The Jegal Clan's Legacy
The Jegal Clan.
When they established military strategies, even an army of a hundred thousand would lay down their arms of their own accord. When they deployed formations, even renowned masters of famous sects would stand frozen, unable to move a single toe as sweat poured down their faces.
A prestigious house that had always ranked within the top two among the Five Great Noble Families. They were a gathering of individuals who excelled not with swords, but with schemes; not with inner energy, but with the manipulation of circumstances.
Their brilliance was such that they had inherited, generation after generation, the position of military advisor who oversaw military affairs separately within the Murim Alliance. Whenever the orthodox alliance prepared for war, the Jegal Clan's intentions shaped the very outline of the conflict.
Their weapons were not unique inner arts or powerful martial techniques, but exquisitely calculated qimen formations and arrays, along with the art of qimen dunjia that wove together the principles of past and present. Rather than wielding martial arts themselves, they commanded them. Instead of fighting, they opened paths for their enemies to collapse on their own.
A single brushstroke became a map of the battlefield. When they spread their fans, the direction of the entire jianghu shifted. They carved up battlefields without drawing swords and built power without shedding blood. That was the Jegal Clan—the ancestral house of strategy.
'That used to be the case.'
In his previous life, during his time as the Hwanma.
Countless sects had fallen before his blade, and even more had destroyed themselves after being ensnared by his illusions. Yet among them all, there had been one persistently troublesome existence.
The Jegal Clan.
They were the only family capable of seeing through the formations he had disrupted with illusions. They had even managed to mend internal divisions caused by his schemes of discord. Even amid the chaos he sowed, they read the situation and prepared their next move.
It had been irritating.
Not terrifying—just troublesome.
While others prostrated themselves before the Hwanma, these scholars would quietly close their fans and speak with words that sometimes carried more weight than illusions.
'That's why I eliminated them first.'
No swords were used to destroy the Jegal Clan. Before blades could reach them, information was cut off. Before goodwill could arrive, suspicion was planted. He had leaked just a little information to both the unorthodox and orthodox factions—old distrust they already harbored toward the Jegal Clan. He had merely provided a single spark. The tinder had already existed within them.
He lit the fire lightly, and the world burned itself down.
That day, flames rose from the Jegal Clan's pavilions. Books burned, military texts burned, and their unique order collapsed.
'I thought I'd killed every last one of them, down to the rats... To think a descendant still remained.'
A strange feeling washed over him. The descendant of the clan he had destroyed was now riding in the same carriage as him. The world truly turned in amusing ways. New sprouts grew from the ruins he had created.
So-dam—Jegal So-dam—spoke cautiously.
"You already knew about my family name, didn't you? How did you find out?"
"Cheontongan is originally a bloodline ability passed down through the Jegal Clan."
He didn't know exactly how such an ability was inherited. He only knew that those eyes could see through even the illusions and qimen formations he had created during his time as the Hwanma. Perhaps they were his only natural enemy.
Of course, not every member of the Jegal Clan possessed such eyes. It was an ability that appeared in only one person every two or three generations. In the original Jegal Clan, such a descendant would have been valued more than any treasure. He had never expected to encounter one in a place like this marketplace. Even less had he expected them to be using Cheontongan merely for peddling goods.
"So. You're not the only Jegal left, are you? Where are the rest of your family?"
"I have siblings, but we're all scattered trying to make a living."
"What about your martial arts and formations?"
"They all burned. The prestigious Jegal Clan no longer exists."
"I see."
After all, he had personally orchestrated it. Even if a few blood relatives had managed to escape by luck, they wouldn't have been able to take anything with them.
"Ahem!"
Suddenly feeling itchy, he scratched his neck. It wasn't his skin that itched—it was his conscience.
'Why did I live like that?'
Looking back from Seomun Hwan's current perspective, his past life made no sense at all. Madness had bred more madness. Violence without understanding had become an end in itself. Means had become their own purpose. Blind advance had neither direction nor stopping point.
'Why was I so cruel?'
Only regret remained, but he wasn't foolish enough to be crushed by its weight and do nothing. Now, he would simply do what he could.
"So? What's your goal?"
"...Pardon?"
"You have an extraordinary ability. You don't intend to use it just for making money, do you?"
"Well... actually..."
Jegal So-dam clasped his hands on his knees, unable to meet his gaze.
"I want to restore the Jegal Clan."
At those words, Seomun Hwan's eyes quietly gleamed.
"Is that possible?"
Jegal So-dam shook his head.
"No. Until now, it was impossible. I had no money, no people, and nowhere to turn. So I thought I'd at least do business to gather capital first."
Seomun Hwan let out a soft chuckle. Then he slowly turned his body to face Jegal So-dam.
"Good. I'll help you achieve that dream."
"...Really?"
Jegal So-dam's eyes trembled slightly. It was a dream he had held since childhood, one he had never been able to speak of to anyone. And now it was beginning so simply, from a single sentence...
But Seomun Hwan continued.
His tone was somewhat playful, yet strangely sincere.
"But you know, the basics of business are give and take. If I help you, you have to help me too."
Jegal So-dam closed his mouth for a moment, then asked carefully.
"...What would I need to do?"
Seomun Hwan laughed and tilted his head back. Sunlight from outside the window illuminated his profile.
