“Ordinary?”

“Whether they’re martial artists, merchants, or even beggars, I think everyone’s actions have a purpose. But they were martial artists who didn’t train martial arts, merchants who weren’t actively trying to make money, and beggars who didn’t even beg in earnest.”

“So ordinary that it was strange?”

“Yes.”

“If they hadn’t identified themselves as the Return-of-Life Society, would you have used force first?”

“...Yes.”

At that, Namgung Wonyang, who had been silent, raised her hand and spoke.

“I used it.”

“Force?”

“Yes... And I killed them.”

“If it were you, you wouldn’t have killed on the spot. Why?”

“...Because they attacked me.”

After thinking for a moment, Seol Unhwi nodded.

“Well done.”

Namgung Wonyang’s expression brightened.

“Han Seokhyeon, you did well too.”

Han Seokhyeon’s expression brightened as well.

Only then did Ju Soa, who had been quietly silent, open her mouth.

“Why is our Commander so serious? What even is this Return-of-Life Society? They didn’t look like much.”

After thinking for a moment, Seol Unhwi spoke slowly.

“Human malice grows stronger the larger it becomes.”

“...”

“They’re people bound together by nothing but that malice. Their malice may look trivial, but it reaches higher than you think.”

Ju Soa scratched her head.

“Did you wipe them out all at once?”

“Yes, well... we killed them all. They messed with our lord, so we couldn’t just let it go. Me too, and Wonyang too.”

“I understand. Then all you know is their name?”

“Yes.”

“When did you kill them?”

“Fifteen days ago.”

“In those fifteen days, did anyone newly join the Yangun Corps?”

It was almost beside the point, but Ju Soa was quick on the uptake. From Seol Unhwi’s question, she read something else.

“No one joined, but we did hire a storehouse keeper and a few guards to watch the warehouse where we keep the training resources.”

After a brief pause, Seol Unhwi rose from his seat. 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

“Summon every member of the Yangun Corps, and everyone who came in during those fifteen days, to the training grounds.”

“...All of them?”

“All of them.”

“...Understood.”

She couldn’t understand it, but Seol Unhwi’s actions always had a reason.

Ju Soa and Namgung Wonyang left their seats, and Han Seokhyeon, now alone, drew a single letter from his robes and handed it to Seol Unhwi.

“This is a letter the branch head of Clearwater Village, Jeonbi, told me to give you when you arrived, Commander.”

“Did you read it?”

“I did not.”

Han Seokhyeon spoke to Seol Unhwi as he nodded.

“...Return-of-Life Society. Did I make a mistake?”

“Do you think you did?”

“I could tell from your reaction that something was wrong. If you interpret the name Return-of-Life Society, it becomes an obvious sentence about paying back lives... Is it what I think it is?”

“It is.”

The situation was simple.

The organization called the Return-of-Life Society, which would become the spark that set the entire Central Plains ablaze in a war in the future, had tried to make Yangnyeong City its base.

From their perspective, there was no better place.

With a martial artist like Nocheonmyeong who had reached unity of heaven and man, and with someone like Seol Unhwi as Commander, even well-known martial artists wouldn’t so much as consider targeting this place.

But Seol Unhwi had been dispatched to the Heavenly Alliance, leaving the management of Yangnyeong City to his subordinates.

No matter how much of a master Nocheonmyeong was, he was not the Commander.

Running the academy was his main work, and if you looked at the substance beneath the surface, Yangnyeong City was in a state where, outwardly, a very solid curtain was drawn, but inside, it would be easy to settle in as long as you fooled the eyes of a martial artist at the Heaven-and-Earth Fourfold Realm, or a martial artist at the Five-Qi Convergence Realm, along with a few below them.

There was one thing they had overlooked.

Before they could even attempt to build a base, they had been caught by a clever strategist named Han Seokhyeon.

The bigger problem was the Return-of-Life Society itself.

If they shed blood, they always make the other side shed blood too. Whether openly or quietly, they would be planning revenge right now.

More than anything, they had had fifteen days, which meant the odds were high that their plan was already in motion.

Han Seokhyeon let out a sigh and bowed his head deeply.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologizing?”

“...If I’d just watched, this wouldn’t have happened.”

Seol Unhwi shook his head.

“This isn’t your fault. The fault lies with them.”

“...”

“They were the ones trying to establish a base here in Yangnyeong City. Without my permission, they moved in secret.”

Han Seokhyeon lifted his head.

“That alone is enough as justification. More than anything, your ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) measures were sufficient. There’s only one problem.”

“What is it?”

“Their hidden strength.”

“...Commander...”

“From here on, I’ll handle it. I’m leaving the cleanup to you.”

“Understood.”

Then, as if only now remembering, he unfolded the letter in his hand.

 The branch head of Clearwater Village, Jeonbi, sends her greetings to the Commander.

First, congratulations on writing a new history for the martial world.

Also, congratulations on your return.

To get to the point, the “experiment” is almost complete.

When you have time, please come see it once.

 Seol Unhwi knew, and Seo Hyo knew, that in Clearwater Village they would create something like a zombie that, in the future, would be called a Demonic-Path Heavenly-Man.

And the Demonic-Path Heavenly-Man would not appear until at least ten years from now, yet it was almost complete?

Was it faster than he expected?

Or would that “almost” still drag on for ten years?

He was a little curious.

A zombie that would reach at least the Heaven-and-Earth Fourfold Realm.

