#1: Seonu Clan (1) — Reborn on the Demonic Cult Battlefield

I returned from death and chose to walk back into hell on my own.

To the place that had made me a martial man—the grand Blood Demon Front.

In this life, I would lose nothing.

Not my friends, not my family, not my life.

And I would smash it to pieces.

The Blood Demon Cult that had stolen everything from me.

Three-Sword Light Split.

Shuhaak!

The finishing stroke of the Diancang Sect’s Eighteen Light-Splitting Swords split the light—and three heads dropped.

Blue Wind Wave.

Shaaak!

The chests of the figures rushing me split open with a rip as the finishing cut of the Qingcheng Sect’s Blue Wind Sword Technique struck, and blood sprayed.

Yet even as their bodies split and they died, the ones charging me did not let out a single scream.

Nor did I, who made them that way, feel any joy.

If anything, tears of grief streamed down my face.

Because they were not enemies at all, but my own household—the retainers of the Seonu Clan.

My family, my friends, my subordinates.

“Kehahaha! What an amusing wretch! You claim to be the head of the Seonu Clan, yet you use Qingcheng and Diancang sword arts day and night! Have you perhaps forgotten the famed Thirteen Swords of Seonu?”

The Blood Demon Cult’s Demon Head, Black-Blood Illusion Demon, Du Dang.

The very fiend who turned the Seonu Clan’s people into puppets and drove them to attack was mocking me.

“Ah! Now that I think about it, that sword art was passed down only as far as this brat, wasn’t it? I’d forgotten.”

Beside him stood my younger brother Seonu Gi—blank-faced and rigid—the previous head of the Seonu Clan before me.

I’d heard he went missing during the Blood Demon Cult’s raid; to think he now stood there like a puppet of Du Dang.

And he wasn’t the only one.

“So you’re butchering your own people so cruelly? You’re quite the ruthless fellow. They say you came from the Flying Dragon Unit, don’t they? Those Flying Dragon dogs, tsk tsk.”

Clicking his tongue, Du Dang looked over my dazed family and spoke.

“Now then, who shall I send so you can’t bring yourself to kill and finally surrender? Right, this child will do.”

Where his gaze fell—there she was.

My little sister, Yeonha—the one who had stayed on my side to the end even when I was called the shame of the Seonu Clan, a useless pig.

I had prayed that at least that child would be spared….

Perhaps my expression twisted too much, for Dudang clapped and burst into a radiant laugh.

“Good! Seems I chose well! Now, let’s see you butcher this child, too! O last head of the Seonu Clan, Seonu Jin!”

My sister Yeonha was slowly walking past the Blood Demon Cultists surrounding me, approaching me.

In her hand was White Heron, the cherished sword I had gifted her….

I glanced around on impulse.

Blood Demon Cultists ringed us in every direction, and behind the wall they formed, Du Dang had lined up the Seonu Clan’s people he’d turned into puppets, showing them off to me as he sent them at me one by one, clapping in delight.

There was no hope left.

I squeezed my eyes shut.

“Forgive me, Captain. It seems I could never become like you after all.”

Suddenly, the face of Gale-Wind Flying Dragon Seol Pung—my eternal captain and benefactor who had forged a mere wastrel like me into a martial artist—floated up.

And the words he once gave me….

Whenever I was in despair, he would always smile and say this to me.

“Jin, are you curled up again? As I’ve always said, you already did the best you could. That’s enough. The outcome isn’t your responsibility. So lift your shoulders now.”

My eyes flashed open again.

Strength had returned to my gaze.

The captain always said this:

-Do what you can until the very last moment.

-If you don’t give up to the end, even in defeat you are no loser.

Yes, he was right.

You don’t become a loser just because you can’t win.

I would not be able to beat them today. And of course, I would not survive.

But there was still something I could do—something I had to do.

If I were captured like this, my body would also become Du Dang’s puppet, just like my family.

And one day, that creature would try to repeat what he did to me—on my captain as well.

I could not allow that.

The thought that my existence would become a burden to my captain and my friends was unbearable.

“If I must die anyway, then I’ll die cleanly by my own will!”

I resolved myself.

I reversed my grip and raised my sword to my chest.

The Scarlet Lotus Sword—the symbol of the Seonu Clan’s head, said to carry the spirit of Annihilating Evil—pointed at my heart.

At last, the smile vanished from Du Dang’s face.

“You cur, what are you trying to do?!”

It seemed that this time I had made the right choice as well. Grinning fiercely, I told him:

“You can kill me, but you won’t use my corpse. And, Du Dang—I will never let you live. Even as a ghost, I’ll find a way to kill you!”

The instant I finished speaking, the tip of the Scarlet Lotus Sword pierced my heart.

Puk!

A pain like fire searing my chest lanced through my whole body.

Yet it wasn’t suffering.

Even as my mind blurred, a strange calm settled in.

The Scarlet Lotus Sword—a sacred blade in the long history of the Seonu Clan—had pierced my heart; he would not be able to use my corpse.

And regret washed over me.

