***
It had been a very long time since a figure from the Nine Great Sects last visited the Dan Clan.
Everyone of the Dan Clan gathered before the main gate, and the gatekeepers rushed out in a fluster to open it.
Led by an old man in a white robe, several young Daoist priests walked in.
"They are the Daoist priests of the Diancang Sect!"
At those words the estate stirred.
Long ago the house had been called a prestigious clan, but now it had fallen as far as it could fall.
With masters of the Diancang Sect, one of the orthodox Nine Sects One Gang, visiting such a place, the servants could not help but murmur.
"Which eminent one has come?"
"I heard they brought a Daoist priest of Elder rank."
An Elder of the Nine Great Sects was not someone ordinary people could easily lay eyes on.
The common folk called them half-immortals and revered them.
Clan Head Dan Cheon-hwi hurried out as well, flushed, clasping both hands and bowing his head lightly.
"I am Dan Cheon-hwi. With the eminent ones of the Diancang Sect honoring us with their steps, I hardly know where to put myself."
The Elder of the Diancang Sect, the Daoist Master Jin-mu, returned the courtesy.
"I am Jin-mu. I have long heard of the renown of the Blazing Wind Sword, but never had the chance to form an acquaintance, and have regretted it all this while."
Blazing Wind Sword had been the alias of Dan Cheon-hwi, Clan Head of the Dan Clan, in his youth.
It was an embarrassing empty name earned by cutting down a few mounted bandits nearby.
It was not an achievement worth putting forward before masters of the Diancang Sect, and since Dan Cheon-hwi had not traveled the martial world after that, it was not an alias worth putting forward either. Dan Cheon-hwi flushed slightly.
"In my younger days my friends called me that to gild my face. Please, come inside."
Dan Cheon-hwi had spent half of what remained of the family fortune to invite a master of the Diancang Sect.
If only a way could be found to cure his son's severed meridian, money was nothing to regret.
His elder sister had said that once the affliction appeared at the age of fifteen the boy would not live even five years, so there was not much time left.
They moved to the main hall.
Se-min stood before the Daoist Master Jin-mu.
"You are saying the Young Master of the Dan Clan was born with a severed meridian?"
There was no chance a Daoist priest of the Diancang Sect thought of the fallen Dan house as a great clan, yet Jin-mu granted Dan Cheon-hwi his face.
"Yes. The fire qi surges and he often suffers extreme pain. A few days ago he sweated through the night and his meridians twisted."
Jin-mu nodded.
Then he laid his long, slender fingers on Se-min's pulse.
In that instant, his gentle expression hardened.
The pulse transmitted to his fingertips was not ordinary.
Unlike common true qi, he felt a fierce and violent energy.
And there was also an alien energy hidden within the flames.
'What...... is this?'
He closed his eyes and pushed his energy in deeper.
At that, Se-min's qi center vibrated subtly.
The alien energy rippled and flowed backward.
A dank, cold energy.
'A demonic art......?!'
And an enormous mass of it, amounting to no less than half a sixty-year cycle, lay condensed there.
It was then.
Inner arts began to be sucked out through Jin-mu's fingertips.
"Hngh......!"
He tried to draw his true qi back in, but against his will his qi kept being pulled away.
In an instant a chill surged up his spine.
'Qi absorption......?'
He tried to pull his hand away, but his palm would not come off.
It was as if the two men's energies had tangled and been bound by an invisible iron chain.
'My energy does not move by my will......? Could it be the Star-Absorbing Grand Technique?'
In that instant Jin-mu's eyes flashed.
'To dare unleash evil arts!'
Jin-mu's long robe whipped violently backward.
CRASH!
Jin-mu loaded his left hand with palm force and struck Dan Se-min hard in the chest, and Dan Se-min was flung far away.
The servants screamed in shock, and just as a few were about to draw their swords, Dan Cheon-hwi's voice rang out.
"Stop!"
Dan Cheon-hwi ran over and checked Se-min's condition.
"I am all right."
Se-min brushed off his clothes and rose to his feet, as if nothing had happened.
Hidden by his clothes and unseen, scales had glittered across his chest in that instant and protected his body, so he had not taken so much as a scratch.
Dan Cheon-hwi glared and demanded.
"Daoist Master, what on earth is this? Do you mean to kill the only heir of the Dan Clan?"
Instead of answering, Jin-mu gasped for breath for a long while.
