“What about the others—Sa-hyeon and Cheon-oh? Aren’t they here? Where are they?”

“Y-yes? They should be in the front courtyard of the Pavilion of Crimson Wind. I thought it’d be safer to investigate the commotion alone, so I left my brothers behind.”

“Damn it!” Nan Wi-jeong grimaced in profound distress. He paced frantically over a short distance, clearly struggling to organize his chaotic thoughts.

Entirely oblivious to his reasoning but instinctively sensing she had made a catastrophic error, Sa-yeong clutched at her plummeting heart.

“No, wait. That might actually be for the best. The Pavilion of Crimson Wind is situated quite far from the gravel field.”

“What gravel field? Please, speak plainly!”

“The gravel wasteland. The Tang Clan’s underground prison!”

Letting out a heavy, agonized groan, Nan Wi-jeong closed the distance between them. He pointed frantically between the blazing Snow Leaf and Longevity pavilions, his words spilling out like rapid-fire.

“Young Lady Sa-yeong, these two burning structures share a specific trait: they are ‘moderately important’ to the clan. They are vital enough that we cannot simply ignore a fire, yet not so critical that they boast the impenetrable security of the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Poisons or the Pavilion of Emerald Pillars. Furthermore, the Pavilion of Longevity isn’t even remotely close to the Pavilion of Snow Leaves! Doesn’t it strike you as utterly bizarre that the flames bypassed every adjacent building to ignite something so far away? To top it all off, the Pavilion of Longevity serves solely as the living quarters for our second-generation disciples—there is absolutely nothing inside that could naturally trigger an explosion of that magnitude!”

“Then…” Sa-yeong breathed.

“This is deliberate arson! Someone explicitly set these fires to funnel all of the Tang Clan’s manpower into this exact location!”

Having previously only encountered modest hearth fires or small campfires, Sa-yeong had entirely missed the glaring anomalies.

Now, the blood drained rapidly from her face as the horrifying reality set in.

Why else would they draw everyone’s eyes to a single point? It’s a blatant diversion to infiltrate the estate amidst the chaos! 

An unidentified, highly dangerous assailant might be actively scaling the Tang Clan’s walls at this very moment, and she had carelessly abandoned two boys barely twelve years old completely exposed in an open courtyard. It was an apocalyptic blunder.

Nan Wi-jeong found himself trapped in a similar, maddening dilemma.

If he rushed off to intercept the intruders, the clan’s priceless repositories and disciple dormitories could burn to the ground, resulting in massive casualties. Yet, completely committing to fighting the fires meant abandoning their defenses.

“Their objective is undoubtedly Baek Ho-cheol, currently confined in the gravel field. He is the only target valuable enough to justify an operation of this magnitude. Since the prison is located at a moderate distance from here, their plan is to extract him while our security forces are entirely preoccupied with the flames.”

“At the very least, this crowded area should be relatively safe. I need to go and retrieve my brothers immediately.”

“Hold on, Young Lady Sa-yeong. Even so, running back alone is far too dangerous… Daoist!”

Craning his neck, Nan Wi-jeong hollered for Guyang Seon. The Daoist, who had been sprinting toward the well with two empty buckets in each hand and another balanced precariously on his head, instantly aborted his route and rushed over to the Guild Leader.

“Yes, Guild Leader!”

“Drop those for now. I need you to accompany Young Lady Sa-yeong and escort her master’s disciples safely back to this location. Young Lady Sa-yeong, I shall go seek assistance from the esteemed elders. Please, stay safe and return swiftly.”

Clasping Sa-yeong’s hands tightly in his own, Nan Wi-jeong offered a final, urgent nod. Without sparing Guyang Seon a single glance, he spun on his heel and vanished into the chaotic throng of disciples.

Snapping back to reality, Sa-yeong bit her lip hard enough to draw blood and bolted in the opposite direction, sprinting desperately toward the Pavilion of Crimson Wind.

“What are you doing? Hurry up!” she barked, remembering to summon the utterly bewildered Daoist.

“Woo-Understood!”

Sa-yeong pushed her lightness arts to their absolute physical limits.

The dormant internal energy, harmonizing seamlessly with her surroundings, surged violently through her legs’ meridians, propelling her forward with explosive speed.

Running alongside her, Guyang Seon displayed blatant astonishment, entirely unaware that Sa-yeong and Sa-hyeon had formally practiced martial arts, but she couldn’t afford a single shred of mental bandwidth to care about his shock.

A vicious, suffocating wave of self-hatred devoured Sa-yeong’s mind.

The scars of her past had etched deep, agonizing trauma into her psyche. The mere realization that her own flawed judgment might have actively thrust her younger brothers into mortal danger gnawed at her sanity, injecting a frantic urgency into every stride.

It isn’t just one brother, either. I have that crow-like brat I’ve lived with for four years now. She hadn’t completely dropped her guard around Cheon-oh—always harboring a suspicious ‘Let’s see if you actually change’ mentality—but the boy hadn’t caused any major incidents since his initial transgression.

She also knew that as long as their master, whom Cheon-oh followed like a baby bird, remained healthy and present, the boy would likely refrain from any catastrophic mischief.

No, I shouldn’t panic excessively. Nan Wi-jeong explicitly stated that the facility housing Baek Ho-cheol is located far away from the Pavilion of Crimson Wind.

As her fluctuating, unstable emotions caused her internal energy to violently churn, Sa-yeong desperately forced herself to calm down. Sprinting like a madwoman, the Pavilion of Crimson Wind finally breached her line of sight.

