The Martial Emperor's Legacy
Perhaps it was the shock of eavesdropping on Dong Yeon-hwa and the Dong siblings, or the depletion of his internal energy from using the nanobots. Ouyang Qiangang, who had collapsed into exhausted sleep the moment he returned to his room, did not open his eyes until long after the sun had passed its zenith.
Replaying everything that had happened, he realized anew just how little he actually knew about the Ouyang Clan. He had read many of the books in his room, but not one of them said a word about the clan itself.
Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be defeated in a hundred battles. Right now I can't even get a proper read on myself, let alone those around me. I need to understand this family's past and present before I can chart a course for how to move forward.
With Akasha's help allowing him to absorb knowledge at astonishing speed, now was the perfect opportunity. When he asked where the family's library was, Hwang Nodae gave him a puzzled look, but before long he was guiding him to a book repository in the rear garden where dust had gathered for ages.
The library was smaller than he had expected, and it had clearly gone untended for a long time; a thick layer of dust lay settled over the books. Whatever it might have been in its prime, the desolation of the place seemed to mirror the Ouyang Clan's standing today.
Doctor, the upper shelf of the eastern bookcase appears to hold a collection of old volumes that look like family chronicles and geographic records. They seem to be arranged by year, so I recommend examining them in order.
Following Akasha's guidance, Ouyang Qiangang drew out the volume that looked the oldest. The cover had all but rotted away, its title barely legible, but when he turned the first page, the words Record of the Founding of the Ouyang Clan caught his eye.
A hundred and fifty years... So the family's history isn't all that long.
With Akasha's help, he turned the pages at a rapid pace. Akasha analyzed and summarized the text streaming in through his optic nerves in real time, feeding the results directly into his mind.
According to the records, the Ouyang Clan had taken root roughly a hundred and fifty years earlier, east of Nanchang in Jiangxi Province south of the Yangtze, on a vast estate of more than forty acres beside the fertile waters of Poyang Lake. The region lay in the broad plains of the Yangtze's middle and lower reaches, so rich in grain that it had been called the granary of the world since ancient times.
With that kind of geographic advantage and that much land, they must have commanded tremendous power in their day.
According to the records, within roughly fifty years of its founding by Gu-yang Dam, the Iron Spear Great Hero, the Ouyang Clan grew into the wealthiest house in Jiangxi Province, with formidable martial strength to match.
Just as I expected.
The Ouyang Clan in particular monopolized production of the region's signature hemp cloth, and secured the distribution networks for the finest porcelain made in nearby Jingdezhen as well as the sale of bamboo paper. That is how they amassed such enormous wealth. The shipping of rice, hemp cloth, and porcelain through Poyang Lake and the Yangtze must have been a veritable goose that laid golden eggs.
Ouyang Qiangang moved on to the next entry. Built on that economic foundation, the Ouyang Clan had naturally extended its influence into the Murim as well. The records stated that in the Jiangxi Murim in particular, which lacked any truly formidable rival sects, the clan had held an unassailable seat of hegemony that no one dared challenge.
The hegemon of the Jiangxi Murim... a far cry from the fallen house I see now. What on earth brought this great family so low?
As if in answer to that question, the next page continued with a record of the clan's fatal flaw.
Doctor, the Ouyang Clan's geographic position concealed a great weakness. The province's border faced the Sacred Fire Divine Cult, a massive demonic power that dominated Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, and eastern Yunnan across the continent's south. The people of the world feared them, calling them the Demonic Cult.
A Demonic Cult with its base in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains... Living there was like building a house at the foot of a volcano that could blow at any moment.
The record continued in a matter-of-fact tone. Under the pretext of punishing the Central Plains Murim for suppressing their faith, the Demonic Cult had periodically descended from the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains and marched north for hundreds of years. Each time, the sects of the Central Plains formed a Murim Alliance and waged a desperate resistance. That war was known as the Great Righteous-Demonic War.
Of five such wars in all, the last—the Fifth Great Righteous-Demonic War—had broken out a mere forty years ago.
During the war, the Ouyang Clan's location placed it on the front line of the Demonic Cult's invasion. The clan's leadership mobilized the family's every last ounce of strength to resist, but they suffered devastating losses.
A bitter smile tugged at the corner of Ouyang Qiangang's mouth.
The records show that your grandfather, who was clan head at the time, along with the elders and the great majority of the family's elite warriors, lost their lives in that war.
The pages were densely filled with accounts of the Demonic Cult's cruelty and the war's devastation. Nor was the Ouyang Clan alone: the Diancang Sect of Yunnan, the Hengshan Sect of Hunan, the Qingcheng and Emei Sects of Sichuan, the Tang Clan, and the Baili Clan of Fujian Province—sect after sect south of the Yangtze had been dealt crippling blows.
After the war, the sects with long and storied histories severed all contact with the outside world and poured everything into rebuilding, a practice known as Sealing the Gate, and through it most managed, painfully, to recover much of their former glory. But some of them vanished entirely into the back pages of history.
With a heavy sigh, Ouyang Qiangang closed the book.
The Baili Clan was wiped out root and branch... And the Ouyang Clan—what I'm looking at now is the very process of its withering away.
It had taken only a short while, but the rise and fall of an entire family had swept through his mind like a panorama.
Doctor, this historical background offers crucial clues for understanding the Ouyang Clan's present troubles—the deterioration of the family's finances, the possibility of internal power struggles, and the relationship between Dong Yeon-hwa and the Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor.
