The way she gripped the bucket’s handle wasn’t ordinary.It was the way a swordsman holds his blade.“Interesting.”A young maid of the Gwak Family.Fourteen years old today—an age that should’ve known only how to wring a washcloth.And yet, she knew how to {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} hold a sword.In this age, there was only one likely answer.A descendant of a fallen martial clan.“…What is it that amuses you, sir?”“It pleases me that you’ve caught my interest.”A strange thing for a man in his thirties to say.Especially one wearing martial robes embroidered with the plum blossom of Mount Hua.“I am… merely a maid of the Gwak Family.”“That’s not what I meant.”The man lowered his gaze to look her in the eyes.That black hair.Those dark pupils.And within them—sorrow, pain, emptiness.The kind of color a child should never carry.But that wasn’t all.The faint scent of plum blossoms brushed his nose…No perfume could conceal it.Any martial artist of Mount Hua would recognize that scent instantly.“Were you of a Mount Hua branch family?”“…Ah.”The girl’s shoulders flinched.The bucket slipped from her fingers and clattered to the ground.After a short, awkward silence—“…Have you come to punish even me?”“You must think I’m a man of the Alliance.”“In this world, there are few martial artists who aren’t of the Alliance.”Her voice carried resignation.And she was right.It had been over fifty years since Namgung Seon, the Sky-Splitting Sword Sovereign, defeated the Heavenly Demon and rose as leader of the Martial Alliance.Fifty years.Half a century.Even emperors rarely ruled that long.And the Alliance Leader, too… was human.A human who could not resist the sweet whisper of power.This was an age where one could lose their tongue in the marketplace for cursing the Alliance Leader once.Her father, most likely…He must have perished for speaking truth.“…You may act your age, child.”“I… don’t quite understand what you mean, sir.”“Look at me.”Cheon Soyak lifted her head.Her skin was white as the first snow at dawn.Tears glimmered faintly under her eyes.But the man—Eunsong—saw something else in her gaze.Something dark, buried deep.He had keen eyes, sharper than most.That was unmistakably the look of one born under the Heavenly Killing Star.…The Heavenly Killing Star.One of the 108 baleful stars spoken of in Daoist astrology.A fate destined to bring bloodshed to the world.Eunsong smiled faintly.She was precisely the kind of person he needed.“My name is Eunsong. As you can see, I am a man of Mount Hua.”“…I see.”“Will you come with me?”How could a butterfly cross the sea?Cheon Soyak thought her life no different from that butterfly’s.She might flutter her wings, but could never reach far.Yet if a ship were to appear, perhaps she could cross.The girl bit her lip.“Mount Hua did not protect us.”“I know.”“I am the daughter of a house that defied the Alliance Leader.”“I know that as well.”“Then why would you take me with you?”Mount Hua—The place where plum blossoms never fall.Rumor had it that a sacred relic granted by the Alliance Leader ensured the blossoms’ eternal bloom.Eunsong, too, was an odd one among Mount Hua’s ranks.But one thing about him was certain—his eye for talent.From deep within those hollow black eyes emanated the aura of the Heavenly Killing Star.Even for one who had reached the peak of mastery, it was enough to raise gooseflesh.That child was a black qilin.A beast of ruin that could rend the world apart.If her wings ever spread, she could end an era.“I have expectations of you.”“Then, sir, it seems you and I are entering an exchange.”“An exchange?”“You offer to take me away from this place, and in return, I am to fulfill your expectations.”Her voice was sharp.Too sharp for such a young tone.A voice that could cut a man’s throat with its edge.Eunsong was impressed.Were all those born under the star of calamity so alike?Fourteen, and already this sharp.“Indeed. You’re right.”“…What do you want from me?”Eunsong glanced around.No one was there.Still, he flicked his sleeve through the air, sealing the space with a wall of inner energy.“Do you not wish for revenge?”“…Are you testing me?”“I’m asking if you wish to drive a blade into the Alliance Leader’s throat.”Silence.Cheon Soyak closed her eyes.Her father had been beheaded.Her mother hanged herself not long after.Her clan had fallen; once among the foremost of Mount Hua’s branch families, now extinguished—and in the end, only she remained.Sensing his death, her father had passed all his inner energy to her.Thus she lived with acupuncture seals pressed into her body,lest power not her own spill out uncontrollably.She hid her nature, buried among the maids of a ruined house.No one would think to search for a sword there.And yet, I was found.A blade to the Alliance Leader’s neck, he said.But no sect would take in the daughter of a man executed for treason.The clan’s martial art and sacred relic remained with her—but one could not live on such things.Each day’s labor barely kept her alive; when could she train, polish her body, and wield her sword again?Only those free to devote themselves entirely to martial arts…Only they could lead the martial world.Only those born into houses untouched by the Alliance’s brand of ruin.“…Are you saying Mount Hua will accept me?”