The Engagement Ceremony
Ever since he had swept the Haoman clan clean and seized the seat of Gate Leader, Heuk Jin-jo's greatest worry had always been the betrayal and rebellion of his own subordinates.
He had long since thrown legitimacy to the dogs, and he himself had proven that anyone with enough power could sit in the Gate Leader's chair.
There was no guarantee that a second Heuk Jin-jo would not appear at any moment, in any place.
So he had kept his eyes sharp with vigilance every waking second, scanning his surroundings—yet only a few days ago, his life had been threatened by a person he had never even imagined.
"Young Gate Master Honggeum…"
The little girl who had once toddled after him, calling him "Uncle Heuk Jin-jo" with a bright, carefree smile.
The storms of the years had changed a great many things, but that voice was one Heuk Jin-jo could never easily forget.
He had wondered where she had vanished to—only to learn that she had been sharpening her blade in secret, right under the lantern.
"And she has become an expert somewhere along the way… Hah."
Heuk Jin-jo let out a hollow laugh, as if the whole thing were absurd.
He had thought of her as nothing more than a clever, quick-witted little girl. Cast out onto the streets of Beijing with nothing to her name, he had assumed she had starved to death in some nameless back alley.
Instead she had lived, learned martial arts, and returned. And somehow she had talked a Transcendental Peak expert into standing at her side.
If he had not joined hands that day with the Demonic Cult forces who had slipped into Beijing… what would have become of him by now?
The mere thought sent a chill down Heuk Jin-jo's spine.
"Those damned bastards."
He shook his head hard and drew a short dagger from his robes. Without a shred of mercy he drove the coldly gleaming blade down into the knee of the man bound tight before him.
"Gyaaah!"
The edge bit into flesh and scraped bone; the man twisted his whole body and screamed under the horrific pain.
Yet the gaze looking down on him from Heuk Jin-jo was nothing but ice.
"Master of the Shadowless Pavilion. If you still have a mouth, start talking."
Heuk Jin-jo seized the dagger's hilt and twisted it with deliberate cruelty.
In that underground chamber, the ruthless nature of a man who would stab even the one he served if it meant power flashed into full view.
"I told you to find Hong Gak-jan's daughter… and instead you teamed up with Il-hye-hyang and latched onto that bitch?!"
Heuk Jin-jo's face was a study in pure incredulity. Thanks to them he had walked out into the streets knowing nothing, and had come within a hair's breadth of losing his head.
"Kh… I have no idea… what you're talking about!"
The Master of the Shadowless Pavilion ground his teeth, eyes bloodshot. As if protecting someone, he denied everything to the end and refused to open his mouth.
"Stop holding out and spit it all. The conspiracy Honggeum and Il-hye-hyang cooked up! And every place those two might run to!"
When the man's resistance held firm, Heuk Jin-jo drove the dagger deeper still. The sensation of living flesh being carved away made the Master of the Shadowless Pavilion bulge his eyes and howl.
"I said… kuh! I don't know what you're talking about…"
"Heh. True love, is it? For that old hag Il-hye-hyang you're ready to throw your life away?"
Heuk Jin-jo barked a scornful laugh, as if it were all useless. No matter how steely a man's will, everyone crumbled before the endless interrogations of Haoman.
"Whatever the two of you have been plotting all this time… in the end you will spit it out, Master of the Shadowless Pavilion…!"
Heuk Jin-jo twisted the dagger's hilt once more.
"Gyaaaaah!"
For a long while, the deep underground chambers of Haoman rang without pause with the man's terrible screams.
At the far end of an alley where damp, musty humidity stabbed at the nose, a faint light leaked from an old warehouse building beyond a crumbling, time-worn wall.
The clatter of gambling dice and rough laughter carried out; in a shabby place that looked uninhabited, the presence of an unnatural number of people could be felt.
Together with Ilhong and Jo Harang, I slipped in like a shadow.
And among the figures reeling drunkenly in and out across the threshold, I spotted one all-too-familiar face.
"Eom Baek…?"
The former ringleader of the beggar pack that had once tormented our crew without mercy.
He had gathered beggars, hitched them to some black-path sect, and strutted about with the pathetic martial arts he had gained that way—a thoroughly unimpressive specimen.
And of all the stubborn bad blood in the world, the bastard seemed to have planted his feet again in a place called the Black Wind Gate, scraping together every riffraff of Beijing's back alleys.
Judging by his bearing, he ranked fairly high even inside it; he paced arrogantly among the hostages they had seized for ransom.
