I clearly have a part of me that relies on the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
If there is a part of me that relies on my father, then there is another part that relies on the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“Settle it with what you’re best at.”
“What is that?”
“Kill the Pungcheon Cult Leader.”
I took it as a joke and burst out laughing, but the Blood Heaven Blade Demon was serious.
“Why are you laughing? It would be killing two birds with one stone. If you kill the Pungcheon Cult Leader, no one would dare oppose you becoming the successor. As a bonus, you’d gain the subordinate you want.”
“I won’t kill the Pungcheon Cult Leader.”
“Why not?”
“He isn’t a good man, but he isn’t so evil that he deserves to die, either.”
“That’s not the real reason, is it? Isn’t it because he’s your treasure vault?”
“Well, that is part of it.”
“You’re the villain here.”
“I admit it.”
“You admit it that easily?”
“How could I catch villains if I were softhearted to the core? I’ll become a proper villain. So I’ll bear the karma and go to hell.”
“Hell is where people like me should go. You should walk a path strewn with flowers.”
Because I could feel he meant it sincerely, I was inwardly moved.
“You’ve already made your decision, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
After my conversation with Chief Strategist Sama Myeong, I had decided to make the shackled man one of my people.
“He belongs to the Pungcheon Cult Leader, so you can’t just take him by force.”
“That’s right.”
“Then leave it to him. Make him come to you on his own.”
“He’s a man bound in shackles.”
“He has to break those shackles himself. If he can’t show at least that much ability, would he even be worth bringing over?”
“You’re right, but I’m not confident I’ve given him that much certainty. We haven’t even exchanged a single word yet.”
That was why I had come to the Blood Heaven Blade Demon. Others might not understand, but I believed that he, at least, would understand how I felt.
And indeed, instead of cursing me as a madman, he gave me an answer I had never considered.
“Then give him that certainty.”
“How?”
“Show him your people.”
“!”
“If you show him your people, he’ll be able to tell what kind of person you are. If the person you’re trying to recruit is intelligent, then just by looking at your people, he’ll become certain about you. He probably won’t be able to endure not coming.”
I stared at him in silence. To think he would give me advice like this. Because his own experience was imbued in those words, the advice was all the more valuable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“That is the best advice.”
“Honestly, it isn’t that good, is it?”
“Among my people, you are number one, Elder. So it is the best advice.”
“Then it’s the worst advice, isn’t it?”
This time, I laughed first, and the Blood Heaven Blade Demon laughed after me.
“If he sees me, even someone who was going to come will run away, so show him the others. I didn’t say that with myself in mind.”
I spoke firmly to him.
“You must come too, Elder.”
“No.”
“It’s not because I want to show him you.”
“Then?”
“I want to show you as well, Elder. Whom I have chosen.”
“Why?”
“Wouldn’t that let you know better what kind of person I am?”
“So why?”
“Because I want to give you certainty about me. Because I want to grow closer to you, Elder. This is what truly counts as killing two birds with one stone.”
The corners of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s eyes twitched. It was usually the expression he made when he was angry, but now it was a reaction born of awkwardness.
“You really do say such embarrassing things to a man’s face.”
“Let’s go.”
I sprang up from my seat.
“Now?”
“You’ll be going anyway, so why put it off? Let’s take everyone who has time. I’ll show all of you to one another. Whom I’ve chosen. And by that, what kind of person I am.”
“You really are… a madman.”
“Hahaha.”
Exactly. Making even one person mine is this difficult.
That applied to the Blood Heaven Blade Demon, and to the shackled man as well.
* * *
The air in the room was cold.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader was looking out the window, and the shackled man was looking at the Yin Thunder Bell. For a long while, neither of them said a single word.
As for who would speak first, the winner of this contest had been decided from the start. The shackled man could probably go an entire year without uttering a word.
In the end, the Pungcheon Cult Leader opened his mouth first.
“I’m sorry.”
It was an apology he had struggled to make. For that reason, he hoped the answer would not come easily, but the shackled man spoke as if he had been waiting.
“It’s all right.”
He had agonized and agonized before apologizing, yet it was accepted so lightly that the Pungcheon Cult Leader flared up again.
But earlier, and now as well, this was not a situation in which he had any right to be angry. Whatever else might be said, opening the space piled with corpses had truly been a great mistake. Especially when he knew so well how much the shackled man loved the space with the blue sky and open fields.
“Lately, after giving the divine relic to the Second Young Master, it seems anger built up in me without my realizing it. I’m sorry.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader apologized again.
“It’s all right.”
At the answer, spoken in the same unwavering tone, the Pungcheon Cult Leader’s face hardened. Not confident that he could hide that expression, he continued looking out the window. He bit his lip until it bled.
All sorts of distracting thoughts tormented him.
‘Is all of this because I’m narrow-minded and greedy? Because I’m a petty man? Damn it! I can’t even win the heart of a single subordinate, so how am I supposed to march into the Central Plains? The others must be even worse, right? They swear loyalty outwardly, but inside, they might be laughing at me.’
If he tried circulating his qi at a time like this, he really would suffer qi deviation.
Just then, a single sentence came from behind him.
“Cult Leader.”
The moment he heard those words, the Pungcheon Cult Leader was overcome with emotion. He had been angry and blaming himself, but deep down, he had been anxiously afraid that he might never hear those words again.
“What?”
“Cult Leader, while keeping me bound with shackles, you’re trying to bind my heart as well. I told you before, didn’t I? Neither you nor I are people blessed enough to possess everything without giving anything up.”
“I am the man who rules the martial world beyond the borders! If I’m not blessed, then who is?”
