Chapter – 19….
The masked figures who had escaped from the Namgung Clan landed near Lake Soho.
Yet despite summer having just passed, Soho was frozen solid.
Sensing something ominous, the masked men hurried toward the entrance of the Five Elements Hall.
When they lifted the curtain of the fortune-teller’s tent, the inside was drenched in water.
A masked man turned to the man in black.
“Th-this is…”
“……”
The source of the flooding was the passage beneath the stall.
Without hesitation, the man in black dove into the water-filled passageway. One masked man followed.
The wide passage was completely submerged.
Hidden weapons and debris from the mechanical formations they had planted floated past their vision.
After swimming for a while, they saw the inevitable—every mechanism and formation had been destroyed.
“……”
They swam deeper.
Soon, a massive cavern came into view.
Their Five Elements Hall—ten years of work—stood before them.
But its condition was no different from the passageway.
Water filled the hall up to the ceiling, which stood ten feet high.
The blood-essence that had been distilled through the cycle of the Five Elements was completely neutralized. The ink-crafted effigies of Namgung Cheon and the Dragon Lord were nowhere to be found.
The mechanical formations, built at tremendous cost, were all ruined.
The Five Elements Hall was beyond salvation, drowned by the waters of Soho.
The masked man bowed his head in despair.
『F-forgive me. I did not anticipate the elder-level warriors of the Namgung Clan to be this strong… It is my sin for failing to gauge those old monsters. Please punish me.』
『……』
The man in black did not answer. He only examined the water-soaked wall of the hall.
Everything was broken or collapsed.
Some parts of the wall had hardened in a boiled, blistered shape.
Here and there, the stone was stained green.
The man in black brushed his hand across the green-stained wall.
“……”
Heat strong enough to boil stone.
A jade-green discoloration.
Only one martial art produced such signs.
Heavenly Demon Extreme Yang Divine Art.
At the same moment, a young face came to mind.
It was not the work of the Namgung elders.
He had personally measured their level before.
“……”
Shaolin’s Hundred-Pace Divine Fist, the Ice-Fire Palm Art… and even the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
Judging by the traces, the frozen lake above was also clearly that boy’s doing.
Exactly as he had suspected.
『We’re withdrawing from Anhui.』
At the voice transmission, the masked man flinched.
『Y-you mean to leave the Namgung brats alone?』
『Once we leave this place, erase every trace of our presence in Anhui.』
『……』
Confusion filled the masked man’s eyes.
Their Five Elements Hall had collapsed, the blood-essence and human-ink puppets they had spent so long preparing had been lost.
All they gained was Jieya—one of the Seven Great Treasures.
A crucial piece of the grand plan, yes, but the loss far outweighed the gain.
Worse, burning the Namgung martial manuals had turned out meaningless; the people who memorized the techniques were alive and well.
He gathered his courage.
『Forgive the impertinence, but may I ask the reason for withdrawing?』
『A reckless misstep that could ruin the entire plan is close at hand. We will secure our position first.』
『……』
A reckless misstep.
He clearly meant that frail-looking boy.
The masked man found it strange.
The boy, despite appearances, was indeed a powerful expert. But nowhere near the level of their Lord.
As far as he knew, the Lord had not even used a third of his real power.
So why had he not killed the boy? Why withdraw even though the situation felt incomplete?
But orders from the Lord were absolute.
『…I obey.』
The man in black swam upward toward the hole in the ceiling.
The masked man quietly followed.
* * *
Namgung Cheon, head of the Namgung Clan.
Four days after he regained consciousness, the white-haired elder arrived at the main estate.
Thirty thousand square meters of ancestral land—five hundred years of history—had become ruins.
Only skeletal frameworks of charred buildings remained. Collapsed rubble lay everywhere.
Even Mount Cheonju’s hillside was scorched black all the way to its entrance.
Gazing at the scene of carnage, Namgung Cheon spoke softly.
“Jieya was stolen, I hear.”
Namgung Gu lowered his head.
“My deepest apologies. It is my inadequacy—”
Namgung Cheon’s white brows and beard fluttered faintly.
