Elder...!
Seol-ran came running from afar, waving her hand enthusiastically. Jin Mu-gak smiled with deep satisfaction and waved back.
“Where in the world did such a treasure roll in from?”
One final step remained between him and claiming this peerless beauty. Only now did Jin Mu-gak feel a pang of regret. He should have secured her in a more perfect setting, erased every loose end, and only then begun his work.
She was more beautiful than any woman he had encountered in his long life. The princess he had glimpsed from afar. The exotic beauty with long, graceful limbs from the Western Regions. The courtesan with dark skin from the south. Even the woman once hailed as the greatest beauty of the Demonic Cult decades ago. No beauty preserved in his memory could rival Seol-ran.
He ought to have obtained a proper secluded residence and shut her inside it, to savor her for the rest of his days. To think he would meet her in such an ambiguous place. A wave of belated disappointment washed over him.
“Hmm…?”
Yet the more he considered it, the more a faint sense of familiarity tugged at him.
“There’s no way I could have forgotten a beauty like that.”
He mentally recited the list of women he had carefully hoarded in his mind. A few shared one or two features with Seol-ran, but none had ever given him the impression of overall resemblance.
“How strange…”
The closer she drew, the stronger the unease grew.
“Seol-ran… Seol-ran…”
Had there been any woman of the Seol clan he knew? There was one, yet a woman like this Seol-ran remained an utter mystery.
“It must be my imagination after staring too long.”
At last Seol-ran reached him. She was breathing hard, smiling with teeth bared in open delight. Her face shone with pure joy.
“If this is not lovesickness, what could it be?”
Last night had felt endless. Never before had he desired anyone so fiercely.
“Kuhuhuhu…”
This was something he would not trade for anything in the world. Even if offered the emperor’s throne, it would pale beside what he was about to do.
“Haah… haah… Elder!”
“Welcome, Lady Seol. No trouble on the way, I hope?”
“I missed you so much I ran the entire distance!”
“Hehe, I can see that.”
So why had it been impossible yesterday but possible today? Jin Mu-gak studied her quietly. If anything differed from yesterday…
“What is that?”
“Hehe, it’s a secret. Since I’ll be imposing on Elder’s home, after all.”
“You prepared it for me, then.”
She carried something long, wrapped tightly in cloth. It felt unmistakably like a sword. He nearly laughed, wondering if she had brought it for self-defense. If she lowered her guard because of it, he would be grateful. Life truly was like the old man of Sai losing his horse—exile to this backwater had delivered such fortune.
“Let’s go inside.”
“Yes! I’d love to!”
Between the two of them, Seol-ran looked far happier.
Jin Mu-gak opened his eyes within a haze of agony. He could not gather his thoughts.
“As expected! You didn’t die. I knew it would be so.”
“L-Lady Seol? What is the meaning of this?”
“Hehe, well now. How did this happen, I wonder?”
His body refused to move. No amount of effort produced the slightest response. Had his acupoints been sealed? No, the sensation was entirely different. Besides, how could that body—which could not possibly know any martial arts—have subdued a Transcendental Peak expert in a single strike?
“I pierced a vital point exactly, yet you still live. I expected it, but it truly is fascinating…”
“Damn you! Enough of your games! I am Jin Mu-gak, Blue Wind Elder of the Great Murim Alliance!”
He had to escape this situation first. Jin Mu-gak made a swift decision, seizing the initiative before matters grew worse.
“Puhuhu…”
A sneer slipped out. It was bewildering. Could the attacker truly have been Seol-ran?
“You… you couldn’t possibly be…”
“How slow you are.”
Her voice remained beautiful and seductive. Yet to Jin Mu-gak it felt heavier than anything he had ever heard.
“Sama Ryung! It’s that bastard again! He created this monster! How much more must he torment me before he’s satisfied!”
“Oh? Not merely slow—you’re completely blind.”
Seol-ran—no, Ok-yeon—covered her mouth in exaggerated shock. The gesture matched the one she had used when introducing herself as Seol-ran, yet the aura approaching Jin Mu-gak was utterly different.
“Kick… But do you truly not know?”
Ok-yeon could no longer contain the laughter that burst from her lips. She gestured for him to look down.
Jin Mu-gak followed her gaze. The old elder saw his own body and recoiled in horror.
“M-My body! Why is it like this!”
“No awareness at all, and you don’t even recognize the state of your own body. How amusing. The great hero who personally guided the peace of the Murim, fallen so low. Sob, sob. This girl is truly heartbroken.”
The lies Jin Mu-gak had once spoken returned to mock him. Yet he had no spirit left to rage.
“Th-This cannot be!”
It made no sense—unless it was a hallucination. A hole large enough for three fingers had been punched through his chest, blood pouring freely, yet he felt no pain whatsoever.
No, it was not impossible. Anyone who knew would understand at once.
“You didn’t even realize you were a Demonic Human. So the Blue Wind Elder was nothing more than a puppet.”
“Nonsense! Shut your mouth!”
Demonic Humans felt no pain. It varied by individual, but because it was more efficient, most were made that way. Therefore most Demonic Humans felt no pain and displayed stubborn vitality even from mortal wounds.
“Haaap…”
Ok-yeon dipped a finger into the blood spilling from Jin Mu-gak and touched it to her tongue. She rolled the taste in her mouth a moment, then spat it out.
“Mmm. Such a nostalgic flavor.”
The blood toxin of a Demonic Human she had swallowed in abundance eight years ago. The revulsion of tasting it again after so long made Ok-yeon frown.
