A Road of Blades
A chill silence settled over the hall.
Gulp.
The tiny sound of someone swallowing their Geumnamchun wine was enough to fill the entire space.
"…"
To link the direct bloodline of the Ice Palace with the Demonic Cult was an insult for which a man might justly meet the tip of a blade — and have no excuse left to offer even then.
And yet.
"…Do you have some information, Young Master?"
One look at Han Baek-rim's bearing told me. Something that had long sat uneasily with him had just surfaced.
"That much I cannot share. I ask your understanding."
That was how I answered, for I had no proof to offer.
In truth, all I knew amounted to two scraps: that the Ice Palace had colluded with the Demonic Cult during the Great War of Righteousness and Evil, and that the Palace Master at that time had been Bukgung Han-yu.
How could anyone carry hard evidence for things happening in the far-off North Sea?
Information without corroboration ordinarily earns no trust — but I had something else to lean on. Trust in me, the man himself.
They say sincerity and truth find their way through; you could call it trusting him with that.
Fortunately, Han Baek-rim and Bukgung Seol-ah had sunk deep into their own thoughts, and neither pressed me further.
The information was too thin for perfect certainty, but my belief was this: Bukgung Han-yu had already forged ties with the Demonic Cult.
I knew that to ride the same boat through an affair as vast as the Great War, a shallow acquaintance would never do.
Truthfully, I hardly needed any of it — calling it the instinct of a seasoned information broker would have been explanation enough.
Here was a man prepared to abandon his own family and every soul in his clan's household for the heir's seat. Bukgung Han-yu may well have walked the demonic path in his heart long before he ever struck his bargain with the Cult.
I wanted Bukgung Seol-ah to become the Young Palace Master.
For my own sake, yes — and for the future of the murim and the jianghu alike.
"Let us take our leave."
I had done all that was mine to do; the rest had to be left to fate. The choice belonged to Bukgung Seol-ah, which meant it was time for me to withdraw.
It helped that I knew the two of them needed time to think.
Still, there was one last thing I wished to say.
"That power of yours. Must it be you who holds it?"
I put the question to Bukgung Seol-ah, but my eyes were on Han Baek-rim.
Was he not the Harmony Realm master whose resolve had never bent, even before the Sado Alliance Leader? And was that same Han Baek-rim not the most loyal of right hands to Bukgung Seol-ah?
Having long watched the bond between Yeo Wol and Ma Sok of the Hao Gate, the thought had come to me naturally. Their bond did not look the least bit shallower than that pair's.
It was not my place to weigh right against wrong, but I wanted them to know that such a path of thinking existed.
"I only wished to say it as a friend."
Those words were my truth.
"I see. A friend…."
As she answered, Bukgung Seol-ah's gaze came to rest on Han Baek-rim.
She had caught my meaning, it seemed — so it was right for my meddling to end here.
"I'll be off to rest, then. We move early tomorrow."
The Geumnamchun was gone as well, so I rose without a backward glance.
Then—
"This palace will never ally itself with the Demonic Cult."
The sudden words from Bukgung Seol-ah stopped my feet.
"The Ice Palace that I will build — it never will."
Her face was filled with a resolve I had never seen in her before. The expression, I judged, of a true Palace Master of the Ice Palace.
"Strength to you."
Leaving her those words of encouragement, I stepped out of the tavern.
I walked out with a lightened heart — and what met my eyes was the doorway packed solid with Ice Palace warriors.
My puzzlement lasted only a moment.
"All units— Ready!"
Shing—
At the command, every warrior of the Ice Palace drew their blade forward in unison — a drill as exact as any military rite.
"To the benefactor— Salute!"
Shhh-shhh-shhh-shhh-shhh—
The blades of the Ice Palace warriors wove themselves into a road. A road laid down for me.
I knew nothing of Ice Palace rites or customs, but I understood what this meant.
Step.
With a willing heart, I set my foot upon the road of blades.
"Thank you."
"We are grateful."
"We will not forget this debt."
The people I had taken for cold as the north wind's killing frost carried a warmth in their chests to outshine anyone's. Perhaps that was how they had managed to put down roots in the North Sea — by bearing a greater warmth in their hearts than any child of the Central Plains.
And when I had walked the road of blades to its very end—
"All units— Cut!"
The road of blades was withdrawn.
Then they cried out as one:
A single voice reached me, as if every heart among them beat the same.
