Chapter 1

I was going to regress.

I came to know it quite suddenly, at the very moment I found myself cast out by my own clan, stripped of everything I owned.

Which is to say, I learned it only yesterday.

I even knew when the regression would take place.

Two years from now — back to that season when I still carried the romance of the Jianghu in my chest.

Granted, my circumstances had grown rather dire of late, but my spirit was unbowed and my mind remained clear, so there was no reason to suspect I was suffering from delusions.

Therefore, my regression would be the truth.

I didn't know the reason for it, but I found I could accept this truth without difficulty.

Once I knew of the regression, a question arose.

What should I do?

However certain the regression might be, I could hardly squander the life I had left. If I did, I'd simply return to the same wretched state I was in now.

It occurred to me that I ought to prepare for the wealth and glory to come after my regression. Formidable martial arts would be indispensable, too.

"Hm."

As I sat brooding in the middle of the night market, I caught sight of the stable keeper's dung-shifter passing by. His appearance was so wretched and his stench so foul that people scrambled to step out of his path.

As if possessed by something, I approached him.

"Why do you do such work?"

Though my clan had cast me out, the bearing of a great house still clung to me, so instead of taking offense at the rudeness, the dung-shifter lowered his head and answered.

"Because I do this work by day, I go to bed at night with a full belly and a warm roof over my head."

"I see."

A small truth of ordinary life reached me.

"Thank you for the answer. Forgive my discourtesy."

"Not at all."

"A token of my thanks."

I handed him the single silver coin that remained of my entire fortune.

"Thank you."

Without a word of ceremony, the stable keeper took the coin and tucked it away in his breast.

And so I decided what to do before my regression.

I would live my remaining days the way the stable keeper lived his.

I would pour this ruined life, entire, into an investment that would open my next one in splendor.

A privilege reserved, after all, for those awaiting regression alone.

For someone with a scheduled regression like me, information could fairly be called the deciding factor of one's next life.

The world of the Jianghu brims with endless fortunes and opportunities, and a single properly seized opportunity is enough to turn a man's fate around.

Where should I go?

Having made up my mind, why not aim for the very best? That left the Beggars' Gang or the Hao Gate.

I'll join the Beggars' Gang.

Having gained such a great lesson from the stable keeper, the decision to become a beggar came easily.

I won't deny, either, that the Orthodox-aligned Beggars' Gang simply appealed to me more than the Unorthodox-leaning Hao Gate.

"I've come to enlist in the Beggars' Gang."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Arriving at the Gang's headquarters, I stated my purpose.

Swoosh.

A shabby old beggar studied me with an unreadable gaze.

What struck me was the sharp gleam in his eyes, half-hidden beneath that slovenly exterior. This was a beggar trained in the martial arts — and a considerably strong one at that.

Affecting nonchalance, I glanced at the knots tied at the old beggar's waist. Six of them, tangled haphazardly together.

A six-knot beggar, then.

As expected, no ordinary beggar after all.

"The direct bloodline of the Dancheon clan, enlisting in the Beggars' Gang?"

Truly worthy of its reputation — the Gang's intelligence network was not to be underestimated. He already knew who I was.

"I've cast off that name already."

"I suppose. Meaningless now, isn't it."

I gave no answer to the old beggar's murmuring, half a soliloquy.

"What is your name?"

It made no sense to ask my name while already knowing my identity — but answer him I had to. The one who needed something was me.

"Myeong."

"You're Dancheon Myeong, second son of the Dancheon clan, correct?"

"I told you I've cast off that name."

"So you did. Age dulls the memory, you know."

The old beggar answered with a mischievous grin.

"Very well, Dancheon Myeong. Follow me."

I decided that giving up on correcting the old man's phrasing would be better for my peace of mind.

Five years passed since I became a disciple of the Beggars' Gang.

My gang name became Myeong-gae — the handiwork of Chwipung-gae, the six-knot beggar who had taken me in.

Summarizing the life I'd lived since: I'd call it smooth sailing, albeit a beggar's smooth sailing. In just three years I rose to the rank of three-knot beggar, equal to a detachment leader, so smooth it was — though I can't deny that the life itself was, well, the life of a beggar.

