The Martial Spirit of the Luoyang Sword House
Before the main gate of Wongak-jeong.
Only moments earlier, the martial officers of the Sword House had been making a ruckus—complaining about their shins after a thrashing from the Head of the War Department, boasting that they could not wait to experience the Eldest Young Master's martial arts firsthand. They had been loud, theatrical, carried away by anticipation.
Now their mouths sealed shut in a single hard line.
They felt it. No—precisely because they were who they were, they felt it.
"…This."
One of the older officers spoke in a flat, unsettled tone.
What rolled out from within Wongak-jeong was not the air of a residence.
The energies pressing from inside made their skin prickle and the hair on their necks stand on end.
"…It feels as if we've returned to the battlefield."
As if an enemy surprise attack might break at any second under cover of dawn, the hair at their napes rose stiff. As if they were charging, with no other choice, into an enemy encirclement, their hearts clenched tight. As if both armies stood locked on the brink of a grand clash, and their hands were already slick with sweat—exactly as those days had been.
"The air itself feels scorched dry."
The old generals' bodies were reacting on pure reflex.
And so—
"No… this is—"
—when they met the men of the Sword Forest approaching from the opposite direction at the main gate, they were not particularly surprised.
As the Sword House officers held their silence, a one-eyed warrior as old as any of those grizzled generals stepped forward and spoke.
"Aren't you the political schemers of the War Department?"
He bared his teeth in a savage grin, sneering like a beast growling deep in its throat.
"Politicians ought to act like politicians. Go on fretting the way you always do—how to crawl back into that filthy Elder Council Hall."
"What brings those heavy rear ends of yours all the way out here?"
The War Department and the Sword Forest.
Their natures were similar enough that one might have expected them to get along. In truth, they were bitter enemies who could not stand the sight of each other.
"Deputy Leader of the Sword Forest… Geumgwi-heun."
"Starting a fight the moment we meet, is that it?"
Ordinarily, anyone facing a Sword Forest warrior would have looked for a way to avoid a quarrel. But standing before him now were the old generals of the War Department.
"Shall I pluck out that one remaining eyeball of yours?"
"You'll never see again either way. Might as well take a good look at the world while you still can."
At once the Sword House officers narrowed their eyes and let their hands settle on their sword hilts.
"A fight, you say?"
Amid that savage killing intent, the one-eyed man they called Geumgwi-heun merely shrugged, utterly unfazed.
"I am only stating facts."
Calm as he sounded, he had already taken quiet hold of his sword hilt and lowered his stance, securing his footing.
"Elders this, elders that—you've been steeped in political games since the old days. Drunk on power, drunk on wealth and glory, you've forgotten what it means to be a warrior of the Sword House, you withered fossils…!"
Like a spark set to powder, Geumgwi-heun's razor-edged presence erupted.
"What face do you have to dare speak of picking a fight with us of the Sword Forest—men who have walked a single pure path and nothing else?!"
And with that roar, the Sword Forest warriors in their mismatched attire stepped forward as one.
Cheok. Cheok. Cheok.
As if further talk were unnecessary, the sound of hands closing on sword hilts rang out.
"Ha…!"
It was not only the men of the Sword Forest who burned like black powder.
The old generals threw their heads back and laughed toward the sky; their white hair rose as if caught by a wind that was not there, and their beards streamed and scattered though no breeze stirred.
"Green boys who don't even know a real battlefield—"
"You dare bare steel in front of us?!"
"You bastards—!"
In an instant the auras of masters collided in midair, whipping a savage gale through the area. The solid paving stones of the avenue spiderwebbed in every direction, flinging dust into the air.
"G-get out of the way!"
Onlookers who had wandered over to the gate of Wongak-jeong with nothing more in mind than another spectacle went pale with terror and scattered.
"We'll get caught in it…!"
"Kyaaaah!"
A clash between the Sword Forest and the War Department was a matter of an entirely different order from drunken common martial artists staggering about and crossing blades.
Crash—!
Screams of the panic-stricken rose on every side. Stalls overturned. Food went flying through the air. Bodies knocked sprawling turned the street before Wongak-jeong into chaos in the span of a breath.
"I'll carve every last one of you into pieces right here today—!"
One spark from detonation.
Cha-chang—!
No one could say who moved first. In the same instant, half-drawn steel flashed in every hand—
"That—is—enough!"
The killing shout was cut clean through by a bellow that burst from the Head of the War Department.
The thunderous roar shook eardrums and made the ground itself tremble. The blue edges of the blades they gripped howled in their sheaths, forcing every man to pour the internal energy he had raised into restraining his own runaway sword.
"…!"
Friend or foe made no difference. That single command froze marrow and halted every motion.
"All of you…"
The Head of the War Department looked from face to face, packing heavy internal force into every word.
"Have you forgotten where you stand?"
The blood that had rushed to their heads drained away, and at once they took in the situation around them.
