The elders of the pro-Dread King and pro-Martial Righteous Alliance factions froze, hands still gripping each other’s collars.
“……”
The guards, who had been forcefully dragging out the wildly resisting Elder Eulji Hwang, halted in their tracks.
“……”
The supporters of each camp, who had been screaming at the top of their lungs and hurling vile curses at the opposing side, also stopped dead.
“……”
They stood motionless as if turned to stone. A heavy silence descended upon the massive Grand Conference Hall, the pride of the Moyong Clan. Only the ragged breathing of the messenger who had rushed in echoed through the vast space.
“…J-Just now.”
The first to recover his senses was the Grand Chairman.
“What did you say…?”
The messenger shouted once more, his voice urgent.
“The Acting Patriarch and the Grand Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan are currently at the main gate of the Main Clan!”
The Grand Chairman was neither deaf from age nor foolish enough to forget what he had just heard.
He simply couldn’t accept it.
“…The Acting Patriarch and the Grand Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan have arrived?”
It was a situation he had never even imagined.
“What did I tell you?!”
Taking advantage of the guards’ loosened grip, Elder Eulji Hwang shook them off and shouted triumphantly.
“Did I not say the Acting Patriarch would come?!”
With his disheveled white hair flying, he let out a boisterous laugh.
“None of you will be safe now! None of you!”
“S-Silence!”
Bang! Bang! The Grand Chairman struck his gavel, shrieking more than shouting.
“Why aren’t the guards dragging that man out yet?! What are you doing?!”
“L-Loyalty!”
This time, Elder Eulji Hwang did not resist their touch.
“No one in this room will be forgiven!”
Leaving behind words that sounded like a prophecy—
“No one!”
—he laughed like a madman at everyone in the Grand Conference Hall.
Bang.
The doors of the hall closed, cutting off the laughter, yet for some reason, the sound seemed to linger in everyone’s ears.
“G-Grand Chairman…!”
The messenger called out, unable to hide his anxiety.
“How should I reply to the main gate? Should I tell them to open the gates and welcome them? Or?”
He asked gibberish, flustered.
“Should we have the servants prepare a welcoming ceremony according to family law? Will the elders all go out to greet the Acting Patriarch?”
“Th-That is…”
The Grand Chairman’s mind had long since been paralyzed.
‘What about the gifts received from Dread King’s side? The ledger of secret deals with the Third Young Master? Should I send someone now to tell my wife to hide them? Or destroy them?’
Right now, he was overwhelmed just thinking about what he had to hide and destroy.
“Grand Chairman!”
At the messenger’s shout, the Grand Chairman answered convulsively.
“T-Tell them to welcome them immediately! Prepare the greeting ceremony too!”
“Yes!”
However.
“Wait!”
A group blocked the door, stopping the messenger. It was Moyong Wan’s pro-Dread King faction.
“We cannot simply open the main gate like this!”
At Elder Moyong Wan’s words, the Grand Chairman gasped.
“What are you saying?! The ones outside are the Acting Patriarch of the Main Clan and the Grand Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan!”
“So?”
“So?!”
Moyong Wan smiled coldly.
“If you cower in fear and roll over to show your belly like that, do you expect them to simply let it pass?”
“……”
Ignoring the speechless Grand Chairman, he shouted to his supporters.
“Who is the culprit responsible for reducing this family to this state?!”
The supporters shouted in unison.
“Moyong Woonjeong!”
As if dissatisfied with the volume, he asked even louder.
“Whose fault is it that this family has fallen to the ground and become so wretched?!”
Just as the frenzied supporters were chanting Moyong Woonjeong’s name like madmen—
“You insane lunatic…!”
The one who stepped forward was Moyong Chusan of the pro-Martial Righteous Alliance faction.
“Is this the time for agitation?! Are you suggesting we start a rebellion?!”
“A rebellion?!”
Moyong Wan reacted roughly.
“Was it not you, the pro-Martial Righteous Alliance faction, who plotted a rebellion?!”
He pointed a finger at Moyong Chusan and shouted.
“Did you think I wouldn’t know you intended to offer this family whole to the Third Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan?!”
“What slander is this…?!”
Moyong Chusan jumped in shock and yelled back.
“Was it not you who tried to sell the family to Dread King with that nonsense about Greater Co-Prosperity?!”
It was impossible to know who swung their fist first.
Waaaaah!
Enraged supporters rushed at each other, tangling in a chaotic brawl. Amidst the pandemonium unfolding in the Grand Conference Hall, the messenger shouted to the Grand Chairman.
“Grand Chairman…!”
But the Grand Chairman wasn’t even looking at him. He had grabbed his own subordinate.
“…Go quickly and tell my wife ‘chamber pot’.”
“Ch-Chamber pot, sir?”
“Yes, chamber pot…! Then my wife will know to take care of it…!”
He was busy delivering instructions to save his own skin.
“……”
The speechless messenger looked back with a vacant expression.
“You pests gnawing away at this family…!”
“Trash ruining the clan…!”
Curses and insults flew rampant. Fists swung, feet kicked at knees.
“—-!”
“—!”
Someone’s broken tooth flew through the air; someone else howled, clutching a broken arm.
“—-!”
One person grabbed another by the hair, while the one being grabbed shoved fingers into someone else’s mouth, tearing at it.
“……”
Only the flags symbolizing the Moyong Clan and the Central Plains Nation, hanging high above, looked down indifferently at the chaos.
