If It’s To Survive, Then… (1)

For three days, every remaining building had been torn down. Yet Gam Chaek still had not found the secret passage.

“Does that mean it was built outside the compound rather than inside the buildings?”

But there was nowhere inside the fortress where it looked like someone could have installed any kind of mechanism.

“Where is it? There has to be one—so where…?”

Every morning upon waking, Gam Chaek cast lots to read the day’s fortune. For the past few days, the omen had consistently come up as a mixed sign of minor misfortune and minor good luck.

But today, that omen had changed. It had become a great inauspicious sign foretelling inevitable death.

His fortunes did not always come true, but the fact that such ominous results were appearing one after another made it feel all the more foreboding.

On top of that, the secret passage he had tried so hard to find left no trace. Yeon Heung and the Second Division warriors, who had gone deep into the mountains chasing Nam Yeong, had not sent even a single word. For all he knew, they were all dead.

“Comb through the surroundings. Don’t overlook even a single shrub or small rock—turn everything over and check. It has to be somewhere. We must find it.”

Gam Chaek mobilized the Necromancer Cult followers and had them scour the compound as if they were picking lice. Then, worrying about their comrades who had followed Nam Yeong into the forest, he sent several low-ranked warriors, each leading some Necromancer followers, into the woods.

“Get in there and see what you can find. Alive or dead, we at least need to know what happened to them.”

“Understood.”

The low-ranked warriors entered the forest with fear in their eyes. That forest was now connected, in their minds, to a place of terror from which they might never return.

“Phew! Nothing is going the way I want. Why is nothing working out? Maybe I should go to the First Division Lord and ask for a chance to interrogate the captives while there’s still time…”

Gam Chaek did not know that every captive they had taken had already been killed. Only because he did not know that could he even entertain the thought.

But his pride was simply too strong. Though he had such thoughts out of desperation, he had no intention of going to the First Division Lord to ask for anything.

“We found it. No—at least I think we found it.”

Just then, a Necromancer Cult follower came running and shouted.

Gam Chaek sprang to his feet. He clearly heard the words think we found it. This was the news he had been waiting for.

If what they had found really was the secret passage, he might be able to take the people inside as hostages and capture Nam Yeong. Perhaps he could even use those hostages to catch Secret Shadow as well.

“Let’s go.”

Gam Chaek hurried in the direction the cultist had come from.

The place turned out to be closer than expected. At the edge of the woods, where the forest began, beneath a rock, there was a burrow just big enough for a person to crawl through.

Given that it had been sealed, it clearly was not a tunnel dug for animals.

“Get in there.”

Gam Chaek sent one of the younger Necromancer Cult followers into the hole. He thought sending in someone young would mean getting quick confirmation. That was how desperately he wanted clear results.

“If you find anything, come back and report.”

“Yes, sir.”

The follower crawled into the passage. He moved exactly as ordered, not even seeming to consider that he might die inside.

After some time, the cultist who had gone in came crawling back out, his palms and knees covered in blood. Clutched in his hand were some shredded pieces of plants of unknown type.

“What’s that?”

“It looks like one of the wild greens villagers use as side dishes.”

Since most of the cult followers were originally poor commoners, they knew such things well. Even when crushed and unrecognizable, there were still some who could identify them.

“Is that so? Then this really is the secret passage. Well done, all of you.”

Gam Chaek smiled in deep satisfaction. It felt as if all the toil and fatigue of the last few days had vanished.

“Call the warriors! Tell them to prepare to go inside right now. We must drag out everyone hiding in there.”

Gam Chaek sent someone to summon the regular warriors who were staying down in the main camp. He wanted to go into the tunnel himself, but he needed to remain here to await news of Yeon Heung and the Second Division.

“Seems today’s fortune was wrong after all.”

He sensed the presence of the low-ranked warriors returning from the forest. They would not be coming back unless they had something to report. One problem had just been solved, and now there were signs that another might be resolved as well.

“What happened? Did you find them?”

Gam Chaek started to call out to the returning warriors, then turned his gaze to the stretcher they were carrying.

“Urk!”

He felt the blood in his heart turning cold. On the stretcher were the corpses of the first two men to die at Nam Yeong’s hands.

Naturally, Gam Chaek recognized their faces. They were comrades he had spent more time with than anyone.

“Where did you find them? No—did you see anyone else?”

It suddenly struck him that the low-ranked warriors had returned far too quickly. For men sent to track down comrades who had gone missing for days, they had come back much too soon.

“We didn’t see anyone. As soon as we found the bodies, we thought we had to report it right away…”

They did not admit that they had rushed back in fear.

