“Look who it is. The Flower-Halo Sect’s illustrious daughter, isn’t it?”

Ak Seowon greeted Cheon Soyak as if he knew her.

Eunsong knit his brow.

“How do you know this child?”

“When her father was beheaded for Blasphemy, I was a member of the Thirteenth Unit.”

“Ha.”

Then the one who executed the Flower-Halo Sect for Blasphemy was the Flame-Saber Lord, Ak Jupae.

Master and disciple shared the same enemy.

What a cunning, unreadable turn of fate.

“...Do you remember me?”

Cheon Soyak narrowed her eyes.

Ak Seowon smiled and bobbed his head with oily ease.

“How could I forget? Those black eyes.”

Her small mouth tilted into a crooked line.

The little hand gripping her scabbard tightened.

The young girl’s mind went cold.

She knew, by instinct, that this was not the time.

“In any case, step aside. They all must die.”

“For being family of the Heaven-Toppling Society?”

“That is correct.”

Eunsong let out a short, mirthless laugh.

When had the world grown this hard?

“As I recall, even collective punishment wasn’t applied.”

“Originally, yes. But not anymore, starting this year.”

“Why?”

“Because when we spared them, they crawled back up, prattling about avenging friends and family.”

Ak Seowon fixed a long look on Cheon Soyak.

A wordless meaning lodged in that gaze.

She was only a young girl, but she understood.

It meant: don’t even dream of revenge.

“We haven’t applied it retroactively to last year’s cases. The Alliance Leader’s generosity.”

Cheon Soyak broke eye contact.

She bit her lower lip, and that was all she could do.

She could still endure.

For now.

“But who knows? If more vermin crawl up, he may decide to apply it retroactively. So you’d better behave, Miss Cheon.”

“...That’s far enough.”

“What am I saying that’s so wrong? You wouldn’t want your head rolling along the ground like your father’s, would you? You should grow into a lovely young lady. Isn’t that right?”

The lip she’d bitten split and bled.

Ak Seowon seemed amused; he smiled.

Eunsong was the one who stopped it.

“What do you think you’re doing—talking like that to a child who lost her family?”

“Well, it’s the household of a blasphemer. Hard to see that as simply pitiful, isn’t it?”

“Watch your tongue.”

“Fine. I’ll leave it there. Now, will you step aside? I have work to do.”

Ak Seowon drew his saber.

It was large, with flames engraved along the blade.

Not quite his father’s Fire-Dragon Saber, but still a finely made weapon.

Behind Eunsong and Cheon Soyak, the survivors were trembling—

the old village headman and the few remaining villagers.

If the two stepped aside, those people would be thrown back into the fire.

“Tsk. That will be a problem.”

Eunsong rubbed the bridge of his nose and shook his head.

“As a Daoist, how can I stand by and watch the innocent be killed? Mount Hua did not raise me that way.”

“Did you just say you intend to interfere with the One-Under-Heaven Corps’ execution of blasphemers?”

“No. I said I intend to stop a thug from swinging a blade without heed for right or wrong.”

“Ha. Absurd.”

Ak Seowon’s fingers tightened around the saber hilt.

The saber that had gleamed cold went red-hot in an instant.

Flames coiled along the blade.

“Are you going to fight me?”

“Are you confident you can win against me?”

“No. How could someone like me, stuck in mid-Apex, defeat a martial artist standing at the threshold of Transcendent Apex? But when I thought it through, there’s no way not to fight here.”

Eunsong’s eyebrow twitched.

This man’s talent didn’t reach the heavens, but his calculations were vicious enough.

“So, will you really let me go unharmed? Answer me, Eunsong.”

“...Ha. You already figured it out.”

“If I return, a report will go in that you obstructed the execution of blasphemers... Why would you possibly let me live?”

Eunsong drew the plum-white sword at his waist.

A thin chill settled along the pale edge.

Plum scent bloomed in the village, thick with the reek of smoke.

“Soyak. Draw your sword.”

“...Yes, Master.”

Eunsong pressed his fingers to his brow and thought.

If he unleashed his arts in full, he would expose his identity.

The Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword was so famous that one could identify it from the cuts left on a corpse.

Ak Seowon—he’s aiming for that.

There were only two paths.

If he used the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Ak Seowon would die—but Eunsong would be hunted forever.

If he did not, then Ak Seowon, using the Flame-Dragon Saber Canon, would defeat Eunsong—or at least fight him to a draw.

It was little better than a checkmate.

Until Cheon Soyak entered the equation.

No one has ever seen the Falling Plum Elegy properly executed.

In fact, it required three conditions to converge: the Heavenly Killing Star, the Harmonization Scripture, and the Elegy itself.

A martial art that had never yet appeared in the Central Plains.

With that, there would be no pursuit.

“Ha. Where’s the name value of a Transcendent Apex expert now, Eunsong? Are you planning to do a two-on-one with that little girl?”