“No. The inadequate one is me.”
He meant it.
Half a year had passed since the Alliance had warned him of the shadowy force.
He managed to grab a trail, but underestimated the enemy’s martial prowess.
Blinded by his reputation as one of the Ten Emperors, he had fallen too easily for the oldest trick in the book—feigning weakness to lower vigilance.
Near Lake Soho, the man in black had revealed his true power.
Even with his own strength as a Ten Emperor and the Dragon Lord in his prime, their combined effort did not last thirty exchanges.
When he awoke, half a month had passed, and he was in a Namgung branch estate.
“……”
Because of that, everything burned and vanished.
All because of his complacency—and his foolish desire to be the first to uncover the mastermind.
“Where is he now?”
Yet heaven always leaves a path to survival.
After awakening, he heard an unbelievable story from Namgung Gu.
Despite everything being burned to ashes, not a single death had occurred in the Namgung Clan.
Not by luck—but because a miracle had taken place.
A miracle that had even found him when he was missing.
A miracle that restored him from a strange sorcery.
A miracle that single-handedly drove off the man in black—whom even he and the Dragon Lord could not withstand together.
A miracle that tended to him for three days and nights straight.
—Though the matter of pricking his hands and feet for three days was something he couldn’t quite comprehend.
A miracle that possessed the Azure Heaven Dragon Badge.
Ten Dragon Badges.
A miracle from that place.
Jangbaek Village…
The heavenly sanctuary passed down only to Namgung clan heads.
He had heard of it—no, visited it himself when he was a child.
“Is that child Bei’s son?”
“Yes, Great-grandfather.”
“Time flies. That tiny brat already has a grandson…”
He had been five? Six?
Now near seventy years old, the memory was fifty years old.
He recalled something his grandfather had said back then.
He had originally planned to leave him in that village.
For some unknown reason, they returned.
Their entire journey back was full of complaints—until the memory faded.
But when he heard the village’s name from Namgung Gu, everything returned vividly.
A place where retired supreme martial artists lived in seclusion—Jangbaek Village.
And a transcendent martial artist from that village had appeared at the Namgung Clan’s moment of crisis.
He didn’t know what arrangements or reasons lay behind it—but it had been a miracle.
A miracle that not only saved them but now helped rebuild the Namgung estate.
He wanted to meet him as soon as possible.
“Where is he—”
Just then, a tiny speck appeared in the sky.
It grew larger until it descended—carrying logs ten times the boy’s own height strapped to his back.
“Oh. Grandpa Headmaster woke up.”
The boy dropped the pile of logs with a thud.
Namgung Cheon stared at him in disbelief.
“Y-you are the Ten Dragon Badge Holder?”
“Huh? Ah, yeah. That’s what people here keep calling me.”
A face even younger than he imagined.
Pale skin.
Slender limbs.
“……”
Namgung Cheon already knew he was a supreme expert who had reached the Reversal-Bone Realm—but it was hard to believe when looking at him.
Even a Reversal-Bone master cannot hide all traces of external cultivation.
Just then, the pretty boy pulled something from his clothes.
“Here’s a letter. Ugh, this errand was a pain.”
Namgung Cheon had no words.
* * *
A small annex ten li from the Namgung estate.
Namgung Cheon read the letter the Ten Dragon Badge Holder had brought.
There wasn’t much to read.
Only two short sentences.
“Give the boy Jieya.”
And beneath it, an unbelievable name.
“Namgung Seong.”
There was even a postscript.
“If you have a fine daughter, consider her as the boy’s bride.”
He chose to ignore that line.
He only had one daughter, Sahwa—and giving that troublemaker to their benefactor would be repaying grace with poison.
But the name at the bottom…
Namgung Seong.
“……”
Memories resurfaced.
The moment he had left Jangbaek Village fifty years ago.
“Cheon-ah.”
“Yes, Grandfather?”
“Do you remember the first person we met in the village?”
“The old man in the light-blue robe?”
“Yes. That is Namgung Seong, the Sword God. My grandfather.”
