Chapter 51: Chapter 51

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Red Envoy Wang, who had been fleeing frantically, once again felt the chill he had experienced on the inn’s roof.

Without thinking twice, he quickly turned around and threw the Tiger Claw whose blades were all broken. Even in his urgency, it was a threatening throw packed with power. Of course, Jang Geon lightly deflected it.

Turning around to stop, he glared at Jang Geon with a contorted face. Murderous intent dripped from his eyes. Meeting those eyes, Jang Geon flicked his sword with a swish.

“Are you trying to run away after abandoning all your subordinates?”

“…It is a retreat to promise the future. Since we fell into a trap, shouldn’t I at least survive to deliver that intelligence?”

“A trap?”

Red Envoy Wang said, taking slow steps backward.

“Then what? Are you going to claim it wasn’t a trap? That this fight right now is merely a coincidence?”

“What trap? You just dug your own grave.”

Jang Geon chuckled softly and trudged toward Red Envoy Wang.

“Enough, spill everything you know. Who the hell is that Palace, what is the grand plan, and what were you going to do after capturing that kid?”

Red Envoy Wang listened to Jang Geon’s words and retreated backward by as much as he approached.

“Heh. It was only a moment ago that you said you weren’t curious… but as expected, you intend to interrogate me. Do you believe that is possible? Even if you torture me, I will never betray the Palace. And…”

Having backed away like that, he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.

“…I won’t let myself be captured easily either.”

The murderous intent flowing from his eyes turned sinister with explosive momentum. At the same time, red and purplish blood vessels bulged on his upper body, and a reddish energy rose over his form. He spoke in a growling voice.

“Did you say you were the one who killed Seo Wi-ryang? He was only just learning divine martial arts. I am different from him.”

Along with his confident words, dark red flames began to sprout from both of his hands. Setting fire to both hands like that, he held his hands at the middle stance and emitted intense heat from his entire body. That heat reached even Jang Geon, who was still some distance away. It was certainly a more formidable display than Seo Wi-ryang’s.

However, Jang Geon, facing him, showed no sign of tension.

“Feels warm.”

Murmuring like that, he suddenly sheathed his sword. Seeing that, Red Envoy Wang twitched his eyebrows.

“What is this?”

“If you want to move your mouth, you need to be alive first. If a sword hits you wrong, you die.”

He was essentially saying he would deal with him bare-handed. At that, Red Envoy Wang’s eyes widened, and his face began to flush bright red. With bulging blood vessels and a blood-red face, he looked literally like an evil demon.

“You bastard! Are you looking down on me right now!”

Jang Geon did not answer that shout. He merely drew closer to Red Envoy Wang with the exact same stride he had taken from the beginning.

Red Envoy Wang let out an angry shout at that indifferent attitude and charged forward. His palms, blazing with dark red flames, aimed for Jang Geon’s face.

Jang Geon spun around to the right to dodge it, gathered the index and middle fingers of his right hand, and jabbed hard near Red Envoy Wang’s flank. Though startled by the sharp sting, Red Envoy Wang repeatedly swung his palms at him up close.

Because it was the middle of the night, Red Envoy Wang’s two burning palms looked as though he were brandishing torches or balls of fire. Neither particularly bright nor constant in light, the flames of demonic arts swayed chaotically, creating and erasing countless shadows of Jang Geon and Red Envoy Wang.

Red Envoy Wang was certainly fast and strong. His rapidly extending hands tore through the air, and the blazing flames burned the incoming air right afterward, emitting searing heat. In the eyes of Jin-ha and the group watching from afar, it looked as if two burning snakes were frantically chasing Jang Geon.

Yet those snakes could not reach Jang Geon. Whenever the flames pushed back the shadows, he retreated naturally as if he were one with the shadow, stepped closer when the flames subsided, and scattered like an illusion when the light approached again.

“What on earth is…”

Even as Red Envoy Wang frantically pursued him and swung his palm techniques, he fell into confusion. He was unable to keep up with Jang Geon’s unpredictable movements, which shifted as if buried in shadows or as if he were shadow itself. Meanwhile, what annoyed him even more were the fingers poking here and there into his body by taking advantage of momentary openings.

“Dammit! Fight properly!”

Ultimately enraged, Red Envoy Wang stopped trying to chase Jang Geon and simply swung his palm techniques in all directions, pouring out his internal energy. Intense heat and flames spurted out from him like small waves.

Avoiding it, Jang Geon flipped backward through the air to distance himself and landed lightly. Then, even under Red Envoy Wang’s glare, he tilted his head alone and muttered.

“Could I call this the Shadowless Step?”

“What kind of bullshit is that!”

