Free Web NovelThanks to the great figures who had come along, they were able to subdue the demonic warriors in no time. The flames were also put under control quickly.
By the time a yellow tinge began to seep into the sky, they could finally say the situation had been completely resolved.
“Shall I bring fresh cloth?”
A girl asked Tang Sohwa. She was not a child of the Tang Clan. She was a pair of hands hastily brought in from the marketplace.
When Sohwa nodded, the girl, as if she had been waiting, set a basket filled with clean cloth down on the table. Then, on her own, she gathered up the dirty cloth and went outside.
Once the demonic warriors were suppressed, the disappearance of the poison in the moat ended up working in their favor. The hands who had come to help from the Sichuan Branch with support and restoration could now enter the Tang manor right away without taking antidotes.
Just then, the Divine Physician, who was suturing a patient’s flesh beside her, let out a sigh.
“That’s one burden off our backs.”
Muttering his complaint, he tied off the knot and cut the thread.
“I thought we were surely going to die.”
Without a word, Sohwa tilted the bottle of disinfectant. Soaking a cloth in the liquid, she wiped away the blood that had flowed around the wound.
The Divine Physician no longer had any room for leisure.
Leaving the cleanup to Sohwa, he went straight to treat the next person.
Most of the situation inside the Tang Clan had been taken care of, but the Medical Division was an exception.
The injured they found during the cleanup were pushed into the Medical Division, and they also had to re-examine the patients who had been brought in earlier.
It had gotten so bad that even Tang Hae-han, who had only just come to his senses, crawled out to lend a hand.
Sohwa thought it was almost fortunate that she was busy. She could push back, for a little while, the thoughts of the Tang manor that had been swallowed by the fiery blaze and of her family.
'We were lucky enough to avoid serious damage this time...'
No.
In the end, Sohwa could not push those thoughts away.
The moment she had even the smallest gap, her mind immediately flowed back to this.
Sohwa swallowed a stifled breath. Because the decoction cauldrons had been boiling without rest, the air was thick with the scent of medicinal herbs.
As she walked toward the cauldrons, she organized the thoughts filling her head.
The Blood Demon she knew had not sent demonic warriors into the Central Plains until at least twenty years from now, and that incident had wiped out four sects. Even after causing such a great calamity, the Blood Demon had drawn no suspicion. No—no one had known that the Blood Cult had been rebuilt.
Perhaps, by then, the Blood Demon had already finished preparing everything needed to hide his existence and had been coming and going between Geumeunsan and the Central Plains.
The Alliance Leader had said as much.
After the demonic sect vanished, he had gone alone to Geumeunsan and met the sorcerer. At the time, because the Blood Demon had been traveling back and forth to the Central Plains, he had not been there, and [N O V E L I G H T] so the Alliance Leader had found her first.
What weighed on Sohwa’s mind was the change in the Blood Demon.
Judging by his overreach, it seemed he had given up on hiding his existence.
The implication that he could now leave Geumeunsan at any time nagged at her.
As Sohwa transferred the decoction from the cauldron, she stopped thinking for a moment.
Holding the separate bowl she had filled, she walked off somewhere.
A late-generation disciple of Wudang, who had been sitting at the edge of the tent, spotted her and stood up.
“Please drink.”
When Sohwa held the medicine out, Yeon-a waved her hand.
“Eh? I’m fine. It’s just a cut on my hand.”
The hand wrapped in white cloth sliced the air in front of her with a whooshing sound.
Sohwa turned her head, took in their surroundings with a glance, then held the bowl out to Yeon-a again.
Yeon-a flicked a glance at the many patients visible behind Sohwa.
“I really am fine. I only nicked my hand a little because I picked up someone else’s weapon and used it. Please give it to someone el— mmph.”
When Sohwa, without further persuasion, raised the bowl to her lips, Yeon-a could not refuse and drank the decoction.
“I prepared and boiled this medicine myself. It may not be an elixir, but it will greatly reduce fatigue and replenish your body’s energy, so don’t leave any. I used rare ingredients and didn’t have enough to make portions for anyone else.”
When she said that, Yeon-a’s eyes gleamed.
Having finished the decoction before she knew it, Yeon-a wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and asked,
“You mean Young Lady Tang prepared it personally?”
“Yes. I was fortunate. My room was not caught in the blaze, so all the ingredients I had been keeping for personal use were completely unharmed.”
“If it’s something Young Lady Tang keeps for personal use, doesn’t that mean it’s precious?”
She had already been told it was rare, so it seemed the value must be considerable.
Shrinking a little, Yeon-a asked that, but Sohwa only smiled with an unreadable expression. frёewebηovel.cѳm
“How could I give the First Disciple anything not precious?”
Sohwa offered Yeon-a a piece of licorice root.
“I heard from Yehwa. That you faced a whole crowd of demonic warriors alone and saved those children.”
“Well, I...”
Yeon-a scratched the back of her neck, embarrassed.
“It was only what I ought to do.”
When Yeon-a’s lips twitched up, Sohwa shook her head.
“To me, the First Disciple’s help is not ‘only natural.’ You saved my younger siblings’ lives, you lent us that precious Han Cheol last time, and also...”
Sohwa suddenly closed her mouth. As if she had swallowed words that were hard to speak, she fell silent, then brought her hands together and bowed her head slightly.
“...It is late, but truly, thank you.”
“A-ah, no. Please don’t do this.”
Flustered, Yeon-a hurriedly took Sohwa’s hands and pulled them apart.
She had wanted to see Sohwa pleased, but when it came to such an excessive expression of gratitude, she felt so mortified she could die.
Besides, the Tang Sohwa she knew was not someone who would bow her head easily.
