Chapter 187

Chapter 187: Night of the Long Sword (3)

Right now, the members of the Fire Bell Gang had arrived upon a rooftop, positioned a mere several dozen paces away from the compound of the One-Eyed Sect.

“Gang Leader. Something feels off.”

The First Guardian of the Fire Bell Gang, keeping close to Jo Jung-heon, spoke in a low whisper while flattening his body against the tiles.

The Gang Leader, Jo Jung-heon, had detected the odd atmosphere as well, which was why he didn’t question his subordinate’s words.

He merely gave a silent hand gesture telling his men to stay low, keeping his gaze locked on the defensive wall of the One-Eyed Sect, which was now very close.

He strained his hearing and extended his Qi Sense as far as possible.

The silence was absolute.

The stillness was uncanny.

Not a single sentry stood watch at the main entrance, and no sound drifted out.

Even if they were currently locked in a brutal turf war with the Black Wind Hall, it made no sense for the front gates to be completely unguarded.

“……”

He kept watch for a considerable duration, but the One-Eyed Sect remained entirely devoid of presence or activity.

“…Confound it.”

They had run out of alternatives.

“We move in.”

Jo Jung-heon began advancing toward the entrance of the One-Eyed Sect, gliding with a level of stealth that far surpassed their approach across the roofs.

The guardians, elders, and front-line combatants of the Fire Bell Gang trailed closely in his wake.

It was only when they actually arrived at the main gate that the reality began to sink in.

A dark fate had clearly overtaken the One-Eyed Sect.

Aside from the complete lack of guards, the heavy iron-reinforced gate of the One-Eyed Sect was already slightly cracked open.

“…This has the markings of an ambush—”

The First Guardian caught sight of this and, choosing discretion, attempted to voice a warning.

Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-swoosh-!

The sharp air-rending noise of hundreds of projectiles suddenly erupted.

A torrential storm of arrows and throwing darts rained down upon them.

The trajectory was completely chaotic.

They whistled down from the high walls of the One-Eyed Sect, from the surrounding residential roofs, and even from the very eaves where they had taken cover moments before.

Two vanguard fighters of the Fire Bell Gang perished under the relentless hail of concealed projectiles, which lasted for the duration of a cup of tea.

It was widely understood that hidden projectiles rarely troubled true martial experts, but such a rule collapsed under the weight of overwhelming numbers.

“What sort of degenerate would employ such underhanded tactics?”

Answering Jo Jung-heon’s grim utterance, a figure suddenly plummeted lightly from the top of the One-Eyed Sect’s wall.

“That is rich coming from a barbarian who breaks into someone else’s residence without an invitation. Isn’t that right, Gang Leader Jo?”

A mocking smirk, a dark patch obscuring his left eye, and a shrill, piercing voice that resembled the chirping of a bird.

Jo Jung-heon identified the intruder instantly.

“Smiling-Faced Poisonous Eye, Cheong Goryang… What business do you have here?”

Cheong Goryang.

He was the reigning leader of the One-Eyed Sect.

A single eye and lethal venom.

The moniker, Smiling-Faced Poisonous Eye, was a clever moniker bestowed upon him because his malicious nature was constantly masked by a grinning countenance and a solitary eye.

Cheong Goryang was an expert celebrated across the Jianghu of the River Capital for his brilliant tactics and combat prowess.

“What business do I have? Why should it surprise you that I am standing inside my own property?”

The edge of Cheong Goryang’s lone eye narrowed into a sharp curve.

Paired with the cruel lift of his mouth, it radiated an unsettling, twisted sense of amusement.

It was as though he could already taste the bloodshed that was about to take place.

“Regardless, I welcome you. I have no intention of being a poor host, so by all means, make yourselves comfortable. My friend.”

Thump—, thump—.

With each stride Cheong Goryang took, a defined indentation was pressed into the solid bluestone earth.

Behind his back, dozens of dark shapes began dropping down in succession.

The warriors who fully emerged all possessed only a single functional eye.

They comprised the absolute cream of the One-Eyed Sect, known as the One-Eyed Poisonous Hand Squad.

Cheong Goryang, flanked by the One-Eyed Poisonous Hand Squad, advanced steadily forward.

They moved in a crescent shape, deliberately herding the Fire Bell Gang forces backward into the inner grounds of the One-Eyed Sect.

