The Unforgivable Ones (3)

Neung Je-gang met the iron mace with the Mindless Sword’s sword radiance. What killed rotation was sustained impact.

“Blue Surge!”

Blue Surge of the Seven Saber Principles of Empty Spirit was invoked. Under the repeated impacts of colliding sword qi, the iron mace’s rotation loosened. The iron-mace burly man hurriedly pulled the line and reeled it back in.

Ssssk.

Neung Je-gang’s figure clung to the retreating iron mace.

Thud.

One-Finger Piercing-Through was executed with his left hand, and sudden acceleration latched onto the iron mace as it returned to the burly man’s hand—followed by the finger-force that chased after it.

“Urgh!”

The finger-force struck one side of the iron mace, deflected at a slant, and slammed into the burly man’s lower abdomen.

In an instant, the burly man felt his inner power scatter violently. The finger-force had ricocheted in an unexpected direction, leaving him unable to guard.

“Chaaap!”

Neung Je-gang began whipping the Mindless Sword in a rapid flurry. Countless sword afterimages bloomed, and the eight lines of finger-force collided into that wall of shadows.

“Damn it, a sword screen?!”

Seeing his finger-force blocked, he tried to attack again.

Four fingers of his left hand snapped forward, and four lines of finger-force shot out. He packed even more qi into the fingers of his right hand and waited. If Neung Je-gang showed even the slightest wobble, another four lines of finger-force would fire.

“Just die already!”

The massive saber flew in again, aiming for Neung Je-gang.

Neung Je-gang no longer dodged it. Once he had started using the Seven Saber Principles of Empty Spirit, there was nothing left to hesitate over. He had already sent one man off with Thunderclap Heaven-Shattering Strike—what was there to fear now?

Kwakwang!

But the finger-force reached him before the massive saber did.

“Gale Ripple!”

Sasasasasasak.

The Mindless Sword swept through the air hundreds of times. The four lines of finger-force vanished without a trace. And then the massive saber came flying in as if to slice Neung Je-gang’s waist clean in half.

“Taht!”

The sword radiance began to layer.

Kwaang!

The massive saber slammed into the sword wall, shattered to pieces, and sprayed fragments in all directions.

“Aaagh!”

“Ah!”

One scream belonged to the saber burly man—but the other came from somewhere completely unexpected.

“Huh?”

The Chancellor’s body trembled like an aspen leaf, then toppled sideways with a strangled sound.

So-hee, standing beside him, stared with wide eyes. Only after the Chancellor fell did she understand why.

The cloth at the Chancellor’s side parted slightly, revealing flesh stained a vivid red. His flank—grazed by a saber fragment—had been split open long and deep, beyond any hope of recovery.

The saber burly man’s mistake was trusting Luohan Qigong too much. Or perhaps the mistake was forging the saber from metal that was too hard. Either way, the saber fragments tore through his Luohan-hardened muscle, crushed bone, and lodged all over his body.

Kuuung.

The saber burly man collapsed with a single choked cry. Now the only ones still standing in the arena were the finger-force burly man and the iron-mace burly man.

Even then, the iron-mace user was practically a civilian—his gathered power had not returned after the shock to his dantian.

Now the only ones who could still fight were So-hee and the finger-force burly man.

But if they could not handle Neung Je-gang even when they were four, what could the two of them do?

“Good. Then let’s have the two of you fight me to your heart’s content.”

The finger-force burly man no longer hid his hands. Since it was already obvious what he used, what was the point of hiding?

Neung Je-gang hurriedly raised the Mindless Sword and set it upright before the center of his body.

Thud.

“Hut!”

A single line of finger-force flew in and struck the Mindless Sword.

Even without running sword radiance, the finger-force was so strong that a tingling current ran through the hand gripping the Mindless Sword. It felt far stronger than when he had been controlling multiple lines.

Clang.

Drip.

Again, the hand gripping Neung Je-gang’s sword trembled. This time, even though he had infused sword radiance into the Mindless Sword, he nearly dropped it.

“What principle is this?”

Neung Je-gang sensed there was a secret in that “earth wind.” Simple finger-force could not have that kind of might. If something like this existed, it should have been Shaolin’s famed—and forbidden—One-Finger Zen.

Neung Je-gang stood the Mindless Sword upright once more and advanced one step at a time.

Thud, clang—thud.

