Only Two
“The Second Branch has been smashed to pieces!”
The doors of Banwol’s Fourth Branch burst open as if they had been kicked off their hinges, and Chu Yeo-ryong, head of Ssangmun’s Third Branch, came charging in.
“C-Chu Yeo-ryong?!”
Every high-ranking officer seated in the Fourth Branch conference room shot to their feet in shock.
The short, stocky man with a heavy axe slung across his back kept screaming as he stormed straight toward Muk Se-hwi, who sat in the seat of honor.
“Fucking hell! Paeng Ha-jin was right—these bastards weren’t going to stop at the First Branch! They were planning to wipe out every last one of us Cheongma Oryun!”
Muk Se-hwi, a tall man with long white hair and long, narrow eyes, bit down hard on his lip at Chu Yeo-ryong’s outburst.
“Damn it… So Paeng Ha-jin’s fears were real after all.”
It was extremely rare for the Cheongma Oryun to gather in one place. The last time So Cheonpa had summoned them after his unexpected accident—when everything started going wrong—had been the first such meeting in six years. Even then, none of them had grasped how serious the situation truly was. That was why Chu Yeo-ryong and Muk Se-hwi, infamous for hating each other like cats and dogs, had nearly drawn blades the moment they laid eyes on one another.
But now, without anyone ordering him to, the Third Branch head had come flying into the Fourth Branch conference room as if his tail were on fire. That alone showed just how badly this crisis had rattled them.
“Where’s Jeon Pung-gae?”
“They found him hanging upside down from the eaves, stripped naked.”
Chu Yeo-ryong waved his arms wildly as he shouted.
“Every pressure point on his body sealed, joints dislocated. The best physicians in Unwol Jiju have been working on him for hours, but whoever did it layered three interlocking high-level seals so complex that they still can’t undo them!”
“…A master, then.”
A collective sigh of dread filled the conference room.
Chu Yeo-ryong must have run the entire way without rest; he planted both hands on the table and gasped for breath. Muk Se-hwi chewed nervously on his thumbnail.
“What are the odds Jeon Pung-gae simply let his guard down? A smash-and-grab while the house was empty, for instance?”
“Muk Se-hwi, you know that red-haired bastard’s personality as well as I do. Even when he’s lounging around looking lazy, he always covers his own ass. We might all wish each other dead, but after Ha Hu-gang of Yukrim’s First Branch got wiped out overnight, do you really think Jeon Pung-gae just sat on his hands?”
A senior officer standing beside Muk Se-hwi clasped his hands respectfully and spoke.
“To my knowledge, every black-path man under the Second Branch—including those who had been posted outside the city—was recalled by Jeon Pung-gae’s direct order and concentrated around his residence for some time.”
The words hit the room like a bucket of ice water.
Chu Yeo-ryong roared,
“This is no time to sit around! We don’t even know who the enemy is! Two whole branches are gone and we still have no idea who they are or how large their force is. Their security is so airtight the only rumor floating around is the insane claim that there are just two attackers!!!”
For a man famous for his rough, boisterous ways, Chu Yeo-ryong’s panic was rare to see.
“I left orders with every sector captain—A through E—to drop everything and race straight here if anything happened, put the whole place on maximum alert, and then I ran here myself!”
Muk Se-hwi’s face tightened with tension.
“Could the imperial court have decided to purge Unwol Jiju? Speed like this, security so perfect that only ridiculous rumors leak out… that sounds like trained regular troops. Chu Yeo-ryong, while you’ve been supplying women and running the brothels in Ssangmun, did you do anything that might have given the imperial officials a handle on us?”
Chu Yeo-ryong slammed the table as if having a fit.
“You son of a bitch! I may make my living doing that kind of work, but do you think I’m crazy enough to commit suicide like that?! The first thing I did when this shit started was check through the Shaanxi officials I usually supply with entertainment—and they were the ones asking me if the imperial court had shown up! This isn’t the court. It’s some third force!”
