Special-Grade Assassin
Saryeonggeuk thought and thought until his skull felt ready to split. When your life hangs in the balance, that is what anyone would do.
In the end, he reached a single conclusion.
I have no choice but to fight.
In the jianghu, there come moments when you must fight whether or not you believe you can win — and for Saryeonggeuk, that moment was now.
Retreating was impossible. The Poison Lord clearly had no intention of letting him slip away, and even if he somehow made it back, the Thousand Poisons Alliance Leader would demand he answer for this debacle.
There was only one way out.
Kill the monsters of the inn and return with something — anything — in hand.
Saryeonggeuk turned to the Poison Lord.
"You claim you'll stand as witness?"
"That's what I said."
The Poison Lord wore a broad, beaming grin.
Why, isn't this turning out rather pleasant?
He was confident Jin Seongun would win. And as a bonus, he'd get to watch the skills of the young prodigy who had killed Sikmugaek with his own eyes.
Even if Jin Seongun lost, it hardly mattered. He would simply step in and tear Saryeonggeuk limb from limb.
"How am I to trust that you won't interfere partway through?"
Saryeonggeuk saw straight through the man's thoughts. The Poison Lord answered with perfect composure.
"What will you do if you don't?"
"……"
Saryeonggeuk found himself at a loss for words.
The Poison Lord was right. He was the one being forced into a corner with no options.
Of course, the Poison Lord had thrown in a little soothing because he genuinely wanted to watch Jin Seongun fight.
"I swear on my name as the Poison Lord. No matter what happens, I will not meddle in your battle. If I break my word, my honor will lie in the dirt — and it would be an insult to Seongun as well."
Saryeonggeuk regarded him with an unconvinced look.
Oblivious, the Poison Lord shrugged.
Not that I intend to keep it. He swore it to himself, firmly. If Jin Seongun fell into danger, he would intervene. To a man of the Tang Clan, blood mattered more than honor.
But the placating seemed to have worked well enough, for Saryeonggeuk let out a small sigh and spoke.
"Fine, then. Keep that oath, no matter what."
Of course, Saryeonggeuk had a scheme of his own — if the man moved to interfere, he would seize Jin Seongun as a hostage and flee.
Having settled his thoughts, he continued.
"Twilight Pavilion Leader. Blue Night Valley Leader."
"……Y-yes?"
The Twilight Pavilion Leader answered with a start.
Why the hell is that bastard suddenly calling on me?
Indeed, the Poison Lord's gaze had swung toward him. Meeting those jade-green eyes sent a chill straight down into his knees.
Saryeonggeuk's voice carried on.
"You two — kill that assassin. This one is mine."
At Saryeonggeuk's proposal, the Blue Night Valley Leader gripped his short blade with a grim, resolute face. He had always dreamed of surpassing Salmak, so battle experience against a man who might have come from Salmak could only serve him well.
The Twilight Pavilion Leader, on the other hand, hesitated.
At the sight, Saryeonggeuk's eyes narrowed to slits.
"Pavilion Leader. What exactly are you doing?"
The Twilight Pavilion Leader stared back at him.
If only strength weren't the deciding factor, he would have loved to rip that mouth wide open.
Nothing had improved since Saryeonggeuk arrived. On the contrary, the man had done nothing but drag a heavyweight of the Tang Clan into Deokyang.
And Saryeonggeuk didn't truly regard the underworld of Deokyang as his subordinates, either. He had wanted to bring in Thousand Poisons Alliance warriors from the very start.
To him, they were tools to be used once and discarded. Wasn't he proving exactly that even now?
The insolence in the Twilight Pavilion Leader's eyes deepened by degrees, until at last he said:
"You're telling me to go die?"
"Wh-what did you say?"
Saryeonggeuk's face flushed crimson.
Paying him no mind, the Twilight Pavilion Leader strode, step by deliberate step, toward the Poison Lord — as though he had made up his mind.
The Poison Lord watched him with a grin, jade-green energy seeping thickly from his frame.
"You wish to fight me? So there was a real man hiding in Deokyang's backwaters after all!"
The Twilight Pavilion Leader was nearly within arm's reach, and the moment ominous green palm-force began to swirl in the Poison Lord's hand —
"Spare me, please!"
The Twilight Pavilion Leader dropped to his knees.
The Poison Lord's face fell flat with disappointment.
He stood there, palm still raised and brimming with force, deliberating. One casual flick of that hand, and the man's head would have burst like an overripe melon.
The Twilight Pavilion Leader's desperate confession poured out.
"I only moved because the Thousand Poisons Alliance left me no choice! Spare my life, and the Twilight Pavilion of Deokyang will be your dog, Elder Poison Lord — forever!"
