“Block them! Stop the ones heading for His Majesty!”

“Kill!! If you’re caught, it’s over!”

“Graaah—!”

The front of the Grand Peace Hall turned into a pandemonium in an instant.

Consort Suk’s face watching that scene went ashen.

‘Not yet....’

Her brother’s army shouldn’t even have reached the capital yet.

It was a fact that they had prepared a rebellion.

She simply hadn’t expected the Emperor to proclaim the purge so quickly.

Ordinarily, the Brocade Guard should have bought time until the rebels marched into the imperial city and advanced on the palace.

‘At this rate we can’t hold....’

“Kill the eunuchs! Secure His Majesty to our side!”

The Brocade-Guard Commander shouted to the soldiers.

Her gaze toward the man at the very front, commanding the field himself, grew a touch calmer. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

‘No, there’s no need to panic.’

The Brocade-Guard Commander was counted among the Ten Masters, reputed the strongest within the palace.

No one in the Imperial Army could stop him.

‘It may be....’

They might be able to seize the Emperor before the rebels arrived.

If only they could seize the Emperor—

‘At last, that woman....’

“Do not fall back! The Eastern Depot only flaps their mouths—they’re a rabble! Press on!”

WHOOSH— SLICE! SHRAAK!

“Guhk!”

“Graaah!”

There was no mercy in the Brocade-Guard Commander’s sword.

He cut down without pity the soldiers blocking the path to the Emperor.

From the start, how could soldiers made up of mere first-rate and second-rate fighters stop the blade of one of the Ten Masters?

Only because the Brocade-Guard Commander was holding back his qi did the courtyard of the Grand Peace Hall avoid being leveled at once.

“Out of the way! I have business only with the eunuchs! If you want to live, do not stand before me...!”

It was then.

CLANG—! SHRAAAK—

A sudden, powerful blow knocked aside the sword the Commander had been sweeping about at random.

The instant his blade met that strike, he reflexively used qi to block, but failing to vent the shock, he was driven backward.

“...”

The Brocade-Guard Commander fixed a chilly gaze on the eunuch standing in his path.

No—he looked at the man who had thrown aside the eunuch’s robes and cap and was whoom, whoom swinging a sword.

“...I wondered where I’d seen you.”

Stripped down to light martial garb, Seop Mugwang rolled his neck and leveled his blade at the Commander.

“It’s been a while, Gon Emperor.”

“Gon Emperor” was the byname the jianghu used «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» for the Brocade-Guard Commander among the Ten Masters—an epithet given because his qi carried the force of earth.

“How does the Emperor’s sword raise a standard against his Emperor?”

“Wind-and-Thunder Deity....”

Seop Mugwang and the Brocade-Guard Commander had met.

Once when Namgoong Mucheon visited the palace—each serving as bodyguard to Namgoong Mucheon and to the Emperor.

And once again by chance during a mission to eradicate a Black-Path gang in the capital.

Both were masters renowned across the rivers and lakes; there was no counting the times they had heard each other’s names.

“What brings you into the palace? And what are those clothes.”

The Commander glanced at the eunuch’s robes Seop Mugwang had tossed aside.

Catching the look—“surely not?”—Seop Mugwang waved his hand in haste.

“Ah, don’t misunderstand. I came at the Emperor’s request. There’s a seditious pack of traitors displeased with His Majesty’s rule, or so I was told.”

The Commander’s expression hardened like stone.

He glared at Seop Mugwang, who snorted in displeasure, and slowly opened his mouth.

“...How does a man of the martial world meddle in palace affairs. Have you forgotten non-interference between court and martial.”

“As if I could forget. I’ve no great wish to get involved. Only....”

BZZZZT....

Every trace of playfulness vanished from Seop Mugwang’s face.

Fierce thunder-qi surged around him.

“My non-interference ends where Chor Yeon is concerned.”

Chor Yeon?

“What do you mean...?”

What is Chor Yeon to you?

“You don’t need to know.”

FWOOSH—

In an instant, Seop Mugwang’s figure vanished from before the Commander’s eyes.

The Wind-and-Thunder Deity—

A swordsman said to fall behind no one in the Central Plains in speed and force.

“!”

CLANG—!

In the blink of an eye, the Commander barely managed to block the blade that came for the nape of his neck.

KAK-KAK....

The Wind-and-Thunder Deity’s sword was on a different plane in weight and power.

It was by no means a blade “going easy.”

This sword—

‘He’s serious.’

There was a reason they said the Wind-and-Thunder Deity could be compared to the Ten Masters.

For all his light exterior, his martial skill was something no one could treat lightly; a swordsman that adept at engagement.

‘He must know full well that by pure skill he cannot match a grandmaster of my level.’

KAKAKAKAKAKANG!

The Commander’s sword and Seop Mugwang’s traded dozens of exchanges in a flash.

Earthen-hued qi and thunder’s force mixed together, raising a violent gale centered on the two.

“I’ve no desire to make enmity with the martial world.”

“Nor I.”

