“Young Lord Tak! Miss Seon!!”

Yu Gang called out to them.

But something was wrong.

The Demon-Slaying Corps members were all staring blankly into empty air, as if they could not hear Yu Gang’s voice at all.

A glance showed some with broken arms or legs, others wounded.

“What on earth have you done!!”

At that moment, Tang Hojin snapped his fingers—SNAP!

Then the Corps member standing foremost staggered over to his side.

It looked as if he was moving under Tang Hojin’s command.

“It’s simple. One trades for what one wants.”

The Corpsman suddenly dropped his jaw wide open.

Meanwhile Tang Hojin held in hand something round, wrapped in paper.

“For reference, these people aren’t dead. They merely ingested a control poison. I have no taste for using corpses as my underlings.”

When Tang Hojin placed the thing on his palm and held his hand out to the Corpsman, the Corpsman took the round pellet between his front teeth.

The pill hung precariously in the gap of the Corpsman’s teeth.

Only then did Tang Hojin dust his hands with satisfaction and look back at Yu Gang.

“It’s a pill that can partly detoxify Elder Ouyang Do’s poisoning.”

“!”

Yu Gang stared in shock at the pellet clenched between the Corpsman’s teeth.

In that perilous state it could, with the slightest slip, either fall and shatter or be swallowed into his mouth.

Now that Yu Gang knew the pellet was a medicine to treat Ouyang Do, his urgency was only natural.

“...What do you want.”

“You need only choose. If you insist on fighting me, I’ll put this man forward first. If not, I’ll leave him standing just so, and once I’ve gone you may take the pellet.”

What Tang Hojin sought to trade was Tang Hojin’s life for Ouyang Do’s.

Would Yu Gang let him go and obtain the detoxifying pill, or abandon the pill and chase Tang Hojin while fighting Corpsmen swayed by the control poison?

Yu Gang looked to Ouyang Do.

His master met Yu Gang’s eyes and shook his head.

Yu Gang understood: under no circumstances was he to let the man go. And yet—

“Do you know why I became a man of the Great Blood Cult?”

Yu Gang looked back at Tang Hojin.

“In the Great Blood Cult there is no compunction about killing. Thanks to that, I could test countless poisons.”

The reason Tang Hojin, in so short a span, had come to handle poison to a degree surpassing the Tang Clan Lord.

The reason the Great Blood Cult had been able to create innumerable toxins unseen in the Central Plains.

The Blood Demon steadily provided Tang Hojin with subjects on whom to experiment; Tang Hojin created poisons that would enrich the Great Blood Cult.

Tang Hojin’s knowledge of poison, the Blood Demon’s Blood Arts, and the sacrifice of countless lives—

Thus were completed the inhuman killing poisons like the Blood-Burst Pill, Blood-Flame Powder, and Thousand-Man Blood-Fiend Poison.

That was precisely how Tang Hojin had secured his place as a Blood Lord of the Great Blood Cult.

“It is a poison made by such a one as I.”

Tang Hojin’s lips curved into a thin, fishy smile.

“Are you truly fine with this?”

“Don’t... be swayed by his drivel...! Khhhk...!”

“Master!”

Ouyang Do clutched his chest and vomited blood in a rush.

The poison Tang Hojin had prepared with painstaking care for Ouyang Do alone was nibbling away at his life bit by bit.

Ouyang Do seized Yu Gang’s arm.

“...Hurry... that man....”

“Will you cast away your master’s life?”

Yu Gang glared at Tang Hojin.

Veins stood thick on the back of the hand gripping his saber, fit to burst at any moment.

Never in his life had Yu Gang so wanted to kill someone.

That one could so easily steer people by holding the lives of those precious to him in their hands.

The man he had, only a few short hours ago, regarded as a comrade no longer even felt like the same species.

Grinding his feelings down and forcing them under, Yu Gang spoke.

“...Get out of my sight.”

At that, Tang Hojin gave Yu Gang one last fist-to-palm salute, then led the remaining Corpsmen away at an unhurried pace.

The Corpsmen who had ingested the control poison trailed after Tang Hojin in a daze, stumbling.

Yu Gang’s body shook with deep fury as he watched them go.

*****

[After sending him off, I supported Master and got out of the Fiends’ Forest. There was no leeway to gather the bodies of the dead. Not long after we left the Fiends’ Forest, we ran into people of the Sado Union.]

Seolhwa had instructed the Hao branch to rouse the Black-Path bands and the Green Forest outlaws near Qinghai.

It was to make provision against possible danger.

Sadly, by the time they arrived, the matter was already over, but Yu Gang and Ouyang Do were able to receive an escort from the Sado Union.

Yu Gang said he skirted Sichuan, where the Tang Clan was, and moved north.

To completely treat Ouyang Do’s poisoning they needed a safe place, and thus the place they went was Shaanxi.

[We explained the situation to the Leader of the Mount Hua Sect and are in their debt. Master is recuperating here. As soon as Master’s treatment is finished, I’ll return to the Alliance.]

