When the turmoil had at last settled, Cheongun, Seolhwa, and Namgoong Mucheon sat down together.

It had been nearly six long months since they had last met. Questions abounded, words long held back pressed at their lips. Yet Seolhwa, barely seated, delivered news that weighed heavily.

“Forgive me, but there’s somewhere I must go at once.”

Cheongun, who had just lowered himself into his chair, froze and asked again.

“Where are you going? You haven’t even rested. You’ve yet to be examined by the physician.”

“I’ll receive the checkup once I return.”

“Is it Sado Union business?”

Namgoong Mucheon’s question.

Seolhwa nodded.

She recalled the letter she had hastily received from the Hao Sect Lord yesterday evening, just before heading to the Clan Lord’s Hall for dinner.

The Flesh Curtain Lord, the Blood-Slaughter Demon, has led his assassins to strike Black Cloud Hall. Black Cloud Hall is in grave danger.

Black Cloud Hall was led by three sworn brothers.

When Seolhwa had lost her memories, they were the ones who safely delivered her into the care of the Sado Union.

At first she had drawn them in only to make use of them, but much had changed since those days.

Now, to her, they were not only a great strength, but no less than family.

“I must hurry there. I’m sorry.”

“Through this incident, I’ve come to feel something with stark clarity.”

“?”

Seolhwa turned her gaze toward Namgoong Mucheon.

His expression was one of profound resolve.

“This battle must not be yours alone to fight.”

He had proclaimed war against the Blood Cult, but he admitted now that he had held himself back from taking the full step forward.

Because of that hesitation, Seolhwa had again been targeted, again abducted. And he had suffered bitterly, tormented by regret.

“This battle is between the Central Plains and the Blood Cult. I will not allow you to fight it alone.”

Never again would he permit Seolhwa to be driven into danger on her own.

Never again would he remain a step behind, watching from the shadows.

If she had returned, then he would stake his life and face the Blood Cult head-on.

He had vowed it over and over through grueling training with Ouyang Do.

“So let us go together.”

Cheongun also nodded and took hold of Seolhwa’s hand.

“Yes. Your body is not yet whole. Do so.”

Seolhwa’s eyes quivered briefly.

But then she too nodded, as though her heart had settled into its decision.

****

“Under cover of night, they struck and took Elder Imoe of Black Cloud Hall hostage.”

At the Sado Union branch in Nanning, Guangxi Province.

In the council chamber sat Ilryong, the Hao Sect Lord, and Seolhwa, all bearing grim faces.

No sooner had Seolhwa arrived than she reported that her memories had returned.

But joy over that news was fleeting, as the Hao Sect Lord delivered his dark report.

“The Blood-Slaughter Demon is demanding the Union Lord’s personal response.”

Seolhwa frowned.

“Wasn’t it announced publicly that the Sado Union Lord had entered closed-door cultivation?”

“That is the strange part.”

The Hao Sect Lord tilted his head as he spoke.

“The matter of your return should have been tightly concealed, yet they spoke with utter certainty that you had come back.”

“...”

“And more... they seem to have sensed that you are not the same as before.”

“It is suspicious that they took Imoe in particular.”

Ilryong’s face was grave, his fist clenched tight.

“After the Sambong incident we made certain to keep our whereabouts ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) hidden even within Black Cloud Hall.”

Sambong, once captured as a hostage by the Iron-Blood Hall, had been targeted because the Union Lord treasured him. Ever since, the three brothers had lived with heightened vigilance.

Especially once the war with the Flesh Curtain began, they had taken care not to become burdens should they themselves be seized.

“Imoe was in the most secure part of Black Cloud Hall, merely organizing ledgers. Yet somehow those assassins knew the defenses...”

It was only after a full shichen that anyone realized Imoe was gone.

Only because the assassins had left behind a slip of paper did they even know where he had been taken.

Seolhwa’s eyes narrowed.

This could not have been done without detailed knowledge of Black Cloud Hall’s inner workings.

No assassin could completely erase their traces.

To abduct Imoe from the most secure place without anyone knowing, as Ilryong said, meant the intruders either had penetrated the hall’s defenses and structure perfectly—

Or it was the work of someone inside.

The leak of her own return to the Union was much the same.

When she had come back, very few had known: only Ryeong, the Hao Sect Lord, and the three of Black Cloud Hall.

And those people would never betray her.

Ryeong’s loyalty was unquestionable, and the Hao Sect Lord himself had nearly lost a daughter to the Blood Cult.

