WHOOOOOOOSH!

A blizzard raged outside.

From the look of it, it seemed likely to continue until tomorrow. As the snow grew fiercer with every passing moment, it had become hard even to see what was ahead.

Tap! Tap!

The window kept rattling.

Thinking there would be no sleep for him tonight, Yeon Hojeong stroked the vice-blade of Mad Dragon.

WOOOOONG.

As if it understood its master’s heart, Mad Dragon let out a strange cry.

How much time passed like that?

“Are you asleep?”

Yeon Hojeong let go of Mad Dragon and rose to his feet.

“No.”

“Then I’ll come in.”

“Yes.”

The door opened, and Yeon Wi entered.

After looking around the room for a moment, he spoke in a rather subdued voice.

“It does not look like you stopped by the dining hall. And it doesn’t look like you ate in here either.”

“No.”

Yeon Wi raised a hand. In it was a heavy bundle.

“I figured as much, so I packed some food.”

Yeon Hojeong smiled.

“There’s no one but you, Father.”

“And Bia?”

“She doesn’t seem to have any appetite. She said she was going straight to bed.”

“Is that so?”

Yeon Wi nodded.

“Then let’s eat by ourselves. I’m getting hungry too.”

He opened the bundle on the table.

Boiled pork and neatly stripped chicken appeared. The weather was so cold that it had all gone cold, but a faint fragrance still rose from it.

“Do you have liquor?”

“Yes.”

Yeon Hojeong brought a bottle and two cups from the shelf in the corner.

Yeon Wi held out his cup.

“Pour me one.”

Yeon Hojeong respectfully filled the cup.

Quietly looking down at it, Yeon Wi emptied it in one go.

It was rare for Yeon Wi to drain a cup at once. Unless he was in a particularly good mood, he was the sort who always divided a drink into two swallows.

“It’s quite strong.”

“It’s white liquor.”

“You have one too.”

“Thank you.”

Yeon Wi filled Yeon Hojeong’s cup. Yeon Hojeong took it and, likewise, emptied it in one gulp.

The moment the liquor hit his empty stomach, his throat and stomach quickly turned hot. A rush of drunkenness came over him for an instant, then immediately subsided.

“......”

The two of them looked at each other in silence.

Watching Yeon Hojeong quietly, Yeon Wi spoke.

“It seems Military Advisor Je Gal was quite shocked.”

“I’m sure he was.”

“To think there was such a force beyond the frontier. It truly is astonishing. And to think that just one of them possesses enough power to overturn the Central Plains... it chills me just to think about it.”

“The fact that they have power isn’t the problem. What matters is how they use that power.”

“How they use it... yes, that’s true.”

The existence of the Three Fanatic Creeds had been an enormous shock to Yeon Wi as well.

The Perverse Lust Cult, the Divine Flame Cult, and the Mad Blood Cult.

To think that the Perverse Lust Cult had been backing Ink Dragon Manor—this was why, no matter how good one’s intelligence network was, one could never afford to let down one’s guard. Who could possibly have imagined that they would bypass the north of the Central Plains from beyond the frontier and extend their hand into the south?

And then there was the scale of their wealth.

If they had enough money to support a colossal organization like Ink Dragon Manor, it would not be an exaggeration to say that their resources rivaled those of the Alliance of the Martial World.

“I already knew it, of course.”

With a bitter smile, Yeon Wi said,

“But seeing something like this really drives home the fact that eternal peace is something that will never come.”

“That depends on what one considers peace.”

“Of course it does.”

Yeon Hojeong knew. What his father truly wanted to talk about was not the Three Fanatic Creeds.

It was him.

“I could tell it was no joke.”

Yeon Wi’s eyes deepened.

Though his gaze was dyed with confusion and agitation, it remained clear and profound all the same.

“What you confessed... that you had lived a long life and returned.”

“......”

“At the very least, I did not feel falsehood in those words. You were not lying to this father of yours, nor to Bia.”

“......”

“And yet, I could not help but worry. Whether my son had struck his head somewhere, or perhaps... whether you were making a cruel joke.”

“I understand.”

Yeon Hojeong gave a bitter smile.

“That’s one of the reasons I didn’t want to tell you until now.” 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

For an instant, Yeon Wi felt his breath catch in his throat.

That bitter smile on his son’s face, that hollow note in his voice, tore at his chest.

I wasn’t ready.

Yeon Wi looked up at the ceiling.

I wasn’t ready. With useless words, I’ve hurt my child again.

His eldest son was narrow-hearted. At least toward his enemies.

His eldest son was broad-hearted. At least toward his own people.

It would never happen, but even if his own father betrayed him, he would never hate him. Rather, he would try to understand him, and in the end he would understand.

Yeon Wi let out a sigh.

Was my faith in Hojeong still lacking?

It was not.

He believed in his eldest son. Not only his eldest son, but his second as well, and Mookbi too.

If there were degrees to that faith, then he believed in his eldest all the more. He would never give anyone in the world as much trust as he gave his eldest son.

But...

How can this even be?

Frankly, even now, he still could not fully believe it.

That this era, this vivid reality, was the past to his son? That the world had not originally been meant to unfold this way?

That according to the original course of history, the Ming Clan of the Nine Provinces and the Mo Yong Clan had joined forces and wiped out the Yeon Clan?

It was a story that truly defied belief. A mystery harder to find even in wild tales.

No matter how much I trust my child, a story like this...

It was not easy to bear.

Come to think of it...

