Treason

The investigation into the vanished bodyguard took an unexpected turn. Word came that the Operatives Bureau had been assigned the matter, so they could stand down.

Since the Operatives were also the ones looking into the Necromancer Cult, Neung Je-gang’s team once again spent their days training in martial arts while eating the Depot’s rations.

About three months passed like that.

Knock, knock.

Perhaps because of the thrashing he had taken, Gwak Ung’s habit of kicking doors open had cleanly disappeared; he knocked.

“Captain.”

“What is it?”

“Emergency call-up. Order says all Capture Bureau agents must assemble.”

“Emergency call-up? Are you sure that wasn’t for the Secret Institute? Why would the Capture Bureau get that?”

“How would I know? When the top says jump, we jump. Anyway, I’ve delivered the order.”

Being ex-Secret Institute, Gwak Ung knew well what such sudden summonses meant. When an urgent wipe-out was needed—of a group or a clan—this kind of call was what you got.

“Damn it. What’s the point of being assigned to the Capture Bureau if the work is the same? And… I just hope there aren’t any women where we’re going today…”

Driven from the Secret Institute because he couldn’t kill women, Gwak Ung still couldn’t bring himself to cut one down. That made this summons all the more nerve-racking.

Neung Je-gang threw on his gear and hurried to the branch chief’s office. If not only the Secret Institute but even the Capture Bureau had been called up, this would surely be the largest operation in the Beijing Branch’s history.

Dozens of captains were already seated in the office, and there was one empty seat in a middling spot—Neung Je-gang’s.

Though he was the strongest candidate to be the next Beijing Branch Chief, he was, for now, just another captain. In the Capture Bureau, “captain” and “commander” were simply different labels for the same rank.

“Is everyone here?”

With Neung Je-gang in place, no empty seats remained. As Gwak Ung had said, the laziest man in the Depot was indeed Neung Je-gang—though he himself would insist he was merely “unhurried.”

“After three months of investigation, Captain Neung’s initial discovery—the Necromancer Cult’s existence—has been confirmed as real. They have established secret congregations across the Central Plains and have been proselytizing for a long time. Unfortunately, the heretics even built a secret chapter right near the Imperial Capital—here in greater Beijing—to grow their strength. Today we will raid that secret chapter.”

Everyone nodded. Whatever their motives, they were the ones who had murdered the Left Vice Minister with a vile art.

And they had been preaching under the Depot’s nose, just outside Beijing. The Depot’s pride was wounded.

“Follow the North Road on Beijing’s outskirts and you reach Mount Sobyeon. On its western foot stands a large manor. It is said to be a merchant’s villa, but when we checked with the so-called merchant, he knew nothing of it. The operation is simple: in a short span, kill every last human inside the manor. This is war. Any hesitation in your hands will not be tolerated. Understood?”

“Yes!”

Whether martial artist or commoner, once someone had set foot in the Necromancer Cult, there was no forgiveness—so it had been in the past, and so it would be now.

“The martial world will move as in the old days. Every uncovered secret chapter of the Necromancer Cult will be attacked. The Beggars’ Sect, Wudang, and the Peng Clan have sent warriors. Do not get into scuffles with them by mistake.”

“Understood.”

When the briefing ended, they set out at once.

No one knew how many heretics would be in the secret chapter, but with the entire branch’s Depot agents and warriors from three sects joining, there would be no room to escape.

After riding half a day, they assembled at the rally point.

The Capture Bureau agents naturally gathered around Neung Je-gang. It was only human nature to cluster near the Beijing Branch’s most formidable man.

“Half of a half-hour remains until midnight. Get ready. No responses—just listen. Again: leave not a single one alive. Remember—anyone who slips out today may turn into tens of thousands of heretics down the line.”

Nods all around.

“It’s time. Move out.”

At Neung Je-gang’s signal, the Capture Bureau’s shock troops kicked off the ground and sprinted. At the same time, Operatives slipped into the dark, and assassins from the Secret Institute—old hands at such work—poured toward the lamp-dotted manor like shadows.

The Beggars’ Sect and Wudang, not keen to wade into the butchery, ringed the outskirts to “deal with anyone who fled.” The Peng Clan, by contrast, brimming with belligerence, charged at the front swinging their great sabers.

“Graaaah!”

The first scream rang along Mount Sobyeon’s dark slopes.

Moments later, flames blazed across the manor. Even those who knew no martial arts snatched up carrying poles and rushed the Depot agents.

