The Hall of the Heavenly Demon
A few days later, late in the evening.
Namgung Cheon returned to Geumokru.
By all rights, this should have been the hour when crowds packed the streets. Yet the great brothel stood shuttered and silent.
They've suspended business.
There was not a soul to be seen, and not even the lanterns had been lit.
Well, of course. They have something far more important to worry about now.
If one held the entire underworld of Anhui in the palm of his hand, what was one mere pleasure house compared to that?
With that thought, Namgung Cheon pushed open the doors of Geumokru.
The instant the doors parted, sharp presences lurking in the darkness all converged on him at once—then, as if recognizing their visitor, every trace of killing intent vanished just as suddenly. The guards who materialized from the shadows bowed their heads deeply.
"…The top floor, my lord. You may proceed directly."
Namgung Cheon gave a short nod and crossed the pitch-black first floor, heading straight up.
In contrast to the hushed ground level, the voices and bustle of the men upstairs grew steadily clearer as he climbed. At last he arrived before the office of the pavilion's master. The door slid open with a creak.
Inside, Baek Duguang and Naeng Cheolsan had a massive map spread across the table and were locked in a heated argument.
"What I'm telling you is—if we open up this river route, that's where the real money is! Do you have any idea how much the Jiangxi crews rake in from that single stretch of water?"
"Pavilion Master, a river route, at this late stage? Do you have the capital for it? Because I assure you, that trade runs at a loss."
The two, absorbed in their dispute, only belatedly noticed the figure standing in the doorway.
"Gwak—!"
The color drained from Baek Duguang's face. He flung aside the brush in his hand and sprinted across the room at a speed that defied belief, dropping flat to the floor at Namgung Cheon's feet.
"Oh, Young Master! What an honor this is! You should have sent word ahead, truly."
Behind him, every subordinate in the room dropped to their knees in a single motion.
Ignoring the flurry of obeisance, Namgung Cheon walked to the seat of honor and sat down.
"Report."
At his word, Naeng Cheolsan stepped forward as though he had been waiting for exactly this, opening his ledger. He began in a flat, emotionless voice, concise and precise.
"First—the underworld of Hefei is now under our complete control. Most of the Blood Sword Gang's remnants have been dealt with as well."
He paused, then gestured toward a single heavy chest of coins sitting against the far wall.
"…And this is the first tribute payment for the Four Black Alliance."
Namgung Cheon's brow creased almost imperceptibly.
When he had last visited the Gold Pavilion, it had been before his parley with the Black Wind Squad leader. He had never once ordered them to pay tribute to the Four Black Alliance.
At that moment, Baek Duguang took a step forward and spoke up.
"Young Master, I'm a simple man, but I did spend years rolling around in this world, you know."
He scratched his gleaming bald head in the lantern light and went on.
"The Blood Sword Gang ruled Anhui's underworld. For our Gold Pavilion to take their place means, in the end, taking over their tribute to the Four Black Alliance as well—unless we'd rather die, that is."
Naeng Cheolsan advanced another step and unfurled his ledger to add the details.
"Indeed. Following the Pavilion Master's judgment, we used the lower channels to determine exactly when and in what amounts the Blood Sword Gang paid their tribute in the past. We've prepared it to the last coin, without the slightest deviation. The tribute is due the day after tomorrow."
Namgung Cheon nodded.
Impressive, truly. Baek Duguang had grasped the essence of the situation, and Naeng Cheolsan had carried it out flawlessly. Not merely waiting on orders, but reading his intent and moving a step ahead of it.
I hadn't expected them to be this useful.
While he was thinking this, Naeng Cheolsan gestured toward a far more ornate box of red sandalwood sitting beside the first one.
"And this is… the Gold Pavilion's token of devotion, for you, Young Master."
"Devotion?"
When Namgung Cheon pressed him, Baek Duguang broke into an oily, flattering smile.
"Each month, we intend to present you with one tenth of our total income. Naturally, you'll have full access to the ledgers."
At those words, Namgung Cheon quietly reassessed the two men.
Better than I hoped for.
It wasn't about the money. It was the judgment—the clear-eyed understanding of what they could offer to prove their loyalty. And beyond that, the cunning to set the figure at exactly one tenth: neither so much as to seem desperate, nor so little as to seem stingy. The ratio was perfect.
He liked it.
But Namgung Cheon's silence stretched on. And in that silence, Baek Duguang made his mistake—he decided the Young Master was not satisfied.
Cold sweat trickled down his spine.
"Young Master!"
Baek Duguang began to wail.
"Is— is it that you find our own share too generous? Th-then we'll give you two tenths— no! Three tenths! Three tenths, Young Master! Three!"
Namgung Cheon regarded the man groveling before him with complete indifference for a moment, then finally spoke.
"Deposit it at the Nine Dragons Bank under a bearer's certificate. Bring me the certificate. And keep depositing it there from now on."
"…!"
At that single sentence, the faces of the fawning Baek Duguang and the silently watchful Naeng Cheolsan hardened at the same instant.
The Nine Dragons Bank. The largest money house south of the Yangtze. But that was only its face for the outside world.
