Carving Flesh, Scraping Bone
“Kuheok?!”
With a final death-rattle of a scream, the last Agency warrior still resisting in the courtyard of the Agency Headquarters collapsed.
Clang.
Accompanied by a clear metallic ring, the sword that had severed his windpipe spun once through the air and returned to its master, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom.
“……”
With this, the enemy’s main force had effectively been crushed.
Yet neither Tal-myeong-gwi-geom nor his comrades of the Special Task Force raised any cheer of victory.
“Ptuh.”
One of the Special Task Force members spat on the fallen Agency warrior’s armor, then pulled a cigarette from his robes and stuck it between his lips.
“……”
Even with the blood of its dead master splattered across it, the heavy silver armor that stood as the Agency’s emblem still reflected the torchlight with lofty dignity.
The hand of the Special Task Force member lighting his cigarette trembled faintly.
“…You’ve worked hard.”
The Agency commanding warrior named Myeong approached that man and clasped his hands in salute.
“Spare me that talk.”
The white-haired Special Task Force member shook his head with a bitter look and fixed his gaze on Myeong.
“You’re the one who’s had it rough.”
In those few words lay consolation and shared understanding.
“……”
Behind the blood-spattered mask, Myeong bit down hard on his lip.
“……”
Those who had risen with him kept their mouths tightly shut as well.
What filled every direction were the corpses of brothers of the Agency who had been like family.
And what burned here and there was the headquarters that had been like their home.
“Damn it…!”
One Agency warrior who could hold it in no longer spat a curse and turned his eyes to the sky.
Among the dead sprawled everywhere, there were far too many faces he knew.
“You idiots!”
A voice thick with tears leaked between his clenched teeth.
“Why did you have to go blind over power of all things…!”
It was a victory.
Yet it was a victory that could never be enjoyed.
The honor of the Agency, once the pride of the Sword Family symbolized by its silver heavy armor, had been dragged through the mud.
To reclaim that honor, they would need more time than it would take simply to recover the human and material losses suffered today.
“I appreciate the consolation.”
Myeong forced himself back to composure and lifted his head.
“…But this isn’t over yet.”
At first hearing it might have sounded like a declaration that the Agency was not finished, that it could rise again.
“Not yet.”
But it was nowhere near so hopeful a tale.
“The enemy’s leadership is still inside the headquarters. We have to deal with all of them before they can make their move.”
It meant that there were still brothers of the Agency left to kill.
Still family of the Sword Family left to kill.
“First we seal the secret escape routes and form a perimeter around the headquarters—”
The Special Task Force member shook his head.
“Talk of strategy or tactics is wasted on me. I’m nothing more than a simple warrior.”
“Then to whom should I—”
What cut Myeong off was Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s shout.
“Special Task Force! The next order has come down from the Senate!”
His distinctive sharp voice rang across the corpse-strewn courtyard.
“From this moment we will implement a complete lockdown of the Agency Headquarters! Squad leaders of each unit, report your numbers and confirm your assignments!”
“Senior Tal-myeong-gwi-geom!”
Myeong hurried over to Tal-myeong-gwi-geom, who was busy relaying the various instructions received from the Senate.
“A lockdown is fine, but we need to suppress the interior right now!”
Myeong urged him in a frantic voice.
“There must be escape methods inside this Agency Headquarters known only to the highest leadership! We have to enter the headquarters immediately!”
“No need.”
Tal-myeong-gwi-geom’s firm reply left Myeong flustered.
“Why is that—?”
Checking the orders handed down from the Senate, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom answered shortly.
“Because the person who needs to go is already inside.”
“The person who needs to go, you say?”
The Senate directive that Tal-myeong-gwi-geom was examining by torchlight was already a mess of the blood that covered his hands.
“That’s right.”
The transmission of orders was finished anyway.
Spitting a short curse, Tal-myeong-gwi-geom tossed the directive into the fire.
“The person who has every right to hold them accountable for their crimes.”
The paper burned with absurd ease, crumbling into a handful of ash that scattered on the wind.
Inside the Agency Headquarters.
“Have the secured escape routes been secured yet?!”
The situation room located deepest within the Agency Headquarters was pure chaos.
“M-my apologies! The personnel presumed to be the Special Task Force are securing the escape routes far too quickly…!”
“How is that even possible?!”
The Deputy Agency Head, second-in-command of the Agency, was screaming at the top of his lungs, veins standing out on his neck.
“How did those bastards lock down our Agency’s secret escape routes so fast?!”
“W-we don’t know either! Every secret escape route we check already has the Special Task Force waiting…!”
“It seems those who opposed our cause must have handed information over to the enemy!”
“Those damned traitors!”
The Deputy Agency Head slammed his fist down on his own desk.
“Blabbing the organization’s secrets to outsiders so freely, these backstabbing bastards…!”
In the present situation, who exactly was calling whom a traitor was an open question.
“And by what authority is the Senate interfering in the internal affairs of the main family in the first place?!”
“…Deputy Agency Head.”
One of the subordinates in charge of documents carefully opened his mouth.
“According to the Sword Family Code, in a crisis of the main family the Senate is permitted to intervene on its own judgment—”
“Are you saying the noble decision we made for the future of the organization somehow threatens the safety of the main family?!”
“Th-that’s not what I—”
The Deputy Agency Head bristled his beard and trembled from head to toe as he spewed rage in every direction.
“What the hell is the Second Young Master’s side doing?! They should be moving the elders to put a stop to the Senate’s atrocities!”
“According to the last contact from the Second Young Master’s side before the encirclement…”
To the Agency Head, who sat silently in his seat observing the situation, his secretary delivered a sound transmission.
Agency Head.
The situation is not good.
The Agency Head replied by sound transmission.
…I know.
