I Told You Not to Scream
“….”
Our eyes met.
Rain poured down in sheets.
White breath scattered through the winter downpour. Steam rose from my shoulders.
The woman’s unfocused pupils sharpened. Her brow furrowed. Her mouth began to open—
Host, block it!!!
“Kh!”
I hurled myself forward, smashing through the roof.
The window frame crumpled. Glass shattered. I clamped my palm over the woman’s mouth just as sound began to escape it.
We tumbled into the room. Furniture overturned. A shelf toppled. Porcelain shattered into fragments.
I rolled once without a proper breakfall and slammed onto my back.
“Guh… ngh.”
It hadn’t been a martial form so much as pure instinct. The impact traveled straight up my spine.
“Y-y-you…! Who the hell are you?!”
The woman scrambled to cover herself with the blanket, shouting. Her hair was a mess, and the thin nightclothes left the pale skin of her neck and shoulders exposed.
I shoved aside my black martial robes and gripped the dagger at my waist.
You must not kill her!
My movement locked up. Mumyeong’s warning cut like frost.
Killing a household blood relative is on an entirely different scale from cutting down mere underlings!
I ground my teeth.
I released the blade at once and raised empty hands to show I meant no immediate harm.
“Stay calm. As long as you pose no danger, I have no desire to create unnecessary casualties… damn it!”
She tried to scream again without warning. I lunged and sealed her mouth once more, voice rough behind the iron mask.
“I told you not to make a sound! Keep this up and I’ll—!”
“Mmph.”
She nodded frantically with my hand still over her mouth. I watched her, breathing hard. She nodded again, signaling she understood.
“….”
I scanned the room.
It was lavishly appointed with every color of the finest silk. A red carpet covered white marble floors. In the corner stood a shelf secured with a jade lock.
Found it.
I looked back at the woman whose mouth I still covered. A jolt of surprise ran through me.
Her eyes burned with venom. I knew that look. She was quiet for now, but she was waiting for an opening. There was no fear in those eyes.
It reminded me of Ju Aseong’s vicious temper from the wanted poster I’d seen on the second floor of the inn.
What is wrong with everyone in this family…
After being stopped twice from screaming, she no longer moved recklessly. That only made her more unnerving. Even in this situation she was making rational calculations.
I hate the calculating types the most.
She nodded once more.
I drew the curved dagger from my waist. It spun once and settled into my grip, flashing in the candlelight. The woman held her breath.
Slowly—very slowly—I lifted my palm from her mouth.
“Hah! Who are you? An assassin?”
Her pale cheeks and the area around her lips glistened. Rainwater from my hand mixed with a red palm-print stamped across her face like a seal.
I pointed a dripping finger at her lips, mimed speaking with my palm, then drew a finger across my throat.
“Creepy iron mask.”
She muttered it with a look of pure disgust.
I backed away carefully, listening for any presence in the corridor beyond the door. The noise of my entry had not yet drawn additional footsteps.
I glided to the jade shelf.
With pure grip strength I crushed and twisted the jade lock until it gave way. The drawer was packed with documents.
“What, you came for papers?”
I ignored her and tore through the documents like a madman. My fingertips trembled.
Mumyeong urged me on.
Host, hurry. This place is too densely packed with people. Fine detection is difficult. We could miss something.
Papers of every kind spilled out. Most were account books. For a family counted among Luoyang’s richest, the ledgers alone formed a thick stack.
Found it.
I located the sheet bearing Cheongunryong’s name alongside a long list of silver taels and various forms. Beside it I grabbed a few other documents that simply looked important by the sheer volume of numbers, stuffing them away together.
Then it came.
“Young miss, is something the matter?”
My rustling hands froze. My heart plummeted.
“Young Miss Ju Hwaryeon?”
A middle-aged woman’s voice—likely a maid—continued from beyond the door.
I looked at the woman called Ju Hwaryeon. Our eyes met. She stood half-crouched, frozen in the act of moving toward the door.
“….”
The air was razor-thin.
The candle flame trembled. Beyond the open window, rain fell in steady rhythm.
A fraction of a second. A thousandth of a second.
My motionless hand moved. I seized the sword at my waist.
I saw Ju Hwaryeon draw a sharp breath. Her body shifted.
Click. The door opened.
“Young miss?”
“Kyaaaaah!!”
A scream that tore at the eardrums filled the room. Ju Hwaryeon bolted through the open doorway.
“Damn it!”
I launched after her.
The carpet slid under my feet. I staggered, catching myself with one arm against the floor.
I slipped?
Something felt wrong. I had mastered the Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo and believed I had decent control of my movement. Yet I had slipped.
Something is going wrong.
A chill ran down my spine. There was no time to dwell on it. Surviving the reality crashing down on me came first.
“Intruder! Someone help!”
Ju Hwaryeon screamed at the top of her lungs as she fled down the corridor.
“Eek!”
The maid’s face, drained of color at the sight of me half-sprawled, burned itself into my vision.
Bells erupted from every direction.
“Young miss, what is it?!”
Footsteps thundered like a landslide down the stairs.
“Intruder! Protect Young Miss Hwaryeon!”
Host!
“I know!”
I sprinted for the second-floor window I had entered through, ready to dive out.
Torches flared to life as if the world itself had inverted, flooding the darkness with wild flame.
“Block every path outside!”
“From the first formation to the third—seal the north completely!”
“Tighten the net on the intruder and prepare for more!”
Men packed the walls in dense ranks.
“Shit!”
The moment I went through that window I would be turned into a pincushion of arrows and spears. I had never seen so many martial artists packed into such an open space.
I clenched my teeth until they creaked. I flung the dagger in my hand and drew the sword from my back.
