A Wolf's Rules
Three days later, in the blue hour just before dawn.
Namgung Cheon stepped out of the Drunken Moon Inn, every scrap of intelligence pried from the Haomun sorted and filed away in his mind. The chill morning air washed clean the heaviness in his head, grown dull from a night spent wrestling with information.
Mujin, who had come out with him, shrugged and asked, "So what's the plan now? You stared at those papers all night like they were a death sentence."
Namgung Cheon, walking ahead, stopped mid-stride and turned around. He regarded Mujin in silence for a moment, then asked quietly, "We're going to deal with things that hardly qualify as human. Will that be a problem?"
"What do you mean?" Mujin asked back.
Namgung Cheon tapped the scabbard of Mukhon at his hip — tok, tok — and answered. "It means there will be blood. Any objection?"
It was his own brand of consideration — a reminder that Mujin was, after all, only a food taster, and need not tag along.
Mujin saw straight through the intent and let out a short laugh. "Blood's part of a wanderer's daily bread. Though it's true we're rarely paid for it."
He took a step forward and fell in beside Namgung Cheon. "Let's go, then. If the young master himself calls them less than human, I'll have to see with my own eyes how fearsome these fellows really are."
Namgung Cheon gave a slow nod and resumed walking.
Their first target: Purple Phoenix Mountain, west of Hefei. And the Black Tiger Stronghold that made its lair there.
KWAAAAAAM—!
With a thunderous roar, the great wooden palisade of the Black Tiger Stronghold tore away like paper. As wood splinters and dirt sprayed in every direction, two figures strode calmly through the breach.
"E-enemies!"
The desperate cry that burst from the watchtower rang across the entire mountain fortress. In an instant, the quiet camp dissolved into pandemonium — bandits still bleary from a drinking bout that had run since midday, others scrambling for their weapons, shouts and curses all tangled together.
In the middle of the shattered gate, the two of them — Namgung Cheon and Mujin — stood shoulder to shoulder, watching indifferently as the bandits came swarming out like a disturbed hive.
"Who the hell are you?! How dare you set foot in the Black Tiger Stronghold!"
The vice-leader, charging out ahead of the rest with a massive pair of axes in hand, roared like a beast.
The moment Namgung Cheon moved to step forward, Mujin cut in front of him first. "Young master. Leave this to me."
Namgung Cheon gave a single nod — then flung himself toward the depths of the stronghold, straight for the grandest hall.
"You bastard! Where do you think you're going!"
The vice-leader tried to give chase, but Mujin's blade barred his path.
Karang—!
With a clear ring of steel, Mujin's sword crashed against the twin axes. "Your opponent is me."
As Mujin's cold voice rang out, the bloody battle began.
Deeper inside, having left Mujin behind him, Namgung Cheon showed the bandits not a sliver of mercy.
"Kghaaagh!"
The head of the first bandit to lunge at him soared into the air.
His movements were astonishingly calm and efficient. Every time the dark blade of Mukhon carved its whispering arc through the air, exactly one life was erased. Only cutting, only thrusting. The most economical of motions, severing the enemy's throat with absolute certainty.
"Th-this monster!"
Terrified, the bandits stumbled backward — but it was already too late. Another head fell, and after that none of them dared rush him again.
Watching them waver, Namgung Cheon let his sword droop and walked on. He had only one target: their leader, the stronghold master himself.
He had just reached the hall at the very heart of the fortress when—
BAM—!
The doors burst apart, and a hulking man emerged, iron flail in hand.
Namgung Cheon recalled the information he had received from the Haomun. Ma Jungsan, the Black Tiger Stronghold Leader. Looks every bit the beast they described.
Ma Jungsan's eyes rolled back at the sight of the blood-soaked grounds. "Which son of a bitch dares, in MY domain!"
Then his gaze found the figure standing amid the pile of corpses. "So it's YOU!"
Mad with fury, Ma Jungsan charged, bellowing. Thud! Thud! Thud! The earth shuddered with every stride of his colossal frame.
WHOOM!
His flail came crashing down on Namgung Cheon's head with force enough to split a mountain.
Namgung Cheon did not dodge. He simply, indifferently, raised Mukhon.
Hwarururk—!
Azure flame bloomed up along the sword's dark blade.
Sword Astral.
Ma Jungsan's eyes flooded with disbelief. "Tr-Tr transcendent—!"
But it was far too late to pull back a flail already swung with everything he had. It came down squarely against the azure sword astral.
Seogeok—.
"……!"
