The Era of Peace (2)
It had been about 25 years since the Heavenly Demon's defeat ushered in peace across the Central Plains.
Around the year I was born, the Heavenly Demon fell, and once people realized the Demonic Cult could no longer plague the land, cheers of "Long live!" echoed everywhere. Though such cries were typically reserved for the emperor, even he reportedly shouted "Long live the Sword Saint!" in celebration of his victory, so no one minded.
With safety more or less assured, the young men and women of the martial world began openly indulging in love. They no longer feared for their children's lives, so even the many peak experts who had delayed starting families began having kids one after another.
Love blooms and children are born even in wartime. Babies had come into the world before the Heavenly Demon's fall too, but it was only afterward that martial women across the land truly started bearing children in droves.
The Heavenly Demon didn't start abducting orphans right away after his defeat. He spent time restoring the Cheonma Singong, quelling internal rebellions against him, and eventually decided that revenge against the righteous sects would require targeting the next generation, as his own couldn't measure up.
In other words, quite some time passed between his defeat and my abduction into the Demonic Cult as an orphan. The martial world enjoyed a long stretch of peace.
That's why most martial artists—or at least those not from the later generations dubbed "postwar experts," or those living outside Shaanxi Province where the fierce battles against the Demonic Cult raged—know little of the Moyong family's true nature.
The hero who felled the Heavenly Demon. Some imagine the Sword Saint as a jovial, benevolent figure, but in truth, he's sharper than anyone. They say he shows no mercy in combat. When someone picks a fight, he debates whether to sever their head or just their wrist—he doesn't laugh it off or forgive with compassion.
Whether his heart softened somewhat after I cured his daughter's terminal illness, I can't say for sure, but he's no "righteous hero" in the mold that so many in the Central Plains envision. That much I can assert.
Then what of his daughter, Moyong Seol?
To me, She’s simply a beautiful woman overflowing with warmth and generosity, willing to do anything for the man she loves—a lovely soul whose desires run honest and true in that regard.
But that's my perspective. The blood of the Sword Saint still flows in her veins. In martial prowess. In skill.
First strike, think later.
That mindset of his father's runs in Moyong Seol too.
Splurt!
Something red gushed toward the ceiling. At the same moment, Moyong Seol flung the blanket forward like a wide sweep, and I pressed flat against the bed following her hand's lead.
"Eh?"
Yugoein hadn't grasped the situation. Or rather, he'd realized it too late. True to form for someone who'd tried his petty schemes on the Moyong family without expecting resistance—and failed to notice we'd played along—he couldn't even comprehend the scene unfolding before him.
"G-Gi-yeon?"
As a father with a daughter of his own, he must have instantly understood what happened to her, yet failed to process it.
Yeah. That's the normal reaction. Just like those who'd never dreamed the Moyong family would swing the blade... until it was too late.
No way they'd actually do it.
But they did.
Moyong Seol's sword cleaved Yugiyeon's throat. Not just slicing the windpipe to spray blood—it followed the blade's path, neatly separating head from neck.
"What the—"
Yugiyeon's body toppled backward as the ceiling-high blood fountain rained down on Yugoein.
"...!!"
Only then did Yugoein snap to, reaching for the sword at his waist—but Moyong Seol was faster, kicking off the bed and lunging.
Clang!
Her thrust struck Yugoein's sword hilt dead-on. Less a killing stab than a precise strike to shove it back into the sheath before he could draw, pinning the blade in place.
"!!"
Yugoein leaped back, creating distance to face a true expert. But Moyong Seol was already bounding from the bed's edge, swinging wide at him.
Whoosh!
A gleam of sword qi—sky-blue like the traces of her Jeolmok Jeong—flashed in a diagonal arc from her hair.
"Guh?!"
It was shallow. A bit deeper and it would've torn flesh, spraying blood forward, but Yugoein barely dodged, his uniform slicing open.
"You—"
Whether from his daughter's death or the realization he couldn't draw in time, Yugoein gripped his sheathed sword to counter.
"......?!"
But then our eyes met. He looked at me in shock, then bowed his head.
In that fleeting instant. The moment he squeezed his eyes shut.
Low to the floor, sword and body hugging the ground, Moyong Seol vanished from his sight.
By the time Yugoein twisted his foot into a footwork stance, her blade was already arcing upward.
Slash!
