“So?”

“The world belongs to the strong. Since the day the world was born, that has not changed for even a single moment. The weak are trampled by the strong, swallowed up, and ground down. That is the law of the world.”

Hyeolmu clenched his fist.

“We cannot accept that law. So we take revenge. On the entire world.”

Seol Unhwi nodded.

“...You’re nodding?”

“Yes. Because what you said was not wrong.”

“...What?”

“The world belongs to the strong. That is true.”

Seol Unhwi spoke calmly.

“I think so as well. The weak are meat and the strong eat. The fittest survive. That is the martial world, and that is the world.”

Hyeolmu hesitated for a moment.

“...Then do you understand?”

“I do.”

It was strange. Hyeolmu could not understand this situation itself.

Seol Unhwi, of all people, is agreeing with what we stand for...?

That was as far as it went.

Seol Unhwi continued.

“The resentment you carry, and the desire to take revenge. Those things are natural.”

“...”

“But.”

Seol Unhwi’s gaze turned cold.

“Revenge on the entire world? That is not revenge.”

“What are you talking about?”

“In the Buddhist path, they speak of cause and effect.”

Seol Unhwi spoke quietly.

“If someone destroyed your family, then that person is the cause, and your revenge is the effect. That is karmic retribution.”

“...”

“But revenge on the entire world? There is no cause and no effect. That is not cause and effect, but delusion. It is nothing more than running mad without even an object for your obsession.”

Hyeolmu ground his teeth.

“We have righteous cause!!”

Seol Unhwi let out a faint laugh.

“In the Confucian path, they say that even revenge must have righteous cause. Who, what, and why. Only when those are clear does it become true justification.”

Seol Unhwi took a step closer.

“You merely swing your blade at the vague target called ‘the world.’ Do you truly believe that is righteous cause?”

“We...!”

“In the Daoist path, they speak of the Way.”

“...The Way...?”

“To walk the Way means your direction must be clear. Where you are going, and for what purpose.”

Seol Unhwi’s eyes pierced Hyeolmu.

“But where does your Way lead? You are merely walking without direction. Can that be called the Way?”

“Shut up... shut up!”

Hyeolmu shouted.

“We have resolve! Thirty of our comrades died! For them, we will risk our lives and take revenge!”

“Thirty.”

Seol Unhwi spoke quietly.

“Can you name those thirty?”

“...What...?”

“If not that, then at least ten. Can you say how those ten lived, what they wanted, what they liked, what they hated, even the name of the target they meant to avenge themselves against? Can you say even one such thing?”

“...Th-that...”

“You cannot.”

Seol Unhwi spoke coldly.

“Because they are only numbers. Only tools for your righteous cause.”

Hyeolmu was left speechless.

“True resolve means remembering them one by one. Their names, their lives, their deaths. And engraving those things into your heart as you hone the blade of revenge.”

“...”

“My subordinate Han Murin had a clear target. Whenever time allowed, they gathered every scrap of information on all those who served that target, and not a single day passed when they did not think of them before sleeping. Namgung Wonyang still trains even now to kill Namgung Ho, the squad leader of the Blood-Spirit Corps. Ju Soa trains to fulfill the long-standing wish of the family she belonged to. But what are you doing right now?”

“That is...”

“You do nothing but cry out the number ‘thirty.’ Is that what you call resolve?”

Seol Unhwi slowly drew his sword.

“I respect the path a martial artist walks as a martial artist.”

The sword pointed at Hyeolmu.

“I do not divide the righteous from the evil. If someone can stake their life and go to the end, then even if that road is one that devours people, I acknowledge it.”

“...”

“But you?”

Seol Unhwi’s eyes gleamed coldly.

“You have no direction, no resolve, and no righteous cause. You have nothing but pent-up rage.”

“We... we...!!”

“And above all.”

Seol Unhwi’s eyes flashed.

“You touched my territory.”

“...What?”

“Yangnyeong City is my land. It is where my people live.”

Seol Unhwi’s voice dropped lower.

“You tried to scatter °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Powder-Dispersion Poison and kill my people. You tried to open the rear gate and launch an attack.”

A cold aura flowed from the sword.

“You tried to turn Yangnyeong City into your base of operations without my permission. The Heavenly Forest, which was similar to you, joined hands with me and opened a black market. And there, it was able to carry out all the experiments it wanted to its heart’s content. But you?”

“...”

“You thought only of your own revenge and justified everything through that. If Yangnyeong City had become a base for your revenge, then once all this was over, you would have become public enemies of the martial world, and every place where you had stayed and every region you had used as a base would have been investigated.”

“...”

“And in that process another war would break out. Countless people would kill and be killed, and as the one responsible for this land, I would not even dare offer excuses, so I would raise my sword and struggle like mad, and my people too would swing their swords. Yes, that is the kind of thing that would happen because of the ridiculous, indiscriminate grand cause you claim you will achieve.”

“How much... do you know...?”

There was no need to answer.

“Revenge against the world? Do as you please. I do not care.”

Seol Unhwi said it plainly.

“But that road collided with mine. You touched my people. So I will kill you.”

Hyeolmu stepped back.

This bastard... is dangerous.

