Part 29 - Resolve
"First Young Master… are you that Dark Heaven Venerable One?"
There was no change in Yeon Sang-hyeon's expression.
Just as before, he simply kept his calm face and wrapped both hands around the warm teacup, steam rising from it.
"…Dark Heaven Venerable One? What's that?"
Se-a's eyebrow twitched.
She'd expected he wouldn't answer readily.
"According to the survivors who escaped the Black Bone Sect's human-flesh factory, the one who rescued them wore a white mask and the white unbleached-cotton clothes The Scholar wears."
Yeon Sang-hyeon—himself dressed in those white cotton robes—nodded.
"Sounds like someone doing good."
"And you possess that same outfit and mask, First Young Master."
"Are you planning to search my belongings?"
Se-a pulled her chair closer to the table.
"Why won't you tell me? Then what were all those things you said to me back then?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon slowly savored a sip of tea and set the cup down.
"…Are you prepared?"
Se-a clenched her own cup tightly.
"As I told you before, I am prepared for anything."
Yeon Sang-hyeon smiled.
"Prepared enough to accept countless pure, innocent people dying?"
It was the question he had thrown at her that night.
"…Since that day, I've kept thinking about those words, again and again."
Blood enough to change the flow of history itself.
If that was what he meant by the sacrifice of the innocent…
"Are you speaking of a 'dynastic revolution'?"
At the words dynastic revolution, Se-a's escort—who had been pretending not to listen, loitering by the window—went pale and hurriedly watched outside.
It was a phrase that could bring disaster on everyone nearby merely for being spoken aloud.
"Dynastic revolution, huh…."
Yeon Sang-hyeon chuckled.
"Mencius said. Those who harm benevolence are called thieves, and those who harm righteousness are called the cruel."
He rarely quoted classical sayings first, but it wasn't as if he didn't know them.
"A cruel thief is no more than a mere common man. So, though we have heard that King Wu killed the common man called Zhou, we have never heard that he murdered a king."
Behind them, the escort broke into a cold sweat.
She raised her internal energy to the limit, scanning the surroundings.
Se-a, too, felt sweat dampen her hands as she asked.
"…Is that what you meant by 'the path'?"
A landscape beyond human bounds—an Inhuman Demon Domain—unfolding into a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, the Netherworld Mado.
Yeon Sang-hyeon looked out the window at the warm afternoon sunlight.
"In this era, do you think that's even possible?"
"..."
It was an unbearably heavy question.
Not merely because discussing overthrowing the imperial house and founding a new dynasty was the gravest of crimes.
"…It feels like a question that goes beyond anything I, in my station, may even dare to contemplate."
Yeon Sang-hyeon nodded slowly.
"Even if you gathered the cleverest minds on the continent and made them debate, you'd get the same answer."
This empire called the Central Plains Nation was simply too vast.
No one had ever even properly counted how many people lived within it.
"Since civilization began on this land, has the gap between rich and poor ever grown this severe? And yet, it's also strange how stable the realm remains."
He continued.
"Revolution in a time like this? It's beyond words."
Se-a felt cold sweat roll down her forehead and asked.
"…Then what is your path, First Young Master?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon rose and walked toward the window.
His steps were unhurried, as always.
But Se-a's escort recoiled as if a calamity itself were approaching, retreating from the window to press herself against the opposite wall.
"..."
She didn't even dare turn her eyes into the room, staring only at the wall.
"I thought about it."
Yeon Sang-hyeon spoke as he gazed outside.
"If blood must be spilled enough to change the flow of history, must that blood only belong to the simple, innocent people who can't even live ordinary lives—who rise up in righteous fury and die beneath the banner of a 'great cause'?"
Se-a swallowed hard.
A hint of mischief slipped into Yeon Sang-hyeon's voice.
"Then what if we just kill that many truly bad bastards instead?"
"…Pardon?"
"If the same amount of blood that would have to be spilled—blood that would 'enthrall' all those innocent people—what if that blood belonged to villains instead?"
It was a madman's notion.
Childish—almost laughably naïve.
"…What kind of joke is this all of a sudden? 'Innocent people bleeding' isn't meant literally."
Flustered, Se-a even forgot her usual extreme honorifics.
In a revolution, countless people inevitably die—that was the metaphor, not a simple tally of corpses.
"I'm saying it's just a hypothetical. Let's think it through."
At his light tone, Se-a let out a sigh.
"That's the sort of thought only a child would—"
She shook her head.
"How can you so easily divide people into 'good' and 'evil'?"
This world, complex beyond measure, could never be split neatly into black and white.
"And even if you did, by what standard would you divide them?"
Law? Morality? Those changed with circumstance—and above all, human systems were always imperfect.
"Besides, you're saying you'd classify so-called villains at will and kill them all. There's no one with the power to kill enough villains to change history itself, and…"
Her words began to trail off.
"Even if there were… judging sinners by your own will and punishing them is…"
A grim reaper in a white mask.
