Rat Holes
The pro-Prince and pro-Murim Alliance elders who had been seizing each other by the collars froze exactly as they stood.
"……."
The guards who had been forcibly dragging out the violently resisting Elder Eulji-hwang also stopped.
"……."
Even the partisans of each faction, who had been roaring curses across the chamber at the tops of their lungs—
"……."
—came to a halt as if turned to stone.
Silence settled over the vast Assembly Hall that was the pride of the Moyong Family. Only the messenger's ragged breathing echoed through that enormous space.
"…W-what did you just…"
The first to recover his wits was the Assembly Chairman.
"What did you say…?"
The messenger shouted again, voice urgent.
"Right now, at the main gate of the main estate—Her Ladyship the Acting Clan Head and the Great Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House have arrived!"
The Assembly Chairman was neither hard of hearing with age nor so dull-witted as to forget what he had just been told. It was simply that—
"…The Acting Clan Head and the Great Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House are here?"
—he could not accept a situation he had never imagined possible.
"What did I tell you all?!"
Elder Eulji-hwang, seizing the moment the guards' grip had loosened, shook them off and bellowed for all to hear.
"Did I not say the Acting Clan Head would come?!"
His disheveled white hair flying, he threw back his head and laughed.
"None of you will get away with this! None of you!"
"Sh-shut up!"
Bang, bang—the Assembly Chairman slammed his gavel and screamed.
"Guards! Why are you still standing there instead of dragging that man out?!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
This time, Elder Eulji-hwang did not resist their hands.
"No one in this chamber will be forgiven!"
He only laughed like a madman, the words ringing out like prophecy as he faced them all.
"No one!"
Boom. The doors of the Assembly Hall slammed shut, cutting off his laughter—yet somehow that laughter seemed to keep echoing in every ear.
"C-Chairman…!"
The messenger called to him, unable to hide his agitation.
"What should we tell them at the main gate? Should we open the doors and receive them? Or—?"
He babbled on.
"By clan law, should we have the servants prepare a welcome? Will the elders all go out to greet the Acting Clan Head?"
"Th-that is…"
The Assembly Chairman's mind had long since gone numb.
What about the gifts I took from the Prince's side? The ledgers of my backroom deals with the Third Young Master's faction? Should I send someone to my wife right now and tell her to hide them? Or to destroy them?
Even listing what he needed to conceal or erase was almost more than he could manage.
"Chairman!"
When the messenger shouted again, the Chairman answered in a spasm of panic.
"T-tell them to receive them at once! And prepare a welcome!"
"Yes, sir!"
But—
"Wait!"
A knot of men blocked the door and stopped the messenger. It was Moyong Wan's pro-Prince faction.
"We must not simply open the main gate like this!"
At Elder Moyong Wan's words, the Assembly Chairman nearly jumped out of his skin.
"What nonsense is that?! The people outside are our own Acting Clan Head and the Great Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House!"
"And so?"
"And so?!"
Moyong Wan smiled coldly.
"Do you expect them to simply let you off if you flop on your belly in terror and show them your soft underbelly first?"
"……."
Ignoring the speechless Chairman, he turned and roared at his own partisans.
"Who is the true culprit that reduced this clan to this wretched state?!"
His supporters answered as one.
"Moyong Un-jeong!"
As if dissatisfied with the volume, he shouted even louder.
"Whose fault is it that this family has been driven into the dirt and made so pitiful?!"
When the partisans, lost to frenzy, screamed Moyong Un-jeong's name like madmen—
"You raving lunatic…!"
—it was Moyong Chusan of the pro-Murim Alliance faction who stepped forward.
"Is this the time for demagoguery?! Are you proposing we raise a rebellion?!"
"Rebellion?!"
Moyong Wan snarled back.
"Weren't you pro-Murim Alliance lot the ones who plotted rebellion?!"
He jabbed a finger at Moyong Chusan.
"Did you think I wouldn't know you tried to hand this entire family over to the Third Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House?!"
"What slander is this…?!"
Moyong Chusan recoiled, nearly leaping in outrage.
"You were the ones who tried to sell the clan to the Prince with that absurd talk of a Grand Ducal Residence!"
Who swung first, no one could say.
Waaaaaah!
Enraged partisans hurled themselves at one another and tangled in a thrashing mass. Chaos erupted across the Assembly Hall as the messenger shouted to the Chairman.
"Chairman…!"
But the Chairman was not even looking at him.
"…Go at once and tell my wife: 'chamber pot.'"
"Ch-chamber pot, sir?"
"Yes—chamber pot…! She'll know what to do…!"
He was clutching one of his own men, issuing the instructions that would save his own skin.
"……."
Speechless, the messenger turned, his face empty.
"Worms gnawing this family from within…!"
"Trash ruining the clan…!"
Curses and imprecations filled the air. Fists flew; a heel smashed into the back of someone's knee.
"----!"
"---!"
Someone's broken teeth scattered; someone else clutched a shattered arm and howled.
"----!"
One man had another by the hair, and the one whose hair was gripped was ramming his fingers into someone else's mouth, trying to tear it open.
"……."
Only the banners of the Moyong Family and of Zhongyuan, hanging high in the Assembly Hall, looked down on the scene with indifference.
"……."
