The Procession
“Everyone clear the path and bow your heads! The First Young Master of our family is making his procession!”
The cry of a Wongak Pavilion maid, thick with internal qi, rang out far and wide.
“The Sword Family’s First Young Master…?”
At the words of the First Young Master’s procession, the Deputy Abbess of the Emei Sect stepped forward. As Sang-gwan Nan-hwa had said, she must have meant to arrange a face-to-face meeting with him herself.
But what greeted the Deputy Abbess was not the First Young Master.
“Stand aside!”
The heavy warning aura unleashed by the Special Task Force members shook the entire gathering. Dust that had settled overnight on the ground rolled outward in waves from that mere warning pressure alone.
“…Masters?!”
The Emei nuns had no time even to register their shock. Every Special Task Force member stationed at the main-gate post stepped out at once and drove the Emei contingent bodily to the side of the gate.
“W-what is the meaning of this?!”
“This humble nun only wished to pay her respects to the First Young Master…!”
Protests earned no answer. They simply raised their hands with unyielding finality and barred the way. While the Emei nuns were shoved back under a startlingly coercive air, the women of Daseonrang, who had yielded the road from the first, merely straightened their postures in silence.
The first figure to emerge from the main gate of Wongak Pavilion was Hyang, Captain of the Maid Corps. She was not in her usual maid’s uniform with a sword at her hip; full armor had been buckled over the maid’s attire.
“Maid Corps, advance! Assume defensive positions along the main road!”
The moment the order left her lips, the maids of the Maid Corps poured out of the gate in a single flood. At first the Emei nuns had worn faint looks of disdain, judging the maids’ martial level to be equal or inferior to their own warrior-nuns; those expressions changed almost at once.
…There are so many.
The Deputy Abbess’s cheek twitched. A Maid Corps of fifty warriors equaled the fighting strength of any respectable sword company of the Luoyang Sword Family.
The armament is extraordinarily high. Even the leather light armor they wear is no ordinary piece.
That level of gear would be burdensome for martial artists of their rank to use at all.
Manryeon Mandan—Myriad Refinements, Myriad Forgings. The Luoyang Sword Family’s elite forge, which worked steel only by thorough custom order for its finest warriors. Every scrap of armament on the Maid Corps had come from that forge.
Two swords as standard. Daggers or flying knives fixed firmly to leather belts according to the wearer; here and there a bow across the back and a quiver at the hip. More striking still, every one of them wore studded combat boots and even leather helmets.
Those are the First Young Master’s maids…?
No one answered the sound transmission. Anyone with eyes could see they were martial artists drilled to a high standard of unit combat—fighters who would distinguish themselves the moment they were thrown onto any front. Among the Nine Great Sects still clinging to life, which one would dare keep such people as mere maids? No—apart from the Imperial Family, how many powers under heaven could even assemble and maintain a Maid Corps like this?
What a waste… a waste like no other…
The Deputy Abbess clicked her tongue inwardly. Individually the Emei warrior-nuns might stand higher, yet before this sight what did that matter?
“Clear the path!”
The Emei nuns’ humiliation, however, had only begun.
“Clear the path!”
With another qi-charged cry, a troop of mounted warriors appeared along the road the Maid Corps had emptied. Their gear was far lighter than that of the ironclad cavalry Elder Yeom had once led, yet the personal armament and cultivation of each rider differed from those earlier men by a gulf of heaven and earth. Only the martial robes worn next to the skin were uniform; weapons and outer dress varied from man to man. The meaning of that was plain.
Each of them looks to be on the level of our Emei Sect’s first-generation disciples…
A master who had clearly crossed the wall—faint qi still streamed from his eyes—addressed the Maid Corps Captain.
“We report the arrival of ten escort warriors under the Escort Division Commander, answering Wongak Pavilion’s request.”
“I am the Maid Corps Captain of Wongak Pavilion, presently in charge of control before the main gate. Stand by as you are.”
“Mm.”
The warriors from the Escort Pavilion exchanged no idle talk. They scattered to key points and waited astride their mounts. Despite an outward air of ease, they sealed the vital approaches and never stopped scanning the surroundings. A few who rode nearest glanced once at the Emei nuns, then looked away as though they held no interest whatever.
“….”
Their private thoughts remained unknown, yet the judgment was clear: these women posed not the slightest threat. A pointless sense of humiliation made the Emei nuns grind their teeth.
Last to appear were six black four-horse armored carriages and several dozen Security Corps troops jogging alongside them. The moment the carriages took position on the road, the Security Corps relieved the Maid Corps and screened the gazes of the crowd that had gathered from nowhere.
Deputy Abbess. Look closely at those carriages.
At the transmission the Deputy Abbess turned her eyes to them; a low sound escaped her unbidden. The roofs were built to open upward, and in the iron-plated centers sat ballistae of the sort found only on castle walls.
…Could they be black because they were fashioned entirely of black ironwood?
