Chapter 132
Chapter 132
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 132
Chapter Title: Part 3. Blood is Thicker than Water (1)
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“Ugh!”
Mok Il-gwang opened his eyes accompanied by a groan.
His vision was blurry and refused to focus. Mok Il-gwang blinked several times.
In that interval, his mind returned.
“Young Lady!”
Mok Il-gwang shouted and abruptly sat up. His hand had already begun searching for his axe.
At that instant, a warm voice sounded from right beside him.
“I’m fine, Il-gwang.”
“Young Lady!”
Turning his head, he saw Hwang Hye-ryeong squatting there, gazing at him.
“Are you alright, Young Lady?”
“I’m fine. More than that, how are you feeling, Il-gwang?”
“I...”
Mok Il-gwang’s expression twisted as he tried to say he was fine. He could feel his qi and blood tangled and stagnant throughout his body.
His robust frame had no broken bones to speak of, but the internal injuries were far from minor. At least someone had administered proper emergency treatment, so they wouldn’t worsen further.
“Wh-what happened?”
Mok Il-gwang wore a puzzled look, utterly baffled.
Hwang Hye-ryeong gave such a Mok Il-gwang a faint smile.
“Big Brother helped us.”
“Big Brother? Then...”
“Yeah!”
Hwang Hye-ryeong nodded and glanced outside.
Bright light poured in through the cave entrance. They were inside a cave.
At that moment, someone entered the cave.
“Oh, you’re up.”
The plump figure wearing a kind smile was none other than Bang Jin-bo. Bang Jin-bo held a large pot in his hands.
The pot contained porridge of indeterminate nature.
“Your body seemed pretty beat up, so I whipped up some nourishing porridge.”
“Thank you.”
“Aww, it was nothing.”
Bang Jin-bo set down the pot with a genial smile.
“Where’s Big Brother?”
“Hyung is...”
Bang Jin-bo trailed off and looked toward the cave exterior.
“Groan!”
A groan leaked through Gong So-chu’s lips.
As if he had plunged into a pool of blood, his entire body was soaked red.
Gong So-chu shed tears. Yet he couldn’t will a single finger to move. It was because his whole body had been pulverized, as though struck hundreds or thousands of times by a massive hammer.
The very fact that he breathed in such a state felt miraculous.
Last night had been a nightmare for Gong So-chu—no less. The provider of that nightmare was none other than Dam Ho.
‘That bastard’s a devil.’
Shudder!
The mere thought of him caused Gong So-chu to soil himself.
His pant legs grew damp, but shame didn’t register. Fear overrode it.
The two syllables of Dam Ho’s name had been seared into his brain with terror.
He had tortured Gong So-chu through the night.
First came the fingers, crushed to bits. Then the toes, with the tally of shattered bones skyrocketing in moments.
Pain was secondary—what truly maddened him was clinging to life despite such wounds. He wished for death, yet whatever measures had been taken prevented even that.
The torment stretched on like eternity.
At first, he hadn’t understood. Why Dam Ho tortured him.
But time revealed the truth.
He was the sole survivor from the village they had pillaged. Even then, Dam Ho had torn out his comrade’s throat with his teeth. That fiendish brat had returned as a monster.
He couldn’t recall precisely what he’d said. He’d just babbled endlessly, hoping for mercy.
After prattling on for ages, he blacked out. Upon waking, he found himself abandoned alone in this alien place.
‘Did he really let me go?’
No other conclusion fit. And he desperately hoped it was so.
The issue lay in his utter immobility. Crawling was impossible, let alone twitching a finger.
Left like this, he’d end up beast fodder.
‘Ugh! My brother’s in this state—what the hell is that guy doing?’
He cursed his liege, Deputy Chief Kwak Geo-cheol of the Black Water Stronghold.
He had followed him for twenty years. At his command, he’d even feigned death. Risking his neck to infiltrate Murim Alliance warriors and stir them up—all on orders.
It was then, as he so bitterly resented Kwak Geo-cheol.
“So-chu!”
A familiar voice suddenly rang out.
Tears instantly brimmed in his eyes. It was the voice he’d yearned for in his dreams.
“B-Boss?”
Like a dream, Kwak Geo-cheol stood before him.
Kwak Geo-cheol and his underlings rushed over.
“So-chu, is that you?”
“Hic, sob!”
Gong So-chu nodded tearfully in lieu of reply.
“What happened to you?”
Kwak Geo-cheol asked, but Gong So-chu couldn’t answer. His jaw joint lay in ruins.
After Dam Ho abducted Gong So-chu, Kwak Geo-cheol had trailed cautiously with his men. Unlike Gong So-chu, he kept far from the fray.
Fear that his overly distinctive looks would betray him.
He’d dispatched only Gong So-chu, confident in his sharp instincts and judgment—no real peril.
The dim-witted Murim Alliance warriors fell for mere prodding. He’d mocked them as fools.
But Dam Ho’s arrival upended everything.
Dam Ho differed from any figure Kwak Geo-cheol had ever known.
In all his days, he’d never encountered a warrior as terrifyingly dominant as Dam Ho.
