Part 40 - The Night of That City
Jeong-a untied the bundle she had brought.
What she took out from inside was Yeon Sang-hyeon's thick winter coat.
She approached her master and, with a respectful air, draped the coat over his shoulders.
"It's still cold, my lord."
"…Thank you."
Yeon Sang-hyeon's entire body was smeared with a vast amount of blood, and it was still dripping steadily, but Jeong-a didn't seem to care at all.
The blood that had been flowing gradually turned into black ash and scattered on the wind.
The remaining wreckage of a woman, too, was drawn by white hands and sank into the darkness.
It was a bizarre and dreadful sight, but Se-a didn't avert her eyes from any of it.
Yeon Sang-hyeon smiled at her.
"You've got something you want to ask, don't you?"
Leaving her many questions behind, Se-a asked what she wanted to know most.
"…Why did you reveal your identity to me?"
"I don't think I ever revealed it", Yeon Sang-hyeon said, playing dumb.
But Se-a didn't take the bait.
"Even so, you didn't hide it either."
"…True."
Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had closed his eyes for a moment, slowly nodded.
"That's right."
Even for someone who always seemed unrestrained and untouchable, was there something weighing on his mind?
Se-a found that side of him unfamiliar.
"…I will need many people from here on out."
Se-a licked her drying lips.
"Is that as the First Young Master of the Sword Clan of Luoyang? Or as the Dark Heaven Venerable One?"
"If the purposes of the First Young Master and the Dark Heaven Venerable One align, you can treat them as one."
This answer came instantly.
"What kind of people do you need?"
At Se-a's question, Yeon Sang-hyeon looked at her.
Her eyes were clear without a speck.
So much so it felt dissonant when she recalled what she had just witnessed.
"…People who won't break, who won't change. People who will sacrifice everything."
Se-a paused, organizing the conversation.
"…You mean I'm that kind of person?"
"Yes."
His voice was firm.
As if he were stating it as fact.
"How can you be so sure? Do you trust your judgment of people that much? You've known me only a few days—yet you exposed a secret that could be the very thing that puts you in the most danger?"
She was pressing him hard, but as always, Yeon Sang-hyeon didn't seem to care.
Instead of barking back, he answered with a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"Spring of Luoyang."
"…!"
At those words, Se-a went speechless.
A name she had never imagined would come from his mouth.
And the next instant, a fierce anxiety surged through her.
As if he had noticed what she was thinking, Yeon Sang-hyeon spoke first.
"You don't need to worry. The Sword Clan still doesn't know you exist."
Se-a's face, which had gone pale, regained a little color.
"How…? How do you know that name?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged.
"You still haven't given me your answer."
Se-a remembered.
The Netherworld Mado where a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood unfolded in the Inhuman Demon Domain.
Was she prepared to walk the road Yeon Sang-hyeon walked, together with him?
"I…"
Just as she was about to answer, Yeon Sang-hyeon turned away.
"Let's talk about the rest later. I'm hungry, so I'm going to go grab some late-night food."
Jeong-a bowed, as if she'd expected exactly that.
"The heavenly maiden has already prepared everything, so if you only warm it, you will be able to enjoy your meal at once."
A look of genuine surprise rose on Yeon Sang-hyeon's face.
"…Impressive."
"You flatter me."
He shook his head with a soft click of his tongue, then soon began to amble forward.
"Wait—!"
Yeon Sang-hyeon's voice cut Se-a off.
"Think carefully. This is the last chance I can give you."
"..."
Jeong-a sent a glance to her older sister in greeting, then turned and followed her master.
Se-a watched their backs disappear beyond the far side of the cave.
And she asked herself—
Was she ready?
"Pavilion Master—!"
From far away came the echo of her subordinates calling for her.
But her feet stayed nailed to the spot, and for a long while she couldn't move.
***
Deep, deep into the night.
Yeon Sang-hyeon was perched atop the highest roof of the Hyunwol Pavilion's residence.
From the residence on the hill, the enormous entertainment district of Luoyang spread across the flats below, clearly visible.
With an expression impossible to read, he stared out at the city that never slept.
Without even turning around, he spoke.
"I didn't think you'd come looking for me so soon."
Climbing up by ladder onto the roof was Se-a.
Stepping carefully across the roof tiles, she approached and stopped beside him.
"We went through all that chaos… and yet Luoyang is unchanged."
From afar, the streets looked beautiful.
It felt as though the songs of people flushed with revelry and the melodies played by courtesans might drift even this far.
"That's how vast a city Luoyang is."
She crouched down beside him.
"The Black Bone Sect was a real headache."
The wind whipped her hair roughly about.
She tied it back with a cord.
"Even just holding their growth in check was enough to strain us."
Her attitude and tone felt far more relaxed than before.
"Hmph."
"But this city had problems overflowing. Compared to them, the Black Bone Sect was nothing."
Her shoulders trembled in fine shivers under the biting winter wind that blew across the hill.
"I… we were always outnumbered."
It wasn't just the cold that made her voice sound thin.
And yet Yeon Sang-hyeon draped the winter coat he'd been wearing over her shoulders.
"…Thank you."
Drawing the collar tight, she asked him.
