Number One In Sichuan (5)

Ha Jun could not believe what was happening now.

‘This is a dream.’

The being called Jin-hyeon, who now inspired fear more than hatred, had awakened at some point and sent his father flying.

Then he had returned and, while emitting qi waves on a different level, was clearing up the chaotic battlefield all at once.

The chilling saber wielder and the inexperienced swordsman had both regained color in their faces and were cutting down the Ghost Gate warriors, while the Ghost Gate masters, already stripped of morale, could do nothing one way or the other.

‘Father!’

Had his father truly died?

As if bewitched, Ha Jun walked beyond the collapsed wall of the inner court.

“Hah!”

It felt as if all the blood in his body were flowing backward.

“Uweeeek!”

Ha Jun collapsed on the spot and retched as if he would vomit up his very organs.

Pieces of someone’s corpse were scattered in every direction.

He knew without looking. It was the corpse of his father, Ha Baek-cheon, the Cheongyang Association Leader.

It wasn’t because the state of the corpse was horrific. The death itself of the father he had thought absolutely invincible was an endless shock. Ha Jun kept dry-heaving until his stomach cramped.

‘It’s all over.’

A heart that could not accept reality and a desperate despair coexisted inside him.

‘It truly is all over. Just because…’

Ha Jun turned around.

Before he knew it, an old man was standing before the broken wall.

“Just because of that one bastard!!”

“Child.”

The old man, Oh Gyeong, said as he blew out tobacco smoke.

“This isn’t when you use the words just because.”

Srrrk.

Before he knew it, Oh Gyeong appeared behind Ha Jun.

The horrified Ha Jun looked around. He had not even sensed Oh Gyeong’s presence.

Oh Gyeong struck him on the head with his pipe, making a sharp tak! sound.

At the same time, Ha Jun collapsed on the spot. The force released from the pipe had penetrated exquisitely and stimulated his paralytic point.

“At a time like this, you should simply say you messed with the wrong person, or that you were punished for acting above your station.”

Oh Gyeong gave a bitter smile and slung Ha Jun over his shoulder. It was arm strength one could hardly imagine from a bent old man.

Srrrk.

Oh Gyeong entered the inner court in an instant and looked around.

In that brief span of time, the situation had ended. Every First-Class Ghost Gate warrior had been slaughtered by Jin-hyeon and Han Cheol-sang.

Oh Gyeong roughly set Ha Jun down on the floor and looked at Jin-hyeon.

‘Was that the power the Patriarch had hidden?’

Oh Gyeong’s face turned strange.

‘Rather than hiding, it’s more like he awakened?’

The person who had seen through Jin-hyeon’s skill best in this place was Oh Gyeong.

‘He did not merely cross the wall. Even after crossing it, he ran far ahead. I cannot know for certain, but with his current skill…’

Oh Gyeong thought of one person.

The master who had subdued him in five exchanges, even though as the Curtain Master of Salmak, Oh Gyeong had been the man of his era judged closest to the title of King of Assassins.

With his defeat, Salmak had collapsed. And because of the countless warriors who came with that master, more than ninety percent of Salmak’s assassins were wiped out.

After that, he had striven tirelessly to defeat ‘him’ until he reached this age.

Thanks to that, in assassination arts, he had reached a realm one could truly call untrodden by any before him. But even now, he was not confident he could fight ‘him’ and win for certain. Just as Oh Gyeong had improved, that man would have improved as well.

Most decisively, ‘he’ had a powerful force behind him.

Making contact with the Black Society to accurately learn that man’s realm and the level of the warriors under him had been Oh Gyeong’s last remaining stubborn pride. And in the end, he confirmed it.

That ‘he’ had become stronger than he was back then. That he had become a powerful figure with subordinates far stronger than at the time, someone few in Kangho Murim could touch.

After confirming that fact, Oh Gyeong gave up everything.

More precisely, he had given up.

‘A clan…’

Oh Gyeong smiled.

