Camellia 1

One day, a strange snowstorm swept over Yeonhu Mountain.
The Murim¹ Alliance urgently sent a scouting party to uncover the truth,
but unfortunately, every last one of them lost their lives. The once-strong warriors returned to their families dismembered and packed into crates.

“Father, no…!”

As the frozen heads were embraced by weeping loved ones, waves of grief spread, yet the dead themselves wore faces as if dreaming sweetly. The character “천” (Heaven) was carved into each of their foreheads, igniting public outrage.

This marked the beginning of the new demonic sect, known as the Marip Tragedy ²

***

Let’s turn back thirty years.
At the time, Cheonma, renowned as an absolute powerhouse, dreamed of conquering the world, leading an army of blood fiends. These blood fiends, who lived by feeding on human blood, had once existed in secret, their small numbers and the pressure of the martial world keeping them in check.
But once they allied with the Cheonma Divine Sect, they unleashed indiscriminate massacres upon martial artists, as if they had long dreamed of this moment.

However, the Nine Great Sects and the Five Noble Clans would not sit idle.
Even hermits and recluses emerged to form a death squad, and inspired by their resolve, even the beggars of the Gaebang³ Sect took up their staves in droves.
The victory of the righteous forces in the Great War was a joint effort by the entire martial world. But the time for celebration was brief.

“Uncle… Surely you’re not thinking of taking them in?”

Faced with two young blood fiend children, the head of the Murong clan stood in deep thought. After a long silence, the elderly man with a neatly trimmed grey beard replied,

“Ohn, you’ve truly mastered reading my thoughts. Should I be proud or concerned…”

The young man, called Ohn, shot back at the kindly chuckling elder.

“They might look like normal infants now, but they’re still blood fiends!
Man-eating monsters who live off human flesh!”

Clearly, the wise head of the clan had lost his mind from the torturous battle.
How else could he make such a foolish decision?

Blood fiends extended their lifespans and strengthened their demonic arts by drinking blood. Unless pierced through the neck with weapons made from spirit stone, they could regenerate even from gaping holes in their bellies. And that spirit stone, said to be imbued with spiritual energy, was so rare that one had to scour the desert endlessly just to find it. The martial world had barely secured enough of it with help from external forces.

Frustrated, Ohn glared at the dagger hanging at the elder’s waist.
All he wanted was for that blade to put an end to the last remaining blood fiends.

The elder looked out over the ruined base of the demonic sect, now a wasteland after the fierce battles.
The once-glorious palace, once adorned with glowing night pearls, had turned to black ash.

Then, the elder spoke gently, as if he understood Ohn’s heart.

“It’s already been fifteen years since Yeohee died, your cousin and my youngest daughter. The saying that time waits for no one turned out to be true. Look around. While we were buried in sorrow, the world had already finished preparing to write a new history.”

Ohn bit his lip. He didn’t dare interrupt, but he felt something ominous and wanted to say more.

In the elder’s arms, the wrapped-up blood fiend children let out faint breaths. Holding the children securely, the elder continued,

“Yeohee wanted to protect the child in her belly. But those demonic bastards knew nothing of human decency, they trampled all over a mother’s instinct to protect her own.”

Yeohee had been murdered in a grotesque way alongside her husband. Her gruelsome death united the martial world in defiance against the sect. Thirty years had passed since the death squad was formed. At last, the Cheonma Divine Sect’s reign was over.

“I don’t want to become like them.
If we are born human, we should act with humanity. I’ll go to the Alliance Leader myself and ask that we raise these children as martial artists, as our way of atoning.”

The elder gazed at the body of a blood fiend woman, her children now quietly resting in his arms.

It had been a long, brutal battle.
The elder had lost all his children in this fight, his words carried weight that made Ohn unable to argue any further.
He clenched his fists and struggled to hold in his emotions.

The elder whispered softly to the children,

“You will grow up learning the ways of justice.”

And so, the two camellias of the North, Seolyeong and Seolhyeon, entered the Murong household.

***

The young blood fiends, with vivid red eyes, were trained under the guidance of a dignified martial artist descended from a royal line. By the age of fifteen, both became first-class warriors.

Seolyeong, in particular, earned the clan head’s praise for his graceful and dazzling swordsmanship.
Whenever he wielded his beloved sword, Seonwoldo, its pale white aura often looked like frost itself. Within the family, he was affectionately called Baekseol (White Snow).

Seolyeong’s dream was to become a wandering swordsman of the martial world, while Seolhyeon dreamed of serving as a personal guard to the heir of the Murong clan.

