Chapter 180: I Will Never Forgive Again (1)
A single ssage carried from Gansu instantly changed the atmosphere of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Voices disappeared from the clan grounds.
Not only the Clan Head, but the blacksmiths, the physicians, even the servants and maidservants shut their mouths.
Within that razor-sharp silence, only their gazes remained—keen like drawn blades.
In that situation, countless martial artists left the Tang Family Slopes each day and returned to the main estate of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Blood relatives who had sensed the clan’s crisis were returning one after another, prepared to face death.
All night long, the endless sound of hamring echoed from the Ten Thousand Iron Hall.
And throughout the day, weapons and hidden weapons poured out without pause.
The Sichuan Tang Clan was now moving with heavy yet asured resolve toward the arrogant enemy who had dared bare their fangs at them.
A debt of grace would always be repaid.
An enemy would be etched in blood.
To prove to their foes the creed they had upheld for centuries.
Clack.
The door opened, and Gu Yongyeon, the Hall Lord of the Ten Thousand Iron Hall, entered the room.
His hair was white with age, yet his body was solid and muscular, scorched by blazing flas and blackened ash.
Added to that was a clear, steadfast gaze now directed at the room’s owner, Tang Muyeol.
He observed proper etiquette.
“This Gu Yongyeon, Hall Lord of the Ten Thousand Iron Hall, greets the Supre Clan Head.”
“You have co, Hall Lord Gu.”
Gu Yongyeon bowed deeply, then soon stated his purpose.
“The preparations for war are complete.”
As his words implied, the sounds of quenching that had echoed from the Ten Thousand Iron Hall’s forges had finally ceased.
He had at last completed the task Sewoon entrusted to him when he departed for Guizhou.
Treasure weapons of trendous power—utterly incomparable to the ones falsely sent to the Namgung Clan—had been distributed to every martial artist of the Tang Clan.
At the welco news that their warriors were now fully ard, Tang Muyeol slowly nodded.
“You have worked hard.”
“With the opening of war just around the corner, it was only what had to be done.”
Gu Yongyeon straightened his back and shook his head.
But to those words, Tang Muyeol quietly added,
“And truly, thank you.”
“…!”
A flicker of surprise appeared in Gu Yongyeon’s eyes.
He realized that the emotion contained in Tang Muyeol’s gaze was not simple gratitude for the Ten Thousand Iron Hall’s work.
Just as expected, Tang Muyeol slowly opened his mouth.
“This is not spoken as the Supre Clan Head of the Sichuan Tang Clan, but as Sewoon’s father. For lending your strength to my son… I sincerely thank you.”
Gu Yongyeon looked at him in silence for a mont, then soon ford a faint smile.
“Supre Clan Head. It is not that I lent my strength. The Clan Head rely honored
by choosing .”
“…!”
Tang Muyeol looked taken aback by Gu Yongyeon’s words.
Thus the two n faced each other, exchanging many unspoken thoughts without uttering a word.
At last, Tang Muyeol quietly spoke.
“Heh, Supre Clan Head… I never imagined I would be addressed so. Especially by Hall Lord Gu, an old retainer who once followed my father.”
“Even after the Poison Commander passed away, the rivers and mountains changed many tis over.”
Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae.
He was Tang Muyeol’s father and Gu Yongyeon’s close friend.
A glimr of longing surfaced in both their eyes, then faded.
“But now that I look at you, the Supre Clan Head’s aura has completely changed from before.”
“Trying to run again so late in life only leaves my old bones aching.”
“My, you truly hold nothing back before .”
“Haha, is that so?”
After Sewoon beca the Clan Head of the Sichuan Tang Clan.
Outsiders who knew nothing often spoke of Supre Clan Head Tang Muyeol.
They said he had handed over all burdens to his son, withdrawn, and now rely enjoyed idle pleasures in the back quarters.
But the mont those words were heard, all who belonged to the Tang Clan scoffed.
Because they knew how much blood and sweat Tang Muyeol shed in relentless training after delegating the Clan Head’s authority.
Within the Tang Clan, the one who spent the longest hours discussing and debating martial theory and martial learning with Chief Instructor Yeo Seon was none other than Tang Muyeol.
Once a man who imrsed himself only in chivalrous ideals without true skill, he grit his teeth and trained again and again to beco of help to his son.
And now, in Gu Yongyeon’s eyes, Tang Muyeol had clearly crossed beyond the wall of the Transformation Realm.
As admiration rose in Gu Yongyeon’s gaze while looking upon Tang Muyeol, who had surpassed a barrier that had blocked him for decades—
“Hall Lord Gu.”
“Yes, Supre Clan Head.”
“I still rember it vividly. The day I trained under you by my father’s order, back when I barely even knew how to properly hold a sword.”
“It was the day we first t. I rember the Young Master running away after seeing my blade.”
“I had hoped you had forgotten that. How unfortunate.”
Gu Yongyeon smiled and nodded.
“It wasn’t the blade I feared, but the Hall Lord’s eyes. They were the eyes of a true martial artist, brimming with killing intent—sothing I was facing for the first ti.”
It was shortly after he had taken on the new na Gu Yongyeon.
In other words, it was during the ti when the afterimage of Fla King Jin Mubek still lingered.
“I spent more than ten years feeling uneasy and avoiding you, when suddenly my father passed away.”
“……”
The incident that beca the beginning of the Tang Clan’s decline.
Yet setting aside its repercussions, the death of Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae left both n with imnse wounds and pain.
“When I could not accept it, stopped eating and drinking, and beca a ruined man, you silently ward porridge with your own hands and gave it to .”
As Gu Yongyeon fell silent, Tang Muyeol smiled and continued.
