Meeting or Encounter
A few hours earlier.
Luoyang Sword Family, Supreme Operations Committee.
“With this, every item on today’s agenda has been decided.”
At the General Affairs Committee member’s words, the Chairman drew out a pocket watch hung on a platinum chain and glanced at its face.
“Today’s meeting ran long again.”
Because even the Supreme Committee members were forbidden to know one another’s true identities, the sessions of the Supreme Operations Committee were often held in a secret cavern. Without a watch, telling the time was nearly impossible.
The Chairman raised a hand and pressed his weary eyelids.
“It would be best to end things here for today.”
From behind the curtains came quiet sighs of relief. Every one of them understood the weight of their charge; none would admit to exhaustion, yet each must have been scraping against the limits of his strength. Meetings followed one after another without pause until even the Chairman—who had crossed the wall long ago—grew tired. How much worse must it have been for the committee members who possessed no internal energy at all?
But there is no other way.
The Luoyang Sword Family was vast. Its reach did not end with dominion over Luoyang; it stretched beyond Henan, encompassing the entire Huabei region that cradled the Imperial Capital, and farther still to the collateral branches, vassal houses, and business offices scattered throughout the Central Plains. That influence differed only in degree according to distance and place. There was nowhere in the realm where the Luoyang Sword Family’s hand did not reach.
“Ah—before we adjourn, there is one matter I must urge upon you all.”
And the Supreme Operations Committee was the organ that rendered final judgment on every one of those matters.
“Please come to the next session having thoroughly mastered the background knowledge related to the comprehensive commercial-route usage contract renewal with the Spanish side.”
Everyone swallowed a silent groan. Their hours of sleep would clearly be slashed.
“The next meeting is scheduled to begin exactly four hours from now,” the General Affairs member added. “Of course, should an emergency agenda arise, we will convene at once. That is all.”
Farewells were tossed out; chairs scraped; the hurried rustle of packing filled the chamber as everyone prepared to flee.
“A moment.”
Every presence froze.
The Chairman spoke while reading a slip of paper that had just been handed to him.
“It appears the First Young Master’s carriage is currently bound for the main estate.”
“……!”
The sound of breath being drawn in sharply echoed from every direction. Word that the First Young Master was returning to the main family was the same as word that a storm was approaching.
Through the Chairman’s qi sense he felt every fine hair stand on end and every heartbeat quicken. Sleep had fled them all. Unlike ordinary agendas, every matter that touched the First Young Master was exquisitely sensitive. Even today, nearly half the session had concerned him, directly or otherwise.
“…Then,” the General Affairs member ventured, “might we remain on standby and dispose of other pending items in advance?”
“……!”
It was as though the committee members’ very airways had been stopped. The Chairman gave a bitter smile.
“So that each of you may rest your minds even for a brief while, we will adjourn for now.” He added, “Yet it is certain we will be summoned at any hour. Recheck your emergency contact systems once more.”
A deserted wild mountain.
The Chairman did not return home. The house would have been empty in any case. His wife was long dead; his children had become independent and established their own households years ago. As was his custom, he walked the mountain path simply to cut off idle thoughts.
Yet today every step seemed to drag the main family’s momentous affairs along behind him. The cause was the First Young Master.
…They said the First Young Master is operating the administrative wing of Wongak Pavilion.
That had been the last intelligence he received concerning Yeon So-hyeon before he severed every contact and came walking among these trees.
There is no chance His Young Mastership will simply return to Wongak Pavilion and take his rest.
The First Young Master’s actions, begun with the visit to Mount Beimang, had been so relentless one could barely draw breath merely hearing of them.
How will matters unfold from here…?
Even the chirping of insects and the hoot of an owl felt stifling tonight. Even for the Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee—who stood at the very apex of the Luoyang Sword Family’s power—the affairs of the world remained complex and fraught.
