173
173
A low murmur rippled through the crowd.
The broad martial arts arena overflowed with men. From renowned warriors to Mumyeong's escort guards, from wandering blades to Beggar Sect beggars—they had all gathered in one place.
Among more than a hundred people, not a single woman could be seen.
Every one of them was a sturdy man, and each regarded every other as an enemy, silently honing their martial arts without a word.
"You have all gathered."
A deep, weighty voice accompanied a heavily built middle-aged man as he descended from the hall and stood before the steps. With his thick eyebrows and dense beard, he bore the countenance of a fierce tiger.
"Every man here shares the same desire. Some of you may be gravely injured, and some of you may leave here weeping tears of blood."
No one dared refute the man's calm words. Even if every man in the arena joined forces, they could not defeat this single middle-aged man.
A master of the Harmony Realm!
The martial artists in the arena swallowed hard under the pressure of the Sumeru Heavenly King Divine Art radiating from the head of the Hwangbo Clan, Hwangbo Yeom.
The world's greatest fist, the Thunder Divine Fist!
The strongest unarmed master of the White Path, whose fist techniques none could approach, bore down on the warriors with an oppressive aura.
"Urk!"
Several men were already coughing blood, dropping to their knees or collapsing. Yet no one moved to help them or even glance their way.
"Weak men."
At Hwangbo Yeom's words, the men who remained standing swallowed hard. He was right—those who had already fallen were weak.
"If a man cannot withstand my aura, how can he protect my daughters from the Sex Demon?"
Hwangbo Yeom's pressure was a test to weed out the riffraff.
Were they truly qualified to become the husbands of the Hwangbo Clan's daughters?
For generations, the Hwangbo Clan had sought husbands for its women through martial prowess.
A man weaker than his wife could never properly serve as a husband, so the Hwangbo Clan sought to take strong martial artists as husbands for the women of the family.
"Right now I am only exerting the pressure of my youngest daughter. Those who cannot even endure this—how dare they aspire to become a man of the Hwangbo Clan? When you stand before the Sex Demon, will you abandon your wife and flee instead of protecting her? Away with you! Get out!"
Prove oneself, and one could become a member of the Hwangbo Clan. Watching their comrades drop one by one, the remaining warriors clenched their teeth, determined not to suffer the same humiliation.
And when they glanced at the seven women seated behind Hwangbo Yeom, their resolve hardened even further.
If they simply endured the test, if they could place within the "top seven," they would be able to marry. They could become the son-in-law, a prince of Hwangbo Yeom's own daughters—the Seven Princesses.
The warriors were half-sincerely grateful to the Sex Demon.
Because the Sex Demon was running rampant, Hwangbo Yeom had urgently sought to marry off his seven daughters, and martial artists began applying in droves for a qualification test that offered no fewer than seven openings for a husband.
The only standard was strength.
Could they truly protect a wife from the Sex Demon?
If they could earn the approval of a father who had to marry off his precious jewels with tears of blood, their lives would be turned upside down.
The Hwangbo Seven Princesses.
The women sat like dolls behind a thin, semi-transparent curtain. A man who proved himself could lay those women—women who were no doubt appraising the would-be suitors staring at them—on his bed.
"...In what way are they any different from the Sex Demon?"
Seated in the second position among the Seven Princesses, the second daughter, Hwangbo Hye-ji, watched the warriors who made no effort to hide their lust and could only sigh.
"Mm-hmm."
Hwangbo Yeom cleared his throat to silently warn Hwangbo Hye-ji, then withdrew his aura.
"Enough! The first trial ends here. The second trial begins tomorrow! All of you, prepare your duels!!"
Seventy warriors had survived Hwangbo Yeom's lion's roar.
Would any of those seventy make the final seven? With ten-to-one odds, the competition seemed worth a try, but unfortunately, even in the second round alone the odds easily exceeded a hundred to one—no, three hundred to one.
"...Next group!!"
The surviving seventy filed out of the arena, and a fresh hundred men strode in. Hwangbo Yeom drank a mouthful of water and raised his aura once more.
"You have all gathered."
No one knew how many repetitions this made, but outside, thousands of martial artists were waiting for their turn.
