Among the countless martial families and orthodox sects in the world, how many of them possessed an inner cultivation method? The Nine Great Sects, the Five Great Families… I couldn’t be sure of any others.
That was how precious and rare inner energy was. It was only natural that its leakage to the outside was strictly forbidden. Bok Ha-gyu had poured an enormous fortune into obtaining this.
The master of the Blood Snake Gang had also drooled over it, bringing ruin upon his clan, and Choi Sa-deuk had even hired Ho Yeon-geom to intercept it. It was an object whose very existence should not be known, yet Bok Ha-gyu had readily handed it to me. After reading it, I understood why.
‘Great Void, Yin-Yang, Supreme Ultimate, Five Elements, Eight Trigrams…’
I couldn’t understand a single line of this nonsense. I skimmed through it, flipping the pages. Even after staring at it until I felt dizzy, I couldn’t tell which school’s inner cultivation method it was.
Nowhere on the pages was the name of the school or even the inner cultivation method written. It seemed to be a secret manual left for the descendants of the school, not for outsiders. When I reached the part dealing with the method of circulating inner energy, I could no longer read it.
‘From the perineal point, immerse into the hollow of the spine, follow the thoracic vertebra point, purify at the Fengfu point, and with the Gallbladder meridian and the Yang Linking Vessel as the court…’
It was densely packed with all sorts of pressure points and meridians I had never heard of or seen before. And it was all in text, without a single illustration. There were many Chinese characters I had never seen in my life.
I thought I understood why Do Gwang-il had said inner cultivation methods were passed down through direct transmission of true energy. If I tried to learn inner energy by looking at this, I felt like I would suffer qi deviation even if I didn’t have it before. I sighed and returned the book.
Seeing my reluctant expression, Bok Ha-gyu chuckled.
“Can you make any sense of it?”
“I can’t. Has Master Bok had any success?”
“None. And I don’t want to know.”
Bok Ha-gyu shook his head as if he was fed up.
“I am looking for a physician knowledgeable in pressure points and meridians. If I leave it with him for a few days, he should be able to draw the path of circulation on a diagram of the human body. If I send it to one of the Murim Alliance sects that the Black Night Gang has connections with, someone there might recognize it.”
“It must be one of the Nine Great Sects, I suppose?”
Bok Ha-gyu neither confirmed nor denied it. Which school did Jeok Chu-yeong have connections with? Shaolin, Wudang, Mount Hua, Zhongnan, Kongtong…
Emei…
All of them were great sects, teeming with legendary masters who were so far above me they seemed to touch the sky.
“Is this really the inner cultivation method of that absolute master who used the Hidden Force?”
“It is.”
“How can you be so certain?”
Bok Ha-gyu crossed his arms and stared at me.
“Our superiors confirmed the identity of the culprit who used the Hidden Force. I cannot reveal the whole process… but this is the inner cultivation method of the school he belongs to.”
What was the reason for his certainty? I tilted my head, then belatedly clicked my tongue.
“Don’t tell me you bought this from a black market merchant?”
It made sense that a black market merchant, a specialist in hunting martial arts masters, would have an inner cultivation method. Nine times out of ten, they would have obtained it through theft, kidnapping, or torture. From his expression, it seemed I was right.
“Are you confident you can handle the aftermath?”
Bok Ha-gyu snorted cynically.
“Hmph, it was already over the moment that bastard shot a Hidden Force at our master.”
I looked down again at the mysterious secret manual. I wondered if Do Gwang-il could get something out of this. If he were nearby, I would go and see him, but I had no idea where he was now.
He probably wouldn’t be back until next spring. Suddenly, I remembered something I had briefly forgotten. I was supposed to climb over the wall of the Black Night Gang with Won Seo-gang before the year ended.
“Has Master Jeok’s condition improved?”
“There’s no significant change.”
“I’d like to see him once.”
“It’s difficult right now.”
“Let me just see his face. To see if he’s really alive.”
Bok Ha-gyu’s eyes sharpened.
“You don’t trust me?”
“Even Master Bok cannot deny that my help has not been insignificant. Now it’s your turn, Master Bok. Give me a reason to trust you.”
I couldn’t just blindly trust Bok Ha-gyu. If he kept postponing it indefinitely, I would have no choice but to climb over the wall with Won Seo-gang and see Jeok Chu-yeong’s face for myself. Bok Ha-gyu pondered for a long while before accepting my demand.
“Fine. I’ll make an opportunity soon. But do you have the guts to enter the Black Night Gang?”
