Dungeon 410: Retaking the Sealed Demon Box (1)
The night was already deep, and darkness had swallowed everything in every direction. The only light over the grounds came from torches blazing here and there. Across a wide open space—a courtyard, or perhaps a training ground—martial artists brimming with fighting spirit stood in orderly ranks.
Even clad head to toe in black with masks pulled over their faces, they felt intensely familiar; I had crossed blades with them countless times while guarding the Daeung Escort Bureau's convoy.
The Yanwang Unit. One of the Demon Cult's most powerful fighting forces—the Yanwang Unit.
And there, at one corner of those assembled ranks, Go Hyeon-woo and I were standing.
"..."
"..."
We looked at each other at the same moment, then let our gazes drop to inspect one another's attire. Jet-black garments, masks in place. Without a doubt, Yanwang Unit warriors A and B.
Go Hyeon-woo lowered his voice as far as it would go, mindful of nearby ears, before speaking.
"How intriguing. So this time, we proceed on the Demon Cult's side?"
"That's right. We follow the title." Reclaim the Demon Sealing Box. The objective was written right into the dungeon's name.
I hadn't shown Go Hyeon-woo the walkthrough this time, since we would be moving together anyway. The fine details were mine to handle.
Even so, I needed to give him at least a rough picture of the situation.
"The Demon Sealing Boxes were moved from the Daeung Escort Bureau to Bunta."
"So they were."
"And somewhere along the way, a few of them passed into entirely the wrong hands."
An odd light entered Go Hyeon-woo's eyes.
"Stolen, were they?"
"'Smuggled out' would be the more accurate term."
"...I see. Wherever one goes, the corrupt are sure to be found."
With an artifact as potent as the Demon Sealing Box, danger aside, there would always be those who coveted it. And in turn, those willing to satisfy that greed for a cut of the profits.
Go Hyeon-woo clicked his tongue low, as if in pity.
"Foolish. Swallow a thing like that, and the trouble that follows will be anything but small..."
"Human greed, for you. They're on the verge of disaster as we speak."
The Demon Cult had every nerve strung taut over the whereabouts of the Demon Sealing Boxes. It was inevitable they would learn that some had been moved in secret, and the Yanwang Unit was just about to be deployed—that was the situation as it stood.
"Then all we need do is follow the thieves, yes?"
"Basically."
As in any dungeon, doing only the bare minimum earned only the bare minimum of rewards. If you wanted more than that—
"We take the initiative."
"Knowing you, Brother Kim, you'll have something planned already. Am I wrong?"
"Of course I do. Let's go."
He and I broke from the ranks and ambled forward. Stares converged on us from all sides at once—some dumbfounded, some shooting pure killing intent. We let them slide right off and kept walking.
Where I was headed stood a familiar middle-aged man in black.
The Yanwang Unit vice-commander.
During the escort mission, I had stayed behind in the rear with the wounded and clashed head-on with the vice-commander's Yanwang Unit. In the end, they had taken a devastating blow from the Inferno Fist and been forced to retreat.
Of course, he isn't the vice-commander anymore—he's the unit leader now. Go Hyeon-woo had felled the previous leader back then, so the man would have been bumped up a rank. That was how it went in the story, too.
The moment his gaze locked onto us, I spoke in the gravest tone I could muster.
"The Demon Brain has sent us."
"...!"
The unit leader's eyes flared.
When two of his men broke from the ranks so recklessly, the Yanwang Unit Leader had wondered whether the pair had succumbed to qi deviation and gone mad. But he quickly found himself hardening his expression instead. The aura radiating from those two lunatics was anything but ordinary.
Masters. No such masters existed among the men under his command. Which meant they had infiltrated from outside.
Before long, the black-clad man approaching slightly ahead of his companion spoke.
"The Demon Brain has sent us."
"...!"
The voice was young, barely past twenty, yet the weight it carried was anything but light. It was like facing a seasoned master. And if the Demon Brain, strategist of the Demon Cult, had set these two in motion, it meant they possessed skill worthy of the errand.
But the Yanwang Unit Leader was himself a master who had spent long years rolling through the gangho. He was hardly naive enough to take a stranger's word at face value. So he asked,
"Can you prove it?"
"There is no such proof."
The black-clad man answered with utter finality.
What kind of nonsense is that? Claiming the Demon Brain sent you, yet offering no way to prove it?
Even so, the unit leader did not lose his composure. Long-accumulated experience was sending him a warning. The vice-commander, however, could not say the same.
He had been seated in the vice-commander's chair for being among the strongest of the squad leaders, but his hair-trigger temper meant he stirred up trouble time and again. This was no exception. Without knowing a thing about the black-clad man's identity, he spat out abuse without hesitation.
"I've seen every brand of lunatic there is. You think you can crawl into another man's courtyard and throw your weight around? Strip that mask off. Now. Or else—"
Shring—
The vice-commander drew his wolf-fang blade and leveled it.
"I'll knock the heads from your necks and see for myself."
"Now that method suits me fine."
The corners of the black-clad man's mouth curled upward slightly. Seeing it, the unit leader knew for certain: the man had provoked them deliberately, intending exactly this. Better to make an example of one than to explain a hundred times, no?
The black-clad man beckoned lazily.
"Come, then. Come and see."
"You—!"
The vice-commander charged, blade leading. The black-clad man, too, stepped forward as if out for a stroll. The distance between them closed in an instant, and the vice-commander's blade came whistling down, hissing as it cleaved the air.
In that moment, the black-clad man's figure slid past the vice-commander like a phantom—and then came a chilling, wet sound of flesh being pierced.
