Dark Clouds Over Anhui
Six hours before the Demonic Cultists stormed the Dancheon Clan.
Within the Leader's Hall of the Murim Alliance — quarters that might as well have belonged to Tyrant Emperor Yeom Gi-ha — business proceeded as it always did.
"Alliance Leader, these need your approval..."
Arms wrapped around a stack of papers tall enough to bury his chin, Singija pushed the door open with his back and stepped inside.
"Hm."
Singija, after all, was a man whose martial attainments wanted for nothing. His innate gift for comprehension had earned him a lofty realm of his own, and so the moment he set foot in the Leader's Hall, he caught it — the hollow absence of a presence that ought to have been there.
"...Damn it."
At the same instant, an uneasy instinct struck deep into his mind—
The stack of documents cradled in his arms slipped and scattered across the floor.
Singija was a man who abhorred letting precious papers touch the ground, but this was no time for such concerns. Documents abandoned where they lay, his figure darted swiftly toward the Leader's desk — where a single letter in familiar handwriting lay waiting.
Seeing as that disciple of mine hasn't set foot in the Alliance for over a month now, something must surely have befallen him.
I shall stop by Anhui in person and look into the matter. See that the Chief Strategist is informed. — Yeom Gi-ha
By the time he finished reading, Singija's jaw had clenched hard enough to creak.
"Hoo—"
He smothered his rage with a long breath, then muttered:
"When you return... prepare to die."
In the end, the fury he could not swallow found its way out as words.
The man who had bolted three days ago on the pretext of fine weather was now hiding behind his disciple. The excuse was at least plausible this time — but plausible was not absolution.
Was it not said that three acts of forbearance spare a man from murder? The word forbearance had long since been carved into Singija's heart well over three hundred times. By now, he could kill the Alliance Leader and plead self-defense without a single flaw in the claim.
"That damned Alliance Leader."
Singija snatched up the letter with rough hands. Paper was a precious thing — he meant to scrub away such useless content at once and put it to better use. As the page fluttered, a small note hidden beneath the letter came into view.
"Hm?"
He studied its contents. It was written in the Murim Alliance's secret cipher — something that demanded a careful read even from him. If the first letter was what the Leader had left for his Chief Strategist, the small note was what Yeom Gi-ha had left for his friend.
Gija — in case you get the wrong idea, I'm leaving one more message. The energy in the air feels wrong somehow. Something big is going to break — I can feel it. I couldn't tell you how or why, but that's what my gut says.
And if by chance I don't make it back... the Murim Alliance is in your hands.
The note had seemed, at first, to hold nothing more than his usual excuses...
...and it closed on a strangely weighty note.
...
Singija knew Yeom Gi-ha well. He knew the man would trot out any excuse under the sun, however flimsy — yet shunned the faintest hint of death above all things.
Was it not Yeom Gi-ha who had never once spoken of dying, even as the Fire Spirit Sky-Breaking Divine Art burned the wick of his life down to nothing?
"Hah..."
Past the wide-open window of the Leader's Hall, Singija's gaze lifted to the sky. Through the clear blue, he could see ink-black clouds rolling in.
He had never set foot upon Defying Heaven, so the heavens' secrets were beyond his reading — but he could tell that something extraordinary was stirring.
"I need to move."
Singija's strides carried him swiftly out of the Leader's Hall. The Leader had named Anhui himself — put the Special Operations Unit to work, and the truth would surface in no time.
The same hour, in the Sado League's Leader's Hall.
"Alliance Leader."
Heavenly Brain Sama Ui had come seeking Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han.
"What is it, Strategist?"
The Sado League Leader was called a cold and aloof absolute sovereign — yet to his Chief Strategist, he was also a lord of boundless warmth. Even at this late hour, Wiji Han's voice could not have been gentler.
"It concerns the order you gave me the other day."
"Hm?"
There was one thing most people never knew: the greater part of the Sado League's business was conducted at Heavenly Brain Sama Ui's own discretion. The unorthodox path was a collective that worshipped strength — as was the Sado League — and it was true that Overlord Martial Emperor Wiji Han stood as its axis. But Wiji Han, whose interests began and ended with honing his own martial arts and with his son, had no cause to lay hands on the day-to-day work of governance.
