Uninvited Guests
Sensing the approaching presence, Woon-hyeon furrowed his brow and clutched his chest.
Though he had exerted himself over the past few days to nurse his internal injuries, meridians ravaged by lethal poison could not possibly mend in so short a time. Merely circulating the faintest wisp of inner qi to track their movements made a dull, throbbing agony flare behind his ribs. Yet one could never show weakness before an enemy.
Forcing the pain down, Woon-hyeon raised his eyes. Before he even realized it, two masked men stood before him.
“Who’s this old geezer? I thought only a brat lived in this shack.”
“Right? Nobody said anything about anyone else.”
Woon-hyeon’s scowl deepened.
Are they not after me?
When the intruders first betrayed their presence, Woon-hyeon had naturally assumed they were assassins dispatched by Namgoong Mo-hyeon. He had thought his treacherous brother, failing to recover his corpse, had somehow tracked him down to Mount Seolhon's fringes to finish the deed.
Yet their idle banter told a different story.
“What do we do? Did the boss say anything about a witness?”
“Why overthink it? Just slaughter him along with the little brat.”
Their exchange made it unmistakable. Their target was Yeon-woo.
Woon-hyeon’s gaze sank cold and heavy.
First-rate? No, mere second-rate martial artists.
Under normal circumstances, they were nonentities he could have subdued with a casual wave of his inner energy. Even now, stripped of his ability to circulate his qi, they posed no true threat. Still, to uncover why they sought Yeon-woo's life, it would be wise to play along for a moment.
Quelling his rising anger, Woon-hyeon spoke in a calm, measured voice.
“Why do you seek to kill a child?”
Breaking off their conversation, the masked men turned chilling glares toward him. One of them rested the flat of his blade across his shoulder and took an arrogant step forward.
“Why does a corpse-to-be care?”
“Should a man not know why he is to die before he breathes his last?”
“Ha! Look at this bastard! You’d buy yourself more time by begging on your knees!”
The two snickered in unison. It was blatant derision, but Woon-hyeon paid it no heed. His pride was of no consequence right now.
“Listen to me. If you intend to kill us anyway, what harm is there in speaking? Why in the world must that young child die?”
“Why else? Only when this brat dies will the Guan family have to send out their own flesh and blood!”
“The Guan family?”
The Guan family...
The clan that had bought Yeon-woo. The very household that had purchased her to serve as a sacrificial proxy in the Demon Dragon Hall instead of their own scion. Only then did their true motive dawn on him.
Their aim was the bloodline of the Guan Clan all along.
If the substitute child perished, the Guan Clan would have no choice but to surrender their own child to the Demon Dragon Hall. These men intended to strike at the Guan heir once dragged into the crucible. Woon-hyeon did not know what standing the Guan Clan held within the Demonic Cult, but evidently, they could not be touched directly with impunity. That was why they resorted to such vile underhanded schemes, dispatching assassins after a helpless little girl just to force the Guan child into the open.
Yet who backed these cutthroats and whatever feud embroiled the Guan Clan mattered not in the least to Woon-hyeon. The sole issue was that the child marked for slaughter in their squabble happened to be Yeon-woo. And furthermore...
“Do you truly believe the Guan Clan will surrender their child just because this one is slain?”
“What did you say?”
“I am asking whether they will simply buy another child if you butcher this one.”
Having gleaned their intent, he no longer had any reason to show courtesy to scum who preyed on children. The biting condescension in Woon-hyeon’s tone took the masked men aback; the sudden, ominous shift in the old man's demeanor was anything but ordinary. Yet their wariness lasted only a heartbeat before dissolving into contemptuous laughter.
“Who gives a damn? If they buy another one, we’ll kill that one too! What can those bastards do? Guard every single brat around the clock?”
If the substitute was killed and another bought, they would murder the next. How many innocent children bled out in the dirt—whether half a dozen or dozens—mattered nothing to them.
“We’re paid to kill whoever we’re told to kill! How many bodies pile up is for the Guans to decide! Bwahaha! Gahahaha!”
They spoke of young lives as though trading barbs over drinks. Not a shred of remorse flickered behind their masks.
“Truly shameless beasts.”
Shring.
Woon-hyeon drew his sword with deliberate slowness, his gaze fixed upon them. In that instant, his wrath coalesced into an oppressive aura that swirled about him like a surging vortex of inner force.
“Has this old bastard lost his mind...!”
Confronted by his drawn blade, the assassins hastily adjusted their grips. Their mouths ran reckless, but their limbs betrayed them. Suffocated by the tempestuous pressure radiating from Woon-hyeon, their feet involuntarily shuffled backward.
