You’ve Grown Stronger Than Before?

The three quickly pursued Jo Chung.

The pursuit was not difficult. Night had fallen and it was dark around them, but the Black Path men had left traces all over.

“Over there!”

“Get him!”

The shouts of the Black Path men came from beyond the darkness.

Then came the clash of blades and screams.

However, it did not last long.

The commotion soon died down.

An unpleasant silence followed.

When they rounded the corner into the alley and arrived at the scene, the Black Path men were already dead.

“…Ah, this is seriously annoying.”

Under the darkness, Jo Chung calmly shook the blood off himself.

At that sight, the three came to a halt.

‘They died without even putting up a proper fight.’

Tang Ho quickly scanned the corpses.

He could not see clearly in the dark, but from the way they had fallen, he could infer a few things.

‘He did not look like he had that level of skill.’

Perhaps Gyo-ha had been right after all.

Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong raised their swords.

It was the opening stance of the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword.

There was no need to hide their identities in a situation like this.

Besides, the two of them were not adept enough to fight while concealing themselves anyway.

Seeing them, Jo Chung’s face twisted.

“Why are you getting in my way…!”

Jo Chung sprang forward. Jeon Gwang swung his sword toward him.

Chaeng!

Steel met steel with a flash of light. To their surprise, the one driven back was Jeon Gwang.

“Be careful. He is strong!”

Jeon Hong nodded and thrust his sword.

Jo Chung blocked it with ease.

A jolt ran up their hands. It was monstrous strength, hard to believe from such a small body.

Three swords churned in a tangled dance.

Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong were flustered at first, but quickly calmed.

Jo Chung’s strength was clearly greater than they had expected. Yet they sparred daily with people stronger than this.

‘It is not just his strength.’

His speed and senses were outstanding as well. Compared to that, Jo Chung only had raw power, and his techniques themselves were simple.

When his attacks were blocked, Jo Chung’s face distorted.

“Again.”

Words whose meaning they could not grasp.

“Because of you. It is all because of you!”

He swung his sword wildly. Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong parried, their brows twitching.

The impact was even heavier than before.

But the two of them were not the only ones here.

Shwiik!

It was a small sound, soft enough to be mistaken for the wind.

A single throwing knife cut through the darkness.

Puk!

The throwing knife buried itself in Jo Chung’s shoulder and he staggered back. Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong did not miss the opening and pressed him hard.

Jo Chung was forced back again and again.

Yet in the eyes of Tang Ho, who had thrown the knife, doubt had risen.

‘…He reacted to that?’

He had aimed for the head from the start.

In daytime, perhaps, but in this darkness, reacting to it should not have been easy.

All the more when Jo Chung was already dealing with the two swordsmen.

Was it a coincidence?

Tang Ho decided to try one more time.

He brushed his fingers over the throwing knives in his robe.

The Tang Clan’s eye arts could pierce even the darkness.

As soon as he saw an opening, his hand moved.

Before he knew it, the throwing knife had left his hand, aimed at Jo Chung’s neck.

But.

Chaeng!

In the darkness, the knife was knocked away.

Jo Chung had struck the knife aside. It was not a reaction based on blind instinct alone.

‘He saw it.’

Yet Tang Ho realized something felt wrong.

The instant the knife closed in, a green light had flashed in Jo Chung’s eyes.

It was not something like human eye arts.

‘Like some kind of beast’s…’

As far as that thought went, Tang Ho saw Jo Chung retreating.

He looked unsettled by Tang Ho’s attack.

Jeon Hong hurled himself toward Jo Chung.

At that moment, that faint light rose again in Jo Chung’s eyes.

“Jeon Hong, watch out…”

In his urgency, Tang Ho even forgot to use honorifics.

Yet Tang Ho’s concern proved needless as Jeon Hong’s sword pierced through Jo Chung’s side.

Puk!

On top of that, Jo Chung’s sword was locked by Jeon Gwang’s.

Anyone would have called it a perfect exchange.

No, that was how it appeared.

Right up until Jo Chung’s hand pierced Jeon Hong’s abdomen as if he had been waiting for this moment.

“Kh.”