And so Wiji Han had become the very image of a leader who reigns but does not rule. A man like that issuing orders was a rare thing indeed — which was why he knew at once what Sama Ui meant by "the order you gave me the other day."
It could only be about his son's benefactor — Dancheon Myeong.
Wiji Han's bearing turned grave.
"Has something happened to Dancheon Myeong?"
The boy had insisted on collecting a fee for his services and left Yeomhwa Bang looking like a weed-choked field — by any fair reckoning, the debt had been settled. Had the Sado League not even handled the cleanup afterward? Yet it was equally true that the League's own investigation had confirmed, a second time, that Yeomhwa Bang was in league with the Demonic Cult.
Which meant that, under the pretext of taking payment, they had wound up owing him yet another favor. To pretend it had never happened would have left the Sado League Leader's honor the worse for wear.
And viewed through Wiji Han's reverence for good faith, the debt owed Dancheon Myeong still stood.
— Classify all intelligence concerning the Dancheon Clan and its second son at the highest priority, and deploy informants. All such intelligence is to be reported to me directly by the Chief Strategist.
It was one of the very few orders the Overlord Martial Emperor had ever handed down to the Sado League in person. With a leader watching day and night for his chance to repay the favor, it was inevitable that the League's intelligence network would turn its gaze upon the Dancheon Clan.
"A force intending to strike the Dancheon Clan has been detected."
"Report in detail."
Solemnity settled into Wiji Han's expression. Given the Dancheon Clan's renown, he knew all too well that no ragtag mob would ever dare raise a hand against it.
"Their total strength is unknown. We have confirmed at least several masters of Harmony Realm caliber. In all likelihood, they are the Demonic Cult's own brood."
With the unorthodox faction's sovereign himself standing shield over the Dancheon Clan, divining which quarter the attackers hailed from was no great feat.
"Your assessment?"
At Wiji Han's question, Sama Ui ordered his thoughts and answered with care.
"Assuming the worst, some ten Extreme Demon masters will fall upon the Dancheon Clan. The clan will bleed for it."
The reason he left the word annihilation unspoken was that Sama Ui, too, knew well the deep reserves of a storied martial house.
"Hm."
Wiji Han pictured Dancheon Myeong as he had stood before him, unflinching. Setting aside the clan's standing as one of Anhui's great houses, any family capable of raising such a master would hardly come crashing down at a blow.
"They can hold off that much."
So Wiji Han concluded. Losses there might be — but it also meant this was not a matter that justified setting his own two feet in motion. Wiji Han was a father to one child and a debtor to Dancheon Myeong — but the Overlord Martial Emperor was the one and only sovereign of the Sado, and so it was. He could hardly go flitting about at every whisper of trouble like some common man.
Then—
"Urgent report!"
A messenger shrouded head to toe in a Pifeng robe burst into the Leader's Hall and dropped low in prostration.
"Speak."
It trampled every protocol, but the Overlord Martial Emperor offered no rebuke. He knew this was one of the men who staked their lives spying on the Heavenly Demon Cult — and intelligence out of the Demonic Cult's headquarters was urgency upon urgency. Protocol could wait.
"A Demon Lord-class figure has been confirmed stepping beyond the Demonic Cult's walls. His destination is Anhui."
The moment that report landed—
"...Mm."
A groan escaped Heavenly Brain Sama Ui. He knew all too well where the Dancheon Sword Clan made its home.
But it did not end there.
"Urgent report!"
A second messenger, wrapped in the same Pifeng robe, dropped into prostration. The matter was so dire that the man opened his mouth before the order to speak ever came.
"The Heavenly Demon appears to have moved."
"...!"
At those words, a silence thick with disbelief swallowed the hall. Grasping the weight of what he had just said, the messenger hurried to add:
"...It is an estimate."
And naturally so. However dense the Sado League's watch over the Demonic Path, pinning down the Heavenly Demon's whereabouts was another matter entirely. He was a man veiled in precisely that much mystery.
