Chapter 55
Chapter 55
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 55
Chapter Title: The Real Prison
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“Blegh, wai, wait… I can’t… anymore…”
“…”
Wang Cheon, who had been so unflappably confident before his younger brother, slammed his face right onto the table.
It took three whole casks of Thousand-Day Wine, the strongest liquor in the area, to finally put him to sleep.
If I have to do this a few more times, my liver won’t survive.
The sound of Wang Cheon's head hitting the table was quite loud, drawing the attention of everyone nearby, but was he the only drunkard here? They all quickly lost interest.
“Brother, brother!”
“…Annoying. I said it’s annoying!”
I tried shaking him awake as he slurred his words, but it seemed Wang Cheon was already soaring through dreamland. Judging by the way he was flapping one arm like a wing.
No wonder he’d been so happy to gulp it all down.
But this is perfect. If I press his acupoints just so, he'll sleep soundly until dawn.
Alright, it's time to move.
The night was already deep, and there wasn't much time left until sunrise. I had to be quick.
“I can't possibly go back like this… Hey, waiter!”
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Ahem, I've had a bit too much to drink. I need a room for myself and this man.”
“This way, please.”
“Th-thanks.”
Guided by the waiter, Neung Un-bi supported Wang Cheon, walking unsteadily toward a guest room.
“Whoa there, be careful with him.”
“My apologies.”
On the way to the room, Neung Un-bi intentionally bumped into people, making a nuisance of himself.
The more witnesses to his whereabouts, the better.
*Thud.*
A room at the end of the second floor.
The door closed and was locked from the inside, and soon, the sound of snoring drifted out.
After laying Wang Cheon, whose acupoints he had pressed, on the bed, Neung Un-bi threw the window wide open as if to get some fresh air.
*Swoosh…*
It was refreshing.
The cold night air rushed into his nostrils, clearing the effects of the alcohol and sharpening his mind.
*Krrk, phoo.*
Wang Cheon was so deeply asleep, it seemed he wouldn't wake up even by morning.
Smirking, Neung Un-bi turned his head, his eyes taking in the night streets of the city.
The brilliant lights, the long main road, and the pedestrians filling it.
And at its very end, the towering Heavenly Pillar Gate.
Staring silently at the place, which seemed submerged in quiet darkness unlike the bustling street, Neung Un-bi took out a piece of black cloth from his robe and covered the lower half of his face.
It was just a half-mask, but the moment it covered his face, a ghastly, piercing blue light flickered in his eyes, as if he had become a different person entirely.
“Heavenly Pillar Gate, I have a rough idea of what you're up to… but first, I'll confirm it for myself.”
*Whoosh!*
*Creek, creeak.*
In the instant it felt like a gust of wind had blown through, Neung Un-bi vanished, leaving only the open window swaying and making an eerie sound.
***
*Thump!*
The sound of kicking off the ground.
*Swish.*
The sound of his robes fluttering as he leaped over the wall.
But no one had hearing sharp enough to distinguish such a faint noise from the sound of the wind.
Having cleared the Heavenly Pillar Gate's wall in a single bound, Neung Un-bi used the places shaded darker than the night as his path, swiftly arriving at the pavilion where the demonic practitioners were said to be held.
Patrolling guards were scanning the area with lanterns, but they couldn't spot the stealthily hidden Neung Un-bi.
In his prime, he had infiltrated the Zhuge Clan, armed with mechanisms and formations, using his lightness art alone.
Compared to that, the Heavenly Pillar Gate was a joke.
*Creek.*
Waiting for the patrol to disappear from sight, Neung Un-bi carefully opened an unlit window.
The room was filled with beds.
The sound of snoring came from all directions… Dammit, wrong room.
These were the warriors of the Heavenly Pillar Gate, sleeping while waiting for their shift change.
“Ugh, who's…”
As if sensing something in his sleep, a warrior sat up, rubbing his eyes.
Startled, Neung Un-bi quickly reached out his hand, and the warrior collapsed back into a deep sleep.
*Phew, they say that sixth sense of ours can even perceive ghosts…*
After a brief moment of relief, Neung Un-bi was on the move again.
There was no time to waste. He had to find the prison quickly.
That fool Wang Cheon didn't know the internal layout, so he had no choice but to search on foot.
Checking for any presence outside, Neung Un-bi carefully opened the door.
A long corridor, numerous doors.
Something felt off.
This wasn't a guest wing, and a prison wouldn't be structured like this, would it?
Neung Un-bi moved quickly but quietly down the hall, opening doors and peering inside.
A room, another room… a storage closet?
“…Haaah.”
Dammit, Wang Cheon.
He said it was a prison, but this is just the warriors' barracks!
I was an idiot to believe him.
He had searched the entire pavilion, but there was no sign of a prison.
He wondered if it might be underground and looked around, but he couldn't find anything that looked like an entrance.
No wonder there were so few patrols… Huh?
The moment he slipped out the back of the pavilion, inwardly cursing, he spotted a strange movement.
A line of warriors carrying torches was on the move.
Judging by their yawns and grumbles, as if they'd just woken up, they were clearly the changing of the guard, but their numbers were unusually large.
At a glance, there were over fifty of them.
And the place this large group was heading to was… outside the Heavenly Pillar Gate?
The warriors exited through a small gate behind the pavilion.
The direction they were heading was clearly… a mountain?
Why would they be hiking at this time of night?
Puzzled, Neung Un-bi followed the warriors, melting into the darkness with the stealthy agility of a cat burglar.
Soon, the warriors reached a mountain near the city and began to ascend where there was no path.
Neung Un-bi maintained his distance, trailing them secretly.
Then, at a certain point, he suddenly stopped, a smile touching his lips.
The warriors holding torches.
A fortress… built from tightly packed logs sharpened to a point.
Some of the men, who seemed to be the relief shift, swapped places with the guards on the perimeter, while others disappeared inside the fortress.
Looking at the place, which resembled a fort, only one thought came to Neung Un-bi's mind.
Found it.
The prison Wang Cheon mentioned was just the patrol guards' quarters.
The real prison was here, on this mountain near the Heavenly Pillar Gate.
A quick scan told him the height was perfect for climbing over.
The concentration of the warriors who had just finished their shift was also not very high.
Weren't they just busy sharing lewd jokes amongst themselves about some woman from a courtesan house?
Well then…
Scanning his surroundings, Neung Un-bi grinned and launched himself into the air.
A massive tree stood closest to the fortress's outer wall.
They had cleared all the trees within a thirty-foot radius of the fence to prevent intruders, but what good was that?
The moment a cloud covered the moon, hiding his shadow in a fleeting darkness, Neung Un-bi leaped from a branch and soared over the wooden wall like a flying bird.
But the instant he landed softly inside, Neung Un-bi froze like a statue.
Torches placed everywhere illuminated the interior.
Their bright light revealed the compound as clearly as if it were day.
Warriors gathered in small groups, drinking and laughing.
And…
*Grind.*
Neung Un-bi gritted his teeth without realizing it.
A prison. A place most martial sects possessed at least one of.
But not like this.
Even the prison he was confined in before his death, for the crime of assassinating countless hypocrites, hadn't been like this.
Dozens of small enclosures were set up inside the fortress.
People were sleeping inside, huddled in those cramped spaces, unable to even stretch their legs properly.
It was like a livestock pen. No, even livestock weren't kept in such wretched conditions.
“Eat!”
“…”
At the sudden shout, Neung Un-bi's wide eyes snapped in its direction.
“What? You goddamn bastard!”
“…”
A warrior from the Heavenly Pillar Gate had grabbed an old man by the hair and was forcing his face into the dirt.
At the commotion, the people sleeping hunched over in the small enclosures snapped their eyes open and stared outside.
What filled their eyes as they watched the abused old man was not anger, but fear; not surprise, but familiarity.
Did this mean it had been happening all along? This kind of atrocious behavior?
He wanted to leap out right now.
Seething demonic energy leaked out as a piercing blue light in his eyes, and his ragged breaths were laced with thick killing intent.
The urge to crush the skull of the bastard holding the old man's head and to rip open the mouths of the warriors watching and laughing surged within him.
*Grit.*
But Neung Un-bi bit his lip until it bled and clenched his fists so hard his nails dug into his palms, chanting the Demon-Subduing Mantra in his mind.
It would be possible.
Slitting the throats of the beasts guarding this prison and soaking the ground with their blood was well within his current capabilities.
But right now, I have to be Cheok Wol-rin.
Even if I'm furious, I have to endure. I must remain calm.
Neung Un-bi's gaze turned to the people trapped like cattle in the tiny enclosures.
What would happen to them?
After breaking them out… could he protect them all with his current strength?
The Heavenly Pillar Gate would pursue them. It was impossible.
So, for now, I must endure.
Even if I'm angry…
“Huh? This old geezer's dead.”
“Tsk, you should've gone easier on him.”
“Dammit, what a pain… What should I write as the cause of death this time?”
“What's there to think about? Just make something up. He's not the first one to croak.”
“Haa, the Head Steward nagged me not to damage the assets, so I was being gentle… Why'd he have to steal a rice ball, anyway? Damned old man. I'm already pissed off enough about being on meal duty.”
*Thwack! Thwack!*
The warrior kicked the old man's limp corpse irritably.
*Snap.*
Something inside Neung Un-bi's head broke.
The guilt that the old man might not have died if he had intervened sooner snapped the thread of reason he was barely holding onto.
“Hey, clean that up later and come have a drink… Huh?”
The warrior offering the drink stopped mid-sentence with a blank expression.
“Hm? What's wrong?”
The warrior who had been kicking the old man looked up, puzzled.
“Be-behind… you.”
“Behind me?”
*Craaack.*
The warrior turned his head.
And his turning head kept going, making a full circle before settling back in place.
His body then crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
He would never know why. His eyes were open, but he was already dead.
“Wh-who are you!”
The warrior who had offered the drink shouted, drawing his sword with a horrified look.
The masked man, Neung Un-bi, who had just twisted the neck of the warrior who killed the old man beyond its physical limits, stared at them with chilling eyes.
“You people… shouldn't be doing this.”
“What?”
“Right. The venom built up by the sword can become so potent that you start to take human lives lightly.”
“…”
“But even so, you're the Orthodox Faction. You shouldn't treat the powerless like this. And from what I can see, these people have no connection to the Demonic Cult. Just to rack up merits…”
Neung Un-bi spat out each word softly, trying to control his surging anger.
But at his words, the warriors' expressions changed completely.
The horror in their eyes was replaced by thick killing intent.
“You bastard… Who are you? Where did you come from?”
“What?”
“No, there's no need to know.”
The man who appeared to be the leader drew his sword, and the warriors who had been drinking in groups surrounded Neung Un-bi.
“I don't know how much you know, but it seems you've seen what you shouldn't have seen and heard what you shouldn't have heard.”
“…”
“It would have been better if you had just passed by… To hasten your own death, burning with some pathetic sense of justice.”
From the warrior's expression, now filled with murderous intent, and his words, Neung Un-bi instantly deduced everything.
*What you shouldn't have seen. What you shouldn't have heard.*
In other words, the people imprisoned here have nothing to do with the Demonic Cult.
And seeing their similar expressions, they all knew it.
Right, my apologies.
I just wanted to believe, for once, but I guess I was being naive.
Thirty years. I believed that after such a long time, *his* efforts would have reached even this remote frontier, but it was just my own wishful thinking.
You people haven't changed at all.
Then and now, you wear that hollow mask of justice while committing acts more vicious than any demon.
“So that's how it was.”
“What? What was?”
The leader asked again, but Neung Un-bi didn't answer.
For a moment, all emotion vanished from the eyes visible above his mask, leaving only an icy coldness.
“What were you promised?”
“What bullshit are you spouting?”
“I asked, what were you promised to take part in this filth?”
“Kekek, what good would it do you to know? A dead man walking should just shut up and stick his neck out.”
“…”
Seeing the man flick his tongue like a snake, Neung Un-bi stopped reciting the Demon-Subduing Mantra in his mind.
Beasts that have given up their humanity should be treated as such.
*Shinggg.*
Neung Un-bi drew the Flying Swallow Sword from his waist.
The sleek blade glinted, reflecting the moonlight that had peeked out from behind the clouds.
As he stared at the gleam, Neung Un-bi's eyes had already turned darker than the abyss.
“By the way, this feeling… Kugh, it feels so damn good.”
“…?”
Un-bi tilted his head back as if stretching his neck and smiled with satisfaction.
Beneath the cold moonlight, shrouded in demonic energy, Neung Un-bi's form, glowing with a will-o'-the-wisp's blue light, was truly horrifying.
“You said it, didn't you? That I saw what I shouldn't have and heard what I shouldn't have. The same goes for you. See, I just did something I shouldn't have. So I can't have any witnesses.”
“Wh-what does that mean?”
“It means you're going to die. All of you here.”
“…!”
He pulled down his mask, revealing lips curled in a sinister smile and obsidian-black eyes flashing with a bizarre light.
I'll probably get an earful for this.
But what can I do when they were the ones who caused it?
I tried my best.
So now, I'll entrust myself to the demonic energy raging and rampaging throughout my body.
“Get him!”
“…Yes, you should!”
A face, pale in the moonlight, and an eerie smile stretching from ear to ear, instantly appeared right in front of the warriors.
*Crunch.*
The warriors could only watch blankly, unable to even swing their swords.
What just…?
Neung Un-bi, who had vanished from before their eyes in an instant, was now behind them.
*Drip, drip.*
“…?”
A hand stained red, dripping with… blood?
The moment their eyes widened in shock, the warriors felt a sharp pain in their necks and collapsed without even a scream.
“Lunar Eclipse… Such a cruel art for such a beautiful name.”
Was it the moonlight that made him look that way?
Standing there, looking down at his blood-soaked hand as if admiring it, Neung Un-bi looked like a demon descended upon the mortal world.
“I-it's an enemy!”
“…”
The commotion spread in an instant.
They've known since a moment ago, yet they're still shouting needlessly.
“Damned demonic arts… Seeing them swarm me like this, instead of getting tense, I feel even better. What the hell.”
“Die!”
“…”
A sword flew in, tracing a cold arc.
Watching it indifferently, Neung Un-bi reached out with an open hand.
*CRUNCH.*
“…!”
The sword crumpled in his hand like taffy.
The warrior who swung the sword was grabbed by the hair before he could even react, and his vision flipped upside down.
*SPLAT!*
A crushed head.
Amidst the brutal spectacle, Neung Un-bi smiled, his teeth flashing white.
“A pack of beasts who don't know right from wrong… I'll kill every last one of you.”
The consequences?
Who cares? What's done is done.