Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Ebonarch
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Eastern Blue Falcon
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Whiiish...
A massive bird with a bluish hue soared across the blue sky.
The enormous bird circled above the sprawling estate dotted with countless buildings.
Flutter flutter...!
Flap...!
As the giant bird cast its shadow, the messenger pigeons perched on the eaves scattered in panic.
Whoosh...
The bird that had been wheeling through the sky spread its majestic wings and began descending toward the largest building in the estate.
It landed on the wide-open window ledge and glared at the middle-aged men inside the room.
The eyes of the Alliance Leader and the Strategist, who had been conversing, turned simultaneously toward the window.
"...Eastern Blue Falcon?"
The Strategist, with his refined features, spoke in a voice laced with surprise.
The Eastern Blue Falcon was a falcon so rare it was called a spirit beast.
The Strategist's gaze shifted to the message tube tied to the falcon's leg.
'A messenger bird?'
Who in the world would use such a spirit beast as a mere messenger?
"Hold."
As he rose to approach, the Alliance Leader, seated opposite with his imposing demeanor, raised a hand to stop him.
The Strategist asked cautiously.
"Is this the spirit beast you raised, Alliance Leader?"
"No."
The Alliance Leader stood and approached the falcon on the window ledge.
He untied the message tube from its leg, and the fierce glint in the falcon's eyes softened slightly.
Ten.
The small, rolled-up message bore the number ten.
'Ten? What does ten mean?'
The Strategist, who had glimpsed the number sidelong, wore a puzzled expression.
Having taken on the role of Strategist just a month ago, he knew little.
"Someone outside?"
At the Alliance Leader's raised voice, a female servant waiting beyond the door entered.
"Bring some raw meat."
"Pardon? ...Yes. I'll prepare it right away."
The servant, bewildered at first, hurried out.
"Where is this message from?"
The moment the servant left, the Strategist voiced the question he had been holding back.
But the Alliance Leader delayed his answer, maintaining a grim silence.
Creak.
Soon after, the door opened, and the female servant returned with raw meat on a small plate.
Kyaak... Kyaak...!
The instant she entered, the Eastern Blue Falcon, which had been sitting quietly by the window, began screeching noisily.
The startled servant flailed, dropping the raw meat from the plate.
"S-Sorry, Alliance Leader! I'll prepare more."
"Enough. Leave us."
The servant rushed out, and the Alliance Leader silently picked up the meat with his own hand.
He retrieved the piece that had fallen to the floor and held it before the Eastern Blue Falcon's beak.
But the falcon only glared at the meat with savage eyes.
Ha...
The Alliance Leader was dumbfounded.
'No matter how rare a bird it is, how dare a mere beast refuse food?'
Irritation rising subtly, he tossed the meat out the window.
Whoosh...
Flap...
The Eastern Blue Falcon suddenly spread its massive wings and took flight from the window.
The Alliance Leader smiled in satisfaction, as if he had expected as much.
'Even you, called a spirit beast, are just another greedy bird in the end.'
It had been eleven years since he had taken the Alliance Leader's seat in place of the Infinite Sword Immortal.
Two years later, he began receiving messages marked with "one," and every year since, the Eastern Blue Falcon arrived bearing a message tube.
The increasing numbers on those messages brought him a strange pressure.
Whoosh...
The Eastern Blue Falcon dove straight for the meat but abruptly changed course, soaring skyward.
The bluish falcon rocketed into the heavens and snatched a descending pigeon mid-air in an instant.
"That damned thing...!"
A roar erupted from the Alliance Leader's mouth as the Strategist stared blankly at the falcon vanishing into the distance with the pigeon.
Shing.
"Insolent beast...!"
In rage, the Alliance Leader drew his sword late, but the blue falcon had already become a dot on the horizon.
Ha...
"I've never seen such a cunning falcon."
Hoo...
The Alliance Leader sheathed his sword with a deep sigh at the Strategist's admiration.
"Where on earth did that falcon come from, Alliance Leader?"
The Alliance Leader slumped into his chair without a word.
Should he reveal the secret tied to that Eastern Blue Falcon, or keep it hidden?
