Episode 42
Sak Muheun was dumbfounded.
Was this guy seriously trying to counter him with stealth techniques?
After all these years—nine years operating in the shadows—was someone really challenging him like this?
The one thing Sak Muheun had appreciated about joining the Shadow Division was that the Martial Alliance generously shared the finest martial arts he’d never even dreamed of before—internal energy cultivation, swordsmanship, divine arts, and of course, stealth techniques.
The assassination technique he had mastered was the secret art of Jo Usun, one of the top five assassins of the previous generation.
And yet, here he was, facing someone who dared to oppose him with mere stealth.
It was almost laughable.
Sak Muheun melted into the shadows, his form dissolving like smoke.
He intended to teach this insolent challenger what true stealth really meant—once and for all.
But as he moved slowly through the darkness, trying to sense his opponent’s position, he found himself growing uneasy.
He could detect the presence of snakes and other animals, but there was no sign of a human presence anywhere.
Apparently, this guy was an assassin too.
Sak Muheun moved even more cautiously, thinking to himself, Looks like this fight’s going to drag on longer than I expected. Have I really lost her?
While Sak Muheun was misjudging Sun Woojin’s background, Sun Woojin remained perfectly still, not moving an inch from his original spot.
The reason Sun Woojin could avoid detection was because the assassination technique he had mastered was the Cheonsal Secret Art of Muyeongsal, one of the top assassins from a century ago.
Plus, the ultimate move of the Cheonjongmun Cheonpung Divine Art he learned from Bisa-yeong allowed him to blend seamlessly with the wind.
Still, even with all that, his stealth couldn’t surpass Sak Muheun’s—an expert at the peak of his craft and a professional assassin.
Experience and mastery made all the difference.
Knowing this well, Sun Woojin stayed put, like a ghost, while Sak Muheun searched for him.
Of course, this wasn’t the wisest tactic.
Staying still meant Sak Muheun couldn’t pinpoint his location, but the moment Sak Muheun discovered him, the fight would be over.
Yet Sun Woojin wasn’t worried.
He trusted that even if Sak Muheun didn’t find him, something else would.
Please, my pretty little helpers.
Having raised the Samchae Snakes for some time, Sun Woojin knew one thing for sure: certain types of snakes were immune to stealth techniques.
Strangely, whether in light or darkness, snakes could always accurately detect the presence of humans or animals.
He didn’t know exactly why—maybe it was because they sensed body heat—but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that the Samchae Snakes he’d caught in the Poisonous Forest were now starting to target his opponent.
Hisss!
“!”
Sak Muheun was shocked as a sudden swarm of snakes, like shadows, attacked him.
While cloaked in stealth, sudden movements were difficult, and he nearly got bitten.
He barely broke his invisibility and leapt away to avoid the snakes’ assault.
But that was only the beginning.
Snakes appeared from all directions, lunging at him.
Hiss! Hiss!
“Tch!”
Sak Muheun swung his sword, slicing the attacking snakes in two.
Shuak!
Hiss!
Shiiik!
It seemed he had lost the stealth battle.
He couldn’t detect his opponent’s position, but his opponent had forced him out into the open.
Still, losing the stealth battle didn’t mean losing the fight.
Sak Muheun sharpened his focus like a blade.
If his enemy was truly an assassin, he wouldn’t miss this chance to strike.
Sure enough, at that moment, he caught the trajectory of a thrown kunai among the flying snakes.
“Got you!”
He lunged toward the kunai’s path.
If they were equals, maybe he’d be wary, but this opponent wasn’t even at his peak yet—kunai like that were nothing to fear.
What he didn’t realize was that while he’d been dodging the kunai earlier, he had now started to slash at every one that came his way.
Shuak!
Chak-cheng! Chak-chak-cheng!
As he cut through the flying kunai like streaks of light, Sak Muheun suddenly noticed something odd—among the kunai were strange leather pouches.
Swish!
“!?”
His sword instinctively sliced through one of the pouches, splitting it in two.
Out poured dozens of wriggling insects.
Fssssk!
“Ugh?!”
He was completely caught off guard.
Moving at full speed, he had no time to react.
The distance was too close.
Sak Muheun squeezed his eyes shut and spun his body, trying to shake off the swarm of insects.
Thud-thud-thud!
Sharp stings pricked his face here and there.
He hurriedly brushed the insects away, but the stings themselves were a bad sign.
He gave up attacking and landed hard on the ground, frantically shaking off the bugs from his face and body.
But when he opened his eyes, a few insects still clung stubbornly to his skin, their fangs or tails embedded.
They were venomous bugs.
Sun Woojin had crafted kunai filled with venomous insects he’d caught in the Poisonous Forest.
