120 — The Enemy’s Tail (3)

Clatter-clack, rattle-rumble!

He heard hoofbeats. There was only one set of hooves, but from the sound that accompanied them, it seemed to be a carriage.

“Of all times, it had to be now—when I couldn’t even lie down and rest.”

Neung Je-gang had already recovered all his internal energy. His inexplicable body had even healed the wounds he had taken from Du Pyo’s attack.

He had stayed where he was simply because he wanted to lie back and rest. He had wanted to fall asleep like that and get up when morning came.

But with a carriage racing in, he couldn’t stay collapsed in the middle of the main road.

He rose and looked first to where Du Pyo had been standing. All that remained there was a lump of mangled flesh beyond recognition. No one would think it was the corpse of a former supreme master—one of the absolute powerhouses.

“It’s just a corpse now, but….”

Neung Je-gang reached for the Mindless Sword that had fallen beside him.

Psssst.

“Huh?”

The moment his fingers touched it, the Mindless Sword turned to powder and scattered.

“What is this? Why did it break?”

Who was going to tell him what even he, the one who had used it, didn’t know?

“Did the Mindless Sword fail to endure the Seven Saber Principles of Empty Spirit? But it endured it last time.”

This wasn’t the first time he had unleashed what he had named Sword Aura Explosion with the Mindless Sword. He had used it once before in real combat, and many times for training as well.

“Should I say its power was so tremendous that the Mindless Sword couldn’t be used to release it repeatedly?”

In the end, Neung Je-gang reasoned in the way that made the most sense—and that was the correct answer.

Clank.

Neung Je-gang unfastened the scabbard at his waist and tossed it onto the ground. There was no reason to regret it. It was a scabbard that was hard to fit with any blade except the Mindless Sword. Now that the Mindless Sword was broken, it was right to say the scabbard’s life was over, too.

“I’ll have to get a new weapon.”

Muttering that, Neung Je-gang turned his head toward where the carriage sounds had come from.

A carriage had already approached and come to a stop there.

“Heh-heh.”

With a low laugh, Neung Je-gang rose and started walking in the direction of Zhengzhou, where the Martial Alliance was. Why the carriage had stopped was obvious: there was a blood-soaked man standing in a blood-soaked place, so they couldn’t bring themselves to come closer.

Neung Je-gang walked without using lightness skill, and the carriage followed behind, not daring to pass him—keeping its distance and trailing along slowly. Their tedious trek ended when Neung Je-gang entered a nearby village to buy new clothes, and the carriage shot forward like an arrow and sped away.

Neung Je-gang entered the small village, bathed, and bought clothes to wear. He didn’t seek out a physician. It would only be like before—having his money taken for nothing.

After spending the night lying in a guesthouse room, he set out again at daybreak and resumed heading for the Martial Alliance.

But what was this now? As he walked along, he heard the rattling of a carriage again behind him.

Without meaning to, Neung Je-gang turned and looked back. And what was going on? It was the very same carriage and driver—the ones that had sped past him like an arrow yesterday. The carriage once again kept a fixed distance, matching his pace as it moved.

Neung Je-gang found it absurd, but he tried not to pay attention. If someone had business, the one who needed something would be the first to speak—that was the rule. As long as they didn’t bother him, he couldn’t exactly complain if they followed him for the rest of his life. Traveling along the road was a personal freedom.

But the silent journey didn’t last long. Neung Je-gang lacked nothing, but whoever was inside that carriage clearly had something to ask.

“Please stop for a moment.”

When he was nearly at the Martial Alliance, the carriage quickly drew up and called him to a halt. It was a woman’s voice—very sweet and lilting.

“What is it?”

“Are you, by any chance, the one called Secret Shadow?”

“Didn’t you come looking for me because you knew who I was?”

“I guess you are. Thank goodness. I hurriedly latched on and followed from Kaifeng, but I panicked because I didn’t know which person was Secret Shadow… Anyway, please take this first.”

The carriage door opened, and a pale hand holding a white envelope appeared.

“What is it?”

“I don’t know either. I’m just running an errand, so I couldn’t check.”

“An errand?”

“Yes. It was some woman… and she said she, too, was running an errand because someone else told her to. Anyway, she paid a price that wasn’t small in exchange for me doing it, so I couldn’t refuse.”

A bitter taste filled Neung Je-gang’s mouth. A method that made it impossible to catch anyone and learn their identity.

Neung Je-gang reached out his hand.

“Oh my!”

The white envelope slipped from the woman’s fingers as if someone had yanked it—and flew straight toward Neung Je-gang.

“Now that you’ve received it, may I go? It looks like the errand I agreed to do is finished….”

“Go. And from next time on, no matter how good the payment is, don’t take errands like this. You never know what kind of danger might be waiting.”

“Understood.”

The carriage turned back toward Kaifeng, leaving behind only a single envelope sent by someone whose identity couldn’t be known.

Neung Je-gang considered chasing it down, but he gave up, thinking those who gave orders for errands like this wouldn’t handle things so sloppily. He then took out a neatly folded sheet of paper from inside the envelope.

Writing that carried no trace of who had penned it. But its contents were more than enough to shock Neung Je-gang.

“The Mountain? Who there would have someone who’d give me information like this?”

No matter how he thought about it, there was no one who fit. The only one whose face he knew was Sohee, but she would regard Neung Je-gang as her mortal enemy—there was no way she would send something like this.

“Is it a trap? But why would they warn me like this just to set a trap?”

No matter how he agonized over it, no one came to mind.

“Should I chase that carriage now and try to track it down?”

Neung Je-gang considered it, then turned back around. In any case, hadn’t he already known that someone from the Necromancer Cult would be sent again to target him? Instead of being swayed by information from an unknown source, all he had to do was stay cautious about everything.

“Godan, Lord of Hyeon-ok? Just how many groups like that does the Necromancer Cult have? If he’s no weaker than Hwangbo Chu, that means he could be even stronger. If I let my guard down, I really could end up in serious trouble.”

Neung Je-gang tore the letter and envelope apart, scattered the pieces into the air, and resumed walking toward the Martial Alliance.

For now, more than anything else, going to find Kunlun and confirm who his enemy was had to come first. Nothing took priority over that. The Necromancer Cult’s affairs—and even the lifelong goal of his master, the extermination of the wokou—had now become matters for later.