A killing weapon that obeyed only its master’s orders.

A lot had happened on the very first day he returned to Yangnyeong City, but he could deal with things one by one.

For now, the priority was the Return-of-Life Society.

***

At the training grounds of Yangnyeong City headquarters, every martial artist of the Yangun Corps was gathered, along with the storehouse keeper and even the guards who had been newly hired fifteen days ago.

Their number was roughly a little over fifty.

They murmured among themselves.

“Why are we being called in all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know. Right after the Commander came back...”

“Is this some kind of show? What is this?”

Ju Soa and Namgung Wonyang, who had issued the summons, said nothing and only waited in silence.

It was hard not to call it strange.

Then it happened.

“Quiet.”

It was a small voice, but it was also a firm voice that stabbed into everyone’s ears.

With that single word, the training grounds fell silent.

Step, step.

Footsteps approached.

Everyone turned their heads.

A man who looked to be in his early twenties, with his hair tightly tied back.

You should never judge him by his appearance.

That man was the genius among geniuses who was shaking the martial world.

A monster who, as the Chief Justice of the Heavenly Alliance, had raised the Heavenly Alliance into one of the Central Plains’ three great powers, and who had turned the title Snow-Mountain Demon Lord into fear itself rather than mockery.

Seol Unhwi naturally took his place between Ju Soa and Namgung Wonyang.

He slowly swept his gaze over the fifty-some people and spoke.

“Listen carefully to what I’m about to say.”

“...”

“Do not react. Just listen.”

People nodded.

Seol Unhwi closed his eyes.

His lips moved.

A mind-voice transmission.

A voice delivered to all fifty-some at once.

It was immense, like thunder, and unmistakably clear.

One life for one life. A blood debt is repaid in blood.

Seol Unhwi still did not open his eyes.

In the very moment he sent it, he focused without letting a single fluctuation in perception slip past.

People’s reactions split.

Most wore baffled expressions.

“...What is that?”

“What does it mean?”

A few tilted their heads.

“Is it a slogan?”

“A new slogan for the Yangun Corps?”

“...What kind of group makes a slogan like that?”

Most reactions were similar.

But exactly three.

They were different.

Shock.

Panic.

Seol Unhwi’s eyes snapped open.

Two were Yangun Corps martial artists.

And one was the storehouse keeper.

He identified the positions of all three precisely.

Seol Unhwi said,

“You may all return.”

As the bewildered crowd began to disperse, he added,

“However.”

He pointed at the three.

“You three will remain.”

The three faces went pale, and the others whispered.

“Why only those three...?”

“What’s going on?”

Ju Soa stepped forward.

“Stop whispering and leave quietly.”

In an instant, the crowd was cleared.

One by one, they exited the training grounds.

Only Seol Unhwi, the three he had singled out, and Seol Unhwi’s people remained.

“Ju Soa.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“What are their names?”

“In order: Seo Hojun, a member of the Yangun Corps First Squad; Jin Muhyeong, the deputy leader of the Second Squad; and Bang Seokyun, the storehouse keeper.”

As if committing them to memory, Seol Unhwi nodded and looked at the three.

“Sit.”

“...Com-Commander.”

Speaking in a trembling voice, Seo Hojun immediately looked to Namgung Wonyang. Namgung Wonyang had previously been the lord of the First Squad. With Han Murin absent, she was now commanding both the First and Second Squads, so Seo Hojun was effectively asking his lord, Namgung Wonyang, to help him.

But there was something he did not know.

Namgung Wonyang was absolutely loyal to Seol Unhwi.

And this situation meant he had clearly done something wrong, and Namgung Wonyang did not even entertain the thought that Seol Unhwi might be mistaken.

So she only glared at Seo Hojun with cold eyes.

“Lord... why me...”

“Did you not hear me?”

At Seol Unhwi’s chilling voice, Seo Hojun sat down at once.

“Seems you misunderstood.”

“...Pardon?”

“When I told you to sit, I meant kneel. Is that too hard to understand?”

As if on cue, all three dropped to their knees.

Seol Unhwi walked up to them and asked curtly,

“Why were you trying to plant a base here?”

“A base... you mean...?”

“Were you counting on it being darkest beneath the lamp?”

“...”

“Because this land is guarded by a master who has reached unity of heaven and man, it would have been easier to work. No one would interfere.”

“...”

“Return-of-Life Society. Were you recruited into it?”

The three answered with silence.

Seol Unhwi let out a quiet laugh.

“All you have to do is nod. Can’t even manage that?”

Jin Muhyeong answered in a trembling voice.

“...Yes. We were recruited.”

“I see.”

What, exactly, they had been recruited by was not worth asking.

He didn’t want to know.

“One last thing. Any final words?”

“...What?”

In an instant.

Slash.

The Trueflame Heavenly-Spirit Sword severed his neck.

So fast.

Without pain.

Jin Muhyeong’s head fell to the ground.

Among everyone present, aside from Chief Seong, not a single person saw Seol Unhwi draw his blade.

At some point, the sword was simply in his hand, and it swung.

That was all.

For a master who had reached a certain realm, even watching their movement is precious. In a situation like this, it became something beyond precious.

It became terror itself.

Seo Hojun and Bang Seokyun went white.

“Ugh...”

Seol Unhwi lowered his sword before Bang Seokyun, who was retching.

“Watch closely.”

With trembling eyes, the two looked up at Seol Unhwi.