The Binding Promise
Jang Po surged upward, cracking the earth beneath him.
In the barest fraction of a second—
Crrrack!
Gwak Yeon saw it.
Not only the man’s face and limbs, but even his pupils trembled violently.
“Keuk! Uwaaaah!”
With a grotesque scream, Jang Po shot toward the pavilion’s eaves. Gwak Yeon launched himself after him in the same instant.
Crunch! Crunch!
Beneath the moonlit night sky, Gwak Yeon’s eyes widened slightly as he pursued Jang Po, who smashed through the ends of the eaves on his way to the higher floors.
What?
The man’s explosive power had grown greater than before.
It was not that he had been holding strength in reserve.
Is he… trying to burn through every last scrap of his internal energy right now?
Internal energy overflowed into the surroundings. Even from below, it was plain that Jang Po was spewing every ounce of power he possessed, far beyond any control, as he raced for the pavilion’s peak.
As if that alone were the sole purpose of his life.
Innate True Qi.
If that was not the true qi he had carried since birth—qi that ground away at his very lifespan—
“Cough!”
In that moment, droplets of blood scattered around Jang Po.
Sensing that faint blood-scent beneath the night sky, Gwak Yeon saw it in a flash.
Thump!
Jang Po, who had spat blood from his mouth, flinched for an instant in midair. Then, clutching at something in his chest, he resumed his explosive leaps into the void, smashing through the eaves of the third-story pavilion as he went.
His condition… is strange!
Gwak Yeon had felt it clearly.
When he had stretched his senses to their absolute limit—when he could even hear the man’s heartbeat—he had caught a peculiar sound inside that body.
And so—
Clatter—
Dodging the countless shards of roof tiles raining down on his head, Gwak Yeon shot his form into the night sky after Jang Po and thought, under that moonlight:
Flash.
Perhaps today… he would have to use yet another strange ability.
“That’s right! Hurry up and get here— Hiiik!”
Yuk So-wan, who had been shouting out the window, startled violently and flung himself sideways.
Crunch.
With a thunderous roar the window frame shattered. Dust billowed thickly. Cheon Gang, who had already wrenched free the iron staff lodged in the cracked sill, glanced at Yuk So-wan cowering in the corner and muttered,
“Rat bastard.”
“Wait! Wait a moment!”
Yuk So-wan fled in panic around the room.
“I-it’s that guy’s fault! J-Jang Po threatened me! I had no choice but to join them!”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Cheon Gang snorted at the excuse and strode toward the center of the room.
Splash, splash.
He stepped over the pools of blood surrounding the corpses already strewn everywhere. When he raised the iron staff and swung it lightly, a chorus of splintering cracks filled the air. Screens, tables, chairs, porcelain wine bottles, and oil lamps all crashed down in a noisy cascade of destruction.
“I-if you don’t believe me, look over there! L-look at the characters written on that scroll and you’ll know my words are true!”
Cornered and trembling, Yuk So-wan spat the words. Cheon Gang gave a short laugh and flicked his gaze that way—
“What the hell are you—”
“Die!”
From behind the fan Yuk So-wan swung, a tiny needle shot forth.
“Kahaha! You stupid bi—”
Clang.
The needle struck Cheon Gang’s wrist and bounced away harmlessly, blocked by the Horingu.
Yuk So-wan’s eyes blinked in blank shock.
“Stupid bastard.”
“Uwaaaaaah—! J-Jang Po, you son of a bitchhhhh—!”
The instant Cheon Gang raised his staff again—
A colossal surge of energy poured in through the window.
Flash.
In one corner of Cheon Gang’s vision, just as he swung the iron staff, a great blaze of light illuminated the dark night outside—
—KRA-KOOOOM!
Cheon Gang was hurled backward. He bounced across the floor already littered with corpses and wreckage, slamming into the door with enough force to nearly smash it apart before tumbling through.
Every part of his body throbbed. Using the iron staff he still gripped, he pushed himself up from the floor—
“Ha—! You stupid bastard, I told you to hurry—!”
