"Uwaaaaagh!"
Pa Reuk, the vice-captain of the Black Wolf Unit, screamed like his soul had been ripped out, shuddering violently as he ran.
He had been standing far at the very rear of the grand training ground, keeping to himself, since he had intended only to observe. The moment he saw the Formless Deadly Poison released, he immediately bolted.
There was no need to watch further—any fool could see how things would end. More importantly, he had to report this to the unit master at once.
Already on edge after hearing that Cheon Ryu yeong had appeared, the Black Wolf Unit stiffened when they heard the Tang Clan's battle cries rising from the training ground.
Then, when they saw Pa Reuk stumbling toward them at the inner fortress gate, their breath caught in their throats, their bodies trembling.
A suffocating anxiety wrapped around the Black Wolf warriors. They swallowed hard, over and over, without realizing it.
At the outer fortress gate, Cho Ji-myeong saw Pa Reuk running and shouted loudly:
"Pa Reuk! What's happened?"
"S-something terrible!"
Cho Ji-myeong's eyes twitched faintly, his Adam's apple bobbing.
After a short silence, Mongchu asked with a trembling voice:
"Pa Reuk! The master is asking what happened!"
Pa Reuk staggered closer, his face ashen, and cried out:
"We were deceived! The… the Formless Deadly Poison really exists!"
"What? What kind of damn—"
Mongchu's shocked protest was cut off by Pa Reuk.
"Cheon Ryu yeong saw through our scheme from the start. He spirited the poison away in advance and lured us into his trap! We walked straight into it!"
"...!"
All of Black Wolf Unit's eyes widened, their bodies freezing cold despite the mild spring dawn breeze.
The name they had long feared—Cheon Ryu yeong—now seared into their minds as terror itself.
Mongchu shook his head violently, as if trying to throw off fear.
"That's impossible!"
Pa Reuk finally stumbled to a halt, panting heavily—not because he lacked stamina, but because panic had tangled his breath. His face was pale, his legs trembling.
"Hah, hah… I saw it myself, with my own eyes. That impossible thing—happening right in front of me."
He spoke breathlessly, stroking his own forearm, where goosebumps still stood.
Mongchu kept shaking his head.
"That he saw through Lord Cheonrang's plan? N-no… it wasn't simple. It was painstakingly built upon the Tang Clan's secret history—one hundred and fifty years of deception, piece by piece…"
Pa Reuk struck his own chest with a fist, shouting in frustration.
"Cheon Ryu yeong knew! You all know how terrifying that man is! He colluded with Dok-su to lure us in, deceiving even the Tang warriors themselves—perfectly!"
Cho Ji-myeong raised his hand, halting Pa Reuk's rant, and fixed him with a steady gaze.
"Calm yourself, Pa Reuk. Steady your breath. You are vice-captain of the Black Wolf Unit."
At the subdued authority in the unit master's voice, Pa Reuk realized how worked up he was.
"Yes, master."
Cho Ji-myeong lightly tapped his shoulder.
"It's hard to believe. No matter how impressive Cheon Ryu yeong is, to such an extent…"
As his voice trailed off, Pa Reuk answered in a calmer tone:
"This isn't about belief. It's reality. We must prepare to retreat."
Though calmer, the urgency in his words was plain. Cho Ji-myeong tapped his shoulder again and asked:
"Are you saying Dok-su himself exposed the Tang Clan's darkest secrets just to ally with Cheon Ryu yeong? That he revealed truths hidden for a hundred and fifty years?"
"No. It was Cheon Ryu yeong who uncovered them, and then made the proposal to Dok-su."
Cho Ji-myeong narrowed his eyes.
"That makes even less sense. Those secrets are the clan's reverse scale—its fatal weakness. Even if Cheon Ryu yeong made such a proposal, the Tang Clan would almost certainly deny it. They'd sooner make him their enemy."
Pa Reuk argued back, face twisted with distress.
"I admit it's puzzling, but they accepted! I saw the results with my own eyes! Do you doubt me?"
Cho Ji-myeong frowned deeply, pounding the ground with his Blue Dragon Halberd.
"No, it's not that I doubt you. I mean only that it seems unlikely. Something's off."
"Master! I saw it with my own eyes! Several of our men who attacked Cheon Ryu yeong all collapsed, bleeding from the mouth, poisoned!"
Cho Ji-myeong's lips twitched.
"Truly?"
