Chapter 102: Abyss Valley (1)
Bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop…
Various ingredients boiled inside the pot.
Pork, pheasant meat, carp, catfish, loaches, crabs, marsh shrimp, mud snails, dried radish greens, beans, potatoes, millet, corn, soybean paste, and so forth turned into porridge, sending up white steam.
Namgung Yul stirred inside the pot with a tree branch.
Then she lightly tasted the porridge stuck to its end.
‘Hmm. This much seems edible.’
Although what was made was an unidentified, rootless pig slop, in such a freezing and harsh land, even this much was something to be deeply grateful for.
Although she was someone who could not even touch such food at the very beginning, her horizon of experience was definitely broadening through this Jianghu journey following Chui.
“Young Hero Chui. The meal is ready.”
Namgung Yul scooped a bowl of porridge into a chipped earthenware bowl and held it out to Chui.
Secretly carrying the hope that Chui would eat the porridge she made with relish.
But that porridge did not make it to Chui.
“Ack! What is this shit soup!? Who would eat such a thing! You couldn’t even sell it to the prisoners!”
This was because Gyeon Sul snatched her porridge away in horror.
“If you eat something like this, you’ll get an upset stomach right away. Our pretty boy, let’s eat the Dongpo pork I made. Now, ahhh~”
Gyeon Sul scooped up the braised pork he had made from somewhere and brought it to Chui’s lips.
Namgung Yul shrieked in bewilderment.
“Why is the title between men like that!?”
“Since he looks pretty, I call him pretty boy, so what? It’s a nickname carrying deep respect.”
“And in the midst of all this, how did you make Dongpo pork!?”
“Heh heh heh—I am originally quite domestic. To seduce someone, one must do at least this much, right?”
With Chui between them, the gazes of Namgung Yul and Gyeon Sul confronted each other in a tense standoff.
“…….”
However, Chui himself had no particular reaction.
He was merely staring up quietly at the dark night sky.
Looking at such a Chui, Namgung Yul thought.
‘He is truly an amazing person.’
She had always considered Chui amazing, but that thought had intensified even further lately.
Even after Gongson Ang’s rebellion, several more attacks by assassins followed, and the prisoners desperately fended them off.
The prisoners, trembling in the cold and exhausted from hard labor, had to fend off attacks as well, and as a result, they became increasingly devastated.
And Chui gathered up all of their embezzled funds while selling weapons, winter gear, medicine, food, and drinking water to them as they gradually grew weaker.
In the end, everything went exactly as Chui intended.
‘No matter how many eccentric experts there are in the Wulin, from where did such a person appear?’
She had never in her wildest dreams imagined that she would harbor such feelings toward a man of a similar age.
‘…Did he fall straight from the sky?’
Namgung Yul smiled without realizing it.
And she raised her head toward the night sky that Chui was looking at.
But then.
“Uh?”
The expression of Namgung Yul, who looked up at the night sky, momentarily changed subtly.
The blood star.
Around the blood star, which was shining solitary until last night, six stars were hovering.
Every single one of them belonged to a cluster of blue stars casting an ominous light.
Soon.
Sliiiide—
Chui stood up from his seat.
“……Soon, the foothills of the Ba-Shu Snowy Mountains will begin.”
Then he stared straight at the forest of withered trees looming in front of them.
“It seems the ‘real ones’ are about to appear from now on.”
At those words, Gyeon Sul’s expression also changed.
Namgung Yul grasped the situation a bit later than him.
Rustle, rustle, rustle…
The withered tree branches shook in the cold wind.
Between them, hazy and turbid blue eye-lights were spreading.
People wearing blue Yaksha masks began to walk out one by one.
The head count was six.
All of them were barehanded and barefooted, and they appeared to have white bandages wrapped tightly around their entire bodies.
The weapons they held were also diverse.
Chain scythes, iron fans, scythes, whips, and various strangely shaped deformed swords…
Meanwhile, seeing that, another uproar broke out among the prisoners.
