Episode 3 — The Undying Sword (3)
Every Sega has its golden age.
For the Baek , that peak must have been about two hundred years ago, when the Undying Sword himself still roamed the martial world.
It was then that they were counted among the Seven Great Families of the Jianghu.
But as the years passed, the Baek’s renown gradually declined — perhaps because there were simply too few who carried the Baek bloodline.
Still, those few who inherited the Undying Art and the Celestial Shadow Sword Technique remained formidable.
Most of all, their current clan head, Baek Ryusan, known as Iron-Blooded and Merciless, was the greatest of them all.
Under his rule, the clan’s faded glory once again began to shine.
His martial prowess had reached the absolute peak, and his mind was said to rival that of the Zhuge Liang strategists.
His dark, gleaming eyes seemed to pierce straight into one’s soul — so much so that every member of the clan feared him.
From the towering platform of the grand audience hall, he looked down at his son.
“Leekang.”
His voice was calm, but the dissatisfaction in it was unmistakable.
“Is there something on my face?”
Lee kang was staring — not at his father — but at something beside him.
Specifically, at the wandering spirit of the Undying Sword, who was strolling about the great hall, muttering to himself.
“What a gaudy place,”
“Why do all these people look like they’ve swallowed manure?”
Of course, only Lee kang could hear him.
The ghostly swordsman soon drifted right up to the clan head.
“Hah! That’s quite a beard he’s got there.”
And then — he grabbed the man’s beard.
“Ah!”
Lee kang cried out instinctively.
Luckily, the ghost’s hand passed harmlessly through Baek Ryusan’s chin.
The moment Igang’s startled voice rang out, the ghost smirked and quietly sat beside a rusted sword leaning against the wall.
Lee kang!”
Baek Ryusan’s voice thundered through the hall, his internal energy woven into every syllable.
Lee kang immediately snapped to attention.
The entire room — his father and all the retainers — were glaring at him with barely concealed contempt.
“My apologies,” he stammered. “My body has yet to fully recover…”
Baek Ryusan said nothing.
He simply watched.
“I came as you summoned, Father.”
It had not been long since Lee kang had barely survived an assassination attempt.
Baek Ryusan, who had intended to rebuke him, swallowed his words.
“Yes,” the clan head finally said. “I did summon you.”
“I am listening.”
“Do you know who sent the assassins who attacked your manor?”
The question dropped like a blade.
The retainers waited silently for Lee kang’s answer.
He looked up, meeting his father’s gaze — calm, unreadable, ancient as a weathered tree.
And in that gaze, Lee kang saw what his father was truly after.
“I first suspected they were from the Cult of the Four Evils.”
Baek Ryusan often questioned his children before his subordinates — to test them.
This occasion was no different.
“The Cult of the Four Evils?”
“Yes. Specifically, I thought they might be from Bisubang. They’ve always been wary of our sega’s growing influence.”
“Hmm…”
The clan head’s expression did not change.
It wasn’t the worst deduction — but it was shallow, and lacked proof.
That might have been enough for the old Lee kang — the foolish son everyone mocked — but this time, he chose not to play dumb.
“…However, I no longer believe that is the case,” he continued.
“Though they hid their techniques well, their movements were not those of Bisubang’s assassins.”
“Oh?”
“Besides, if they were sane, they would never have dared strike at the Baek .
And if they were mad enough to do so, they would not have targeted someone as insignificant as me.”
Baek Ryusan fell silent.
The retainers exchanged wary glances.
“It seems,” the clan head finally said, “you’ve changed a little during your time in isolation.”
“I have not.”
“Perhaps. Yet your words, though clever, hold no substance. In short — you do not know.”
That was true enough.
Having been unconscious for most of the incident, Lee Kang couldn’t possibly know who the assassins were.
He bowed silently.
“All your people are dead,” Baek Ryusan said. “You know this, yes?”
“Yes.”
He knew it all too well — his servants, his guards, even his personal maid, So-hwa. All dead.
“Are you not ashamed?”
The rebuke landed heavy.
“As one born of this clan,” Baek Ryusan continued,
“you were protected by those you were meant to protect.
They gave their lives to buy you time — and you used it to hide.
Do you feel no shame, surviving alone?”
Lee Kang raised his head and met his father’s gaze directly.
“Are you asking,” he said quietly, “whether I am ashamed to have survived?”