The Sword Saint Moyong Cheon's peerless blade art, one form of the Chilseong Geom, erupted from earth to sky.
"Guh, heuk."
Yugoein's eyes rolled back. Even a transcendent expert can't stay sane when a blade slices precisely from below straight up through the throat.
Thud!
Moyong Seol leaped back, landing beside me as I still lay there. She deftly slid the sword hilt along her wrist.
Whoosh!
She spun it with wrist alone, swift as wind. Before me materialized what looked like a glowing blue circular shield, drawing an involuntary gasp.
And then.
Spluuurt!!
Yugoein, bisected, sprayed blood from his uniform as he crumpled to his knees.
Thump.
The moment he fell, Moyong Seol gripped the hilt properly. Not a drop of blood had splashed the bed she guarded, but our room was instantly a blood-soaked hellscape from ceiling to floor, courtesy of the two corpses.
"Whew."
Despite felling—or honestly, slaughtering—a sect leader and his daughter in seconds, Moyong Seol hadn't broken a sweat or stained a drop.
Daughter of the world's greatest, bearer of the Heavenly Martial Physique—it's no empty title.
I knew she'd learned her father's arts piecemeal before the Jeolmok Jeong struck, but just days after recovery, she's already manifesting sword qi at the early Peak realm? Incredible.
Heavenly Martial Physique.
A body whose martial talent surpasses even the Sword Saint Moyong Cheon, at least in raw gift. A super-genius who could decapitate a Self-Sword Sect leader before three exchanges, just by envisioning the sword path in her mind.
"...Ah!"
Such a swordswoman.
"Ph-Physician?!"
Her cold, regal expression crumbled in an instant as she looked at me, flustered.
"Y-Your, uh, h-hand...!"
"It's fine."
I rose quietly and embraced her from behind.
"You were beautiful."
"Uh, th-that's..."
"I'm serious."
Chatting like this might rub salt in the wound, but.
"Truly, you're most beautiful when wielding your sword."
I know better than anyone how twisted my sense of beauty is.
But anyone not tied to the Self-Sword Sect—any distant onlooker—would say nine out of ten agree.
Amid the gushing blood fountains, a single pale blue lily bloomed proud and untouched—like a solitary flower on a cliff, unstained despite the spray. Even if the cliff base were piled with corpses, bleached bones filling the valley just to pluck that one bloom, none could deny its undeniable beauty.
"I... I'd rather be lovable than beautiful..."
Moyong Seol pouted, lowering her sword.
"S-Sorry, Physician. I didn't mean to kill them..."
"Is that my fault? No, it's theirs."
They'd committed a capital crime.
"Sneaking into our bedroom, defiling the site of our first time—they deserved death."
"That's why I tried not to kill them..."
Moyong Seol glanced between the two, fiddling with her sword.
"It just felt like they'd do something weird if I didn't..."
"You did well. That's the right call."
"Huh?"
"If you don't kill demonic scum outright, they always find a way to bite back."
Bubble bubble.
Somewhere, the blood of father and daughter seemed to boil. No illusion on my part.
[A short while later, on the roof of the Medical Hall.]
"I see. So you killed them."
Moyong family warriors who'd been watching the situation entered the room to clean up, and Moyong Seol and I met Sword Saint Moyong Cheon on the Medical Hall roof.
"Well done, Seol."
"S-Sorry."
"No."
To my surprise, the Sword Saint spoke to Moyong Seol in a cold tone utterly unlike him.
"No need to apologize."
"......."
"The only time you'd owe me an apology is if you broke your promise."
"Huh?"
"You vowed to protect the one you love with your sword. If you'd let Physician Seok get hurt, that'd be worth regret—but since you didn't, you've committed no sin."
"B-But..."
"Simply put."
His voice turned utterly ruthless.
"Two villains tried their schemes and died. That's all."
"......."
"The original plan was to subdue without killing, but this works better. It's how the true Moyong family operates."
True.
The word carried weight. The middle-aged Moyong warriors here—same generation as the Sword Saint—wiped blood and handled the corpses with practiced ease.
"Physician Seok. Sorry, but let me amend one thing I said."
"Pardon?"
"I called knowledge a curse, but now you need to know."
The Sword Saint nodded toward the two bodies being cleared by the retainers.
"What do you think? ...Can you save them?"
"......."
Hm.
"What the hell—let's give it a shot."
If it fails, oh well.