“Ack! Another attack!”
“Everyone, pick up your spears! It’s a night raid!”
“You damned assassin bastards! Let us get some rest at night!”
The prisoners, including Xu Se-chi, stood up holding their spears.
However.
“That’s enough. Go back inside.”
Chui waved his hand at the prisoners.
Since this was the first time Chui had shown such a reaction, the prisoners wore bewildered expressions.
At that moment, Gyeon Sul, holding the Dog-Head Guillotine, walked over and stood beside Chui.
“These guys are somewhat different from the ones who came until now, aren’t they? They aren’t riffraff.”
“They are the Blue Yakshas of the Abyss Valley.”
“……!”
Gyeon Sul’s eyes widened slightly.
Abyss Valley. An assassin organization forming one of the pillars of the Fifteen Heterodox Pillars.
However, because its true nature was almost entirely shrouded in mystery, gossips merely dismissed it as a fictional organization created by the Heterodox Alliance to instil fear.
Gyeon Sul muttered in a low voice.
“So the Abyss Valley actually exists. If they are moving… there must be someone among the Heterodox Alliance bastards who is completely infatuated with you.”
“I have a rough idea of who it is.”
It was likely Hong Gong, the welcoming party sent by him.
Chui gripped the Plum Blossom Ghost Spear firmly.
…Boom!
The assassins of the Abyss Valley rushed toward Chui.
Chui thought as he looked at the weapons rushing before his eyes.
‘They aren’t even hiding their presence. For guys who are at the Blue Yaksha rank, they are excessively careless.’
The assassins of the Abyss Valley grew stronger in the order of Yellow, Blue, Red, and Black.
Although the assassins before his eyes were indeed wearing blue masks.
Boom! Clang!
Chui was parrying their joint attack without much difficulty.
…Thrust!
Chui’s spear fiercely penetrated the chest of one Blue Yaksha.
With a dull sound, the Blue Yaksha stabbed in the chest fell back into the forest beyond the darkness.
“Euratcha—”
Gyeon Sul also brandished his Dog-Head Guillotine.
The large and clumsy guillotine blade fell like thunder, striking down on the shoulder of one Blue Yaksha.
…Thud!
At that moment.
“……!”
Gyeon Sul stared wide-eyed at the sense of incongruity felt outright.
“What is this?”
After the guillotine blade dug into the Blue Yaksha’s body, it did not come out.
It should have split a human body in two long ago, yet the guillotine blade had only dug in about a span deep.
…Boom!
Gyeon Sul raised his foot and kicked the Blue Yaksha’s chest hard, and only then could he pull out the guillotine blade.
“……!”
Gyeon Sul had to be startled looking at the retrieved guillotine blade.
The edge of the guillotine blade was slightly chipped, and bluish frost clung around it.
“Why is the body so cold and hard? The guillotine blade barely digs in.”
Gyeon Sul could not hide his bewilderment.
This felt not like slicing a human body, but rather slicing frozen meat frozen solid.
Gyeon Sul turned to Chui and asked.
“Hey, hey—pretty boy. Are the assassins of the Abyss Valley originally all like this?”
“No. Those guys are also ordinary assassins. They are just a bit better at killing people than other assassins.”
“Then what are these things?”
“…….”
Chui looked at the Blue Yakshas in front of him.
Step, step, step—
The Blue Yaksha who had just been blown away after being stabbed in the heart by Chui’s spear also walked out of the forest and rejoined the main force.
The Blue Yaksha hit by Gyeon Sul’s guillotine blade also prepared for combat without shedding a single drop of blood.
At that moment, Namgung Yul, who was watching that sight, shouted.
“Ji-Jiangshi!? Aren’t those things Jiangshi!?”
“……!”
At those words, even Gyeon Sul wore a surprised expression.
Jiangshi. An existence brought back from the dead through evil sorcery.