Suddenly, Yeon Wi recalled a scene from the past.

During the ancestral rites, when his eldest had embraced his younger brother, with whom he had gotten along so poorly.

And when his eldest had looked at him with trembling eyes and stepped toward him, one step at a time.

His chest suddenly tightened.

The image of his eldest son from that time was still vivid even now. There would probably be few moments in Yeon Wi’s life as astonishing as that one.

I never imagined that the eldest, who had always avoided me, would look at me with such eyes.

In those trembling eyes had been every emotion one could imagine.

Joy, sorrow, anger, despair, pity, love, and more.

The emotions in those eyes had been the sum of every feeling imaginable, and yet it was impossible to imagine an experience that could contain all of them at once.

His son was saying that he had passed through precisely that unimaginable experience and returned to the past.

And even then.

After the ancestral rites, his eldest son had shown a completely different side of himself than before.

He no longer feared him. On the contrary, he showed an understanding reminiscent of his late wife. His attainments in martial arts had grown explosively, and he had begun to read the great currents of the world with an extraordinary discernment that could not be learned anywhere.

That kind of discernment is not something one learns from books.

Of course not. Even the discernment of an old veteran of the martial world, one who had spent an entire lifetime in it, would struggle to be that deep and sharp.

Thinking back, it had truly been strange.

That a youth not yet even twenty could possess such piercing discernment?

Naturally, it was something that should have invited suspicion. But he had not doubted his son.

If one simply chose to believe, it was easier. Why should he go out of his way to doubt? Doubting someone was exhausting in its own right. Yeon Wi did not want to feel exhausted in front of his son, nor did he want to doubt him, nor analyze him.

That was right. He did not want to treat his son like a stranger.

He had simply wanted to believe in his son. So he had believed.

All while passing over the fact that such a thing was profoundly unnatural.

Yeon Wi closed his eyes.

“Your mastery of the Flying Swallow Heart Method increased explosively.”

“...Yes.”

“You also said that you had memorized all the formulas of the Five Great Divine Arts of our main house since childhood.”

“I did.”

“And when you captured Chief Steward Taegyeong, that traitor, you said you would shake the Ming Clan first. And you truly did.”

Yeon Wi opened his eyes again and looked at Yeon Hojeong.

“Was it because you knew the Ming Clan would attack our main house?”

“I knew they would attack, and beyond that, they were also a target of vengeance.”

“......”

“Seen from another angle, to me, the Ming Clan are bastards more deserving of death than even the Three Fanatic Creeds. Because of them... I lost everything.”

Yeon Wi let out another sigh.

His son had said that he had lost everything. And that everything would mean family.

You fool.

Yeon Wi blamed himself.

Was it really that hard to believe that one thing?

His son was speaking the truth, speaking his true feelings.

Of all things, he was speaking of the lives of his family. The son he knew was not someone depraved enough to joke while invoking his family.

Then why was he unable to understand the sincerity his son had finally managed to force out?

Just as he had before, when he saw his son’s uncanny discernment and explosively growing martial arts and believed that the talent he possessed was finally blooming.

Why could he not simply believe now, just as he had then? Why was he pressing his son like this?

“...Ha, ha.”

Yeon Wi let out an empty laugh.

“I’ve lived in vain. I really have lived in vain.”

Yeon Hojeong lowered his head.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What could you possibly have to be sorry to me for?”

“...I always wanted to tell you. But thinking about it now, I was the one who did not trust you, Father. That’s why only now have I spoken of it like this.”

“......”

“It is not your problem, but mine. There is no need for you to reproach yoursel—”

“No, I have lived in vain.”

A great tremor entered the father’s eyes as he looked at his son.

“I have lived in vain. Just as before, all I had to do was believe what you said just now the same way I believed in you. Yet what was it, really, that I had been tormenting myself over like this?”

Yeon Hojeong looked at Yeon Wi with startled eyes.

“Father.”

“Thinking back on it... yes, when I think of how you have been all this time, I should have understood you all the more. The martial arts and discernment you have ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ shown are truly not levels that someone your age should be able to display.”

“......”

“And the fact that you said you had lived a long life and returned was never something to be weighed in terms of belief or disbelief.”

“Father.”

Yeon Wi took Yeon Hojeong’s hand.

“Hojeong.”

“...Yes.”

“You’ve suffered a great deal.”

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes shook violently.

“After our main house was annihilated and you were cast alone into the world, how much must you have suffered, gritting your teeth and enduring among those vicious scoundrels of the Dark Path? It must have been a continuous chain of hardships that this father cannot even imagine.”

“......!”

“In your memories, I must have been a wretch beyond all measure, unfit to be called a parent. To return to the past and, one by one, come to understand such a father could not possibly have been easy.”

Yeon Hojeong lowered his head. For no reason at all, he found it difficult to meet his father’s eyes.

“When I think of how much you must have struggled and agonized before speaking these words, I truly feel as though I want to tear out my own eyes. I thought I had only now begun to understand my child, and yet even now I had failed to see what I should have seen.”

“That’s not true.”

“Hojeong.”

Yeon Hojeong raised his head.

Pride rose on Yeon Wi’s face.

“You came back well. You truly suffered greatly.”

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes shook again.

Even the most powerful master in the history of the Dark Path, the one who could make even the wickedest creature in the world tremble in fear, was in the end nothing more than a weak human being before the bonds of blood.

Yeon Hojeong lowered his head once more.

A single clear drop of water fell onto the table.

“I’m home, Father.”

“Yes.”