Sooneun Yu was momentarily caught in the reverie of her dreams involving Namgung Cheolbin.
“Mmm… uh, mama… where did you go…?”
Responding to the muttering of Namgung Su-a’s lips, searching for her presence in the bed, Soeun Yu quickly lay back down and embraced her.
It had been several days since the conclusion of the Seven Flowers Contest and their arrival at the Namgung family estate.
Was it fortunate or unfortunate that nothing out of the ordinary has happened during this time?
Soeun considered it fortunate.
“It’s alright, my dear. Mama’s here.”
“Mmm… Mama…”
“Yes, mama’s not going anywhere. Sleep soundly.”
Even in sleep, how did Su-a sense this? She squirmed and burrowed into her mother like a baby seeking a nipple.
Moments later, Soeun’s nightgown was predictably soaked again.
‘Here we go again… wetting the bed.’
Watching with quiet pity at her daughter’s vulnerable form, Soeun gently stroked her forehead.
Though it happened every night, seeing Su-a cry while asleep still never failed to tear at her heart.
“Ugh…”
At every whimper from Su-a, Soeun felt as if daggers were twisting in her chest.
As a mother, witnessing her daughter’s distress was akin to being tortured with a blade piercing her soul.
“Memory… the memories aren’t… there…”
‘That voice again.’
“Mama and papa… smiling happily together…”
‘…’
“Wanting to not forget… but since it’s been such a long time… it’s getting fuzzy…”
Listening to Su-a’s sleep-tormented monologue was excruciating, yet Soeun couldn’t stop it. She couldn’t push Su-a away.
She had no choice but to continue enduring the guilt-laden mutters until Su-a fell deeply asleep.
‘But…’
A thought suddenly crossed Soeun’s mind.
‘Cheolbin has not smiled in thirteen… no, it’s been fourteen years now.’
Actually, it was a distraction, conjured perhaps from sheer agony.
‘Back then when Su-a was two… she surely remembers… how sharp she is…’
“Papa and mama… they could be happy anytime…”
‘If only she hadn’t remembered…’
At that moment, a loud exclamation from outside the room startled her.
Though less jarring than the one in the dream, this was a clearer, more real sound.
“Lord of the household! You’ve returned!”
Even for a moment, the word ‘Lord’ made Soeun flinch but she quickly realized that it wasn’t referring to her husband.
Namgung Bin.
A man who goes out of his way to be overly kind, making her feel strangely uncomfortable and distant.
A person who harbors a peculiar grudge against her husband.
‘It looks like Namgung Bin came back while I didn’t even know he’d gone out.’
Soeun still couldn’t call Namgung Bin ‘Young Master.’
It was bizarre to even think of him as her actual ‘Young Master.’
*
“Hmm…”
Namgung Bin exhaled a long sigh as he began removing his outerwear, revealing his chunky frame.
“Still as useless as ever after all these years. Maybe I should refine the Blood Skill further.”
Looking at his body, unchanged except for slight aging from fourteen years ago, Namgung Bin felt an intense sense of distaste.
Despite fourteen years of coexistence, this body still failed to meet his standards.
So, he swiftly changed into martial arts attire, grabbed the piece of his ear severed by the Honored Elder, and descended to the family basement.
The heavy iron door of the Namgung household’s basement, guarded by thick locks, unwillingly creaked open under Namgung Bin’s hand.
The place was pitch dark without a single beam of light until Namgung Bin’s lantern illuminated the space.
HUAH!
“…”
“…”
Namgung Bin gazed steadily at the interior.
Inside, something stared back at him intently.
Moments later, unable to hold back any longer, that ‘something’ burst into raucous laughter.
“HAHAHAHA!”
It was an extremely flippant, taunting laughter directed at Namgung Bin.
Indeed, it was mockery.
“What’s this ridiculous sight?! HAHAH! Did you get humiliated somewhere and come crawling back home?! Did you leave behind your pair of ears for some woman?!”
“There were circumstances, of course. What can you do when even the Blood Skill isn’t enough against the adversary?”
“KEKEKEKE! Just go die outside! I ruled the world with one Blood Skill alone; you’re truly pathetic!”
“I’ve barely been practicing it for three… or four years now. What unreasonable expectations are you having?”
“I had already taken on the Four Great Demon Lords of my cult after just four years of mastering the Blood Skill, you fool!”
“…”
Annoyed by the relentless taunting, Namgung Bin marched toward the ‘entity’ with a face full of indignation.
And he swung a punch.
POW!
Namgung Bin’s beefy fist collided straight into its abdomen.
WHAM!
WHOOSH! ROLL!
The entity’s body spun in the air and was thrown back about three meters.
Simultaneously, the round head atop its neck detached and rolled across the stone floor.
Its neck was cleanly severed.
“…”
“HEAVE, HEAVE…”
Namgung Bin groaned, exhausted from the punch.
