songs of drunken people and the melodies played by courtesans might reach all the way here.
“That is how great a city Luoyang is.”
She crouched down beside him.
“The Black Bone Sect was a serious nuisance.”
Her hair whipped roughly in the wind.
She tied that hair back with a cord.
“Just keeping their growth in check was enough to strain our strength.”
Her attitude and tone both seemed far more comfortable than before.
“But this city was overflowing with problems. So many that something like the Black Bone Sect was practically nothing.”
Her shoulders trembled faintly in the biting winter wind blowing from the hill.
“I, and all of us, have always been hopelessly outnumbered.”
It was probably not only because of the cold that her words sounded so fragile.
Even so, Yeon Sang-hyeon covered her with the winter coat he had been wearing.
“…Thank you.”
She pulled the collar of the coat close and asked Yeon Sang-hyeon,
“How much do you know about our organization, the Spring of Luoyang?”
“Not much.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon added briefly,
“Only that it is a secret society gathered by good-hearted people who want to do good things for Luoyang?”
Se-ah smiled at his mischievous description.
“We are people who could not endure it any longer. People who could not keep tolerating it.”
“Just hearing that, they do not sound like particularly pleasant friends to mingle with.”
Se-ah burst into laughter.
“Even so, we do try to be cheerful in our own way.”
Her laughter soon became a bitter smile.
“At first, we were nothing more than a group gathered to fix small injustices.”
“But soon you must have realized that to resolve those small injustices, you had to resolve greater injustices.”
“That is right.”
“And to resolve those greater injustices, even greater injustices had to be resolved.”
She looked at the distant scenery.
The city called Luoyang continued all the way beyond what her eyes could hold.
“To provide relief to those starving to death, simply distributing food to them is not enough. In the end, you must get rid of those who make them starve.”
“But if you get rid of them…”
“Others appear in their place. Yet you cannot simply erase that place itself.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon smiled coldly.
“Because that place is no different from the system that makes up this society.”
Se-ah looked at Yeon Sang-hyeon with surprise.
“…You know it well.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon laughed heartily.
“Who do you think reorganized Luoyang’s relief institutions? Who do you think created the relief system?”
Her eyes widened.
“That was your work? I thought…”
“That is right. They were works carried out in my mother’s name. And my mother truly did devote a great deal of effort to them.”
But the overall design had been the work of the young Yeon Sang-hyeon.
“But now, all of it has become nothing more than a name without substance.”
Se-ah looked at him with a bitter gaze.
“Is that why? Is that why you began acting as Dark Heaven Venerable One? To punish those who ruin your mother’s city?”
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted.
He rose from his seat and looked down at the city.
The wind raged violently, but his body did not budge.
“I have merely decided to take responsibility for everything I have neglected until now.”
His eyes grew fierce.
“It does not matter what form I take. Whether I am Yeon Sang-hyeon the Swordless, Yeon Sang-hyeon the Young Master, or Dark Heaven Venerable One.”
His presence seemed to split the violently rushing wind.
“Now that I have decided to fulfill my duty, everyone who bears responsibility must answer for that responsibility.”
A growling metallic sound mixed into his voice.
“Whether they are a mere gang from Luoyang’s back alleys, a black hand of the Underworld, a high-ranking official, or the head of a great sect…”
Blue flames sparked in his eyes.
“Even if that person is the Emperor, who stands above all others…!”
The powerless, in order to survive, had to exploit those even more powerless than themselves.
Those who had lived alongside hunger their whole lives, in order to survive, had to steal away the places where others could lay their bodies down.
Because that was all the strong had permitted them.
Because everything else belonged to the strong.
A world thoroughly ruled by the law of the jungle.
A world where the strong monopolized everything.
A world where nothing could be changed because the other side was strong.
A world where it was natural order for the weak to have everything taken from them.
A world where it was right that nothing be given to the weak.
If that was the natural order they claimed, if that was the world they insisted on, then he would gladly accept it.
He was ready.
He was the demon of eternity, the successor of The Ruler Of Darkness and Dark Heaven Venerable One. He himself was the strongest tyrant upon the earth.
By their own logic, he would bring down upon them an inescapable iron hammer.
“In that case…”
Se-ah rose from her seat.
Even in the fierce wind, she somehow kept her balance.
She drew the slender sword she had prepared for self-defense.
Then she knelt on one knee before Yeon Sang-hyeon.
“I heard that this is an old tradition of the Sword Clan.”
She held the slender sword upside down and offered him the hilt.
Without saying anything, Yeon Sang-hyeon looked at that handle.
Se-ah looked up at Yeon Sang-hyeon and opened her mouth.
“This sword is now yours.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon said nothing and looked at her for a long while.
“…Will you not regret it?”
Se-ah looked up at him with an infinitely clear gaze.
“I have only one eye left, but I am not so lacking that I cannot recognize the one I must truly serve.”
“Even if that is…”
Se-ah received Yeon Sang-hyeon’s words.
“Even if it is the Netherworld Demon Path, where a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood unfold like an inhuman demonic realm.”
No more words were needed.
Yeon Sang-hyeon accepted her sword.
But for some reason, instead of the handle, he awkwardly grasped the guard.
“I, Yeon Sang-hyeon, Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan and Dark Heaven Venerable One, accept your sword.”
The ceremony was established.
After her family had fallen, she had been forced to survive all alone in the slums.
Yet in barely ten years, she had become the head of Hyeonwol Pavilion, a mid-sized intelligence organization.
She had earned the name Iron Blood, both respected and feared by those around her.
And now,
she had found her lord.
After standing for a moment without saying anything, her eyes closed, Se-ah raised herself.
“Come to think of it…”
Seeing Yeon Sang-hyeon awkwardly holding the sword, she let out a small laugh.
“I am the first person to see the Swordless holding a sword.”
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted.
“Your younger sister performed this ceremony first.”
“…Pardon?!”
A knife-like wind blew through Luoyang, where winter had not yet ended.
But for some reason, she was not cold.
For from now on, there would be others who should be worrying about the cold.