A notice from the Heavenly Demon's palace was sent to all allied clans and read by the Heavenly Demon Sect's envoys in the city of Tai'an and in the temples under the sect's control.
The message was spread as if the sect wanted the whole world to be able to hear it.
The message made no mention of the Murim Alliance.
The message made no mention of the Hao faction.
No mention was made of the massacre at the second concubine's villa.
The Blood Cult had targeted the Heavenly Demon's palace during an important ceremony, and the Heavenly Demon, under the Emperor's command, was taking revenge for the Blood Cult being a public criminal.
If the Murim Alliance wished to help, the Heavenly Demon would accept it.
From the northernmost point of the Frozen Palace's territory and the desert of the Turks to the eastern islands and the mountain ranges of the western continent, the Heavenly Demon's notice was spread.
For the Central Plains and the Emperor's palace, this one-page notice held many ambiguities.
Rumors swirled in the Central Plains that Namgung had walked into the Heavenly Demon's palace on her own feet with a child that was hers and the Heavenly Demon's.
Yujin Hak headed toward the former Alliance Leader's room.
The Heavenly Demon's palace notice had already caused much surprise and confusion. The former Alliance Leader had woken the previous night after a long coma, and on the morning of his awakening, the Emperor's representative had come to visit him.
Yujin Hak knew that the representative's presence only hours after the coma meant the Empire wanted to flaunt its intelligence power.
Yujin Hak reached the former leader's residence and saw Chun Wala with a serious and displeased expression. Chun Wala stood with his hands clasped over his chest and looked at Yujin Hak: "You probably know what's going on. You always know what's going on. The Emperor's representative won't allow the Alliance Leader into the master's room until he's spoken with you."
Yujin Hak replied in his usual cold and tired tone: "What do you want to do now? Break the Emperor's representative's jaw over a disrespect?"
"Grit your teeth and endure. As the Murim Alliance Leader, there's always an opportunity to show power."
Yujin Hak stood before the room and took a deep breath.
When he opened the door, the Emperor's representative and the former leader looked at him.
The man who predicted everything now seemed predictable.
The Emperor's representative neither greeted him nor said anything; he only gave a sly smile and gestured with his hand toward a chair.
Yujin Hak sat down and looked at the former leader, who appeared tired and aggrieved—a man who had returned from death seemed unhappy to have woken up.
How long was the silence supposed to last?
"Why are you here?"
Yujin Hak didn't seem truly uncomfortable.
The Emperor's representative answered with the same arrogant manner: "After all the messes you've made, you really don't know?"
"No, I don't know. Either tell me yourself or go to hell."
The representative, insulted, was calmed by the former leader: "Yujin, the representative has come to talk, not to fight."
"Don't worry. While you were asleep, the sky didn't fall, nor did the sea catch fire, such that the Emperor would find the ability to fight the Murim Alliance."
Yujin Hak asked the representative in the same hostile manner: "What do you have to say?"
The representative was surprised by Yujin Hak's audacity: "You're the same psychotic bastard as always. The Emperor's agreement with the Murim Alliance was simple: the Heavenly Demon's child and the sister of the Namgung Clan leader leave Tai'an, and you in the Murim Alliance display Lady Namgung and say she escaped the Blood Cult's clutches."
"And the Heavenly Demon, having been humiliated, blames the Murim Alliance. But the Alliance, which has just changed leaders and whose main enemy is the Blood Cult, how could it be blamed?"
"After that, we would give the Heavenly Demon's hidden child Blood Flower, and tell the whole world that the Heavenly Demon has a child from the Blood Cult, and that the attack was merely a internal war between their own factions."
"Due to the inequality of war and the Heavenly Demon Sect being the aggressor, they would become the public enemy of the Empire, and the Emperor's million-strong army would help the Alliance in destroying public enemies."
The representative stood up and stood one step from Yujin Hak so that his shadow enveloped him: "That was the agreement. Do you have anything to say?"
Yujin Hak stood up and faced the representative: "Don't you smell iron and dampness in the air? Even now, the smell of blood has reached here."
The representative, after looking at Yujin Hak's expressionless face, took a step back: "We conspired once, but we didn't agree not to conspire more than once. Kang Long will undoubtedly spill blood."
The representative looked at the former leader: "Did you have a plan for this situation?"
"..."
"Yes."
"We had a plan."
"We didn't overestimate ourselves so much as to be without a second plan against Kang Long."
"The Alliance strategist also didn't think the Heavenly Demon would act unlike the Heavenly Demon, or that Lady Namgung would betray the Alliance."
The representative was surprised: "Then how did you have an alternative plan?"
Yujin Hak laughed: "It's very simple."
"The heavens detest conspirators and traitors. Obviously, they won't let everything go according to our wishes."
"Hah hah hah hehehehe. I just said to myself: how would God let a bastard like me achieve his wishes?"
The former leader looked at his bony, weakened hands and accepted the price of his sin, but he knew more sins were to come—at least there was someone beside him to accept the sins with him.
The representative sat down and asked Yujin Hak and the former leader about their new plan, but Yujin Hak also had a question.
Why did this matter to him at all? "Sir representative, I heard a meteorite fell near the capital. Is there anything about it you'd like to tell me now?"
The fall of something from the heavens is not something I can tell you.
Just mentioning it is cause for concern.
"It's a blessed event. The heavens have sent a gift of sky-metal to the Emperor."
Yujin Hak bowed: "Convey the Alliance's congratulations to the Emperor."
"I will certainly convey them."
---
In the Heavenly Demon Sect's academy, sounds of moaning and pleading came from one of the training rooms.
The sounds grew fewer and fewer.
The remains of ten youths with covered faces lay on the ground.
Some had lost so much blood they couldn't speak.
A girl with a sword searched for someone who could talk.
"You're missing only one hand."
"So you can speak?"
The eldest child of the Heavenly Demon and the only child of the First Lady.
Other clans in the academy tried to kill rivals unsuitable for their clan's future, and the proud Flame Blade Clan had many enemies.
The girl whose hand had been cut off began to plead: "My Lady, we're friends... I'm sorry I didn't stop them."
She lowered her mask: "True."
"In the year I've been at the academy, you treated me well."
"When did you find out who I was? You have to tell me the truth."
The girl, having no choice, told the truth: "You were one of the candidates from the start, and I approached you to confirm."
"I knew you approached me to confirm. But when did you figure it out?"
The frightened looks of those on the ground who were still alive warned her not to say anything: "We didn't figure it out. The three of us were watching the candidates to be the Heavenly Demon's heirs, and before coming here we killed two of them."
She swung her sword and cut off the girl's head: "Goodbye, my friend."
"The others will follow you."