The Traitor's Last Gambit
"Where in the world did the information leak? I simply cannot fathom it."
The one who spoke those words — First Elder, no, Ilcheon-sal, the Second-Rank Sleeper Agent of the Heavenly Demon Cult — wore an expression seething with irritation.
It wasn't that he was a fool.
The information I had presented was concrete enough that he would have found it difficult to dismiss it as mere bluffing.
Rather than call it his stupidity, it would be more accurate to call it a victory for my stratagem.
"Hah..."
Ilcheonsal's hollow sigh wove itself through the air.
Considering that the grand design he had poured decades of his life into was now crumbling, I could well imagine his despair.
But a moment later, what settled into the corners of his eyes was not the resigned surrender of a man giving up — it was resolve, and the glint of murderous intent.
True to his reputation as the capable infiltrator who had once brought down the Myeong family, his reaction was swift.
Crunch.
Ilcheonsal's foot came down and ground into the Third Elder's throat.
"Kghk."
With one last flicker of breath, the Third Elder crossed the River of Three Crossings. A pitifully pointless end, truly.
As if sweeping away something filthy, Ilcheonsal dusted off his foot with a few brisk taps.
"Let us do it this way."
His languid tone of voice was different from usual.
"This young master and the Third Elder quarreled over some trifling dispute and perished together. That is the story."
Ilcheonsal's eyes, as he spoke, were as still and fathomless as an abyss. This was the true face of the demonic cultist he had hidden his entire life.
"Quite a decent plan, wouldn't you say?"
I nodded.
"It's not a bad plan."
Had I been in his position, I likely would have come up with something similar, so it was indeed the best plan available to him.
With one caveat.
"If you can actually manage to kill me, that is."
I had no intention whatsoever of dying easily.
"Come, then."
As I took the Ki-su stance —
Kwoooh.
Ilcheonsal's killing intent swelled explosively.
"Hm."
I kept my expression composed, but I could feel sweat beading in my grip.
Ilcheonsal had stepped into the Harmony Realm long ago, and weathering that killing intent head-on sent a faint chill through my gut.
I felt it in my very skin: the Third Elder, who had entered the Council of Elders and surrendered himself to comfort, and Ilcheonsal, who had honed his blade in relentless vigilance his whole life, were fundamentally different creatures.
Only a man of this caliber could have reached the Harmony Realm — and only such a man could have brought the Dancheon Clan to ruin.
Sreung.
"First Elder, your energy is rather fierce."
I spoke with feigned calm, but my body betrayed me. The proof was that, unlike my encounter with the Third Elder, I had drawn the Dancheon Sword from the very start.
"Young master, what realm have you reached, I wonder?"
He had asked me the same question even before his identity was exposed. But with the situation changed, the question carried an entirely different weight now.
Perhaps because my spirit had flowered, it felt as though Ilcheonsal had sensed something through my counter-formation.
"Figure it out for yourself."
Not that I had any obligation to answer politely.
Swip!
Kaang!
Before the words had even left my mouth, his blade shot forward at blistering speed, and I barely managed to deflect it.
The crucial fact was this: an oppressive, hardened energy clung to both his blade and mine.
It radiated a presence unmistakably distinct from ordinary sword qi — geom-gang, the Sword Gang, the very hallmark of the Harmony Realm.
"Ho..."
Glistening in his murderous eyes was something that looked like admiration.
"The Harmony Realm, at your age."
I knew this was an achievement more than worthy of being called a once-in-a-millennium talent.
"You... I must kill you, without fail."
Ilcheon-sal spoke as though uttering a lament.
"Even if it costs me my own life."
Thanks to that, I understood perfectly how a demonic cultist's eyes regarded the existence called me.
In the jianghu of the murim, there exists the concept of the early Peak Realm, set against its opposite: the seasoned Peak Realm.
There is a reason these subdivisions appear nowhere between Third-Rate and First-Rate realms, yet exist from the Peak Realm onward.
For within the same named realm, the deviation in actual capability becomes considerable at the Peak level.
Consider the Dragon and Phoenix Assembly. It gathered warriors all of the Peak Realm, yet their abilities ranged across heaven and earth, did they not?
It is commonly said that a seasoned Peak master can hold his own against up to three masters of the early Peak Realm — a gap not to be taken lightly.
