Before a dark valley where no sun shone even in broad daylight.
Namgung Seon-jae and his subordinates stood.
It had already been several days since they began tracking the traces of the demonic practitioners across the land of Sichuan.
And where they had arrived in the end was this very gorge.
Namgung Seon-jae carefully examined the faint traces left on the ground.
Half-erased by rain and wind, they were not distinct, but the footprints clearly led into the gorge.
‘It seems I will have to go in myself.’
He rose and called over one of the subordinates who had been searching the surroundings.
“You will search this area more thoroughly. I will go and check inside the gorge.”
“You mean to go in there alone? That is far too dangerous. We should go with you…….”
“It is fine. If necessary, I will signal immediately, so do not worry.”
Before the subordinate could say anything more, Namgung Seon-jae immediately threw himself into the gorge.
The inside of the gorge was much narrower than it had looked from outside.
The passage, barely wide enough for two people to pass, was pitch black, and a chilly wind seeped from the shaded crevices.
Sword marks carved here and there along the walls of the path told of a battle that had taken place here.
Most of the marks came from martial arts he knew well.
Demonic art.
Namgung Seon-jae pressed lightly with the fingertips brushing the wall and kept walking.
It was when he had almost reached the depths of the gorge.
Suddenly, a rank smell began to sting his nose.
‘This is… the smell of blood?’
He instantly gripped the hilt of his sword.
And suppressing his pounding heart, he hurled himself toward the end of the gorge.
At last, as he emerged from the gorge, his view suddenly opened up and a stretch of flat ground came into sight.
An enclosed space surrounded by cliffs on all sides. But within it…….
“Th-this cannot be…….”
Shocked by the gruesome scene unfolding before him, Namgung Seon-jae was unable to speak for some time.
A silent space where not a single birdsong could be heard.
But within that silence, corpses with severed limbs lay horribly sprawled over pools of blood.
Corpses hacked to pieces, hard to recognize.
The stench of blood reeking among them was so foul it made him nauseous.
Holding his sword raised and staying wary of his surroundings, Namgung Seon-jae slowly checked the corpses.
And soon he fell into great confusion.
‘All of them are demonic practitioners! Why on earth are those who should be in Xinjiang, a thousand leagues away, here?!’
Demonic practitioners never came out into the Central Plains except in special circumstances.
The mere discovery of their traces in Sichuan was already a mystery, yet they had been found massacred.
Even he, an Inspector, had never seen such carnage before.
The instant he was looking around with his brow knit.
A relatively intact corpse caught his eye.
Namgung Seon-jae knelt beside it and carefully examined the sword mark carved into the body.
A single line, cut deep from the left shoulder to the right waist.
It was an overwhelming strike that even he, standing before the door of the Transcendent realm, could not dare to imitate.
Moreover.
‘Qi still lingers in the sword marks on the corpse. What on earth is this…….’
For any martial art of the Central Plains, he could identify its root technique just by looking at the traces of the sword.
But the red sword mark before his eyes ran on a track different from any martial art he knew.
The corpses that were beyond recognition were no different.
The bodies had already grown cold, but the remaining evil qi was as vivid as if they had just been cut.
Just then, Namgung Seon-jae's eyes caught a dark crevice behind a large boulder.
He immediately approached the boulder and examined the surroundings.
‘No doubt about it. This is the entrance to an earthen cave.’
The inside of the cave entrance had completely collapsed, so that not even a single rat could get in.
Since the rest of the gorge was intact, it was certainly not a natural collapse.
That meant someone had deliberately collapsed the inside of the cave.
He placed his fingertips on the rock and examined the traces.
Judging by how little dust came off on them, it had clearly collapsed recently.
‘Someone was in here. One who cut down twenty first-rate demonic practitioners with a single sword stroke… must be at least of the Transformation realm.’
When the demonic practitioners burst in here, that person had acted.
And then collapsed the cave, erased the traces, and left this place.
He couldn't be certain, but nothing else could explain it.
‘Demonic practitioners setting foot in Sichuan is extraordinary enough, but now even a master who uses an unknown martial art…….’
Just as he was sorting out his thoughts with a stiff face.
Suddenly, wind gusted from deep within the gorge, and the thick stench of blood pierced his nose again.
Namgung Seon-jae frowned and rose.
And he began to run swiftly back the way he had come.
‘I must report this news to the Alliance quickly. The Central Plains, quiet for a hundred years, may soon be thrown into turmoil!’
Namgung Seon-jae's concern was accurate.
But even he did not know at this time.
That, starting with this incident, the martial artists of the Central Plains, orthodox and unorthodox alike, would vanish from sight for a very long time.
***
Around that time, the Namgung Clan was frantically searching for the missing Seonwoo Hyun.