“It was not exactly despair, but… this really is not bad.”

As Oh Gyeong murmured as if speaking to himself, Jin-hyeon, Han Cheol-sang, and Do Il-gang approached him.

“You worked hard.”

At Jin-hyeon’s words, Oh Gyeong puffed out tobacco smoke. His expression was quite comical.

“Worked hard? Hardly. I just ran off.”

Han Cheol-sang grumbled.

“You still could have helped a little. I really thought I was going to die.”

“I was never part of the planned fighting force, was I? If you want to blame someone, blame the Patriarch. Why blame me?”

“What matters is that you were here.”

“I told you, I ran away. Honestly, I think ending the lives of the Cheongyang Association Leader’s heir and that clumsy swordsman was more than enough of my share.”

He wasn’t wrong. Han Cheol-sang, despite what he said, was grateful to Oh Gyeong as well.

But the reason he kept grumbling despite knowing all that was because he understood Oh Gyeong’s heart. He knew Oh Gyeong liked Jin-hyeon and had truly become interested in this clan.

“At your age, what are you weighing so carefully? How nice would it have been if you had just quickly jumped in, cut things down here, and cut things down there?”

Oh Gyeong spoke with an incredulous expression.

“What is with you? You shouldn’t speak so carelessly just because it is someone else’s life. I’m not as easy a man as you think.”

“Then from now on, try living more easily. Have you not lived a difficult life all this time?”

“Steward Han, do you know this? If I still had my old temper, my pipe would have flown several times already. With your skill, you wouldn’t have been able to block it.”

“If you still had your old temper, you wouldn’t have come hanging around a place like this.”

What he meant was that he should stop bringing up useless old stories and focus on reality.

Oh Gyeong let out a hollow laugh.

“Why are the tongues of both the man called Patriarch and the fellow called Steward under him so sharp?”

At that moment, Jin-hyeon stepped in.

“Something troublesome could have happened, but thanks to you, we were spared.”

“As expected, the Patriarch understands something. Steward Han, this is how a person should be. If one has a conscience…”

“I don’t mean the two you killed.”

Oh Gyeong was slightly surprised.

“You knew?”

“I did.”

“How? With your martial arts before awakening, you could not have read my movements.”

“I read it from the situation, not through martial arts.”

Jin-hyeon shrugged.

“The woman who appeared earlier disappeared.”

A woman?

Han Cheol-sang tilted his head, then let out an exclamation. Come to think of it, he remembered that there had been a young woman beside Ha Baek-cheon when he appeared with the Ghost Gate masters.

There had been so many masters, and he had missed it because of the tension of having to fight for his life at once. Han Cheol-sang clicked his tongue at his own dull perception.

Oh Gyeong smiled and spoke.

“I could have simply ignored her, could I not?”

“With your personality, Old Master Oh, if you had not caught her yourself, you would at least have told me when and where she fled.”

“…”

“The fact that you didn’t say anything means you caught her yourself.”

“How does the Patriarch know my personality?”

“Do you have a lot of questions? Or do you want to confirm my sense and personality further here?”

It could have been provocative, but his relaxed smile made the words carry a weight almost like a joke.

Oh Gyeong’s face, which had held a strange smile, slowly turned serious.

“Patriarch.”

“Please speak.”

“I am a man with many flaws.”

Jin-hyeon pointed at Han Cheol-sang with his hand.

“He is someone who was once called a mad demon.”

This time, his hand turned toward Do Il-gang.

“He is a fellow whose master was a public enemy of Kangho.”

Then Jin-hyeon pointed at himself with his thumb.

“And decisively, I am a twenty-three-year-old brat making a fuss about smashing the largest organization in Kangho.”

“…”

“This is the truth of our clan.”

It meant that the fact he had once been the Curtain Master of Salmak was no problem at all.

Oh Gyeong quietly looked at Jin-hyeon, then smiled and took one step back.

