Return of the Shattered Constellation

<Do you know how devastating it is to be betrayed by someone who was like a real brother to you? I do, because I once considered Munseong to be that.>

When Chang-Sun read the very first paragraph, his eyes widened as he saw a familiar name—Munseong.

‘It’s talking about Sword Sky Tiger!’ Chang-Sun thought in surprise.

The ‘Nine Swordsmen’ were known as the greatest swordsmen in the world. One of their number, Munseong, was also Heoju’s apostle and the Clan leader who had founded the White Tiger Clan with Executive Director Oh. However, the author referred to Munseong as if he had been a close brother. If word got out, the book would no doubt shake the White Tiger Clan members up, as Sword Sky Tiger was not just their leader. He was an idol they looked up to and tried to take after.

<My name is Hanyu. I am—no, ‘was’ Munseong’s senior brother.>

‘Did Sword Sky Tiger have a family?’ Chang-Sun thought, tilting his head in confusion.

It was a well-known fact that Sword Sky Tiger had gained fame and prestige after working as a mercenary, which was a rare case even among Players. After weathering many battles, he had created his own martial arts style and caught Heoju’s attention, to the point that the deity had made Sword Sky Tiger his apostle. However, that well-known fact seemed to be wrong, according to the book.

The encrypted story went on for some time. As the heir of a secret clan[1], Hanyu had been training his swordsmanship for a long time. However, one day, his teacher had brought a boy over, making him Hanyu’s junior brother. As his teacher was in bad health due to old age, Hanyu had raised his junior brother like a real brother, and even sometimes trained Munseong in swordsmanship on his teacher’s behalf.

<We should have known what the silent junior brother and our Guardian ‘Calamity Tiger’ had in store for our clan.>

According to Hanyu, his clan had chosen to seclude itself for an unknown reason. However, just as his divine name ‘Calamity Tiger’ implied, Heoju was a monster deity who liked war, chaos, and fear. Thus, there was no way he would have liked the clan’s decision to seek peace.

Of course, he could have chosen another apostle; however, Hanyu’s clan upheld Heoju’s doctrines better than any other, making them the best choice to inherit his remaining power. Heoju had had no choice but to grit his teeth, unable to choose another apostle.

‘The previous apostle must have intentionally sealed Heoju’s power. Yeah, I once heard that Heoju had temporarily become weakened and couldn’t affect the Saha World,’ Chang-Sun thought, managing to recall information about Heoju with great difficulty.

In his time as a fiend, Chang-Sun had heard the news about Heoju; however, he had quickly forgotten it. He had been curious as to why the war maniac had never showed up anywhere for about a hundred years, but it seemed Sword Sky Tiger’s previous clan was responsible for Heoju’s disappearance.

‘The more Heoju’s Faith increases, the more chaos and disasters take place in the world. Heoju’s previous apostle must have thought he couldn’t stay after seeing too much blood,’ Chang-Sun thought.

Of course, that was just Chang-Sun’s conjecture; however, he believed his hypothesis was close to the truth.

‘Was that why Heoju chose Munseong… no, Sword Sky Tiger, not Hanyu?’ Chang-Sun thought as he continued to read.

<It seems Munseong has been preparing his attack for a long time, as I can no longer lift my sword. He has been slowly poisoning me little by little for a long time, so slowly that I failed to notice it. Even my Guardian is no longer protecting me…>

Although Sword Sky Tiger had betrayed his previous clan, he had not killed Hanyu, seemingly holding lingering attachments to the one who had raised him. Instead, Sword Sky Tiger had severed the tendons in Hanyu’s arms so he could no longer swing a sword. Sword Sky Tiger had subsequently crippled Hanyu’s magic organ and locked him in the clan’s underground cave.

Afterward, Hanyu had been forced to watch helplessly as his junior brother earned the title of Sword Sky Tiger and attracted countless followers. On top of Hanyu and the clan’s old home, Sword Sky Tiger had built a large new headquarters for a new Clan he created.

<My junior brother even defied our teacher’s final instruction to never emerge into the world, then continued to cause chaos for ten years; meanwhile, I could only watch helplessly. One day, however, I heard a voice.>

‘A voice?’ Chang-Sun thought as the word caught his attention. He realized the next part had to be the important one, and thus tried to find it. However, the will stopped there.

