Chapter 46 : Flame King

Chapter 46: Flame King

After finishing his private talk with Yeo Seon.

Sewoon immediately left the clan grounds.

He had told Yeo Seon to return straight to the Small Martial Training Hall and supervise the training of Daewoong and the other two.

The first day of training had already been used to grasp and dismantle the three members’ main martial arts, so Sewoon’s role wasn’t very large.

As planned, the Dark Flower Unit members would spar in friendly duels among themselves.

But if he wanted to win and finally achieve the outcome he desired—

‘I need to do my part.’

The next step was absolutely necessary.

Chrrk—

Just then, Sewoon arrived at his destination.

A sharp, smoky scent, one that always brought him an odd sense of calm, flowed into his nose.

Sewoon’s eyes caught sight of the Ten Thousand Iron Hall.

As before, the inside of the smithy was dim.

Since it was a late hour, no blacksmiths were at work.

Now all he had to do was open the door and enter the smithy.

But for some reason, Sewoon simply stood still in front of the Ten Thousand Iron Hall.

Though only for a moment.

“You’ve come again to lend me your equipment, haven’t you?”

Sewoon muttered suddenly to himself.

His gaze fell upon nothing but pitch-black shadows.

And yet, exactly from that spot—

Step, step.

Slow footsteps echoed.

“…So, you knew.”

The Hall Leader of Ten Thousand Iron Hall, Gu Yongyeon, revealed himself.

Gu Yongyeon fixed Sewoon with a strangely gleaming stare.

Sewoon shrugged his shoulders and continued.

“Yes. My ears have become rather sharp these days, by chance.”

From the moment he left the clan grounds, Sewoon had already noticed Gu Yongyeon trailing behind him.

But he had not spoken until now.

Because, just like with Yeo Seon, he wanted a private conversation—just the two of them.

‘It’s about time I tied this off.’

Before his regression, Tang Hoyeol—whom Gu Yongyeon had chosen in Sewoon’s place—had already been disposed of.

Now it was time to cleanly settle the connection with him as well.

On a night when a full moon shone without a single cloud.

A heavy silence settled between the two men.

Then, Sewoon slowly parted his lips.

“I’ve just returned from gathering a subordinate.”

“…Congratulations.”

“My first complete man of my own.”

In Gu Yongyeon’s mind appeared the figure of Yeo Seon, whom Sewoon had brought earlier today.

A man whose exterior seemed awkward and clumsy, yet hid two chilling eyes within his frail body.

“But it’s not enough.”

“…What is lacking?”

“Though I killed the traitor Tang Hoyeol, the clan still shakes.”

“With such a half-formed force, we will never survive the even greater calamity that is bound to come.”

Greater calamity.

It was a word that did not suit the jianghu of today, where long peace had continued.

And yet, why?

It did not sound like mere speculation, but like a certainty.

From Sewoon’s firm declaration, Gu Yongyeon felt an ominous chill creep over him.

In that moment, Sewoon spoke with eyes carrying an unshakable calm.

“I must unite the clan as one.”

Gu Yongyeon asked quietly.

“You wish to surpass Qingcheng and Mount Emei?”

“Would it end at just that?”

Sewoon shook his head at Gu Yongyeon’s words.

And then—

He spoke of a shocking goal, one completely unexpected.

“The Number One Clan under Heaven. No—”

“The Number One Power under Heaven.”

In today’s jianghu, the undisputed number one power was the Murim Alliance.

And now Sewoon was declaring that the Sichuan Tang Clan would surpass even the Murim Alliance as a single force.

“To protect everyone, it has to be at least that much.”

It was an outrageous and absurd statement.

And yet, Gu Yongyeon found himself unable to speak, as though overwhelmed by something.

“And to achieve my goal, Lord Gu—”

Then Sewoon said,

“No, I will need Flame King Jin Mubek without fail.”

He spoke aloud the secret that no one in the Tang Clan knew anymore, a secret buried when Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae died.

Before his regression, after betraying the Tang Clan, Tang Hoyeol committed countless evil deeds and ultimately even became a branch member of the Blood Cult.