The Second Young Master who had gone to the Imperial Capital would draw the heads of the Sixteen Imperial Capital Families into his orbit. The Third Young Master, still accompanying the expeditionary martial artists, would soon return. The Yeon blood relatives yearned for the Sword Family to become the Yeon Family once more, as in the old days. And that was far from all. Around the Second Young Lady, a faction of those same blood relatives was stirring a dangerous current. The Fourth Young Master was blossoming a kingly presence equal to—or greater than—his elder brothers. The Council of Elders still eyed a transition to cabinet rule with hungry patience. And now the First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon, who had displayed extraordinary gifts since childhood, had ended his seclusion and begun to move in earnest.
Setting every other concern aside and looking only at the succession of the Luoyang Sword Family, the situation could scarcely have been more tangled. In such a climate, prediction was useless. At best it was the groping of a blind man feeling the ground with bare hands—something he had learned through bitter experience.
…Unless one were the First Young Master, said to see a thousand li while still seated.
Like the winding clouds glimpsed between the branches overhead, his thoughts only grew more tangled.
At this rate there is no longer any meaning to the walk.
The old man, hands clasped behind his back, let out a sigh that was almost a lament toward the empty air. Now that the First Young Master had returned to the main family, urgent reports would soon pour in; an emergency session was all but certain.
…I should go to the meeting place early and put the materials in order.
Only then could he hope to keep pace with the younger committee members’ speed of thought.
Since that cursed day—
the day the Family Head collapsed and his close retainers bared their greedy fangs—
I resolved to give everything to the Sword Family.
He resented only the body that aged with every dawn. No matter how rigorously he trained, as thoroughly as any active warrior, he could not defeat the power of time.
Is the only work left to me simply to pray, until this body grows too old to be of use, that the succession of the main family may at last be settled…?
The weight of nearly ten years of responsibility settled upon him anew. Yet even then the old man did not stop walking. His spirit, forged of guilt and duty, would not permit the body to halt for even a moment.
Yes. Let us return.
He had to return. But the path was no longer visible.
“……!”
The night road that his internal energy had rendered clear only moments before was now simply dark. Not ordinary dark—pitch-black, absolute. Even the winding clouds had hidden themselves inside the darkness that hung over the sky. The familiar walking path, a route he could have followed with eyes closed, looked endlessly strange. The far end of the trail seemed to gape open toward him like the mouth of a bottomless abyss.
And for some time now an ominous whistling had been scraping at his ears. A sulfurous stench stabbed at his nostrils, twisting the sense of smell. His breathing had grown rough; each exhale scattered white breath as if it were midwinter. A body that should have been immune to cold and heat was feeling a chill.
…A formation? No—an evil art?
The old man possessed a lifetime of deep experience and had encountered more than a few unfathomable things others never met. He calmly drew up his internal energy, shielding his upper dantian, and spoke.
“Who goes there?”
From long habit he knew that rash attempts to flee with lightness skill only provoked such unknowable existences.
Yet even he could not suppress the chill that crawled down his nape when the whistling cut off with a sharp snap, as if answering his question. A heavy silence settled; the mountain seemed to have died. Not even the wind stirred.
“I do not know who you are, but I am merely a passerby—”
The moment he opened his mouth again to master the unease, a voice answered.
It was a voice like molten metal boiling over—yet also like the whispers of thousands scraping against the ear. Could such a sound even be called a voice?
“Chairman.”
At that single form of address the hair on his entire body rose.
“…Show yourself.”
With a low shout the Chairman drew the old longsword at his waist. The teaching of a certain Taoist—that one must never provoke such a being—was no longer of use. It was unforgivable for a member of the Supreme Operations Committee to have his identity exposed. To fulfill the role he bore, to discharge the responsibility he had accepted, he had to protect the Chairman’s seat no matter the cost.
“Will you not reveal your identity?!”
His roar, laden with bottomless internal energy, shook the surrounding terrain. As if mocking him, the opponent answered in that same metallic tone.
“Will you claim not to know me—”
Now…!
Sword light slashed through the darkness. That single stroke seemed to cleave forest, earth, mountain, and the very curtain of night that hung beyond. It was a sword that would not have been wanting even if called perfect. The unidentified foe had somehow made his voice issue from every direction, rendering ordinary location impossible—yet the old man, gifted with an extraordinary ear for sound, had already reverse-traced the source. He had merely been looking the wrong way and speaking, all to deceive.