Thinking that Sohwa must be deeply shaken made her feel uneasy. Then again, how could anyone be normal when their clan had almost been wiped out?
With a bitter look, Yeon-a asked,
“Is there anything else I can help you with?”
The answer came at once.
“First Disciple, if you are so free, come here and hold this for me.”
It was not Sohwa’s voice, but the Divine Physician’s.
He was holding the leg of a martial artist whose bones had been twisted and called Yeon-a over. Realizing right away what he meant to do, Yeon-a turned pale.
“Ah! Wait! Don’t do it yet! Let me do it, just stay still! We can talk again later.”
When the Divine Physician, with a tired expression, started to pull on the martial artist’s leg, Yeon-a quickly ran over and grabbed it herself in his place. With a crack, the martial artist’s bones slid back into place.
Yeon-a busied herself taking over the jobs that required strength, working hard alongside the Divine Physician.
For some reason, Sohwa found it difficult to keep watching that scene and stepped out of the tent.
But things outside were not so different, either.
Though they said the situation had been handled, traces of the blaze could still be seen everywhere, and armed martial artists moved around the area with their weapons at the ready.
Seeking somewhere quiet, Sohwa walked to the lakeside—and then stopped.
Through the open window of Hongso Pavilion, she could see the people seated inside.
A dozen martial artists from the Namgung Clan, the Tang Clan, Wudang, and Mount Hua were sitting in the pavilion holding a meeting. They seemed to be the key figures of each faction. The Clan Head, the Sect Leader, and the faces of others she knew well were there. Heukcheon Amgui, the Taeguk Sword Sovereign, Wu So, Namgung Jin, and even Namgung Hyun.
Perhaps they had sensed her presence; they glanced at Sohwa once, but, without paying her much heed, went on speaking.
She could not hear their words, but she could roughly guess what they were discussing.
Having seen with their own eyes the demonic sect raise its head, this would be an emergency council.
She had seen this sight twenty years ago as well, so it was not particularly shocking.
Only, the way the people at the meeting were arranged felt unfamiliar.
In the past, Namgung Hyun, who later became the Namgung Clan Head, had sat in the highest seat, and the Martial Alliance figures who had come to Namgung had sat before him.
Back then, because the Blood Demon and the Blood Cult’s existence had not yet been made known to the world, and because the demonic sect had eventually been annihilated, no truly great figures had come to Namgung to offer their opinions.
But now, everyone knew that the demonic warriors’ attack was the Blood Cult’s declaration of war.
Perhaps because the conversation was grave, they were all focused on the council.
Only one person kept turning his gaze aside to sneak glances her way.
At this age, Namgung Hyun had no place at such a table. Knowing his own position well, the discomfort showed clearly on his face.
The others probably could not read that expression, but she could. She had watched him from close by for decades; she could tell what was pretense.
Sohwa could not name what she was feeling.
Rage flared up, then she was swallowed by fear, then she felt relief at the changed reality, then a cold jolt of anxiety hit at the recurring situation. Her emotions thrashed about in all directions, muddling her head so badly she could not follow a single line of thought.
Her feelings about Namgung Hyun were the same. When his current self overlapped with his past, anger still surged, but when she thought of the situation changed by his help, she also felt grateful.
Her mind was already tangled enough; she could not afford to add her old feelings on top of it.
Seeking a place where she could empty her head, Sohwa turned away.
She headed for the bamboo grove near the lake.
Once she stepped into the grove, the green stalks blocked her entire field of vision, and the cool sound of the wind washed her thoughts clean.
Whooosh.
As she walked between them, her thoughts slowly began to come into order.
The Blood Demon had crossed a line.
The demonic sect raising its head again was not the kind of rumor you could suppress even if you dumped Oseoksan all over the Central Plains. Nor could you hide the fact that the Blood Cult and the demonic sect were entangled.
'Is he trying to start a war in the Central Plains?'
Sohwa had never seen or heard of such a future.
The Alliance Leader had also said he had never faced the Blood Demon in the Central Plains.
The Alliance Leader had tried to lure him into the Central Plains, but apart from the one time when the sorcerer took her own life, he had never seen the Blood Demon leave Geumeunsan before fulfilling his plan.
If the Blood Demon now had the will to come into the Central Plains, the assumption that he would never leave Geumeunsan could change as well.
With his plans altered, there was no reason the Blood Cult’s leader would not take the field in a full-scale war.
Sohwa curled her fingers into her palm. Blood beaded where her nails dug into her flesh, but she could not uncurl her hand.
No matter how much she walked, no good solution came to mind.
If the Blood Demon resolved to cross into the Central Plains—
'Where would he base himself?'
The person who might know that was the Alliance Leader.
But he was not on her side, and for some reason he was lying low in his quarters.
Zhuge Inhwi had said the Alliance Leader was so intoxicated on Oseoksan that he would not come out of his hall, but Sohwa did not believe that.
He surely had something in mind. Whatever that was, it was favorable to her that the Alliance Leader was not coming out, so Sohwa had stayed quiet.
She briefly considered going to seek out the Alliance Leader, then dismissed the thought.
Even if he generously gave her an answer, she could not trust a word he said.
He could very well fabricate something to hand her over to the Blood Demon.
Whether his words were true or not, because she herself doubted the Alliance Leader, she could not act on his information.
Crunch.
Recalling something, Sohwa stopped walking.
There was one more person.
Someone who might know the Blood Demon’s base if he crossed into the Central Plains.
And someone who might be willing to tell her that fact.
Sohwa thought of the second son of the Zhuge family—the one who had supposedly told the Alliance Leader the way to Geumeunsan.
