“The Azure Sky is dead! The Red Sky rises!” 

A single cry set all of Nanwian ablaze. The kingdom lay prostrated in dust and blood before the feet of the peasantry. Before winter had ended, it appeared that the vault of Heaven had suddenly dropped on Nanwian: the revolt of a hundred thousand men; the destruction of armies of the crown; the awful conflagration across the whole kingdom; slaughters, murders, unheard of since the reign of Taibuga; all these came so suddenly and with such rapidity after each other that men almost could not believe that so many misfortunes could fall upon a land at one time. Many, in fact, did not believe it: some became helpless from terror; some lost their senses; some followed with the Pure Realm and prophesied the coming of the End Times. All social order was upended; all interactions between people and families were interrupted; every authority ceased. Hell had unleashed from its bowels all manner of devilry and crimes: murder, pillage, deceit, torture, robbery, and madness took the place of labour, righteousness, and virtue. It appeared that from now on, humanity would thrive not on goodness but on malevolence. The hearts and intentions of people seemed to have reversed, venerating what was once evil and deeming evil what was once sacred. Life lost its value; thousands perished without remembrance. And from all of this chaos, there rose only one man. Increasing in loftiness and grandeur with each passing moment, he nearly eclipsed the daylight, casting a colossal shadow that stretched from mountain to sea. That man was Kim Minseok. 

60,000 soldiers from all sources, armed and drunk with fervour, stood at his nod. The mob had risen from all sides; the monasteries joined him where he passed. The country from Chopyong to Hangyong to the Tunhe was on fire. Never had the Sindeok deployed against its most formidable foes half of what was at Minseok’s disposal. The power of the Sage of the Pure Realm increased day by day. At first, Minseok did not understand his own power, and did not yet realise that he had risen beyond the heads of giants. He shielded himself yet with The Way, and his wish to cleanse the world of immorality and sin — which stemmed from the vultures and hounds that inhabited the royal court, for he did not know that he would trample upon his own sermons and the precepts of The Way as empty phrases. But as his forces grew there rose in him the immeasurable, unconscious ambition equal to that of all great conquerors of history. His own power amazed other men, but it amazed him too; and with it came a great disquiet. The gigantic hand of rebellion had seized upon him with extraordinary quickness and bore him up to heavenly heights which he did not wish to occupy. But whither more? How was this all to end? Where was he to be at the end of all this? Commencing sedition in the name of the wrongs wrought upon the people, Minseok calculated that after his first few victories, he might commence negotiations; that forgiveness would be offered him, and the Sindeok made to see its own wrongs out of the fear of the limitless rage of the mob. For even though he was a healer and a preacher, Minseok was a scholarly man who knew the Sindeok intimately: its patience, inexhaustible as the sea; its compassion, which flowed freely without bounds or measure. But after the slayings of thousands of the peasantry, the destruction of the Governor of Ansu’s forces in the field, the rapacious actions of the mob which accompanied him, and the formenting of civil war all across Nanwian, affairs had gone too far. 

Minseok inquired of soothsayers, took counsel of the stars, and even spoke with the old man in the cave in his mind, but saw nothing ahead but darkness. At times, therefore, his disquiet ravaged him and made the hairs on his neck stand, and in his despair raged like a hurricane. But whither more? But whither more? For Minseok, observing more closely than his lieutenants, understood that the Sindeok knew not how to use its own forces and was weak because of its ignorance, but it still had tremendous power. If the right man — another king, some court official, or even a capable noble with dreams of usurpation — should grasp that power in his hand, who could stand against him? And who could guess if terrible danger and nearness to the precipice of destruction might not put an end to dissension, petty rivalries, private grievances between magnates, the babbling of eunuchs, and weakness of the king? Then half a million warriors would take to the field and crush Minseok, even if he were aided by Taibuga himself. Minseok understood too, that in spite of all the weakness of the Sindeok its resistance was tremendous. Against it, so disorderly, so disunited, so insubordinate, the full and terrible might of Mohe was broken like waves on a cliff. The Sindeok, even in times of weakness, could still shatter its enemies into oblivion. How powerful would it become, when it is brought to despair, when it is forced to either die or conquer? 