“What? Your grandfather is still alive?”
His grandfather had laughed.
“He’ll probably still be healthy when you reach my age. Unless he ascends and disappears before then.”
“Ascends?”
Grandfather knelt on one knee.
“Namgung Seong, the Divine Sword. The only Namgung in five hundred years to become the number-one under heaven. One day you will study the annals and hear of him again—never forget that name. And what happened today must remain secret. Understood?”
Namgung Cheon looked again at the letter.
Namgung Seong.
“……”
He was now older than his grandfather had been back then.
Yet the Divine Sword, Namgung Seong, was still alive.
Suddenly, something peeked over his shoulder.
The boy, Kang Yu, curious about the letter.
“Give the boy Jieya? Jieya? What’s that?”
Because of him, all the elders present heard the content of the letter.
They exchanged awkward looks.
“A few days ago, you fought that man—the one in black with the mask…”
“Oh, yeah. The super strong guy.”
“The sword in his hand—that was Jieya. One of our clan’s treasures… one of the Seven Great Martial Treasures—”
“The shiny white one?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. He ran away with that.”
“W-we are deeply ashamed…”
Kang Yu’s eyes spun around.
“So what? My errand target is gone? After all that work I did for days?”
“……”
The elders bowed their heads.
Who would have thought the Ten Dragon Badge Holder had come for Jieya?
His grace to the Namgung Clan was immeasurable.
It wasn’t that they regretted losing the sword—they were ashamed for failing to repay their benefactor.
Namgung Gu felt it even more, having seen the boy closely.
They would gladly give their lives for him.
A sword—treasure or not—felt insignificant.
Just then—
“I will give it to him.”
Everyone looked up.
Namgung Cheon had spoken.
Namgung Gu, startled, responded quickly.
“B-but Clan Head… as you saw, even the second vault was emptied. And I personally saw that criminal holding Jieya—”
Namgung Cheon stood.
“Jieya is a twin blade.”
“Meaning it’s a twin bla—wait, what?”
“‘Jieya Wuchang—When reaching the end, all things become fleeting.’ Do any of you know whose words those are?”
One elder answered cautiously.
“Not a deceased one… but the words left by the Divine Sword before he left the clan.”
“Correct.”
Namgung Cheon stepped outside.
Burnt manuals and weapons from the first vault lay in a heap.
“As you know, the Divine Sword left no descendants. His younger brother, Namgung Jang, succeeded as the 16th Clan Head.”
Namgung Cheon picked up a crude-looking sword, still in its worn scabbard.
“Jieya Wuchang. Namgung Jang missed his older brother for life. But he could not dare use the Divine Sword’s blade. So he asked a master craftsman to forge a sword modeled after his brother’s—using the second half of the phrase the Divine Sword left as his final farewell.”
The elders stared, speechless.
They had never heard this secret.
It must have been passed only to clan heads.
Namgung Cheon brushed the ash off the rough scabbard.
The sword was familiar—they had seen it in the first vault, mixed among other weapons.
A crude, unimpressive sword.
They had wondered why it was stored there.
Surely not Jieya—not the Namgung Clan’s greatest treasure.
Yet what Namgung Cheon did next left them speechless.
He respectfully presented the crude scabbard to the Ten Dragon Badge Holder.
“Hidden in plain sight. This is the genuine blade the Divine Sword left behind. We will never forget the grace you have shown the Namgung Clan.”
At the same moment—
CRACK—
In a distant place, the fake Jieya—the Wuchang blade—shattered at the waist on the man in black’s side.
“L-Lord…”
“……”
And at that same moment—
Kang Yu unwrapped the old leather scabbard.
Hardened dirt flaked away.
Beneath it revealed a pristine white blade—far beyond comparison to Wuchang.
So brilliant it hurt the eyes just to look at it.
A divine weapon said to be carved by the Heavenly God from a fallen star—one of the Seven Great Martial Treasures: Jieya.
Gazing at its radiance, Kang Yu’s eyes sparkled with joy.
“Wow. This’ll be great at night.”
“……”
