Seo Woojin returned to his quarters. Perhaps because he had spent so much of himself on it, he felt wrung dry.

“The Black Sword Cheon Clan…”

When he had first seen Cheon Doyun, he had judged him no easy opponent. Even so, not beyond handling — and in fact the man had shown himself green again this time, unable to gather his wits against a drastic move.

He had even entertained the arrogant thought that once he became Alliance Lord, he might take hold of the Dark Alliance faster than expected.

That arrogance had vanished like smoke the moment he faced Cheon Baekhyeon. He had held himself straight in front of the man, but his back had gone damp with cold sweat.

“Why in the world is that man not the Dark Alliance Lord?”

By this point he had begun to wonder who the dead Dark Alliance Lord had been. The man had met an end no one could explain — but until then, it meant he had kept someone like Cheon Baekhyeon from running loose.

“It’s Woon Seorin.”

He was still following the thought when Woon Seorin’s voice came from outside. Seo Woojin sat up straight and answered.

“Come in.”

A moment later she came in, sighed faintly, and spoke.

“First — good work today. Though it was a gamble I would never have taken.”

“It seemed a reasonably rational choice to me.”

“Thanks to it, you’ve made a bad impression not only on the Seven Families but on a good many clans and sects.”

Seo Woojin scratched at his cheek, sheepish. That much loss simply had to be borne, and Woon Seorin knew it too, so she pressed the point no further. If anything she went on to encourage him.

“But the rank-and-file warriors still support you. Just as you said, you may have lost the second trial, but you haven’t lost the people’s regard.”

“Haha. So they say, but it doesn’t feel real to me yet.”

He was making light of it needlessly, but Woon Seorin had gone quiet.

“Is there something you want to say?”

She seemed to hesitate over something, then spoke.

“Baek Soeun. We brought the child back safely.”

Thud.

Seo Woojin shot to his feet.

“Where is she now? I need to see her myself.”

He looked ready to go that instant, and Woon Seorin raised a hand to stop him.

“No. I think it would be better if you didn’t see her.”

“What do you mean by that. Does she… does the child refuse to see me?”

Woon Seorin shook her head.

“Her mind is still unsteady. If she sees you, she may have another fit.”

Seo Woojin made a small sound and sank back into his seat.

“Ah… Of course. It isn’t something a child could easily bear…”

When he appeared to accept it, Woon Seorin let out a small breath of relief.

“Fortunately she’s lucid. She settled a great deal once she learned her family was safe. But she’s deliberately avoiding any mention of you. So… I think she needs a little time.”

Seo Woojin nodded.

“I understand. I’ll wait. As long as she’s safe, there will be a day when we can meet.”

Woon Seorin drew a letter from her robes and handed it to him.

“I’ve put together what happened, based on the child’s testimony.”

Seo Woojin all but snatched it from her. It did not run long.

The first person the Cheon Clan’s man had approached was one of the Baek Clan’s warriors — a squad leader of the Azure Turtle Unit. One of the elite.

But even the Baek Clan’s elite amounted to nothing beside the Cheon Clan.

He was threatened. A common enough threat, perhaps — but for the man on the receiving end of it, never one that could be ignored.

In the end he brought Baek Soeun together with the one person she should never have been allowed to meet.

That was where the whole ruin began.

Crumple.

Seo Woojin crushed the paper and looked at Woon Seorin.

“Have you found out who this man is?”

Woon Seorin nodded.

“One of Cheon Doyun’s subordinates. A former wandering mercenary; his martial prowess is nothing much, but he’s quite gifted at persuasion. The sort who will do anything to get ahead — he volunteered for this too, to catch Cheon Doyun’s eye.”

“Where is he.”

There seemed to be a thick stench of blood about the question. Woon Seorin swallowed a low sound before answering.

“He’s dead.”

Seo Woojin’s eyes went wide.

“He’s… dead?”

“Yes. The body was found yesterday in the slums. The heart run through in a single stroke.”

Seo Woojin let out a hollow laugh.

Bluntly, even if everything the Cheon Clan had done were laid bare, it would cost them little. As they themselves had said, there was no need to be particular about means when taking from the weak.

And yet they had disposed of him. No damage in it — but even needless gossip was a nuisance.

