A space laid over in pitch darkness.

How long had he been shut up in here?

How much longer did he have to be?

Would his father come to save him?

What in the world was Cheon Doyun doing?

How long had it been since he had been tied to this chair, unable to move at all?

He could not begin to guess.

It was simply a pain that felt like an eternity.

When in his life had he ever felt pain like this?

They had not even applied any special interrogation. They had only kept him from sleeping and given him not a mouthful of water.

But that unspecial interrogation was breaking Gok Taejun down.

At the moment when, groaning under the pain, he lost to sleep at last and let his head drop.

Shhwaaack!

A cold stream of water snapped him awake.

Only in that moment could he wet his mouth even a little.

“Haah, haah…”

Gok Taejun murmured in a voice with no strength in it.

“Just… just kill me… you bastards… I’ve already told you everything I know…!”

He did not know who he was saying it to. So he expected no answer.

It was only something he said out of habit by now.

But an answer came back.

“Would you like to rest?”

A beautiful woman’s voice came from directly in front of him.

Whoosh!

In that moment.

A lamp was lit, and the darkness was pushed back.

Gok Taejun narrowed his eyes and barely managed to look ahead of him.

It was a face he knew.

“You…”

The woman seated across from Gok Taejun.

Woon Seorin gave a small nod.

“That’s a relief. Your faculties don’t seem to have gone yet.”

Clatter!

Gok Taejun jerked in agitation, but the Cheongeum Envoy who had been watching him all this while held him down.

“I’ll kill you!! If I get out of here I’ll kill you and every one of them!!”

But his mouth was free, so he poured curses out as he liked.

Woon Seorin did not bat an eye, of course.

“Listen carefully. If you want to go home alive, you have to give me the answers I want.”

“Damn it!! I’ve told you everything already!!”

“No. That’s for me to judge.”

Woon Seorin drew a bowl that stood to one side toward her.

“If you cooperate, water as your reward.”

He looked ready to start cursing again on the instant, but Gok Taejun closed his mouth.

Because his eyes were already unable to leave the bowl.

Woon Seorin gave a small nod and got out paper, brush and ink.

“Then let’s start by confirming the businesses the Gok Clan holds.”

It was the same for Woon Seorin.

She was not fighting on the same field as the Four Black Dragons.

But she too was building her fighting spirit up to save Yoo Geonwoo.

To put a dagger into the Gok Clan’s heart.

The hour was the Hour of the Dragon.

Two shichen before Yoo Geonwoo’s execution.

The three of the Four Black Dragons were gathered somewhere a little apart from the Gok Clan’s compound.

Muk-yeong had a paper spread out and was checking something, and the other two kept watch.

And after a moment.

Muk-yeong snapped his fingers and called the two of them over.

When Song Biryeong and Bae Seokjin came, Muk-yeong pointed at a well.

It was a dry well nobody used any longer.

Bae Seokjin looked over the paper Muk-yeong handed him.

Drawn on it was a structure as complicated as a maze.

[I got the design plans for the Gok Clan’s compound through the Cho Clan. And this passage is something the Cho Clan built. Yes — the compound is in fact something the Cho Clan sold to the Gok Clan.]

Bae Seokjin recalled Woon Seorin’s words and nodded.

“This looks like the place.”

Bae Seokjin looked down into the well and then at Muk-yeong.

“Biryeong and I will go first. Muk-yeong, watch the compound and support us.”

Muk-yeong nodded and moved at once.

Bae Seokjin and Song Biryeong threw themselves into the well without hesitating either.

Shhk! Tak!

When they landed at the bottom of the well, everything around them was dark.

Song Biryeong lit the torch she had brought, and only then did the space inside show itself clearly.

“Mm.”

Bae Seokjin made a low sound of admiration.

He had expected a rough tunnel, but it was better maintained than he had thought.

The Cho Clan had presumably taken care with it because it had originally been meant as their own secret passage.

The two of them went forward without speaking.

How far did they go like that?

“Chief. Go right from here and it’s the cells.”

The path forked in two.

One way went to the Clan Head’s office and the other to the cells.

[Clan Head Gok will be away. Because we’re going to leave a trace of Gok Taejun on purpose. Of course he may think it’s a trap and a lure, but he won’t be able to ignore it. If the trace is real it’s a perfect opportunity. So Clan Head Gok will lead his best men after that trace himself. And that’s the gap we take.]

Seo Woojin’s instructions came back to him.

A tiger’s den with the beast away.

But the wolves the beast keeps would certainly be waiting.

Bae Seokjin looked at Song Biryeong.

“I’ll take the Clan Head’s office. You save Geonwoo.”

Song Biryeong nodded without a word of argument.

Before the operation began she had let her unease show, but now that it had begun she showed no wavering at all.

