Chapter 40 - Four Characters in Bone, Four Characters in Blood

The footsteps belonged to the black-clad men who had wrought this devastation. They soon stopped three jang in front of Danri Cheon-u.

There were only five of them. The Black Crow Unit might have been away, but to think the Danri Family had fallen so helplessly to a mere five men. Danri Cheon-u could not believe it.

“... Who are you?”

Danri Cheon-u stared blankly at the black-clad man in the lead, his expression vacant.

The man's brutally cold gaze swiftly swallowed Danri Cheon-u's unfocused stare, just as the flames were now erasing the Danri Family from the world.

Without a word, the man moved closer, stopping again one jang before him. Danri Cheon-u's lips worked soundlessly before he finally repeated his question.

The black-clad man raised his chin slightly and spoke in a cold, arrogant voice.

“Does that matter?”

Danri Cheon-u's lips trembled again. Perhaps he wanted to say something but was too overwhelmed by the futility of it all to speak. Then he bit his tongue lightly and finally managed to force the words out.

“... Wh-why?”

He asked, but no answer came. No, there was an answer. It simply came as a sword rather than words.

The black-clad man's sword swept diagonally upward. That was the end. Severed from below his right hip to his left shoulder, Danri Cheon-u's upper body slid smoothly down the cleanly cut surface of his lower half and onto the ground.

Shredded fragments of his entrails spilled from the clean cut beneath his upper body. Even then, his mouth remained frozen in the shape of his question: Why?

THUD!

The black-clad man's foot crushed that mouth.

Only then did Danri Cheon-u hear an answer that was no answer at all.

“Stop asking pointless questions. Scum like you have no need to know.”

He had been the head of Fengyang's foremost noble clan, but to the black-clad man, Mad Cloud, he was nothing more than “scum.”

Just like that, the Danri Family vanished from the world.

If there was any consolation for Danri Cheon-u, it was that Danri Ganghae and Danri Hui had left the estate and escaped this calamity.

The misfortune was...

That the calamity had not descended on this place alone...

For if thick “Cloud” hung over this place, deep “Shadows” lay over southern Anhui—and Danri Hui had already entered their domain...

Rising Dragon Mountain.

It was a small mountain rising at the northern edge of Hefei. Judged by its height and size, it was little more than a hill, hardly deserving to be called a mountain. Still, a mountain it was: from its summit, one could take in all of Hefei and even admire the mist rising from distant Soho Lake. Naturally, the Namgung Clan estate near the lake was also visible at a glance.

The mountain bore the grand name Rising Dragon, so ill-suited to its size, because the rocks packed closely along its ridge resembled a dragon ascending to heaven.

“Aah! S-stop! Agh!”

Now, atop the summit rock that formed the ascending dragon's head, a hot wind raged fiercely enough to drive away the night's chill.

The man was roughly thrusting his lower body behind the prone woman, who sobbed with her head lowered as he forcibly penetrated her from behind.

Strangely, however, the man's flesh shone silver in the moonlight. This was a characteristic sign of someone who practiced the unusual Silver Yin Carnal Art.

In all of present-day Murim, only one person practiced this martial art.

It was Paga Hyeol, the Naked Silver Demon, branch leader of the Heavenly Demon Castle's Anhui Branch.

"Aah!"

Paga Hyeol seized her by the hair and pulled her head back roughly. Her cry broke through the night as his cruelty continued.

Yet despite his vigorous movements, Paga Hyeol's eyes were not on the woman.

The Namgung Clan.

His gaze rested solely on the faint outline of the Namgung Clan estate in the distance. As the lustful demon in his sobriquet suggested, he enjoyed taking women to bed. But there was something he enjoyed even more.

And that was...

Blood.

The reason Paga Hyeol had spent more than ten years awaiting “his” orders was the anticipation of tasting his fill of blood once those orders came.

In a few days, when the First Stratagem began in earnest, the Namgung Clan would disappear. A horrific bloodbath would naturally unfold in the process.

As he imagined the Namgung Clan estate stained red, the silver radiance of Paga Hyeol's body grew more intense.

The movements of his lower body also became more vigorous.

"Huff, huff!"

"Aah, aaagh!"

The pitiful victim rolled her eyes back and writhed in ecstasy, overwhelmed by pleasure and unaware that she was going to die.

The woman's screams rang out. The pitiful victim writhed, unaware that her life was slipping away.

She was a martial artist his subordinates had captured the day before. She had been traveling from Fengyang to the Namgung Clan estate, so she must have been on her way to congratulate Shifting Shadow and Namgung Hye on their wedding.

The victim had no idea, but her own clan or sect would probably vanish from Murim before long as well.

'Perhaps it already has.'

Mad Cloud was anything but merciful. He had gone to lay the groundwork for the “Second Stratagem,” so Anhui Province's martial world would be utterly devastated. Paga Hyeol did not know for certain, but several members of “Cloud” had probably been mobilized for the Second Stratagem. It was merely a question of who came first. No sect in Anhui Province would escape Mad Cloud's hand.

By contrast, seven Shadows in total had been mobilized for the First Stratagem.

'Myself, Shifting Shadow, and the four who infiltrated the Namgung Clan. And...'

The remaining one was responsible for the Soho Lake area.

If the Heavenly Demon Castle's Anhui Branch under his command, the Namgung Clan, and the force led by that other Shadow clashed in Anhui, the outcome would be obvious without waiting to see it.

Now that Mubon's First and Second Stratagems had begun, the chance of Anhui Province's martial world remaining intact was...

None.

"Aaaagh!"

The woman knew nothing of his thoughts. Even as her yin qi dwindled toward nothing, she remained lost in ecstasy.

Knowing the end was near, Paga Hyeol drained the last of her vital essence.

But just as he was about to climax—

Three brief but intensely bright shafts of light caught his eye. They came from the direction of the Namgung Clan estate.

'What is that?!'

The fact that he could faintly make out the Namgung Clan estate from here did not mean it was anywhere close. Unless a light was extraordinarily intense, it could never reach the summit of Rising Dragon Mountain from the estate, especially at night. A light that powerful would have to be sunlight—or at least the explosion of a Thunderbolt Bomb.

That was certainly no signal from Shifting Shadow. Not only had Shifting Shadow never mastered the Divine Sun Art, he had no Thunderbolt Bombs either.

Above all, neither the heat emitted by the Divine Sun Art nor the destructive flash of an exploding Thunderbolt Bomb could possibly carry such a soothing, inexplicably warm presence.

That made Paga Hyeol all the more uneasy. Something unknown had clearly happened at the Namgung Clan estate. This was definitely not part of the plan.

"Aaaagh!"

At last, Paga Hyeol and the woman reached climax.

THUD.

As his penis withdrew from her body, the woman's life ended. His body had already returned from silver to its ordinary color, and his penis hung limp.

“Seal every road leading to Hefei immediately.”

To whom was he speaking? Certainly not to the dead woman.

“As you command.”

As if to prove it, an answer came from somewhere beneath the rock. At the same moment, the shadows below it began stretching in every direction, then split into several strands and vanished down Rising Dragon Mountain. Several people had been concealed beneath the rock where Paga Hyeol had been practicing his carnal art.

Once the shadows disappeared, Paga Hyeol likewise vanished from the spot as though sinking out of sight.

WHOOO...

A cold wind blew across the summit of Rising Dragon Mountain once more, but there was no one left to receive it. There was one person, but she was already a corpse.

Though her name meant nothing now, the corpse had been called Danri Hui.

At that same moment, at the Namgung Clan estate.

Two men stood aboard the sailing ship, facing the cold wind blowing in from Soho Lake. Dong Bongsu was already gone, but the horrific scene he had left behind remained, weighing heavily on their hearts.

One was Namgung Hu, commander of the Cheonroe Unit. The other was Namgung Il, commander of the Cheonpung Unit, who was responsible for the men who had died here.

“What do you make of this?”

Namgung Il spoke first. Even as he spoke, his gaze never left the ship's deck. Words were inscribed there in magnificent calligraphy resembling a dragon ascending to heaven. What made him furrow his brow, however, was that the scent rising from them was blood, not ink.

As commander of the Cheonroe Unit, Namgung Hu had arrived before Namgung Il. When the three flashes had erupted here, the closest guards had been the Cheonroe Unit members on watch at West Heaven Guest Hall. Namgung Hu had reached the ship first after receiving their report. Namgung Il had hurried over afterward, alerted by Fourth Squad, which had come to relieve the Cheonpung Unit's Third Squad—the men who had died tonight.

Without answering one way or the other, Namgung Hu pointed toward the hold beneath the towerlike cabin.

“This alone won't tell us everything about the intentions of whoever created this carnage. Follow me.”

Namgung Hu led Namgung Il down into the ship's hold. Assuming there must be a reason, Namgung Il followed without comment.

It was still deep in the night, and the hold was dark.

BANG!

Namgung Hu used a palm technique to punch a hole through the side of the hold. Pale moonlight streamed in, illuminating the interior. The scene that had been difficult to discern was laid bare before their eyes.

“This is...!”