Ma Jungsan's eyes went impossibly wide. What remained clutched in his hands was no longer a flail — only a lump of sheared metal, its cross-section polished mirror-smooth. No matter that Ma Jungsan was a master of the Peak Realm; no Peak Realm master could stand against the sword astral of the Transcendent Realm.
Desperation crept across Ma Jungsan's face. Thud! He dropped his huge body flat against the ground, pressing his forehead into the dirt. "I'll give you anything! Spare me, great hero! Money, women — whatever you desire, it's yours!"
The swagger of moments ago was gone entirely; Ma Jungsan now begged for his life. Namgung Cheon looked down at him with eyes like frost. "And what, exactly, is your life worth?"
"……I beg your pardon?"
The intelligence from the Haomun flashed through Namgung Cheon's mind — facts so vile they nauseated him to even put into words.
Twenty-three children have vanished in and around Hefei over the past six months. The primary targets: street orphans and young slaves sold away to settle debts. All attributable to the Black Tiger Stronghold, which has been selling the abducted children to the Ghost Mask Pact (Gui-myeon-gye), a notorious trafficking syndicate in Hunan.
In his days as the Heavenly Demon, he had witnessed every manner of evil. Betrayal and slaughter, greed and madness. That was what the Demonic Path was. Yet even he had drawn a line he would not tolerate: treating helpless children as instruments to feed one's appetites. Even the Demonic Cult despised that.
Not a single child sold to the Ghost Mask Pact has ever returned alive.
That one line was enough. There was no longer any reason to hear out this beast.
Namgung Cheon's eyes sank into cold stillness, and he asked quietly, "My question is whether your life can bring back the children you already sold."
"Th-that is…" The instant Ma Jungsan opened his mouth to plead, a black flash swept through his vision.
Seogeok—. Tadumul.
That was the last thing he ever saw.
Ma Jungsan's head went rolling across the ground. The bandits, closing in from all sides, froze mid-step.
Namgung Cheon kicked the head toward them and spoke softly. "Get out. Before I kill every last one of you."
One frigid sentence. The moment it fell, the bandits broke and scattered like startled hares.
Just then Mujin approached, having finished off the commotion at the stronghold's entrance. He glanced at the emptied camp and the head rolling at Namgung Cheon's feet, and clicked his tongue. "All noise and no substance. What an anticlimax."
"Why didn't you kill them all?" Mujin asked.
"Weeds grow back no matter how many you pull. There'd be no end to it." Namgung Cheon turned to him. "So would you pull every weed, every single time?"
Mujin chuckled and shook his head. Namgung Cheon flicked the blood from his blade and went on. "Rabble like this, by their very nature, die on their own once you take the head."
"Like the Blood Sword Gang, you mean?"
Namgung Cheon nodded silently. Watching him, Mujin clicked his tongue inwardly. How does a young master barely twenty know these things…? He moves like some grizzled old master.
But he shook his head soon enough. Now was no time to lose himself in such musings. For them, this was only the beginning.
"So where next?"
Namgung Cheon answered, sword still hanging at his side. "To the Bloodless Hall."
In the master's chamber of the Gold Jade Tower — headquarters of the Gold Pavilion — the clatter of abacus beads rang out as it always did.
"Goddammit!"
Baek Duguang, the hall master, slammed his ledger shut with a crack, broad shoulders heaving. Sweat beaded on his polished bald head. "Naeng Cheolsan! Those beasts of the Black Tiger Stronghold are already five days late repaying their loan! Go collect it now, with interest!"
The strategist Naeng Cheolsan frowned faintly and spoke in a measured tone. "Hall Master, the target is the Black Tiger Stronghold. If we prod them carelessly—"
"Shut up! What does Black Tiger or White Tiger matter when it's money on the line?! They borrowed from us to buy their weapons, didn't they? Go collect in my name! If they say they won't pay, cut their bellies open — I mean it!"
At his words, Cheolgwi, the vice hall master who had been standing stolidly by the door, clenched his fist and stepped forward. "Understood! I'll go right now and carve those Black Tiger bastards open!"
At the sight of Cheolgwi's stolid back turning without a moment's hesitation, Baek Duguang's face went white. "H-hey! Wait! Get back here!"
He grabbed Cheolgwi's arm in a panic. When Cheolgwi turned with a puzzled expression, Baek Duguang coughed pointlessly and lowered his voice. "You blockhead! You only say it! Just say it! Glare and growl like you're about to cut them, but don't actually do it! Flexibility, man — flexibility!"
Having soothed Cheolgwi, Baek Duguang sank into his chair and let out a long sigh. Those beast bastards of the Black Tiger Stronghold, looking down on us too, honestly…
It had already been five years since he threw everything away and fled Jiangxi. He had dragged a rabble of cutthroats through hell and back to carve out this much of a footing. Life had only just become survivable — and the road ahead was still long.
