WOOOOONG! WOOOOONG!

The blue True Qi surrounding his entire body was so clear and deep that simply looking at it made the mind feel refreshed.

Mo Yong-woo’s True Qi was like that. The color of the True Qi, condensed and compressed until it was being emitted into the visible realm, was so cool and lucid that it seemed to reflect his very nature.

And yet, why was it?

Perhaps because his heart had been somewhat clouded of late, that deep blue True Qi seemed to waver with a faint instability.

Slowly, Mo Yong-woo, who had spent a long time settling his insides, finally finished regulating his power and breathing.

“Impressive.”

Mo Yong-woo opened his eyes.

Yeon Hojeong was perched on the windowsill.

“I already had a rough idea, but it’s hard to find anyone whose inhalations and exhalations are this long and steady. Even I can barely tell when you’re drawing breath and when you’re letting it out.”

Mo Yong-woo smiled.

“That is the very {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} nature of my martial arts.”

“And yet you’re not showing martial arts that match that breathing.”

“Haha, that’s true. That part hasn’t been easy.”

People who had properly cultivated Inner Qi generally had long breaths. But breathing as extremely long and shallow as Mo Yong-woo’s was difficult to find anywhere.

Mo Yong-woo’s breathing was far longer and quieter than Yeon Hojeong’s. That alone revealed the nature of his martial arts. Rather than excelling at one-hit kills, Mo Yong-woo’s strength lay in techniques that linked together endlessly like flowing water.

That was why his endurance was so great, why he was so airtight, and why even when his flow was cut, he had the tenacity to revive it.

But when he had fought Yeon Hojeong in their spar, he had not fought that way. Yeon Hojeong’s martial arts had certainly been ferocious, but if Mo Yong-woo had answered with the kind of ceaseless linked attacks that matched his own breathing, the outcome would not have been decided so quickly.

“And you’re hardly one to talk, Brother Yeon. In a different sense, you also use martial arts that don’t match your breathing.”

Yeon Hojeong built his martial arts around explosive output and the mystery of the one-hit kill.

Martial arts like that were usually extreme in method. Whether he died or the enemy died, they were filled with techniques meant to settle everything in a single strike, so the instant the blade was drawn it became a fight to the death.

Martial arts where if the enemy did not die, he died instead. Naturally, they allowed for little variation, brimmed over with Killing Intent, and favored crushing the enemy’s spirit from the very opening.

What was surprising was Yeon Hojeong’s breathing.

He was someone who handled his breath with perfect freedom. Yet his ordinary breathing was long and gentle.

It was not that he used martial arts unsuited to it, like Mo Yong-woo did. It was simply that he needed to breathe that way to keep his normal physical expenditure in check.

“I trained my body like I was trying to kill it, that’s why. And seeing that even so, it still feels lacking... martial pursuit really has no end.”

Yeon Hojeong had experience.

The experience of his days as the Dark Emperor, the one time he had reached the ultimate realm, had pulled him up to his present level in just a few short years.

But now Yeon Hojeong was walking a path both similar to and completely different from the one he had walked then. On the foundation of the realizations he had gained as the Dark Emperor, he was reaching toward a new direction, a higher realm.

That’s why it’s slower than I expected.

If he had been pursuing the same martial path he had followed in his days as the Dark Emperor, he would already have been aiming for his father’s level, or beyond it.

But that would have been meaningless. Considering the enemies he would have to fight from here on, and considering the countless martial principles he had failed to obtain back then but now meant to carry whole, he had to accept slower growth in the present.

And Yeon Hojeong did not doubt it.

Even if he fell behind by a year or two for the time being, three or four years from now he would be able to rise into a realm completely different from before.

He was walking a road that would bring him more quickly and more surely to the summit of a towering mountain he had not even been able to look up at in his days as the Dark Emperor.

“By the way.”

Mo Yong-woo smiled.

“I knew you’d come in.”

“I made my presence obvious. Since you still didn’t break off, I stood guard for you a bit.”

“You really have no shame.”

“Is that news?”

“Hahaha.”

Mo Yong-woo sat down on the bed.

“Did you come because of the Divine Maiden of the Western Regions?”

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes shifted.

“You knew?”

Mo Yong-woo shrugged.

“I suppose I’m getting to know you little by little as well. You seemed to be trying not to show it yourself, but to me it was clear. You looked uncomfortable around the Divine Maiden of the Western Regions.”

“Uncomfortable...”

“To be exact, it seemed more like you were trying to keep your distance.”

Yeon Hojeong gave a bitter smile.

“So I made it that obvious without meaning to. Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. Don’t say that. It didn’t seem to me that you were uncomfortable because of her origins or the color of her skin. You’re not that kind of person to begin with.”

“...”

“If there’s something troubling you, I may not be able to solve it, but I think I can at least help carry the weight.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“You’ve grown that dependable, have you?”

Mo Yong-woo thumped his upper arm.

“Of course.”

Yeon Hojeong stared at him for a moment, then finally let out a sigh.

“I never thought I’d be telling you one of my secrets at a moment like this.”

In the end, Yeon Hojeong told Mo Yong-woo what he had only told his father and Mookbi.

Of course, he left out everything about his previous life. It was not because he did not trust Mo Yong-woo, but because he thought that in the present situation, that story would do nothing but waste time.

And so Yeon Hojeong laid out everything about the Three Fanatic Creeds.

...

After finishing, an unusual light shone in Yeon Hojeong’s eyes.

Mo Yong-woo’s expression was calmer than expected. He did seem surprised, but not as though he had been deeply shocked.

