The Eldest Daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan Protects Her Family

“The Blood Demon told the thoroughly frightened sorcerer that he had tried killing you just now, and rejoiced that you were indeed someone who could make a time Passage. When he said he would kill Yeonju if she did not follow, the sorcerer fled back into the water without hesitation. And astonishingly, at that moment Yeonju disappeared. The Blood Demon was neither surprised nor regretful. Rather, with a very delighted face, he looked at his empty hands and then thrust his hand into the water and dragged out the young sorcerer.”
The Alliance Leader continued as if telling a very difficult story.
“But that young sorcerer came out with a sword rammed into her own neck. I had never once in my life seen the Blood Demon so agitated. The face that had been composed even when he lost an arm and his whole stronghold burned twisted viciously. He kept shaking the child and bellowing at her to come back to life, and the girl opened her eyes. But before the Blood Demon could do anything, she stabbed her own neck again.”
The Alliance Leader rubbed his forehead and lowered his gaze.
“A sorcerer can return to the time she wishes if she kills herself. Only, that is the last repetition of time. It seems the sorcerer returned to the moment I died. She sent Yeonju back and, just before being seized by the Blood Demon, turned back only the briefest instant of time and ended the chance given to me then and there.”
“…….”
“For that clan, truly, the newly granted time was punishment.”
The Alliance Leader let out a hollow breath.
“The Blood Demon screamed himself hoarse and despaired. He could not know when that capricious god would choose a sorcerer again. There was no guarantee a new one would be chosen even if the sorcerer died. And even if one were chosen, there was no way for him to know.”
“…….”
“When his subordinate asked whether to kill all the sorcerers remaining in the Yeonjuda troupe to confirm it, the Blood Demon told him to let them live. Well, I had already cut their numbers down so much that he likely could not have killed more anyway. If the clan were exterminated before the god thought to choose again, the Blood Demon would lose his chance forever.”
The Alliance Leader spoke in a bitter voice.
“Watching the Blood Demon leave, I did nothing. The Blood Demon came out of Geumeunsan with only three guards, and I merely took in that rare chance with my eyes.”
Meeting those tired eyes, Sohwa asked him,
“Then what did you do?”
“I returned to Kunlun.”
He let out a faint laugh.
“I no longer resisted the fixed flow. I simply cherished what was precious to me all the more and put my last time in order. I returned to Kunlun again and, though I was locked in seclusion for a week, unable to eat anything and scolded harshly, even that time was happiness. If my skill did not improve, I trained at leisure as it was, and even when my senior brothers made mistakes with me, even that was so dear and admirable that, truly…… paradoxical as it is, I spent each day in gratitude.”
Abandonment.
Yet Sohwa could not reproach him.
How could she condemn one who had fought alone, isolated within time? She could understand how grueling the time not contained in the conversation must have been.
She kept her mouth shut and waited so that he could finish speaking.
“Now it is hazy, but time flowed similarly to my first life. I became Alliance Leader again and was hearing all kinds of martial news of the Central Plain. Seeing it flow astonishingly the same left a bitter taste. After all that thrashing, to return to a life that turned out to be the first life. That the tragic life of before was now the most peaceful life I could enjoy.”
After taking a deep breath, the Alliance Leader suddenly smiled at Sohwa.
“But from three years ago, news I had never heard before began to come.”
Looking at Sohwa, the Alliance Leader spoke slowly.
“At first I wondered if the Blood Demon had changed his plan, but the Blood Demon is never the sort to reveal himself in the Central Plain of his own accord. Though I repeated countless lives, the Blood Demon never once made such a choice. And yet not long ago even the martial arts of the Outland Five Palaces and Oseoksan were exposed. At the center of it again was you.”
His slowly moving eyes examined Sohwa’s face.
“I most certainly saw with my own eyes the chosen sorcerer die.”
In a calm voice, the Alliance Leader asked,
“Has that capricious god chosen a new sorcerer?”
Sohwa did not answer.
“I am neither reproaching you for your regression nor asking you to tell me who the new sorcerer is. Rather, I called you to tell you.”

“…….”
“Do not stake your hope on what does not change and endure the pain; just accept it.”
Out of courtesy to the Alliance Leader who had unburdened himself with a long story, Sohwa considered his words for a moment.
There were times when it felt overwhelming. Day by day she felt anxious and afraid, as if the hope in her hand were instead choking off her breath.
The clan’s expression, “punishment,” did not seem wrong.
If this life was not an opportunity but a punishment for defying the god’s choice.
If so, if she could never achieve what she wanted in this life.
Then……
The Tang Clan would fall, and the retainers would not be able to avoid a painful death.
It was to accept that.
After the silence, Sohwa parted her red lips.
“Have you ever met that god?”
“No. I must have lived easily several hundred years by now, and yet I have never once seen that being.”
“Then is it not conjecture rather than something heard directly?”
The Alliance Leader narrowed his eyes.
“What do you mean?”
The Tang Clan Head’s daughter sitting opposite him held him in her cold gaze.
An inhuman, chill impression.
The Blood Demon brushed her face.
A voice without rise or fall flowed forth that suited that face well.
“If that one called god has chosen another sorcerer and newly made a turning point of time.”
It sounded calm and yet impudent.
“Then the things that change because of that would also be his will.”
Listening to the silence, Sohwa opened her mouth again.
“If, as you say, this is punishment, and a murderer cannot achieve his will, then the Blood Demon also will not achieve his will. Did he not kill that young sorcerer to make sure? From now on he will not be able to obtain a sorcerer. All the more so when he confined in his stronghold and used one pointed out to act in the god’s stead—were I the god, I would also punish the Blood Demon.”
