The Dong Empire's Finest Blade and His Last Disciple (5)
Author's note: In the later portion of the novel, the story shifts to the perspective of Gamygyn as she sets her sights on the Cumul Territory. A divider marks the transition, so read on with ease!
The two disciples watched Ryu Shin raise his sword, and their eyes were wide with sheer disbelief.
They had never imagined he would draw a blade against them.
"Why do you look at me that way? What is there to be surprised about?"
"...We ask because we do not understand, Master! Why do you take the side of that woman alone? Have you, too, been blinded by mere power—"
Now he has crossed the line.
No matter the grievance, there are things a man says and things he does not.
Ryu Shin had never once cared for honor or power. He had marched to war only to fund his disciples' upbringing — nothing more. And after they had grown into their strength, whenever he did take the field, he either refused payment outright or accepted exactly twice what he was owed.
And now his own disciples, who should have been burning to add luster to their master's name, were splattering ink all over it instead. Ryu Shin could only imagine what that felt like from where he stood.
"What did you just say?"
Naturally, the words drove Ryu Shin into a fury, and killing intent erupted from him in every direction.
The title of a nation's finest sword is not something easily won — much less won gladly. The killing intent that poured off the man who bore it made the two freshly minted Sword Masters seem like nothing more than newborn pups before him.
"D-did I... say something wrong? Why... why is it that you care only for Yeon, your last disciple?"
"'Care only for Yeon'... is that so."
The ones who believed they had finally found an opening had long made a habit of flinging crude insults at their master.
"Why! Aren't we your disciples too! Are we not even worth that much? Why is it always her you dote on!"
"She's the only one among us with lowborn blood, no less!"
"True. Among you, Yeon is the only one of common birth. And so? What of it?"
"From the moment you came under me, you were children who chose to walk the sword's path, and you received my teachings as equals. What does class have to do with anything?"
"Obviously...! Shouldn't you favor us over some lowborn girl! Even when we were children...! You only ever had eyes for Yeon..."
"Jin. After calling Yeon lowborn, you have no standing to say another word."
"You were all children abandoned by your families, or robbed of them for one reason or another — children I sought out myself, questioned with my own mouth, and brought home."
"....."
"Listen well. You were merely lucky — born before Yeon, and so you caught my eye sooner and became my disciples."
"And... Narae. I should have cared for you more? Just how much more, exactly, would have sufficed?"
"When Yeon — who had never once held a wooden sword — swung it clumsily, was I meant to turn my gaze to you even then?"
"When she was a hopeless mess, capable of nothing, you were already practically peerless Sword Experts — and even then?"
Anyone would naturally pour their attention into the one who needed the fundamentals drilled and new strength honed. That was Yeon. Yet all they did was whine.
"And I still have not forgotten that incident."
".....!!!"
"The incident where the lot of you — a crowd against one girl — ganged up and swung wooden swords at Yeon without mercy."
When he spoke of what happened roughly seven years ago, Jin began stammering out a stream of excuses in wide-eyed panic — but Narae, by contrast, simply listened in silence to her master's words.
"Th-that... didn't the First Disciple punish us for it himself!"
"He did. Jun was furious and turned his sword on you with his own hands, driving the fear into you."
"Because of that, I let it pass without punishing you. Now I regret it. If Jun judged it worthy of his blade, then I too should have delivered a proper sentence."
"....."
"But I did not. And now you dare bare your swords at the hero of the Holy Empire inside the imperial palace itself... I cannot lift my head for shame."
"From this moment, you will answer properly to every word your master speaks."
It was not killing intent that pressed down on them now, but sheer, crushing weight.
A veteran who had loosed countless blades at demons across decades of war was driving that pressure directly into his own disciples — children to him in all but blood.
"Tell me the exact reason you discriminated against Yeon, tormented her, and shut her out. You had best not think of lying."
"Your master's patience is already spent."
By then, both disciples were shaking uncontrollably, knees slammed against the ground, unable even to raise their heads. And then, slowly, they spoke.
"I... hated her... A realm that took me a full year to reach... she would scale it... in three months. Half a year, at the absolute most..."
"Do you have any idea how pathetic I looked beside her...!"
Ryu Shin bored his gaze into Jin, who had at least answered him directly.
Even after hearing the answer in full, he stayed silent for several seconds before speaking.
"Inferiority... is it."
"....."
"Yes. I suppose such a thing could fester. It isn't that Yeon lacks talent for the sword — among my disciples, her talent is beyond question the greatest."
