TAK—

In ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) a span incomparably shorter than the long ride to Wuhan, Seolhwa reached the Martial Alliance in no time and went straight for the Alliance Lord’s office.

But waiting for her there were only Strategist Zhuge and Namgoong Cheongun.

There was no sign of Namgoong Mucheon.

“Where is Grandfather?”

“The Alliance Lord left several shichen ago.”

“What...?”

He had sent Il Jirang to tell her to hurry—yet in that brief time he had gone out?

What on earth was happening?

While she stood nonplussed, Namgoong Cheongun held out a sheet of paper with something written densely across it.

The characters were packed tight, conveying no obvious meaning.

“What is this?”

“It came from a man called Guiyue. The one we met on Yuhua Mountain last time.”

“Guiyue....”

Seolhwa examined the written lines again.

She still could not make sense of them.

“It seemed to be a cipher, so I brought it and asked the strategist to decode it.”

“And today at last, we uncovered its meaning.”

This time Strategist Zhuge spread a paper before Seolhwa.

As she read what had been set down there, her face hardened.

“This is....”

“It is the record of collusion between Elder Tang and Guiyue.”

“....”

As Strategist Zhuge said, the letter had been exchanged between one of the fourteen Elders under the Martial Alliance Lord—Grand Clan Lord of the Tang Clan of Sichuan—Tang Sangcheon, and Guiyue.

Hidden within the cipher were nothing but details regarding the Tang Clan’s poison arts and hidden-weapon techniques.

The Tang Clan’s secret canon—meticulously maintained to ensure that not a breath of the clan’s arts ever leaked beyond the clan halls—was set down in exacting detail.

“...Can this be trusted?”

“Guiyue used the Tang Clan’s poisons and arts with consummate ease.”

Which meant, he had been learning the Tang Clan’s arts for a long time.

“Moreover, it was written in cipher....”

It had been ciphered, and besides, they would not have obtained this letter at all had Guiyue not been brought down.

As to why such a critical letter had not been burned—one could explain it by saying the arts had not yet been fully learned.

‘Guiyue, Tang Clan, hidden weapons, poison....’

All clues converged on one point.

‘This Blood Lord of the Blood Cult.’

The one whose identity no one knew.

The Blood Lord suspected of perhaps even being a righteous-path martial man.

‘Could Tang Sangcheon be that Blood Lord...?’

But there was not enough to be certain.

“First, I should meet Elder Tang.”

“And so, you shall.”

“What did he say?”

“He asked to see you.”

“...Me?”

Seolhwa faintly knit her brow.

“He said that if he could meet you, he would tell all. That is why we called you in haste.”

“Ah....”

Seolhwa lowered her gaze.

She could not know why Tang Sangcheon sought her—but that he had singled her out and no one else was as good as saying this was tied to the Blood Cult.

For she had been a Sub-Branch Lord of the Blood Cult.

“While we waited for you to arrive, he asked that a Martial Alliance force be dispatched to the Tang Clan. So the Alliance Lord himself led White Tiger Division to the Tang Clan.”

“I see.”

So that was why Grandfather was not there.

Seolhwa nodded slowly.

“Understood. I will go meet Elder Tang. Where is he now?”

****

DRRRRK—

Amid the stillness the door opened, and Seolhwa stepped into the room.

Midday light softly brightened the interior.

Tang Sangcheon was seated at a table half veiled by the sill’s shadow, brewing tea.

Opposite him stood an empty cup, waiting for its host.

“....”

Seolhwa sat without a word across from him.

Clink—

When he set the lid on the teapot, water that filled it to the brim ran down through the lid’s seam and the pot’s mouth.

“You sent for me.”

“You are late.”

Tang Sangcheon wiped the tea from his hands with a clean cloth lying at his side, brisk, brisk.

“I will be direct. Are you that Blood Lord of the Blood Cult?”

He set the cloth down and looked at Seolhwa.

The Tang Clan’s characteristic upturned outer corners lent a fierce cast to his eyes.

“You read the letter?”

“The Tang Clan’s secret canon was written out in detail.”

Tang Sangcheon let out a low, rueful laugh.

It sounded both bitter and hollow.

“When I was Clan Lord, I barred the doors of the clan. Why do you think I did that?”

“You poured your strength into the study of martial arts, seeking ultimately the clan’s rise.”

And indeed it was during Tang Sangcheon’s time as Clan Lord that the Tang Clan of Sichuan began to be frequently spoken of by martial men.

“I heard that, when you were Clan Lord, the Tang Clan’s arts advanced by leaps and bounds.”

“So they did.”

Tang Sangcheon lifted the pot and gently swirled it.

Then he poured tea in a soft ribbon into Seolhwa’s cup and his own.

In the brief span of their exchange, the brew had turned deep.

“I wanted to make our Tang Clan the greatest house under heaven.”

Clack.

The sound of setting down a half-emptied pot mingled with the afternoon’s calm.

