The Jilin Governor-General’s Estate, Detention Room.

It was a refined room, elegant without being ostentatious. Peaceful summer afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows, casting a warm glow upon an exquisite teacup filled with chilled tea that looked remarkably refreshing. However, the occupant of the room was in no state to quench his parched throat.

“…How did it come to this?”

The Senior General of the Heilongjiang Defense Legion sat huddled in a chair, his hair disheveled and his fine robes a rumpled mess. He made no effort to straighten himself, looking very much like a man possessed by a ghost. “How did I end up in such a wretched state?”

“Excuse me,” he called out, his voice a hoarse rasp. He directed his question toward the woman guarding him—or more accurately, the one tasked with his surveillance. She was one of Grand Young Master Yeon So-hyeon’s maids. “My legion… what has become of the Heilongjiang Defense Legion?”

Ordinarily, he would have been preening himself at the sight of such a beautiful woman, but he was currently far beyond the point of vanity.

“Hah…”

Il-ryeong, one of the fully armed twin maids, let out a dry, mocking chuckle. “That’s rich. You abandon your own legion to save your skin, and only now that they’ve been slaughtered do you bother to look for them?”

The Senior General flinched. “Sl-Slaughtered…?”

“Of course they were,” Il-ryeong replied, her eyes radiating a cold, clinical contempt. “It seems the Grand Nobleman of Haedong needed a way to vent her frustration. On her way back, she completely dismantled what was left of your army. Since it was a massive force, it wasn’t a total annihilation, but gathering the survivors won’t be possible anytime soon.”

“No…!” The general bolted upright, his face pale with disbelief. “Even if I was absent, how could such a vast host be broken so easily?!”

“Are you really asking that?” Il-ryeong looked at him as if he were a slow child. “The commanders who were supposed to lead them fled to the last man. What other result did you expect?”

“Wh-What…?” The general’s eyes shook. He hadn’t been the only one. “You mean… everyone? Every single one of them ran?”

“Every single one,” she confirmed, a cruel sneer playing across her lips. “Is that really so surprising? You lot betrayed the Empire to side with the Dread King, then scurried to the Head Eunuch when things went south, and finally abandoned the very province you swore to protect. Running away from your own men seems like the most consistent thing you’ve done all day.”

“You dare…!”

The truth stung, igniting a flare of desperate, hollow rage. The Senior General stomped toward her, his face turning a bruised crimson. “A mere maid… how dare you speak to a Senior General of the Empire with such insolence?!”

He had lost a battle, but in his mind, the war was far from over. If the Dread King somehow overcame the Grand Young Master, he could still be reinstated by Head Eunuch Gongsun Taerang. He jabbed a trembling finger at Il-ryeong. “Who is your master?! Bring him here this instant! I am a defeated commander, yes, but I will not be insulted by a common servant—!”

Had she been an ordinary maid, the ingrained hierarchy of the world might have protected him. But Il-ryeong was anything but ordinary.

“…You really are pathetic,” she whispered.

Crack!

“Argh—?!”

The general’s jabbed finger was caught in a vice-like grip and snapped backward. Sparks of pain flared in his eyes. “You bitch! How dare you—?!”

He immediately flooded his arm with internal energy. I might be old, but I won’t be manhandled by a girl! He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually trained, but he was a Senior General for a reason. Surely a maid, no matter how skilled, couldn’t—

Crunch!

Before he could unleash a single technique, his finger was pulverized. “Gwaaaaakh!”

Refusing to yield, he threw a desperate, Qi-infused punch toward her face.

THUD!

The impact was heavy, but it wasn’t her face that broke. Il-ryeong lowered her head, meeting his fist with the reinforced iron of her helmet.

“Gah…!”

The blow shattered the general’s wrist, the shockwave traveling up his arm as she stepped forward. She grabbed his broken finger again, wrenching it even further back until the bone splintered into fragments.

“A weak punch from a weak man,” she noted coldly.

As a scream tried to tear its way out of his throat, she silenced him by driving her knee into his stomach, followed by a vicious kick to the back of his other leg. His balance disintegrated. As he spun through the air, Il-ryeong’s knee slammed into his jaw with the force of a battering ram.

BOOM!

The general’s brain rattled in his skull as his vision flickered between white and black. He slumped to the floor, spitting out blood and broken teeth. Even so, the stubborn pride of a career soldier kept him from surrendering. He tried to lift his head, his eyes burning with a murderous glint.

Click.

The cold muzzle of a rifle pressed firmly against his forehead. The general froze, his entire body turning to stone.

“You seem to be under the illusion that this room is a courtesy,” Il-ryeong said, her voice dripping with boredom. “The Governor-General of Jilin provided this room, not my Lord. Grand Young Master Yeon So-hyeon only ordered us to bring you back alive. He didn’t say anything about keeping you comfortable or unharmed.”

“Th-That’s—”

The general tried to stammer an excuse through his ruined face, but he was interrupted by the deafening report of the rifle.

BANG!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!”

The general shrieked as a bullet tore through his shoulder. Il-ryeong reloaded with a mechanical, chilling click.

“If you climb above your station again,” she said, her eyes devoid of any human warmth, “the next one goes through your leg.”