And so no one noticed that the leaders of the two factions who had caused this entire situation were nowhere to be seen.
In a hidden courtyard of the Assembly Hall—a place known only to the direct bloodline of the Moyong Family—a new secret had been added that even they did not know: a concealed passage.
It was an escape route prepared for emergencies while Moyong Un-jeong was away.
"If the Acting Clan Head had returned alone, that would be one thing—but the fact that the Great Young Master of the Sword House is with her is clearly no ordinary matter!"
Two men were crawling through the narrow tunnel.
"Keep your voice down, Elder Moyong Chusan…!"
"Is my voice what matters right now…?! We need a plan! A plan!"
There was no mistaking them. They were Moyong Wan of the pro-Prince faction and Moyong Chusan of the pro-Murim Alliance faction—the two who had vanished from the Assembly Hall.
"Can't you crawl a little faster…?!"
"Hah…! What am I supposed to do about being old…?!"
What would their partisans have said, had they seen this sight?
"J-just a moment… a rest."
Panting, Moyong Chusan stopped and asked,
"Did you give your men proper instructions?"
"O-of course."
Moyong Wan, equally exhausted, answered while sprawled face-down on the floor, gasping.
"I told them that if they started losing the brawl, they were to use the weapons we'd smuggled in beforehand. And you?"
"The same."
From the beginning, they had been birds of a feather.
"I ordered them to set fires everywhere the moment blood started flying—so that no one who arrives will easily restore order."
"And once that happens, our armed groups will clash as well—"
"—giving us more than enough time to slip away."
Moyong Wan let out a slightly relieved sigh.
"I've heard the Great Young Master of the Luoyang Sword House is a monster of politics."
"Indeed. If it were only the Acting Clan Head, perhaps—but if we stayed and tried to salvage something, that Great Young Master would have finished us in the end."
They were quicker of wit than anyone. That was why they had exploited the Moyong Family's chaos better than anyone—and why they could now abandon the sinking ship—the Moyong Family—faster than anyone else.
"There's only one regret…"
Having recovered a little strength, Moyong Chusan began crawling again, clicking his tongue.
"If the Acting Clan Head had returned even a month later—just a little later—we wouldn't have had to flee so one-sidedly…"
His thought had been that if they could buy time with one great clash, they would eventually receive support from either the Prince's side or the Third Young Master's.
"Even now, if we go back and hold out with armed resistance—"
"Don't talk nonsense…!"
Moyong Wan cut him off at once.
"Barricade ourselves inside the clan and stage a siege…?! Against an Acting Clan Head who is called the Military God in some quarters?!"
He lashed out without restraint.
"And if the support is late…?! Do you intend to go down gloriously in battle alongside your partisans?!"
"…That."
Of course they could not. Nothing was more precious to them than their own skins.
"Stick to the plan, I beg you—the plan…!"
Moyong Wan scolded him, face caked with dirt, looking thoroughly exasperated.
"Right now we must aim for a comeback based on the external footholds of the main house that we've already secured…!"
The Moyong Family was not merely this main estate. Including collateral houses and allied tribes, a vast external network was deeply rooted across the northern regions. Those branch organizations, already firmly lined up, would become their solid new foundation.
"Elder Moyong Chusan—you will receive support from the Sword House's Third Young Master and raise a great independent force. I will receive the Prince's support and raise an independent force of my own. That is all there is to it."
"…True enough."
If it meant throwing Moyong Un-jeong, Acting Great General, into disorder from the rear, both the Prince and the Third Young Master would pour support on them without the slightest reservation.
"One way or another—first we have to live if we are to do anything at all…!"
Just then, Elder Moyong Chusan, advancing along the passage, sniffed the air.
"…Smell of burning."
Moyong Wan, catching the same scent, nodded.
"They've set the fires? Things are proceeding according to plan…!"
Perhaps because the tunnel ran so deep, a chill seeped into their bodies, and their breath misted white.
"Oh…!"
Lifting his head with effort to look ahead, Moyong Chusan's face brightened.
"The end of the passage is almost in sight. Just a little farther and—"
His words cut off. Moyong Wan, whose face had just plowed into Moyong Chusan's suddenly stopped backside, snapped in irritation.
"What in the—?! You say the end is in sight and then just stop—what are you playing at…?!"
But—
"……."
—there was no answer from Moyong Chusan.
"Elder Moyong Chusan, what on earth are you—"
Moyong Wan never finished the sentence.
Shhhk—!
In the instant he saw Moyong Chusan's body, seized by something, yanked toward the exit in a blink—
"……!"
—Moyong Wan himself was dragged out without even time to scream.
What the wildly hauled Moyong Wan found waiting for him was—
—a voice like metal boiled past its breaking point.
What they had taken for the smell of burning was the sulfur-tainted breath of that presence. What they had taken for cold was the dense grudge of the vengeful spirits that followed it.
And the last thing they beheld was a rank of teeth and a throat black as the abyss.
It was not the terminus of an escape tunnel. It was a direct passage into the Unending Hell.
Crunch!
Sseeeeeeng—!
"Signal confirmed!"
At that report, Acting Great General Moyong Un-jeong gave a short nod and issued her command.
"Smash the main gate."
Watching the Great General's Guard move, she spoke.
"The great cleaning begins."