Chapter 27
Part Two: The Venerable Dark Heaven
The first rooster crowed.
The streets of Luoyang, after the passing of winter, greeted the dawn that had begun to brighten little by little.
The number of people on the streets, those who had no choice but to be diligent in order to make a living, gradually increased.
“Have you heard?”
Mr. Jang of the accessory shop quietly brought up the subject.
“…Are you perhaps talking about the rumors regarding the Skeleton Gang last night?”
Mr. Tak of the woodenware shop, who normally would have waved away Mr. Jang’s stories as nothing more than rumors, surprisingly took the bait.
However, given the subject of the rumors, their voices could only remain low.
“They say five lairs were destroyed in a single night.”
“Five? From what I heard, it was seven.”
“Goodness, man. Where did you hear that?”
Mr. Tak gestured for Mr. Jang to come closer.
When Mr. Jang approached with a face full of curiosity, Mr. Tak quietly opened his mouth.
“My elder brother-in-law is in the government office, is he not? He said all of Luoyang was on alert throughout the night. According to what the authorities investigated…”
“Seven in one night?”
Mr. Tak nodded.
“No, from what I heard, it was several dozen.”
At the sudden voice that cut in, Mr. Tak was so startled that he nearly fell over.
When the flustered Mr. Tak looked around, he saw that, at some point, a long line of merchants had gathered around them.
“No, Brother Wang said it was fifteen…”
“What are you talking about? I heard it was thirty!”
Just as much as the common people feared the existence of the Skeleton Gang, stories about them spread quickly.
At last, the rumors grew longer and longer, tail chasing tail, until any place where even a few people gathered was thrown into chaos with talk of the Skeleton Gang.
“I heard there was not a single corpse left in the lairs.”
“Corpses? They say not even a single drop of blood remained!”
“They say countless people disappeared without a trace, as though neither mice nor birds had noticed!”
These stories always ended with the same question.
“Just who could have done it?”
***
“Then are you saying there is no information at all?”
Geumju’s clothes and adornments were extravagantly splendid.
However, no matter how one looked at it, they fell at least a step short of the luxury of the room she was currently in.
“When did I ever say that to you? That the great Luoyang Sword House has no information?”
At the low question from the middle-aged man seated in the seat of honor, Geumju felt the nape of her neck grow cold.
“I apologize.”
As Geumju bowed her head deeply, the middle-aged man clicked his tongue at her.
“You truly do not seem to know your place. You came to bother me from this busy morning over something of merely that degree?”
At the words “merely that degree,” Geumju flared up inwardly, but she lowered her head even deeper.
“I am sorry, Elder.”
In truth, considering the position of the person before her, a matter related to the Skeleton Gang could only be trivial.
“It seems you are laboring under some misunderstanding.”
The middle-aged man lifted a finger and tapped the precious black sandalwood table.
“Do you think I gave the Sword House Bronze Plaque to you because of your father’s influence?”
Geumju’s adoptive father, Geum Jil, was a man of terrifying renown in Luoyang’s underworld, but he could not possibly be compared to the name of the Luoyang Sword House.
“H-how could that be? This girl has never harbored such a thought, not even in the slightest.”
She flattened herself even lower.
The middle-aged man looked at the sandglass placed on the black sandalwood table.
“Already, because of you, nearly one whole quarter-hour has been wasted.”
He received a bundle of documents respectfully handed to him by a clerk-maid and spoke.
Aside from that maid, other maids were also standing in line, each holding a bundle of documents in her arms.
“Get out of my sight at once.”
As Geumju bowed and withdrew, the middle-aged man’s voice reached her from behind.
“If you disappoint me one more time, I will pass the Sword House Bronze Plaque to someone else.”
With her complexion flushed red, Geumju left the enormous pavilion with quick steps.
‘Damn it. I did not even get to bring up the matter of inviting a master from the Sword House.’
Judging by the atmosphere, if she had brought up such a thing, she would likely have been disposed of on the spot.
When she stepped onto the main road, she saw a group of warriors.
A group of Luoyang Sword House warriors, carrying swords that looked extraordinary even at a glance, were moving somewhere in orderly formation.
Just by looking at them, she could feel that they were on an entirely different level from the dark-path martial artists under her command.
‘…Damn it.’
Thinking about the methods left to her, she turned her body.
“Oh, sorry.”
A man who had almost bumped into her apologized briefly.
“No, I also made a mistake…”
She tried to say something, but the man was already hurrying away with urgent steps.
His attitude showed that someone like her was not even worth his attention.
‘This damn Sword House!’
Whether Geumju glared at him from behind or not, the man paid no attention and hurried toward the residence of his superior.
The small residence, clearly located on the outskirts, was shabby enough to show just how poorly their department was treated.
He opened his superior’s door in one breath.
“Please wake up! The sun is already high in the sky!”
Books on astronomy and dust-covered astronomical observation instruments hinted at their duties.
They were the astronomers, holders of one of the representative idle posts of the Sword House.
In an age when materialism was rampant, and the number of people who believed in superstition decreased by the day, the value of their existence was faint.
On top of that, the meteorological officials, who analyzed and predicted the weather, had split off from them, leaving the astronomers with even less work to do.
“Drrr…”
His superior showed no sign of waking up.
The man clutched his nose at the air of the room, which was thick with the smell of alcohol, and kicked his shameless superior.
“Wha—huh?! What is it?!”
His superior, who had been sleeping while hugging an empty liquor bottle, rolled right off the bed.
