North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 101

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

101. Suppression Edict

The blade from the north had claimed the neck of a noble house’s patriarch.
Dawn light seeped thinly beneath the inn’s eaves.
The courtyard soil, having soaked up moisture through the night, sat heavy and dark, unable to release it. The smell of wet earth drifted in all directions.
The night before, Cheok Ha-rin had stood alone at the village’s edge, her gaze lifted toward the northern sky. That silhouette had burned itself deeply into people’s memory.
Why had she looked north, of all directions?
No one dared speak of it.
Over that quiet silence, a vast rumor came rolling in from afar.

Je-gal Chan, the Family Head of the Je-gal Family, had lost his head to a northern barbarian’s blade.
“The Je-gal Family Head is dead, they say. Killed by a barbarian from the north, no less.”
“The elder of the Je-gal clan? Cut down by some sword-wielder from the borderlands?”
The rumor spread from bench to bench in the inns, from wagon to wagon on the roads, in the blink of an eye.
This was no mere brigand killing a passing traveler. A rumor of such scale would never spread so swiftly.
A patriarch of a prestigious orthodox sect had fallen to a blade from the borderlands.
Whether one heard it or spread it, a chill ran down the spine.
The smell of hot oil hung thick in the inns.
Hands holding teacups stilled, shoulders lowering cargo turned in unison.
From one mouth to ten, the rumor bloomed as it traveled.
The man who had pierced the two thousand soldiers of Okmun Gwan alone, who had buried the main force of Majeon in a wasteland—that man had now taken the life of a noble house’s patriarch.
Scattered rumors that had rolled separately at first were now woven into the deeds of a single man.
Orthodox martial practitioners called him a barbarian.
They said he had crawled down from the north, butchering people like a slaughterer.
Each time his name was uttered, fear grew by another inch. The more the rumor spread, the more savagely the truth swelled.
That bloated rumor finally crossed the threshold of the Martial Alliance’s central command.

The foundation of the orthodox world trembled.
Had this been a common killing in the borderlands, the Martial Alliance would not have moved so swiftly. But the one who had fallen was the patriarch of a noble house, one of the pillars upholding the Five Great Clans.
Yesterday the rumor of Okmun Gwan had come, the day before the destruction of Majeon.
Now the Martial Alliance grasped instinctively that all three atrocities were the work of a single man.
A blade that had flown from the borderlands now pointed directly at the heart of the world.
The Martial Alliance Lord himself convened an assembly.
In response to the turmoil sweeping in from the borderlands, the sect leaders of all martial schools gathered in one place.
The martial world shook violently once more.
More than who came, the fact itself that the Martial Alliance Lord had ‘summoned’ them spoke to the gravity of the matter.
The roads leading to the Martial Alliance were lined with processions from each prestigious faction.