* * *
"Gaga, do you know how the Eight Great Families expand their power?"
"Of course. By mixing blood through marriages between influential clans."
"Exactly. Even if the world is half men and half women, a household rarely produces sons and daughters in precisely equal numbers. Just like the Hwangbo Clan."
Dokgo Yeon folded down no fewer than seven of her ten fingers and then spread them again.
"The head of the Hwangbo Clan, Hwangbo Yeom, has seven daughters. Not half-sisters born from concubines, but full-blooded sisters born one after the other to the same woman."
"So she kept bearing children until a son appeared. I heard Hwangbo Yeom lost his wife long ago. A difficult birth? How tragic."
"...No, it was Pleasure Death."
My mouth fell open at the Hwangbo Clan secret that came from Dokgo Yeon.
"Officially, it was said that her body could not endure so many births and she died of illness, but in truth she passed away while they were trying to make a child."
"That is a rather terrifying story."
I rowed the skiff, listening to Dokgo Yeon's story as though it were a boat song.
Unlike the Hebei Paeng Clan, which had no more marriageable women left, the Hwangbo Clan had an abundance of unmarried daughters.
The seven direct-line princesses of the clan head, the Thunder Divine Fist Hwangbo Yeom, were proof enough.
Before losing his wife, Hwangbo Yeom had fathered seven children with her, including Hwangbo Hye-ji.
Hwangbo Yeom wanted a son, and his wife, a martial artist herself, bore child after child as long as her body would allow, trying to give him one.
If one asked whether raising seven children was financially difficult, the answer was naturally yes, but the Hwangbo Clan possessed the wealth to assign rotating wet nurses to every single child born.
Who could stop the greatest clan in Shandong from bearing many children?
When several sons emerged, succession disputes sometimes arose, but daughters were treated as outsiders upon marriage, so no matter how many there were, it rarely led to major problems.
But the continued absence of a son was another matter entirely.
Having seven siblings with only one youngest son was nothing like having seven daughters with no son at all.
That said, the shock of losing his wife in that manner reportedly weighed heavily on the Thunder Divine Fist. He never took another wife, and instead raised his daughters to be strong.
So that he could pass the Hwangbo Clan to a strong son-in-law taken into the family.
"Wait. That sounds strange. Instead of treating a married daughter's household as a branch line, he intends to hand the headship to a son-in-law?"
It was a choice I found rather hard to accept.
"If Hwangbo Yeom is still healthy, he could simply take a second wife and father a son."
"It is similar to my case—my father's case, that is."
"Ah, I see. So he hopes for an outcome like Dokgo Ja-yeong's."
The Dokgo Clan was a case where a man outside the clan's bloodline was taken as a son-in-law and achieved great success.
And since Dokgo Yeon herself had reached the peak realm at the young age of just reaching adulthood, she must have served as excellent reference material for other clans.
Proof that seating a direct-line male on the clan head's seat was not the only path.
That if a clan's direct daughter—who would become a mother—gave birth to just one proper heir, the clan could command the world like the Dokgo Clan.
"My friend, Hwangbo Hye-ji, is the second of the Hwangbo Seven Princesses. Each of the Seven Princesses has a different talent, but all of them have learned the martial arts of the Hwangbo Clan."
"Let me see... you did say all seven are at least second-rate martial artists, didn't you?"
"Yes. Except for Hye-ji, they are all either first-rate or second-rate, but I heard that every one of them has superb self-defense skills."
"Second-rate aside, a first-rate martial artist can easily be called an expert anywhere. The Hwangbo Clan is strong. They can handpick only the very best among first-rate experts to take in as sons-in-law."
Dokgo Yeon smiled with an ambiguous expression. From that face, I caught a glimpse of someone who agreed with my words but could not quite sympathize with them.
'Geniuses are truly something else.'
It was fair to say that for Dokgo Yeon, martial arts had effectively begun at the peak realm. She simply could not grasp how strong second-rate and first-rate experts, who made up fully fifty percent of the Martial World, truly were.
In the Martial World, did peak experts even account for one part in a hundred—or even one part in a thousand?
"Most of the men gathered at the Hwangbo Clan to marry the Seven Princesses are second-rate or first-rate, but even those men are strong. After all, they only need to place within the top seven, do they not?"
