Chapter 65

For over ten days, thick fog blanketed the land. It spread densely throughout the night, only dissipating once the morning sun rose. The fog grew denser the closer one approached the lake. The dawn was darker than usual, as if rain might fall.

A man and a woman walked along that fog-shrouded path from dawn.

The man was, of course, Dan Woo-sung, and the woman was Baek Yak.

Dan Woo-sung had been grinding his teeth and training intensely ever since he was beaten by the world’s greatest fighters in his dream. Baek Yak wasn’t the type to stop training just because the weather was gloomy or rain seemed imminent.

Every morning at dawn, nothing special happened on the same old walking path. Occasionally, I’d spot a wildcat darting through the mist or watch a peddler who’d come out to work before daybreak.

But if someone suddenly picked up the pace and started running, it could become either a training session or a light-footwork duel.

Danwooseong ran fiercely, as if he would tear up the ground, while Baekyak ran with movements so light they made no sound.

But deciding a winner held little significance.

Baekyak’s lightness skill was so exceptional it could be called the best in the martial world.

He hadn’t achieved the Dengping Daoshu for nothing.

The King of Swords believed that if Baekyak set his mind to running, few masters in the martial world could catch up to him.

Therefore, no matter how much Dan Woosung increased his speed, Baekyak kept pace with him, running shoulder to shoulder.

Danwooseong took this in stride.

He saw it as a challenge.

Listening to their occasional exchanges revealed the reason was clear. It was partly because the environment where Baekyak had trained his martial arts was far harsher than this flat land, and partly because the White Flower Divine Art contained many subtleties of lightness skill.

That day too, the two arrived side by side at Yangpyeong Lake and gazed at the lake without much conversation. The sight of the pure white mist lying low over the lake’s ripples created a particularly beautiful scene today, as if the sea and sky were meeting.

Baekyak spoke.

“There are many beautiful places in the Central Plains. Why did you choose to live in a place covered only in pure white snow instead of here?”

Danwooseong listened silently, arms crossed. It was her family’s affair; there was little he could say.

“When I was young, I heard this too. That Lord Shichima killed too many people. Probably all the Samagwe of that era met their end at Shichima’s hands… They say he fought nearly every battle, big and small, almost single-handedly. Because of that, the heads of the family after Shichima must have had a hard time. Unknowing descendants would constantly be haunted by grudges they didn’t even understand.”

Dan Woo-sung nodded.

“I can understand that.”

Baekyak smiled as he gazed at the lake.

“So this saying was passed down: If you ever have to return to the Central Plains, go only after preparing thoroughly. It doesn’t matter if that preparation takes a hundred years or two hundred years… I.”

Baekyak paused.

Then Danwooseong turned his head, glared at the thick fog, and narrowed his eyes.

“······.”

As Dan Wooseong and Baekyak simultaneously leapt into the air, sharp needles sliced through the wind and flew toward the lake.

After landing with their backs to the lake, they exchanged a single glance. Since they could read each other’s eyes, there was no need to speak.

‘Be careful······.’

‘Yes.’

Danwooseong looked at Baekyak, then pointed downward with his finger. It meant to scatter and meet again here. Fear was something that simply didn’t exist for men and women who had reached this level.

They were men and women who simply thought, ‘If the enemy comes, we kill them.’ Thus, without a word, the two headed into the mist.

Dan Wooseong swung his hand once, and the fog in the area swirled away like wind-blown dust.

Men clad in pure white robes and golden masks, the Golden-Masked Men, were approaching.

Dan Woo-sung let out a cold laugh.

“Looks like assassins from the Golden-Silver Murder Society.”

Baekyak replied.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

By deliberately wearing masks to reveal their identities, they signaled they were the top assassins of the Golden-Silver Murder Society.

The two advanced, deploying their lightness skills as if bouncing forward, then split left and right, changing direction. Knowing their martial arts were formidable when facing a strong enemy, they intended to maximize the distance between them.

Cold qi and thunder qi began seeping into the mist.

On Danwooseong’s right, where he fought, lightning flares erupted from the mist. On his left, where Baekyak roamed, white figures multiplied.

The fog remained thick, and not a single voice cried out in pain or screamed.

After spinning once in midair, Danwooseong grabbed both men by the head with both hands and injected them with brain energy, yet there was no scream.

Only a faint, eerie clicking sound erupted, and the assassins collapsed on the spot.

It seemed they all had poison pellets in their mouths.

This also meant that if captured, they were to die rather than endure torture.

Holding the skulls of the two who had bitten the poison and died, Dan Woo-sung moved, then hurled the two corpses at the swarming assassins.

Thud! Thump!

One corpse was twisted by the assassin’s force, while another was cleaved in two by someone’s sword.

Thud!

Footsteps grew louder as the assassins formed a defensive circle, encircling Danwooseong. Each time the wind or force of the attack scattered the mist, a face painted gold drifted within it.

It was a sight that would terrify anyone without considerable courage, likely before the fight even began.

The distance between the assassins and Danwooseong narrowed. Dodging a sword thrust toward his face, Danwooseong grabbed the arm and pulled with all his strength.

Crunch.

He then swung the man’s body like a weapon, still gripping his arm. Even then, Danwooseong fought savagely. He swung until the corpse was torn to shreds, and only when the sword severed the limbs did he finally toss it aside.

