Why One Must Become A Killer (3)

Fweeeesh

A chilling wind swept outside the city gate. The heavy stench of blood hung thick in the air.

“We must leave here quickly. Soldiers will soon swarm this place.”

Go So-jeong spoke with her head bowed, too guilty to lift her face.

Neung Je-gang looked impassively at the corpses. Apart from the woman Go So-jeong had saved, no one survived. The assassin who had killed Gal Hwi-jeong had slaughtered the soldiers as well.

“It’s my fault. We shouldn’t have come here before dawn… Then none of you would have died. I never imagined something like this would happen.”

Neung Je-gang spoke bitterly toward the dead.

“No, darling, it isn’t your fault. This is the assassins’ evil. And besides, I left my post for no reason… I’m sorry.”

Cold though it might sound, for Go So-jeong the death of Gal Hwi-jeong struck harder than the massacre. Now there was no way to guide Neung Je-gang to the site where the corpses had been found.

“Lady Go, you should return. When that girl wakes up, take her home and…”

“And you, darling?”

Go So-jeong asked hastily. There was an icy resolve in Neung Je-gang’s voice.

“I intend to seek out the Assassin Pavilion.”

“Alone? No, you can’t! It’s too dangerous. We don’t know how many assassins are left… And we don’t even know where their base is. Instead, let’s contact the Alliance and bring a new guide. Please?”

“No. I will track the killers another way. And moving alone is far more convenient. Have you forgotten who I am? I am Secret Shadow. If I choose to hide, no one can find me. Farewell.”

Neung Je-gang vaulted away and vanished.

Go So-jeong gazed after him with pained eyes.

“Ugh, how could I forget he’s Secret Shadow? That’s the problem… I may never find him again.”

As she lamented, she heard the clamor of many people approaching from afar. Soldiers, rushing armed, no doubt.

She lifted the unconscious woman into her arms.

“If not for this wretch, I wouldn’t have to part with darling… Maybe I should just throw her away.”

Muttering toward the base of the wall, Go So-jeong in the end carried the woman and leapt into the city. Treating her wounds and restoring her senses took precedence over finding her home.

Though she had applied medicine, the arrow wound might have damaged her insides. To lose her after Gal Hwi-jeong’s sacrifice would be unbearably futile.

Meanwhile, Neung Je-gang sped toward where the assassins had hidden.

“As expected, they fled.”

He had not killed them all. He had left one alive, marking his body with a faint trace of Ten-Thousand-Li Pursuit Incense. It was an incense his master once used when working as a solver of problems.

The name included “ten-thousand li,” but of course it couldn’t be tracked from such a distance. Even a dog’s nose cannot track over ten-thousand li, much less a human. Still, his master had joked it sounded better than “Ten Li” or “Hundred Li” incense.

In truth, the incense related to time more than distance. If less than a day had passed, the lingering trace it left behind was enough to track. Anyone marked with it could not escape pursuit.

“I won’t climb from the bottom. I’ll erase them one by one, from the very top.”

Neung Je-gang followed the scent trail and vanished once more into the night air.

“None will realize that the Hidden Shadows and Extreme Secrecy Method is no lesser than the famed Death-Shadow Style. You cannot escape my hand.”

One of the Assassin Pavilion’s top killers, Gwanggeom, could hardly believe he was still alive. When the arrow-storm had first rained down, he had thought no human could survive. Yet the target had slipped calmly onto the gate tower, while others died instead.

He had expected a counterattack—any martial master who survived the first strike would retaliate—but not like this. Not even from Secret Shadow.

“Hah! To throw pine needles as hidden weapons… Damn it, we were completely wrong. Secret Shadow isn’t some mere assassin…”

At the level of an elite killer, there was little difference in assassination skills. The Assassin Pavilion had thought Neung Je-gang no more than the greatest assassin alive, and had planned accordingly. Since the Pavilion had once been deeply involved in the death of the first Secret Shadow, they thought that would suffice to capture the second.

Gwanggeom spotted a broad old tree and rushed toward it. Drawing his sword, he scraped away the fallen leaves beneath it. Between the roots rose a hollow just large enough for one man to crouch inside.

He slipped into the space, piled the leaves high before him, and watched carefully for any sign of pursuit.

Time passed—first one quarter-hour, then another. No one appeared.

“Phew, looks like surviving was his real mistake.”

At last Gwanggeom let out a sigh of relief.

Chuk

He stabbed his sword into the ground before him. His reflection shone faintly on the blade. Dried blood streaked his brow where it had flowed.

A single green pine needle was lodged in his forehead at a slant. If its angle had shifted just slightly, it would have pierced his brain like the others.

Slowly, Gwanggeom pulled it free. The tip had been buried in his skull. With less luck, he might have had to live with a pine needle lodged in his head.

Fortunately, he removed it entirely.

“Once I rest and recover my strength, I’ll return. How many survived? Surely not only me? If so, the Assassin Pavilion is finished…”

Seated, he began breathing cultivation.

It was then—

Srrrk

A black-clad figure landed softly above him on the branches. It was Neung Je-gang.

‘So here you are. Heh, healing yourself, practicing breathing cultivation? You slaughter innocents, and yet you mean to live?’

