Chapter 50: Chapter 50
Color Moon had never once considered that Chwi Hong-ran might have trained in martial arts.
But there was one more thing she didn’t know.
‘This woman… she’s a master! And far beyond me…! H-how?!’
FWOOOSH-
A chill crawled up her spine. When she looked ahead again.
Fine crimson threads spread through the whites of Chwi Hong-ran’s eyes like sunset. Her hair turned ghostly white, radiating outward in all directions like a demon’s.
Add the elongated crimson nails and the pale veins beneath her skin.
Color Moon plunged past horror into sheer terror.
“Y-you… surely you…!”
But she couldn’t finish.
Because what filled her vision next.
KYUAAAAH!
Was only a demon flying straight at her.
And moments later.
“KIIIAAAAGH!”
CRASH! With a grisly scream, the window shattered. A woman plummeted ungracefully from Chiseonru.
The assassins who rushed over went pale at the sight of the body.
Her entire body was sliced to ribbons. Joints bent at grotesque angles. Eyes wide open in death.
The hideous corpse of Color Moon Geum Hwa-bin.
And when the assassins belatedly looked up at where she’d fallen, their bodies froze solid.
FWEEE!
A demon with blood-red eyes gazed down, white hair scattering in the wind.
The Murong clan’s prodigy, abducted into the Demonic Cult and transformed into a tragic victim of demonic arts.
Chwi Hong-ran, who had mastered the White-White Blood Demon Art, had been waiting.
Tuk.
She dropped from the fourth floor as casually as stepping down a single stair.
“Uuuuh…”
The long moonless night was not yet over.
* * *
– Don-u Village, Lust Flower Tower.
Normally, the Slaughterhouse’s murderous assassins should have been everywhere. But today, the place was so empty it felt like a ruin.
Creeeak.
As if a ghost had actually visited, a second-floor window slid open quietly.
More precisely, not a ghost. Night visitors.
Masked thieves.
Yong-tae and his men.
They crept into the Lust Flower Tower, each clutching a large burlap sack.
“Boss, are you sure there’s really nobody here?”
A subordinate with round eyes and a protruding lower lip surveyed the cramped room and asked.
“How many times are you going to ask? You saw it yourself. Nobody came out for two days. That means nobody’s here. Look. The doors are open, right? What would be in there?”
“I, well…”
“You idiot. Just look. Open this and… huh?”
Yong-tae chuckled and slid the door open. Rattle, CLACK!
Then.
“Damn, fuck!”
An assassin stood there like a ghost, eyes glazed over as if dead drunk.
“Mmm… what… who are you…”
B-Boss… His subordinates called out frantically. The assassin seemed to sober slightly, brow creasing.
“Who are you, you bastards!”
“Well, you see… isn’t this Do-cheol’s place?”
“Do-cheol? Who. Sa Do-cheol? Gah!”
The assassin’s own words startled him. His eyes went wide. That was his boss’s name. As he faltered in panic.
“Guardian Dragon Binding Technique!”
With a defiant shout, Yong-tae slung the burlap sack over the assassin’s entire body. Then trussed him up with rope in seconds, like a cat’s cradle.
“Wh-what the, you bastards! L-let me go!”
Yong-tae grabbed a white porcelain vase from the decorative shelf. CLANG! Brought it down on the man’s head.
The drunk assassin crumpled, unconscious.
“B-Boss! You said there was nobody here!”
His men stared in panic. Yong-tae muttered sheepishly.
“Well, there’s nobody here now.”
“God damn it!”
“Anyway, let’s start! Anything worth money, anything that looks valuable. Don’t be picky. Load it all!”
Yong-tae and the Black Dragon Faction.
Their looting operation had begun.
* * *
Caw, caw.
The hill overlooking Wolha Village.
A man with a bear-like frame.
The protagonist of today’s massacre, Sa Do-cheol, still sat impassively atop the dead boar.
Nothing had changed.
His seated posture. His unwavering, fierce eyes.
Everything remained the same.
But after half a shi had passed.
For the first time, he began to sense something was wrong.
“…”
First, Wolha Village, which should have been engulfed in flames by now, remained dark and silent. And the adjutant Jang I-seo, who should have been dragged back alive long ago, still hadn’t appeared.
This was not part of his plan.
So the conclusion was singular.
Failure.
“…Useless trash.”
But he wasn’t surprised or panicked. The abundant killing intent he always carried simply thickened another layer.
Rather than concern for his inadequate subordinates, his interest in Jang I-seo grew.
Break, steal, covet.
Sa Do-cheol was a monster driven purely by instinct, but he wasn’t clueless.
Three years of pressuring the Seventh Young Master on Ma I-sin’s orders.
Never once had the resistance been this fierce.
As for adjutants, the promising ones had been persuaded elsewhere by Ma I-sin, and the mediocre ones had been turned into corpses by the Slaughterhouse before long.
Even the Third Young Lady couldn’t stop it.
The Cult Leader had implicitly permitted it, and heirs held no political authority.
So Mao had always had to be alone. He had to push away anyone who approached. If he didn’t want to drown in the guilt of getting them killed with his own hands.
That was exactly what Ma I-sin wanted.
‘I just need that kid to remember who he is. How lowly he is. That’s all I ask.’
In a word, know your place.
And the plan had been working. Everyone had despised and ridiculed Mao. He himself had lived as a drunken good-for-nothing.
It had definitely worked.
Until Adjutant Jang I-seo appeared.
‘That man’s existence is changing the Seventh Young Master’s position.’
He’d blocked Mak-gwi. Killed Yo Do-sun. And if he survived today as well, who but a fool would continue to dismiss the Seventh Young Master?
