Ominous Signs
‘I didn’t see this coming.’
Hwiyeom rarely frowned, but his brow furrowed now.
The reason he had entrusted the dam’s defense to the Namgung Clan’s Heavenly Sword Corps was simple: he had judged that someone might try to destroy it.
A dam of this scale was unprecedented. While many in the world celebrated it, just as many fretted. The moment a construction firm’s building collapsed in the news, that company’s stock price plunged into the abyss. In the same way, merely destroying the Baekgak Mountain Dam would hand a golden opportunity to anyone who already hated the Sichuan Dang Family.
Hwiyeom had therefore felt the need to prevent exactly that—and had concluded that borrowing outside strength was more advantageous on every front than detaching Dang warriors for the job.
First, it placed no further strain on the family’s already short manpower. Second, the moment another power took charge of security, that power would bear the blame if the structure were destroyed; at the very least, it would deter that power itself from wrecking the dam. Third, hostile factions would think twice before acting, simply to avoid making an enemy of the force now standing guard.
Three birds with one stone. The Namgung Clan had conveniently been caught spying and handed him the perfect pretext, so he had seized it without hesitation. The arrangement, he had thought, both kept the Namgung in check and used their strength to deter other enemies—a rather neat bargain.
‘And now the Hebei Peng Clan is tangled up in it? On top of that… suspicion that a direct-line Namgung was murdered?’
The Namgung Clan was so enraged they looked ready to declare open war on the Peng. Had their house been even slightly more intact, they would already have reported the matter to the Martial Alliance and issued a formal declaration. Only the lingering wreckage of the tax audit two years earlier, their diminished influence, and the necessity of watching the Sichuan Dang Family—who were also implicated—kept them from exploding. For now they merely gritted their teeth.
In fact, word had it that the Sword King himself had broken a long closed-door seclusion and appeared in public the moment the news reached him.
The Hebei Peng Clan’s reaction, by contrast, was pure bewilderment—as if a bolt from the blue had struck them at midnight. They fired back that the whole thing was a Namgung fabrication and demanded a joint autopsy of the fallen Heavenly Sword Corps members by both the Martial Alliance and the Peng. The Namgung side howled that they would never hand a kinsman’s corpse to their enemies.
And yet…
“It’s strange, isn’t it? The Peng aren’t idiots. They’re not about to fight an all-out war with the Namgung, so why go to the trouble of wearing masks and using Peng martial arts to kill Namgung people?”
At Hwiyeom’s words, Second Secretary Hwang Ji-su—Lee Jinmyeong’s successor—nodded.
“M-moreover, the Hebei Peng Clan has no reason to destroy the Baekgak Mountain Dam. I-it’s a completely meaningless act.”
The Peng held no deep grudge against the Sichuan Dang Family. If anything, their past friction with the Namgung had left them rather well-liked in certain circles. True, they had recently joined hands with the Namgung, but only after the Namgung bowed their heads in exchange for being pulled out of a Censorate audit—an arrangement the Peng must have found thoroughly satisfying.
So was there some profit in the deed? None. The Peng had no stake in the Central Plains’ iron production or in the Dang Family’s fortunes. Nor was there any political structure by which the Dang’s ruin would benefit them. They had zero motive to throw the first punch at the Dang. If they had done it simply out of hatred for the Namgung, then deliberately risking the Dang’s enmity in the process would mean they had no brains at all.
Besides, even while fleeing, the masked man who had clashed with Namgung Cheok had still tried to smash the dam’s water wall. That… was simply too strange.
“Let’s change the premise.”
Hwiyeom shook his head.
“Some force is impersonating the Hebei Peng Clan. They want to provoke the Namgung into colliding with the Peng, and at the same time wreck the Baekgak Mountain Dam to strike at the Dang. Is there a faction that profits from this situation?”
“If we’re talking about forces hostile to our house, the first that comes to mind is the Bingjong Pi Clan, b-but…”
“Impossible. The Pi are a renowned military house, but they don’t have the strength to field Peng-level warriors on that scale. No—if we’re talking impersonation, it would have to be the ability to steal Peng martial arts in secret and teach them.”
