Chapter 547

A chilling silence settled over the great conference hall.

I’d expected that reaction before I opened my mouth. I’d even known which of the dozens gathered here would be the first to take a shot at me.

“Do you call that something to say?”

He never disappoints.

I clicked my tongue inwardly as the half-gray-haired man spoke up, just as if he’d been waiting for his chance.

I already knew his name and position. He’d glared at me so much during our last gathering that I’d wondered what his problem was. It turned out we had an indirect connection.

They say blood never lies.

Father and son did look alike. The sharply raised eyes, the arrogant gaze that looked down on everyone, even the way they spoke.

“It seems you didn’t hear me.”

The man was Hwangbo Gun, Family Head of the Hwangbo Family and father of the Shandong Fist Dragon, Hwangbo Ak. I blinked slowly at his question.

“Of course I heard you. How could I not?”

“Then why didn’t you answer?”

“Because your question is ridiculous. I said it with my own mouth, so of course it was speech. Did I make some kind of animal noise?”

Beside me, Cheongpung pricked up his ears.

“Benefactor, can you make animal noises too?”

“Keep your mouth shut, Cheongpung. Unless you want to puke up those dumplings.”

“Thank you…”

Hwangbo Gun’s face twisted as he watched us.

“Do you not understand what kind of gathering this is?”

“Is there anyone here who didn’t know?”

“And yet you speak so crudely in front of these esteemed Seniors!”

“That’s why I was trying not to say anything. Besides, we should hear what the Seniors think. What do you say?”

At my sudden question, Mae Jonghak nodded.

“Fire Dragon Pavilion Master Jin is right. I have no problem with it. His words may be rough, but we need to face reality.”

“A-Alliance Leader!”

I cut off Hwangbo Gun’s panicked cry.

“Yes, we’ve heard the Murim Alliance Leader’s esteemed opinion. While we’re at it, what does our Five Kings Hall Master think?”

Jeok Cheongang looked at Hwangbo Gun as though he were a bug.

“Why the hell are you asking? We’re fucked. Ignore that bastard’s nonsense and keep going.”

“Thank you for the fiery answer.”

I turned to Hwangbo Gun and shrugged.

“That’s what those esteemed Seniors have to say.”

“……!”

There were plenty of people here who could be called Seniors, but none of them could compare to Jeok Cheongang and Mae Jonghak.

If the heads of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families were squad-leading corporals with pull or sergeants nearing discharge, Murim Alliance Leader Mae Jonghak was the battalion commander, and Jeok Cheongang was the command sergeant major.

If you don’t have the seniority, keep your mouth shut.

And it wasn’t just seniority. Strip off the insignia and take Jeok Cheongang on as an equal, and one punch from the Fire King would lay you out.

That was why even the Wind-and-Cloud Sword Lord, Sect Leader of the Zhongnan Sect and one of the foremost among those who disliked Cheongpung and me, kept his mouth firmly shut.

Which left Hwangbo Gun all alone.

You should’ve looked before stretching out your legs. Why step forward on your own?

I’d heard Hwangbo Gun wielded considerable influence during the Great Faction War. Maybe he’d always lacked political sense. Or maybe a matter involving his only son—the sole heir in three generations—had turned him into a runaway locomotive.

I hummed a mournful tune.

“I’m a firefly. I have no friends.”¹

“You insolent young punk!”

I couldn’t stop there. I hit him with the combo I’d prepared.

“Waaah. I’m a baby Pavilion Master.”

“You braaaat!”

Crash!

Hwangbo Gun sprang to his feet, veins standing out on his clenched fists. He glared at me, furious and empty-handed, without so much as breaking even.

Then a voice spoke.

“‘Punk,’ you say… Forgive me, Family Head Hwangbo, but may I ask you one question?”

The voice was gentle, with a firmness beneath it. Jin Wikyung’s eyes had gone cold as he looked at Hwangbo Gun.

“What position do you hold within the Murim Alliance, Family Head Hwangbo?”

“……!”