“Die, you bastards! Cursed wretches!”

Old men and women alike hurled themselves forward. Some threw bare flesh at naked blades, as if they had been born to die and knew no hesitation.

“Hold them! You die yet do not die. With today’s death you will be reborn in splendid paradise! Hold them! Fear not death!”

Behind them, those who looked like the Cult’s elite scrambled to survive a little longer, using the dying as shields.

Srrng—

Slice—

Someone who had rushed blindly in lost his neck to Neung Je-gang’s soft-sword.

He did not rush here either—but it was not leisure.

Neung Je-gang was in turmoil. What he was reliving on this field was the bloodbath that had annihilated his clan ten years earlier.

“Aaah!”

“Grah!”

“Die!”

The resemblance was chilling. The only difference: now he too wore black night-gear like the villains of the past—and, as in those days, he was cutting down people who knew no martial arts.

Confused, Neung Je-gang closed his eyes. A thought struck: could those villains back then have been Depot men? If so, he had served his enemies all this time—helping with their work.

“Captain!”

At that moment, Cheong Yeon’s urgent shout snapped Neung Je-gang’s eyes open—and he saw a blade flying for him.

Even amid the turmoil, his body moved on instinct; he swept his soft-sword toward the attacker’s weapon.

And then—

A face. Familiar, seared into his eyes.

There stood a face so like the one he had studied in the mirror every day—his own—yet younger. Though it was a dark night, his deep inner power made even a single hair on his younger brother’s face clear.

“Je-gwon…!”

Neung Je-gang hastily withdrew his vital force.

Thank heaven his weapon was a soft-sword; deprived of inner power, it went limp.

Thud!

Because he pulled back his energy, Neung Je-gwon’s blade slammed into Neung Je-gang’s shoulder.

“Captain!”

Seeing Neung Je-gang struck, Cheong Yeon rushed in and swung at Neung Je-gwon.

“Uwaaah!”

Not recognizing in the dark that the man before him was his brother, Neung Je-gwon yanked his sword free and slashed again at Neung Je-gang. Flushed by the success of his first cut, he did not even sense the blade arcing for his own neck.

Clang!

Cheong Yeon’s sword bounced off Neung Je-gang’s soft-sword—the older brother had twisted away from his brother’s edge and parried Cheong Yeon.

“C-Captain…!”

Cheong Yeon’s voice trembled—he had not expected to be blocked by Neung Je-gang.

“He’s my brother.”

Neung Je-gang whispered for Cheong Yeon alone.

No one knew better than Cheong Yeon, who had lived at his side, how desperately Neung Je-gang had searched for his lost sibling. What cruel fate—meeting him here, now, of all places!

Even with the path clear, Neung Je-gwon did not flee; he wheeled and attacked his brother again.

Whoosh—

Neung Je-gang seized his brother’s wrist and hurled him hard toward the direction where Capture Bureau agents were lying in wait.

Neung Je-gwon sprang up without seeming to feel pain and, like an enraged bull, lunged again for his brother.

{Je-gwon! Je-gwon!}

A voice of boiling blood. His brother’s despairing, grief-choked cry rang in Neung Je-gwon’s ears. It roused his mind with a force stronger than any vile spell the Necromancer Cult had planted. It was a miracle forged from the brother who had never forgotten his elder through hardship, and the elder who had poured everything into finding him.

“B-bro… brother? Is it you?”

Neung Je-gwon halted where he stood. He no longer moved.

{Je-gwon! Listen to me. Run straight the way you’re facing. As far and fast as you can—get far from the manor.}

Neung Je-gang sent a sound transmission and wept blood. He wanted nothing more than to seize his brother and sob into his shoulder.

Ten long years—ten years since they had been torn apart by others.

The little brother had become a man, and his mind had been clouded by a sinister cult.

But he could not. Not now. A depot annihilation order allowed no private feeling. First he had to get his brother out alive.

They had met after ten years—if they parted now, they would meet again.

“B-brother!”

{Go! Run! Now!}

As if his heart had reached him, unlike the other cultists hurling themselves into death, Neung Je-gwon spun and ran for the dark mountain as if his life depended on it.

“Captain! Your brother is gone.”

Cheong Yeon said to Neung Je-gang, who stood there bleeding from the shoulder.

“Good. Thank you. Sorry you had to see that…”

“Not at all. In your place, I’d have done the same.”

“Looks like it’s nearly over. Let’s go.”

Before long, the manor fell quiet.