“I knocked that girl unconscious in the warehouse building on the right, just outside the inner court exit.”

Srrreuk.

Oh Gyeong’s body slowly blurred.

“I’ll go rest first.”

With those words, he completely disappeared.

“Huh.”

Han Cheol-sang clicked his tongue.

“It’s truly a concealment art that is hard to believe even after seeing it. No, I don’t even know whether this is concealment or something else. It might be one of those so-called illusion arts.”

“You saw well.”

“It really was illusion art?”

“More precisely, it’s a martial art made with illusion arts as its foundation. It’s probably one of the many martial arts Old Master Oh has learned.”

“Remarkable.”

Jin-hyeon looked at Do Il-gang.

Unexpectedly, Do Il-gang’s face was not bright. He had won the first real battle of his life, but he had killed as many as four people while fighting desperately.

“Is it hard?”

“Pardon? Ah…”

Do Il-gang was about to answer no without thinking, but soon lowered his head.

“Yes.”

In truth, Do Il-gang’s hands were trembling faintly. The cause was mental shock.

With Do Il-gang’s original temperament, he should have already fainted. He was only this composed because the White Mountain Brocade Qi he trained in was a peerless divine art also skilled at controlling the practitioner’s mind.

Jin-hyeon grabbed Do Il-gang by the shoulder and forced him to turn around.

“Look.”

In that instant, Do Il-gang’s face went pale.

The scene that had become a sea of blood filled his vision. He instinctively squeezed his eyes shut.

Jin-hyeon’s gaze turned stern.

“Open your eyes.”

It was a voice carrying an authority that couldn’t be disobeyed. Do Il-gang’s eyes opened on their own.

“How is it? Horrible?”

“…Yes.”

“Steward Han dealt with most of them, I came in late and killed the second most, and you dealt with the fewest.”

“…”

“It is a horrible sight. To you, who helped create the blood-colored world before your eyes, it will look somewhat different from the corpses that lay scattered across Manguwi Street.”

Do Il-gang’s lips trembled.

“But if you had not been here, Steward Han and I would be lying in that sea of blood.”

“!”

“It means someone you are close to could have fallen in that sea of blood, horrible and sickening just to look at.”

Jin-hyeon’s eyes deepened.

“Perhaps you yourself might have taken a place in that field of corpses.”

“…”

“You worked hard.”

Jin-hyeon patted his shoulder, then slung Ha Jun, who lay collapsed on the floor, over his shoulder.

Han Cheol-sang quietly looked at Jin-hyeon’s back.

There was something he wanted to ask. Not as Patriarch and Steward, but as one martial artist to another.

But now didn’t seem to be the time. He smiled bitterly and tugged Do Il-gang by the sleeve.

“It’s not a sight that does you any good to look at for long. Has it not already all been left in your memory?”

“…”

“Stop looking and let’s go. You truly worked hard today.”

At that moment, they sensed many people rushing in from the far end of the outer court.

They were none other than an elite unit belonging to the Sichuan Branch. And the person standing at the head of that unit was Commander-General Oh Byeong-chan.

It was a force personally dispatched by Mun Jung on the grounds that intelligence had revealed damning corruption involving the Cheongyang Association. Of course, that intelligence had been fabricated, but if they actually searched Cheongyang, filth beyond imagination would pour out.

And the one who would testify to it was Ha Jun.

Han Cheol-sang looked at Jin-hyeon.

Before he knew it, Jin-hyeon had crossed the inner court and was walking toward the right side of the outer court. Judging by the unusual qi waves he felt there, there was a high chance Mun Jung was there.

Han Cheol-sang smiled.

“So this is how it ends.”

The downfall of the Cheongyang Association, the last sect of the Eight Martial Houses and the one openly called number one in Sichuan.

The fall of the sect that represented Sichuan was, in itself, proof that another new power had emerged.

“I didn’t think he would truly clean it all up. And this quickly, at that.”