"Yes! By now, the entire training ground must be a living hell. Ah! Look—our leaders are arriving!"
From the inner fortress gate, Nok ak cheon and the other leaders appeared, running with vacant expressions under the moonlight.
Pa Reuk sneered under his breath.
"Damn! The very ones at the front, throwing aside their subordinates to escape first."
He clicked his tongue, looking disgusted yet unsurprised, then turned back to Cho Ji-myeong.
"See? We must retreat quickly. Soon the Tang warriors will pursue us with the poison."
Mongchu sighed bitterly.
"Truly, fate is strange. Perhaps the Demon God still favors our Black Wolf Unit."
The Black Wolf warriors all nodded stiffly, shuddering. But Cho Ji-myeong still looked uneasy.
"Our foe is Cheon Ryu yeong. If it's him… it may all be deception."
Pa Reuk tugged at his hair in frustration.
"I told you, I saw it with my own eyes!"
"Which makes it stranger still. Would one as thorough as Cheon Ryu yeong really have let those leaders escape? If I were him, I'd have encircled the field completely, leaving no path out."
Cho Ji-myeong's doubts made Pa Reuk hesitate.
"Huh? That's true… Why didn't he encircle the rear? If he had secretly moved some men behind us and released the poison there…"
Pa Reuk trailed off, frowning deeply as his panic began to fade into grim thought. Mongchu interjected:
"Perhaps he avoided it because cornered men, with nothing to lose, might fight to the death—causing heavier casualties?"
Pa Reuk nodded quickly.
"Ah! That must be it, master."
Cho Ji-myeong still frowned.
"Even so… the better way would be to surround them, release the poison, then offer the antidote as ransom for surrender. No need to fight at all."
Pa Reuk's eyes widened.
"Ah! You're right. That would've worked too."
Back and forth, Pa Reuk nodded, shook his head, then gave a sheepish smile at his own flustered behavior. Suddenly, he exclaimed:
"Oh! They said the antidote is scarce—just as hard to make as the poison. That's why Cheon Ryu yeong offered surrender terms. Anyway, I saw it all myself!"
Cho Ji-myeong groaned, ruffling his hair.
He couldn't put his finger on it, but three decades of battlefield instinct whispered something didn't add up.
Just then, Nok ak cheon, the Blood Priest, and the rest of the leadership arrived with their guards. Behind them trickled the lucky few who had trampled comrades to escape.
Nok ak cheon, his face pale, shouted at Cho Ji-myeong:
"Black Wolf Master! We were deceived by Cheon Ryu yeong and Dok-su. The Heavenly Demon Sword's scheme was turned against us. That fool of a Heavenly Demon Sword has ruined everything!"
Their commander's furious outburst drew looks of disbelief from the Black Wolf warriors. In this situation, the highest-ranking leader was just trying to shift blame?
What stung even more was that he had abandoned his subordinates, only to offer such pathetic excuses afterward.
Some even wore openly disgusted expressions, but Nok ak cheon and the other leaders were too pressed to notice.
The Blood Priest spoke grimly.
"We must retreat. The Tang warriors will pursue us soon. The Black Wolf Unit will take the lead all the way to the Sichuan branch."
Cho Ji-myeong should have immediately acknowledged the order without hesitation. Instead, he bit his lip hard and shook his head.
"Most of our subordinates have not yet escaped."
At his words, the leaders' eyes twitched violently. Nok ak cheon and the Blood Priest glared at him sharply, while Ma Bul said in a weary tone:
"It's already too late. Most of them have been doused in the Formless Deadly Poison."
"But to abandon so many of our own, and only save ourselves…"
Ma Bul cut him off harshly.
"Listen here, Black Wolf Master! My heart is the one breaking! Countless disciples of my sect are dying there right now."
"Then doesn't that mean we should save at least one more, if we can?"
Ma Bul flinched, then raised his voice in anger.
"You're being foolish! It can't be helped! It's already too late! You call yourself a commander with years of battlefield experience, and you can't read the situation? Even if you weren't there yourself, you should have some sense!"
His fury exploded, born of guilt at having trampled his own disciples to escape—misdirected at the Black Wolf Master instead.
Cho Ji-myeong swallowed a sigh, bowed his head, and said:
"I apologize. I only wondered… could this all be Cheon Ryu yeong's deception?"
