Omen
We arrived at the family estate.
Yak-seon agreed to stay in my quarters for the time being. He was an outsider I had brought without the patriarch’s permission, so I couldn’t assign him lodging on my own authority. At the very least, all family matters should be decided directly by the patriarch himself.
Of course, in the patriarch’s absence the Great Elder could temporarily exercise that power. But the Great Elder was rarely present at the estate to begin with. He even found receiving reports tiresome most of the time—his personality led him to gloss over anything that wasn’t truly important.
“So this is the Ju family.”
Yak-seon gaped openly, circling the area around my residence several times.
“Please don’t wander too far. The warriors might misunderstand.”
“I’m already exhausted just walking around here. How on earth is one house this vast? Heh heh.”
Yak-seon shook his head as if fed up, then plopped straight down onto the ground.
“All right. Now tell me. You said there was a way to save my granddaughter?”
“Yes. There is.”
I nodded.
In the end, Eui-gyeong dies. Only much later does Yak-seon discover the solution. Having heard his entire past in my previous life, I already knew the full story.
“First, I intend to bring your granddaughter here to our family estate.”
“What? Didn’t you say that was impossible?”
“It could be dangerous. Is that what you want?”
“Hmph. I knew it would come to this. In the end you’re no different from the rest. Are you threatening me by holding my granddaughter’s life as leverage?”
“You know that isn’t the case.”
I stood motionless, staring directly into both of Yak-seon’s eyes.
“I don’t make threats. If I decide to kill, I kill. If I decide to save someone, I save them without fail.”
Yak-seon flinched, visibly startled. I had laced my words with a subtle aura of killing intent, so he had no choice but to feel it.
“If what you do from now on becomes exposed, your granddaughter could become a target of the Demonic Cult. That is why I wish to protect her within our family.”
……
Even so, Yak-seon still looked uneasy. It was only natural. He had never learned proper martial arts—only enough self-defense techniques to protect himself. His distrust of murim folk couldn’t be helped.
“Exactly what are you planning to make me do?”
“Listen carefully to what I say next.”
Sa-an Gwi-gun.
I explained the man’s methods and the demonic arts he would unleash.
“That mad bastard… so he was the one who—”
“No. Sa-an Gwi-gun controls people. This clean, traceless method of killing is absolutely not his style.”
To kill Yak-seon’s son and daughter-in-law without leaving a single trace, then reduce even their granddaughter to a half-corpse? Only one name came to mind.
Sleeping… sleep? Could it be the Blood-Sleeping Gu…?
The Blood-Sleeping Gu was a parasitic poison that, once inside a body, would hide as if slumbering and slowly devour the host’s vitality. It was vicious and tenacious enough that even inner energy offered no real resistance. Only one man in the world used it.
The White-Eyed Assassin.
A killer within the Demonic Cult whose skill rivaled the Twelve Demon Emperors. Even the renowned Yak-seon had only succeeded in creating an antidote long after his granddaughter’s death.
“Hahaha…”
Yak-seon laughed hollowly after hearing me out.
“Blood-Sleeping Gu? It really was that?”
Of course he knew of it. The reason I knew was because I had learned it from Yak-seon himself in my previous life.
“So it was gu poison all along. That’s why no medicine ever worked.”
His mind seemed to clear. Every question that had lingered unsolved for over a decade was answered at once.
The Blood-Sleeping Gu was a poison no larger than a fingernail. Once inside the body it hid within the meridians and slowly gnawed away at accumulating energy. The process wasn’t fast, but the younger the host, the more rapidly the gu grew.
“Can you detoxify it?”
“I’ll have to try. No—I can do it. Who do you think I am?”
Only then did Yak-seon’s expression lighten slightly.
“Still, what if I simply run away right now?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who would do anything that stupid.”
“Hahaha! In all my years I’ve never been lectured by a brat like you.”
It was the first time I had seen him laugh so brightly.
“Fine. Then what do you need me to do?”
“I need you to prepare some medicine.”
“That’s what I do for a living… but what kind?”
“It will be easier to understand if you see for yourself. Would you like to take a look right now?”
“Oh ho. Something must have happened to the Ju family warriors.”
“Well… something like that.”
Yak-seon accepted without hesitation.
I led him straight to the underground prison.
“Young master, this person is…?”
The warriors guarding the prison asked about Yak-seon.
“He is my guest. Open the door. I have business inside.”
“Outsiders are not permitted to—”
“It’s fine. It won’t take long.”
“I’m sorry. Without the patriarch’s explicit permission, we cannot stand down.”
“Oh, is that so?”
When they dug their heels in this stubbornly, there was one method that always worked.
“Do you want to die?”
“…Pardon?”
“You. Do you want to die?”
Showing them a glimpse of my old personality. Even a sliver of that vicious temper was usually enough to make the warriors back off. People avoid filth because it’s dirty and it stinks, after all. I could tolerate becoming filth for a moment.
“J-just for a short while?”
“Open it. Now.”
“Y-yes, sir!”
Though they grimaced, the warriors had no choice but to unlock the door. In the past, once I truly lost control no one could stop me. That was how I easily pushed through them and entered the underground prison.
“Heh heh. Quite the temper you have. The way those warriors opened the gate in terror…”
“I won’t make excuses.”
While staying here he would hear the rumors about me soon enough anyway.
We walked down the prison corridor until we reached the White Dragon Unit Leader’s cell. He had regained consciousness and sat cross-legged in meditation.
