Free Web NovelThat must have been the goal, because the uncomfortable banquet did not go on any longer.
“The uninvited guest should take his leave now.”
When the Branch Lord rose from his seat, the Eom Family Head revealed a glad expression.
“Are you going?”
“It’s very late, so I should slowly head back. No need to see me out.”
“No. I will see you off.”
The Eom Family Head ground his teeth as he answered, as though he had something he wanted to say.
At that moment, the Four-Directions Hall Administrator also stood.
“Let us break up here. My travel fatigue is deep, and I wish to rest.”
“Ah, then... your rooms were shown a little while ago, so go in as you please.”
The Eom Family Head seemed to choose to lodge a protest against the Branch Lord after some hesitation, and hastily went down the stairs.
Sohwa rose as well. Then, in a low voice, the Four-Directions Hall Administrator said,
“Let’s go to your room and talk.”
Pang Shihyeon, who had unfolded a qi screen, added,
“They didn’t expect you to accompany us, so there likely aren’t any devices set in your room.”
Sohwa’s room was one the proprietor had carelessly jabbed a finger at and tossed to her to stay in. But it seemed something troublesome had been planted in the Administrator’s room.
“Yes, I will show you to my room.”
Pang Shihyeon turned her head to the Black Tortoise Pavilion Lord and Namgung Jin.
“You two come along as well.”
Perhaps the two had also felt an ominous mood at the banquet, for their faces did not look good.
The four went up together to Sohwa’s room without conversation.
***
The Eom Family Head shouted to the Branch Lord as he was leaving the hot spring.
“Gangmyeong! Stay there!”
Han Gangmyeong, who had been acting as the Branch Lord, stopped walking.
When he looked back, the Eom Family Head poured out his pent-up anger as if he had been waiting.
“I was going to endure it for the sake of the Han Family Head’s face, but how can you behave so insolently!”
The Branch Lord ignored the Eom Family Head and asked something else.
“Where is the Grand Family Head?”
“What would you do knowing where my father is!”
When the Eom Family Head puffed and answered, the Branch Lord’s gaze dropped to him.
“I told you yesterday that the Blood Demon issued a search order, yet because you did not report that two more people of the Central Plains had entered, I ask.”
At the words Blood Demon, the Eom Family Head froze on the spot.
Unbothered, Han Gangmyeong continued in a chilly tone.
“I am about to inform the Blood Demon that the woman has been found, but before that I wished to hear your reason for hiding the woman.”
“Hi—hiding! You’re saying something that could get me in serious trouble! My father [N O V E L I G H T] knows nothing; guiding the people of the Central Plains was all my doing alone. My father’s mind is wholly fixed on the ice, so he borrowed boats from the Dong family and went out to the Northern Sea himself!”
“Ice?”
“Yes. I tried telling him this is no time to be worrying about that, but he must listen to reason. Ugh, he’s probably breaking ice in the west where the Dong family’s harbor is.”
The Branch Lord raised his brows.
He thought of something for a moment, then asked,
“How long do you think it will take?”
“It’s been left alone for nearly two days, so the ice will have frozen thick. Even so, it will take five or six shichen.”
“I would like the pace a bit faster. A line of retreat could open for the people of the Central Plains.”
Muttering as if to himself, the Branch Lord said,
“For now, gather the Eom family’s armed unit, Family Head. They say the Four-Directions Hall Administrator alone can handle a mid-sized sect, so we must prepare for contingencies.”
“Ah, very well.”
At the Han family’s characteristic overbearing look, the Eom Family Head closed his mouth.
At times like this, it felt as if ranks were being divided, which did not feel good, but he could not ignore a habit ingrained in his body.
The Branch Lord took his gaze off the Family Head, who had shrunk taut.
“I will report to the Blood Demon and bring support. Until then, take care so that those people of the Central Plains do not escape. If you should make a mistake.”
“Mistake! I have never once made a... I will be careful.”
When Han Gangmyeong, who was about to get into the carriage, turned his gaze, the Eom Family Head bowed his head.
There was nothing good to be gained by committing a grating act against one who said he would speak to the Blood Demon.
‘...Damn it, I must quickly inform Father of this as well.’
When the carriage left and no sound could be heard, the Eom Family Head furtively lifted his gaze.
Confirming the street was empty, he waved his hand wildly to the house servant beside him.
“Bring a carriage at once! We must go to the main house immediately!”
“Yes, Family Head!”
The Eom Family Head stamped his feet as he waited for the house servant to bring the carriage.
***
Barely inside the room, Pang Shihyeon asked,
“It seemed the Branch Lord recognized you—do you know what that’s about?”
Sohwa pulled out a chair to offer a seat and answered,
“The Blood Demon is looking for me.”
“The Blood Demon?”
