The Rumored Sword Empress
Overnight, the entire province of Hebei was thrown into utter turmoil. Word of the demise of Ghost Command King—who for decades had never once been dislodged from his seat as the absolute strongest among the Four Great Evils—spread alongside news of a devastating raid on the Hebei Paeng Family Compound.
Though the assault on the Paeng estate had unfolded under the cover of night, there were far too many witnesses to bury the truth. Roaring detonations and cataclysmic clashes had shaken the compound to its foundations, waking half the district.
To make matters more surreal, reports of Ghost Command King's subjugation broke almost concurrently. The common folk of Hebei found it nearly impossible to swallow such wild, earth-shaking rumors, but when the Beggars' Sect set its vast network to deliberately circulating the tale, its influence operated on an entirely different plane.
Why, then, was the Beggars' Sect fanning the flames of these rumors? To understand that, one had to look back to the events of the previous night.
“My only interest was in your third young master anyway. Do you truly wish to continue?”
“...After reducing my estate to this miserable ruin, you expect to stroll out through our gates with your head held high?”
“Shall we keep going, then? I can butcher every single soul standing here. I am showing you mercy right now, Paeng Woo-gang.”
Ryeong deliberately shifted her tone, exerting suffocating pressure over the patriarch. From Paeng Woo-gang's vantage, his pride refused to yield an inch. Yet he could not ignore the plain truth staring him in the face: prolonging this clash meant the absolute extinction of the Paeng bloodline.
Should he swallow his pride to preserve what remained, or lean on reckless arrogance and meet a meaningless demise? As a human being before a martial artist, the choice of survival was painfully clear.
“Let us... end it here.”
At Paeng Woo-gang's surrender, stifled groans of bitter humiliation rippled through the surviving Paeng martial artists. They too understood that charging forward meant certain death, which kept them from openly contesting their patriarch's decree.
Ryeong had never intended to wipe the Paeng Family off the map. Foolish as they were, if one of the Five Great Clans collapsed before the war against the Demon Blood Divine Cult, the delicate balance of the Orthodox faction would crumble and invite boundless chaos. There was no reason to hand their true enemies such an easy advantage. Furthermore, every person Ryeong had executed had possessed an undeniable reason to die.
The Ghost Command King she had slain had been a fearsome terror, but hardly beyond the reach of a determined campaign. Had the righteous sects possessed sufficient resolve, he could have been subjugated at any point. The fact that past expeditions had repeatedly failed could mean only one thing: there was a mole in their midst. Though Ryeong had initially broken into the Paeng estate simply to punish the arrogant third young master, the moment she breached the compound, the sickening stench of demonic arts had choked the air. One of the Five Great Clans—the proud hegemon of Hebei—was being steadily corroded from the inside out by the Demon Blood Divine Cult.
Ryeong had singled out and eliminated only those cultivating demonic arts. Naturally, in the heat of the fray, a few innocent guards had been caught in the crossfire. That much had been unavoidable. She had no intention of making excuses, nor any reason to offer one; it had been an error on her part. She could only take comfort in the fact that the family head himself had not yet succumbed to corruption.
The true relief was that the foul taint of demonic qi had been purged entirely. Not a single traitor beholden to the Demon Blood Divine Cult remained breathing within the Hebei Paeng Family Compound.
That braindead lunatic, Ghost Command King. He probably genuinely believed he had broken completely free from the Demon Blood Divine Cult.
Severing ties to become the Heavenly Demon? To think that idiot had been unknowingly dancing to the cult's tune and receiving their covert assistance all along. No matter how many times she reviewed the matter, he deserved every bit of his pathetic end.
Having settled her business, Ryeong turned her back on the Paeng estate without a shred of lingering attachment. Once her silhouette dissolved into the shadows, Paeng Woo-gang rasped out an order.
“See to the burials of the deceased. What transpired tonight has surely already reached the ears of the Beggars' Sect. This raid was an absolute, unmitigated defeat for our clan.”
“Your arm.”
“What?”
“I told you to surrender your arm.”
