"An urgent report from the River Capital!"
The doors to the Formation Tower's Eight Trigrams Hall burst open.
It had been a long time since Dongmun Mutoe had left, and even longer for Yan Bilyeong and Myo Jinheo.
Days had passed with no new agenda or conclusion reached among the five Trigram Masters and the Yin-Yang Guard seated around the three empty seats.
The messenger knelt.
"Strange circumstances have been detected near the River Capital."
"Strange circumstances?"
"Yes! A report has come in stating that several mountain peaks have suddenly vanished."
"Vanished?"
"The terrain itself is said to have been completely altered. A Formation Master from a nearby base witnessed it directly, and the testimonies of numerous local residents also match."
"Did you say several peaks?"
"The exact number has not been confirmed. However, the report states that it would be appropriate to say the mountain range itself has been completely transformed."
Click.
Ga Myo-ryeon's abacus came to a halt.
Then her half-closed eyes opened fully.
"The River Capital…"
The Hero's Sect was in the River Capital.
The place where Yan Bilyeong and Myo Jinheo were said to be.
"Was it a battle?"
The Trigram Master of the Wind Formation Division leaned over the table and asked the messenger lightly.
"It is difficult to say for certain. However, there are rumors that at around the same time, the forces of the Dark Rakshasa Way, heading to a location not far from the River Capital, have lost contact."
"What was their scale?"
"That has not yet been confirmed."
Baek Jang-gyeong's gaze swept over the three empty seats.
"Have you sent a letter to Trigram Master Yan and Trigram Master Myo?"
"One was dispatched directly to the Hero's Sect in the River Capital two days ago, but there has been no reply thus far."
A brief silence followed.
Then, the Trigram Master of the Wind Formation Division broke the silence, uncrossing his arms.
"We must immediately dispatch personnel to the River Capital."
However, Ga Myo-ryeon picked up her abacus again and shook her head.
"Who would we send? We are already short three Trigram Masters."
Though she did not move the beads, her refusal was firm.
"What will you do if we lose the other Trigram Masters while trying to skimp on a few information personnel!"
Baek Jang-gyeong shot up from his seat.
Ga Myo-ryeon simply closed her eyes halfway again and remained silent.
Throughout all this, the Yin-Yang Guard, Jin Mugeuk, had only been fiddling with his teacup.
As the silence stretched on, the gazes of the Trigram Masters turned one by one toward the Yin-Yang Guard.
After all, the final decision-maker could only be him.
Soon, his teacup was placed on the table.
"For something that could make mountain peaks disappear."
His eyes, calmer than a tranquil lake, looked past the messenger and beyond the doors of the Eight Trigrams Hall.
"Do you think we are the only ones who noticed?"
No one could speak.
Ga Myo-ryeon's hand was frozen on her abacus, and Baek Jang-gyeong's gaze had shifted toward the door.
Jin Mugeuk rose from his seat.
After days of stalemate, the Yin-Yang Guard finally stood up.
"Check and mobilize all available personnel from the bases en route to the River Capital. Within half a quarter of an hour."
The messenger sprang to his feet and rushed out.
"As for the rest, draw out the maximum number of rapid response personnel from each division. The time for what we can do while sitting in here is now over."
The Trigram Masters all rose from their seats.
Only the three empty seats remained as they were.
● ● ●
At that very moment, when the Formation Tower was moving busily.
There was another place that had also begun to get busy.
Clack, clatter.
The Human Bone Wind Chimes at the edge of the eaves knocked against each other.
The dry sound of bone hitting bone filled the morning air of Nirvanic Extinction Mountain.
"So, you're saying that while everyone else was achieving Buddhahood, you alone survived and returned?"
Scent Wolf did not raise his head.
The human fat candles in the Rakshasa Hall emitted a fishy smoke.
On the Dharma Seat sat the statue of the Rakshasa Demonic Sovereign, its face a void in the darkness.
Below it, bone prayer beads turned slowly.
Click.
A nose that would have once been able to discern the state of the oil in every single candle in this room could now barely catch the scent of the nearest censer.
"I do not know if they all died. I only retreated before the Rakshasa Monk Corps arrived."
"Retreated? Retreated?"
Blood Rakshasa chewed on those two words.
The giant figure standing below the Dharma Seat stood with his arms crossed, not moving an inch.
"The Blood Scent Society retreated during a pursuit? Do you think that makes sense?"
He did not say 'fled'.
