Martial Blood Summit (2)

Ma Yugyeom grasped the sword hilt and tried to draw it, but in the end, he did not.

No, he could not.

“Urgh!”

Clutching the sword hilt, his whole body trembled as if some formless power was pressing him down.

Just as he had earlier blocked Cheok Gang’s killing intent, the Blood Demon seemed to be suppressing him with intangible energy.

To think he could render Ma Yugyeom, a pinnacle martial artist, like that without lifting a finger—it was absurd beyond belief.

Suddenly, my thought that reaching the pinnacle realm would be enough to launch a counteroffensive against the Demonic Sect seemed laughable.

I felt hollow.

The Blood Demon smiled softly, watching Ma Yugyeom’s teeth-gritting face, then shifted his gaze to the next person.

At that, Ma Yugyeom’s expression turned utterly blank as the strength drained from the hand holding his sword.

It seemed as though he had despaired at a wall far too great to overcome.

After offering a kind word to each squad leader in turn, the Blood Demon finally spoke to Squad Leader Seol Pung and entered the summit hall.

We could only watch his departing back with complicated expressions.

The impression he left was overwhelming.

Not only his sheer presence and martial might, but also the fact that he had called each squad leader by name and offered a friendly remark—it was shocking beyond words.

From behind me came Bi Sayoung’s voice, muttered in disheartenment.

“I don’t know who the Alliance Leader really is anymore.”

I agreed.

Our own Alliance Leader, the Chivalry King Moyong Geom, had left nothing more than a perfunctory greeting.

I doubted he even remembered the names of the squad leaders, let alone those of the sub-commanders or vice-commanders.

It was bitter.

Even without a fight, it already felt as if we had lost.

Then suddenly, a voice entered my ear through sound transmission.

It was Lady Cheong-yeon.

— Didn’t you find something strange just now?

I looked puzzled at her words.

Strange?

What exactly?

Was she referring to the fact that the Blood Demon had seemed almost… agreeable?

But her next words were not that.

— It looked as if the Blood Demon whispered something to Squad Leader Ma through sound transmission.

What? A secret message?

From the Blood Demon to Ma Yugyeom?

Startled, I asked back.

— Are you saying you overheard a transmission?

— No, of course not.

Naturally. No one had ever claimed they could eavesdrop on sound transmissions.

Even absolute masters of Murim would likely find it impossible.

She continued through the transmission.

— But it seemed that way when Squad Leader Ma suddenly released his grip on the sword and looked so shocked. It felt as if the Blood Demon told him something truly startling.

At her words, I studied Ma Yugyeom’s face once again. He had bowed his head, body trembling faintly, looking deeply shaken.

Honestly, I thought it was simply because he had felt powerless before the mortal enemy of his sect, the Blood Demon.

Even I, standing beside him, had felt overwhelmed—how much more so for him who had faced the man directly?

Still, Lady Cheong-yeon’s keen perception was not something to dismiss.

And yet…

No matter how I thought about it, I could not guess what it might have been.

What could the Blood Demon possibly have told Ma Yugyeom at this point?

Did he apologize for what had happened to the Diancang Sect?

I had no idea.

In the end, the summit ended quickly, as uneventfully as in my previous life’s memories.

The Blood Demon and his four retainers, including the Iron-Heart Mad Demon Cheok Gang, departed immediately. The Alliance Leader’s entourage likewise left without looking back at the Thirteen Squads.

“Alliance Leader! Please, take care on your way!”

Vice-Commander Heon Yeongbo shouted until his voice cracked, but they paid him no mind and hastened away. It seemed that, just as in my previous life, he would remain stationed here.

That evening, it was our Seventh Squad’s turn for patrol duty. When we set out, Lady Cheong-yeon suddenly spoke.

“I have a request to make of all of you.”

We turned to her with puzzled looks.

She was not only skilled in martial arts but also sharp and decisive in everything. Others might ask her for favors, but she had never before asked anything of others.

What she said next shocked us even more.

Standing before us with a grave face, she said:

“I want to believe it isn’t true… but I may die in the near future.”

At her abrupt words, we were stunned for a moment before shouting in alarm.

“…W-what?!”

“Die? What do you mean, Cheong-yeon?!”

That morning, as the Alliance Leader’s entourage passed before the lined-up Thirteen Squads, Hae Cheong-yeon secretly sent a sound transmission to one of them.

— It has been a while, Uncle Zhuge.

It was to Zhuge Jigang, the strategist known as Heaven-Thunder of the Murim Alliance.

Zhuge Jigang suddenly turned his head, eyes widening in shock. He had never expected to see her here.

— Aren’t you Cheong-yeon? Why in the world are you here?!

— Circumstances brought me. Will you meet me in that grove shortly? I’ll be waiting.

After attending briefly to business inside the summit hall, Zhuge Jigang went to the grove and met Hae Cheong-yeon.

“Cheong-yeon greets Uncle.”

“Cheong-yeon! What is the meaning of this?! Why are you at the frontline?! Does your father know?!”

Hae Cheong-yeon was not only a friend of his cherished daughter Zhuge Seoyul, but also the daughter of one of his few close comrades.

For her to be here—Zhuge Jigang was livid.

But Hae Cheong-yeon calmly answered.

“Father does not know yet. But after learning what is happening here, I could not pretend ignorance. That would go against the principles of a righteous warrior, which Father himself instilled in me.”

Zhuge Jigang was struck silent. He knew well what kind of man her father was, and what he valued above all else.

“No, but even so—you are still so young! And a woman at that—this is far too dangerous a place!”

But she only smiled and shook her head.

