The Cycle of Enmity
“It looks like rain… How about putting on a rain cloak?”
“Perhaps I should.”
Yeo Il-ye accepted the rain cloak Hyeok Gi-rin held out and draped it over her shoulders. She studied her senior disciple, who could not hide the anxiety written across her face—worry and tension clouding those large eyes.
“It’s all right. Don’t worry too much.”
“…Okay.”
Ho Cheon-an and Heukmyo had come out to the main gate of the government office to see them off. After a silent farewell, Yeo Il-ye set her steps toward the Hwanggeumga.
Sichuan Province bustled with noise from the early morning. More than a few people hurried about, sweat already beading on their brows. Contrary to the overcast sky, their faces shone bright.
“They wiped out every last one of those bandits, right?”
“When the martial artists of Sichuan put their minds to it, bandits are nothing!”
“Damn right! Damn right!”
A messenger had already arrived ahead of them with news of victory. The bandits who had choked the life out of Sichuan were gone, and the people rejoiced, throwing themselves into preparations for a triumphal parade.
Yeo Il-ye took in the scene as she walked toward the Hwanggeumga.
In stark contrast to the lively streets of Sichuan, the Hwanggeumga lay wrapped in perfect silence.
“Y-Yeo Il-ye…”
The gatekeeper of the Hwanggeumga swallowed hard.
“Do you intend to stop me?”
The man could not answer; he only stumbled backward. Official proclamations bearing the government seal had been scattered throughout the estate, and anyone who read them could guess the fate awaiting the Hwanggeumga. Not a shred of fighting spirit remained in the gatekeepers’ eyes.
Without another word, Yeo Il-ye passed them and pushed open the great gates of the Hwanggeumga.
Creeeeak…
In the hush, only the sound of the doors swinging open under her hands echoed. The moment they parted, she saw the warriors already arrayed inside—clearly they had been holding an emergency watch.
“I may not be government troops, but do you still mean to fight?”
The warriors stirred. The proclamations had also spoken of the Yeo Family Mountain Villa. Yeo Il-ye—the woman who had once lost her reason and stormed the Hwanggeumga, shouting those weighty words in a voice thick with rage. Anyone could easily guess she was connected to the villa.
“…I will ask only one thing.”
One of the warriors spoke.
“This proclamation… is what is written there true?”
Yeo Il-ye nodded in silence. The man bit his lip hard and stepped back without another word. Once one moved, the rest followed easily. Some retreated as if shamed; others, already certain the Hwanggeumga was finished, simply fled.
Of course, not every warrior abandoned resistance.
“You! You bastards! What are you doing?! Stop her! Stop her now!”
By sheer numbers, those who fled or lost their will were the minority. The rest, faces tight with tension and fear under their superiors’ bellows, charged at Yeo Il-ye.
BOOM!!
She felled them one by one. Weapons flying in from every direction she shattered without mercy; the warriors who rushed her she sent flying with sweeping arcs of her great sword, still sheathed.
In moments, dozens lay sprawled across the courtyard. None were dead, yet none remained whole. Screams and groans filled the yard of the Hwanggeumga, and the survivors backed away, fighting spirit gone.
Weapons that met the sheathed blade shattered to pieces; several men at a time were swept aside with each stroke. No matter how they swarmed, the truth was plain—they could not win. Will to fight had nowhere left to cling.
“Y-you lot, fall back—ugh!”
The guard captain who had been driving them into battle toppled in a single blow. In ordinary times he would have been shielded behind a wall of men, but the broken formation and plummeting morale had left gaps wide open. Yeo Il-ye did not miss the opening; she closed the distance in one stride and put him down.
“W-we can’t win!”
“Run! The Hwanggeumga is already finished!”
Having lost their center, the warriors of the Hwanggeumga could no longer bar her path. Yeo Il-ye watched them scatter in every direction, let out a soft sigh, and walked on.
Hwanggeum-seon could not escape. Strip away the family name and the wealth it produced, and he was nothing more than a powerless old man.
