Chapter 24

Jin Ja-gang’s heart was pounding so hard it felt like it might burst.

‘It’s over!’

He couldn’t beg them to pretend they hadn’t seen him. Of course, they wouldn’t agree to such a request.

But he didn’t want to be captured either. Being caught by Mang-ryo and experiencing that terrible torture again would be worse than death.

He had no regrets—he had done everything he could—but it felt unfair to die here after coming so far.

‘Think. Think.’

Though his heart was still pounding, Jin Ja-gang became surprisingly calm.

He turned and secretly handed over the Medicine King Sect’s secret manual, the Herbal Cultivation Method, to Yong-myeong.

Yong-myeong gave him a look warning him not to act rashly, but Jin Ja-gang had no choice.

Jin Ja-gang gritted his teeth. He tightly gripped his only weapon, the broken dish fragment. He drew poison to the tip of his little finger.

If not now, he might never get a proper chance to strike.

He would probably die with just one slash of their swords the moment he rushed at them.

‘Whew!’

Jin Ja-gang took a deep breath.

He planned to rush toward the two warriors at the back of the cart and the messenger, then escape into the nearby forest.

Great Desert Saber, who had just finished counting heads, spoke with disbelief:

“Why is there an extra head? Which one is it? Won’t you come out quickly?”

Now!

Just as Jin Ja-gang was about to leap out—

Suddenly, Yong-myeong grabbed Jin Ja-gang’s wrist. With a grave expression, Yong-myeong said to him:

“Treasure your life.”

“…!”

“Seeing that they’ve come all this way to find you, I can’t help but believe in you.”

Yong-myeong took the broken dish fragment from Jin Ja-gang’s hand. Then he used its sharp edge to cut the rope of the young man next to him.

The freed young man exchanged a solemn look with Yong-myeong. Then he implored Jin Ja-gang:

“Please take care of our Medicine King Sect.”

Before Jin Ja-gang could say anything, the young man abruptly stood up.

“Ah!”

Everyone’s attention turned to the young man.

He jumped onto the cart and leaped forward. The warriors rushed toward him, but it seemed they wouldn’t be able to stop him from jumping off the cliff.

“You b*st*rds! Just try to catch me!”

The young man shouted as he launched himself into the air.

At that moment, a chilling line appeared in the air, stretching from right in front of Jin Ja-gang all the way to the young man’s body.

It was a transparent, bluish, wide line that was so eerie to look at that he never wanted to see it again.

Whoosh.

Somehow, a large shadow had appeared in front of Jin Ja-gang, showing its back to him.

It was Great Desert Saber.

A powerful wind arose.

Jin Ja-gang’s breath caught in his throat.

‘When?’

He hadn’t even seen Great Desert Saber move.

This was on an entirely different level than Bloody Hand.

Arsenic normally causes numbness and inability to stand properly. At that time, Bloody Hand had even stopped his heart, making his body extremely sluggish. That’s why Jin Ja-gang hadn’t known how fast a true martial arts master could move.

But that wasn’t the important thing now.

The large shadow, Great Desert Saber, had already drawn his sword. His arm was fully extended to the right, and frost-like particles were forming on the blade.

The transparent line drawn in the air was the trace left by the frost-like substance on the sword.

The trace gradually disappeared, melting like snow.

Jin Ja-gang had never seen anything like this before.

“Sword energy!”

Someone from the Medicine King Sect whispered, revealing what it was.

Beautiful but terrifyingly powerful…

And what happened beyond it was unbelievable.

The head of the young man who had jumped toward the cliff was spinning in midair.

Spraying blood.

While his body was already falling down the cliff, flailing.

Shwik!

Following a sharp whistling sound, a throwing dagger with a string attached flew and embedded itself in the spinning head of the young man.

When Relentless Dagger pulled the string, the young man’s head was drawn into his hand as if being sucked in.

It all happened in an instant.

Almost in the blink of an eye.

Everyone was frozen by that cruel and overwhelming display of power.

Even Jin Ja-gang couldn’t think of moving. Or more precisely, he had been about to move but stopped in shock.

Relentless Dagger held the young man’s head in his hand, examining it from various angles.

The messenger stammered:

“But, if you kill him like that…”

Great Desert Saber licked the bloodstained blade with his tongue and replied:

“Then what am I supposed to do?”

Relentless Dagger frowned at the sight. Great Desert Saber had come to the Central Plains a few years ago after being a thief in the Great Desert. He still hadn’t shed his habits from his days as a bandit.

After licking both sides of his blade, Great Desert Saber grinned at Relentless Dagger, who was holding the young man’s head.

“Why did you bring that back?”

“Just to make sure it’s the right person.”

Relentless Dagger drew his dagger and tossed the head to the messenger.

“Check it.”

The messenger who caught the head was struck dumb. He didn’t know what to do.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know the face well either.”

Great Desert Saber snickered.

“Why bother checking? Of course it’s not him.”

Originally, the prisoners from the Medicine King Sect had looked indignant but were forcibly restraining themselves. The young man had died to save Jin Ja-gang, though it was more for the sake of the other Medicine King Sect members than for Jin Ja-gang himself.

But at Great Desert Saber’s last remark, everyone couldn’t hide their astonishment.

“Kee hee hee. Look at their faces! They’re wondering how I knew, aren’t they?”

Great Desert Saber jumped onto the cart and addressed the prisoners:

“You fools, do you think I’m stupid? Who in the world jumps off a cliff to escape? Huh? You deliberately jumped off the cliff to save the escapee. To buy time so we wouldn’t find the body later. Isn’t that right?”

