A/N: Annnnnnddd here is the second chapter I promised for Christmas! Even though it's a little after Christmas now, please excuse me >.>.... Well to all my readers, once again I hope you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed yourselves. Once again, I ask you to leave some comments and reviews on your opinions of the story. Not only do they help me make a better quality story, even though I hate to admit it as a more "veteran" (SLIGHT exaggeration, maybe) on this site, they do indeed give the author more motivation to write. Once again thanks in advance everyone! Now, enjoy the new chp!

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In a large room full of extravagant furniture, a girl with the beauty to cause men to bitterly fight to death over was sitting at a table in front of a window while lifelessly staring at a figurine that was inside a box. The figurine was unique as it was of a man who was going through the motions of a martial technique. If Shing Yong was there, he would immediately recognize her as the girl he saved in the plains.

When the girl woke up, she had found, to her surprise, that she was on a comfortable bed in a empty room. Startled, she immediately grew vigilant and tried to sense any traces of human life in the vicinity After finding none, she soon loosened up and began to examine herself. She unexpectedly found that her body was perfectly fine, with the signs of the bruises she received from her pursuers all gone.

The whole situation felt so weird that at first she contemplated whether the events that occurred the previous night was just a figment of her imagination. After thinking it over though, she realized that all her previous memories supported the idea that events that happened last night indeed occurred. Once she got that far, another question popped into her mind.

’How did I get here then?’

While she wondered over that, she suddenly recalled that just as she was losing her consciousness, a man had suddenly appeared in the middle of the pursuers right beside her. Unfortunately though, she wasn’t able to recall how he looked as her vision had already become blurry back then.

’Ah, he must’ve saved me and brought me back here to get healed then… Ah! The martial technique!’

At the sudden thought of the martial technique, she immediately checked within her clothes to see whether it was still there. Finding it and taking it out, she let out a sigh of relief and opened it. When she opened it, she noticed it was indeed the same martial technique manual. There was, however, a change in the figurine as the red lines and the blue light that used to flow along the lines disappeared.

When she noticed it was gone, she became depressed. Even though she could follow the movements of the martial technique, she no longer had a way to figure how she should let her ki flow while using the movements. The technique basically became useless now. Helplessly, she could only consider this trip to retrieve it a failure.

After trying with no avail to find out where the person who brought her back was from the inn owner, she dejectedly left the inn and finally returned home last night. Ever since she had woken up that morning, she had been staring at the figurine with lifeless eyes. Not long after she woke up though, a man bursted in through the doors. Startled, the girl looked up to see a muscular man who had shaved black hair look at her with mix of reliefs, worry, anger, and shock.

“Lady Ha Neul! Please promise me you’ll never leave so suddenly by yourself!”

Seeing the man’s expression and hearing his words, Ha Neul let a rare small smile appear on her face.

“I’m really sorry that I left without telling you, Jong Gook, but this time I really needed to go out without anyone knowing about it so I had no choice.”

Jong Gook was her personal bodyguard. He was renown as one of the top martial artists within the sect and from a young age had been given the job of protecting the daughter of the sect leader. Ever since, the two were always together. Jong Gook was two years older than her and their relationship seemed closer to one as siblings than a retainer and their bodyguard.

Seeing his lady’s sweet smile and hearing her voice which was most pleasing to the ears, his face finally showed relief and he let a sigh out. Ever since the lady had disappeared a couple of weeks ago, he had been worried sick and was scared she might have gotten seriously injured. Those worries slowly built up and became large stress factors that made it so he couldn’t relax at all during the period she went missing.

Still, seeing his lady like this, everything finally went back to how they were, so he was very glad. After taking a moment to get his emotions under control, he once again spoke.

“Since you came back, it is all fine now, my lady. If you hadn’t come back, I don’t know how I would have been able to face the previous sect leader in the afterlife. My lady, you are now the clan leader of the Divine Sword Sect, the pillar of our sect. You must, at all cost, keep yourself healthy. Anyways, were you able to complete your mission?”

“Haa… unfortunately I wasn’t.”

When Jong Gook saw Ha Neul’s depressed expression, he didn’t ask about the circumstance anymore. Instead, he decided to change the topic.

“My lady, sub sect leader Huh Gak seems to be trying to gather more of the elders over to his side. We need to take action and immediately get rid of that greedy bastard!”

“Haa….. Huh Gak, huh?”

Huh Gak was her father’s, the previous sect leader’s, brother. While her father was still alive, he put all his effort into helping make the sect stronger and gave his allegiance to him. Still, as soon as her father fell sick and died so suddenly, he had begun to slowly show his greed for the spot of sect leader and started to rope in numerous elders to his side. The sub sect leader and elders, who were so loyal to her father, started to show her their back.

It’s not like she couldn’t understand why, though. Even though she could be considered talented as a martial artists, she wasn’t a rare talent and she just turned twenty one a couple months ago. It was natural for the elders to wonder whether she had the capability of leading their sect.