Above all because she trusted Bae Seokjin.

Song Biryeong turned right and said,

“I’ll bring the troublemaker back, so hold out a while. And don’t get hurt.”

Bae Seokjin smirked as well and went on ahead.

“Who alive could hurt the Iron Dragon.”

Clank.

The chain in his hand let out a rough cry, as though it were speaking for him.

When Bae Seokjin came to a dead end, he felt along the wall.

Something caught, and when he pressed it the inside of the passage began to ring.

Rrrrumble.

And the wall gradually pushed back.

Thud!

Beyond the wall, now pushed fully aside, was a lavish room.

Porcelain of every kind and paintings decorated it.

Rrrrumble. Thud!

When Bae Seokjin stepped out, the thing he had taken for a wall — a bookcase — returned to its place.

‘Does Clan Head Gok know about that passage?’

Probably not. The Cho Clan would hardly hand over information like that.

Bae Seokjin let out a small sigh and went toward the window.

Just as he had confirmed earlier, the number of warriors inside the Gok Clan was not large.

Which meant fewer than usual, of course.

The minimum force needed to guard a compound this size would easily clear several dozen.

Click.

Bae Seokjin opened the window.

And threw himself straight out of it.

Whip—! Thump!

“Wh-what!”

A warrior happened to be passing below, and he gave a violent start at Bae Seokjin dropping in front of him.

Bae Seokjin glanced at him and spoke.

“A pity.”

“What…?”

The warrior had no time to have his question answered.

Shhk!

The sickle on the left end of the meteor hammer was drawn across in one stroke.

Pshht!

Blood shot from his neck and the warrior staggered.

“Kuh, kuhk!”

Did he want to say something? Or to shout a warning?

Unfortunately, he did not manage either.

Thud!

Because he fell backward and had to become a cold corpse.

“Hm? What’s this. Why are you—”

Another warrior coming from farther off frowned and started to ask.

“Hah!”

Shhing—!

And then he took in the comrade who had fallen spraying blood, and the stranger.

He drew his saber and leveled it at Bae Seokjin.

Wheeee—!!

And unlike the man before him, he made no mistake. He pursed his lips at once and blew a whistle.

Gok Clan warriors came swarming toward Bae Seokjin in a moment.

Bae Seokjin did not wait for enough of them to gather.

He put his right hand out toward the enemy who had given the signal.

Shhhhhhhk!

The meteor hammer stretched out straight with a terrible tearing of air.

THWACK—!!

The head on the end of it smashed the warrior’s skull in one stroke.

“You—!!”

“We’re under attack!! Everyone, on me!!”

The other enemies charged, going for Bae Seokjin’s back.

Bae Seokjin drew the chain in and turned his body.

The hammer cut a wide circle through the air, and the enemies pulled up short and raised their sabers.

Tik! Ting!

A small admiration showed in Bae Seokjin’s eyes.

Both of them had turned their sabers and let the hammer slide smoothly off.

Which meant they were not just anybody.

It seemed, as Seo Woojin had said, that experts had been left behind.

Bae Seokjin drew the chain in again to gather the hammer, which had lost its path.

In that time the two men charged again, and enemies came from another direction as well.

Among them were men whose sabers wavered with a bluish saber-energy.

“Hup—!”

Bae Seokjin held his breath and spun the chain fast.

The hammer’s speed climbed, and a raging gale began to rise around him.

Shhhhhhhhhk!

With a skin-crawling sound, Bae Seokjin hid himself inside the curtain the hammer had made.

The Iron Chain Gale Art. Raging Gale Wild Dance.

The technique best suited to facing many enemies at once.

Right now it was a technique for defense.

“Kuh!!”

The enemies, who had been running in without hesitating, faltered and had to stop.

They simply could not find the courage to go inside that spinning hammer.

And that was their fatal mistake.

Shhk!

Out of the rough gale.

A very small tearing of air was heard.

And.

Shk.

Pshht!

The neck of the nearest enemy was cut.

That was the beginning.

Something kept flying out of the hammer’s curtain, and without fail it took something off an enemy.

With luck it was one of their limbs, and without luck it was a neck.

The Iron Chain Gale Art. Soundless Shadow Kill.

Inside the curtain of the whirling gale.

The sickle, hidden by the hammer’s path, wandered the air without a sound.

Like a soundless assassin walking across empty space.

“F-fall back—!!”

“Get out of its range!!”

Only after several of them had been taken did the enemies pull well back.

Whirrrl! Thud!

Tak!

Only then did the hammer stop spinning and drop to the ground, and the sickle he had thrown came back once more, this time having cut nothing.

He could feel the enemy wavering.

That one attack had put more than ten of them out of the fight.

And the man who had made the carnage was unbothered by it, which made it more ghastly still.