Thin steam rose long from the two cups.

“The world jabbed its finger, calling the Tang Clan’s arts ‘heterodox,’ ‘base,’ but I loved our clan’s arts.”

From the moment he first held a hidden weapon as a child—

Tang Sangcheon had believed without doubt that the Tang Clan’s arts were the finest under heaven.

“So I wanted to show everyone. That the Tang Clan’s arts are neither base nor the least bit to be taken lightly.”

“With my poor lights, I do not think otherwise.”

Poison arts and hidden-weapon techniques are martial arts.

Indeed, is it not admirable to master weapons difficult to handle, rather than the commonly used sword, saber, or spear?

The harder an art is to learn, the fewer its transmitters, and the slower its development.

One could not help but feel respect for the Tang Clan, who had kept the line unbroken and brought their arts forward to this day.

“Only, it has not been long since the world’s opinion changed.”

Seolhwa nodded.

Until just recently, the orthodox sects had refused to acknowledge the houses’ arts.

And as for the Tang Clan’s arts—mocked as heterodox—anyone could have predicted how they had been treated in the martial world.

Clink.

Tang Sangcheon raised his cup and sipped his tea with a soft slurp.

Seated across, Seolhwa, after a moment’s look at her cup, followed suit.

Gulp.

“...!”

The moment the tea slid down her throat, Seolhwa’s expression darkened.

She set the cup down, eyes fixed on Tang Sangcheon.

“I had ambition.”

“....”

“To trample those high-nosed martial men with the Tang Clan’s arts and raise the Tang Clan to the greatest house under heaven. To lay bare before all the world the stature of our clan’s arts, once despised...!”

A child who loved the Tang Clan’s arts.

That child could not endure the scorn shown to the clan’s arts, finer than any other.

So he ground himself all the more fiercely in training.

He grew to be Clan Lord and poured his all into lifting the clan’s renown.

To be recognized by the martial men of the world—no— to stand over them, he cut off every outside tie and put his strength into honing only his own and his clansmen’s arts.

“That, I thought, was the charge a man born into this wide world must fulfill—must fulfill before he died. I have lived my whole life clutching only that conviction, even into this withered age...!”

THAK—!

As Tang Sangcheon set his cup down on the table, a cracking sound rang out and a fracture began to spider the porcelain.

And then, with a brittle snap, the cup shattered to pieces in his hand.

He had drained it—the cup stood empty.

“Do you think a man like that would hand our clan’s secret canon to some rag of the Blood Cult?”

His entire body shook, unable to restrain his wrath.

Threads of blood stood in his eyes as he looked at Seolhwa.

“....”

Seolhwa’s face darkened.

‘This man is not that Blood Lord.’

On the contrary, he was enraged at being made out a man of the Blood Cult.

Tang Sangcheon’s whole body said as much.

“Then why did you not say you were not?”

“....”

All at once the strength bled out of the anger-tight body.

He lowered his head and stared for a long time at the shards of the broken cup.

“Calling you in was the last task given to me.”

“...!”

“And if I tell you that this too was a choice I could not refuse for the sake of the clan—will you believe me?”

Tang Sangcheon lifted his gaze.

His eyes were utterly different from before.

His knit brows, on the verge of tears, made him look, for the first time, like an ordinary old man.

“...Who is it.”

“Why do you think it was possible to suspect that the Shadowless Demon God who appeared in Hebei that day was Namgoong Seolhwa?”

CLATTER—!

Seolhwa sprang to her feet.

Shock washed her features.

“I did not know it myself. Blinded by ambition, I failed to see I was rearing a viper in my bosom....”

“....”

Seolhwa curled her hand into a fist.

Every part of her wanted to burst out the door at once—but the life was ebbing from Tang Sangcheon, and that held her.

“Do you have an antidote?”

The tea the two of them had drunk held poison.

She could not be sure which—it was, however, certainly a virulent toxin that would lay even those with considerable tolerance low.

There was no way Grand Clan Lord Tang Sangcheon would not have known that.

He had drunk the tea knowing it was poisoned.

“This is my karmic debt. More than that... now I am at ease. If poison does not take you... then you should have no difficulty facing that child....”

“....”

Tang Sangcheon’s voice was fading.

If not for the poison immunity running through her body, Seolhwa too would by now have been slowly dying before him.

CLACK—

Seolhwa stepped out of the room at once.

Strategist Zhuge and Namgoong Cheongun, waiting outside the door, came up to her.

“Are you all right?”

“Did you take poison?”

From what they had overheard, they knew the situation in the room.

“I’m fine. I have tolerance. More importantly, please see to the elder’s detoxification.”

“Understood.”

“Did you learn anything?”

Seolhwa looked to Namgoong Cheongun and nodded.

“That Blood Lord was of the Tang Clan.”

“Who was it? Was it the Clan Lord?”

“No.”

Seolhwa’s gaze went cold.

“The Tang Clan’s Second Young Lord—Tang Hojin.”