"Make it so I can live a very comfortable, leisurely life. Set up a stage where I can play around freely."
Jegal So-dam stared blankly at Seomun Hwan's words for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"...Are you serious?"
"Hm?"
"Someone with abilities like yours, Young Master, and your dream is just... to live leisurely?"
Jegal So-dam continued as if protesting.
"If I had abilities like yours, Young Master, I would have grand ambitions to turn the world upside down. But leisurely living? Is that all? Just quietly lying around and living idly?"
"Ha!!"
Seomun Hwan laughed loudly once, then lightly raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah. That's enough."
"...Really?"
"Yeah. It's much harder than you think."
Seomun Hwan closed his eyes and leaned his head back.
"Living without clashing with the world, not moving even when called, protecting my body with only my own hands, and living each day in peace. That's far more expensive than you'd imagine."
Jegal So-dam fell silent at those words. Then he muttered quietly.
"I've never even imagined something like that."
Seomun Hwan chuckled.
"You want to change the world, and I want to live quietly in that changed world."
Jegal So-dam looked at Seomun Hwan's smile, then suddenly nodded with a slightly serious expression.
"...All right. Then I'll give you a world where you can live leisurely, Young Master."
"Good. Now that's a proper contract."
The destruction of his past life and the beginning of his present life began walking side by side once more, following their intertwined fates.
"But I have a few questions."
"Go ahead."
"The chain sword. I definitely sold it to you, and you started using it for the first time. But how can you handle it so freely?"
Everyone who had watched the sparring match believed that Seomun Hwan had trained with the chain sword for years. Otherwise, how could he have consecutively defeated Hyeonhak of the Wudang Sect and Jongli Hyeok?
But only Jegal So-dam, who had sold the chain sword, knew the truth.
Seomun Hwan answered as if it were nothing.
"Have you heard of 'all rivers return to the sea'?"
"Yes. It means that in the end, all water reaches the ocean—that when martial arts reach their peak, they all converge to the same point."
"As expected of a Jegal. Poke once and it all comes spilling out."
"Don't tell me... you mean you've reached that level, Young Master?"
"Of course."
So-dam frowned as if it were absurd. Of course, he knew Seomun Hwan's skill from seeing it with his own eyes, but the realm of "all rivers return to the sea" was a phrase that only appeared in legends. No matter how outstanding a martial artist, one couldn't be proficient in every field.
But since Seomun Hwan was being shameless about it, So-dam couldn't press further.
"...Understood. Next question, then."
"Young Master, you said at first that you'd fight everyone in that group. Fortunately the provocation worked and only that person called Hyeonhak came out, but what if they had all rushed at you like a pack of dogs?"
So-dam spoke with a face full of disbelief.
"There were nearly ten martial artists, all renowned rising stars. Challenging all of them at once... even for you, Young Master, that was a reckless gamble."
Seomun Hwan let out a soft laugh at those words. Then, still looking out the window, he silently raised his hand.
"Stop the carriage for a moment."
"What? What did you just say?"
While So-dam stared with a dumbfounded expression, Seomun Hwan was already knocking on the carriage wall.
"Deokheum. Stop the carriage."
Deokheum's urgent voice came from outside.
"Young Master? We're in the middle of the road... Is something wrong?"
"Why are you saying such useless things? Stop. Right now."
The carriage jolted to a halt.
So-dam still looked at Seomun Hwan with bewildered eyes.
"Young Master... what exactly are you trying to do?"
"I'll prove right now whether my method was a gamble or not."
He slowly rose to his feet. His movements were lazy, like someone being forced awake from a nap. Yet his steps were not heavy, and not a single trace of his presence was disturbed.
Seomun Hwan pushed open the carriage door and stepped outside.
A moment later...
"You people hiding over there."
Seomun Hwan spoke without even looking around.
"Come out. Don't hide."
As soon as he finished speaking, rustling sounds came from the bushes across the clearing. And then...
Shhk, shhk, shhk.
Dark shadows revealed themselves one by one.
Twelve in total.
One of them stepped forward first. Staggering steps, robes soaked in blood, a body that seemed to be forcibly holding together collapsed meridians.
Jongli Hyeok.
He snarled, his lips twitching with dried blood.
"...I can't let you live. Did you think you'd be safe after trampling on my honor?"
Behind him stood the others. Their clothing and weapons were all different, but each radiated powerful energy. They were likely mercenaries hired at great expense from the wanderer market. Some among them were elite mercenaries far stronger and more experienced than Jongli Hyeok or Namgung Cheon-hwi.
Jegal So-dam felt as though he couldn't breathe. Just looking at them, their killing intent seemed to slice across his skin, and the momentum of each step they took felt like a predator closing in on its prey.
"Young Master, you need to run. This is... this is really dangerous..."
Seomun Hwan raised his hand and quietly cut off Jegal So-dam's words. He spoke in his usual leisurely tone.
"Take off your glasses."
"...What?"
"Watch carefully what happens from now on. With those eyes."
"Young Master, that's..."
"If you truly intend to carry on the Jegal bloodline, you can't keep lowering your head like that."
Seomun Hwan's voice was low and gentle, but the conviction within it was as heavy as a mountain.
"Keep your eyes open and watch closely. The existence you chose."
Seomun Hwan drew the Cheongryu Sword.