TAK—

With that, the letter ended.

Having read the letter to the end, Seolhwa sat blankly for a time, mired in complicated feelings.

In the end, what she feared had happened.

Tang Hojin had moved, and the Demon-Slaying Corps and the Kunlun warriors had been struck.

Ouyang Do and Yu Gang were safe—but she could not tell whether to count that a mercy.

What burden would the proud Ouyang Do feel at having survived in exchange for the Corpsmen.

This time there had been no information whatsoever about Tang Hojin, so it was an event neither to block nor to avoid.

‘If only I had hurried to learn more about this Blood Lord....’

If only, when she had grown suspicious of the Tang Clan, she had investigated a little more carefully... if so....

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK...!

At the urgent pounding on the door, Seolhwa started and lifted her gaze.

From beyond the door came Cheongun’s voice.

“Seolhwa, the Alliance Lord has returned. Come out at once...!”

“!”

She had, in any case, also been awaiting word from Namgoong Mucheon’s side.

She had sent news of Tang Hojin through the Beggar’s Network, but no reply had come, and just as she was inwardly anxious, Namgoong Mucheon returned.

CLACK—

Seolhwa leapt to her feet at once and dashed out of the room.

****

When she headed for the courtyard of the Martial Alliance’s main hall, many people were gathered in front of the building.

Namgoong Mucheon and Seop Mugwang, Strategist Zhuge and several Elders, and the Division Lords of the Martial Alliance’s forces.

And at their center, a coffin had ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) been set down.

Seolhwa’s gaze went first to that coffin.

“...!”

Someone had died.

Had something happened on Grandfather’s side as well?

But if so, then why had there been no....

Seolhwa looked over the coffin toward Namgoong Mucheon, seeking an answer. 𝒻𝘳𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝘯𝘰𝑣ℯ𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

At just that moment, Namgoong Mucheon—who had been speaking with Cheongun—also looked to Seolhwa.

‘Grandfather....’

Those gathered followed Namgoong Mucheon’s gaze and turned, one by one, to Seolhwa.

The overwhelming martial display Seolhwa had shown when the Sado Union had visited, the information and warnings about the Great Blood Cult she had shared.

And not long ago, the last person Tang Sangcheon had sought—Namgoong Seolhwa.

Through those few events, people had dimly realized she was the central figure needed to oppose the Great Blood Cult.

Perhaps because of that—

Those gathered opened a path so that Seolhwa could approach Namgoong Mucheon and the place where the coffin lay.

Seolhwa looked at those parting to either side, then carefully stepped toward the coffin.

Namgoong Mucheon silently watched her.

“...”

Seolhwa looked down at the coffin with a trembling gaze.

She could not even guess whose body lay within the stoutly shut coffin.

She stared blankly at it for a moment—

“It is the coffin of the Tang Clan Lord of Sichuan.”

“!”

Seolhwa looked at him in astonishment.

“The Tang Clan Lord of Sichuan... you mean...?”

“I did not spread the news lest the Tang Clan Lord’s death throw the Central Plains into turmoil before we reached the Alliance. Seeing your reaction, I think it was well not to have announced it.”

“But... why....”

How had the Tang Clan Lord come as a corpse...?

What on earth had happened that—

“Let us go inside and speak first. I must also hear directly from you about Kunlun.”

****

Seolhwa and Namgoong Mucheon entered the Alliance Lord’s office and continued their talk.

No sooner had they sat than Namgoong Mucheon set a Qi Screen in the room and continued from the courtyard.

“As you said, Tang Hojin was of the Great Blood Cult. Just before his last breath, the Tang Clan Lord told me.”

“Then the one who did that to the Tang Clan Lord is....”

Namgoong Mucheon nodded.

“Not only the Clan Lord. Tang Hojin fed poison to the Tang clanfolk, and killed all the clan members who would not follow him.”

Seolhwa clapped a hand over her mouth for an instant.

Then the Tang Clan of Sichuan....

“It will no longer be easy for the Tang Clan even to maintain its lineage as a great martial clan—unless those who followed Tang Hojin return.”

Namgoong Mucheon recalled the Tang Clan’s firstborn son, Tang Gajin.

When he went to the place written on the note the Tang Clan Lord had handed him just before dying, there, as expected, was Tang Gajin.

And yet—whatever Tang Hojin had done to him, all his teeth had been knocked out, and though he had the Thousand-Poison Constitution, he was so saturated with toxins that his mind was not sound.

The Tang Clan Lord had entrusted Tang Gajin to him and departed, but in truth, it would be difficult for Gajin to carry on the clan’s line.

The only thing to count a mercy, perhaps, was that the Tang Clan’s Grand Elder, Tang Sangcheon, had escaped with his life.

“When I arrived, three days had already passed since the deed.”

Namgoong Mucheon let out a long sigh.

“It seems the bastard set it all in motion before heading for Kunlun Mountain.”