He’d been told the man was merely a former Seventh Grade Ghost squad leader. But at this level, he definitely had something hidden.
“Let me confirm.”
Sa Do-cheol rose from his massive frame. The boar’s side, caved in from his weight, presented a grisly sight.
He was about to descend the hill when.
“Emergency!”
A masked assassin scrambled up, prostrated, and delivered his report. Sa Do-cheol could guess. That Wolha Village’s resistance was fierce.
But it didn’t matter. The moment he stepped in, everything would end.
He was about to order the man to lead the way when the subordinate raised his head and screamed with a devastated expression.
“Enemies have stormed the Lust Flower Tower!”
“What?”
FWOOOSH-
Overwhelming killing intent erupted from Sa Do-cheol’s body. The subordinate continued in a trembling voice.
“It seems they were hidden nearby and invaded when they saw we’d left.”
“What bastards dare…!”
BANG! Unable to contain his fury, Sa Do-cheol’s savage fist buried itself into an innocent tree. CRACK! THUD! With a pitiful crack, the ancient tree, too thick for two men to encircle, splintered and toppled.
But that changed nothing. Frustration only stoked his rage further.
Of all times…!
Honestly, losing a pleasure house meant nothing. But the massive stockpile of Soul-Befuddling Powder stored inside was another matter entirely.
The hallucinogen was a forbidden substance within the cult. It sold for premium prices, and getting caught carried steep consequences. In short, the Slaughterhouse’s revenue stream and lifeline.
“What should we do?”
“…We return.”
Sa Do-cheol reached his conclusion after a brief deliberation. One mere adjutant could be dealt with whenever. Securing the Soul-Befuddling Powder was the priority.
Sa Do-cheol surveyed Wolha Village one final time, then turned ruthlessly. He began descending the path he’d come.
His subordinate sprinted ahead to guide.
The more he thought about it, the angrier he grew.
Normally, the Lust Flower Tower would never be left this empty. But as luck would have it, the second brother Sa Ho-jeong had left for the Cheonsan Northern Road to trade with the Iron Horse Bandits. Two officers were dead. No one was left to guard.
And they’d chosen precisely this moment to strike.
‘Jang I-seo…’
This had to be his doing as well. A mere Seventh Grade Ghost adjutant from a backwater. Clearly far more cunning than anticipated.
He’d been reading Sa Do-cheol this whole time.
Otherwise, he couldn’t have known that Sa Do-cheol wouldn’t have personally joined the Wolha Village raid, nor that hitting the Lust Flower Tower would force him to turn back.
He’d been too complacent. To think this man had been harboring such a plan…
“Wait.”
Sa Do-cheol stopped mid-stride in the forest. He tilted his head and muttered.
“You said urgent report?”
“Yes.”
The subordinate answered evenly without looking back.
That didn’t make sense.
Was it not strange? In an emergency, the Don-u Village rabble couldn’t have run all the way here over the mountains. And how would this man have received any communication?
The fastest method would be carrier pigeon, but…
Carrier pigeons relied on a bird’s homing instinct. You could send them to their trained home, but you couldn’t make them track down a moving master.
Naturally, the Slaughterhouse hadn’t trained pigeons to fly to a backwater like Wolha Village.
In other words, it wasn’t a carrier pigeon either.
Which left one possibility.
“You. Who are you.”
The man was feeding him false information.
FWOOOSH-
Dense killing intent erupted from Sa Do-cheol. His eyes blazed.
In response, the subordinate slowly turned.
Remarkably calm eyes. And a faintly trembling cheek.
This…
“Laughing?”
The man was laughing. Hidden behind the mask, but definitely laughing. And then he spoke words even more unbelievable.
“Ah, you’ve got more brains than you look. Not stupid, at least.”
“What? Hah. Hahaha.”
Sa Do-cheol hadn’t realized he’d been drowsed. But from the way his mind had snapped sharp and clear, the man’s words had done the trick.
A reward for making someone as apathetic as him laugh, perhaps. Unlike his usual self, Sa Do-cheol gave a slight nod and offered conversation.
The night was long anyway, and this was a secluded forest. Going to Wolha Village now would be too late. This was the perfect place to pass the time and relieve boredom.
Naturally, the other party had chosen this location for exactly the same reason.
“How about it. Not a bad spot, right? Originally you’d need to go a bit further, but this works.”
“Did you know I’d catch on around here?”
Oh. The masked man’s eyes went wide. At this level, he was definitely quick-witted. He grinned broadly and nodded.
Only then did Sa Do-cheol slowly survey the surroundings.
Caw, caw!
The only presences were crows and crickets.
No master capable of concealing their qi from his senses could be hiding here.
“Are you alone?”
“No, two. You’re here too.”
“Heh.”
Laughter escaped him for the second time. The disguise as a subordinate, the lure plan, the chosen location. All of it had been good. But this man kept deviating, one thing at a time. That was what made it funny. And the fact that the one deviation was dismissiveness toward himself made it even funnier.
“You know who I am, coming here?”
“Hey, that’s a bit of a rude question, isn’t it? Hardly polite after all the effort I’ve put in so far. It’s not Do-cheol. It’s Sa Do-cheol.”
Sa Do-cheol shook his head at the audacious display. Then rolled his stiff neck and asked his next question.
“I see you’re not in your right mind. Fine. What business do you have with me?”
“You said you were looking for me.”
“What?”
“So I came.”
Sa Do-cheol didn’t immediately understand. He furrowed his brow. Then gradually widened his eyes and muttered.
“…Jang I-seo.”
Correct answer.