Great Desert Saber tapped his own head with his finger in an almost mocking way.

“Use your head, use your head. I could just catch him and hand him over, but why are you trying to die a dog’s death by protecting him? If you’re going to die anyway after entering the tunnels, what’s the difference, right?”

The phrase “dog’s death” made the center of Jin Ja-gang’s chest feel as if it were being seared with charcoal.

“Escapee, come out. If you don’t, I’ll kill one person at a time until you do. This is no bluff.”

Great Desert Saber threatened, swinging his sword.

Until then, Jin Ja-gang hadn’t fully appreciated the young man’s sacrifice. He hadn’t particularly thought about saving the Medicine King Sect people, nor did he completely trust them.

But as the image of the young man overlapped with that of Gwak-o in his mind, his emotions suddenly surged.

Gwak-o had sold out Hundred Flower Valley for his own advancement, but this young man had purely sacrificed his life for the sake of the other Medicine King Sect members… Yet his noble sacrifice had just been dismissed as a “dog’s death” by Great Desert Saber.

Uncontrollable anger rose within him.

Crunch.

Jin Ja-gang bit his little finger.

If it was going to be difficult to escape alive anyway, he would take at least one person with him for the others!

But someone acted even faster than Jin Ja-gang.

“You murderers!”

An old man shouted at Great Desert Saber.

“Kill me too, you monster!”

He seemed to have some relationship with the dead young man, as he was shedding tears of blood.

“Oh? That’s convenient. I was just thinking of killing someone since the escapee hasn’t come out yet.”

Great Desert Saber smirked, then walked along the edge of the cart, grabbed the old man’s head, and lifted him up.

Then he mercilessly swung his sword right there. It was pure violence and slaughter directed at a helpless, weak person.

Slash!

“Aaaah!”

Blood splattered inside the narrow cart. The old man’s head and body rolled separately on the floor.

Because the Medicine King Sect people were tied in a row with ropes, they couldn’t avoid getting soaked with blood that poured from the old man.

Great Desert Saber stabbed his sword into the fallen body of the old man.

Thwack.

The sword pierced through the body and into the cart floor. Great Desert Saber then folded his arms as if to show off.

“Heh heh heh.”

The Medicine King Sect people were terrified, but some were angry.

“You evil b*st*rd!”

A few of the Medicine King Sect people tried to rush toward Great Desert Saber. But because of the binding ropes, they just tumbled around with those too scared to move. The inside of the cart became chaotic.

“Kee hee.”

Great Desert Saber pulled out his sword and leaped to the front of the cart, landing on the horse pulling it.

And he licked the blood caked on his blade even more slowly than before. Suddenly there was a faint sulfurous smell, but Great Desert Saber didn’t pay much attention to it.

“Escapee. Still not planning to come out?”

As he spoke, he kept flicking his tongue, which was unusually long for a normal person, making the sight all the more eerie and disgusting.

At that moment, Jin Ja-gang began to count.

“One.”

Then he looked at Yong-myeong and said:

“I’m going to kill him. I can’t do anything about the others.”

“What?”

“Two. If you’re going to escape, this is your last chance.”

Yong-myeong felt that Jin Ja-gang’s words were not false. He quickly relayed the message to the people beside him and secretly cut the ropes with the broken fragment.

“Three.”

Jin Ja-gang kept counting.

Great Desert Saber was looking around the carts front and back while speaking:

“Not coming out? Are you okay with all these people dying because of just one person?”

When no one responded, Great Desert Saber continued:

“Medicine King Sect fools! You’re all going to let your sect be wiped out because of someone who has nothing to do with you, and yet you all keep your mouths shut?”

“…Four.”

“You’ve brought this upon yourselves, so don’t blame this elder.”

“Five.”

“For the next one, I won’t kill cleanly—I’ll cut off limbs one by one.”

“…Six.”

“…”

Great Desert Saber stopped talking.

Someone was counting in a small voice.

“Seven.”

It was a voice without inflection, as if unconsciously reciting numbers.

“Who is it?”

“Eight.”

Great Desert Saber, feeling irritated, listened carefully. The sound was coming from the cart behind.

Because he had just beheaded the old man, everyone was soaked in blood. It was a bit difficult to distinguish individuals.

Among them, a boy was crouching with his head down, mumbling.

“Hey you, what do you think you’re doing?”

“Nine.”

Jin Ja-gang’s behavior was irritating Great Desert Saber.

In truth, he could have just leaped back and killed Jin Ja-gang right then and there. To all appearances, Jin Ja-gang was just a weak, small boy.

But there was a reason why Great Desert Saber had been asking the escapee, Jin Ja-gang, to reveal himself.

Though Great Desert Saber didn’t know Jin Ja-gang’s name, he was aware that this Jin Ja-gang had reduced Mang-ryo to a one-legged man, blinded his eye, and escaped to the Mixed Spring Ground.

Even Mang-ryo couldn’t be called a weakling. He was quite a skilled fighter in the Extreme Poison Sect.

Yet this boy had outmaneuvered him multiple times and even survived for a month in the Mixed Spring Ground. That would be impossible without some hidden ability.

Despite his seemingly uneducated appearance, Great Desert Saber was a shrewd man. He didn’t want to create a situation that might go wrong.

That’s why he kept trying to create a situation where the escapee would reveal himself.

But Jin Ja-gang provoked him even more.

“Ten.”