Chapter 64: Chapter 64
Ma I-sin’s stride halted.
Had he misheard? He resumed walking.
Then.
“Fuck… off…”
The voice again. Not an auditory hallucination.
Smirk. A hollow laugh settled on Ma I-sin’s lips.
He turned. Mao was rising to his feet, a ruin of a figure. Clutching his trembling knees, running his mouth through swollen lips.
“Jang… I-seo… leave him… alone… you bastard… got your… venting… done… Nothing but… a paranoid… overpowered… piece of shit…”
Paranoid…?
The raised lips dropped. His eyes turned as cold as a slaughter ghost.
“Isn’t that… right…? Your subordinate Cheon Mu-gi became… First Young Master… and I became… Seventh Young Master… Heh heh… What does that… make you…”
Ma I-sin closed the distance in terrifyingly long strides.
“Say that again.”
“You… dog… Ghak!”
His foot whipped up like lightning and caught Mao’s jaw. His head snapped back, launching vertically into the air. Then came the palm strike.
THUD!
The palm buried itself in Mao’s abdomen and sent him flying into the least damaged section of wall. KWAANG!
“Gah…”
Agony beyond the ability to breathe.
But it didn’t end there.
SLAP, SLAP, SLAAAP!
Ma I-sin closed in, seized his collar, and began backhanding him across the face.
Each strike drew blood. His once-handsome face filled with bruises.
A spectacle gruesome to witness.
“Again. Say it again.”
Ma I-sin smiled an even more chilling smile as he laid into him. His already empty eyes had gone completely mad. SLAP! SLAAP! The beating showed no sign of stopping.
At this rate, he’d beat him to death with slaps alone.
“I said say it again.”
Even the Slave Lord behind him twitched his under-eyes at the cruelty and shook his head inwardly.
‘Don’t say another word. Silence is your only path to survival.’
But,
“Kkh… heh heh heh…”
“Laughing…?”
Mao burst into laughter. Then, with a truly stupid look on his battered face, he finally opened his mouth and spoke to the man glaring down at him.
“…Get lost.”
He said.
And at that moment.
『White Thunder』
FLASH! Lightning exploded across the grounds.
Black lightning carrying absolute, indescribable fury!
‘Danger…!’
The first to sense the crisis was the Slave Lord.
He was the pinnacle of the monstrous slaves bred by the Ma family.
KWAANG!
Thunder roared through his mind. His heart plummeted.
Instinct screamed danger.
Without a word, he launched his body reflexively.
The black luminescence had been aimed directly at Ma I-sin, who stared with drugged, vacant eyes.
‘As expected…’
At full capacity, perhaps not. But drugged, every optic nerve dulled. A truly hair-trigger crisis.
THUD!
A horrific sound of bone and muscle being pierced echoed.
“Slave Lord?”
Before Ma I-sin appeared the stalwart back of an old man, a tiger among men. Both arms outstretched, shielding him.
“…My apologies.”
Words utterly groundless were spoken. Apologies? He hadn’t been asked to do anything yet. What was there to apologize for?
But moments later, the revealed scene made it perfectly understandable.
THUD! With a sound of something giving way, the Slave Lord crumpled forward.
Blood pooled on the ground.
‘Pierced… through the Slave Lord’s body…?’
Ma I-sin’s eyes flashed in disbelief.
The Slave Lord. Who was he?
The worst killing weapon the Ma family had ever bred.
They’d stripped away layers of flesh hundreds of times, applying poisons and medicines until ordinary blades couldn’t pierce him.
The man who’d caught Sa Ho-jeong’s axe with his bare hand.
How?
Ma I-sin’s gaze twisted.
FWOOSH-
The bamboo behind the wall scattered. And the figure of a man standing tall came into view.
A perfectly impassive expression. An unremarkable, utterly ordinary face.
But…
‘He’s strong.’
A smile spread across his lips. He felt it clearly.
The bamboo screaming right now wasn’t from wind. It was all from this man’s virulent killing intent.
“Jang I-seo…”
The name Mao called out in desperation.
The Seventh Young Master’s adjutant.
That was why.
FWIP!
In the moment Ma I-sin was lost in thought, Jang I-seo’s form vanished from before his eyes. Tremendous speed.
‘Where…?’
Ma I-sin’s pupils swept left and right rapidly. At full capacity, he wouldn’t have lost track. But drugged as he was.
Internal energy gathered at his fingertips and he unleashed a horizontal slash.
FWAAASH!
A blade-like gale swept through in a straight line.
But unfortunately, it cleaved only empty air. The real attack came from…
“Hm?!”
BZZZT! Black lightning flashed. Jang I-seo materialized before Ma I-sin’s throat.
From the right!
WHIRL!
Jang I-seo spun upward like a top and drove an elbow down onto his head.
FWIIIISH!
A heel descending like heavenly punishment.
KRAAAK!
A gruesome sound rang from Ma I-sin’s forearm as he desperately blocked. But whether from the drugs or something else, no expression of pain. No groan.
Still smiling, he seized Jang I-seo and hurled him backward.
KWAANG!
Jang I-seo flew at the speed of light and crashed into a tree.
‘What kind of bastard…’
Jang I-seo was too stunned to even feel pain.
The attack had landed properly. Rotation, the principle of the Full-Weight Strike. He should have been unable to lift a spoon for a while.
No. The arm was definitely shattered.
“Hmm.”
But Ma I-sin merely rolled up his sleeve and examined his swollen wrist nonchalantly. Broken bones should have produced at least a flinch.
Instead, he smirked and spoke.
“Taking down the Slaughterhouse wasn’t luck.”