“Yes. It is conjecture, but because I vanished from the Central Plains, it seems he issued a search order across the entire continent.”
“No, I asked why the Blood Demon is looking for you.”
Pang Shihyeon did not sit but asked while standing.
“The Blood Demon desires something, and I can make it.”
“You have a habit of making one ask twice. And what is it that the Blood Demon desires?”
Pang Shihyeon’s voice was cold.
Sensing suspicion had arisen in her heart, Sohwa answered obediently.
“The Blood Demon’s body is different from others. If you open his meridian apertures, they seal back up, so he cannot accumulate internal energy. Thus he has an inefficient body that plunders others’ internal energy, traps it in his qi-blood, and expends it when needed.”
Pang Shihyeon wore a face that said, does that make sense, but Sohwa continued in a calm voice.
“I can buy him time during which the Blood Demon’s meridian apertures will not block. He is looking for me because he wants me to make that medicine.”
Sohwa answered in detail so that the Four-Directions Hall Administrator would not have to ask twice.
But Pang Shihyeon’s face was more twisted than before. It seemed she had trouble accepting the long answer.
“Does that make sense? Why can the Blood Demon not run the Small Heavenly Circuit and must borrow your hand? No, how could he conquer the Outland with a body whose meridians are blocked? It does not make sense. Your words are...”
After telling her not to make her ask twice, when given a detailed answer, Pang Shihyeon poured out even more questions.
Sohwa simply stayed quiet. freeweɓnovel.cøm
She was quite a difficult person to appease.
Muttering to herself, Pang Shihyeon turned her gaze to the Black Tortoise Pavilion Lord. He was a man who did not show expression, but now his brow was deeply furrowed.
It was neither the reaction of not trusting Sohwa and letting the words slide in one ear, nor of getting angry. There was no feel of qi flowing out.
A martial artist of fierce temperament, when losing composure, would unknowingly let qi leak, but Pang Shihyeon and the Black Tortoise Pavilion Lord did not waver.
Their reactions looked like realization, not fluster.
As if some stifling doubt had been resolved, their faces gradually relaxed.
It seemed they had a secret known only to them.
Did the fact that the Blood Demon could not accumulate internal energy give them some clue?
Sohwa could not understand.
She could only vaguely sense that something which had sat ill with them had been relieved.
She was curious what story lay in the Four-Directions Hall. But Sohwa could not ask. It was because a chill was felt in the room.
Tap. Tok.
Footsteps swayed on the wind, and a black shadow came inside. It was a bloodline of the Ice Palace.
In an instant, all attention shifted that way.
“Have you already broken the Passages within the palace?”
At the Administrator’s question, Baek Unhyeon shook his head.
“We have broken two, but a problem arose with the last one, so we put it off and came. With just the three of us, we were not sure we could pierce the sentries.”
“Is there someone standing watch?”
Namgung Jin asked. He seemed greatly interested in the situation inside the palace. He had been continually worrying about the Ice Palace bloodline.
“Red Blood Hall cultists were arrayed at the eastern Passage.”
Baek Unhyeon, who answered briefly, turned his gaze to Sohwa.
“Around the post, there were many corpses with the blood sucked out, and they were wearing the Eom family’s and Dong family’s clothes. It seems what you said—that the Crimson Blood Hall Lord is away from his seat—is true. Seeing the Crimson Blood Hall underlings hiding on the east and indulging their appetite, it looks like they all went inside the palace.”
At those words, Sohwa recalled Hae-rak’s words.
He had said the Crimson Blood Hall was away from its seat and living at ease.
“Rather, with the Crimson Blood Hall away from its seat, it seems better to break the Passages outside the palace first.”
“Are you saying there are no Blood Cult remnants outside the palace right now?”
Pang Shihyeon asked with an air of ready to dash out at once.
“No, strictly speaking, every one on this island is a remnant of the Blood Cult. I’m saying the Crimson Blood Hall lot are not outside the palace.”
“What difference is that?”
“To put it in a way you can easily understand, it’s like the difference between the Four-Directions Hall of the Martial Alliance and a feud of the Hebei Pang family. The Hebei Pang family are members of the Martial Alliance, so in the large view they belong to the Alliance, but to place them on the same level as the Four-Directions Hall, is that not too great a gap?”
Pang Shihyeon nodded as if she understood.
In the meantime, Sohwa spread a map on the side table.
“Please tell me the locations of the Passages you broke. I want to confirm the locations of the Passages outside the walls.”
Baek Unhyeon also took out a map.
Sohwa took up a brush and marked on her own map the Passages Baek Unhyeon had found.
They had said that when an inverted triangle and a triangle overlapped, six Passages appeared.
Sohwa sketched triangles of the same size by eye over the map.
Then the approximate positions of the Passages set outside the palace presented themselves.
