The Dark Heaven Lord

The first rooster crowed.

The Luoyang streets past midwinter welcomed the gradually earlier dawn.

People who had to be diligent to make a living began appearing more on the streets.

"Have you heard?"

Mr. Zhang of the ornament shop casually threw out the topic.

"...Could it be about last night's rumors about the Black Bone Faction?"

Mr. Tuo of the woodware shop, who usually dismissed Mr. Zhang's stories as mere rumors, unexpectedly picked up his words.

But given the subject of the rumors, their words could only be exchanged in low voices.

"They say five dens were destroyed in one night."

"Five? I heard it was seven."

"Oh? Where did you hear that?"

Mr. Tuo gestured for Mr. Zhang to come closer.

When Mr. Zhang approached with a face full of curiosity, Mr. Tuo quietly opened his mouth.

"My older brother-in-law works at the government office, right? He says all of Luoyang was in emergency all night. According to the office's investigation..."

"Seven places in one night?"

Mr. Tuo nodded.

"No, I heard it was ten places!"

Mr. Tuo fell back startled at the suddenly interjecting voice.

When the flustered Mr. Tuo looked around, somehow merchants had gathered forming a long line.

"No, Yang said it was fifteen places..."

"What are you saying? I heard it was thirty places!"

As much as the people feared the Black Bone Faction's existence, stories about them spread quickly.

Eventually the rumors spread one after another, and anywhere people gathered at all was busy with talk about the Black Bone Faction.

"They say not a single corpse was left in the dens."

"What corpses, they say not even a drop of blood remained!"

"I heard the number of people who vanished without a trace is uncountable!"

These stories always ended with the same question.

"Who could have done it?"

***

"So you're saying there's no information at all?"

Golden Lady's clothes and ornaments were incomparably luxurious.

But however you looked at it, they seemed at least one level below the luxury of the interior where she was now.

"When did I tell you there was no information? That the great Luoyang Sword Clan has no information?"

At the middle-aged man's low question from the upper seat, Golden Lady felt a chill on her nape.

"I apologize."

The middle-aged man clicked his tongue at Golden Lady who deeply bowed her head.

"You seem not to know your place. You bother me from this busy morning over just that level of matter?"

Golden Lady internally flared at the words 'just that level,' but bowed her head even deeper.

"I'm sorry, Sir."

Indeed, considering the position of the person before her, matters related to the Black Bone Faction could only be trivial.

"I think you might be misunderstanding something."

The middle-aged man raised a finger and tapped the precious ebony table.

"You don't think I gave you the Bronze Badge because of your father's influence, do you?"

Though Golden Lady's adoptive father Golden Thread was a figure who commanded terrifying prestige in Luoyang's underworld, he couldn't dare be compared to the name of the Luoyang Sword Clan.

"Ho-how could that be? This girl never had such thoughts."

She prostrated herself flat.

The middle-aged man looked at the hourglass placed on the ebony table.

"Already almost an hour wasted because of you."

He received a bundle of documents respectfully handed over by a clerk maid and spoke.

Besides that maid, other maids stood in line waiting with armfuls of documents.

"Get out of my sight immediately."

As Golden Lady bowed and withdrew, the middle-aged man's voice followed.

"If you disappoint me one more time, I will pass the Bronze Badge to someone else."

With a reddened face, Golden Lady quickly walked out of the massive pavilion.

'Damn, I couldn't even bring up hiring a Sword Clan master.'

Given the atmosphere, if she had brought up such talk, she would have been dealt with on the spot.

Stepping onto the main road, she could see a group of warriors.

She saw a group of Luoyang Sword Clan warriors wearing clearly extraordinary swords marching somewhere in orderly formation.

They clearly felt different in level from the dark path martial artists she commanded.

'...Damn it.'

She turned her body while thinking about what options remained for her.

"Oops, sorry."

A man who almost collided with her apologized briefly.

"No, I also made a mistake..."

Though she tried to say something, the man was already hurrying away with quick steps.

His attitude showed she wasn't worth his attention at all.

'This damn Sword Clan!'

The man hurried toward his superior's quarters, unconcerned whether Golden Lady glared at him from behind or not.

The clearly small quarters on the outskirts was shabby enough to show the level of discrimination their department received.

He threw open his superior's door in one breath.

"Wake up! The sun is high!"

Books about astronomy and dust-covered astronomical observation instruments suggested their position.

They were the Sword Clan's representative sinecure position, the astronomers.

In an age where materialism prevailed, with fewer people believing in superstition by the day, their value was dim.

Moreover, after the meteorologists who analyzed and predicted weather split off, their astronomy department had even less to do.

"Snore."

The superior showed no sign of waking.

The man held his nose against the alcohol-filled air in the room and kicked his unconscious superior.

"Huh, what?! What's going on?!"

The superior who had been sleeping holding an empty wine bottle rolled right off his bed.

