Chapter 202: In Parang-2
Chapter 202: In Parang-2
I tried speaking to him first.
"Excuse me, I believe you have mistaken me for someone else. I am not this Inparang person...."
But he let out a scoff and thrust the paper he'd been looking at toward us.
"Mistaken? Me?"
The paper he held out bore a portrait of a man. And upon seeing that portrait, Brother Jeung Chil muttered blankly.
"...Isn't that the youngest?"
It was.
The man drawn in that portrait looked exactly like me.
It was enough to make even me stare blankly for a moment.
Brother Jeung Chil looked at me with startled eyes and asked.
"Youngest, was your name actually Inparang?"
I let out a hollow laugh as I replied.
"No, how could that possibly be?"
Then I spoke to the warrior again.
"The portrait clearly resembles this humble one, but I am absolutely not this person called Inparang...."
But he no longer wished to hear what I had to say.
He smiled darkly and spoke.
"Keu-heu-heu-heu, so the Ha family was chasing him in the north, and as is typical of them, they were on a fool's errand. To think I'd find him here. Thank you for letting yourself be caught, Inparang, successor of the Hainan In Clan. I've earned great merit thanks to you."
My expression hardened at the words that came from his mouth.
What?
The successor of what?
At that moment, the subordinates standing behind him asked.
"What should we do with the people inside the inn?"
He answered with a cruel smile.
"What is there to ask? We can't leave witnesses. Kill them all."
"Yes! Understood!"
It was a brutal command.
Words so cruel you'd hardly believe they came from warriors of the Hapsan Sect, known as an orthodox faction.
Our expressions hardened completely upon hearing their exchange.
The Hapsan Sect warriors moved immediately.
Aside from the three peak-level masters at the front, the remaining warriors scattered outward in all directions, attempting to swing their weapons at the innkeeper and the patrons.
"Die!"
"Ha-ap!"
"Aaaagh!"
"P-please spare us!"
But they could not complete their swings.
Pyu-pyu-pyut!
"Kuaaak!"
"Aaaagh!"
"Keuhak!"
It was because those who had been about to swing their weapons all drew their last breaths as throwing weapons suddenly flew in.
The one who had thrown them was Brother Jeung Chil.
Having instantly killed three warriors with a single volley of throwing weapons, Brother Jeung Chil glanced furtively at me and asked.
"...Should I have stayed still?"
A hollow laugh escaped me.
"No. You did well, Brother. We couldn't let scum like them be."
With that, I and Brother Pung slowly rose to our feet as well and spoke to them.
"To think those who call themselves orthodox would try to harm ordinary people."
"I am certainly not Inparang, but regardless, I will not let you live."
At this, the warrior at the front twisted his face and shouted.
"So you had a trick after all. Shoot! Shoot them all!"
Shoot?
They had nothing in their hands, so what did he mean by shooting?
No way?
I immediately understood who he had told to shoot what.
Pii-pii-pii-pii-ping!
It was because arrows poured in from every window that had been covered with screens, blocking the view outside.
Pyu-pyu-pyu-pyu-pyu-pyut!
"Fire arrows?!"
And they were not even ordinary arrows, but fire arrows.
It seemed those who had surrounded the inn had been aiming fire arrows toward us.
Under the fire arrows that poured in like a downpour from every window, the people inside collapsed helplessly, screaming.
"Aaaaagh!"
"Aaaagh! Spare us!"
"Aaaagh!"
We hurriedly looked around in bewilderment.
No matter how much we were transcendent peak masters, we could not protect people from arrows raining in from all directions.
In the meantime, the Hapsan Sect warriors had already swiftly slipped out the door.
"Damn!"
After biting my lip for a moment, I made a decision immediately and shouted.
"Eldest Brother! Go outside and disrupt those bastards! Second Brother, save the people with me!"
"Understood!"
"Got it!"
Saving the people inside was the priority, but if arrows kept pouring in, even that would be impossible.
So I planned to have Brother Jeung Chil, whose throwing weapon skills were exceptional, throw the archers into chaos while we rescued the people.
The inside of the inn had already become a living hell thanks to the arrows that had flown in, the tables bursting into flames, and the resulting smoke.
People were coughing and screaming, trapped in confusion without even being able to flee outside.
"Cough! Cough!"
"Spare us!"
"Aaaagh! My leg!"
Brother Pung and I first pulled those who had been struck by arrows away from the windows, then kicked the burning objects to one corner.
"Everyone gather by the door! No arrows are coming in on this side!"