Damn it all, this life...

They were years of such grueling endurance that I never could have withstood them had I not learned from the stable keeper.

In the headlong rush of time, I made all manner of preparations. This was groundwork for the regression to come — hardly something to do half-heartedly.

I gathered information on every elixir discovered across the Jianghu: where it was found, when, by whom, and who else was involved.

I committed to memory every last marker on the treasure maps that had set the whole realm ablaze, cross-checking their authenticity through every means of the Beggars' Gang's intelligence apparatus.

I also memorized the Thousand Roster of Jianghu Figures in its entirety. I knew well that the truest fortune the Jianghu offered was found in one's connections.

Seen this way, every preparation seemed ironclad — but of all the plans I'd laid when joining the Gang, one link was still missing.

Martial arts.

What good would it do to regress with all this information in hand? Without strength, I couldn't protect any of it.

I knew better than anyone that the Jianghu was, in the end, a world ruled by the logic of power.

Since becoming a beggar, I had lived one day as if it were three. I hadn't neglected my training either, and so I managed to set my foot upon the threshold of the Peak Realm.

An achievement made possible only because, born and raised in a great martial clan, I had already reached the First-Class Realm by seventeen.

The problem, however, was that a realm others might call the mighty Peak looked to my eyes like merely the Peak.

Largely because, in my years with the Gang, I'd learned just how many transcendent masters crowded the upper reaches of the Jianghu.

"Somehow or other..."

I had to find the martial arts my future self would master. Once I regressed I would be eighteen, so there was still time enough.

"The more, the better..."

And if it were a path that could carry me all the way to the summit of the world — even better.

My tenth year as a beggar arrived.

By nature's decree, I had reached my thirtieth year.

Heaven rewards the diligent, as they say. After all those years of toil, at last —

"This is it!"

I found the treasure I had been searching for.

My eye fell upon a booklet blackened with the grime of countless beggars' ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands.

"The Yakseon Heart Decision."

The martial art of Yakseon, the Medicine Immortal — a divine recluse of two generations past, said to have stood on the very brink of being Number One Under Heaven in his day.

Because he vanished without ever passing on his legacy, everyone assumed his lineage had died with him. And yet I had uncovered word that the Medicine Immortal's art lay in the archives of the Beggars' Gang's own headquarters.

Information as old as the booklet that carried it.

Not the idle boasting of dilettantes. This was the pronouncement of Singija, the Alliance's supreme commander of strategy, hailed as the greatest intellect under heaven.

And yet, even after all this time, no one had ever mastered the Yakseon Heart Decision.

Political entanglements? The art's sheer difficulty? Missing passages in its nine volumes?

None of these.

That was the reason.

Reading further, I understood at once.

What was the Empty Blue Stone Milk?

The peerless elixir said to condense a single drop every hundred years within caverns blessed by rare celestial dew — a treasure beyond all reckoning, impossible even to price in gold.

And that treasure wasn't the price of mastery, but merely the entry requirement. The absurd fact was written there in the plainest of script.

It was easy to imagine how much more would be demanded after that.

My interest was piqued.

Impossible now — but after my regression, I would have ways of obtaining the Empty Blue Stone Milk. I needed more information.

Perhaps because it had been left to gather dust for so long, the security grade sat remarkably low for a martial art aimed at the summit.

As for the rest, I could simply examine the Yakseon Heart Decision itself.

"Tch. I suppose I'll have to put in a request."

Fortunately, I had one connection capable of fetching high-grade intelligence for me.

"Where's Dancheon Myeong?"

A raspy old voice carried into my shack. It belonged to Chwipung-gae — now familiar to me, risen to seven knots and made an elder of the Beggars' Gang.

"I told you I've cast off that name."

"Right. I did hear that, didn't I."

He answered without a care and settled himself down in my hovel.

"You got it already?"

I knew there was no other reason for him to come looking for me.

"Here, you rascal."

Chwipung-gae fished a booklet from his breast and tossed it over.

"A transcription of the Yakseon Heart Decision."

"Thank you."

"Ahem. That's HIGH-grade information, mind you."

