Field of Asura
The Elder Council Hall of the Luoyang Sword House.
And across from it, a teahouse.
The teahouse, which had been packed wall to wall with members of the Yeon bloodline, was now a scene of pure agitation. No one sat calmly. It was as if artillery shells were falling among them.
"Why is the vote taking so long?"
Time stretched on without explanation. Unable to bear the mounting anxiety, an elderly Yeon clansman began to tremble violently.
"P-please calm yourself, Uncle. These things can take time, can't they?"
The younger members of the bloodline scrambled to soothe him, tossing out whatever reassurances sprang to mind before the old man collapsed.
"It's probably because they still have to pass the vote of no confidence against the current Banker, and then hold another vote to appoint a new candidate."
"And the Eldest Young Master is there as well. Welcome speeches, formal replies—that would drag things out even further."
"Yes. So of course. That's simply why the process is running long."
"And besides…"
One of the younger relatives shrugged and took up the thread.
"When that Eldest Young Master bastard provoked the entire Elder Council, the fight was already over, wasn't it?"
The man spoke with the casual arrogance that seemed to run in the Yeon bloodline, his expression utterly composed even though he clearly failed to grasp the situation.
"So, Father, there's no need to get so worked up—"
Crack.
The elderly Yeon clansman's palm smashed across his son's cheek. A furious roar tore from the old man's throat.
"You worthless brats!"
Rage poured out of him without restraint.
"Even if they went through every single procedure by the book, this would already have been finished long ago!"
His face flushed a deep, boiling red.
"And of all times—this only started after that Eldest Young Master bastard walked into the Elder Council Hall!"
He jabbed a finger toward the building beyond the window and hammered the point home again.
"That bastard is in there right now! And all you idiots can manage to say is—!"
He raised his hand once more, only for the other elders to rush in and restrain him.
"That's enough…!"
"The boys understand by now…!"
While they held him back, the middle-aged members of the bloodline barked at the younger ones.
"Stop wasting time with nonsense and get outside! Find out what's actually happening!"
The young Yeon clansmen bolted from the teahouse as if scalded.
"That thick-skulled fool! To think I call a creature like that my son…!"
His unresolved fury chased them out the door in a relentless bellow.
"Tsk, tsk."
Another elderly Yeon clansman, arms folded as he watched the scene, clicked his tongue.
"And we're supposed to entrust the future of our bloodline to boys like that."
"It's our own fault. We spoiled them far too much."
"Because they are of the Yeon bloodline, those children have enjoyed too many privileges from the cradle."
Another elder shook his head.
"They have no sense of crisis. No understanding that if the Eldest Young Master—our enemy—continues to gain power like this, every privilege we hold now may vanish."
Outside the teahouse.
"That damned old man…!"
The young Yeon clansman clutched his already swollen, livid cheek where his father had struck him and hissed through his teeth.
"Tell me about it."
"When did they ever say the fight was already over? That the Eldest Young Master had walked into a trap of his own making? And now—!"
"The second the situation shifts, they take it out on us."
Fresh anger seemed to surge up all over again. The others fell in behind him, venting their grievances.
"Even if that Eldest Young Master bastard soars to the heavens, what more can he actually do?!"
"Exactly. At the end of the day, he's still just the swordless one. The man who abandoned the family and left it in this miserable state…!"
But their voices, raised in contempt of Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon, could climb no higher.
Countless eyes had fixed upon them.
"W-what?!"
"Clear the road at once!"
"Do you have any idea who we are?!"
Startled by their shouted demands, the crowd shifted just enough to open a path. Even so, those stares never left the young Yeon clansmen.
They were looks thick with resentment.
However high-handed these young bloodline scions might be, they were not foolish enough to pick a fight with an undefined mass of people in an atmosphere like this.
"Out of the way!"
"Stand aside, I said!"
Bellowing as they went, they pushed through the silent, hostile gazes. Only after a long struggle did they finally break free of the throng and wipe the cold sweat from their brows.
"…What the hell was that."
They grumbled, still tasting the unpleasant weight of those stares.
"Just because we cursed the Eldest Young Master a little, the lower orders dare look at us like that…?"
"These are the end times. Truly the end times…"
"This is all because of that Eldest Young Master bastard. He's ruining the entire family."
Yet even as they complained, they kept their voices low, muttering rather than declaring—proof enough of how small their measure truly was.
"But still…"
One of them kept glancing back over his shoulder, unable to hide his unease.
"When did this many people gather?"
At that, they all turned to look.
Even that morning they had thought the crowds packing the main road excessive. Now the throng had swollen like the Yellow River bursting its banks under monsoon rains—spilling from the main thoroughfare into the side streets until the whole district seethed.
"…You're not wrong."
Even these shallow young men of the Yeon bloodline felt something in that sight that stirred a sense of crisis.
"Bah…! Why are all of you shrinking like that?!"
The feeling lasted only a moment.
"I've found a new pleasure house. We're going to make a proper night of it—all of you, come with me!"
The young man with the swollen cheek shouted, and the rest of them surged after him in a noisy rush.
"…Ohhh!"
"Excellent! Truly excellent!"
Just as they always did, they set off toward the entertainment district of Luoyang.
"Leave the carriage to me! I'll have them bring one of the new guest-reception coaches…!"
"Then I'll go on ahead and make the arrangements…!"
On the rooftop of a building near the Elder Council Hall.