Baek Duguang, who had spent his life handling money, knew exactly what the Nine Dragons Bank truly was: a dark bank that safeguarded funds of every murky, untraceable origin in the Jianghu and asked no questions about ownership.
That was the Nine Dragons Bank's real nature.
How does he know?
Baek Duguang swallowed dryly. A bearer-certificate transaction. That shadowy method of exchange known only to men like them—and this young man knew of it?
No, I suppose he could know. He is a Namgung, after all.
But knowing a thing and wielding it this naturally were entirely different matters. The son of the World's Greatest Sword Family, the paragon of the Orthodox Path—
…uses a dark bank?
Without a flicker of hesitation or discomfort.
Just what in the world…
Baek Duguang found himself bowing his head again, unbidden. He could no longer tell whether the being before him was truly a young master barely past his coming of age—or something else wearing that shell.
Utterly indifferent to their astonishment, Namgung Cheon asked quietly,
"Anything else to report?"
"Wh—? Ah! No, my lord! Nothing!"
Baek Duguang stammered out the reply.
"Then."
With only that word, Namgung Cheon rose from his seat and left.
The door thudded shut, and a long stillness settled over the office. After a considerable time, Baek Duguang carefully lifted his head.
"…He's gone?"
"He's gone."
At Naeng Cheolsan's answer, the tension finally drained out of Baek Duguang and he collapsed onto the floor where he knelt.
"Whew… my heart nearly stopped."
He wiped the cold sweat from his face and climbed to his feet—then, as if nothing had happened, clapped Naeng Cheolsan on the shoulder and declared with swagger,
"You saw that, didn't you! The Young Master has entrusted everything to me! Big things are done by men with big guts, like me! Now, what in the blazes are you doing?"
Baek Duguang's gaze fell on Naeng Cheolsan, who was flicking his abacus beads with a grave expression.
"Calculating the three tenths to be presented to the Young Master. Hmm. Tribute to the Four Black Alliance, plus operating costs… we'll be running at a deficit in no time."
Baek Duguang's face went rigid in an instant.
"You idiot, you actually took him at his word! One tenth! It was one tenth, as originally agreed!"
Upon returning to the clan estate, Namgung Cheon made no separate report about what had happened.
He already knows.
Namgung Mugang, the Patriarch. Everything Namgung Cheon had done in Hefei—even the conversation he had shared with the Black Wind Squad leader—would already have reached his father's ears.
What he needs is not a child's tedious, blow-by-blow account.
Only results.
And I have brought back results.
There was no need to open his mouth merely to diminish their weight.
When he reached the quarters of the outer retainers, he found Mujin—who had returned to the estate before him—still awake, standing in front of the storage shed beside the retainers' quarters.
It was a place where firewood was ordinarily stacked; Namgung Cheon had granted it to him as a temporary lodging. Mujin leaned against the shed wall, gazing up at the moon, and there was something in the sight that ached faintly to look at.
As Namgung Cheon approached, Mujin straightened to greet him.
"Did your business wrap up cleanly?"
Namgung Cheon nodded. "It's done."
Mujin yawned and stretched, his joints popping.
"Ahh, you've worked hard, then. Go get your rest. I haven't slept properly in nearly two days, and my body's in sorry shape—I honestly can't say whether I'll manage our spar tomorrow."
With that, he turned, pushed open the creaking shed door, and slipped inside. Within there was nothing but a cold straw mat and a single worn blanket.
A meager space—far too meager for anyone, let alone a guest of the Namgung Clan, to sleep in. Watching it all in silence, Namgung Cheon's brow drew faintly together.
That was a bit much of me. He's a guest, after all.
No—guest was the wrong word. Mujin was his man now. He deserved treatment befitting that.
I'll have to tell them to build him something proper.
With that resolution, Namgung Cheon entered his own quarters.
Once inside his room, he stood for a time in the darkness, turning over the events of the past days in his mind—above all, the Black Wind Squad leader.
His martial skill was nothing exceptional.
Were they to fight, he would certainly win—the experience of his former life guaranteed as much. And yet.
Not enough.
To be merely the equal of a squad leader like that—it was not enough. The image of Namgung Mugang, as he had faced him in the Family Head Hall, flashed through his mind: that overwhelming presence that commanded a room by simply sitting in it. A distant, trackless firmament that no eye could hope to measure.
I am still far away.
The mere memory of that crushing gap set his fighting spirit boiling through his veins.
To reach that realm even a little faster, I must run harder.
Moreover, he was currently unable to use qigong. He would have to raise his strength through the Namgung Clan's martial arts—or through means that were not qigong at all.
In that case…
Namgung Cheon crossed to the center of the room and settled without ceremony into a full lotus position. His breathing slowed; his senses sank inward. His consciousness plunged down into a deep and dark mental landscape.
And when he opened his eyes again, he was standing before a vast and magnificent gate—one before which the strongest of all, save only Namgung Mugang, awaited.
The Heavenly Demon Palace.
The great doors groaned open, and Namgung Cheon stepped inside. The hall within stood empty, yet killing intent seeped from every corner, pressing down upon the entire space. Changcheon, the azure sword, had already found its way into his hand.
