Mere Amusement
Three days passed.
Nothing in particular happened in that time — and yet, a great deal did.
"Myeong... I don't think I can manage it."
"It's all right, Brother Chun-baek. Don't push yourself."
"...Forgive me."
"No. The fault was my thoughtlessness. Forgive me."
"Chwipung-gae. Forgive my rudeness."
"Think nothing of it."
Yi Chun-baek moved out of Chwipung-gae's hovel and took up lodging at an inn nearby. It was a decision born of how punishing he found the long hours in a beggar's den — an ordinary reaction, from an ordinary man.
Such was a beggar's life. A life even a hardened vagabond could not stomach.
After all, who with coin in his purse would ever want to sleep in a beggar's shack?
"I'll be staying here."
"Hm?"
There was one such man. The son of a famously wealthy house, no less.
"...Why on earth?"
"Because I feel like it."
"...Why on earth?"
"You wouldn't turn a guest away, would you?"
"...Then do as you damn well please."
Even had Chwipung-gae wished to refuse, he could not have. The law of the Beggars' Gang forbade it.
Beggars of the Beggars' Gang are beings welcomed as guests nowhere on earth. Because they know that sorrow better than anyone, the Gang neither disdains a guest nor turns one away.
It meant that anyone who came to a beggar's hut seeking shelter had to be gladly received. In truth, no one ever sought refuge in a beggar's hut, so the law was a dead letter — but a law is a law.
Chwipung-gae could not refuse. And judging by the conviction burning in Dancheon Myeong's eyes, the young man knew full well that the law existed.
In any case, unlike Yi Chun-baek, Dancheon Myeong settled into Chwipung-gae's hovel and took his lodging and meals there.
The precise reason, no one could say. Chwipung-gae could only surmise that the boy wished to cement their bond of trust before undertaking some great enterprise.
And yet...
"I had a feeling you'd have some hidden away here."
Dancheon Myeong unearthed the emergency cloudy wine Chwipung-gae had squirreled away and drank it down in great gulps.
"Oh! Meat today, even. Your begging truly is first-rate in all the Jianghu, Chwipung-gae."
Dancheon Myeong scooped a fistful of food from the begging bowl and crammed it into his mouth.
All the while, he was slyly slipping pieces of meat into his sleeve — the very picture of a seasoned beggar, if ever there was one.
"Go to sleep."
"You're truly going to sleep here?"
"Of course."
"How is anyone supposed to sleep in a place like this?"
Zzz—
Dancheon Myeong burrowed under the hut's ragged straw mat and slept like a log.
For analysis and deduction were, to a man of the beggar's way, second nature.
Does the Dancheon Clan raise its bastards in a beggars' den...?
These were the days that forced Chwipung-gae — a man who loathed information of unproven consistency — to entertain such absurd hypotheses in his own head.
Then one day, once those three days had passed—
"Are you in there?"
A stranger's voice, from out of nowhere.
"Who is it?"
A guest at a beggar's hut — that, too, was a novelty. When the entrance flap was drawn aside, an unfamiliar figure stood before the hut.
"Hm."
Stranger though he was, Chwipung-gae knew at once who stood before him — for the man's garb belonged to the Murim Alliance Special Operations Unit.
The Special Operations Unit. An organization that came close to being a secret society, but a six-knot beggar like Chwipung-gae could hardly be ignorant of its existence.
"Pardon the intrusion."
Having said his piece, the man stood frozen like a stone sentinel; his throat pulsed once, twice—
"Pardon the intrusion."
And with those words, the man vanished like a phantom.
The agent's whisper had been carried by secret voice transmission — meant for Dancheon Myeong's ears alone.
Chwipung-gae caught a fragment of a connection that had until now been murky. The Special Operations Unit — if anyone held information even the Beggars' Gang did not possess, it was they.
"Let's go."
Dancheon Myeong, who had been sprawled in the hut like any common beggar, rose to his feet.
"Where to?"
Chwipung-gae asked, hiding the anticipation that had quietly taken root in his chest.
Dancheon Myeong — who had lived off a beggar's hut these three days and still carried the bearing of a great house's young master — flashed a grin.
"We're going to hunt down the Blood-Drinking Demon God."
"Good."
It was the news Chwipung-gae had longed for above all else.
KWA-BOOM!
A ferocious power beyond anything ordinary folk could have imagined descended upon a peaceful village.
KRRACK— great trees crashed down where they stood.
KU-RUMBLE— houses folded in on themselves.
CRREEK— the earth split open.