The family head’s hall…
The private throne reserved for the head of the house. Hwanggeum-seon would be sitting there. The seat he had seized through every kind of evil—he would want to savor it for even one second longer. He would be there.
And there he would try to settle everything.
Even with the proclamations in hand, the quality of the warriors who had barred her way had been far too low. Whatever crimes they had committed, the Hwanggeumga was still the wealthiest house in all of Sichuan. He would have kept his elites close around him.
There is a limit to the power Hwanggeum-seon can gather, but carelessness is still forbidden.
Revenge was racing toward its end.
Capturing Hwanggeum-seon would not finish the vengeance—yet at the same time, it would. Evidence of the bloodbath at the Yeo Family Mountain Villa would be gathered, testimonies secured. Those who had lived in the light would lose everything and fall; those who lurked in the shadows would become public enemies of the entire Murim.
Even after Hwanggeum-seon was taken, other enemies would remain to be hunted… but the figures of the light would collapse without Yeo Il-ye needing to chase them, and the figures of the dark would find themselves just as swiftly isolated.
Those who had believed the matter settled fifteen years ago would suddenly lose everything they had built and be cast out naked—and then they would be quietly harvested.
Seizing Hwanggeum-seon was the final turning point on the road to settling the grudge of the Yeo Family Mountain Villa.
Let us settle it.
Yeo Il-ye set her foot on the last stair leading up to the family head’s hall.
And there, before the hall, two people were waiting.
“….”
One was a nangin wearing a black hat. The other was a boy who drew his sword the instant he saw her.
A shock like a heavy blow to the skull rang through Yeo Il-ye’s mind. The moment her eyes fell on the pair, a single word rose unbidden.
Enmity.
“…It was five years ago. Summer. You met a nangin on the main road.”
The boy’s voice trembled with rage, and Yeo Il-ye’s feet stopped.
“Do you remember cutting that nangin’s arm? The arm was not severed, but the sword qi left a deep wound, and he could never hold a weapon again.”
Yeo Il-ye did not answer. Her thoughts were too tangled for words.
“That man was my father. He died last month. From that day on he lived drowned in drink. Martial arts had been the goal he poured his entire life into; once he could no longer pursue it, he lost the will to live.”
The boy fixed her with burning eyes. In those eyes Yeo Il-ye saw herself—the Yeo Il-ye who had existed before she met Ho Cheon-an. The girl blinded by hatred and grudge, ready to burn everything to ash.
“Five years for a strong martial artist to become a wreck who could barely breathe. I did everything I could. I inherited his martial arts. I spent every day trying somehow to drag him out of that pit of despair.”
Yeo Il-ye still said nothing. She only listened.
“Only after Father died did I understand. Five years ago… the day he lost the use of his right arm, he was already dead, and only a shell remained. He was a martial artist; he could not live as anything else. I never knew that. I was only thrashing about.”
The boy declared:
“You are my father’s enemy!”
At the word enemy, Yeo Il-ye’s body gave a small shudder.
“I, Gu Hyeon-su, will repay my father’s grudge!”
Gu Hyeon-su drew his sword.
Yeo Il-ye looked away from his eyes and studied the blade and the body that held it. He had said he learned his father’s arts. The forms were unfamiliar, yet the stance was solid.
The sword hilt had long since frayed and was thick with grime. Through the worn clothes, the boy’s forearms were hard with muscle—not the kind a child of twelve or fifteen easily earned.
Tracing the marks of effort carved into the boy’s body, Yeo Il-ye quietly opened her mouth.
“I am sorry.”
“…What?”
Confusion flickered in Gu Hyeon-su’s eyes for only a moment before it turned to shock.
Click.
Yeo Il-ye laid her sword down and sank to her knees.
Gu Hyeon-su’s eyes shook violently. A Super-Peak expert was kneeling before a boy who was, at best, Third-rate.
“It was fifteen years ago.”