Only then did Yuk So-wan crow triumphantly. Before him stood the man from earlier, eyes glowing with an eerie light.
“I almost died, you half-witted son of a bitch!”
“You— why… keuk!”
“You? Call me Master!”
“Khaaak!”
“What are you doing?! Kill them all! Every last one!”
It was a bizarre sight. Yuk So-wan’s condescending tone toward Jang Po was deeply strange, yet in this moment only one thing mattered to Cheon Gang as he staggered to his feet.
“Keuk! This bastard twice already—”
“Cheon Gang! Look out!”
“Young Master?!”
Gwak Yeon had already shot up to the window after Jang Po. He was about to shout a warning when—
“Careful—!”
“I was careless earlier! Now, once more—”
“Kiiilll!”
A scorching wave of heat blasted forth like a sheet of flame. Cheon Gang, who had lunged with his iron staff raised, took Jang Po’s foot square in the gut—the massive man now dominating the center of the room.
—KRA-KOOOOM!
For an instant it seemed Cheon Gang would smash into the wall. Then he went flying through the collapsing partition into the adjacent room in an utterly absurd display.
“Cheon Gaaang!”
“What are you doing?! Kill that one too!”
“Keuk— Y-Yuk So-wan, you…”
“Hurry!”
It lasted only a heartbeat. Even as Yuk So-wan barked urgent orders, Jang Po spat dark-red blood once more and clutched his head with both hands. In that opening, Gwak Yeon launched himself through the thickly rising dust and found Cheon Gang collapsed, unconscious.
Thank the heavens he came wearing the Horingu!
One or two ribs seemed broken, yet even though Jang Po’s strike—far more powerful than the earlier ones—had landed cleanly on the solar plexus, Cheon Gang had suffered no worse. He had merely been knocked out by the tremendous shock.
“You… sons of bitches—”
Gwak Yeon ground his teeth, eyes flaring. When he whipped his head around, he saw Jang Po and Yuk So-wan arguing through the dust in the next room.
“What the hell— you… what have you done?!”
“D-don’t come near me!”
“Gyaaaaah—!”
“Hey, we promised, right?! You swore you’d never kill me!”
“Kr, kraaaaah!”
It was a grotesque scene. Jang Po’s eyes seemed to return to normal for brief moments as he regained a scrap of clarity, yet his face twisted this way and that between screams.
Keeping his gaze locked on them, Gwak Yeon turned his head toward the window of the room where the unconscious Cheon Gang lay and called to Heoksijo, who had been circling outside.
“……Heoksijo!”
Only after watching the bird flap closer and seize Cheon Gang’s limp body in its beak to carry him away did Gwak Yeon begin walking toward the gaping hole in the wall.
Step, step.
Beyond the still-thick dust, Jang Po’s glowing eyes burned as he half-launched himself at Gwak Yeon, then hesitated.
“Hurry! Hurry and kill him!”
“Kraaak—!”
“If you don’t want to suffer, kill that man right now!”
“Huff, huff!”
“Hurry—!”
Gwak Yeon roared at the top of his lungs.
“Jang Po! It’s not me you have to kill—it’s the bastard next to you if you want any peace—!”
He had fully grasped what was happening.
“That man fed you gu poison!”
“Oh-ho.”
Yuk So-wan gave a thin smile. Jang Po’s head, still trembling and drooling, slowly turned that way—
“Keuk! G-gu poison— keuk!”
“Would a brainless brute like you even understand if you heard? It’s a treasure among treasures that makes you my slave.”
“Y-you… tricked—”
“Shut up!”
The moment Yuk So-wan raised the hand holding his fan, dark-red blood erupted from Jang Po’s mouth along with a hideous scream.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
“Your power is too good to waste on an ignorant mutt like you.”
“Y-you—”
“Kill him already!”
Cough!
Jang Po, trembling violently, prepared to hurl himself at the sword-wielding Gwak Yeon once more. The edges of his eyes blackened again—
Gritting his teeth with desperate force, Jang Po whipped his head around and raised a fist toward Yuk So-wan—
“Yes! Kill him! Kill the one controlling you and it’s over!”