“Yes.”
It was a cruel question for a father to ask his son — a son who had barely escaped death.
The retainers expected Lee Kang to flinch, to grow resentful. That’s what he’d always done before.
But this time—
“I am glad that I lived.”
“…What?”
“If I hadn’t,” Lee Kang said evenly,
“who would avenge those who died for me?”
It was a warrior’s answer — plain and unashamed.
For the first time, those words came from his heart.
He had grown used to pretending, to saying only what others wanted to hear.
But not this time.
“Ha.”
Even Baek Ryusan, the Iron-Blooded Patriarch, could not hide his faint admiration.
“Come here,” he said suddenly.
“…Pardon?”
“I said, come closer.”
Lee Kang approached warily.
“So tell me,” Baek Ryusan said, “how exactly did you defeat those assassins?”
Here it comes, Lee Kang thought.
This was not something he could lie about easily.
All the guards had been slain — even those who were high-level experts.
Yet he, a cripple who couldn’t properly circulate his inner energy, had killed them all.
It was impossible.
And the truth was even harder to explain.
He could hardly say, “The spirit of the Undying Sword possessed me and fought in my stead.”
Even if they believed it, it would not end well for him.
“Their bodies,” Baek Ryusan said, “bore wounds consistent with the Celestial Shadow Sword Technique.”
“I defeated them,” lee kang replied simply.
The clan head’s eyes narrowed.
He had analyzed even the corpses’ wounds.
There was no way to fake it.
So Lee kang chose to tell part of the truth — cloaked in omission.
“When I found a hidden passage in the storeroom,” he began, “I discovered a strange chamber.”
“A strange chamber?”
“Yes. It was sealed with golden threads… and as soon as I stepped inside, I felt dizzy.”
(He didn’t mention the rusted sword buried within.)
“Explain further.”
“It felt as though… something entered me.
My body moved on its own, and I was able to fight the assassins.
After that, I lost consciousness.”
Baek Ryusan was silent.
Lee Kang held his composure — the story was incredible, but every word of it, save one omission, was true.
“A mysterious tale indeed,” Baek Ryusan murmured.
Then, after a pause—
“Too mysterious. The entire area was burned to ash — nothing remains.”
Before Lee Kang could react, Baek Ryusan’s hand shot forward like a hawk.
Kwaak!
“Ugh!”
Lee Kang’s wrist was seized before he could even move.
“Hold still.”
Through the grip, the clan head sent a stream of Qi coursing into Lee Kang’s body — a technique used to examine the inner meridians.
It was excruciating.
“Clan head!”
“Please, restrain yourself!” cried the retainers.
Baek Ryusan ignored them.
Lee Kang, too, said nothing — not even a cry of pain.
Surprisingly, his father’s Qi was precise and gentle, probing carefully through his energy channels.
“Hmm. The blockage in your Yin Meridian remains unchanged.”
“…”
“Still… you have no internal energy at all.”
The patriarch released Yi Gang’s wrist roughly. Yi Gang grabbed his arm in pain and stepped back.
“Go.”
With a wave of his hand, the patriarch dismissed him as though he had lost interest.
Yi Gang hesitated. The old him would have turned and left immediately — but not now.
“Please… return my sword.”
The patriarch glanced at the rusted blade with a faint sneer.
He had confiscated it earlier when he’d heard Yi Gang carried it — only to find it was a piece of scrap, too rusted and corroded to be used.
“This junk? Take it.”
He raised his hand and, with invisible force, drew the sword through the air before tossing it to Yi Gang like garbage. The young man staggered under its weight as he caught it.
“You’ve learned to pretend you’re a martial man, I see.”
The words were cold, mocking.
Yi Gang only bowed deeply. “I will take my leave.”
He turned and walked away. Behind him, he could feel the chill of the patriarch and the retainers’ gazes.
His purpose there was done — for now.
Once he stepped outside, the voice of the Immortal Sword erupted in outrage.
“Ha! What needle-eyed fools they are!”
The voice came from the sword itself. Yi Gang flinched but managed to keep a straight face.
What do you mean, needle-eyed? he muttered in his mind.
“That father of yours and those so-called retainers — shouldn’t a descendant at least show some gratitude to the ancestor who saved his life?”
What’s needle-eyed about them? Yi Gang replied inwardly.
“Calling my blade a lump of rusted scrap! Bah!”
