Fabre in Sacheon’s Tang

We followed the river downstream.

That was because the military officer had already informed us that if we kept along the river, we would eventually arrive at the capital of Dai Viet, Seungnyong — modern-day Hanoi.

As we’d heard, the border region was shrouded in darkness, and after flying swiftly for about two shichen through the night sky, dots of light began appearing along the riverbank.

It was surely one of the border cities.

The moment the city lights came into view, I quickly spoke through the group chat to Sister Jeokwol, who was carrying me as she flew.

『“Sister, let’s go down for a bit. I want to take a closer look.”

—Chiii. (Understood, So-ryong.)

“But isn’t our destination elsewhere? Why descend here, Master?”』

As soon as my sister lowered altitude, Gun Hye-rin immediately questioned me through the group chat.

The reason we used the group chat was because, although flying at high altitude meant we wouldn’t be overheard, once we crossed into Dai Viet’s borders we had agreed not to utter a single word unless it was through voice transmission or group chat.

『“Even if it’s a bit dangerous, I think we have to see with our own eyes exactly what they’re doing.”

“Mm. True enough.”』

Now that we had entered Dai Viet, the right move to safely achieve our goal would have been to simply fly on quietly until we reached the capital.

But we could not just ignore what kind of atrocities were happening below.

That was why I suggested descending.

We hadn’t gone down far before a nauseating stench suddenly assaulted my nose.

It was a disgusting smell I had never encountered before.

’Ugh...’

Just as I grimaced at the odor—something that felt like my very soul was rejecting it—Hwa-eun’s voice came.

『“This is... corpse stench.”』

Since she dealt with poison and had a sense of smell as sharp as a perfumer’s, there was no way Hwa-eun could be wrong.

But I’d smelled corpse stench before, back in Hainan and elsewhere, and this was nothing like any of those.

We had already heard that corpses were piled up like mountains in the cities.

I’d thought there might be exaggeration in those reports, but with this smell seeping up, my expression hardened.

It might not have been exaggerated at all—in fact, the reports might have been downplayed.

With heavy heart, we slowly descended toward the city’s airspace.

It was when we were still about a hundred meters above.

Nothing was yet visible to us, but whether it was that she had mastered a technique more efficient than the Beast-Eye Art, or her eyesight was simply that extraordinary, the princess was the first to spot one side of the city—and she erupted in fury.

『“Th-those... those wretches who defy both Heaven and man!”』

Her delicate hand trembled as it reached for the sword at her waist, shaking with rage.

I too raised the Beast-Eye Art and looked in the direction the princess was staring.

Moments later, I saw a sight that I had only ever encountered before in war documentaries of my previous life.

No—this was a massacre field, like the Killing Fields.

At first I thought a part of the plaza was simply dark, but that “darkness” was actually a mountain of corpses.

Men, women, children, the elderly—it didn’t matter. They were piled up in the city plaza, rotting away.

It was exactly as the Murim Alliance’s scouting unit had described.

No, their words hadn’t been enough.

Around the square, Blood Cult fiends in red uniforms stood watch.

The moment she saw them, the princess whispered my name.

『“So-ryong.”』

Her bloodshot eyes clearly wanted to sweep everything away in an instant.

But Gun Hye-rin, who was wrapped around Yeondu with us, placed a hand on the princess’s shoulder and shook her head.

『“Acting here might satisfy your anger, but it would cause us to fail the mission. Then far more people will die. Do not act rashly.”

“But Gun Hye-rin!”

“Right now I too want nothing more than to crush those bastards like ants. But I’m holding back.”』

For a moment I wondered if getting married had actually made her more mature—she was the very first person who would normally charge ahead.

But then, from Gun Hye-rin’s body, that creeping black energy seeped out.

The princess, seeing it, barely managed to ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ calm herself.

After all, it wasn’t just she who was enraged.

Gun Hye-rin was seething with killing intent. So was Hwa-eun.

And so, as head of the household, I stepped in quietly.

『“It’s tragic, but for now, we endure.”』

And then I added one more word, directed at Gun Hye-rin.