"…Thank you."
The unexpected courtesy caught at my throat.
On a road undertaken to win the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, I may have gained something far greater.
The highest point in all the Tianshan Mountains of Xinjiang, where the Heavenly Demon Cult had made its nest.
This place — Takmoki Peak, called Tuomuer in the tongue of the locals — sat higher than the clouds. That no mortal foot could reach such a lofty, treacherous height was as good as a law of nature.
Yet at the summit of Takmoki Peak, where no human presence had any business being, stood a single tall pavilion that suited the wild scenery remarkably well.
The holy ground of the Heavenly Demon Cult, revered by the demonic faithful as the Demon Sky Tower.
The one who kept and used that tower was none other than Wi Su — Chief Strategist of the Heavenly Demon Cult in this age, the man called the Demonic Divine Conduit.
Wi Su, head tilted back as he counted the stars, spoke.
"It seems, as expected, that it has failed."
He had just confirmed that the report he'd received before ascending the tower was accurate, and his expression was grim.
"Why so?"
A weighty, low voice posed the question in return.
A society where the strong devour the weak and rank is everything — that, you might say, is the demonic path. The Chief Strategist of the Heavenly Demon Cult holds a seat below one man and above all others, so the one who could speak down to him so naturally was a foregone conclusion.
The supreme sovereign of the Cult — the Heavenly Demon, Seol Cheon-sang — was the one who had asked.
Even to the Heavenly Demon's question, Wi Su did not answer at once. He counted the stars a while longer.
Then, at last, he gave his conclusion.
"…I do not know."
At those words, the Heavenly Demon's changeless expression shifted — just slightly.
"That is something I have never heard from you before."
And this was why: in nearly sixty years at the Heavenly Demon's side, it was the first time Wi Su — who read the heavens as befitted his dread title — had ever answered that he did not know something.
"However…"
"Speak."
Wi Su bowed his head and went on, and the Heavenly Demon listened.
"A star that never existed before has begun to shine. Its light is still faint, but it seems to be twisting the current of what was."
"Whose?"
"I cannot be certain, but… Myeong of the Dancheon Clan. I suspect it is his."
He called it uncertain, but it was likely all but certain. That had always been the way of Wi Su's gift — it had proven itself time and again.
"So it is that one, after all."
It was the name that had shattered the Black Water Gate and twisted the entire Ice Palace affair sideways — Myeong of the Dancheon Clan. Wi Su's suspicion was sound.
"Dancheon Myeong."
The Heavenly Demon's voice murmured the name. A name that grated.
Seol Cheon-sang's gaze rose to the sky. He could not count the stars as Wi Su did, but it was a habit all the same.
Nor was it without meaning — the sky as seen from the Demon Sky Tower had a way of steadying mind and body.
"And the Sovereign of Destruction's star?"
At the question, Wi Su's eyes followed the heavens as well.
"It is fading."
"When?"
"Within ten years. More likely five or six."
"I see."
The realm that stands opposite the Harmony Realm is called Extreme Demon; the realm that stands opposite the Profound Realm is called Transcendent Demon.
The one who sought to leap beyond even the frame of Transcendent Demon was the Heavenly Demon of this age, Seol Cheon-sang — and so the only soul he guarded against was Yeom Gi-ha, the Sovereign of Destruction, born under a star much like his own.
With the Demonic Divine Conduit himself having seen a future in which that star fell, the Great War of Righteousness and Evil being on the schedule was inevitability itself.
The Cult would not hold its silence forever merely because the Sovereign's star still burned — but if they were certain that star would fall, there was ample room to wait a while longer.
"What would you have us do?"
Wi Su asked. Seol Cheon-sang knew he spoke of Dancheon Myeong.
"Is he a danger?"
"Not yet."
Meaning: not yet enough of an obstacle to the Cult's great design.
"And the balance of gain and loss?"
"For now… a loss."
At the answer, a faint crease formed between Seol Cheon-sang's brows. He was displeased.
Heaven's secrets are for reading, not for using. Both Wi Su and Seol Cheon-sang knew that to meddle recklessly in their flow, without destiny's sanction, was to invite divine punishment.
Had Myeong been a truly colossal variable, they might have swallowed the punishment and reached into the heavens all the same — but he was not. Not yet.
When Wi Su said loss, he meant the divine punishment would far outweigh any benefit of touching the heavens.
