"Father!"
Seeing the scene, Sayeol's father, Namgung Hyeon-won, flinched while gripping his sword handle.
"Do not interfere!"
A mere sixteen-year-old girl was exchanging blows with none other than the Head of the Namgung Clan. Even if Hyeon-won, who was a step below the Family Head, intervened, it likely wouldn't change anything. But before that.
Grind.
A huge crack formed in the Family Head, Hwi-cheon's pride. A dirty illegitimate child his son brought in from outside. If she hadn't possessed the bloodline of the Ice Palace, which had now disappeared, he wouldn't have accepted her.
Although those wicked things were Unorthodox, there was no martial artist who wouldn't be interested in their martial arts. Uniquely, the Ice Palace used special martial arts that only women could inherit.
The deep cold and yin energy that could be accumulated through their martial arts. If the women of Namgung could use that....
Hwi-cheon, the Family Head, had harbored such thoughts since his son brought in Sayeol as an infant. Especially since Sayeol was born with deep yin energy and had white hair from a young age.
'If we join hands with Zhuge and dig into that, we might learn the secrets of the Ice Palace.'
She was literally just a rat, not a human, to be dissected someday. But to think a girl who had never been taught martial arts suddenly used the Ice Palace's martial arts.
"Taking in that bloodline was a misjudgment in itself!"
He swung his sword widely.
"I shall cut off your lowly breath right here!"
Swish, crash!
Large icicles shattered at a single swing. Watching that, Hyeon-won shouted towards the outside.
"What is everyone doing!"
Even though Hwi-cheon had already issued commands to the outside, no one appeared. The Namgung family was large, and the number of warriors guarding it was correspondingly high. So why was there no sign of anyone? Hyeon-won urgently dodged the icicles and stepped out the door.
"Gasp...!"
And he discovered the hallway, soaked as if a giant snake had crawled through covered in blood. Around it, the corpses of warriors who must have been guarding the vicinity were scattered, brutally butchered.
"H-How could this...."
He muttered with a trembling voice. Even if Sayeol had secretly gained power, he himself had confirmed just a few months ago that she was a powerless girl.
'But in those few months, she reached a level where she could silently eliminate experts?'
It didn't make sense.
At that moment, Sayeol's murmuring continued once more like a cold wind flowing slowly from inside the torn paper sliding door.
"You aren't answering."
Hyeon-won strangely felt his heart sink.
"Then there is no need."
Crack, crunch!
In an instant, Hyeon-won's body, standing outside, was flung into the front garden. Barely regaining his balance in mid-air, he landed in the center of the garden. Having barely avoided falling stupidly from the completely unexpected event, he raised his head and urgently looked into the Family Head's room.
"O-Oh no...."
Pure white cold air flowed out from the room, and inside, a huge block of ice was visible. Hyeon-won drew his sword with trembling hands at the reality he didn't want to believe.
Clang!
"This is the last time...."
From within, the girl shining her bright yellow eyes walked out.
"When did the North Sea Ice Palace disappear?"
Behind her, the figure of Namgung Hwi-cheon, trapped as if roaring in white transparent ice, was revealed. Hyeon-won looked at the girl as if looking at a wicked demon, not his daughter anymore.
The girl stared at Hwi-cheon, frozen from head to toe. Then she reached out to the arm sticking out from the ice and grasped the Blue Sky Sword, the most precious treasure of the family.
In her small hand, that sword was very large. But with movements not the least bit awkward, she spun it once in her hand. Sayeol, holding the sword in reverse, brought the white sword tip to the ice.
Exactly towards Hwi-cheon's lower abdomen.
"I-It has already been 100 years...!"
Hyeon-won urgently answered her question. Her arm, moving as if to stab the sword, paused for a moment, and her gaze turned to her father.
"100 years, huh."
"I-It disappeared overnight. T-The reason is...."
"The Heavenly Demon."
She whispered.
"So that is it."
"H-How do you know that...!"
Namgung Hyeon-won spoke as if bewildered. Because the fact that the Ice Palace was annihilated by the Heavenly Demon's hand was a secret known only to a few.