“Could it… really be just two people? If even Unwol Jiju’s best physicians can’t undo the seals…”
Muk Se-hwi glared and barked at the cautious officer.
“You think this is the time for jokes?! Do you honestly believe people like that are common?! Anyone with that kind of power would be a top rising star of a great clan or a supreme master even the Oho-samhwa couldn’t touch. Why would someone that exalted give a damn about a pleasure district like this?!”
“…Y-you’re right. Forgive me.”
The officer shut his mouth.
Chu Yeo-ryong’s eyes glittered with anxiety.
“It’s not too late. We may hate each other’s guts, but let’s join forces for now. I’ll bring every black-path fighter the Third Branch has. We work together until this is over. At this rate we’re all going to die.”
Muk Se-hwi nodded.
“Agreed. We join forces. No matter how unstoppable they seem, Jeon Pung-gae’s branch only fell today. Even if the enemy is an armed force, they’ll need time to regroup. No matter how hard they push, there should be at least a day before the next attack.”
Chu Yeo-ryong and every senior officer of the Fourth Branch nodded in agreement.
“In that one day we reorganize our lines and prepare with everything we have for their next strike. All business stops for the time being. Making money is fine, but staying alive comes first.”
A few senior officers looked troubled.
“What about the moonshine and the opium? You know as well as we do—if the supply stops even for a day the addicts will go berserk.”
Boom.
Muk Se-hwi slammed the table.
“Our own necks are on the chopping block right now and you’re worried about a bunch of opium-addled bastards?!”
“Hiiik! U-understood.”
Muk Se-hwi, normally so cold and composed, had roared. The senior officers all shrank their necks like turtles and fell silent.
These men were the absolute rulers of the underworld; nothing had ever frightened them. The reality that unknown enemies were methodically wiping out entire branches one after another, as casually as mopping a floor, filled them with pure terror.
Chu Yeo-ryong clicked his tongue bitterly.
“Hate to admit it, but Paeng Ha-jin’s the strongest of us when it comes to raw force. He runs the underground arenas too. Of course the Fourth Branch has its own people, but still.”
“That bastard’s been completely out of contact. He’s pouring everything into the Dark Arena Tournament that only happens once every five years. He probably doesn’t even know this chaos is happening.”
Muk Se-hwi irritably flicked a lock of white hair that had fallen across his face.
“Ever since So Cheonpa vanished, Paeng Ha-jin’s been acting strange. Lately there’ve been rumors of men in red robes—looking a lot like Blood Cult—hanging around the underground arenas in the back alleys.”
Chu Yeo-ryong’s face twisted as an unpleasant memory surfaced.
“Come to think of it, that bastard came to our Ssangmun Third Branch with a weird request too.”
“What kind?”
Chu Yeo-ryong crossed his arms and tapped the floor with his toes, restless.
“He wanted a massive supply of children under ten—boys or girls didn’t matter, but at least sixty percent had to be girls who hadn’t even had their first period. Paid extra under the table. At the time I just figured it was for some high-ranking pervert’s private slaves.”
“Filthy bastards.”
Muk Se-hwi frowned.
Sparks flashed in Chu Yeo-ryong’s eyes.
“Says the man who sells drugs. Our main merchandise is adults, you bastard. If you’ve got complaints, take them to Paeng Ha-jin. And that wasn’t the only strange thing.”
“What else?”
Chu Yeo-ryong ground his teeth.
“We supplied over a hundred kids to Jeolhae’s Fifth Branch. The problem is, not a single one of them ever came back out.”
Muk Se-hwi’s face turned the color of dirt.
They had both grown up in the black path. The implication of countless children going in and none ever coming out was enormous.
“…Have we gotten caught in some underground war between the Heavenly Demon Cult and the Blood Cult without even realizing it?”
Chu Yeo-ryong started to wave the idea off as nonsense, but his hand slowed.
Muk Se-hwi spoke rapidly.
“If those children are connected to the Blood Cult, and someone has mistaken us for Blood Cult collaborators…”
“No… No way.”
Chu Yeo-ryong shot to his feet.