Not yet.
"It was a judgment made after making contact with the target."
"Contact?"
"Yes, Blood Rakshasa."
"Then, since you made contact, you must know well. What was the opponent like?"
Scent Wolf's fingers clenched on his thigh.
"It was not just one person."
"How many were there?"
"Three or four. One of them…"
He remembered the moment when nothing reached his nose.
The moment the grass vanished, the soil vanished, and everything the wind carried vanished.
"Killed my nose."
Blood Rakshasa's brow twitched.
The Blood Scent Society of the Dark Rakshasa Way were men who could read a battlefield hundreds of li away with just their noses.
To say there was someone who could kill that nose…
"I could not smell anything in that person's vicinity. It wasn't that there was no scent; it was being erased."
"…Continue."
"Formation Qi was detected from two of the others."
Blood Rakshasa's arms uncrossed.
"Formation Qi?"
"It was that of the Mountain Formation Division and the Thunder Formation Division."
The bone prayer beads in the Rakshasa Hall stopped.
And Scent Wolf's forehead lowered even further.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"I will ask again. Are you certain?"
"Yes, Blood Rakshasa."
Blood Rakshasa asked repeatedly.
Because if the Mountain and Thunder Formation Divisions were detected at the same time, it would move from confirmation to certainty that the Formation Tower had sided with Vast Heaven.
"I detected it when my sense of smell was still intact. The Mountain Formation Division's Formation Qi smelled of a mix of metal and earth, and the Thunder Formation Division's smelled of air burnt by lightning. I cannot be mistaken."
Blood Rakshasa took a step forward.
"What happened after you left?"
Scent Wolf lifted his head for the first time.
"Because my nose was blocked… I saw."
"What did you see?"
"I looked back while fleeing."
The tremor in his voice was gone.
"After the Rakshasa Monk Corps pushed up the mountain, I watched from a southern ridge. I heard the sound first. The chanting stopped, and a roar followed. After that…"
Scent Wolf's gaze looked beyond the darkness of the Rakshasa Hall.
It was a memory not of that night, but of the day that followed.
"The mountain peaks disappeared. Not one, but several. They weren't cut off, but scattered and blown away."
Blood Rakshasa's eyes narrowed.
Scent Wolf's words continued.
"That was not the end."
Scent Wolf's voice was now extremely subdued, unlike before.
"From the spot where the peaks had vanished, a light, a terribly Immortal-like path of light, colored the surroundings and soared to the ends of the sky."
"Light?"
"It was golden. It was beyond covering a single mountain like the dawn; the sky was so colored that it could be seen from dozens of li away."
Scent Wolf's hand was trembling.
Only after realizing it himself did he clench his fist tightly.
"Beneath that light, the chanting of the Rakshasa Monk Corps never returned."
The Rakshasa Hall fell silent.
Blood Rakshasa was wordless for a long time.
He wasn't crossing his arms or stroking his chin.
He just stood there.
His eyes were assembling Scent Wolf's report piece by piece in his mind.
A person who erases smells.
Two Formation Tower Trigram Masters.
A battle that blows away mountains.
A golden light that covers the sky.
And a completely silenced Rakshasa Monk Corps.
Blood Rakshasa was a man who had grown old on the battlefield.
Not wavering in the face of an unbelievable report was this man's strength, but the picture being assembled in his mind right now was absurd.
"Rise."
Scent Wolf stood up.
Blood Rakshasa was already turning away.
His steps toward the darkness beyond the Dharma Seat were quick.
Click.
The halted bone prayer beads began to turn again.
"You said it was the River Capital?"
It was a voice from atop the Dharma Seat.
A slow tone, as if delivering a sermon.
Not a merciful voice, but the voice of one who did not even need to feign mercy.
The smoke from the human fat candles wavered once in tune with his voice.
Scent Wolf's forehead touched the stone slab.
"That is correct, Great Venerate."
"What… how… why was it there?"
"A new sect called the Hero's Sect was establishing itself there. I do not know the reason."
Click.
Another bead of the prayer beads turned.
"How mercifully… how lovingly have six hundred beings failed to achieve liberation."
Blood Rakshasa bowed his waist.
"The Hero's Sect. I have not heard that name."
Below the half-closed eyes, it was impossible to tell if the expression on his lips was a smile or not.
"I shall have to find out."
Click.
The prayer beads slowly began to turn again.
The texture of the Qi flowing down from the Dharma Seat had changed ever so slightly.