If the Peng truly were not responsible, then some group had siphoned off Peng techniques and mastered them in the shadows. Hwang Ji-su tilted her head.
“Is there even a group capable of that? C-come to think of it, there’s a rumor that the Imperial Secret Archive holds the secret ultimate arts of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Nine Great Noble Families, but…”
“It didn’t come from the Imperial Court. What possible gain would Emperor Sungui get from toppling the dam?”
“W-what if high ministers who resent how closely His Majesty and our house are running national projects did it?”
“Secretary Hwang, do you think raising people takes a day or two?”
Hwiyeom gave a disbelieving laugh.
“They took talents trained with the Archive’s martial arts and threw them away on something like this? No matter how powerful the Eight Great Imperial Families are, they can’t touch the Archive or any other imperial asset. That plan is flatly impossible unless Emperor Sungui himself decided to take me down. And if he had made up his mind, he wouldn’t waste time with a handful of experts. Too petty for him.”
“…Then where?”
“Well. A group that ignores the presence of government troops, kills Namgung experts without a second thought, treats masters trained in another clan’s arts as disposable pawns, and even forces them to suicide so no evidence remains… There is one place that fits rather well.”
Hwiyeom’s voice dropped to a near-whisper.
“The Demonic Cult.”
“…!”
The word that was the Sichuan Dang Family’s reverse scale itself left Hwiyeom’s mouth, and Hwang Ji-su froze solid.
“It’s only a hunch,” Hwiyeom said.
Hwang Ji-su dug through her memory for a moment, then carefully asked,
“Y-Young Master, forgive me, but I don’t quite understand. The Demonic Cult may be the strongest single sect, but… s-sending experts who use Peng martial arts is an entirely different matter, isn’t it? A-are you saying Peng techniques have somehow flowed into the Demonic Cult?”
“That’s how I see it.”
“But… e-even if we assume that during the many past bloodbaths with the Cult the Peng also suffered losses and manuals were stolen… martial arts aren’t something you just pick up overnight because you have a manual, are they?”
“Hmm…”
Hwiyeom pondered her perfectly reasonable point, then shrugged.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not exactly classified. You’re my close aide now, after all.”
He continued,
“All right. The Demonic Cult is strong for three main reasons.
First, the sheer number of fanatics. They can mobilize a million believers. That alone is already a cheat. Even the Beggars’ Gang—supposedly the largest orthodox sect—boasts about a ‘hundred-thousand beggars’ only after counting every untrained street rat.”
“Almost a nation in its own right.”
“Second, the existence called the Heavenly Demon. A being outside the scale entirely—someone who can overwhelm even several masters of the Realm of Transformation working together, and who almost certainly stands in the Realm of Profundity. Every time the Cult has risen, the Heavenly Demons have displayed strength beyond all measure.”
“….”
“Last, the countless demonic arts—techniques that turn ordinary people into powerful demons in a short time. Combined with the first factor’s numbers, the result is terrifying.”
“I see.”
Hwang Ji-su’s face still said, But what does that have to do with this incident? Hwiyeom answered the unspoken question.
“Set the manpower issue aside for now. The strong focal point called the Heavenly Demon and the multitude of powerful demonic arts can be linked. According to the records, every demonic art that exists in the Cult was created by successive Heavenly Demons. Their number runs into the hundreds, even thousands.”
“Is that possible?”
Hwang Ji-su cocked her head.
“E-even a grand master finds it hard to create and systematize martial arts. That’s why even centuries-old houses like Mount Hua or the Namgung never possess more than a dozen signature techniques, and Shaolin—with its thousand-year history—still calls its main ultimate arts the Seventy-Two Supreme Skills. How could anyone create thousands?”
“What makes it possible is precisely the Heavenly Demon’s power.”
“How do you know about the Heavenly Demon’s power?”
“By various means.”