"The Tang Clan doesn't keep dogs."
His venomous serpents kept biting the others to death, so the Tang Clan rarely raised any animal beyond snakes and poisonous insects.
"A cow, a chicken, a pig — I'll be anything at all! Just spare my life! Look at my arm! Saryeonggeuk drove me and my men into a death trap. Rather than live groveling before such a creature, I would serve the Tang Clan, masters of Sichuan—"
His supplication was, admittedly, thorough.
Belittle the enemy, elevate the listener, grovel flat against the ground and beg as abjectly as possible.
He hammered hard on the claims that his participation had been coerced, and that the loss of his arm had been his reward for it.
Any ordinary martial artist might have softened at such a plea. But his audience was no ordinary martial artist — he was an elder of the Tang Clan.
Behind him, Saryeonggeuk clicked his tongue.
"So there are idiots fool enough to beg the Tang Clan for mercy."
The Twilight Pavilion Leader felt ice shoot down his spine.
A moment later, Dang Taesan smiled faintly — and slammed his palm straight down.
Boooooom—!
A massive wave of jade-green force crushed the Twilight Pavilion Leader flat, and moments later, dark, murky smoke rose from his corpse.
"You should have said you'd be a snake."
The Poison Lord murmured it quietly, then turned to Jin Seongun and gave a nod. The look in his eyes said it all: my side is settled — now go and do yours as you please.
Jin Seongun bowed his head lightly in thanks, then spent a moment weighing his options for the fight ahead.
The surest weapon was the Blood Demon Art. But using it in full view of the white path's venerable elder was a somewhat uncomfortable prospect.
He glanced around and noticed swords scattered carelessly where the Twilight Pavilion warriors had dropped them.
Jin Seongun picked up a single straight saber. No particular reason — it had simply been the closest thing at hand.
"Will that do?"
the Poison Lord asked. Jin Seongun answered with breezy indifference.
"Yes. Probably."
He turned to face Saryeonggeuk.
Saryeonggeuk's face burned scarlet. A green, wet-behind-the-ears boy was slighting him to his face.
"Master Seo, will you be all right?"
Jin Seongun asked the question without taking his eyes off Saryeonggeuk.
It was a question born of genuine worry. Seo Yugyeom would soon be facing the assassins of Blue Night Valley alone.
What worried him was not the man's skill, but his condition. Lately, Seo Yugyeom had been struggling to rein in the surging impulses of his killing intent.
In a fight between assassins, keeping one's composure would be the deciding factor.
As always, the answer came back light and easy.
"I'll take a stroll around the neighborhood and be back before you know it."
With that, Seo Yugyeom swept his gaze over the surroundings once — and vanished in an instant. With the Poison Lord present, there was no need to worry about Hwa Yeonseol.
The moment Seo Yugyeom disappeared, the Blue Night Valley Leader gave a single nod. Then the assassins of Blue Night Valley melted into bluish darkness one after another.
Night had settled deep over Deokyang.
On the surface, the city lay in peace — but within it raged the most clandestine battle in all the world.
Assassins fighting one another was, by nature, a rare thing.
Assassins were, after all, hired hands who moved on commissions. Few clients ever thought to hire an assassin to kill another assassin, and even when one of an organization's own fell, it rarely escalated into outright war.
Rare, however, did not mean unheard of. About two years after Seo Yugyeom had entered Salmak, the organization had waged war against a rival band of assassins.
It was a Haifa-based assassin group called the Demon-Slaying Valley (Masalgok), formed by assassins of demonic sect origin. When they branched into the Central Plains, they had dared to pass themselves off as Salmak — and that was the cause.
When assassins go to war, the fighting does not end until one side ceases to exist. Neither side ever truly knows how many of the enemy remain, so all there is to do is kill, and kill, and kill again.
In the end, Salmak remained the finest assassin organization under heaven, and the name of Masalgok was erased from history.
Seo Yugyeom had learned a great deal on that battlefield.
For instance—
Whish—!
Seo Yugyeom flung the black overcoat he wore straight ahead, and the straight saber that burst from the alleyway pierced clean through it.
He closed the distance in a rush and pressed the man's saber downward. Every martial artist whose blade is seized instinctively tries to wrench it free — for nothing terrifies a warrior more than his own weapon being controlled by another's hand.
Which meant, for that brief span, the man was in no position to counterattack.
The instant his opponent moved to reclaim his blade, Seo Yugyeom rounded the corner of the alley without hesitation and swung his short blade.
In the dark alley, the Heaven-Killing Short Saber traced a pale, disorienting arc.
Right flank. Left ribs. Heart. Throat.