Down below, a middle-aged man caught sight of the young men thronging away and frowned.
"…Those are."
His aide, who had been watching the main avenue in his place so as not to draw attention, recognized them at once.
And in a situation like this, a pleasure house…
"Tsk."
The middle-aged man clicked his tongue softly and shifted his gaze. This was no time to spare attention for whelps who could not even read the room.
"The crowds keep growing."
His aide answered.
"It is far beyond that now."
Throughout the congested main road, more than a dozen lavishly appointed carriages caught the eye at a glance—vehicles that would never have appeared here without purpose.
"People who had come to the family estate on other business. And those stationed here as contact agents."
His aide continued.
The confrontation between the Eldest Young Master and the Elder Council.
What had first been dismissed within the family as little more than another of the Eldest Young Master's eccentric outbursts was now swelling beyond all control, drawing the eyes of countless watchers.
"…Because it is not ending in a simple victory for the Elder Council, as everyone first assumed. Of course curiosity gathers."
Which was precisely why he himself—a man of middle years—had come all this way in person to see the truth of the situation.
"Indeed…"
The middle-aged man nodded.
"If the Eldest Young Master should actually win—"
At the aide's warning, a figure emerged from the rooftop entrance.
"If the Eldest Young Master should win."
The newcomer picked up the middle-aged man's unfinished sentence without missing a beat.
"Then the prestige of the Eldest Young Master, which until now has been little more than rumor, will be known throughout the realm."
The middle-aged man did not waste time with amateurish questions about how the man had found this place. He simply narrowed his eyes and studied the uninvited guest.
"And in that moment, it will no longer be a mere conjecture that 'the Eldest Young Master holds power'—"
"It will become actual power."
The middle-aged man cut across him and finished the thought himself.
"Power is not some tangible object. It exists when the many believe it rests with a man."
The Eldest Young Master had crushed the Second Young Master with both strength and cunning. And if, this time, he succeeded in overturning even the formidable Elder Council of the Luoyang Sword House—
It would amount to proof that the power he possessed was real.
"Exactly so."
Though his words had been stolen mid-sentence, the uninvited guest showed no offense as he set a tobacco leaf between his lips.
"Which is precisely why the Hobop Fourth Division Head is hiding from every eye, watching how this situation develops, is it not?"
Hiss—
He lit the tobacco with Sammae Jinhwa—Samadhi Fire—and offered the Fourth Division Head of the Hobop Court a thin smile.
"A man who skipped even the Hobop Wonju's emergency council meeting… and yet here you are?"
Smoke curled from his lips as he needled lightly, almost playfully.
"Was the Fourth Division Head not among the most loyal of the Wonju's faction—eyes fixed on him alone?"
At the blatant dig, the Hobop Fourth Division Head's brow twitched.
"You—"
"Still."
The uninvited guest ignored him entirely. Gripping the rooftop railing, he looked down over the street and continued.
"When the choice of whose side to stand on decides your own fate, a man has no choice but to watch with his own eyes."
His leisurely manner—as if none of this concerned him—grated.
"…All of that may be true."
The Hobop Fourth Division Head fixed him with a hard stare.
"But those are not words for a man who abandoned the First Division Head—who was like an elder brother to him—and already switched sides."
He named the uninvited guest.
"Sixth Division Head."
The youngest among the division heads of the Hobop Court. The man who, only that morning, had delivered a massive shock to the Hobop Court itself. The Sixth Division Head offered a bitter smile.
"…The summer sun is merciless."
He tipped his face toward the sky, lifting the hand that held his tobacco to shade himself from the fierce afternoon light.
"And from here on, the heat will only grow harsher."
He spoke of the weather as if at random—yet the Fourth Division Head understood perfectly that this was no mere talk of weather.
"Soon enough, a man will stand bare beneath that blazing sun. Heat he cannot endure will wring every drop of moisture from his body."
They were words the Eldest Young Master himself had once spoken to the Sixth Division Head.
"Where a man can find river water and shade… by now, Fourth Division Head, you know that well enough."
Slowly burning smoke drifted from the Sixth Division Head's hand and scattered on the wind.
That summer wind was no longer cool. It was hot.
"…You."
Rousing from his thoughts, the Fourth Division Head spoke.
"I don't recall you being a political man. You've changed considerably."
For the division head of an investigative organ, the assessment might well have been an insult.
"…Have I?"
But the Sixth Division Head only exhaled a deep plume of tobacco smoke, cast his gaze into the distance, and answered with quiet composure.
"I feel that only now am I truly blending into the Hobop Court—properly."
At those words, the Fourth Division Head silently conceded the point.
The Sixth Division Head was no longer their junior. And he himself no longer held any right to lecture from the position of a senior.
"…Which river I seek, and what shade I choose—that will be decided down there."
He stepped up beside the Sixth Division Head, set his hand on the railing that had grown hot beneath the sun, and looked toward the Elder Council Hall.
"Is that so?"
The Sixth Division Head drew out a tobacco leaf and offered it to him.
"But you already know, don't you? The later a man arrives, the less water and shade remain."
"…I know."
The Fourth Division Head accepted the tobacco between his lips, and the Sixth Division Head lit it for him.
"…A man like you would know."
Tasting the bitter fragrance, the Fourth Division Head asked,
"What exactly is happening inside the Elder Council Hall right now?"
The Sixth Division Head smiled faintly and answered.
"Right now, the same thing that is happening here."