Thud-thud-thud!
Thousands of men and horses raced across the vast plain. At their head, the martial artists of the Black Dragon Demon Gate served as both vanguard and guides.
Some, though, were busier stealing curious glances at someone riding far off to the side.
“I’d only heard about him, but he’s much younger than I expected. He doesn’t look much older than me.”
“They said he was around thirty, so that makes sense. Still, you can’t mistake the family resemblance. He’s the spitting image of the Sect Leader.”
“The Black Dragon Saber… What a killer sobriquet. So, is that rumor true?”
Was he barely twenty? The young man still had the down on his cheeks, and the middle-aged man frowned at his out-of-the-blue question.
“What rumor are you talking about? You know I’m just as clueless about the inner workings as you are, so you’re not asking because you think I’d know.”
At the older man’s open displeasure, the young one hurriedly waved his hands.
“It’s nothing. I just heard our Young Sect Leader is stronger than the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes of the Central Plains.”
“Who knows? I’ve never even seen the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes.”
“Right. The Ten Dragons and Phoenixes.”
“What?”
“I didn’t mean you’d necessarily met the Young Sect Leader, Uncle.”
The middle-aged man glared at the young one as he slyly looked away, then shook his head.
“I don’t know which idiot’s been running his mouth, but don’t believe it. It’s all ridiculous bullshit.”
“Bullshit?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s strange. You told me yourself last time, Uncle. When you were dead drunk.”
“…!”
“So it’s true, then? Five years ago, the man who single-handedly wiped out One Saber Cuts the Cliff, the former chief of Danhyeol Bang, and twenty of his men…”
“That’s enough. Don’t say another word.”
The middle-aged man’s firm voice cut him off, but the young man couldn’t take his awestruck eyes off the person he’d been watching.
The Black Dragon Saber, Sama Pyo.
He was the Young Sect Leader of the Black Dragon Demon Gate, to which they both belonged, and the heir who would one day succeed the Black Night King, Sima Gong, as leader of the unorthodox Murim.
The young man’s martial uniform was still stiff and new, a sure sign he hadn’t been with the Black Dragon Demon Gate long. He couldn’t hide his amazement.
So the whole story was true.
Everyone knew of the bloodshed at Danhyeol Bang, once one of the powers of Gansu Murim.
Its chief, One Saber Cuts the Cliff, had been one of Gansu’s ten greatest saber masters. He and his closest men had all been found brutally murdered on the same day.
And after that?
What was there to say?
A body without a head was bound to fall. Especially in Gansu, which the Black Dragon Demon Gate’s influence had made the de facto headquarters of the unorthodox Murim.
Danhyeol Bang, once three hundred members strong, had collapsed. Five years later, it had faded from people’s minds.
No. No one had bothered to remember.
Not the minor dispute between Danhyeol Bang and the Black Dragon Demon Gate shortly before the massacre.
Not that, on the day the mysterious killer came, the Captain of the Guards—who should have been protecting the pleasure house where the chief and leaders of Danhyeol Bang had gathered to drink—had left with his men.
And not how that same Captain of the Guards had become the Black Dragon Demon Gate’s Outer Hall Master less than a month later.
It had all been forgotten. It had to be.
The identity of the killer skilled enough to slay one of Gansu’s ten greatest saber masters, the background of whoever had ordered the killing, and even where all of Danhyeol Bang’s property and farmland had gone.
But the forgetting was only on the surface. The unorthodox martial artists who knew what had happened were certain.
And they were in awe.
Just like the young man who, as an unorthodox martial artist himself, now looked at Sama Pyo with admiration.
“That’s really, really incredible. Don’t you think? No wonder he became the heir over his older half-brothers—”
The young man caught his breath.
Reflected in his trembling eyes was the middle-aged man, face twisted as he gripped his sword hilt.
“You really do have a death wish, don’t you?”
His voice was so low that even the young man riding beside him would have missed it if he hadn’t been listening closely.
But the killing intent in it seemed to squeeze the raw novice’s heart.
“W-why all of a sudden…?”
“Shut your mouth if you want to live even a few more days.”
The older man cut off his stammering and quickly scanned their surroundings.
Perhaps the vast plain had spared them. There was plenty of distance between the riders, and the thunder of thousands of hooves and the fierce wind swallowed their conversation before anyone else could hear it.
“You idiot.”
“U-Uncle.”
“I won’t say it twice. Keep your mouth shut if you want to live.”
“I-I understand.”
Leaving the trembling young man behind, the middle-aged man urged his horse faster. His expression stayed cold, but inwardly he sighed.
The kid probably had no idea how careless and stupid a mistake he’d just made. If those words—practically taboo within the Black Dragon Demon Gate—had passed from mouth to ear and reached the higher-ups, they would have cost him his life.
Maybe he’ll never know.
It takes time for a person to mature. But war can arrive without warning, and enemies can steal that time before it runs its course.
The middle-aged man’s gaze grew distant as he thought of the battle to come. Then he flinched.
What was that?