Just then the door burst open and a hall member came racing in. "Hall Master! Some new recruits have been running wild in the tavern — they cracked a man's skull open!"
"Which sons of bitches!"
Baek Duguang shot to his feet, his face burning scarlet. It was not mere anger at subordinates causing trouble. It was taboo — an offense that prodded the survival instinct buried deepest within him. "Drag those bastards in by the hair and make them grovel — NOW!"
A short while later, standing before the trembling new recruits bowing their heads to the floor, he exhaled a long stream of forget-sorrow herb smoke and murmured, "…Have any of you ever watched wolves hunt?"
When the recruits blinked at the non sequitur, the strategist Naeng Cheolsan, standing beside him, remarked flatly, "You've never watched one yourself, Hall Master."
"……"
Baek Duguang coughed, glared at him, and pressed on with forced composure. "Never mind. The point is — even a pack of starving wolves raiding a village will never touch the chicken coop first. Know why? Because the squawking wakes the whole village. Then instead of a hunt, they're the ones losing their hides."
He rapped a recruit on the head. "Planning to summon every hunting dog in town over a few scrawny chickens? Don't be idiots. The Gold Pavilion has exactly one rule. Don't bark without reason. Got it?"
Cowed by the tirade, the recruits nodded their heads frantically. Baek Duguang clicked his tongue and waved them out.
Through the window stretched the peaceful streets of Hefei. He let his thoughts drift to days past.
The organization he had belonged to in Jiangxi had once had rules and order of its own. A clever pack of wolves, they were. But one day, men from who-knows-where began eating away at its leadership. Then they burned villages and killed at will — merciless slaughter and extortion of the common folk.
At the end of it, Baek Duguang had seen it: the revolting spectacle of yesterday's comrades turning, little by little, into mindless beasts.
He had known in his bones that heaven would not let that madness stand forever. And in the end — a lone swordsman, from who-knew-where. In a single night, that one man's hand butchered every last one of them as they raged like animals.
Every single one of them died.
The memory of that day was like divine punishment. Having happened to be away, he survived — then abandoned everything and fled to Anhui with a handful of men.
He had sworn an oath then. He would never become a beast like them.
And yet a bitter taste rose all the same. So what of it? The world belongs to men like that.
He exhaled the forget-sorrow herb smoke bitterly. And in that very moment, a subordinate soaked in sweat came racing in, his face drained white.
"H-Hall Master! Disaster! The Black Tiger Stronghold has… been wiped out!"
"What?"
Baek Duguang startled to his feet. "The Black Tiger Stronghold? Wiped out by WHO?!"
"No one knows! We went to collect the debt and the place was full of corpses — the stronghold leader and the vice-leader both dead! Not a living soul left inside!"
A chill ran down Baek Duguang's spine. A force capable of annihilating the Black Tiger Stronghold overnight — apart from the Namgung Clan, had Hefei ever held such a existence? Unease crept over him.
And before the sun had even set, that unease became reality once more.
"They say the Bloodless Hall has been wiped out too!"
Every trace of color drained from Baek Duguang's face. The Black Tiger Stronghold, and now the Bloodless Hall. Two great powers erased in a single day — and both of them Unorthodox gangs.
"Dammit, what kind of bolt from the blue is this!"
The instant he clutched his head, the final piece of news arrived. "They say the Madblood Gate has been wiped out as well!"
It was a rout, plain and simple. The Blood Sword Gang had collapsed, and now the three great Unorthodox powers that had circled the void it left were all gone.
Then that means…
Baek Duguang dropped the teacup in his hand. The Black Tiger Stronghold, the Bloodless Hall, the Madblood Gate. Which leaves only one.
The Gold Pavilion. Themselves.
A heavy silence settled over the master's chamber. Even the subordinate who had delivered the report held his breath, watching the hall master's face.
After a long while, Baek Duguang murmured quietly to Naeng Cheolsan standing beside him, "…Cheolsan."
"Yes, Hall Master."
"Do you suppose… we should take our sign down for a year? Just one year?"
The Heavenly Demon of Namgung
Author | Baek Rihang
Publisher | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd.
Managing Editor | Editorial Department
Published by | Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dreambooks
Address | 7F, Gwangseong Building, 28 Bongeunsa-ro 114-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul
ISBN | 979-11-7306-734-1
Blog | blog.naver.com/dreambookss
Twitter (X) | @dreambookss
Submissions | [email protected]
No part of this book may be used in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dreambooks.