Blood Mist and White Flame
Ouyang Qiangang's expression grew heavy.
It was his first killing since arriving in this world.
Akasha did not intervene in his mind, and he did not want her to. This was a burden that belonged wholly to him—the version of himself that had to survive in this world.
He looked down at his blood-soaked left arm. A strange spectacle was unfolding there: the bleeding from the deep gash had already stopped, the severed muscle fibers knitting themselves back together as fresh skin spread over the wound. It was thanks to Akasha's nanobot control ability, which had evolved to the second of nine stages after piercing the two great acupoints of his Nine Yin Severed Meridians. His body was becoming something beyond the human category—a body capable of repairing even serious wounds on its own.
When the fighting ended, a heavy silence settled over the blood-soaked forest.
Hwang Nodae went pale at the sight of Ouyang Qiangang's bleeding arm.
"Young Master, your arm is wounded… We must treat it at once…"
But Ouyang Qiangang only glanced at his arm and shook his head, gesturing with his chin toward the fallen woman.
"My wound can wait."
Ouyang Qiangang approached the woman.
Kkeok—
Geum Wang, perched beside her, let out a bright chirp and nimbly darted up to the tallest branch overhead. Then, sharp eyes scanning in every direction, he began keeping watch.
Ouyang Qiangang took hold of the fallen woman's wrist. Even without Akasha's precision scan, the faint, erratic pulse beneath his fingertips told him clearly just how precarious her condition was.
Doctor, she is suffering massive hemorrhaging from multiple stab wounds. Her meridians have been twisted by the violent shock of the Inner Heavier Water Technique, and I am also detecting organ damage.
Ouyang Qiangang acted without hesitation. First he pressed the major blood channels at her shoulder, abdomen, and thigh, stemming the blood that had been flowing without pause. Then he drew the small jade vial Heo Il-bi had packed for him from his coat, crushed the Tiger-Heart Pill—a secret treasure of Bamboo Forest Manor—inside it, and carefully fed the powder into her mouth. Finally, he gently parted the torn hem of her silk dress, wiped the blood from her wounds, and applied the Gold Ointment with meticulous care.
He had just finished the last of the treatment and was drawing breath when—
"Wan'er!"
From the far side of the forest, an elderly man of imposing, commanding presence came tearing toward them like a storm, his roar the bellow of a wild beast. He took in the gruesome scene in the clearing—the fallen woman, and Ouyang Qiangang rising beside her—and froze where he stood. Fury and a frost-blue wariness flared in his eyes at the same instant.
Ouyang Qiangang recognized at once that the old man was someone connected to the woman. He half expected the man to lose his reason and lunge at him, but it never happened. The old man, who had lived his whole life weathering the winds and blades of the gangho, grasped the situation in an instant—that the youthful boy before him was not his enemy, but rather the benefactor who had saved the woman he cherished like his own life.
He bowed respectfully with cupped fists to both of them and spoke.
"My thanks for saving Wan'er. Her wounds appear grave, so I must postpone my formal greetings."
He dropped to his knees at the woman's side at once and took her pulse.
In that fleeting moment while the old man was absorbed in reading her pulse, a voice as faint as an ant's footstep wormed its way into Ouyang Qiangang's ear—Hwang Nodae's voice. It was a Secret Voice Transmission, a technique that only masters of the Peak realm and above could perform.
> Young Master, that man is Yeom Pung, the Thunder Iron Palm. He is the sworn brother of Shangguan Tian, Lord of Myriad Gold Mountain Manor—one of the Five Great Wealthy Tycoons—and he serves there as an elder, a Peak-realm master. The girl he called 'Wan'er' must surely be tied closely to Myriad Gold Manor.
A short while later, astonishment was written plainly across Yeom Pung's face. The pulse of the woman called Wan'er had settled past its dangerous crest, and her external wounds bore unmistakable marks of skilled emergency treatment.
Rising to his feet, he turned to Hwang Nodae.
"So it was you who treated Wan'er, elder brother. How can I ever repay such a great debt…"
He had naturally assumed that the more weathered-looking of the two had been the one to treat her.
Hwang Nodae answered with a soft chuckle.
"That was not this old servant's doing. It was the handiwork of the Young Master I serve—the gentleman standing before you."
"Ah…!"
Startled to realize the relationship between master and servant, the old man bowed once more to Ouyang Qiangang with utmost courtesy.
"Forgive my rudeness. This old man is called Yeom Pung. The young lady you saved is Shangguan Wan'er. You have my sincerest gratitude."
"I am Ouyang Qiangang. Saving someone in danger is a duty owed by any person worth the name. Please don't take it so heavily."
Having no desire to become deeply entangled, Ouyang Qiangang drew the line before Yeom Pung could launch into further talk of debt and gratitude.
Just then, Yeom Pung's eyes narrowed as he studied Hwang Nodae.
"Forgive me, but your face is strangely familiar, elder brother. Have we met somewhere before…?"
"This old servant has never had the honor of meeting you, Hero Yeom."
Hwang Nodae replied with a careless expression, as though he knew nothing at all.
Ouyang Qiangang spoke up.
"I treated her as best I could in the moment, but Miss Shangguan's internal and external injuries run deep. She must avoid strenuous movement and long journeys. With about a month of quiet rest, she should return to her old self."
"Hmm…"
Yeom Pung let out a low groan and studied Ouyang Qiangang.
What in the world is this boy? Calmly administering emergency treatment in the middle of this chaos, then composedly laying out the course of care to come…
The peerless young man before him was an enigma wrapped in mystery. Judging by how he had subdued the masked men, he was clearly a martial artist of trained skill—yet his temples did not bulge in the slightest with the distinctive energy of a master, making his level impossible to gauge. Strangest of all was that he asked nothing—not who the masked men were, not even what the woman's identity might be. Curiosity was only natural; the only conclusion was that he deliberately avoided contact with outsiders.
Yeom Pung had never once heard rumors of such a young master wandering the gangho.
He spoke to Ouyang Qiangang in an earnest, pleading tone.
"Having witnessed the marvel of your healing arts, I would shamelessly beg a favor of you."
"A favor?"
"Indeed. Treating Wan'er's injuries will require a safe place. But it is very likely our caravan's lodgings are already under watch. If you could provide a secure place where Wan'er might hide herself and recuperate, I will never forget the debt."
Hwang Nodae, worry plain on his face, opened his mouth to refuse—but Ouyang Qiangang raised a hand and stopped him. He sank into thought for a moment.
Considering that the masked men tried to kill Miss Shangguan, accepting Yeom Pung's offer means a serious risk of being dragged into an enormous storm. But at the same time, it's a tremendous opportunity. If a connection to Myriad Gold Manor takes root, I might gain a powerful ally to check Dong Hyeon-do. This risk is well worth taking.
He answered in a level tone.
"Very well. Follow me. My home is not far from here."
The moment he mounted his horse, Geum Wang leapt down from the tree and landed on his shoulder, light as a feather.
Ouyang Qiangang could not know where this choice would lead him. But he resolved to walk willingly into that dangerous, unfamiliar bond of fate.
Yeom Pung carefully gathered the unconscious woman into his arms. Her wounds were grave—she had to be moved to safety without a moment's delay.
Seeing this, Hwang Nodae brought over the horse he had ridden and handed the reins to Yeom Pung.
"Hero Yeom, take the young lady and go on ahead with the Young Master."
Ouyang Qiangang asked, puzzled.
"And what will you do, Hwang Nodae?"
Hwang Nodae glanced back at the bodies of the fallen masked men and smiled without a sound. There was something faintly chilling in that smile—a far cry from his usual gentleness.
"Young Master, once the feast is finished, shouldn't the table be cleared? I will erase the traces and follow."
Ouyang Qiangang took his words to mean that he would deal with the scattered corpses, and nodded.
Nodae thinks of everything.
"Understood. But don't be too long."
"Yes, Young Master."
Hwang Nodae bowed low and saw them off until their figures vanished from view.
Left alone, he slowly straightened his back. The gentleness drained from his eyes, and in its place settled a cold, emotionless gaze smoldering with a blood-scented killing intent.
In an instant, the air around him grew heavy and dense.
Hwang Nodae spoke toward the deepest shadows of the forest, his voice low and cold.
"The show is over by now, isn't it? How long do you intend to crouch there like a rat, peeking out?"
Before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, a man in black—concealed a dozen paces deep in the woods—flung himself skyward like a startled goose.
Watching him flee without so much as a reply, a grim smile curled the corner of Hwang Nodae's mouth.
"You think you can run from me?"
KWAANG!
His foot, stamped against the earth, tore through the air like a colossal roc in flight. In just two strides, the distance between him and the masked man vanished as though it had never existed.
A viscous, blood-red vortex of sword energy swirled up from Hwang Nodae's right hand.
SHUWAAAAAANG—!
A monstrous torrent of force poured down upon the masked man, leaving no room to evade. The man glanced back over his shoulder, terror and disbelief blooming together in his eyes.
"The Mad Demon Blood Cloud Palm? Then you're…!"
But his words never found their end.
KWANG!
Struck full by the blood vortex, his entire upper body crumpled as hollowly as dried sand, scattering into a crimson mist. His remaining lower half dropped to the ground, spraying a fountain of blood.
Thud—
Landing on the earth with an expression of perfect indifference, Hwang Nodae looked down at the masked man's remains and murmured,
"Anyone who dares put the Young Master in peril dies by my hand. No exceptions."
His voice was dry and cold.
With a face betraying no emotion whatsoever, Hwang Nodae began gathering the corpses strewn about the clearing into a single pile. He snapped branches from the surrounding trees and stacked them into a pyre, then tossed the bodies onto it one by one. Not only the masked men's remains, but even the bloodstained soil where he had just killed their comrade—he scraped up every last trace and heaped it onto the pile.
When everything was prepared, he raised his hand toward the mound of wood. At the tip of his wrinkled index finger bloomed a single point of platinum-white flame—smaller than a candle's light, yet dazzling as the sun. It was the Sammai True Flame, an art that no master short of the Transcendent realm could even dream of performing.
Ping—
Hwang Nodae gave his finger a light flick, and the tiny flame flew soundlessly through the air to settle atop the woodpile.
WHOOOOSH—!
In an instant, a massive pillar of fire surged toward the sky. It was no ordinary blaze of red and yellow, but a sacred platinum flame that seemed poised to swallow everything in existence.
The fire roared violently, like something screaming—yet strangely, no smoke rose, and no ash drifted free. The corpses and the woodpile, the very earth and stones beneath them—everything the flames touched was consumed completely, melting away into pure light.
Hwang Nodae watched that uncanny, terrifying spectacle from beginning to end with the detached expression of a man observing a stranger's house fire.
When the flames at last vanished without a trace, only pristine earth remained—not so much as a single scorch mark.
Hwang Nodae nodded in satisfaction, then turned away. A stooped back, gentle-looking eyes. He had returned once more to the image of an ordinary, loyal old servant, and slipped quietly into the forest as though nothing at all had happened.