Gam Chaek was not someone who would miss such things. For an instant, he wanted to kill them all. For the sake of the cult, men like these were far less useful than ordinary followers who obeyed every order without question.

But this was still a time when he needed them. Right now, he needed bodies to send into the secret passage.

“We’ve found the secret passage. You lot are going in to drag out everyone hiding inside. I’ll let this slide once—but if you pull any more foolishness, I’ll kill you all myself. Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir! Understood.”

The warriors avoided Gam Chaek’s eyes and looked away.

“But… weren’t there originally six of you?”

Suddenly, Gam Chaek realized something had changed. At first, he was too shocked by the sight of his comrades’ corpses to notice, but once that passed, he saw what was different.

He had sent six low-ranked warriors into the forest. Yet when they emerged, including the ones carrying the stretcher, three others had come out of the trees.

“Huh?”

“Wait… who are you?”

The warriors looked around at each other and spotted one man they had never seen before. It was a face far too handsome to belong to a low-ranked Necromancer Cult warrior.

“Me? Secret Shadow. I’m finally back.”

The instant Gam Chaek heard the name Secret Shadow, all the ominous fortunes he’d drawn over the past days and today’s great inauspicious sign of certain death flashed through his mind.

“Stop him!”

He shouted as he launched himself forward. Secret Shadow was the man who had single-handedly killed the Third Division Lord.

By his own measure, Gam Chaek was inferior to that dead Third Division Lord. Knowing that, he had no intention of attacking alone. The certain-death omen might also have been what pushed him to think he should avoid a direct clash at all costs.

He ordered the low-ranked warriors and the Necromancer followers to block Neung Je-gang, then turned and sprinted toward the camp where the First Division Lord was.

It was a cowardly move, but Gam Chaek was the kind of man who would do anything to survive.

Flash.

Shwiit.

But Gam Chaek pitched forward and fell exactly as he was running. A tiny throwing knife, its tip barely visible, had lodged in the back of his skull. If he had stood his ground and fought properly, he would not have died so pathetically.

“Uhk!”

Even so, with his death, he proved that his fortune-telling had been correct. He had not been a fake fortune-teller.

“Uwaaa!”

“Ghk!”

After killing every last cult follower and warrior there, Neung Je-gang rolled the rock back into place to reseal the tunnel entrance. He knew very well where that passage led.

“At least it looks like the women all managed to get away safely. Still… looks like Master is somewhere up in that mountain fighting… Should I not go looking for him?”

He worried about his master, but there were still plenty of enemies left here for him to deal with.

Neung Je-gang smiled coldly at the Necromancer Cult followers rushing toward him.

They charged in a mindless frenzy, swinging whatever they held. The terrible scene he had once witnessed when he found his younger brother resurfaced in his mind.

Neung Je-gang did not want to lay hands on them.

But he had no choice. They were no longer truly human, but puppets. As long as the Necromancer Cult gave them an order, they were living dolls who would obey it until they died.

Perhaps killing them was actually a form of salvation.

“Still… it’s hard to be the one to do it. It feels like I’m personally killing Je-gwon with my own hands.”

Neung Je-gang leaped past the cult followers, who were acting on his orders, and hurled himself toward the warriors hiding behind them. There was no way ordinary cultists could keep up with his movements.

“Aaagh!”

“Khak!”

Even with their warriors dying at Neung Je-gang’s hands, the cult followers continued to march in the direction he had disappeared, driven by the single command they had been given.

For all he knew, they would wander the world until the day they died, looking for Neung Je-gang.

After killing the warriors, Neung Je-gang headed down below the fortress. From the chatter of the low-ranked warriors he had met in the forest, he already knew there was a main camp down there. He also knew that high-ranking members of the Necromancer Cult were present.

No matter how loyal they were as a group, subordinates resenting their superiors was the same everywhere. To calm their fear, the low-ranked warriors vented by complaining about those above them.

Mixed into that grumbling was a lot of information, and from it, Neung Je-gang had learned that many powerful experts had come here to capture him.

In the end, what was happening at Kuaiji Mountain was a consequence of him having interfered with the Necromancer Cult’s operations on behalf of the Martial Alliance and the Black Path Alliance.

“Who goes there? What’s happening?”

The warriors of Hwang Dong-ryeong’s First Division, who had been staring their eyes out toward the mountain camp, waiting for word that Secret Shadow had appeared, shouted as they saw Necromancer Cult followers pouring down from the fortress like a flood.

But the cultists ignored them and simply kept charging forward.

“Hey… I don’t see the warriors.”

Only then did they realize that the warriors, who were essential to directing the cultists, were nowhere in sight.

“Looks like something’s gone wrong. Get inside and report it quickly.”