Sak Muheun swallowed hard.
Until now, it had been a matter of completing the mission or not.
Now, it was a matter of life and death.
A burning pain spread across his face, growing more intense by the second.
Hiss!
More snakes kept flying at him.
He could no longer bring himself to cut them down and instead dodged their attacks.
He couldn’t be sure if more venomous insects were hidden among the snakes.
But he knew one thing.
Moving like this would only spread the poison faster.
Even if he tried to suppress the venom with his internal energy, he’d been bitten in too many places.
If he tried to restrict his blood flow to control the poison, he wouldn’t be able to move at all.
He was trapped.
Sak Muheun gritted his teeth.
Time was running out.
He had to take the antidote or enter a meditative state as soon as possible.
But first, he had to deal with the enemy and the snakes.
So he resumed slashing at the flying snakes with his sword.
He had to kill them all, no matter what.
And once again, he had to cut through several leather pouches thrown among the snakes.
Fssssk!
“Ugh!”
This time, having prepared, he managed to leap away before being overwhelmed by the insects.
But attacking the direction they were thrown from was impossible.
His vision was blurring.
He couldn’t tell if it was because he was losing his eyesight or if his swollen eyelids were closing over his eyes.
His entire face tingled painfully.
Sak Muheun realized he was reaching his limit.
Before his vision completely failed and the poison spread through his body, he had to retreat to safety.
Just as he was about to make a move, Sun Woojin’s voice echoed.
“Did you know?”
Sak Muheun tensed, quickly turning toward the voice.
Through his dimming vision, he spotted his opponent’s position.
Up in a tree, not too far away.
If he moved now, he might just dodge whatever divine art his opponent used.
“Who else knows you came from the Alliance? Am I the only one? Or my squad? Or maybe the squad leader who gave you our patrol details?”
Sak Muheun’s neck prickled cold.
He knew Sun Woojin was aware he’d met the squad leader.
Could it be that the squad leader was the real mastermind?
Was that incompetent act all just an act?
Hiss!
He quickly sliced a snake that flew at him.
Shak!
Suddenly, Sun Woojin’s voice came from a different direction.
“I really wonder—what kind of heart does it take to order someone to sacrifice their life and kill a patrol officer standing on the front lines?”
A chill ran down Sak Muheun’s spine.
His senses were so dulled he couldn’t even detect Sun Woojin’s movement.
If this continued, he might not even win a direct confrontation.
He had to end this now.
“How thoughtless must someone be to follow such an order blindly? Tell me, what makes you different from the blood cult’s demons? They only eat people, but you… do you eat other things too?”
Sun Woojin kept shifting positions as he spoke.
Sak Muheun only needed to catch him once—just once.
At that moment, another snake flew at him.
It bit Sak Muheun’s leg hard.
“Ugh!”
He groaned and dropped to one knee.
It was as if he couldn’t hold on any longer.
His guard was down.
But even kneeling, Sak Muheun’s mind was razor-sharp.
In fact, the leg the snake bit was protected inside thick leather under his pants.
He had deliberately let the snake bite there to expose a weakness.
Now, he waited for his opponent to come closer.
He didn’t need much.
If he could just get within three paces…
Then he heard Sun Woojin’s voice.
“Is this the end?”
And finally, Sun Woojin began to approach.
Using his keenest sense—his hearing—Sak Muheun gauged the distance.
Five paces.
Four paces.
Three paces!
Bang!
He threw his whole body forward.
With a desperate thrust, he drove his sword into Sun Woojin’s chest.
A faint glow of blue sword energy stretched straight through, piercing deep inside.
Poke!
He thought he heard the sound of impact.
But it was only his imagination.
What Sakmuhun had actually pierced was nothing but a lingering afterimage of Sun Woo-jin. As Sun Woo-jin smoothly slipped the thrust aside and shifted to the side, his sword, Mukrang, was already flying toward Sakmuhun’s neck.
Shhhk!
Having seen his opponent’s new technique earlier, Sun Woo-jin had anticipated a full-powered thrust coming from about three jang away.
So, pretending to close in within that range, he deployed the Cheonpung footwork, letting his opponent’s strike flow past him as effortlessly as petals scattered by the wind.
No matter how masterful the attack, if the opponent perfectly predicts and prepares for it—especially someone like Sun Woo-jin, a master of divine techniques—there was simply no way to overcome it.
Without hesitation, Sun Woo-jin brought his sword down on Sakmuhun’s neck.
Even a top-tier master was finished now.
The swollen eyes of his opponent seemed no longer able to see him.
But Sun Woo-jin’s sword never completed its arc.
Chaeang!
“Hold on a moment, will you?”
