Chapter 103: Chapter 103
Jang I-seo’s gaze softened as he looked at Mao. So-o shrugged and continued.
“That must mean he trusts you that much. The infamous troublemaker Seventh Young Master, trusting Adjutant Jang here. I was curious about that. What exactly is the relationship between you two? No, what happened to the Seventh Young Master? I can’t stand being curious, you see. Hahaha!”
As expected. This one isn’t normal either.
“Alright, then I’ll excuse myself too. If you don’t sleep, your skin suffers.”
So-o pressed and peeled a dark patch from beneath his eyebrow, then whipped around and lay down.
Left alone, Jang I-seo let out a hollow laugh.
He looked at the sleeping Mao.
Sleeping so peacefully.
‘You’ve become quite the adult.’
Compared to his former childish self, he had grown considerably dignified.
The corners of his mouth rose involuntarily.
Then he caught himself and quickly pulled them back down.
A spy showing affection was the most dangerous thing, the kind that ruined missions.
‘There’s a lot to untangle this time. Myo Chae-gyeong, Guang-yi, the Dragon of the Battlefield Gu-yu. But first, it’s you.’
Jang I-seo set aside his complicated thoughts and gazed out at the endless wasteland, focusing on only one thing.
‘Maeng Hwi. Hold on just a little longer.’
He prayed solely for his safe return.
* * *
– Cheonsan Southern Road, Sea of Death, Nine Dragon Fortress.
The Tarim Basin, where the desert accounted for eighty percent of the land between the Cheonsan range to the north and the Kunlun Mountains to the south.
Within it lay a region called the Sea of Death.
The Sea of Death, quite literally.
The name was given because more than half of those who set foot there wrongly were caught in fierce sandstorms and suffocated.
In the distant past, a large village had once stood there, but now it was a land of death, with only sand-covered ruins remaining.
Except for one place.
The Nine Dragon Fortress, whose exterior had been overlaid with wood and iron plates until it resembled an iron fortress, now transformed into a bizarre castle tower.
*
“Ngh…”
With a faint groan, the boy’s eyelids opened.
A pitch-black space without a single point of light. So dark that he momentarily forgot he had even opened his eyes.
“Where is… kuh!”
As sensation returned and he tried to sit up, a skull-splitting headache crashed over him.
Clank!
Even both his feet were shackled with iron chains bolted to the wall.
“Insane…”
He retraced his last memories.
He had gone to the Bumun Inn, then followed those he suspected of being Iron Horse Bandits. He was suddenly ambushed in an alley, and when he came to, he was here.
That was right.
His name was Maeng Hwi.
The very boy whose safety Jang I-seo was praying for.
“I got caught like an idiot.”
Rather than vague despair, shameful humiliation hit him first.
Good thing it was dark.
His burning red face wouldn’t be visible.
“This is insane. Something Mao would do, and I…”
He was timid, sure, but he wasn’t stupid.
He had been caught completely off guard.
“To think they’d shoot a poison needle from behind.”
He had thought them mere bandits. They were far more calculating.
Thinking back, even luring him into the alley had been deliberate.
“I underestimated them. But the Flying Dragon Hall bastards definitely saw me…”
He didn’t know if they had noticed, but Maeng Hwi had definitely seen them.
The elite warriors with the gold-embroidered character for Flight on their backs, hiding on the rooftops.
Honestly, part of the reason he had charged in so recklessly was fear that they would take the Iron Horse Bandits from him.
“Did they get caught too…? That would be even worse.”
He didn’t know. First, he needed to assess the immediate situation.
“Huu. Don’t panic. Focus.”
He sat cross-legged.
VWOOM!
As he circulated his cultivation method, a resonant hum filled the air, and he felt the energy within his body, raw and unfamiliar.
First, his dantian was intact. His internal energy was unchanged. His last hope remained.
“Good.”
Maeng Hwi opened his eyes again and raised his qi sense with a noticeably brighter voice.