Hearing that murmur, Red Envoy Wang roared at the top of his lungs, charged toward Jang Geon, and thrust both hands forward. Internal energy born of rage exploded from his palms. Yet Jang Geon, who had been tilting his head, did not move even as the palm strike approached right before his nose, before blurring away the next instant like blowing out a candle.

Having unleashed his internal energy into empty air, Red Envoy Wang quickly turned around to search for the disappeared Jang Geon. He was standing about two zhang behind Red Envoy Wang with his back turned.

“You bastard! Do you really have no intention of fighting properly to the end…”

Looking at that back, Red Envoy Wang was about to charge again when he hesitated at an indescribable sensation. He froze like that, trembling violently, before suddenly vomiting a bowlful of blood with a retch.

“Gah… What… is this…”

Lowering his head, he looked down at his own body. Then he saw glowing red spots across various parts of his upper body. Every one of them was a spot jabbed by Jang Geon’s fingers.

“Gugh!”

Red Envoy Wang collapsed to his knees. The muscles of his entire body were gradually stiffening. At the same time, the internal energy flowing through his meridians suddenly moved uncontrollably and scattered. At that unbelievable situation, Red Envoy Wang’s face went blank.

Jang Geon trudged up in front of him. Red Envoy Wang, already unable to move his body, barely raised his pupils to look at him. Looking at those eyes, Jang Geon nodded his right hand.

Acupoint striking was a method of using one’s internal energy to block the opponent’s meridians and induce abnormalities. Jabbing just one or two acupoints would not produce such a result; one had to jab at least five meridians or more to see meaningful effects step by step.

Furthermore, if the time interval between jabbing each point lengthened, there was the problem of having to start over from the beginning, so it was not very effective in actual combat. When holding spears and swords and aiming for each other’s lifelines, where would there be the time or leeway to jab dozens of those points? An acupoint technique that could incapacitate an opponent by jabbing just one point—like a paralysis point or sleep point—was not something Jang Geon had learned in this world, at least.

“What… did you… do… to my… body…”

Red Envoy Wang barely squeezed out words with a mouth that hardly opened. His tongue was probably stiffening too, making it quite an impressive display of willpower.

“Did you call it Nine Yin Evil Blood? I thought it would be called Severed Meridians. Well, whether it’s evil blood or severed meridians, what does it matter.”

Dusting off his hands with a pat, Jang Geon pulled out pipe tobacco from his breast pocket. He had already smoked a lot, so not much tobacco remained inside the pouch. However, showing no sign of stinginess, Jang Geon rolled the tobacco in paper.

While treating Jin Seo-ha’s meridians, Jang Geon had learned that unique phenomena occurred in the body when the shape of meridians changed or twisted. Added to that, he had also learned through the valley natives he saw in the past that a wide-open Danzhong point could cause internal energy to scatter and create mystical power. The world of meridians had room to cross into a more complex dimension beyond simply internal energy rising and flowing. And Jang Geon had achieved a small breakthrough by combining that with the point-striking techniques he already knew.

Jang Geon put the tobacco in his mouth, lit it, and looked down at the man called Red Envoy Wang.

His internal energy, which had been flowing like fire, was now scattered across the meridians Jang Geon had twisted. It was not a permanent disability, but merely temporarily distorted after being bound by Jang Geon’s internal energy.

However, like the vitality gathering in Jin Seo-ha’s nine acupoints, Red Envoy Wang’s internal energy had scattered across the full-body acupoints Jang Geon had struck. As a result, the heat that could burn a person to death had been split and divided into dozens of small lumps of warmth.

Removing the cigarette from his mouth and exhaling smoke with a whew, Jang Geon looked down at Red Envoy Wang, who was trembling violently to move his body somehow, and spoke.

“You said you wouldn’t betray even under torture, right? Then let’s see.”

As soon as Jang Geon finished speaking, he gathered the index and middle fingers of his right hand and stabbed hard into Red Envoy Wang’s chest. It was the final acupoint of the point-striking method he had devised.

Immediately after, Red Envoy Wang’s trembling intensified. At the same time, drool trickled from his slightly parted mouth, and his eyes, filled with pain, quivered before rolling upward. On top of that, chilling sounds of crunching and popping echoed from his body, just like when he awakened his demonic arts.

Jin-ha, who had approached close before anyone noticed, saw that scene and asked.

“…What is that?”

“Dislocating Tendons and Displacing Bones.”

Jang Geon answered like that while putting the tobacco back in his mouth. Jin-ha flinched in surprise at that chilling name and looked at Jang Geon. At that moment, the person smoking tobacco there was not the strangely gentle man she had traveled with for days who quietly got along well with the little girl, but a ruthless ronin of this New Continent wilderness.

Just then, Seol Myo-geum, who had been in the inn room, appeared. Inside the inn, lights turned on and a small commotion was stirring, as if the innkeeper and other guests had awakened.