Still, she had been trying her very best to adequately lead the sect. She spent numerous sleepless nights going through all the administrative paperwork and dealing with any issues that arose to show that she was indeed a capable leader.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The reason she had gone out in secret this time was also so she could become stronger. One of her father’s closest friends sent her a letter saying that her father had left him a martial technique to pass onto her. Unfortunately, however, this word got leaked out and she was chased after the whole time after she received it and eventually wasn’t able to obtain it in the end.

“We don’t have the strength to challenge Huh Gak yet, Jong Gook. If we were to go head on with him right now it would only lead to our demise. Oh yeah, were you able to locate the Close Quarter King?”

Before she left to retrieve the martial technique, Ha Neul gave Jong Gook the task of trying to locate where Ryu Won was and try to rope him into helping them. Ryu Won was well known for not being affiliated with any of the three great alliances and for being an expert. If they were able to convince him to help them, their side would gain a huge strength that would help them go against Huh Gak.

“We did find out about his whereabouts, but unfortunately wasn’t able to make it in time. By the time we arrived where he was, the Close Quarter King looked as though he fought against the Devil Twins and perished along with the both of them. I’m sorry, my lady.”

When Ha Neul heard of the passing of Ryu Won, she let loose a long depressed sigh. It really felt like nothing was going her way as if the heavens didn’t wish for her to succeed. Still, she remained determined to succeed and protect the position that her father gave to her.

She once again started to frantically think of ways to increase her strength significantly in the shortest amount of time. As she went over numerous ideas, she finally came to a conclusion. Truthfully, she had thought of the idea a while ago, but she was reluctant to use it. Still, the situation deteriorated a lot and she didn’t have many options remaining. After steeling herself, she gave Jong Gook a command.

“Jong Gook, release a statement for me. Announce that a month from now we will be holding a martial arts tournament. Also notify everyone that the reward for winning the tournament….. will be a bethroment with me.”

“NO, MY LADY! THERE’S ABSOLUTELY NO WAY YOU CAN DO THIS!”

As soon as Jong Gook heard what Ha Neul wanted to announce, he angrily refuted it.

“My lady, I understand you are desperate to gain a strong martial artists as your ally and become stronger, but I really don’t think this is the right way. You really can’t tell who will become your husband. If the person who wins the competition is old and/or has evil intentions…”

“Haha Jong Gook, of course I have thought about those kind of situations. It’s just that I have enough confidence to be able to control whoever wins to do what I want. Even though this is one of the final desperate plans, I have confidence in making it work. Also, we don’t have much more time, Huh Gak will most likely act within the year. We need to consolidate our strength as much as possible within that time span. It doesn’t matter whether my future is young or old, as long as they are strong and we are able to use that strength.”

With every word from Ha Neul, Jong Gook’s expression became more depressed. He knew that her words were correct. Still, he really couldn’t bring himself to agree. Like he said earlier, there was no way to know who or what kind of person would win. Actually, it was highly likely an older person would win as they had a longer time to train and become strong. It was too much of a shame to marry such a beautiful girl to an old man, after all.

Still, he didn’t say any of his thoughts and only lightly nodded his head before slowly leaving the room and beginning to spread the word.

*****

“My lord, between the the Martial Alliance and the Asura School, which do you think would be the best choice to attack first?”

It had been a week since Shin Yong and his entourage returned to the Gray Shadow Sect. At that moment, inside the main chamber, Shin Yong was having a meeting with his closest aides. In front of him stood Jong Shin, Tae Yang, and Sung Woo. The four of them were finally discussing the first phase of the plan to unite all three alliances.

“Hm… it should be the Asura School, right? The sects always have internal rifts over who will become the alliance head so it should be the easiest to infiltrate them.”

When Jong Shin heard what Shin Yong said, he nodded his head. If it really was like, it would indeed be the best choice to try to take over the Asura School first.

“Your thinking isn’t wrong, my lord. The Asura School is indeed in a mess because of the internal conflicts, which make them easier to infiltrate. It is, however, easier to infiltrate the Martial Alliance. Even though the Asura School’s sects are always in a power struggle, they will unite as one whenever the occasion for them to arises. Also, since they use Demon ki, it will be difficult to imitate it for a large amount of people to infiltrate them. The Asura School does have the strongest average power among the three sects as Demon ki is indeed stronger than regular ki. If it wasn’t for the down side where it makes the user battle crazy, everyone would cultivate it.”

When Shin Yong heard Jong Shin’s reason, he nodded his head in agreement. What he said was correct.

“The Martial Alliance, however, is a different story. Even though they paraded around the banners of honor and justice, the leaders of the current Martial Alliance are quite corrupted and not as unified as it’s thought to be. The problem is how we initially infiltrate them, though….”

As Jong Shin was speaking, a loud knock sounded from the door. When Shin Yong gave them permission to come in, a soldier entered. After he bowed to Shin Yong, he rushed to Jong Shin and whispered a few words in his ears. When Jong Shin what the soldier had to say, a smile appeared on his face before he dismissed him.

After the soldier left, Jong Shin looked toward Shin Yong with a large smile on his face and a sly glint in his eyes.

“My lord, I believe we have just found our way to infiltrate the Martial Alliance.”