Tak.

Tak.

A quiet room. The only sound in it was the weighty click of small Go stones coming down on a fiercely contested battlefield. To one side, steam curled up from a cup, carrying the fragrance of tea.

A peaceful hour, and Cheon Doyun — playing black and white by turns — was savoring every moment of it.

But that peace did not last long.

BANG!

The door was flung open roughly, and Gok Taejun burst in.

Cheon Doyun let out a sigh.

“What’s got you so worked up this time?”

Gok Taejun stamped his way across the room and dropped into the seat opposite him.

“I’ve every right to be worked up!”

Slap!

Gok Taejun threw a letter onto the Go board. After reading its contents, Cheon Doyun shook his head.

“And what of it. Tch. Over something this small.”

“What?! Small?! Damn it! If you’ve got eyes, use them properly and read it!! Seo Woojin, that bastard, stole the document proving the Jang Clan bought Red Damp Mountain!!”

“What value does that hunk of mountain have. If not for the Vein-Moistening Grass, your uncle wouldn’t have paid the sum he did for it.”

Gok Taejun beat at his own chest, exasperated.

“That’s exactly the problem! If Seo Woojin, that bastard, has touched it, he must be scheming something for the Baek Clan! Isn’t that what we should be stopping!! And getting ours back besides!”

Cheon Doyun clicked his tongue. With a view of things that short-sighted, no wonder the man’s uncle found him wanting.

Clatter.

Cheon Doyun dropped the stone in his hand back into its bowl. His voice came a shade colder now that his rare peaceful hour had been spoiled.

“Did I not tell you before. Whatever choice he makes, victory is ours.”

“For all that, you’re doing nothing at all!”

“Hmph. You don’t have to be doing something to be prepared.”

“What? What does that mean?”

Cheon Doyun raised his teacup and breathed in the fragrance. The gentle scent seemed to settle him, and only then did a small smile touch the corner of his mouth.

“Do you know the simplest way to strike at an enemy?”

“…?”

Cheon Doyun’s gaze turned to the Go board.

“Heh. It’s simple. Strike where his life-and-death lies. If the enemy doesn’t realize his breathing space is being sealed, that targeted move becomes a dagger. Yes. Just as when I drive your big group to the brink.”

Gok Taejun’s face said he still didn’t follow. But Cheon Doyun said nothing more.

He only sat quietly with his tea, savoring it, waiting on the tragedy that would soon reach his ears.

Ringiiing—!

Her ears went numb. A cold was spreading through her whole body. Her heartbeat slowed by degrees, and her mind went white.

Yes. Just like that day.

The day she had faced the truth everyone had been hushing.

[Young lady. This is the guest I told you about.]

He was an uncle she had always been close to. Everyone in the clan doted on her, but he more than any of them. And he had come to tell her that someone had asked to meet her.

She had no wish to meet a stranger, but the request came from him. So she had nodded, willingly enough.

She should not have. Or — since it was how she learned what danger the clan was in — had it been fortunate?

The man was a stranger. Every word that came from his mouth was a curse.

[Because of you, young lady, the Baek Clan stands on the edge of a cliff. Yes. It would not be strange for them to be annihilated tomorrow. In fact, the Alliance has already sent someone. To annihilate this Baek Clan!]

If she had not been sick. If she had not drained the family’s fortune. If her father had loved her a little less.

No. No — if she had never been born at all.

She spent days blaming herself. She resented the uncle who had brought that man to her. She stopped eating and drinking, and her frail body could not bear it — so once again she made her father and everyone else worry, and then blamed herself for that too.

The burden on her heart only grew. In the end, she had to choose.

[I’ll give you a chance to save your family. Kill the one the Alliance sent. Then everything will be resolved.]

She was not yet of age; he would not think to guard himself against her. And into a man off his guard, she could sink a hidden blade.

The stranger’s words were a sweet temptation. Harming another was not what frightened her. Losing her family by doing nothing frightened her far more.

So she had chosen. To stain her hands with blood. To kill that man, who had seemed so unfailingly kind. To go that far — to protect her family.

And the scene now in front of her had brought all of it down.

“Ah… aah…”

Thud.

Baek Soeun sank down where she stood, nothing but small broken sounds escaping her. The tears would not stop.

“Muk-yeong.”

Seo Woojin could not stand to watch her like that any longer. Reading his intent, Muk-yeong struck her sleep acupoint, laid her down where she had fallen, and turned to him.

When he moved to look at the wound, Seo Woojin brushed him off.

“Muk-yeong.”