He too dwelt in the jianghu.
He’d witnessed martial prowess aplenty.
Some were absolute experts resounding through the current scene. In raw skill, they might surpass Dam Ho.
Yet Dam Ho exuded a primal dread absent in them.
Savagery wed to icy madness.
Dam Ho’s unique hallmarks, and he wielded them masterfully.
‘Never imagined the righteous sect warriors, obsessed with saving face, would harbor such an aberration.’
Dam Ho defied Kwak Geo-cheol’s every notion of normalcy—a monster through and through. For such a being to snatch Gong So-chu.
Useful for inciting the Alliance, sure, but hardly worth the effort of kidnapping.
‘Where the devil did he drag So-chu off to?’
Had it been anyone else, Kwak Geo-cheol wouldn’t have cared. But a force capable of shaking the entire jianghu? That changed matters.
It risked blowback on the bandit dens.
Thus, Kwak Geo-cheol had shadowed Dam Ho’s trail with utmost caution, evading detection.
Then, improbably, Gong So-chu appeared before him—utterly wrecked, voiceless, immobile.
Why?
As the question circled his mind.
“You’ve come, as expected.”
An alien voice reverberated in his ear without warning.
The flat, emotionless tone sent every hair on Kwak Geo-cheol’s body bristling.
“Who’s there?”
He whipped around. Atop a nearby boulder sat a solitary man.
Clad head to toe in black, ominous eyes glinted through tousled locks—chilling to behold.
“Gasp!”
Kwak Geo-cheol recognized him on sight.
How could he not? The man who’d unleashed carnage in Akyang.
Dam Ho himself.
Dam Ho rose from the boulder.
“Kwak Geo-cheol, Deputy Chief of the Black Water Stronghold—right?”
“How did you—”
Kwak Geo-cheol, blurting reflexively, shot a glare at Gong So-chu. He assumed betrayal.
Gong So-chu offered no defense. Dam Ho’s mere presence numbed his wits.
Last night’s horrors resurfaced unbidden.
Dormant terror reignited, hammering his heart.
Tremble! Tremble!
His body spasmed like a palsy victim.
“Th-that fiend!”
Foam flecked Gong So-chu’s lips as his convulsions halted dead. Terror overwhelmed his heart to a stop.
Even in death, his eyes stayed wide, whites glaring vacantly—horrifying enough for the trailing bandits.
“Ugh! So-chu was bait, then?”
Kwak Geo-cheol’s face twisted in shock. His keen intellect pieced it together swiftly. And he was spot on.
Gong So-chu had served as Dam Ho’s lure for Kwak Geo-cheol and his crew.
Memory failed him, but he’d spilled plenty: ties to Jo Yun-san, their purpose in Akyang, all of it.
Dam Ho descended the boulder. Kwak Geo-cheol and his men recoiled.
They retreated; Dam Ho closed in.
He still limped. Yet none present dared mock him. None could.
Slaughterhouse terror gripped them like doomed livestock. Unfamiliar dread set their frames quaking like leaves.
Only Kwak Geo-cheol clenched his jaw in defiance.
Dam Ho spoke.
“Why?”
“Wh-what’re you on about?”
“Why hound that girl so relentlessly?”
Dam Ho’s gaze turned arctic.
Kwak Geo-cheol felt a scalpel twisting in his chest. His heart plummeted.
“Ugh!”
He stumbled back, scanning about.
His stalwart underlings cowered like whipped pups, quivering.
Kwak Geo-cheol bellowed.
“What’re you waiting for? Block him!”
“But...”
“Block him now! Fail, and we’re all corpses!”
“Damn it all!”
Awakened to peril, the men seized weapons and lunged at Dam Ho.
“Yaaah!”
“Crush him!”
As his minions roared and charged, Kwak Geo-cheol spun and bolted.
‘Damnation! Using the Murim Alliance to off that chit—ruined. Guarded by that freak, how?’
Kwak Geo-cheol lamented his mere two legs’ limit.
Boom! Boom!
Deafening blasts erupted behind.
No screams reached him. Instinct told him his fodder lay dead.
Whoosh!
Gale-force pressure assailed his back.
“Aaah!”
Kwak Geo-cheol shrieked, whirling to lash out wildly.
Whoosh!
His nangdo cleaved the air sideways. Nothing met it.
“Damn!”
Mid-curse, iron fingers clamped his nape.
The vise crushed his throat; Kwak Geo-cheol gawped helplessly.
Crack!
Dam Ho’s fist drove into his flank. Blood surged from Kwak Geo-cheol’s mouth.
Ribs splintered like wafers.
Unprecedented torment buckled him.
“Ugh!”
Plunderer of villages uncounted, slayer beyond number—yet never once truly imperiled.
“Groan! N-no!”
Tears streaming as he clawed the dirt, Dam Ho’s boot heel smashed down on his leg.
Crunch!
“Aaaagh!”
Kwak Geo-cheol’s scream rent the air. His limb flopped broken.
Looking up, he met Dam Ho’s downcast stare.
“Why?”