High-grade intelligence was permitted only to six-knot beggars and above.

For a seven-knot elder like Chwipung-gae it was easy enough to come by, but for a mere three-knot like me, it was out of reach.

Simply put, he was milking the favor for all it was worth.

"My gratitude, always."

"Heh. All flash and no substance, that mouth of yours."

A cantankerous old codger, to be sure — but I knew him to be a man worth his weight in gold, one who watched my back and granted my difficult requests.

"Have you given any thought to my proposal?"

If you receive, you must also give. That is simply the way of the world.

But.

"I already refused that matter last time."

This once, I would have to be a shameless beggar.

"Tch. A boy with talent and a foundation like yours — why the stubbornness?"

Chwipung-gae spoke again, exasperated.

"You know full well that without learning the Gang's arts you can never tie a fourth knot — so why dig in your heels? Damn it, boy, do you think you're the only beggar who's ever wanted to be my successor?"

Chwipung-gae was right.

He was, after all, a man who had climbed to elder of the Gang on the strength of his own martial arts alone.

But I had no intention of living as a beggar in my next life, so it was only right that I not learn the Gang's arts.

"I'm sorry, elder."

And so I could only refuse.

"Tch. Still clinging to your clan's arts, are you?"

"..."

Chwipung-gae interpreted it however suited him, and I didn't correct him.

"Do as you please, you doomed beggar."

Well acquainted with how stubborn I could be, Chwipung-gae yielded the round this time as well.

I was grateful for that kindness of his.

"Tsk-tsk."

As though his business were finished, Chwipung-gae rose to his feet and threw out one last remark.

"Word's come in that the Dancheon clan has fallen."

"...!"

He called it a rumor, but the odds were overwhelming that it was true. He was an elder of the Beggars' Gang, after all.

The fall of the Dancheon clan — one of the great martial houses that ruled Anhui alongside the Namgung clan. It wasn't earth-shattering news, but it was the kind that would raise no small commotion across the Jianghu.

That it hadn't yet reached my ears meant the information had arrived at the Gang's headquarters with top urgency. The intelligence of the great clans was something even the Beggars' Gang handled with care.

"Why so silent?"

Perhaps worried for me, Chwipung-gae asked again.

"Thank you for telling me."

I answered, feigning calm.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes. Haven't I already severed ties with them? My home is the Gang."

"Glad to hear it, then."

Chwipung-gae waved a hand.

"I'm really going now."

"Take care."

After Chwipung-gae left, my gaze dropped to my own fist.

It had gone white. I must have been clenching it harder than I realized.

It's all right.

Everything would be resolved once I regressed. Thinking so, I stilled my heart.

Information that has already set the Jianghu abuzz is information that has lost its worth. The value of intelligence lies in exclusivity.

And so, with a little effort, even a mere three-knot beggar like me could learn the full details of the Dancheon clan's destruction.

Yet when I pieced the gathered intelligence together, something felt off.

That's strange.

The fall of the Dancheon clan had proceeded with unsettling quiet, without so much as a whisper beforehand. Every scrap of intelligence concentrated not on the clan's decline, but on its aftermath. For all the commotion, there was almost no real information at all.

The clan called Dancheon had simply vanished, as if evaporated from the earth.

A conspiracy of some force vast enough to slip past even the Beggars' Gang's eyes?

Much as it galled me, the masterminds behind it were impossible to identify for now.

I'll set this matter aside for the moment...

It would be a lie to deny that the Yakseon Heart Decision in front of me held my interest more than a clan already destroyed.

And so my gaze turned to the transcription of the Yakseon Heart Decision.

Rustle.

I turned the pages.

Silently, I took every written passage of the transcription into my mind.

There would be no carrying this booklet with me when I regressed, so I read with painstaking care and committed it all to memory, terrified of letting slip so much as a single character.

"Master Myeong-gae! Myeong-gae! Something terrible has happened!"

"What is it now?"

A one-knot beggar raising a fuss was nothing unusual, so I asked without much interest.

"Something truly terrible!"

"Why make such a racket? Has a war broken out or something?"

At my question, the one-knot beggar froze.

"You knew?"

