Chapter 75
A dark, windowless chamber.
Beginning with the chamber at the head seat, twelve rooms lined up in orderly rows—six to the left, six to the right.
But not everyone had shown up. Only about half the rooms leaked light through their doors.
-We’ve pinned down the bastard’s location.
A deep, clear voice rang through the entire complex of chambers, coming from the head seat and reverberating above, below, left, and right alike.
It was Liuhe Transmission, an advanced vocal technique in which intent was conveyed not through the throat and vocal cords, but through inner energy.
"Hmph. As expected of someone from such a lowborn background, he’s been sneaking around like a rat—so his tail’s finally been caught, huh."
A scoffing voice answered from one of the chambers, laced with a complaint.
On the plate above that chamber was written Wu Sword.
And that was only the beginning. Voices from the chambers began pouring out one after another.
"That barbarian bastard. I hope he dies already..."
"Where does he get off, dragging those filthy country feet into the martial world..."
"I swear, I’ll be the one to—"
From the sound of it alone, you could tell the “bastard” in question had made himself thoroughly hated, even if you didn’t know who he was.
Though nobody said it outright, there wasn’t a single one among them who hadn’t spread malicious rumors about him and tried to drag his name through the mud.
"I’d already heard he stirred up trouble in the territory of the Hwasan Sect, but you’re saying it was that?"
From among them, someone in a chamber marked Mi Sword asked.
"That news is late. How long ago was that? You trying to show off that you live in some backwater corner or what?"
"...Why are you suddenly looking for a fight, bastard?"
"Why not~? Wanna stake your place and go at it once?"
At the mocking voice, a faint thread of anger rippled through Mi Sword.
Just as his hand started toward the hilt of his sword—
-Enough.
From the chamber at the head seat, someone stopped them both.
An invisible force pressed down on their shoulders.
-Have you forgotten the rules of this assembly? If you want a ranking duel, set a separate date and bring witnesses.
"...I’ll restrain myself, Leader."
"Hah. Like I’m the one who’s wrong here—fine, I’ll restrain myself too."
Wu Sword and Mi Sword each stepped back a pace.
Only then did the oppressive weight bearing down on them vanish.
"So what do you mean, you’ve pinpointed the bastard’s location?"
Another chamber, one that had been quietly watching the exchange, spoke up. It was Rooster Sword.
"You’re not talking about that incident in Jiangxi last time, are you?"
"Jiangxi? What happened there?"
Unlike Wu Sword, who had been sneering earlier, Mi Sword sounded genuinely puzzled, so the other began explaining.
"Meixiang Sword Maiden suddenly appeared in Gangneung in Jiangxi and wiped out a demonic sect there called the Taehomun."
Sects and clans being founded or annihilated wasn’t rare enough to count as news; that sort of thing had always happened.
Just get four or five people who knew a bit of martial arts together—
-From today on, we are the Taeo Sect!
—and then they’d open a sect, only to brawl themselves to death at the founding banquet that very night in an inn, failing to survive even a single day as an established order.
But if it wasn’t some third-rate sect, and instead a sect that ruled an entire region had been destroyed, that was a different matter.
The fall of a number-one name was always worth watching.
"Meixiang Sword Maiden... you mean her?"
What made it even juicier was that the one who had annihilated that sect was none other than one of the Seven Martial Stars.
Mi Sword finally understood why the leader had brought this up.
He might have been somewhat cut off from the Central Plains because of personal circumstances, but of course he knew about the Seven Martial Stars.
Meixiang Sword Maiden was the very image of an Orthodox martial heroine.
She embodied the principle of rewarding good and punishing evil.
There wasn’t a single demonic scourge she hadn’t cut down.
And yet, even for her, this case felt strange.
No matter how unforgiving she was toward demonic bastards, annihilation?
Eradication.
Literally wiping out everything that belonged to that sect without leaving a trace—people, techniques, even evidence.
In the martial world, that was basically asking to be denounced as a blood-soaked massacre, so most orthodox factions would choose to seal a sect off rather than wipe it out. That was the unspoken rule of the martial world.
Of course, that did not apply to the evil sects or the Demonic Cult.
There, completely killing the enemy was considered a virtue.
Show mercy and leave them alive? That would be insane.
Anyway, if a famous senior of the martial world like Meixiang Sword Maiden had done something like that, there was only one explanation.
"There must’ve been some barbarian bastard there."
"It’s still only a guess, but it’s almost certain."
The “bastard” they were talking about—the Great Swordmaster, Geom Mujin—had finally shown himself.
By now, even a child in kindergarten knew the famous story: Meixiang Sword Maiden hated barbarian bastards... no, it went beyond hatred. It was practically murderous intent.
Even during the Orthodox-Demonic War, when she was supposedly suppressing that killing intent for the greater cause, she still couldn’t help but draw blood every so often.
If the military adviser hadn’t kept the two of them well separated, the Seven Martial Stars would probably be called the Six Martial Stars by now.
"Otherwise, there’d be no reason for Meixiang Sword Maiden to go all the way there and cause that kind of uproar."
"True enough..."
Mi Sword stroked his chin and nodded.
"Since it’s come up, let me ask something."