‘What?’ he thought, raising a brow. He had gone through the book again, but the will stopped there, which could only mean one thing.

‘The next part of the will is hidden somewhere else,’ Chang-Sun realized.

Ding!

When he came to that conclusion, a quest window popped up.

[A Hidden Piece has been found!]

[The Nameless One’s will has become a ‘seed’ and been absorbed into you.]

[As a predetermined reward, the skill that was undergoing Skill Combination has made significant progress.]

[Skill Combination Progress: 51%]

[The Hidden Piece’s fragments are still hidden everywhere, so find all the fragments and combine them.]

“…!” Chang-Sun’s eyes widened.

He had thought he would be unable to make progress in creating the Heoju Nullification skill, but he had suddenly gained 12 percent of progress, even though all he had done was to find and interpret a Hidden Piece.

‘The Nameless One is definitely not an ordinary being.’

No mortal could do such a thing. That meant a deity, the ‘he’ Hanyu had mentioned, must have interfered due to his hatred of Heoju.

‘I have to find the next books,’ Chang-Sun thought, his eyes shining.

Where would it be? Judging from how Hanyu had encrypted his will, he had wanted someone to discover it; however, as he had needed to make sure Sword Sky Tiger’s followers would not find it, he would have had to adjust the difficulty level of the encryption accordingly.

‘In order to let someone find the next fragments more easily after they finished decrypting the first piece… He must have hidden every fragment in the Tier 7 Library,’ Chang-Sun thought.

With that conclusion in mind, Chang-Sun combed the entire library. As he had less than two hours, he had to find all the fragments of Hanyu’s will within an hour. However, he was worried about the possibility of Heoju noticing the will.

[The Celestial ‘Calamity Tiger’ is certain that you will become his loyal follower.]

‘He hasn’t noticed yet,’ Chang-Sun thought with a faint smile.

Fortunately, Heoju had only been watching Chang-Sun, not the book he was reading. Regardless, he would be never interested in a Tier 7 book, and one classified as miscellaneous, no less.

[The Celestial ‘World-Encircling Serpent’ watches you with an enigmatic gaze.]

Jörmungandr, also known as the ‘Wise Serpent’, seemed to have noticed something; however, he seemed unaware of the precise details.

‘I got it,’ Chang-Sun suddenly thought.

The next part of the will was not far from the first part. It was in an antique book that had lost many pages, but the book’s condition only made the decryption much easier.

<He said he was the same as me, because he and I hated the same enemies. Just as I was locked up in here after being betrayed by my junior brother, his child ate him, turning him into a wandering evil spirit.>

‘Eaten by his child?’ Chang-Sun thought, quickly searching memories.

Based on the context, ‘his child’ likely meant Heoju, but Chang-Sun had never heard of Heoju having parents or even a teacher. Similar to Sword Sky Tiger’s biography, the well-known legend of Heoju was that an ordinary monster had become a monster deity after finding enlightenment.

That was the moment Chang-Sun became certain of what was going on. His eyes shone with interest as he thought, ‘It’s a Hidden History.’

A <Hidden History> referred to a source of hidden truths that was not recorded in the myths. In most cases, they were created as a result of Celestials intentionally hiding the truth, and thus naturally served as those Celestials’ weaknesses.

Chang-Sun had found Heoju’s <Hidden History>, which was tantamount to finding his hidden weakness.

<According to him, ‘Calamity Tiger’, whom my teacher and I respected for many years, was a monster—and not only that, an evil monster who had eaten his entire family to become a deity. He said he would only be able to rest after seeing such a monster’s head severed…

…That was why he taught me the method to kill ‘Calamity Tiger’. Through his lessons, I regained my power and was able to rise again.>

The next part of the will was mainly about Hanyu beginning to secretly train himself again in the dungeon. Luckily, no one cared about a person who had spent ten years doing nothing, which meant Hanyu had been able to focus on recovering just as ‘he’ had taught him.

One day, when Sword Sky Tiger returned after wandering around the world, Hanyu decided to execute his plan.

<Just as my junior brother harmed me in the past, I have now risen from the grave to kill my junior brother. To draw out ‘Calamity Tiger’, I have once again drawn my sword…

…However, the first thought that entered my mind after I arrived here was that it will not be easy to kill him, as my junior brother has become much stronger than I expected. Although it will not be necessary if things work out, I think I should leave a ‘seed’ for my successor.>

It seemed Hanyu had left an encrypted will right before attempting to assassinate Sword Sky Tiger.