“I see.”

“You don’t seem all that surprised.”

“I was.”

“You don’t seem like you doubt me either.”

Mo Yong-woo shook his head.

“I know you’re not the kind of man who would lie about something like this.”

“Is that so?”

“At the same time, I finally understand.”

Mo Yong-woo’s gaze deepened.

“It feels a little strange to say this myself, but you really do intend to make me Martial Alliance Leader.”

“...Yes. I do.”

“I thought about it. I wondered why a genius as capable as you would insist on making me Martial Alliance Leader. I wondered whether perhaps you were trying to use me for something.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“So you weren’t completely empty-headed after all.”

“Even an empty-headed man has no choice but to be suspicious. Of course, that’s how I was at first. I no longer think that way at all.”

“If you’d still been thinking that, you wouldn’t have been the one to suggest we become sworn brothers.”

“Exactly.”

Mo Yong-woo closed his eyes.

“If you had simply wanted to grow closer, lively interaction alone would have been enough. But you were different. You were looking straight at me as a person, and at the same time I could tell you wanted something from me.”

“...”

“I was curious, but I didn’t ask too deeply. Whatever it was, I never believed that the first man I ever took as my younger brother would betray me.”

“Or maybe you just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Of course, that could be true as well. What matters is that I trust you.”

Mo Yong-woo nodded.

“Yes. So this was it. I don’t know what exactly you saw in me, little brother, but from your point of view, I am the one who needs to become Martial Alliance Leader if they are to be stopped.”

“That’s right.”

“And hearing it laid out like this, their power sounds unprecedented.”

“It is.”

Mo Yong-woo fell silent in thought for a moment, then laced his fingers together.

“Let me summarize. Beyond the frontier, there is a group called the Three Fanatic Creeds. Each one of those creeds possesses power comparable to the Martial Alliance, and they are already working beneath the surface to seize the Central Plains in one stroke.”

“That’s right.”

“Among them, the organization called the Perverse Lust Cult secretly supported Ink Dragon Manor. But now Yangcheon, the Lord of Ink Dragon Manor, the Fighting King, has realized the Perverse Lust Cult’s purpose. So Yangcheon too is keeping watch on them.”

“That’s right.”

“The reason you have not informed the Martial Alliance leadership of this matter is that you wanted to prevent chaos inside the Alliance, and also because you feared that if our side moved rashly, the Three Fanatic Creeds would disappear back into the dark.”

“And beyond that, there may be people here who are in league with them.”

“Yes. And finally, the people who currently know of their existence are Strategist Je Gal, Clan Lord Yeon, Vice Commander Mook, and me. Is there anything I’ve misunderstood?”

“No. You understood it properly.”

“I see. And...”

A sharp light flashed through Mo Yong-woo’s eyes.

“You think that Divine Maiden of the Western Regions is one of the Three Fanatic Creeds’ strings, don’t you?”

Yeon Hojeong nodded.

“I can’t be certain. But I think the odds are high.”

“Why?”

“Because from the Inner Qi heart method she learned, I read the Inner Qi wave of the Three Fanatic Creeds in her presence.”

“...You know the Three Fanatic Creeds very well.”

Yeon Hojeong nodded.

“I do. Especially the Perverse Lust Cult.”

“I see.”

Mo Yong-woo did not ask how Yeon Hojeong knew so much about them.

“I’ll speak plainly. I’ve barely exchanged more than a few words with her and I haven’t known her long, but the Divine Maiden of the Western Regions I saw seemed genuine.”

“...”

“Her nature is closer to good than evil. That is what I believe.”

“Brother.”

“Go on.”

“Whether she’s evil or good doesn’t matter to me.”

“...”

“What matters is only that she is learning the arts of the Three Fanatic Creeds. In other words, the odds are high that she is connected to them somehow.”

For an instant, Mo Yong-woo felt a chill.

Ghostly flames were flickering in the eyes of his sworn younger brother as he looked at him with that cold smile. And within those ghostly flames lurked a terrifying rage and bitterness that Mo Yong-woo could not understand.

“Are you thinking of harming her?”

“If necessary.”

“...”

“She enters the Alliance with intent? The moment I become certain of that, her nature and whatever life she may have lived mean nothing to me. The only thing that matters is that because of her, not just the Martial Alliance but the entire Central Plains could be thrown into chaos.”

“...”

“What kind of life she lived is none of my concern. There are too many lives at stake for me to handle this by weighing even details that small.”

Yeon Hojeong let the smile leave his face.

“The countless enemies I’ve killed up to now all had their own stories as well.”

Mo Yong-woo closed his eyes.

“...Very well. If that is how you see it, then I have no wish to change your mind.”

“I do want to change yours. A soldier who cannot act when the moment matters is unfit to be a soldier.”

“That’s true.”

“You can think well of her if you like. But the moment you become certain she is a spy of the Three Fanatic Creeds, there must be no hesitation in your hand.”

“You needn’t worry about that.”

Yeon Hojeong gazed at Mo Yong-woo for a moment, then sighed.

“Still, since I didn’t meet her on a battlefield, I’ll try to learn more about her first.”

Mo Yong-woo’s expression brightened noticeably.

“Yes, that would be best. There’s nothing wrong with being cautious.”

Yeon Hojeong put a foot on the windowsill.

“Sorry for coming this late. Get some rest.”

“You should rest too, Brother Yeon.”

SHHK.

Yeon Hojeong threw himself out through the window.

Left alone, Mo Yong-woo looked up at the ceiling.

“...Martial Alliance Leader?”