The True Son of Heaven
The atmosphere inside the training hall could be summed up in a single word: tension. Moyong Hye knelt in prayer toward the Buddha within her heart, though no statue stood before her. Paeng Ja-ryeong, his gentlemanly reputation forgotten, stood with arms crossed, fingers drumming restlessly. Paeng Ha-ryeong paced in tight circles, unable to calm herself—exactly as one would expect from an elder sister. The remaining Paeng clansmen held their positions out of duty, yet their anxious hearts betrayed themselves through strained expressions and small, involuntary movements.
"Hey, how long has it been?"
"Only two hours, brother."
Yang Jeong sighed as he watched Yang Kvae, who sat in a corner shaking his leg nonstop. Yet he could hardly criticize his brother when his own nerves were frayed just as badly.
"Should we just leave this to the Paengs and go spar somewhere?"
"Weren't you the one who said we had to wait for the captain?"
"Tch… I did, but still."
At this rate, he felt he might develop a nervous breakdown.
"I heard that transmitting upper dantian arts is far more dangerous than ordinary techniques…"
The upper dantian housed the spirit. Even if the lower dantian shattered, one could still live—perhaps with some discomfort, but it would not kill or cripple. A martial artist might become useless, yet that was all. That was why even the Buddhist and Daoist sects, which valued non-killing, casually destroyed lower dantians. Their experts could sever them cleanly, leaving no other side effects.
The middle dantian, however, was different. It governed the five viscera and six bowels, maintaining the body's equilibrium. Located between the heart and lungs, damaging it recklessly could affect nearby organs and leave lasting impairments—difficulty breathing, heart disease. Still, as long as surrounding organs remained untouched, destroying the middle dantian would not kill. Life would simply become more restricted. At least survival was possible. Even so, it was clearly more dangerous than the lower dantian, which was why the Buddhist and Daoist sects only allowed elders to perform such procedures.
"But the upper dantian… one mistake and you're an idiot. Fail, and you're dead on the spot."
"Why do you think the Paengs entrusted their precious youngest daughter so readily?"
"How would I know? The captain looks extraordinary at a glance. Word is she's fourteen—her lifespan must be nearly spent. Maybe they gambled."
"True. If her limit is the age of learning, the Paengs must have been desperate."
The twins whispered in the smallest voices possible, lest they be overheard. Such was the sorrow of those who had not yet reached the Peak Realm and could not use sound transmission. Fortunately, the Paengs seemed too preoccupied to eavesdrop.
"I wonder if the captain is going to such lengths because of that. What do you think, brother?"
"Well… it wouldn't hurt. He could forge ties with the Moyong clan, and…"
The ruined Namgung Family. As its final heir, he naturally bore certain responsibilities.
"Above all, the Paengs have the Blade Sovereign."
The Blade Sovereign. One of the fifteen absolute masters who currently ruled the murim—the Three Extremes and Twelve Sovereigns. The Paeng Family Head was one of only two absolute masters among the Seven Great Families. Though ranked below the Xuanyuan Family, whose head was one of the Three Extremes, the Hebei Paeng Family stood unmatched in pure martial strength within the Seven Great Families. Securing their support would be an immense boon to rebuilding the family.
"Honestly, I doubt the captain considered the political angle that deeply."
The moment Yang Kvae finished speaking, an enormous wave of energy erupted from the training hall.
"Could it be?!"
"Has something gone wrong?!"
"Young Master, we must enter—!"
"Even if he is our benefactor, entrusting the young lady to an outsider so easily…"
The Paeng warriors braced themselves to charge at the slightest command. Paeng Ha-ryeong moved to stop them, stepping in front just as a cold, commanding voice rang out.
"Do not act rashly!"
At Paeng Ja-ryeong's shout, the Paeng warriors froze in place.
"This much was expected. Given our benefactor's level, if he had fallen into qi deviation, the aftermath would be far greater than this."
With both the Family Head and the Council of Elders absent, Paeng Ja-ryeong was the strongest within the Paeng Family. He assessed the situation not merely as Paeng Ye-ryeong's brother, but as the young master and foremost expert of the Paeng Family.
"We wait."
§
Namgung Woo compared the phenomenon that had overtaken him with what he had been doing. What had he done? Through Gongryeong Singi, he had controlled the external energy flowing into Paeng Ye-ryeong's Baihui point and transmitted the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong, attempting to teach her how to regulate it herself.
'This approach was not wrong.'
Their constitutions differed, yet their essence was the same. Changnyeongmanan was hardware—exceptional hardware so powerful that maintaining it alone could consume all energy and damage everything else. Paeng Ye-ryeong's constitution was identical. Born with an open Heavenly Gate, her upper dantian remained perpetually open. Her perception and spirit touched upon lofty metaphysical realms, yet the physical body supporting them was frail and could not endure, leading to collapse. What she needed was software capable of properly controlling this runaway hardware. The Gongryeong Taeheo Singong was an operating system more than capable of fulfilling that role.
'The prognosis I saw through Changnyeongmanan showed that the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong could control it. So why…'
Why had he fallen into this inexplicable state?
"Foresight."
"Foresight?"
"That is the future."
The instant he heard those words, Namgung Woo understood their meaning. His own extraordinary deductive ability, combined with Paeng Ye-ryeong's fragmented speech, led him straight to the answer.
'So they overlapped.'
In exchange for bearing the heavenly curse of an open Heavenly Gate that led to idiocy, Paeng Ye-ryeong had received transcendent perception. Namgung Woo's Changnyeongmanan allowed him to grasp the world's mysteries and principles simply by seeing. When the two miracles were bound together through the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong, a synergistic effect occurred—seeing through Changnyeongmanan while thinking through the world of the Heavenly Gate.