“……”
And so, no one realized.
The leaders of the two factions who had incited this very situation were nowhere to be seen.
***
The hidden courtyard of the Grand Conference Hall.
In this courtyard, known only to the direct lineage of the Moyong Clan, a new secret existed that even the direct lineage did not know.
It was a secret passage, an escape route created for emergencies while Moyong Woonjeong was away.
“It might be one thing if the Acting Patriarch returned alone, but bringing the Sword Clan’s Grand Young Master is clearly ominous!”
Two people were crawling through the narrow tunnel.
“Lower your voice, Elder Moyong Chusan…!”
“Is my voice important right now?! We need a plan! A plan!”
They were undoubtedly Moyong Wan of the pro-Dread King faction and Moyong Chusan of the pro-Martial Righteous Alliance faction, who had vanished from the hall.
“Can’t you crawl a little faster…?!”
“Hah…! What do you expect me to do about my age…?!”
What would the supporters of both factions say if they saw this sight?
“W-Wait… a moment’s rest.”
Moyong Chusan stopped crawling and gasped for breath.
“Did you instruct your subordinates properly?”
“O-Of course.”
Moyong Wan, unable to hide his exhaustion, answered while panting on the ground.
“I told them to use the smuggled weapons if they started being pushed back in the brawl. And you?”
“The same for me.”
They were practically partners in crime from the start.
“I told them to set fire to everything once blood started spilling. No one will be able to settle the situation easily.”
“Then our armed groups will clash as well, so—”
“We have enough time to escape.”
Moyong Wan sighed with a hint of relief.
“I heard the Grand Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan is a political monster.”
“Indeed. If it were just the Acting Patriarch, we might have stood a chance, but with that Grand Young Master involved, we would have been done for if we stayed.”
Because they were quicker on the uptake than anyone else, they had been able to exploit the Moyong Clan’s chaos better than anyone. And that was why they could escape the sinking ship—the Moyong Clan—faster than anyone else.
“One thing is regrettable…”
Having recovered a bit of stamina, Moyong Chusan smacked his lips as he began crawling again.
“If only the Acting Patriarch had returned just a little later, just one month, we wouldn’t have had to run away unilaterally like this…”
The thought was that if they had staged a major conflict and bought time, they could have eventually received support from either Dread King’s side or the Third Young Master’s side.
“If we go back even now and try to hold out through armed resistance—”
“Don’t spout nonsense…!”
Moyong Wan cut him off instantly.
“You want to hole up in the family estate and stage a siege?! Against the Acting Patriarch, whom some call a God of War?!”
He shot back at Moyong Chusan without hesitation.
“And what if support is late?! Are you going to die a heroic death in battle alongside your supporters?!”
“…That is.”
Of course, they couldn’t do that. They valued themselves above all else.
“Please, just follow the plan, the plan…!”
Moyong Wan, his face covered in dirt, scolded him in frustration.
“Right now, we must aim for a comeback based on the external foundations we secured from the Main Clan…!”
The Moyong Clan was not just this main building. Including branch families and allied tribes, there was an external organizational network deeply rooted throughout the vast northern region.
Those branches, where they had already firmly established their lines, would become their solid new foundations.
“Elder Moyong Chusan, you can receive support from the Sword Clan’s Third Young Master and raise your own force. And I will receive support from Dread King to raise mine.”
“…That is true.”
If Dread King and the Third Young Master intended to disrupt Great General Regent Moyong Woonjeong’s rear, they would surely pour support into them without sparing anything.
“Whatever happens, we must live first to do anything…!”
At that moment.
Elder Moyong Chusan, crawling along the passage, sniffed the air.
“…I smell burning.”
Moyong Wan nodded, smelling it as well.
“Did they set the fire? It seems things are going according to plan…!”
Perhaps because the tunnel was deep, a chilling cold seeped into their bodies, and their breath turned to mist.
“Oh…!”
Lifting his head with effort to look ahead, Moyong Chusan’s face brightened.
“I can almost see the end of the tunnel. Just a little further…”
His words cut off.
Moyong Wan, who slammed his face directly into Moyong Chusan’s buttocks when the latter stopped abruptly, shouted in annoyance.
“No…! What is wrong with you?! You said the end was in sight, so why stop suddenly…?!”
However.
“……”
There was no answer from Moyong Chusan.
“Elder Moyong Chusan, what on earth are you—”
Moyong Wan’s words could not continue.
Whoosh—!
For in the instant he saw Moyong Chusan’s body being dragged out of the exit by something in a flash—
“……!”
Moyong Wan was also dragged out before he could even scream.
What the bewildered Moyong Wan faced as he was dragged out was—
“These disgusting rats…”
A voice that sounded like metal boiling over its limit.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find you, reeking of such filth?”
What they had thought was the smell of burning was the sulfur-tinged breath of that being.
“Or perhaps.”
What they had felt as cold was the deep grudge of the vengeful spirits the entity commanded.
“Do you think there is even a single thing about this Moyong Clan that I do not know?”
The last thing they witnessed was rows of teeth and a throat black as the abyss.
It was not the destination of a tunnel for escape, but a direct passage to the Hell of Unceasing Torment (Avici).
Crunch!
***
Screeeech—!
“Signal confirmed!”
At that report, Great General Regent Moyong Woonjeong nodded briefly and commanded.
“Smash the main gate.”
Watching the Great General’s Escort move, she spoke.
“The cleanup begins.”