Chapter 203
After dismantling the Hapsanpa’s Namnyeong branch and stashing away the items we’d taken in a safe spot, we headed toward the forest to the north.
Unfortunately, the Namnyeong branch chief of Hapsanpa didn’t know much about Inparang, the heir of the Haenam clan.
He only said that he had received orders from the main Hapsanpa faction to assassinate Inparang, who was expected to pass through this area soon.
We also learned that some warriors lying in ambush in the northern forest had spotted and attacked Inparang, and that a pursuit was currently underway.
So, we decided to go there ourselves and meet this Inparang directly.
“Sakwol!”
As we entered the forest, I called out loudly for the black leopard, Sakwol. It seemed he was nearby because he quickly appeared, running along the treetops to join us.
Sakwol had been hiding in the forest while we entered Namnyeong.
Now reunited with Sakwol, we dashed like a storm toward the northern woods.
While running, Seolpung hyung suddenly shouted at me.
“Jin, little brother! Do you have any idea what’s going on here?!”
Though we hadn’t heard much from the Namnyeong branch chief, we could infer quite a bit.
I shared the thoughts organized in my mind with the older brothers.
“Apparently, the heir of the Haenam clan, who disappeared over ten years ago, is still alive! And now he’s back in the martial world. Hapsanpa is trying to kill him! But why would they go to such lengths? They don’t even have direct ties with the Haenam faction!”
Seolpung immediately gave the right answer.
“Hapsanpa is connected to Haenampa, specifically to Jin Taedo of the Haenam Demon Sword?”
“Yes! That’s what I think too! And if that’s true, then the disappearance of the former Haenam clan head, In Gyeun, might also be deeply linked to Hapsanpa!”
There was something even more significant.
“They had detailed knowledge of Inparang’s appearance and movements! They distributed his portrait and ordered his assassination when he passed through here…”
“Could it mean there’s a spy close to Inparang?!”
“That’s possible! Otherwise, maybe Inparang himself revealed his whereabouts!”
“Inparang revealed it himself?! Why would he do that?!”
As we discussed this, Jungchil hyung suddenly interrupted.
“But do we really have to save this Inparang guy? He’s got nothing to do with us!”
We all looked at Jungchil hyung, and he quickly averted his gaze.
“No, I was just asking! I thought you guys might be in a hurry! Ahem! Of course, we should fix what’s wrong! That’s what Youngchun would want!”
At that moment, Sakwol, leading us at the front, glanced at me and then quickened his pace.
Elder Mukrang interpreted his intention.
— He smells blood.
I shouted to the two older brothers.
“Sakwol has caught the scent of blood!”
Jungchil hyung exclaimed in admiration.
“That’s a dog’s nose for you!”
Ugh, calling a leopard a dog’s nose.
Thankfully, Sakwol didn’t seem to understand.
The place Sakwol led us to was already littered with corpses.
But these bodies were no ordinary sight.
Seolpung hyung muttered with wide eyes.
“…Herbal gatherers?”
Indeed, they were just simple herbal gatherers.
Not martial artists, just ordinary folk you’d find in any forest.
Yet their bodies were gruesomely split open by weapons.
Their pained expressions and vacant eyes seemed to tell the story of their final moments.
And these bodies were only the beginning.
Following Sakwol’s lead, we saw more and more dead herbal gatherers.
Seolpung hyung murmured.
“To massacre ordinary civilians like this… Could this really be the work of Hapsanpa?”
We couldn’t be certain yet.
But I was almost sure.
Even rogue martial artists rarely slaughter civilians like this.
And for a faction claiming to be righteous to commit such atrocities was unforgivable.
Soon, we witnessed the scene firsthand.
About a dozen Hapsanpa warriors surrounded three herbal gatherers.
“Please, spare us, warriors! We saw nothing!”
“That’s right! A wounded, handsome young warrior? We’ve never seen anyone like that!”
“It’s rare to meet anyone in this forest even once a year, warriors!”
The wounded young warrior they mentioned was likely Inparang.
Failing to get any useful information, the Hapsanpa warriors exchanged sinister smiles.
“You say you don’t know? Well, then there’s no choice.”
“Yeah, we thought if you knew, we might spare you.”
“Ha! Lies. Whether you knew or not, we planned to kill you all along.”
With that, the Hapsanpa warriors raised their weapons without hesitation.
The herbal gatherers screamed in terror.
“Ahhh!”
“No! Please!”
But there was no mercy.
The warriors paid no heed to their cries and brought their weapons down.
“Die!”
Ssssh!
But the screams didn’t come from the herbal gatherers.
Thud!
“Gah?!”
“What—what was that?!”
“Who’s there?!”
Where the warriors had been about to strike, three people and a black leopard now stood.
They had sliced through the warriors in an instant.
The remaining Hapsanpa warriors, caught off guard, quickly retreated, brandishing their weapons.