Simultaneously, that head, now in the corner of the basement, grinned and spoke up.
“HAR HAR HAR! Hit me a hundred times if you want! That won’t leave a single scratch!”
“Damn…”
“You fool! Your cotton candy-like fists can’t leave even a nick on me!”
“How the hell did Cheolbin behead you?”
Even without its head, Namgung Bin stared intensely at the body of the entity.
At its neck, cleanly severed.
A wound fitting for a past encounter with a Sword Sage.
“Well, go ahead and reattach it.”
“Hmph… I’ll do it, but stop mocking me. I have something to ask you.”
“You didn’t come here to learn the Scarlet Heaven Skill?”
“Can’t you see my martial robe? There’s something I need to settle first.”
Namgung Bin approached the head that was still jabbering loudly.
With some unknown confidence, its mouth wouldn’t stop moving no matter what.
But quietly, without imposing any sort of discipline, Namgung Bin simply picked up the head and moved it.
SWISH!
Afterward, Namgung Bin set the severed head on top of the body.
The long, crimson hair got caught between the neck and the body but was easily smoothed aside with a flick of his finger.
“You should have done this from the start, young man. What good was all that pointless hitting?”
“It was just that I was a bit irritated lately.”
“KEH, be more careful. You spent a fortune on Qingyoubai to bring me back to life, so it’s pointless if you end up killing me with your own hands.”
“…even if I hit it a hundred times a day, it won’t leave a scratch, I already told you.”
“That’s true, but who knows? What if your soul and body accidentally get disconnected?”
Gazing up, Namgung Bin eyed the woman before him.
She radiated an aura of joy despite her missing limbs, her torso standing solely on her hips.
A long, clean scar encircled her neck, beneath which cascaded luscious, crimson hair matching her fiery red eyes.
She was a ‘woman’ who possessed all these features.
“After all this time, seeing you brings back memories of that day.”
“Which day do you speak of?”
“The day… four years ago, when you revived me.”
“…”
“Surprise! You’d think that getting my head cut off by a Sword Sage would mean certain death, but then all of a sudden, this guy comes carrying a big jar and pours its entire contents on my corpse.”
“Would it be too much to ask for you to feel a bit grateful toward me?”
“I taught you the Blood Skill out of gratitude. Regardless, the more confusing part is that you turned out to be the same warrior who put my sect into a corner throughout the entire Great Blood War.”
“The value of the Qingyoubai you poured that day far exceeds the entire wealth of this Namgung family.”
“Thanks to that, I could knock out the reaper and survive. Although… it was only a half-revival, so I can’t even dream of using any form of internal energy.”
At the same time, the woman smiled tenderly, a smirk that felt unsettling to Namgung Bin.
Even without any special eloquence, it was the fact that she herself was the one smiling that made it disturbing.
Once regarded as the supreme overlord of the martial world.
The woman who dragged the realm into darkness, plunging the martial arts world into a blood-soaked abyss.
As leader of the Blood Cult, a never-before-seen monstrous force, she was considered the embodiment of evil.
Blood Demon.
Even now, despite being powerless—her limbs severed and internal energy unusable—the intimidation of her name hasn’t diminished in the slightest.
“Anyway, this isn’t the main issue. Look here, can this be reattached?”
“What?”
“I mean this. Look closely.”
Namgong Bin pulled back his hair and revealed his right ear that had been torn off by the Elder Guardian.
There was nothing left except for the vast expanse that was once his right temple.
“Are you asking if your ear can be reattached?”
“That’s right. Losing one wasn’t much of an issue, but now that both are gone, it’s inconvenient for daily life. Sounds don’t resonate properly…”
“The right one can be reattached. The left one is impossible. Whatever did it cut so cleanly.”
Even after hearing the verdict of no hope for the left ear, severed by Sa-jeong, Namgong Bin’s face didn’t darken.
Instead, he was overjoyed at the news that at least the right one could be reattached.
“Hmph! It’s a rare piece of good news these days.”
“Your suffering is beyond imagination even after acquiring the name of a war hero. Why endure such hardship all in the name of reviving the Sword Sage?”
“Enough of that. Just reattach my ear quickly.”
“Your Scarlet Heaven Skill must exceed the level of seven stars so that simply pressing it against the missing part will make it adhere. Otherwise, it’s impossible for now.”
“…somehow, things felt too good to be true.”
Although he instantly wore a despondent expression after the Blood Demon’s words,
“How do you even know of this secret place? Even the Blood Cult’s intelligence network didn’t have information of a basement here at the Namgung household?”
“It’s only natural that we didn’t know. The Sword Sage built it alone. He said he needed a private space to counter the Blood Cult.”
“This doesn’t sound like something the Sword Sage would reveal.”
“Everyone has their own secrets.”
“You have an odd amount of secrets. You’re almost as mysterious as the Sword Sage himself.”
“…”
No matter how Blood Demon tried to provoke, Namgung Bin remained stoically silent.
