The Ghost Mask Hall Falls
At the end of the dark passage that had seemed to stretch on forever, a massive iron door barred the way.
"So you've already noticed."
Beyond the firmly sealed door, countless energies could be felt stirring. They had caught on to their presence and were preparing for anything and everything.
"I'll open it, then."
At Namgung Cheon's words, Mujin gave a heavy nod.
Vmmm—
Azure sword force surged up from Mukhon's blade, then swept down in a single arc toward the iron door.
KRAAAAM!
With a thunderous roar, the massive iron door was torn apart like paper.
"……!"
Mujin drew in a sharp breath.
Beyond the door sprawled an enormous underground cavern. The ceiling soared impossibly high, and hundreds of torches along the walls lit the space as bright as noonday.
And at the very center of that cavern—
"Truly unbelievable."
—a magnificent three-story wooden pavilion stood in all its imposing grandeur.
The Ghost Mask Hall.
This was the heart of Dream Ring Island.
And in the plaza before it, dozens of martial artists stood with weapons drawn, murderous intent blazing from every one of them.
"To think you crawled all the way in here."
A voice came from above. Namgung Cheon's gaze turned toward the third-floor railing of the Ghost Mask Hall, where a middle-aged man with a sharp, hawkish face had appeared as if from nowhere.
"That would be the Pact Master, I take it."
At Mujin's words, Namgung Cheon nodded. The Pact Master narrowed his eyes and looked Namgung Cheon up and down. Then, all at once, his gaze stopped at Namgung Cheon's waist.
A white scabbard and a black scabbard. Two swords of utterly different natures.
The Pact Master's eyes flashed.
"……A young master of the Namgung Clan."
The Pact Master continued, his eyes narrowing to slits.
"You must die. Today."
At his words, the martial artists filling the plaza all readied their weapons at once. Killing intent surged toward them like a crashing wave.
Namgung Cheon took it all in with perfect calm and spoke to Mujin.
"Leave those two to me."
Mujin's gaze swept back and forth across the enemies flooding the plaza. Then a bold grin spread across his lips.
"Understood. I'll carve the road."
The moment the words left his mouth, Mujin kicked off the ground and shot forward.
"Haaap!"
KWAAM!
Mujin's sword split the plaza open, collapsing the enemy formation in a single stroke. A dozen or more martial artists rushed him at once, but nothing slowed him. His sword raged like a storm, cutting the enemies down as it whirled.
"Block him! Block him, I said!"
While Mujin drew every eye in the plaza, Namgung Cheon charged straight toward the Ghost Mask Hall.
Then it happened.
Fwat!
Two shadows leapt down from the third-floor railing at the same instant — the Pact Master and his bodyguard. They twisted in midair and cut off Namgung Cheon's charge.
THUD!
The impact of their landing split the ground apart.
Watching them, Namgung Cheon said quietly,
"Impatient, aren't you."
Shrring—
The Pact Master drew his saber.
"No sense dragging things out just to kill two men."
Vmmm—
A crimson saber force bloomed like fire.
"Die."
With the Pact Master's short cry, the battle began.
The bodyguard moved first. His sword was quick and piercing as a serpent's strike.
Shwaaek—!
Built around fluid, changing footwork and blinding speed, his swordplay wormed into every gap in his opponent's guard. Like a dancer shifting trajectories, it relentlessly targeted Namgung Cheon's lower body and flanks.
Namgung Cheon raised Mukhon and beat back the bodyguard's chain of strikes.
Bam! Bam!
Heavy impacts shook through him.
Masterful technique, even for one merely at the Peak Realm.
But the real problem was the Pact Master. While the bodyguard clouded Namgung Cheon's vision with his shifting blade, the Pact Master raised his enormous saber and pressed in.
"Hnngh!"
WOOM!
The saber came crashing down with a heavy, air-rending roar. It was as grand as an orthodox sect's blade art, yet at its edge coiled the deep, venomous killing aura unique to the Unorthodox Path. A martial art where righteousness and evil were mixed together.
Namgung Cheon twisted his body to evade, but the saber's edge grazed past his collar. The oppressive wind of its passage stung his skin.
"Oh-ho, not bad."
The Pact Master narrowed his eyes and swung his saber again. This time it was faster, more ferocious still.
CLANG! CHA-CHING!
Dozens of exchanges passed in the blink of an eye. When the bodyguard wormed in low, the Pact Master's crimson saber force would seize the opening and strike for Namgung Cheon's throat like a venomous snake. A relentless assault that gave him not even a breath to spare. The two men's coordination was organic, as though they shared a single body.
Namgung Cheon tightened his grip on Mukhon.
This won't do.
Defense alone would never break their coordination. He had to sever the flow itself.
Cloud Sea Shrouds the Heaven.
Blue sword qi rose like mist, blanketing the enemies' sword paths.
Crack.
"……!"
The bodyguard's eyes went wide. He had certainly swung his sword — yet the moment it touched the blue energy, its speed slowed visibly.
Namgung Cheon did not miss that instant when the blade's speed faltered.
THUD!
His foot kicked off the ground and launched him forward.
Heavenly Thunder Shakes the Sky.
A blue flash streaked out in a straight line, aiming for the bodyguard's exposed flank.
Shwaaek!
Speed like a lightning bolt loosed from the heavens.
"Kgh!"
The bodyguard gritted his teeth and forced his sword around, but he could not avoid a deep gash opening along his side. Red blood sprayed through the air.
"Not bad."
The Pact Master smiled coldly and swung his saber once more. Without a glance for his bodyguard's wound, he seized the opening to burrow in deeper than ever.
