Chapter 95: Because It Has No Style
Just as he was about to head straight to the Qinghai Iron Workshop.
Jin Seong-un turned his head toward the door.
It was certainly the first time he felt this sensation, yet there was something strangely familiar drawing near.
Soon the door opened, and an elderly woman revealed herself. Like Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong, she too had red hair.
Both Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong rose from their seats at the same time. Then Chae Seo-ryeong spoke with a delighted face.
“Grandmother!”
Jin Seong-un flinched.
If she was Chae Seo-ryeong’s grandmother…
That meant the old woman before him was none other than her, Chae Ok-hyeon of the Divine Thief.
Jin Seong-un felt inwardly startled.
Naturally, he had thought she must have already passed away. After all, she was said to be of the same generation as the Divine Thief.
It was said the Divine Thief had passed away roughly eighty years ago, at the age of around thirty.
Which meant Chae Ok-hyeon was now well over a hundred.
Her face and presence indeed bore the weight of those years. Yet, she did not appear frail, and even her eyes shone vividly.
At her granddaughter’s greeting, Chae Ok-hyeon responded with a faint smile before turning her gaze upon Jin Seong-un.
Jin Seong-un did not avert his eyes either.
It was astounding that a person who had lived in the same era as the Martial Gods, whom he believed long gone, stood right before him.
This household truly seemed to carry the blood of its women strongly.
In another twenty years, Chae Seo-ryeong would likely resemble Chae Ga-hee. And after several more decades, she would become Chae Ok-hyeon.
After a brief silence of locked gazes, Chae Ok-hyeon spoke.
“Are you truly the successor of the Divine Thief?”
Her voice carried the weight of years yet was soft.
Then Chae Ga-hee explained — the trial where he was told to retrieve the sword of the Falling Flame Manor from the Zhongnan Sect, and how he had accomplished it with ease.
Chae Ok-hyeon nodded.
“If you are indeed the successor of the Divine Thief, then it would not have been difficult. That man was someone who could have stolen not only from the Zhongnan Sect but even from the Heavenly Demon’s sword.”
Her eyes seemed to gaze into some faraway past.
Then, her eyes turned crimson.
The Falling Flame Point Pupil. But its color was far deeper and more intense than Chae Seo-ryeong’s.
Eyes that looked as though they could pierce through all things in the world now fixed upon Jin Seong-un.
Chae Ok-hyeon studied him intently.
Soon, her expression gradually shifted.
Everyone held their breath as they watched. After a brief moment, her eyes returned to their original color.
“Truly…”
It was then.
Her gaze suddenly sank into quiet heaviness.
Jin Seong-un thought those must be the tears of someone who had lived for over a century.
Then Chae Ok-hyeon continued with a face full of regret.
“You came to end the wager…”
“That is correct.”
Jin Seong-un naturally spoke with politeness. Considering her age and stature, it was only proper.
Chae Ok-hyeon’s voice carried a sigh.
“That wager is but a faded promise, a lingering regret of a bygone era. How could one drive the youths of this new age into a death trap in the name of the past?”
Her stance and intentions were clear. For Jin Seong-un, this was troublesome.
If she had only been middle-aged, her will would have been easier to bend. But she was a woman who had lived past a hundred, and that made it even harder.
Chae Ok-hyeon went on.
“If you are truly the disciple of the Divine Thief, then all the more reason you should not go.”
What shone in her eyes was vivid regret.
For decades, that regret and sorrow had not faded. Perhaps even after all those years, what little had blurred was still only to that degree.
As Jin Seong-un pondered that, he spoke in a calm tone. Not forcefully, but firmly enough.
“If you do not permit the wager, then I shall go alone. For that is the very reason I came.”
“……”
Jin Seong-un himself felt unsettled.
After all, it was the Divine Thief who had spoken of this wager with the Falling Flame Manor.
What exactly had to be stolen — only the Falling Flame Manor now knew.
If they refused to tell him, then as he said, he would still head to the Qinghai Iron Workshop on his own.
By observing and speaking with them, something might eventually be revealed. Though that conversation might turn a little rough.
One way or another, he had to go.
Fulfilling the requests of the Martial Gods was no longer a choice. It was a duty woven into Jin Seong-un’s very life.
Both Chae Ok-hyeon and Chae Ga-hee stared intently at him. The two women could clearly feel Jin Seong-un’s unwavering determination.