"…nothing but a madman—an even greater evil…"
The master of the dark heaven.
The executor of heavenly punishment.
A being who would bring down black lightning in place of indifferent heaven and earth.
Before she knew it, the name slipped from her lips.
"…Dark Heaven Venerable One."
Still turned away, the boy of unknowable identity laughed.
"Whoever coined it, it's a good name. I bet the one called Dark Heaven Venerable One would like it too."
He smiled brightly.
"That childish hypothetical—whether it could succeed, whether it's truly possible—I'm curious."
Now Se-a understood.
An Inhuman Demon Domain—a place beyond human understanding and law,a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood—a Netherworld Mado, a path only underworld fiends who have abandoned being human can walk.
To spill, in place of all the good and innocent people who would have been sacrificed, all the blood that should have been theirs—and to exact, in place of all the wicked who should have paid, the price of their sins.
"Such a…"
Se-a couldn't continue.
Was she ready to hear more?
Did she have the recklessness to step deeper from here?
She finally understood why Yeon Sang-hyeon hadn't answered her question about his identity.
She remembered what he had told her that night.
"Your sisters' fate has not yet been decided."
Clutching at her fogged mind, Se-a stood.
"…Thank you for your words. I have things to do as well, so I should take my leave."
Yeon Sang-hyeon nodded.
"You've worked hard."
Se-a was about to bow to his back when she spoke again.
"At this point, the Black Bone Sect is essentially down to its main stronghold."
"Is that so?"
She continued evenly.
"Today, I and a small group of elite combat agents will head there with our collaborators."
"Isn't that dangerous? Geumju has a Sword Clan Bronze Token. No matter how much you can claim they struck first, the Sword Clan won't show leniency."
Se-a shook her head.
"We're not breaking in. Someone else will handle that part anyway."
Her gaze went to Yeon Sang-hyeon's back.
"But we won't just sit on our hands, either. Today, not a single remnant will leave the main stronghold."
She spoke her will in a low voice.
"If the Sword Clan tries to pick a fight over even that, then we'll have to clash."
Se-a wasn't a martial artist of the murim, but she carried a spirit that could rival one—her own fierce aura.
"And it's not like we have to face the entire Sword Clan. We only have to deal with the one who granted Geumju that bronze token, don't we?"
Yeon Sang-hyeon shrugged, as if he had no objection.
"…We have that much resolve as well."
Se-a lifted the teacup that had been meant for her and downed the cold tea in one go.
She placed the empty cup on the table and bowed deeply.
"…Then."
"Alright."
Se-a headed for the door her escort held open.
"..."
Yeon Sang-hyeon still faced the window, looking outside.
To Se-a, for some reason, it looked like a struggle—like someone thirsting for the sun's bright light and warmth.
***
A sword swung by a Black Bone Sect officer severed the nape of a bound man who had been forced to his knees.
They were the ones who had tried to flee.
The officer spat phlegm at the corpse.
"Cowardly bastards…!"
Then he raised the blood-dripping sword high and shouted.
"By Lady Geumju's order! Everyone, brace yourselves to be killed!"
***
Geumju asked the goateed chief steward—who couldn't find words—
"…So Father refused to help as well?"
"…Yes. He did."
She'd expected rejection even before asking.
That monstrous white-masked figure's level was still impossible to gauge.
You couldn't throw a precious master into the fray just to capture an opponent whose strength you didn't even understand.
And since their relationship was a hollow one to begin with, all the more.
To Geumjil, his adopted "daughter" were nothing but consumables.
Blood trickled down from Geumju's tightly clenched fist.
"And that…"
The chief steward painfully forced out the message Geumjil had told him to deliver to his adopted daughter.
When Geumju heard it all, her face flushed as if it would burst.
She grabbed the ebony-wood table she cherished and hurled it, screaming.
A flying inkstone struck a maid in the head; she collapsed without even managing a scream.
Other maids—huddled in the corner, trembling in terror—ran over to check the fallen girl.
The maid convulsed intermittently, blood and brain matter spilling from her split skull and spreading across the floor.
"…Useless trash."
Geumju asked the chief steward.
"How many slaves are left at the main stronghold?"
He answered in a rush.
"A-as you know, there's hardly any trade at the main stronghold, so the headcount isn't large."
Geumju looked at the maids dragging away their colleague's corpse with eyes full of contempt and said.
"Gather all the slaves and all noncombat personnel who are useless into the underground."
"W-what are you thinking…?"
The chief steward stammered.
"I'm going to perform a ritual I learned from my master."
"A ritual…?"
A ritual—what was she talking about at a time like this?
A prayer ceremony for victory?
Or a rite to drive off evil spirits?
Geumju ignored him and bit her nails.
"…I wanted to avoid that master's grotesque, uncanny secret arts to the very end."
But now, she had no alternative.
"Damn it."
She had the resolve to survive—even if she had to sacrifice everyone.