Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Stumble, stumble.

Yul Hwi's backward retreat, his expression hardened stiff, was the very picture of a frail boy paralyzed with terror.

Of course, in reality it was nothing more than a performance carried out by reflex to buy time in the immediate crisis.

'First-rate. Both of them are first-rate.'

They were clad in pitch-black night garb with masks pulled over their faces, but they did not particularly feel like assassins.

Their movements were too clumsy in too many ways to be professionals from the same trade.

Above all, anyone in the killing business would have already moved to subdue or kill, rather than wasting time spewing useless chatter.

'......The odds are in my favor.'

Coldly calculating his chances — even at his current meager level, they were opponents he could kill.

Still, they were solidly first-rate martial artists.

And this body, having gone entirely without physical training due to chronic illness, was so frail that a single shove might snap something.

Stumble, stumble, stumble!

This called for a plan that was as certain and meticulous as possible.

"They say the Nine Yin Severed Meridians kept him bedridden the whole time, but for someone like that, he walks around quite well."

"He's still fifteen, isn't he? Surely he can at least manage a trip to the privy on his own."

While Yul Hwi shuffled frantically backward with an expression of obvious panic, the masked men before him exchanged leisurely banter, treating him like a fish already in their net.

And with good reason.

Officially, the second young master of the Taewon Yul Family — the illegitimate son — had never once in his life set foot beyond the family grounds. A hothouse flower in every sense.

'They're letting their guard down, as expected.'

Two first-rate fighters who could easily subdue a healthy boy his age.

For them, a sickly boy afflicted with the worst of all severed meridians was naturally someone they were confident they could handle at will.

But this complacency worked in reverse — providing Yul Hwi with a golden opportunity to land a decisive blow and turn the tables.

No, more than just turning the tables — this was a chance to end the entire situation in a single stroke.

'Seven steps...... six steps......'

He had been subtly shortening his stride as he stumbled backward, gradually closing the distance to the intruders by tiny increments.

'......Two steps.'

SLAM—!

"Agh!"

Deliberately tangling his own feet, Yul Hwi fell flat on his rear, and a shadow of despair settled over his eyes.

A laughable sight of someone too feeble to manage his own body, collapsing all on his own.

With muffled snickers behind their masks, the two men sauntered closer and looked down at him, their stances slack and relaxed.

"Wh-who are y-you people, barging into th-the estate...!"

Even as he stammered with a voice thick with moisture —

His trembling gaze darted naturally and swiftly across the men's hands — now dropped from their sword hilts — and their loosely spread footing.

"Hmph. That's none of your concern."

"Come along quietly, and you won't come to any harm here."

With behavior that could not possibly have come from someone who knew a single move of martial arts, the men's carelessness had peaked.

All that remained was to execute the prepared sequence without a hitch.

'Left eye. Then the heel and the groin.'

The instant he finalized how to dispatch the enemies —

Yul Hwi began shifting the cold qi from his qi center into both hands under the guise of gasping for breath.

Since this body naturally radiated chill, the chance of being detected by mere first-rate fighters who had dropped their guard was negligible.

"N-no, p-please...!"

All the while, he kept wringing moisture from his eyes and letting drool trail from the corner of his mouth — the performance flowing as smoothly as water.

"Tsk, tsk! At this rate he'll wet himself."

"I'll carry him."

The instant one of the men slowly bent his knees, clearly convinced Yul Hwi would never stand again on his own —

'Now!'

Yul Hwi's left hand — which had been surreptitiously trained on the man's descending shoulder — unleashed a bolt of vicious, lightning-fast motion.

SQUELCH—!

"KYAAAGH!"

An implement gouged savagely into the unguarded left eye of the approaching man.

It was a slender nail roughly half a span in length, pried from one of the window hinges beforehand.

And he had driven it more than halfway in, deep into the socket, in a single instant.

"You—!"

That was not the end of it.

A blade the size of a palm streaked like a ray of light toward the heel of the man on the right — the one who had recoiled in shock at the sudden resistance and was reaching for his sword hilt.

SHUCK—!

"GRAGH! You little rat— huh, HRRK?!"

The instant the man tried to convert the blinding agony into fury —

An icy cold qi, frigid as a slab of ice, suddenly obstructed his breathing, and his counterattack faltered for a split second.

And that was enough.

CRACK—!

"GYAAAAGH!"

SLASH—!

"Guh...... ghhh...!"

SPLAT—!

A knee driven upward into the groin of the man staggering from the chain of shocks, then immediately a second slash of the short blade across his throat, splitting the larynx clean in two.

"......Hah."

The time it took to turn two first-rate fighters into corpses was a mere two breaths.

The one whose eye had first been pierced by the nail was already dead on the spot — the nail had bored through into his brain.

The other had become a body pouring bright-red blood in streams from his heel and throat.

A nail from a hinge and a fingernail-trimming knife. An unbelievable result achieved with nothing more.

'The Yul Family...... is finished.'

But even so, Yul Hwi's expression did not emerge from the dark shadow that clung to it.

Judging by the shouts and screams drawing ever closer to the inner compound, the new safe house had evidently completed its role as of today.

He felt no particular sorrow or the like.

