A Night Drunk on Blood
“Who are you? Why on earth are you targeting our family?”
“Does the reason even matter? Isn’t it second nature for the Orthodox factions to fabricate excuses just to brand someone a villain?”
“Our clan has never stooped to such filthy—”
“—has never once done such things. If you’re going to make that claim, you should have at least kept a tighter leash on your own subordinates.”
When Ryeong narrowed her eyes, Paeng Woogang flinched involuntarily. Given the circumstances, his third son had clearly caused serious trouble. Yet he didn’t even know what his son had actually done.
It was true that he had failed to discipline his subordinates. But who could have imagined that such neglect would summon an assassin to their doorstep? He had always known that doting on the boy from childhood had bred arrogance, but he had never imagined it would escalate to a catastrophe of this magnitude. Even so, the thought of apologizing never crossed Paeng Woogang’s mind. To a man of his standing, an apology was a relic of the distant past.
“To the bitter end, not even a bow of acknowledgment or a single word of apology for failing to rein in your son.”
“I have no choice. The position of family head carries great weight. If I lower my head to apologize, it is no different from the entire clan bending its knee.”
“Sophistry. You’re throwing away the very last chance I gave you.”
Ryeong was not consumed by madness. She was annoyed that they had arrested Jinyeong without cause, but she had already slain the perpetrator responsible. There was no real reason left to commit indiscriminate slaughter.
Yet Paeng Woogang’s attitude rubbed her the wrong way. If he were truly a righteous clan head, this was not how he should have acted. To Ryeong, who had gradually come to witness the better facets of the Orthodox sects, Lord Paeng was sheer disappointment. Though things had been sour with the Tang Family, she currently maintained good relations with three of the Five Great Families, and she had quietly harbored hopes that the Hebei Paeng Family might be another ally.
Those hopes died tonight.
“May I take the will of the clan head as the will of the entire Paeng Family?”
“You may.”
“Then, except for you, I suppose I’ll have to slaughter every warrior, family member, and guest under this roof.”
“What?”
Thwip!
A flying dagger flicked from Ryeong’s fingertips, piercing cleanly through the throat of one of the guards standing beside the patriarch. Paeng Woogang’s pupils trembled at the sudden carnage. Those personal guards were warriors he had handpicked with painstaking deliberation—men on an entirely different plane from the clan’s rank-and-file. To see such an elite warrior drop powerless from a single blow without even a chance to resist...
It was said that a peerless assassin at the pinnacle could dismantle an entire mid-sized sect single-handedly. Yet the martial might displayed by this black-robed figure far exceeded anything Paeng Woogang had ever imagined. Reason dictated that he de-escalate before matters spiraled any further. But Paeng Woogang’s insufferable pride would not permit it.
“If ruin is what you desire, then I shall grant it to you!”
Crackle.
Having made his resolve, Paeng Woogang marshaled his inner qi. It was the supreme technique of the Paeng Family: the Five Tigers Door-Cleaving Saber.
Supreme Art of the Hebei Paeng Family
“Haaah!”
A flurry of saber strikes reminiscent of a colossal tiger’s talons rained down upon Ryeong. But she was a swordmaster who commanded the true divine power of the White Tiger. To her, the meager tiger’s might conjured by the Paeng clan was nothing more than a stray wildcat putting on an amateurish show.
Swoosh.
Ryeong deliberately chose not to clash with him. She had no intention of drawing her sword in the first place, and the sheer density of qi behind the Five Tigers Door-Cleaving Saber made deflecting it with small throwing daggers impractical. Even cloaked in saber qi, using throwing daggers in a direct head-on clash was foolish. Ryeong gave ground, slipping back several paces. Emboldened by her retreat, Paeng Woogang raised his saber high, roaring to the heavens.
“Hear me, all forces of the Paeng Family! Tonight, we shall annihilate the villain who dared trespass upon our compound!”
“Cut the bullshit.”
With an eerie gleam in her eyes, Ryeong vanished into thin air. Layering the Ghost Soul Steps over the Heaven-Killing Art, she erased her presence down to absolute zero. Paeng Woogang could not even begin to track her movements. Melting away in the blink of an eye, Ryeong assimilated seamlessly into her surroundings without the slightest ripple of disharmony.
Splaaat!
Gouts of crimson burst into the night, painting the sky red. Ryeong had unleashed her slaughter in earnest.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Uwaaah!”
“Kehk!”
Screams from the Paeng warriors echoed from every direction. Paeng Woogang could not even fathom where the strikes were coming from. Not a sliver of presence could be felt. Incredibly, even the subtle flow of inner qi was entirely imperceptible. Faced with an unprecedented horror, Paeng Woogang’s pupils quivered wildly.
“Do not panic! Group into fives and form defensive squares!”
At their lord’s command, the warriors who still retained their wits scrambled into tight formations. Yet to Ryeong, even that was laughable. In a breath, the throats of all five warriors in the formation were slit wide open. Whether bloodshot, splashed with gore, or steeped in frenzy, her eyes burned redder than any crimson imaginable.
“Patriarch! Patriarrrch!”
“Spare us! Please, have mercy!”
“What in the world is happening...”
Paeng Woogang looked around in utter grief and horror. When a fountain of blood erupted in the west, screams instantly answered from the east.
What did I do wrong?
As reality spiraled toward catastrophe, Paeng Woogang’s mind descended into chaos. He couldn’t begin to comprehend where things had gone astray. Was it failing to raise his son properly? Refusing to apologize? Strutting forward with false bravado? What had provoked that woman’s wrath to this extent? Besides, he had never heard of a female assassin possessing such monstrous strength. If so, only one plausible conclusion remained.
“Wretch! You are an assassin from the Demon Blood Divine Cult, aren’t you?!”
Ryeong openly sneered. Though only the twitch of her expression was visible beneath her cloth mask, Paeng Woogang caught that brief, contemptuous curl of her brow, and fury flared in his eyes.
“Even if I die here today, I will drag you down to hell with me!”
Craaaash!
Saber qi erupting around him, Paeng Woogang charged straight toward Ryeong. Yet just as before, by invoking the Heaven-Killing Art and Ghost Soul Steps together, Ryeong erased her presence entirely. Dissolving once more into the throng of Paeng warriors, she systematically slaughtered the garrison troops rushing into the courtyard one by one. With his inferior martial prowess, Paeng Woogang could do nothing more than hopelessly chase after her shadows.
Meanwhile, inside the holding cell.
“Hey there. Sounds like hell is breaking loose outside, doesn’t it?”
“None of your damn busi—”
“By order of the Patriarch! All guards are to report immediately to the Third Young Master’s quarters and repel the intruder!”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
Jinyeong, who had sensed the commotion before anyone else, smirked faintly. He was the only person here who knew where the chaos had originated. In the end, the Grim Reaper had come knocking at the Paeng Family’s gates. Jinyeong knew well that there was no stopping her. Tonight, the Paeng clan would suffer a blow flirting with total annihilation.
“I did warn you. You brought this upon yourselves.”
Jinyeong closed his eyes and bowed his head in a silent moment of mourning for the warriors of the Hebei Paeng Family who would depart for the netherworld this night, however many that might be.
“Haaah... haaah...”
“Do you finally grasp your situation, Paeng Woogang?”
Paeng Woogang dropped to one knee, blood streaming from wounds across his entire body. That the head of one of the Five Great Families had been brought to such a pathetic state, unable to suppress a single trespassing assassin... To make matters worse, three elite units—including his personal guard—had been utterly wiped out. Even if the assassin walked away right now, the casualties were beyond calculation.
They might very well have to seal the compound gates and close their doors for years. Paeng Woogang burned with unbearable shame that such a disaster had unfolded during his tenure. Yet even at this very moment, the thought of uttering an apology never entered his mind. And that was precisely why Ryeong’s wrath refused to abate.
“How does it feel? The Paeng Family was torn to shreds all because you couldn’t bring yourself to say a single word of apology. Must be quite the experience, wouldn’t you say?”
“Kill me. Just kill me and be done with it.”
“You Orthodox bastards are all the same. Does taking responsibility just mean dying to you lot?”
Vwooom.
As Ryeong released a wave of killing intent, Paeng Woogang swallowed hard. He couldn’t conceive of any way out of this nightmare. His stubborn pride kept screaming at him to raise his saber and fight to his last breath, whatever the cost. As if that would change anything.
“I’ve lost interest.”
“What?”
“To think a man like this is the head of one of the Five Great Families. The gods must be weeping.”
“What on earth are you talking—”
“I came seeking the most likely culprits behind the death of the King of Ghost Spirits, but it seems I was sorely mistaken.”
“...!”
Paeng Woogang’s eyes widened in shock. The King of Ghost Spirits was one of the Four Great Evils—a villain of the Unorthodox faction so elusive and formidable that even the Paeng Family had given up on eliminating him. And someone like that was dead? Who could have done it, and when?
Ryeong looked down upon the bewildered clan head. This had been her intention all along. If word of the King of Ghost Spirits’ demise and the assault on the Paeng Family broke simultaneously, it would serve as ironclad proof that Ryeong had nothing to do with the attack on the Paeng Family.
Wouldn’t the timeline seem a bit suspicious? It didn’t matter. The person spreading the rumors would be the patriarch of the Paeng Family himself.
He’ll fabricate an excuse—claiming the Paeng Family subjugated the King of Ghost Spirits and suffered catastrophic losses in the process.
That was Ryeong’s true scheme. Though she had acted like a woman drunk on slaughter, she had calculated every practical gain from the very beginning.