“What a joke. Think you’re some Taoist hermit?”
The sight made me chuckle despite myself.
“…Young master.”
“How is he, Elder?”
I ignored the White Dragon Unit Leader completely and asked Yak-seon. He immediately understood what I wanted and began examining the prisoner with great care.
“What kind of scheme is this? This old man…”
“Shut your mouth. He’s a Demonic Cult spy.”
“…!”
Yak-seon flinched violently. The man’s clothing marked him as a Ju family warrior of fairly high rank. To learn that such a person was a spy for the Demonic Cult made him realize the family’s situation was far worse than he had imagined. He studied the White Dragon Unit Leader even more meticulously.
“I’ll need to check his pulse.”
“Of course.”
I acted at once. The moment the cell door opened, Muyoung shot forward, subdued the White Dragon Unit Leader, and pinned him to the floor.
“Go ahead.”
Yak-seon silently seized the man’s twisted wrist and focused, feeling the pulse. After checking several times with an inscrutable expression, he tilted his head at me.
“I don’t understand. The energy flow is definitely abnormal… yet it doesn’t feel like demonic qi.”
“There’s your answer.”
I smirked and gave Muyoung a look. He hauled the White Dragon Unit Leader to his feet and pressed a sword to his throat.
“Let’s make a deal.”
……
The White Dragon Unit Leader frowned at the abrupt statement. I offered him a tempting proposal.
“Give me information on the Demonic Cult. Your superiors. The one who will succeed you. How many demonic agents are hidden inside the White Dragon Unit.”
“Heh heh. If I tell you that, I die.”
“If you don’t tell me, I won’t kill you. I’ll make you beg for death.”
“Hahaha! What do you think I learned in the White Dragon Unit? Tear my limbs off, torture me for a hundred days and nights. See if I even blink.”
“Good. Then the opposite.”
I nodded, agreeing with him. Whether he told the truth or lied, he would die either way. So I decided to give him one path to survival.
“I’ll spare your life. I’m even willing to release you from this underground prison.”
……
His eyes shook violently as he tried to judge whether I was lying.
“I have no particular interest in your life.”
“You’ll really let me out of here?”
“Believe it or not, it’s your choice. My generosity ends here, so choose wisely.”
After a long silence the tips of his fingers trembled. His mouth clamped shut, his pupils darting like a trapped animal. His breathing grew ragged. Finally he turned his head, forcibly avoiding my gaze.
In the end, the most important thing for any person is simply to live. As long as you have breath, anything is possible.
“Fine.”
The White Dragon Unit Leader finally surrendered.
“Find Vice Leader Yang Gon. He probably knows. I truly don’t know anyone higher than that. That’s all.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“How disappointing.”
It was worthless information. If necessary I could simply drag every vice leader out for questioning. There would be backlash, but with my youngest uncle present I was untouchable. I hadn’t locked this man up just to obtain scraps like this.
“T-then what more do you want?”
He turned deathly pale and began crawling toward me on all fours. At times like this, the reputation of the Ju family’s mad dog and ruthless bastard proved incredibly useful. At least he knew I was capable of anything.
“Snake Eyes. Where is that bastard right now and what is he doing?”
Snake Eyes—also known as Sa-an Gwi-gun.
“I-I cannot tell you that.”
The White Dragon Unit Leader clamped his mouth shut. Yet his face was drenched in terror.
Could it be?
Suspecting as much, I tapped his skull lightly.
“It’s a restriction.”
“…Hup!”
His eyes widened until they looked ready to burst. I could almost hear his heartbeat pounding in my ears.
“Fine. I never expected this to be easy anyway.”
If he had revealed everything it would have simplified matters greatly, but things were never that convenient. He couldn’t even utter Sa-an Gwi-gun’s name.
“A warrior of the Ju family—and a collateral blood relative at that. What exactly did you hope to gain by throwing in with the Demonic Cult?”
……
“Not talking?”
I grabbed his ear and yanked it upward. The lobe tore under my grip, blood streaming down.
“You weren’t suddenly captured, given a restriction, and then forced to obey, right? No matter how incompetent or stupid you are, you couldn’t have been subdued in such a pathetic manner.”
“S-stop…”
The White Dragon Unit Leader shook off my hand in pain and turned away.
“All right. That’s enough for today.”
I stood.
“You will definitely die tomorrow. And it will be extremely painful.”
“W-what? You said you’d spare me!”
“Yeah. I lied.”
I waved casually and left the prison with Yak-seon.
Either way, the man was going to die. It would be far better for him to confess everything and die cleanly. Therefore I deliberately planned to keep him alive one more day to let terror consume him completely. Only then would I root out everyone who had conspired with him.
Had I never noticed, I might have let it pass. But now that it had entered my sight, I had no intention of overlooking it lightly.
After Woo-jin and Yak-seon departed, a short while later.
A man entered the underground prison. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, he walked straight to the cell holding the White Dragon Unit Leader and stopped.
The moment their eyes met, the corners of the man’s mouth tore upward in a grin that stretched all the way to his ears. The expression was so grotesque it sent chills down the spine.
“Your usefulness ends here.”
“W-wait—!”
With those final words the man’s wrist flashed.
Swish!
Thud.
The White Dragon Unit Leader’s severed head dropped to the floor.
The man carefully picked up the head, turned, and vanished completely into the darkness.
The next day, what I faced was nothing but the already ice-cold, headless corpse of the White Dragon Unit Leader.