Breaking the Oath
“……!”
The instant the Venerable's frost-cold rebuke pierced his eardrums, Elder Muk Wi-gyu's whole body began to tremble like a leaf in the wind.
Face drained of all color, he scrambled down onto his knees and slammed his forehead against the ground.
“F-forgive me, Saeng Sa Jon! I dared to slight you, not knowing one so venerable was present…!”
In a heartbeat, the situation had reversed itself.
The arrogant elder of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family was now groveling in the dirt.
Yet Saeng Sa Jon, the crisis past, spared neither the prostrate Muk Wi-gyu nor anyone else in the arena so much as a glance.
He came forward with his gaze fixed solely and unblinkingly on Yun Cheon.
At last, his parched lips parted.
“…So it was you. The one who summoned this Venerable. Had it not been for Young-ah, I would never have stirred.”
The dry voice of Saeng Sa Jon — the Venerable of Life and Death — rang out across the training ground.
Only confusion swirled in the minds of the onlookers.
'Young-ah…?'
'A mere cadet moved Saeng Sa Jon himself?'
Overwhelmed by the Venerable's crushing presence, no one in the crowd dared voice the thoughts circling their heads.
A heavy silence settled over the arena.
Then, peering down at Yun Cheon, Saeng Sa Jon spoke in a low voice.
“…Ho. Just as Young-ah said — a most peculiar constitution. No danjeon to speak of, and a congenital case of Severed Meridian Syndrome besides.”
The Venerable's diagnosis landed like a sentence of judgment.
'S-Severed Meridian Syndrome? Then his body was never capable of building internal energy in the first place!'
'And a boy like that displayed orthodox sect internal energy? Impossible!'
'So the child was innocent all along? Those Serpent Scorpion Muk bastards and the Inspection Bureau!'
In that moment, sensing the mood turning against them, Muk Wi-gyu's eyes rolled dark and sinister.
'Damn it all! Saeng Sa Jon himself has stepped forward — the board has completely slipped out of my hands!'
Muk Wi-gyu's hand slid stealthily up into his sleeve.
A final trump card, prepared without even the Inspection Bureau's knowledge.
'If this goes on… it's over for me.'
But before his fingers could close around anything—
“Foolishness!”
Saeng Sa Jon roared without so much as turning his head.
Simultaneously, his sleeve fluttered once — and something invisible shot forth like a bolt of lightning!
Ssswaek—!
“Kghk!”
A thick, muffled impact was followed by Muk Wi-gyu's shriek.
What had flown was Saeng Sa Jon's signature poisoned hidden weapon: the Life-Death Needle.
With a razor-sharp whistle of parted air, it buried itself in Muk Wi-gyu's shoulder — the very arm sneaking its way into his sleeve.
“Kkeuk!”
The arm had gone rigid as a block of wood. It would not move.
Only then did Saeng Sa Jon's gaze swing coldly around to fasten on Muk Wi-gyu.
“Elder of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family! What filthy little trick is this? Do you want to die?”
Every eye in the crowd snapped to the hand of the frozen elder.
Dangling precariously from his fingertips was a small black poison pouch he had failed to hide in time.
“You dare draw poison before this Venerable? The moment it was proven the boy is no orthodox spy, you meant to murder and bury the truth with poison — that was your design, was it not?!”
A shocked murmur rippled through the spectators.
Cornered, Muk Wi-gyu screamed in desperation.
“Y-you… you misunderstand, Saeng Sa Jon! Th-that is…!”
“Where do you find the nerve to spew such worthless excuses!”
At Saeng Sa Jon's outstretched hand, the poison pouch in Muk Wi-gyu's grip rose into the air like a living butterfly.
“Vacuum Plucking!”
Under the stunned eyes of the crowd, the pouch rotated slowly, deliberately, as if placed on display for every soul present.
“Vicious stuff. Truly worthy of the Muk Family.”
Presently the pouch descended with an almost courtly grace onto Saeng Sa Jon's open palm.
The Venerable sniffed at the powder inside and let out a scornful snort.
“Hehh… Celestial Meridian-Blood-Sealing Powder. A substance even the elders of the Tang Clan would struggle to lay eyes on these days. You brought quite the prize.”
He turned to the crowd and spoke as though delivering a lesson.
“This poison leaves no trace. It merely twists the meridians of whoever takes it, making it appear as though they severed their own heart-meridian and took their own life.”
The moment the poison's identity was laid bare, Muk Wi-gyu stopped his meaningless screaming and closed his eyes, as if surrendering everything.
“With this, you could have made the boy into an 'orthodox spy who killed himself for fear of exposure.' Perfect for the purpose, was it not, you Muk wretch?”