"How could that be?"
"Then what is this?"
"The severed meridian was drawing in this humble Daoist's inner arts. There was no other way to break it off."
Jin-mu wiped the blood running from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
"The Young Master's severed meridian is something even I cannot possibly cure."
"Ahh!"
Despair filled Dan Cheon-hwi's face.
Having spoken, Jin-mu's cold gaze moved to Se-min's neck.
"Hm?"
Hanging there was a coldly shining necklace. Within the transparent ice a faint blue energy wavered.
"Is that not the ice crystal of the North Sea?"
"It is. I heard it helps govern fire qi, and obtained it with great difficulty."
'An ice crystal that large......'
A complicated light passed over Jin-mu's face.
"......This is as far as I can go. I must bring a master of the inner school."
"Then, whom?"
"I will return and speak to the Sect Leader myself."
"Do you mean you will bring the Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect?"
"If our sect's Sect Leader comes and uses the secret art of the Profound Heaven True Path, a way to govern the severed meridian might be found."
For a moment Dan Cheon-hwi's eyes shook violently. He shot to his feet.
"The Diancang Sect's...... Sect Leader. Do you mean the Sword Saint himself will come? I do not know how to offer my thanks."
He looked overcome, as if he might weep at any moment.
"Is the Dan Clan not descended from the dynasty that founded Yunnan's Dali Kingdom? Naturally our sect must help."
"That the Sword Saint would visit a fallen house. How could this be anything but grace?"
Jin-mu hurried out through the gate of the Dan Clan.
Dan Se-min's eyes gleamed coldly as he watched him go.
'Strange....... If they would help us because we are descendants of the Dali Kingdom, why have they turned their backs on our clan until now?'
As the family's fortunes fell and the clan's name was forgotten, the masters of the Central Plains no longer even called the Dan house a great clan.
Jin-mu's true intent was hard to grasp.
But it did not take long for the boy's question to be answered.
A few days later.
Hundreds of torches were lit before the gate of the Dan Clan.
"Dan Cheon-hwi, Clan Head of the Dan Clan, who has conspired with the Demonic Cult, come out at once and kneel."
The owner of that voice was a white-haired man in Daoist robes.
He was none other than the Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect, the Shadowless Sword Saint.
Dan Se-min stared blankly at the scene.
Only then did he understand.
The Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect had come not to heal him, but to exterminate his clan.
***
Though the night was deep, the world was bright.
Hundreds of torches stood in rows beyond the wall of the Dan Clan estate.
The Daoists of the Diancang Sect stood ranked with swords drawn, and at the very front stood an old man in a white robe.
The Shadowless Sword Saint, Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect.
An absolute master of the orthodox sects who was said to leave not even a shadow behind.
A Sect Leader of the Nine Great Sects was no different from an immortal roaming above the heavens.
If he set his mind on killing everyone here, there would be no way to stop him.
Dan Cheon-hwi's hands trembled as he looked upon the scene.
"Is th-that man...... the Sect Leader of the Diancang Sect?"
"Why would the Diancang Sect come for us......?"
The household of the Dan Clan murmured with held breath.
No one dared think of standing against them.
Before the Nine Great Sects, the Dan Clan's strength was pitifully small.
"I greet the Sect Leader."
Dan Cheon-hwi stepped forward. He looked at the Sword Saint and bowed carefully at the waist.
"Clan Head Dan, the Dan Clan has long been a pillar of the orthodox sects. How has it come to this?"
"I do not understand your meaning at all."
"I have heard that the direct line of the Dan Clan has been secretly practicing a demonic art."
"......!"
Dan Cheon-hwi's eyes went wide.
"A, a demonic art? What are you saying? Our house has a family specialty handed down through the generations, modest though it is, and we forbid the learning of any other martial art."
Just then, Elder Jin-mu approached the Sword Saint's side.
"Senior Brother Sect Leader, I confirmed with my own hand that they have secretly practiced a demonic art."
His voice was low, but full of coldly settled wariness.
"Daoist Master, what in the world are you saying?!"
"Hmph! Do not think to deceive me any further! Did you believe I would fail to notice that your son had learned a demonic art, you bastard?"
"A demonic art? What on earth......"
"Disciples of the Diancang Sect, draw your swords!"
SHING!
At the words "demonic art," the disciples of the Diancang Sect drew their swords as one.