“The eastern Passage is close from here. The central Passage is near the entrance. The west is far away, so it seems best to break this one first.”
Pointing to the Passages with her hand, Sohwa looked to the Northern Sea bloodline. frёewebηovel.cѳm
“As the three of you know the paths well, please take the western Passage, and please take the east, Administrator.”
“Then the central Passage will be closed by the Little Clan Head and me?”
To Namgung Jin’s question, Tang Sohwa shook her head.
“No. Please destroy the central Passage, Little Clan Head, and I will destroy the Passages inside the palace.”
“You will go into the palace?”
Unintentionally, Pang Shihyeon raked Tang Sohwa up and down with her eyes.
Even at a glance she was not someone of an extraordinary body, and so the Administrator could not hide a dubious expression.
“If you had said the Little Clan Head would go, I would have understood, but I cannot let you enter alone.”
However, Sohwa did not respond to the Administrator’s words.
Sohwa’s gaze stayed on the center of the map. Buildings drawn near a river were visible.
Of the people she knew, the only one who had beaten the Crimson Blood Hall Lord was the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s superior, the Crimson Blood Hall’s master—no, the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s own lord, the Crimson Blood Hall... (she corrected herself silently). In any case, the Crimson Blood Hall underlings would not be a match for the Crimson Blood Hall Lord’s superior.
Hae-rak could break the Passages inside the palace the fastest. He knew the geography of the Ice Palace and understood the Crimson Blood Hall’s characteristics more deeply than anyone.
However, the only one who could ask Hae-rak to enter the palace together was she alone.
He was posing as the master of Baekgeumgak, so he could not reveal his identity to people of the Central Plains, and to the Ice Palace bloodline he was the mortal enemy, the Crimson Blood Hall Lord.
Sohwa could not explain in detail and rubbed her brow.
“It may be hard to trust me... but I would like you to.”
Even as she said it, she thought it was not a statement that inspired trust.
Sohwa took out the Passage from her sleeve. And she handed it to Namgung Jin.
“You will know what this is. Even if things go wrong, you can all get out safely, so I would like you to trust me.”
Silence descended in the room.
She had laid down her life. No—she had put forth something more precious than her life.
“As I just told the Administrator, the Blood Demon is looking for me, and this one called the Branch Lord seems to have recognized me. We must block the Passages before the Branch Lord informs the Blood Cult of this fact. The Crimson Blood Hall Lord could return, and in the worst case the Blood Demon could cross over.”
Sohwa recalled that the Blood Demon, who had said he would not come to the Central Plains, had chased her to Qinghai.
“We must eliminate all the Passages as quickly as possible to stop the Blood Demon from coming to the Northern Sea.”
At Sohwa’s plea, there was a hush—but only for a moment. Baek Unhyeon let out a sigh and answered.
“We trusted you to come this far anyway, so there is no reason we cannot trust you now.”
Baek Unhyeon raised the mask he had lowered. He spoke to one of his subordinates.
“You return swiftly to the gorge and inform them of the situation. All the Passages set on the mainland must be broken as well. If the Passage situation is...”
Hesitating, Baek Unhyeon decided and ordered,
“No. Even if you break the Seventh Seat’s training, go and ask for help.”
The subordinate cupped his fist and received the order. He vanished the instant the Bloodline Master’s gaze left him.
Baek Unhyeon turned his body back to the people of the Central Plains.
“The western Passage is far, so we will depart at once. As soon as we finish, we will go to the central Passage; let us meet there.”
Though the Ice Palace bloodline showed trust first, the Administrator was still adamant.
“Rather, I will go into the palace, so you go with the Black Tortoise Pavilion Lord to the eastern Passage.”
“I am grateful for the favor, but I must go into the palace alone.”
“I am not on intimate terms with your father, but I am not so heartless a relation as to sit and watch Tang Ji-ha’s child do something dangerous. I understand your mind, but I cannot permit it.”
“Even if you cannot trust me, it is fine.”
Swallowing a bitter feeling, Sohwa put her hand into her sleeve.
“Just... forgive me.”
It was a method she truly did not wish to use, but it seemed there was no choice.
Pang Shihyeon, who was about to ask what she meant, flinched. It was because her mouth did not move.
More precisely, her whole body did not move.
Not only she, but everyone in the room had turned to stone.
Tang Sohwa took down the Blood-Wind Cloak hanging on the wall and put it on, then said,
“For its effect, the duration is not long. After half a ke, the paralysis will wear off, so do not worry. But even if your bodies are freed, I would ask that you not pursue me. I intend to steal a horse to get out, and if there is a commotion, everyone could be put in danger.”
Sohwa went to the door and brought her hands together in a courtesy.
“I will eliminate the Passages inside the walls as quickly as possible and go to the central Passage.”
In the end, the weakest among them went out to the most dangerous place, and no one could stop her.
