Chapter 892

I’d faced countless formidable enemies and fought more battles than I could count, but this was a first.

For me—and for everyone else.

“They’re planning to raise the stakes even further… If that guess is right, they’ve got to be completely insane.”

At Jeok Cheongang’s mutter, Namho nodded.

“It’s hard to believe, but for our enemies, that’s the fastest shortcut to taking control of the entire Great Nation.”

He was right.

Nothing settled things quite like a character-deletion match.¹ Once a single battle with everything on the line was over, the winner would survive and the loser would disappear.

The problem was that we had no idea what lay behind our enemies’ confidence.

Where the hell are they getting that confidence?

It was easy to call it a single decisive battle, but this wasn’t just another life-and-death duel of the kind that happened all the time between martial artists.

It would be an enormous battle with the fate of the Great Nation at stake—and, without a doubt, a bloodbath that would paint the Imperial Capital red.

If we lose this battle, the restoration army will be wiped out in an instant, and Dark Heaven and the Emperor will take complete control of the Great Nation. But is that really all?

Namho had said it was the fastest shortcut for the enemy.

But a shortcut wasn’t always the best choice. There was a reason people took the established road.

A main road was wide and straight. Even if it took a little longer, you could reach your destination easily and comfortably.

A shortcut, though, was narrow and complicated. The ground was uneven and unpaved, and sometimes you had to pass through shadowy alleys where danger—and foul smells—lurked.

And yet the enemy chose the shortcut. They even used me as bait to do it.

Even if it was all part of a larger plan, those choices seemed almost reckless.

They hadn’t stopped me, even though I’d repeatedly gotten in Dark Heaven’s way. They’d deliberately made a battle they absolutely had to win that much harder.

And I wasn’t the only one thinking about it.

“Why?”

Jeok Cheongang rose and paced, muttering as if to himself.

“Even if they don’t know this old man is in the imperial palace, they should have considered the possibility if they know what happened in Nanman.”

Dark Heaven’s intelligence network was vast. There was no way So Gyo or the Emperor hadn’t heard what even Ma Sanbao knew.

They must have received the same information: Fire King Jeok Cheongang had intervened in the process of defeating the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, and had left Nanman with me.

And still, they’d let me go.

As if they hadn’t even considered the existence of a predator called the Fire King. As if that predator joining the battle wouldn’t make the slightest difference to the outcome.

This… really is strange.

No, more than strange. Suspicious.

I could understand why they might discount me. I was already in rough shape, and they might have been acting on some kind of instruction from the Lord of Heaven.

But Jeok Cheongang?

He’d already stood at the top of the Ten Kings during the Great Faction War. They said that if he’d joined the war a little earlier, he could have stood shoulder to shoulder with the Three Saints. He was a monster among monsters.

Without the Blood Lord’s impossible ability to recover, he would’ve died instantly several times over. And during the Sichuan Blood Tragedy, he fought the Western Heaven Demon Lord with a body that had only just recovered from being poisoned.

Of course, the Southern Heaven Demon Empress, the most recent opponent he’d faced, was an exception.

The magical power flowing from the rift had turned her halfway into a monster. And after burning her innate qi, she’d displayed martial prowess beyond human limits.

But they weren’t even taking Jeok Cheongang into account?

Bullshit.

I stared into the air, my gaze sinking as I thought.

The more I considered it, the more things didn’t add up.

There was definitely something going on. Something I didn’t know yet. An undisclosed secret.

And I knew one person who might answer at least some of my questions.

“Ma Sanbao.”

At the name that slipped from my lips, Namho nodded as if he’d caught on.

“You’re going to see him?”

“Yes. I think he’d know more about what’s going on.”

“Right. The East Depot’s Brush-Holding Eunuch is famous for his resourcefulness. I suppose that’s why he’s been in charge of the East Depot for the past decade or so, acting as its de facto head.”

Mentioning Ma Sanbao brought something else to mind.

I brought up a question I’d set aside for later.

“Has the Hidden Shadow Pavilion ever gathered information on the East Depot? Or on anything else concerning the imperial household?”

“I spent all my time holed up in Nanman, so I don’t know the details. But I’ve heard they did quite a bit of that in the past.”

“How far back?”

“Quite a while ago. Around the time of the Great Faction War… That was nearly fifty years ago now. Time really flies.”

Fifty years.

Half a century.

As the years went by, the land and its people grew old.

Namho, one of the countless people carried along by those years, patted his lower back and continued.

“When the Demonic Cult swept down into the Central Plains, the Murim Alliance was formed. The Hidden Shadow Pavilion was established in the process. Where do you think we reached out first?”

“You mean…”

Namho grinned as he watched me hesitate.

“That’s right. The place you’re thinking of. The imperial household.”

“…”

“Put simply, the Hundred Thousand Demonic Disciples amounted to an army of a hundred thousand invading from a foreign land. What’s more, unlike the Central Plains, they had a single, unquestioned leader.”

“They did. The Heavenly Demon, that son of a bitch.”