I agree. So the past and the present are connected after all.
His eyes grew deeper.
Toward evening, Ouyang Qiangang sat down across from Hwang Nodae, who had brought in his meal. There were things he wanted to ask.
"Hwang Nodae."
"Yes, Young Master."
"The assassins, and the Dong siblings from the Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor... the more I think about it, the more their behavior doesn't add up."
"In what way, sir?"
"I find myself wondering whether the main house hides some secret I know nothing about, or some treasure others might covet. Nodae, is there something you know?"
Hwang Nodae swallowed dryly and hesitated for a moment. Then, as if he had made up his mind, he spoke with a solemn face.
"Young Master, what I am about to tell you may be a secret bound up with the very survival of the Ouyang Clan. You must never breathe a word of it to anyone else. Can you promise me that?"
Ouyang Qiangang nodded without a word.
Hwang Nodae cast a quick glance around the room, then lowered his voice even further.
"You asked whether the Ouyang Clan holds any precious treasure worth coveting. If the family's secret martial arts had survived intact, those alone would have been treasure enough—but as you know, most of them were consumed in the flames of the Great Righteous-Demonic War."
Ouyang Qiangang stilled even his breathing so as not to interrupt, and listened.
"But there is one story that has been handed down in the Ouyang Clan like a legend, generation after generation. If it were true, it would be a treasure in the truest sense of the word."
"A legend? What is it?"
Hwang Nodae pressed on, his expression rigid.
"It happened three hundred years ago, when the Second Great Righteous-Demonic War broke out. The Demonic Cult's momentum pierced the very heavens, and the martial might of their leader, the Absolute Heavenly Demon, was so utterly without precedent that a despair spread across the world—the fear that the entire Central Plains Murim might be annihilated. It was the Murim's great age of darkness, bleak beyond all describing."
"Hmm..."
"And yet, unbelievably, the war ended in the Demonic Cult's defeat. The Absolute Heavenly Demon, too, lost his life."
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes sharpened.
"Why were they defeated?"
"Because an absolute master appeared on the side of the orthodox Murim—one whom the Murim historians of later generations would unanimously recognize as the greatest master of ancient and modern times."
"Ah!"
"Single-handedly, he routed the cult's hundred thousand followers. And then, atop Shixin Peak on Mount Huangshan, he struck down even the cult's leader, the Absolute Heavenly Demon himself."
Ouyang Qiangang asked, "Who was he?"
"The Heavenly Martial Emperor."
"The Heavenly Martial Emperor... Is his true name unknown?"
"Yes, it remains unknown. He belonged to neither the Murim Alliance nor any sect, his time in the world was remarkably brief, and after crushing the Demonic Cult he vanished without a trace. Everything about him remains a mystery."
Ouyang Qiangang's gaze deepened.
"You're telling me this because that 'legend' of the main house has something to do with the Heavenly Martial Emperor, aren't you?"
"That is so, Young Master."
Hwang Nodae nodded.
"Nothing is known of the martial lineage of Gu-yang Dam, the Iron Spear Great Hero who founded the Ouyang Clan. But according to the story as it has come down, in his youth he inherited a portion of the Heavenly Martial Emperor's hidden true teachings."
The founding patriarch's lineage unknown... and a legend that he inherited the Heavenly Martial Emperor's true teachings...
Hwang Nodae continued, his expression grave.
"Decades after the Second Great Righteous-Demonic War ended, rumors of unknown origin ran rampant through the rivers and lakes that the Heavenly Martial Emperor had left behind a secret manual of legendary rarity called the Martial Emperor's Great Treasury Sutra."
"There must have been a storm of blood."
"There was. The whole world went blood-mad searching for it. Masters cut the throats of their own disciples, siblings turned on one another like hungry ghosts, and prestigious clans were annihilated overnight—tragedies erupted on every side. But when the manual's existence could never be confirmed, the rumor, which had blazed like wildfire, finally died down to ash."
"Are you saying the first clan head obtained that Martial Emperor's Great Treasury Sutra?"
"No. If he had, the Ouyang Clan would already be the foremost family under heaven."
"Then what is the connection between the first clan head and the Heavenly Martial Emperor?"
"It is said that Gu-yang Dam learned his martial arts from a descendant of the attendant who had served the Heavenly Martial Emperor all his life. And at the same time, that he obtained a treasure map marking the place where the Martial Emperor's Great Treasury Sutra lay hidden. That is the heart of the legend."
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes widened.
"A treasure map? Has any of that been confirmed as fact?"
Hwang Nodae shook his head.
"If it were true, the Ouyang Clan would have been wiped out long ago by the countless powers of the rivers and lakes coveting that map."
"I suppose that's true..."
"The rumor itself was known only to a very few, and Gu-yang Dam protested his innocence until the day he died, insisting he had nothing to do with any treasure map."
"And his protest was accepted?"
"Yes, it was."
"Why?"
"Because Gu-yang Dam's martial arts never once surpassed the Transcendent realm in his entire life. If he had truly obtained the Heavenly Martial Emperor's treasure map, such a thing would have been impossible."
"Hmm..."
"That is why the rumor was dismissed as groundless gossip and faded away with the years. In this day and age, the people in all the rivers and lakes who still remember it could be counted on the fingers of one hand."
Having finished his story, Hwang Nodae left the room.