Bae Seokjin ran his eyes once over the enemies who had pulled back and shook his head.

“Not enough.”

“…?”

What was not enough?

The question was answered soon enough.

“You alone aren’t enough to stop me. Unless you bring more, you’ll be wiped out.”

It was a remark aimed at their pride.

But it did not seem to be wrong. In the end the man who looked to be the Gok warriors’ leader gave an order.

“Kuh. Go at once and bring three of the Overlord Guard!”

The moment the order fell, one warrior moved off somewhere in a hurry.

Bae Seokjin took one look at the man’s back as he went, and a smile settled at his mouth.

The Overlord Guard are the Tyrant Blade Gok Clan’s elite.

Following the clan head and nobody else.

A powerful organization made up entirely of experts at the pinnacle realm and above.

If Cheon Doyun or Gok Taejun had arranged the defense of this place, he had expected some of the Overlord Guard would certainly have been left.

And as expected, three of them were inside the Gok Clan.

“Hoo.”

Bae Seokjin breathed out and took a firm grip on the meteor hammer.

This was enough.

If he drew their attention here as well, it would go that much easier for Song Biryeong to get Yoo Geonwoo out.

“Then let’s keep going.”

Killing intent settled inside the faint smile.

Bae Seokjin’s hammer let out its cry again.

Muk-yeong made himself ignore the commotion he could hear in the distance.

His task was clear.

Muk-yeong went straight to the stables.

Inside a long, narrow building.

Stalls stood in rows along both sides.

A horse was tied in each stall, and as expected only a few were to be seen.

Gok Cheonmu had presumably taken them out with his best men.

Not even horses, sensitive as they are, noticed Muk-yeong’s presence.

They were each eating their fodder at their ease.

Muk-yeong went into the first stall without a sound.

The short blade cut the halter through in one stroke.

Hiiiiiigh—!

The horse realized something was wrong too late, and Muk-yeong was already at the next stall.

Having cut every horse’s halter that way, he threw the stable door wide open.

He struck the nearest horse hard on the rump with the handle of the short blade.

Thwack!

That was the beginning.

Thudududud—!

Hiiiiiigh!

The horses bolted outside in a rush, panicked.

Muk-yeong took out the fire-paper he had prepared and lit it.

And threw it into the bin where the fodder was kept. He took down the torch on the stable wall as well and set fires here and there.

A moment later.

The stables were swallowed by fire in an instant.

The horses had lost their home in a moment.

Muk-yeong did not stop there.

He moved around with the torch in his hand, setting fire to the halls.

Perhaps a fire-preventing compound had been applied when the halls were built, because the fire did not catch and spread the way he had expected.

But it was enough.

To draw the enemy’s eyes.

“Fire—!!”

“Fire!!”

Muk-yeong nodded slightly, satisfied.

It was certainly a commotion loud enough to hear.

In that time Muk-yeong headed elsewhere.

How many times had he done something to draw the enemy’s attention that way?

“Tch. A fire started at the back so I came, and it’s a brat.”

Just as he was about to set fire to a prettily kept flower bed, an unfamiliar voice came from behind him.

Muk-yeong stopped what he was doing and turned slowly.

“Hah? It’s really one of the Four Black Dragons?”

He was a middle-aged man.

The scars cut across his cheek and above his eyebrow seemed to show how rough his life had been.

“Hah. Of all of them I get the mute. I’d have liked to go up against the Iron Dragon if I had the choice. Should I have gone that way after all.”

The man muttered to himself and then slowly drew his saber.

“Whichever it is, let’s get it over with quickly.”

Whoosh!

Shhhhhhhk!

He closed like a bolt of lightning and cut across.

Whip!

But what he cut was nothing but air.

Muk-yeong had already come around behind him.

Surprise showed in the man’s eyes for a moment, and then a short laugh escaped him.

“Right. One of the Four Black Dragons, for what it’s worth.”

Whip!

The man swept his saber once and smiled.

“I’ve been curious for a long time. What’s so fine about you Black Dragon Guard bastards. However I look at it, our Overlord Guard seemed better.”

“…”

“Yeophon of the Overlord Guard. When the King of Hell asks why you died, tell him this old man cut you down.”

Yeophon’s air changed.

And he charged again, that much more savage and that much faster.

Muk-yeong took a short blade in each hand and met him.

CRAAASH!

The two of them collided and the fight began.

Drip. Drip.

Somewhere the sound of water falling rang out.

The sound ought to have grated, but right now it did not at all.

Yoo Geonwoo, covered in blood, bared blood-stained teeth and smiled.

“Hey, you came?”

There was no strength in his voice. Even so, that ease of his was still there.

Standing in front of him, Song Biryeong wore the same smile.

(End of Chapter 60)