A middle-aged man in blue suddenly appeared and blocked Sun Woo-jin’s blade with his own sword.
Sun Woo-jin was stunned by the man’s sudden emergence, as if he had materialized out of thin air.
But he gritted his teeth.
He couldn’t just stand there in shock.
He immediately raised his sword to strike again.
“?!”
But it wouldn’t budge.
Mukrang seemed to be stuck fast against the middle-aged man’s blade.
It was apparently the legendary “Absorption Lock” technique he’d only heard about in stories.
Sun Woo-jin couldn’t even begin to guess just how skilled this man was.
Then a voice came from behind the middle-aged man.
“Sun Woo-gongja, this is my father.”
Startled, Sun Woo-jin turned to see Hae Cheong-yeon standing behind the man, smiling.
He stared at her blankly and asked, “…Your father?”
Looking back at the middle-aged man, he saw the same satisfied smile directed at him.
In truth, during her leave, Hae Cheong-yeon had already sent a letter to her father.
Unlike the letter entrusted to Jegal Ji-gang, this one contained a warning: if Jegal Ji-gang failed to deliver the message, it would mean the Murim Alliance was behind everything.
In other words, this entire plan was Hae Cheong-yeon’s way of testing Jegal Ji-gang.
She had even asked her father to come to the front lines, just in case she and her comrades couldn’t handle things on their own.
Her father possessed the ability to make any dangerous situation safe—so long as it didn’t involve a direct confrontation with the Blood Demon.
That’s why she hadn’t told her comrades about her father, and had only asked him to watch from nearby until things got truly dangerous.
Now, having resolved everything without needing her father’s help, Hae Cheong-yeon asked him, “What did you think?”
He nodded with a pleased smile.
“Very impressive. That was more than enough.”
Though what exactly was impressive or sufficient remained unsaid.
After days of deliberation, Mayu-gyeom finally reopened the box left behind by the Blood Demon.
Inside were elixirs, poison pills, and a thin manual.
He had actually opened the box the very first day he received it but had closed it again without taking the elixirs or reading the manual.
Now, after several days, he opened it once more.
Holding the elixir in his hand, he stared at it for a moment before unfolding the manual.
He intended only to skim it briefly before closing it again.
But once he opened it, he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
The manual didn’t contain the Blood Sect’s martial arts.
Instead, it was filled with miscellaneous techniques personally selected and written down by the Blood Demon.
Though he felt a twinge of guilt that these weren’t the sect’s official arts, Mayu-gyeom kept reading, thinking that as long as he didn’t practice them, it wouldn’t matter.
The first entry explained how to use poison pills to avoid possession by demonic spirits when one’s internal energy was unstable—the very method Sun Woo-jin’s group had heard from the old man Seok Gyeong-dal.
Mayu-gyeom had long wondered why Blood Sect members, who mostly gained their internal energy through absorption, never fell victim to demonic possession.
Unconsciously, he found himself absorbed in the manual.
Next, he examined the poison pills included in the box.
The second section detailed the Absorption Technique—how to absorb a person’s vital energy to increase one’s own internal power.
This was the hallmark of the Blood Sect in the eyes of the world.
But surprisingly, the technique described wasn’t as grandiose as the legendary Absorption Great Method.
There was no mention of absorbing internal energy just by touching someone’s palm.
Instead, it seemed to be used during intercourse with a woman or by sucking the opponent’s blood.
Because of this, Mayu-gyeom couldn’t help but pay close attention.
Since the fall of the Jeomchang Sect, he’d struggled to build his internal energy without elixir support.
The third section caught his eye even more.
It described a method of suggestion—not as direct as mind control, but a powerful form of hypnosis that left a strong impression on the target, eventually causing them to act as desired.
Unlike mind control, this technique made the subject believe they were acting entirely of their own free will, which made it seem even more useful.
Mayu-gyeom found himself imagining how to use it.
If he could plant such a suggestion in Sa Gun-il, perhaps she would willingly choose to revive the Jeomchang Sect herself.
But as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he chuckled bitterly and shook his head.
What good would that do now?
And even if these weren’t official Blood Sect techniques, was it even reasonable for him to use them?
The manual’s warnings stated that the technique only worked if the target’s mind was open or completely broken, and only when the user’s skill was sufficiently advanced.
So it wouldn’t work on Sa Gun-il anyway.
Then a sudden thought struck him.
What if he could use it on her?
He laughed again, this time more hollowly.
He had no idea where he was headed.
He didn’t know what he was living for anymore, or how he should live going forward.
One thing was certain: returning to the old Mayu-gyeom, who was devoted to reviving the Jeomchang Sect, was probably impossible.
With a weary smile that had become habitual, Mayu-gyeom stared blankly into the void.