"Boss, that guy is…"
Ilhong, pressed close to my side, muttered in disbelief.
"Yeah. The same old pain in the ass. At this point you could call it a fated grudge and no one would argue."
In that moment Ilhong's hand pointed through the window at a black-haired young woman bound tight.
"Miss Jo Yeongyeong seems to be held over there as well."
She had grown a great deal since the days when I had seen her as a wandering swordsman, yet the faint traces of her past self still remained.
"Hey, Eom Baek. Even so, laying hands on the Jo family estate is going too far, isn't it?"
Inside the building, one of the Black Wind Gate members was voicing his concern toward Eom Baek.
Eom Baek only shrugged and snorted, as if there were nothing to worry about.
"Those ink-smelling bookworms? They won't have any real connections in the Murim. At best they'll hire some second-class or first-class martial artist."
He boldly declared that with their numbers and the Black Wind Gate Leader's power they could suppress anyone of that level without trouble.
The surrounding members nodded as if forced to agree.
At best a second-class or first-class martial artist, huh.
I snorted under my breath and closed in while killing every scrap of presence.
In front of the tightly shut main gate, my eyes met Ilhong's and Jo Harang's.
Nod. Nod.
We nodded at the same time, and Jo Harang stepped to the front.
She swung the heavy Hohyeop-do in her hands as if it were a demolition hammer.
KWA-JAAAK!
One exhilarating blow exploded the massive main doors into splinters. Dust and debris sprayed in every direction, and the warehouse interior fell into sudden silence under the noise and the shock.
Black-path thugs and a few hostages flinched hard at the sight of us.
"Who the hell are these bastards…!"
"You dare barge into the Black Wind Gate…! Ghk!"
Two members who charged from the doorway were sent flying in an instant by two casual punches from Jo Harang.
The remaining black-path members stared at us, tension written across their faces as they felt the overwhelming gap in skill.
"St-stay calm! We still have more people…!"
In fights among martial artists below the Peak Realm who could not yet form weapon qi—the so-called fodder brawls—numbers often decided the outcome.
Trusting the first-class skill of the Black Wind Gate Leader and their own numbers, Eom Baek strode out toward the dust-choked entrance.
And when the dust cleared, he found faces far too familiar.
"D-Dan Mujin…?"
Eom Baek's eyes went round as saucers. Up close I could see several of his upper and lower teeth missing.
Traces of the thrashing I had given him long ago, when I had knocked his corn kernels out. The trauma seemed to rush back; his expression twisted in an instant.
"Wait—Dan Mujin?"
"Don't tell me it's that famous Dog-Beating Dragon, Dan Mujin?!"
A murmur rose among the enemies. Well, looks like I've become something of a celebrity myself.
I grinned and gripped the Jiokchammabong hard.
"Come get hit, you half-human mongrels."
Unlike the kids in my crew, these bastards had never thought of reforming and earning an honest living. They just kept committing acts lower than beasts.
For dogs like these, there was a martial art that suited them perfectly.
Banjeol Gudun — a horizontal sweep of the staff that smashes straight into the buttocks.
Whoooom—
The jet-black staff began to rake through the enemy ranks in time with the heavy rhythm of the Dog Beating Staff Technique.
Shhhraaak—
Myeolsal Do-hon — the saber method that executes the wicked. Jo Harang's blade cut across the fronts of five Black Wind Gate members at once.
Wherever the tip passed, crimson lines of blood and sprays of gore were drawn. It was the overbearing saber art unique to the Purple Micro Star, which never forgave the wicked.
"Haaap!"
If Jo Harang was the type who swept through the enemy ranks like a typhoon with her heavy saber art, then Ilhong was the sharp thorn that thrived in the heart of that storm.
White sword qi flashed without rest as she tore through the enemy formation from end to end.
And onto the heads and backs of every remaining black-path thug, my Jiokchammabong arrived without fail.
I did not wrap it in qi—I wanted to keep unnecessary killing to a minimum—but the heavy striking method still guaranteed every enemy became a thorough cripple.
Thud!
"Gyaak!"
True to the name Dog Beating Staff Technique, every blow produced the same desperate shrieks one would hear while thrashing a rabid dog.
Working together the three of us kept answering the enemies who charged in trusting only numbers, and the result was that we swept dozens of Black Wind Gate members clean in less time than it takes to drink a single cup of tea.
All while securing the kidnapped hostages unharmed.
"You son of a bitch, you again—! Ghk!"
Thud!
The tip of the staff cracked across Eom Baek's snout. White kernels like corn rattled to the floor.