“What could possibly happen?”
I answered nonchalantly, but I had to prepare thoroughly. Fortunately, there was Jin Seok-man, the distillery worker who knew the internal structure of the Black Night Gang well. If I met him again and secured an escape route in advance, it would be possible to get out even in the worst-case scenario.
Thinking of entering the Black Night Gang, a face I’d rather not encounter inside came to mind.
“Isn’t there a martial artist named Ban Ho-yang in the Black Night Gang?”
“Ban Ho-yang?”
When I described his appearance, Bok Ha-gyu nodded.
“I think I’ve seen him once or twice. He’s not my guest.”
“Then?”
“He’s a house guest brought in by Im Ja-gyeon.”
“You mean the Master of the Destruction Squad?”
“You know him?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
He was one of the three closest aides under Jeok Chu-yeong. The other one was Seon Do-mu, the Master of the Five Phoenix Squad. Both of them, like Bok Ha-gyu, had entered Jeok Chu-yeong’s service in Hunan and had come this far, quite successful for men of the dark path.
Even though they must have shared life and death together, Bok Ha-gyu didn’t seem to like them.
“You don’t seem to be close with the other masters?”
“What’s the point of being close? We’re all destined to go to Hell together someday.”
“Hell, you say…”
If the moral standards of the afterlife were similar to those of this world, paradise would not be permitted for martial artists who had killed many people. They would surely fall into Hell or some similar place, but I had no idea what kind of hell it would be. Bok Ha-gyu’s tone was filled with conviction.
That made me curious.
“What kind of hell do you think martial artists fall into when they die?”
Bok Ha-gyu was lost in thought for a moment before replying in a murky, clouded voice.
“Wouldn’t each of us fall into our own nightmares? Or maybe nothing will happen at all. We’ll only know when we die. Anyway, it’s a great relief that we devoured the Blood Snake Gang without asking for their help.”
I was stunned by this unexpected piece of information.
“You mean you attacked the Blood Snake Gang alone, leading only the Grand Venom Squad?”
Bok Ha-gyu chuckled nonchalantly as if it was nothing to be surprised about.
“A mere group like the Blood Snake Gang… all I need is myself and my boys. I don’t need guys who can’t work together. They only get in the way.”
No matter how weakened the Blood Snake Gang’s forces were, it was still a locally prominent dark path faction. For a single squad to finish them off, the hidden power of the Black Night Gang seemed considerable. I would have to take this into full consideration if the time came to climb the wall with Won Seo-gang.
After talking with Bok Ha-gyu a little longer, I rose from my seat.
* “Stop. Cough, cough.”
Ha Jong-geon, the young master of the Blood Snake Gang, did not stop. The fierce noise of the horse kicking the dirt and the creaking of the cart were loud, but that wasn’t all. In one night, he had lost both his family and his faction.
He was fleeing in a cart, but he had no idea where to go. Only after Ha Eul-san, the master of the martial arts tournament, pounded on the side of the cart with all his might did he come to his senses. He quickly pulled the reins to stop the horse and went down to the cargo bed.
“Uncle… are you alright?”
Kneeling on one knee, he checked Ha Eul-san’s condition, his face contorting in misery. The bandage wrapped around his left arm, severed at the shoulder, had started bleeding again, and drops of blood were falling. Blood was also seeping from his lower abdomen, which was slathered with wound salve.
It was such a severe injury that it felt like a miracle he was still alive. Ha Eul-san himself knew well that he did not have much time left. With a face pale and devoid of any color, he opened his mouth.
“That bastard Bok Ha-gyu. His skills were just about right for a cook in an inn… The front blade of the dark path was taken by the back blade. Cough, cough. We should have dealt with the Black Night Gang long ago. We were too complacent. Cough, cough. Give me some water.”
His nephew held a water canteen to his lips and tilted it up. After slowly taking a few sips, Ha Eul-san let out a heavy sigh filled with regret.
“Born a man, I have lived a life without regrets. However… to leave my brother’s enemy behind, I feel I won’t be able to close my eyes even in death.”
Ha Eul-san moved his one remaining hand and took out a rust-red iron token.
“Take this and go to Wiseong-ri. Go there and…”
Ha Eul-san arduously and haltingly told him what to do there. Ha Jong-geon, who was listening to the last words with bated breath, frowned in displeasure.
“Will such a place accept an assassination request?”
“You’ll know when you get there.”