He didn’t say that exactly. It is rusted, though, Yi Gang admitted.
Despite himself, he felt a faint warmth. After all, this spirit — the Immortal Sword — had saved him from the assassins.
“They can’t even recognize the greatest sword under heaven. What use are those eyes of theirs?”
The greatest sword under heaven? You mean this thing?
“Indeed. Forged from celestial iron — my beloved blade, Meteor Fang (Yuseong-a).”
That name made Yi Gang’s breath catch. Meteor Fang? The legendary meteor-iron sword said to have belonged to the Immortal Sword himself.
But wasn’t Meteor Fang displayed in the Elder Council’s hall as a relic?
Yi Gang explained as much, and the spirit scoffed.
“Then that’s a fake. Whatever they have there, it’s not the true blade.”
So this… rusted sword is the real one?
“Precisely. The fools are lucky they didn’t recognize it. I would never entrust the true Meteor Fang to those who can’t grasp its worth.”
Please don’t insult my father. It looks like ordinary scrap metal — how could he have known?
“Oh? Such filial piety, hm? Didn’t expect that.”
Yi Gang couldn’t see the spirit’s face, but somehow he could feel the mocking grin.
“Tsk, tsk. Families of great martial clans should be united — yet that patriarch of yours is cold as a serpent, even to his son.”
That’s how martial clans are, Yi Gang replied calmly.
“Hahaha! And yet, he truly seems to despise you. Why such hatred?”
Yi Gang was silent for a moment, then smiled faintly.
He doesn’t hate me.
“Oh? Denying reality, are we? A child unloved becomes a man in denial, eh?”
Where do you think I got the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng that cured me? My father secretly got it for me.
“…”
The sword spirit fell silent.
Yi Gang rolled his shoulders. “Mm, feels lighter.”
The subtle flow of energy his father had infused earlier had quietly healed the damaged meridians in his body — and even performed an internal acupuncture technique so skillful that none of the retainers noticed.
“Well, well…”
The sword spirit finally murmured.
“So, a father too proud to show his affection, is that it?”
Yi Gang just chuckled. “Who knows.”
Meanwhile, back in the Hall of the Crimson Dragon, the meeting continued after Yi Gang’s departure — though the air had turned noticeably heavier.
The patriarch, Baek Ryusan, reclined slightly in his great chair, answering the retainers’ reports with distracted grunts.
They assumed his foul mood was due to seeing Yi Gang again.
“Dismissed.”
When the meeting ended, the retainers wiped cold sweat from their brows and hurried out. Only the patriarch and his most trusted steward remained.
For a while, Baek Ryusan sat motionless — then leaned back with a low groan.
“Ugh…”
It wasn’t irritation that silenced him; it was fatigue. He had spent his inner energy to heal Yi Gang’s shattered meridians in secret.
Even for a supreme master, it was exhausting.
“You’ve worked hard, Lord Patriarch,” said the steward gently.
Only a handful — the steward among them — knew the truth:
The Iron-Blooded Patriarch secretly cherished and pitied his son more than anyone else.
“I didn’t work hard — the boy did. His body was a wreck… Thankfully, the physician did his job well enough that I could at least help him.”
“I’ll reward the physician accordingly.”
“Do that. Hah… Steward.”
“Yes, my lord?”
“I was too harsh, wasn’t I?”
The steward said nothing.
“It’s been so long since we met, and this time he even talked back to me. He never used to do that.”
“All because you care for him, my lord.”
“Yes… I wanted him to live freely. But still…”
Though known as the Iron-Blooded Patriarch, when it came to Yi Gang and his late wife, Baek Ryusan was simply a father and a husband.
“One day, he’ll understand your heart, my lord.”
“Hah. I doubt it.”
“You found that priceless ginseng for him, and today you risked your own qi to heal him. He’ll realize it when he’s grown.”
“I’d rather he never did. If he resents me, it’s easier on the heart.”
For the first time that day, the patriarch smiled softly.
“Hahaha.”
The steward smiled back. Warmth filled the great hall — neither of them realizing that Yi Gang had already seen through everything.
“By the way, about what Young Master Yi Gang said earlier…”
“That strange tale — of some mysterious force taking hold of him, making his body move?”
The patriarch dismissed it as nonsense.
But the steward’s eyes gleamed.
“Yes, that, my lord… I believe it may not be nonsense at all.”