“An ambush!”
“Who are you?!”
“You’ve got no fear of death, daring to pick a fight with Hapsanpa!”
They probably thought the name Hapsanpa would intimidate their opponents, but to these three supreme masters, it was laughable.
Seon Woojin took a light step forward and swung his sword.
Shing!
Thud!
The Hapsanpa warriors were horrified.
Their comrade, who had shouted moments ago, was killed before their eyes in the blink of an eye.
Their movements seemed almost otherworldly, beyond anything they could handle.
“An… I-Hyeong Hwanwi?”
“Impossible…”
“Where did such masters come from…?”
Seon Woojin looked at them coldly and said quietly.
“There are seven of you left. I’m going to ask you some questions now. If you say anything useless, I’ll kill you immediately. There are plenty to question, so losing a few won’t matter. How many survive from here depends on your answers. Understand?”
Terrified, the Hapsanpa warriors kept silent but nodded hastily.
Seon Woojin and his group interrogated the captured Hapsanpa warriors, learning about recent events and the number and positions of enemy forces nearby.
They then blew a whistle they had taken as a signal that the target had been found.
Peeeep!
Soon, urgent whistle blasts echoed around, and warriors began to converge.
Peeeep! Peeeep!
“Found them?!”
“There, over there!”
Hearing the approaching warriors’ voices and footsteps from all directions, Seon Woojin said with a blank expression.
“Capture the commanders alive, but kill the rest. They’re not worth living.”
Seolpung silently nodded, and Jungchil chuckled softly.
“Heh heh heh, moths flying into the flame. It’s easier working with the youngest around. Otherwise, we’d have to hunt them down one by one.”
Moments later, warriors charged toward us, shouting.
“Where are they?! Where is he?!”
But the only response they got was the flash of hidden weapons, the cold gleam of blades, and the thunderous strikes of fists.
Shing! Swish! Thud!
“Argh!”
“Ahhh!”
“P-please spare me!”
Nearly a hundred Hapsanpa warriors had been stationed nearby, but it didn’t take long to dispatch them all.
In fact, waiting for them to gather took longer than defeating them.
Shortly after, Seon Woojin’s group captured three of Hapsanpa’s top warriors and interrogated them.
Seon Woojin stared coldly and asked.
“So you approached under orders from Hyeongsanpa and ambushed him?”
“Y-yes! That’s right! We were told that if we said that, he wouldn’t be suspicious, and indeed, he wasn’t! So we ambushed him easily! We don’t know any more details!”
Seon Woojin, Seolpung, and Jungchil exchanged silent glances.
The mention of Hyeongsanpa was troubling.
Hyeongsanpa was a powerful sect located north of Guangxi Province, in Hunan Province.
About ten years ago, when Jeomchangpa fell and left the Old Great Sect, Hyeongsanpa rose to take its place, becoming a formidable force.
At that time, two sects—Hyeongsanpa and Haenampa—were candidates to fill the Old Great Sect’s vacancy.
But when Jin Taedo of the Haenam clan became leader of Haenampa and began acting more like a rogue faction, Hyeongsanpa easily claimed the spot.
Seolpung asked Seon Woojin with a grave expression.
“Jin, little brother, could it be that Hyeongsanpa, not Haenampa, is behind all this?”
Sun Woo-jin shook his head and said, “We can’t be sure yet. It might just be a name they borrowed. Or it could be both the Haenam faction and the Hyeongsan faction. But… one thing’s certain: Inparang definitely had an appointment to meet with the Hyeongsan faction. Whoever gave the orders not only knew that, but also had an exact description of Inparang’s appearance.”
Still, both Sun Woo-jin and Seol Poong knew the truth.
If someone knew about the meeting with the Hyeongsan faction, knew what Inparang looked like, and even knew when and where he would be passing through, then it was far more likely that this was connected to the Hyeongsan faction than not.
Sun Woo-jin frowned and muttered, “The Hyeongsan faction, huh…”
If the Hyesan faction was backing the combined faction alongside the Haenam faction, that was no small matter.
Though the Hyeongsan faction had been absorbed into the Gudaemun faction after the downfall of the Jeomchang faction, they were still a force to be reckoned with. Even if the Jeomchang faction hadn’t fallen, the Hyeongsan faction had enough strength to push out other groups and secure a spot in the Gudaemun faction.
Unlike other Gudaemun factions that limited their influence to their home regions, the Hyeongsan faction claimed the entire Honam province as their territory.
And if the Hyeongsan faction was truly behind the combined faction, their influence would have already spread beyond Honam to other provinces as well.
But that wasn’t the only problem.
The bigger issue was that the Hyeongsan faction wasn’t just large—they were formidable.