It was a tightening crescent that gradually restricted their space.

“Stand down! Pull back right now and you might keep your lives!”

Even with the suffocating pressure rolling off Cheong Goryang and his elite fighters, the First Guardian of the Fire Bell Gang refused to falter.

Instead, he channeled blazing energy into his hand and glared fiercely at Cheong Goryang.

“Even if you have us cornered, we possess more than enough force to drag you, Cheong Goryang, down to the underworld alongside us!”

Did the concept of mutual destruction amuse him?

Cheong Goryang let out a low laugh, far deeper and more sinister than his previous chuckles.

“I won’t fault a trapped beast for growling. However, in scenarios like this, you see.”

The instant his sentence concluded.

Ching—.

Cheong Goryang’s palm brushed past the grip of the blade resting at his hip.

No, he hadn’t drawn it; he was finishing its return to the scabbard.

The blade had already severed its target’s neck and slid back into place before a single drop of blood could mark the steel.

“Shedding tears of terror offers a far better chance of survival than showing your teeth.”

A seamless slash extended from the left shoulder of the First Guardian all the way to his right ear, splitting his torso cleanly apart.

With a wet slide, the top half of the First Guardian tumbled away along the angle of the wound.

Cheong Goryang casually stepped over the severed head that had bounced onto the stones, continuing his advance toward Jo Jung-heon.

For every pace Cheong Goryang pressed forward, Jo Jung-heon retreated by an equal distance.

As this pattern persisted, Jo Jung-heon and the remnants of the Fire Bell Gang were drawn deeper into the main courtyard of the One-Eyed Sect against their will.

“My esteemed colleague, the great Gang Leader of Fire Bell.”

Saying this, Cheong Goryang smirked and crooked his left index finger in an inviting motion.

“Submit to your fate and perish. Unlike your relaxed schedule, my time is quite limited. Once I have carved you apart, I must quickly depart to collect the head of that Black Wind Hall leader as well.”

Naturally, Jo Jung-heon had no desire to throw his life away.

He threw a meaningful glance to the remaining guardians and elite warriors, signaling them to push ahead into the inner grounds of the One-Eyed Sect.

The mouth of the beast.

Realistically, stepping into the One-Eyed Sect at this moment was tantamount to placing one’s neck directly beneath the executioner’s blade.

It was painfully clear that everything unfolding was a calculated plot orchestrated by Cheong Goryang.

Which meant the man was intentionally baiting them into the interior.

What sort of tactical arrays were primed to activate?

How many hidden fighters were stationed inside?

What variety of concealed mechanisms were primed to spring?

He was entirely in the dark.

Yet, left with no viable alternative, he utilized his subordinates as a vanguard to test the waters.

Keeping his eyes locked tightly onto Cheong Goryang, he carefully drifted backward into the One-Eyed Sect.

He understood perfectly that losing sight of Cheong Goryang for even a fraction of a second would result in him sharing the exact fate of his First Guardian.

One pace, two paces, three paces.

Deliberately and cautiously, he crossed completely into the One-Eyed Sect courtyard, praying his vanguard had established a defensive perimeter.

And yet…

The silence was total.

The stillness absolute.

Whether it was array formations, concealed mechanisms, or hidden troops, they should have engaged the vanguard that entered moments ago.

‘Something is horribly wrong…’

Utilizing the stone pillars of the main gate to briefly obscure himself from Cheong Goryang’s gaze, he spun his body around to survey the interior courtyard.

“……”

The vanguard warriors he had sent ahead were positioned precisely where he had intended.

The issue lay in the fact that they were strewn across the earth.

No arrays had triggered, no mechanisms had sprung, and no enemy warriors had engaged them.

Granted, he hadn’t anticipated an easy entry.

But he certainly never envisioned himself standing completely isolated within this massive courtyard.

No, to be perfectly precise, there was one additional entity.

A lone youth standing solitary in the center of the vast space.

“Who…”

…are you, the words refused to form.

His field of vision began to tilt violently.

His vocal cords failed to function.

Thump, roll-roll-roll—.

The surroundings flipped upside down as he fell, and then the figure of a person loomed massively before his failing sight.

The garments on that figure were incredibly familiar.

Three characters painted in dark rust-red across the wide shoulders.

