The Fork Between Life And Death (3)

Neung Je-gang fixed his attention on a man leaving So-hee’s quarters. Even watching from afar, the man’s oppressive presence was anything but ordinary.

“Who is he? He’s alone, so he doesn’t seem like someone from the Mountain… If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve infiltrated So-hee’s place in advance.”

Neung Je-gang no longer needed to squeeze information out of So-hee. By now, it was fair to say he’d already killed everyone worth killing.

If there were anyone left to kill, it would only be the Chancellor’s faction—but he had no need to lay hands on them yet.

He would split them from the Necromancer Cult first, then deliver judgment. That way, there would be no backlash.

If he struck too early, the survivors might instead crawl deeper under the Cult’s shadow and hide themselves away.

“It’s time to start wrapping things up in the capital. What’s left can be handed to the Director… I should prepare to face whoever’s coming down from the Mountain.”

Even so, he couldn’t take his eyes off that man.

“It’s bothering me too much. If he might be from the Mountain, I should follow him once—just to be sure.”

Neung Je-gang began walking in the same direction, keeping his distance and shadowing him.

The man didn’t seem to have any fixed destination. He would walk, then suddenly stop and stare toward the Forbidden City in the distance. When he reached a stream, he abruptly jumped in, splashing and playing in the water.

Nothing about him looked like it carried the damp, sinister shadow of the Necromancer Cult.

“Just what is that man?”

In some ways, he looked enviably carefree. In other moments, he looked endlessly sad.

When he stared blankly at the sky, or reached out and swirled his hand as if trying to touch the wind, it felt as though his emotions were bleeding into Neung Je-gang.

After casting off every grudge and obligation, Neung Je-gang wanted to live freely like that, too.

“Eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, drink when you’re thirsty, miss those you miss….”

That was Neung Je-gang’s goal—to miss the family who had gone ahead, to live in step with nature.

Watching the man, Neung Je-gang suddenly found himself being pulled into the old dream he had carried for so long.

Swish.

Neung Je-gang turned away. Chasing the man any further was meaningless.

Even if the man belonged to the Necromancer Cult, he didn’t seem like someone who would harm the world.

But he couldn’t truly part from him.

From the moment Neung Je-gang turned and walked away, the man began following behind him instead.

The moment Hwangbo Chu left So-hee’s quarters, he sensed a gaze clinging to him. He couldn’t pinpoint it, but he was certain someone was watching.

“Could that gaze be Secret Shadow?”

The thought struck him.

‘No. That can’t be.’

How would Secret Shadow know to watch him?

He kept walking. A watching gaze didn’t matter.

Ever since he descended from the Mountain, he had done nothing but savor freedom like this.

On the Mountain, a world where training was everything, there was no leisure to stare at the sky, no spare moment to cool sweat and feel the passing breeze.

“Hm?”

Then he turned his eyes and saw a man watching him—only for that man to turn and walk away. As soon as he turned, the gaze vanished, as though that man had been its owner.

‘Should I follow him?’

Whether he was Secret Shadow or not didn’t matter.

He simply wanted to follow, so he did.

He didn’t plan to do anything to him. He didn’t even want to know his identity.

He would act as his heart pleased.

If the man was Secret Shadow, they would fight eventually.

But not yet.

Neither of them was ready.

‘Why does he look so sad?’

Just as Neung Je-gang had felt sadness watching him, Hwangbo Chu now felt sadness watching Neung Je-gang.

Not realizing that the sorrow had first flowed from Neung Je-gang, Hwangbo Chu grew quietly melancholy.

Neung Je-gang found lodging and entered an inn. It wasn’t time to sleep yet.

He ordered food and sat blankly, waiting.

Then the inn door opened, and the man walked in.

Neung Je-gang let out a small laugh without meaning to.

“Sit.”

He extended a hand and indicated the seat across from him.

Hwangbo Chu sat down without a word of thanks.