But Gu Yongyeon had not done so.

Perhaps vengeance against the Tang Clan and joining the Blood Cult had been two different matters for him.

He refused to follow Tang Hoyeol into becoming a cultist.

But that choice came with a dreadful price.

The Blood Cult immediately dispatched martial artists to eliminate Gu Yongyeon.

And yet no matter how long they waited, those martial artists never returned to the cult’s headquarters.

There was no way they could have.

Because all the assassins had been reduced to ashes.

Soon after, another pursuit team was organized.

And through the Blood Cult’s information network, before Gu Yongyeon could change his name, his true identity was exposed.

One of the Hundred Great Masters of the Murim.

A supreme martial artist said to be on par with the Palace Head of the Sun Palace, wielding the Yang Gang Supreme Arts.

The Flame King, Jin Mubek—that was his hidden name.

‘…How could the Young Lord know?’

Gu Yongyeon could not hide his shock.

Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae had made a pact with him.

That he would never reveal his true identity to anyone.

And the Poison Commander he had come to know was, without question, not the kind of man who would break such an oath even before death.

Thus, Gu Yongyeon concluded that Sewoon was testing him.

“What do you mean—”

“Seori.”

At the sudden name that spilled from Sewoon’s mouth, Gu Yongyeon—

No, Jin Mubek could not utter a single word.

As he froze like a statue, Sewoon finished the words left unsaid.

“You are the bloodline of the Tang Clan Head, are you not?”

Jin Mubek’s reaction made Sewoon certain that his suspicion was true.

Even after his regression, he had revisited the matter many times.

Why Jin Mubek had come to hate him so.

Yet he had never been able to figure it out.

No matter how much he thought back, he could not see what had caused their relationship to break.

There had only ever been one suspicious day.

The very day when Lee Hoseong had humiliated him.

That day in the marketplace, he had been disgraced and dragged the Tang Clan’s honor into the dirt.

Could it be because of that incident that made the clan a laughingstock?

But something about it felt wrong.

Though Jin Mubek had indeed shared a deep bond with Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae, it seemed unlikely he would hold such disdain toward Sewoon simply for staining the clan’s honor.

It wasn’t as though he thought of the clan with such fervent devotion.

And on the day after his regression, when they met again in front of the Ten Thousand Iron Hall—

—It seems you snuck out without your gear, so in haste, use mine over there.

His attitude toward him had shifted completely to one of favor.

When Sewoon carefully sorted his thoughts afterward, he realized:

‘I had assumed wrong from the beginning.’

There had only been one changed variable.

Seori.

On the day Lee Hoseong had caused chaos—

Before the regression, she had died. After, she had lived thanks to Sewoon’s intervention.

There was no other reason for Jin Mubek’s change in attitude toward him.

At that moment, like scattered fragments aligning into place, Sewoon discovered Jin Mubek’s secret.

Seori was Jin Mubek’s hidden granddaughter.

And then, in a voice steeped in sorrow, Jin Mubek began to speak.

“My wife was, by nature, a woman full of kindness.”

“Even when orphans pestered her daily, she never once drove them away, but always sent them off with a bright smile and a warm meal.”

“It was precisely because she was such a gentle soul that she was able to embrace a man like me, whose hands were forever stained with blood.”

“Yes… she was too kind. Far too kind.”

And at that moment—

The longing in Jin Mubek’s eyes turned to anguish.

“She even left her dying wish, pleading with me not to hate the very man who struck her down with poison.”

In an instant, his grief turned into a storm of fury.

“But as you know, I failed to keep that oath.”

“……Hall Leader Gu.”

“Young Lord, do you know why I was given the alias ‘Flame King of Hell’?”

Sewoon slowly shook his head.

With a bitter expression, Jin Mubek continued.

“It was because I burned every last man connected to my wife’s murder in the flames of the Hell King’s Fire.”

The one who had killed his wife was none other than the rising unorthodox leader, the Sect Leader of the Ghost Flame Sect.