"But there is one thing you fail to understand. Your grasp of swordsmanship — your comprehension and your ability to apply it — was far superior to Yeon's."
"I told you plainly, did I not? That your technique was excellent, and that applied well, you could forge new sword arts and easily walk a different road from mine."
"And yet you kept your eyes fixed solely on Yeon and never spared a thought for your own blade. That is why the gulf between you and her yawns so wide today."
"And the sword is not about talent alone. More precious than talent is the effort you spend unfolding it."
"What good is talent, handed to someone who has never once held a sword?"
"From the day I brought her home, Yeon was a child brimming with ambition, her eyes steeped in deadly resolve."
"And it was you who ground that resolve out of her. Swinging your swords at her as a pack, all to make sure she could never hold a blade again..."
"Thanks to you, she sealed her heart shut, her realm sank a full stage — and she might never have climbed out again."
"How long... how long was I expected to overlook the likes of you?"
Of course, the two disciples had nothing to say.
Even they knew the truth of it — their inferiority had detonated, they had lost all control of their emotions, and they had acted without a single thought for what came after.
"Therefore — Fourth Disciple, Jin In. Fifth Disciple, Shin Narae. You are both hereby expelled from the Sea Link Style."
"...Master...?"
"Master..!"
For him, it was a monumental decision. It amounted to declaring he would never again look upon the faces of children he had raised as his own.
Perhaps he had wrestled with the question for a very long time.
"...My first instinct is to tear out your mana circuits this instant and cast you out unable to ever wield mana again. But in consideration of your years of service — and of the bond we once shared — I will not go that far."
The expelled disciples should have dropped to their knees right then and there and begged. That, however, was entirely my mistake.
"Master... no... now that we've been cast out... you're not our master anymore, are you?"
"....."
Blindsided by insubordination he never could have predicted, Ryu Shin could only stare at his disciples, unable to summon a single word.
"Did you actually ever love us? You were always orbiting around her. What would you know. When she flailed about with her sword, we were already High Experts, and you never spared us a glance..."
"Old man. Do you honestly think any of that makes sense?"
"If we were High Experts, then teach us like High Experts deserve! But you — is this the best you can do?"
It was Ryu Shin who wavered beneath Jin In's deranged tirade.
Ryu Shin's sword trembled — barely, but undeniably.
Could he ever have dreamed he would be betrayed like this by a man he had raised as his own son?
"Yes... this too... must be my sin. The sin of blindly granting your parents' final request."
"What?"
"You were the son of a subordinate I held dear. Do you know what that man's dying words to me were?"
Ryu Shin lowered his sword as if recalling that day, shading his face faintly with his left hand as he spoke.
"...'Please take care of my son.' That's what it was. The battle ended, and we won in the end — but what remained to me was my beloved, cherished subordinate, grown cold and still."
"That man had begged me, over and over, to take his son as my disciple... and so I granted his wish."
......When Ryu Shin lowered his hand, the tears on his face could not have been hidden if he tried.
"Why... why in heaven's name did you grow into such a selfish creature... How many nails must you drive into this old master's chest before you are finally satisfied?!"
Being betrayed by the child he had raised would have been enough — but to be denied to his face, to suffer insubordination on top of it...
From where Ryu Shin stood, it was enough to shatter a man entirely.
And then Ryu Shin raised his sword once more and leveled it at him.
"Criminal, Jin In. For daring to threaten the Successor of the Holy Empire with a blade, and for the crime of nearly slaying your own master, I shall sever your mana circuit here and now!"
"Hahaha...! Go ahead then... as if I'd be frightened. You know what? You can't cut me down. But the reverse? That I can do."
With those words, Jin In came swinging his sword at his own master like a man truly gone mad.
Who could still call that thing human?
"Hey."
But I had no standing to wedge myself into their affair. At best, I was Yeon's lover — hardly anyone with the right to intervene in their falling-out.
But the woman beside me? She had every right there was.
"Who made my father cry?"
At that single word — father — Ryu Shin's eyes flew wide open in an instant.
Jin In, on the other hand, was caught off guard by the blistering speed at which she closed on him. He scrambled to shift his stance and block Yeon's blade, failed to absorb the strike properly—
—and was sent rolling across the floor by the force of the blow.
"Guhk—!"
"How long are you going to keep up this pathetic act? Is living like that actually fun? Preying on and grinding down anyone weaker than you?"