Effortlessly vaulting over the shoulder-high stone walls and wooden staircases separating the various courtyards, she made a beeline for her destination.

When the front courtyard finally came into view, along with the two young boys engaged in a spirited squabble in the dirt, Sa-yeong let out a deep sigh of profound relief.

“I-I’m telling you, we have to go! A j-junior must listen to his senior!”

“Master explicitly instructed us to obey Senior Sister’s commands. Wandering off on your own constitutes an unauthorized solitary action.”

“L-let go of me!”

“Hyeon-ah!”

“Sister!”

The moment Sa-yeong arrived, Cheon-oh immediately released his vice-like grip on Sa-hyeon’s robes. Tumbling forward from the sudden loss of resistance, Sa-hyeon face-planted into the dirt before frantically scrambling up and rushing to Sa-yeong’s side.

“S-Sister, the f-fires, where…”

“Fires broke out at the Snow Leaf and Longevity pavilions, but it looks like deliberate arson,” Sa-yeong explained, swiftly summarizing the situation for her stuttering brother whose speech impediment always worsened when panicked. “It’ll be safer where there are large crowds, so we’re heading there. Seomun Cheon-oh, you come here too.”

Hearing that an arsonist was likely prowling the estate, Sa-hyeon recoiled in terror and clamped onto his sister’s hand. However, instead of answering, Cheon-oh slowly turned his head. His pitch-black eyes methodically swept across the inky mountain ridges looming beyond the Tang Clan’s towering outer walls.

After a brief, chilling pause, his voice drifted through the air—disturbingly placid and entirely unsuited for the dire situation.

“It appears we are already too late, Senior Sister.”

“What?”

Srrng. 

A spine-chilling metallic rasp echoed through the night.

Standing just a few steps away from Sa-yeong, Guyang Seon had drawn the slender sword strapped to his waist. With unwavering conviction, he gripped the blade—which had once been broken—and firmly stepped in front of the three children.

“Young Lady Sa-yeong, take your brothers and run straight to Guild Leader Nan,” he ordered with resolute finality.

At that exact moment, a grotesque spectacle invaded Sa-yeong’s vision.

Human figures, as utterly devoid of sound and presence as stalking spiders, were actively scaling down the towering walls. Swathed from head to toe in pitch-black stealth garb that concealed even their eyes, they clung to the sheer vertical surface with impossible ease. Even when their feet finally touched the earth, they left absolutely no trace of their passage.

Most terrifying of all, despite standing right in front of them, their life force was as impossibly faint as a moonbeam’s shadow.

Had Sa-yeong not personally witnessed their grotesque, unnatural movements, she would have easily dismissed them as mere tricks of the twilight and walked right past them.

Watching five of these monstrous entities sequentially vault over the perimeter wall felt less like a stealth infiltration and more like a macabre, supernatural horror.

The second she processed the horrific scene, Sa-yeong sharply inhaled, snatched Cheon-oh’s hand, and bolted toward the Pavilion of Snow Leaves with everything she had. Dragging Sa-hyeon by her other hand, she couldn’t afford to slow down even as her younger brother repeatedly stumbled and scraped his knees.

Practically being towed across the dirt, Sa-hyeon whimpered in terror, constantly glancing over his shoulder.

“S-S-Sister, t-they’re c-chasing us!”

“Don’t look back! Just keep your eyes forward and run!”

Clang! 

The harsh shriek of clashing steel rang out repeatedly.

Guyang Seon had evidently engaged the intruders. However, he clearly couldn’t intercept the entire squad; three masked assassins instantly broke off, relentlessly pursuing Sa-yeong.

Overcome by a sudden, spine-tingling premonition, Sa-yeong violently snapped her head to the side. Accompanied by a hair-raising whistle that tore through the air, a throwing dagger—painted pitch-black to eliminate all glare—grazed her cheek.

Reflexively glancing back, she saw an assassin who had closed the distance to a mere hairsbreadth. He was drawing a specialized blade—shorter than a longsword but longer than a typical dagger. Much like the throwing knives, the steel had been entirely blackened to absorb light, rendering the lethal edge practically invisible in the dark.

“Senior Sister, ahead!”

“Ugh!”

Heeding Cheon-oh’s sharp warning, Sa-yeong snapped her gaze forward and frantically skidded to a halt. One of the masked men had somehow outpaced her, planting himself firmly in her path to cut off their escape.

Almost simultaneously, a searing sting flared across both of her arms, drawing a sharp groan from her lips. Hot, crimson blood rapidly welled up from deep gashes left by the incoming throwing daggers, dripping down to soak her hands.

Violently shoving her two younger brothers behind her back, Sa-yeong slowly backed away. With her path blocked from both the front and the rear, she pressed her spine tightly against the adjacent stone wall.

The masked assassins fanned out into a semicircle, methodically closing the net around her.

Damn it, I should have caught that throwing dagger earlier.

She had no weapons.

Her throwing dagger pouch remained resting uselessly at the head of her bed.

Leaving it behind, naively assuming nothing would happen, was the most catastrophic mistake of her life. She hadn’t wanted to undress and strap it on in front of Cheon-oh, and now she regretted it for eternity.

To make matters infinitely worse, her two younger brothers had never even held a live blade before.

It was a core tenet of their master’s philosophy: a true sword must be meticulously custom-forged to match its wielder’s precise length and weight only after their body had fully matured.

Wielding an ill-fitting blade prematurely, he had insisted, would only breed debilitating bad habits.