The room was dim.
Its walls thick with moisture and silence.
Smoke curled from a single incense stick in the corner,
casting thin shadows over the stone floor.
Doyeong sat hunched forward, sleeves rolled past his elbows, pouring himself another cup of bitter liquor.
The assistant stood a few steps away, arms stiff at his side, sweat dotting his brow.
"Are you really going to go through with it…?"
the assistant asked quietly.
His voice trembled a little.
Doyeong didn't answer right away.
He brought the cup to his lips, drank, then exhaled through his nose.
"You saw it..."
he muttered.
"He killed Jaemu.
Just like that.
No hesitation. No consequence."
"But he's the Blood Sun Blossoming Blade..."
the assistant pressed, his tone low but urgent.
"He doesn't need to answer to anyone because the Heavenly Demon lets him act freely.
Do you know what that means, Doyeong?
The Cheonma trusts him to judge and execute at will.
Even the other Supreme Demons… they keep their distance."
Doyeong slammed the cup down on the table.
The impact echoed.
"You think I don't know that?"
he hissed.
"You think I don't know what kind of monster he is?"
His voice cracked a little... not from fear, but frustration.
Rage.
"He walks around like a ghost dressed in black, carrying that blade like it's divine law.
He says the sect is rotting from the inside, and he wants to clean it like a righteous dog!"
The assistant opened his mouth to object, but Doyeong didn't let him.
"He killed Jaemu… and I know he'll come for me next.
I saw it in his eyes."
Doyeong pointed toward the door, hand trembling.
"He's just waiting for the right moment.
That's what he does."
"You're still alive..."
the assistant said weakly.
"Because he wants me to fall into my own trap.
That's how he plays.
He's trying to make me stumble."
Silence settled for a moment, the air tense.
The assistant shifted closer, lowering his voice.
"Even if that's true… trying to turn the Poison Queen Supreme Demon against him…
...that's suicide, Doyeong.
That's a lot you're risking, not just with the Chief Overseer of the Black Sun Pavilion, but the Poison Queen herself too.
Do you really think she'll choose you, one of her disciples, over the Blood Sun Blossoming Blade if it means the Heavenly Demon steps in?"
Doyeong stared at the flickering flame of the incense.
"He won't,"
he said finally.
"He won't interfere.
Because he lets Nam Gyeol act freely... yes.
But that also means he lets him suffer the consequences of his choices.
If I can push him into a direct confrontation with the Poison Queen…
...if I can make it look like he insulted her.
Disrespected her title, her authority... then even he will have no protection."
The assistant blinked.
"You're going to manipulate both of them into a fight?"
Doyeong smiled, thin and cruel.
"I don't need to win the fight.
I just need chaos.
When two monsters are clawing each other's throats out… no one notices the rats slipping beneath their feet.
So even if that shitty Nam Gyeol dies during all that...
I can only consider it a blessing from the heavens."
He stood up and walked to a small iron box hidden beneath a loose tile.
He pulled it open.
Inside, neatly lined and pulsing faintly, were a dozen pills.
Jet black.
But each one shimmered faintly red at the center, like burning coal buried in ash.
The assistant's breath caught.
"That's…"
Doyeong looked back at him.
"YES!
Synthesized from the Poison Queen's original formula.
If I can't kill him in a duel… I'll kill everything around him.
Until he's isolated.
Until even she wonders if he's been touched by corruption."
The assistant took a shaky step back.
"You're insane..."
"I'm alive."
Doyeong said coldly, shutting the box.
He turned, staring at the wall where the faint moonlight seeped in through a sliver in the stone.
"And I won't let some black-robed phantom bury me with silence and protocol."
The air in the room dropped a few degrees.
Somewhere beyond the Pavilion, a gong echoed faintly.
And Doyeong smiled.
---
[Black Sun Pavilion (흑일각 / Heug-il-gak / 黑日閣)]
Above, white-yellow petals swayed and drifted through the stillness.
Their color soft, like pale sunlight filtered through mist.
They floated gently from the tree behind me.
A towering figure in the secluded garden of the Black Sun Pavilion.
It wasn't a cherry blossom, nor anything I'd ever seen in Seoul's botanical parks, or even in the countless art references I'd studied back at SilverLine.
But in this world, it existed.
A Hwanghwa Tree.
The "Sun Bloom," named for its petals that never wilted, even after falling.
I sat beneath it with my legs folded and eyes closed.
The flow of Qi circled slow and calm.
Not like blood through veins, but like smoke rising through still air.
Purifying. Releasing. Rebuilding.
The first time I tried this, about two days ago, I nearly threw up.
Caffeine.
Instant ramen.
Cold noodles eaten straight from plastic.
Six years of corporate misery, long nights crouched under desk lights, deadlines that didn't care if your body had collapsed the week prior.
The soul remembers.
Even when the body is replaced.
This body, Nam Gyeol's, is flawless.
Refined.
I can't even find a scar on his fingers.
It had already achieved a state most martial artists would die for.
But my soul… my soul was still Seo Joon.
Rotten from all that junk and stress and emptiness.
I exhaled slowly, feeling the cold Qi spiral up through my spine, pressing against my temples.
I had to keep purifying.
Not just to adjust… but to remember.
Because something was wrong.
The memories I'd gathered so far told me that this Nam Gyeol, the one in this current timeline, was known as the Blood Sun Blossoming Blade, Chief Overseer of the Black Sun Pavilion. A man of reason and judgment, cold but precise.
Trusted by the Heavenly Demon, feared by the sects.
And I knew all that still because I was the one who made him.
But… two nights ago, while meditating like this, I'd seen something.
And I wasn't sure if it was a memory, a vision, or a leftover fragment of some previous version of Nam Gyeol.
I was the one who gave him routes...but if I remember correctly there were three total routes I made for Gyeol.
And the particular one I'd seen wasn't any of them.
And now, again, my mind burned as the image flashed.
Nam Gyeol… but not this version.
His long hair, unbound and tangled, whipped by the wind.
His black robes were torn and soaked in blood.
Across his right arm, a dragon embroidered in faded grey thread, its tail coiled around his shoulder.
His face was streaked with red.
Spattered at the chin and caked in the corner of his eye.
He stood amidst corpses, too many to count, littered across a stone floor cracked with heat.
His eyes… not white.
But dark.
Black-grey, with pupils that glowed faint purple.
The purple energy he let out seemed otherworldly.
He held the Yureum blade.
Entirely black, pulsing as if it breathed.
He stared down at someone collapsed before him.
Long, silken hair falling over their face.
One arm was missing.
The other pressed into a bloodied stomach.
And still, they smiled.
Blood painting their teeth, dripping from the corners.
Nam Gyeol towered over them, expression unreadable.
The Yureum Blade pointed down.
"…"
I gasped, and the vision shattered.
Pain drilled through my head.
I reached up to press my temple and clenched my jaw until the throbbing passed.
I opened my eyes slowly, watching as more petals dropped quietly around me.
The Cheonhwa Tree stood unmoved.
I let out a shaky breath and stood.
The cold had seeped into the back of my legs, and I had to stretch them out before finding balance.
Reaching for my robes, I slipped into the black overcoat that bore the insignia of the Black Sun Pavilion (흑일각 / Heug-il-gak / 黑日閣).
My jian sword was still sheathed, leaning beside the tree.
I picked it up with both hands.
Black scabbard with soft white-yellow inlays and thin golden tassels.
A blade I'd designed personally.
The memory still clung to the edge of my mind like smoke that wouldn't clear.
"…Did Nam Gyeol kill the Cheonma in his last cycle?"