Chapter 925

Flames surged upward.

They burned with a fierce, terrible heat—and yet, somehow, they felt strangely warm.

Fwoosh.

The blue-white flames that had pierced his body along with the spearhead burned everything, melted everything, and, at the same time, embraced it all.

A man’s unhappy life.

A monster who had realized his mistake only at the very end.

Goodbye, Wei Zhong.

I murmured the name I’d seen on the pledge the day before.

And at that moment, the chains of immortality shattered—the imperfect blessing and curse that had bound him.

Ding. Ding. Ding.

As I listened to the clear chimes announcing the arrival of eternal rest, I drew back the Scorching Yang Qi I’d been pouring through White Flame’s spearhead.

Less than a handful of ash remained on the blackened ground.

Whoosh.

Was it a chance gust of wind, or a kindness from someone above who had watched it all?

I watched the ash drift far, far away.

Then a man’s voice broke the brief silence.

“He was a traitor who tried to bring down the imperial family for his own ends, and a criminal who colluded with foreign enemies to plunge the Great Nation into ruin.”

Without taking my eyes off the ash, I asked, “Do you think that was too peaceful an end for a man like that?”

“I do.”

“I think so, too.”

No matter how much he’d reflected and repented, the crimes he’d committed would not disappear. Everything he had done as the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord, not Wei Zhong, was a burden he would have to carry even in Hell.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Why didn’t you stop me, Your Majesty?”

The Emperor answered.

“Because I didn’t want to.”

A short answer, but it said everything. I let out a dry laugh.

“I see.”

“Now it’s your turn to answer.”

“I…”

I paused and bit my lip.

“…Some people came to mind, that’s all.”

“People like Wei Zhong, then. Sinners who committed wrongs they could never wash away.”

“Yes. And like him, they regretted the choices they’d made.”

The Head Elder of the Jin Family of Taiyuan had been one of them. So had Baeksang of the Nanman Beast Palace.

They’d followed the guiding light of Dark Heaven down the wrong path and could never retrace their steps.

Sometimes they looked back and regretted the road they’d taken. But they’d gone too far to turn around.

Even as I poured my anger out on them, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them.

They could have made a better choice.

If they had, innocent people wouldn’t have had to die.

But it was always too late.

That wasn’t self-reproach or regret. What was done was done.

I could condemn the consequences of their choices. But I couldn’t presume to condemn the choices themselves.

Revenge is easy. Forgiveness is hard.

That’s what people are like.

“I will erect memorials.”

The Emperor spoke again into the silence.

“One for those who fell here today. Another for the people sacrificed in the vicious struggles among the heroes of the realm. And the last…”

He paused, turning his gaze west, toward the place where the wind had gone.

“The Maoshan Sect. Yes, the Maoshan Sect would be fitting.”

Gasp.

The officials around us sucked in their breath.

Erecting a memorial at the Maoshan Sect would tarnish the reputation of Taizu, the founder of the Great Nation, and the imperial family itself.

But before any of them could speak up, an even greater shock swept over them.

No—it struck them.

“And all of this shall be done in the name of the Crown Prince, not Mine.”

“……!”

“……!”

The air seemed to tremble. Everyone’s eyes flew wide.

The Crown Prince.

The new ruler who would one day inherit this vast continent.

I’d completely forgotten why this gathering had been arranged. What awaited us at the end of this blood-soaked banquet.

The seat of Crown Prince had stood vacant for more than a decade. Now, at this very moment, it was about to welcome its new occupant.

“Prince Shangshan Zhu Bao, receive the imperial command!”

The Emperor no longer looked exhausted.

His voice, filled with the majesty only the sovereign of a nation could possess, pierced the air. Riding the wind, it enveloped the entire grand banquet hall.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Beginning with Baek Yeon, Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, thousands of guards drew their swords and pointed them at the sky.

Their golden armor flashed, as did their blood-soaked blades.

That brilliant tide of steel shone for one boy alone.

For the young prince who had chosen forgiveness over revenge even before his enemy. For the boy who dreamed of an age of peace no ruler in the past thousand years had achieved.

“Ah. Ah…”

The Emperor calmly addressed his younger brother, who stood at a loss before this sudden turn of events.

“Do you intend to defy the imperial command?”

“Y-Your Majesty.”

“Come closer.”

“But, but Your Majesty already…”

No one failed to understand what Prince Shangshan Zhu Bao meant to say, or where he was looking.

A woman stood surrounded by palace attendants, clutching her swollen belly.

I knew her name. She had gone from the favored concubine of the City Lord of Sichuan Province to a consort of the Emperor.

Aehyang.

She watched us through clenched teeth, anger plain in her eyes.

But the Emperor’s expression held not a trace of emotion as he looked at her.

It was as though she were a tool he had kept at his side because he needed it.

Wait. Could it be?

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the Emperor spoke.

“That child, when it comes into this world, will bear the blood of the late City Lord of Sichuan Province.”

“……!”

“Therefore, neither that woman nor the child in her womb has anything to do with Me. No one is to raise questions about this.”

The court officials looked stunned by his declaration. But a few of us, myself included, were certain of one thing.

The Emperor hadn’t spoken a single lie.

I suspected it, but it’s actually true.

The Emperor had an Empress and consorts, yet had produced no heir in more than ten years.

Looking back, though, it wasn’t that he couldn’t have an heir. He had chosen not to.

For the sake of his one and only younger brother, Prince Shangshan Zhu Bao.