Sohwa answered the Alliance Leader, who was listening attentively to her words.
“If the Blood Demon’s goal is to seize the world, then he will not seize it, and if your goal as Alliance Leader was to kill the Blood Demon, then you will not kill the Blood Demon. But my goal is not the Blood Demon; it is the Tang Clan. Not the Central Plain nor the Martial Alliance, but only the Tang Clan’s safety. The Blood Cult is nothing but a weed that must be uprooted to protect the Tang Clan.”
“…….”
“Even if, as you say, I cannot achieve what I want, I can kill the Blood Demon. Likewise, even if you cannot kill the Blood Demon, you can protect the Tang Clan.”
The Tang Clan Head’s daughter, impudent as ever, made a proposal to the Alliance Leader.
“I will kill the Blood Demon, so please protect the Tang Clan.”
The Alliance Leader let out a hollow breath.
Having gone to the trouble of telling his secret and advising her not to labor, she insisted on her will as is and even tried to drag him into this toil.
The Alliance Leader found it so absurd that he burst into laughter.
“If you are determined to walk that path, then try going once. Very well, if you experience it yourself, a day will come when you understand.”
“Please go with me.”
“……Do you by any chance often hear that you are shameless?”
Having confessed with difficulty the time he had endured, she asked him to step onto that road again.
She seemed a person who felt not an ounce of empathy, not even a shred of pity.
Well, she had always been like this. When he tried to take Heukcheon Amgui to Geumeunsan, she fed him poison and made him lie sick for days in the Tang family house. Since the shameless Heukcheon Amgui blushed and apologized to him, in some ways the Ten-Thousand Poisons and Cures Master was an even more ruthless human than Heukcheon Amgui.
Smiling to himself, the Alliance Leader waved his hand.
“As I said, I no longer wish to involve myself in this capricious god’s game. Try as you may, you will only see a faster and more tragic outcome. If you wish to test the god’s creativity, I will not stop you, but I do not recommend it.”
The Alliance Leader refused, but his voice was warm.
Suddenly, he closed his mouth.
“Do you hear that sound?”
Sohwa, about to reply with something, swallowed her words and listened to the Alliance Leader. But she could hear nothing. Only, from time to time, birdsong.
“I hear nothing but birdsong.”
The Alliance Leader curved his lips.
“That is the sound by which the Blood Cult communicates. For several days since the martial tournament began, that sound has been so noisy I could not sleep. Many messages are going back and forth, and your name is often heard.”
The old man clicked his tongue.
“They are watching your every move, yet strangely they are guarding against the Blue Blood Hall Lord and protecting you.”
“The Blue Blood Hall Lord?”
“One of the Blood Demon’s most favored subordinates. You already seem to have opened acquaintance with Hae-rak, and I do not dislike Hae-rak. In some lives I even went to the Blood Demon with his help. However, though I repeated so many lives, I never once saw Hae-rak try to protect you.”
Sohwa was surprised, but did not show it. The Alliance Leader knew Hae-rak’s true nature.
Seeing her stiffen, the Alliance Leader laughed.
“This is the first time I’ve seen you look surprised. Once, I even received help from you. Thanks to the antidote pill of the Ten-Thousand Poisons and Cures Master, I saved my life. Of course, I was tricked by you far more often.”
Sohwa did not doubt what he said, but hearing her old epithet from long ago made her certain. That the Alliance Leader, like her, had turned back time.
The Alliance Leader Sohwa remembered existed only in this form, yet once upon a time he must have known how to harbor hope as she did.
In the instant she pitied him, the Alliance Leader spoke again.
“When the finals begin, the crowd will swarm the arena and vigilance will slacken. So these Blood Cult vermin are uneasy. Even now, since you have not left the Alliance Leader’s room for a long time, they are chattering insolently—saying perhaps the Blue Blood Hall Lord has used human-skin masking and gone to the Alliance Leader’s room. Insolent wretches. There should be a limit to scorning the Martial Alliance—how dare they compare the Martial Alliance’s Alliance Leader to that paltry fellow.”
Though his words were rough, the Alliance Leader was smiling.
“Today I will call you and the Divine Physician to my lodging. Since I am suffering a terrible illness and am on the verge of death, I have brought in a Tang physician to receive the Divine Physician’s help. By my side is the safest place, so stay here for the time being. The Blue Blood Hall Lord can probably be handled within Hae-rak’s line, so let the Blood Cult vermin fight among themselves.”
Turning over his proposal, Sohwa asked,
“Do you by any chance know why the Blue Blood Hall is pursuing me?”
She had long been curious.
Why the Blood Cult wretch sought her.
Since the Alliance Leader had repeated time countless times trying to block the Blood Cult, he seemed likely to know the answer.
“The Red Blood Hall and the Blue Blood Hall are very devout. If the Blood Demon orders them to die, they really do cut their own throats without hesitation. So there is not much to guess about their intent. It will be the Blood Demon’s order.”
“Was he offended that I revealed the Blood Cult’s coming rampage?”
“No, the Blood Demon is not so reckless as to touch the Tang Clan’s direct line to that degree. If you knew how perfectly he wishes to embrace the Central Plain, you would simply suggest handing the Central Plain over to the Blood Demon.”
When Sohwa took the ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) nonsensical joke seriously, the Alliance Leader spoke with a laugh.
“At any rate, seeing the Blood Demon push himself so far, I think he suspects you.”
As if speaking the Blood Demon’s thoughts, the Alliance Leader added with certainty,
“He seems to think you have found the new sorcerer.”