Chapter 132

Chapter 132: Blood is Thicker Than Water (1)

"Mmn!"

Muk Il-gwang let out a groan and opened his eyes.

His vision was blurred, and he could not focus. He blinked several times.

In that interval, his senses returned.

"Young Mistress!"

Muk Il-gwang shouted and sat bolt upright. His hands were already searching for his axes.

In that moment, a warm voice sounded from right beside him.

"I am fine, Il-gwang."

"Young Mistress!"

He turned his head to see Hwang Hye-ryeong crouching and gazing at him.

"Are you well, Young Mistress?"

"I am fine. But how are you, Il-gwang?"

"I…"

Muk Il-gwang's expression twisted as he was about to reply that he was well. He could feel that the energy channels throughout his body were tangled and blocked.

Though his body was sturdy enough that no bones were broken, his internal injuries were far from minor. At least someone had administered proper emergency treatment, so the condition would not worsen further.

"How… how did this happen?"

Muk Il-gwang looked bewildered, unable to comprehend what had transpired.

Hwang Hye-ryeong offered him a faint smile.

"Big Brother helped us."

"Big Brother? Then…"

"Yes!"

Hwang Hye-ryeong nodded and gazed outward.

Bright light was pouring through the entrance of a cave. They were inside.

At that moment, someone entered the cave.

"Oh, you're awake."

The one with the portly build and the kindly smile was none other than Bang Jin-bo. In his hands he held an enormous pot.

Inside the pot was a porridge of indeterminate ingredients.

"You looked quite badly hurt, so I made some restorative porridge."

"Thank you."

"Oh, it was no trouble at all!"

Bang Jin-bo set down the pot with an amiable smile.

"Where is Big Brother?"

"About that…"

Bang Jin-bo trailed off and looked toward the cave entrance.

"Nnngh!"

A groan leaked from between Gong So-chu's lips.

As though he had been dipped in a pool of blood, his entire body was stained red.

Gong So-chu was weeping. Yet he could not so much as move a single finger of his own volition. His entire body had been pulverized, as though struck hundreds or thousands of times by a massive hammer.

That he was still breathing at all in such a state felt nothing short of miraculous.

The previous night had been nothing short of a nightmare for Gong So-chu. And the one who had inflicted that nightmare was none other than Dam Ho.

'He is a demon.'

Shudder!

The mere thought of him caused him to wet himself.

His trousers were damp, but he felt no shame. Far worse than that was the fear.

The two characters of the name Dam Ho had been seared into his mind as pure terror.

Dam Ho had tortured him throughout the night.

First, he had crushed his fingers. Then his toes, and the number of shattered bones multiplied with alarming speed.

Pain aside, what truly drove him to the brink of madness was that despite such grievous injuries, he still clung to life. He wished he could simply die, but Dam Ho had taken some measure to ensure that he could not.

The hours of agony stretched on as if they would never end.

At first, he did not understand. Why Dam Ho was torturing him.

But after some time, he learned the truth.

He was the sole survivor of the village they had plundered. It had been Dam Ho who had bitten through a comrade's neck to kill him even then. That ghastly child had now returned as a monster.

He could not recall exactly what he had said. He had babbled endlessly, hoping that if he did so, Dam Ho might show him mercy.

After talking at length, he had briefly lost consciousness. And when he awakened, he found himself abandoned alone in this utterly foreign place.

'He just let me go?'

That was the only way to interpret his situation. And he earnestly wished it were true.

The problem was that he could not move under his own power. Far from crawling, he could not even move a single finger as he wished.

In this state, he was certain to become fodder for beasts.

'Kuh! My brother has been reduced to this, and what is that man doing about it?'

He cursed Gwak Geo-cheol, the Fan Master.

He had followed the man for twenty years. He had feigned death at his command. Risking his life to infiltrate the Martial Alliance warriors and incite them—all of it had been at Gwak Geo-cheol's order.

While he was cursing Gwak Geo-cheol thus,

"So-chu!"

A familiar voice suddenly rang out.

In that instant, tears welled in his eyes. It was the voice he had dreamed of.

"F-Fan Master?"

Gwak Geo-cheol stood before him as though in a dream.

Gwak Geo-cheol and his subordinates had hurried over.

"So-chu, is that you?"

"Y-yes!"

Gong So-chu answered with tears streaming down his face and a nod.

"What happened?"

Gwak Geo-cheol asked, but Gong So-chu could not reply. His jaw had been shattered.

After Gong So-chu was abducted by Dam Ho, Gwak Geo-cheol had carefully tracked him with his subordinates. Unlike Gong So-chu, Gwak Geo-cheol had kept his distance from the battlefield.

He feared his distinctive appearance would give him away.

He had sent only Gong So-chu, but he had not been worried. Gong So-chu was quick-witted and had good judgment, so he expected there would be little danger.

The dim-witted warriors of the Martial Alliance had fallen easily to mere incitement. Gwak Geo-cheol had sneered at them, calling them fools.

But then Dam Ho appeared, and everything changed.

Dam Ho was unlike any figure Gwak Geo-cheol had ever known.

In all his years, Gwak Geo-cheol had never seen a martial artist as terrifying and overwhelming as Dam Ho.

He too was a being who lived in the Murim.

He had seen countless powerful martial artists.

Among them were supreme masters who shook the very foundations of the Murim. In terms of pure martial prowess, they might have surpassed Dam Ho.

Yet in Dam Ho there existed a primal fear that was absent in all of them.

Ferocity and cold-blooded madness.

Those were the qualities that set Dam Ho apart from other martial artists. And Dam Ho knew how to employ both to perfection.

