When the Blood-Whisper Sect’s Northwind Unit arrived at Moonlit Night Pavilion, they gripped their weapons with tense faces and first swept their eyes around the perimeter.
Because it could be a trap.
But Jin Sohan had been following behind the Northwind Unit the whole time, so there was no way there could be any trap. On top of that, Moonlit Night Pavilion’s front gate was standing wide open.
Northwind Unit Leader Jeong Gildo said,
“It’s quiet. Go in. If he had the skill to kill the Pavilion Master, you must not let your guard down.”
“Yes.”
The Northwind Unit entered Moonlit Night Pavilion with muffled footsteps despite the emptiness, and Jeong Gildo stared into the building with his curved saber in hand. A moment later, his subordinates’ voices came from inside.
“There’s no one here!”
“Unit Leader, the crates of silver are untouched.”
Jeong Gildo looked around and formed a satisfied smile.
Mm… the bastard ran off. Yeah. That’s what makes sense.
Jeong Gildo sneered at the other unit leaders with heavy asses and stepped into Moonlit Night Pavilion. Everything here was going to become his alone.
“They went in.”
From Choo Sahyeok’s eyes, watching from farther back, the entire Northwind Unit looked like prey sticking their heads into a den after the tiger had gone out.
For Jin Sohan, it didn’t stir anything.
Jin Sohan looked up at the plaque hanging on Moonlit Night Pavilion’s second floor and said,
“Choo Sahyeok, clear that out. It’ll look like we’re still doing business.”
“Yes. I’ll take it down later. Let’s go in, Unit Leader.”
Choo Sahyeok answered, then let out a sigh. Like he’d become a servant. He found this kind of thing annoying, too. He’d already told the subordinates he’d brought along to keep out of sight for a while, so he’d ended up shouldering all the miscellaneous work himself.
All of it was because he’d made up his mind to see Jin Sohan’s skill with his own eyes.
When Jin Sohan started walking toward Moonlit Night Pavilion, Choo Sahyeok flicked a glance at him with eyes that clearly held anticipation.
Without even looking at Choo Sahyeok, Jin Sohan said,
“Why do you look like you’re enjoying this?”
“Huh? You didn’t even look—”
“I can see.”
“Yes, well… watching fights is always fun, isn’t it? Should I help you, too?”
“You’re a weird bastard. The Blood-Whisper Sect is your organization.”
“I told you I was originally Ghost Blade Sect. They absorbed us by force—why would I feel good about it?”
“If you hated it, you should’ve left.”
“Mm. Yeah. You’re right.”
While Choo Sahyeok blankly chewed over Jin Sohan’s words, Jin Sohan slid into Moonlit Night Pavilion.
The first floor was empty.
Northwind Unit members were gathered on this floor, peering into the crates of silver and rejoicing like they’d found treasure.
“Damn, how much is all this?”
“Looks like a few are missing, so…”
“Don’t touch it. Unit Leader checked it and went up. You really think Unit Leader won’t take care of us?”
“Come on, let us touch it a little. It’s not like it’ll wear out.”
It wasn’t money that would all come back to them, but still, the mood made it feel like the Northwind Unit would get taken care of pretty well. They were newly admiring their unit leader’s discernment.
But Northwind Unit Leader Jeong Gildo himself was alone, climbing to the top floor to ransack the Pavilion Master’s office in search of the Pavilion Master’s private stash.
Jin Sohan climbed the stairs without a sound and said,
“Don’t touch it.”
“...!”
“Holy—who was that?”
What kind of ghost voice was this? When a strange voice spoke in an empty place, the members jolted. The ones staring at the silver all turned around at once.
A young man in a white robe stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, looking over them.
The Northwind Unit members asked,
“Who are you?”
“A customer? We’re not open today, so—”
Ignoring them, Jin Sohan looked down toward the first floor and said,
“Close the door and come up.”
From below, Choo Sahyeok answered.
