Save Deungchon (3)
He had deliberately aimed for the killer’s Adam’s apple in such a cruel way to keep him from crying out.
It was the sort of finesse only an experienced swordsman, one who had survived countless real battles, could manage.
“Kehk!”
In the end, the assassin died on the spot without even managing to launch a proper attack.
The young boy, Seok Geum-ryong, did not falter or grow afraid even though he had killed the assassin with his own hands.
In the first place, the martial world was that merciless a place. If you did not kill first, you could not survive.
There are four assassins inside Gangha Inn. One of them is in the kitchen, poisoning the food.
Rather than waste time blaming himself for having killed a man or trembling in fear, he calmly analyzed in detail how many enemies were inside the inn and exactly where each one was.
That too was possible only because he had the poise and experience to back it up.
There’s no need to overthink this.
Fortunately, the enemy had already split up further.
By the time that thought reached him, Seok Geum-ryong had quietly concealed the corpse of the assassin he had just killed where no one could see it, then strode off toward the front gate of Gangha Inn with an air of absolute confidence.
He had chosen the front entrance because he was confident he could subdue the enemy, and because he expected the guard there to be looser.
As expected, his prediction was dead on.
“……”
Even though Seok Geum-ryong had slipped in and entered the inn, no one noticed his appearance.
Instead, the three assassins inside were sleeping deeply, trusting the other assassins who were patrolling outside and standing watch.
After all the chaos they had already raised, the inn’s original owner and his household had long since lost their heads, and only the traces of wine and food remained scattered about.
Dead bodies, and beside them the residue of a banquet table.
That grotesque mismatch stripped even the last traces of human feeling from Seok Geum-ryong.
If I’m going to face beasts, then I have to become a beast myself.
He resolved not to show the slightest mercy today as he moved into action.
The more ruthless he became, the greater the chance of saving his servant, Deung Chon.
Clack.
Seok Geum-ryong was no longer prey being hunted by assassins.
The reverse was true now. He had become the hunter, and he even took it upon himself to lock the inn’s front gate.
Only after he had barred the front entrance did the assassins, with their more sensitive instincts, begin to stir awake one by one.
“Who’s there?”
“Yun-pyeong?”
“It isn’t time to change shifts yet, is it?”
The assassins muttered to themselves, assuming it was the watchman patrolling outside, Yun-pyeong, until they suddenly sensed a chill in the air and sprang to their feet in alarm.
No matter how drunk or exhausted they were, they were assassins, and the moment they rose they all grabbed their weapons.
But no one rushed at Seok Geum-ryong, and the first strike instead belonged to him.
He lashed out with fierce precision at the assassin closest to him.
Heaven-Shattering Seven Stars Sword Technique, Greedy Wolf!
What must a lone fighter pay most attention to when facing many?
The answer was simple.
Seize the initiative.
He had to burst in alone and strike such shock and terror into them that they felt he could slaughter them all by himself.
Only by completely shattering the confidence of an opponent who was already basking in the advantage of numbers could the rest become easier, and Seok Geum-ryong, who had once stormed bandit strongholds alone in his previous life, knew that well.
Crack, snap, crackle!
His sword qi surged violently and pierced straight through the brow of the assassin who was still half-asleep.
It was a terrifying feat, one so cold and clean that it was impossible to tell who was the assassin and who was the child.
Seok Geum-ryong was razor-sharp tonight.
“Enemy!”
“Damn it!”
Only after a second comrade had fallen did the remaining two assassins realize how grave the situation was, and they jumped up.
Even then, the situation was far from favorable.
The light wine they had drunk to celebrate the coming operation had settled in their bodies as a lingering hangover.
In a life-and-death struggle, even such tiny factors could decide the outcome.
“Haah!”
Like a rotten fish that still had some worth, the assassins fought fiercely in the worst of conditions, unleashing quicksword techniques as they struggled.
Their blades were exceptionally sharp, brutally practical, and specialized in one thing above all else: how to cleanly take an opponent’s head.
As expected of elite first-class assassins.
Clang-clang-clang!
In the blink of an eye, Seok Geum-ryong took on two of them alone, and they exchanged dozens of blows.
Just as he had known from his previous life, these men were no random hirelings like Woo Jun-rae of the Flying Horse Spear.
They were skilled assassins, very well-trained high-grade killers.
“What the hell is going on?!”
As Seok Geum-ryong turned Gangha Inn into a scene of chaos, one of the kitchen assassins, who had been assigned to menial work because he had fewer years under his belt than the others, burst out.
Naturally, everyone’s attention shifted to the newly arrived assassin.
“Haaah!”
And in that opening, Seok Geum-ryong went berserk.
With the front gate locked shut, there was no escape.
If the three of them join up, this will become even harder for me.
That meant he had to reduce the two in front of him to at least one before the other could regroup with them.
Heaven-Shattering Seven Stars Sword Technique, Great Gate!
Up to now, he had been receiving their blades and exchanging blows in a prolonged clash. But now the situation had changed.
He needed to reduce their numbers, no matter what.
So he unleashed the secret form he had recently mastered: the second form, Great Gate.
Whoosh, crack, crash!
Great Gate flew out with the profound mystery of an orthodox, time-honored sect, and crashed down upon the two assassins whose attention had been stolen by the newly arrived comrade.
“Aaaagh!”
“Ah!”
No matter how well-trained they were, no assassin could help but scream when an arm was severed.