“Why wouldn’t I? She’s my disciple.”

Eunsong smirked.

Ak Seowon did not know Cheon Soyak’s true level.

With good eyes he might have gauged the general height of her inner power—but that’s not the whole of it.

“Soyak.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Use as little inner power as possible.”

He said it to prevent her from coughing blood again.

Cheon Soyak seemed to catch his intent and simply nodded in silence.

Eunsong crooked a finger at Ak Seowon.

“As the senior, I should yield a few moves. You come first.”

“Doesn’t sound like something a man attempting a two-on-one should say, but I won’t refuse.”

Even with that thick, heavy saber—

Ak Seowon closed the distance in a single step.

Eunsong narrowed his eyes and moved his sword.

CLANG—!

The big saber and the sword tangled; sparks flew.

And Cheon Soyak did not miss that instant.

She let go of the scabbard, and the long blade that burst free drove forward without reserve.

It was no formal pattern, no fixed swordplay.

Just a thrust.

Yet Ak Seowon saw it.

The point of that blade cutting straight through the air without a tremor—like the girl’s black, empty eyes.

“Hup!”

He sucked in a breath and twisted his arm.

The flame-wreathed saber smashed aside Soyak’s Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge, then turned on its axis and fell for her crown.

“...Huh—!”

But the one who intercepted and redirected it was Eunsong.

Only then did Ak Seowon grasp Eunsong’s design.

Eunsong had no intention of killing with his own hand.

If he did, his sword path would give him away.

He meant to have his disciple do it instead.

...She didn’t learn Mount Hua’s arts?

By inference that seemed so, but his senses denied it.

Because each time Cheon Soyak swung her sword, plum fragrance bloomed thickly.

More than even Eunsong, who stood at the threshold of Transcendent Apex.

But I’ve never seen such swordsmanship...!

CLANG—!

This time Soyak’s blade came down vertical.

The force behind it was light, but it was a fierce stroke.

Each time that little girl slipped in between breaths to stab, his breathing hitched.

If this drags on, I’ll be taken apart.

Decision made, Ak Seowon ground his teeth and slammed the ground.

BOOM—whoosh—!

Harsh, searing flames burst scarlet in all directions.

“Back!”

Eunsong yanked Soyak before she could anticipate the move.

Thanks to it, only the edge of her sleeve got singed.

“...Thank you, Master.”

“Stay sharp. It starts now.”

Ak Seowon steadied his breath.

What he prepared was the Flame-Dragon Saber Canon’s ultimate—

the technique Reverse-Scale Ignition.

“Try this as well.”

As he gripped the saber in both hands, the flames sheathing the blade slowly took the form of a dragon.

The wavering heat prickled the skin.

“Ready yourself, Soyak.”

Cheon Soyak answered by pointing her sword.

Her master, Eunsong, would bat that technique aside.

What she needed was a killing thrust for the opening in his chest.

A single, decisive thrust.

For that, she needed a strike he absolutely could not dodge or block.

With her own strength, she could not break his guard.

She already knew what technique was required.

With Ak Seowon’s shout, the dragon of flame crashed in, raging.

But Cheon Soyak closed her eyes.

The heat, the shout, even the crackle of burning houses—she let them drift beyond awareness...

and focused only on the weight gathered in her hands.

When she opened her eyes, Eunsong was shouting at her.

“Soyak! Now!”

Eunsong’s sword path, plum blossoms in full bloom, split the unripe flame dragon and opened a seam.

Right down the middle of the flames.

At the very heart of that seam, a black plum blossomed.

Falling Plum Elegy, First Form:

One-Day Glory of a Fallen Blossom.

The raised sword came straight down.

A stroke that seized every eye.

At a glance it seemed slow...

but it held a subtlety that could be neither dodged nor blocked.

Fwoooosh—

From the chest, cleaved open, blood fountained.

Ak Seowon stared at Cheon Soyak in disbelief.

“This is... at least... Apex...”

Cheon Soyak looked blankly at her blade, smeared with blood.

Regrettably...

she felt no fear, no guilt at killing a man.

Why was that?

“...Because you’re not a person.”

“Ghk— w-what... huh...”

“The reason killing you gives me no different feeling than stepping on an ant.”

Eunsong quietly watched the Heavenly Killing Star after her first kill.

What choice would she make?

Cheon Soyak walked toward the collapsing Ak Seowon.

He was already on his knees, his saber dropped.

Blood spilled from his mouth without end.

Death was a fixed conclusion.

“...Master.”

Before him, the disciple called to her teacher.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve heard the martial world counts debts and enmities.”

Eunsong knew what Cheon Soyak was going to say.

And he had no intention of stopping it.

The Flame-Saber Lord, Ak Jupae, killed his lover—and that child’s father.

“If I set a price to this debt and enmity, would there be any problem with me taking this man’s head?”

He, too, should lose someone.

“Do it.”

Chapter 4

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