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Squelch.
The man who had charged at Cheong Yeon while swinging a keen-edged long saber had been cut cleanly in two along with the blade.
Cheong Yeon’s sword, which had severed both man and steel in an instant, had been wrapped in a dark crimson current that sent a chill down the spine.
Since the martial arts he had learned after going to the Black Alliance had naturally been demonic arts, even his sword energy carried the distinctive taint of demonic power.
A man fell, and the spray of blood that burst from his body spread, staining the dry ground red.
Thwack!
Two long spears shot in through that bloody haze. The spearheads, scattering cold blue killing intent, aimed for Cheong Yeon’s legs and chest.
In general, weapons that long were the natural counter to short weapons like swords. But in a clash between masters, closing that distance was absurdly simple.
Cheong Yeon’s body shifted a single step to the side like an illusion. The spears that had seemed about to skewer him only stabbed empty air.
Pop.
In just two steps, Cheong Yeon reached the very front of the men holding the spears.
“W-what…!”
“Ah!”
The spearmen flinched in shock.
Cheong Yeon clamped both spears under his arms and refused to let go.
“Grrr!”
They strained, but this was where the difference between ordinary fighters and a master with inner energy revealed itself.
Sssst.
After that, it was too easy. The two men, unable to release their spears in time, had their necks tilt sideways and roll away with a single ribbon of wind.
Thud! Thud!
Cheong Yeon straightened the spears he had pinned under his arms, gripped them upright, and planted them into the ground.
Startled by his momentum, his skill, and his ruthless killing, the others couldn’t rush in; the hands gripping their weapons trembled.
“What are you doing? Attack, now!”
Paeng Mun’s son screamed at the top of his lungs. But no one found their life cheap.
Cheong Yeon stared at Paeng Mun’s son and suddenly launched himself. He had already decided to teach that loudmouth a lesson.
Crack.
“AAAH!”
He still hadn’t cut him with a blade. But the shin was broken through. With the man collapsing and sweating coldly as he screamed, Cheong Yeon grabbed his head and lifted it.
“Uuughh…!”
Cheong Yeon slowly drew his knee toward the man’s skull.
Crunch.
“Kraaaagh!”
His nose caved in. As if he wasn’t worth any further effort, Cheong Yeon tightened the hand gripping his head and shoved him away.
At the sight of him crippling a man in an instant without changing expression, only the sound of people swallowing hard could be heard.
Dozens of men stood ten paces away, weapons leveled. Cheong Yeon shrugged and returned to his spot. There, Neung Je-gang stood quietly with his arms folded.
“Did you have something piled up all this time?”
“Was it too much?”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just kill him? How was he supposed to live with that face?”
“Did I really have to worry about that while I was hitting him?”
“Then why were they still not clearing the way?”
Even after several died and one was crippled, they still held the road and endured.
“It looked like they were waiting for something. Did they call in a master?”
“Maybe.”
Neung Je-gang decided to wait. He was a little curious what, exactly, Paeng Mun had been waiting for.
Neung Je-gang and Cheong Yeon left the government office because the long-awaited message finally arrived early in the morning. An agent from the Eastern Depot came in person and left the prefect pale and panicked.
“So I could go now?”
Neung Je-gang tormented the prefect to the very end.
“Y-you may go.”
“Then can you tell me now? What was it that got ‘stolen’?”
“Pardon?”
The prefect clearly hadn’t expected Neung Je-gang to press that point again.
“Ah, well… a man in the village named Paeng Mun said he was robbed last night. But because he insisted the two of you were the thieves….”
His quick thinking was impressive. Even though he had clearly acted first given the timing, he shoved all blame onto Paeng Mun.
If that was the case, Neung Je-gang couldn’t keep mocking him. A report from Paeng Mun had come in, and it was true that he had pointed at them as the culprits.
As they left the office, the Eastern Depot agent held something out to Neung Je-gang and Cheong Yeon.
“What was this?”
“The Commissioner said to deliver it to you.”
Flinch.