“Where the hell is Paeng Ha-jin?! We need to talk to him about this right now—”
Boom!
The doors exploded open again. Everyone spun toward the entrance.
Shing-shing-shing!
Already on edge, several Fourth Branch officers half-drew their blades.
“Who goes there?!”
“Chu… Chu Yeo-ryong! Is Chu Yeo-ryong here?! They said he’d be in the Fourth Branch conference room!”
A black-path man wearing an armband marked with the character for “A” staggered in as if he might collapse at any moment.
Chu Yeo-ryong’s eyes nearly popped out of his head as he rushed forward.
“You—! You’re the captain of District A! What the hell are you doing here instead of holding your post?!”
“Chu Yeo-ryong!”
The man gasped for air and shouted,
“Our entire District A has been…!”
“Don’t tell me—”
Chu Yeo-ryong’s face went paper-white.
The black-path man was almost weeping.
“We tried to stop them! We couldn’t! They’re monsters!”
Muk Se-hwi shot to his feet in horror.
“Insane! They smashed the Second Branch and then immediately pushed straight into the Third without even resting?!”
The entire Fourth Branch erupted in murmurs.
Then another man came running.
“Chu Yeo-ryong!”
The next arrival clutched a half-slashed belly and wore a “B” armband.
“N-not District B as well…”
“They’re completely insane! Forty of our men charged them and every single one was cut down! They keep asking only for Chu Yeo-ryong’s location and the place where the ‘procedure’ is carried out, and they’re destroying everything in their path!”
Chu Yeo-ryong staggered and nearly fell; he caught himself on the table.
“Chu Yeo-ryong!”
“Is Chu Yeo-ryong here?!”
One after another, the captains of Districts C and D burst in. The moment they arrived they dropped to their knees and cried out together.
“We can’t stop them!”
“They’re unstoppable!”
“Our people are being tied in a line to a waterwheel by a woman and spun around while she water-tortures them!”
“Even Ma Yeo-jin of District E, famous for his strength arts—his entire head was ripped clean off by the man!”
Chu Yeo-ryong finally sank to the floor.
“Ssangmun’s Third Branch… the kingdom I built… gone in an instant…”
Muk Se-hwi recovered his wits first.
“Who are the attackers?! No—how many?! Tell us everything you saw! A hundred? Two hundred? What were they wearing? What weapons? Imperial troops? Demonic Cult?”
The blood-soaked Third Branch captains looked at one another. Their eyes said they still could not believe what they had witnessed.
“It wasn’t a group. It wasn’t an organization.”
They turned to Muk Se-hwi and spoke.
“There were only two of them.”
“Silence!”
Muk Se-hwi’s voice exploded with barely contained fury.
“What kind of nonsense is that?! If you start spouting absurdities that don’t fit reality, you’ll answer to black-path law—!”
“But it’s the truth.”
Looking as if they might cry, the black-path captains remained on their knees.
“They were true masters beyond the standard—the kind that only appear in the old legends of the martial world.”
“They wore masks. We never saw their faces.”
Muk Se-hwi ground his teeth.
“At the very least, was there any distinctive feature that might hint at their identity or background?”
“A feature…”
One captain hesitated, then added,
“There is one.”
“What is it?”
The captain searched his memory.
“Of the two, the woman felt like an assassin—hard to place. But the young man was unmistakably an orthodox martial artist. I’d stake my life he comes from one of the great prestigious sects.”
“What? A great sect? What do you mean?”
The captain nodded with certainty.
“You can tell just by looking. He’s far too young. The type who grew up never knowing hardship like ours, raised with the full support of a powerful family, high martial arts but probably short on real combat experience—a young master.”
“…Is that so?”
Muk Se-hwi’s eyes flashed.
Chu Yeo-ryong spoke.
“The formation masters of the Fourth Branch—they’re still intact, right?”
“Of course.”
Muk Se-hwi bared his teeth in a savage grin.
“If they’re going to come at us like this, we should give them a proper welcome. Oh yes. We most certainly should.”