"AAAAGH!"
"Run!"
"Mamaaa!"
A thousand voices tangled together, deepening the chaos, and in the space of a breath the once-tranquil village lay crushed beneath terror.
Destruction and chaos. And every sound that spilled forth from them.
"Wonderful."
Every bit of it could be called the things the Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang loved.
Savoring a pleasure long denied him, the Blood-Drinking Demon God wore a smile from ear to ear.
He was satisfied even now — but it was not enough. For there were sounds Golu Gwang loved more than all the rest of these.
KRAK—
The singular sound of a human bone snapping. And—
"GRAAAAGH!"
The screams of humans writhing in torment.
That was it. That was the sound the Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang loved above all — an addiction he could never cut away.
As a rule, masters of the highest order took it as a virtue to slay their opponent in a single exchange. The fewer moves traded with an enemy, the more it proved one's own supremacy.
But Golu Gwang's hands knew no such virtue. Put another way: he had no mercy. It stemmed, too, from a nature that had flowered in him from childhood — the reason he had never learned compassion for others.
The Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang took greater pleasure in inflicting pain than in winning, greater than in killing. That was his nature entire. If one insisted on a reason — because it simply felt better. Pain pleased him more than victory did, and so this, too, could be called the natural order of things.
Golu Gwang's favorite method was to break the femur — the largest bone in the human body. The reason being that this particular method wrung out the greatest agony a victim could give.
KRAK—!
"GRAAAAAAGH!"
And so he could produce a sight exactly like the wretch now rolling on the ground before him, unable to rise. Naturally, the screams were the most intense of all as well.
POKK—!
"Kheugh..."
Breaking the collarbone had its own flavor too. The sound was smaller and the feel of it somewhat wanting, but the peculiar mask of agony that spread across the face of a man whose clavicle had shattered stirred Golu Gwang's dark palate.
KRAK—SHRRRIP!
"AAAAAAGH!"
The open fracture one could produce by striking precisely at the hollow behind the knee had its charm as well. Above all, the singularly sadistic sound of a shinbone tearing through its own skin was the crowning delicacy.
"Rapturous."
Golu Gwang savored the present with the heart of a hungry ghost at a lavish feast. No amount of delight would ever truly satisfy him — but for now, at least, he was deeply content. Even if the hunger would return before long.
Had he done this to the cult's own faithful, the Heavenly Demon or Wi Su might have caught him at it and confined him for another long stretch, like last time — but there was no such worry now. Had he not deliberately trekked beyond the cult's domain, all the way into Shaanxi, precisely to vent an urge he could no longer contain?
Cult Leader or Chief Strategist though they might be, neither could formally censure Golu Gwang for killing outsiders. He was, after all, a Divine Demon in his own right.
And so.
In a certain village in Shaanxi, a pandemonium of slaughter was unfolding. Its sole author was the Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang — one man, and one man alone.
The underlings of the Blood-Drinking Golu Clan who had accompanied him stood rigidly at attention, like a disciplined army holding formation. They knew all too well that if they so much as stumbled into stealing Golu Gwang's pleasure, they would have to repay that pleasure with their own lives. Like men whose souls had drained away, they did not so much as twitch a finger.
"You monster!"
SHING!
With that roar, a swordsman boldly bared his blade. In one headlong, unhesitating bound he shot through the air and planted himself before Golu Gwang. His bearing hid none of the fury boiling up within, and his movement art, a mirror of his mind, was ragged with rage.
WUUUUNG—
This was Shaanxi, after all — one of the beating hearts of the orthodox murim. Even in a hamlet far too small to be called a town, there lived a master who had reached the very zenith.
The scent of his qi resembled Mount Hua's; he looked to be a disciple of the sect's own line. Mount Hua was a rather interesting place — their swordplay took swiftness, illusion, and change as its subtleties, and crossing blades with them had its own delight.
"Ho."
Golu Gwang's ferocious eyes curved into an arc.
"You look a little tastier."
Massacring the fleeing was fun, but toying with one who resisted and thrashed was splendid entertainment in its own right.
"Silence, you fiend!"
With a cry drowning in fury, the peak swordsman flung himself at the Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang, granting him not even the courtesy of a reply.
SHING!
"How fun."
Golu Gwang smiled.
The swordsman's blistering assault, every strike wrapped in sword qi, broke against the single index finger Golu Gwang had so politely extended. The Mount Hua-style strikes were swift indeed — and posed no threat to Golu Gwang whatsoever.