"It is only the Ice Palace. Pay it no mind."
So Seol Cheon-sang concluded.
The Heavenly Demon's word was solemn and absolute; Wi Su would follow it without a hair's breadth of deviation.
"Yes."
By the time Wi Su, having bowed low, raised his head again, no one was there.
The divinity of the Heavenly Demon, who had surpassed even Transcendent Demon, admitted no comparison — he had vanished from the Demon Sky Tower in the space of a breath.
Wi Su's gaze returned to the sky.
Because that small star, newly kindled, kept grating on him.
"A variable, is it…"
His foreboding was not a good one.
It seemed he would have to take some manner of action.
Leading the Ice Palace delegation, I arrived without incident at the Murim Alliance Headquarters on the border of Henan and Hubei.
With two Harmony Realm masters — myself and Han Baek-rim — in the party, an accident would have been the stranger occurrence. In truth, the encounter with the Overwhelming Force Martial Emperor ought to be judged a freak of nature.
Such freaks do not strike the same party twice, so the journey from Sanmenxia to the Alliance could only be described with the word uneventful.
That every soul of the Ice Palace treated me with the courtesy owed a benefactor was another reason the road ran so smooth.
At the grand entrance of the Murim Alliance, Alliance members stood in flawless ranks and files to receive the Ice Palace delegation.
Seeing the delegation welcomed with full honors, I quietly slipped away.
I had styled myself an envoy of the Murim Alliance, but that had been a lie from the start. The time had come to make my exit.
By any reckoning my business was finished — I had the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, and the delegation was delivered. But I could not simply slip away.
"Come this way. I have left a path open for you."
For a covert Six Harmonies Voice had just rung in my ear.
"Haah."
He had left word that it was the Alliance Leader's command, and still — apparently anxious — the Sovereign of Destruction, Yeom Gi-ha, had come out to meet me in person.
Unwilling as I was, my feet had no choice but to move.
Following the trail of the transmission, a familiar hall came into view.
The Shadowless Pavilion.
Once the nerve center of the Alliance's intelligence, and during the Great War the operational headquarters of the Secret Pavilion I myself had served in — how could I not know it?
"Well met."
No sooner had my foot crossed the Shadowless Pavilion's threshold than a rich, resonant voice greeted me.
I turned my gaze and found a refined figure standing there.
In this life, it was the first time I had ever seen the man — and yet I knew him well.
"I am called Singija."
Singija — Chief Strategist of the Murim Alliance, hailed as the finest mastermind of the age. That was who the figure was.
"Myeong of the Dancheon Clan."
I hurried into a fist-palm salute.
He was, by any measure, a renowned elder among the jianghu's renowned elders. Setting rank aside, Singija was of an age with my father, Dancheon Gang — paying respect was only proper.
I had been raised, after all, as a son of a great house who knew his courtesies. The only reason I had shown none to the Sovereign of Destruction was that my life had been hanging by a thread at the time.
Then—
"…!"
Fwip-fwip-fwip-fwip!
Dozens of needles came rushing at me from every direction.
Tat!
I unfolded the Cloud-Treading Steps in a flash and shifted my form.
The needles were swift and flickering indeed — but they were nothing beside the great Ten Thousand Flower Rain of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Whoosh!
A sweep of my sleeve shed them all. I was, after all, a Harmony Realm master in name.
And in that same instant—
"Not bad at all."
Yeom Gi-ha revealed himself, grinning ear to ear.
Pang!
He flicked out two needles at blistering speed, as though wielding the Finger-Flick Art.
I evaded them cleanly, but—
Tink!
I failed to evade.
Because that tiny needle had bent its trajectory mid-flight in some uncanny way. A sleight of hand from the Sovereign of Destruction.
My body had long since achieved the Golden Body, so a needle carrying no sword qi could not pierce it. Naturally, I took no harm.
"…"
But I soon grasped his intent, and I confess the mortification hit all the same.
"See? Didn't I tell you?"
Said Yeom Gi-ha, looking utterly delighted.
"Do be quiet."
"Ngh."
At a single word from Singija, the great Sovereign of Destruction shut his mouth at once.
Something had clearly been pinned on him — I suspected the man had been caught having run away from home.
Having subdued the Sovereign of Destruction, Singija turned to me.
"…"
It would be fair to say that what was coming for me had finally come.