Chapter 10
"Haa...! Haa...!"
The child ran, gasping for breath.
The soles of his feet were split open, and his lungs felt as if they were shriveling up inside him, but he couldn’t stop. Voices were closing in from somewhere nearby.
"He’s around here! Find him!"
"Don’t let him get away!"
Bracing the thing clutched tightly against his chest, the child forced a thread of inner energy into it at the sound of those pursuers drawing near.
It was wrapped in cloth, but even through the bundle’s outline, it was obviously a sword.
A fairly large one, too, despite being broken in half and missing most of its blade.
Wuuuuung—
As soon as the inner energy flowed into it, the sword reacted.
The shadows of the night spread across the ground and swallowed the child whole.
Slither—
Then the child vanished.
Or rather, he seemed to vanish.
"There’s nothing here."
"It felt like it was right around here."
Right after that, two men dressed in black pushed through the brush and approached, but to their eyes, the child had already melted into the darkness.
"Let’s go somewhere else."
"Tch. Must’ve been my imagination."
After a few more glances around, the black-clad men clicked their tongues and turned to leave.
"......"
Letting out a quiet breath of relief inside, the child began moving again.
One step.
Two steps.
He walked as silently as he could, doing everything possible not to be noticed.
He had finally made it this far.
If he could just go a little farther, everything would be okay.
If he could get out of here, he could ask for help—
"Cough...! Cough!"
Then he suddenly coughed and collapsed onto the ground.
His arms and legs trembled violently as if they were screaming.
Running on almost no food or sleep had taken a lethal toll on his body.
He had whipped himself along by sheer force to get this far, but at last, he had reached his limit.
"Ugh...."
His body refusing to obey him was a problem, but the bigger problem was something else entirely.
The inner energy he had been feeding into the thing hiding him had run dry.
His stamina and internal power had both hit bottom.
At last, the child’s figure was exposed again, and he crawled across the dirt.
He needed to find somewhere to hide first and recover his strength—
"You’re trying hard. Really hard."
"!?"
The child flinched at the sudden voice.
He reflexively lifted his head toward the sound and saw two men in black looking down at him from the branches above, their presence completely masked.
"What’d I tell you? Said he’d be around here."
"We checked, and there was definitely nothing there. How’d he hide like that?"
The two of them jumped down from the tree and landed lightly on the ground.
"Who cares? More importantly, you owe me. You bet five hundred thousand gold that he wasn’t here, remember?"
"...Take it."
At that, the black-clad man who had lost the wager tossed a money pouch to the man beside him.
"Ha! This is great. Making money while working too—"
Thwack—!!
"—damn, this sucks!!"
The black-clad man who snatched the pouch kicked the child squarely without hesitation.
Crash—!
"Kuhk...! Cough! Cough!"
Kicked in the stomach, the child coughed up violently.
"You fucking bastard. Because you ran off, we were dragged through hell. Just thinking about it makes my teeth grind."
The black-clad man huffed and marched toward him.
"What’s this, then?"
The sword the child had dropped from his arms was carelessly kicked aside.
"You’re dead today, you filthy barbarian."
"Uuugh...!"
The black-clad man grabbed the child’s black hair and yanked him up.
Smack—!
The hand swinging down struck the child hard across the cheek.
"Hey, didn’t the order say to bring him back alive?"
"Huh? It said bring him back alive. It didn’t say without a scratch."
The black-clad man tossed the money pouch at his companion.
"I’ll give this back to you, so keep watch or something in case the others come."
"...Don’t overdo it."
"Yes, yes."
His companion, glancing between the child and the money pouch, turned away.
Once even that bare minimum of restraint disappeared, the black-clad man’s hand moved again.
Smack—!
"I!"
Smack—!
"Already!"
Smack—!!
"Had!"
Smack—!!
"A shitty!"
Smack—!!!
"Mood from the mission!"
He had been thrown into the emergency sweep after an alarm was raised, and now he was unloading all that pent-up frustration onto the source of it with slap after vicious slap.
"......"
"Hahaha! You barbarian bastards really do have good feel."
At least he was restraining himself well enough not to use inner energy. That was the only mercy here.
There was nothing the child could do against the one-sided beating.
All he could manage was a twitch every time he was hit, and a dazed stare at the world through half-lidded eyes.
That alone was all that was permitted to him.
No matter how he tried to resist, his body wouldn’t move.
Smack—!
His mouth split open.
Smack—!!
Blood seeped from the torn flesh and pooled inside his mouth.
Someone... please.... help me...
The child pleaded desperately, but that plea never reached anyone.
It felt as though despair were swallowing his entire body, but the black-clad man gave him no room even for that.
Smack—!!
"Pfft...!"
Blood sprayed from his mouth.
"Damn it. Gross."
The black-clad man shook off the blood staining his clothes, and droplets splattered across the child’s face.