'Who would have thought such an anomaly existed among the righteous sects, where saving face is all they know?'

Dam Ho was a monster beyond the comprehension of Gwak Geo-cheol's common sense. And that monster had abducted Gong So-chu.

Though he had used Gong So-chu to incite the Martial Alliance warriors, Gong So-chu was not important enough to warrant such effort in abduction.

'Where on earth did he take So-chu?'

If it had been someone other than Dam Ho who took Gong So-chu, he would not have cared so much. But when a figure with the power to influence the entire Murim was involved, the story changed.

If handled carelessly, it could even have repercussions for the Greenwood Alliance.

For that reason, Gwak Geo-cheol had been carefully tracking Dam Ho's movements, taking every precaution to avoid detection.

And then, unexpectedly, Gong So-chu had appeared before him—reduced to a wreck unable to speak or move a single finger of his own volition.

Why?

While that question turned in his mind,

"So you did come after all."

A strange voice suddenly echoed in his ear.

The instant he heard that toneless, emotionless voice, every hair on Gwak Geo-cheol's body stood on end.

"Who goes there?"

He spun around quickly. There, atop a large boulder not far away, sat a solitary figure.

The man was clad entirely in black. Through his disheveled hair, dark eyes flickered with an unsettling light that sent chills down his spine.

"Gah!"

Gwak Geo-cheol recognized the man at once.

How could he not? This was the man who had caused a bloodbath in Akyang.

It was Dam Ho.

Dam Ho rose from the boulder.

"You are Gwak Geo-cheol, the Fan Master of the Black Water Banner, correct?"

"How did you—"

Gwak Geo-cheol blurted out the response without thinking, then glared at Gong So-chu. He assumed Gong So-chu had revealed the information.

Gong So-chu could offer no defense. The mere sight of Dam Ho had paralyzed his reason.

He suddenly recalled the events of the previous night.

The terror he had forgotten surged back to life, and his heart hammered wildly.

Tremble! Tremble!

His entire body shook as though struck by a gale.

"G-guh!"

Froth bubbling at his lips, Gong So-chu's movements ceased abruptly. His heart, unable to withstand the fear, had stopped.

Gong So-chu died with his eyes still open. His unseeing gaze, the whites of his eyes exposed to the void, was enough to send a chill through the Greenwood warriors who had tracked them here.

"Kuh! So-chu was the bait?"

Gwak Geo-cheol's face twisted with shock. Possessed of a keen mind, he quickly deduced the truth. And his deduction was correct.

Gong So-chu was Dam Ho's bait, lured to draw out Gwak Geo-cheol and his subordinates.

Though he could not remember it, Gong So-chu had revealed more than one might expect. The relationship between Jo Yun-san and Gwak Geo-cheol, and the reason they had come to Akyang.

Dam Ho descended from the boulder. Gwak Geo-cheol and his men instinctively recoiled.

As they retreated, Dam Ho advanced.

He was still limping. Yet not a single person present could laugh at the sight. No—they could not laugh.

A maddening terror gripped them, as though they were cattle being led to the slaughter. A sensation unlike anything they had ever experienced before made their bodies tremble like aspen leaves.

Only Gwak Geo-cheol gritted his teeth and prepared to resist.

Dam Ho spoke.

"Why?"

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"Why do you pursue that child so relentlessly?"

Dam Ho's eyes glinted coldly.

In that instant, Gwak Geo-cheol felt as though a sharp blade had been driven into his chest. His heart seemed to plummet.

"Kuh!"

Gwak Geo-cheol retreated hastily, glancing around.

His subordinates, who were usually so dependable, were now frozen with fear, trembling like strays.

Gwak Geo-cheol shouted.

"What are you doing? Stop him at once!"

"But…"

"Stop him now! If you don't stop him, we're all dead anyway!"

"D-damn it!"

Only then did his subordinates grasp the reality of the situation. They seized their weapons and charged at Dam Ho.

"Yaaah!"

"Get him!"

As his men shouted and lunged at Dam Ho, Gwak Geo-cheol quickly turned and fled.

'Damn it! The plan to use the Martial Alliance to eliminate that wretched girl has failed. With that monster guarding her, how could we possibly kill her?'

Gwak Geo-cheol cursed the fact that he had only two legs and could not run any faster.

Boom! Boom!

Thunderous impacts roared from behind him.

He did not even hear screams. Yet he knew instinctively—the subordinates he had used as shields were all dead.

Whoosh!

A powerful gust of wind pressed against his back.

"Aaargh!"

Gwak Geo-cheol screamed and spun around, swinging his weapon in a frenzy.

Whoosh!

The Langya Blade cleaved through the air horizontally. Yet he felt no resistance in his hand.

"Damn it!"

In the instant Gwak Geo-cheol cursed, his neck was seized.

A crushing grip constricted around his throat so tightly that he could not breathe, and his mouth gaped open of its own accord.

Crack!

In that moment, Dam Ho's fist drove into Gwak Geo-cheol's side. Gwak Geo-cheol vomited a mouthful of blood.

His ribs shattered like crackers.

The excruciating agony—the worst he had ever known—forced him to collapse.

"Nngh!"

He had plundered countless lives and inflicted untold suffering on others, yet Gwak Geo-cheol had never once faced a direct threat to his own life.

"Nnngh! N-no!"

As Gwak Geo-cheol wept and crawled along the ground, Dam Ho's right foot descended upon his leg.

Crack!

"Yaaah!"

Gwak Geo-cheol's agonized scream rang out. His leg hung limp, broken.

He raised his head to find Dam Ho looking down at him.

"Why?"