Chapter 509
The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything Chapter 509: Into the Darkness (4)
Nam Hwaseong, who had been lying prostrate and broken following Dang Seohui’s brutal session of first aid, violently jerked his chin upward.
“What? Jin Sowoon… is someone heading this way?”
Jin Sowoon cast a sideways glance at him.
“Hall Master.”
“…Damn it all. Hall Master, my foot. I asked if someone was approaching!”
“I heard you, so stay put and rest.”
That fellow always had such a charming way with his tongue.
Despite his groans, Nam Hwaseong forced his bruised limbs to bear weight, struggling to his feet.
True to his word, five figures soon emerged from the gloom, halting abruptly in mutual shock.
“W-who goes there?”
Their hands instinctively dropped toward their sword hilts, ready to draw steel at a moment’s notice.
Nam Hwaseong’s face twisted into a fierce scowl.
If he took any more damage here, the subsequent medical treatment would likely hurt worse than the blades that caused it.
The mere thought made him want to launch a preemptive strike.
“We belong to Yuseong Hall of the Martial Alliance.”
“Yuseong… Hall?”
The newcomers seemed far more perplexed by the name Yuseong Hall than by the mention of the Martial Alliance.
They inched forward cautiously.
As they stepped into clearer light, Nam Hwaseong finally understood their confusion.
They, too, wore the standard garments of the Martial Alliance.
“Are you truly members of the Alliance?”
“We comprise Yuseong Hall, a specialized detachment directly under the Mantong Office.”
Even then, suspicion lingered in their postures. They hovered, hesitating and demanding further verification.
“Deputy Unit Leader, didn’t they mention before we set out that operatives from the Mantong Office would rendezvous with us?”
“Hm? Now that you mention it… was that Yuseong Hall?”
Only after whispering amongst themselves did they finally close the remaining distance.
At close range, their battered states laid bare the sheer brutality of wherever they had been.
Not a single inch of their clothing remained whole, while dark, dried cakes of blood matted their hair and stained their skin.
“I am Jang Hosu, Deputy Unit Leader of the Second Investigation Unit under the Eighth Division of the Martial Alliance.”
As it turned out, they were the very personnel the Yuseong Hall contingent had originally been dispatched to accompany.
“Are you all right? Your condition looks severe.”
At Jin Sowoon’s expression of concern, Jang Hosu wearily massaged his temples.
“Ah… words fail me. What on earth is happening in this damned place?”
According to their account, the Second Investigation Unit had pressed into the Sword Tomb with high morale, aiming to link up with the First Investigation Unit without delay.
Yet the whereabouts of the vanguard remained a complete mystery.
Ultimately, they had resolved to begin their own independent sweep.
“Nothing went according to plan. The moment we crossed the threshold, the treasure map proved worthless—rife with errors and omissions. Then, members of the Black Path driven utterly insane within the maze ambushed everyone indiscriminately, friend and foe alike, throwing everything into chaos.”
Composed of elite martial artists, the unit had managed to avoid immediate collapse. But caught in an eternal twilight where day and night blurred, subsisting on meager rations and stolen moments of sleep amidst endless skirmishes, the group had slowly frayed at the seams.
“Roughly three days ago, I believe, a horde of madmen burst from a subterranean cavern like a tidal wave. We were swept up in the carnage and cut off from the main body.”
Ever since, virtually every soul they encountered belonged to the Black Path, leading to uninterrupted bloodshed.
“I dread to think what comes next. The Alliance will likely assemble a Third Investigation Unit and send them in blind. At this rate, it’s nothing short of feeding lambs to the slaughter.”
Jin Sowoon offered a solemn nod.
“Your assessment is correct. If fresh forces enter unprepared, the disaster will only compound itself.”
Jang Hosu nodded in weary agreement.
“By any chance, do you know the way out?”
“We can certainly retrace our steps and guide you to the exit.”
“Surely you aren’t planning to press onward into the depths?”
“We are.”