“Hong!”

Jeon Gwang caught the collapsing Jeon Hong.

Tang Ho also scattered throwing knives to keep Jo Chung in check.

Jo Chung fell back.

Clicking his tongue, Jo Chung flung away the sword in his hand.

“It really is a nuisance.”

Then he licked the blood off his hand.

“Claw arts?”

“…No.”

At Jeon Gwang’s question, Tang Ho shook his head.

To eyes sharpened by his eye arts, Tang Ho could see clearly.

And as the moon slipped free of the clouds, Jeon Gwang and Jeon Hong also saw Jo Chung’s hand.

His fingers had grown long, and the tips stood sharp like thorns.

There was no claw art in the world that warped a hand in that way.

The three were not the only ones surprised.

Jo Chung too showed shock as he looked at his own hand.

Watching him, Tang Ho spoke the word Gyo-ha had used.

“…Yokai.”

Only then did Jo Chung lift his head from staring at his hand.

“Yokai, huh.”

Jo Chung let out a thin, crooked laugh.

Was it because he found it absurd? It was not.

“That might be what I am.”

He trudged forward and stopped in front of a corpse.

Puk!

Jo Chung thrust his hand into the corpse.

His next action made all three of them frown.

He pulled the heart out of the corpse and brought it straight to his mouth.

Jjeop jjeop.

Only the sound of Jo Chung chewing the heart echoed through the alley.

Jeon Gwang gagged, and Jeon Hong turned his eyes away.

Then something astonishing happened.

The wound where Jeon Hong had stabbed began to writhe.

It looked as if countless maggots were writhing beneath the skin.

Soon Jo Chung brushed the wound area, and to their amazement, it had closed.

“Now, shall we try that again?”

Jo Chung spoke with blood smeared around his mouth.

As soon as he finished speaking, the moon slipped behind the clouds again and darkness fell.

Two eyes gleamed in the dark.

Those green eyes were no longer human.

Jo Chung’s shadow vanished into the darkness.

“…He is coming.”

Tang Ho spoke in a low voice.

Yet before Tang Ho even spoke, Jeon Gwang had already set Jeon Hong down and taken his stance.

In that instant, a shadow suddenly leaped out in front of Jeon Gwang.

‘He got faster!’

But Jeon Gwang had been ready and swung his sword quickly.

Twisting his body, Jo Chung slipped past the attack.

He then hurled himself straight toward Tang Ho.

Tang Ho had been his target from the beginning.

“You are the most annoying one.”

Tang Ho, who had thrown the knives, drew the sword at his waist.

Chaeng!

His hand and the blade collided with the ring of metal.

There was a saying that if you took claw arts to the extreme, your hands would harden like iron.

But this felt different from that.

‘Not a beast.’

‘A bug.’

They resembled the claws of a mantis.

Tang Ho’s hands moved in a blur.

Yet the sword was not Tang Ho’s specialty.

As he was being forced back, blood sprayed from Tang Ho’s shoulder.

“Brother Tang!”

Jeon Gwang quickly swung his sword.

Jo Chung dodged with ease and retreated.

“Are you all right?”

“…I am fine.”

Tang Ho nodded and readied his stance. Thankfully, it was not a serious wound.

And it was not without results.

“…You really are a nuisance.”

Jo Chung pulled the throwing knife from his shoulder.

Tang Ho had thrown it in that brief moment.

And it was no ordinary throwing knife.

Even after pulling it out, Jo Chung’s expression did not ease.

Rather than healing, the wound was growing larger.

“Poison?”

“It stings quite a bit, does it not?”

Tang Ho gave a thin, bitter smile through the pain.

Frowning, Jo Chung leaped back.

It was not a proper movement art, but a bizarre motion. On closer look, his legs too had grown longer than before.

Realizing what Jo Chung meant to do, Jeon Gwang shot forward.

“Where do you think you are going!”

He meant to keep him from getting to the corpses.

Clicking his tongue, Jo Chung swung his arm.

But his movements were slower than before.

A throwing knife flew in right after.

Tang Ho was throwing the knives one-handed. It was not his dominant right hand, which was awkward, but not enough to stop him from fighting.