There were wounded Depot agents—resistance had been fierce—and among the Peng Clan, some had fallen; their comrades wept as they gathered the bodies.

Come to think of it, the sword Neung Je-gwon had used looked like a Peng blade. Perhaps that fallen Peng warrior had died to him.

Just then, warriors of the Beggars’ Sect and Wudang, who had been holding the outer ring, came inside. They had come for the same purpose, yet would leave without blood on their hands—taking the credit.

Walking with some Wudang priests, someone approached Neung Je-gang: Captain Gye Yu of the Operatives.

“My, Captain Neung! You took a cut. Careless, tsk tsk.”

“It just happened.”

Neung Je-gang avoided his gaze. Gye Yu’s slick eyes gleamed sharply, as if he knew something.

“Curious thing, though. The Necromancer scum all charged to die—but one tried to flee.”

Thump-thump.

Neung Je-gang’s heart pounded fit to burst. Cheong Yeon’s face blanched.

“Had Wudang not guarded that far, we might’ve missed him. Looked like he meant to run alone—must have been a top dog in the Cult. If not for Wudang, we’d have had trouble.”

Thud-thud-thud-thud.

Neung Je-gang staggered, nearly falling.

“Oh, and here comes Taoist Jin Ryeong-ja with the man’s head.”

Whistle—

Neung Je-gang’s eyes snapped to where Gye Yu pointed.

Run through the back of the skull by a razor Wudang sword, the face was plain to see: Neung Je-gwon. The brother he had met after ten years—parting again without even one embrace—his severed head.

His eyes were wide, unfocused—yet aimed at his brother.

Sway—

The sky reeled. If Heaven existed, it could not trample hope like this. If there were Buddhas or gods, they could not toy with fate so cruelly.

“Uwaaah!”

Swish—

Neung Je-gang cut off Taoist Jin Ryeong-ja’s head—the man who had carried his brother’s head as if it were a trophy.

“Ooaaah!”

Clutching his brother’s head, he howled.

“Uwaaaah!”

Chak-ching!

“Senior Brother!”

“Taoist Jin Ryeong!”

“What are you doing!”

Wudang priests—stunned for a breath—drew their swords, furious enough to strike off Neung Je-gang’s head then and there.

Clang!

Cheong Yeon drew and stepped in front of Neung Je-gang.

“Stand aside!”

The Wudang blades gleamed cold.

Not knowing what had happened, Capture Bureau agents formed up with Cheong Yeon to block the priests. It looked like another bloodstorm might break.

But it didn’t.

“Eastern Depot agents—seize the traitor Neung Je-gang!”

Gye Yu stepped forward and shouted.

If the Depot and Wudang fought here, it could become a war between orthodox sects and the state. Best to stop it first.

Calling him a “traitor” also meant the Taoists could no longer kill Neung Je-gang on their own.

Cheong Yeon sheathed his sword and pressed Neung Je-gang’s acupoints. Then he retrieved the soft-sword, slid Wudang’s blade out of Neung Je-gwon’s head, and handed the weapon back to the Taoists.

To the teeth-gritting priests, Cheong Yeon said, voice hollow with grief:

“Do not say ‘unjust.’ He merely avenged his brother.”

The Wudang men flinched at that.

No sect’s bonds run deeper than blood. And the Taoist had held the severed head impaled on his sword like a boast; not to go mad at that would be stranger.

But human beings were selfish. Another’s severed arm hurt less than the thorn in one’s own finger.

“Even so, this cannot be forgiven. He struck from behind and slew Taoist Jin Ryeong.”

“Heh. Do as you will. He’s a traitor now. Empty words mean nothing to a man already sentenced to die.”

Cheong Yeon placed the brother’s head in Neung Je-gang’s arms and lifted him.

They had been told to bind him, but no one reached for rope.

“Isn’t Captain Neung’s true weapon the dagger? Hand over the twelve ‘Golden Command’ flying daggers you carry.”

Gye Yu, as if afraid of any weapon in Neung Je-gang’s hands, secured those first. He searched the man himself and took all the knives he used in autopsies—precisely twelve. Only then did he look relieved.

Depot agents who had thought Neung Je-gang’s main weapon was the soft-sword looked baffled. If he was that strong with something “not his main,” how deadly was his true weapon?

“I’ll take these.”

Pocketing the soft-sword and twelve daggers, Gye Yu turned and left the manor first. On his face, a faint, inscrutable smile of satisfaction formed.