"...You lowborn bitch..."
"Watch your mouth, punk — you only became Fourth Disciple because you got lucky. Hey. Act like a Fourth Disciple if you're going to be one. Then maybe I'll treat you like one too."
"...You wench...! I am your senior disciple! It is you who should show me the respect of a junior first! Stand down!"
"Fine — if I treat you as my senior, will you treat me as your junior? You won't, will you. So tell me why I owe a senior any courtesy at all."
"You stupid bastard..."
— Clang! Kaka-kakang!!
Yeon closed the distance at blistering speed and rained down slashes without pattern or pause.
Jin In was a proper Sword Master in his own right, and he managed to turn her attacks aside — but it did not last. Under her overwhelming tempo and her merciless exploitation of every opening, he lost his grip even on his Sword Flame-wreathed blade, and fell, helpless.
And then — unlike with Ryu Shin — she swung without a flicker of hesitation, Sword Flame blazing, aimed at his entire body.
"KUAAAAAAAK!!"
He shrieked like a damned soul, writhing in agony.
Little by little, the Sword Flame that had burned so fiercely around him only moments before guttered and died — proof that Yeon had truly, finally torn his mana circuit apart.
The Fifth Disciple, Narae, however, proved a shade wiser than her senior.
Having heard her master's heart laid bare, she bowed her head to Yeon, offered her apology in full, swore she would never appear before them again — and left it at that.
She was trudging away, about to vanish from before Yeon's eyes, when—
"Wait."
At the call, the Fifth Disciple, Shin Narae, turned and looked back at her, strength gone from her frame.
It was the voice of someone severed from the one she had regarded as a parent, now with no direction left to walk.
She had followed the path of the sword by gazing up at a master who had always towered endlessly above her. Now she would never see him again — and Yeon, even less so. Her road had simply... ended.
And Yeon saw it.
"Honestly, I can't forgive you either. But my father matters more to me than you do. So grovel, do whatever it takes, and beg for his forgiveness."
"Whatever you did in the past — I've already been healed of it by my man, and I let it wash past me."
"....."
"But things will never go back to the way they were. No matter how hard you try, no matter how much of yourself you give — your past doesn't disappear."
"So I'll help you. Go stand at my father's side, and spend the rest of your life begging his forgiveness. That's the reason I'm not pressing you for your sins."
Yeon's response came as something of a shock.
These people had been the source of a fear buried deep inside her all this time — the very people she had hidden from behind my back when they arrived.
And now, of her own will, she had chosen to sever the chain of vengeance with her own hands. The way she stood there, suddenly so grown... that couldn't have been my imagination.
"But... I can no longer stand before you or Master. If that is truly your wish, then I accept it. Even if it means serving at your side for the rest of my days."
"...I've never seen Master... cry like that. And I never want to again. In all my life, I'd never once seen him shed a tear... to think it was because of me..."
She could not hold Yeon's gaze. Head bowed like a convict, she wore a bitter, rueful expression.
There was nothing to be done. Every gesture of penance now was simply the price of what the girl she used to be had incurred.
"So you've finally come to your senses."
"I have. Only now... I've finally come to my senses. It would have been better had I managed it on my own, without someone else having to shake me awake."
And with that, the fear of the past that had bound Yeon for so long vanished completely.
Meanwhile, the Successors of the Four Divine Beasts were steadily regaining their vigor, recovering to the point where they could throw themselves back into the front lines at full tilt.
A Successor's body is a vessel meant to hold a god, and so, unlike ordinary humans, even grievous wounds could be shrugged off to a degree thanks to their abnormal natural regeneration.
Of course, that was only "abnormal" measured against ordinary humans. Measured against demons, their regeneration fell far short.
A demon, you see, could have an arm or a leg hacked off, wash the stump clean of any foreign matter, press the severed piece back on with a click — and the limb would restore itself exactly as it was, as if nothing had ever happened.
At present, the fully recovered Successors numbered three: me, Sitchurin, and Rae.
Khan had suffered a crushing wound — shattered ribs driven into his lung — but fortunately he was drawing on his authority to boost his healing, so his life was never truly in danger.
That said, the injury he'd taken would have been near-instant death for an ordinary human — and we were hardly so different in that regard.
It took a long time. Only on the final day of the final week was he finally back on his feet, walking under his own power.
And so Ryu Shin's party — the swordsmen of the Dong Empire who had swept away the demons in the Successors' stead — returned to their homeland.