"Couldn't a peak expert also show up?"
"Would someone at the peak level deliberately set their sights on the Hwangbo Seven Princesses? I think not."
A warrior who had reached the peak realm had the skill to establish their own school or small sect; would such a person willingly enter the Hwangbo Clan as a son-in-law?
No matter how strong the Thunder Divine Fist was, and no matter how much one could daily feel what a Harmony Realm fist master was like, that man would become a father-in-law, not a complete stranger.
"A peak expert has no reason to endure daily beatings from the Thunder Divine Fist. By nature, martial artists cannot place themselves beneath others unless the circumstances are extraordinary."
"But what if the benefit was great enough to endure all of that?"
"And what would that benefit be?"
"Hye-ji."
I was startled by Dokgo Yeon's confidence.
"Hwangbo Hye-ji... her face is not as pretty as yours."
"In my lord's eyes, I may look prettier than Hye-ji, but if you asked the men of the world which of us they wanted to hold, don't you think they would choose Hye-ji?"
"Why?"
"Because I am already a woman who was kidnapped by the Sex Demon and defiled, and Hye-ji is still known to be a virgin."
"......."
A sudden chill ran down my spine at Dokgo Yeon's ambiguous remark.
"Known to be? That means...."
"It was a joke. Hye-ji really is a virgin."
"You startled me. The little lust demon here got so frightened it raised its head."
Dokgo Yeon pushed her wide-brimmed hat down slightly and smiled.
"But what I know is from when I met her during the Two Phoenixes Decisive Battle, so I do not know how things are now."
"...We may be too late if we do not hurry to check."
"Fufu, don't worry. Hye-ji may be tough on the outside, but inside she is a soft-hearted girl...."
Dokgo Yeon laughed like a young girl and sat up.
"She said she absolutely wants to marry the man she loves and give her first time on the wedding night, after the ceremony."
"Heh-heh, that somehow makes me feel sorry."
Not only did I not hold a ceremony, I kidnapped her from her home and then took her virginity threefold—front, back, and mouth. I felt a pointless sense of guilt toward Dokgo Yeon.
"I'm sorry."
"It's all right. They say that when you reach the Harmony Realm, you undergo Rebirth Transformation. Wouldn't that make it a completely new body?"
Poke, poke.
Dokgo Yeon slightly parted her lips and slid her index finger in and out a few times, smiling.
"You can do it for me then, Gaga."
"Leaving aside your complete certainty that you will reach the Harmony Realm, what if you reach it but the situation isn't suited for a ceremony? What if you want it before we can even hold a ceremony?"
"Then I'll ascend to the Profound Realm and undergo Rebirth Transformation one more time. Ah, but the transformation won't actually make it grow back or anything. I think you can just enjoy the feeling."
"Heh, are you a chrysalis?"
"No. I'm a Celestial Maiden."
With neither Sagong Hee nor Lee Si-a around, she launched one attack after another all on her own. Overwhelmed by Dokgo Yeon's single-minded directness, I ended up letting go of the oar.
"It will grow dark soon. From here, we only need to let the current carry us downstream."
The flow was gentle and the surface calm. For at least one two-hour watch, we could sit quietly in the boat without needing to row.
"Gaga, the night air is cold. Let me warm you."
Dokgo Yeon came over and sat demurely beside me. I stretched my arm behind her, and we lay down together in the boat.
"Thanks to you, Gaga, I got to ride in a boat. I'm truly happy."
"Wasn't there a lake at Wuling Island Garden?"
"Pfft. You can circle that lake once and it's over. How can a stagnant spring compare to a flowing river? Look at the sky."
Dokgo Yeon pointed at the sky with her finger.
"This is the first time I've seen so many stars. Isn't it truly magnificent? Truly... enough to make me want to steal it."
"Yes. The sky is truly beautiful. ...But why are you looking at me while pointing at the sky?"
"That is only natural."
Softly.
Dokgo Yeon lightly pressed her lips to my cheek and nestled into my arms.
"To me, the sky is you, Gaga."
"......."
As expected, Dugu Nine Swords is formidable.
I surrendered all resistance to the Dugu Nine Swords, which pierced into me regardless of time or place.