Four strikes, delivered in unbroken succession — not a flicker of hesitation, not an ounce of wasted motion.
Even as his right hand worked the short blade, his left had somehow already sealed the man's mouth shut.
The keenness of the Heaven-Killing Short Saber and Seo Yugyeom's dagger arts merged into one, and the man made no sound at all.
And so an assassin who had let slip a single mistake died in a silence most profound.
Seo Yugyeom gave the short saber a light flick, scattering the blood from it. Left to run down the blade, the fat drops would have fallen to the ground with a faint, telltale patter.
Having dispatched one man in the blink of an eye, he donned his overcoat once more and resumed his stroll through the alleys.
.
.
.
Just after the battle had begun, the Blue Night Valley Leader was in a state of considerable excitement.
Salmak had always been the object of his reverence — and a wall he had never dared imagine breaching.
To kill an assassin of Salmak's pedigree would make for an emblematic lesson to the world.
That expectation, however, was slowly curdling into unease.
Every alley he crossed into, every rooftop he leapt between — there, without fail, lay the corpses of his men.
What was truly staggering was that more than twenty assassins had been slaughtered without so much as a tremor of qi or a single sound.
Then it happened.
"He's here—!"
One of his men's cries rang out from somewhere in the maze of alleys.
The Blue Night Valley Leader broke into a run on instinct — then froze in place. He scaled the rooftop beside him and fixed his eyes on the source of the voice.
Five Blue Night Valley assassins were charging down toward it.
No—!!
There was no chance a man who had quietly killed more than twenty of them had suddenly blundered.
But he was too far away to send a voice transmission.
In a flash, the five assassins dropped into the alley — and for a long moment, not a single sound emerged from within.
Presently, one lone figure rose out of the alley and drifted off toward parts unknown. The sheer, untroubled leisure of the man's gait sent a shudder crawling up the Blue Night Valley Leader's spine.
……What in the world is he?
He had judged that if the man was truly a Salmak assassin, he would be of at least Second-Class rank.
Salmak classified its assassins from Third-Class to First-Class. And then — very, very rarely — there existed those called Supreme-Class assassins.
Measured against a sect or a great clan, they were the equals of elders — men whose skill had been proven over decades of killing.
Given the man's age, Supreme-Class was impossible. In truth, even Second-Class had been a conservative guess.
But judging by what he had seen tonight…
The man is unquestionably First-Class.
The Blue Night Valley Leader's eyes went cold.
One thing was certain: his opponent was a far deadlier assassin than he had imagined. A mere First-Class assassin of Salmak could stroll over the heads of rival organizations as easily as crossing a doorstep.
Within Blue Night Valley, only one man would qualify as First-Class by Salmak's measure — himself. That assessment, of course, was his own.
All the better, in fact.
The fight would be harder than expected, but when he hung the man's head at the mouth of Blue Night Valley, the effect would be magnified tenfold.
Such was the weight the name of a Salmak First-Class assassin carried.
Having resolved himself, the Blue Night Valley Leader moved stealthily in the direction Seo Yugyeom had vanished.
Just as expected, yet five more of his men lay dead in the alley. He wished he could shut his eyes, but manhandling the corpses risked exposure to poison.
As he forced himself to look away from the staring eyes of his dead men and pressed on—
"How heartless of you, for an assassin."
Every hair on the Blue Night Valley Leader's body stood on end. He pivoted in an instant and thrust his saber forward.
Whish—!
The jet-black, oil-coated saber shot forward — and stopped dead, upright, as though it had flown headlong into an unseen wall.
The Blue Night Valley Leader swallowed hard.
Seo Yugyeom, perched atop the alley's fence wall, clicked his tongue in admiration.
"Good instincts. Another inch, and you'd have lost the hand."
The Blue Night Valley Leader could not move so much as a hair, his blade frozen mid-thrust.
Dark clouds drifted sluggishly across the sky, and moonlight stole gradually into the alley.
In that instant, a web of silver wire (eunsa) — spun crisscross like a spider's snare across the entire alley — caught the moonlight and revealed itself.
Wires that could slice through a martial artist's skin as if it were nothing lay pressed against the Blue Night Valley Leader's limbs, his chest, his throat.
"……I'm getting tired of this assassin business, honestly."
With that, Seo Yugyeom gave the wire trailing from his fingertip the slightest twitch. At once the silver threads burrowed softly into every part of the Blue Night Valley Leader's body and drank deep of his blood.
Agony beyond describing seized him — yet he could not so much as twitch. Cold sweat streamed down the Blue Night Valley Leader's forehead.
Then he understood. The assassin he had dared set his snares for was a Supreme-Class assassin of Salmak.