“Have you lost your… No, are you in your right mind… what?”
“…”
Jin Sowoon’s brow twitched.
Not that Jang Hosu’s logic was inherently flawed.
“Yuseong Hall has an objective to fulfill.”
“That is sheer madness! Getting out alive takes precedence over everything else.”
“…”
“Get out with us first, file your report, and return for your mission later. By any rational standard, that is the only sensible path.”
Jin Sowoon fell silent, weighing the words for a long beat.
“Very well. We will withdraw with you for now.”
“Phew. Thank you for making the sensible choice.”
A wave of palpable relief washed over Jang Hosu and the members of the Eighth Division.
At that moment, a covert sound transmission from Jin Sowoon slipped into Nam Hwaseong’s mind.
-Do not close your eyes tonight, under any circumstances.
Startled, Nam Hwaseong snapped his gaze toward Jin Sowoon.
-If you die in your sleep, I won’t mourn you, so keep your wits about you.
The chilling warning prompted an immediate desire to demand answers.
Instead, Jin Sowoon calmly turned back to discuss evacuation routes with Jang Hosu.
‘W-what kind of game is he playing?’
Nam Hwaseong had fully expected insomnia after the brutal violence earlier that sichen, but an unnatural, heavy drowsiness began dragging at his eyelids, forcing him to grind his teeth in resistance.
‘If I’d known exhaustion would hit this hard, I should have slept when I had the chance.’
Geumpyo’s baffling, erratic behavior suddenly seemed intensely enviable.
‘Wait, why is he suddenly growing suspicious of them?’
Jin Sowoon’s actions rarely followed conventional logic, but doubting fellow Alliance members who were practically sworn brothers defied all reason.
Perhaps the insult of being branded a madman still rankled.
Jang Hosu had phrased it diplomatically, but to someone as prickly as Jin Sowoon, it undoubtedly stung.
Even so, from Jang Hosu’s perspective, the observation wasn’t entirely unfair.
They had entered under orders, but the labyrinthine Sword Tomb bore zero resemblance to a profitable excavation site.
All dreams of treasure had long since evaporated, replaced by a desperate scramble for mere survival.
‘This place is driving me out of my mind.’
An Eighth Division operative took up the first watch.
The sentry stood rigidly at attention, muscles coiled with tension, yet the hours passed without incident.
Perhaps the monotony of standing watch wore on him, as the guard kept shifting his weight and pacing restless circles.
When the first watch expired, Nam Hwaseong feigned deep slumber before rising to relieve him for the second shift.
“You look exhausted. Are you holding up?”
“Ah… I’ll manage.”
“If you feel you can’t carry the burden, wake someone else.”
“Understood.”
He endured the agonizing second watch through sheer grit, finally tagging in the next guard for the third rotation.
“You look completely drained. Get some actual rest.”
“Aye. Watch yourself.”
The instant his back hit the cold stone, an overwhelming tide of lethargy crashed over him.
It felt almost unnatural in its intensity.
He forced every ounce of focus onto the sentry handling the third watch, yet his awareness steadily dissolved into a gray haze.
The fatigue felt so artificially induced, so heavy and invasive, that Nam Hwaseong quietly began circulating his internal qi to keep his mind sharp.
The third guard, seemingly battling sleep as well, began to mumble softly to himself.
“Ah… I miss my mother. I should have gone to see her before taking this assignment.”
The moment those words registered, Nam Hwaseong’s artificial sense of safety shattered.
Simultaneously, realization struck him like a physical blow, and he snapped his eyes wide open.
“Gasp!”
A blade shimmering with a lethal blue aura was descending directly toward his neck.
‘T-too slow!’
His eyes had opened, but that was all.
The steel was already so close that lifting a finger to defend himself was a physical impossibility.
‘I’m dead!’
As he squeezed his eyes shut in despair,
Thud! Thud! Thud!
A series of heavy impacts echoed through the chamber, accompanied by the sharp whistle of displaced air.
“If you’re awake, stop lying there and move!”