Neung Je-gang jolted.
“Don’t tell me the Commissioner even heard we were detained at the office?”
“Yes.”
“Gah! What a disgrace.”
“I heard she laughed quite a lot, too.”
The Eastern Depot agent spoke with a faint smile. If word spread that Secret Shadow of all people had been accused of theft and detained by a local office, who wouldn’t laugh?
“Then what is this?”
Neung Je-gang took what the agent offered and opened it.
“This is…?”
Unexpectedly, it was another golden plaque. And a letter.
Neung Je-gang unfolded the letter.
Princess Jang-ok’s letter ended there. The fact that she called the Eastern Depot Commissioner’s seat “boring” gave Neung Je-gang a foreboding sense she would cause trouble again before long.
“Deputy Commissioner… so they had no intention of letting us go.”
Neung Je-gang gave a bitter smile.
He told Cheong Yeon that his status had remained intact. In other words, it meant he could return whenever he wanted.
“Isn’t that privilege a bit excessive? Could it be Her Highness has taken a liking to you, boss?”
Cheong Yeon tossed it out as a joke.
Neung Je-gang jumped.
“Do you want to see the Emperor try to kill me that badly?”
Either way, they could travel a little more freely from now on.
Neung Je-gang told the Eastern Depot agent where the stolen valuables and account ledgers were hidden. It meant: dig them up later and assign crimes to the prefect and Paeng Mun.
“Don’t tell me you really committed theft?”
The agent cried out in shock, but Neung Je-gang and Cheong Yeon only laughed.
And so, Neung Je-gang and Cheong Yeon were about to set out again.
“Was I a little late?”
When Paeng Do-wi arrived on the scene, what he saw were several corpses sprawled on the ground and Paeng Mun’s son still screaming.
Eon Jo-seong approached the man who was wailing and pressed his blood point to stop the bleeding. Then he called someone over and had him taken to a physician. In any case, he was Paeng Gyo-ha’s older brother—if they didn’t help, they would only be resented later.
“Those must be them.”
Eon Jo-seong said as he came up beside Paeng Do-wi.
“They didn’t look like pushovers. Did we get something wrong? It’s hard to believe thieves would have that kind of aura….”
Paeng Do-wi said in an uneasy tone.
Paeng Mun and the Paeng Clan still had no real relationship. Was there any need to make enemies over something so murky?
“What was wrong? Were you afraid of them?”
Unlike Paeng Do-wi, Eon Jo-seong had his eyes on Paeng Gyo-ha, so he didn’t think that way. Whoever the opponent was, they just had to seize them and take them in—he wasn’t thinking about what came after.
“If you were that scared, then wait. I’ll handle it and come back.”
Eon Jo-seong broke through the encirclement and went inside.
The men holding weapons quickly backed away and let out breaths of relief.
“Who are you?”
At Eon Jo-seong’s question, Cheong Yeon let out a snort of laughter.
“You drew blades first without even knowing who we were?”
“I know you’re thieves.”
“Thieves? Us?”
Cheong Yeon played dumb, but he couldn’t help the slow flush creeping up his face.
“If you won’t admit it, I’ll make you admit it.”
Eon Jo-seong advanced toward Cheong Yeon.
Neung Je-gang watched Eon Jo-seong without much concern. Cheong Yeon was a capable man who had once commanded the Bloody Veins Unit of the Black Alliance. He could wield and withdraw sword energy with ease.
Since studying about “quickness” as Neung Je-gang had instructed, he had only been growing stronger. He would surely soon reach a realm beyond the peak where he could scatter sword aura.
“Shall we begin?”
Cheong Yeon took his stance directly before Eon Jo-seong.
Dart!
Eon Jo-seong launched the Three-Ring Fist Formula—his proudest art—in a sudden ambush. Among the fist techniques collectively called Eon Clan Fist, it was a martial art where quickness and illusion were exquisitely fused.