Even Sa Do-myeong, who had been bought by Muk Wi-gyu, had never heard this part.
“S-Saeng Sa Jon, honored elder — i-is… is that true?”
Judging by the way the wind was blowing, one wrong move and Sa Do-myeong's head would roll alongside Muk Wi-gyu's.
He had only wanted to pocket a little extra coin.
He owed no loyalty worth staking his life on.
“I… I know nothing of this! The informant was Muk Wi-jin, a cadet of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family, that much is true! But all of this came from Elder Muk Wi-gyu there — he only said that if I could drag the cadet Yun Cheon to the Inspection Bureau under some pretext or another, whatever it took, then…!”
The identity of the faceless informant was laid bare.
It was the Muk Family branch youth who had collapsed unconscious after his defeat in the night duel against Yun Cheon.
'…So I can't stop crossing paths with the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family, it seems.'
A sect might uphold its own lofty ideals and discipline, but families bound by blood tended to let both grow murky.
'They behave exactly like those three Great Families.'
Clearly, subduing a Muk Wi-jin or a Muk Ha-jin would never be enough to stop them.
After today, he and the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family would likely never share the same sky again.
The instant every gaze in the arena converged on Sa Do-myeong's testimony—
murderous intent flared in Elder Muk Wi-gyu's eyes.
“You treacherous rat…!”
His unsealed arm — the one free of the paralyzing needle — lashed out in a sneak attack.
A jet-black poison palm hurtled toward Sa Do-myeong's chest.
Pwaaek!
A masterstroke, timed to the very second every spectator's attention was stolen away by the confession.
“Kkehk!”
Struck full-on, Sa Do-myeong vomited black blood and crumpled to the ground.
Even Saeng Sa Jon had not foreseen the move.
“You bastard!”
The Venerable reacted instantly and pinned Muk Wi-gyu down — but he had already crushed the hidden poison pill stashed inside his mouth.
“Kkeurreuk…!”
Dark red blood trickled from the corner of Elder Muk Wi-gyu's lips.
“You wretch!”
Saeng Sa Jon tapped his jaw lightly, forcing his mouth open.
Peering inside, the Venerable clicked his tongue.
“Tsk. The Serpent Scorpion Muk line has always been like this. Hiding a poison pill under the tongue — that much hasn't changed either.”
Even dying, Muk Wi-gyu erupted into insane laughter.
“Kwahahaha! And even if it's true, what will you do? Did you not declare, Saeng Sa Jon, that you would practice medicine no longer?”
“You dare….”
“A venerable of the very Cult itself would sooner break his sacred oath than stoop to save the likes of me! Kwahaha!”
Muk Wi-gyu had turned Saeng Sa Jon's own vow against him, choosing death by his own hand.
Fury rose on the Venerable's face — yet he did not readily move.
“Hmph… a slippery one to the end. But you're right, curse you.”
The death of a dying elder could stir in him nothing more than a flicker of anger.
Whenever he thought of his granddaughter's face — dying by inches as the qi and blood in her body froze solid — the notion of practicing medicine on anyone else was simply impossible.
“I will not break my vow to save the garbage of a corrupt Inspection Bureau, or the malignant tumor of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family. Die, then, and be done with it.”
“Heheheh… I knew you would say so.”
The crowd accepted the deaths of Muk Wi-gyu and Sa Do-myeong as already decided.
“…Heh. Utterly venomous.”
“To fail at poisoning the boy as an orthodox spy, and then turn around and murder his own accomplice to bury it all….”
“Shut your mouth!”
Muk Wi-gyu wrung out the last of his strength and bellowed.
“Who says I murdered an accomplice! This elder merely punished Sa Do-myeong for slandering the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family with false testimony! Do not slander my family without proof!”
At his venom — muddying the waters even with death closing over him — rage and resignation burst out together from the spectator seats.
“Agh — that poisonous snake is destroying the evidence right before our eyes, and none of us can lift a finger!”
Resigned sighs spread among the other onlookers.
“It's a shame, but nothing will remain of this but his corpse….”
“Without material proof, moving against the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family head-on is, well….”
“Tsk… we've recouped the price of Elder Muk Wi-gyu's life. This much will have to be the end of it.”
There was suspicion aplenty, but the evidence had vanished — and the two key witnesses who had opened this entire board were dying before everyone's eyes.
The truth stood right there in plain sight, yet no one dared reach out and seize it.
Before the power of the Twelve Guardian Families, the conspiracy seemed fated to close with nothing but that sour aftertaste of unfinished business.
And then, at that very moment.
Yun Cheon moved.
'…I won't let this affair end on the back of one man's death.'