An inexplicable sense of déjà vu seized him for an instant. He hurriedly looked around, but couldn’t place the feeling. At last he turned his attention back to his duty.
He never realized that two pairs of eyes had swept over him from more than thirty yards away.
“Hyah!”
Prrr, prrr.
His fine horse raced on, breathing hard. The young man finally came to his senses and hurried after him, his face deathly pale.
“W-wait for me!”
One person speaking alone was just talking. Ten voices became a shout; more than a hundred, a roar.
Yet even as three thousand men and horses raced in the same direction, father and son could hear each other clearly.
“There are a lot of faces I don’t recognize.”
“That’s how things turned out.”
“And a few who look useful, too.”
“Even in mud scraped together in a hurry, you can find a pearl or two. Though they can crack over the smallest thing.”
The son knew what his father meant by that last remark and fell silent. His father noticed.
As he always did.
“Are those people bothering you?”
At the Black Night King Sima Gong’s quiet question, Sama Pyo kept his eyes on the road ahead.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Seeing the sights of the Central Plains seems to have made you fond of word games.”
“There wasn’t much worth seeing. Maybe I was cursed with bad luck, but everywhere I went, I found a sea of corpses and blood. Though I’m sure you already knew that.”
“Yes, I heard the reports. But the messenger pigeons stopped returning one day. Some mishap along the way, perhaps. I had to look into matters myself, and the distance made it hard to get information in time. The Inner Hall Master had quite a time of it.”
“It couldn’t be helped. Yunnan wasn’t a good place to send messages back and forth.”
“I’m not scolding you. Your father knows what happened at the Nanman Beast Palace. But…”
Sama Pyo listened in silence, hoping his father’s next words would be the ones he wanted to hear.
They weren’t.
As always.
“Why didn’t you send a missive after that?”
“A missive…?”
“Yes. I understand you had several chances after leaving Yunnan. In the Imperial Capital, and at the Jin Family of Taiyuan. Am I wrong?”
What was he supposed to say?
His mouth felt gritty, as if he’d chewed a fistful of sand. The wind battered his body as he answered.
“You’re half right and half wrong.”
“What?”
“In the Imperial Capital, I had to hide my identity and even disguise myself to avoid being watched. The journey there wasn’t smooth, either. And once we entered the Imperial Palace, things only got worse.”
Sima Gong studied his son’s profile as though searching for the tiniest crack.
“Go on.”
“Things didn’t improve immediately after the incident at the Imperial Palace. We had to stay there a while, then head straight for Shanxi without proper rest.”
“Unlike at the Imperial Palace, you suffered no injuries of note in Shanxi, as I understand it. Am I mistaken?”
“You’re right. That’s when I was finally able to receive the missive from our sect.”
“Then you saw the order.”
“Yes. I saw it. I’m certain.”
At the answer, given without a hint of hesitation, Sima Gong’s gaze grew darker.
“The Fire King and his Disciple were to go to Qinghai, not here. Was that what the order said?”
“It was.”
“It said our sect was in danger, and that you, at least, were to return to Gansu by any means necessary. Is that right?”
“Exactly.”
“Then, lastly—do you have a proper reason or justification for seeing my seal and still not carrying out the order?”
Sama Pyo turned and looked his father straight in the eye.
“No.”
“…!”
“I won’t make excuses. I won’t give you any reason. I failed to carry out the order properly, so I’ll accept whatever punishment I deserve. Please forgive me.”
Sima Gong fell silent, taken aback by his son’s response. Then a low laugh broke the brief silence between them.
“Ha. Hahaha.”
None of the men surrounding father and son like guards reacted. They were all Peak masters, Sima Gong’s loyal hands and feet, but in their lord’s presence they might as well have been blind and deaf.
Sama Pyo was different.
He watched his father calmly until the laughter stopped and a voice took its place.
“Pyo. My son.”
The voice was soft as silk. His eyes were sharp as blades.
“If you dared to lie to my face—if you did…”
His words faded unfinished, and his eyes curved into crescents.
“Only today do I realize how right I was to send you to the Central Plains.”
Pat. Pat.
Perhaps it was the wind sweeping across the plain that made his touch feel so cold. Sima Gong patted his son’s shoulder, looking pleased.
“You’ve grown. Admirably so.”
He turned his horse and rode away. Sama Pyo watched him go in silence.
“Take care of those two from a moment ago.”
With a single sentence, Sima Gong had decided the fate of two nameless martial artists for a careless remark spoken only briefly. Sama Pyo kept watching until his father disappeared from view.
Then Taishan came over—an old friend who had been as steady as the mountain he was named for since childhood—and asked in a trembling voice, “M-my lord. Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’m fine,” Sama Pyo answered calmly.
It was strange.
They were riding across an immense plain. Why, then, did his chest feel so tight?
And why did a few faces pass through his mind beneath the gray sky spread over them all?
But Sama Pyo didn’t turn his horse around.
The place he belonged now was the Black Dragon Demon Gate, not the Fire Dragon Pavilion.
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