“Regardless of how young the Fire Dragon Pavilion Master may be, he is the successor to Great Hero Jeok, the Fire King, and a Pavilion Master of the Murim Alliance. Even if we consider seniority within the martial world, he is certainly not beneath you, Family Head Hwangbo.”

That hit the sore spot. Hwangbo Gun’s face stiffened.

He was Family Head of the Hwangbo Family, the hegemon of Shandong, but within the Alliance he was only an Outer Hall Squad Leader charged with defending one region.

In the Murim Alliance’s official hierarchy, that put him below me, an Inner Hall Pavilion Master.

“That…”

Unable to continue, Hwangbo Gun bit his lip and looked around for help.

The response was lukewarm.

“Amitabha.² Perhaps it would be best to restrain yourself now, Benefactor Hwangbo.”

“Heavens. Such a disturbance in the sacred Alliance Leader’s Hall.”

“Blazing Flame Divine Dragon—no, Fire Dragon Pavilion Master. I’m not taking your side. Both of you have said enough. Sit down.”

I answered without a hint of shame.

“I’ve been sitting down the whole time.”

“Then there’s only one person left.”

It was obvious whom he meant.

Hwangbo Gun was torn between his rational judgment, which told him he needed to stop, and the last shred of pride possessed by the hegemon of Shandong and Family Head of a great family.

One remark settled his indecision.

“Got a hidden weapon stuck in your ear?”

It came from the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang. The air in the hall heated with those few words.

Hwangbo Gun stood frozen, reflected in Jeok Cheongang’s red-glowing eyes.

“Sit down. Right now.”

“……!”

Whoooosh!

Jeok Cheongang’s aura surged through the air and crashed over them. Hwangbo Gun’s eyes flew wide.

So did everyone else’s.

“Hmm.”

Fist King Yan Hwapyeong, who had watched in silence, let out a low groan.

“J-Jeok! You bastard…!”

The Thunderbolt Saber King Peng Cheolhu’s gaze wavered.

Jeok Cheongang’s aura was that powerful, that overwhelming—like another sun. Those still in the Peak realm could feel his strength, as could those who had already reached Supreme Peak.

Returned to Youth.³

The mountain range called martial arts was vast and treacherous. Sometimes one had to cross a steep ravine or scale a sheer cliff.

Jeok Cheongang was a great martial artist standing proudly atop the peak at the very end.

He had become something beyond his title of Fire King. So had one other person in this room.

“Great Hero Jeok.”

At Sword Saint Mae Jonghak’s quiet call, the hot wind sweeping through the hall vanished.

Jeok Cheongang drew in his aura at once and answered gruffly.

“Did something happen?”

“Hmm.”

“All right, I know. That bastard was making too much noise, so I gave him a little scare.”

No joke—if he scared Hwangbo Gun a second time, the man might wet himself. He was already back in his seat, white as a sheet.

“Finally, some quiet,” Jeok Cheongang muttered.

Mae Jonghak gave him a gently reproachful look, then turned to me.

“Fire Dragon Pavilion Master.”

“Yes.”

“You have stood against Dark Heaven in Shanxi and Henan, and in Sichuan and Hubei.”

Gotten dragged into it would have been more accurate, but I nodded.

This was the great conference hall of the Murim Alliance. Dealing with Hwangbo Gun and discussing matters of such importance were two entirely different things.

“That’s right.”

“I expect few people know Dark Heaven as well as you. I would like to hear your opinion.”

“I was merely present at those incidents. Hidden Shadow Pavilion probably knows the concrete details and what is happening throughout the world better than I do. I already told you everything I knew.”

“I want to hear what you saw and experienced yourself. What the man who went through it all truly thinks.”

There we go.

What I’d said before was only a lead-in. Demurring once or twice was the polite thing to do, and if Mae Jonghak, speaking with the authority of the Murim Alliance Leader, pressed me for my opinion, it would carry that much more weight.

All right.

I took a small breath.

Until now, I’d been sitting in the back seat. From here on, I was in the passenger seat.