They rushed to report to Jang Gon that an accident had occurred.

Huff.

“The followers have all gone down the mountain?”

Jang Gon was, as always, smoking his rolled tobacco. His tent reeked of smoke so strongly it made one dizzy.

“Yes, sir. With no warriors visible, it looks like something must have happened up at the fortress.”

“Hmph. And that overconfident Second Division Lord still hasn’t reported back? No word at all yet?”

“None, sir. Not a whisper.”

“Could they all have been killed by Nam Yeong?”

Jang Gon spoke as if that was what he was hoping for. That arrogant Yeon Heung and his men needed to be taught a harsh lesson.

“Tell everyone to gather. No helping it—we’ll have to go see what’s going on ourselves.”

At his order, every First Division member assembled.

“After the Second Division Lord and his idiot subordinates went up the mountain, not a word has come back. Looks like they charged in thinking Nam Yeong was nothing and now they’re all lying dead somewhere. Still, they’re comrades—we should at least bring their bodies back. And something’s clearly going on with the low-ranked warriors as well. As you all saw, the cultists have all come down from the mountain. We don’t know what their last orders were. We’re going up there to confirm that too. There must still be some low-ranked warriors alive somewhere.”

“Understood.”

Hearing his men’s response, Jang Gon smiled in satisfaction.

“Let’s go.”

He strode out, flanked by his subordinates, full of swagger.

Fwit.

The very moment he stepped out of the tent, Jang Gon saw a man pointing a finger at him. The instant he followed that fingertip with his eyes, he hurriedly lowered his head.

Puok.

Splaaat.

He felt his back suddenly turn wet.

The head of the man standing directly behind him exploded, showering blood and brain matter everywhere. Some of it splashed down onto Jang Gon’s back.

“W-what the…?”

“Division Lord! What’s going on?”

The men still inside the tent had to watch their comrade’s head detonate before their eyes—a scene none of them had ever imagined.

“Enemy!”

As he sprang up, Jang Gon swung his long pipe at Neung Je-gang.

Neung Je-gang flipped aside to avoid Jang Gon’s attack while carefully checking the faces of those spilling from the tent.

“He called you Division Lord, did he? That rings a bell from somewhere…”

“Who the hell are you?”

Jang Gon did not recognize him.

“I heard you came here to catch me, but the so-called leader doesn’t even know my face… The Necromancer Cult really runs things sloppily. Tell me—did you all come from that ‘Mountain’ as well?”

Neung Je-gang did not overlook the word Mountain he’d heard once at Aenae Mountain. The term Division Lord and the word Mountain—he had a strong feeling there was a connection between them and the Division Lord from Aenae Mountain who had first opened his eyes to one-against-many combat by making him spill blood.

“So you’re Secret Shadow. But how do you…? How do you know about the Mountain?”

“Some kindly woman at Aenae Mountain told me. I think she said she was the general secretary of Hunan Merchant Lotus.”

This was a true case of having someone blow your nose without lifting a hand. If he let just one man survive after extracting information like this, even the sly woman who had earned the nickname “fox”—that general secretary of Hunan Merchant Lotus—might not live long.

“So you’ve come out here because you’re tired of living.”

Jang Gon suddenly felt things might be easier than he thought. Even if he had lost one subordinate in a surprise ambush, the enemy was only one man.

“You sound pretty confident about killing me. It won’t be that easy.”

Neung Je-gang had no intention of fighting all ten-plus of them here at once.

The Division Lord he had met at Aenae Mountain had been a master who wielded hardened qi. No matter how tenacious Neung Je-gang’s life-force was, if he was struck by hardened qi he would not survive.

Since these men were from the same place, it was safe to assume that anyone bearing the title of Division Lord was of equal or greater skill. The rest of them would be similar. If their prowess matched those who had first taught him what it meant to fight one against many, rushing in alone to fight while surrounded here would be insane.

He jumped off the road and slipped into the trees.

Unlike his master, Neung Je-gang did not dig pits or lay physical traps. He possessed illusions far beyond anything Nam Yeong’s stealth techniques could manage. The optimal battlefield for those illusions was precisely a place like this forest.

“After him!”

As soon as Neung Je-gang’s body flashed and vanished, Jang Gon bellowed.

At his shout, the First Division warriors came to their senses and flung themselves into the woods where Neung Je-gang had disappeared.

At last, on both the heights and the lower slopes of Kuaiji Mountain, Neung Je-gang and Nam Yeong—master and disciple—began a life-or-death struggle against the elite masters of Hwang Dong-ryeong’s First and Second Divisions, whose origins in the mysterious “Mountain” still remained unknown.