* * *

Apart from government facilities, Hotel Leviathan was one of the most heavily secured places in the world, alongside the headquarters of the ten great guilds and the temples of the various religions. That was why dignitaries, celebrities, and criminals from around the world favored Leviathan. Things might be different at another hotel, but at Leviathan, no one could ever steal from or attack a guest.

FLAP!

Which made the black-clad figure slipping into Leviathan through a window at that very moment a shocking sight—especially since the figure was entering not an ordinary room, but the penthouse on the top floor, where security ought to be tightest.

"Did it go well?"

The penthouse’s sole guest and owner, a black-haired girl, showed no surprise at all. She merely smiled.

"It did."

The figure nodded calmly, flung off the cumbersome black cloth, and sprawled on the sofa.

"Did you take care of the bomb?"

"You think I couldn’t?"

"No," Li Qingyu answered at once. After unwrapping the bandage around the white-haired young man’s hand and seeing him return to his usual appearance, she added, "There’s no way you, Sword Lord, would fail to deal with a single prisoner escorted by just one combat unit."

"Right. That’s why I handled the bomb myself."

They did not want to take custody of Ryu Gang-cheol, but they could not refuse him either. So Limon and Li Qingyu had chosen to dispose of him while the Wang family of Shanghai was transporting him to Leviathan—like detonating a useless bomb in an open field rather than dismantling it piece by piece.

"Did anyone notice?"

"Those blind bastards thought I was a player using a psychokinesis skill and came charging at me."

"You can’t blame them." Qingyu chuckled. She picked up the bandage and black cloth Limon had discarded—or, more precisely, the thread concealed among them, so fine it was nearly invisible. "Few experts could recognize at a glance sword thread made from the silk of an Invisible Spider, a level-ninety-something monster."

"Is that why you had this made?"

"Yes. Experts in the Heavenly Net Shaping Style use it often."

"What are you talking about? Celestial Silkworm thread, maybe, but sword thread wouldn’t suit that style."

"It’s stronger and harder to detect than any other thread. That makes it easy to handle even if you’re a little short on psionics."

"Well, look at that."

For a moment, Limon looked as dumbfounded as if he’d heard someone had put horseshoes on a dog. Then he clicked his tongue. "Kids these days have it easy. The Hidden Sword spent over a hundred years struggling to find a weapon that suited his swordsmanship."

"By the Hidden Sword, you mean Lord Rashid?"

"Yes. Rashid ad-Din Sinan. He was the one who brought together the secrets of magic and alchemy to create sword thread."

There had been only thirteen Sword Masters in history. Remembering the one who had never originally been a swordsman, yet had been more dangerous than any swordsman, Limon continued quietly. "He was the first and last Old Man of the Mountain—and the only bastard to become a Sword Master as an assassin."

"He truly was remarkable."

"Remarkable, my ass. He was a fraud who killed Saladin and stole his renown."

"Who was Saladin?"

"An unlucky wretch who might’ve become an unparalleled hero, but met the wrong Sword Master and died before his time."

Qingyu tilted her head, then decided not to press him about someone she had never heard of. Instead, she focused on the Sword Master. "Still, his swordsmanship was unique, wasn’t it?"

"... That much I’ll grant him."

Though Limon had called Rashid an assassin and a fraud, he nodded when it came to his swordsmanship.

After all, Limon had imitated that swordsmanship in the attack precisely because he was certain no one would recognize it as swordsmanship. The Hidden Sword had taken a throwing-knife art that used attached threads and devised a sword art that wielded the threads themselves like blades. His "Invisible Blade" was that bizarre a technique. Though, for sheer strangeness, the Sword Saint’s "Sword That Is Never Drawn" surpassed it.

"Few could see through that swordsmanship even while the Hidden Sword was alive. No one in this age will recognize it, will they?"

"No."

"Then the Wang family head won’t be able to accuse us of this, either."

"I doubt it."

"So everything worked out in the end."

"You could say that."

Qingyu was satisfied. If the attacker had fought with a sword, things might have been different. But no one would realize that the figure who had changed his appearance with the power of a constellation and attacked the convoy was Limon. The attack would be taken for the Liberation Brigade silencing Ryu, leaving no grounds for a political attack on her or Limon.

"... Sword Lord? Are you unhappy about having to play the assassin?"

That was why Qingyu was puzzled.

"No, it isn’t that."

"Then why the expression?"

Everything had gone according to plan, yet Limon’s brow remained furrowed. His answer to her question was simple.

"I figured out what they’re after. ... Or rather, I think I’ve got a sense of their ultimate goal."

"What?" Qingyu’s eyes widened. Why the Liberation Brigade’s ghosts had attacked Black Dragon Clan subsidiaries was a mystery even to her.

