Chapter 46: Chapter 46
What kind of nonsense was this? Only one of two could see the sun. That meant they intended to settle things here tonight, once and for all.
As Maeng Hwi panicked and looked at Mao, Mao shouted urgently.
“Why are you only telling me this now! The Slaughterhouse bastards are coming here?!”
The Slaughterhouse?! Maeng Hwi’s eyes blazed. He knew them well. The worst assassins who’d stop at nothing to kill, and the ones with a deep grudge against Mao.
“Let’s run first. Yeah. Let’s go to the Maeng family. If we all go together, it’ll work! Let’s go and figure out what to do…”
As Mao scrambled for a plan, Jang I-seo cut him off cleanly.
“If you’re going, go alone.”
“Huh?”
“I need to meet them here.”
“Are you insane? You said the Slaughterhouse is coming. They’re coming to kill you!”
“Which is why I should receive them. Can’t have rare guests making a wasted trip.”
“Does that even make sense?!”
“It does.”
“You crazy bastard!”
Listening to their exchange, Maeng Hwi’s eyes widened like lanterns. The target was Adjutant Jang? They wanted to kill him? That meant… war!
He’d heard the old stories too. How the Slaughterhouse had murdered Mao’s servants. How Ma I-sin had ordered it. Simply to torment his brother.
So he understood instantly what this conversation meant.
This time, Ma I-sin had set his sights on Jang I-seo.
“No! Not Adjutant Jang!”
When his thoughts reached the prospect of Jang I-seo’s death, Maeng Hwi shrieked. Both Mao and Jang I-seo stared at him in bewilderment.
“Ah, that’s not…”
“Enough. Sixth Young Master, just leave quickly. And Seventh Young Master, listen carefully.”
Jang I-seo radiated demonic aura and stared him down.
“This fight has no option but victory. After tonight, the village will be a sea of fire. And then the Seventh Young Master will be left alone again. Exactly like before. Do you understand? So decide. Will you win and protect? Or lose everything? The choice is yours, Seventh Young Master.”
“My… choice?”
“Yes.”
At Jang I-seo’s cold words, Mao trembled.
Past terror seized his reason once more. Especially recently, when even Jang I-seo had nearly been lost. The fear had doubled.
In the past, he would have covered his ears and looked away.
But…
“What will you do?”
Mao stared blankly at Jang I-seo before him. Eyes full of certainty, without a trace of wavering. Was he truly fearless?
He didn’t know.
But somehow, he felt that with this man, the outcome might differ from what he expected.
And.
“If we fight… the probability of winning…?”
He still wasn’t entirely sure himself, but he too was changing.
Little by little. Very little by little.
Like a child taking its first steps, growing.
“If a genius steps up, absolutely.”
Following Adjutant Jang I-seo’s lead.
“We win.”
Grin.
* * *
– Wolha Village, Market Alley.
“You’re…?!”
Despite the dark night, Dong-tak recognized his opponent at a glance. The red hair. The unruly young face. This was the Seventh Young Master, Mao.
Anyone in the Slaughterhouse’s officer ranks would know him.
“Oh, it’s me. The genius of Wolha Village.”
Smirk. Laughter leaked from Dong-tak’s mouth. Somewhere between a scoff and a sneer. Simply put, disbelief.
“To what does the Seventh Young Master owe the pleasure of venturing out at this late hour?”
“That’s what I should be asking. What are you doing, skulking around the village in masks in the middle of the night?”
What was he doing. Dong-tak slung his iron mace over his shoulder, surveyed his men, and replied.
“Can’t you see? We received a commission to wipe out every last bastard living here.”
“What? You bastard…”
At Dong-tak’s thoroughly insolent answer, the surroundings buzzed. Rather than cowering before the Seventh Young Master, the man seemed even more imposing.
“Are you seriously saying you’ll swing blades even before the Cult Leader’s own heir?”
Mao asked, lips trembling. But Dong-tak’s reaction was indifferent. He picked his ear and spat out his words.
“Why the sudden formality? You never said a word before.”
“What?”
“That was three years ago, was it? What were those bastards’ names again. Cheol-deuk…? Why? The dark-skinned little brat and the crybaby runt beside him. That about covers it.”
Dong-tak grinned hideously, pressing his flattened palm against his own belly. His subordinates chuckled. Mao’s face went deathly white.
The names were wrong, but he understood instantly. They meant the friends he’d lost in the past.
‘Cheol-yeong… Jang-deuk…’
Not only confessing to the murders but mocking them. The ultimate provocation.
But Meteor Iron Legs Dong-tak had always been that kind of man. An ignorant hothead who feared nothing and no one.
“So, Seventh Young Master. In the middle of the night, just quietly return to your palace. Pretend you didn’t see, pretend you didn’t hear. Just like always, go back to sleep like a good boy.”
Dong-tak snickered and signaled his men.
“What are you standing around for! We came to work, so work. Grab them!”
“Yes!”
At Dong-tak’s command, the halted assassins advanced once more. Hiiigh! The Black Dragon Faction panicked, scrambling in confusion. On the rooftops, villagers trembled and prayed to the gods.
Meanwhile, Mao belatedly snapped to his senses and glared. He shoved the first assassin to reach him in the chest with his left hand and growled.
“Go back. Go and watch the streets quietly.”
Watch what? The assassin snorted.
“Heh, what’s that. Listen here, Lord Seventh Young Master. If you’re scared shitless, just shut up and step aside. Don’t be a hero. Or else…”
“More-the-Better Fist.”
“What?”
Just as the assassin sneered and stepped closer.
VWOOM!
A blinding surge of yang energy erupted from Mao’s body.
And the moment his right fist, blazing white as the sun, buried itself into the assassin’s chest.
“KAAAAGH-!”
The assassin shot away like a streak of light, past Dong-tak, and slammed into a distant building. The wall crumbled behind him.
Not just Dong-tak. The assassins. The Black Dragon Faction. The villagers.
Every pupil dilated three sizes. Jaws hung slack.
What had they just witnessed?
“Bastard, I said watch the streets…”
Mao exhaled a breath and swept his bangs up with a grin.
“Remember. This is the distance you need to keep from me.”
The good-for-nothing Mao…
“Got it, you bastards? Hahaha!”
A true martial arts genius?!
“How is this possible…”
Alarm bells clanged in Dong-tak and the assassins’ skulls.
* * *
Meanwhile, as Meteor Iron Legs Dong-tak collided with an unexpected ambush, Color Moon Geum Hwa-bin, having entered Chiseonru, was equally flustered.
“Hmm.”
The first thing to greet her was a massive ginkgo tree rising through the open ceiling to the third floor.
And…
“Were you… waiting for me?”
Chwi Hong-ran, peerlessly beautiful, gazing down from the third-floor railing. Along with subordinates in white robes and masks.
“Please come up.”
Chwi Hong-ran spoke coolly and turned to ascend. Color Moon’s lips curved upward.
Look at this bitch. Knowing full well I was coming, she didn’t run. She waited.
Especially those mesmerizing eyes looking down at her as if from above. They seared into her mind.
‘I’ll start with the eyes.’
Fury deepened the powder-concealed creases on her forehead. No matter. That woman’s face would soon bear worse.
“Everyone wait outside.”
“Yes!”
FWIP!
Having issued the order, Color Moon launched herself with light footwork. Her skirt fluttering, she bounded lightly onto a ginkgo branch and leaped again, landing gracefully on the third-floor railing.
From the outside, she looked like nothing more than a courtesan past her prime. Now it was clear why she ranked third in the Slaughterhouse.
She’d left her subordinates outside because she was that confident.
“Let’s see what our junior is so cocky about.”
Color Moon ascended the stairs with a cold smile.
The fourth floor opened before her. All obstacles, screens and tables, had been cleared. A wide, open space.
At its far end stood Chwi Hong-ran and her subordinates.
“Ohohohoho!”
That imposing sight was so comical. Color Moon couldn’t contain her laughter.
After a moment, she barely composed herself and surveyed the scene.
“Don’t tell me… this is it? Surely not?”
Roughly thirty armed subordinates clustered around Chwi Hong-ran. Not a small number to face alone.
But Color Moon exhaled a deflated breath. The guards’ eyes were fierce enough, but at best second-rate or mediocre first-rate.
If she drew her blade and danced one round, not a single one would be standing by the time she finished a cup of tea.
Her excitement evaporated like a doused flame. Color Moon’s expression turned icy. Attacking a sleeping woman at least held the thrill of surprise. This was visibly boring.
However,
“Slaughterhouse rank three, Geum Hwa-bin.”
From Chwi Hong-ran’s lips, her own confidential profile began to flow.
“Driven mad by lust, she became a courtesan of her own accord. But through the Yin-Yang Harvesting Art learned from a demonic master, she ascended to the ranks of experts. Originally she targeted only men, but as she aged, she began venting her frustrations on young women. She carves moon-shaped scars on her victims’ faces, earning her the alias Color Moon. Finally, her age is…”
“Shut up. One more word and I’ll tear that mouth…”
“Fifty this year.”
“You bitch-!”
SHRING! Color Moon drew her long blade, seething. To speak the forbidden words. Eyes wouldn’t be enough. She’d have to brand that mouth shut.
Barely mastering her rage, Color Moon smirked.
“Our junior dressed up her tavern so elegantly, I thought she had at least half a brain. But I see now she’s an empty-headed fool. Pretty face, nothing inside. Did you investigate all that and then just stand here like this? What? Did your patron tell you to rely solely on me?”
Color Moon glanced sidelong at the stairs leading up. When a mere courtesan acted this brazen, there was only one answer: she had backing.
And the Seventh Young Master’s adjutant Jang I-seo was a regular at Chiseonru.
A perfectly obvious picture. He was waiting above those stairs.
“How convenient. I was going to take your patron anyway. Tell him to come out.”
Color Moon tossed her scabbard to the floor, aimed her blade at Chwi Hong-ran’s throat, and delivered her final warning.
“Any slower, and your throat gets a hole.”
VWOOM!
Her skirt fluttering, immense internal energy surged. A hair-trigger situation.
And right at that moment.
Footsteps echoed from the stairs.