He must have wanted to protect him from every threat. The throne—and his younger brother.

The sole direct heir of the orthodox imperial lineage.

And, at the same time, a perfect puppet for Dark Heaven—a figure who gave them every justification they needed to overthrow the Emperor.

On the surface, it had seemed that the Emperor couldn’t bear to kill his little brother and had sent him into exile instead. But Prince Shangshan Zhu Bao had survived this long because of the Emperor’s plan.

“Do you still not understand?”

He had given up having an heir for his brother’s sake. For that same brother, he had had to become a coldhearted older brother. He went on slowly.

“I kept that seat empty for you from the beginning. Only you could take it.”

Though he had ascended the most exalted throne under Heaven, he had been branded a traitor and an unfilial son.

Though he tended to affairs of state day and night, that brand had made people call him a tyrant.

“I wanted you to survive. I didn’t want you to become My one weakness.”

Perhaps, when the child who had not yet been weaned was sent away from the imperial palace, the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord hadn’t been the only one watching him go from afar.

“I had to send you away to protect you. And to root out the traitors I couldn’t eradicate before, I had to bring you back into this deadly place.”

More than a decade was no short stretch of time.

It had been long enough for the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord to shore up his weakened foundations. Long enough for the Emperor to prepare the decisive battle that would end everything.

And the Emperor had secretly brought his only younger brother back with the help of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, then protected him by keeping him confined.

He had even made an invincible master known as the Bow Saint serve as a mere bodyguard.

“Bao’er.”¹

The voice that passed between the Emperor’s dry lips was astonishingly warm.

Warm enough to make even Baek Yeon, who had stood beside him longer than anyone as comrade and subject, widen his eyes.

Warm enough to make the body and heart of a boy who had longed for his family for so long suddenly go rigid.

“It’s time.”

“……!”

At those quiet words, the boy’s clear, river-bright eyes trembled.

But there was no hesitation in them. Only resolve, and the will of someone moving toward his dream.

“I, Prince Shangshan Zhu Bao…”

Swish.

The long hem of his robe brushed a pool of blood. Yet even on a battlefield stained red in every direction, the young prince’s light had not dimmed in the slightest.

“…humbly accept the command of His Majesty the Emperor.”

A smile unlike any anyone had ever seen spread across the Emperor’s wrinkled lips.

“Granted.”

“Waaaaah!”

Amid the earth-shaking roar, the two who had finally found each other after such a long, wandering road embraced.

Not as ruler and subject, but as brothers.

When the Emperor and the Great Nation’s new Crown Prince embraced, those watching trembled, unable to contain the emotion rising within them.

“Ah…”

How desperately they had wished, for more than a decade, that it had all been a lie.

That the natural order, twisted and blackened like a monster, would one day be set right.

And yet.

And yet, it had.

What they had yearned for in silence was unfolding before their eyes.

They had witnessed the end of one era and the beginning of another. Emotions they could not name surged through them, then spilled out in a tremendous roar.

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor!”

“May His Highness the Crown Prince live a thousand years!”

“Please, please put this servant to death!”

Cheers and cries rang out on every side.

Some who had known the truth laughed and wept like children. Others, deceived by lies into condemning the Emperor, staggered with guilt and regret.

But some belonged to neither group.

“Long live! Long live! Long, long live!”

Dry lips called endlessly for the Emperor’s long life. Tears drenched wrinkled cheeks.

Yet the shrewd gray eyes taking in the scene remained dark and still.

I never thought things would go this wrong.

The old man swallowed the words he must never let escape his lips and considered the chance that remained to him.

But it isn’t over yet.

He had known the truth from the beginning and joined hands with the Eastern Heaven Demon Lord solely for wealth and glory. He had no intention of being exposed as a traitor and seeing his entire clan slaughtered.

The pledge. I only need to get rid of the few people who know about the pledge and who I really am.

The saying “Succeed and you’re a king; fail and you’re a traitor” was wrong.

Even if you actually plotted treason, it wasn’t a crime as long as you weren’t caught.

The old man had once tutored the former Crown Prince. Revered by Confucian scholars throughout the realm, he had risen to the rank of Grand Academician. And in matters like this, he was meticulous.

I’ll survive. Just as I always have.

Repeating that resolve to himself, the old man cried out “Long live!” amid the confusion of the crowd, inching backward.

He needed to reach the subordinates waiting outside the imperial palace as quickly as possible.

If he eliminated the handful of key figures who knew his identity and took possession of the pledge, he could keep his current position. And even if things became difficult, he could take his family’s wealth and flee.

Or so he believed.

Until someone’s voice, strangely clear amid the deafening roar, pierced his ears.

“Where are you off to in such a hurry? A time like this calls for sharing the joy.”

“……!”

The old man went rigid.

He slowly turned his head and saw a young man approaching at an unhurried pace.

“Jin… Taekyung.”

“Come on. Just ‘Jin Taekyung’? That’s cold.”

Jin Taekyung gave him a small smile and added, “You should call me Comrade Jin Taekyung.”

“What, what are you…”

“You didn’t know? I signed the pledge, too.”

“……!”

“Oh. Have I got the wrong person?”

Jin Taekyung tilted his head. At that moment, a cold voice sounded behind the old man.

“It’s been a while, Grand Academician.”

Thwack!

A blow struck the back of his neck. As his vision went black, one name came to mind.

Hong Jin.

It was over. All of it.