"Big news!"

The man filled a bowl with cold water and handed it to his superior.

"...What is it at this dawn?"

Of course, it was late morning now, not dawn.

"Ah, I drank too much, I'm dying."

The superior made no effort to get up from the floor, roughly set aside the cold water handed to him, and yawned while picking eye discharge.

Regardless, the man pulled up a chair and sat.

"Last night, I was on duty."

The superior looked at him pitifully.

"You're still doing duty alone every day? Really, who's going to appreciate that."

The man ignored him and continued.

"An ill omen."

The superior frowned.

"Ill omens are common."

"A great ill omen."

Only then did the superior gather his wits somewhat.

"A great ill omen? What was it?"

The man hesitated briefly before speaking.

"I think I observed the Star of Heavenly Death last night."

At the words Star of Heavenly Death, the superior downed the cold water he had set aside.

Then he poured the remaining water on his face.

"...Really? The Star of Heavenly Death?"

The man continued in a subdued tone.

"As you know, the Star of Heavenly Death is extremely difficult to observe, right? Its position isn't fixed, and its form, its color..."

"Are varied. Plus the observable time is short."

The superior who picked up the conversation rubbed his face and asked again.

"Are you certain? That legendary Star of Heavenly Death? We've only studied it in books."

"...If you ask if I'm certain, it's hard to say definitively but."

When his thoroughly meticulous subordinate expressed it to that degree, it was as good as saying it was accurate.

"Crazy..."

Throughout history, whenever it appeared, the Star of Heavenly Death was accompanied by tremendous bloodshed.

"Shouldn't we report this up?"

The superior sighed.

"Report this? Who would believe us these days? And about the Star of Heavenly Death at that?"

"That's..."

The man frowned at those words.

But even he had no particular rebuttal.

"Then, we should at least report to our department's supervising officer..."

"Report to our supervising officer? We should do it, but it doesn't seem very meaningful?"

"Though it seems that way..."

Their organization, the Astronomy Pavilion's supervisor was the most powerless power holder in the Sword Clan.

The Swordless One, Yuan Zhaoxian.

***

In a corner of even the corners of Luoyang, in an alley of even the alleys of the slums.

That alley was full of teeming poor.

It was surely a place normal people would not visit.

But not just ordinary people, even famous merchants and high officials would visit there, and the reason was just one thing.

The greatest prophet in Luoyang lived there.

A 'dugout' refers to digging into the ground, laying straw mats and such on top, covering it with dirt, and making barely enough space for a person to sit in.

One old blind person sitting in a dugout between buildings.

So many people visited this dangerous and filthy alley just to see that one person.

Even if they don't usually believe, don't people cling to anything when life becomes uncertain?

"Ohhh..."

The old man who didn't even reveal his name and was just called the dugout master was trembling his skeletal body.

"The sun, I cannot see the sun..."

He was clearly blind.

For whatever reason, he had lost both eyes and hadn't been able to see the sun for many days.

However, his words carried a weight that no one could ignore.

"The sky..."

He raised his withered arms that had no flesh.

Those two arms trembled like aspen leaves.

He was searching for the sun in the sky.

But the brilliant sun could no longer be found there.

"The sky is pitch black. The sun is covered. I can no longer see the sun."

The sky reflected in his spirit eyes was like pitch black.

That sky without a single point of light was covered in layers by clouds too thick.

Neither moon nor stars could be found.

Though over sixty years had passed since he plucked out his living eyes and gained spirit eyes, he had never seen such a sight in his life.

"Th-this?!"

The old man's body who had been endlessly looking up at the sky shook greatly as if struck by lightning.

He barely connected words one by one to form sentences.

"Dark Heaven...! The master of Dark Heaven has appeared!"

He who had never once risen from his spot since settling in the slums stood up.

Though all his muscles should have withered making it impossible to stand after not walking for such a long time, he stood.

His skeletal legs trembled uncontrollably, but he paid no attention.

"Demon Scripture! Has the Demon Scripture awakened?! Has that thousand-year-old demon that burns darkness and makes the heavens tremble appeared?!"

The skeletal body wearing just a piece of rags left the dugout.

He cried out trembling with ecstasy.

"The master of Dark Heaven has appeared! He who will punish the wicked from the deepest darkness has come! Rejoice you who have not, you who eat not! The Dark Heaven Lord who will strike black lightning in place of the heartless heaven and earth has come!!"

The old man's skeletal body began dancing wildly, burning the final flame of life.

The poor who watched that sight murmured from a distance.

The prophet's final prophecy was clearly etched in their minds.

And this rumor was added to Luoyang:

"If you meet a ghost wearing a white mask, bow your head in respect. If he questions your sins, answer without hiding. For he is the agent of heaven's punishment, the Dark Heaven Lord! Those great sinners who knew not to fear heaven shall none dare flee before him!"