All of them. Including Jin In, whose body was a broken ruin, his mana circuit torn to shreds.
At first, I wondered whether they would have to answer for handing back the Dong Empire's delegation as a bloody pulp.
But Ryu Shin declared he would shoulder all of it himself, and told us not to worry.
Before they departed, he and the Fifth Disciple, Narae, apologized to Yeon once more and begged her forgiveness — and when she, their former junior, forgave her master and Narae both, the whole affair drew to a peaceful close.
Yeon wept when the parting finally came. But for Ryu Shin, who had to walk another long road after looking upon her, she wore a bright, rejoicing smile — smiling as she sent him off, for the sake of the day they would meet again.
With the conviction held to her chest that, so long as they both lived, they would surely meet again — the man and woman whose blood did not run shared, parted thus, if only for a little while.
Ages had passed since the demon host set out from the Demon Realm on the immense march toward the Cumul Territory in the east, yet the armies showed no sign of weariness — trudging across the barren desert, walking, and walking again, forcing their way through it.
To be sure, some collapsed from exhaustion, too spent to take another step. But the rest regarded them as if they were not their own kin at all — paying them no more mind than stones on the road.
Had humans witnessed it — demons granting their own kind not even the barest consideration or concession — they would no doubt have pointed fingers and muttered, demons, through and through.
What humans did not yet know was that vast armies were converging upon them from four separate directions.
And that those armies had returned upgraded to a degree that made the First Tide of Corruption look like nothing at all.
East, West, South, and North were about to be plunged into unimaginable anguish.
It was night now — and even demons, after all, are not a race that adapts perfectly to darkness. Rather than push on at a strain, the command decided to rest briefly before moving again.
And so, in the middle of the desert, tents began rising one by one for the demons to bed down in.
Within the largest of them, a woman of devastating, seductive beauty listened to a field report.
Hearing her direct subordinate's report and learning the distance remaining was Gamygyn — Ranked Fourth among demons.
Gamygyn strode about in towering stilettos, yet for some reason she never once stumbled on the uneven ground, walking across it as if it were smooth palace marble.
She then entered a plain, unremarkable tent, and continued with meticulous deference, addressing the gray-haired woman quietly tending to her weapon.
Hhh... hhh...
Despite Gamygyn's report, the gray-haired woman wore a face devoid of all expression, silently wiping down nothing but her black scythe.
And then—
"Good work, Gamygyn. Anything else?"
"I see. You may go."
The Successor of the Four Perils had granted her leave — and so Gamygyn kept her head bowed in perfect form all the way out of the tent. Her heart, however, was its exact opposite.
'What in the world does Lord Hundun even see in that woman... I am more than confident I could serve him far better...'
The day Gamygyn first chanced to behold Hundun's true form, she fell for him at a single glance. Despite being nothing more than a lowly succubus, she devoured and stole vital essence without pause, accumulating it endlessly until—
—at last she rose to the seat of Succubi Queen, a rare and special Great Demon.
She commanded those beneath her, siphoning their essence to fuel her own strength, twisting the life force of her victims into instruments of her power.
Repeating that cycle over and over, she had, before she knew it, seized both the rank of Fourth among demons and the title of one of the Seven Deadly Sins — and yet none of it satisfied her.
There was only one thing she desired.
To become Hundun's Successor — to feel his power from the closest possible distance, and hold the right to stand nearer to him than any other.
The problem was that a girl brainwashed since childhood had appeared, and her idol had made that girl his apostle with unbearable, effortless ease.
The fact that the girl felt no emotion whatsoever was simply the trace of Lord Hundun's brainwashing... but no matter. It changed nothing.
Humans were frail, filthy creatures by birth in the first place.
But Gamygyn had resolved to secure a firm profit from the opportunity this war presented — and she was already moving to put into practice a plan that, were the demon host to learn of it, they would condemn without hesitation.
'Set the Azure Dragon's Successor against that woman, kill her in the chaos, and claim Lord Hundun's favor in her place. Anything is better than that dull, flat excuse of a woman. Yes. That's it.'
It was a scheme of unfathomable wickedness — to slay the Successor of her own creators, near-gods to her kind, and steal that successor's mantle for herself.
Yet no one knew of it yet.
Nor did anyone — not a single soul in this world — know what influence her every scheme would come to bear on the war and battles soon to unfold.
Not even the Four Divine Beasts. Not even the Four Perils themselves.