The ringing of the blades sounded together and shook the earth.
Just then a boy walked slowly out to Dan Cheon-hwi's side.
It was Dan Se-min.
"Father."
Dan Cheon-hwi turned in surprise.
The face of a son who was only fifteen.
But Se-min's eyes were astonishingly calm.
"There is no use trying to persuade them. The Diancang Sect seems to have already decided to wipe out our clan."
Se-min's voice was composed.
"Once the Diancang Sect, one of the Nine Sects, has made up its mind, there will be no way out. In that case, there is nothing left but to show the world the strength of our clan and die."
At those words Dan Cheon-hwi's chest trembled with a sharp ache.
His blood seemed to boil, and one corner of his eye twitched faintly.
'This boy...... has grown so much without my noticing.'
Death stood before him, and still a gentle smile bloomed at his lips.
"Yes......, your father has shown you a poor sight."
But that smile soon vanished.
He gripped Dan Se-min's shoulder and whispered.
"Se-min, while your father holds them off, take your younger sister and go to the main hall. There is a secret passage in the floor. If you slip out unseen, there may be a chance to live."
Dan Se-min slowly shook his head.
"It is not only the Diancang Sect that has come."
"......What?"
Dan Cheon-hwi's eyes wavered.
Se-min closed his eyes and expanded his energy.
His qi sense spread outward.
Wherever his awareness reached, countless currents of inner arts were detected.
"They have already mobilized every martial artist in Yunnan Province and spread a Heaven-and-Earth Net around us."
Se-min opened his eyes.
"There is no way to leave Yunnan Province alive."
Dan Cheon-hwi's fingertips trembled.
At the thought of his only son dying, he felt a pain like his innards being severed.
But beside him, Dan Se-min wore a faint smile.
"In any case, you said that once the severed meridian affliction flares up I will not live even five more years, did you not? I have nothing to regret if I die now."
His son's composed words made the father's heart more sorrowful still.
Dan Cheon-hwi roared at the world.
"Daoist Master Jin-mu! On what grounds do you slander us?! Do you not fear Heaven?!"
His qi and blood turned over, and blood beaded at the corner of his mouth.
Without even thinking to wipe it away, he shouted as if wailing.
"This is a false charge! When the fellows of the martial world learn of it later, on what grounds will you justify this slaughter?!"
The Shadowless Sword Saint kept his silence.
In his place, the Daoist Master Jin-mu, standing beside him, slowly stepped forward.
His face was full of cold scorn.
"Do not worry. There is more than enough proof that the Dan Clan has been steeped in the demonic path."
He raised a finger.
"First, your son, Dan Se-min, has learned the Star-Absorbing Grand Technique. You remember how he drew in my true qi and left me with internal injuries, do you not?"
Dan Cheon-hwi's face went white.
"The Star-Absorbing Grand Technique? That cannot be......"
"Second."
The Daoist Master Jin-mu continued with a frigid expression.
"While reading his pulse, I confirmed with my own hand that a tremendous amount of demonic qi, amounting to half a sixty-year cycle, is already condensed in Dan Se-min's middle qi center."
It was the first he had heard of it. Dan Cheon-hwi asked with a pale face.
"What is the third proof?"
The Daoist Master Jin-mu raised a finger and pointed at Se-min's neck.
Hanging there was a necklace set with a crystal as clear as ice.
"That, precisely."
"The ice crystal?"
"Indeed. The Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal of the North Sea Ice Palace. It was originally a gift the Ice Palace meant to present to the Murim Alliance Leader. But fifteen years ago that vixen the Demon Empress, one of the Ten Great Demon Lords of the Demonic Cult, attacked the Ice Palace's envoy party, slaughtered them, and seized it. Why is it hanging around the neck of the Dan Clan's heir?"
Everyone on the estate swallowed their breath.
Dan Cheon-hwi's hands shook badly.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Ice Crystal of the North Sea was the gift his elder sister had brought when Dan Se-min was born.
He had suspected that the sister who left home might have stepped onto the demonic and heretical path.
But that she had become the Demon Empress, one of the Ten Great Demon Lords.
If that is true, there is no way for our house to escape extermination.
'Ah, my sister, why did you make such a choice?'
Resigned to death, Dan Cheon-hwi resolved to die as a Clan Head should.
SHING.
He drew his sword with grim resolve.