In truth, the situation had long since been plunging toward the worst.
The Senate’s armed intervention through the Special Task Force was only a secondary problem.
From the moment the Supreme Operations Committee caught the scent, the plan was already as good as ruined.
The Agency Head clenched his fist where his subordinates could not see.
Even now, long after you died… you’re still standing in the way of my future…!
The final conversation with the previous Agency Head suddenly rose in his mind.
“C-cough!”
Even with a sword buried in his back, even as his life was draining away.
“It may look as though the Agency is falling into your hands for the moment.”
The previous Agency Head had glared at him with blazing eyes.
“Never forget that in this Sword Family, ‘He’ exists…!”
That day.
That day had been the day he stabbed the previous Agency Head in the back.
“In the end, He will find you…!”
The Agency Head gritted his teeth.
Those words left by the previous Agency Head as his breath failed still bound him like a curse even now.
Just then.
“Deputy Agency Head!”
An Agency warrior who burst into the situation room reported in an urgent voice.
“An emergency request for support has come in from the second floor of the main building!”
“Didn’t we already send two Commanding Warriors to the second floor?!”
Commanding Warrior was a post that only those who had crossed the wall could hold.
Two masters amounted to more than the entire combat strength of most mid-sized sects.
And on top of that, there had already been one Commanding Warrior serving as commander of the second-floor defensive line.
In other words, three masters had been committed to the second-floor defenses.
“Didn’t they say the Special Task Force bastards haven’t even entered the main building yet and are still forming the encirclement?!”
“Th-that’s true, but…!”
The Deputy Agency Head, eyes bloodshot, roared almost hysterically.
“Just how many of them got in that they still can’t suppress them after raising this kind of hell?!”
“W-well. Even I received the report and judged that reconfirmation was necessary—”
“How many?!”
The subordinate squeezed his eyes shut and shouted.
“The enemy who infiltrated the main building is one person! Or two at most!”
The Deputy Agency Head doubted his own ears.
The Commanding Warrior directing the second-floor defensive line of the main building doubted his own eyes.
“Just what…?!”
The floor was already packed with fallen subordinates filling the corridor.
All that remained now were himself, who had commanded the line, and the two supporting Commanding Warriors.
In effect, excluding the three of them who were left, the defensive lines inside the Agency Headquarters had completely collapsed.
“Why are you here?!”
Standing atop their corpses, one “old man” was steadying his breath with quiet, measured breathing.
An old man in whose ordinary-seeming features hid profound mystery.
In this Luoyang Sword Family, what old man could possibly slaughter warriors while fighting two Agency Commanding Warriors at once?
One of the Commanding Warriors screamed the name like a shriek.
“Geam-jon!”
Geam-jon.
The old man known to have retired from active duty and to be spending his remaining years in leisure as head of the Sword Family’s Martial Arts Academy.
And also the Chairman of the Luoyang Sword Family’s Supreme Operations Committee.
That man stood there now.
“Hooo….”
The old man drew one long breath like a sigh and opened his mouth.
“Is it not only right that this old man harvest the karma he himself has sown?”
The Commanding Warriors could not understand the deep regret that weighed on every single word.
“Karma?! What connection does Geam-jon have with our Agency…?!”
“There is. There is indeed.”
As Chairman of the Supreme Operations Committee.
As the one who had failed to properly lead the family in the absence of the family head.
“A great many connections.”
“I don’t know what nonsense the old man is spouting!”
The three surviving Commanding Warriors gripped their swords as one and leveled them at Geam-jon.
“Give up any thought of leaving here alive today!”
Even in a situation where three masters were targeting a single weary old man, the feeling that the three masters were the ones being pressured was no mere illusion.
“Do you truly believe a mere three swords can stop this Geam-jon?”
Under the crushing weight that the name Geam-jon carried, the Commanding Warriors cried out as if in a fit.
“We know you’ve already exhausted all your stamina!”
“The subordinates you used as shields have all fallen, so now you’ll have to face the three of us with that bare body of yours!”
Even so, they exchanged glances and two of them quietly shifted their footing to encircle Geam-jon.
We must never underestimate him just because he is old.
We have to fight a thorough wheel battle and completely drain his stamina and internal energy.
“I see.”
Geam-jon wiped the sweat running along the deep wrinkles of his face and spoke.
“It seems this is as far as this old man can go alone.”
Suddenly Geam-jon was using formal speech for no apparent reason.
Before the Commanding Warriors could even voice their confusion, an unfamiliar voice reached them.
“Well now.”
It was a boy’s voice that somehow sounded arrogant.
“When you were insisting on harvesting your own karma alone, that was one thing….”
The Commanding Warriors’ sword tips all swung toward the source of the voice.
“Who goes there?!”
“Reveal yourself!”
Geam-jon ignored them and laughed with a toothless, wheezing sound.
“When did I ever say I would do everything alone? I only said I would do as much as my strength allowed.”
“Hooh? So now you doubt my memory?”
As if the corpses packing the corridor, as if the final thrashing of the Agency’s corrupt ones, were nothing at all.
“It is not that I doubt your memory. Merely that there may have been some small misunderstanding in our communication.”
“After all those long years spent setting the sword aside and playing at politics, it seems your tongue has become a match for the main family’s elders.”
“You flatter me.”
The one exchanging such leisurely banter with Geam-jon finally revealed himself before the Commanding Warriors.
“Well, it can’t be helped.”
The boy who stepped out of the darkness.
The First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family.
Yeon So-hyeon rolled up the sleeves of both arms as he spoke.
“Then this First Young Master shall lend a hand.”
“Heh heh. I leave it in your care, First Young Master.”
On the left side of the corridor stood Geam-jon.
On the right side of the corridor stood the First Young Master.
The three Commanding Warriors found themselves the ones surrounded.