“This is important!”
The man filled a bowl with cold water and handed it to his superior.
“…What is it from this early dawn?”
Of course, it was late morning now, not dawn.
“Ah, I drank too much. I feel like I am dying.”
Without even thinking of getting up from the floor, the superior set the cold water he had been handed roughly beside him, picked the sleep from his eyes, and yawned.
Whether he did or not, the man pulled over a chair and sat down.
“Last night, I was on night duty.”
His superior looked at him as if he were pathetic.
“You are still standing night duty alone every day? Good grief. As if anyone will recognize you for that.”
The man ignored him and continued.
“An ill omen.”
His superior frowned.
“Ill omens are common enough.”
“A great ill omen.”
Only then did his superior sober up a little.
“A great ill omen? What was it?”
The man hesitated for a moment before opening his mouth.
“I think I observed the Heavenly Killing Star last night.”
At the words Heavenly Killing Star, his superior grabbed the cold water he had set aside and drank it down.
Then he poured the remaining water over his own face.
“…Are you serious? You mean the Heavenly Killing Star?”
The man continued in a subdued tone.
“As you know, the Heavenly Killing Star is extremely difficult to observe. Its position is not fixed, and neither are its form nor its color…”
“They vary. And the time during which it can be observed is short, too.”
His superior picked up his words, rubbed his face, and asked again.
“Are you certain? That it was the Heavenly Killing Star from legend? We only studied it from books, after all.”
“…If you ask whether I am certain, it is hard to say so outright, but…”
When a subordinate with a thoroughly meticulous personality described it to that extent, it was the same as saying he was correct.
“Damn it…”
Since ancient times, whenever it appeared, the Heavenly Killing Star was accompanied by tremendous bloody calamity.
“Should we not report this to the higher-ups?”
His superior sighed.
“Report this? In this day and age, who would believe what we say? And the Heavenly Killing Star, at that?”
“That is…”
At those words, the man frowned.
But even he had nothing to say in rebuttal.
“Then, at the very least, we should report it to the official in charge of our institution…”
“Report it to the official in charge of us? I suppose we must, but I doubt it will mean anything.”
“I suppose that is probably true, but…”
The supervising official of their organization, the Hall of Astronomy, was the most powerless person with authority in the Sword House.
The swordless man, Yeon Sang-hyeon.
**
In the corner of Luoyang, then in the corner of that corner, within an alley inside an alley, there was a slum.
That alley was filled with swarming paupers.
It was certainly not a place that any decent person would visit.
“The heavens…”
He raised his dry arms, on which there was no flesh.
Those two arms trembled like aspen leaves.
He was searching the sky for the sun.
However, the once-brilliant sun could no longer be found there.
“The heavens are like pitch-black darkness. The sun is hidden. I can no longer see the sun.”
The sky reflected in his spiritual eyes was like utter darkness.
That sky, without a single point of light, was covered in layer upon layer of clouds far too thick.
Neither the moon nor the stars could be found.
More than one sixty-year cycle had passed since he had plucked out his living eyes and obtained the enlightened eyes, but he had never seen such a sight in his life.
“Th-this is…?!”
The old man’s body, which had been staring blankly up at the sky, shook violently as though struck by lightning.
He barely managed to string together one word after another to form a sentence.
“Dark Heaven…! The master of Dark Heaven has appeared!”
Since settling in the slum, he had not once risen from his place.
And yet he now stood.
Not only ordinary people, but even famous merchants and high-ranking officials had often visited that place for a single reason.
There lived Luoyang’s greatest prophet.
A “pit hut” referred to a place where one dug into the ground, placed something like a straw mat over it, and covered it with soil, barely creating enough space for a person to sit inside.
An old blind man sat inside such a hut, wedged between buildings.
To see that one man, so many people visited this alley that was dangerous beyond measure and filthy beyond description.
Even if people did not usually believe, when life became uncertain, was it not human nature to cling to anything?
“Ohh…”
The old man, who did not even reveal his name and was simply called Teacher Hut, was trembling with his gaunt body that had nothing but bones left.
“The sun… I cannot see the sun…”
He was, without a doubt, blind.
Having lost both eyes for some reason, it should not have been anything new for him to be unable to see the sun.
However, his words contained a weight of spiritual command that no one could ignore.
If he had not walked for so long, his muscles should have withered away completely, making it impossible for him to stand.
And yet he stood.
His bony, withered legs trembled uncontrollably, but he did not care in the slightest.
“The great sinners who knew no fear of the heavens will not dare flee before him!”
“Demonic scripture! Has the demonic scripture awakened?! Has that ancient demon that devours darkness and makes the heavens tremble appeared?!”
The gaunt body, clad in a single scrap of rag, emerged from the hut.
He shouted while trembling with ecstasy.
“The master of Dark Heaven has appeared! The one who will punish the wicked from within the deepest darkness has descended! Rejoice, you who have nothing! Rejoice, you who have nothing to eat! The Venerable Dark Heaven, who will bring down black lightning in place of the indifferent heavens and earth, has arrived!”
The old man’s bony body began to dance merrily as it burned the final flame of its life.
The paupers who watched the scene murmured from a distance.
The old man’s final prophecy was etched clearly into their minds.
And so, another rumor was added to Luoyang.
“If you meet a ghost wearing a white moon, lower your head and show respect. If he asks of your sins, answer without hiding a thing. He is the agent of heavenly punishment, the Venerable Dark Heaven. The heavens are afraid.”