But there were a few survivors who luckily survived, and one of them was Sayeol's mother.
If not for what that mother told him, Namgung probably wouldn't have known how the Ice Palace disappeared overnight either.
Despite her father's bewildered words, Sayeol answered in a calm tone and soon laughed. Laughing was the only thing she could do now.
She recalled her friend made of ice who told her to just run away, just survive, just live stupidly covering her eyes and blocking her ears.
Seol, Seol. I do not know if it is coincidence or fate that the body I woke up in again is of the Ice Palace bloodline.
Crunch, stab!
"No...!"
Namgung Hwi-cheon, the sword he cherished broke the ice and pierced his lower abdomen.
I shall destroy the one who destroyed you.
I shall add the price of your lives to my price.
Blue cold energy flowing from her hand climbed up the sword blade like a swift snake. The white and cruel energy ravaged the dantian of her grandfather who gave his blood to her.
A girl who had not a handful of internal energy was now forcibly shoving her internal energy into the Family Head's body right in front of Hyeon-won's eyes. No.
If she did that, Qi Deviation would come, and the dantian would be destroyed, making him unable to hold a sword ever again.
Gulp.
But Sayeol's eyes were fixed on him, shining blue. Hyeon-won could only stand there holding his sword awkwardly. While he couldn't move like that.
Crunch, pop!
The sound of something bursting was heard from somewhere. It was obvious what it was.
The ice melted, and Namgung Hwi-cheon's body, now no different from a corpse, crumbled to the floor. In an incredibly short time, the center of Namgung was overturned by that girl's hand.
Namgung Hyeon-won sank to the ground without realizing it.
"Y-You, just, just who are you...."
His voice trembled like an aspen tree.
"Are you a ghost or a human...! Just what on earth are you...!"
To his scream-like shout, Sayeol smiled as if tearing her mouth and answered.
"I am...."
The blue moonlight shone palely on her face. A pitch-black shadow fell inside her mouth, which was split open in a smile.
"The ghost summoned by Namgung."
Misfortune struck Namgung overnight. Namgung Hwi-cheon, who went into meditation after taking a spiritual medicine brought in secretly, fell into Qi Deviation, slaughtered all his guards, and even harmed Zhuge Hwang-ho.
His son, Namgung Hyeon-won, stopped it, and Zhuge Hwang-ho became a cripple ― this was the fabricated story that was made known.
What remained for Hyeon-won, who finally sat in the Family Head's seat, was how to negotiate with the Zhuge family. It was a matter of injuring the dantian of none other than the Family Head, Zhuge Hwang-ho.
It wasn't comparable to Hwi-cheon who fell into Qi Deviation, but damaging the dantian meant that if things went wrong, he would become a body unable to use martial arts again.
It wasn't that the Zhuge family lacked a Young Master, but the sin of Namgung in making the Family Head like that was great. Everyone sympathized with him, who had to clean up the sins committed by the previous Family Head as soon as he took the seat.
Since he personally stepped in to settle the situation when Zhuge Hwang-ho was stabbed by Sayeol's hairpin, stories related to that did not leak outside.
'I locked up all those who were there in prison.'
Perhaps to hide Sayeol's story, killing them all to silence them would be the right thing to do.
And just then, a dreary voice was heard from behind the folding screen painted with golden birds.
"Give those to me."
"...What are you referring to?"
"The ones whose lives you are trying to take."
Hyeon-won shut his mouth at Sayeol's voice. The child, no, that thing saw through his insides completely. He felt fear rather than admiration for it.
'I am the ghost summoned by Namgung.'
That single sentence that thing said yesterday wouldn't disappear.
"Where do you intend to use those lowly ones?"
"As my hands and eyes."
"Just what work do you intend to make them do...."
Before he could finish his words, her calm answer returned.
"I will kill the Heavenly Demon."
"...Surely."
"He is returning soon."
"...!"
Hyeon-won hardened his face and pulled back the folding screen.
Whish-.
But in that short moment, only the cold wind blew, and she was gone. Truly like a ghost.
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