Yun Cheon approached Saeng Sa Jon's side and whispered in a voice meant for him alone.
“Honored Saeng Sa Jon. I have obtained a rare elixir that may help in treating your granddaughter's illness.”
“……!”
Saeng Sa Jon's eyes wavered.
His granddaughter. Young-ah.
His one and only forbidden ground — the very reason he drew breath.
“You whelp…. Riding high on calming Young-ah's frenzy, are you? You dare bring my granddaughter up as a bargaining chip? Do you wish to die here and now?”
Saeng Sa Jon seized Yun Cheon by the collar — but Yun Cheon neither flinched nor looked away.
“It is precisely because I do not wish to die that I say this. Look upon my body and you will understand. I, too… suffer from Severed Meridian Syndrome, just as she does.”
Saeng Sa Jon's gaze swept over Yun Cheon's danjeon.
Grotesquely twisted meridians.
Of one thing there could be no doubt: the boy was indeed afflicted.
'But… this is different from ordinary Severed Meridian Syndrome. And what in the world is this energy I sense within his body?'
The boy's body defied every scrap of the Venerable's accumulated knowledge.
“…I have received word that the peerless elixir known as the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow has been secured. That alone may not bring a complete cure — but would it not help improve your granddaughter's condition?”
At the name Hollow Azure Stone Marrow, the hand gripping Yun Cheon's collar slackened — ever so slightly.
Yet the suspicion and wariness in his eyes only deepened.
“A mere cadet of the Hidden Demon Cave got his hands on Hollow Azure Stone Marrow? You think that story holds water?”
“…I did not obtain it myself. The Sun Moon Merchant Guild did. They merely muddied this whole affair. And it was in exchange for it that I intended to ask for your help, honored Venerable.”
Instead of answering, Saeng Sa Jon bored his gaze straight into Yun Cheon's eyes.
These were the eyes of a man who, over long decades at countless crossroads of life and death, had seen through deception and falsehood without number.
'These eyes… are no lie. This whelp meant to seek me out from the very beginning.'
In Yun Cheon's pupils, Saeng Sa Jon saw not some petty fraud or cheap stratagem, but a will as clear as glass.
As his head cooled, the wreckage of the whole board came into focus at a glance.
It had been Yun Cheon who nearly died at Muk Wi-gyu's hands, and it was the Muk Family's people who had stirred up all this commotion in the first place.
There was no chance the whelp had orchestrated any of it.
“Tsk… it defies reason that the one who was nearly poisoned to death by Elder Muk Wi-gyu would be the schemer here. So — what is it you want from me?”
“First, spare those two. I cannot allow this affair to be closed as it stands.”
At last, Saeng Sa Jon smothered his smoldering fury and released Yun Cheon.
'…Come to think of it. If those bastards die here and now, the wrath of the Serpent Scorpion Muk Family and the Inspection Bureau will land squarely on this boy's head afterward.'
And no one would shoulder any of it on his behalf.
He had escaped the immediate, direct threat — but it was plain as fire what kind of torment would hound him for years to come.
“…You do have a head on your shoulders, it seems.”
Even as he spoke, Saeng Sa Jon drew from his robes a single old, faded wooden tablet.
“Whew… very well. In recognition of your service in halting Young-ah's frenzy, I will choose to believe your words this once. But know this — if it is a lie, you will suffer a fate more terrible than those wretches could ever devise.”
Saeng Sa Jon stared at the tablet for a long moment, then fixed his glare on Yun Cheon and slowly tightened his grip.
Carved into the tablet in the Venerable's hand were two characters: “No Medicine.”
The token of an oath: that he would never again practice his healing arts for anyone — not when they could not even save his own granddaughter.
“…My medicine proved utterly worthless before my dying granddaughter. So I cast it aside. And yet… and yet you come before me, bringing its use back to light.”
The tablet had been nothing more than an oath steeped in Saeng Sa Jon's despair.
But if there was a way to save his granddaughter, everything changed.
Saeng Sa Jon's eyes burned bright.
'With the Hollow Azure Stone Marrow, a full cure may be beyond reach — but at the very least, I could lengthen Young-ah's thread of life….'
It was a light too desperate to be called hope, and too sorrowful to be called obsession.
“Fine. If it means keeping Young-ah alive a little longer… what is an oath like that worth!”
Crack—!
The wooden tablet crumbled to powder and slipped away between his fingers.
“…The bargain is struck. But mark this well, you whelp. This is a transaction. Fail to keep your word, and you had best… prepare yourself for what comes.”
Return of the Cloud Dragon
Author | Chu Sang (Autumn Frost)
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dreambooks
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