Jeok Cheongang cut in, and Namho nodded.

“The problem was, that son of a bitch was effectively their king—or rather, practically a god.”

That was why the Great Faction War had been so fierce, and why it had ended so quickly.

Unlike the orthodox faction, whose martial world was made up of people loyal to their own schools and leaders, those who followed the Demonic Path obeyed only one person: their Cult Leader, the Heavenly Demon.

It wasn’t for nothing that people still said the world would have belonged to the Demonic Path if the orthodox faction hadn’t had a new center of command in the Martial God, and if its symbolic masters—including the Three Saints and the Ten Kings—hadn’t fought so fiercely.

And to drive out the Heavenly Demon and his hundred thousand disciples, the Murim Alliance must have needed a powerful ally.

“So the Alliance reached out to the imperial household? To drive out the Heavenly Demon together?”

“That’s right. If the Great Nation had helped us, everything would’ve been much easier.”

Namho added bitterly, “Of course, the imperial household tested the waters for a while, then spat the idea out.”

By this point, I was so curious that I couldn’t help asking more.

It was a little removed from what I’d originally wanted to discuss, but I wanted to know why the imperial household hadn’t intervened in the enormous battles that had erupted across the land during the Great Faction War.

“Why did they refuse? If a hundred thousand members of the Demonic Cult had invaded the Central Plains, surely the imperial household could’ve stepped in.”

“I heard the late Emperor, who was the Son of Heaven at the time, opposed it personally.”

“The late Emperor?”

“That’s right. Several high ministers submitted memorials, but the young Emperor, who had only just ascended the throne, firmly shut his ears. The Great Nation had been founded less than twenty years earlier, so he said he needed to take care of the people.”

At Namho’s words, Jeok Cheongang snorted.

“Convincing-sounding bullshit, of course.”

“Senior is right. They didn’t want to risk the people’s displeasure by mobilizing troops again, and they couldn’t bear the cost of the damage. They trusted the orthodox Murim to act as a shield, then sat back to enjoy the show.”

“It was foolish and indecisive. If the Demonic Cult had won the Great Faction War, the imperial household would’ve been next.”

“The Hidden Shadow Pavilion came to the same conclusion. The Heavenly Demon was strong and ambitious. In the end, he would have brought down the Great Nation and established a theocracy. But as always, history is determined by its outcome, isn’t it?”

Namho nodded and turned to me.

“After that, things went as everyone knows. The Heavenly Demon didn’t want the imperial household involved either, so his forces advanced deep into the Central Plains while avoiding harm to ordinary people as much as possible. After more than a decade of fierce battles, the orthodox faction won by a miracle.”

“That’s it?”

“What else would there be? Oh, if I had to add anything, there are a few things people don’t know. The indecisive young Son of Heaven, who’d only been afraid of war, became a sage king who’d protected the people through yet another conflict. And he ordered the East Depot and the Embroidered Uniform Guard to keep an even closer watch on martial artists.”

“…”

“That’s all. The imperial household had nearly been burned by an incident in the martial world, so in a way, it was only natural. After that, the Hidden Shadow Pavilion couldn’t send agents into the imperial capital anymore. If the imperial household spotted and exposed them, we’d have to fight the Great Nation instead of the Demonic Cult.”

After hearing about a past unknown to the world, I—and the other members of the Fire Dragon Pavilion—fell silent for a moment.

Even Taishan, who’d been quietly slaughtering the five-spice pork, was blinking. There was no denying it was a shocking story.

“Why are you only telling us this now?”

“Because it’s in the past. We’re busy enough dealing with the present without digging up ancient history.”

Namho shrugged, then suddenly furrowed his brow.

“Wait, how did we end up talking about this? What was it you asked me at first?”

“I asked whether the Hidden Shadow Pavilion had ever gathered information on the East Depot. It didn’t have to be the East Depot specifically—anything about the imperial household.”

“Oh, right. Why did you ask?”

“Because I learned something a little unsettling a few shichen² ago.”

“Something unsettling? Is it connected to the East Depot?”

“Yes. More specifically, to Ma Sanbao. Eunuch Ma.”

“If your ass feels dirty, you wipe it—even if you have to use your bare hand. Now tell me.”

Jeok Cheongang delivered this filthy advice with needless solemnity, his eyes gleaming. With everyone looking at me, I slowly began to speak.

“Is there anyone Ma Sanbao might personally bring in from the martial world?”

“People from the martial world? Which sect?”

“I don’t know what sect they belong to. And they’re not exactly ordinary martial artists, either.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“They’re assassins.”

“…”

At that moment, the gazes fixed on me swung in two directions.

Some toward Sama Pyo.

The rest toward the Divine Physician.

After a brief silence, the two of them spoke in turn, one young and one old.

“Wh-Why are you looking at me like that? I’m one of the good practitioners of demonic, heterodox arts.”

“I left that line of work a long time ago. N-No, I mean my Master…”

Was this what people meant when they said a guilty conscience needs no accuser?