Jin Sowoon slammed the assailant bodily against the stone wall, unleashing a ferocious flurry of strikes.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
When the attacker raised a hand to block, the bones pulverized instantly. When they tried to guard with an elbow, the joint shattered.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
With every brutal blow Jin Sowoon delivered, the enemy’s skull drove deeper into the unyielding rock face.
“Urk…”
As dark blood spurted from the ruined visage of the assailant, Jang Hosu materialized from behind, striking at Jin Sowoon with lightning velocity.
Nam Hwaseong vaulted upward, throwing himself into the path to intercept Jang Hosu, pouring every drop of his remaining qi into his gauntlets as he unleashed a storm of punches.
Babababak!
Five rapid strikes hammered outward, yet not a single one found a solid mark.
The effortless expenditure of his fist qi revealed that Jang Hosu possessed terrifying martial prowess.
‘We need a coordinated assault!’
He scrambled backward, creating space to line up alongside Jin Sowoon.
‘T-that bastard!’
Instead of pressing the advantage, Jin Sowoon coolly abandoned the corpse and shifted targets.
As he lunged forward, swinging his blade toward the Eighth Division operative who had manned the third watch,
“Hall Master Jin!”
Jang Hosu roared in disbelief.
“What in the blazing hell do you think you’re doing? Didn’t we agree to leave together?”
What kind of transparent act was this?
Were they seriously maintaining the pretense that they hadn’t struck first…?
“What nonsense are you spouting, you rat?”
“…!”
Regardless of Jang Hosu’s protests, Jin Sowoon’s sword descended without hesitation.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The vast gulf in their martial attainments was glaringly obvious even from afar.
Stripped of his weapon, the Eighth Division member lost an arm in a flash of silver before a final crosswise slash ended his life.
“You absolute lunatic…!!”
The rest of the impostors fared no better.
Dang Seohui moved with blurring speed, driving a flurry of needles into an operative’s face and dropping them instantly, while Geumpyo pressed another back with desperate aggression.
Ilgak had already pinned his opponent flat against the floor.
“Do you believe butchering fellow Alliance members will go unpunished?!!!”
Jang Hosu’s voice carried such raw, righteous fury that Nam Hwaseong hesitated, momentarily paralyzed by doubt.
He remained utterly lost as to the true nature of the situation.
Then,
“Let me ask you something.”
Jin Sowoon’s voice cut through the chaos, cool and detached, a faint smirk playing on his lips.
“Did any of us ever disclose my true identity as the Hall Master to you?”
Jang Hosu froze mid-stride.
“…Did you not? I recall seeing you when the Second Investigation Unit roster was confirmed.”
“You claimed you heard it loud and clear, did you not?”
“!”
Jin Sowoon pressed on without missing a beat.
“Now for the second question. Why do your torn uniforms and your fresh wounds tell completely different stories?”
Nam Hwaseong’s eyes tracked the shift.
For a fraction of a second, Jang Hosu’s gaze flickered with panic.
“It could simply be a misunderstanding! Besides, Hall Master Jin, didn’t you act as though everything was normal?”
“Fair enough, I suppose. You ambushed us first, then played the victim to perfection. I almost applauded. Thanks to that performance, one of our simpletons even fell for it.”
Yayul Geuk immediately stepped forward to object.
“I am no simpleton.”
“…”
Crack.
The arm of the captive pinned beneath Ilgak snapped like dry timber.
Dang Seohui flicked her wrist, sending a concealed dart through the throat of the man Geumpyo had been pressing.
Witnessing the systematic slaughter of his comrades, Jang Hosu shoved off the stone floor and bolted for the exit.
“You’ll pay for this! I’ll report every last one of you to the Alliance leadership for treason!”
Yayul Geuk surged forward, sealing the escape route and unleashing his Lotus technique.
“Hup!”
Jang Hosu’s body was jerked upward against his momentum.
Kicking off the cavern ceiling, he tried to hurl himself past them toward the outer corridor rather than fall back to the ground.