And if the three of Black Cloud Hall had betrayed her, then the Flesh Curtain would not have attacked their hall in the first place.

Unless this whole affair was some farce devised in collusion with the Flesh Curtain—an absurd thought.

That means the ones who could know something was amiss with me...

Those who could come and go freely within the Sado Union stronghold.

Those who might, even by chance, have glimpsed her or heard whispers.

At the very least, figures of the Union’s highest echelon. Somewhere among them.

“There is a traitor within the Sado Union.”

It was then—

“Union Lord...!”

Someone rushed into the chamber in haste.

It was Ryeong.

“You must come at once...!”

****

The gaze of the Blood-Slaughter Demon, looking down from the cliff at the gorge below, was cold and sharp.

By order of the Blood Demon he had begun this war against the Sado Union. Already months had passed.

It was both misfortune and fortune that no sooner had war been declared than the Sado Union Lord had supposedly entered closed-door cultivation.

His men had shouted to seize the chance while the Union lacked its leader, but the Blood-Slaughter Demon had found it distasteful.

If there was to be battle, he wanted to face them properly.

It was a war he had never wanted in the first place, and he had been set to let it drag on until it simply petered out.

Until the Blood Demon summoned him.

“The Shadowless Demon God has come out of seclusion.”

“...Is that so.”

“Word is that though her return was hidden, physicians have been coming and going.”

The Blood-Slaughter Demon turned his eyes upon the Blood Demon.

The Blood Demon’s mouth curved deep.

“Perhaps something went wrong with her body during her retreat.”

“...”

“Your time has come. Heaven itself is with you. Now—bring me the head of the Shadowless Demon God.”

Crunch.

The veins on the back of his clenched fist swelled and throbbed.

He had been told to bring back her head, and then—nothing more. He had thought his master’s interest had waned.

What if I had refused then and there?

The Blood Demon was stronger, more terrifying than anyone he had ever met.

He paid the Blood Lords some measure of regard because of their titles, but the Blood-Slaughter Demon knew well:

To the Blood Demon, the Blood Lords were less than insects.

Damn it.

He cast his gaze down into the gorge.

Beneath the blazing sun in the gorge’s heart, on a tall, long stake, a battered man was bound.

An elder of Black Cloud Hall, the sect the Union Lord was said to treasure.

Watching the man slowly waste away, the Blood-Slaughter Demon turned his eyes toward a point along the gorge.

“Flesh Curtain Lord.”

“...I see him.”

So she truly had come.

Shadowless Demon God.

She had to know this was a trap meant to threaten her.

Will she truly wager her life for the sake of one elder?

Strangely, he could sense no power from her at all.

Could it be true, as the Blood Demon had said, that something had gone wrong with her in seclusion? Her qi felt feeble.

“....”

Narrowing his eyes, the Blood-Slaughter Demon raised one hand.

Behind him, rows of archers pulled their bowstrings as one, all aiming into the gorge.

Whoosh— shwishwishwish—!

Hundreds of arrows rained down.

Seolhwa looked toward the descending storm blotting out the sky.

Upon the cliff above, a mass of black figures was visible.

At their head stood the Blood-Slaughter Demon, master of the Flesh Curtain, whom she had glimpsed briefly before in Shanxi.

Srrng—

Seolhwa drew her sword.

In her hand was the blade she had wielded as Union Lord before she lost her memory—

Forged with black steel alloy, its edge carried the same shadowed hue as the Imoogi’s power.

Tak—

With the Flesh Curtain’s position fixed in her sight, Seolhwa sprang straight toward Imoe.

She reached the tall stake just as—

Srrrk—

His body, limp and powerless, slid from its bonds.

Tak—

Launching from the ground, Seolhwa leapt high, catching him mid-fall.

She landed as light as a feather, her long black coat flaring wide before sinking back down.

At her side, a black snake slithered up.

It was the Imoogi, which had severed the ropes that bound Imoe as she rushed in.

“...!”

Imoe forced his eyes open with great effort, his gaze trembling.

The last time he had seen Seolhwa, she had been a girl stripped of memory.

Meeting that shaken, bewildered stare, Seolhwa gave a firm nod.

“Rest. When you open your eyes again, it will all be over.”

“...!”

Tears welled in Imoe’s wide eyes.

He surrendered everything to her and let them fall shut.

Cradling him, Seolhwa raised her eyes to the sky.

Hundreds of black points were plummeting toward the two of them.