More teeth knocked free. From now on even chewing food would be a struggle. I had already smashed one of his legs, so his days as a thug were finished.
"Brother Mujin!"
And then, having heard the thunder and the uproar we had raised, Ohchil and the other second-class escorts came sprinting around the alley corner in a full panic.
Ohchil's mouth fell open at the sight of the Black Wind Gate headquarters turned into pure chaos and the members sprawled everywhere groaning.
He picked his way carefully toward me, afraid of stepping on a corpse.
"Good grief—I ran the second I heard the fighting…"
"That much time was more than enough to put these bastards down."
At my answer he looked briefly crestfallen.
"How do I get strong like you, hyung?"
He had heard the rumors of my strength a few times, but in the end a person only truly feels it with their own two eyes.
Yang Jo and Yang Wi also eyed me from behind Ohchil, clearly curious about how I had grown so strong.
So I gave Ohchil advice drawn straight from experience.
"Get beaten half to death."
In my memory, martial arts had never been anything more than a discipline you learned with your body while getting the crap kicked out of you.
At the order to go get hit, Ohchil shot a sidelong glance at Ilhong, as if to ask whether this was for real.
"Yeah… hard to believe, but he means it…"
Ilhong, who had witnessed every last one of my brutal training sessions, scratched her cheek and confirmed it.
Ohchil's face went pale as he made it clear that sounded a little too hard.
Pity. That was the shortest road to becoming a true expert.
Still, if he came looking for lessons, I was willing to give him all sorts of advice while making sure it hurt as little as possible.
Ssss.
In the meantime Ilhong and Jo Harang had cut the ropes and blindfolds from the bound hostages.
At first they flinched in fright, but they soon realized they had been rescued and let out deep sighs of relief.
Among them, Jo Yeongyeong saw the face of Ilhong who had freed her blindfold and lit up, eyes sparkling with pure delight.
"Ah—Young Master Ilhong! I knew you would come to save me!"
I was the one who had accepted the request to rescue her, but that fact seemed not to matter. Jo Yeongyeong latched onto the arm of the Ilhong she had once fallen head over heels for and refused to let go.
Honey dripped from her eyes as if she had met her fated partner at the most dramatic possible moment.
"Miss Jo Yeongyeong, Master Jo is deeply worried because of tomorrow's engagement ceremony. Please stop wandering and go home."
Only when I spoke did her gaze finally turn my way, as if noticing I existed.
She looked back and forth between me and Jo Harang, dug through old memories, and then greeted us with recognition.
"You're… Heroine Jo Harang whom I met on the way to the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, and… that unlucky wandering swordsman?"
So that was how I had been remembered. I had done a fair bit of work taking down bandits back then.
Apparently only Ilhong had stayed sharp and clear in her mind.
"Get away from me! I've found true love!"
She yanked the flustered Ilhong into her arms and shouted.
"You want me to marry a man whose face I don't even know? I'd rather leave with Young Hero Ilhong and chase love!"
No amount of persuasion worked; the client had fallen for Ilhong hard and solid. The commission would only succeed if I got her back and seated her at the engagement ceremony the two families would hold tomorrow morning. I scratched the side of my head with a thoroughly troubled look.
"Young Hero Ilhong enjoyed our time in the carriage back then too, didn't you? That breath we shared—that was clearly fate!"
Knowing the truth of who Ilhong was, the scene in front of me was nothing short of ridiculous.
I shot the person involved a look that said, Do something about this.
Ilhong let out a long sigh, then nodded as if she understood.
She smiled gently like a proper gentleman and took Jo Yeongyeong's hand.
"Would you follow me for a moment?"
Of course she would. Jo Yeongyeong followed Ilhong into a secluded corner of the alley.
And after about the time it takes for one stick of incense to burn, Ilhong returned with the young lady of the Jo family.
Only now Jo Yeongyeong trailing behind her looked like someone who had just been hit with a shocking truth—her soul had left her face.
"I-impossible…"
What the hell had been done to turn the woman who had been screaming about true love into someone this shattered?
She shook her head, denying reality, then finally grabbed my arm—the same arm she had not even wanted to touch—and clung tight.
"…I want to go home."
At her one-hundred-eighty-degree change of attitude, Jo Harang and I looked at each other and shrugged.
I carefully asked Ilhong, who had come up beside me after solving the client's problem.
"What did you do?"
Ilhong's brow twitched at the question.
"…It's a secret."
With an expression that said she would absolutely never tell, she put a finger to her lips.