The Grand Hall of the Martial Alliance’s central command.
Sect leaders who commanded the world filled the chamber.
Highly esteemed martial warriors occupied each seat, yet none dared speak first.
At the highest seat sat the Martial Alliance Lord, Mo Yong-hyeok, master of the Heavenly Pivot Divine Fist, in silence.
Beneath his eyebrows, streaked with silver and black, his gaze swept slowly across those assembled.
Each time his piercing eyes passed over one person and then another, the murmuring in all corners faded. Before the Lord had even opened his mouth, the hall had fallen into a harsh, suffocating quiet.
The majesty of one who commands the world.
At last, the Lord spoke. His voice was low and low still, and dreadfully slow.
“There is a man.”
A document turned with grave weight.
“He pierced the garrison of two thousand soldiers at Okmun Gwan. Alone.”
All knew this already. But when the Martial Alliance Lord spoke it, the words carried new weight.
“He buried the main force of Majeon in a wasteland.”
Another page turned.
“And now, he has cut down the Family Head of the Je-gal clan.”
The Lord lifted his eyes from the document to regard those assembled.
“One pillar of the Five Great Clans… has crumbled beneath a northern barbarian’s blade.”
Three charges were laid bare in a single breath.
Her voice never rose, yet the great hall trembled violently.
Someone’s hand descended quietly onto their lap.
Before the undeniable fact that the martial world’s ancient order was being tested by a single blade from the borderlands, the spines of the sect leaders froze one by one.
Argument erupted.
“We cannot stand idle while savages commit such atrocities. We must mobilize the nearby branch clans and cut off his life at once. How dare he challenge the Je-gal Family Head.”
It was a forceful cry.
Yet before those words had finished, another sect leader answered with cold mockery.
“Do you know how many corpses have piled up in his wake? It’s not that we’re disrespecting the branch clans—it’s that the branches alone cannot manage him. They’d only meet futile deaths.”
The mouth that had been clamoring for aggression suddenly shut tight.
“I examined how the two thousand warriors of Majeon were annihilated, and it was quite clumsy. They were lured into cramped terrain, and though there were truly two thousand of them, they fought in battles of three-to-one, four-to-one odds over and over.”
“And those two thousand were beheaded one by one.”
The sect leader who had been countering finally closed his mouth.
A word drifted from another quarter.
“Caution and cowardice are separated by paper’s thickness. Shall the martial world of all Heaven be shaken by a mere sword-wielder? Surely you feel the shame in this.”
Self-mockery mingled with the words invoking honor. At that self-ridicule, several around the hall quietly averted their gaze.
“What is truly shameful is not that we’ve gathered thus, but that our response has come far too late.”
“Too late? We had no cause to act before the Je-gal Family suffered their calamity.”
“Which is precisely why it’s late.”
The assembly, which had briefly subsided, boiled up again.
“First of all, we must thoroughly verify whether this man truly acted alone. What monster in all Heaven could ravage Okmun Gwan single-handedly?”
Fighting against two thousand, three thousand—having four subordinates made no difference from acting alone.
As doubt crept in, the debate in the hall grew sharper still.
“Then you’re suggesting someone stands behind him? That the entire North Sea has marched south?”
“I mean we must ascertain the facts accurately! We need to know whether this is a matter to be settled by one sword, or whether we face a full-scale conflict against vast powers—only then can we mobilize our sects!”
“You speak as if a single sword could shake the entire martial world?”
“That very sword has executed the Je-gal Family Head!”
Word fed upon word, endless.
The great hall seethed with heat. Aggression, honor, and suspicion tangled together, clashing and refusing to settle.
From the very center of that tumult, one sect leader intoned softly.
“I have heard that only the Alliance Lord himself, or perhaps the Supreme Swordmaster of the World, could contend with such a monster.”
In an instant, the assembly fell silent as a tomb.
Supreme Swordmaster of the World.
The dreadful tidings that had blown in from the borderlands rose again in the heart of the great hall.
The eyes of the assembly naturally turned toward the highest seat.
The wielder of the Heavenly Pivot Divine Fist sat there, motionless.
The Alliance Lord did not answer at once. Heavy silence pressed down upon the great hall, and that settled air demanded silence still.
The Alliance Lord raised his hand.
With a single gesture, a hundred words of debate were nailed shut.
The Alliance Lord slowly rose from his seat.
“Whether this is a matter for one sword to settle, or for confronting vast powers—”
He turned his sharp gaze across the assembly once more.
“Such matters need not be decided in haste. But one truth cannot be delayed for a single moment: this man must be finished.”
The air of the great hall settled cold and still.
The Alliance Lord’s hand grasped the edict tablet resting beside the table.
The Suppression Edict.
A Suppression Edict cast toward all Heaven was a power only the Alliance Lord could wield—a solemn order that sounded but few times in a lifetime.
Merely by being lifted in his hand, the edict tablet sent the sect leaders scrambling to correct their posture.
Some clenched their hands upon their laps; others swallowed hard. That boiling great hall was sealed by a single edict tablet.
The edict tablet fell from the Alliance Lord’s fingertips vertically toward the table.
The edict tablet struck the table.
Clap!
A single sharp sound cut through the air.
At that keen report, the lords of Heaven held their breath as one.
“Let each branch clan and sect receive this command.”
The Alliance Lord’s voice wavered not even a fraction to the end.
“Suppress the barbarian.”
In that moment, the edict to eliminate the barbarian was delivered to every branch clan and sect.
A single man who had wandered the borderlands was thus branded a public enemy of all the righteous sects of Heaven.
The Alliance Lord’s order would swiftly depart from this place, spreading in all directions—upon the feet of men and the hooves of war horses.

