Namgung Yeon

Namgung Yeon is the sole heir of the noble Namgung clan, the first of the Five Great Families, who has been raised as a boy since childhood: a woman at the head of the clan would bring the whole house down, and so the world knows her only as «the young master Namgung». The secret of her sex was known only to her parents and a few elders — and nearly all of them perished in the Demonic Cult's raid.

In the original «Bloody Path» it is she — once she casts off the mask and embraces her womanhood — who is fated to become the strongest under heaven and slay five of the Seven Heavens. By nature she is a fragile, sensitive girl who loves flowers and puppies and hates the smell of blood, yet stubbornly hides herself behind coarse male armor. Never having seen his face, she idolizes her anonymous patron — Han Seojin — who secretly pours everything into her to keep her on her foretold path to greatness.

In public Namgung Yeon presents as a young master: her hair bound under a brow-band, a broad robe lending her figure heft, her low voice feigned. She stands a little taller than Tang Soran, of a build slight «for a man», with small hands and a body-scent soft as flowers rather than musky.

Beneath the disguise hides an unmistakable beauty: a tightly bound chest, narrow shoulders, a slim waist and wide hips. Let down her hair and add powder, and a beautiful woman stands before you. After her clan's destruction and her defeat at the tournament she is gaunt, with dark circles under her eyes, and her arms and legs hide bandages and the marks she inflicts on herself.

Namgung Yeon forcibly keeps up a coarse, «manly» manner and flares up whenever she is called girlish or a «pretty boy», repeating her father's «a man does not cry». Beneath this armor is a soft, vulnerable nature: she cannot calmly walk past a puppy, she admires flowers, she dreads blood and prizes peace over battle.

Crushed by the duty of heir to a fading clan, she torments herself with a sense of her own «worthlessness» and cuts herself, yet her persistence and spirit are unbreakable: even in the face of certain death she refuses to surrender, so as not to desecrate the memory of the fallen. She treasures her friendship with Han Seojin — «a man's friendship», as she thinks of it — as the first real one of her life.

Namgung Yeon was born the only daughter of Namgung Chon, once the strongest of the heads of the Five Great Families. There was no son to inherit, and her father — whose wrong against her the narration calls his gravest — forced her to live as a man so the clan would stand. Her combat was taught by a hired mentor, the Ink Dragon.

Already weakened by its ailing head, House Namgung was finished off by a raid of Yeongcheon and his men of the Demonic Cult: seventy-seven kinsfolk and three hundred commoners died, and with them nearly all who knew her secret. Left alone, she keeps going on duty alone and on faith in the anonymous patron who sent her money and the Immortal Root with a note: «The young master will surely become the first under heaven».

Han Seojin, knowing Namgung Yeon to be the true heroine of this world, secretly supports her as an anonymous patron, funneling his entire fortune and the precious Immortal Root to her through the Hao Gate. At the Dragon and Phoenix Gathering, which she entered against her advisors' counsel, she is crushed in the very first round by Cheongwol in a single blow — the public disgrace nearly breaks her for good.

Sunk to working as a tavern server, she falls in by chance with Han Seojin, who feeds and consoles her without her knowing he is her patron; to him she reveals her true name. At the same time she is tormented by a mysterious «Healer of Inner Demons» in a black mask (the same Han Seojin), who drugs her and forces her to see a woman in the mirror; she swears to kill him — while her heart beats too hard.

She joins the Hidden Dragon Society and sets out on its first campaign, remaining the weakest of the group but training stubbornly; Han Seojin secretly nudges her toward womanhood by feeding her Cheonnyeondan pills. She is the very «dragon» the Society has taken in, and her ascent to greatness still lies ahead.

For now Namgung Yeon calls herself a «no-talent»: at the tournament she is swept aside in a single touch, and in the group she is the weakest. Yet in raw physical strength she seems to surpass even Cheongwol and Tang Soran — she beats Han Seojin at arm-wrestling only by a trick, while he beats her by brute power.

She is the heir of House Namgung, first of the Five Great Families and keeper of the Emperor's Sword, and she wields the family's Rigid Sword and the Sword-Lord Form, passed only to heads of the line. Her future weapon is the paired Yin-Yang blade, and her destiny is to become the strongest under heaven and slay five of the Seven Heavens; but all this power she has yet to attain, once she sheds the male guise.