Omen of the Prologue - 4
The heavy air hanging over the room felt strangely out of place.
It was an odd thing. The mood had only turned good of late; every other time they had gathered like this, the atmosphere in this room had always been grim.
Who was it who said that people grow accustomed to happiness? The calm that had settled over the past several days had sharpened all at once into the edge of a blade, and to Hong Ryeon the change was unbearable — it set her teeth on edge.
"There are forces moving against Hongseong Gate..."
It was Ryu Hyeon who murmured it, low and grave. She nodded slowly to herself, then stole a glance at Sa Yun.
It wasn't as though letters like this were new to them. Threats, coaxing, offers — there had never been any shortage of people eager to use Hongseong Gate's peril as leverage against them.
But was this letter to be handled the same way?
"As for how far we can trust it..."
Those clear violet eyes welled with moisture. Sa Yun had gone rigid, unable to force a single word past her lips — but from that alone, Geomseong could tell exactly what she was trying to say.
Trust.
Hongseong Gate's darling youngest disciple trusted this letter — and the one who had sent it.
And Geomseong felt the same.
"What think you?"
The Sword Saint was mighty, but she had little experience with affairs of this kind. Which is to say, whenever a situation like this arose, it was Hong Ryeon who made the call.
And this time would be no different.
Hong Ryeon reached out and fixed her eyes on the letter. The hand gripping the closely written page tightened.
Her broken heart.
The heart that had reeled at things it never knew was slowly being made whole again.
The Nak-ilgeom — the Sun-Falling Sword. Feeling the heart of the warrior who wielded the blade that fells the sun knitting itself back together, she set the letter down.
Then she drew a leather cord from her pocket, bound her hair back tight, and spoke with cold composure.
"It's hard to believe it's a lie."
Even with Hong Ryeon choosing to trust the letter, Sa Yun's expression did not lift.
And why would it? To trust the letter was to accept that enemies truly were circling Hongseong Gate.
To Sa Yun, Hongseong Gate was home, and family, and happiness itself.
Who could possibly be glad to hear that someone meant to destroy it?
"The letters 'Uncle' has sent us have only ever been well-meant. Thinking of that... it's hard to see this as an attempt to use us. And..."
'Uncle' knew secrets of Hongseong Gate that even Geomseong did not. And he had shared them with Sa Yun without asking for anything in return.
Considering all that, this letter could only be read as one sent out of genuine worry — for Sa Yun, and for Hongseong Gate.
"And the chance that even that was turned against us?"
At Ryu Hyeon's clipped remark, Sa Yun's fingers clenched the hem of her robe. But it was a doubt someone had to voice.
Geomseong and Hong Ryeon did not blame her; they knew Ryu Hyeon's heart, knew she cast herself as the villain so that no one else had to. They simply weighed the possibility.
"I can't be certain without meeting him face to face... but in my judgment, that possibility is low."
"I see."
If Hong Ryeon judged it so, then so it was. Ryu Hyeon nodded, and Hong Ryeon rapped the letter lightly before speaking again.
"The letter says the ones moving against Hongseong Gate are the Iron Blood Dan. Master — do you know anything of this Iron Blood Dan?"
Geomseong shook her head. Many men had died at her hands in her long walk through the jianghu.
But never once, in all that time, had she crossed an enemy called the Iron Blood Dan.
"Then let us move on. If the enemy comes, from which direction will they strike?"
"It's written in the letter Uncle sent."
"Even fortifying those places is a problem. Unless the enemy is a fool, the moment they see a road is guarded, they can come at us from any other direction they please, can't they?"
As Hong Ryeon tapped the letter, Sa Yun raised her hand and pointed to the map hanging on the wall.
"I heard this while out on patrol recently. A large force of government troops has arrived in Seomhwachon, and they said that for training purposes they'll be stationed here, here, and here."
One of the roads into Seomhwachon, the path leading up Mount Hongseong, and several other points besides had been designated as training zones.
Hong Ryeon, hearing it for the first time, looked over at her, and Ryu Hyeon supplied the rest.
"After the Demonic Cult's attack, the Magistrate was granted additional reinforcements. It seems... Innkeeper Yu settled the arrangements so neatly that they could be dispatched in short order."