He flicked away the finger-force that shot in again and again, observing its nature. And at last, he discovered one fact: the opponent’s finger-force rotated as it flew.

It operated on a similar principle to the iron mace, which had come spinning in.

Neung Je-gang extended his left middle finger straight. If he had learned it, wasn’t he supposed to master it?

Papak.

One-Finger Piercing-Through finger-force shot out to meet the other’s. And that technique had not been given its name for nothing—against the opponent’s rotating finger-force, even a simple collision left One-Finger Piercing-Through overwhelmingly superior in power.

“Don’t tell me… One-Finger Zen?”

The burly man asked.

“No. It’s called One-Finger Piercing-Through.”

“I never thought I’d be pushed back by finger-force that isn’t even One-Finger Zen.”

He lamented like that—then suddenly, in desperate defiance, he poured out eight lines of finger-force with both hands.

“This is the end.”

Eight lines of finger-force, each with enough power to bore through iron.

Papapapapak.

Ping.

But his final struggle scattered in midair—shredded by a single finger-force that shot like light from Neung Je-gang’s left middle finger.

“So it’s this?”

At the moment the opponent’s final attack began, One-Finger Piercing-Through rotated—exactly as Neung Je-gang had wanted. And as it spun, it became faster and stronger.

Finger-force that pierced straight through the enemy’s forehead.

Neung Je-gang smiled in satisfaction. At last, he had made rotating finger-force his own. With that, even the legendary One-Finger Zen held no envy for him.

“Haah… It seems it really is true that my senior brother died by your hand.”

So-hee suddenly sighed.

“Are you saying you didn’t believe it?”

“It wasn’t that I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. My senior brother was overwhelmingly strong. Even though we were fellow disciples, he was on a completely different level from me. So I thought you must have killed him with an ambush.”

“Heh heh. An ambush?”

“But now I know it wasn’t. You have more than enough skill to kill my senior brother.”

“Even so, it was only luck.”

Neung Je-gang said in a self-mocking tone.

But So-hee did not care.

“Hohoho! Come to think of it, you keep defying my predictions. Now I understand—Hyeonok Territory isn’t enough to deal with you. Next time, I’ll bring someone who can certainly erase you. Then I’ll repay my senior brother’s grudge.”

“Do you think you can run?”

Neung Je-gang advanced on So-hee, trying to keep her pinned so she could not use lightness skill.

“Waaah!”

But at that moment, the iron mace they had forgotten came shooting in from behind with violent rotation.

Thud.

Neung Je-gang knocked it aside with the Mindless Sword. It was far weaker than the first iron-mace strike, but it made him hesitate for a heartbeat.

Neung Je-gang blocked the nuisance and looked back toward So-hee. But So-hee had already gotten far away.

Eastern Depot elite agents swarmed to block her, but they could not withstand the qi pouring from her sleeves—Iron Sleeve Art. In that moment, the difference between a top-tier martial master of the Jianghu and a government expert was revealed with brutal clarity.

“Ah… I’ll lose her again. But this time I can’t let her go so easily.”

Neung Je-gang launched his body toward the place where So-hee had vanished.

Kkwaak!

In that instant, the iron-mace burly man grabbed Neung Je-gang’s leg and clung to it. He was desperate. Not only had they failed their mission—he could not let So-hee die here.

The power that had only barely gathered again was blown away by that single attack. Now all he had left was malice and grit. If he wanted to buy time for So-hee to escape, he had no choice but to throw away his entire body.

“Haah—!”

Neung Je-gang raised his hand to chop down on the burly man’s skull, then stopped. Even if he chased now, there was no guarantee he could catch her. Better to spare at least one and hold him accountable for the assassinations of the Director and the Grand Preceptor.

The moment Neung Je-gang peeled the burly man’s tightly clamped hands away, So-hee’s figure vanished completely from his sight.

The situation did not settle quickly. The Imperial House became frantically busy in its own way. With court ministers abandoning their posts en masse, the court could not make political moves.

Everyone called “the Chancellor’s side” was arrested. There was no distinction of rank. An imperial edict from the Emperor came down: show no mercy, even if they were members of the imperial clan.

As a result, Hanlin Academy scholars who had served under the Grand Preceptor were granted offices in bulk and poured into the political arena. For a time, the voices of those studying inside the Hanlin Academy disappeared.

The Emperor confiscated the estates of the already-dead Chancellor, as well as of all who had colluded with him, and reduced the survivors to slaves. It seemed he had decided to solidify imperial authority completely through this opportunity—he issued extremely harsh measures.