But an estimate was not a thing to be brushed aside, and Sama Ui spoke, his voice heavy.
"His destination?"
The messenger was a capable one, and answered without a beat's delay.
"We have confirmed only his bearing — but by our reckoning, Shaanxi, Henan, or Anhui."
Anhui. There it was again. By now, none present could fail to see it. Something extraordinary was unfolding in Anhui — or to be exact, at the Dancheon Sword Clan.
A low rumble rolled through the hall.
"How much time remains?"
The absolute sovereign of the Sado asked, a ferocious wave of qi rolling off him.
"By our estimate, within six hours at most."
Sama Ui answered without hesitation, his reckoning already complete. When the Chief Strategist — a man second to none in parsing intelligence and drawing inferences — gave an answer, there was no error in it.
"Then there is no other way."
Little time remained. To march the Sado League's host of martial artists would be a mighty boon, but they would plainly never arrive in time. Which left but one course.
"Strategist, I shall be stepping out on a brief personal excursion."
"It is too dangerous."
Sama Ui moved to bar his path.
"That is an order."
"...As you command."
There was no stopping him.
Six hours. Time enough — just barely — for the sovereign of the Sado to cross from Hunan to Anhui alone. Though hardly time to spare.
Swish.
The Overlord Martial Emperor's figure vanished from the Sado League in the blink of an eye.
"You have done well."
Having commended the messengers, Sama Ui too set himself in motion at once. He could not leave the sovereign of the Sado to face danger alone.
I fixed the intruders in my gaze.
They were few enough that a single sweep of the eyes reckoned them all. Eleven enemies. Stretching my ki sense outward, I confirmed there was no second wave lurking beyond them.
A small number, then — unmistakably so. One might even call it absurdly small for a night assault on the Dancheon Sword Clan, a famed house of Anhui that kept a standing force at all hours.
And yet the intruders facing us seemed to believe it plenty. Proof enough: even with their approach laid bare, not one of them showed the slightest fluster.
"So the Dancheon Sword Clan's famed name is no idle boast, I see."
Even his voice brimmed with composure. I gave no rash answer; instead I calmly read the momentum of the intruders — and thanks to that, I could trace the wellspring of their confidence at least partway to its source.
"Every last one of them is Harmony Realm or above."
"Mm."
At the blunt truth that had left my lips, bewilderment crept over the faces of Father, Uncle Yeo-baek, and my elder brother Dancheon Hak.
"It seems they intend to start a war."
"They storm in without warning in the dead of night — what else are we to think?"
Uncle returned Father's words. And he wasn't wrong.
Eleven Harmony Realm masters was a force that earned the word army. Even the illustrious Shaolin, I'd wager, numbered only about ten Harmony Realm masters among those in active service. Put another way: in all the world, not a single clan had ever fielded close to a dozen masters of the Harmony Realm. However mighty a clan grew, it could never presume to match the majesty of the Nine Sects. Had even the Dancheon Sword Clan — said to stand within a hand's breadth of the Five Great Clans — ever counted more at the Harmony Realm's threshold than myself, my father Dancheon Gang, and Escort Captain Bang Yeo-baek?
But theirs was bewilderment, not despair.
"This will be no easy fight."
So judged Clan Head Dancheon Gang.
"We can hold them."
Escort Captain Bang Yeo-baek was certain of it. Uncle Yeo-baek's gaze swept across the guard corps standing in flawless discipline — he knew as well as anyone that while a martial artist who had reached a realm was a power in his own right, the strength of numbers was never to be scorned.
I turned my eyes back to the enemy. The one at their head had stepped beyond the Harmony Realm and set foot upon the stage of Will-Intent. The ten behind him had all attained the Harmony Realm as well — plainly a force to be reckoned with.
In truth, had I not attained the Fifth Stage, this might have been a force the Dancheon Clan could never have overcome.
But that was all it was. I knew full well that grading such a gathering as merely anything defied all reason — yet weighed against the death I had known, the death that allowed no resistance, "merely" was the only honest measure.
Just what in the world...
My Spiritual Perception was still sounding its warning of the danger closing in from the future.