“Yes.”
THUD!
Choo Sahyeok shut the front gate, then locked it with the padlock he carried around.
CLACK!
Only then did the Northwind Unit realize who Jin Sohan was. They tightened their grips on their weapons and took their stances.
Someone was yelling up to call the unit leader who’d gone upstairs.
“Unit Leader!”
“Unit Leader! It’s that bastard!”
In the middle of the panic, someone muttered like he was talking to himself.
“Wasn’t he supposed to have run away?”
To that mutter, Jin Sohan replied.
“I went to eat.”
“……”
Thirty men moved cautiously with weapons in hand, but no one immediately charged him. They made their living on the blade, too, so they could tell their opponent’s presence was oppressive.
So for a brief moment, everyone just stared at Jin Sohan’s face.
What did you even call that expression?
A look of annoyance, eyes sunk low, and the unhurried ease you only occasionally saw in true experts. When Unit Leader Jeong Gildo still didn’t answer from above, a conclusion finally formed inside the Northwind Unit.
“Hit him.”
The opponent was alone, and he didn’t even have a weapon out.
The Northwind Unit, who had spread out wide and fixed their positions while watching Jin Sohan, rushed him all at once.
Just as the first man’s blade was about to reach Jin Sohan, Jin Sohan slipped in with a very simple movement, caught the man’s wrist, and twisted.
They were trained not to scream, but a pain-choked groan forced its way between his lips.
“Ghk!”
The man’s arm twisted like someone wringing laundry.
The next member rushed in and his knee bent the wrong way, and the third man—before he could even finish his swing—went flying off this floor to the first-floor ground with a scream.
Jin Sohan’s movements were smooth and short.
A simple counter, executed only after confirming the opponent’s movement and the blade’s path. They were never opponents to begin with, so it was annoying even to draw a blade. And another reason played a part—he didn’t want to splash blood where he’d be staying.
But once the fight started, the injured ones were instead driving their own comrades into a dead end.
“Kill him!”
“Hit him! Why are you just standing there!”
With that, four blades poured down toward Jin Sohan’s crown and shoulders.
But Jin Sohan wasn’t there.
He rotated his stance between two men and slipped out, then seized one man’s arm and twisted.
CRAAACK!
The man spun once in the air along the direction his arm was being twisted, and then he stared at the blade he’d thrust—now buried in his own abdomen. Jin Sohan had only struck the wrist and changed the direction.
“GAAAH!”
Now screams that couldn’t hold back pain began bursting out without pause. From upstairs, Northwind Unit Leader Jeong Gildo’s roar could be heard, but it was being swallowed by the screaming.
Choo Sahyeok came up a little late and stared at the carnage on this floor.
Huh? He didn’t draw it this time, either?
Choo Sahyeok had seen the bizarre Twin Moon at Jin Sohan’s waist more than once. He’d thought Jin Sohan would draw it this time—but he hadn’t.
What kind of martial art is that?
Jin Sohan twisted one man’s arm, dragged him along, then threw him into the ones charging in.
THUMP!
Three or four men toppled backward, and one man was dropping to the first floor with his jaw shattered.
Jin Sohan was beating the Northwind Unit members down with bare hands.
It looked brutish at a glance, but seeing the restraint embedded in it from start to finish, Choo Sahyeok folded his arms and watched Jin Sohan’s skill like a man whose soul had flown out of his body.
A seizing-hand method mixed with footwork… and that one, he just checked it with his eyes and knocked it aside. Huh? Just now he countered without even looking. Watch your back.
“KHK!”
The man who’d charged from behind Jin Sohan took a fist and spun through the air.
Jin Sohan came back around, then glared at someone else and stomped without mercy on the fallen man’s ankle.
SNAP!
At that vivid sound, Choo Sahyeok knit his brows.
Choo Sahyeok said,
“Unit Leader, use your blade.”