The Dang Family had its own records. Once he had won Emperor Sungui’s trust and begun moving in and out of the palace, Hwiyeom had requested information on the Heavenly Demon and the Demonic Cult and had studied it thoroughly—gathering intelligence on the Dang Family’s ancestral nemesis.
His voice sank lower.
“The Heavenly Demon’s martial art—the Heavenly Demon Divine Art—is not a fixed form. It is a technique that literally copies and then twists another person’s martial arts.”
“What?”
“Let me give you one example. Among Shaolin’s footwork there is something called the Vajra Immovable Divine Step. You spread inner energy in every direction, then stamp it down with your steps, generating enormous pressure across a radius of several dozen jang.
About a hundred and seventy years ago there was a high monk of Shaolin known as the Dharma Step Bright King. He tried to suppress a Heavenly Demon with that very Vajra Immovable Divine Step.
Do you know what happened next?”
“What happened?”
According to the record, the Heavenly Demon, half-buried in the earth, simply pulled himself free, laughed, and said, ‘So this is the feeling?’ He took one step…
“Then, watching heaven and earth sink around him, he muttered, ‘Not really to my taste,’ and said, ‘Shall I try changing it like this?’ With the next single step he reduced every surrounding Shaolin monk to powder. That was the first appearance in history of the Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step. In an instant he had seen, stolen, and remade a Shaolin technique according to his own whim.”
“…Th-th-that’s impossible.”
“Well, it’s a record—there may be exaggeration or fabrication mixed in. But it can’t all be pure nonsense, can it? It comes from the Imperial Secret Archive.”
Hwang Ji-su thought for a moment, then slowly nodded.
“S-so what you’re saying, Young Master, is this: the Hebei Peng Clan’s martial arts have already been copied by a Heavenly Demon of the Demonic Cult, and those techniques have been passed down inside the Cult?”
In the long history of mutual slaughter, how many times must a Heavenly Demon have faced Peng martial artists? If the Heavenly Demon Divine Art truly allowed such absurd copying, then most of the famous orthodox techniques of the Central Plains could have been stolen. Even if the majority had been twisted into demonic arts according to a Heavenly Demon’s taste, what if a few had been left intact and deliberately distributed among subordinates precisely to sow discord among the orthodox sects?
In the martial world, the arts a person has mastered are themselves proof of identity. Someone who cultivates Shaolin inner energy cannot properly use Mount Hua swordsmanship; someone who has mastered Mount Hua swordsmanship cannot use Namgung swordsmanship. That is treated as self-evident truth. Of course a person can learn techniques at a superficial level, but to draw out their true power one must possess the matching inner energy. Otherwise the result is like pouring diesel into a gasoline engine.
Is it any wonder that reading the traces of martial arts left on a corpse has become something close to the basic method of forensic investigation in this world?
Moreover, the culprit of the Baekgak Mountain Dam attack was said to be an expert skilled enough to unleash palm winds with ease and pressure even Namgung Cheok, captain of the Heavenly Sword Corps. That level was clearly beyond anything one could reach by dabbling in another clan’s arts on the side.
“…If that hypothesis is correct, then this was the Demonic Cult’s doing?”
“It’s only a hypothesis. And a conjecture based on old records at that. Too early to decide.”
Hwiyeom filed the idea away in a drawer of his mind for now.
“Identifying the culprit matters, but right now the more urgent tasks are clearing the Peng Clan’s name, repairing the damage, and making sure nothing like this happens again.”
“Shall I request an audience with the Peng side?”
“Make them come to us. We’re the complete victims here.”
“Understood. I’ll send a letter.”
“And… security needs tightening on the construction side as well. Send a letter to the Family Head. Ask him to dispatch one more outer-hall combat unit.”
“Yes!”
Having given his instructions, Hwiyeom began considering what he would say when he met the Peng people and how he would mediate between the Peng and the Namgung.
Then, a few days later, a man appeared out of nowhere and said to him:
“Brother Dang, let’s have a drink together.”
“…?”