He didn't even know the full story himself.
But even the fragments he knew would plunge the martial world into shock.
After a moment's deliberation, the Alliance Leader spoke.
"The tale of that Eastern Blue Falcon begins with the Demonic Cult's great war thirty-five years ago."
Thirty-five years ago, the Demonic Cult invaded the martial world, turning it to ruins.
Mount Hua Sect burned, Zhongnan, Qingcheng, and Emei crumbled.
The martial world, unaware even of the Demonic Cult's existence, crumbled without identifying their foes.
Shaolin, the pillar of the martial world, stood against them but was annihilated by the Demonic Cult's masters.
Eventually, the Murim Alliance fell to the Demonic Cult, and the unorthodox sects that had opposed it surrendered on their knees.
The martial world teetered on the brink of destruction.
Then, an absolute master rose defiantly: Song Wol, elder of the Wudang Sect.
Song Wol slaughtered the Demonic Cult's masters with his supreme martial arts.
As the necks of those who faced his Supreme Ultimate Radiant Sword flew one by one, the martial world's morale soared, and they began fighting back.
The Demonic Cult Leader, locked in a bloody duel with Song Wol, suffered a grievous wound and retreated, forcing his demons to relinquish the Murim Alliance and fall back repeatedly.
"The people of the martial world began calling Elder Song Wol the Infinite Sword Immortal and revered him as the greatest of past and present."
And more than that?
Once the Demonic Cult withdrew, they elected him the new Alliance Leader of the Murim Alliance.
The depth of their adoration was evident in his death.
Eleven years ago, when the Infinite Sword Immortal met his end from old age, the martial world refused to accept it.
They believed he had shed his mortal form to become an immortal, some claiming boldly to have seen him ride clouds to the heavens.
"Wasn't it thanks to him that the martial world was preserved? But what does that have to do with the Eastern Blue Falcon?"
Deep reverence filled the Strategist's voice.
The Alliance Leader gazed steadily at him for a moment.
"Everything I say from now on... you alone must know, Strategist."
Feeling the weight in his voice, the Strategist's expression hardened.
"Understood."
"The Infinite Sword Immortal did not fight the Demonic Cult alone."
"I know. He was with the master called One Hidden, wasn't he?"
Only the Infinite Sword Immortal knew One Hidden's true identity.
The martial world, ignorant even of his name or clan, called him One Hidden.
But no one doubted he was an extraordinary master.
He had survived the Demonic Cult war to the end.
"The one who felled the Demon Emperor, leader of the Demonic Cult... was not the Infinite Sword Immortal, but One Hidden."
Rumble! Thud...!
Lightning seemed to strike in the Strategist's mind at those words.
"Impossible... That can't be..."
The shock was so great that only anguished groans escaped his lips.
But the Alliance Leader's voice remained cold.
"Hard to believe, I know, but those were the Infinite Sword Immortal's own words, so it must be true."
"Then... are you saying the Infinite Sword Immortal deceived the martial world for thirty years?"
Everything he had believed was a lie.
The Strategist felt the world go white before his eyes.
The Demonic Cult war broke out when he was twelve, and at fourteen, he first heard of the Infinite Sword Immortal's fame.
The boy dreamed of becoming a hero like him.
He trained day and night to emulate him, fantasizing of slaying demons to save the martial world.
All boys that age aspired to be the Infinite Sword Immortal.
And now it was all false...
"Not entirely false. The Infinite Sword Immortal slew Demonic Cult masters alongside One Hidden."
The Alliance Leader's words fell on deaf ears.
"What... is One Hidden's identity?"
"A wanderer."
The hero who saved the martial world, a mere wanderer?
Doubting his ears, the Strategist asked again.
"Truly... a wanderer?"
"Yes."
The Strategist stared blankly at the Alliance Leader's face before throwing his head back in laughter.
Hahaha... Haha...!
This was too much.
"When they severed the Demonic Cult Leader's limbs, they recovered the Demon Lord's Sword."
The Strategist knew this well.
When the Infinite Sword Immortal raised the Demon Lord's Sword high as proof of slaying the Demonic Cult Leader, every warrior in the martial world wept and cheered.
