Cheonhwa was quite a pretty girl.

Her eyes were a touch sharp, but rather than seeming venomous, it only added to her charm.

Cheonju was the same.

They weren’t siblings, yet they stuck together like brother and sister.

Because each knew the other’s pain better than anyone.

The pain of having one’s flesh and bones torn apart.

There were side effects to Hair-Cutting and Marrow-Washing when forced upon them.

Even through that atrocious agony, they were not allowed to scream.

If they failed to endure and let out a cry…

“…Cheonhwa.”

“Mm. You called, senior brother?”

“It’s about time next week.”

“Ugh, that again! I was doing a good job forgetting!”

Cheonhwa whined.

With her lip jutting out, she looked ready to sulk for a long while.

But Cheonju knew.

He knew exactly what Cheonhwa was like when she “forgot” until the day was announced.

“You’re going to cry again.”

“I am not?! Do you really see me as a crybaby, senior brother?”

“Sure I do.”

Talking like that, the two arrived at the manor where Eun Byeok resided.

A place with a large training ground attached.

A building raised with tiled eaves and neatly hewn wooden pillars.

On the broad main veranda, Eun Byeok sat cross-legged.

“…Shh.”

Cheonhwa rose lightly onto her toes.

Cheonju did the same.

They had no idea what might happen if they disturbed a breathing-and-circulation session.

Their master wasn’t merely strict…

To add a touch of exaggeration, it would be fair to say he suffered from a kind of mania.

Just then, Eun Byeok’s eyes snapped open.

“You two are here—and without offering your greetings.”

His voice rumbled low.

But with phlegm half caught in it, he didn’t sound pleased.

“…Your lacking disciple, Cheonju, has come seeking instruction.”

“I’ve come to seek instruction alongside my senior brother.”

“Good. Come here.”

His eyes were severe.

No—so severe his pupils seemed to blaze.

There was a fury there—beyond fury, a sense of desperation.

“From today, I will teach you the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword.”

It was time to place his wager.

He had to prove that the timber he possessed was better than Eunsong’s.

At this One-Branch Gathering.

****

“Senior Brother Eun Byeok will teach the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword.”

Eunsong spoke evenly.

Cheongak and Cheongu were surprised, but Cheonjeong and Cheon Soyak were not.

It was the expected outcome.

“He likely won’t pass on the true essence, but he will at least pass on the forms.”

“If it’s Cheonhwa and Cheonju, they might at least learn the forms.”

Cheonjeong replied quietly.

Eunsong nodded.

“Right. Even if not every movement, they’ll likely master the forms of the first three.”

“In that case, shouldn’t we learn it as well?”

Cheongak shot up his hand.

But Eunsong shook his head instead.

“No. We won’t do that.”

“Sir? Then how do we oppose the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword?”

Cheongu chimed in beside him.

By common sense, they couldn’t.

To meet the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword with the Sprouting Flower Sword was nonsense.

By common sense.

“Cheonjeong. How long until the One-Branch Gathering?”

“A little under a month remains.”

“Suppose I taught you the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword. In that one month, can you master the forms of the first three movements perfectly?”

“If we assume I only learn the forms…”

He couldn’t readily give a proud yes.

But the implication was affirmative.

At that moment, Cheon Soyak quietly opened her mouth.

“Could forms you’ve rushed to learn like that be used in an actual fight?”

“…That’s true. That would be difficult.”

“And they will cling to their newly learned Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, believing it to be the key to victory.”

Eunsong nodded.

“Soyak is right. So you will simply devote yourselves to grasping the marrow of the Sprouting Flower Sword more deeply. There’s always a reason the Founder arranged things in this order.”

It was correct.

Even if Cheon Soyak was a monster beyond a mere genius, she hadn’t broken that order when she learned.

She had learned them all—but in order.

Beyond the Sprouting Flower Sword lay the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword.

And beyond the Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword lay the Falling Plum Elegy.

“All right, then—go train.”

With a flick of his sleeve, Eunsong broke up the gathering.

It was time to return to their ordinary days.

Practice the Sprouting Flower Sword in the clearing before the shabby hut, and now and then Eunsong would correct a stance.

That was how it should have gone.

“Soyak, you come with me for a moment.”

“Sir?”

“I said, come for a moment.”

Eunsong gave a faint smile and beckoned.

Cheongak and Cheongu glanced at Soyak, but Cheonjeong promptly chided them.