But the future they had longed for began to fall apart once they reached their early thirties. The rise of a new demonic sect crushed those hopes.

A man who called himself Cheonsin, “Heavenly God,” declared the resurrection of the Cheonma Divine Sect and aimed to seize the world. The martial world was thrown into chaos.

The scattered elders of the old sect reemerged, screaming the phrase:

“Those who follow heaven shall live, those who defy it shall perish!”
(順天者存 逆天者亡)

Though the martial world remained composed at first, things shifted when the new sect assassinated five sect leaders and kidnapped three noble clan heads.

By the time the martial world grasped the severity of the situation, the final ultimatum had already arrived:

If you do not wish to drown in blood, send the camellia of Yonyeong to Yeonhu Mountain, adorned in bridal glory. One camellia shall become my bride and bear an heir.

Yeonhu Mountain, once majestic with its endless ridges, had become a treacherous snow-covered peak due to constant blizzards. There, in its mid-slopes, the sect built Yurigung,⁴ a palace of luxury and dominance.

“A palace of teaching and ruling,” an arrogant name, fitting for a man who deified himself.

Its master, Cheonsin, the Sect Leader, demanded a marriage as part of the peace treaty.

Seolhyeon, suddenly designated as the bride-to-be, flew into a rage.

“Tell them to go to hell! Who’s marrying who? Me, becoming the bride of some sorcerer bastard?”

“Just calm down for a second, please.”

“How am I supposed to calm down?!
I’m barely holding back from slaughtering all of them, damn it!”

Seolyeong struggled to soothe his furious sister, who was roaring from the mountain ridge.

“Would you just hear your brother out for a second?”

“Shut up! Since when did you even act like a brother…! Ugh!”

Her shout startled nearby wildlife into scattering. As birds flapped away in fear, Seolyeong sighed and pressed a pressure point to cool her temper.
Catching her falling body, he quietly released the block and whispered,

“Do you really think your brother would send you to the Snow Mountain? I know well how much you hate the cold.”

Seolhyeon who was panting as she tried to catch her breath, looked up at Seolyeong in confusion. The one who was rumored to be the most beautiful man in Jungwon⁵ smiled softly.

“The Madu⁶ clearly wrote this: Send the camellia of the North to Yeonhu Mountain, and he’ll stop the slaughter.”

Seolyeong had already realized that his sister was in love with one of the Murong clan’s young masters. How could he allow her to marry a stranger she had never even seen?

“Look closely. My eyes look just as much like camellias as yours do.”

So he made up his mind. He would go to the Snow Mountain in her place.
Seolyeong took her hand gently, he reassured her as she hesitated,

“Everyone thinks only you can be the camellia for that snake, but that’s nonsense. I meet the requirements too.”

“Do you even know what you’re saying right now?”

Seolhyeon asked, the corners of her eyes were slightly twitching, a habit when nervous.

Rumor had it this so-called Cheonsin was uglier than even the youngest son of the Peng family in Habuk. Frog-like eyelids, a twisted nose, liver-colored lips, a belly full of flab, and worst of all, he was a man. Just like Seolyeong.

Surely Seolyeong hadn’t forgotten that. But he promised:

“I’ll become the Madu’s bride in your place. What do you think? Your brother is impressive, right? Self-sacrifice to the extreme.”

“You’re supposed to have a child with him! What about that?!”

“Well… I’ll wait with an open mind. That part’s up to him. Getting pregnant is the husband’s job anyway.”

“You absolute lunatic…”

Seolhyeon clutched her head in agony.
Seolyeong, dimples showing, stretched with exaggerated flair.

“Try not to cry too much. I’ll be part of another household soon, so we’re saying goodbye.”

He wore such a smug look that Seolhyeon instinctively punched him. Thunk! And so, a few days before his wedding, Seolyeong had to spend his time resetting his dislocated jaw,
thinking, her martial arts really could rival the Jinju clan’s.

1. 무 (mu) = martial, military, combat 림 (rim) = forest, but in this context, it means “community” or “world” ↩︎
2. (魔立慘變). 마립 (Marip) = 마 (ma, demon) + 립 (rip or ip, from 立 meaning “rise” or “establish”) ↩︎
3. Beggars=Gaebang ↩︎
4. 喩 (유, yu) means “to instruct” or “example,” 莅 (리, ri) means “to arrive” or “to oversee,” and 宮 (宮, gung) means “palace.” ↩︎
5. Central Plains ↩︎
6. 마두(魔頭)” means “demonic head” or “demonic leader. ↩︎