"I have seen the future before, though faintly. But never so clearly and broadly as this."
He surveyed all of Beijing burning from above. Having combined what Changnyeongmanan had observed, the opened perception of the Heavenly Gate had foreseen Beijing's destruction. In other words—
"A future not far off."
"Yes. At most, less than ten days."
Using Paeng Ye-ryeong's perception, Namgung Woo's mind had partially reconstructed the progression of that catastrophe.
"A Ghost Gate has opened in Beijing."
The suspicious Ghost Gate he had seen in Muan County. Its danger transcending all grades, and the unknown power concealing it. Her perception, which bypassed intermediate steps to reach the answer directly, had found the causal link.
"Let's return. The energy transmission is no longer necessary, is it?"
"I want to stay a little longer. This is the first time I've been able to handle Cheonhyeon so easily."
Paeng Ye-ryeong found it fascinating. The energy of the outer universe, Cheonhyeon, had once seemed endlessly distant—impossible to comprehend even with transcendent perception. Yet the world seen through Changnyeongmanan was so simple, so clear. She felt an omnipotent sensation, as if she could ascend to immortality right now.
"That doesn't sound like a good idea. The boundary is collapsing."
From the outermost edge of the world they were observing, reality itself was gradually crumbling. Beyond it lay each of their unique worlds.
"They will merge."
Paeng Ye-ryeong was not the only one feeling regret. Namgung Woo felt it too. If they remained in this state a little longer, he might perfectly resolve even the imbalance of essence, energy, and spirit that plagued him. Yet staying too long would cause their spirits to intermingle. The synergistic effect that had allowed them to glimpse the future was beneficial, but they had become too deeply entangled.
"…There's no helping it."
"Have you fully stabilized the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong?"
"Yes. You can stop the energy transmission now."
Once was enough—both hearing and experiencing it. Namgung Woo had directly felt the extent of Paeng Ye-ryeong's talent.
"Let's go back."
The moment Namgung Woo spoke and withdrew the Gongryeong Singi from Paeng Ye-ryeong's mind, the two returned to the training hall in reality. The floating sensation of being in the sky vanished, replaced by a harsh sense of reality. Without a word, both closed their eyes and focused. Paeng Ye-ryeong needed to fully stabilize the Gongryeong Taeheo Singong and contain the energy of her upper dantian. Namgung Woo needed to organize the sudden inspiration that had struck him when he received the Heavenly Gate's insight from Paeng Ye-ryeong.
'The three divine arts I have cultivated—the Three Heavens Divine Qi—might be able to be unified into one.'
Cheonloe Jewang Singong. The supreme power of Heaven, an extreme yang art that commanded thunder.
Changgung Daeyeon Singong. The boundless vastness of the firmament, a boundless art that embraced all phenomena.
Gongryeong Taeheo Singong. The emptiness of the void, a pure yin art that realized fullness through emptiness.
Extreme yang, boundlessness, and pure yin. The three interlocked like the Taiji, maintaining balance. Each energy occupied its own dantian without encroaching on the others, refusing to mix. But if they could be fused?
'Could I ascend to an even higher realm?'
It was a clue to ascension. Still only a minor clue, a mere possibility. Yet Namgung Woo had already reached the Transformation Realm, standing infinitely close to perfection. Simply discovering a direction to advance when he could not tell what to remove or add was a tremendous step forward.
'First, I must resolve the issue of following essence and energy.'
Even that had progressed considerably thanks to the recent experience. It was a problem time would solve.
When Namgung Woo finished organizing his faint enlightenment and opened his eyes, Paeng Ye-ryeong's face filled his vision, pressed so close their noses nearly touched.
"What are you doing?"
"Hmm… observing?"
Paeng Ye-ryeong slowly pulled her head back. Had she been curious about the upper dantian or Changnyeongmanan? Given that Paeng Ye-ryeong had never been ordinary to begin with, Namgung Woo paid it little mind and rose to his feet.
"Let's go out. I hope not too much time has passed."
§
At the heart of Beijing stood the Forbidden City, the Emperor's residence. Completed in the eighteenth year of the Yongle era, the Forbidden City had served as the heart of the great empire for fifty-six years. Even now, it remained majestic and resplendent. No building around the Forbidden City was permitted to exceed its height, lest it challenge the Emperor's authority—yet a man now looked down upon it from above.
Lee Ja-ryong. Even in an age when imperial power stood at its zenith, he had risen to become Beijing's shadow ruler. With utmost irreverence, he had climbed Mount Wanse, the Forbidden City's guardian mountain, and gazed down upon the Emperor's residence.
"Magnificent."
Lee Ja-ryong spoke honestly. The Forbidden City's beauty as mere architecture was unparalleled, yet his eyes saw something beyond that. The Forbidden City was a world unto itself. Built upon feng shui principles, its 9,999 rooms encompassed all creation. Materials gathered from across the land bound the mortal realm into one. It was not merely the grand structures or overall design. Every ornament, every arrangement, every single roof tile and brick carried profound spellcraft significance. Even after layering thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of spells, they operated without conflict. Any spellcaster witnessing the Forbidden City's spellcraft would be unable to help but marvel at humanity's great achievement.
Lee Ja-ryong would never forget the moment he first beheld the Forbidden City.
"Yet precisely because of that, it is precarious."
This was no true Emperor's residence. It was merely a shell, crafted to make a false master appear genuine. The divine punishment—the thunderbolt that struck when Emperor Yongle first completed the Forbidden City—proved as much.
Lee Ja-ryong looked up at the sky and smiled at the brightly shining Big Dipper.
His voice melted into the darkness.
"Soon, the world shall know who the true Son of Heaven is."
The True Mandate Emperor. The true incarnation of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. He, Lee Ja-ryong.