***

While the Heilongjiang generals were being held in actual rooms, there was one prisoner who had been relegated to the damp, stinking depths of the dungeon.

“Is anyone there?!”

General Gwak rattled the iron bars of his cell, his voice echoing through the stone corridors. “I said, is anyone there?!”

The heir to the Gwak Clan was being treated with blatant, purposeful neglect. He had spent hours shouting for Governor-General Xianyu Hyeong-bi, but no one had come. Had it been mere iron bars, he might have tried to break them with his internal energy, but his hands and feet were bound by thick, suppression chains.

“You cannot treat the heir of the Gwak Clan like this!” he bellowed. His voice was so loud that stone dust drifted from the ceiling, but the guards at the end of the hall simply covered their ears and stayed as far away as possible. They knew who he was, and they knew he was a dead man walking.

“Do you want a deal?! I can give you anything!” He paused his screaming, then amended his claim with a desperate, frantic shout. “No… I am the Patriarch of the Gwak Clan now! Whatever you want from my family, I can provide—!”

Creeeeak.

A heavy door at the end of the corridor groaned open. The sound of guards snapping to attention followed. “Loyalty!”

Gwak’s face brightened. Finally! He’d finally mentioned a deal, and now the Governor was here to negotiate. “Yes! Come and tell me what you want!” He pressed his face against the bars. “I am the owner of the most vast farmlands in the North! If you want a deal, I can—!”

“You? The owner of the Gwak Clan?”

A voice cut through his shouting. It was hoarse and thin, but General Gwak recognized it instantly. A cold shiver raced down his spine. As a figure stepped into the dim light, Gwak’s face drained of color.

“F-Father…?”

The man he had hired hitmen to murder—the man who should have been a cold corpse by now—was standing before him.

“I am no longer your father,” the old man said.

“Th-That’s—!” Gwak backed away as if he’d seen a vengeful spirit.

“And you,” the elder continued, his face gaunt but his gaze steady, “are no longer my son. Not officially, and certainly not privately. I have struck your name from the family records.”

“There has been a mistake, Father!” Gwak shouted, grabbing the bars with his chained hands. “Please, just listen to me for one moment—!”

The Patriarch shook his head. “There is no need for you to covet the leadership of our family anymore. It is a pointless pursuit.”

“I told you, it’s a misunderstanding—!”

“Misunderstanding or not,” the old man interrupted, “it doesn’t matter. There is no reason to explain, and no reason for me to listen.”

“What are you talking about?”

Seeing his son’s confused, idiotic expression, the Patriarch let out a breath of pure relief. “I have already handed over all our family’s lands to the Grand Young Master.”

“…What?!”

The Great Plains. The vast, fertile lands the old man had spent his entire life cultivating—the lands he cherished more than his own life—given away? Just like that?

“Wh-What did you say…?” Gwak felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room. His head spun.

“Yes… it should have been this way from the start.” Unlike his son, who looked like he was falling into an abyss, the old man looked peaceful. “Without the Grand Young Master’s help years ago, that land would still be a barren waste. When he arrived in the North, I should have gone to him and offered it all immediately.”

“Stop it…!” Gwak slammed his body against the bars. “Do you even realize what you’ve done?! You senile old fool!” The chains on his limbs rattled violently. “That land was supposed to be mine! MINE!”

“Fortunately,” the elder continued, ignoring the outburst, “the Grand Young Master possesses a depth of mercy that I do not deserve. In exchange for the land, he has agreed to spare the lives of our kinsmen.”

“You’re insane!” Gwak was foaming at the mouth. “You’ve gone senile! Completely and utterly mad—!”

WHACK!

Gwak didn’t even see the strike. One moment he was screaming; the next, he was on the floor, his face pressed into the filth and waste of the dungeon.

“Ugh… kuff…”

He tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt like lead, refusing to obey. He collapsed back into the muck.

“Gurgle… hrrrk…”

Only then did he realize his jaw had been shattered into tiny fragments. He couldn’t even form words. Through the haze of pain, a beautiful, melodic voice reached his ears—a sound so lovely it made his skin crawl with dread.

“Then, Patriarch Gwak, we shall take full custody of him. Do you agree?”

“I do, Head Handmaiden,” the old man replied.

General Gwak looked up with one eye to see a woman standing beside his father. It was Jeong-ah.

“Since he is no longer my son, he is not part of the kinsmen whose safety the Grand Young Master promised to protect,” the elder said.

“Understood.”

“—?!”

Gwak watched in horror as his father turned and walked away. The old man’s steps were light, almost buoyant, as if he had been rejuvenated.

“F-Fath-er…!” Gwak tried to call out to the man who was no longer his sire.

Creeeeak.

Jeong-ah stepped into the cell and placed her foot squarely on Gwak’s face, grinding it into the floor. “Mmph!” He thrashed, his lungs burning for air, as she looked down at him with an expression of utter indifference.

“My Lord ordered us to bring back the Heilongjiang generals alive,” Jeong-ah said.

“…!”

Gwak realized the loophole. He was not a Heilongjiang general.

“You, on the other hand… you won’t be leaving this place, not even in death.”