CLANG! KAKAKANG!

As the stories said, Seop Mugwang’s sword was fast and each strike carried heavy force.

His footwork was so quick it could hardly be tracked by the eye, making his movements hard to predict.

KAKAKANG—! KAKAKAKAKANG!

‘Troublesome.’

The Commander cast a quick glance toward the Emperor.

Surrounded by eunuchs, His Majesty looked down on him with that same unreadable gaze as ever.

‘Your Majesty....’

There was no time to waste like this.

If they dragged things out, the rebels would truly storm the palace.

The Commander’s plan had been to use the rebels’ movement to eliminate the Eastern Depot that clouded the Emperor’s judgment, then have the Brocade Guard take the lead in stopping the rebels.

With his own strength, he could overwhelmingly block however many rebels came.

If he could do that, His Majesty would surely place his trust in the Brocade Guard once more.

He would make His Majesty grasp that the Brocade Guard’s military might could not be compared to a rabble like the Eastern Depot.

Therefore—

‘I had hoped to keep casualties down as much as possible.’

At this rate of engagement, neither the Brocade Guard nor the Eastern Depot nor the Imperial Army would come through unscathed.

‘I must stop any further loss.’

To do that, securing the Emperor’s person under the Brocade Guard came first.

“My apologies, but I’ve no leisure to hold back any longer.”

“!”

TAT, TA-AT!

Seop Mugwang, by instinct, widened the distance from him.

In that instant—

KWAAAAAA—!!

In a heartbeat, immeasurable qi erupted from the Commander’s body.

So great was the flood that a small storm sprang up around him.

“Graaah—!”

“Urrgh...!”

The surrounding soldiers, unable to withstand the Commander’s force, collapsed one by one.

A heavy aura that overwhelmed first-rate and second-rate fighters by emission alone.

“I had thought you a man who knew the difference in rank.”

From within that storm, the Brocade-Guard Commander walked toward Seop Mugwang.

“I am a little disappointed.”

HFF— THOOM—!

The Commander brought his sword down on the ground.

The earth boomed; for an instant Seop Mugwang lost his center and staggered a hair.

Seop Mugwang knit his brow.

As expected—a grandmaster at that height.

‘He’s seen through the root of my martial art.’

Seop Mugwang’s signature Wind-and-Thunder Art was founded on footwork.

Short, swift steps that launch a thrust like lightning.

In that sense, the Commander’s method—shaking the ground to break his center—was deadly to Seop Mugwang.

HFF—

“!”

Before the tremor in the ground had even faded, the Commander charged at Seop Mugwang.

The pressure was like a massive bull coming to gore.

“...”

But Seop Mugwang did not retreat.

‘If you shake the root of the Wind-and-Thunder Art....’

His gaze flashed for an instant.

****

TADAT—

‘Yuhua Mountain.’

Seolhwa called to mind the cave at Yuhua Mountain.

The cave at Yuhua Mountain was a suitable place to hide gunpowder.

It was also a place beyond the reach of any sect or great clan’s eyes, so there was a high chance the stolen gunpowder would be there.

Only—

‘The Martial Alliance thinks it’s five thousand jin, but from what I found, the amount that vanished is ten thousand jin.’

‘The cave at Yuhua Mountain is too small to hide all ten thousand jin.’

At most it could take five thousand.

No matter how they stored it, it was too much to stash the entire ten thousand jin.

Added to that was a report that grated on Seolhwa’s nerves.

‘It seems the imperial court told the Martial Alliance they lost five thousand jin. And one more thing bothers me....’

‘?’

‘To move ten thousand jin of gunpowder you need at least ten wagons, but no one saw a procession that large at the time the gunpowder was seized.’

‘No one saw the procession...?’

‘Meaning, no one saw wagons entering the capital in the first place.’

With the Sado Union merging with the greenwood forces, throughout the Central Plains—even deep in the mountains—there was hardly any place the Union’s eyes did not reach.

If they had been transporting ten thousand jin from the outset, someone should have seen that procession before the wagons neared the capital.

That the long line never once drew the eye until it was seized—even though imperial troops were escorting it—was certainly strange.

‘...Have you told the Martial Alliance this?’

‘Not yet. We ourselves only learned it a few hours ago.’

Seolhwa immediately had the Hao Sect Lord contact the Martial Alliance, then burst out of the branch office.

Her destination was the Emperor’s Palace.

‘All circumstances point to one thing. If it was never moved, then the amount moved in the first place wasn’t ten thousand jin.’

Which meant the remaining five thousand jin was very likely siphoned off before ever meeting the Blood Cult.

‘If they skimmed five thousand before entering the capital, then moved the remaining five thousand and handed it to the Blood Cult....’

The five thousand skimmed at the start was likely—

‘Inside the Emperor’s Palace.’

SWISH— SWISH—

Her master and Chor Yeon were still in the palace.

As their faces came to mind, Seolhwa’s steps grew even faster.

The scenery around her blurred past so quickly it was hard to make out.