At that precise moment,
Whiiing!
The Flying Dragon Claw whistled through the air between Nam Hwaseong and Yayul Geuk.
As Jang Hosu contorted his frame in midair to evade it, the chain shifted trajectory with serpentine intelligence, wrapping securely around his neck. Like a beast snared in a hunter’s wire, he was yanked violently backward toward Jin Sowoon.
“Speak. Who do you really serve?”
“Urk… Second… Investigation Unit, Eighth Division…”
“Drop the stolen identity. Your true allegiance.”
“The Second… Investigation Unit, Eighth Division…”
Blood rushed to Jang Hosu’s head, swelling his skin to a dark, congested crimson.
To his dying breath, he chanted the exact same phrase.
“The Second… Investigation Unit, Eighth Division…”
“Stubborn to the end. I suppose you won’t give up your masters so easily.”
Jin Sowoon tightened his grip on the cord. Golden strands of qi rippled along the links of the Flying Dragon Claw, digging into Jang Hosu’s flesh.
The man thrashed with desperate, primal panic.
Grrrk…
His fingernails scraped against the stone floor until the beds tore away, clawing frantically at the iron wire biting deep into his windpipe.
Yet the harder he fought, the deeper the mechanical fangs sank into his throat.
With a final, ragged convulsion,
“G-gurk…”
Jang Hosu’s eyes rolled back until the whites vanished, and his limbs went slack.
His corpse crumpled limply to the floor like a marionette with its strings severed.
With a flick of his wrist, Jin Sowoon reeled in the chain and glanced toward Ilgak.
Without a word, Ilgak drove his palm down, finishing off the last remaining captive.
“…”
Silence reclaimed the chamber, heavy and absolute.
Gulp.
A suffocating tension settled over the survivors.
“Nam Hwaseong.”
“…Y-yes?!”
Jin Sowoon’s tone carried a razor-sharp edge.
“What was my instruction to you?”
“T-to not sleep…”
“And yet you drifted off, swallowed their crude deception hook, line, and sinker, and stood there like a useless log.”
“…Gulp.”
For reasons entirely unknown, Yayul Geuk quietly took a step backward, an action Nam Hwaseong found intensely infuriating.
“This is the reality of the vermin crawling about this place. If you ever decide to rely on your own flawed judgment again, consider yourself dead.”
“…U-understood.”
Nam Hwaseong suppressed the chill crawling up his spine and forced his jaw to move.
“B-but did you really suspect them just because they seemed hazy on who the Hall Master was?”
“Do I strike you as an imbecile?”
“T-then why?”
Jin Sowoon replied as if stating the most mundane weather report.
“Because I never laid eyes on that man when we processed the paperwork for the Second Investigation Unit.”
“Huh?”
If that was the case, why hadn’t they just fought from the start? Why subject everyone to this elaborate charade…?
He had nearly lost his life over it.
“If I hadn’t put you through this, none of you would ever learn how to keep your guards up in hostile territory.”
Jin Sowoon’s gaze swept slowly from Nam Hwaseong to Yayul Geuk, finally resting on Ilgak.
Nam Hwaseong cursed silently in the depths of his soul.
‘That absolute madman… he really is completely out of his mind!’
Still, logic dictated that Jin Sowoon was right. Having lived through such a ruthless lesson, none of them would ever lower their guard again regarding where they were or the nature of their adversaries.
When Jang Hosu had put on his theatrical display of grievance earlier, Nam Hwaseong had genuinely believed him.
Had Jang Hosu chosen to strike then instead…
‘Damn it all…’
He would have had no defense.
In light of that, how terrifying was Dang Seohui, who had smelled the deception and moved to slaughter them without a second thought?
“I disposed of two of them myself. Does that mean I’ve earned a double portion of candied fruit?”
“…Stop measuring your combat contributions in candied fruit!”
…Though, admittedly, he remained thoroughly uncertain just how perpetually paranoid they were expected to be from now on.
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