For a reason no greater than that, they had thrown a man away.

Then again — considering Cheon Baekhyeon, who was sending his own daughter, adopted or not, into a duel with her life at stake, perhaps it was only to be expected.

Seo Woojin shook his head to clear the stray thoughts.

However it had gone, the matter was finished. He had won the Baek Clan’s amnesty, so once he was Alliance Lord he need only bring them home.

So it all came down to one thing.

The third trial. The death match.

Seo Woojin put a question to Woon Seorin.

“There was no room to ask at the time — but a death match means a duel in which killing your opponent is permitted, doesn’t it?”

Woon Seorin shook her head slightly.

“That’s the original meaning, yes. But the dark path uses it a little differently.”

“Differently?”

“It isn’t that killing is permitted. Your opponent’s death is the only condition of victory.”

“What?!”

His voice rose of its own accord.

Permitting an opponent’s death and requiring it were two entirely different things. It meant only one person would be left standing at the end.

Which made Cheon Baekhyeon’s ruthlessness loom larger still. He had handed his own daughter a choice between winning and dying.

“That’s insane…”

At Seo Woojin’s muttering, Woon Seorin let out a deep sigh of her own.

“It is insane. They say the dark path has always had this custom, but as far as I know, this is the first time it has actually been done.”

Seo Woojin turned it over a moment, then asked something else.

“Do you know the woman Cheon Suryeon well, by any chance?”

Whatever Cheon Baekhyeon intended by it, the one he would face was Cheon Suryeon. So he needed first to know what kind of person she was.

Woon Seorin’s answer was a disappointment.

“I don’t know her.”

“What? You don’t?”

Woon Seorin nodded.

“Everything about her is behind a curtain.”

“Doesn’t she have the epithet of the Cheon Clan’s killing machine?”

“That epithet came from the results left behind once her missions were done. Wherever her feet took her, the outcome was always the same. Total annihilation. Not one person left alive.”

It was hard to credit.

“Are you telling me there were no witnesses either? If a fight took place there would certainly have been a commotion. Someone must have seen—”

“There are none. Not one. Either the Cheon Clan disposed of the witnesses themselves, or they were caught up in the fighting. It has to be one of the two.”

A hollow laugh escaped him. So she had earned the name of killing machine without anything about her ever being seen.

“What if she’s a signboard they hold up in front, and the Cheon Clan does all the actual work?”

“No. Looking at the bodies that were found, the stab wounds were all identical. It means one person’s doing.”

Which made it stranger still. Was there some reason to keep her hidden this thoroughly?

‘But if even the Military Advisor’s Hall’s intelligence can’t reach her, isn’t there no way to find that reason out?’

In that instant, a face crossed his mind.

‘If it were him…’

Seo Woojin set the thought aside for now and asked something else.

“If a death match means what you say, how do you think the other clans will come out?”

Woon Seorin answered as though she had been waiting for it.

“To begin with, the Gok Clan will withdraw from this trial.”

Her face was set and full of certainty.

“Why! Why must we withdraw, I’m asking! That idiot Gok Munyeon may be useless, but his martial prowess is respectable enough! If that Cheon Clan wench and Seo Woojin, that bastard, were to destroy each other—”

At Gok Taejun’s protest, Gok Cheonmu turned a cold gaze on him. Under a look that seemed to close around the heart, he could not go on.

Gok Cheonmu let out a deep sigh, as though the boy were pitiful.

“Stupid boy. Do you imagine Suryeon can’t handle Seo Woojin? Then Munyeon would only be throwing his life away for nothing. He may not share your blood, but he is your brother. Do you want your brother to throw his life away for nothing?”

Cowed by that gaze, Gok Taejun still got his say out to the end.

“Kh. Even so, a true man ought to take a gamble like that at least once—”

“Then will you go yourself?”

“What? B-but I’m not qualified—”

“Your name need only be struck from the Gok Clan’s register. Do that and you are no heir of the Seven Families at all, so there is no problem in it.”

“Khh. Will you really go that far? I am your child. In the end I am the one and only heir to carry on this Gok Clan.”

Gok Cheonmu propped his chin on one hand and narrowed his eyes.

“Who can say. Lately I find myself wondering. Whether I ought to make you my heir for no reason but that you are my own blood. Munyeon is another option worth considering.”