As head of the family, I couldn’t let this pass.

『“Gun Hye-rin.”

“What is it, Master?”

“It’s all well and good, but what was that about wanting to crush them like ants? From now on, don’t use such foul words.”』

I told her never to use such ugly phrasing again.

“Crush them like ants”—what kind of terrible expression was that?

’To think of ants being trampled to death in our house... I must make sure she never says something so horrible again.’

***

『“The corpses keep increasing.”』

After about three days traveling downriver, bodies were snagged on rocks and submerged trees along the banks.

The closer downstream we went, the more corpses appeared.

In several of the cities we’d passed through, massacres had clearly taken place, but never before had bodies been discarded into the river.

As I wondered at this strange turn, the princess pointed at the bodies.

『“They’re all wearing the same clothes.”

“The same clothes?”』

Descending lower, I saw it clearly—they were indeed all dressed alike.

They wore the conical hats favored by the Vietnamese.

Pointing at the sight, the princess shouted.

『“Those uniforms... they’re Dai Viet government troops!”

“Government troops?”

“Yes, I saw them once among the Dai Viet envoys who came as emissaries.”』

The princess had apparently recognized them from when she’d seen Dai Viet’s government soldiers among emissaries—and she had now identified these corpses as theirs.

At her words, Hwa-eun pointed downward.

『“So-ryong, let’s go down for a moment.”

“All right.”』

It was daylight, but Sister Jeokwol’s concealment ability had advanced tremendously through evolution.

While in motion, if one looked closely there might have been some distortion in the air, but that flaw had vanished now.

So we descended straight to the riverbank.

The moment we landed, Hwa-eun crouched over a corpse and inspected it. Then she spoke.

『“The heat has caused the abdomen to bloat, but these bodies are only a few days old. Cause of death: stab wounds to the chest. There was definitely a battle.”

“Then that means Dai Viet’s people are still resisting.”

“Seems their court hasn’t collapsed yet.”』

From the corpses of the government troops alone, Hwa-eun and Gun Hye-rin inferred that Dai Viet’s soldiers were still putting up resistance.

We decided to pick up speed.

『“Let’s go faster.”』

Accelerating downstream, the number of corpses continued to rise.

After passing through a stretch where the river surface was choked with bodies, we spotted smoke rising in the distance.

Pitch-black smoke, billowing endlessly into the sky.

『“What’s that?”

“Fire.”

“There must be a battle going on! Sister, can we speed up a bit more?”

—Chiiii. (Yes. Understood.)』

As we quickened toward the source of the smoke, I opened the group chat to summon Cheong-yu Sojeo.

We had to immediately relay the situation to the Murim Alliance and ask how to proceed.

My mission was to confirm whether Dai Viet had completely fallen—but if they were still resisting, we couldn’t just stand by.

It was better to move while they still had forces left to fight alongside.

『“Cheong-yu, Cheong-yu Sojeo, please.”

—Shiaa. (Understood. Just a moment.)』

Originally, I had wanted to leave the princess in the Beast Palace for smoother communication.

If the Emperor learned that we had brought her across the border, he would never approve.

And if we left her there, we could have real-time discussions with the Alliance leadership in case of emergencies.

But since she absolutely refused to be separated from me, what could I do?

So I had prepared a stand-in—Cheong-yu Sojeo.

Though she couldn’t converse directly with people, she could write messages. In urgent circumstances, I had asked her to act as our proxy.

Moments later, the same voice, but with a completely different air, came through.

『—Shiii. (So-ryong, what is it? Is it something serious?)

“Ah, Cheong-yu Sojeo, we’re approaching the capital of Dai Viet, and it seems the government troops are still fighting against the Blood Cult. Please relay this to the Murim Alliance leadership.”

—Shia! (Understood!)』

Since I’d asked Cheong-yu Sojeo to deliver our situation, Elder Zhuge Hu, the strategist, would surely make the proper judgment.

It was as the smoke drew nearer.

In the distance, the outer walls of a massive city came into sight—one side of that vast metropolis blazing like a gigantic bonfire.

A scale unlike anything we had seen so far.

