Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Chapter 6: Espionage Corps (12)
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‘Still, this isn’t a good escape route.’
Aside from luring out the second daughter of Yangwonbang, the location offered virtually no strategic advantage.
It was unlikely that someone from one of the Six Great Clans would develop deep feelings for the daughter of a lowly faction like this, but who knew what went on between men and women. If he’d ensured his lover’s safety amid all this chaos, then he’d succeeded on both intent and outcome. Neither the Yangwonbang leader nor his daughter knew a thing. It might have weighed on him that an innocent woman got dragged into it and suffered harm, or perhaps, dismissed as unpromising despite being from a renowned family, he’d lost an arm and decided to go all in.
Bang Jung-heon stopped his thoughts.
He was dead anyway.
I’d cut him down myself.
He too had once died and gained the fortune of revival, but this was different. Hanging yourself and being beheaded were worlds apart.
Instead, a far more important figure stood before him. Bang Jung-heon looked up at the bow and asked.
“Little monk, you haven’t had your fill of the show yet?”
“It’s over, but I’ve got nothing else to do.”
His voice rang clear and crisp. His speech had been childlike from the start. There was no sense of repulsion. Bang Jung-heon asked again.
“I was wondering why you’d bother coming to confirm. Seems our dead friend upset the big shots up the chain.”
“What big shots in a picky temple like that.”
“They worry over the slightest deviation from the lowliest member, yet they’ll let us slide?”
“No orders, no moves.”
“Then.”
Bang Jung-heon cupped his fists.
A crowd was approaching from afar. After this level of mayhem, the authorities were mobilizing. The officials might turn a blind eye up to yesterday. Famous martial artists dueling one-on-one was something to watch together, and excited wanderers leaping over roofs and walls could be tolerated. Even massacres in remote mountains without civilians could be overlooked a hundred times. But open murder in a bustling tavern district? They couldn’t ignore that, not with public sentiment at stake. He had to slip away before it got messy.
“Just gonna leave?”
Yet the boy blocked his exit.
“More to discuss?”
“Put out the fire before you go. You’re causing too much trouble.”
The boy pointed at the central brazier, now a chaotic mess.
Oil had spilled, feeding fierce flames. The deck was fireproofed, but it was still wood. Once the fire spread, there’d be no stopping it. Unsettling.
Bang Jung-heon didn’t hesitate long.
Just one opponent, far younger, but classified as maximum threat even in the Alliance’s intel network—a monster among monsters. Clashing with force here meant annihilation. He had to do as told.
“Extinguish it! Hurry!”
Bang Jung-heon commanded.
The black-clad warriors obeyed without question. They rushed to grab the fire-suppression sand barrels at the deck’s edges.
They doused the flames with sand, tossed burning debris into the river, and stomped out the smoldering deck. With several inner force experts darting about, the fire was quickly subdued.
A bizarre sight.
The fiends who’d sown chaos across the city were now putting out a fire at the Flower Boat Tavern.
The boy on the bow sat motionless like a stone statue, gazing down indifferently. Even as he sat still, he seemed to be roaring with laughter. That’s how it appeared in Bang Jung-heon’s eyes.
“Withdraw.”
He crushed the last embers underfoot and leaped away first. The black-clad warriors gathered their fallen comrades and cleared the area.
The boy paid them no mind.
He turned to the woman cowering and sobbing in the deck’s far corner. She’d witnessed her lover’s gruesome death. She looked as if she’d lost the world itself.
Like his own ascetic trials in the mortal realm.
Giving one’s heart or receiving it—neither could be done lightly.
The boy looked up.
The black river reflected in his clear eyes. The water was pitch dark.
The next moment.
The boy vanished from the spot.
Only the woman’s collapsing wails scattered on the river wind. The Flower Boat’s lanterns still blazed brilliantly.
* * *
“Puhak!”
He didn’t know how long he’d swum submerged.
When his carotid artery ruptured, he’d truly thought he was done. He’d blacked out briefly. He regained consciousness on the murky riverbed.
‘Rakshasa Demon Child.’
Cheonwi recalled the boy monk he’d glimpsed last.
Just before Dongpungneung and Hwangryeo-man’s duel, the one spotted at the inn west of the Four-Convergence Road by the Five Tigers.
A Shaolin prodigy of the ages, raised as a murdering monk. No presence, no killing intent—nothing detected.
Cheonwi poked his head above the surface but worried first about the boy monk.
He’d probably be floating right there, pursuing. The boy monk terrified him more than the enemy leader who’d severed his carotid in an instant.
He checked his position, rising in the misty river’s heart.
Fortunately, the lights were far off.
At this distance, no master could spot him. He’d grown stronger, but his presence remained ethereal.
No complacency—he gauged his direction.
He inhaled deeply and dove.
His neck and face wounds throbbed.
River filth entangled the regenerating tissue, triggering rejection. No one had taught him, yet he knew instinctively, as if recalling a lesson.
‘No one taught me?’
Hunger and thirst surged.
Blood deficiency.
That too.
Why such certainty?
It felt like a story he’d heard from someone.
Cheonwi couldn’t trust his own memories. The line between known and unknown blurred.