“Yes.”Cheon Soyak raised her small hand and struck her own pressure point.Blocked meridians burst open; inherited inner energy roared to life.The courtyard filled with the thick scent of plum blossoms.In that moment, she was no longer a girl—but a black qilin in human form.Starved, unable to unleash her full strength yet,but with cultivation, she would grow into a beast that could devour the world.“…You’ve learned the Harmonization Scripture.”From the flow and vibration of her energy alone, Eunsong knew who she was.The only daughter of the Flower-Halo Sect Master—the Black Plum Sword Lord’s late-born child.The Harmonization Scripture was an ancient mental art,a secret technique once bestowed upon her father for slaying escaped demonic lords after the Demonic Sect’s collapse.“I am Cheon Soyak of the Flower-Halo Sect. I greet you.”“Have you inherited the sect’s sacred arts and relics?”“…Yes.”Three legacies had been granted to the Flower-Halo Sect—the Harmonization Scripture,the supreme martial art Falling Plum Elegy,and the ancient sacred sword, Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.A gift laced with Mount Hua’s jealousy.No one had mastered the Falling Plum Elegy in generations.Though called a supreme art, it required cultivation through the Harmonization Scripture—and the energy gathered by that scripture could not bring the plum blossom to bloom.Moreover, the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge was known as a sword that could not be drawn.A relic left by the sect’s founder—its meaning lost to time, a riddle long abandoned.Artifacts stowed away as ceremonial heirlooms, beautiful but useless.“With those, you could accomplish nothing.”“My father knew that as well.”“Yet he still gave them to you?”“Yes.”Eunsong frowned.Then the Black Plum Sword Lord had solved the riddle?As a disciple of the main sect, he couldn’t help but be intrigued.“So he unraveled the secret before passing them on?”“He did.”“Show me.”Cheon Soyak rose quietly.She loosened the elaborate pins in her hair.Black strands cascaded like a waterfall.“First—one never creates a martial art that can destroy one’s own sect’s legacy.”“True.”“Second—has Mount Hua ever accepted a disciple born under the Heavenly Killing Star?”“Never.”“That is why you could never solve it.”She curled her hand lightly, as though holding an invisible sword.Then unfolded a dance of blades.Her embroidered feet brushed the ground like petals.Her fingers, gripping an unseen hilt, traced the air.The scent of plum blossoms spread through the courtyard—and at her fingertips, a single black blossom bloomed.A black plum blossom.So red it turned to black, falling with solemn grace.Clearly, not of Mount Hua’s lineage.“…Do you recall the preface of the Falling Plum Elegy?”The branch sects had only received copies.Eunsong, of course, had read the original.“To ensure the plum blossoms never fall. For the eternal glory of Mount Hua—”“You are mistaken, sir.”As Cheon Soyak folded her sleeves and sat again,the heavy fragrance of plum blossoms settled low in the courtyard—richer even than any Eunsong had ever known at the main peak.“My father said this art is… a requiem to make the eternal bloom fall.”“…Ah.”The Eternal Bloom.A flower that never withers.Yet all flowers must fall—that is the order of the world.Even the plum blossom is no exception.“…Then that sword exists to strike down Mount Hua?”“It is a sword that makes the flowers fall.”Every disciple of Mount Hua trained for the sect’s glory,so that its blossoms might never fade.“But my father himself could not wield this sword.”“Why?”“Because it is a killing sword—a blade that slays the bloom it births.”Her black eyes still swallowed all light.The Heavenly Killing Star—within them, something devoured even radiance itself.“I was born under that star.”“…A Mount Hua art only one under the Heavenly Killing Star could master.”“If you wish to retract your offer to make me your disciple, now is the time.”All of Mount Hua’s teachings belonged to the Daoist path—arts meant to refine body and mind toward transcendence.Had their founder prepared this sword as a blade to cut away those who strayed?Eunsong gazed at the girl, his heart heavy.If he took her to Mount Hua, turmoil would surely follow.That sword was made to judge Mount Hua itself—No, more than that…It was meant to end all who defied the world’s natural order,to sever the stagnation of eternity itself.The nemesis of all who dreamed of immortality.Death.A martial art concerning the inevitability of mortality—denying eternity, tarnishing gold, ending day so that night might come.Thus, it was entrusted to one born under the Heavenly Killing Star.“No. I will not retract it.”“Then allow me to ask you something in return.”“…Go ahead.”“Why do you wish to end the world as it is, sir?”Before those deep black eyes, lies were useless.She would see through him easily.Eunsong sighed quietly and spoke.“…There comes a moment when a human wants to kill another human.”“I know.”“When do you think that desire is strongest?”Cheon Soyak thought for only a moment, then answered easily.For one who’d lost her family to the Alliance Leader, it wasn’t a hard question.“When they’ve lost someone dear to them.”“Yes. That’s correct.”“…Did you, too, lose someone, sir?”Eunsong smiled bitterly.“I lost the one I loved.”

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