If they opposed him, this man would go to the Qinghai Iron Workshop alone.
And in that case, he would surely die.
Neither of them doubted it in the slightest. After all, had not even the Divine Thief met his end there?
With a look of incomprehension, Chae Ok-hyeon asked.
“Why go so far? You were not his direct disciple, merely one who inherited a supreme art left behind. There would be no issue if you took only the art without following his will. If it is because of rumors tied to the Divine Thief, there is no need to worry.”
“What rumor do you speak of?”
“The rumor that anyone who covets the Divine Thief’s secret cave will surely die within ten years.”
“……”
Jin Seong-un’s expression turned incredulous.
The Divine Thief was a thief, not a sorcerer.
“That is not the reason.”
“Then why?”
In the first place, Chae Ok-hyeon was wrong.
For Jin Seong-un had indeed learned martial arts directly from the Divine Thief. But that was something he could not say.
So, as he paused to choose his words, Jin Seong-un recalled the Divine Thief’s stories and said:
“Because it has no style.”
At that moment, Chae Ok-hyeon’s tranquil eyes shook greatly. For a fleeting instant, she thought she heard the Divine Thief’s voice echoing like an illusion.
It was truly the very words he had always kept on his lips.
That damned “style.”
That infuriating yet nostalgic word — now spoken by a young man claiming to be the successor of the Divine Thief.
Her heart trembled.
Just then, Chae Seo-ryeong, who had remained silent, suddenly interjected.
“Why do you think I trained so hard?”
Not only Chae Ga-hee and Chae Ok-hyeon, but even Jin Seong-un turned his gaze to her.
Then Chae Seo-ryeong continued.
“Why do you think I hammered during the day, and stole during the night? It was Grandmother and Mother who taught me that.”
Chae Seo-ryeong also did not know the details of the wager.
She only knew that there was something in the Qinghai Iron Workshop that should not exist, and because of it, the Falling Flame Manor declined.
The women of the Falling Flame Manor had, for generations, strived to take it back, and that will and duty were passed down through many generations until they finally reached Chae Seo-ryeong.
Then Chae Seo-ryeong spoke, not as a childish daughter or granddaughter, but as a woman.
“I too am a woman of the Falling Flame Manor.”
Her eyes glowed red.
Seeing this, Chae Ga-hee’s heart ached.
She herself had not inherited those eyes. The Falling Flame Point Pupil was an ability absolutely necessary if one wished to accomplish the mission at the Qinghai Iron Workshop.
If she had those eyes, she would have stepped forward herself more than a hundred times.
Her mother was old. She herself lacked ability.
Which meant, the only one who could inherit the duty was Chae Seo-ryeong, who still looked like a child in her eyes.
And that child now declared herself a woman of the Falling Flame Manor, with such vivid crimson eyes.
‘I have been complacent.’
Chae Ga-hee regretted it. She had thought this day might come, but believed it to be far in the future.
So she had looked away for the time being. Perhaps she had even wished the day would never come at all.
But now, seeing the successor of the Divine Thief suddenly appear, and Chae Seo-ryeong watching her beside him, she realized it.
The time had come.
Chae Ok-hyeon realized the same.
The current was too immense, and both women knew they could not resist it.
Chae Ok-hyeon gave a small nod.
She gently stroked Chae Seo-ryeong’s shoulder, then briefly grasped Jin Seong-un’s hand.
And she quietly left the room.
Chae Ga-hee, who remained, kept her usual strong and noble expression as she spoke.
“Follow me.”
But Jin Seong-un could sense her voice trembling ever so slightly. A mother sending her daughter to her death could never remain calm.
The place Chae Ga-hee led them to was a forge, now too old and worn to be used even within the Falling Flame Manor.
The place was filled with musty dust, with a small, empty furnace sitting in the middle.
Around it were marks of black soot, as if testifying that once, fierce flames had burned there.
“The fire that was here, the Falling Flame. That is what the Divine Thief sought to bring back from the Qinghai Iron Workshop.”
Chae Ga-hee then explained about the Falling Flame.
The Falling Flame was an unextinguishable fire passed down only within the Falling Flame Manor. It was said to be able to melt anything.
Indeed, with that fire, the Falling Flame Manor had held its place as the world’s greatest forge for over a hundred years.
But someone had stolen it.
They sealed the flame in a lantern and extinguished the original Falling Flame.