Rapidly growing in power through the salt smuggling trade, the Ghost Flame Sect had been seen as the future sixth pillar to the Five Evils that supported the Demonic Alliance.

One day, the Ghost Flame Sect’s Sect Leader had come to recruit the retired Flame King.

But when his offer was rejected outright, he harbored resentment and struck in Jin Mubek’s absence, murdering his wife.

Faced with such a cruel tale, Sewoon was left speechless.

“In my obsession with vengeance, I abandoned my young child.”

“And the madness born from my qi deviation kept me from ever returning.”

Now, Jin Mubek’s eyes reflected only despair.

“Keuhuhuhu… By the time two generations of mountains and rivers had passed, when my mind finally returned, I found that my son and his wife had already succumbed to illness and died.”

Only regret and grief remained.

His voice trembled with unbearable pain.

He must have carried this secret in silence all his life.

“And when, with the help of my only friend, the Poison Commander, I learned that my one remaining granddaughter wandered Sichuan as an orphan, I could only watch from afar and shed tears of blood.”

“……Why did you not reveal yourself to Seori?”

Sewoon asked, his tone full of pity.

Jin Mubek shook his head firmly.

“It was I who cast her fate into the abyss. With what face, with what shame, could I stand before her?”

“……Hall Leader Gu.”

“All I could do was beg the Poison Commander to let her be taken into the Tang Clan’s care…”

And so, Sewoon’s grandfather, Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae, had no choice but to hire Seori as a servant girl.

The instant her true identity surfaced even a little, the blade of old grudges etched into murim by Jin Mubek would surely come to strike her.

“I have protected her from afar.”

“And on the one day I visited the grave of my son and daughter-in-law, misfortune struck with Lee Hoseong’s incident.”

Even recalling it made Jin Mubek tremble uncontrollably.

But soon, his eyes calmed, and in a soft voice, he said to Sewoon:

“Thus, Young Lord, you are not only Seori’s lifesaver, but also the benefactor of my entire life.”

“Just give the order. Whatever it may be, I will comply.”

“I shall repay Seori’s lifesaving grace in her stead.”

In the ruthless murim, the word ‘whatever’ was far too dangerous.

Yet it was with such resolve that Jin Mubek had spoken to Sewoon.

Even if Sewoon demanded the head of an enemy whose death meant his own, Jin Mubek would gladly accept and depart.

But—

The answer that came from Sewoon was nothing like what he had expected.

“Danger is approaching the murim. The entire martial world will soon be engulfed in turmoil and plunged into misery.”

“And in the midst of that storm, I will give my life to protect the Tang Clan.”

Sewoon spoke without the slightest hesitation.

“Because not only Seori, but every member of the Tang Clan is my family.”

“So do not consider me Seori’s benefactor. I simply did what was natural.”

“……You!”

“There is no need to follow me, nor to repay a debt you feel bound by.”

Sewoon pleaded sincerely, without a single trace of falsehood.

“Only when it is time to stop another unjust sacrifice from being made. Only when it is time to resist the malice that seeks the Tang Clan—lend your strength then.”

“To protect our family.”

Jin Mubek was speechless.

At the moment he heard Sewoon’s words—

It felt as if a hammer had struck his head.

Belatedly, Jin Mubek looked into Sewoon’s eyes.

And there, he saw overlapped the face of his long-lost, beloved friend.

—What are you saying, my friend?

—Mubek, why do you say you have no family?

Words he once dismissed as nonsense in the past.

Yet, his only friend, always wiser than himself, had told him—

—Are not I, and all of us, your family?

Even after leaving this world, those words still rang within his chest.

‘……Poison Commander, you have won.’

Ending his thoughts, Jin Mubek slowly began to walk toward a certain place.

Creak.

He pushed the blacksmith’s doors wide open.

Then, gripping the door with one hand, he looked straight at Sewoon and said quietly:

“So then, what is it that I must help you forge?”

By those words, Jin Mubek had all but declared his acceptance.

At last, a bright smile spread across Sewoon’s face.