Perhaps because the Hapsan Sect warriors had fled out through the door earlier, no arrows were coming in near the main entrance.
Even while coughing from the rising smoke, people gathered by the door as I had instructed.
"Cough! Cough!"
"Huaaagh!"
"Aaaagh! My leg! My leg!"
Only after gathering the people inside to one side did Brother Pung and I leap outside.
Perhaps thanks to Brother Jeung Chil's efforts, arrows were no longer flying in from outside.
But once outside, Brother Pung and I witnessed yet another scene of chaos no less dire than inside.
And this time, it was a living hell created by someone I knew.
"Kuahahahaha! Die, you bastards!"
Pyu-shu-shu-shu-shuk!
"Kuaaaagh!"
"Aaaagh! Spare us!"
"Aaaagh!"
"R-run away!"
Brother Jeung Chil was running wild like a fish meeting water.
The warriors who had surrounded the inn seemed to number around a hundred, but already half of them had lost their lives, and the rest were scattering and fleeing in every direction.
It was a spectacle that vividly demonstrated what a transcendent peak master becomes when facing ordinary warriors.
Having annihilated over a hundred warriors in an instant, Brother Jeung Chil burst into a satisfied roar of laughter.
"Kuahahahaha! The likes of you dare to attack this old man! A hundred years is...!"
But when his gaze suddenly turned toward where I stood, he stopped laughing in an instant.
It was because I was staring at something with a bitter expression.
"Ah, this is...."
What I was looking at were three corpses.
The corpses of the three peak-level masters.
The three peak-level masters who had first entered the inn were all dead.
Judging by the state of them, it seemed they hadn't been able to dodge even a single volley of Brother Jeung Chil's throwing weapons.
It was regrettable.
If they had been alive, I could have interrogated them and extracted some information.
At this, Brother Jeung Chil glanced sideways at me and asked cautiously.
"Was I not supposed to kill those bastards? I didn't particularly mean to kill them, but how could so-called peak masters fail to dodge even that one attack...."
Watching him ramble on with excuses, I let out a hollow laugh.
It seemed my nagging had been a bit excessive lately.
Seeing him keep checking my reaction made me feel a bit sorry for him.
I smiled and answered my brother.
"No. It would have been good if we could have gotten information from them, but since it's come to this, let's just head to the Hapsan Sect branch."
At that, he promptly beamed and spoke.
"Right? Why bother asking these bastards when we can just go there? Save ourselves the trouble."
...Surely going there would be far more troublesome than interrogating these bastards for information.
What a convenient bit of self-rationalization.
Indeed, it seemed Brother Jeung really did need to be nagged a bit more.
As my gaze grew cold, his expression swiftly sank back into gloom.
***
We raced like the wind toward the Hapsan Sect's Nannyeong branch.
The plan was to strike before the ones who had raided the inn could arrive.
Brother Pung asked as we ran.
"Are we striking through the front?!"
"No! We infiltrate quietly first! I think we need to seize the leadership and extract some information!"
We reached the Hapsan Sect's Nannyeong branch soon enough.
Its scale was roughly on par with the Seonwoo clan estate. As we drew near, we melted like ghosts into the shadows without breaking stride.
Swoosh!
I took point.
Amplifying my senses through the Moonlight Illusion Sword Dance's Hyeon Moon, I could now clearly discern the movements of people even inside the walls, so long as they were within a certain range.
Thus, as if looking down from above, I easily grasped the internal situation and relayed it to Brother Jeung.
-Sentries. Four warriors are moving away, three jang out. We'll cross the wall once they round the corner.
Another convenience was that I only had to transmit my telepathic messages to Brother Jeung.
This was because Brother Pung's senses were at least equal to mine, eliminating any need to send him hurried telepathic transmissions.
The moment the presence beyond the wall receded and a gap appeared in the sentries' surveillance, I immediately sent the signal.
-Now!
Swoosh!
All three of us were masters of movement techniques, so there was no noise, no wasted motion whatsoever.
Moving like ghosts through the shadows, we began advancing into the estate without the slightest hesitation.
My target was the main hall, where I presumed the supreme leader would be.
Given that any estate's main hall is typically situated at the very center, finding the largest building in the heart of the compound seemed the straightforward approach.
And for us, that was no difficult task.
'Found it.'
The main hall was enormously scaled.
It was immense, not just relative to the other buildings within the estate, but even in proportion to the estate itself.
Around that massive building, twenty or thirty warriors stood guard.
We moved to the side of the building.