“Persistent bastards!”

Jo Chung gave up on reaching the corpses and engaged Jeon Gwang instead.

Yet as time passed, his strength was steadily draining away.

The wound on his shoulder had visibly gaped open.

“Eek!”

Losing his temper, Jo Chung swung his arm.

Jeon Gwang blocked that arm.

Then the arm bent. From Jeon Gwang’s perspective, that was the only way to describe it.

At an impossible angle.

The arm moved in the opposite direction of its joint.

Jeon Gwang’s eyes widened.

Chwaak!

Blood sprayed through the air as Jeon Gwang stumbled back.

“Kh.”

Jeon Gwang clutched his wound.

Yet his eyes were fixed on Jo Chung’s arm.

The arm hung limp.

It looked as if the joint had come out of its socket, and now thorns were sprouting along the arm.

When Jo Chung shook his arm, the lengthened limb twisted and creaked back into place.

“Heh. Fuck.”

Jo Chung gave a hollow laugh as he looked at his own arm.

“This body is amazing.”

He mocked the retreating Jeon Gwang and walked toward a corpse.

Tang Ho threw another knife, but Jo Chung flicked it away lightly.

Then he took out the heart and put it in his mouth.

The torn arm knit back together.

As if it felt awkward, Jo Chung moved the reattached arm.

No wonder, since the two arms were now very different in size.

“It will take some time to get used to.”

He seemed to think nothing of his altered form.

Soon Jo Chung’s gaze turned to Jeon Gwang.

At some point, Jeon Hong had come to stand beside him.

Pale-faced and staggering, he was still holding on.

Tang Ho also stood at his side, one arm still unable to move.

“So, would a Taoist’s heart taste different, I wonder?”

Jo Chung licked his lips as he looked at the three.

The three steeled themselves and raised their swords.

Jo Chung sprang forward, sneering at them.

Yet halfway there, he suddenly stopped.

The three were puzzled by his sudden reaction, but Jo Chung was not looking at them.

He looked down at his arm and saw it trembling.

“What is wrong with this all of a sudden?”

He grabbed his own arm with the other, but the shaking did not stop.

Then, as if startled by something, Jo Chung stared past them into the darkness.

And then.

A single shadow descended from beyond the dark.

A sweet scent pricked his nose.

I want to eat it.

Someone inside Jo Chung incited him so.

Greed. An unbearable hunger rose up, but another emotion was awakening as well.

Jo Chung soon realized what that emotion was.

‘…Fear?’

A feeling he had only held in the past.

But he quickly shook his head. That could not be.

Jo Chung glared at the newcomer with greedy eyes.

The three, who had been watching Jo Chung, also noticed the intruder.

And they knew who it was.

“Brother Gyo!”

“Young hero Gyo.”

Relief spread across the three faces.

---

Gyo-ha slowly let his gaze wander.

The bodies strewn about. And the three who were wounded. Tang Ho was in the best shape, while the other two were in bad condition.

If they did not rest at once, it would be dangerous.

Of course, by Gyo-ha’s standards, they were not serious wounds.

So Gyo-ha could feel relieved.

‘Good thing I didn’t arrive too late.’

His haste had been worth it. Nodding to himself, Gyo-ha looked straight ahead.

There stood Jo Chung in his grotesque form.

Seeing him, Gyo-ha tilted his head.

“You changed.”

“Heh, you mean the way I look?”

Jo Chung gave a thin, fishy smile, but Gyo-ha shook his head.

“No, your smell.”

What did appearances matter?

Before, the scent had been more vague. His own smell had mingled with the stench.

It had been similar to back then with So Yeong.

The only difference was that it was not the stench of a yokai’s belongings or body parts, but of a yokai itself.

Now it was different. That smell had mixed into Jo Chung himself.

It felt like a blend of human and yokai.

Even so, the original foul reek had not faded.

‘I do not know the full situation, but…’

Gyo-ha scratched his head. But there was one thing he could tell.

“You have grown stronger than before.”

Jo Chung did not deny it. At that, Gyo-ha’s lips curled up.

It felt like this fight was about to get a lot more fun.