With government troops holding those roads, no one in their right mind would try to force a way through. They might swallow the losses and clash with the authorities, certainly — but she doubted anyone moving against Hongseong Gate would attempt anything so witless.
Which meant the number of routes the enemy could use to slip in had just shrunk.
Hong Ryeon marked the map and went on.
"That's a mercy. Could we raise a formation inside the sect grounds as well? If we're bracing for a night raid, we ought to at least lay down an illusion formation. Do we have the materials?"
"We could activate one — though it would hold for only a short time."
"There is also a risk it would draw in the spirits that dwell upon Mount Hongseong. That much is not written in the letter."
And Geomseong was right. Mount Hongseong teemed with ghosts and spirits — and they might well follow an outsider's bidding if it meant laying hands on the spiritual energy Hongseong Gate kept suppressed.
They combed through the letter's contents, hammering out countermeasures and weighing every possibility against each opinion as it was raised.
And so the council wore on, and it was deep into the night before the talking finally ceased.
When the list of tasks had been roughly settled, Hong Ryeon let out a sigh.
"Then, one last question. If the Iron Blood Dan comes, what is the first piece they would want off the board?"
Hong Ryeon, Ryu Hyeon, and Sa Yun — all three turned their heads at once. With every disciple's gaze converging on her alone, Geomseong gave a wry smile.
Of course. To strike at Hongseong Gate, the first piece to be swept away would be Geomseong herself.
And how might one hope to neutralize the Sword Saint?
"Her disciples."
Hong Ryeon spat out the two words.
The Sword Saint was strong enough to stand among the ten greatest in all the world.
Hopeless as she was in nearly every other respect, in matters of the martial arts there was no one alive more dependable.
And what she cherished was Hongseong Gate — and her disciples. Which meant that seizing those disciples as hostages would bleed away the Sword Saint's strength like nothing else could.
It might even be the only way anyone could ever hope to hold her down.
"Then for the time being, none shall leave the mountain — save Hong Ryeon, Ryu Hyeon, and Hyeon Hwi."
"Ugh..."
Tending the herb gardens. Harvesting Thousand-Day Plum Blossoms for the fragrant sachets.
Gathering edible greens, wild-growing herbs, and fruit for the table, or hunting for fresh meat.
With all of that to consider, the disciples could hardly be kept inside the sect for lessons and nothing else.
But in circumstances like these, even that much was no small thing to ask.
When Ryu Hyeon groaned, Hong Ryeon looked her way, and at last she calmly laid out the situation.
Yet Hong Ryeon's expression only brightened.
"At least the food problem looks solvable. As it happens, Innkeeper Yu has arranged something for us."
Hong Ryeon brought up what Yu Wol had told her that day. At the news that they would be receiving Fasting Pills — a new product of the Cheonghoe Merchant Guild — Ryu Hyeon opened her mouth to volunteer as villain once more.
But Hong Ryeon had seen it coming and shook her head, and Ryu Hyeon settled for a wry smile instead.
Innkeeper Yu Wol. Even by Ryu Hyeon's own measure, he was a good man — and the last person on earth who would ever betray them.
Hadn't not only Hong Ryeon but Geomseong herself come to defer to him, addressing him with honor outright?
And so Ryu Hyeon cleanly put from her mind any thought of Yu Wol tampering with their food.
"Then couldn't we turn this around and use it to lure the enemy in?"
Hong Ryeon looked to the final lines of the letter. 'Uncle' had evidently thought along the same lines, for there it was written: a counterstrike might even be launched by turning the poisoning against them.
"Hmm. But with defenses laid this thick, would they truly still come?"
As a rule, one strikes an enemy when the enemy is weak. All the more so when, unlike a friendly duel, there is no testing of one's own skill in it.
"Hard to say. But... Uncle did write that their goal is to drive Mount Hongseong's spiritual energy berserk, didn't he? I don't think they'll simply give up... And if they never come at all, then all of this just ends as a fuss over nothing."
"Let us hope it proves so."
But everyone in that room knew, in their bones, that this affair would never end as mere fuss.
A night beneath a moon in full, dazzling splendor.
A middle-aged man with a gaunt, barren face stared straight ahead out of indifferent eyes.