Eon Clan Fist was fundamentally a yin art. The Jinju Eon Clan had originally begun as undertakers who handled corpses, so their martial arts carried strong yin energy. When struck by Eon Clan Fist, the inner force infused into the fist burrowed into the opponent’s body and tore and shattered muscle and bone alike.
“…!”
But Eon Jo-seong didn’t know his opponent well enough. The instant he sensed his surprise attack had only barely grazed Cheong Yeon, a dark crimson flash cut through the air without a sound.
“Kuhk!”
Eon Jo-seong felt a shock as if he had been struck by lightning. A scream tore through his lips.
But the agony lasted only a moment. Soon the pain vanished, and his entire body began to stiffen.
“Y-you… are now the Eon Clan’s… enemy.”
Cheong Yeon’s sword pierced straight through Eon Jo-seong’s chest. In a single exchange lasting less than a breath, Eon Jo-seong collapsed into nothingness.
Cheong Yeon looked down indifferently at Eon Jo-seong crumpled at his feet. He had heard the word “Eon Clan.”
The Jinju Eon Clan.
If this had been the old Cheong Yeon, he would have panicked, not knowing what to do. But not now. He had mastered demonic-peak martial arts and had confidence in his own strength. Even if he had to fight the entire Jinju Eon Clan, he had the courage not to retreat.
“T-this can’t be…!”
The most shaken person there was Paeng Do-wi. It was he who had brought Eon Jo-seong here. It was he who had deliberately suggested stopping here while they were on the way to the Martial Alliance.
“Do you have any idea… what you just did?”
Paeng Do-wi shouted, glaring at Cheong Yeon and Neung Je-gang.
“Would you just stand there and let someone hit you?”
“That’s not the problem right now. Do you know who he was? Do you know who you killed?”
Paeng Do-wi kept repeating the same thing. It was an instinctive act to hammer in the idea that Eon Jo-seong’s death wasn’t his fault.
“At most, he was just a brat of the Jinju Eon Clan.”
Neung Je-gang said that and walked up to Cheong Yeon.
“Are you going to try to stop us, too?”
Neung Je-gang asked Paeng Do-wi. Of course Paeng Do-wi had no such intention. Eon Jo-seong had died in a single stroke—he didn’t think he would fare any better.
And he had something to do. He had to inform the Paeng Clan and the Eon Clan about the murderers and prepare countermeasures.
“Who are you people, really? Your swordsmanship was demonic….”
He must have recognized from Cheong Yeon’s sword energy that it was a demonic sword.
“You came from the Paeng Clan, didn’t you?”
Instead of answering Paeng Do-wi’s question, Neung Je-gang asked one of his own.
“You knew who I was?”
“Since when did the Paeng Clan start coveting the pockets of people like Paeng Mun?”
“…What?”
Paeng Do-wi startled. Why he had come here was a secret. He hadn’t formally acknowledged Paeng Mun yet, so he couldn’t let it be known outside.
So how did they know?
“If you form ties with Paeng Mun, trouble will probably spread to the Paeng Clan soon enough. I want you to think of this as a courtesy—because long ago, I once worked with the Paeng Clan.”
“What?”
Paeng Do-wi couldn’t make sense of it. If they had worked together once, then they weren’t enemies?
“Let’s go.”
Neung Je-gang said to Cheong Yeon.
Cheong Yeon looked once more at Eon Jo-seong, then followed in silence.
“But when did you ever work with the Paeng Clan?”
Cheong Yeon asked, curious.
“Heh. Back when my younger brother died… Wudang and the Paeng Clan were there.”
“Ah… right.”
Only then did Cheong Yeon understand. With Wudang, it had become a bitter grudge—but with the Paeng Clan, there had been no reason to redden faces.
Only after the two vanished completely did Paeng Do-wi collect Eon Jo-seong’s body and send men to deliver the news to the Paeng Clan and the Eon Clan. Then he threw himself in pursuit, rushing toward where Neung Je-gang and Cheong Yeon had disappeared.
He still had to go to the Martial Alliance, but right now chasing the murderers was more urgent.
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