Enough for even Scent Wolf's half-dead nose to read.
Now, whether it was Vast Heaven, the Formation Tower, or that unknown person who erases smells, they would have to bear the full brunt of this wrath.
● ● ●
At the same time.
A place shrouded not in silence, but in dismay.
Vast Heaven Mountain.
A peak rising at the very end of the layered mountain ranges of the Central Plains' north.
Jade-like stone steps stretched all the way up along the mountainside.
On either side of the steps stood sword racks, each holding a single sword, numbering in the thousands.
Each and every sword was the name of a swordsman who had passed through this place.
The training ground on the mountainside.
Over a hundred disciples drew their swords in perfect unison.
Their movements were precise.
The sword tips started from the same angle and stopped at the same height.
Even their breathing was synchronized.
A pillar of the Orthodox Murim.
From a distance, it was a magnificent sight.
However, few knew that the instructor watching from the edge of the training ground was looking not at the tips of the disciples' swords, but at the tips of their feet.
If a foot so much as stepped on the line by half an inch, the sword would be confiscated.
It would take three days to get it back.
A swordless disciple on this mountain was the same as a nameless one.
It was an order.
On this mountain, the sword was not a weapon.
It was the law.
The order in which one held the sword was the order in which one could speak, and the time to put down the sword was decided not by oneself, but by a single word from above.
It had been so for a long time.
The Main Hall.
A place reached by climbing another two hundred steps above the training ground.
The two characters 'Infinite' carved on the plaque under the eaves looked dark and subdued even in the daylight.
Inside.
A messenger knelt.
His mouth opened before his forehead could even touch the stone floor.
"Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor, annihilated. Clear Wind Sword Pavilion, annihilated. Four Swords Study, annihilated. Southern Sword Workshop, annihilated."
Four.
The gazes of the seven elders in the meeting hall all shot toward the messenger.
Beside them, close to the wall, sat a woman.
She was neither an elder nor a messenger, but no one found her presence strange.
No one spoke.
The messenger's breath was ragged, but his report did not stop.
"As of today, eight branch sects have been confirmed damaged. The locations where the defeated soldiers have gathered have not been identified."
Eight.
Ten days ago, it was three.
Before that, one.
The pace was quickening.
An elder set down his teacup.
The sound of the cup hitting the table was unusually loud.
"The Branch Sword Corps?"
"…There is no news."
Five hundred.
It had been a long time since the elite five-hundred-man wide-area search party, the pride of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, had lost contact.
No one had yet uttered the word 'annihilated', but the circumstances made it abundantly clear.
"The Patrol Sword Corps?"
The messenger's head lowered even further.
"...It is the same."
Not a single one of the elites, led personally by Corps Leader Sang Gwan, had returned.
"What are the enemy's movements?"
It was an elder holding a fan.
"The Dark Rakshasa Way's offensive is expanding from the east to the south. The forces at their Nirvanic Extinction Mountain headquarters have not decreased, and the formation of additional Rakshasa Monk Corps has been confirmed."
"Not decreased?"
"It appears the forces that annihilated the branch sects are heading directly to the next branch without returning to their main base. It is believed that the main force of their headquarters has not yet moved."
It meant they had destroyed eight branch sects without even deploying their main force.
One elder's jaw trembled slightly.
"The Formation Tower?"
"There has been no response."
It had been a long time since they had requested aid.
The Formation Tower had not yet taken a side.
It would be correct to read their neutrality as watching from the sidelines.
"What about the rumor that two of their Trigram Masters were dispatched somewhere?"
An elder from the opposite side interjected.
"There is a story that the Trigram Masters of the Mountain Formation Division and the Thunder Formation Division have gone south. However, their destination is said not to be our main sect."
"If not our main sect, then where?"
"I heard it has not… yet been confirmed."
Another blank space.
The number of unknowns was only increasing.
A long silence fell.
The elders' gazes went back and forth between each other.
Eyes that needed to speak but could not.
For they all knew that whoever spoke the next words in this place would have to take responsibility.
Just then.
"How many branches are left?"
The voice came from the inner part of the meeting hall.
The moment the words fell, every sound in the hall was cut off.
The breathing of the elders, the crackling of the candles.
A silence as if Sword Qi had passed through without a sword being drawn.
The messenger's forehead touched the stone floor completely.
"Thirty-two, Sword Venerate."
"Thirty-two."
The Sword Venerate repeated the number once.