The Golu Clan underlings, who knew that truth, did not stir an inch. The gulf between the swordsman and Golu Gwang was simply too vast.
"Kgh."
The swordsman's face crumpled at once. At the sight, Golu Gwang smiled again. It was the pleasure of watching an insect despair before an overwhelming distance.
"Hah!"
SHING! KLANG!
"Good."
Fortunately for Golu Gwang, the peak swordsman refused to give up easily.
SHING! SHING! KLANG!
His blade flew time and again for Golu Gwang's vitals, but Golu Gwang's index finger moved with an almost monotonous economy, as though it had already traced every path of the man's sword to its end. His remaining hand stayed clasped behind his back — no thought of drawing it at all.
KLANG! SHREEEENG—
Exchange after exchange, until they numbered in the dozens. Steel against cloth — and yet it was the steel that was steadily being driven back.
"Die!"
Reading the tide of battle, the swordsman hurled his ultimate technique at Golu Gwang.
SHREEEENG—!
But the sword qi the nameless swordsman had honed his whole life long could not cross Golu Gwang's index finger.
"That will do. You've become boring now."
Golu Gwang's finger and the swordsman's blade remained pressed together.
WHISH—
"Huk—!"
With a light flick of his finger, Golu Gwang swept the swordsman's blade up toward the heavens. Which meant the swordsman's body now hung utterly unguarded.
Golu Gwang's eyes flashed like a beast's.
THUK— THUK— THUK— THUK—
As though striking vital acupoints, Golu Gwang's index finger stabbed into the swordsman's body again and again at truly blinding speed.
"Kheuu..."
Four ugly holes had bloomed across the swordsman's body — both shoulders, both hips. The flesh was a living man's, and fresh blood poured from the wounds as was only natural.
With all four limbs gone dead, the swordsman could not move. That he remained standing at all was thanks to the martial arts he had hammered at through long, hard years.
"Why... in the world..."
Eyes brimming with rage, anguish, and despair, the swordsman asked Golu Gwang.
"What a strange question."
Golu Gwang answered.
"If you step on an anthill while passing by, where is the reason in that? It was mere amusement."
In that face, the swordsman beheld a pure malice that had no place in this world.
"You mad bas—"
The despair flooding the swordsman's eyes soon lost its light.
THUK—
Golu Gwang's index finger had pierced the man's temple.
"That was fun."
Well pleased with his tribute to the departed, Golu Gwang licked the blood from his own finger.
Ptoo.
"Tastes worse than I expected."
The whim to drain him dry gone, Golu Gwang severed all interest in the swordsman's corpse.
And behind that corpse, abandoned where it had fallen—
"Huaaaa..."
—a child sat slumped on the ground, legs gone to water, sobbing.
Step, step.
"The young ones were always the finest delicacies."
Having found a fresh pleasure, Golu Gwang strode toward the child.
"For you, I'll make an exception and eat you alive."
A red aura kindled in Golu Gwang's hand as he spoke — the very Blood-Drinking Demonic Art that had devoured his own underlings, manifest once more. The essence-rich blood of the young, after all, was precious enough to rival that of seasoned warriors.
"Ah... ah..."
Like a mouse before a serpent, the child could not so much as flinch. There was no escaping Golu Gwang's grasp — not when even a swordsman at his zenith had failed to.
Then.
"Hm?"
WHOOSH—
Golu Gwang, mid-stride toward the child, flicked himself lightly backward.
KWAAANG!
As if in answer, two figures dropped heavily onto the very ground Golu Gwang had been striding across. As though a hammer of ten thousand catties had been brought down upon it, the spot was gouged deep into the earth — and yet the child bore not the slightest harm. Deliberately aimed, then.
Golu Gwang studied his uninvited guests.
First, a young man of fine features. When their eyes met—
"You insane bastard."
The young man completed the final words the peak swordsman had never lived to finish.
"Hm."
Golu Gwang's gaze slid sideways.
An old beggar stood there. Beggars were ten a copper in the Jianghu — and yet there was a reason Golu Gwang could not tear his eyes from this one.
"At last. I've found you."
It was the strange, savage heat smoldering in the old beggar's eyes.
"Ho?"
Golu Gwang knew precisely what that look meant. All the many who had come seeking him — unable to stomach his amusements, vowing vengeance — had worn that same look. He had seen it many times before; there was no mistaking it.
"Well, well."
His ferocious eyes curved into an arc.
"This will be fun."
The Blood-Drinking Demon God Golu Gwang's thin tongue slid across his lips.