“Father!!”

Gok Taejun raised his voice and kicked back his chair as he rose. His father’s expression, of course, did not change in the slightest.

“I can guess why you press so hard to send Munyeon into the third trial. You wanted to use the chance to cut down a sprout that might become your rival.”

“Th-that’s—”

Gok Cheonmu shook his head slightly.

“There’s nothing wrong with the attitude. To take what is mine, one does whatever it takes. Only — show your intent that plainly and who is going to fall for it?”

“Khh…”

“The same goes for this matter. Our goal is to put the Cheon Clan in the Alliance Lord’s seat regardless. What reason is there to shed blood we needn’t shed? So it is right that we withdraw from the trial here.”

Gok Taejun clenched his teeth.

His father had followed Cheon Baekhyeon in earnest for a long time — captivated by the man’s strength, and a self-declared subordinate for decades now. Gok Taejun had never truly understood why, but there was nothing for it but to accept. With his intentions already read, he could hardly keep pushing.

“Then… are we to sit here sucking our fingers and watching?”

Gok Cheonmu gave a thin smile.

“Hardly that.”

“But since Uncle has declared a death match, scheming anything would—”

“He will look the other way.”

“What?”

The thin smile deepened.

He knew it for certain. Cheon Baekhyeon would look the other way at whatever maneuvering was done. What mattered to him was who was left standing at the end; the process would not concern him in the slightest. If a man could be stopped before he reached the summit, that only meant he was a man of exactly that size.

Gok Cheonmu raised his wine cup and gave his son an order.

“Never mind doing something to your brother — use this chance to show me what you can do.”

A light flickered behind Gok Taejun’s eyes.

“What I can do?”

“Yes. Produce a result I find satisfactory, and as a reward I’ll ease that anxiety of yours.”

The corner of Gok Taejun’s mouth drew slowly upward.

“What is it you’d have me do?”

“Go to Doyun. By now he’ll be able to tell you what needs doing.”

For an instant Gok Taejun’s brow furrowed — it felt as though his own ability were being doubted.

But it made no difference.

“I’ll go at once.”

Whatever it was, he need only hear the promise out of that mouth. The promise that the next head of the Gok Clan would be him.

A room dark as pitch.

Cheon Doyun had shut himself in his quarters with entry forbidden. He sat with his head in his hands, bowed low.

The humiliation of it was past bearing. The urge rose in him to lead the Cheon Clan’s warriors out and attack Seo Woojin that instant.

His father’s indifferent words would not leave his head, either.

Cheap cleverness. The effort he put into producing the best possible result, every time — and to have it dismissed as that.

Nor could he go to his father and argue. The man would not see him to begin with.

Was this the end? Was he to be swallowed by the dark like a loser?

As he slowly raised his head, a blood-colored light flashed in his eyes — briefly, but it was there.

“I’ll prove it, Father. That I am not a man who merely works cheap tricks.”

He would not sit waiting like this. His own malice was not finished yet.

“Should I aim at him directly? No. The Four Black Dragons will always be prepared. Then should I deal with the ones who helped him in Ningbo? No. He doesn’t seem the sort to grieve over the deaths of failures like those.”

Cheon Doyun muttered on, lost to himself.

“If I can’t strike him directly, I need only touch what surrounds him. Who is around him? The Military Advisor wench? No. I can’t hand the Woon Clan a pretext for nothing. The Four Black Dragons, then? Damn it. Men with no parents or siblings can hardly have weaknesses.”

And their martial prowess was far too high for an ambush.

Then, mid-thought, he gave a small shudder.

“Wait… isn’t there one?”

The one who had been most galling to him all along, at that.

“Young Clan Head. Forgive me, but the Gok Clan’s Young Clan Head, Gok Taejun, has come to visit.”

A maidservant’s trembling voice came from outside. On another day he would have punished her for making light of his order that he would see no one — but this visit was genuinely welcome.

“Show him to the receiving hall. I’ll make myself ready and go.”

“Y-yes!”

Once she had withdrawn, the line of Cheon Doyun’s mouth twisted hard.

“The price for laying hands on your people, was it? This time I’ll show you. What the price is for trampling me.”

In that twisted smile, something close to madness showed through.

(End of Chapter 36)