I couldn’t tell a driver setting out on an unfamiliar road at dawn, through thick fog and without navigation, everything I knew. But I could point out the speed bumps and warn him what lay ahead.

Including the ominous thought I haven’t been able to shake lately.

I sorted through my thoughts and raised my head. Everyone in the hall was looking at me.

Dozens of pairs of eyes.

They were people who could save—or kill—hundreds, even thousands, of lives in a war that had already begun.

How much heed they would pay to a kid barely past twenty, I couldn’t say.

It doesn’t matter. If we can win this war. If I can reduce the danger and sacrifice even a little.

I had to do what I could. Right now.

Perhaps that was why my voice carried a weight it usually didn’t when I began to speak.

“Dark Heaven…”

Two shichen later,⁴ everyone had left the great conference hall except three people.

The chairs that had held dozens of people stood empty, but the silence that had settled over the room remained. Thousand-Faced Fox Song Ho suspected those who had left the Alliance Leader’s Hall were just as quiet.

They had every reason to be.

Jin Taekyung’s words had been that shocking.

Everyone knew Dark Heaven existed and understood that it was dangerous. No one, though, had warned of the coming crisis as forcefully as that young man.

Not even me.

The Hidden Shadow Pavilion gathered intelligence from across the realm and issued countless predictions. Hundreds of messenger pigeons arrived each day with information tied to their slender ankles, then flew off again before long.

As its chief, Song Ho knew how dangerous Dark Heaven was.

But…

The thinking of the Fire Dragon Pavilion’s young master, the Blazing Flame Divine Dragon whose actions had caused one upheaval after another, went far beyond anything Song Ho had expected.

Where others spoke of danger, Jin Taekyung foretold disaster. When someone cited the Great Faction War as grounds for believing the Murim Alliance would win, he answered sharply.

“Are we fighting the Demonic Cult? Our opponent is Dark Heaven. Dark Heaven.”

“What Dark Heaven has shown us isn’t simply demonic martial arts. So what do I call it? Ah, this is driving me crazy. Fine. Let’s call it demonic martial arts for now.”

“I don’t know why Dark Heaven has gone quiet, but we need to use this opening to strike back immediately. If we keep going like this, we’re finished. Everyone dies.”

“Who said I was going too far? You, Family Head. Have you ever fought someone who came back to life even after all four limbs were crushed? Or fought an imugi?⁵ When you saw that monster half an hour ago, did you think about nothing but what to eat for dinner?”

“We aren’t fighting ordinary people. Dark Heaven is one enormous monster, and before long, we may have to fight monsters like that one.”

“I went a little too far. But this needs saying: we have to take every measure we can, right now. Especially if you’ve got a divine artifact at home that you guard like an ancestral shrine.”

Song Ho suddenly furrowed his brow.

The place where his prosthetic leg attached had begun to throb when Jin Taekyung started speaking. Now it burned.

It wasn’t like this even a year ago.

The pain had returned at some point and begun tormenting him in his old age, as though warning him this was no time to sit still.

And today, that young man was here too.

It was as though he knew. As though he had experienced something in advance and was predicting some truth that I and the Hidden Shadow Pavilion—no, that everyone else—knew nothing about.

Foresee? No. Song Ho corrected himself.

It was more like a prophecy.

The question was whether it truly was one.

Could he trust the young man who, more than anyone else in the realm, had come into contact with Dark Heaven? How much of what he’d said was truth, and how much was exaggeration?

“Believe him.”

“Hm?”

Song Ho looked up sharply. Jeok Cheongang, still in the hall, continued.

“I said, believe him.”

“Great Hero Jeok.”

“I know what you’re going to say. But…”

His tone softened.

“The kid I know has never once been wrong.”

“……!”

Song Ho faltered at the absolute trust in those words.

Then Mae Jonghak, the last of the three remaining in the hall, spoke.

“There are certainties in this world that information alone cannot lead us to.”

“Alliance Leader. Do you mean…?”

“That’s right.”

Mae Jonghak rose slowly from his seat.

“Summon him. It’s time to give the Fire Dragon Pavilion its first mission.”