Chapter 38: Chapter 38
“…Sir! Together…”
“Where…”
Cheon-hwi ceased his qi cultivation at the commotion coming from outside and furrowed his brows.
“What is so noisy?”
Just as he was about to stand up, uncrossing his legs with an expression full of annoyance.
“Martial Uncle!”
Right at that moment, Jeok-geom’s voice was heard.
“Elder Hyeon-do has just arrived…”
Bang!
Before Jeok-geom could even finish his words, the door was roughly thrown open, and a massive shadow was cast long across the room.
Did they not say that even a tiger comes when it is spoken of?
The eyes of Hyeon-do, who had opened the door and entered, and Cheon-hwi met.
“Cheon-hwi!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs and started running.
“Senior Martial Uncle?”
At the sight of him rushing over with thumping sounds, the moment Cheon-hwi tried to get up from the bed.
Grab!
Hyeon-do, who had come close, grabbed his shoulders and quickly scanned his entire body.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
He narrowed his glabella at the sudden check-up.
“I am perfectly fine.”
“Phew, what a relief.”
Hyeon-do swept his chest and laughed.
But that was only for a moment; he completely changed his expression and asked cautiously in a low voice.
“Is what was written in the letter sent to the main mountain true?”
“Letter?”
He tilted his head at the word ‘letter’.
Then he suddenly remembered what he had shoved deep into his mind and forgotten.
“Ah! That?”
He spoke, recalling that Go Gye-yeong had previously said he would send a letter to the Mount Hua Sect.
“It is probably right.”
The moment he heard those words.
“White Ghost Castle…! Gnashing, these bastards have finally revealed their claws once again!”
Hyeon-do glared and shouted.
Following that, his face, which was shouting while stomping his feet in anger, grew even fiercer.
When his already ferocious face contorted, emitting an even more terrifying aura.
‘Hmm?’
Beyond Hyeon-do’s back, a person who caught Cheon-hwi’s gaze was standing awkwardly at the threshold.
Not only was he wearing a blue-white Daoist robe, but there was a neat middle-aged man wearing a Daoist crown on his head.
As he was looking at the middle-aged man whose appearance seemingly screamed, ‘I am exactly a Daoist’, reason returned to Hyeon-do’s eyes that had been overturned with rage.
Subsequently, Hyeon-do asked Cheon-hwi, who was looking behind his back rather than at him.
“What is the matter?”
“Who is that person?”
At the question, Hyeon-do introduced the middle-aged man behind him with a ‘whoops’ expression.
“Ah, my introduction is late. He is Ha Woo-jin, called the Flying Swallow Sword Lord in the murim.”
“Flying Swallow Sword Lord?”
As Cheon-hwi tilted his head, Hyeon-do hastily added an explanation.
“He is a swordsman widely known in the murim as a Daoist of the Zhongnan Sect.”
Hyeon-do’s gaze became somewhat warmer.
Soon, he shifted the gaze that was looking at Ha Woo-jin to look at Cheon-hwi and moved his lips.
“And he is your master’s one and only true friend.”
Hyeon-do stared at Cheon-hwi.
Even in the murim, those who knew that Ha Woo-jin and Hyeon-gang were close friends were extremely few.
Gladness? Surprise? Or perhaps doubt?
While he was waiting to see what reaction he would show.
“Ah, is that so?”
A completely different reaction popped out.
It was only natural; what did it matter whether he was his master’s close friend or whatever?
He had never even seen his master.
‘So what am I supposed to do?’
As Cheon-hwi looked at him with an expression asking if he had anything more to say, Hyeon-do was flustered.
“Did you know that they were close friends?”
“No.”
“Then are you not even curious…”
“Senior Hyeon-doja.”
Ha Woo-jin interrupted the conversation.
He shook his head at Hyeon-do and spoke in a low voice.
“How about sitting down first and talking slowly?”
A short while later, Cheon-hwi, Hyeon-do, and Ha Woo-jin all sat around the table in the center.
“I am called Ha Woo-jin of the Zhongnan Sect.”
Cheon-hwi looked at Ha Woo-jin, who was revealing his sect and name once again.