Barely holding its ground amid the heaps of monster dead was a beast with a long, narrow snout and the keen fangs of a tiger.
A creature that loathed every living thing and made its meals of human flesh stood before a man far smaller than itself, paralyzed by nothing but terror.
And small wonder — that man had torn every one of its brethren to pieces.
Grrrrr...
Ragged, frantic breathing. Strike, or be struck. At last the monster smothered its fear and hurled itself at the man—
SHWAAAAAK!!
A long blade of water had appeared in the man's hand before the eye could follow, and it split the beast clean in two.
Blood and shreds of flesh pattered down like rain.
And when he saw that every monster here was dead, he drove the water blade down into the earth.
In the same instant, the blood and flesh of the beast he had just slain began to drain into the blade. No — the corpses and blood of every monster on the field were sucked into the sword of water, as though swept up in a whirlpool.
Before that blade — blackened now, gorged on countless bodies and rivers of blood — the man held out a water jar.
The water blade streamed into the jar, and the man spoke to a woman with a venomous face who had drawn near without a sound.
"Jo Yo. Are the preparations complete?"
"...Yes. Go Yu-mi, the Gentleman of the Beam, has already moved. She means to loose the poison inside Hongseong Gate within days. Though whether she can actually pull it off..."
"She is a subordinate I selected with my own eyes. Do you doubt what I see?"
"N-no, of course not. Only — after the Demonic Cult's attack on Seomhwachon, the magistrate's office there has been reinforced with troops... Perhaps we might push the schedule back a little—"
"Push it back? So you can use that as your pretext to hand this work to the others? No — to bring that bitch in and carve my credit away from me? Just like before?"
The voice dripped with contempt, with distrust. At his words the woman flinched, her shoulders shuddering.
"The Go Hwa Dan and the Ju Gyeong Dae can reach the appointed place without trouble. Have you had word from them? They said they could keep to the hour, did they not?"
"Yes. Barring some unforeseen problem. And—"
More objections, one after another. The man listened for a long while — and at last his teeth bared.
This woman, placed under his command by the order of that bitch — the one who had needled him over every trifling matter since he had taken charge of this operation — had opposed him at every turn.
"Jo Yo. All you ever bring me are objections to what I intend to do. If not for the bargain I struck with that bitch, your head would have come off long ago."
"Eep...!"
"Are those objections of yours, perhaps, the will of your master — the Iron Blood Golden Emperor?"
Jo Yo, the Mind Demon Woman.
A woman who had slaughtered hundreds of innocent commoners to sharpen her own martial arts and called it merit — yet before the man in front of her, she could only duck her head in haste at the irritation in the Iron Blood Water Emperor's voice.
He had struck the truth home.
Her master, the Iron Blood Golden Emperor, wanted the Iron Blood Water Emperor to fail and fall beneath his own command — that was why he had fastened Jo Yo to the man's side.
That this man knew it full well, and her neck remained on her shoulders all the same, was surely thanks to the secret understanding between him and the Iron Blood Golden Emperor.
But even so — push too far, and her head would come off, exactly as he promised.
So, to live, she had to keep her forehead to the dirt and stay there.
"No, never!! How could I dare! Everything you do, Lord Water Emperor, is for the sake of the Iron Blood Dan — how could I ever...!"
Pounding her brow against the ground again and again, she begged forgiveness. And Jo Yo knew perfectly well that the gaze resting on the back of her head was one of pure contempt.
Even so, not a word of protest could pass her lips. She could only lie prostrate, flinching, groveling for mercy.
The man regarded her the way one regards something beneath notice — then turned away.
What met his eyes now were his subordinates — men who, unlike this woman, had sworn their loyalty to him.
He gazed over them, and raised his hand.
"OOOOOH!!"
Cheering. Roaring. Jubilation.
Hopes for what was to come rolled out across the night like thunder.
Oblivious to Jo Yo — still flat on the ground, her lips clamped tight — the Iron Blood Water Emperor turned away.
"We move."
Dozens of black-clad figures fell in behind him.
Only once they had receded into the distance did Jo Yo scramble up and hurry after them.
And so the Iron Blood Dan began its march on Mount Hongseong.
Never knowing what lay in wait for them there.