“I am Secret Shadow.”

“You’re Secret Shadow? I see… so you are Secret Shadow. I’m Hwangbo Chu. I came down from the Mountain—do you know what that means?”

Nod, nod.

Neung Je-gang nodded.

“So you knew. The ones you killed were, one way or another, listed as my subordinates. I had no affection for them, but I felt something like duty, so I came looking for you.”

“Thank you.”

A completely unexpected reply from Neung Je-gang.

“What…?”

“Watching you, I was able to think of my family. I’d forgotten for a long time….”

“In that case, I should be the one thanking you as well. Because of you, I had time to remember old things… time I never would’ve felt on the Mountain.”

“Then it’s good we helped each other. So—when would you prefer?”

Neung Je-gang was asking when they would fight.

“Let’s eat first. There’s time. By the way… do you have any spare money?”

On Hwangbo Chu’s palm lay two copper coins—barely enough to buy two dumplings.

“Hahaha. Fine. This money exists to be spent anyway. Order whatever you like.”

“Thank you.”

The two of them feasted, truly for the first time in a long while.

How much time passed like that?

Before they knew it, the moon hung bright and full.

A sky so clear it held not a single cloud.

They had moved beyond the outskirts of the capital. The place where they faced each other was the middle of a road with a single great tree standing beside it.

Shing—

Hwangbo Chu drew his weapon: a short, thick blade.

Shhk—

By contrast, Neung Je-gang held the Mindless Sword.

Its blade looked unusually long and slender, the complete opposite of Hwangbo Chu’s weapon.

“Don’t let my weapon being short make you careless. Excuses won’t matter later.”

Staring at the stark contrast, Hwangbo Chu spoke.

“I won’t be careless. And you—don’t say you lost because your weapon was short.”

Neung Je-gang lifted the Mindless Sword upright. He finished preparing the Zhu Rong Great-Heaven Sword.

Hwangbo Chu steadied his breath as he watched him, then shifted his stance—upper body slightly lowered, one foot set a little forward, poised to burst ahead at any moment.

Neung Je-gang locked his eyes onto Hwangbo Chu’s fingertips. The fingers gripping the blade trembled faintly; tiny muscles writhed as if ready to burst.

That spring-like force would pour enormous power into his short blade.

Hwangbo Chu also hunted for an opening.

He was prepared. If only a small gap appeared, anywhere at all, his blade would—as it always had—split flesh and bone and take a life.

They did not move, only stared.

One quarter-hour, two… time flowed.

The only proof was the moon sliding slowly, and the shifting shadows.

Neither could strike first.

No one attacked unless they were sure of perfect success—because they knew the pain that followed a failed opening was too great.

In duels between masters, maintaining that focus mattered above all else. The instant concentration faltered—even slightly—death arrived.

And beyond focus, there was something else that changed everything: the environment.

Countless martial masters had lost their lives to nothing more than a breath of wind or a single raindrop.

Whooo—

Wind rose. By chance, it lifted dust from the ground, and the dust swallowed the other’s figure.

‘I can’t wait any longer.’

The thought was brief; the action was coldly swift.

Shraaak—

The dust that blocked his view split apart.

No—rather, the wind heavy with dust split apart.

Neung Je-gang was shocked that he could launch so fast even while using the Zhu Rong Great-Heaven Sword. It was the kind of speed one might expect from the Single-Flash Severed-Soul Blade.

But before the Mindless Sword even reached Hwangbo Chu, Neung Je-gang had to see Hwangbo Chu’s body shooting in toward him.

Hwangbo Chu was already charging, his entire body surging forward while Neung Je-gang was still savoring the sword’s speed.

Neung Je-gang saw the short blade erupt from Hwangbo Chu’s waistline.

Flash—

The world turned white.

He saw nothing.

There was no time to cast Death Demon Flow’s illusion technique—no time even to think of it.

His sight bleached out, and even Hwangbo Chu vanished.