Yeo Il-ye recalled that day—the scene that had burned her heart for fifteen years, the day a brand had been seared into her soul.
“I still remember it vividly. A servant who worked in the kitchen had secretly given me a piece of candy. I bit into it and snuck into the storehouse to look at the Seven-Treasure Jade Belt… got a thorough scolding, and was locked in my room.”
“What are you talking about…”
“Then the screams began. Familiar voices screaming, the clash of metal. Startled, I hid inside the wardrobe. Soon Mother appeared. She hid me in a secret space in the cellar and told me: until she came to get me, I must never—never—come out. I could only nod.”
The tip of Gu Hyeon-su’s sword lowered a fraction.
“I closed my eyes, covered my ears, and trembled with fear until I felt a fierce heat. I was sweating rivers, yet I was too terrified to move. How long I stayed there I do not know… When I could bear it no longer and left the secret space… what greeted me was a heap of ashes.”
“I was rescued by a merchant who regularly supplied goods to the villa. And I heard who the culprits were. Nangin. Because the times had grown unsettled, the villa had hired nangin—and every last one of them had vanished without a trace.”
“What does that have to do with my father?!”
Gu Hyeon-su shouted.
“Was my father one of the ones who burned that villa?! Say it! He wasn’t! He wasn’t, was he?!”
“Yes. You’re right. He was not.”
Yeo Il-ye admitted it calmly. Gu Hyeon-su ground his teeth and laid the edge of his sword against her throat.
“Did you think I’d feel pity?! That if I heard your tragic story I’d forgive you?!”
“I hated nangin without reason. There was nothing to hold me back. Most who called themselves nangin were men with little to be proud of, and even true nangin would do anything for money.”
Yeo Il-ye looked up at him.
“So I burned with hatred without a second thought. No—I will be honest. Even if those nangin had been heroes praised as chivalrous swordsmen, I would still have hated them and swung my blade. I was only looking for someone to vent my rage on.”
A boy whose whole body was wrapped in the flames of hatred. Yeo Il-ye sincerely hoped he would not be seized by it as she had been.
“And this is the result. Gu Hyeon-su. You have come to me and set your sword against my throat.”
“….”
“Fifteen years. The enemies of my parents and everyone at the villa. Hwanggeum-seon, who took the people of Sichuan hostage to escape the price of his crimes and tried to stop me—he stands right before my eyes, and yet I could not step past you.”
“So what?! Are you telling me to spare you?!”
Yeo Il-ye shook her head.
“I only hope you do not become like me. That you do not let hatred seize you and swing your sword without thought. That the single stroke you deliver now does not become regret later.”
Gu Hyeon-su’s hand, thick with emotion, trembled hard. A drop of blood welled on Yeo Il-ye’s neck. Even so, she gazed at him in perfect stillness.
“Look at me not with eyes stained by hatred, but with your own eyes. Grip the sword not by impulse, but by will. Do not deceive yourself—see the truth. Your father lost his life as a martial artist because of me. Because of that, you regard me as your enemy and level your blade.”
“You stood in the way of Yeo Il-ye, who came to the Hwanggeumga for revenge. Do not forget that the man who summoned you here—Hwanggeum-seon—has committed countless evils. If you kill me, you too will carry that karma. Remember it well.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Just shut up!”
Gu Hyeon-su raised the sword and screamed.
“No matter what you say! My dead father will not come back! So what use is any of that?!”
“Even so, you must live, and you must choose. Whatever choice you make, I will accept it. I only… hope you decide without regret.”
Gu Hyeon-su’s breath came rough and ragged. Looking as though he might swing at any instant, he made Yeo Il-ye lower her gaze.
“If I had not been seized by hatred… perhaps I would not have forced this painful choice upon you.”
“You killed my father! Don’t you dare speak so freely!”
Gu Hyeon-su’s arms shook violently.
“I am sorry.”
“Aaaaah!”
Gu Hyeon-su’s sword swung.