Cheon Soyak lay abed for a full seven days.

Eunsong kept watch at the girl’s side while she drifted in and out of fevered silence.

Her cultivation method wasn’t his—but, fortunately, it shared the same root.

Disciples of Mount Hua train a single core scripture:

the Primordial Clear-Heart Method—

a pure, austere path, peer to Wudang and Shaolin’s finest inner arts.

The Harmonization Scripture had also been born long ago on Mount Hua.

Not the same, no—but close enough for him to read the condition of her meridians.

“…She does like to sleep long.”

Inherited inner energy.

Four years without proper circulation or breath-work—

and then she blew the seal and spent it all in an instant’s threat.

In a body this slight, this underfed and underslept, her channels were bound to tear.

“Tsk. When the lass wakes, keep her on hot bone broth for a month,” the old physician clucked.

Eunsong nodded. “Luckily, I can afford that much.”

“She’ll wake soon. Don’t fret.”

“Truly?”

As if to answer, a faint moan slipped past Soyak’s small lips.

“...Uhh… ah—uh…”

Her eyes fluttered open.

A delicate wince creased her brow.

She pressed her forehead, sat up by inches.

“Are you all right, Soyak?”

The gentle way he spoke her name made her eyes round.

When she met Eunsong’s gaze, she actually flinched, drawing her shoulders in.

“…What is it?”

“Ah—s-sir. A bad dream. That’s all.”

“What kind?”

“…That day. I dream it often. It’s… ordinary for me.”

Ordinary—meaning constant. Not wrong, strictly speaking.

But for a child to dream nightly of her father’s beheading, her mother’s hanging…

“Has there been a night you didn’t?”

“Regrettably, no.”

“Find a remedy.”

Soyak pressed her lips together, then shook her head.

“No, sir. I won’t.”

“May I ask why?”

“If I don’t dream it…”

Tears welled at the corners of her eyes.

Those deep, black pupils trembled—

eyes that had seemed hewn from cold stone, ill-suited to tears.

“…I’m afraid I’ll forget my father’s and mother’s faces.”

Eunsong said nothing; he only patted her small back.

She hesitated, then clutched him and began to cry.

She was a child.

Born under the Heavenly Killing Star, heir to her father’s inner power…

and still only fourteen.

“I… don’t want to forget…”

“Then cry as much as you need.”

She had starved by the day in that household.

Once the adored only daughter of a wealthy branch-sect—then stripped of everything in a breath.

She’d shown tears to no one till today.

Only after a long storm of sobs did Soyak quiet.

Spent, her slight shoulders rose and fell fast—pitiful to see.

Eunsong brought over the tonic the doctor had left steeping.

“Drink.”

“This is…”

“You need strength. Deer antler decoction.”

A pricey brew—enough to pinch their travel purse back to Mount Hua.

“…Thank you, sir.”

“Good. Have you learned lightness arts?”

“A little…”

She looked unsure. Even if she had, that would be a memory from age ten, with four starved years since and no proper training.

“I’ll teach you Hidden Fragrance Drift. It spends little inner power; your body won’t break.”

“…You truly mean to be my master.”

“You took me for a jester?”

Eunsong stroked her hair.

When she closed those dark eyes, warmth passed from his palm.

A warmth she hadn’t felt in a long time.

“…I’ll learn with everything I have, sir.”

“Even on death’s door you refuse to call me ‘Master,’ hm?”

“Mount Hua still has to accept me, doesn’t it?”

Sharp—and true.

No matter how loudly he claimed her as his disciple, it would mean nothing if Mount Hua refused.

Her birth was the stone in the road.

“They’ll accept you.”

“You sound very certain, sir.”

“Because Elder Jeonggang will like you. Very much.”

Elder Jeonggang—

Eunsong’s grandmaster, senior brother to the Sect Leader.

An old man with an extreme creed: to leave a talented child untaught is a sin.

That, at least, was Eunsong’s judgment as one who’d tasted scorn for being “without talent.”

“…Then I’m relieved.”

“How are your channels?”

“Fine now.”

“After all I did, they’d better be.”

He shrugged and stood, then snapped half a tael of silver for the doctor.

“That’s steep for herbs.”

“Take it. Before I change my mind.”

“Well, if you put it that way!”

The old physician chuckled and rose.

“I’m off to buy supplies. If I’m out, shut the door when you leave.”

“We will.”

With a wave, the old man tottered off.

“All right, let’s get you dressed.”

“I don’t need much more—”

“You do.”

From his bundle, Eunsong produced a set of black martial robes—and shoes.

“Were you planning to walk to Shaanxi dressed as a maid?”

****

The world is cruel enough to grant power even to the wicked.

So it is with those born under the Heavenly Killing Star.

They are born fit to learn the martial way—

not with the bull-strong frame of a Heaven-Forged Body, perhaps, but…

“…You learn quickly.”

“I’ll take that as praise.”

It wasn’t meant to sound like praise.

In truth, it wasn’t—

a sigh with a trace of bitterness.

They had drilled Hidden Fragrance Drift for a single double-hour, and already—

seeing her grasp its root and essence, and lay it out with poise—

It took me a couple of months to get there…

Eunsong had been called talentless by Elder Jeonggang, true—

but talentless he was not. Otherwise, Jeonggang would never have taken him.