Throb—

If not for the pain blooming in his right chest, Neung Je-gang might have forgotten he was even fighting.

“Urk!”

He heard Hwangbo Chu’s shocked cry.

Whap—

By instinct, Neung Je-gang threw out his empty left hand toward the voice.

Time froze again.

After a long moment, Neung Je-gang felt his vision return.

And he saw it—his instinctively extended left middle finger buried in Hwangbo Chu’s glabella.

Hwangbo Chu’s eyes were wide, as if wronged.

Neung Je-gang lowered his gaze to his right chest, where blood flowed.

Hwangbo Chu’s short blade was embedded about half an inch—and no farther.

It had been stopped.

Neung Je-gang released his grip on the Mindless Sword and pulled the blade from his chest.

Warm blood spilled, the sensation running from chest to waist and down.

He groped the wound area. His fingers found something thick and blunt.

“Wind Hammer…!”

It was that.

The troublesome cudgel that Black Cloud Demon had practically forced on him.

It had blocked Hwangbo Chu’s strike and saved Neung Je-gang’s life.

Thud.

Neung Je-gang collapsed to a sitting position.

With the shift, Hwangbo Chu’s corpse sank to the ground as well.

“I lost. Is this the price of arrogance?”

Neung Je-gang possessed many martial arts. The Zhu Rong Great-Heaven Sword was among the weaker ones.

Yet in a battle of life and death, he had chosen it—because of arrogance, the belief he would not die, would not lose.

“Sir Hwangbor… I’m sorry. In everything else, you surpassed me. Only one thing was lacking compared to me—luck.”

That was it. In battles between masters, luck was not an element you could ignore.

Neung Je-gang pulled his left middle finger free from Hwangbo Chu’s brow.

His left hand, moving on instinct, had executed One-Finger Piercing-Through. He had done it without thinking.

It meant his body remembered his martial arts before his mind did.

“I must not stop training—until I reach the realm where my body deploys my techniques before my thoughts do… Today, I learned something else. And yet I survived because of luck….”

He closed Hwangbo Chu’s eyes.

There was no helping it now.

Victory and defeat were decided. Life and death were decided.

If this had been a mere spar, Neung Je-gang could have admitted defeat and withdrawn—but this had been a duel to the death.

In the end, the one who lived was the victor.

Neung Je-gang rose and cradled Hwangbo Chu’s body.

He trudged away to find a mountain far from the highway.

An enemy, but a man he liked.

He made a grave, laid the body inside, and placed the short blade on Hwangbo Chu’s chest.

Then he turned away. In the distance, the capital lay under darkness.

When he sought out a physician to treat the chest wound, the injury had already closed on its own and shrunk to something small.

The physician wore a baffled expression, unable to understand how so much blood could have come from such a small wound.

The amount of blood that had soaked both his upper and lower garments had been no joke.

“All done.”

The physician treated him halfheartedly and held out his hand. He took the full fee despite barely doing anything.

Neung Je-gang returned to the inn where he had eaten with Hwangbo Chu and entered his room.

He sent the innkeeper to buy clothes he could wear, then went to a well and washed himself.

Just as the doctor in Forbidden Demon Prison had sworn, his body had become something like a monster.

It hadn’t been long since he left the clinic, yet the wound was already only a trace.

Soon even that trace would vanish as if he’d never been hurt.

He bathed, put on new clothes, and lay down to sleep.

“Tch. Come to think of it, it’s like I had my life saved by that old man Black Cloud Demon. Now I’m going to be forced to let him steal the title of ‘peerless genius.’”

There was no escaping it now—he would have to fulfill the request to carry on that old man’s legacy.

“And this time again, am I living on borrowed time? And why, at that moment, couldn’t I think of deploying Death Demon Flow? Do I have to live constantly reciting the oral formula—if I want to stay alive?”

No matter how great a martial art was, it had weaknesses like this.

If you missed the moment, you could never take it back.