That was all he had to say? How was it that in this damn Demonic Cult, finding a single decent person was this hard?
Jang I-seo ignored his words and walked over to the red-haired boy sprawled on the ground. He didn’t even have the strength to lift his head. Legs splayed, grinning like an idiot.
“What do you call this.”
“That’s why… I said… why… so… slow… you disappeared…”
“Is that what you should be saying right now? Look. How many fingers?”
“…Ten…”
“Serious.”
Jang I-seo folded one of the fingers he’d been holding up and bit his lip hard. Guilt flooded in.
He’d been stupid. If he hadn’t left, this wouldn’t have happened.
“Still… Jang I-seo. I held on…? That bastard… doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s all… teeth, that… Heh heh.”
Liar.
“KRAAAAGH! What are you doing!”
He howled like that when his cheek was pressed even slightly.
“That’s why I told you not to stupidly fight back against your brother. Just endure moderately and beg.”
“You’re a demon. You bastard.”
Jang I-seo’s chest tightened.
He felt how terrifying and grueling the time Mao had endured must have been.
He must have wanted to beg. To plead.
But the accumulated injustice, the grief for friends he’d lost. The self-loathing of having been unable to do anything.
All of it had kept him standing.
“You did well. You held on admirably.”
“Heh heh… right…?”
“Yes.”
“Kkh… Hahaha! I really am… a gen…”
Tuk. Mao’s eyes closed. His head dropped limply onto Jang I-seo’s shoulder. Enduring until now was miracle enough. He could rest now.
Jang I-seo carefully cradled the back of Mao’s head and lowered him to the ground.
Then he slowly rose and turned.
Now it was time to address the madman grinning at him in mockery.
“Ma I-sin.”
For the first time, he bared killing intent that was entirely genuine, not manufactured.
Ma I-sin snorted and replied.
“I’ll grant that you’re strong, unlike that fool you associate with… But you share his lack of self-awareness.”
“No. The one who lacks self-awareness is you. You, a mere Ninth Grade Ghost, dared to harm the esteemed First Grade Ghost, the Seventh Young Master. By cult doctrine, I could execute you on the spot, and you’d have no defense before Yama.”
“Hahaha! You go too far with the jokes. Perhaps… you’re puffed up over felling a single slave? Or. Surely you don’t think I was hiding behind Sa Do-cheol and Sa Ho-jeong?”
Ma I-sin waved dismissively and laughed broadly. Then shook his head and spoke low.
“Everything… is so tedious.”
And at that very moment, his form shot forward like an arrow.
He closed the distance to Jang I-seo in an instant and thrust out his hand.
VWOOM!
Then, with the sensation of his body being sucked in, Jang I-seo lurched forward against his will.
‘What…!’
And FWAM! His collar seized, he was hurled backward again.
FWISH! KWAANG!
A roar from the wall. Dust billowed.
Jang I-seo wiped his mouth and stood.
Movement beyond description.
‘I’d forgotten for a moment.’
The reason First Elder Ma Il-seong, who put the cult above all, acknowledged this degenerate son who fraternized with despicable assassins as his sole heir.
Because he was strong. A strength worthy of the cult’s doctrine.
By innate talent alone, once rated alongside First Young Master Cheon Mu-gi as the cult’s foremost rising star.
Born receiving marrow-washing treatments, raised on spirit medicines like daily meals.
The Ma family’s legitimate heir.
Being weak would have been the anomaly.
“You left something behind. Take it.”
CLANG. Ma I-sin pulled the dagger embedded in his shattered arm and dropped it to the ground. The dagger Jang I-seo had drawn from his waist and planted during the throw.
In internal energy, perhaps not. But in talent and experience, Jang I-seo was a master who couldn’t be dismissed.
“Fascinating. That someone like you was merely a Seventh Grade Ghost. And that you’ve lingered beside such a worthless creature. It’s a waste. I mean that sincerely.”
“Coming from someone who sent assassins to kill me, that doesn’t carry much weight.”
“Hahaha! But you survived. Consider it a light greeting. The weak die, the strong live. Perfectly natural.”
Ma I-sin glanced at the fallen Slave Lord, snorted, and stepped forward.
Seeing this, Jang I-seo’s tongue went dry.
His loyal servant’s life hung by a thread, and he could laugh?
“Does his life mean nothing to you?”
“The Slave Lord? Why. What should I feel?”
“What?”
“A dog that has grown old and sick, having fulfilled its purpose, earns an honorable death through that alone.”
“He served you.”
“Yes. But since he’s gone now, you can serve me instead.”
That insane bastard. Those rotated eyes confirmed he was rotten to the core with demonic nature.
Jang I-seo was certain.
Even setting Mao aside, this man must never be allowed to take the Ma family’s helm. It would inevitably become a great calamity for the Murim someday.
“If that displeases you… then die here. If the first thing he sees upon waking is your corpse beside him, that wouldn’t be bad either. Heh heh.”
This man didn’t need a light correction. He needed to be completely destroyed.
Yes. Elimination was the answer.
But the one to do it…
Jang I-seo opened his mouth with resolved conviction.
“I’d like nothing more than to end it with you here. But I’m not your opponent.”
“Heh heh. Why. Are you afraid now?”
“No. Someone else will punish you.”
The moment he finished speaking, Jang I-seo turned his head.
Ma I-sin followed his gaze. There, slumped on the ground, unconscious, lay Mao.
A thoroughly pathetic servant.
“Hahahahaha! Surely you mean him?”
“Yes. The one who’ll face you isn’t me. It’s the Seventh Young Master.”
A bombshell declaration fell from Jang I-seo’s lips.