In view of this, every triumph of Minseok, every town captured, every official executed, every army driven from the field, was to him a new danger, for it hastened the moment when the sleeping lion would awake and devour him whole. After the storm of the Pure Realm would come the storm of the Sindeok. Already it seemed to Minseok that he could hear the roar of the lion. Behold, the nobles in their gleaming armour and lances! Behold, the thunder of a thousand cannons! Behold, five hundred thousand swords of vengeance! They need but a leader. Would it be Lee Jinki, fresh from his victory over Mohe and holding the reins of the lion in his hand? Or would it be the Governor of Gyeonggu, the old soldier Taemin whose name struck terror into the hearts of Datars? Or would it be some as of yet unknown hero, just waiting for their opportunity to strike out and ride off into destiny? 

Because of this, Minseok could not be roused from the gloom which he wallowed in every day, and in deep sleepless nights his attendants could sometimes hear him crying silently to himself, mourning not his own doom, but of his own folly, thinking he could overcome the towering might of the Sindeok just because he had learned some ancient wisdom. 

Meanwhile news flew all over Sakju to Anju, encompassing the military strongholds of the kingdom where the might of her most powerful nobles and generals was restrained. Near Gochang in Gyeonggu rumours were spreading like wildfire: that Taemin had started for Gochang; that he was stamping out rebellion on the road; that in the wake of his passage towns, villages, and cottages vanished, replaced by fields bristling with impaling-stakes and tall gallows. Terror doubled and tripled the number of his forces; it was said that he was leading an army of 30,000 of the kingdom’s fiercest troops, even though anyone who was familiar with the powers of a Governor should have known that he could muster not more than 8,000 men at such short notice. In the rebel camp after the battle at Jeongseon, where Minseok oversaw the crushing of an army led by the Headmen of Iljin, the cry, “Taemin is coming!” was suddenly heard among the rebels and spread a panic among the mob, causing them to flee without reason, without even seeing any trace of the enemy. This shocked Minseok greatly as the rebels had only just achieved a tremendous victory.

Still more warriors from all over the kingdom marched towards the rebels where they could be found, although they were in countless disparate groups and were no match for the roaming hordes of peasants that hid in the hills, dominated the rivers and streams along their lengths, and clogged the roads with refugees fleeing their approach. The forces of the government and the rebels grew alike; for the latter were joined by more soldiers and peasants every day, but for every village looted, every grain-field burned, every family destroyed, every battle lost, yet more aggrieved persons pitted themselves against the Pure Realm with their hatred. The towns became manned by armed volunteers, the garrisons of castles grew in size, and the nobles increased their private armies to hunt down marauders and brigands. 

In this view, Son Seungwan of Haneulga was now active in Ansu as well, for she had disobeyed the call to muster the previous year — which was illegal, but such was the licentiousness of the nobles that the King was powerless to prosecute their disobedience — knowing that the star of Mohe was soon to set, and was not a danger to the kingdom. After Joohyun left her house, Seungwan had made Hyukjae stay with her as an honoured guest, persuading him with many drams of good wine and the delightful company of her many retainers and companions. Throughout the winter, the old man appeared to regain some of the vigour he had possessed in his youth, which was remarkable for even in his old age he was still as stout as an ox and showing little of his sixty years of age. Being a Grand Headman no more, he possessed no obligation to the King and was akin to one of the magnates and princelings in the autonomy of his estates and actions. He had about a thousand armed men in his service back home in the Green Sea, but since it was far away from Haneulga they were not readily available; therefore Seungwan used his name and reputation to conduct her own recruitment drive when the rebellion first broke out. Therefore, where other nobles struggled at first to expand their retinues and defend their possessions, the mere presence of Hyukjae in Haneulga blessed Seungwan with five hundred young men wishing to fight with the famous warrior; for they were all of the common soldiery, whose hands had grown restless from holding farming and crafting tools and wished to wield weapons of war once again, even