Had he ever felt so hollow, so utterly impotent? For the first time in his life, Paeng Woo-gang felt sickened by his own martial inadequacy. A warrior who had spent decades brimming with indomitable confidence had succumbed to inner demons after a single, crushing defeat.
Slash!
He offered his limb without another word, and Ryeong, having flashed back in an instant, severed Paeng Woo-gang's left arm. To a saber master, taking the right arm would have been tantamount to a martial death sentence. Considering the battles looming on the horizon, leaving his dominant saber hand intact was the pragmatic choice.
With that, she vanished into the night. Having staunched the flow of blood, Paeng Woo-gang spoke in a hollow rasp.
“I am entering closed-door seclusion.”
“Patriarch! You cannot! Closed-door seclusion, of all things?!”
“Not until you have restored order to the compound in the wake of this disaster!”
“Ghost Command King has been vanquished! Before our clan could even catch wind of the battle, Ghost Command King was already dead!”
As Paeng Woo-gang poured out his raw, suffocating anguish, his retainers choked back their cries and fell deathly silent. Whether the claim of Ghost Command King's death was truth or fiction, an assassin wielding such terrifying might had no reason to utter petty lies. For all practical purposes, the fiend had indeed met his end.
“In the absence of an incompetent patriarch who couldn't even repel a lone assassin, my eldest son shall assume the mantle of acting head.”
“Patriarch...”
“Do not attempt to hold me back. If you point fingers at my dereliction of duty, I will accept the scorn humbly. But now is the time to endure, to swallow our bitter disgrace and sharpen our blades. It cuts me to the marrow that I cannot face the kin of the fallen, but it cannot be helped.”
Paeng Woo-gang had always fancied himself a man capable of separating what was vital from what was trivial—though in the eyes of others, it was barely basic discernment. But he knew in his bones that stagnating here meant total obsolescence. Never in his long decades across the murim had such dread gripped his heart, and he refused to ignore it.
In the end, he turned his steps toward the Repentance Cave—the solitary retreat reserved for clan sinners. Viewing himself as the greatest offender of all, Paeng Woo-gang chose to treat himself as a convict, sacrificing the present to claw back a future.
Left behind to shoulder the burden as acting patriarch, the eldest young master, Paeng Jo-gang, drew a steady breath.
“By my authority as acting patriarch, I command you: before dawn breaks over the horizon, the main estate must be cleansed completely!”
“We obey your command!”
“Move, quickly!”
Suppressing their heavy sighs, master and retainer alike threw themselves into recovering the fallen and sweeping away the wreckage.
Meanwhile, there was a lone outsider who had witnessed the full catastrophe of the Paeng estate with his own eyes.
They dare call that woman the Sword Empress? Utter nonsense! She's a vengeful fiend incarnate!
It was Ga Ak-sang, known as the Later Beggar—a Seven-Knot Beggar presiding over the Beggars' Sect Hebei branch and the designated successor destined to become the next Sect Leader.
Having observed Ryeong's incomprehensible martial prowess, he shuddered to his core. A profound despair washed over him. The realization that such a monster was hailed as the Sword Empress felt like a sick joke.
Sword Empress was a revered title reserved for a noble, peerless maiden of the blade—never a deranged assassin drenched in bloodlust. He needed to compile this intelligence immediately and disperse the warnings across the entire martial world—
“Would you happen to be the Later Beggar? Quite an impressive seven knots you have there.”
“What?!”
Right as the thought flashed through his mind, Ryeong was already standing directly beside him with her arms crossed, looking down at him with quiet amusement.
Startled out of his wits, Ga Ak-sang unleashed the Dog-Beating Staff Technique. Yet to Ryeong's eyes, the skills of this young beggar who had barely crossed into the Peak Transcendent Realm were entirely negligible.
In less than three exchanges, he was thoroughly disarmed and pinned flat to the earth.
“Kuh! Just kill me, you witch!”
“Witch, really? You seem to have jumped to the wrong conclusion. I only weeded out the rats of the Demon Blood Divine Cult who had nested within the Paeng Family.”