If I had known, I would have lived a little harder.

I wouldn’t have run away, making excuses about not wanting to fight my brothers.

And I would have let my talents soar, just a little more….

In the haze, a piercing scream stabbed my ears.

“Kyaaah! Murder!”

Yes, there had been murder.

I had killed many, and I had taken my own life.

So could you quiet down a bit?

It’s too noisy to stay dead.

“It’s murder! Young Master Seonu Jin killed Young Master Dan Hasang!”

Maybe because I was dead, my head felt unbearably heavy, but at that voice my brow knit hard.

Dan Hasang? How long ago are you talking about?

Even thinking about that incident still keeps me from sleeping.

But as the bustle swelled and I heard people crowding closer, only then did I realize something was wrong with my consciousness.

I cracked my eyes open.

To my surprise, they opened.

“Huh?!”

I was rattled.

I was sure I had died, and my eyes were open?

Why?

And the scene that entered as soon as they opened was a mess of scattered bottles and dishes—and the corpse of a young man slumped over the seat opposite me.

A man with a sword stuck in his back.

I knew him very well.

His name was Dan Hasang.

He was the man who had promised to marry my little sister Yeonha—and who died the year I turned twenty-one, more than ten years ago.

Yet there he lay, dead before my eyes.

“What… what on earth…?”

I stared at him, dazed.

I couldn’t make sense of any of it.

I couldn’t tell if my head felt foggy from drink, or from this utterly incomprehensible situation.

I looked down at my hands on a sudden impulse.

They were plump, like the paws of a fat bear.

“This… isn’t my hand, is it?”

My eyes squinted on their own.

At least now, these pudgy hands weren’t mine.

They were the hands I thought I’d left forever behind after slimming down at twenty-two….

“Is this a dream? What is? Where does it end?”

As I muttered blankly, people surged into the room in a rush.

They saw the corpse, started, and shouted at me.

“Young Master Seonu! Why did you kill Young Master Dan?!”

At those words, my vacant gaze drifted to the sword lodged in the corpse’s back.

Dan Hasang—stuck in his back was my sword.

Dragged away, I was tightly bound and forced to kneel in the center of the grand hall. Elders and retainers of the Seonu Clan stood at a distance around me, watching.

Kneeling with this fat body, even now my legs were going numb like mad.

“Ah… don’t tell me this really isn’t a dream?”

The reality felt so vivid that I swallowed hard.

Then a middle-aged man standing on the dais before me roared in a voice like fire.

My father—Seonu Jung, head of the Seonu Clan in Guizhou.

“Jin, you wretch! Do you have anything to say?!”

No, not at all.

I had nothing to say.

Not because I lacked excuses, but because this situation was too absurd for words.

I had last seen my father when I was twenty-one and then never again. And there he was, scolding me.

In appearance and words exactly as in my memory back then.

“Your silence—does it mean you admit you killed the Dan family’s third young master, the man who was to be your brother-in-law?!”

No, not at all.

That I could never admit.

Back when I was twenty-one, I’d been too rattled and too drunk to trust myself, so I’d kept my mouth shut—but after years of sleepless thinking, I had reached a conclusion.

“I did not kill him.”

Indeed.

I had no reason to kill him—and lacked the ability.

He was my only friend, who treated even a family disgrace like me without prejudice.

Thanks to him, he and my sister Yeonha were to be bound in engagement.

So why would I, who had been counting the days until he became my brother-in-law, kill him?

What’s more, he was the promising son of a martial family, while I at the time was nothing but a pig.

No matter how drunk, killing him with my skill was difficult—no, impossible.

And beyond all else—

“There is one certain proof I didn’t kill him.”

That night, I had not taken a sword to the drinking table.

With the memory that got me called a prodigy as a child, I could swear to that much.

In conclusion, Dan Hasang’s death was certainly a plot.

A scheme to kill him and pin it on me.

Yet despite all this, the words that left my mouth were completely different from my thoughts—exactly the same as when I was twenty-one.

“I… don’t remember.”

Naturally, that answer only poured oil on my father Seonu Jung’s rage.

In fury he shouted:

“You stupid wretch! You call that an answer?!”

Then, young men standing beside Seonu Jung—my brothers, whom I was seeing again after so long—laughed in disbelief and spoke.

“That fool causing trouble drunk isn’t new, but I never dreamed he’d cause one this big.”

“Really? I figured he would. Last time he set a fire, so I wondered what kind of depravity he’d commit to disgrace the clan this time. Drunk and killing someone seemed the only option. Though I didn’t think he’d kill the man to be our brother-in-law.”

“For my part, I’m a little amazed. I never imagined our piggish brother could even hold a sword with those hands—let alone kill someone.”

Their snickering eyes held undisguised contempt.

The scene was exactly as I remembered.

I swept my eyes over them with a cool gaze.

‘It’s probably among them. The one who killed Dan Hasang and framed me.’

From their words alone, Second Brother Seonu Hyeok—who said he already knew—seemed most likely.

But I suspected someone else more.