That must have been the capital of Dai Viet, Seungnyong, modern-day Hanoi. Yet from the outer districts, where our eyes fell, there was no movement at all. The city already felt as if it had been taken.

A silent city was all that greeted us.

『“Could it be... we’re too late?”

“Seems we are.”

“But where are the people?”

“Indeed. I don’t see anyone. I expected to witness the same scene as in the other cities—those monsters absorbing blood—but nothing.”』

It appeared the capital had fallen, yet unlike the other places, there wasn’t a single person in sight.

The corpses we had seen all along the way—here, there was not even one.

Just as we were feeling the strangeness, we moved toward the city center.

Seungnyong was divided by a river running through its middle. Gun Hye-rin pointed across to the opposite bank.

[“Master, look there.”]

As we turned our gaze, a rock formation by the riverbank shifted—and from it crawled a few people.

They must have been refugees hiding from the Blood Cult. The princess pointed at one of them.

『“That man?”

“You know him?”

“Yes. He’s the prince of Dai Viet who once came with the envoy!”』

If he was Dai Viet’s prince, he must know much.

Though we had intended to keep our mission quiet, it seemed best to make contact.

『“Let’s go down.”』

The moment those people crawled out from beneath the rock and tried to dart into the reeds along the riverbank—

—we appeared before them.

“Greetings.”

As the space warped and our figures emerged, the people collapsed in shock.

“Lac Long Quan!?”

“Lac Long Quan!”

They bowed their heads and prostrated, worshipping me.

’What now? What are they mistaking me for this time?’

Clearly, there was some misunderstanding yet again. The princess stepped forward to settle the matter.

“Greetings. You know who I am, don’t you?”

“The princess of the Central Plains!?”

Still half-bowing, the prince of Dai Viet blinked in shock as he recognized her.

From him, we learned how matters had unfolded.

“It was all due to my father’s greed.”

The prince explained that Dai Viet had long coveted the martial arts of the Central Plains.

Dai Viet possessed no proper martial arts of its own, and a single soldier trained in true martial arts could match hundreds.

So they had enticed men who learned martial arts from the Central Plains, making them instructors in their army, and had even managed to improve their soldiers somewhat. But the problem was that anyone willing to be recruited—or any martial manuals smuggled from the Central Plains—were never genuine.

At best, third-rate martial arts. With luck, second-rate warriors.

And then the Five Venoms Sect appeared.

At first, they had been thought of as Central Plains intruders illegally settling near the border and were to be driven out. But they turned out to be a powerful martial group.

Some ministers warned against it, but the former king appointed several of them as martial instructors in border cities. Their antidotes proved effective, and so even trade was permitted.

Acknowledged for these “contributions,” the current king had recently entrusted the Five Venoms Sect with training the entire military, save for the central army. But these fiends, using their sinister abilities, quickly seized the border forces and annihilated the central army.

“I tried to stop them with the central army on the plains before Tonkin, but the sect master of the Five Venoms was like a monster. We couldn’t stop him. With a handful of soldiers, I fled here into hiding.

The reason the capital is empty is because the king ordered the people to evacuate, and he hurriedly moved the court to Galpado Island.”

It seemed the current king had fled to a nearby island, much like the Goryeo kings who relocated to Ganghwa Island.

But then came words that startled Hwa-eun and Gun Hye-rin even more.

“But how did the Five Venoms seize control of the army so fast?”

Hwa-eun found it impossible that they could dominate the military in just a few months. But then came a chilling answer.

“Once someone accepted the blood shared by the Five Venoms’ sect master, no matter how loyal he had been, he would follow him. That man now calls himself Blood Demon.”

“Blood Demon!?”

Both women exclaimed in disbelief.

Gun Hye-rin turned to me and cried out:

“We must obtain the World-Destroying Golden Toad and Zimjo as soon as possible!

Blood Arts are martial techniques that involve absorbing another’s blood. Though such arts can never reach the Life-and-Death Stage, by their very nature they grant a half-immortal body! Even a master of the same realm cannot stand against him!”

The situation was even worse than we had feared.