“…”

“Save them.”

— It’s too late.

At that cold reply, Seo Woojin gritted his teeth. He wanted to shove Muk-yeong aside then and there and run for the ship himself.

“Change of orders. Find them. The ones who blew up the ship.”

Muk-yeong hesitated a moment, then went without argument. Seo Woojin watched him disappear, then turned back to Baek Soeun.

It stung.

Not the pain of the short sword buried in his abdomen. But his own stupidity in failing to notice Baek Soeun’s torment. His own complacency in thinking everything was perfect. His own arrogance in resting easy that things had been going smoothly.

“Th-that wound…”

Beside him Mun Seok started to say something, awkwardly, but none of it reached him. Seo Woojin saw only Baek Soeun.

“So this was it. What you had prepared.”

He had not known. That their malice would run this deep. That they would drag a child into a fight among adults. That malice of that kind does not choose who it falls on — he had not known.

The ignorance was an agony. He wanted, right then, to tear the suffocating weight of it open.

Grip.

Snap! Gushhh!

He seized the short sword by the hilt and yanked it out. Blood shot up like a fountain, but he paid it no mind.

Clatter.

He threw the short sword aside and stepped over to Baek Soeun.

The face of the girl weeping her apology would not leave him. What she must have felt, forced into a choice like that, he could not begin to guess. The despair of watching her family die in front of her, he could not measure at all.

Tap.

Belatedly, Seo Woojin struck a blood point to staunch the wound. As the bleeding slowed, his mind only went colder.

Seo Woojin turned his head and looked at Mun Seok.

“Find out where the Jang Clan warriors are now.”

“Th-that comes second — the wound first…”

Mun Seok was worried for Seo Woojin’s condition, but Seo Woojin’s face was cold.

“It’s an order.”

Mun Seok flinched, and found himself nodding before he knew it.

“U-understood.”

Once Mun Seok too had gone and he was alone, Seo Woojin closed his eyes.

“So. This was what I was missing.”

Never leave loose ends behind. He should not have forgotten Song Biryeong’s earlier lesson.

Etching this vile, bottomless malice deep into his heart —

Seo Woojin refined his killing intent.

They had found nothing.

They found signs that someone had loaded explosives onto the merchant vessel, but whoever it was had long since vanished. The Jang Clan warriors Mun Seok had chased had disappeared as though they had never been there.

From that point, Seo Woojin stopped thinking. He had no further use for justification or evidence.

He had been struck. He need only strike back — harder, and more cruelly.

He entrusted the unconscious Baek Soeun to Mun Seok. Then Seo Woojin and Muk-yeong headed straight for the Bonghwa Jang Clan. They ran without stopping and reached it quickly.

CRAAASH!

They smashed through the front gate and came in to find the Jang Clan’s warriors standing armed and waiting. The clan head — half-crippled, left that way by Seo Woojin himself — raised his voice.

“He — he actually came! That bastard I could chew up and still not be satisfied — he really did come!!”

That shout told him one more thing: they had known he would come. From start to finish, then, had he been dancing in the palm of their hand?

Heh.

It didn’t matter. Let them have predicted his movements. He meant to show them something larger than that.

Shrring. Chang.

Seo Woojin drew his sword and gave Muk-yeong an order.

“Cut down any who flee outside.”

Step. Step.

And without waiting for Muk-yeong’s reply, he moved forward.

“Kill him—!! No! No! Sever his limbs!! I will have his neck myself!!”

The clan head bellowed it loud enough to bring up blood.

And that, truly, grated on the ear.

Sh.

He lifted his right foot slightly.

BOOM!!

He stamped down.

WHOOOOSH!

In that instant Seo Woojin shot forward like a cannonball. Straight over the ranked Jang Clan warriors. In a single bound, to the clan head standing at the very rear.

SQUELCH!

Seo Woojin’s blunt sword punched through Clan Head Jang’s abdomen. Driven through on force alone — the pain of it must have been considerable.

“Kh, guhk… cough—!”

Sh!

He twisted his wrist.

“Ghhk… ghhrk…!”

The man could not even scream. His lung had been pierced. He could only spill out pained groans.

Only then did Seo Woojin slowly draw the sword out.

Snap! Gushhh!

Blood spurted up like a fountain.

Thud.

The Jang Clan’s head collapsed where he stood.

That was his end.

Drenched in blood, Seo Woojin slowly turned.

The warriors had lost their master with ludicrous ease, in the space of a moment. Every one of them stood dazed, as though unable to make sense of what they had seen.