He immediately grasped the hidden intention.
‘Why is he beating around the bush like this?’
As a result of watching the behavior of Daoists while staying in the Mount Hua Sect, that greeting was interpreted as a sign that he should introduce himself as well.
He spoke in a slightly annoyed state.
“I am Cheon-hwi.”
Ha Woo-jin’s expression softened.
Following that, he looked at Cheon-hwi with warm eyes and parted his lips.
“Yes. You are the disciple of Hyeon-gang.”
Complicated emotions were contained in his voice.
Though not widely known in the murim, he and Hyeon-gang were old friends who had overcome the barriers of the Mount Hua and Zhongnan sects.
Good-faith rivals and bosom friends.
Yet on the day Hyeon-gang died, Ha Woo-jin could not carry out his friend’s revenge.
This was because the elders of the Zhongnan Sect, who had fed and raised him, blocked him from going to exact revenge on the White Ghost Castle.
His friend was important, but his family was also important.
Thus, he gave up on revenge and returned to the Zhongnan Sect, but the burden on his heart from that still weighed him down even now.
Because of that, he could not even visit the Mount Hua Sect again and was painstakingly avoiding them.
‘I did not expect to see the child you supposedly took in like this.’
His eyes, which were smiling bitterly, became blurry.
In the past, Hyeon-gang had told him that he had brought an orphan from some village.
‘I heard that he was a six-year-old at the time you took him in as a disciple, but has he already grown up this much.’
Did they say that time flows helplessly?
The child he heard was a six-year-old was nowhere to be found, and only an excellent young man was in front of him.
‘I should have gone to meet him a bit earlier…’
Around the time he was soaked in deep sentiment.
‘He is looking at me strangely.’
Cheon-hwi was not pleased with his gaze meeting his.
It was then.
Clack.
Hyeon-do, having finished his tea in one gulp, revealed a serious expression and opened his mouth.
“Is it true that the White Ghost Castle is behind the Supreme King Sect?”
“That is correct.”
In an instant, Ha Woo-jin’s eyes widened.
“The White Ghost Castle is the mastermind behind the Supreme King Sect…?”
However, Hyeon-do continued the conversation without paying him any attention.
“I wish to hear about that in detail.”
“In detail?”
Hyeon-do nodded his head up and down.
“Sigh, it is bothersome, but… I understand.”
Sighing at Hyeon-do’s earnest expression seen right as he was about to refuse, he talked about the ambush he had experienced as soon as he arrived at the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.
“On the day I arrived at the Flying Wind Merchant Guild…”
Hyeon-do and Ha Woo-jin pricked up their ears and engraved Cheon-hwi’s story in their minds.
Had it been about the time it takes to drink a cup of tea?
Before long, the story headed towards its end.
“…That is how it happened.”
When he concluded with the words that he had killed them.
“To dare mess with our sect once again.”
Hyeon-do trembled his fists in a quiver.
“These bastards have resolved to die!”
Spitting out words that a Daoist shouldn’t put in their mouth, he breathed out heavily through his nose.
Similarly to him, Ha Woo-jin, who had been listening to the story, also furrowed his brows.
“It turns out that the Supreme King Sect was a sect established by the White Ghost Castle to plot a dark scheme.”
His face stiffened slightly.
Because the White Ghost Castle had been quiet recently, not only he but also the Zhongnan Sect’s vigilance towards them had become lax.
That had all been a smokescreen.
‘To think they had been hiding such a base plan right under our noses.’
He shuddered at their viciousness.
For thirteen years, they had constantly held their breath, and the Supreme King Sect had pretended to be unrelated.
So thoroughly that no one, let alone himself, would even think that the Supreme King Sect and the White Ghost Castle were connected.
The circumstantial evidence of that was recent.
Did the Silver-Hand Beheader, whom he met a few days ago, not take an attitude indicating that he and the Supreme King Sect had absolutely no relation?
“To act even in that situation…!”
In an instant, Ha Woo-jin widened his eyes.
The doubt that had made a corner of his heart uncomfortable since a few days ago was finally resolved.