Nok ak cheon jabbed a finger at him and shouted:
"You saw nothing and heard nothing, yet you spout such nonsense? Are you saying all of us were fooled by Cheon Ryu yeong? Just what exactly are you claiming we were deceived about?"
Cho Ji-myeong tightened his grip on the Blue Dragon Halberd.
He knew he should simply obey orders from above. But that wasn't in his nature. That was why he had lingered on the battlefield for thirty years, and why he couldn't bring himself to speak empty words now—especially when the lives of countless elite subordinates were at stake.
Straightening his back, he lifted his head and declared boldly to the leaders:
"At the very least, you must have noticed that some of the Tang warriors escaped first, did you not?"
Nok ak cheon answered irritably:
"And what of it?"
"If this isn't a deception, then those who escaped weren't running for the clan's future. They would have moved as a detachment to block the rear. When the poison was released in the training ground, they should have struck here, where we stand."
Some of the leaders flinched. It wasn't proof, but his reasoning had weight.
The tragedy unfolding in the Tang Clan had a subtle gap in it—the gap created when the carrier pigeon Cheon Ryu yeong sent from the Sword Fragrance Manor was shot down by the Heavenly Demon Sword.
The Black Wolf Master's rational doubts stiffened the expressions of the demonic leaders.
But Cho Ji-myeong overlooked something. No—something most people commonly mistake.
They believe those in high places must take responsibility for accidents or failures.
But in truth, most never do.
Those with power do not shoulder blame when calamity strikes—they look for scapegoats. They will stop at nothing to block truths that could endanger their positions.
The world calls such people "those in power."
If Nok ak cheon and the others acknowledged Cho Ji-myeong's doubts, they would be admitting their own mistakes.
Nok ak cheon's eyes blazed as he roared:
"Those doubts are a mere distraction. The core fact is that they possess the Formless Deadly Poison!"
Cho Ji-myeong's chest tightened. He realized then that this conversation was meaningless. The leaders would never yield, and he hadn't witnessed the events himself.
Most of all, if the poison was real, his doubts meant nothing. At best, it would only seem that Cheon Ryu yeong had made a trivial mistake.
But Cho Ji-myeong could not believe that. Not from someone as chillingly thorough as Cheon Ryu yeong.
It wasn't just a thought—it was conviction.
He remembered the composure, audacity, and ghostly command Cheon Ryu yeong had shown when they clashed. It still made his hair stand on end.
He recalled the shock he felt when he learned the Tang Clan had been diverted to Sichuan branch all because the Heavenly Demon Sword had been misled into striking at nothing.
Back then, he revised his judgment: Cheon Ryu yeong wasn't merely destined to be a military genius someday. He already was one.
For such a man, wielding the dreaded Formless Deadly Poison, to simply let the leaders escape? Impossible.
A thought like a lightning bolt flashed through Cho Ji-myeong's mind.
The Formless Deadly Poison.
Pa Reuk had claimed he saw many of their men cough blood and die from it.
But how could that happen?
For such a thing, the poison would have to enter their eyes or mouths. Did every last one of them fail to shut their eyes and clamp their jaws? Surely at least one could have resisted?
The questions kept piling up, though none yielded a definitive answer. It could all be dismissed as bad luck.
Cho Ji-myeong bit his lip, then asked:
"Just one question: in the grand training ground, who held the initiative?"
Nok ak cheon frowned and shot back:
"What kind of question is that supposed to be?"
"Even if the Tang Clan had the poison, we held triple their numbers—an overwhelming force. Our number of masters was far greater as well."
"Enough riddles. Get to the point!"
"I mean this: had we fought to the death for even one or two minutes, mutual destruction was entirely possible."
The leaders fell silent, stunned.
Cho Ji-myeong pressed on:
"That was their greatest fear. That once battle began, even with the poison, they too would fall with us."
"...!"
Those who had fled the training ground let out bitter groans.
Cho Ji-myeong's words meant they had lost the battle of nerve. On the field, the Tang had staked their lives, while they had clung to theirs. For warriors, no shame cut deeper.
He looked each leader in the eye, one by one.
"But if the enemy holds the initiative, if they focus only on the poison, then we forget the fight itself and think only of survival. In that case, it's no longer mutual destruction—we are doomed to lose. That is the situation most favorable to them."
The leaders still said nothing.
Cho Ji-myeong repeated his first question, this time more sharply:
"The initiative… was it in the hands of Cheon Ryu yeong?"