In that instant, warriors clad in crimson battle dress materialized out of thin air, barring his path. The elite of the Demonic Cult—the Blood Shadow Unit. And at their head stood the Blood Shadow Spear Demon, spear held at a slant, watching him with eyes devoid of all emotion.
The Blood Shadow Unit.
To defeat these men as the Namgung Cheon of today. That was his first goal.
He took a single step forward.
Swaek—!
Ten blades came hurtling at him, tracing frigid arcs of steel. The man he had once been could have reduced them all to dust with a flick of his finger. But now—
Block.
Namgung Cheon swung Changcheon and deflected the swords.
But this body, built to faithfully manifest the Namgung Cheon of the present moment, was too slow.
Clang! Shff.
"Ghk—!"
He managed to turn aside three of the blades, but the fourth bit into his shoulder. Blood sprayed. Before he could even steady himself, a saber came rushing in from his left, hunting his flank. He threw up Changcheon in haste, but could not bear the crushing internal force behind it.
BOOM.
The sword was knocked from his guard, and with a sickening sound of flesh parting, the world turned red.
When his eyes opened again, Namgung Cheon was seated once more upon the throne of the Heavenly Demon Palace, his body without a single wound. Yet the pain of moments ago lingered with terrible, vivid reality.
He neither raged nor despaired. He coolly dissected the cause of his defeat.
The movements of the Changgung Muae Sword Art are carved too deeply into this body.
Every form of the Changgung Muae Sword Art carried weight in every single step—solid, grounded, without a crack of opening. Upright and airtight as it was, in a melee like this it became nothing more than shackles dragging at his ankles.
The memories of the Heavenly Demon demand the Demonic Path's treacherous, irregular movement—yet the body still moves with the Namgung Clan's honesty.
That gap had to be closed. He would need to root his footwork in the Namgung Clan's Neung-unbo, the Cloud Stepping Art, and melt the demonic trickery into its very bones.
Swaek—!
This time he evaded the blades of three Blood Shadow warriors and turned Changcheon to deflect a saber—only to fail to dodge the spear that followed it. Death again. The Palace again.
He repeated it dozens of times. Reliving the final moments of his former life inside that mental landscape, he came to know, in the most brutal fashion imaginable, the exact limits of the power his body now possessed.
He died, and died again. An arm severed. A neck cleaved. A heart run through. The pain never dulled—it only grew sharper.
And yet, within that hellish repetition, his sword began to change, ever so slightly. The senses of the Heavenly Demon—forged from survival and struggle—began to seep into Namgung Cheon's body, into the martial arts of the Namgung.
Swaek—!
A blade flew at his left arm. Instead of retreating, Namgung Cheon lunged half a step forward, burrowing into his opponent's guard.
Shff—
The enemy's sword grazed his shoulder, scattering blood. In the same breath, Changcheon swept through the man's throat.
Surrender one to take two. The most demonic method of survival there was.
The battle ground on, and the number he cut down steadily climbed. And then, at last, the formation the Blood Shadow Unit had maintained collapsed—and the Blood Shadow Spear Demon stepped forward.
Simultaneously—
Swaek—!
Without so much as a breath of preparation, the Spear Demon's spear came hurtling at him head-on. Namgung Cheon twisted his body just enough to let the spearhead graze his flank—and in that instant, his feet moved in a way no Namgung footwork ever had.
Neung-unbo, the Cloud Stepping Art of the Namgung Clan. By nature it was a weighty, linear technique, planted and immovable. But the Neung-unbo that unfolded from his heels broke at perfect right angles, driving into the enemy's flank with a treachery the form had never been taught.
The orthodox step shatters at a right angle — righteousness veiled in demonic deceit.
Tak!
His body slid through the empty air the spear had just abandoned, slipping past its reach. And then—
Thrust!
The tip of Changcheon pierced the Blood Shadow Spear Demon's heart with perfect precision.
THUD.
As the Spear Demon's great frame crashed to the floor, the movements of the surrounding Blood Shadow warriors froze for a heartbeat. Namgung Cheon did not let the instant pass. His body shot toward the remaining warriors like an arrow loosed from a bow.
CRASH.
His flesh moved on pure instinct—the instinct of struggle. Footwork without pause, blade without rest. And then—
Shff—
The last Blood Shadow warrior's head fell.
Beyond a hell carpeted in blood and corpses, at the deepest end of the hall, a figure seated upon the throne slowly rose to his feet. The blood that had boiled through Namgung Cheon's entire body went cold in an instant.
Blood dripping from the sword's edge. His own ragged breath. He forgot all of it as he faced the man descending from the throne.
The one who had stood at the apex of ten thousand demons and commanded the world. A wall he would one day have to surpass. And the entirety of who he had been.
Namgung Cheon met those eyes with a gaze gone cold as frost, and spoke.
"Heavenly Demon."
The Heavenly Demon of Namgung
Author | Baek Ri-haeng
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dreambooks
Address | 7F, Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
ISBN | 979-11-7306-734-1
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