“Focus on your training, you two.”

“Okay…”

****

Behind the hut stood a peak, as if sharply hewn.

A nameless peak.

As Eunsong walked quietly up its path, he asked the girl following behind him:

“How far have you learned?”

“What do you mean?”

“The Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword.”

“…All of it.”

Of course.

Without that, she could not have unfolded the Falling Plum Elegy.

And otherwise, there would have been no point to her learning the Harmonization Scripture.

“How far have you learned the Falling Plum Elegy?”

“I’ve learned it all as well, but as yet…”

“So, your forms are complete.”

“They are.”

Before long, they stood at the end of the peak.

Sharp, yet not very high—an unnamed peak.

That was the place allotted to Eunsong for now.

He gazed silently toward the other peaks.

He could see his senior brothers who had carved out great flats from the mountain.

He could see the uncles seated in loftier, grander places.

But he had no ambition to climb to those heights.

“…The levels won’t match.”

Eunsong spoke in a low voice.

Whether it was a murmur or words meant for her, Soyak didn’t answer.

“At the One-Branch Gathering, the ones most likely to stand out will be Cheongak, Cheonju, and Cheonhwa. But none of those three can stand beside you. Do you know that?”

Soyak quietly closed her black eyes.

Then answered honestly.

“…I know.”

“Does that mean you’re confident you can win?”

“I have no intention of losing.”

A brief silence.

Eunsong turned his back and looked only at the ravine far away, where clouds pooled.

Not knowing what her master was thinking, Soyak simply waited.

What was he weighing?

The storm he would call down upon Mount Hua?

Or the other dangers that would arise because of it?

…Is she not still a child?

Eunsong was worried for Cheon Soyak.

She was fourteen.

If she stood out at the One-Branch Gathering, she would receive the Purple Firmament Pellet.

The Great Mount Hua Sect—third among the Nine Great Sects.

What did it mean to receive one of the most precious elixirs, the Purple Firmament Pellet?

It meant she would be publicly marked as the sect’s face among the youthful talents.

And that meant being dragged into Mount Hua’s great internal strife.

Senior Brother Eun Byeok, Uncle Myungjeok, and above them, the Sect Leader himself.

The Sect Leader may have met Soyak without incident…

But that would have been when he still thought he could bring her into his own lineage.

Now that Senior Brother Eun Byeok had been cut off cold and sent back—

Was standing out truly a good thing?

She was a fourteen-year-old girl not yet fully ripened.

“…Master, what are you so worried about?”

In that instant, Eunsong’s thoughts were severed.

He slowly turned and looked at his new disciple.

A rough, not-so-high mountain peak.

At the summit where the two stood, there was a single old tree.

Eunsong sat down by its roots and leveled his eyes with hers.

“What else would I worry about? I worry for you.”

“Did you not ask me whether I wanted to take the Sword Sovereign’s head?”

The Sword Sovereign.

There was only one to whom that epithet was permitted.

Below the One Sovereign, the Three Emperors; below the Three Emperors, the Seven Lords.

The Sword Sovereign meant the current Alliance Leader.

The very man who felled the Heavenly Demon—once the greatest under Heaven—and shattered the Demonic Sect.

Though he did not do it alone…

It was certain that his share of the deed was greatest.

Even the Sword Emperor of Mount Hua, Elder Jeongyang, Eunsong’s grandmaster, acknowledged as much.

“…I’m worried you’ll stand out too soon.”

Eunsong—only thirty years old.

But in depth of mind, he was rated above even his own master, Myunggon.

If a man like that worried, it could truly be dangerous.

“Don’t worry, Master.”

But Cheon Soyak was calm instead.

Something stirred within those black eyes.

A breeze moved.

The plum blossoms of Mount Hua—said to never wither through the year—fluttered.

She was only a small girl with black hair, waxen skin, and a slight frame…

Yet Cheon Soyak’s black eyes were unfathomably deep.

“‘Do all that is humanly possible and leave the rest to Heaven.’ We arrange the work, but accomplishment belongs to the sky. We need only do our utmost.”

Words like that, from the mouth of a being beyond the human track.

From the black qilin that could rend the sky.

Eunsong answered with a reluctant nod.

“…Yes. That’s true enough.”

But he knew it in his gut.

This small girl before his eyes would twist the sky itself, if that was what it took.

That is the fate of one who has made toppling Heaven her life’s work.

Chapter 13

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