Fire Bell Gang.

That headless torso standing there like a mindless statue… belonged to his own body.

As Jo Jung-heon descended into the abyss of death without comprehending how, a solitary, parting whisper drifted into his fading consciousness.

“Five.”

Even as darkness claimed him, curiosity lingered.

What was the significance of that number?

And to whom did that completely detached, icy voice belong?

● ● ●

Cheong Goryang did not show any urgency in pursuing Jo Jung-heon.

The target was already a cornered rat inside a cage.

The Fire Bell Gang Leader was a formidable martial artist in his own right, but he was completely overwhelmed by numbers here.

There were 326 elite combatants stationed throughout the One-Eyed Sect grounds, and to eliminate any possibility of flight, he had meticulously deployed seven distinct varieties of hallucinatory formations across the area.

Furthermore, he had concealed dozens of troops armed with volatile fire explosives.

“And yet…”

He hummed a casual tune as he strolled toward the main entrance of his One-Eyed Sect, a structure destined to mark his grand triumph, before pausing to tilt his head in confusion.

“Why is there no commotion?”

Once the Fire Bell Gang Leader and his retinue breached the perimeter, even if a grand battle didn’t erupt, the sounds of them floundering within the tactical arrays should have echoed out.

Ah.

The explanation dawned on him a moment later.

“Hehehehe. Had I realized the Fire Bell Gang Leader was such a lightweight, I would have wiped them out much sooner.”

The Fire Bell Gang Leader and his direct subordinates must have been so utterly pathetic that they were wiped out in a flash.

He smirked broadly and shoved open the heavy doors of his headquarters—the One-Eyed Sect, an enterprise that would soon expand exponentially to dominate the entirety of this River Capital—and marched across the threshold.

“My dear Gang Leader of Fire Bell. Are you still drawing bre… What!?”

A lone youth was standing in the center of the courtyard.

To be entirely accurate, only that singular individual was left standing.

The figure resembling Jo Jung-heon was technically upright as well, but calling it standing was a massive overstatement.

A torso remaining upright without a skull is either a stone monument or a fresh cadaver of identical description.

The remaining martial artists of the Fire Bell Gang were strewn carelessly across the flagstones.

They were either completely decapitated or butchered into unrecognizable remnants, their original appearances utterly erased.

Then what of his own elite troops?

The elaborate formations he had so carefully constructed?

The Core Catalyst Stones of the various illusion arrays he had painstakingly hidden were entirely shattered and ground into dust upon the stones.

The explosive squads he had stationed strategically across the grounds had apparently been consumed by their own munitions, reduced to nothing but blackened cinders, while the iron barb traps scattered through the area were warped out of shape as if mangled by a supernatural force.

The 326 elite soldiers of the One-Eyed Sect.

They, too, were butchered and discarded across the entirety of the courtyard.

In truth, describing them as “discarded” failed to capture the reality.

The vast majority had been ripped into such minuscule pieces that they no longer resembled human beings.

Alongside them, countless other bodies littered the ground.

There was zero necessity to inquire about their identities.

“…Who under the sun are you?”

The youth, who had remained as motionless as a carved rock, slowly turned his gaze toward the entrance.

Cheong Goryang was finally able to lock eyes with him.

Vast, midnight-black irises.

They possessed an immense depth.

An abyss so profound that it was impossible to discern what emotions resided within those eyes.

Whether it held a burning passion like fury or malice, a freezing sensation like dread or panic, or absolutely nothing at all—a completely vacant, dead void.

“You took your time.”

The utterance that eventually slipped past the youth’s lips.

A tone entirely devoid of pitch or cadence.

It felt as though he had transposed those merciless eyes onto his tongue to deliver the words.

Nothing but a hollow, bottomless echo.

An unfamiliar shudder caused Cheong Goryang to knit his brows in agitation.

“I happen to be the lord of this estate. Anyone listening to you would assume you owned the place.”

As the words left his mouth, he deliberately wrapped his fingers around the grip of his blade.

Simultaneously, he ignited the entirety of the inner reserve pooled within his Dantian, forcing the energy to cascade violently through his meridian pathways.

The identity of the stranger was irrelevant.

The second he trespassed into this domain, he was a marked man, and Cheong Goryang harbored zero intention of letting an adversary survive inside his own sect.