Thud.
For a long moment the two stood with their backs to each other. Then the vice-commander's body crumpled sideways.
"...!"
Disbelief written across his face, he shook all over like an aspen leaf. He appeared to be feeling an extreme cold. Soon his movements stopped altogether, but a dreadful crackling—like something freezing solid from within—kept sounding from his body.
Crrrack-crack-crackle...
"We'll need to pick a new vice-commander."
The black-clad man remarked, utterly bored. Watching the scene, the Yanwang Unit Leader's eyes bulged as if they would split.
That martial art—!
He hastily examined the man's index finger, and what he had hoped impossible hardened into certainty. The finger was frozen solid, like an icicle. A technique that drove chill into an opponent's meridians and froze them from the inside out—counted among the cruelest of the countless demonic arts.
The Hyneum Jade Demon Finger!
The Hyneum Jade Demon Finger was a demonic art that simultaneously harbored the energy of extreme yin; a middling master could not even begin to grasp it. Yet the man before him seemed to have refined that very technique to an extraordinary level—enough to slay the vice-commander with a single casual jab. And that, in itself, proved the man's—no, this esteemed one's—identity.
Could he be... that person's—!
The Yanwang Unit Leader trembled violently. Certain figures had flashed through his mind in that instant. And just then, a frosty voice reached his ear.
"Proof enough?"
The unit leader dropped to his knees and pressed his head to the ground at once. His men followed suit.
"F-forgive us! We committed insolence, blind to the heavens themselves. Please, take our lives."
"Take your lives, you say..."
The man gazed off into the far distance, murmuring as if to himself. He seemed genuinely to be weighing whether to kill them or not—but the deliberation looked about as weighty as choosing between noodles and dumplings for dinner tonight. Which meant wiping them out would be exactly that simple.
Whiiish—
The man released a fraction of his aura, and a faint wind swept once through the Yanwang Unit. The leader's body shuddered violently again. Within that faint breeze he could feel a crushing pressure.
Just how profound must his martial arts be...! A master who could impose pressure with his aura alone. To have crossed such a one—death was only fitting. All the unit leader could do was keep his face buried in the dirt and await judgment.
After a moment's thought, the black-clad man spoke slowly.
"My temper says I should strike you all dead where you stand..."
"...!"
"But for the sake of rebuilding our Cult, one must know when to smother that temper. You keep your lives today."
"...We are grateful for your mercy."
The black-clad man waved his hand slowly, and only then could the Yanwang Unit rise from the ground.
"I hear there are rats who smuggled out the Cult's treasures."
"They are called the Geumyeong Merchant Guild, Your Excellency."
The leader answered through gritted teeth. His unit and the orthodox sects were locked in a ferocious blood feud, and amid it all, vermin were lining their own pockets. Even if it hadn't been the Demon Sealing Boxes they'd made off with, he could never have let it slide. The black-clad man seemed to feel much the same.
"Once this night has passed, the name Geumyeong Merchant Guild will be nowhere to be found in the gangho."
"...!"
"However, the Demon Brain worries over unforeseen variables."
The Demon Brain's plans were always meticulous to the last detail. He preferred to commit additional force rather than leave even a sliver of chance. That was why a master who had cultivated the Hyneum Jade Demon Finger, of all people, had come here.
The black-clad man continued.
"If an unexpected master is residing with the Geumyeong Merchant Guild, we will deal with them ourselves. Launch the night raid the moment preparations are complete."
"By your command!"
The Yanwang Unit began moving with flawless discipline. As he watched them, the black-clad man opened his mouth once more.
"Do you carry the Treasure Map Piece?"
"...! I do."
How the man had learned of it sent a chill through the unit leader's heart—though if the Demon Brain had dropped a hint, it was entirely plausible. So he obediently produced the piece and handed it over, though he carefully added,
"I am ashamed to say... what I possess is only a fragment."
The other fragment had been lost when they raided the Daeung Escort Bureau's convoy—snatched away by some green whelp who might have been the Flame Tyrant himself, or perhaps his heir; no one could say.
The black-clad man accepted the Treasure Map Piece and answered offhandedly.
"I will handle the rest myself."
"You intend to meet him in person?"
"..."
The black-clad man stared at him in silence. At the same moment, a current of wind rose from somewhere and coiled around him.
Whiiish—
The man had raised his aura once more. The leader felt a pressure heavier than before bearing down on him, and a cold voice reached his ear.
"Curious about what I intend to do, are you?"
"...!"
The unit leader understood at once: he had been prying into a domain he dared not peer into. He bowed his head again.
"This subordinate overstepped. Please, forgive..."
"Do not question me."
"I will remember."
Perhaps thanks to his quick read of the moment, the black-clad man seemed inclined to let the matter pass without further incident. The unit leader exhaled a silent breath of relief—yet at the same time, he could not shake a strange feeling.
No matter how I think on it, that face is familiar... The eyes beyond the mask had lodged somewhere in his memory, though he could not say why.
With preparations complete, the Yanwang Unit began moving covertly through the darkness. That so many men brimming with fighting spirit could advance without a whisper of noise said everything about how rigorously they had been drilled.
I followed at a leisurely pace, all the while maintaining an arrogant bearing.
Go Hyeon-woo, meanwhile, had kept silent at my side the entire time. He stole a glance around, then drew close and breathed an admiring whisper.
"Truly a masterful performance. Is there anything you cannot do, Brother Kim?"
"Right?"
Honestly, I thought so too.
[207] The Support Ate It All