“I don’t rember what garnish was in that porridge. But the warmth of it—I still cannot forget.”
“And it was then that I realized. One does not discern a person’s true nature with re eyes.”
Gu Yongyeon slowly nodded.
Tang Muyeol then went on.
“And yet, that boy Sewoon seed to grasp this truth without his father ever telling him. He recognized you far earlier than I did.”
“Yes. He is different from us.”
“…!”
Tang Muyeol was startled at Gu Yongyeon’s reply, given without a mont’s hesitation.
He could feel that the other man truly held Sewoon—his child’s child—in the highest regard.
As quiet silence settled beneath the lamplight of the Supre Clan Head’s inner chamber, Gu Yongyeon politely opened his mouth, and the atmosphere began to shift entirely.
“In truth, I sought you out today because there is one more thing I wish to request.”
“What is it?”
Then Gu Yongyeon spoke words that Tang Muyeol had never anticipated.
“Long ago, on the day I abandoned my na and entered the Tang Clan.
I entrusted my blade to the Poison Commander.”
“……!!”
Tang Muyeol was shocked.
That was because the aning contained within the ‘blade’ the other spoke of was not rely a blade.
“Now that the ti has co, I wish to retrieve the blade I entrusted.”
“……Clan Head, surely you don’t an—?”
Tang Muyeol asked cautiously, but Gu Yongyeon’s gaze did not waver in the slightest.
There was an unmistakably resolute will standing firm within it.
‘Did he truly set his resolve through Sewoon……!’
Having realized that determination, Tang Muyeol slowly rose from his seat.
Then he headed toward a spot concealed behind a hanging scroll spread across the rear of the Supre Clan Head’s chamber.
When the scroll was drawn aside, a dust-covered case (函) was revealed within.
The Supre Clan Head’s chamber had originally been the residence of Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae.
An item hidden within the innermost heart of the Tang Clan could not possibly be sothing ordinary.
Tang Muyeol lifted the case with both hands and slowly approached Gu Yongyeon once more.
“……I never imagined the day would co when this blade would be needed again.”
Swoosh.
He handed over the case.
Uuuung!
At that very mont, a massive surge of qi erupted from the case, accompanied by a resonant hum.
The demonic blade, reunited with its master after countless years of waiting, was crying out.
Gu Yongyeon slowly opened the case and grasped the blade.
Shrring!
A heavy blade, wrapped in black leather.
The weight conveyed through his hand, the traces of ti seeped between the layers of steel, and the lingering heat of the blade itself—
Without realizing it, Gu Yongyeon muttered softly.
“Fla Heaven Blade.”
Fwoosh!
At the sa instant, the black leather wrapped around the Fla Heaven Blade burned away without leaving a trace.
It was the mont the demonic blade that had accompanied his path of vengeance—when he burned the Guiyeom Society to the ground for murdering his wife—revealed itself once more.
Yet despite the demonic blade exuding a dreadful aura, unlike in the past, Gu Yongyeon was not consud by killing intent.
Remarkably, the aura emanating from his body was infinitely close to the threshold of the Manifestation Realm.
Sss.
At last, with perfect control over his qi, Gu Yongyeon returned the blade to the scabbard at his waist.
Tang Muyeol then spoke slowly.
“Clan Head, are you truly all right?”
The implication contained within Tang Muyeol’s question was singular.
To take up the Fla Heaven Blade once more ant reclaiming the na he had discarded upon entering the Tang Clan.
In other words, it ant returning as Fla King Jin Mubek.
Yet Jin Mubek answered without the slightest hesitation.
“If reclaiming an abandoned na helps my lord, then that is all that matters.”
“……!”
At Jin Mubek’s words, Tang Muyeol let out a small gasp.
The might of the Fla King’s martial prowess had once been judged to surpass even that of his own father, Poison Commander Tang Eui-tae.
If he were to unleash the true martial arts he had sealed away, it was evident he would be an imnse asset in the coming war.
At that mont, Jin Mubek spoke again.
“The Demon-Suppressing Charcoal Sword, the Golden Wave Dignitary, and Lee Jamyeong.”
“……!”
“The ignorant jackals who dared bare killing intent toward the Tang Clan will be reduced to nothing but pitch-black ash.”
Those nas belonged to the enemies who had dared draw their blades against the Tang Clan.
Disgusting trash cloaked in the guise of the orthodox sects and the White Path.
According to intelligence reports, their forces numbered twice that of the Tang Clan’s total strength.
Yet neither man felt even a shred of concern or threat.
“No matter how many husks one gathers, how could they ever pose a threat?”
“One strong gust of wind, and they’ll all scatter without a trace.”
The two spoke in perfect accord.
One intended to wield the blade he had reclaid against the enemy.
The other ant to cut them down with a newly honed sword.
“Sewoon—astonishingly, it seems the child anticipated even this and departed after preparing every counterasure.”
“Yes. Just as he predicted, all enemy movents are being fully tracked.”
The entire plan to win the war had been laid out by Sewoon before he left.
They only needed to follow it.
Then Tang Muyeol spoke softly.
“Even if it is belated, I wish to beco a son not ashad before my departed father, and a father not ashad before his son.”
At that declaration, Jin Mubek responded.
“Then I, too, must beco a subordinate who will not bring sha before the young lord.”
“……!”
Their gazes crossed.
Step.
Then, without another word, the two rose from their seats.
Though their movents were light,
Within those footsteps was resolve heavier than a thousand pieces of gold.
With eyes blazing fiercely like the Yang Fire Qi he held within his Dantian, Jin Mubek spoke to Tang Muyeol.
“Supre Clan Head, let us go to war.”
At his declaration, signaling the beginning of war—
“Yes. Let us go together.”
At last, Tang Muyeol answered.
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