The assassin who merely lost an arm was the luckier one.
The other, who let out a dying shriek, had his back of the head split open and died on the spot.
“T-this…”
“What terrifying skill for someone so young!”
Now reduced to two, one of them with a severed arm and in no fit state to fight, the assassins shuddered.
Only then did the other man’s appearance sink in.
At first, they had taken him for some small-statured old man or a veteran master. But no.
Looking more carefully, they realized their opponent was a young boy.
“Who the hell are you?”
“At least tell us who you are before you die!”
Since assassins lived on the edge of death, they tried to stall for time with bluster.
Seok Geum-ryong knew perfectly well how shallow their ploy was, but he had never known from his previous life exactly who had hired them, so he decided to play along.
“Hmm? Aren’t you fellows from Sadwolbang? I’m Master Jang’s disciple, you know?”
Seok Geum-ryong threw out a plausible lie and laid a trap in order to learn who stood behind them.
It was not entirely absurd, either. Sadwolbang was a black faction operating in this area, and Master Jang was also a rather renowned swordsman around here, so the story had a ring of truth.
“Sadwolbang? Master Jang? That’s a misunderstanding. We were hired by Seokga Manor...”
The assassin whose arm had been cut away almost fell for Seok Geum-ryong’s too-experienced line of questioning, his judgment blurred by pain, but then...
“Yuk-cheon! Enough!”
The assassin who had been poisoning the food in the kitchen was still relatively intact, and he realized what was happening too late. He cut off his companion before he could break the assassins’ unwritten law.
Even when they died, assassins were never supposed to reveal the identity of the person who hired them.
“We’re assassins. If this has nothing to do with you, leave quietly. If you spare our lives, we’ll pay you handsomely in gold.”
Apparently they still did not realize that Seok Geum-ryong was a member of Seokga Manor, the very young master they were supposed to kill. The more intact assassin offered that bargain instead.
When they had taken the job, they had been told their target was merely some brat who had only been practicing martial arts for a year or two at most.
So they could never have imagined that this terrifying young fighter and Young Master Seok Geum-ryong were one and the same.
“You say you’re not from Sadwolbang, but assassins instead? I don’t buy it. Unless you tell me exactly where you belong, who ordered you, and who you were sent to kill, you’ll die by my hand.”
With that, Seok Geum-ryong thrust out the Silver-Veil Sword.
It probably wasn’t Seok Myo-hee’s doing.
No matter how vicious Seok Myo-hee might be, she would not have made her move this early, before last year’s incident had been fully covered up.
That meant there was someone else targeting Seok Geum-ryong, and he wanted to know who it was.
“I can’t say that!”
The intact assassin remained stubborn, but the one missing an arm was different.
“I want to live. We are high-grade assassins belonging to Blood Slaughter Gate...”
Now that death as an assassin no longer seemed avoidable, he was prepared to spill everything in hopes of surviving.
Slash!
But the other man had no intention of letting that happen.
In the end, the intact assassin cut down his wounded companion and silenced him for good.
“Yuk-cheon. Keep the assassin’s code!”
Seok Geum-ryong watched the infighting between the two men and clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Still, he did not mind too much.
There are other assassins left.
Those would be the five who had been sent to tail the carriage after dawn.
They had arrived at Gangha Inn and revealed their true colors there, then joined the other assassins and ultimately slain Deung Chon.
In other words, even if he could not squeeze any information out of these men here, he could still capture another assassin with Shadowless One Shin Dan-woo and get to the truth that way.
“You have a fine spirit. For an assassin, of all things.”
Perhaps because he had shown some backbone?
Without warning, Seok Geum-ryong slowly revealed his face to the lone assassin who had thrust his sword at him in desperation.
“H-huh! Haaah! Y-you are...!!”
Across this vast Central Plains, there was no assassin foolish enough not to recognize his target.
As the lone remaining assassin realized that this maddeningly skilled swordsman was Seok Geum-ryong, the one he had been sent to kill, he gasped in shock.
“That’s right. I am Seok Geum-ryong.”
Seok Geum-ryong showed his face to the assassin as a final gift before his death.
And after the gift came the sword thrust.
Crack!
He drove the Silver-Veil Sword all the way to the hilt into the assassin’s heart as the man’s gaze and stance shook apart in surprise.
“If you were this skilled... I should have... refused... from the start...”
As he died, the last assassin regretted having accepted the job, but regret always came too late.
Once a life was gone, there was no gathering it back up again.
“Hmph!”
Seok Geum-ryong snorted and withdrew the Silver-Veil Sword.
By the time he had disabled all five assassins, less than half a shichen had passed.
It had been the result of fortune in a number of ways, but one thing was certain.
When it comes to using martial arts, being young brings me no disadvantage or limitation.
His body had not fully matured yet, but that did not pose any problem when it came to killing opponents below the level of a super first-class master.
“So they’re from Blood Slaughter Gate, were they? That alone is already a major gain.”
Seok Geum-ryong stored away the fact that the assassins had admitted to being from Blood Slaughter Gate.
After thoroughly tidying up Gangha Inn, he hurried back to Seokga Manor.
He had to return to his room before dawn broke.
Shadowless Movement Technique!
What remained now were half the assassins.
The five assassins who would secretly trail the carriage from behind.
I’ll return to Seokga Manor and deal with the remaining assassins quickly as well!
It was going to be a very long day for Seok Geum-ryong.