Before they knew it, the evacuated onlookers had been replaced. Wongak-jeong's defensive forces had gathered and half-encircled them.
Every one of those guards was missing something—some part of the body lost. And every one of them had broken through the wall. Those physical lacks did not register as weakness or shortfall; they leaked a quietly terrifying presence that made such deficits irrelevant.
"…The House's Special Unit."
Neither the Sword Forest warriors nor the War Department's old generals could fail to recognize them.
"…I had forgotten, for a moment, that this is Wongak-jeong."
But they were not the whole of it.
While the Sword Forest men and the War Department elders still let out low, grim sounds, the maid corps of Wongak-jeong appeared behind the Special Unit members—blue steel drawn, a piercing killing intent unsheathed with it.
"Haha. What a mess."
A voice like a chill blade cut the air.
"They say every grand feast is bound to raise a grand uproar."
The man who stepped into view had five swords orbiting his body. Those who knew him at a glance felt their brows shoot up at the raw, savage killing intent that rolled off him unfiltered.
"…Tal-myeong-gwi-geom."
Cha-reu-reung.
Beside him came the heavy, sticky drag of chains against the ground. At the ends of those chains, dual scythes exhaled a murderous aura. The middle-aged man gripping them said not a single word, yet unmistakable fury radiated from beneath that barren face.
"…Those twin scythes."
"…So that is the one they call the Head Collector of the Tea Horse Road—Dang Baek."
And appearing with Dang Baek was something less like a man than the living shape of a mountain range—a general who could stand alone against a thousand.
"…Geomak Pasan."
"Yeom Gwak-chu…"
Before the situation could turn any uglier, the Head of the War Department stepped forward.
"Elder Yeom."
As he brought his hands together to bow, Elder Yeom raised a hand first and stopped him.
"Any apology would be better offered not to me, but to the master of this Wongak-jeong."
With that, Elder Yeom took a single step back—
"Everyone."
—and the man who had followed behind him came fully into view.
"Are you enjoying the festival?"
Even the war-hungry warriors of the Sword Forest, and the War Department's old generals who were every bit as bold, did not dare open their mouths first before the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon.
Was it the awkwardness of guests who had thrown cold water on a feast?
Or was it that unfathomable presence—clearly felt, though he had not drawn up so much as a thread of internal energy?
While they all stood frozen, the Head of the War Department and Geumgwi-heun, Deputy Leader of the Sword Forest, recovered first and stepped forward.
"We pay our respects to the Eldest Young Master of the House."
"…We pay our respects to the Eldest Young Master of the House."
The Head of the War Department moved at once to express his regret.
"Eldest Young Master. For the disturbance we caused—"
"That will do, Head of the War Department."
Yeon So-hyeon raised a hand. As if it were nothing of consequence, he continued in a light tone.
"What problem is there if the hot-blooded warriors of our House hold a conversation with their swords?"
He looked over the gathered men and smiled.
"When Father was still in good health, even the main assemblies often saw those who could not agree settle it with steel."
Barely more than a dozen years past, at most.
"There were days when no assembly was held at all—only swordplay from morning until evening, and that was the end of it. Was there not?"
The Eldest Young Master laughed, open and clear.
But unlike the free ease of Yeon So-hyeon's laughter, the tale he spoke of felt to them like a story from a distant age, impossibly far away.
"…So it was."
Those present could not laugh with him.
"I know your hearts well."
Suddenly Yeon So-hyeon turned that same warm smile upon them.
In that smile, and in those few short words, there was something that soothed the hearts of warriors cast aside by their times and circumstances.
"…Eldest Young Master."
The Head of the War Department started to speak—
"A moment, if you will."
—but the Eldest Young Master cut the exchange short, stepped into empty air as lightly as a breath, and in a single bound alighted atop the main gate of Wongak-jeong.
While the company still stared, stunned by that peerless lightness technique, Yeon So-hyeon called out over the street.
"Is everyone enjoying the festival?"
Naturally, no answer came back.
His appearance had quelled the uproar in an instant—but those who had been celebrating out on the street, unable even to enter Wongak-jeong, could not simply step forward and reply to the Eldest Young Master.
"Ah, how unfortunate…"
The soft click of his tongue, full of regret, reached every ear as clearly as if he stood right beside each person.
"Father once said this: when a festival leaves people unsatisfied…"
"…it is because there is not enough wine and meat!"
At those words, maids already prepared for the moment poured out through the main gate, carrying wine and food in a flood.
"These dishes and this wine were meant for the guests who entered Wongak-jeong. But as the host of this festival, I offer them to all of you—with my apology for the small disturbance."
He spread both arms wide and laughed with open-hearted gusto.
"Come! The festival continues!"
Musicians who had taken the signal struck up their instruments. Firework artisans set off charges on every side, and the night exploded with color and noise once more.
"So until the dawn breaks—everyone, enjoy yourselves to the fullest!"
Cheers erupted along the street.