“What’s going on? How is it turning out?”

Jin-ha reflexively blocked the front of the approaching Seol Myo-geum. Not from Red Envoy Wang, who was currently trembling violently, but between her and Jang Geon.

“What’s wrong?”

“…It’s nothing, Miss. I just thought that demonic practitioner might be dangerous…”

Seol Myo-geum tilted her head at her words. The demonic practitioner who had been rampaging until moments ago was now merely kneeling on the dirt ground and trembling violently. Jin-ha found it hard to admit that she had felt fear toward Jang Geon even for a moment, so she simply shut her mouth.

And around then, blood rather than drool and foam trickled down from Red Envoy Wang’s mouth. Jang Geon, who had been watching him while smoking tobacco, only then struck Red Envoy Wang’s acupoints once more.

“Ack, kheck… Gugh… S-Save me…”

Jang Geon looked down at him as his bodily stiffness relaxed and he breathed with difficulty, then asked.

“Do you feel like spilling it now?”

Red Envoy Wang, Wang O, looked up at Jang Geon with darkened eyes. He hesitated briefly, but upon seeing Jang Geon raise his hand again, he finally opened his mouth.

“…The Palace is merely the Palace… The palace of His Highness the Overlord of Chu, the true master of the Central Plains who defeated that madman Qin Shi Huang… Beneath him gathered those who were persecuted and oppressed by the Han Empire…”

At the words he uttered, the expressions of Jin-ha and Seol Myo-geum stiffened gravely. Glancing sideways at them, Jang Geon asked.

“Then what about the grand plan?”

“…The grand plan is… prepared by Lord Serpent… a plan for the revival of Chu…”

“What is that exactly?”

Wang O shook his head with difficulty.

“In the grand plan… the snakes are merely chess pieces… Only Lord Serpent knows the overall picture of the grand plan…”

“So you didn’t even know what you were going to do by kidnapping the kid?”

“…I only know that she was needed as part of the grand plan… Probably… for the purpose of studying the characteristics of Nine Yin Evil Blood…”

Jang Geon flicked away the tobacco ash and gave a bitter laugh.

“Then despite talking about leaving a name or whatever, you didn’t know much either.”

“…If I can bring down the Han Empire by offering this life… as much as needed…”

He dropped his head low and muttered like that. Jang Geon wondered whether that was truly his own will or merely an indoctrinated ideology. However, it was not enough to make him feel like asking any further. Inhaling the last drag of tobacco and flicking it away, Jang Geon turned back to Seol Myo-geum.

She was scowling with a serious face, but when Jang Geon looked at her, she pursed her lips and blinked both eyes as she met his gaze.

Jang Geon spoke.

“Handle it on your end.”

“…E-Eh? M-Me? How could I…”

“Those people called the Dark Dragon Bureau or whatever. Would it be alright if I brought them here?”

Jin-ha’s complexion turned deathly pale. She looked back and forth between Jang Geon and Seol Myo-geum, not knowing what to do. Seol Myo-geum, Yu Seol, erased the expression she had tried to brush off playfully and adopted a stiff face.

“…You heard the conversation between them and me. How did you hear it? Did you know the Double Sound Art?”

“I have no desire to get tangled up with the Imperial Army. At any rate, since I caught the demonic practitioner for you like this, instead of something like a medal, let’s just travel quietly on the way to New Sichuan.”

Yu Seol twitched her lips as if wanting to say something, but ultimately shut them tight and nodded. Leaving such a princess and her bodyguard behind, Jang Geon walked toward the inn.

He saw the innkeeper and waiter, who had come out with lamps, pale in terror upon seeing the corpses of masked men scattered in front of the inn. The few inn guests each opened their windows to see what the commotion was about, and some guests had left their rooms to come downstairs. Jin Gyeon was pressing his palms together in prayer and chanting Buddhist verses while looking at the dead masked men, and Jin Seo-ha, who was sticking close beside him, spotted Jang Geon and trotted over.

Seeing Seo-ha approach, Jang Geon said.

“Go to sleep now.”

At those words, Seo-ha looked up at him with blank eyes, and instead of going to sleep as told, she tugged at his collar instead. It seemed like she was asking him to go together. At that gaze, Jang Geon looked around; the princess and her bodyguard seemed busy dealing with Wang O. Right now, at her hand gesture, the Dark Dragon agent and Gale Blade Gam Gun-sang were running breathlessly past him.

“Right. I suppose I should put you to sleep.”

Thinking for a moment, Jang Geon roughly tousled Seo-ha’s hair, held her hand, and entered the inn together.

Shedding faint light over the inn and its commotion, the moon and stars seemed to tilt slightly more, as if regretting their disappearance inside.