Chapter 26
Chapter 26
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: Chapter 3: Victory (6)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Srrrring.
Both Cheonwi and Seo Suyang knew it.
Though his expression remained composed, what Cheonwi could do had reached its limit. But that was enough.
Because Cheonwi was not alone.
Right behind Seo Suyang, Oho approached leisurely, swinging his black-and-white swords after having already subdued the spear martial artists.
"Shall we go all the way?"
Oho asked.
"That would be the way of a martial artist."
"I'm good. Instead, lend an ear. Your subordinates who chased after Dae-yuk are in peril. Shouldn't you go help them first?"
Seo Suyang flinched and turned around. He gathered his inner energy to sense the presences far away. His face hardened like stone.
"You should go, right?"
Cheonwi asked.
Seo Suyang gritted his teeth.
"We'll contact you later regarding the deal."
Cheonwi turned away just like that.
Seo Suyang scowled and looked around. None of the spear martial artists were dead. None were in critical condition or crippled either.
The problem was with the group that had chased after Dae-yuk. He could sense fewer than four presences. At least two or three had fallen. Urgency stained Seo Suyang's face.
"Well then."
Oho's parting words almost sounded like mockery. As he sheathed his black-and-white swords, he brushed right past Seo Suyang.
"Next time we meet, I won't let you off like this."
Seo Suyang said.
Cheonwi and Oho didn't even pretend to hear.
Seo Suyang's face grew coldly rigid. The humiliation he suffered was tantamount to a disgrace for the Blue Spear Society.
Shooooaaa.
The wind through the bamboo grove blew icy cold. His mind sharpened. This was no time to wallow in frustration. Seo Suyang launched himself in the opposite direction from where Cheonwi and Oho had vanished—toward Dae-yuk. At this point, capturing Dae-yuk was the only way to save face. He gripped his blue spear tighter.
* * *
In a corner of the bamboo grove where the wind had died down.
The spear martial artists, just now groaning as they rose, looked utterly distant.
A young voice descended into the darkness.
"What do you think?"
An elderly voice replied.
"Similar to that one, but a bit different."
"Just as I thought?"
"It's innate. That kind of thing."
"His body can't keep up at all. Yin and yang are tangled in a mess. His qi and blood flow isn't normal. That insight for breaking techniques he possesses must be linked to this bizarre constitution."
"He can't properly build up his inner arts. Is it the talent of a heteromorph?"
"More like a disease than talent, perhaps."
Shooooaaa.
The still air swept across the ground. Moonlight pierced through the parting clouds.
The silhouettes of two men emerged between the bamboo.
The hem of white kasaya robes fluttered in the blowing wind.
The gaunt, pallid monk turned his head to the left. He, the owner of the young voice, asked the one beside him.
"Shall we open the gates of slaughter?"
"Not yet. The decision must come from the mountain."
The owner of the elderly voice was also a monk.
With a physique like a general, his wrinkled face bore ten deep scars. One of them crossed his right eye. It was a one-eyed monk, without even an eyepatch.
"Then, I'll send up the heart message."
The dark shadows under his eyes deepened the sickly pallor of his face. The gaunt monk spoke, and the one-eyed monk nodded. His single eye gleamed fiercely toward the north—the direction Cheonwi and Oho had disappeared.
The light from that single eye sank coldly.
The one sending the heart message awaited Hye-gwang's teachings. Everything hinged on those teachings. Depending on them, the one talent they had confirmed would stand at the boundary of life and death.
Two monks who held the power over life and death.
Few in the world knew their true identities.
Only a handful spoke their name laced with fear.
Those who knew them called them the Rakshasa Assassins.
* * *
"How did you find her?"
"She's a virgin."
"What?"
"The scent's different."
"You mad bastard."
Oho spat curses in disbelief. In a deserted alleyway, the night wind coldly brushed their cheeks. Oho, who had been running ahead for a while, soon asked in a gruff tone.
"Your body's alright?"
"Huh?"
"That was one of the Thirteen Spears. Lived up to his reputation."
"......"
"There's a limit to deflection. With your cultivation, he was beyond what you could handle."
"Ah, yeah."
"No matter how I look at it, with that level of gap, you should've suffered serious internal injuries."
"Yeah."
"But you're perfectly fine."
Oho narrowed his brows and glanced back at Cheonwi. Cheonwi responded to his words with a nonchalant face.
"It's night."
"That's the problem. You saying you're fine because it's night—does that even make sense? It doesn't add up!"
"You've seen me for days and days. Why act surprised now?"
Oho couldn't relax his furrowed brows.
He wasn't wrong. After watching Cheonwi for so long, it was too late to dredge up such doubts now.
'It's frustrating, you idiot. If only you could properly cultivate your inner arts...'
Oho kept the words flashing through his chest to himself.
It'd just gross him out and earn curses. Sympathy for a friend was best kept in the heart.
They ran in silence for a stretch. Their destination was, naturally, Jinseongru. Leaping over alleys and alleys, crossing the shadows of the brightly lit streets, they arrived at Jinseongru. Oho leaped through the shattered window first. Cheonwi followed right behind.
"Is it over?"
It was like a battlefield after the fighting ended.
Not a single intact table in sight. All splintered and collapsed, none with all four legs standing. The chairs were the same. Shattered chairs lay scattered everywhere.