The Chief Justice of the Heavenly Alliance, Seol Unhwi, whom he had heard of only in rumor, was even more dangerous in person.

This man followed neither the Buddhist path nor the Daoist path.

Naturally, he did not follow the Confucian path either.

And yet he could make use of the insight of every one of those paths, and paradoxically, he could walk every one of them.

Because the path he himself walked

was a road that encompassed all three.

Seol Unhwi judged the purity of resolve.

If that purity was certain, he gave it respect, and if paths collided regardless of purity, then he weighed which side’s purity was the firmer.

Was he not a man more martial than any martial artist, and more human than any human?

Conviction settled in him.

He had to run.

There was nothing more to think about.

It was at the exact moment he was about to kick off the ground and flee.

Hyeolmu saw it.

A rain of flames plunging down from the sky.

“...Ah...”

Before that overwhelming inner power, even he, who had reached the Heavenly-Man Realm, could do nothing.

He could neither deflect it nor evade it.

That was death.

And so.

Kwaaaaaaaaaang-!!

Unable to do anything at all, Hyeolmu departed this world.

As his whole body turned to ash and scattered away, Nocheonmyeong slowly rose from where he had been.

“You little wretch.” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

“Yes, Senior.”

Nocheonmyeong quietly looked at Seol Unhwi as he answered.

At this very moment, he was truly debating something.

Whether he should ask this question that had risen all the way to the tip of his tongue, or let it pass.

After a short breath, he asked.

“Was I standing in a place where I was not supposed to be?”

“If that had been the case, I would have asked you to withdraw.”

“...Given your temperament, you are the sort who could say that without issue, but would that not only apply when the person has little to do with you?”

Seol Unhwi did not answer.

“I have debts of gratitude and resentment with you, and I am favorably inclined toward you, while you too are favorably inclined toward me and have things you could receive from me. It has not been very long, but after watching you for quite some time, I have seen that you cherish terribly and place trust in the people you let inside your fence.”

“That is true.”

“And you do not speak so harshly to such people.”

Seol Unhwi smiled faintly.

“That is correct. I was unable to tell you.”

“...”

“But it was a place where you could remain. Because it is true that I trust you, Senior.”

“Hah... this is enough to drive me mad. If someone heard the entire conversation you had with that dead bastard over there, they would inevitably think of one thing.”

“Not everyone would.”

“Hm?”

“You noticed because you are who you are, Senior.”

“...”

“If there is something you are curious about, ask. I will answer what I can.”

This conversation now.

And the conversation they had during their first meeting at Sin Sam Valley.

From what Nocheonmyeong had seen, Seol Unhwi’s knowledge truly went far beyond imagination.

He knew more than ordinary people, and even toyed with those who were called geniuses in the martial world.

The foremost example was Zhuge Yeonghyeon, the last descendant of the Zhuge clan, and though not to that extent, he had also toyed with the martial artists who ruled the region around Yangnyeong City when he swallowed the city whole.

Lee Jagyeom of the Red Eyes, Song Uigyeong of the Thunderclap Sword Sect, and Kang Cheonwoo of the Sacheon League, who had stepped onto the board saying that even Zhuge Yeonghyeon’s schemes were not bad.

And even the martial artists who had raised their realms while playing matches against Seol Unhwi.

Most people would never think as far as regression. They would only assume that a genius among geniuses, a true genius who encompassed all others, had appeared.

But that conversation in Sin Sam Valley mentioned earlier.

That was too significant.

Fit together a lost incantation formula through sheer deduction?

At that moment, Nocheonmyeong had read the senses of an excessively seasoned master there, and knowledge founded upon that master’s experience.

And so.

“Are you a regressor?”

That was the kind of question he could ask.

As Nocheonmyeong scratched his head, Seol Unhwi answered.

“I am someone with a previous life.”

“A previous life? Or reincarnation?”

“A previous life, yet also regression.”

“...Is that not just wordplay?”

“Just as you had a problem you had to solve, Senior, I have one as well.”

“...So there is a clear reason?”

“Nothing in this world happens without a reason.”

“Mm... Then in that previous life or regression of yours, what was I like?”

“You ended your life at the realm of the Heavenly-Man Realm.”

“...And my disciple Paeun?”

“They took their own life beside you.”

“...Why?”

“You know the reason, do you not?”

“...Then it is true. You saved me.”

“It was only a small help.”

“How could that be a small help? You changed my life.”

“What you needed at the time was a small help. It is your freedom to assess the value of that small help, and I too have the freedom to assess its value, so from my side, I merely let you walk half a step farther when you could not see the half step before you.”

From those words, Nocheonmyeong read something slightly different.

“...Oh ho... So the thing I searched for all that time was, to you, an answer plainly visible in the open?”

“I think you are interpreting that with a bit too much sarcasm. Try thinking of it a little more positively.”

“...Was your realm so high that it looked that obvious to you?”

Seol Unhwi smiled faintly.

“If my realm had not been high, then how could I have raised the realms of martial artists?”

Nocheonmyeong scratched his head.

“Where had you reached?”

“Sole Primordial Mastery.”

“...I have heard that even within that realm there are ranks.”

“It was the end.”

Nocheonmyeong let out a hollow laugh, as if he had lost the words to say.