* * *

At that same moment, in a corner of the inn.
Aelak withdrew a small wooden figurine from his bundle of belongings.
Scarcely two finger-joints in length, it bore the likeness of Karani carved directly with a blade—eight scars incised across its entire body caught the lamplight and stood in sharp relief.
The first mark seized his attention.
A gash across the back—the stroke of the Je-gal Family Head.
That mark would now have to be erased from the figurine. But the remaining seven scars… there was no clear path to finding them.
Serian leaned in close beside the figurine.
Garkan, wrapped in Bing Chulsae, the bald-headed Harku with the sword-line stark across his scalp, the long-armed Taikan and the stooped Arko gathered round.
Beneath the flicker of a single lamp, the shadows of six people stretched and layered across the table.
Serian lifted her hand from the Je-gal Head’s mark and slid her fingertip to another scar beside it.
“This is a blade scar—much deeper than a sword cut.”
Serian traced one line of scarring with her fingertip. The same hand that worked knots moved with unusual gentleness across the figurine.
“It’s the work of a blade master who decides victory in a single clash. And this one here….”
Serian’s finger glided smoothly to the next mark.
A needle scar with a darkish cast. Beneath it lay a spear scar, driven deep, and beside that a sword scar scored diagonally in rough strokes, all woven together.
“The dark tint means poisoner’s work. The narrow, deep puncture is a spear, and the diagonal strike is another swordsman.”
Garkan, fingering the Bing Chulsae, interjected abruptly.
“We’ve already figured out what weapons made these, but that’s the problem—we don’t know who. If it were one or two masters, we’d narrow it down easily enough. But the Central Plains is vast, and masters are thick as clouds.”
True enough. Just thinking of spear masters, a dozen names sprang to mind.
Serian’s voice dropped low.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? News of Bing Gong-ju’s death is spreading everywhere. Yet no one speaks a word about those who’ve traveled to the North Sea. There should be rumors, but there aren’t any.”
Even among their party, Serian possessed the broadest knowledge of the Central Plains martial world, yet she found herself unequal to the task of connecting these eight distinct wound patterns to specific names.
“Let’s focus on just one. The blade scar. Should we track down the blade masters first?”
Taikan gazed at one of the scars and posed the question.
Arko, pointing to another mark, added what he’d heard rumored.
“Anyone using poison would likely be from the Medical Houses, but even in the Central Plains, poison users aren’t common. Small-time rabble are everywhere, but true poison masters… wouldn’t this avenue be more promising?”
The more they spoke, the more the path branched in confusion. Seven distinct trails remained, but nowhere to start offered clarity.
Arko, unable to bear the frustration, spoke up.
“As they say, hesitate too long and you lose your chance. Why don’t we head to Hua-shan first? Cheok Ha-rin’s uncle is there—we can ask him what’s happened.”
Arko, too, seemed to have felt the Han Ki radiating from Cheok Ha-rin’s body.
The Han Ki of the Seol-ryeon Herb.
This was something she should have explained herself, but she knew nothing of it. Which meant… who had given her the Seol-ryeon-gwa?
One name emerged at the end of that question. Cheok Un-hui, the Joong-won Je-il Geom.
It was Aelak’s way to go straight to him and demand the truth.
But if he were the one who killed Karani, then Aelak would have to strike him down. The problem came after. Once the Joong-won Je-il Geom fell, the rest would disappear entirely. Who would dare reveal themselves if the greatest swordmaster of the Central Plains had been cut down?
This was Aelak’s true dilemma.
And he had no clues to find the others by.
Then, from beyond the inn, an ominous presence approached.
What first sounded like spring wind grew steadily clearer, and from afar came the dull percussion of hoofbeats shaking the earth.
As the coarse sound of horse hooves seeped through the door-frame, the eyes of the entire party snapped toward the entrance.
Serian was the first to discern the nature of the disturbance.
“Not one horse. A herd.”
The Martial Alliance’s force had already reached their doorstep. And the killing intent was already pressing against the inn’s entrance.
The subordinates naturally gripped their weapons.
The lamplight swayed precariously. All eyes converged on Aelak.
Yet Aelak did not move. His gaze never once left the marks on the figurine as he spoke, low and quiet.
“So they’ve finally listed us as public enemies. I thought it would come sooner. Did killing Je-gal Chan hit them that hard?”
……
All were silent. As though they had anticipated this, they showed neither surprise nor haste.
Aelak spoke.
“We’ve made enemies of men of this caliber, so it’s time they came.”
A brief silence passed.
“Whether the entire martial world of the Central Plains opposes us matters not.”
The interior of the inn grew cold and still.
Beyond the door-frame, only the sound of hoofbeats, growing steadily louder, tore at their eardrums. The man did not so much as gather up the figurine.
Clop, clop, clop.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————