Shin Jueon’s expression was something to behold.

He was stained with panic—because he truly could not understand it.

It had been about twenty years since seclusion, and ten years since Dong Yuseong had been purged. Even then, Flame King Hwa Munyeom had not revealed himself.

Which meant he had not been active in the martial world for twenty years, yet the sight before him was like watching a martial artist in the height of his prime.

His power was overwhelming, and his distribution of energy was nearly perfect.

Shin Jueon, who had reached Limitless Manifestation, believed he could overwhelm Flame King Hwa Munyeom, but he was being pushed back, if only slightly.

Especially at the final moment.

If he had not retrieved his sword, Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s attack would have split his body cleanly in two.

“How in the hell……”

Shin Jueon panted and spoke.

“What have you been doing for twenty years.”

Flame King Hwa Munyeom had no intention of answering.

He only looked at Shin Jueon with both hands calmly held behind his back.

Injury? It was clearly serious.

But it was fine. He had not lived a pathetic life that would be shaken by pain like this.

In a quiet voice, he said,

“The life I spared. I will take it back now.”

The cold killing intent contained within that calm voice was chilling.

Shin Jueon’s brow crumpled hard.

“Back then and now, you always blocked me as Vice Lord.”

“I did not block you. I advised you.”

Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s reply remained composed. As if he disliked that very composure, veins stood out on Shin Jueon’s forehead.

“……You still do not understand!”

“Do you hear yourself.”

“At the time, my realm was Unity of Heaven and Man, while yours was Limitless Manifestation like now. A bastard who served the previous Palace Lord gives me advice? That is the same as giving orders!”

“As you speak of realms, back then you and I were distinguished by rank.”

“So you are admitting that rank was meaningless!”

Shin Jueon’s rage exploded.

“When the previous Palace Lord died, you should have died as well, or gotten lost on your own. Instead, when I became Palace Lord, you entered as Vice Lord and interfered with everything I did!”

His fist clenched tight.

“Yes. Of the forty years I have been Palace Lord, twenty were your world. The Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace! It was yours!”

“I have never, for even a moment, thought of the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace as mine.”

At Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s unchanging calm, Shin Jueon ground his teeth.

“You are still insolent! You are not just looking down on me—you are treating me like a complete fucking idiot!”

“If you choose to think so, I will not stop you.”

“Your shadow, your traces, all of it irritated me. Your daughter was the same! Those stupid bastards should have taken the chance and eaten what they were given, yet then and now, you vermin—”

“I did not come to indulge your whining.”

GRIND— his teeth scraped together.

His fury reached its peak.

Shin Jueon clenched his fist and opened his mouth in an icy voice.

“……You said you would take my life? You are dreaming of the impossible.”

“From what I see, it does not seem impossible.”

“……Then I suppose I must write a new story as well.”

His gaze turned vicious.

“Your daughter, Hwa Muryeong, summoned you out of seclusion to kill me and seize the Palace Lord seat. And that day, you died, and your daughter was sold as a slave.”

Shin Jueon smiled meanly.

“Do you like that story?”

Flame King Hwa Munyeom let out a sigh.

“You have grown even more petty while I was not looking.”

“What did you say?”

“Stop flapping your mouth and come.”

At once, Shin Jueon kicked off.

He intended to tear that mouth apart.

Tear it apart and kill him.

Flame King Hwa Munyeom kicked off as ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) well.

Shin Jueon, capturing every movement, drew out the hidden ultimate art he had been keeping.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art.

Heaven-Mixing Flame Burst.

From the blade, red flame erupted like an explosion and formed a colossal dragon.

As the dragon roared and flew toward Flame King Hwa Munyeom, Flame King Hwa Munyeom was about to drive his fist forward—

In a truly split instant.

Shin Jueon’s eyes turned toward the entrance of the Palace Lord Hall.

And the moment he saw something there, he flinched.

In a life-and-death fight between martial artists at Limitless Manifestation, a split-second lapse is fatal.

Especially in the very instant an ultimate art is being unleashed, such a lapse is no different from hastening the outcome.

It was a situation where it must never happen, but—

For Shin Jueon, it could not be helped.

THUD—!

Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s fist punched through Shin Jueon’s solar plexus, and the blue flame rising from Flame King Hwa Munyeom’s body swallowed him whole.

***

Dong Murin, waiting inside the carriage, slowly opened the door and stepped out when the surroundings grew quiet.

The night air brushed his face.

Cold, and yet strangely familiar.

Then he moved.

He was not even ten years old, but he had not forgotten those moments from the past, the instant he had fled this place.

With every step, memories resurfaced.

The road paved with red stone, the pine trees lined up on both sides, and the red flowers planted here and there. The Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace’s distinctive red palette showed clearly even under moonlight.

It was not much different from his memories.

No—more precisely, it was correct to say it had not changed at all.

As if time had stopped, it was the exact same scene as that night more than ten years ago, when that child fled while shedding tears of blood.

As he climbed the stone steps, Dong Murin recalled the past.

The memory of walking this path holding his father Dong Yuseong’s hand, the courtyard where he played with his brothers, and the night when all of it was stained in red blood in an instant.

“I remember everything.”

Dong Murin’s eyes sank into a cold calm.

The place he reached was the Annex on the outer edge of the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace.

He was able to arrive here without any obstruction, and there was no special reason for it.

Most of the key figures meant to defend the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace were now over by the quarters where the porters were staying.

