It was a three-year difference.

Seol Yegang—now twenty—had been seventeen back then.

When he was seventeen and being cast out of the North Sea Ice Palace, Yehwa had been fourteen.

The same age as Soyak.

He had been just one of countless collateral-blood relatives.

He had inherited a constitution that could train the Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art.

But that was all.

He had always been the type who was slightly lacking somewhere in the middle, and even he had never wanted more talent than that.

Because he hadn’t wanted to wedge himself into the struggle for the next Palace Lord.

But Yehwa wasn’t like that.

A tremendous power had lodged itself inside that tiny body.

A supreme cold she couldn’t even control herself.

When she grabbed a sword, the sword froze and cracked apart. When she touched a shield, it froze along with the glove holding it.

A talent not permitted to collateral blood.

A fourteen-year-old little girl who couldn’t control her own power.

And the Palace Lord handed down a judgment that was unimaginably heavy.

The Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art was a martial art that took “ice that never melts” as its symbol.

The Palace Lord had already mastered it to completion and beyond, and had learned the higher art that rose above it—

the Forest-of-All Still-Cold Divine Art.

Seol Yegang could never forget.

The sight of a deep-blue, impossibly compressed ice needle being formed at the Palace Lord’s fingertips.

And the scene of those needles, one by one, being pushed into his younger sister’s body.

The ice needles forged by the Forest-of-All Still-Cold Divine Art never melted.

They were forever blocking parts of Seol Yehwa’s meridian pathways.

It was no different from an artificial Severed Meridian Syndrome.

The Forest-of-All Still-Cold Divine Art was the superior martial art above the Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art.

That was why Seol Yegang had sworn he would never use the Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art again.

Because it belonged to the same branch that had turned his younger sister into a ruined cripple.

‘……But even after breaking that vow, I……’

Just as his thoughts reached that point—

he realized his back was warm.

Seol Yegang snapped his body up and tried to grab the sword at his waist.

But there was no sword.

“Are you awake?”

It was Soyak’s voice.

Seol Yegang’s pupils began to tremble.

“Why did you save me?”

Instead of answering, Soyak held out a bowl of black medicinal broth.

Of course, Seol Yegang didn’t drink it.

Even though he knew that if she wanted to kill him, she didn’t need to waste money on an annoying method like poison.

“What fool saves someone just to kill them right after?”

Soyak let out a long sigh, then took a sip of the broth first.

Then she held it out again.

“It’s a tonic to settle the mess inside you from internal injuries. Drink.”

“……And your answer?”

“I’ll give it after you finish it.”

Seol Yegang stared back and forth between Soyak and the bowl with an anxious look.

Soyak held it out again, as if telling him to hurry up.

“If it cools, the effect is reduced.”

“……Fine.”

Only then did Seol Yegang take the bowl.

And he began to drink.

He emptied it in one go.

The shattered, churned-up flow of qi and blood inside him began to settle.

“……It works.”

“Of course. Gong-eop prepared it with great care.”

Saving someone who had tried to commit murder inside Shaolin?

A monk of Shaolin—saving him?

Seol Yegang let out a groan.

He couldn’t understand the situation.

Most of all, the place where he was lying—

it was obviously a Shaolin detached quarters.

“So. What do you want from me?”

The answer would come quickly.

They wanted something from him.

Once his body recovered, they might drag him down to an underground prison and interrogate him again.

“Who is Yehwa?”

But instead of answering, Soyak casually asked as she cleared away the empty bowl.

At that name, Seol Yegang froze solid.

“……Where did you hear that name?”

“From you. You kept calling it the whole time you were unconscious. Same family name—your younger sister?”

Seol Yegang kept glancing toward the door like he was panicking.

Should he run?

But judging by the sunlight bleeding through the paper door, it was midday.

There was no way he could escape safely from here.

“Don’t think about escaping. My Head Senior and Gong-eop are already outside.”

Seol Yegang was seized again by helplessness.

Even if he set aside that fragile girl’s Head Senior—

Gong-eop was a famous warrior-monk.

Wasn’t he Shaolin’s prodigy, the Small Divine Monk of Mount Song?

“They won’t come in, though. I told them not to.”

“Why are you doing this for me?”

“You said you had to kill me to save your younger sister.”

Soyak quietly spread her energy.

She was trying to block out all sound around them.

She had seen Eunsong do it more than once.

She knew the principle behind it.

Even if her realm was lower and she couldn’t spread it far……

It was enough if it could cover just two heads—

hers and Seol Yegang’s.

A space narrower than the room itself.

“I know someone hired you to do this.”

“That’s only your guess.”

“Clumsy excuses won’t work.”

Eyes black beyond black, unbound without end.

A gaze that tore apart flimsy lies.

Seol Yegang ended up groaning again.

He was a failed assassin anyway.

He didn’t have a single piece of metal left on him.

It looked like they had even taken the suicide dagger.

“……Yes. There is. Want me to tell you? Even if I do, you won’t be able to kill him.”

“If you help me make it so I can dispose of that person, I will save your younger sister.”

Seol Yegang’s eyes flew wide.

What was she even saying?

She didn’t even know what symptoms his sister had.

She didn’t even know who he was.

Soyak rose with the tray and empty bowl in her hands.

Then she offered him the words in a low voice.

“Seol Yegang—the cast-out collateral-blood relative of the North Sea Ice Palace. Think carefully.”

“How do you know me—”

“A Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art successor wandering the Central Plains, and you look about twenty. Do you think I can’t figure it out?”

Even so, this speed was ridiculous.

Even if you hired beggars from the Beggar Union—

how could you do it in a single day……?

In that moment, he realized what mistake he was making.

It hadn’t been a day.

“How long was I out?”

“Four days. During that time, Gong-eop visited the Beggar Union’s Henan Branch Hall.”

“……Damn it.”

“And I also know what was done to your younger sister.”

They really were trying to execute Byeoksa Gok.

And in the middle of that, they were trying to save his younger sister too.

But doubt—endless doubt—twisted around his decision and strangled it.

“……Why? Why is Shaolin this merciful to me?”

Soyak returned the story Gong-eop had told her, exactly as she’d heard it.

*****

Two days earlier.

Shaolin—on the mountain’s foothills of Mount Song.

Soyak and Gong-eop were trudging along the road leading into Henan City.

“So, to save your younger sister, you said you had to kill the young donor—was that it?”

“Yes, Monk. He said it clearly.”

Gong-eop let out a breath of relief.

Soyak couldn’t understand why he was relieved right now.

“Why…… are you relieved?”

“A sentient being who nearly committed a karmic killing turns out not to be an evil person—how fortunate is that?”

“……Is it?”

“His blood kin was taken hostage, and he was threatened into killing someone. That donor’s only sin is weakness. And the trivial sin of being weak isn’t even counted as a sin in the Buddhist path. The true sin and karma lies with the one who threatened him. Namu Amitabha.”

Gong-eop tapped his wooden gong a few times and recited the Buddha’s name.

After a brief pause, Soyak nodded.

It was right.

Why did Soyak not limit the target of her revenge to the Flame-Saber Lord alone?

It was the same reason.

The Flame-Saber Lord was only a “tool.”

So long as the Sword Sovereign’s rule held, the same thing would be repeated.

“There is something I wish to ask you, Monk.”

“Yes. Ask anything.”

“Where are we going right now?”

“To the Beggar Union’s Henan Branch Hall.”

Gong-eop answered with a gentle smile.

Soyak ran several hypotheses through her mind, then spoke.

“Are you trying to guess what sort of person that assassin originally was?”

“Yes. And you said he used a powerful cold-ice art, didn’t you?”

“That is so.”

“Then it should be the North Sea Ice Palace’s Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art.”

It was so confident it felt suspicious.

Catching Soyak’s doubt-filled gaze, Gong-eop explained further.

“Other than the North Sea Ice Palace’s Snow-Heaven Cold-Ice Art in the outer martial world, there is no martial art that can leave a cold that deep at that realm.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. Their line has always been born with a cold energy. Around twenty in age, acting as an assassin—cast out, then collateral blood with blood kin taken hostage. At that point, even the Beggar Union can narrow down exactly who it is.”

“And after confirming that, what will you do?”

“Donor. In the Buddhist path, we are taught to help all sentient beings. Namu Amitabha.”

Gong-eop tapped his wooden gong again.

Maybe he pushed a little internal power into it—Soyak’s head began to clear.

“Spreading the great, compassionate light of Shakyamuni, the World-Honored One across the earth is the monks’ lifelong karma.”

“But he was an assassin. He hid himself inside Shaolin. I don’t understand.”

“Why are we this merciful…….”

There were many reasons.

No killing had happened.

There were circumstances to take into account.

His nature had not strayed too far.

But there was one reason that came before all of those.

“Because we are Shaolin, and not anywhere else.”

His sin was not for monks to judge.

That was for King Yama to judge after death.

But his misery was not for King Yama to tend to.

That was for monks to tend to.

North Venerates Shaolin, South Honors Wudang—

People who lived in the north of the Central Plains revered Shaolin, and those who lived in the south held Wudang as noble.

Only then did Soyak understand why such a reputation had been born.

Chapter 59

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