“So was that why the Silver-Hand Beheader came right after the Supreme King Sect collapsed!”
“Silver-Hand Beheader?”
At those words, Hyeon-do frowned.
The Silver-Hand Beheader was highly renowned as one of the Four Directional Lords of the White Ghost Castle, and he was famous as a figure who, whenever he revealed himself in the murim, would invariably bring a storm of blood nearby.
Hyeon-do asked while looking at Ha Woo-jin.
“Are you saying he came here?”
Ha Woo-jin nodded his head.
“I met him while going to find the culprit who annihilated the recently destroyed Supreme King Sect.”
“To even send the Silver-Hand Beheader! They have resolved to see it to the end with our sect!”
When Hyeon-do gritted his teeth.
“Senior Hyeon-doja.”
Ha Woo-jin spoke with a stiff face.
“The Flying Wind Merchant Guild is in danger.”
“What do you mean by being in danger?”
“If the Lord of the White Ghost Castle, who even sent the Silver-Hand Beheader, finds out that not only has his plan failed but the Supreme King Sect has been annihilated…”
While speaking, he swallowed his saliva loudly.
“He will send an even stronger enemy.”
“If it is a stronger enemy…”
“The Three White Ghost Units might seek out the Flying Wind Merchant Guild.”
“The Three White Ghost Units…”
Hyeon-do let out a groan.
If it was the Three White Ghost Units, the story was different.
In the past, was it not because of the Extermination Unit, one of the three martial units, that his youngest martial brother and the Plum Blossom Swordsmen all perished together?
“Unit…?”
At that moment, Cheon-hwi interjected.
“If it is the bastards calling themselves some unit, they did come the previous day.”
“What?”
“Is, is that true?”
Hyeon-do and Ha Woo-jin, who had reacted reflexively, suddenly thrust their faces toward Cheon-hwi.
“Do you know their identities?”
“Do you know what kind of people they are?”
“It was Sal, something-something… What was it?”
Cheon-hwi, who was thinking, narrowed his glabella.
As he dragged out the time like that, it was Hyeon-do and Ha Woo-jin who were growing increasingly impatient.
“Think carefully.”
“Think about it slowly.”
“Should you wait a bit?”
When Cheon-hwi spat out words full of annoyance, just as the two were sneakily pulling back their thrust-out faces.
“Ah!”
At Cheon-hwi’s reaction as if he had remembered something, the two immediately pricked up their ears.
“Did they say Soul Slaying Squad? No, was it Carnage Unit? I don’t remember well, but it was a roughly similar name.”
As soon as those words ended, the two sprang up from their seats at the same time.
“So, Soul Slaying Squad!”
“Are you saying the Soul Slaying Squad came!”
When Cheon-hwi frowned at the two’s loud shouts that were about to burst his ears.
“The Soul Slaying Squad is not known to the world, but I heard that if they make a move, at least one sect gets exterminated…”
Ha Woo-jin muttered blankly.
The Soul Slaying Squad was a force that could not be easily ignored even if the Zhongnan Sect confronted them.
‘But those people came to the Flying Wind Merchant Guild?’
A doubt suddenly occurred to him.
The Flying Wind Merchant Guild was far too intact for the Soul Slaying Squad, which brings extermination, to have arrived.
“Fortunately, they only came for reconnaissance…”
While speaking, he felt a sense of incongruity.
A contradiction existed in his words.
‘No, that cannot be. Out of those who have seen the Soul Slaying Squad so far, not a single one is alive…’
His gaze turned to Cheon-hwi again.
Looking at his indifferent expression, it didn’t seem like he was lying.
‘Then what happened?’
His thoughts deepened.
However, far from being resolved, the doubt rather made his mind even more complicated.
Eventually giving up on thinking, he asked straightforwardly toward Cheon-hwi.
“…Did you meet the Soul Slaying Squad?”
“Yes, I did meet them.”
“Then they are…”
“I took care of them.”
“Took care?”
As Ha Woo-jin was puzzled, perhaps not understanding, Cheon-hwi added words straightforwardly so that he could easily understand.
“I said I killed them.”
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