Crowning the scene of carnage were the corpses of the martial artists. Amid broken bottles and bowls, blood and entrails filled the space instead of liquor and food. That was the true reason it resembled a battlefield. In the sea of blood, at least thirty martial artists lay dead.
"Here they come."
Across the hellish slaughterhouse, like a scene from the underworld, a man sat on the stairs. The massive branch leader of Dae Dongjang. It was Dongpungneung.
"Tell me what mess this is."
Dongpungneung gestured toward the interior.
Eyes naturally drifted to the uniforms of the fallen. Most wore Taehaengbang attire. A few from Dae Dongjang as well. As was common in rivers and lakes brawls, some of Dongpungneung's subordinates hadn't escaped death's cruelty.
"As you see."
Oho answered.
"Not the answer I hoped for."
Dongpungneung struck the railing with his scabbard—tang. Two martial artists appeared along the railing on this floor. Dongpungneung's guards. A small figure was dragged out behind them and stood before the railing. A short exclamation escaped her lips.
"Sister!"
One of Dongpungneung's guards grabbed her arm and pulled her back. Her delicate brows shot up. It was a face utterly different from her earlier fragile demeanor. She spoke in a venomous tone.
"Laying hands on a woman's body so roughly—you're no better than brigands!"
Dongpungneung's guards seemed somewhat flustered by her reaction but didn't release her arm. Watching that, a faint smile tugged at Cheonwi's lips.
"Isn't it fun? That girl?"
"Cheonwi."
"Why?"
"Not the time."
Oho checked Cheonwi's smile with a serious tone.
"Exactly. This isn't the time for joking around in front of me. I'll ask again—tell me what happened, as you know it."
Dongpungneung's face held no trace of his earlier smile. Only faint anger lingered.
Oho looked at Dongpungneung, then up at the stairs.
Martial artists with stern expressions held Seol immobile. It looked just like taking a hostage. A silent pressure to spill what he knew immediately.
"Seems there was some misunderstanding."
Oho bowed his head first. Dongpungneung replied at once.
"If there's a misunderstanding, you should clarify it."
Oho could fully understand Dongpungneung's words.
It was only natural.
The commotion had started when Oho burst into Dongpungneung's quarters. Losing subordinates in the aftermath would naturally stoke his fury.
Thud.
That was when Cheonwi stepped forward.
He casually walked ahead, righted a fallen chair, and draped the still-unconscious Hyang over it like a coat rack. He straightened her lolling head by gripping her chin, then leisurely turned toward Dongpungneung. The anger in Dongpungneung's eyes deepened.
"Still an eyesore. Who are you?"
"A friend of this guy."
"You."
Dongpungneung raised his head and stared straight into Cheonwi's eyes. Like crashing waves, a terrifying aura emanated from Dongpungneung's entire body. He seemed a completely different man from the one who had chuckled openly before Oho moments ago.
"Do you know who I am?"
"Of course."
"I'm Dongpungneung."
"You're also called Tongcheon-do. I've heard the name plenty."
There was no change in Cheonwi's voice.
Rather, it was Oho whose face stiffened. Because it felt off.
'This guy...!'
Tongcheon-do Dongpungneung.
A hegemon of Shanxi Province.
The pressure he exuded upon revealing his true self was immense. Even Oho had to hold his breath. Yet Cheonwi faced that aura without a flinch.
'No way he has that kind of power...'
It was impossible. As far as Oho knew, his friend lacked the inner arts to withstand such an aura head-on. With Cheonwi's cultivation, facing it directly should have caused severe internal injuries, vomiting blood at minimum.
"You're... a truly bizarre one."
Dongpungneung said, narrowing his brows.
The anger in his eyes had shifted to curiosity. Because he had sensed the same thing Oho had.
"With the power you possess, it's impossible to withstand mine. Are you forcing it? Or hiding something?"
"It hardly matters in this situation."
"It does! Of course it does! If you're skilled enough to gather your power before me, I need to prepare to go all out too."
"The branch leader won't need to go all out."
Cheonwi replied nonchalantly.
Even as Dongpungneung's suffocating aura bore down, not a hint of change in his complexion. No sign of internal injury either. Far from vomiting blood, he was relaxed enough to smile.
"Strange, strange. Now it seems like you have no power at all. Are you some ghost or demon? Withstanding my strength with that little energy? How can you stand there on two feet and open your mouth?"
Dongpungneung asked, wagging his Eocheomdo.
Cheonwi shook his head lightly in response.
"I'm definitely a living person. But please, I beg you—don't think of testing it by slashing me directly."
"Hah! Now you're reading my mind?"
"Mind reading? You can tell just by looking at the power dwelling in Tongcheon-do."
Dongpungneung stared straight into Cheonwi's eyes, as if peering to discern truth from lie. After gazing like that for a long while, Dongpungneung suddenly slammed the tip of his Tongcheon-do into the floor—kwajik—planting it upright.
"Interesting. Very interesting."
He turned toward the railing on this floor and said.
"Let that child go."
"Yes?"
"Didn't you hear?"
Dongpungneung raised a brow as he asked again. The guards on the railing froze stiff. The guard holding Seol's arm released her. Freed, Seol slipped out with a swish and vaulted over the railing.
"Sister!"
She landed lightly like a cat. Her lightness skill was impressive. She rushed straight to Hyang, seated on the chair. Looking up at Cheonwi, she asked.
"Sister's okay, right?"
"Of course."
Cheonwi answered. Short, but somehow convincing.