In his late youth he’d even taken a few demonic heads;

not the best, but never at the bottom either.

If forced to choose, he belonged on the “has talent” side.

Even so, the gap between his gift and hers yawned wide.

Enough that, as a fellow swordsman, the taste of bitterness outweighed the joy of a master.

At this level… her talent is so bright it’s dangerous.

Still, he possessed a first-rate gift of his own—

for reading arts and teaching them.

On Mount Hua, none surpassed Eunsong at discerning talent.

It’s why he had become master to Cheongak, the sect’s brightest prodigy.

His eye, like his master’s, was exact.

Cheon Soyak would stir a storm.

Not only in Mount Hua…

Across the Central Plains.

It was that kind of gift—

beyond genius, a step into the monstrous, outside human understanding.

And humans, by instinct, fear monsters.

“How far to Mount Hua, sir?”

At some point Soyak had matched his pace and spoke at his shoulder.

“At this speed… seven days at least.”

“It’s far.”

“The Central Plains are wide.”

“…I see.”

Wide.

To Soyak, that word meant more than geography.

Somewhere in that breadth, there would be a place for her.

He was right.

Four years of hardship—and she had found a master who would take her in.

“Indeed. The Central Plains are wide.”

“A little farther on there’s a small village. We’ll spend the night there.”

“Yes, sir.”

As he said, within a single quarter-hour, lights pricked the dusk.

The sun slid down between the ridgelines.

Night was coming on.

“There. You can see it now.”

But the closer they came, the more obvious it became—those weren’t “lights.”

They were flames.

A village wrapped in fire.

Screams and shouts ripped the air from all sides.

Soyak stopped, face gone white at the chorus of agony. Eunsong did not.

“Steady yourself!”

“Y-yes…”

“Do you still have inner power?”

Soyak nodded.

Eunsong pointed to the low hill that backed the village.

“Go. Scout the surroundings.”

“And you, sir…?”

“I’ll pull people out.”

She didn’t fully understand, but she nodded.

At times like this, speed mattered more than answers.

Soyak’s body flashed upward, alighting on the hill above.

It was only a small rise, but perfect for taking in the whole village.

Dusk had settled, but the flames lit everything like day.

And someone else was watching from afar—

in all-too-familiar garb.

“…Ah.”

Clothes that dragged a nightmare to the surface.

Unforgettable—

those were the clothes worn by the man who beheaded her father.

They were the One-Under-Heaven Corps:

the Martial Alliance’s own troops, flying the slogan that the Alliance Leader had brought the world under a single roof—

the very hands that gripped the Central Plains.

“If they’re here…”

Then this village had been condemned for Blasphemy.

Anyone who aided the villagers would be a blasphemer too.

Soyak’s face went ash-blue.

****

“…This is bad.”

Short of someone trained in frost arts, there wasn’t much of a trick to it.

Eunsong upended bucket after bucket from the well at the village center—

and then began dragging people from the burning homes.

Time bled away.

At last, no more screams leaked from the houses.

His robes were black with soot.

“What happened here?”

He asked the village headman, an old man with whiskers singed to stubble.

The elder trembled and pinched his mouth shut—

like a man cowed by a greater terror.

“We—we were all meant to die…”

“What are you saying?”

“M-my son… he joined the Heaven-Toppling Society…”

The Heaven-Topplers.

Those who would kill the Alliance Leader and overturn the sky.

A hard light came into Eunsong’s eyes.

“You said the Heaven-Toppling Society?”

“A-are you going to kill us too?”

“…No. But you never saw me.”

Things refused to stay simple.

“Well now. I have no intention of pretending.”

“That voice…”

Eunsong’s brow creased.

He could not forget that voice.

“Good to see you, Eunsong.”

Narrow eyes.

Taller than he remembered—but unmistakable.

Ak Seowon, son of Ak Jupae, the Flame-Saber Lord.

He wore the livery of the One-Under-Heaven Corps.

Not a commander, perhaps, but a man sent by one.

Seeing him, Eunsong understood why the village burned.

“…An executor of Blasphemy.”

“Glad you understand. If you don’t wish to die as a blasphemer yourself, step aside.”

Bad blood.

A father’s crimes are not a son’s, true—

but a man cannot look kindly upon the son of the one who killed his beloved.

“Twenty-three this year, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Five years since that day, then. You’re still with the Thirteenth Unit, I see.”

“My father commands the division.”

Eunsong bit his lip.

At thirty, he had set foot on the threshold of the Transcendent Apex.

He had nearly perfected Mount Hua’s emblematic art, the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword.

All of it… for revenge.

And yet now he could do nothing.

The youth’s skill was at least Apex.

He hadn’t crossed into the Transcendent, perhaps—but Eunsong could not face him without wielding Mount Hua’s sword.

If he did use Mount Hua’s arts, he would leave traces.

Ak Jupae, Flame-Saber Lord, would come to Mount Hua—

levying Blasphemy against Eunsong himself.

…Not yet.

At minimum, he had to reach the Transformation Realm.

He had to raise Cheon Soyak beyond that line.

They would overturn the world—then.

Just then, a light step touched down beside him.

Cheon Soyak, borne on Hidden Fragrance Drift, had returned.

Chapter 3

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