"How much do you know about our organization—about the Spring of Luoyang?"
"Not much."
Then Yeon Sang-hyeon added briefly.
"Just that it's a secret society of kind-hearted people who want to do good things in Luoyang."
Se-a smiled at his playful description.
"People who couldn't endure it anymore. People who couldn't stand it anymore."
"Just hearing it, they don't sound like particularly cheerful friends to keep company with."
Se-a let out a peal of laughter.
"Still, we do try to be cheerful in our own way."
Her laughter soon turned into a bitter smile.
"At first, we only gathered to fix small injustices."
"But soon you realized that to solve even that small injustice, you'd have to solve a bigger injustice."
"Yes."
"And to solve that bigger injustice, you would have had to solve something even bigger."
She gazed out at the distant view.
The city called Luoyang stretched on until it vanished at the edge of sight.
"To save those who starve to death through relief, it isn't enough to just distribute food. In the end, you have to eliminate the ones who make them starve."
"But if you eliminate them…"
"Others will take their place. But you can't erase the position itself."
Yeon Sang-hyeon laughed coldly.
"Because that 'position' is essentially the system that makes up society."
Se-a looked at him with surprised eyes.
"…You know quite well."
Yeon Sang-hyeon let out a hearty laugh.
"Who do you think overhauled Luoyang's relief institutions? Who created the system?"
Her eyes widened.
"So that was you! I…"
"That's right. Things carried out in my mother's name. In truth, my mother did devote herself tirelessly as well."
But the overall design had been the power of the young Yeon Sang-hyeon.
"Yet now, all of it has become nothing but a name without substance."
Se-a looked at him with a bitter gaze.
"Is that why? Why you began acting as the Dark Heaven Venerable One—to punish those who ruin your mother's city?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted.
Rising to his feet, he looked down over the city.
The wind raged wildly, but his body didn't so much as sway.
"I only decided to take responsibility for everything I abandoned until now."
His eyes sharpened.
"I don't care what I look like. Whether I'm Yeon Sang-hyeon the Swordless, Yeon Sang-hyeon the First Young Master, or the Dark Heaven Venerable One."
His aura seemed to cleave the rough wind itself.
"Once I've decided to fulfill my duty, then everyone with responsibility must bear responsibility."
A growling metallic edge mixed into his voice.
"Whether it's a petty gang in Luoyang's back alleys, a big shot of the Underworld, a high-ranking official, or the head of a massive sect…"
Blue flames sprang in his eyes.
"Even if it's the Emperor himself, sitting above ten thousand!"
The powerless, to survive, had to exploit those even more powerless than themselves.
Those who had lived their entire lives with gnawing hunger had to steal the places where others could lay their bodies down.
Because that was all the strong allowed them.
Because everything else belonged to the strong.
A world ruled by the law of the jungle.
A world where the strong monopolized everything.
A world where nothing could be changed because the opponent was strong.
A world where it was "principle" that the weak be stripped of everything.
A world where it was "right" that nothing be given to the weak.
If that was the "principle" they claimed, the world they insisted upon—
Then he would accept it gladly.
He was ready.
As a Disciple of the ancient monster The Ruler Of Darkness, and as the Dark Heaven Venerable One, he himself was the strongest supreme ruler under heaven.
With their own logic, he would bring down upon them an inescapable iron hammer.
"Then…"
Se-a stood.
Even in the fierce wind, she somehow kept her balance.
She drew the slender sword she kept for self-defense.
Then she knelt before Yeon Sang-hyeon.
"I've heard this is an old tradition of the Sword Clan."
Holding the slender sword upside down, she offered the hilt to him.
Yeon Sang-hyeon said nothing, only stared at the hilt.
Looking up at him, Se-a spoke.
"This sword is yours now."
Yeon Sang-hyeon looked at her for a long while without a word.
"…Will you not regret it?"
Se-a lifted her gaze to him, her eyes straight and unwavering.
"I may have only one eye left, but I'm not so lacking that I can't tell who I truly ought to serve."
"That…"
Se-a took over his words.
"Even if it is the Netherworld Mado where a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood unfolds in the Inhuman Demon Domain."
No further words were needed.
Yeon Sang-hyeon accepted her sword.
But for some reason, instead of gripping the hilt, he awkwardly held the guard.
"Your sword—received by Yeon Sang-hyeon, First Young Master of the Sword Clan of Luoyang and the Dark Heaven Venerable One."
The rite was completed.
After her household fell, she had been forced to survive alone in the slums.
And in barely ten years, she became the head of Hyunwol Pavilion, a mid-tier intelligence organization.
She earned the name "iron-blooded", inspiring both respect and fear.
And now—
She had found her lord.
After keeping her eyes closed for a moment in silence, Se-a rose.
"Come to think of it…"
Seeing Yeon Sang-hyeon holding the sword so awkwardly, she let out a small laugh.
"I'm the first person to see the Swordless holding a sword."
Yeon Sang-hyeon snorted.
"In this rite, your younger sister was first."
"…What?!"
In Luoyang, where winter still had not ended, knife-like winds blew—
But for some reason, she wasn't cold.
From now on, the ones who needed to worry about the cold were someone else.