The taste of blood lingered at the tip of his nose, and with it rose a faint, metallic smell.
Yet beneath that bitterness, there was something far sweeter, something that burrowed straight into his brain.
"Ah, sorry. My hand slipped for a second."
Smack—!!
The black-clad man slapped him again, but something was different now.
Up until a moment ago, every blow had felt like it would tear his cheek right off. Now, the pain seemed strangely distant.
Not only that—strength was slowly returning to his arms and legs.
"Haa... haa...."
As more blood was spilled, an unbearable thirst rose inside him.
It was a thirst unlike the kind that came from not drinking water. His throat was burning dry.
It was almost as if someone in his head was whispering that he needed to satisfy this thirst right now.
I’m... so... thir...sty....
His throat was burning.
Help me...
He wanted someone to save him, but no such person existed anywhere.
He had to solve this himself.
How?
"Hey! You haven’t even reacted since earlier. At least scream a little!"
The answer was right in front of him.
"......"
The black-clad man’s hand, raised for another slap, slowed.
It wasn’t that he had intentionally moved more slowly.
The child’s eyesight had sharpened.
Time itself had slowed to the point that, if he put his mind to it, he could probably dodge.
And then the child’s head moved.
Crack—!!
Just before the hand landed on his cheek, the child bit down on the black-clad man’s hand.
"Aaaagh!?"
The black-clad man shrieked in shock.
But the child only clenched his jaw harder.
Squish—
His fangs punched straight through the palm.
"You little shit! How dare you!"
With a rough shove, the black-clad man tore the child away by the head and flung him aside.
"W-What the hell...!?"
The black-clad man clutched his bleeding hand in confusion.
When the child bit him, blood and inner energy had flowed out through the wound.
Only then did he remember the instructions he had half-listened to from above.
- If you manage to subdue him, immediately strike his pressure points and knock him out.
He had dismissed it as just another order, but it had been dead on.
The child got shakily to his feet.
Between his tangled hair, his eyes shone with a strange light.
"Y-You bastard...! What the hell are those eyes supposed to be?"
The black-clad man unconsciously staggered back from the ominous force pouring out of eyes that looked half-dead already.
I’m... thirs...ty....
Focusing on the spot he had bitten, the child swayed as he approached.
"D-Don’t come any closer...."
The black-clad man froze like a frog before a snake, cold sweat rolling down his back.
Then, just as the lookout came running back after hearing some noise—
The child’s body shot forward.
Fwoosh—!
"...Move!"
"You, you bastard...! GRAAAH!"
The black-clad man shoved his companion toward the child, trying to block the suddenly closing distance.
Crack—!
The target had changed halfway through, but the child didn’t care. He drove his teeth into the other man’s neck.
"Let go! Let go of me!"
The companion thrashed, trying to shake the child off, but it was useless.
Gulp... gulp....
"Khhhhh....!"
As blood poured in through the teeth sunk into his flesh, the child’s strength kept growing, while the other man’s was drained away.
"Save me... gghhhrrr...."
With a final gurgle, the companion black-clad man withered like a dried-up husk.
"Phaaah...."
The child pulled his mouth away from the neck and let out a satisfied breath.
"H-Hiiik...!"
Meeting the child’s bloodshot gaze, the remaining black-clad man turned and fled in terror.
The child did not chase him.
"Sleepy...."
Now that the thirst had been quenched, drowsiness came crashing down on him.
Even so, he snatched up the sword that had been thrown nearby and, unlike before, headed deeper into the mountains.
He found a cave hidden by trees and brush and went inside.
There was already a resident living there, along with its offspring.
"Kwoooaaang!"
"Kiiing!"
Their cries rang out a few times before quickly falling silent.
"...Sleep."
Having additionally satisfied his thirst, the child closed his eyes while clutching the bundle—more precisely, the broken sword wrapped inside it.
Wuuuuung—
The object quietly resonated with the yin energy newly filling the child’s vessel.
Blood mist leaked from his breathing and filled the cave.
When the child opened his eyes again, something would be different.
* * *
Gangneung, Jiangsu Province.
A midpoint of the martial world and a transportation junction connecting south and north.
I had arrived in Jiangsu Province.
"Phew... now I can finally sleep like a human being."
Geom Mujin let out a sigh as he passed through the gate and headed inside.
Apparently, if you crossed from one province to another, you had no choice but to sleep rough.
It would’ve been nice to take a taxi like last time.
Does my ancestor pay taxi fare for me or something?
Unlike traveling from Shaanxi to Hubei, heading into Jiangsu came with an extra risk surcharge.
That was because, unlike those two regions, Jiangsu was a place where even the evil factions had a foot in the door.
It’s not like I’m broke, though.
Still, if I wanted to prepare for retirement, there was no helping it.
For an unaffiliated martial artist like me, with no home and no clan to my name, retirement planning wasn’t optional—it was mandatory.