“Aren’t they just countryside martial artists? It would be better to hire some swordsmen from the wandering swordsmen market…”
Ha Eul-san struggled to force open his dimming eyes.
“Do not look down on them just because of a shabby sign. That place is an assassination group run by an assassin from the guild of assassins.”
Only then did his nephew’s eyes widen. Ha Jong-geon, as the successor to his father, the master of the Blood Snake Gang, had walked the brutal dark path since he was young. He could not be ignorant of the fame of the guild of assassins.
The guild of assassins was famous for contract killings not because they killed stealthily, without a trace, but because they were considered the best for a reason: they would stop at nothing to kill their target. If this man came from such a place, at least the money wouldn’t be wasted.
“The Blood Snake Gang has fallen. Will they accept the request?”
“If the condition is to hand over the Silver Handle Pavilion, they will gladly accept the request even if the opponent is the Black Night Gang. He’s a greedy bastard…”
“Isn’t that too much for a contract fee?”
“It’s wealth that will fall into the hands of the Black Night Gang anyway if we leave it. It has to be that much for that bastard Five Kills to take it seriously. Cough, cough. I want to rest. Lay me down…”
Supported, Ha Eul-san lay down on the uncomfortable cart floor. With no roof, the cold air descending from the faintly brightening autumn sky pierced him to the bone. Lying in a shabby, smelly cargo cart, shivering, facing a futile death, he was filled with so much resentment that he ground his teeth.
When he was enjoying the martial arts tournament at the Silver Handle Pavilion, he never imagined he wouldn’t survive the night. Watching the martial artists die or get injured on the stage, he had only thought about calculating the stakes, never that his own death was so close… They say life is lived without knowing what lies an inch ahead…
His body went limp, and the pain dulled. His vision blurred, and the brightening sky disappeared. In the hazy darkness, a face flickered.
Was it his parents who died decades ago? Or his son, whom he had lost a few years ago? The moment the face that came to greet him became clear, his mind snapped to attention.
A suspicious-looking middle-aged man with petty features. The master of the Giant Deer Clan from Hunan, whom he and his brother had ambushed from behind and hacked to death in their youth. It was So Sil-gang.
That was over forty years ago. He had never felt guilt, and he had long forgotten the face. But why, now that he was dying, did he appear and disturb his eternal rest?
From So Sil-gang’s head, which was half-split by an axe, white brain matter and blood flowed down his face. Even with such a gruesome appearance, So Sil-gang was smiling. As if he was happy to meet again.
As if he knew they would meet again like this. That son of a bitch. An impulse to stab that smirking face with a knife made him grope the floor with his hand.
There was nothing to grab. Over So Sil-gang’s shoulder, a few more faces flickered. They were all men he had killed.
He could feel that they had all been waiting for this day, thoroughly prepared. So Sil-gang flickered his long, snake-like tongue and wrapped it around Ha Eul-san’s neck. He now looked like an executioner from Hell, wearing a cone-shaped hat.
The other figures, in similar attire, clung to his body and limbs. Struggling, his eyes were drawn to a distant place someone was pointing at. A magnificent, shimmering mountain that pierced the clouds.
From the foot to the peak, the entire mountain was densely covered with long, eerie blades—a mountain of blades. If he was dragged there, he would be whipped and forced to climb that terrifying mountain of blades. No matter how many times he was stabbed and cut, he wouldn’t be able to die, and the pain would never dull, endlessly…
It was a fitting hell for a martial artist who had harmed people with swords and sabers his entire life. After suffering for an eternity, he would be reborn as an insect or a beast.
‘Get lost! I will not be taken by pathetic fools who died by my hand! Let go of me! Let go!’
Ha Eul-san thrashed about desperately, looking around. There was no family to help him anywhere. Even his brother, who had passed just a few hours before, was nowhere to be seen, perhaps already dragged away.
His body floated up, helplessly leaving this world and heading towards the mountain of blades. Ha Eul-san’s breath stopped, his eyes wide open, his face twisted in a hideous grimace. Ha Jong-geon closed his uncle’s eyes, which were filled with resentment, and packed his weapons and belongings.
He unhitched the horse from the cart and placed a saddle on its back.
“Uncle, I’m sorry I couldn’t lay you to rest in a better place. Please wait just a little while until I return with revenge.”
Leaving the dead Ha Eul-san in the cargo cart, Ha Jong-geon turned his horse around. He rode without rest towards Wiseong-ri, searching for the assassination group said to be led by a contract killer from the guild of assassins.