A cold smile curved at Seo Woojin’s lips.

Yes. You lot were only pieces on the board yourselves. But what of it. You dared put a hand on those inside my fence. The price has to be paid.

Snap!

Seo Woojin sprang forward again. Only then did one of the Jang Clan warriors shout a warning.

“Da-damn it!! Get a hold of yourselves!! Avenge the Clan Head!! Kill him—!!”

“Uwaaaah!!”

They raised a war cry and charged.

Absurd, that rage — from men who had never had any bond between them to begin with.

He swung his sword at the first one to reach him.

Klang! Klaaang!

The man’s sword shattered and scattered in pieces.

“Wh…?!”

His shock did not get to run its course.

Thwuck!

As Seo Woojin passed him, he opened the man’s abdomen.

“Guhk—! Cough—!!”

The man vomited blood and died where he stood.

This was not like his previous visit. There was no reason now to be quiet or quick. Now he meant only to brand something into their souls.

The brand called terror.

Rumble. Rumble.

The storm sounded in Seo Woojin’s ears alone. As though it spoke for his rage, the true qi inside him turned more fiercely than usual.

“I’ll kill every last one of you.”

CRAAASH!

Seo Woojin charged again. Within the sweep of his blade flowed a storm that could destroy the world.

“Hoo, hoo…”

Seo Woojin’s breathing came ragged. Watching him, Muk-yeong felt something complicated turn over in his chest.

The Jang Clan’s faction had not been large. But it had swollen in strength of late, and in truth the clan had counted over two hundred warriors. All of them had been wiped out by a single man.

“Wiped out” was the right word for it. Somewhere in the middle, Seo Woojin’s fighting had turned into slaughter.

[Yes. I would put myself first before anyone else.]

Seo Woojin’s words came back to him.

Was what he had just done truly putting himself first? Set against his usual temperament, not in the least. Cutting down enemies while coated in their blood — if anything, he looked to be punishing himself.

But paradoxically, Muk-yeong felt it to be an act done for Seo Woojin’s own sake.

‘So indeed. You…’

He was a dangerous man. Which was exactly why Muk-yeong wanted to watch him more closely.

And if certainty ever came—

No. He was feeling it already.

He who followed orders and nothing else, who had never truly followed anyone — his heart was moving for the first time.

He who had been raised for the real one now wished to live for the false one.

“Muk-yeong.”

Seo Woojin called to him once he had his breath back. Muk-yeong went to him.

“Let’s go back. To the Alliance.”

At the utter exhaustion in Seo Woojin’s voice, Muk-yeong bowed his head.

‘Sir.’

Voicing his silent oath of fealty.

“You’ve come, Military Advisor?”

“Yes. There was some matter in Ningbo, I hear. Have the reports compiled and brought to my office.”

Woon Seorin gave her subordinate the order and hurried to her office.

She had heard the news belatedly from Cheongeum’s report. She had thought it a possibility — but that Cheon Doyun would actually go so far, she had not foreseen.

She had thought Seo Woojin, too, should have to face the tenacious, vicious malice of the dark path. That was why she had sworn not to help him.

But even for one as calm as him, the shock this time would be no small thing.

‘When he returns this time…’

She was still turning the thought over as she opened her office door — and a vile stench of blood struck her.

Woon Seorin turned her head. Someone was seated at her desk. The darkness lay thick, and she could not make out the face.

Woon Seorin slowly walked forward.

“It’s me.”

At the familiar voice, she could only stop in her tracks.

“Young… Master?”

The report from Ningbo had reached her at dawn — and here the man himself stood in front of her, which meant he had ridden all the way to Hangzhou without a moment’s rest.

“Are you all rig—”

Her worried question could not continue.

“There’s something I want to ask.”

Seo Woojin’s question came first. Woon Seorin made a low sound in her throat; there was something chilling in that dry, expressionless voice.

She sighed, and nodded.

“Ask.”

Sh.

He leaned forward, and part of his face came into the light. Dried blood was crusted thickly across it.

Seo Woojin’s dry lips slowly parted.

“Is this… is this the way of the dark path?”

The rage and revulsion in it came through with terrible clarity. Woon Seorin could not readily answer.

Perhaps he had not expected one. He spoke again.

“If this is the way of the dark path… then I too will have to show mine.”

“…Show what?”

“Seo Woojin’s way.”

Seo Woojin’s voice was calmer than ever. And colder than ever.

At the sight of him, so unfamiliar now, Woon Seorin had to regret her non-intervention — briefly, but she had to.

(End of Chapter 33)