From that moment, their morale surged, courage multiplied, and they fought back against the Demonic Cult.
Even now, once a year, they displayed the Demon Lord's Sword to commemorate the day, the Murim Alliance's grandest event.
"The Sword Immortal lent the Demon Lord's Sword to One Hidden. The term was twenty years, in exchange for two hundred thousand taels of silver annually."
One tael of silver bought a sack of rice; two hundred thousand taels equaled two hundred thousand sacks.
An astronomical sum.
"Why make such a decision?"
The Alliance Leader gave a wry smile.
"Because of the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families' reputations. If word spread that a mere wanderer slew the Demonic Cult Leader, what would become of their prestige?"
It made sense upon reflection.
The Infinite Sword Immortal's feat preserved the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families' honor to this day.
"At first, it was just for one year. But martial world's luminaries constantly visited to view the Demon Lord's Sword. How could he return it easily?"
"What then, after twenty years?"
At the Strategist's question, the Alliance Leader rose and opened a wall cabinet, retrieving two swords.
The scabbards and hilts were identical.
"The Sword Immortal planned to craft a fake sword and return the true one."
"A wise choice. Why didn't he?"
"Try holding them."
The Strategist took one sword in each hand at his word.
"Hm...?"
Both were heavier than typical longswords.
Yet the one in his right hand felt slightly heavier than the left.
"Now, draw them."
The Strategist drew the blades.
Shing...
The blades looked identical.
But the left gleamed black, while the right bore a dull black sheen mixed with rusty red.
"The right is the true sword."
The Strategist had seen the Demon Lord's Sword at seventeen, when he visited the Murim Alliance with his father.
"Correct. If you can tell, couldn't the martial world's experts? We commissioned a renowned smith for the fake, but this is the best he managed."
The Strategist recognized the left fake incorporated thousand-year cold iron.
But the true sword's alloy eluded him.
"The smith said the true sword mixes meteor iron."
'As expected...'
Meteor iron came from fallen celestial fireballs.
Each piece varied, indistinguishable by blade color.
"The Sword Immortal passed away with one year left on the term."
A mountain of stone weighed on the Strategist's chest.
Now he understood the message numbers.
The Alliance Leader had no intention of returning the Demon Lord's Sword.
The "ten" meant ten years past the deadline.
"Did you send the silver?"
The Alliance Leader shook his head gravely.
"Why bother? Nineteen years to One Hidden totals three million eight hundred thousand taels. Enough for hundreds of famed swords."
"One Hidden might come for it."
A faint smile touched the Alliance Leader's heavy face.
"This isn't the martial world of thirty-five years ago. Even if the Demonic Cult war reignites, I fear it not."
He paused, then continued.
"Honestly, I hope One Hidden does come."
It was the aspiration of a warrior.
The Alliance Leader yearned to cross swords with One Hidden.
Boys raised on tales of the Infinite Sword Immortal had become the martial world's backbone, purging evil hordes.
Even if the Demonic Cult revived and invaded, it wouldn't be the one-sided rout of old.
As if reading the Strategist's unease, the Alliance Leader laughed heartily.
Kekekeke...
"All will be well, Strategist. No worries. Speaking of which, any word on the Blood Ghost Mother?"
"The Heaven Dominating Blade King leads the enforcers personally. Her head will roll soon."
The Alliance Leader shook his head at the Strategist's confidence.
"Her skills are inferior to his, but she's a cunning witch. She won't yield her neck easily."
The Blood Ghost Mother had plagued the martial world for thirty years.
When the Murim Alliance pursued, she vanished like a ghost, only to reappear years later.
"I'll deploy the Heavenly Martial Squad, Alliance Leader."
"Do it."
The Infinite Sword Immortal had worried about One Hidden until his dying breath.
"In one year... you must... return the Demon Lord's Sword without fail. Never... make an enemy of One Hidden. If you do, the martial world... will shatter to pieces."
"Worry not, Sword Immortal."
Only then did he close his eyes peacefully.
But the Alliance Leader had no intention of repaying the debt.
'I want to test his strength myself, Sword Immortal.'