Namgung Woon had personally led the Earth Martial Hall instructors in searching Mount Tianzhu, but when they found no trace at all, the entire White Cloud Corps was finally mobilized.
They began combing every inch from the foot of the mountain to where the graves of Seonwoo Hyun's parents lay.
But Seonwoo Hyun's whereabouts were never revealed.
That was because the assassins who had followed him up the mountain had erased every last trace.
Also, Eun-seol had cleaned up both the spot where Seonwoo Hyun had gone berserk and the corpses at Heaven's Barrier Cliff.
The Principal's office of the Earth Martial Hall.
BANG!
“Where on earth could he have gone!”
Namgung Woon, who had struck the desk, wore a face shadowed with deep anxiety.
‘Days of searching, and no progress at all. Surely…….’
But he soon shook his head hard.
‘No. That cannot be. That child could not have fallen below Heaven's Barrier Cliff.’
Heaven's Barrier Cliff was the most eerie and treacherous cliff on all of Mount Tianzhu.
A place where people almost never set foot.
No matter how he thought about it, it was hard to accept that Seonwoo Hyun had headed there.
Above all, not even a trace leading there had been found.
However.
What if, by some chance, it had truly happened?
Going down there to find Seonwoo Hyun was practically impossible.
Even if they could go down, they would never find Seonwoo Hyun's body intact.
Namgung Woon forcibly pushed away the ominous imaginings burrowing into his mind.
‘Then where on earth… did he disappear to?’
Frustration weighed down on his chest.
Letting out a long breath, Namgung Woon looked at Namgung Ki, who stood beside him.
“Is there still no word from the Alliance?”
“We received a reply to the letter a moment ago. However… it only said that Master Sword Hero has left the Alliance on important business, and that there is no telling when he will return.”
“Haah…….”
Namgung Woon let out a deep sigh.
‘If Seon-jae Hyung-nim finds out that Hyun has disappeared, he will not let me off…….’
But even setting that aside, Seonwoo Hyun had to be found.
The child who had defeated a direct descendant in the Heavenly Martial Tournament and stood at the center of the clan.
That such a child had vanished without a trace was a matter that could never be taken lightly.
“Haah… If we could not find him on the mountain, he may have already crossed over to somewhere else.”
After thinking for a moment, Namgung Woon spoke in a heavy voice:
“Send out more people and make inquiries as far as Zhejiang. If he crossed the mountains, he would surely have headed that way.”
“Yes, sir!”
As Namgung Ki answered and left the Principal's office, Namgung Woon, left alone, slowly walked to the window.
With his mouth firmly shut, he gazed at Mount Tianzhu in the distance.
‘Please be safe… Hyun.’
But unlike him in his desperation, there was also one who did not wish for Seonwoo Hyun's return.
That night.
The quarters of the Grand Elder, Namgung Seon-hak.
He was quietly drinking alone.
‘Seeing that he still has not returned, it seems I need not worry.’
Seonwoo Hyun had not returned since that day, yet there was still no word from the Blood Plum Corps.
So he had been anxious that something might have gone wrong, but Seonwoo Hyun had not returned even after several days.
‘I do not know why there has been no word, but frequent contact with those assassin bastards does no good. If he could not be found even after such a large-scale search, he must have become food for the beasts.’
At that thought, his uneasy heart seemed to settle.
Namgung Seon-hak downed the rest of his liquor in one gulp and slowly curled up the corners of his mouth.
‘Now the obstacle has been removed. Only one thing remains.’
Placing Namgung Cheong-un back in the line of succession.
The child who would become the clan's successor had been him alone from the very beginning.
“This time, without fail… I will put Cheong-un in that seat.”
Along with the voice that flowed out low, the night outside the window grew ever deeper.
***
At that time, while each viewed Seonwoo Hyun's disappearance through different eyes.
Deep in a cave on Mount Tianzhu, he was gritting his teeth and fighting the cursed energy.
“Grrrrr!”
A beastlike cry leaked from the mouth of Seonwoo Hyun as he circulated his qi.
At that very moment.
The woman, who had her hand on his back, pushed the rampaging cursed energy back into his qi center in one stroke and shouted:
“Failed again!”
“…Gah, gaaah! Haah, haah!”
Looking coldly at Seonwoo Hyun as he spat out rough breaths, the woman said:
“Why on earth aren't you getting any better?! After all that, you should've succeeded at least once by now, shouldn't you?!”
“Ngh, I'm doing my best too. But what am I supposed to do when it won't work…….”
“If you keep going like this, you'll never be able to go down the mountain!”
At the woman's sharp words, Seonwoo Hyun's heart sank with a thud.
A few days earlier.
It was when Seonwoo Hyun, who had lost consciousness after suppressing the cursed energy, opened his eyes again.
The woman, who had been watching over him, spoke with a face that found it hard to believe:
“You suppressed the cursed energy yourself. Without a doubt.”
