Baekhon City never truly slept.
The heart of the Murim Alliance was built to be eternal—layers of jade walls, floating formations, and shadow-forged sentries that patrolled both seen and unseen corridors. Its surface buzzed with activity—tournament prep, scroll deliveries, delegation arrivals.
But beneath all that movement… was paranoia.
Something was wrong.
And Kwon Seung, the Alliance Leader, felt it in every breath.
It wasn't the gods.
It wasn't the cursed cultivators either.
It was the lack of resistance.
No factions were openly rebelling. No sects were defecting. Even the Demonic Sect's messengers had been eerily cooperative.
And that's what unsettled him.
"The world doesn't work like this," he murmured.
"Not unless someone is smoothing out the wrinkles."
In the War Council chamber, the Five Kings sat around a stone table shaped like the fractured seal of the Lower Realm. Candles burned low. The floor was layered with spiritual wards—none of which Kwon himself had designed.
And that made him trust them less.
King Shin Gwan was the first to speak.
"You suspect someone inside, don't you?"
Kwon gave no answer.
King Mirae sipped her tea, unbothered.
"The peace is too clean," she said. "It tastes manufactured."
King Woon chuckled softly.
"Or maybe the calm before the bones hit the floor."
"The question," King Dojin said, "is not if someone is planning something. It is who."
That was when the old man entered.
Dressed like a beggar, face wrapped in moth-eaten cloth, he said nothing. Just dropped a scroll onto the table, bowed, and vanished through the shadows without making a sound.
Kwon unrolled the scroll slowly.
His expression didn't change, but the air shifted.
King Jin Taehwa, the Silent Blade, leaned closer and narrowed his eyes.
The scroll read:
"The blade is not in the crowd.
The blade is in the room."
No names. No sect. Just a warning.
Someone within the Alliance ranks had already been compromised.
Kwon stood, silent for a long moment.
"Lock down all outer and inner city gates. No one enters without spiritual signature tracing."
"That'll panic the public," King Shin noted.
"Let them panic," Kwon replied. "Panic reveals snakes faster than comfort."
Later that night, deep beneath Baekhon, a small hidden chamber lit with blue spiritual fire came alive.
Three figures stood cloaked in robes that shimmered like oil on water.
Their voices were masked.
"Phase One is complete," one whispered.
"The Tournament buys us cover. The strongest will gather—easier to study. Easier to trap."
"And the Leader?"
The third one's voice cut like broken steel.
"He will fall before the final match."
They placed a shard of a broken divine relic on a stone altar.
It glowed once, then cracked.
As if something had seen them and instantly rejected their presence.
In a nearby tower, King Mirae stood alone, eyes closed, whispering.
Not to a person.
To her mirror.
And the reflection whispered back.
"Three traitors. One disguised as a loyal. One watching the throne. One… doesn't know they're compromised yet."
And outside the city walls, far beyond Baekhon's glowing gates…
A child with black eyes and no shadow whispered a phrase to the wind.
"Wake up, Sleeping God. It's time to sever the thread."