Outside Steel-Glory Trading Company.
In the darkness, assassins were gathered, watching Steel-Glory Trading Company.
— It’s not even some noble martial clan. Can’t believe we mobilized all of Nameless Hall’s special-grade assassins just to wipe out a single trading company.
— When does the operation start again?
— Once they grab the Trading Company Master, they’ll send the signal.
— What the hell are the advance team doing? They need to move their asses.
— Maybe they’re still waiting for the right moment. It’s still early in the night.
The assassins blended into the dark, not even letting out the sound of their breathing.
— This won’t do. I’m going in myself.
— Why?
— There’s no way this should be taking this long. Something’s happened.
— Hm.
— I’ll go in first, take care of the Trading Company Master, and send the signal right away.
— I’m coming too.
— Fine. The rest of you wait for the signal.
*****
Something rippled through the darkness, moving slowly.
They were assassins dressed head-to-toe in perfect black.
Yu Munchang came into their view.
— That one there is the Master of Steel-Glory Trading Company.
— He’s alone. This is our chance.
They nodded and were just about to attack Yu Munchang when—
THUD—.
Yu Munchang suddenly collapsed.
— What the hell?
— Did someone else hit him?
The two assassins were thrown by the sudden development.
— I can hear him breathing. He’s asleep.
— What? Just like that?
They were trying to figure out what was going on when—
“You’re pretty skilled, huh?”
A voice suddenly sounded, making them jolt and jump to either side.
In their vision, a middle-aged man stood there with his arms folded, one corner of his mouth curled up.
“Now who might you be?”
The man speaking so casually was Blood-Dance Death God, Chu Sowon.
— He’s one of us—an underworld type.
— So that bastard was guarding the Trading Company Master.
— I told you, something was off.
— He doesn’t look like someone we can take lightly.
“What are you two whispering about over there? You obviously didn’t come to chat. Anyway, I was ordered not to kill you and to keep you alive.”
SHIIING—.
The two assassins traded looks. Chu Sowon drew his dagger as he spoke.
The moment they saw that dagger, their eyes went wide.
“Blood-Heaven!”
“B-Blood-Dance Death God?”
For the first time, they slipped and spoke aloud.
“Why the hell is Blood-Dance Death God here?”
Now the mystery was solved.
If Blood-Dance Death God was guarding the Trading Company Master, failure was only natural.
To deal with Blood-Dance Death God, their Lord would have to come in person.
— What do we do? He’s not someone we can handle.
— What do you mean, what? We run!
— Throw every smoke bomb we’ve got.
The two assassins decided to get out of there and hurled every smoke bomb they had at the ground.
BOOM-BOOM-FOOOOSH—.
A thick wall of smoke completely blocked all vision, and the two assassins used everything they had to get away from the spot.
— What now?
— We pull back for now. Attacking a place guarded by Blood-Dance Death God with just the two of us is suicide. We report to the Lord, reorganize the forces, and come again.
The two assassins quickly broke out to the outer perimeter and rushed back toward where their comrades were waiting.
“We need to get the hell out of here!”
But something was off about their comrades’ faces.
“What? Why are you looking at us like that?”
“Who did that to you?”
“Did what to us?”
“Your legs...”
“Legs?”
They looked down—
And saw that everything below their knees was gone.
The moment their brains finally processed the situation, the pain crashed in.
“Ghk!”
“H-how... when?”
They’d been running so frantically they hadn’t even realized their legs had been cut off.
Which meant the opponent was no joke.
The other assassins’ faces tightened.
“R-run... The enemy is... Blood-Dance Dea—”
SMACK—.
SPLASH—.
The agonized assassin’s head burst apart, and brain matter and blood splattered all over the face of the man standing in front of him.
In his blown-wide pupils, he saw his falling comrade and a black shadow.
Blood-Dance Death God?
He finally put a name to the enemy.
All the assassins there panicked at once.
Why the hell was Blood-Dance Death God suddenly appearing here?
Two more figures appeared behind him.
“Did our lord send you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
Taecheon and Milyeong.
“I can handle this alone, you know.”
“He told us to wrap it up as fast as possible.”
“Yeah? Then let’s move quickly.”
As Blood-Dance Death God jumped toward the assassins, Taecheon and Milyeong moved too.
*****
— Why is it so quiet?
— I don’t like this.
— Still no word.
The assassins waiting on the southern side felt that something was off as well.
SMACK! THUD—.
SMACK! THUD—.
— What’s that sound?
— Sounds like... a flick to the forehead.
— In the middle of the night?
— The sound’s getting closer.
A bad feeling hit them, and the assassins stood up and turned toward where the other teams were hiding.
They blew a signal on the whistle only their comrades could hear.
No response.
— They’ve been hit!
— We need to get out of—
The assassins started to rise and move—
When someone appeared.
So fast they didn’t even know when he’d gotten there.
A young man, grinning as he looked over the assassins gathered there.
Jeok Wigang.
“You guys are the last ones.”
Before I even finished, the assassins were already hurling hidden weapons.
FWIP-FWIP-FWIP-FWIP—.
Dozens upon dozens of hidden weapons slammed into my body.
The assassins relaxed a little at the sight.
So he wasn’t as big a deal as they’d thought.
Any second now, I should topple over to the ground, and in that gap they’d slip away from here as fast as they could.
That’s what they thought—
But I didn’t fall.
What?
Puzzled, they checked again and saw me calmly brushing the buried weapons off my clothes.
THUD-THUD— CLINK-CLINK—.
The sound of the hidden weapons hitting the ground crawled over their skin like pure terror.
“T-that’s impossible...”
Those weren’t just any hidden weapons.
They were coated in extreme poison—poison strong enough that just touching skin would send the victim crashing to the ground, paralyzed.
But I was picking them off with my hands and flicking them away, and nothing was happening.
“Diamond-Body Invulnerability?”
That kind of body actually existed?
Wasn’t that something that only showed up in fantasy tales?
“You three will do.”
Three?
There’s six of us, they thought—
And in that instant—
THUD-THUD-THUD—.
Their comrades were suddenly in view, torsos blown apart, turned into vengeful ghosts in the time it took to blink.
They hadn’t even seen me attack.
For special-grade assassins not to even know how they died—what kind of monster was that?
So that’s what it was.
That’s why the client had paid so much and insisted on sending a whole bunch of special-grade assassins.
“Who sent you?”
They couldn’t answer.
They went to crush the poison pellets hidden in their mouths—
THUD-THUD-THUD—.
A brutal impact smashed into them, flinging them away and knocking them out.
On the ground lay a heap of assassins’ teeth, and among them, small black pellets.
I picked one up and spoke.
“I said you’re not allowed to die yet.”
Right about then, Taecheon, Chu Sowon, and Milyeong arrived.
“You finish things cleanly?”
“Yes.”
“Got a sense of who they are?”
“They look like Nameless Hall.”
“Nameless Hall?”
“One of the three great assassin organizations in the Central Plains.”
Chu Sowon glanced over the unconscious assassins.
“Now that we know who they are, should we take them out?”
“Do you know where Nameless Hall is?”
“We don’t know its location.”
“Then we keep them alive.”
“You really think these bastards will go back to Nameless Hall?”
I looked at Chu Sowon.
“Hit them just enough to avoid the vital points. Tear up their clothes, too.”
“Sir?”
“I want them thinking we finished them off and dumped their bodies here. Then they’ll be thrilled to drag themselves back to Nameless Hall.”
“Ah.”
“I fed them Ten-Thousand-Mile Tracking Incense. Wherever they go, we’ll know.”
I didn’t actually need tracking incense anymore, but it would’ve been a waste not to use what I had left.
“Aren’t you overusing Ten-Thousand-Mile Tracking Incense a bit? If you keep that up and the whole Central Plains reeks of the stuff, how are you going to track anything later?”
“That’s why, once it’s served its purpose, I’m going to erase the smell.”
“You can erase it?”
“Of course.”
I hadn’t known at first, but Jin Muryang had taught me how.
The method was so simple it was almost disappointing.
I handed pills to Chu Sowon and Milyeong.
“Take them.”
“What are these?”
“Pills that erase the smell of Ten-Thousand-Mile Tracking Incense.”
The two of them looked genuinely moved.
“I should’ve given them to you earlier. I forgot.”
“Th-thank you, my lord.”
Which meant the two of them now belonged to me completely.
*****
“Ugh...”
The assassins groaned awake.
“Ghk!”
The moment consciousness returned, savage pain rushed in.
They checked where it hurt and found sword wounds.
“Looks like they came back to finish us off.”
“Lucky for us, the blades missed our vitals.”
“I lost every tooth on one side.”
“My poison pellet’s gone too.”
“They didn’t want us biting down on the poison and killing ourselves, but then why did they try to kill us?”
“Maybe they took different guys instead of us.”
“We weren’t the only ones out here.”
“That makes sense.”
They looked around. It seemed to be deep in the mountains, with no sign of people anywhere.
“They must’ve thought we were dead and dumped us here.”
“We must’ve instinctively used Ghost-Breath Death-Faking Art when we blacked out, so they thought we were corpses.”
“Lucky break.”
“Either way, we need to get back. We have to report what happened here.”
“And bill the Gu Yang Family.”
“Ghk... damn it.”
The blades might’ve missed their vitals, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.
Blood was still seeping from their wounds.
They sprayed hemostatic powder on the cuts and tore their clothes to wrap the injuries for now.
“We will... pay them back for this humiliation.”
“No matter what, we’ll wipe Steel-Glory Trading Company off the face of the earth.”
“And Blood-Dance Death God too.”
“Let’s move.”
Even as they moved, the three assassins kept scanning their surroundings.
After traveling for quite a while and confirming no one was chasing them, they picked up speed and disappeared.
*****
Somewhere in the mountains stood a sect called Hundred-Martial Sect.
On the surface, it was an ordinary sect with ordinary disciples.
Its fame wasn’t all that high; people in the neighborhood knew of it, and that was about it.
That completely ordinary sect was, in fact, one of the three great assassin organizations in the Central Plains: Nameless Hall.
It was so utterly average that no one paid it any mind.
But inside the gorge behind the sect, a different world spread out.
Hundred-Martial Sect was just a smokescreen—
The real thing lay inside the gorge.
“What? They all got taken out?”
“Yes!”
“By who?”
“We don’t know their identity.”
“What kind of martial art did they use?”
“Well... a flick to the forehead...”
“Huh? What?”
“They took us out with flicks to the forehead.”
The Lord stared at the special-grade assassins, his face saying he couldn’t believe a word of it.
“Are you trying to joke around with me right now?”
“It’s the truth.”
“You got taken out by a flick? Then what are those sword wounds on your chests supposed to be?”
“Looks like they stabbed us while we were unconscious. We don’t remember what we were hit with.”
“Looking at your faces, at least that doesn’t look like the result of a flick to the forehead.”
The assassins lowered their heads.
They knew very well what their faces must look like.
One side was so swollen it had turned a dark blue.
They must’ve taken a serious blow to the head and scrambled their brains.
The Lord shook his head and asked,
“You three are the only ones who made it back alive?”
“Yes.”
All thirty special-grade assassins had been taken down.
A hit like that was enough to shake Nameless Hall to its foundations.
He’d had a bad feeling from the start.
It was suspicious enough that someone would pay that much to take care of a mere trading company.
He’d been wary—but because the client was the Gu Yang Family, he’d trusted them.
They even said they’d been taken down by someone whose identity they couldn’t figure out.
They’d already known.
That was why they’d prepared so thoroughly to greet the enemy.