“Did you seize the martial world beyond the borders with your own power? Cult Leader, you merely inherited it. Well, if you call that a blessing, then it is certainly a great one. But the blessing I’m speaking of isn’t something handed down through an umbilical cord.”
“You insolent little—! You’re making me furious again!”
At that, the shackled man closed his mouth.
An awkward silence passed for a moment.
Whether he spoke or remained silent, it infuriated him.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader knew exactly where his anger today had begun.
“Why did you accept the Second Young Master’s wine?”
“Just because.”
“What do you mean, just because? There must be a reason. Tell me. I have the right to hear it.”
The shackled man did not answer. The Pungcheon Cult Leader abruptly asked something he truly had not wanted to ask.
“Don’t tell me you want to go to the Second Young Master?”
The shackled man neither affirmed nor denied it.
In that instant, the Pungcheon Cult Leader felt the strength leave his legs.
“You’re really going to go? Truly?”
“I haven’t decided anything yet.”
“That means the same thing!”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader shouted, his eyes narrowing into slits.
“When did you conspire together? Did you exchange sound transmissions behind my back?”
He would almost have preferred to hear that they had.
“We have never exchanged sound transmissions.”
“Then how?”
“I read his heart. The Second Young Master wants me.”
“Cut the bullshit! I said cut the bullshit! What are you, imitating the Soul-Capturing Demon Venerable? Read his heart? What hearts do you think you can read?”
Only now did the Pungcheon Cult Leader understand why he had been so irritated and angry when Geom Mugeuk poured wine for the shackled man earlier. It had not been because the shackled man accepted the Second Young Master’s wine while refusing his own.
He had sensed this very thing. His fate, his instinct, his premonition had read this damned situation.
“You think I’ll let you go? I’d kill you before I ever let you leave!”
“Then you should kill me now.”
“What?”
“Kill me while you still can. Later, you won’t be able to.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader’s entire body trembled with rage.
The shackled man was the only person who understood his heart. Kill such a person? Have him taken away by someone else?
“You’re doing this because you think I can’t kill you, aren’t you? Because you look down on me!”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader strode toward the shackled man.
He raised his hand high.
If he struck down with one palm, he would be freed from every torment.
If the shackled man had looked up at his face, perhaps he really might have struck.
But the shackled man remained still with his head lowered, so that he would not feel the sting of conscience.
Seeing him meekly accept death, the Pungcheon Cult Leader could not bring his palm down.
“If you can’t kill me now, you’ll never be able to kill me. If I decide to live, no one will be able to kill me. So if you’re going to kill me, you must do it now.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader’s hand, raised in midair, trembled.
But in the end, he could not strike.
Slowly, the Pungcheon Cult Leader lowered his hand. The rage that had erupted like lava had, before he knew it, calmly settled.
“You think you can run away alone from this chaotic world? This easily? Not a chance! I won’t let it happen.”
The shackled man slowly raised his head. With complicated emotions, the two men’s gazes tangled in the air.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader had not yet abandoned hope.
“You said you haven’t decided to leave yet, didn’t you?”
“That’s right. Not yet.”
“Then all I have to do is not lose you, isn’t it? I just have to become a better man than the Second Young Master, don’t I?”
A smile appeared at the corners of the shackled man’s mouth. It was not a forced smile, but a natural one.
“Yes. Keep living like that from now on.”
“I told you not to talk as if we’re parting!”
“Don’t obsess over me. I only look greater because someone else is trying to have me.”
“Shut up! Give me a chance to persuade you before deciding whom you’ll serve. They say even hateful ties are still ties, and since we’ve spent years in the same room, I should at least be able to struggle. I’ll cling to you with everything I have.”
“Even then, it won’t work. He is not someone you can contend with.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader let out a sigh. The divine relic, now emptied, had already told him that this was beyond him.
“I can’t let you go for nothing. If you’re going, take me with you.”
The shackled man gave a faint laugh. It was the first time he had laughed today since their quarrel.
“Fine. Let’s go to the Second Young Master together.”
“What?”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader stared blankly, never having expected him to say they should go together.
“Are you insane?”
But the shackled man’s next words were even more astonishing.
“You said you resolved to make the Second Young Master the Heavenly Demon, didn’t you? Come with me, and let’s make him the Heavenly Demon. Then your dream will naturally come true as well. If it is the Second Young Master as he is now, he is the kind of person who would even build the Pungcheon Cult’s main headquarters beside the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
“You lunatic! How can you call that an argument?”
At that moment, a subordinate spoke from outside.
“The Second Young Master and his guests have arrived.”
“Guests?”
“Yes. There are as many as five people with him.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader sighed and shook his head.
“Ah! He really does push forward frighteningly hard.”
Ordinarily, he would have snapped in irritation, but the Pungcheon Cult Leader’s face was comfortable, as if he had let go of everything.
“You’re right. We talk about the Second Young Master far too much. That’s why he always comes looking for me like a tiger that heard us speaking of it.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader said to his subordinate,
“Show them in at once. And prepare plenty of wine and food.”
“Yes!”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader looked at the shackled man. His gaze was different from usual.
“It seems fate wants us to settle this over you. Fine. Let’s decide today. Whether the Second Young Master dies, or I die. Whether you go to the Second Young Master, or remain with me. Let us decide everything today. But judge fairly.”
“In that regard, the Second Young Master is actually at a disadvantage. As you said, Cult Leader, I’ve grown more attached to you.”
“Good. Then that’s enough.”
Soon after, Geom Mugeuk and his party stepped inside.
As if nothing had happened, the Pungcheon Cult Leader greeted his guests with a hearty laugh.
“Hahaha, welcome, all of you!”
And so began the decisive drinking gathering that would change their fates.