Before Go Jin’s conversation with the Blood Trace Division leader had even ended, the escort guards’ voices rang out.
“What? It’s over already?”
“Aw! We should’ve gone easier on them.”
Their voices were full of disappointment.
Around them lay their unconscious subordinates, sprawled across the ground.
“W-What is this...?”
Black Blood Gate was one of the Central Plains’ three great assassin organizations, yet every single one of them had been subdued without a single death.
It was impossible to believe.
They had even seemed careful not to let anyone fall from the cliffside plank road.
Was something like that even possible?
“What’s wrong? You can’t believe the mighty Black Blood Gate was subdued by mere escort guards?”
“W-We aren’t Black Blood Gate!”
“You are, though. So, what will you do?”
“W-What do you mean?”
“Do you want to pass out like them? Or will you come quietly?”
That single remark struck at the Blood Trace Division leader’s pride.
“Shut up! I’ll kill you, then kill every one of those bastards over there!”
His pride wounded, the Blood Trace Division leader charged Go Jin while releasing tremendous killing intent.
“Dark Blood Gale!”
CLANG— CLANG—.
Every time the Blood Trace Division leader swung his daggers, deep sword marks were carved into the cliff face.
“What a spectacle. What kind of assassin learns such flashy martial arts?”
“Shut up!”
WHOOSH—.
The Blood Trace Division leader’s daggers flew at Go Jin again and again, but not one struck him properly.
“You rat bastard! Damn it!”
Perhaps because every attack had been avoided, his face turned red with frustration.
“Your movements are too simple.”
“Shut up!”
Furious, the Blood Trace Division leader drew up his inner qi and prepared a decisive blow.
That was when—
“You can’t do that.”
Go Jin’s figure blurred. In an instant, he appeared before the Blood Trace Division leader and drove an elbow into his solar plexus.
WHUMP—.
“URK!”
The sudden strike came while he was gathering inner qi.
His qi and blood twisted out of order. He vomited blood and collapsed to the ground in agony.
Go Jin muttered,
“No. If you launched something like that, this whole place would be blown away.”
The Blood Trace Division leader stared at Go Jin in disbelief.
“W-What are you? An escort captain can’t possibly be this strong.”
“An escort captain should be strong. How else would he protect the cargo? Right?”
At Go Jin’s words, the Blood Trace Division leader’s eyes darted around.
He was looking for an escape route.
The escort captain was strong.
Even if he could somehow deal with that man, the escort guards behind him were another problem.
He could not fight them after exhausting himself against the escort captain.
The problem was that they were on a cliffside plank road.
Every route was blocked.
That left only one direction.
He looked down.
Far below, a bottomless ravine could be seen through the gaps in the plank road.
Could he survive?
Still, there was a chance.
He was not doing this merely to save his own life.
He had to deliver information about the True Martial Merchant Company to the Gate Master.
Having made up his mind, the Blood Trace Division leader threw himself off the cliff without hesitation.
No matter how skilled they were at lightness arts, they could not pursue him down a cliff like this.
The rest was up to heaven.
It did not matter if he failed to survive.
Being captured and humiliated by those people would be worse.
As he fell, he saw their expressions.
Strangely, they were all calm.
Almost as though they had expected this.
Now that he had jumped, he had no room to care about them.
He had to focus everything on surviving.
WHOOOOOSH—.
Feeling the powerful wind rising from below, he struggled to shift his body toward the river visible in the distance.
Just as he neared it—
A young man stood there with his arms spread wide.
He looked as though he had been waiting to catch him.
No way.
It can’t be.
The thought had barely formed when his body dropped into the young man’s arms.
Strangely, his falling speed slowed before he touched him.
It felt as though invisible hands had wrapped around him.
“I knew you’d jump.”
At those words, the Blood Trace Division leader immediately sprang away from the young man and asked with wary eyes,
“Y-You, who are you?”
“Me? I’m Jeok Wigang, Merchant Master of the True Martial Merchant Company. Who are you?”
“...I can’t tell you.”
“Come on. I told you who I am. It isn’t fair if you refuse to tell me.”
What was this?
More importantly, the Merchant Master?
He had heard that the True Martial Merchant Company’s Merchant Master was an older man.
Wait. Jeok?
These people must have driven out the previous Merchant Master and seated someone from their own family in his place.
He had heard the True Martial Sect was fair and upright.
They were all the same.
Still, what did it matter?
The young man did not look particularly strong, and he had never even heard the name Jeok Wigang.
No reputation meant no ability.
If he took this man hostage, perhaps he could make up for his failure.
“Do you take me for a fool? Or are others hiding nearby?”
“No. I’m the only one here.”
“Arrogance?”
“Not arrogance. Strength.”
Just as expected of some pampered young master.
He seemed like the sort who had spent his entire life surrounded by people bowing and scraping, never learning to fear the world.
With a cold expression that made it clear he had no intention of talking further, the Blood Trace Division leader vanished, leaving an afterimage behind.
WHOOSH—.
The sound of wind splitting reached his ears.
The Merchant Master stood there without noticing the dagger flying toward him at all.
The Blood Trace Division leader smirked.
So his claims of strength had only been bluster.
He would place a dagger at this man’s throat, make him understand the clear difference in their abilities, take him hostage, and demand that they throw all the merchant company’s goods off the cliff and release his men.
PA-PAT—.
With a dagger held to the Merchant Master’s throat, the Blood Trace Division leader grinned and spoke in a low voice.
“You said you were strong, but I took your back far too easily. Didn’t I?”
“I wasn’t taken. I just stood still.”
“What?”
“You came back to me on your own. Why would I bother moving?”