Seol Poong let out a small sigh. “If the Hyeongsan faction is really behind this, that’s a serious problem. Their chief elder, Wi Jeong-guk, the ‘Number One Sword of Honam,’ is one of the Thirty-Six Stars of the World, and I’ve heard they have a significant number of other top-tier masters as well…”
Indeed, the Hyeongsan faction was currently enjoying the greatest heyday since its founding.
So if they were truly behind this, they were a far more dangerous opponent than the Haenam faction, which only controlled the seas.
Sun Woo-jin let out a bitter chuckle. “Haenam on the sea, and Hyeongsan on land. The front lines aren’t the only place with serious problems.”
At his words, Seol Poong and Jeung Chil’s faces grew heavy.
Jeung Chil, who usually radiated baseless confidence, was unusually silent, his expression grave.
Then Sun Woo-jin tried to lighten the mood. “Now, now! We don’t have any solid proof yet that the Hyeongsan faction is behind this, do we? We haven’t decided to confront them either. For now, let’s bury these bodies and head to the place where Inparang was ambushed.”
The warriors of the combined faction had said that when Inparang let his guard down, they had ambushed him, killing the three warriors who were with him and wounding him as well.
Though the three warriors had resisted fiercely, allowing Inparang to escape alone, his injuries were severe enough that he couldn’t have gotten far, according to their testimony.
Jeung Chil asked, “But why go there? Inparang’s no fool—he wouldn’t just go back to the same place.”
Sun Woo-jin smiled slyly. “The combined faction warriors couldn’t follow Inparang’s trail, but we think we can, brother.”
“Huh? How?”
Jeung Chil’s eyes widened in surprise. Sun Woo-jin reached over and petted the neck of Sakwol, the black leopard walking beside him.
“We have Sakwol, don’t we?”
Sakwol was practically a living legend, as Mukrang had declared. Sun Woo-jin figured that if anyone could track down traces that others missed, it would be Sakwol.
Jeung Chil’s face lit up with understanding. “Ah! A dog’s nose?”
Sun Woo-jin and Seol Poong exchanged wry smiles at the nickname for a leopard’s nose. Sakwol shot Jeung Chil a displeased glance, clearly understanding the joke.
Moments later, Sakwol proved his worth.
Though the bloodstains that seemed to belong to Inparang had stopped early on, Sakwol followed the trail without hesitation, as if seeing the traces with his eyes.
Seol Poong and Jeung Chil couldn’t help but exclaim in awe.
“Sakwol really is amazing!”
“Truly a dog’s nose!”
At that moment, only Sun Woo-jin noticed Sakwol wrinkle his nose and hesitate briefly.
After a while, Sakwol led them deep into the mountains, to a hidden cave tucked away so secretly that no one would have found it without his guidance.
The three men looked around the cave entrance in wonder.
“This must be the place,” one of them said.
“Without Sakwol, no one would have found it. That beast really knows how to find places like this.”
Without hesitation, Sun Woo-jin and the others entered the cave.
A rush of blood scent hit them immediately.
The cave was thick with the smell of blood.
Then came a groan.
“W-who’s there? Ugh!”
The first thing their eyes caught was a pale but handsome face.
A man lay collapsed on the cave floor, his features so similar to Sun Woo-jin’s that one could almost draw his portrait as a twin.
The second thing they noticed was the blood pooling around him.
He had wrapped his wounded abdomen with cloth, but the fabric was soaked through, and the blood had spread across the cave floor.
It was remarkable he was still alive after losing so much blood.
Sun Woo-jin quickly approached and said, “We’re not here to harm you. You don’t need to be afraid.”
Under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t have been enough to ease his guard.
But in his current state, he was in no condition to fend off anyone.
Sun Woo-jin immediately took his pulse to assess his condition.
Though he had never formally studied medicine, Sun Woo-jin could take a pulse; interpreting it was Mukrang’s expertise.
Jeung Chil, unaware of this, muttered in admiration, “Our youngest really can do everything. Now he can even take a pulse…”
Seol Poong nodded proudly. “Jin, you truly are the greatest prodigy in the world.”
Sun Woo-jin could only smile wryly, speechless.
Then Mukrang spoke in a grave tone.
“Excessive bleeding is a problem, but worse, his internal organs are severely damaged. I’m sorry, but this friend is as good as dead. He’s probably in the final moments of consciousness.”
“Final moments of consciousness”—a brief return of awareness just before death.
Sun Woo-jin bit his lip and hurriedly asked, knowing time was short.
“You’re Inparang of Haenam, aren’t you? Do you have any last words or requests? I’ll do my best to fulfill them.”
Inparang looked at Sun Woo-jin with weak eyes and struggled to speak.
“Thank… you…”
Then, with great effort, he pointed to the bundle beside him.
“Please… don’t let our family line die out…”
With those words, his hand fell limply to the ground.
Thud.
He had passed away.
The three men could only stare in stunned silence at the lifeless body of Inparang.