"Knew what?"

"About the war."

"...?"

Seeing my dazed reaction, the one-knot beggar went on with a frustrated expression.

"The Great War of Righteousness and Evil has begun."

"The Great War?"

"Yes."

"The Great War?"

"Yes."

"...The Great War?"

"Is something wrong with your ears?"

Smack!

"You little wretch."

Yes, I'd been stammering — but insubordination this egregious demanded discipline, so I clouted the one-knot beggar across the head with a rice-bowl fist.

"Message delivered, anyway."

Rubbing the spot where I'd hit him, the one-knot beggar grumbled, then hurried off as though pressed for time.

"The Great War of Righteousness and Evil."

A piece of information that had been itching at the back of my mind finally clicked into place.

"So that's what it was."

The fall of the Dancheon clan had been the omen of the Great War itself.

When the Great War erupted, I made my choice.

"I will go to the Secret Pavilion. I will devote body and soul to aiding the Orthodox Murim."

I manufactured the justification with words I didn't mean.

"You fool. That place is a killing ground. Why would you hurl yourself into a pit of fire?"

Chwipung-gae tried to dissuade me. But.

"I'm going."

"...Do as you please."

In the end, he could not stop me.

Through Chwipung-gae's recommendation, I became a member of the Secret Pavilion, the Murim Alliance's intelligence organization.

Even if I regressed and lived in wealth and glory, the Great War would break out all the same, wouldn't it?

To protect the life that would come after my regression, I resolved to observe the Great War up close.

And there, with my own two eyes, I witnessed the carnage of that war in all its vivid horror.

I took that single-sentence report into my own eyes directly.

"How dreadful..."

The young prodigies who had dreamed of bright futures lay torn apart in the clutches of a demonic master.

Even a single sentence carried an ocean of grief.

"...You fought well."

The members of the Hyunmu Company, who had held the line with the common folk at their backs until the very end, lay strewn on the ground alongside those they had died to protect.

The Murim Alliance was not merely a powerless victim — word of victories rang out as well.

But.

"How hollow..."

Behind every victory report lay the corpses of righteous warriors, heaped one upon another beneath banners they had raised themselves.

"So this... is war."

Watching the carnage with my own eyes, a question began to gnaw at me.

The Great War of Righteousness and Evil — what must be done so that this hellish hellscape is never painted again after my regression?

Regrettably, my pondering could not last long. Even I could not dodge the cruelty of war forever.

Thud!

A sharp blade pierced clean through the booklet in my breast and tore into my gut.

"Is that one the last?"

"Yes, sir."

The demonic master who had run me through withdrew his blade and answered his superior with perfect courtesy.

"Hhagh... hhagh..."

I looked around.

The Secret Pavilion operatives who had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠worked alongside me had long since departed this world — cut down by a demonic strike team whose sole objective was the elimination of informants.

With what strength remained, I fumbled the contents of my breast into my hands. The booklet, soaked in my blood and ruined beyond use, was the transcription of the Yakseon Heart Decision.

The cold gaze of the strike team's commander settled on me.

"Any last words? You held out to the very end — I'll grant you that much."

Generous, for a demonic cultivator.

My last words.

I would die here — but I would also regress.

So what should the final words of this life be?

As I wrestled with my dying wish, I understood at last.

...So that's what it was.

The resentful corpses of commoners slaughtered without sin rose before my eyes.

So did the bodies of the warriors who had raised their banners high, only to end their days sprawled on the cold ground.

The sacrifice of these innocent lives must never become a thing that never was.

The hell reenacted on the stage of the Great War of Righteousness and Evil was never what Heaven wanted.

The regression arranged for me — it had meant this, all along.

Thanks to that, the answer came easier than expected.

"Yes. I must become the Alliance Leader."

I would become Number One Under Heaven. And I would become the Murim Alliance's Leader. With that power, I would stop the Great War of Righteousness and Evil.

So that in the future after my regression, this horrific war would never exist at all.

Regression and the Yakseon Heart Decision.

Combine the two, and it would be possible.

"You're mad, do you know that?"

Shffk.

With a chilling whisper of steel, the world before my eyes went dark.