Someone’s transmission again went unanswered. The Deputy Abbess looked almost dazed. The Emei Sect had thrived more than any of the fallen Nine Great Sects. Its enterprises, its revenues, its influence—except for the Sichuan Tang Family, nothing in Sichuan soil could match it. Yet behold the unbridgeable gulf. Was there a soul present who did not know the Luoyang Sword Family stood first under heaven? They were a power one could scarcely call a mere family, and everyone knew it. They also knew they could never serve even as a comparison. Still, knowing and seeing with one’s own eyes were two different things. Each time she confirmed such differences one by one, the Deputy Abbess felt only a dizzying distance.
Preparing carriages and mounts must mean the Sword Family’s First Young Master is bound somewhere…?
At a nun’s sound transmission the Deputy Abbess’s mind snapped clear.
“Today is the day our master, the First Young Master, after ending his seclusion, undertakes his first official external schedule!”
Even without the Maid Corps Captain’s qi-laden shout, the spirit and morale of the maids already seemed ready to pierce the heavens.
“Let not a single member of the Maid Corps bring the slightest stain upon our master’s honor!”
“Loyalty!”
The answering roar of the Maid Corps rang out with force enough to scatter the dawn mist.
And then he appeared.
What emerged in majesty from the main gate were two oxen. Yet it felt wrong to call them mere livestock. A black ox and a yellow ox whose shoulders rose higher than a grown man, every inch of their bodies plated in steel-hard muscle. Those two spirit beasts snorted fiercely as they drew a steel ox-carriage.
The carriage the Grand Patriarch of the Luoyang Sword Family had ordered built for the wife who never avoided danger. After more than a decade the ox-carriage of Yak So-yu—known by the moniker Ironclad Fortress—revealed itself to the outside world once more. Upon that Ironclad Fortress fluttered the massive banner of the Luoyang Sword Family, and beside it a First Young Master’s standard every bit as splendid and vast.
Even at low speed the steel wheels of the Ironclad Fortress spat sparks as though they meant to shatter the paving stones, and the whole vehicle cleared the gate completely.
“Seal the main gate of Wongak Pavilion!”
“Seal it!”
At the Maid Corps Captain’s command—issued by the First Young Master’s authority—the Special Task Force barred and locked the great gates. From this moment only a handful of pre-approved persons would be allowed to use the side entrance.
At some point no Emei nun spoke; even sound transmissions had fallen silent. The quiet was broken by Sang-gwan Nan-hwa of Daseonrang, who had stood motionless beside them all the while.
“Have you understood now?”
“….”
The Deputy Abbess regarded her without a word.
“At least here in Luoyang there is no longer any reason for Daseonrang and the Emei Sect to wage a war of nerves.”
Sang-gwan Nan-hwa looked at the middle-aged nun still trapped in her misconceptions as though the sight were faintly pitiable.
“Do you still believe we can dare ask the First Young Master to grant the Emei Sect an audience?”
“….”
Though no answer came, Sang-gwan Nan-hwa continued in her quiet, measured tone.
“The letters from our parents that you hold, the pretext of protecting the disciples—none of it is of any use.”
The First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family. Seated inside the steel ox-carriage, not even his face visible. Yet that name alone, heavy as Mount Sumeru, crushed the shoulders of every Emei nun present.
“That does not mean we intend any reckless act, so set your minds at ease. We too cherish the lives of our families.”
“….”
If there was any consolation left, it was this: at least within Luoyang the Emei Sect had lost all control over Daseonrang.
In that instant the Deputy Abbess understood. She understood why the Grand Abbess—so proud, so bitter against the Luoyang Sword Family—still went about seeking the strength of others.
“….”
To the speechless Deputy Abbess, Sang-gwan Nan-hwa inclined her head in a brief farewell.
“Then.”
Daseonrang followed Cheong-su, who had waited quietly behind them, and climbed into the four-horse carriage assigned to their party. As the Deputy Abbess stared blankly after their retreating figures, the Grand Abbess’s voice from the night before brushed through her mind.
Remember. No matter what happens, you must cling tightly to those children.
The Grand Abbess had ordered them to stick to Daseonrang no matter the cost.
She foresaw that in this moment my resolve would nearly break…!
If so, then the command to remain at Daseonrang’s side held a meaning deeper than she had yet grasped.
“First Young Master!”
Every eye snapped toward the Deputy Abbess as she cried out in a near frenzy. At once the Maid Corps Captain’s rebuke cracked across the road.
“How dare a monk forget her place and call the First Young Master of our house so freely?!”
Ignoring her, the Deputy Abbess raised her voice still higher.
“Please! Please grant our Emei Sect leave to stand beside Daseonrang and aid the First Young Master’s enterprises!”
She scarcely knew what she was shouting. The chance that the First Young Master would accept such a plea seemed nonexistent. Yet she was seized by the grim certainty that if she did not speak now, she would be cut off from Daseonrang forever.
“First Young Master!”
At that moment a window of the ox-carriage slid open, and the Head Maid’s voice carried clearly outside.
“The master has permitted them to join. Assign those monks a place in a carriage.”