And yet they all bear the same name: Peak Realm. That alone testifies to how arduous it is to touch the Superlative Peak through the Sword Thread.
If even the Peak Realm deviates this wildly within its own ranks, what of the Harmony Realm?
The Harmony Realm is divided somewhat more finely. There are three stages: early, practiced, and seasoned.
The early Harmony Realm means that one's spirit has flowered and one has reached the Gathering of Three Harmonies. It was the realm I had stepped into upon arriving at the amplification stage of the First Dan Method.
Merely achieving the Gathering of Three Harmonies grants one a martial presence of an entirely different order from Superlative Peak warriors, so the title of Harmony Realm is no understatement.
Next comes what is generally called the practiced stage of the Harmony Realm — the stage of making true what one knows, a perfection of the Gathering of Three Harmonies. Their divine presence, having made the technique wholly their own, is said to effortlessly subdue warriors of the early Harmony Realm.
Finally, the seasoned Harmony Realm is the stage where one begins to materialize one's will — a stage, in truth, that already has one foot in the threshold of the Manifest Realm, the so-called supreme realm.
Just as the Peak Realm is split into early and seasoned, there is a reason the Harmony Realm is divided into early, practiced, and seasoned.
For the gulf between them is rather too wide to bind under the single name of Harmony Realm.
What I had not anticipated was that First Elder Cheon Il-san, contrary to common estimation, was a warrior who had entered the practiced stage of the Harmony Realm long ago.
Kaang!
"Ugh!"
His sharp sword strikes, thick with Sword Gang, again and again probed for my openings.
Had it not been for that hellish training alongside my uncle Yeobaek, I would likely have sprouted two or three holes in my body already.
"Now, now, let's go a bit easier, shall we?"
I cracked a joke to hide my floundering, all while my brain churned furiously.
I was not without a chance of victory.
Though I, too, was only early Harmony Realm, I was not like other warriors of that stage.
The foundation laid by the First Dan Method was now rising toward bedrock upon reaching the Gathering of Three Harmonies.
I could not fully block the Sword Gang, but having forged a Golden Body, I would not easily suffer a fatal wound.
The bulchim was siphoning away my fatigue drop by drop, so it would not be long before I could react to his attacks in full.
And with my inner energy, amplified to fill my dantian to the brim, flowing through the Im Dok meridian at the speed of thought, my reserves would not run dry easily — meaning I could sustain this exchange indefinitely.
And yet my brow would not ease, because no path to victory without injury readily presented itself against that wily old-timer of the jianghu.
Were I to lose even a limb, would that not deal grave damage to the great design to come?
"Er — any thought of talking this over instead?"
It was a bid to buy a little more time...
"Die already."
He let not the slightest carelessness slip even while holding the advantage. Thorough to the bone — that was Ilcheonsal.
Gooooh.
Energy gathered into his blade. He, too, knew that dragging things out would avail him nothing.
"Tch."
Not good.
In a contest of endurance I could match him as long as needed, but the difference in realm meant the power I could unleash in a single instant fell somewhat short.
But what choice did I have?
If you cannot evade, you must block. If you can neither evade nor block, you die. Is that not, in the end, what a duel of life and death means?
The tension hung taut as a bowstring on the verge of snapping, a hair-trigger stillness ruling the air for a breath —
Taht!
Blade laden with mountain-splitting force, Ilcheonsal hurled himself at me.
I gathered every ounce of strength into my defense. In any case, this was the heart of the Dancheon Clan; time would be on my side, so I meant to focus first and foremost on holding my ground.
That was when it happened.
Flinch.
Ilcheonsal, mid-charge toward me, twisted his body in an instant and wheeled around behind him.
Someone had launched a surprise attack at his back.
Kaang!
He barely caught the blow, and the attacker swept past his flank in one motion, landing at my side.
"Honestly, Brother. Why come out now after skulking around all this time?"
"Shut it. Who was skulking?"
The figure who had revealed himself was Dancheon Hak.
"Young master Hak."
Ilcheonsal addressed him.
"Yes."
"What is the meaning of this, toward your master?"
Beneath Cheon Il-san's outwardly placid voice churned a fury like molten lava.