<I hope ‘his’ and my resentment can be passed onto a new successor.>

The will, which had been divided into six books and spread across numerous bookcases, ended there, and…

Ding!

[You have successfully found all the remaining fragments of the Hidden Piece!]

[The Nameless One’s strong will has planted a ‘seed’ in your heart.]

[Unlocked Achievement!]

“Successor of the Fierce Tiger's Sorrow.”

Reward: Intelligence +5, Willpower +10, Skill ‘Black Mountain King’s Claws’.

[Black Mountain King’s First Claw]

In order to hunt his and his family’s mortal enemy, this legacy was left by a certain tiger deity, who disappeared because he had no followers to devote Faith to or people to remember his name.

There are a total of five claws. If the skill owner can draw out all the claws properly, they can not only tear apart their enemy, but also the entire world.

“There can be nothing scarier in this world than a beast with all its claws bared.”

· Skill Level: 1

· Type: Active, Counter, Authority. (*Temporarily unusable as an Authority.)

· Effect: Massive Bleeding. Unrelenting Offensive. Stacking Damage. Skill Synchronicity.

Chang-Sun clenched his fists when he saw the Skill Window for the new skill. He thought in satisfaction, ‘It even has four effects… On top of that, I can automatically use the skill as an Authority if I level up, right?’

The four Effects were very good. [Massive Bleeding] was a higher-rank effect than [Persistent Bleeding], an effect that made the enemy bleed continuously, because using [Massive Bleeding] could instantly leave the enemy on the verge of death. [Unrelenting Offensive] enabled Chang-Sun to use another skill immediately afterward without having to wait for the cooldown time to finish. [Stacking Damage] multiplied the damage of any skills used after it over time. All of them were valuable, but one effect caught Chang-Sun’s attention the most: [Skill Synchronicity].

‘I can conceal this skill inside another skill, or increase the attack’s damage by combining it with other skills,’ Chang-Sun thought.

As a member of the White Tiger Clan, he would have to use Heoju’s skills a lot. [Skill Synchronicity] meant he would be able to secretly combine the Heoju Nullification skill with Heoju’s own skills.

[Black Mountain King’s First Claw] was actually a counter skill to the White Tiger Clan members’ various skills, making it a ‘natural enemy’-type skill against the White Tiger Clan.

Although it had initially seemed difficult to develop such a skill, as Heoju had eyes everywhere in the White Tiger Clan… that limitation had disappeared.

‘No, [Black Mountain King’s First Claw] and the White Tiger Clan members’ skills might actually be a good match, seeing as they’ve got to be rooted in the same source.’

On top of that, he could automatically use the active skill as an Authority after he acquired the Fourth Claw! Ordinarily, someone would have to be an apostle to obtain such a skill.

‘So this is the skill of an ancient deity no one remembers now… No skill could contain stronger resentment than this.’

Of course, [Black Mountain King’s First Claw] was not perfect; there were many factors limiting its usage in real combat. It would drain too much of Chang-Sun’s mana for him to use it even once, and as he had not mastered it, he would only be able to draw out one claw.

‘I need a way to solve this.’

In any event, Chang-Sun still had to keep increasing his mana as a Rune Master anyway.

‘I definitely need as many elixirs as possible.’

The higher his mana capacity was, the better it would be. Although there was a chance that the efficiency of his magic could decrease if he ate random things, he did not need to worry about that.

As the [Fire of the Eight Trigrams Brazier] purified impurities, it would only grow stronger.

‘That’s why I need to go to the training institute,’ Chang-Sun thought as he closed the final book he had been reading.

Smack!

[Skill Combination Progress: 55%]

Looking at the skill he was creating, Chang-Sun smiled coldly, as it could also become a counter skill like [Black Mountain King’s First Claw]. He was very curious as to how the two skills would complement each other, and how Heoju and Sword Sky Tiger would react when they saw the skills.

‘It’s disappointing… but I’ll have to take a rain check on getting [Avatar’s Descent],’ Chang-Sun thought as he left the library.

1. This clan is in lowercase because the author used the Korean term that refers to a literal clan, not a Player Clan. ☜