It was a trap conceived and sprung in a single breath, executed with spirit and swordsmanship so superb it was hard to believe they had been improvised. Had the opponent been an ordinary expert, he would have been cut cleanly in two.
“As expected.”
Had he been ordinary.
The Chairman’s blade was seized, as if by a lie, in the opponent’s grasp.
“……!”
The other revealed teeth as sharp as needles and as dense as a shark’s jaw, and marveled.
“Indeed—the man once called the Absolute of the Sword Family. The renown of the Sword Venerable was never empty.”
In the past he had been the Absolute of the Luoyang Sword Family, its First Sword, until the appearance of the Supreme Family Head later known as the Sword Master. The opponent knew not only his present office but his entire history.
Yet the Chairman’s eyes did not waver by so much as a hair’s breadth. No thought, no desire. Evil and heresy could not invade. The instant he entered combat, the man who had once been called the Sword Venerable had already armored his spirit to its absolute limit.
“Heup!”
Sword forms and techniques meant for human opponents were useless against ghosts and monsters—yet the reverse was equally true. With a clear shout that scarcely seemed possible from so old a throat, the blue-steel longsword vibrated as though it would tear the air itself.
“…Oh?”
At an application of sword resonance that exceeded ordinary limits, the opponent was forced to release the blade. The Chairman did not miss the opening; he recovered the sword and, in a single shift of form and position, opened distance.
Only then did his strangely transparent gaze take in the figure now fully revealed. The luster of a white mask, pale as the moon hung in the night sky, gleamed with ominous sheen. Two strands of blue will-o’-the-wisp rose from the eyeless sockets, swaying and scattering sparks. With so distinctive an appearance, how could the Chairman—steeped in every scrap of intelligence—fail to know him?
“…Amcheonjonza.”
The Dark Heaven Venerable.
The figure’s shoulders shook with laughter. The entire mountain seemed to laugh with him.
“Indeed.”
An existence that had lived only in rumor. At the sight of Amcheonjonza the Chairman’s deep eyes narrowed to slits. One legend claimed he punished the wicked in place of indifferent heaven and earth.
“…Has the earthly proxy of heavenly punishment come seeking me?” the Chairman asked, bitter. “Truly this old man’s sins run deeper than any sounding. And yet—”
The sword in his grip howled fiercely.
“I still have a mission left unfinished upon this earth!”
Unyielding. Even as the surrounding world was being eaten away by the demonic qi of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture—that ancient horror called a demonic creature of a thousand ages—his will did not tremble by a hair.
In the space of a single blink, dozens of sword strikes embroidered the empty air; fist, foot, and palm clashed dozens of times between them. The ground was torn to shreds; the forest was overturned. It was a battle from which any martial artist would have opened his eyes and gained enlightenment merely by watching. Yet upon the sword force of the old man who had once been the Sword Venerable lay an indelible shadow of years.
Ah… age. Years.
In the past he would have swung and thrust ten times more.
Cruel, capricious fate.
In the past he would have struck and blocked ten times more. Why must the god of death come seeking him at this crucial hour of all hours?
His no-mind was crumbling. Yet at the same time, as the exchange of blades continued and continued again, a look of puzzlement rose in the eyes of the old man who fought with breath itself held.
Just why…?
The opponent was clearly holding back. The Chairman had revealed unavoidable openings more than once; at any of those moments the other could have ended him. He had not.
And these martial arts…
Every technique the being called Amcheonjonza displayed was orthodox. Every one of them was a martial art stored within the Luoyang Sword Family. More remarkable still—he seemed to have mastered them all. The Chairman’s eye for martial arts could not be wrong.
Ah…!
In that instant understanding struck.
How could I, of all people, have missed this…?
The height. The build. The hands. Without a doubt they matched someone he remembered. Even the bottomless knowledge of martial arts.
The figure before him was—
The First Young Master!