"Did Ryu Gang-cheol talk?"

"No."

"Then how do you know?"

"I knew when I cut that bastard down."

Before, Limon had encountered them only indirectly, through corpses or through Wei Ling, and so had failed to notice. But the moment he met Ryu Gang-cheol and cut him down with his own hand, he understood instinctively.

"What I cut down was just an empty shell. They were using it to pull off one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems."

It was an intuition born of experience. Limon had personally cut down thousands upon thousands of people, learning the feel of taking a life, and had thwarted countless plots. That was why he could be certain: he had gotten rid of Ryu Gang-cheol, but he had not killed him.

It sounded insane. Qingyu, however, did not dismiss it. She merely asked in earnest:

"Which of the Thirty-Six Stratagems do you mean?"

"Does it matter?"

"... What matters is that they were using one at all."

"And they’re still using it."

Qingyu understood. Borrow a Corpse to Resurrect the Soul, Shed the Golden Cicada’s Shell—the Thirty-Six Stratagems only looked complicated because they divided the conditions of war into six categories and set out six suitable strategies for each. Their essence was one thing: deceiving the enemy. The most elaborate scheme became a blunder if the enemy saw through it, while the simplest tactic became a masterstroke if the deception worked.

"If what you say is true, Sword Lord... Yes, I can see what they’re after."

Simply realizing that Ryu Gang-cheol’s very existence had been a deception allowed Qingyu to infer a great deal: what sort of scheme the perpetrators had used, why they had used it, and even their ultimate goal. After all, she was the princess who had inherited the founders’ blood most strongly among the Black Dragon Clan, a people for whom plots and schemes were practically second nature.

"Of course, it’s only a hunch. I’ve no firm evidence, so you don’t have to believe me."

There was one problem: Limon’s word was the only evidence. For a clan skilled at seeing through schemes, that made it all the harder to trust. People adept at deceiving others tended to assume others would deceive them in turn.

"No. I believe you."

"... You mean that?"

"Of course." Qingyu spoke without hesitation, then smiled. "I’m your fiancée, Sword Lord. If I can’t trust the man I’ll spend my life with, who can I trust?"

"You could trust no one."

"Perhaps. I used to be that way myself... but I eventually learned how terribly foolish it was."

Qingyu said it without embellishment. She might doubt her own judgment, but she trusted Limon’s instincts absolutely. It was because she trusted them that she had given up a perfect chance to interrogate Ryu Gang-cheol, a senior Liberation Brigade officer, and decided to dispose of him instead. This time was no different, she said with perfect composure. Limon regarded her uncertainly before finally letting out a soft laugh.

"You’ve already learned something it took me more than two hundred years to realize. I’ve got myself one clever bride."

"You flatter me."

Despite her modest words, Qingyu smiled brightly, evidently pleased by the compliment. As she gathered up the cloth and bandage threaded with sword thread, Limon asked casually, "So how do you plan to respond?"

"Do we need to respond at all?"

"Hmm?"

Limon looked puzzled. Meeting his gaze with eyes dark and subdued as obsidian, Qingyu smiled quietly. "Whoever planned this seems to want to toy with us through intrigue. We might as well let them do as they please."

* * *

"Hmm..."

After a moment’s thought, the braided-haired man removed a ring—a telepathic communication item—from his finger. Rolling it in his palm, he spoke quietly. "The damned plan has failed."

Until Ryu Gang-cheol was transported toward Leviathan, everything had seemed to be going according to plan. Then Ryu had abruptly met a violent death. Frankly, the man had not expected it.

"This mission keeps going wrong in the strangest ways."

As a senior Liberation Brigade officer, he had traveled far and wide carrying out countless missions: ones involving the ten great guilds, ones to destroy government facilities, even ones to start wars. None had been easy, and some had seemed far more impossible than this one. But never before had a mission gone awry like this.

"It can’t be because our opponent is the Seven Dragons Society... can it?"

He dismissed the possibility as soon as it occurred to him. The Society might have plenty of experts and wealth, but that was all. A force still clinging to obsolete relics like the seven dragons and psionics could not possibly be the thing holding him back. That only made the situation harder to accept.

"I suppose it was a mistake to entrust such an important task to a fool of a Comrade with mush for brains."

In the end, he laid all the blame on Ryu Gang-cheol. Ryu would have been furious at the injustice if he could have heard, but the man did not care. After all, in armies everywhere, success was the commander’s doing and failure the soldiers’ fault.

"I’d hoped to finish this quietly... but now I have no choice."

If they had not put up such clumsy resistance, it would have ended with only a few thousand deaths. Regretting the Seven Dragons Society’s foolishness in causing needless sacrifices for the sake of its own interests, the braided-haired man continued quietly. "If they’re so eager to see blood, I’ll show them blood."