Neung Je-gang leaned against the branch and closed his eyes to rest. He too had lacked sleep thanks to the assassins.

Of course, he could have shared watch with Go So-jeong. But she frightened him more than the killers—always trying to press close at every opportunity. How could he trust her enough to sleep beside her?

After a brief doze, Neung Je-gang sensed the assassin stirring. The man was cautious, erasing every trace before he leapt away at high speed.

‘Good, he’s faster with his strength restored.’

Neung Je-gang didn’t hurry. As long as the gap didn’t stretch beyond a day’s travel, it didn’t matter.

He soared above, flitting from branch to branch, while the assassin raced below.

Crunch

He plucked one of the fruits dangling on the tree and bit into it.

‘Being an assassin—or an operative—is a miserable life. Always anxious, always glancing over your shoulder, as this one flees now. Why live like that?’

Crack

He bit into another fruit. The taste was bland; had it been delicious, he would have remembered its name. Back in the Eastern Depot, he had often wetted his lips with fine fruit in every season.

‘Being an operative isn’t much better. Look at me now—chewing tasteless fruit, drinking dew, roaming the mountains.’

Thinking this, Neung Je-gang watched the assassin quietly as he again sat to practice breathing cultivation.

How tedious. Every day, twice—at dawn and dusk. For all his assassin’s life, he has the devotion of a martial artist.

Maybe he dreamt of the martial path. But whatever his thoughts, his fate was already sealed.

Days passed. The assassin circled the outskirts of Xi’an in Shaanxi Province endlessly, as if confirming again and again that no one followed.

Had Neung Je-gang lacked patience, he would already have struck.

At last, the assassin entered the city and slipped into a small house with a courtyard.

Here? Too small for a base…

Indeed, a woman and child who knew nothing of martial arts greeted him.

Damn it!

It was as bitter as swallowing poison.

The assassin smiled happily, lifting the girl who clung to his arm. Perhaps surviving death had made him savor life more sweetly.

‘In high summer, he makes me freeze with rage!’

If only the man hadn’t smiled so happily, perhaps Neung Je-gang would have spared him. If he had shown any regret for the people he’d killed, if he had mourned his fallen comrades, he could never have smiled so brightly.

Neung Je-gang decided to watch longer. Now that he knew the house, the assassin could never escape his grasp.

Flapflap

That night, a pigeon shot into the sky from the house. A carrier pigeon with a bamboo message tube.

Siiiik

Neung Je-gang darted after it.

‘So, he’s using pigeons? I didn’t expect that.’

He had thought the man would go himself to the Pavilion’s base. He hadn’t expected him to send word from home.

No matter how great his martial skill, no human could keep pace with a bird. Though Neung Je-gang, having crossed the Gate of Life and Death, held inexhaustible inner strength, he could not match a pigeon forever.

But the pigeon defied his guess. It vanished into the Drum Tower at the center of Xi’an.

In the city’s heart stood two towers—the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower. The bell hung in the one, the great drum in the other. Xi’an used them to mark time for the people.

Neung Je-gang climbed the Drum Tower. He had expected to see only a great drum, but instead, cages lined one wall.

A hunched old man, tottering precariously, removed the pigeon’s message and tossed it into a bamboo tube on the wall.

‘Ah… So the Pavilion uses an official building as a relay point?’

It was clever. No commoner would come here, and thus it was safe.

Soon, a man emerged from the tower’s base. Feigning ignorance, he strolled slowly out of Xi’an.

Neung Je-gang followed. Remaining in the tower would show him nothing but birds flitting in and out.

The man left the city and raced west along the road with lightfoot skill. After an hour, he reached Xi’an’s most ancient temple: Famen Temple.

‘Hah, a monastery now? If this temple is tied to assassins, I’ll forgive nothing.’

Grinding his teeth, Neung Je-gang saw the man circle the temple’s great pagoda several times before vanishing inside as if melting into air.

The pagoda was the tallest structure in the monastery—a thirteen-story octagonal tower.

A few years ago, a wealthy patron had donated a fortune to Famen Temple on condition they raise this pagoda, making headlines across the Central Plains. This was that very tower.

At the time, the Eastern Depot investigated that patron. Nothing suspicious was found. Though rumors swirled of illicit trade, he had atoned with donations to the temple, and we let it pass. Could that man have been an Assassin Pavilion agent all along—so well disguised even the Depot could not expose him?

Neung Je-gang slipped inside where the man had disappeared. It was a secret door leading underground.

‘Unbelievable… a hidden complex beneath the pagoda.’

Even if the tower was large, it was still only a part of the temple. Yet below stretched a vast hall and many branching corridors.

Doors lined the passages—rooms, or more corridors beyond. It was nothing less than a subterranean palace.

‘So this is the Assassin Pavilion’s base. Even the Forbidden City doesn’t have such a place…’

Clearly, when the pagoda was raised, the Pavilion had claimed it as their own. Barely an hour’s journey from Xi’an, their infamous lair had been concealed.

Hiding his astonishment, Neung Je-gang continued to shadow the man. Though assassins were stationed throughout the hall and passageways, none noticed him. With the Illusion Art of Hidden Shadows, Neung Je-gang was invisible