"I am sorry, Master."
The words had barely left his mouth when Dancheon Hak dropped to his knees before Ilcheonsal and bowed low.
Like a disciple ordered to leave the mountain offering his final thanks to the teacher who raised him, his every movement carried a solemn reverence.
Rising to his feet, Dancheon Hak severed the bond of the past with a declaration.
"The bond of master and disciple ends here. Come at me, you demonic old wretch."
He cut an earnest figure, and yet somehow, laughter welled up in me.
"Tch."
Ilcheonsal clicked his tongue. In that resolute stance, he had read the truth: persuasion was impossible.
"So it has all come to ruin."
With even Dancheon Hak appearing on the field, his plan had already collapsed beyond any hope of salvage.
"At the very least, I should take the heads of the two heirs to balance the ledger."
Trading a lifetime's labor for our two heads — I supposed he was being rather generous in his appraisal of us.
Except...
"Who said we'd hand them over?"
That was my answer. And —
"Spare us the yapping, old man."
That was Dancheon Hak's.
In truth, Dancheon Hak behaved so naturally it made me wonder whether he'd ever harbored a shred of resentment toward Ilcheonsal in the first place.
"Haaap!"
Ilcheonsal charged at us.
"Watch yourself, Brother."
"Worry about yourself first."
We met him together.
Chaeeong!
I caught Ilcheonsal's blade.
Swip!
Dancheon Hak stabbed for the gap in his guard.
Whoosh!
Ilcheonsal evaded it with ease.
Sseuaek!
I lunged again for the opening that evasion left behind.
Chaeng!
His blade, having beaten away even my sword, swung back toward Dancheon Hak —
Kaang!
I blocked it, and —
Chaeeong!
Dancheon Hak's strike crashed against Ilcheonsal's blade once more.
That ebb and flow of offense and defense continued for the better part of half an hour.
Strange as it sounds, Dancheon Hak's and my coordination fit together remarkably well. Like comrades who had honed their rhythm over long years, I read his sword's path, and he read my movements.
Dancheon Hak was also a talent who had reached the Superlative Peak Realm on his own strength at a young age — his improvisation on the battlefield never once fell short of my expectations.
And yet...
"Huh... huh..."
No matter how brilliant the talent, a Superlative Peak warrior cannot frolic freely among Harmony Realm masters.
Even though I was absorbing the vast majority of Ilcheonsal's strikes myself, Dancheon Hak was tiring fast.
Every exchange of seconds must have felt like stepping over death's threshold for him; exhaustion at this pace was simply inevitable.
Grrk.
Perhaps from frustration with himself, Dancheon Hak ground his teeth roughly. When I glanced over, the hand gripping his sword was trembling violently.
Even if I took every heavy blow, his blade could not avoid meeting Ilcheonsal's Sword Gang entirely.
"Brother, enough already—"
"Shut it."
Dancheon Hak cut me off.
"This happened within our clan. How could I wash my hands of it?"
Even as he spoke, Dancheon Hak tightened his Ki-su stance. His willpower seemed to have mastered even his flesh — the hand that had been shaking helplessly now hung perfectly still.
I could only call it superhuman resolve. As expected of an heir of the Myeong family, I thought — lacking in nothing.
"Tch."
Clicking his tongue at the sight of us, Ilcheonsal let a black energy writhe into being around his body.
"I had meant to leave no trace of demonic arts behind."
It was on a whole different level from what I had once witnessed from the master of the Black Water Gate — befitting, indeed, a Second-Rank Sleeper Agent.
"Now you truly die."
Perhaps it was the effect of the demonic art — the eyes of Cheon Il-san as he spoke had flushed blood-red, as though aflame with madness.
Then —
Hwiiiiiing.
Without warning, a wind swept through the silent Council of Elders.
That wind brought a new figure with it, and in an instant, all my tension drained away.
Tap.
The moment he took a step, even the wind ceased, and the four corners of the hall sank into silence.
His voice alone would hold the only right to break that silence.
For what had appeared here was a seasoned master of the Harmony Realm, one who had even the wind itself lying prostrate beneath his will.
"So the Dancheon Clan means to prey upon my sons' lives."
The absolute master of the Dancheon Clan — Dancheon Gang — had revealed himself here.