Wu Sword leaned his chin on his hand and spoke with clear dissatisfaction.
"Why doesn’t this assembly recruit Meixiang Sword Maiden? In my eyes, she seems like the very first person we should’ve gone after."
His gaze drifted toward the far end of the chambers.
"What do you think, Wine Sword?"
He asked the man responsible for talent recruitment in the assembly.
"...We’ve already attempted contact once."
At the attention gathering around him, Wine Sword reluctantly opened his mouth.
"Oh, yeah? And what did she say?"
"...She told us not to pull any cheap tricks and to get lost."
"So you got lost over one little line like that? Damn, she really lived up to the name."
At Wu Sword’s incredulous tone, Wine Sword quietly shut his mouth.
Wu Sword’s sarcasm?
That didn’t even register.
For a moment, he drifted back to that day.
Before the assembly had formally come into existence, he had been the first to seek out Meixiang Sword Maiden.
He had believed that no one fit the purpose of the assembly better than she did.
Martial prowess, motivation, reputation—she had none of the basics missing.
So he’d thought recruiting her would be easy.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that was a misunderstanding.
-My grudge belongs only to me.
-I have no intention of sharing it with anyone, and even less intention of sharing it with people like you.
He needed to do something to stop her from flatly rejecting him, but he couldn’t.
-W-wait...
-Stop pulling your cheap tricks and get the hell out.
Creepy—!
The instant she made clear her refusal, he saw it.
The raging torrent of plum blossoms surging in like a flood.
The scarlet petals were breathtakingly beautiful, but they were terrifying too.
Those petals could change into blades according to the opponent’s heart, and grind him to dust.
Just remembering how he’d nearly been trapped in that forest of swords and turned into human juice made his fingertips tremble.
"......"
"What? Why’d you stop talking halfway through?"
Seeing Wine Sword fall silent in fear, Wu Sword muttered in disappointment.
"Still, Wu Sword has a point. This assembly does need Meixiang Sword Maiden."
Rooster Sword added his own weight to Wu Sword’s opinion.
If they were going to face one of the Seven Martial Stars, then they needed one of the Seven Martial Stars on their side too.
It was a fact he really, really hated admitting, but one he couldn’t deny.
"Everyone’s grinding their teeth and working themselves to the bone to wash away that humiliation from that day, but the truth is we’re still short on power."
Not one person here had escaped having their sword broken by that man.
He had even heard that the leader himself, seated at the very top, had once been made to kneel before him.
If even that had happened, could three years of training be enough?
Rooster Sword still had his doubts.
He wanted a more certain solution.
"Hey, all good and well, but didn’t you hear what Wine Sword just said? She told us to get lost. By the Seven Martial Stars herself."
Wu Sword kicked out at Rooster Sword’s words.
In today’s martial world, there was nothing to be gained from making an enemy of one of the Seven Martial Stars.
If they told you to get lost, getting lost was the safest thing for your health.
"You think you want another taste of the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Swords she throws out when someone pushes her again?"
"That only applies if we go in with our tails between our legs. There’s no particular reason we need to do that."
"What?"
"Even if Meixiang Sword Maiden herself refuses to join us, the Hwasan Sect must be brought in."
Rooster Sword’s eyes, hidden beyond the line of his face, gleamed quietly.
"After all, Hwasan Sect bears a original sin, doesn’t it? Don’t you agree, Leader?"
-......
The leader answered with silence.
"If we use that point—"
"Original sin? What kind of Christian horse shit is that? You join a church or something?"
"Come on."
Wu Sword kept sniping at him, and Rooster Sword briefly lost his composure.
"You keep this up, and I’m—"
"Ah, ah, sorry. I’ll shut up now, so keep going."
"Hoo..."
Regaining his calm once more, Rooster Sword continued.
"According to the information I’ve obtained, the Hwasan Sect is the starting point of Geomrang."
"What!?"
"What the hell does that mean—!"
"Wh... what?"
His words landed like a boulder the size of a house thrown into a lake, stirring up the gathered audience in a frenzy.
Geomrang was the epithet Geom Mujin had before becoming the Great Swordmaster.
It was a name given because he wandered from sect to sect like a hungry wolf, crossing swords with anyone and everyone.
His skill had long since surpassed the level of a wolf and reached that of a dragon, but dragons were reserved only for the Central Plains, the supreme and most noble race of the continent.
A miserable barbarian should be grateful to have even been granted the title of a wolf rather than a dog.
Though there was the inconvenient truth that those who’d been bitten by the wolf’s fangs had ended up walking two laps around the drill field.
Snip, snip—! Shh!
Thanks to the Central Plains natives’ built-in passive skills of [Memory Manipulation] and [Historical Distortion], that had been forgotten long ago.
"You there! Rooster Sword, is that true?"
"You’re certain of this?"
Each chamber began to buzz with agitation.
If the Hwasan Sect really was the starting point of Geomrang, then this wasn’t something they could just brush off.
If that was true, it meant the reason a barbarian had been able to seize the pinnacle position of the sword in the Central Plains martial world was because of the Hwasan Sect.
"That’s why I said earlier there’s no need to bow and scrape."
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