Baekyak couldn’t see Danwooseong fighting so savagely anyway, thanks to the fog.

As they gradually learned how their opponent fought, most assassins bit down on poison capsules and died the moment Dan Wooseong captured them.

They were madly poisonous bastards.

That was precisely how they had been trained.

Surrounded by those surging forward as if to die, when the gap had narrowed to the point of being nearly impossible to close, Danwooseong struck the ground with his horn.

CRASH!

Those nearby were struck by the circular shockwave and sent flying away as if swept by a wave.

Dan Woosung stood where the mist had cleared, surveying the area before swinging his blade toward the densely packed crowd.

Shwaaah!

He slashed forward with a blade-like thunder strike, unleashed a thunder fist with his left hand, then unleashed a yin palm with both hands.

Crack!

At this level of sound attack, it couldn’t harm Baekyak anyway. The Golden Mask Men staggered, clutching their ears with both hands. Those lacking sufficient inner strength could see their own blood on their hands the moment the sound attack ended. Their eardrums had burst.

Then, with a patter, raindrops began to fall.

The already dark sky grew even blacker beneath the gathering storm clouds. A distant clap of thunder rolled, followed by increasingly heavy downpours.

Swoosh-

Taking advantage of the opening, Dan Woo-sung moved with lightning speed, grabbing a man and dragging him along while tearing off his mask and upper garment. After unleashing a barrage of thunder fists forward, Dan Woo-sung quietly backed away, donning a golden mask and draping himself in a white martial arts robe.

Dan Woo-sung looked up at the dark sky as pouring rain struck his mask.

Dan Woo-sung spoke to Baek Yak as if instructing him.

“I’ve put on the mask.”

Baekyak replied tersely from a considerable distance.

“Yes.”

The conversation flowed smoothly.

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Baekyak was moving in a completely different way than Danwooseong.

Mugong used only the White Flower Finger Technique. He moved while lightly tapping the assassins’ bodies with his fingers. His speed alternated between slow and fast.

Movements as still as mountains coexisted with movements as swift as the wind.

He observed the attack, moved to strike the nape, confirmed the next attack, then focused on hearing the sound after landing the finger technique on the waist.

Baekyak made no sound of breathing or footsteps from the very beginning.

Moreover, any ordinary sound was drowned out by the deafening roar erupting from Danwooseong’s brutal fight. Where Danwooseong fought, bones shattered ceaselessly, something snapped, the ground cracked open, and three or four people simultaneously collided with something and were sent flying.

Baekyak cleverly used even that noise to his advantage.

That was why Baekyak was the most dangerous assassin here.

Baekyak moved through the fog, conserving his energy as much as possible. He knew that after the assassins, a far more skilled master might appear. Even when pausing to catch his breath, he stood beside the frozen assassin. Then, when the attacks surged, he would knock down the frozen doll, instantly strike three or four with the White Flower Palm, and then stop again.

From the perspective of the Golden-Silver Murder Society, it felt like facing a ghost clad in white. Long ago, Bai Muzhen’s nickname had once been the White Ghost. To the assassins, Baekyak was no different from that very White Ghost.

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By the time the fight ended, it was full morning. The sun had risen, yet the sky remained dark, and the rain continued unabated. At least the fog had lifted, revealing the corpses.

Danwooseong took off his mask and looked for Baekyak. He walked back and forth among the corpses as Baekyak approached.

Danwooseong asked.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m fine.”

It felt like a long-awaited reunion, even though they’d only been apart for a short while. Dan Wooseong passed a few more bodies and approached Baekyak.

Not far away, the leader of this assassination squad lay face down, his breath gone. How long he’d been there, no one knew. He’d waited silently for the two in the very center of the main road. After all, once all the assassins here were dead, he’d have to return to the main road’s central spot, back to the Eunha Trading Guild.

A master like Baekyak wouldn’t feel the cold, but soaked through by the rain, he couldn’t help but look pitiful.

Danwooseong took off the assassin’s outer garment he had been wearing and handed it to Baekyak, who casually used the assassin’s clothes like an umbrella.

Only then did the two turn to leave.

Since they were men who ate poison, there were no assassins capable of torturing them. Dan Wooseong intended to order Ha Jeon-ik, the master of the Eight Dragons Sect, to find out about the Golden and Silver Murderers’ Association and report back. He thought even black-clad riffraff could be useful at times like this. After all, they would know more about such organizations than the white-clad righteous.

Walking side by side, the two stopped to look at a corpse lying face down in the middle of the main road and exchanged this conversation.

“Did you kill him?”

“No.”

The two men stopped and stared at the assassin lying face down. They couldn’t remember every single person he’d killed, but they both remembered his territory precisely. In a way, it was a situation where they could have mistakenly assumed the other had killed him and let it slide.

But communication worked.

Baekyak unleashed a torrent of cold air from his arm, and Danwooseong lunged forward like lightning. As the assassin’s entire body, which had just jerked upright, was engulfed by the cold and instantly turned rigid, Danwooseong delivered a powerful kick with his right foot, sending the frozen assassin flying into Yangpyeong Lake.

The assassin, clearly dead or frozen solid, plunged into the lake.

Splash······.

The assassin arrived, and the two found themselves practicing martial arts together. Through their practice, they discovered they could communicate. As they got to know each other, it was as if the assassins had been wiped out.