Splash!
“Huuuuh.”
He surfaced, steadying his breath.
Blades still pierced his back and gut. It was becoming routine. Constant pain let him adjust its perception.
Thought became will, and the pain truly dulled.
As pain faded, other senses dimmed too.
Tinnitus rang in his ears, muffling sounds. Vision darkened. The water didn’t feel cold. All senses dulled.
Reviving the pain restored them.
‘Need practice.’
Flesh offered, bones honed.
The calculus of flesh-slicing and bone-breaking was never easy.
Cheonwi could shave enemy bones, reattach his severed flesh. He wielded his body as a tactic, and had.
The issue: pain.
Obvious, but agony hindered the area’s function, slowed reactions.
To weaponize regeneration, he had to cope with flaying pain. Now knowing control was possible, he needed the right level.
Choice of flesh mattered too.
Losing an arm was a hassle. Dismemberment was a bad move. Best avoid.
Direct hits to face or head too.
Tempting to test, but reckless. Head trauma disrupted more than pain alone.
Protect the neck.
Instinct saved him—carotid severing—but a faster foe or slower dodge, and his head would’ve flown.
Could he reattach a severed head?
Cheonwi thought not.
Carotid rupture was risky enough. Massive bleeding caused blackout. Drowning nearly killed him. Had regeneration shown in unconsciousness, the aftermath was unthinkable.
Splash! Splatter!
Repeated dives finally reached the targeted riverbank.
It took time.
Water dripped from his body.
He wished it all other’s blood. He craved it.
Suppressing rising hunger, he found the hidden corpse.
The armless body lay as left.
He flipped it, face-to-face.
Cheonwi’s face was nearly healed. An itch led his hand to a reed shard embedded in his cheek. Plucked out, blood welled briefly, then the hole sealed.
Touching his skin revealed lingering distortions. Burns caused it. Slower healing than other wounds.
The corpse’s face, however, was sufficiently charred.
Cheekbone fractures matched precisely. The risk paid off.
He yanked the sword from his back.
Gripping the blade with left fingers, pulling slowly—pain aside, the sensation was vile.
“Keu… cough!”
Air hissed from his lungs, triggering coughs. The gut blade was easier. He extracted the broken shard. Piercing wounds sealed swiftly.
He stripped.
His red floral silk robe bore brown stains.
A short swim hadn’t washed the blood. He dressed the corpse in it. With clothes on, it looked convincing.
Grabbing the sword, he deeply stabbed the side, replicating the gut wound exactly.
Matching the robe’s hole was tricky.
These blades were carried for this purpose.
He had to recreate his Flower Boat deck injuries precisely. Even against Paegeom, he’d avoided slashes to Yu Yeopdo.
The neck was hardest.
Eyes closed, he recalled the enemy leader’s swordplay.
He hadn’t watched the eyes—only blade path, qi flow. Cheonwi wielded the sword, tracing empty air.
Ten, twenty—over fifty simple horizontal cuts.
‘A master…!’
Near-perfect, yet flaws appeared.
Overshadowed by the Rakshasa boy monk, but this was a true powerhouse. Swordsmanship profound; even minor moves held ocean depths. Perhaps a technique not long mastered.
Swish!
More swings.
Curves excessive for the depth.
Blade tip bespoke passionate inquiry into new realms.
A genius.
Brilliant mind, excelling at theoretical martial analysis.
Shk!
Seemed a faint aversion to killing.
Dislike of decapitation, perhaps.
Partial neck cut stemmed from lacking beheading intent. Meant to half-sever, rupture both carotids for blood death. That was the goal.
One could glean a life from martial arts.
Letters his foundation.
Martial arts followed.
Resentment lingered, nearly fully controlled.
Dangerous.
Not just to him— to the entire martial world.
A martial genius strategic, cynical, inevitably sparked bloodshed. The Rakshasa boy monk was fearsome, but so was this man.
Over a hundred swings, reaching 108.
Cheonwi knew he could replicate the neck wound.
The blade flashed.
Slash!
No blood spurted.
The heart that might have pumped vigorously had stopped long ago.
He hefted a stone, smashed the shoulder for clubbing bruises. Flipped the body. Thrust into the back. Blade tip pierced dead lungs, exited chest, embedded in mud. That was his limit.
Ruining living flesh differed from defiling a corpse. Bleeding patterns, muscle tears—subtle variances inevitable.
But half-submerged, it’d rot swiftly.
Insects, fish, birds, beasts would erase discrepancies. Nature’s finish. Even found at dawn tomorrow, none would doubt it was another.
Thus, the corpse became Cheonwi’s.
Task done, he pitied Yangwonbang’s second daughter who’d witnessed it. She’d weep much, but he wasn’t too concerned. Yangwonbang was a dark path faction. She’d seen beatings and stabbings in her own yard. Horrific as it was, she’d forget.
He hoisted the corpse, entered the water, let the current carry.
Drifting long amid fishy water, he dumped the body suitably. Returned to site, erased all traces.
Tiger of the Dark Path.
The Peach Blossom Young Master was dead.
Upper river lights faded faintly.
Night deepened; dawn far off.
Cheonwi.
Craved blood.