“It was a cultist of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, wasn’t it?”
“And at the same time, he was a man we had accepted as a son-in-law.”
The context began to connect in Jin Seong-un’s mind.
A woman of the Falling Flame Manor had fallen in love with a man of the Demonic Cult. He most likely had red hair.
Considering the resentment the Central Plains held toward the Demonic Cult, especially in the past, it had been a dangerously reckless love.
The cultist had stolen the flame and fled to Qinghai. The Falling Flame Manor could not ask the Murim Alliance or any other Murim faction for help.
Because doing so would expose that the very children of the Falling Flame Manor were the offspring of a cultist.
“That was why they tried to reclaim it themselves.”
Why the Falling Flame Manor clung to matrilineal names, why they bore red hair, why they honed thievery, and why Chae Ga-hee had been so wary of the gaze Chae Seo-ryeong cast toward Jin Seong-un.
Now it all made sense.
“Since then, the Qinghai Iron Workshop prospered, gaining fame as the world’s greatest forge, while the Falling Flame Manor declined day by day.”
“And Grandmother sought to use the Divine Thief, for the sake of the clan’s revival.”
Both Chae Ga-hee and Chae Seo-ryeong fell silent.
There was no room for excuse.
Even if Chae Ok-hyeon later regretted it and wished to take back her words, the fact remained that the Divine Thief had died because of it.
In the brief silence, Jin Seong-un nodded and said.
“I understand.”
There was nothing more to say.
If anyone were to hold resentment toward Chae Ok-hyeon, it could only be the Divine Thief.
Yet the Divine Thief had said he held no regrets.
What his true heart meant by that, Jin Seong-un could not presume to guess.
“To go to the Qinghai Iron Workshop.”
“……”
“And steal the Falling Flame. That is the content of the wager, is it not?”
Jin Seong-un asked bluntly, and Chae Ga-hee gave a small nod.
“You will need Seo-ryeong’s eyes.”
“I see.”
Jin Seong-un appeared indifferent.
Truthfully, all the formations he had seen so far had been fascinating, but not particularly threatening.
Even the formations of the Sima Clan, known as masters of the art, had been the same.
Sensing Jin Seong-un’s attitude, Chae Ga-hee continued.
“I will say it again. The Divine Thief himself perished because of those formations.”
Jin Seong-un nodded.
Thinking of it that way, he realized it could not be underestimated.
After all, even to Jin Seong-un, the Divine Thief’s techniques were not something easily surpassed.
“Wait here a moment.”
Chae Ga-hee left briefly.
When she returned, she held a sword.
“This is the Falling Flame Sword.”
Jin Seong-un looked at it with a faintly displeased expression.
It was wrong to belittle another’s sword, but he could not help it, after hearing the Zhongnan Sect Taoists’ testimony recently.
Chae Ga-hee spoke with a baffled face.
“This was forged back when the Falling Flame Manor was still called the Falling Flame Iron Workshop.”
In other words, a sword forged in what had once been the world’s greatest forge.
The fact that it had been preserved for generations meant it was undoubtedly a supreme blade.
Jin Seong-un drew it from its sheath.
Srrrng—!
Unlike the worn sheath, the blade gleamed sharp and white, as if freshly forged.
Swinging it several times through the air, he found its weight and balance thoroughly satisfying.
“I will make good use of it.”
Soon after, Jin Seong-un and Chae Seo-ryeong departed from the Falling Flame Manor.
With their goal now clear, there was no reason to waste time.
“I will return safely.”
Chae Seo-ryeong said with vigor.
To finally carry out the mission passed down through generations, to attempt the theft of the hardest thing to steal in all the world, and to do it alongside the mysterious man named Jin Seong-un.
All of it stirred a storm of complex feelings within her heart.
Chae Ga-hee held her gaze on Chae Seo-ryeong for a long moment. She was filled with the desire to stop her even now. But she knew all too well.
Just as martial artists had moments where they must draw their blade even at the cost of their life, so too did the women of the Falling Flame Manor.
For her daughter Chae Seo-ryeong, that moment was now.
Chae Ga-hee embraced Chae Seo-ryeong once.
Watching this, Jin Seong-un spoke in a calm tone.
“I will make sure to return Young Mistress Chae safely.”
His words were light, yet filled with certainty.
Though baseless, for some reason, they eased Chae Ga-hee’s unease.