Sneaking in quietly seemed impossible with eight warriors guarding the front entrance alone.
And there was no need to force our way through the front, anyway.
With the stealth techniques and movement arts the three of us possessed, slipping through a second or third-story window was a trivial matter.
-Now!
Whish!
The instant a blind spot formed in the gazes of the warriors guarding the flank, I sent a telepathic message, and in the next moment, we slipped between them and pressed ourselves against the building wall.
Since we had moved as shadows under full stealth, no one had managed to spot us.
Just like that, like phantoms, we glided up the wall to the third floor and seeped in through an open window.
And immediately fell upon the two warriors stationed inside the room.
Shaaak!
"!"
"!"
Given that I had grasped not only their presence but their precise positions, the disparity between my reaction speed and their utterly unprepared state was naturally the difference between heaven and earth.
The moment their eyes flared wide with shock, they were already acupoint-sealed.
Tatak!
When I shifted my gaze to the two brothers, the two of them, as if it were only natural, erected a qi barrier to block any sound from leaking out.
Every breath of the operation was utterly flawless.
I now spoke aloud to the two warriors, who could do nothing but look back at me with startled eyes.
"From now on, I intend to perform a method on you called Bone and Sinew Separation. It consists of ten stages. Let's have you sample only up to stage three first, and then we'll talk again."
And with that, I promptly twisted their muscles and bones.
Crunch! Crunch-crunch!
"Khuuuuugh!"
"Urrrrrrgh!"
The moment my words ended, struck without warning by the Bone and Sinew Separation, their eyes began to quiver and tremble with agony as they let out pained groans.
***
A short while later, having tasted the Bone and Sinew Separation up to stage three, the moment we released their mute acupoints, they began to spill information competitively.
They were the easiest bastards I'd ever seen.
First, what I learned through them was that the entire lot of this Hapsan Sect were filthy scum you could never believe were part of the orthodox faction.
The methods they had used to crush surrounding rival powers, the means by which they had grown their influence—everything was deeply unorthodox.
Assassination of key figures, abduction of associates, blackmail, extortion... on the surface, they pretended to be from the orthodox faction, while committing acts more wicked than any unorthodox sect.
However, they knew very little about the one I had been mistaken for—the successor of the Hainan In Clan, Inparang.
They only said that their superiors had distributed his wanted poster and issued orders to kill him on sight, as he would soon be passing through this area.
I nodded and spoke to my brothers.
"It seems we'll have to catch someone a bit higher up."
And with that, I pressed the killing acupoints of the two warriors we had just captured.
Thud-thud!
"!"
"!"
They died on the spot.
Since I had never once said I'd spare them if they talked, I felt no pangs of conscience whatsoever.
Moreover, based on the facts they had just confessed, any thought of letting the Hapsan Sect Nannyeong branch's scum live had already completely evaporated.
We immediately burst out of the room and sprinted down the corridor like a gale.
We encountered some warriors along the way, but none could raise their voices.
Because the instant they spotted us, they drew their last breath.
"!"
Whish!
"Gkgh!"
And reaching the fifth floor without obstruction, we discovered the Hapsan Sect's Nannyeong branch leader there, frolicking wantonly with a woman in broad daylight.
Whish!
"Keok!"
"Ghuk!"
"Hek!"
"Uk!"
In a single instant, we slaughtered the four warriors guarding the branch leader's office, then flung the doors wide open and stormed inside.
Whish!
Whereupon the heavyset man, naked and in the middle of his business with the woman, screamed in sheer terror.
"Who the hell...!"
Tadak!
But that was the entirety of the words he managed to spit out.
That was because, as a man possessing roughly eighty years of internal energy, before three figures wielding transcendent peak martial prowess—and under a sudden ambush from masters who specialized in movement techniques—he could do nothing at all.
What followed was identical to the process from before.
After pressing the woman's sleep acupoint so she dozed off, once the two brothers erected a qi barrier to prevent sound from escaping, I spoke to the scum with an expressionless face.
"Things are going to get quite painful starting now. I'm going to use something called Bone and Sinew Separation on you. It has ten stages in total, but let's sample up to stage five first, and then we'll talk slowly."
And Bone and Sinew Separation beyond stage five proved unnecessary.
We were able to hear all the information we needed without difficulty.
A short while later, we killed every warrior in the main hall, along with the executives scattered throughout the Nannyeong branch, and made our escape.
We set fire to the main hall, and of course collected all their assets as well as the documents proving their misdeeds.