“There’s a girl in our squad who is even younger than I. And I am already twenty-one—I can pull my own weight. More importantly, what I’ve learned here is too shocking to turn away from now.”

What she had learned here…

At those words, Zhuge Jigang gave her a troubled look.

Smiling faintly, she spoke again.

“Please don’t worry too much. I haven’t faced anything too dangerous yet. But I wanted to ask you for a favor.”

With that, she held out two sealed letters.

“I wrote to Seoyul and Father. Since I expected you would attend the summit, I held onto them. Could I entrust them to you?”

Zhuge Jigang smiled and nodded.

“Very well. If that is your wish, then so be it. I shall deliver them.”

They exchanged a few more words before parting.

But once she turned away, the brightness vanished from Hae Cheong-yeon’s face.

And though she did not see it, Zhuge Jigang’s expression too had hardened.

Later, Hae Cheong-yeon spoke to her comrades.

“I have long thought something was wrong about the current situation. The harsh conditions of the frontline, the dangerous demons, the mistakes of the Demonic General Blood Envoy and the Diancang Sect, and even the secret of the Jeon family manor—all of these have been concealed or misrepresented in Murim. It seemed to me there must be a great force keeping this under wraps.”

At her words, Bi Sayoung frowned.

“A great force? Who do you mean?”

Hae Cheong-yeon answered.

“Most likely… the Murim Alliance.”

Cheon Ju-eun asked with a confused look.

“But sister, everyone knows we swore the Secret Oath. Sure, its purpose is suspicious, but is it really such a strange thing?”

Hae Cheong-yeon replied.

“The oath itself is a problem, but what I think is worse is that the secret is being kept so well.”

“…Huh?”

“The term of duty at the frontline is five years. That means, unless they extended it by choice, many veterans should already be active in Murim. And anyone who survived five years here would be no mediocre fighter—they would be masters. So we should have seen them somewhere. Especially in provinces near Yunnan, like Guizhou, Sichuan, or Guangxi.”

She turned to Seonu Jin.

“You said you gathered information about the frontline outside. Did you ever meet such a veteran in person?”

He shook his head with a grim look.

“No. I never met anyone in Guizhou who claimed to be from the frontline. I never even heard a rumor. The only source of information was the Hao Sect.”

Hae Cheong-yeon looked around again.

“Does that make sense? That there isn’t a single veteran even in Guizhou, right next to Yunnan? That in all of Murim, where rumor travels faster than the wind, no word of the frontline has spread?”

Faces around her grew tense.

Na Seoyu swallowed hard.

“Cheong-yeon, are you saying…?”

Around the same time, at the inn, Zhuge Jigang gazed at the letters Hae Cheong-yeon had entrusted to him.

Then he broke the seal and began to read.

As he read, his expression grew stiffer.

The letter to her father described the frontline in detail: the demons that emerged, the dire state where veteran warriors died leaving only the young, even the secret concerning the Diancang Sect.

At the end, she wrote that she could not understand why it all had to remain secret, or how it had been hidden from Murim until now.

Her plea was for her father to investigate.

When Zhuge Jigang finished, his face had gone utterly expressionless.

After long thought, he smiled faintly.

Then he burned her letter.

“Cheong-yeon, Cheong-yeon… An oath of secrecy means exactly that: keeping secrets. I’d let it pass for Seoyul’s sake, but if I leave you be, sooner or later you’ll tell your father. And I cannot bear for him to know. So I have no choice.”

He thought of her father.

“My apologies, Brother Hae. But you still have two daughters left, even if one disappears. This is all because of your obstinate nature—please forgive me.”

Then he began writing another letter—this one a secret missive to the Murim Alliance.

That night, Do Huiyeong of the Fifth Squad suddenly awoke.

It felt as though she had dreamt something strange.

But awake, she remembered nothing—only a hazy feeling.

“How odd… what’s wrong with me?”

Muttering, she tried to return to sleep. But she recalled the sight of the Blood Demon and his entourage earlier that day.

When he had greeted each squad leader, drawing everyone’s attention, she had thought she heard something strange and turned her head.

Her eyes had met those of the smallest figure among the four retainers—the man in the bamboo hat.

At that moment, he had lifted the hat slightly and looked straight at her.

He was a man with unsettling red eyes.

She had immediately turned away, unable to bear meeting his gaze.

And nothing else had happened.

But now…

Suddenly, fear struck her.

Could it be that she had been soul-captured at that moment?

She swallowed hard but shook her head.

Even if she was the weakest in the Fifth Squad, it was absurd to think she could be soul-captured by a mere glance.

And if she truly had been, she wouldn’t be able to think like this now.

“No… impossible. Just nerves, that’s all.”

With that conclusion, Do Huiyeong tried to sleep again.

The thought of being soul-captured by a demonic cultist, turned against comrades, and slain by their hands was horrific beyond imagination.

She wanted to believe such a fate would never be hers.

But soon, she fell into another nightmare she would never remember upon waking.

Ma Yugyeom slowly opened the door to his quarters.

There was no one inside, yet his hand trembled slightly on the door.

Expression rigid, he stepped in—and froze at the sight of a letter and a box neatly placed on his bed.

His face turned to stone.

He closed his eyes tightly.

After a long moment motionless, he took a deep breath and opened the letter with trembling hands.

The handwriting was all too familiar—so familiar, though unseen for a very long time.

His face twisted as he read, twisting further with each line.

When he reached the end, he crushed the letter in his fist and screamed.

“Uaaaaaaghhhhhh! Aaaaahhhhhh!”

It was a cry steeped in grief, sorrow, and despair.