“I—I can’t…… cough!”
“What?!”
“Gyaak! H-hey, we promised—! Keuk! We promised!”
“Promised?!”
“……Kr, krahahahahaha!”
Jang Po spat dark-red blood again and turned his head. Yuk So-wan, who had flinched for only a moment, burst into peals of laughter.
Even in a situation where a single light touch would collapse his bones like a sandcastle, Jang Po would not kill him. Yuk So-wan looked back and forth between the man and Gwak Yeon beyond him, murmuring with open delight.
“This fellow will never kill me! Why? Because we made a promise!”
“Gyaak!”
“Stupid bastard. Grinning like an idiot at the name ‘Jang Po among Men’ and making a promise like that…… though I suppose the name fits! In all my life I’ve never seen a more ignorant fool than you!”
“Keheeeerk!”
“Just submit. It’ll be easier that way. You brainless mutt who fell for the name ‘Jang Po among Men’ with that dumb grin on your face.”
Jang Po thrashed like a madman, shaking his head, then finally looked at Gwak Yeon again. Every muscle in his body swelled taut—
Cough!
Just as before, a dark-red energy began to devour the whites of both eyes. The gu poison that Jang Po had barely been holding at bay seemed ready to claim him once more.
What? A promise?
Gwak Yeon was dumbfounded.
Had he actually sworn not to kill Yuk So-wan? And he intended to keep a promise like that even in this situation?!
“Keuk! Kraaaaah!”
“Stop resisting. Once you kill that man I’ll make you a new offer that’ll be good for you too…… well, we can talk about that later.”
“Keuk!”
“For now! Kill him!”
Jang Po’s eyes blazed dark-red once more.
Flash!
He raised his iron club, bent his legs, and snorted as his body prepared to launch at Gwak Yeon—
“……Promise me.”
“Kr, kruk!”
“Everything I’m about to show you from this moment on—you will never speak of it to anyone afterward.”
“Kyahaak!”
“Then I’ll save you.”
Jang Po leaped with such force that the floor shattered.
—BOOM!
In that instant Gwak Yeon saw the glint of moisture at the corners of those dark-red eyes, and the way the man’s head—hurtling toward him with murderous intent—shifted ever so slightly.
A small nod.
Gwak Yeon grinned and unleashed the power of the vampire.
“You promised…… right?”
KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA-KWA—!
.
.
.
Thud.
Yuk So-wan collapsed to the floor.
There was much he wanted to say, yet all that escaped his gaping lips was a dazed murmur.
“Uh, uhhh—”
The scene unfolding before his eyes was simply too absurd.
While the fight raged back and forth across the two wide rooms of the pavilion—joined by the collapsed wall—Jang Po was being steadily driven back.
Slash!
By a monster fighting in a form Yuk So-wan had never seen before.
……A ghost!
Dark-red blood rippled across every part of the figure’s body. Like the rays of a newly risen morning sun, it shot and unfurled crimson blood in every direction as it fought. That was closer to the shape of a ghost than any human.
Yuk So-wan swallowed hard. Terror filled his trembling pupils.
It could not be otherwise. Right now Jang Po was fighting as if pouring out every last drop of the internal energy Yuk So-wan had forced him to unleash. Even if he collapsed the moment the battle ended it would be no surprise—yet he was the one being overwhelmed.
Damn it!
With a look of resignation, Yuk So-wan focused on the Yin Gu nestled near his heart and raised a hand toward the frantically fighting Jang Po.
It was a waste…… but survival came first.
He prepared to draw out even the last of Jang Po’s Innate True Qi and use it to kill this ghost in this very moment—
Puhak—!
A stream of blood pierced straight through one side of Jang Po’s body.
“Cough.”
“N-no—!”
“No?”
From over Jang Po’s shoulder came the voice.
“……No to what?”
“!?!”
Yuk So-wan met the gaze of the one looking his way. Goosebumps exploded across his skin as he felt it.
—Squelch!
In that instant the Yang Gu that had been dominating Jang Po’s body had died.
…………Huh?!