“What did you say?”
“If I were truly some deranged slaughterer, would I have left the Saber King breathing? Use your head.”
The Later Beggar's eyes wavered violently. Just as she pointed out, had she been an assassin lost to bloodlust, she would have slaughtered every breathing soul in the compound. Yet she had curbed the bloodshed and even spared the clan leader.
Even so, Ga Ak-sang's suspicions did not vanish so easily. Words were cheap; anyone could spin an excuse after the fact. As the successor to the Beggars' Sect, he would never discard the raw evidence of his own eyes over mere talk.
Well aware of the sect's stubborn tenacity, Ryeong kept him pinned and methodically broke down the truth. She explained that she possessed the ability to perceive demonic qi, and had executed only those actively practicing demonic arts. Had she knocked on their front gate to lodge a formal complaint, the infiltrators would have scattered into the winds. To cement her claims, she circulated the pure, unblemished resonance of the Celestial Immortal Divine Art before him.
The distrust in Ga Ak-sang's gaze slowly receded. The aura flowing from the divine art was so immaculately sacred that the terrifying image of Ryeong's bloody frenzy began to soften and fade.
As the final decisive blow, Ryeong revealed that she had personally subjugated the World of Chaos Palace. Caught between lingering doubt and profound shock, Ga Ak-sang ultimately chose to place his faith in her words.
In truth, it was only the raw horror of her combat frenzy that had clouded his judgment. According to reports circulating the martial world, the Sword Empress was a young woman who unleashed demonic ferocity exclusively against the Demon Blood Divine Cult.
And if one pondered why she held such an unforgiving vendetta, she was originally of Jongnam. Just over a year ago, Jongnam had been engulfed in flames at the hands of the Demon Blood Divine Cult. If she had harbored an all-consuming hatred ever since that atrocity, then even her most reckless, extreme actions possessed logical weight.
Patient persuasion and undeniable proof finally swayed the Later Beggar's mind. Consequently, Ga Ak-sang dispatched new directives through his network of beggars. Before the night had even faded into morning, tales of Ghost Command King's fall and the raid on the Hebei Paeng Family Compound blanketed the land.
“Pardon the intrusion amid all this turmoil, but I was told my companion is being detained here at the Paeng estate.”
“Your companion, you say?”
“A young Taoist from Jongnam named Jin Young. Hearing that the manor was attacked last night, I came to see if he was unharmed.”
Past midday, Ryeong returned to the Paeng Family Compound. She had lingered at the inn hoping Jin Young might slip away during the midnight chaos, but when he failed to show no matter how long she waited, her patience had worn thin.
The trouble was that an ordinary gate guard had no knowledge of Jin Young. Just as a chilly, murderous glint began creeping back into Ryeong's eyes—wondering if she ought to have wiped out the entire estate after all—a man stepped briskly into view.
“The Sword Empress graces us with her presence. I am Paeng Jo-gang, acting patriarch of the Paeng Family. I welcome Young Lady Jin Ryeong to our estate.”
“A pleasure, Acting Patriarch. I must offer my condolences for last night's tragedy. Having suffered internal injuries while subjugating the Ghost Command King, my temper was somewhat frayed...”
“No, think nothing of it. It would be disgraceful to drag a disciple of another sect into our clan's internal strife. The matter regarding Young Hero Jin Young was entirely our family's blunder. He is currently being entertained as an honored guest, so allow me to escort you to his quarters.”
The acting patriarch had personally come forth to guide Ryeong to Jin Young. Treated as an honored guest, when she had assumed he was rotting in a dungeon?
I really ought to smack him upside the head.
As Ryeong pictured Jin Young glaring indignantly with wide, wronged eyes after taking a sudden strike to the back of the skull, a quiet chuckle escaped her lips.
“Pfft.”
Meanwhile, happily digging into a lavish feast in the guest pavilion, Jin Young suddenly paused with his chopsticks raised.
“What's this? Why does the back of my head feel like it's burning?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, utterly bewildered by the mysterious chill prickling down his spine.