In the entire year since he had come to live in this body as the concubine's illegitimate child, the only people who had ever visited him were his dedicated maidservant and that nuisance of a young master — two in total.

'I'm grateful they kept my meals coming on time.'

That said, he felt no sense of duty to risk his own life saving a family on the brink of ruin.

Especially since it was now clear that the raid itself had been aimed at him.

It would actually be better for the Yul Family if he simply disappeared.

"I suppose I should call this fortunate."

Gathering up the bloodied short blade, Yul Hwi's mind was already racing with plans for finding a way out.

Not a trace of complaint or lamentation over the present attack could be found in him.

He simply considered it a stroke of luck that he had been given even one year.

"Hah."

With a brief sigh to release the tension, his silhouette slipped past the doorframe and began seeking the cover of shadows.

***

"GRAKH!"

"Hold the line!"

"HYAAAH!"

CLANG—! CLASH—! CLANG, CLANG, CRASH—!

SPLATTER—!

A hellscape as dire as any painting of the abyss.

The Yul Family had passed down its history across generations in Taewon, a provincial capital in its own right.

But that long history rang hollow — the clearly limited ceiling of their house martial arts and the geographical constraints of Sanseo had become the chief factors driving the family's members to neglect their martial training.

"Urgh, gaaah!"

"Th-the clan head! Clan heaaad!"

The family head, the family's strongest fighter, along with every key figure was already rolling headless on the ground, and the rest were crumbling helplessly beneath the raiders' merciless blades like autumn leaves before the wind.

And the owner of those blue eyes, watching the carnage for a moment from a shadowed corner —

'Still — if the chance presents itself, I'll at least repay the debt.'

Having gathered the promissory notes and small, lightweight valuables amid the chaos, Yul Hwi quietly vowed the Taewon Yul Family's vengeance in the privacy of his heart, where no one could hear.

Though he had spent the past year living in this body and endured neglect that was neglect in all but name —

He was at least willing to repay the value of the free meals he had eaten during that time.

'The biggest fault lies with whoever failed to keep the secret properly sealed.'

After all, this entire debacle had been brought about by this body and its Nine Yin Severed Meridians.

A calamity invited by a name too weighty for a family of the Taewon Yul Family's caliber to contain — that was the fitting conclusion.

'I need to identify the culprits.'

The forces of the martial world that might covet the Nine Yin Severed Meridians raced through his mind.

He had intended to confirm at least that much before making his escape, but the Yul Family's fighters were so hopelessly weak that not a single clue could be gleaned from the enemy's martial arts.

Just as he was seriously weighing the option of cutting his losses and fleeing without further delay —

"WHAT?! So you're telling me you LOST the boy?!"

A piercing, ringing voice suddenly shook the air and seized his attention in an instant.

Despite keeping a distance of nearly five hundred feet to mask his presence — a skill still lacking in finesse — the voice branded itself into his ears with searing clarity.

"Have I ever seen such blithering fools!"

WHOOSH—! BOOOM—!

WHOOSH—! WHOOSH—!

"...!"

'That martial art—!'

Behind the fiery roar, a terrifying heat and a torrent of flame actually erupted forth.

What rode upon that single palm strike — discharged in a burst of irritation — engulfed an entire massive hall in a blaze, devouring it as kindling in an instant.

This was no mere heated yang qi; judging by the tangible fire projected directly from the body, it was a discipline worthy of being counted on one hand among all the most formidable yang-dominant martial arts.

'The Sun and Moon Gate.'

As Yul Hwi dredged up the name he had been turning over in his mind, his pupils hardened another degree colder.

There was only one faction under heaven that could wield yang-dominant martial arts of that caliber while also coveting a rare severed meridian condition as diametrically opposed as the Nine Yin Severed Meridians.

The Sun and Moon Gate — a great sect straddling the line between orthodox and evil, pursuing both yang-dominant martial arts and yin-cold martial arts alike.

Boldly based in Gangso, right next door to Anhwi, which was Orthodox territory — they were the perpetrators of this grim catastrophe.

'......This won't be easy.'

The Sun and Moon Gate was a massive martial sect that could hold its own even against the Nine Sects and One Gang, the Eight Great Families of the Orthodox faction, or the Ten Tyrants of the Evil Path.

Against a force that had carved out sole dominion over an entire province while charting its own independent course, the value of the free meals scrounged from the Taewon Yul Family was frankly too meager to justify an act of vengeance.

That said, he had not the slightest intention of abandoning a vow of revenge once made.

'I was planning to stir up conflict in the martial world anyway, so it hardly matters.'

The Phantom Slaughter Sect — one of the central forces of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and a member of the Seven Houses of the Demonic Path.

To completely annihilate those sworn enemies, no amount of struggle on his own would suffice.

If there was any way at all, it was to ignite a great war between the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Central Plains, and in the ensuing chaos, erase the name of the Phantom Slaughter Sect from existence.

He had already drawn up a rough plan for that over the past year.

So the daunting name of the Sun and Moon Gate would, in the face of that cataclysmic upheaval, be nothing more than a single faction occupying one corner.

'Vengeance will come naturally in the process.'

Since this massacre would have occurred whether or not he had awakened in this body —

Yul Hwi drifted leisurely away from the burning estate, his conscience undisturbed.