When Dong Murin pushed open the Annex door and entered, he could see them.

Two men inside a room lit by candlelight.

They were Shin Juyang and Shin Juje, Shin Jueon’s sons.

It was strange to see those faces from the past still there.

They were not twins, but the way panic flooded both of their expressions was almost identical.

“How…… why so early?”

To Shin Juyang’s mutter, Dong Murin answered briefly.

“No matter what plans you make, you are still in his palm.”

Their brows crumpled sharply.

There was nothing new about it. The two of them had been planning to assassinate Dong Murin from the start. The original plan was this.

When the delegation arrived, the major figures would be assigned to the Palace Lord Hall, while the porters and escorts would be sent to the quarters as a rule.

And among those major figures, Dong Murin had to be included.

Because the original purpose of the talks was the “Heavenly Arbiter’s explanation.”

That was how it was supposed to proceed, and there Shin Jueon intended to claim there had been a misunderstanding and send only Dong Murin separately to the Annex.

Then these two brothers waiting in the Annex would subdue Dong Murin, extract information from him, while Shin Jueon killed Seol Unhwi and his people in the Palace Lord Hall.

And once the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace martial artists surrounding the quarters slaughtered the rest and silenced them—

The entire plan would be complete.

The reason Shin Jueon kept these two brothers at the Annex and planned to pull Dong Murin out separately was simple.

Competition.

In his heart, he already regarded Shin Juje, the eldest and the designated young Palace Lord, as the next Palace Lord, but even Shin Juje—and Shin Juyang as well—needed competition.

That was Shin Jueon’s way of teaching.

“Look at it the other way. The two of you were not in the Palace Lord Hall either, so it is not wrong to say you reached the same conclusion.”

“……”

“I can roughly see the justification you were aiming for. In the end, one of you will become the next Palace Lord of the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace, so you set up a meeting between outstanding rising talents… something like that makes it hard to refuse.”

“……What are you.”

Everything Dong Murin said was correct.

But the most important thing was timing.

This was far too early.

He was not supposed to come now. Never.

Yet he had come alone and was exposing the existing plan, which meant he had the same thought.

Shin Juje spoke first.

“Did you come to kill us?”

Dong Murin answered evenly.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

In an instant, the air inside the Annex snapped tight.

“Ha. This crazy bastard.”

Shin Juyang let out a hollow laugh, and Shin Juje spoke coldly.

“I heard you served a madman. Now I see exactly what you learned from him.”

Dong Murin’s expression did not change.

If anything, he looked even calmer.

Unhwi had said it.

A martial artist must keep composure in any situation.

Even if your parents are being insulted right in front of you, even if the one you serve is being insulted.

Do not show it on the spot.

For Dong Murin especially, whose demonic flame is born from rage, his inside had to remain calm no matter what.

Unhwi had told him to carve that into his bones and never break it.

So Dong Murin had lived by those words.

Rage is more frightening when it is refined than when it spills outward.

Shin Juyang asked,

“……You are unexpectedly good at controlling your emotions.”

“Does it look that way.”

“I heard your realm is Three Flowers at the Crown. Is that right?”

“That is what people say.”

Shin Juje let out a quiet snort.

“It cannot have been long.”

“It has not.”

“Juyang and I have been at Three Flowers at the Crown for more than three years.”

This time Dong Murin let out a quiet snort.

“So?”

“One Three Flowers at the Crown facing two Three Flowers at the Crown? You do not seem to grasp the situation. You came looking for your own grave.”

Shin Juyang added,

“I do not understand. Did you come alone?”

“Alone.”

At Dong Murin’s answer, the two brothers looked at each other and burst into laughter.

“Just like your father, you are a crazy bastard.”

Shin Juje spat the insult.

But Dong Murin did not waver at all. Instead, he set a hand on the sword at his waist.

“Enough talk. Start.”

His voice was still calm, but within it lay a vast fury that could burn the world down.

Shin Juyang and Shin Juje each put their hands on their weapons as well.

“Fine. Then we will see what you are.”

The two brothers drew their swords.

“Father always warned us about Dong Yuseong.”

“……”

“He said his bloodline had outstanding talent and was dangerously so, and that in the future they would take a large portion of the Soul-Dao Demon Flame Palace.”

“……”

“Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art was not the core. Dong Yuseong—the man called the next Flame King—his talent was the real reason he had to die.”

“……”

“I have a few things to ask before killing you, but first we will subdue you and then—”

“You really do talk too much.”

Flames began to rise from all over Dong Murin’s body.

It was not ordinary fire.

Red light mixed into black flame, and it spewed an ominous, wicked aura like malefic flame rising from hell.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art.

He intended to silence these two idiots with it.

Through drifting ash, Dong Murin kicked off.

Shin Juyang and Shin Juje hurriedly formed a formation.

Red flame energy burst from both of their bodies.

Absolute Flame Heaven-Mixing Art.

Flame-Illusion Splitting the Heavens.

When the two swung their swords at the same time, red flame spread out in a fan. The entire Annex was dyed red in an instant.

But Dong Murin pierced straight through the flames head-on.

Demonic-Flame Overturning-Heavens Sword Art

Defy-Heaven Demonic Flame

Black flame erupted from Dong Murin’s sword like an explosion, swallowed Shin Juyang and Shin Juje’s red flame, and began driving it back toward them instead.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep