Surrounded by the Black Kerchief Sect
“Damn... We’re surrounded?!”
Only then did Dang Jaseung seem to catch the presence. He clicked his tongue and spat a short curse.
He hurriedly twisted his body, trying to slip out the way Yoo Eunhyeon had entered, but it was already too late. At the mouth of the alley a man had already slowly revealed himself.
“Where do you think you’re rushing off to in such a hurry?”
Emerging from the darkness was none other than the man who had just been leisurely gambling alongside Yoo Eunhyeon and Dang Jaseung: Wi Dong.
The easygoing smile had long since vanished; only a strangely twisted smirk clung to the corners of his mouth.
Wi Dong slowly lifted his gaze to Dang Jaseung. Then, deliberately wearing that smile, he spoke in a low voice.
“Dang Jaseung of the Sichuan Dang Clan. We meet again like this?”
“......”
“And with Brother Yoo as well... Quite unexpected. Did you two know each other originally?”
Wi Dong looked back and forth between Yoo Eunhyeon and Dang Jaseung, sending a meaningful glance. His question carried suspicion that went beyond mere curiosity.
Judging by his tone, he seemed to be weighing the possibility that the two were in league.
“Well, it doesn’t matter either way. Nothing will change.”
Chuckling lowly, Wi Dong tilted his head.
Before they could fully grasp his meaning, three men appeared behind him. Then, from atop the walls and roofs, roughly ten more revealed themselves, and in no time every direction was sealed off.
“You Black Kerchief Sect bastards...”
Seeing this, Dang Jaseung gritted his teeth and muttered under his breath. Every one of them carried a weapon—swords, sabers, spears, each different—yet every tip bore a black tassel that marked the Black Kerchief Sect.
Whenever those black tassels brushed in the wind, the energy that had seeped into the surroundings sank even more sinisterly.
“Hand over the money you won gambling without a fuss, and we’ll spare your lives.”
“Is the Black Kerchief Sect originally a place that oppresses and fleeces anyone who makes money? Even if you’re of the demonic path, you ought to keep some face!”
Dang Jaseung narrowed his eyes and shot back. Wi Dong let out a hollow laugh as if the protest were absurd.
“That’s what we should be saying. Pulling that kind of stunt in someone else’s territory and then having the gall to talk like that... Did you think you’d walk away unscathed?”
“Go ahead and try! If you touch me, the Dang Clan won’t stand for it!”
Dang Jaseung lifted his chin high and retorted.
Wi Dong rested the massive saber he held across his shoulder as if draping it there. Then, tapping it lightly in a threatening rhythm, he spoke.
“Wasn’t it your Dang Clan that picked the fight first? You don’t actually think we don’t know, do you?”
At Dang Jaseung’s silence, Wi Dong twisted the corner of his mouth and snorted as if he had expected exactly that.
“We have eyes and ears too. We know about the suspicious movements of money around here. Looking at it, the Dang Clan seems tangled up behind the scenes... Times must be pretty hard for you lately, huh?”
At Wi Dong’s words, Dang Jaseung seemed unable to find a rebuttal. He kept his mouth shut and maintained his silence.
As if targeting that very silence, Wi Dong pressed harder.
“Did you think our cult wouldn’t know? Orders have long since been issued not to let any money flow toward the Dang Clan.”
“Damn... Those fucking demonic cult bastards...”
“Exactly. If you were going to do something, you should have done it quietly. Stirring things up here and there—of course you’d stand out.”
In the end Dang Jaseung, unable to deny it any longer, clicked his tongue and spat a curse at Wi Dong.
But Wi Dong seemed rather pleased with the reaction. He chuckled lowly.
“Heh heh. Now your true colors are showing. No need for more long talk.”
Smiling, Wi Dong raised his saber and slammed it into the ground. As if that were the signal, the Black Kerchief Sect disciples surrounding them on every side took a step closer in unison toward the two men.
A suffocating pressure tightened from all directions. Just as that momentum was about to reach its peak, Dang Jaseung muttered lowly toward Yoo Eunhyeon.
“Sorry, but you’ll have to help me out just this once.”
“Why should I?”
“Don’t you see them? Now that they know you’re mixed up with me, it’ll be hard for you to withdraw safely either.”
With that, Dang Jaseung drew a throwing dagger from his robes. Even in the dim light of dawn a red aura gleamed and seeped along the blade.
“I just followed along for no good reason and now this mess.”
Yoo Eunhyeon clicked his tongue as if exasperated and grumbled. Then, looking at the Black Kerchief Sect disciples closing in on him, he sighed and raised the black gold rake he held. He hadn’t particularly intended to fight, but given their momentum it didn’t seem like a situation where he could simply back down.
“Just this once.”
Yoo Eunhyeon stripped the sheath from the raised black gold rake, tucked it into his robes, and swung the weapon a few times through the air as if threatening the closing disciples.
The rake was so familiar in his hand that it was like an extension of his body; there was not the slightest awkwardness in his movements.
The heavy-tipped black gold rake produced a dull whooshing sound with every swing, and that sound subtly pressed down on the alley.
“...A pitchfork?”
At that, the footsteps of the watching Black Kerchief Sect disciples gradually slowed. At first some had sneered at him drawing a rake, but as they examined the black gold rake in Yoo Eunhyeon’s grip more closely their expressions hardened. The gold-tinged handle and the faint red aura lingering at the tips of the tines—at a glance it was far from an ordinary farming tool.
“What are you doing! Kill them!”
At Wi Dong’s roar the hesitant disciples began to move again.
The hesitation did not last long. As if the suppressed momentum had revived in an instant, their steps gradually quickened.
Soon one Black Kerchief Sect disciple gritted his teeth and sprang forward. As if shaking off his reluctance, he charged straight at Yoo Eunhyeon.
Lightly sighing, Yoo Eunhyeon raised the black gold rake. Then he swung it indifferently toward the charging man.
Whoosh.
Outwardly it looked like nothing more than a simple raise.
But the next moment the disciple’s body was sent flying into the air as if struck by something and tumbled across the ground. He had not even grasped how he had been hit. Wi Dong’s eyes widened at the sight. Recovering quickly, he raised his voice.
“Don’t back down! It’s just a pitchfork after all!”
The Black Kerchief Sect disciples charged in unison. Simultaneously the assaults of eight men poured in from every side. Their weapons varied, yet their trajectories were strangely without deviation—a meticulously coordinated joint attack. Its power was enough that even Yoo Eunhyeon paused his gaze for a moment.
Of course Yoo Eunhyeon was not one to yield to that.
Clang!
Yoo Eunhyeon swung the black gold rake following the principles of Explosive Cross. Immediately a fierce metallic clang erupted, and the weapons of the disciples digging in from all sides were all deflected away. The tightly interlocking assault could not withstand that single move and fell into disarray in an instant.
“The power isn’t that strong! Keep pressing!”
But Yoo Eunhyeon’s counterattack seemed instead to spur the disciples’ momentum. Those who had briefly retreated charged again at once, and Yoo Eunhyeon swung the black gold rake in succession to meet their assaults.
In the span of a few exchanges like that, the Black Kerchief Sect disciples began to feel a subtle misalignment arising in their own attacks. As Yoo Eunhyeon’s counters repeated, their movements slowed one by one as if hindered by something invisible.
‘This is more doable than I thought?’
But this entire flow was what Yoo Eunhyeon had intended from the start. As he swung the black gold rake he was subtly twisting the flow of natural energy as if tilling a field. Outwardly it was mere defense, yet within it internal energy seeped in secretly, disrupting the opponents’ momentum.
The familiar rake—especially the nine-pronged blade—was more convenient than any other weapon for cutting and handling the flow of natural energy. To Yoo Eunhyeon it was already closer to a tool than a weapon.
“Snap out of it!”
The disciples who noticed the anomaly shouted to regain the flow, but it was already too late. The moment more than half of them had their momentum stolen, the advantage of the joint attack completely vanished.
Not missing the opening, Yoo Eunhyeon moved.
“Gah!”
One disciple who read the flow and struck first raised his saber to block. But the next moment a scream burst out along with a shock as if his hand were being torn.
Crack!
The shock that dug in with nine prongs pierced through the saber; holes punched through the blade as it shattered to pieces. Standing dazed, unable to believe the sight of his beloved weapon breaking, he soon gritted his teeth in pain and retreated.
Clang! Clang! Clang-clang!
After that it was instantaneous.
Every time the black gold rake swung, weapons shattered, and the disciples who no longer dared to face him retreated and could only stare at Yoo Eunhyeon.
“Doesn’t look like they want to continue. Let’s see...”
Confirming that their momentum was completely broken, Yoo Eunhyeon lightly swung the black gold rake and turned his gaze.
Dang Jaseung’s side was still fierce.
Wi Dong’s skill was no joke, and with two more Black Kerchief Sect disciples added he was being outnumbered.
But Dang Jaseung showed no sign of easily backing down either. He was holding out by pouring out poisons and hidden weapons without sparing them, and due to their nature he held an advantage against multiple opponents. It was a fight where a moment’s carelessness could cost a life.
“What to do about this...”
Yoo Eunhyeon fell into brief contemplation.
He had to decide whether to join in or simply watch. The moment he moved, the retreated disciples would clearly jump back in as well.
In the end, if he intervened it meant he had to cut the flow in one go.
Just then a bustling presence was heard from the alley entrance.
“Hey~ Yoo Eunhyeon!”
The air, taut with tension, somehow went askew at that single phrase.
At the familiar voice Yoo Eunhyeon’s gaze slowly turned. Standing in the middle of the blood-reeking alley, completely out of place, was Ju Yu-ryeon.