Sure, I’m flying around like crazy now, but people never know what’ll happen a step ahead.
If I ended up going wrong somewhere later and got sick or injured, then Seven Martial Stars or not, I’d just wind up dumped on the street.
Before I became one of the Seven Martial Stars, there was a fellow roaming martial artist from my generation who’d been pretty famous.
He was a peak-level fighter, the sort of talent nobody in that line of work could touch.
Red hair, and a slash scar across his face—he really stood out.
With his huge paydays and endless stream of work, he’d been soaring higher and higher, and it seemed like he’d keep doing so forever.
That is, if he hadn’t been stupid enough to get hit by a poisoned needle while wiping out a bandit gang.
Right before dying, the bandit chief made one last desperate gambit and fired a hidden poison needle.
Of all places, it lodged in the right arm, which was practically a martial artist’s lifeline.
Apparently he’d spent a fortune on the poison, because even the physician who examined him had no way to neutralize it and was forced to cut off the entire arm.
That saved his life, but the misery didn’t end there.
The poison that remained in his body wrecked his dantian as well.
- My armmmm!!
He was devastated.
Since he had always spent freely, trusting in his own earning power, he didn’t have much money left at all.
Was he supposed to live out the rest of his life with this body and this amount of cash?
His despair quickly turned into rage.
Blinded by fury, he used the last of his strength to slit the physician’s throat and kill him.
The once-unstoppable wandering martial artist became a murderer in a single day.
After that he lived on the run, and then I took him down on a request filed by the bereaved family.
I was short on money back then, so in a lot of ways, he was a very welcome guy.
If I don’t want to end up like that, I’d better save what I can while I can.
And besides, I’d already been hounded by retirement planning before I transmigrated, and now it was the same here too.
For some reason, that made me feel sad.
Anyway, I used my footing-skills to make the trip to Jiangsu, riding on my eternal friend, plain old walking.
First I should make sure about that old man.
Remembering my original purpose, I kept walking.
I’d come by foot partly to save the money it would’ve cost to get here, but mainly because I was in a hurry.
If there really is a problem, it might already be too late. But I won’t know unless I check for myself.
Finding the destination wasn’t difficult.
He was already famous in this area.
After following the main road for a few minutes, I stopped in front of a building.
Heo's Medical Clinic.
The clinic run by the Heo family.
The place, famous throughout Gangneung and Jiangsu Province as one of the finest medical houses around, looked grand even from the outside.
Nothing seems wrong on the surface.
From the building alone, it actually looked better off than the last time I saw it.
Back then, it had looked rundown because of money troubles.
I’ll know once I see him in person.
Thinking that, I approached the entrance.
"Stop there."
A warrior guarding the gate barred Geom Mujin’s way.
No way, they hired guards too?
He looked young, but his energy wasn’t bad.
"Can’t you see that line over there?" the warrior asked, pointing to a long queue beside them.
"I can."
"Then why aren’t you lining up?"
"Because I’m not here for treatment."
Why would he stand in a line for medical consultations if he wasn’t even a patient?
"Then what business do you have here?"
"Uh... I just came to see Physician Heo’s face, that’s all."
There was no way he could say he’d come to check whether the man had become a cult mole in the original storyline.
"Physician Heo? You mean Divine Physician Whitehead?"
"Ah, yeah, he was called that too, wasn’t he?"
"You bastard!! Do you think the old man is your friend or something!?"
As if I’d just asked him whether his parents even existed, the guard went off the rails.
Geom Mujin scratched the back of his head, and a strand of black hair popped out.
"Black hair!? You barbarian bastard, and you think this is the place for you?"
The guard’s caution spiked, and he thrust out his spear.
"Hey, stop doing things you can’t take back and lower the spear."
"Shut up! This isn’t a place for black hair. Get lost!"
"What? Since when was this a no-black-hair zone?"
No matter what, this was crossing the line.
"I’m Physician Heo’s savior, so go ask him. He’ll tell you to let me in right away."
"A barbarian is his savior? If that’s true, then I’m your son."
The guard’s conviction, thoroughly eaten through by Confucianism, was truly something else.
"Songbaek, that’s enough."
Just as the guard—Songbaek—was about to sweep his spear out and drive him away, a man with light green hair and a spotless white robe stepped out from beyond the gate.
"Old man!"
Songbaek bowed low.
"I was wondering why you were making such a racket, and here you are with a distinguished guest."
"Huh?"
The man passed Songbaek by and came up to Geom Mujin.
"It’s been a while. This humble Heo offers his greetings to his lifelong benefactor."
"Yeah, you’ve been doing well."
Accepting the greeting, Geom Mujin smirked.
The man before him was none other than Heo Injun, the Poison Demon who had once been the creator of Jamsungdan and one of the cult’s senior officers.