“You do not seem to understand the situation. From now on, you are a hostage.”
“It’s the other way around. You’re the hostage.”
He was dumbfounded.
He was the one holding the dagger. What gave this man the confidence to act so boldly?
He found himself curious about the source of that confidence.
“Do you have something to rely on? Or have you given up on life?”
“The only thing I rely on is myself. And I would never give up on life.”
The Blood Trace Division leader pressed the dagger to Jeok Wigang’s throat.
Once pain set in, he would understand the seriousness of the situation.
He lightly cut Jeok Wigang’s neck with enough force to frighten him.
SCRAPE—.
Huh?
That did not feel like cutting flesh.
It felt as though he were scraping a dagger across thick hide.
Thinking he had struck the wrong angle, he tried again.
The result was the same.
He checked Jeok Wigang’s neck.
There was not even a scratch.
Wondering whether the blade had been damaged, he brushed it lightly with his finger.
Pain shot through him, and blood ran from his fingertip.
Of course.
He had carefully maintained the blade before coming here. There was no chance it had dulled.
Then what was this man?
Had he mastered some kind of body-hardening art?
Was that why he had been so confident?
“What? Is something not working?”
At Jeok Wigang’s words, the Blood Trace Division leader gave a scornful laugh.
“It seems you learned some passable body-hardening art somewhere and became full of yourself, but you are mistaken. If I infuse the blade with qi like this, no body-hardening art can withstand—”
SCRAPE—.
The dagger still would not pierce his skin.
He poured more qi into it.
Blade qi became blade aura.
Even then, the skin remained unmarked.
In that instant, the Blood Trace Division leader realized something had gone terribly wrong.
He quickly tried to retreat.
CLACK—.
He was caught.
“Where are you going? You can’t just leave.”
“Let me go!”
He swung his dagger with all his strength, intending to cut off the arm holding him.
CLANG!
“HNGH!”
Instead, the dagger bounced away, and his qi and blood went out of order.
He struggled to free his arm, but no matter how hard he tried, it would not budge.
A body that even blade aura could not pierce, coupled with monstrous strength.
How could someone like this have no name known to the world?
“I told you. I’m strong.”
The Blood Trace Division leader nodded before he could stop himself.
“All right, then. Shall we have a frank conversation?”
He could never allow that.
If he could not cut off the other man’s arm—
Thuk.
He could cut off his own.
The Blood Trace Division leader severed his own arm, quickly sealed the pressure points to stop the bleeding, then gathered all his inner qi into his legs and launched himself away with lightness arts.
Even within Black Blood Gate, he was confident that not even the Gate Master could beat him in lightness arts.
He was certain no one could catch him.
But then—
“I don’t need this, but I should bring it with me.”
At the sudden voice, he turned his head.
Jeok Wigang was running beside him with a grin, carrying his severed arm.
“Are you going to cut off your other arm too? Ah! You only have one arm left, so you can’t. Then if I grab your leg, will you cut off your leg?”
This lunatic?
Surely not?
He isn’t actually going to grab my leg, is he?
The moment that thought crossed his mind—
CLACK—.
CRASH, THUD, RATTLE—.
His ankle was suddenly seized, and he pitched forward.
The heavy impact against his face left his mind reeling.
“HNGH!”
It felt as though he had been possessed by a ghost.
How had this man caught up to him?
When he came to his senses, his ankle was tightly gripped.
The lunatic was watching him with eyes full of curiosity, clearly waiting to see whether he would truly cut off his leg.
Tears welled up in his eyes.
“Why are you crying? You cut off your own arm, and now you’re crying because you fell over?”
“I’m not!”
“You denied it pretty strongly. So I was right.”
“I’m not, you lunatic. You’re watching to see whether I’ll cut off my leg.”
“You catch on quickly. So? Are you going to cut it off or not?”
He swore he would never do what that bastard wanted.
Now, only suicide remained.
He moved his tongue to retrieve the poison pill wedged between his molars.
Like prying a piece of meat from between his teeth, he kept flicking his tongue until he finally dislodged it.
Once the thing stuck between his teeth came free, he felt refreshed.
His final pleasure before death.
CRUNCH—.
He bit down with all his strength, shattering the poison pill as hard as stone.
Sweetness filled his mouth, followed by dizziness.
Even poison had been made sweet for his final journey.
“D-Damn you... You will never get what you want from me...”
With those final words, he lost consciousness.
*****
“Ugh!”
The Blood Trace Division leader clutched his aching head and sat up.
Then he slowly opened his tightly shut eyes and looked around.
“Huh?”
The surroundings were familiar.
And—
“You’re awake?”
That familiar bastard stood before him.
What was this?
He had clearly bitten down on the poison pill and died.
He could not make sense of the situation.
More astonishingly, the arm he had cut off with his own hand was now attached and perfectly intact.
Had he truly been possessed by a ghost?
He searched for the poison pill, but it was nowhere to be found.
As the Blood Trace Division leader sat there in confusion, Jeok Wigang spoke.
“I detoxified the poison and reattached your arm.”
They were words he could clearly understand, yet they made no sense.
He could accept that the poison had been detoxified.
But reattached his arm?
If it had been reattached, there should have been some trace of treatment.
There was none at all.
“What? You doubt it because there’s no sign of treatment?”
He was frighteningly perceptive.
Is he really a ghost?
That suspicion rose in his mind.
“If you doubt it, cut it off again. I’ll reattach it exactly as it was.”
Lunatic.
“What? You can’t do it twice? Want me to do it for you?”
The lunatic lifted a dagger as he spoke.
Was he serious?
Had he really reattached the arm without leaving even a wound?