For Seonwoo Hyun, those words were hard to believe.
But the woman, as if she had seen a new possibility in that fact, spoke in a slightly excited tone:
“If this wasn't a fluke… you might be able to control the cursed energy through training. So let's give it a try.”
When Seonwoo Hyun couldn't readily answer, the woman added one more thing:
“If you can perfectly control the cursed energy, I have no reason to keep you here.”
Then, after looking at Seonwoo Hyun for a moment, she said:
“Then you can go down the mountain.”
Those words were the first ray of light to shine on Seonwoo Hyun, trapped in despair.
Hope welled up that he wouldn't have to spend his whole life here, on this mountain.
So he grabbed onto it.
Even if it was a rotten rope, he had to grab it first.
However.
Reality was far harsher than he had thought.
“I don't know what the problem is. You suppressed even rougher cursed energy than this on your own, so why isn't it working?”
The woman pressed a hand to her forehead, as if her nerves were frayed by the repeated failures.
Seonwoo Hyun couldn't say a word and only hung his head low.
Two days, three days, four days.
The confidence that had overflowed when he started training had completely vanished in the meantime.
‘Haah… Even with the Divine Spirit helping me, I'm not getting any better at all.’
The Divine Spirit of Mount Tianzhu.
More precisely, a fox spirit beast that had made its home on Mount Tianzhu.
Her name, she said, was Eun-seol.
Seonwoo Hyun glanced at Eun-seol once and let out a sigh deep enough to sink the ground.
“Haah…….”
He had undoubtedly succeeded in suppressing the rampaging energy.
But no matter how much he recalled that moment while circulating his cultivation method, that same moment never came.
‘This is a chance I worked so hard to get… What if I end up never getting out of this cave for the rest of my life?’
As the ominous thought crossed his mind, gloom suddenly flooded in like a rising tide.
But Seonwoo Hyun pulled himself together again and said to Eun-seol:
“I'll try again, Divine Spirit. Even if it isn't working now, I'll succeed someday, no matter what. So please believe in me and help me.”
“…….”
Eun-seol said nothing and just stared at Seonwoo Hyun.
Days of continuous failure without a single success.
Both his body and mind were already near their limits.
An ordinary human would surely have given up long ago.
‘Even so, this child doesn't give up.’
Thinking him admirable, Eun-seol said:
“Let's take a break from training and go get some fresh air.”
“…Fresh air?”
“Yes. In your current state, training more won't do any good. So let's step outside for a bit to clear your head.”
“G-go outside? Is that really okay?!”
“Mm. Watching you these past few days, I don't think you'll recklessly try to run away. And even if you do, I can just catch you and bring you back.”
In that instant, ‘a future in which he was caught fleeing and bore the full brunt of the Divine Spirit's wrath’ flashed through Seonwoo Hyun's mind like lightning.
As if to shake off that ominous imagining, he sprang to his feet and shouted:
“L-let's go! Quickly!”
Eun-seol's offer was one Seonwoo Hyun could never refuse.
It had been only fifteen days since he woke up in the cave.
But being trapped here without being able to go outside was far more of an ordeal than he had imagined.
He had never known he would long so desperately for the open sky and a cool breeze.
When Seonwoo Hyun's face filled with life, Eun-seol asked:
“Are you that happy?”
“Of course! We're going outside, so obviously! Let's go!”
***
A lightless path leading deep inside.
It was a path that even Seonwoo Hyun, who now knew the cave's layout inside out, was taking for the first time.
But Eun-seol strode forward without hesitation even in the pitch darkness, as if it were very familiar.
‘What? This was the way outside? Wow… I never would've imagined.’
Grumbling inwardly, Seonwoo Hyun followed close behind Eun-seol.
After walking a while longer, the path gradually began to slope, naturally becoming an uphill climb.
A cool wind blew in from somewhere and brushed his cheek.
In that instant, his heart began to beat fast.
A little while later.
“…We're really out.”
The moment he poked his body through a narrow crevice, the first thing to greet him was the vast night sky.
The scenery of endlessly stretching mountains cleared his eyes.
As the scent of the forest carried on the wind filled his nostrils, an indescribable thrill rose in him.
And amid countless stars, the full moon displaying its majestic form.
“Haah…….”
Seonwoo Hyun drew a deep breath.
As the cold, biting air seeped deep into his lungs, a shiver ran through him.
It was as if he had been born again.
“I really feel alive…….”
Standing with his arms spread wide in the cold wind, Seonwoo Hyun murmured.
Eun-seol quietly watched him.
“…This is really nice. Thank you, Divine Spirit. For bringing me out.”
Seonwoo Hyun looked at Eun-seol and smiled brightly.
That smile was so innocent that Eun-seol, without realizing it, smiled faintly.
Her heart, which had been frozen cold, melted just a little.