“Y-You wanna die?! Huh?!”
“I do not consider your kind human.”
Beasts that preyed upon men had to be put down. Woon-hyeon raised his sword toward them. In the enveloping dark, his sunken eyes gleamed with a lethality sharper than any honed edge.
“Come.”
“You crazy old bastard!!”
As if on cue, the two lunged simultaneously. Their martial realm was, just as Woon-hyeon anticipated, second-rate at best.
Clang! Claaang!
Even stripped of his inner strength, in Woon-hyeon's eyes, their swordsmanship was no better than child’s play.
Clang! Thwack! Clang! Crack!
“Gah—!”
“Krk!”
A mere three exchanges. Before three clashes could even conclude, both assassins collapsed. Having deftly sidestepped their blades, Woon-hyeon had struck the nape of their necks with the pommel of his sword, knocking them senseless.
Woon-hyeon looked down at the sprawled bodies. Stepping toward one, he rolled the man over with his boot and searched his robes, producing a throwing dagger no longer than an index finger. Twirling the weapon lightly between his fingers, he flicked his wrist.
Swoosh—!
The dagger shot toward the rooftop of the shack.
Clink!
A sharp ring echoed as the flying blade struck metal. Straightening, Woon-hyeon fixed his gaze on the eaves. Perched atop the roof, dagger in hand, sat yet another masked figure.
The leader.
The third presence he had sensed from the outset. Unlike the two buffoons below, this one reeked of dense, suffocating bloodlust.
Swoosh!
The masked figure descended, closing the distance in a flash.
Skrrrt!
As if anticipating the trajectory, Woon-hyeon brought up his sword to parry. For an instant, short dagger and long sword locked in a test of leverage, the assassin's murderous gaze boring into Woon-hyeon.
In that fraction of a second—
Schwing!
The assassin swept a second dagger upward with his left hand, slicing from low to high. Still parrying the right dagger, Woon-hyeon twisted his blade down to deflect the rising strike. Yet—
Kh...!
A jolt of pain crashed into him like a rolling boulder. The assassin’s second blow had been imbued with genuine internal force.
As expected... he can channel inner qi.
Facing a second-rate scoundrel and facing a first-rate master were worlds apart. If second-rate merely surpassed common rabble, an expert who had crossed into the first-rate realm could infuse their every strike with destructive qi. As if confirming the truth of it, a haze of shimmering energy rippled from the assassin's frame.
Clash! Clang!
The onslaught grew fiercer. To Woon-hyeon's seasoned eyes, the maneuvers themselves were crude and predictable, but the raw power laced into every slash was another matter.
Ache. Even though he deflected every strike without meeting force with force, a tearing agony ripped through his frame. His battered, unhealed body screamed in protest, unable to endure the repeated shockwaves.
Dragging this out will be fatal.
Woon-hyeon made his decision. While an opponent he could technically overcome through sheer swordcraft, prolonging the bout would only shatter his damaged meridians. Then...
CLANG!
The moment Woon-hyeon channeled an ounce of inner strength into his steel, the assassin’s dagger bounced violently away. The assassin’s eyes went wide. Until now, had not the old man barely managed to deflect his blows? He had dismissed him as a crippled has-been incapable of using qi!
But the realization came too late. Before the assassin could even pull back his recoiling arm—
THUMP!
A blunt impact struck his temple. The assassin crumpled, senseless, before he hit the ground.
Thud!
Watching the man fall, Woon-hyeon drove the tip of his sword into the dirt to keep from collapsing.
“...Ugh...”
A searing sensation tore through his chest as if his viscera were being shredded to ribbons. A wretched pain engulfed his entire body.
Pathetic...
What a truly pathetic state he had fallen into. Reduced to gasping on the ground after delivering a single blow infused with qi.
Haah... haah...
Leaning against his planted blade, Woon-hyeon dragged ragged air into his burning lungs.
Crackle, pop.
His eyes drifted toward the campfire still burning brightly in the yard. Over the embers, the pheasant meat Yeon-woo loved was charring on one side, left unturned in the chaos. Now, he had to dispose of these intruders and call Yeon-woo back...
“Oh? You’re still alive?”
An eerie, alien voice drifted from behind him—from the exact spot where the first two masked men lay unconscious. A bone-chilling dread slithered down Woon-hyeon’s spine.
Reacting on pure instinct, he pushed himself up and leveled his sword in the direction of the voice.
Lustrous black hair tied high in a ponytail, porcelain skin strikingly pale even in the dark, and crimson lips curved in a playful smirk. A beautiful man wearing a white half-mask stood bathed in the pale moonlight.