At that moment, my father Seonu Jung shouted again.

“How am I to punish you?! How shall we atone to the Dan Manor?! Shall I kill you and send your corpse?!”

I merely hung my head and stayed still.

If this truly was a return to the past, then whether I spoke or not, the outcome would be the same.

Sure enough, my brothers began offering opinions with thin smiles.

“Will killing him appease their anger? Make him a cripple and send him alive. Let them vent their wrath themselves.”

So said my eldest brother, Seonu Seong.

“Why should we trouble ourselves at all? Sever him and cast him out—they’ll see to the rest.”

That was Second Brother Seonu Hyeok.

But as in my memory, the decisive suggestion came from the fourth, Seonu Gi.

“How about this? We send Third Brother to the front.”

“Hm?”

“What?”

The proposal was so unexpected that not only my other brothers but even my father Seonu Jung stared wide-eyed at Seonu Gi.

He continued.

“Didn’t the Alliance request that recently? To send one direct-line member to the front. So we send Third Brother there.”

My father asked, face heavy.

“With Jin’s meager martial skill, if he goes to the front he’ll be killed by the fiends at once.”

“What does it matter? A life forfeit anyway—if he dies there, it will be an honorable death. It raises the clan’s honor, pays for his crime—two birds with one stone.”

As he finished, I quietly added the one reason he hadn’t said aloud.

“And one of you won’t have to go to the front.”

The “front” meant the border facing the Blood Demon Cult that had seized Yunnan Province.

More than ten years ago from now, the Blood Demon Cult toppled Diancang, one of the Nine Great Sects in Yunnan, and tried to break into the Central Plains.

Back then the Martial Alliance formed a punitive army and clashed with them head-on—the Great Righteous–Blood War.

After a grueling battle in which the Alliance Leader at the time died, the Alliance barely managed to block the cult’s advance into the Central Plains.

But there was nothing to be done about Yunnan, which they already held. Yunnan, once Diancang’s domain, became the Blood Demon Cult’s territory.

After that, the Martial Alliance gathered spirited martial men near Yunnan to watch for a push into the heartland, and people called that line the Blood Demon Front.

‘But that was a decade ago. Now… tch.’

As time passed, what began as a place gallant martial men scrambled to volunteer for had withered into a place that was only dangerous and offered neither fame nor benefit.

It became somewhere that could only be maintained by forcing sects to supply men.

For that reason, the sects of Guizhou under the Martial Alliance were now obligated to send one direct-line member to Yunnan’s Blood Demon Front.

Our Seonu Clan was no different.

‘Originally one of my other three brothers—not weak me—should have gone. But now, with this incident as pretext, they can send me, whose death doesn’t matter.’

Nothing could be better for my brothers.

Having replayed that time thousands upon thousands of times, I concluded the one who plotted it was most likely Fourth Brother, Seonu Gi.

In the hall, opinion quickly converged into one.

A decision that harmed no one—and richly benefited my remaining brothers.

The Dan Manor would receive suitable material compensation, and I would be transferred to the Yunnan front as soon as possible.

Exactly the same decision as when I was twenty-one, ten-odd years ago.

After that, I was thrown into the dungeon.

In the black night sky, a pallid moon held its lonely light.

Even after I reached Yunnan, for a time that last moon of home would rise in my nights.

Suddenly, a thought from back then returned.

“In the past, I would stare at that moon and weep without end.”

But now that I had returned, I did not.

Because I already knew two people would come visit me tonight.

And from one of them, I had to obtain something.

One of the two was already approaching carefully.

Yeonha—my kind little sister, the only sanctuary in a home that was a constant bed of thorns.

“Brother Jin, are you all right?”

Seeing her face, the image of her as a Blood Demon puppet just before my return flashed up—and I felt all the more tender.

I smiled gently and answered.

“I’m fine, Yeonha. Are you unharmed?”

“Why would anything be wrong with me? You be strong, Brother. I believe you aren’t the culprit.”

Back then, that good child said the same.

At the time I only wept and kept saying thank you.

Now I could say it with confidence.

“That’s right, Yeonha. Your brother isn’t the culprit.”

Yeonha looked startled.

“Pardon?”

“Hm? What’s wrong?”

“No, just… I wondered how you could be so sure….”

Huh? How I could be sure?

“Why would I kill my only friend—and the man who was to become your husband? Above all, Dan and I were drinking face to face. Yet the sword was in Dan’s back. And it was a sword I hadn’t even brought.”

Yeonha swallowed and answered.

“I-I see. Then, Brother, why didn’t you say that before Father…?”

“Because leaving the clan for the front seems the better choice for me.”

“Wh-what?!”

Yes.

Looking back on my previous life, it split clearly into before and after being sent to the front.

The earlier life—my life in the clan—could not be called martial by any stretch.

“No, not martial—barely human.”

The memories from then were so suffocating I could hardly bear to recall them.

Among the Seonu brothers, I alone had no mother. She died when I was very young.

But that wasn’t what mattered.

What mattered was that I had no powerful maternal family behind me.