Stuffy smell. Breathing sounds carrying from far away. And a faint groan?
“Ugh…”
Maeng Hwi snapped fully awake and leapt to his feet.
Because he had heard a stranger’s groan in the darkness.
“Wh-who’s there!”
A ghost? Impossible.
“A new… recruit…? Cough…”
This time he heard it clearly. A murky voice came from the corner inside. There was someone else in here besides him.
He narrowed his eyes. It was too dark to see. But as he circulated his internal energy, the full interior gradually came into view like fog lifting.
“You’re…”
An old man hung spread-eagled against the opposite wall, his limbs shackled in iron cuffs.
He had been starved for so long that only bones were visible beneath his loose clothing.
Moreover.
‘H-His eyes…’
When the man raised his head, his pupils were clouded white.
“This one’s quite young. Kkk…”
“Have you… been locked up here this whole time?”
“I have. I don’t even know how long. So… please unchain me… I beg you…”
As the old man pleaded, Maeng Hwi swallowed hard. His ravaged appearance alone told how much he must have suffered.
However.
“I’d like to help, but…”
His own legs were already shackled. Thanks to the chains, he wasn’t pinned flat against the wall like the old man, but the distance was still too great to help.
“Sorry. If I had a weapon, I’d break them and free you. But it’s impossible right now.”
“Im…possible?”
“Yeah.”
When Maeng Hwi answered awkwardly, the old man tilted his head. Then he glared fiercely and shrieked.
“Impossible? Impossible? Impossible…?! IMPOSSIBLEEEEEE!”
“Wh-what’s wrong! Are you crazy?”
“You useless wretch! You idiotic bastard! You moron! Do you know how long I waited for you to wake up? And now you say it’s impossible? Ehehehehe! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
As the old man erupted into maniacal laughter, Maeng Hwi involuntarily backed away.
“Crazy old coot…”
His white eyeballs spun independently like a madman’s, and his gaping maw was terrifying enough to haunt his nightmares.
“Where am I! At least tell me that!”
Sense of danger kicking in, Maeng Hwi shouted while on guard.
Then, after laughing for a long while, the old man suddenly went stone-faced and muttered deliberately.
“Why ask me? You should ask the one who brought you here.”
What?
Maeng Hui whirled around in alarm.
Creeeak!
The iron door opened, and silhouetted against a backlight, two figures appeared.
And the one that seized Maeng Hwi’s attention was a shirtless man with incredible musculature.
Long, disheveled hair and chilling crimson eyes that made anyone shrink back just from seeing them.
And drawn across his torso as if wrapping around it…
‘A dragon?’
“Kkk. Careful, kid. That man is Gu-yu, the leader of the Iron Horse Bandits who brought you here, and the ruler of this Nine Dragon Fortress.”
“So that’s…!”
That was right. The so-called Dragon of the Battlefield.
Gu-yu, hailed as the reincarnation of Modu, the second chieftain who had led the Xiongnu to their golden age in the distant past.
“…”
He surveyed the old man and Maeng Hwi alternately with impassive eyes.
Then, at his gesture, a woman with her hair braided in a single rope approached.
It was Ah-shin, a lieutenant of the Iron Horse Bandits alongside Gwa-pyeong.
“Drink.”
She approached and threw a waterskin at him in an irritated tone.
Thud!
But Maeng Hwi simply stood there staring. He had no intention of approaching.
When Ah-shin frowned and tilted her head, he replied coldly.
“Too far.”
Hah. Wasn’t he a Demonic Cult brat through and through? So arrogant for his age. Ah-shin barely restrained herself, walked over, and picked up the waterskin. She came right up to him and handed it to him by hand.
“Take it.”
Maeng Hwi nodded while examining her waist.
A short, pitch-black spear tucked neatly in place.
Black Silence, his divine artifact.
‘You should have sealed my internal energy first.’
Maeng Hwi reached out as if to accept the waterskin. In that instant, his eyes changed to those of a predator.
And tap, tap!
Like a striking viper, he struck the acupoints on Ah-shin’s wrist in a flash.
“Hup!”
Drop! The tingling sensation made her drop the waterskin, and simultaneously she reflexively stepped back one pace.
She checked her now-empty waist, and when she raised her head again.
CLAANG!
Maeng Hwi, already gripping Black Silence, was shattering the shackles on his legs. They had let their guard down completely. Though only fifteen years old, he was a master of the Demonic Cult who had surpassed the wall of the absolute realm.
Fury etched itself across Ah-shin’s face.
“How dare you…”
“I’m the one who should be saying that. Did you think I’d just say thank you for the water? Must have looked like a real pushover.”
FWOOSH!
Freed, Maeng Hwi shot forward like an arrow. Ah-shin bit her lip and unleashed a kick to counter.
But in that instant, Maeng Hwi, who should have been right in front of her, vanished.
She whipped her head around to find he had slipped sideways.
It was the Maeng Family footwork, the Ma Cross Step, which changed direction at a right angle in a single instant without rotating the body.
Vanishing in the blink of an eye, most people encountering it for the first time were thrown into disarray.
“Hey, old man! Just hang on!”
Maeng Hwi didn’t run for the open door but charged toward the imprisoned old man instead. A strategy to free him first.
“Ehehehehe! Come! Come at me! Come, come, come! COMEEEEEEE!”
*Ugh… So disgusting to approach.
But there were two opponents.
Anyway, the fact that this crazy old man was locked up here meant he was their enemy too.
If they shared the same plight, they were on the same side!
Enemies of my enemies.
“Grip it tight! If you don’t let go, I’ll break your wrist!”
While running, Maeng Hwi thrust his left hand forward, positioning his spear to strike.
It was the second form of the Great Shattering Spear Technique, the Ten-Light Wave, which could pierce holes through ten openings dozens of paces away in a single strike.
For Maeng Hwi, whose mastery was still low, three steps was his limit, but right now, that was enough.
‘Here I go!’
And the moment he reached point-blank range and thrust the spear.
A scene he couldn’t possibly believe filled his vision.
The man who had clearly been standing at the entrance was now blocking his path.
“…”
Gu-yu.
The leader of the Iron Horse Bandits, the one called the Dragon of the Battlefield.
It was him.
『Great Shattering Spear Technique, Second Form: Ten-Light Wave』
An absolutely undeniable strike.
‘Even if I die, don’t blame me!’
Maeng Hwi gritted his teeth and fired his spear light at the man’s body.
And.
“Gah!”
In an instant, Maeng Hwi’s field of view flipped to the ceiling, and the back of his head slammed against the floor. BANG!
VWEEEEE! A ringing screeched in his ears like grinding metal, and all strength drained from his body.
What on earth had just happened?
“H-how…”
Maeng Hwi couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.
He had definitely fired the Ten-Light Wave at him, and the spear light should have punched ten holes through his body.
But.
‘Why am I lying down?’
Incredibly, in that brief instant, Gu-yu had dodged all ten thrusts as if predicting them, then struck him on the forehead with a palm.
And this was the result.
“Illusion…?”
Maeng Hwi, trembling from the pain, squeezed out the most rational explanation.
An illusion technique.
Without that, it was impossible to believe.
How could anyone dodge, let alone block, ten attacks in such a short distance and counterattack?
“You bastards… you think I’ll just take this lying down!”
Maeng Hwi summoned every last ounce of strength and kicked himself off the ground.
His ears rang and he was dizzy. But it didn’t matter.
With the resolve of fight or die, the moment he launched himself toward the old man again.
Ta-ta-ta-tat! THWACK!
“Uh… gagh…”
Ah-shin, who had shot out like a bolt from beside the motionless Gu-yu, struck Maeng Hwi’s temple with a kick.
CRASH! Maeng Hwi was sent flying, slamming headfirst into the wall before crumpling to the ground.
Darkness swallowed his vision.