In any case, it became something that had nothing to do with Neung Je-gang. Of course, change came for him too. Quick-witted people assumed it was only natural that Neung Je-gang would become the next Eastern Depot Director, and they began bribing him in advance. If Neung Je-gang left his quarters even briefly, unfamiliar objects would pile up in his room in heaps while he was gone.

Step, step.

Neung Je-gang went to the prison cells of the Capture Bureau at the Eastern Depot’s Beijing branch. Yeon Bo-pyeong and the Chief of Headquarters followed behind him.

There, Gye Yu was bound and tied up.

Creeeak.

The moment Neung Je-gang opened the door and stepped in, Gye Yu shouted.

“I-Inspector-General! I’m innocent. I only did what the Bureau Lord told me to do. It’s true!”

But Neung Je-gang did not even pretend to listen.

The situation was the complete reverse of the past. The Neung Je-gang who had once been bound now stood, while the Gye Yu who had once stood now sat bound to a chair.

“You once lured someone into a trap and drove him to ruin. Do you remember?”

“…I-if you mean Neung Je-gang’s case… I only took the measures that were necessary. He killed a Wudang Swordsmaster….”

Gye Yu refused to admit his wrongdoing to the end.

What left Neung Je-gang hollow was that the records from that time had already vanished long ago. There was no proof left that Gye Yu had framed him.

Nor could they find the whereabouts of those who had testified then. Either Gye Yu had dealt with them over the years, or he had sent them far away.

“Come in.”

Creeeak.

The door opened again, and one man entered, trembling all over. The instant he saw him, Gye Yu’s complexion went deathly dark.

He remembered the torture specialist he had used to torment Neung Je-gang—someone he had kept around afterward because he had nothing to do with the case’s witnesses.

“Tell them what you did.”

“I-I was just told to torture him….”

“What did you hear then?”

“H-he said he sent his younger brother to the Necromancer Cult… and in the end, that it wasn’t the Wudang Swordsmaster who cut his brother’s throat, but he himself….”

The torturer knew an unnerving amount of detail. The longer he spoke, the more anger rose on the faces of Yeon Bo-pyeong and the Chief of Headquarters. It was absurd—this conspiracy had been devised out of nothing but jealousy of another’s ability.

“Lies! Lies! You left that room back then. There’s no way you could have heard what I said!”

Gye Yu screamed in frantic defiance.

“It’s the truth. We have sharp ears, because we must listen to the voices of those dying. I definitely heard everything that man said to the prisoner back then.”

The torturer was desperate too. Neung Je-gang had promised to spare him if he spoke only the truth—he had no other choice.

“If you won’t admit it to the end, it can’t be helped. You already received a death sentence simply for being a close aide of the late Operatives Bureau Lord.”

“T-that…!”

“I’m bringing the old case to light again to show what damage happens when trash like you is produced inside the Eastern Depot. Because of your plot, a promising man disappeared. And because of your ambition, most of the Operatives Bureau’s capable people vanished. Now it’s your turn to vanish.”

Neung Je-gang threw Gye Yu his final words, then left the prison cells.

“How should we handle it? Shall we take his head?”

Yeon Bo-pyeong asked.

“Throw him into the Forbidden Demon Prison. So that in that absolute darkness, that silence of despair, he can feel to the bone what he did wrong….”

In the end, Neung Je-gang decided to put Gye Yu into the Forbidden Demon Prison. He wanted him to learn the despair the prisoners there had endured.

“Then… what about Neung Je-gang’s case? Shouldn’t we grant a pardon?”

“A pardon—and then?”

“Yes?”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”

“I don’t think it’s likely, but still… we can’t leave him branded a criminal even after death, can we? And he could still be alive….”

“….”

Neung Je-gang had nothing to say about his own matter.

“When the new Director takes office, I’ll discuss it then. Either way, we should pardon him. If you get down to it, the only thing he did wrong was cut off that Wudang Swordsmaster’s head by mistake.”

“Do as you see fit. If you’ll concern yourself with it, I’ll be grateful.”

And so, Neung Je-gang repaid the resentment over his younger brother—and himself—against Gye Yu.

Yet it did not feel satisfying. Perhaps because Gye Yu never begged for forgiveness or admitted wrongdoing; he showed no remorse to the very end, leaving no taste of vengeance at all.