“Mumyeong, we’re breaking through the front! Support me!”
Understood!
I spun and charged for the door. The maid crouched by the threshold opened her mouth, about to scream. I shouted as I ran past.
“Do me a favor and keep your mouth sh—!”
“Aaaah! There’s an intruder—!”
I kicked the screaming maid square in the face. Bloodshot eyes wide, I roared,
“Why the hell does none of these bastards ever listen?!”
I burst into the corridor and checked both directions. There was no sign of the woman who had fled. Instead, the sound of people converging from every side filled the air.
“Where is he?! Where?!”
“The young miss?!”
Guards’ shouts shook the building. At the far end of the left corridor a piercing voice rang out.
“He’s behind me! There’s a filthy pervert in my room!”
My gaze snapped left like lightning.
“There he is!”
Sword reversed in my grip, I sprinted. My body wrapped in faint mist as I shot forward in a straight line.
I had tried to avoid using the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul whenever possible—its distinctive traits were almost as conspicuous as the Heaven and Earth Great Shift. But without it I would die right now.
The experience of breaking through the Blood Cult’s Heavenly Net of Earthly Web gave me a plan forming in my head. Then and now, the despair of being surrounded was the same.
But this time it’s different!
There was one decisive difference—the only way I could survive this crisis.
I raced down the left corridor.
“Kyaa?! Wh-why are you following me?!”
Ju Hwaryeon screamed at the sight of me approaching with ghostly red eyes.
“Protect the young miss!”
Warriors drew their blades as one. Ju Hwaryeon vanished behind them.
“You bastard! Do you know where you are?!”
At a glance there were thirty of them. The long, narrow corridor filled with enemies. Even now my target, Ju Hwaryeon, was pulling farther away.
If I lost her, I died. I would die.
“Hup!”
Red and yellow lightning-flame erupted from my entire body. Beneath the brilliant light the martial artists cried out.
“Th-this light?!”
I closed the distance at extreme speed. Just before impact I switched footwork to the freely transformable Hwan-yeong-dae-sin-bo.
“You—!”
The lead enemy swung his sword at my crown.
“…!”
I poured every scrap of internal energy into my blade and swung.
The man was bisected along with his sword. His upper body stuck to the wall, then slid down leaving a wet red trail.
I advanced, sweeping left and right. Two heads flew. An arm was severed. Before I could cleave the third man vertically, flesh and blood clogged the blade and it refused to come free.
I abandoned the sword and snatched the hand-axe from an enemy’s grip. The corridor full of foes howled.
“He’s breaking through—stop him!”
They swarmed like bees. I dodged a sword aimed at my head and buried the axe in a skull. I yanked a short spear from my waist and hurled it.
“Aaagh!”
The spear punched through the right shoulder of an archer drawing his bow. I yanked the cord attached to the spear shaft.
The archer flew toward me. I planted the axe in his face and, in the same motion, drove it into the shoulder of the man beside him.
“Gyaah!”
His arm went limp. I tore the sword from his dangling hand and threw it. The spinning blade carved through two more enemies like a windmill.
A blade slammed into my side; the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap stopped it. I smashed the axe into a face. The haft snapped.
A spear thrust for my solar plexus. I twisted aside, seized the spear, vaulted onto the enemy, and raised it high.
I stabbed down in a frenzy. In that instant I saw too late the crescent blade of a guandao flying for my throat.
Sparks exploded as the guandao smashed into my iron mask. The world spun. I staggered.
In that heartbeat swords punched into my shoulder, thigh, and side. I felt them drive a hand’s breadth deep through the armor.
“Guh!”
The rebounding guandao came down to split my skull. I thrust out the hand wearing the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap and caught the blade.
The man who had swung it stared in shock.
“L-let go!”
I hurled the spear into his gut with everything I had. As he died I wrenched the guandao free.
“The enemy’s empty-handed—don’t let him take weapons!”
They roared and seized the shaft of the guandao. I clenched my fist.
Iron-clad punches turned everything around me into bloody pulp. I claimed the guandao completely, sweeping a wide arc to clear space, then raised it high overhead.
Mumyeong seemed to read my intent.
No, Host! That technique is far too conspicuous…!
“It’s fine if they see!”
What?!
I screamed through spraying blood.
“I’m going to kill them all anyway!”
I had never learned spear arts. It didn’t matter. I raised the weapon. Crimson light blazed from both my eyes.
Possession Experience Synchronization
2nd Class — Blood Death Sect
Blood Demon Snake Wheel Slash
Blood-red qi shaped like serpents erupted from my body and coiled around the spear shaft.
The cheap spear, never meant to take a sword form, could not withstand the power of the Blood Demon Snake Wheel Slash. Cracks spiderwebbed across it; imperfectly condensed energy leaked out in streams.
“Haaaah!!”
I slammed every ounce of strength into the floor. At the same instant the shaft exploded.
The wall blew outward. Martial artists were shredded. Everyone—including me—was caught in the blast.
“Uwaaagh!”
Agonized screams rose as the floor gave way. I plummeted straight down. Even the survivors of the explosion were buried and killed by falling stone.
“Hah! Hah!”
Blood-soaked and reeling, I crawled out of the rubble. Without the new protective armor the Namgung Family had fitted me with, I might not have died, but something would certainly have broken.
I tore off the grotesquely dented breastplate and iron bracers—now useless—and cast them aside.
The choking dust began to settle. Beyond the thinning haze, Ju Hwaryeon sat collapsed, her face deathly pale.
I wiped the blood dripping from my chin and murmured through the dust.
“I clearly told you not to scream, didn’t I?”