Did that thing, which had only been passed down in old ghost stories, actually exist?
“Jiangshi made from the assassins of the Abyss Valley. It might be somewhat troublesome.”
Chui nodded slowly.
At Chui’s words acknowledging the existence of Jiangshi, Gyeon Sul and Namgung Yul once again wore surprised expressions.
Following the Abyss Valley, now it was Jiangshi. What on earth was all this?
Namgung Yul recalled the information she knew about the Abyss Valley in her head.
‘…The legendary assassins of the Abyss Valley were said to be killing machines who had elevated the art of killing people to the level of a fine art.’
The only thing they lacked was one thing: life.
No matter how many lives an assassin had taken, their own life was but one, and if they died, they could no longer kill people.
Namgung Yul had heard that only that was the weakness of the Abyss Valley assassins.
…However, the Abyss Valley assassins before her eyes now seemed to have resolved even that weakness.
Creak, creak, creak…
Six Jiangshi. The frozen-to-death corpses moved once more.
‘Six Jiangshi made from Blue Yakshas. You are living diligently, Hong Gong.’
Chui looked over the Jiangshi crafted from the corpses of the Abyss Valley assassins.
Recalling memories of his past life was a natural progression.
Abyss Valley.
The assassin organization that had made the figures of the Righteous Path fear the night during the Orthodox-Heterodox War.
Hong Gong had contacted the Abyss Valley back when he was still the Righteous Guardian of the Demonic Cult.
To perfectly complement the demonic art called Spear Ghost Calling, Hong Gong needed the killing experience, outstanding endurance, and well-trained bodies of assassins.
With the help of a ‘certain figure’ who held a high position in the Abyss Valley at that time, Hong Gong was able to refine his demonic art to a higher degree of completion, and as a result, several massive blood catastrophes would occur in the Wulin.
Chui’s meeting with Hong Gong was originally supposed to happen long after that.
…However. Having returned to the past, Chui was trying to bring that timing forward much earlier.
It was not just for the sake of revenge, but also to protect the connections of his past whose lives had been ruined through numerous blood catastrophes.
Was that not the case for Ho Ye-yang and Oh Ja-woon right now?
‘Hong Gong. My former master and the root of all evil.’
Chui raised the Plum Blossom Ghost Spear toward the Blue Yakshas in front of him.
‘Wait for me. I am coming to meet you now.’
Chui ran toward the six immortals in front of him.
…Swish!
The spear extended like the head of a venomous snake.
Two Blue Yakshas extended a spear and a sword respectively.
Spin—
Chui swung the spear shaft, striking one Blue Yaksha.
Claaang!
He struck a human body with iron, but a sound like a large bell ringing resounded.
The moment one Blue Yaksha was blown back, Chui reached out forcefully and pulled the Blue Yaksha on the opposite side.
The moment the Blue Yaksha caught in Chui’s hand tried to brandish the deformed twin swords held in both hands.
Crack!
The awl falling from above plunged into the crown of the Blue Yaksha’s skull.
…Squish! …Squish! …Crunch!
The skull was shattered, spraying blood and brain matter in the form of thin ice.
Tremble, tremble, tremble, tremble…
When the awl was driven vertically into the crown of the skull, the Blue Yaksha flipped onto the ground.
Then it began to flail its limbs like a cockroach singed by fire.
Chui swung the awl once more to pierce and shatter the skull of another Blue Yaksha vertically.
Crack!
Two Blue Yakshas fell to the ground, flailing.
The red thin ice that had splattered onto Chui’s expressionless face.
It melted from his body heat and trickled down slowly and stickily.
“When fighting a Jiangshi, you can pierce the crown of the skull like this.”
A calm expression, a relaxed voice.
However, hand movements that were completely contrary to it.
“Because though you cannot kill them, you can at least make them unable to fight any longer.”
It was a chilling fierceness that made not only Namgung Yul and the prisoners but even the Jiangshi hesitate.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost