Chapter 58 - A Dead End...

Dong Bongsu stepped over Gi Daehyo’s headless corpse and resumed the pursuit.

Below the mountain, the shores of Soho Lake were every bit as busy as the mountainside where the frantic chase was unfolding.

According to the original plan of the Supreme Stronghold Chief of the Eighteen Waterway Strongholds of the Yangtze River, the wedding guests should have been annihilated here. Unexpectedly, however, quite a few had survived and were now on the run.

As a result, contrary to the original plan, the Yangtze Current Ships had moored along the shore of Soho Lake. Among them was one vessel that looked twice the size of the others. Aboard it was the Supreme Stronghold Chief of the Eighteen Waterway Strongholds of the Yangtze River.

A burly man with a bushy beard stood ramrod straight at its bow, receiving reports from the vice-stronghold leaders of the various strongholds. This was the Supreme Stronghold Chief, Sa Saho, the Yangtze Dragon Champion. The reports proceeded in the order he designated, but when only one man’s turn remained, he inexplicably turned and headed toward the towerlike cabin.

“Follow me.”

The last vice-stronghold leader followed him up into the towerlike cabin without any particular reaction. Rising high from the center of the ship, it served much the same purpose as a battlefield command tent.

Once inside, Sa Saho looked down over Soho Lake with his back to the vice-stronghold leader and spoke.

“You’re late.”

“You knew, Water Shadow?”

It was the vice-stronghold leader—or rather, Do Heo-ok, Shifting Shadow—who spoke.

Sa Saho... Water Shadow quietly continued.

“Ash Shadow sent word that you would be coming. So I was waiting. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

“Haha. I see. Even so, you did well to recognize me.”

“Even you couldn’t behave exactly like the vice-stronghold leaders without knowing much about them.”

Shifting Shadow laughed again, acknowledging the point. Still smiling, he moved to stand beside Water Shadow. Unlike Water Shadow, who was looking down, Shifting Shadow gazed at the rising sun. He remained that way for a moment before casually asking a question.

“You said you’d driven Tang Wu onto Seonjung Mountain?”

Still looking down, Water Shadow answered.

“To its summit.”

“Doesn’t that mean you won’t be able to pursue him once he crosses the mountain?”

“Seonjung Mountain is half mountain, half gorge. On the side opposite Soho Lake, there’s no way up or down.”

Shifting Shadow had learned only upon arriving here that the wedding guests had been driven into the mountains. At first, he had not understood, but Water Shadow’s explanation made the reason clear.

“Half mountain, half cliff... So they’ll be driven straight to the edge with nowhere to go. A pity. They must be climbing so hard in search of a way to survive. But is it land or water?”

The question came without any explanation, yet Water Shadow understood and answered.

“Land. If it were water, I wouldn’t have driven them that way in the first place.”

“I see.”

Silence fell between them once more. It did not last long, however. There was still something Shifting Shadow did not understand.

“But was there really no Beyond Peak Realm expert besides Tang Wu?”

This was, in fact, the reason Shifting Shadow had come here rather than going to the Namgung Clan, though Water Shadow did not know that.

“There wasn’t.”

At Water Shadow’s curt, firm answer, Shifting Shadow shook his head and muttered to himself.

“That can’t be... All that commotion must have been to get out of the Namgung Clan. Why hasn’t he shown himself, even with things driven this far into a corner...?”

Shifting Shadow had not named whom he meant. Still, Water Shadow could readily guess that he was speaking of another Beyond Peak Realm expert who should have been there besides Tang Wu.

As Water Shadow surmised, Shifting Shadow was referring to the person behind the Three Sacred Lights. Surely, by now, that person should have revealed himself and slaughtered the pirates and demonic practitioners. Yet he still showed no intention of coming to the surface.

But neither could Water Shadow and Ash Shadow have let him slip through. Their all-encompassing net had been perfect. They had controlled every route leading to the Namgung Clan. A great clan it might be, but its estate was not so large that their forces would have struggled to blockade it.

Had they missed him, then?

‘No. That’s impossible.’

Shifting Shadow shook his head again. If the man had escaped, that escape alone would have alerted them to his presence. He would have had to break through their net in one direction or another. That act in itself would have exposed who he was.

“Every direction—east, west, south, and north—was completely sealed off... Yet he vanished without a trace.”

Where in the world was he?

As Shifting Shadow puzzled over the man’s whereabouts, Water Shadow, still gazing down at Soho Lake, made an offhand remark.

“I don’t know who you’re looking for, but if he were someone like you, I might have missed him.”

Shifting Shadow felt as though a hammer had struck the back of his head. Water Shadow was right. Why hadn’t he thought of that? If it were him... If his opponent were him, could he catch himself? Who was to say he was the only person like him?

“Hahaha. Of course. That’s it. That’s why both the Namgung Clan and you lost track of him.”

The man could change his appearance at will, just as he could. That was Shifting Shadow’s conclusion. It made everything fall into place. In fact, perhaps the man’s art of altering his appearance surpassed even his own. After all, he had recognized Shifting Shadow when no one else had.

If that were true, how was he to catch the man now? There was no way. Shifting Shadow was certain that no one could ever catch him. The same would hold for his opponent.

At present, he knew very little about the man: that he was somewhere on Seonjung Mountain, and that he had probably assumed the guise of a pirate or a member of the Heavenly Demon Castle.

After a long deliberation, Shifting Shadow reached a conclusion. There was one way to leave his opponent no choice but to reveal himself.

“Kill them all.”

At Shifting Shadow’s low murmur, Water Shadow finally turned from Soho Lake to look at him. Meeting that gaze, Shifting Shadow spoke again, forcefully.

“They’re all going to die once the First Stratagem is complete anyway. Dying a little sooner won’t change anything. Isn’t that right, Water Shadow? Hahaha.”

Only after a moment’s thought did Water Shadow understand what Shifting Shadow meant. And then came another thought: how fortunate that Shifting Shadow was on the same side. No, how fortunate that he was at least pretending to be.

Water Shadow looked back down at Soho Lake, while Shifting Shadow gazed at the still-red sun and laughed heartily.

Do Heo-ok’s laughter. What did it truly mean?

Day had broken.

Yet the pursuit on Seonjung Mountain continued. Tang Wu and a number of the other survivors were still alive, so a considerable amount of time would have to pass before the chase ended.

Dong Bongsu was carrying out his class advancement Quest as one of the pursuers. But once his Quest count reached eighty, he could make no further progress.

“Damn it! Why aren’t they sending us more men?”

The complaint came from a hook-nosed pirate standing beside him.

That was right. The reason the pursuit had begun to stall was that the steady stream of reinforcements from the rear had stopped.

Only a handful of wedding guests remained alive, but every one of them was an expert. Naturally, hunting them down came at a heavy cost. In the worst cases, dozens had to die just to take a single head. Without more men to replace those losses, the pursuit could only grind to a halt.

But that was not the only strange thing.

‘They’re not getting reinforcements over there, either.’

The Heavenly Demon Castle’s forces were not pursuing aggressively either. No, they could not. What was happening here was happening on their side as well. Their pursuit force was also struggling because its losses were not being replaced.

Taking advantage of the slackening pursuit, the fugitives hurried after Tang Wu. The pursuers were still on their heels, but they could no longer hold them up so easily.

The halt in reinforcements continued to trouble Dong Bongsu. He thought it over as he climbed the mountain in step with the other pirates.

He had to know the reason. Nothing in this world happened without a cause. If a madman killed someone, the madness itself was the cause and motive for the murder. Cause and effect were always at work upon one another.

There was always a cause.

Viewed in that light, the delay in reinforcements was decidedly strange. Wasn’t the objective of Do Heo-ok and his cronies to kill the Namgung Clan and everyone invited there? Why ease off just before annihilating their targets?

No matter how much he thought about it, Dong Bongsu could not find the reason.

A sense of foreboding stirred his survival instinct. Sometimes intuition ran ahead of reason. He believed this was one of those times.

Then what should he do in a situation like this?

Across all times and places, the course to take in such circumstances had always been dictated by one immutable truth.

‘When you don’t know, steer clear.’

If the pursuit ended normally, he would ultimately have to become one of the pirates. But fully blending into the Eighteen Waterway Strongholds of the Yangtze River with this face was out of the question. Once the blood was washed off and his wounds began to heal and scab over, his features would become somewhat recognizable. At that point, he might find himself trapped with no way out anyway. Besides, there was a limit to how long he could keep disguising his voice. Someone might realize he was not Kang Dalhui before his face had even begun to heal properly.

He would have to leave this place when the time was right regardless. Dong Bongsu decided to move that moment forward and get out immediately.

But just then—

“Damn it! About time they showed up. The higher-ups drag their feet just the same, whether they’re officials or bandits.”