"Let's see you block this one!"
The Pact Master's saber force changed abruptly. The earlier heaviness vanished, replaced by an eerily supple fluidity. The saber force split at its tip like a serpent's forked tongue, going for Namgung Cheon's throat and heart simultaneously. It was an erratic trajectory no orthodox defense could hope to stop.
Namgung Cheon's eyes sank deep. The senses honed across countless battlefields of life and death awoke with razor sharpness. The trajectory the saber drew, the finest tremors of muscle, the rhythm of every breath drawn and released — everything became vividly clear.
Sweep.
The moment the Pact Master's saber seemed to carve through Namgung Cheon's silhouette—
—Namgung Cheon was already half a step to the side.
"……!"
The Pact Master's eyes bulged. And at that very moment, the badly wounded bodyguard thrust in fiercely, as if to cover his lord's exposed flank. The Pact Master, too, seized the chance, swinging his saber to launch a joint assault.
CHA-ENG! CHA-CHING!
Namgung Cheon deflected the bodyguard's swift blade with Mukhon while simultaneously absorbing the Pact Master's crushing saber strike. One against two — a disadvantaged fight. Yet Namgung Cheon blocked it all, and worse—
"This— this bastard…!"
—as time passed, his swordplay only grew sharper.
Cold sweat beaded on the Pact Master's forehead. They had clearly been the ones pressing the attack, yet when he came to his senses, it was they who had been driven to the edge of the cliff. Namgung Cheon did not merely parry their attacks — the instant their movements grew larger, his sword was already thrusting into the gap.
Impossible…
It felt as though the man had reached the Transcendent Realm, and he was overwhelming the Pact Master in the sheer depth of his martial art.
At this rate, we lose.
The Pact Master's gaze wavered.
I refuse to die like this.
He had to survive — by any means necessary. Only then could he put an end to this whole affair. He subtly signaled to his bodyguard with a flick of his eyes.
Buy me time.
The bodyguard understood his lord's will at once and gave a grim, resolute nod.
"KRAAAH!"
Gritting his teeth, the bodyguard hurled himself forward. A final strike, pouring out even his Innate Qi. A dark-crimson light exploded from his sword.
The Pact Master used the opening to turn his body — toward the secret passage hidden behind the pavilion.
But—
"Where do you think you're going."
Fwaat—!
Namgung Cheon lightly deflected the bodyguard's desperate blow and barred the fleeing Pact Master's path.
"……!"
The Pact Master's face twisted in shock.
Namgung Cheon had felt the killing aura around the Pact Master thin. And that told him everything he needed to know — the man had chosen to run.
"Did you think I would let you leave?"
Namgung Cheon's eyes glinted cold. Mukhon rose high overhead, and blue light began to frost across the black blade. Then he swung, light and swift.
Shwaaek—!
"……!"
A searing blue flash filled the Pact Master's vision.
Shrrk.
A sickening sound of flesh parting.
Mujin carved through the enemies before him without end.
"Whew."
Letting out a rough breath, Mujin looked around.
The Path of Hell.
There was no other way to describe it. Countless men in black lay sprawled and bleeding. Severed bodies, and red pools soaking the floor thick enough to wade through.
Had the children they had kidnapped met the same fate? The memory of ten years ago flickered through Mujin's mind — the villains who had trampled his village and butchered his parents and friends without mercy.
Mujin looked down coldly at the corpses fallen at his feet. Men who had kidnapped children and sold them off without a shred of guilt. These bodies rolling on the ground were no different at all from the demons who had once burned his village to ash.
And so…
Mujin shook the blood from his blade.
This was a necessary reckoning, to stop any further tragedy from happening.
I will not feel a single ounce of guilt.
Just then, a heavy sound came from behind him.
Thud.
The sound of something dropping to the floor. When Mujin turned his head, he saw the Pact Master slammed face-down into the ground, both arms severed. And standing indifferently before him was Namgung Cheon.
"So it's finished."
Mujin murmured quietly.
Namgung Cheon walked over slowly, seized the Pact Master by the collar as the man crawled across the floor, and hauled him up.
"GRAAAH! My— my arms!"
The Pact Master screamed, writhing in agony. Red blood gushed from the stumps of both severed arms.
"Tell me who is behind you."
Namgung Cheon's voice was infinitely cold. But the Pact Master only laughed, grotesquely, through a face contorted with pain.
"Kheheh… hack!"
Blood surged up and spilled from his lips.
"There is… no one behind me."
"A lie, then."
It was an obvious lie. No one gathered first-rate martial artists to kidnap children merely for profit.
But the light in the Pact Master's eyes did not waver.
"Admirable loyalty."
Namgung Cheon released his grip without a second's hesitation.
Thud.
The Pact Master's head slammed into the ground. Clutching the truth to the very end, he drew his last breath just like that. In the pool of blood where he lay, his face still held the frozen ghost of a fishy smile.
Namgung Cheon lightly flicked Mukhon clean. Drops of blood scattered from the blade like rain.
Just then, Mujin approached and nodded toward the Ghost Mask Hall.
"Whatever's in there, we'll find it once we tear through that place anyway, won't we?"
Mujin's gaze turned toward the great pavilion — the Ghost Mask Hall itself.
Namgung Cheon nodded. Then he looked at the hall's firmly sealed doors.
"We must find out, no matter what it takes."
Namgung Cheon took slow steps forward.
"Why this hell was ever made."
And how he would make them pay the price for it.
The Heavenly Demon of Namgung
Author | Baek Rihaeng
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, South Korea
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 written permission of Samyang C&C Co., Ltd. — Dreambooks.