"If the root is healthy, the branches will grow again. The Rakshasa dogs do not have the skill to fell the trunk."
There was no sign of him rising from his chair.
Only his voice flowed out from the darkness.
"When spring comes, we will do their presumptuous pruning ourselves."
After that, silence fell again, and the messenger, catching his breath, continued.
"There is one more thing to report. It concerns the whereabouts of Jin Hagyeong, the Manor Lord of Heaven Reflecting Sword Manor."
"Speak."
"It is said he fled south with about two hundred defeated soldiers. Based on the direction of his escape, it is certain to be towards the River Capital."
"…And the pursuers?"
The elder who had placed his folded fan on the table asked.
"It has been determined that a Rakshasa pursuit squad followed them. I heard the scale is over several hundred, but the exact composition has not been confirmed."
The word 'hundreds' caused a stir among the attendees.
The manpower of the Dark Rakshasa Way was that extraordinary.
To be able to operate that many Rakshasa monks while still pushing on all fronts.
"…Have you confirmed the information about that pursuit squad?"
"Regrettably… the entire Vast Heaven intelligence team that was tracking the Rakshasas has also lost contact, Elder."
Crack.
The hand of the elder who had broken the fan he had picked up again came down on the table.
"The River Capital. Wasn't that also where we sent the Patrol Sword Corps?"
No one answered.
The place where the entire Patrol Sword Corps had gone to gather as many allies as possible before the full-scale war with the Dark Rakshasa Way.
And.
The direction toward which the defeated soldiers of Vast Heaven's branch sects and many of Vast Heaven's allies had headed.
All of it was the River Capital.
"The River Capital."
It was the Sword Venerate's voice.
Even though it wasn't a question, at those two words, an elder immediately bowed his waist.
"The River Capital was originally a place divided by the Iron God Gang and the Seven Star Immortal Society. The dispatch of the Patrol Sword Corps was for the purpose of contacting those two powers."
"And?"
An elder from the opposite side spoke up.
"Those two are already gone."
"Gone?"
"They have been annihilated. I heard a new power appeared, defeated them both, and seized control of the River Capital."
The Sword Venerate's sharp voice followed without a moment's pause.
"The name of the power?"
"I heard they use a plaque that reads 'Hero's Sect'."
Hero's Sect.
A short silence fell among the elders.
"Has the Sect Leader's name been confirmed?"
The very same elder who had broken his fan asked.
"He is called Kim Rae-won."
One elder's eyebrow twitched slightly.
"Kim Rae-won… Somewhere."
But he fell silent, unable to grasp the thread of his memory.
Among the other elders, some tilted their heads or let their gazes wander into the air, but no one could fully recall the name.
However, the fingertips of the woman sitting by the wall folded and unfolded once on her lap.
Iron-Faced Lady, Yeop Bihwa.
An absolute sword born of the Vast Heaven Infinite Sword Sect, but one who did not remain within Vast Heaven's mold.
Her fingertips came to rest on her lap again.
That was it.
Nothing appeared on her peerless beauty, which was hard to believe had reached middle age.
The title 'Iron-Faced' was not given for nothing.
The Sword Venerate did not ask again.
The seven elders held their breath and waited for what was next.
For a while, no sound came from the darkness, until at some point, the Sword Venerate's blade-like voice spread sharply among them.
"The winds of the Central Plains blow strangely these days."
An elder raised his head, but he did not understand his meaning.
The other elders were the same.
Whether he meant the current situation where their branch sects were being annihilated, or if there was some other deep meaning… it was a context only the Sword Venerate knew.
"Confirm it."
It was short.
"That is where our Patrol Sword Corps vanished, and where hundreds more of our disciples have vanished. Let me see with my own eyes what is there."
But its meaning was clear.
An order to sally forth.
At that, Yeop Bihwa spoke for the first time.
"I will go."
The gazes of the seven elders all turned toward the wall.
The woman who had been sitting in this place without saying a word had spoken for the first time.
"I can reach the River Capital in four days."
That was all.
She didn't add a reason, nor did she ask for permission.
There was no reply from the Sword Venerate.
However, a presence from within the darkness moved once and then returned.
Whether he had nodded or not.
And.
Yeop Bihwa was already rising from her seat.
The Iron-Faced Lady.
One of the three people who earned the name of the Three Monsters at the past Orthodox Assembly Gathering.
One of Vast Heaven's absolute sword masters had just departed for the River Capital.