Of course, it was different now. Back then the blood had drained her strength on contact; today it was merely a disgusting liquid. After all, a poison strong enough to overwhelm even a Demonic Human’s blood toxin now flowed through her veins.
“Y-You… who are you…?”
Fear finally flooded Jin Mu-gak. He admitted his caution had been insufficient, yet he had pondered this woman carefully. A body that could not belong to a martial artist. A face that seemed familiar yet not. On top of that, the power to instantly subdue a Transcendental Peak expert with a surprise attack. And a bizarre being who merely frowned after ingesting a Demonic Human’s blood.
“Hearing the name Seol-ran brings back no memories?”
“What are you saying…?”
He had wondered the same thing earlier. Yet even now, the words stirred nothing.
“I thought as much…”
Ok-yeon looked disappointed. Had he remembered, she would have burned with fury. That he did not was, in its own way, equally disappointing.
“Still, you must remember this. After all, it’s the sole reason you went to the trouble of establishing a branch, isn’t it?”
“Br-Branch…?”
The reckless act of founding a branch. If he could not guess after hearing those words, he simply did not deserve to know.
Jin Mu-gak’s face drained of all color.
“It wasn’t Sama Ryung?”
“Your obsession with Strategist Sama is remarkable. Jegal Hyun was the same. That man must truly be something special.”
“C-Could you be…?”
“Baek Manor. That should make it clear.”
At the words “Baek Manor,” Jin Mu-gak’s expression went blank. Of course there were countless Baek Manors across the Central Plains. But once linked to the branch he had established, only one possibility remained.
“Baek Un-hyeon…?”
“Sigh, what a relief. I was worried you had forgotten him forever.”
If he had not forgotten, that was enough. Ok-yeon smiled with satisfaction.
“If you didn’t even realize you were a Demonic Human, you were probably nothing more than a discarded pawn. You wouldn’t know much.”
“N-No… I know nothing! This is unjust!”
“What could possibly be so unjust?”
“W-Well… that is…”
His eyes rolled frantically. To Jin Mu-gak, Ok-yeon had become an unknown terror. The reality of a being beyond common sense restraining him was unbearable.
“My, my. You are a great hero of the righteous path, Elder… How can you show such a pathetic face?”
Ok-yeon crouched before him and prodded the area around his heart with her finger.
“S-Stop! Stop it! I’ll tell you everything! Please!”
Confusion swallowed his mind. The fact that he had become a Demonic Human without noticing. That the only person nearby was his attacker, Ok-yeon. That he could not move a single finger despite a wound that should have killed him. Every circumstance felt alien and terrifying.
He had always been an absolute powerhouse. Even after neglecting his training, he remained a name among the top hundred experts of the world. The younger brother of the Mount Hua Sect leader and an elder of the Murim Alliance.
“You will tell me everything. Then this girl shall dare to ask.”
Still toying with the wound, never ceasing, Ok-yeon murmured.
“My mother.”
Squelch.
Even without sensation, instinct told him.
“Seol-ran.”
Ok-yeon continued speaking, driving her finger deeper. The wound tore wider.
“Was it your doing, Elder?”
Whether the amount had already exceeded a lethal dose was of no concern to Jin Mu-gak. He simply could not endure the wound opening further.
“I-I don’t know any Seol-ran…”
“Ha…”
Crunch.
What was that sound? He could not imagine. How could his body ache so when there was no pain?
“I-I didn’t kill her! There was no woman at Baek Manor who died by my hand!”
“Oh? Unexpected. Then what were you doing there? Weren’t you already present before I arrived, Elder?”
Arrived? What did she mean? The one he had been waiting for was Baek Un-hyeon. But the doubt lasted only a moment. Terror that he might die if he did not answer gripped him.
“Th-That is…”
He was at a loss. There truly was no woman he had killed. It was not a lie. Because he had been there for a separate task.
Seol-ran. Now he remembered. For her age she had been quite—
“…I’ll take your silence as the answer.”
“Huk…!”
What was happening? His chest turned icy. Suddenly breathing became difficult. There was no pain. There was none.
“Ugh…”
His teeth chattered. He looked up at Ok-yeon with desperate eyes. Yet even though her gaze rested on him, it did not feel as though she recognized him as a person.
He begged with his eyes. He wanted to live. His life had not been lived to end so meaninglessly here.
“Huu… Not yet. Really, you must not die.”
“Huk…! Huk!”
He barely managed to breathe. As the terrible cold receded, a faint question rose.
A Demonic Human’s body on the verge of death, yet feeling pain and struggling to breathe? The Demonic Human body itself was the strangest of all strange things, but for such a phenomenon to occur within it was even more bizarre. After all, this was a body that lived on even with its heart pierced.
“Dear me… I nearly killed you twice.”
Ok-yeon lifted her finger. What was this? Dried blood clung to it. No—looking closer, it was not dried but had the texture of something frozen solid.
“Then tell me every name of those who drove a blade into my father’s body.”
Ok-yeon leaned close to his ear as she spoke.
“It would be tiresome to visit each of them one by one.”
Her voice remained alluring, yet the murderous intent within it flooded him with terror. He never wanted to feel that bitter cold again.
With his hair standing on end, Jin Mu-gak frantically searched his memory. He tried to spit out the first thing that came to mind.
“The ones who were there were all De…!!”
At that moment Ok-yeon’s face hardened. Her figure vanished in a flash.
Thud—!
Immediately afterward, Jin Mu-gak’s body exploded.