Jin Sohan didn’t answer, and once again, the sound of bones breaking and screams erupted.
Jin Sohan read the opponent’s movements all the way through, twisting arms or using attack paths to make blades bury into comrades’ bodies.
THUNK!
They were never people who could capture Jin Sohan. They were behind in speed, footwork, and inner energy—so in the end, it was only Choo Sahyeok who was getting a good lesson out of this.
Jin Sohan actually grabbed one man’s arm and used the blade that man carried, swinging it loosely.
The man’s arm had already been twisted three or four times into a horrific, coiled state.
“AAAAAAAGH!”
The screams grew louder, and the number of men writhing on the floor in pain kept increasing.
Now there wasn’t a single person standing properly.
They were dead, or they were writhing in agony.
*****
Jin Sohan went to the table where he’d originally been sitting and lifted a bottle.
For a moment, only the chill sound of liquor falling into a cup continued.
Choo Sahyeok shook his head.
This is ominous. Ominous… what sect lineage is he from?
There were still survivors, but they were crawling on the floor. The ones whose bodies were comparatively intact were trembling all over.
If Jin Sohan had kept killing without stopping, the terror might have been less. But after killing some and then no longer moving, the fear surged in twice as hard.
As Choo Sahyeok passed through the wounded, one Blood-Whisper Sect man reflexively lunged at him. Choo Sahyeok kicked him away.
His neck bent far over, and his breathing stopped.
Choo Sahyeok walked through the sprawled bodies and picked up a cup from the table.
“Unit Leader, pour me a cup, too.”
“What did you do?”
“I closed the door and came up.”
“Good work.”
“Yes. Thank you.”
GLUG… GLUG….
For a moment, Jin Sohan and Choo Sahyeok stared into each other’s eyes and drank.
After wiping his mouth with his sleeve, Choo Sahyeok asked,
“Still, I don’t see the unit leader.”
“He’s coming down from upstairs.”
Jin Sohan took off his robe, turned it inside out, and put it back on, then sat on the edge of the table with his hips half-perched.
When Jin Sohan briefly looked at the men rolling on the floor, Choo Sahyeok—waiting beside him like an aide—quietly asked,
“Unit Leader, should we kill them all?”
“No.”
“May I ask why?”
“If we send them back in a miserable state, won’t the Blood-Whisper Sect come to its senses and swarm in all at once? If this goes quietly again, it feels like they’ll just keep sending only trash like this. This is about right. They won’t even be able to think about running. It’s one Northwind Unit wiped out.”
“Ah! I understand.”
Choo Sahyeok lifted the bottle and asked,
“One more cup?”
Jin Sohan nodded.
Choo Sahyeok was feeling a strange thrill—his expectation, his intuition, his eye for people had been right.
Unit Leader is an expert beyond what I imagined.
Only then did Jeong Gildo—who had been breaking open the safe, startled by the noisy screams on this floor—come down with an irritated expression, and stop.
“……”
His face hardened at the devastation on this floor.
One subordinate who hadn’t lost consciousness clutched an arm twisted like a squid and screamed,
“Unit Leader!”
Jeong Gildo looked, and inside this floor a familiar man and a black-clothed person he’d never seen before were drinking.
Jin Sohan asked Choo Sahyeok,
“That potbellied bastard is the Northwind Unit Leader?”
“Yes. Jeong Gildo. He uses a curved saber. He’s quicker and nastier than he looks. He was living like a bandit or a thief, then brought his men and joined the Blood-Whisper Sect.”
“When did he join?”
“About four or five years ago, I believe.”
Jin Sohan nodded.
Jeong Gildo, wearing a stunned expression, opened his eyes wide.
“You… you’re Choo Sahyeok!”
Choo Sahyeok answered.
“Have you been well?”
Jeong Gildo’s eyes were swallowed by killing intent, blazing hot.
“Choo Sahyeok, you bastard. You’re betraying us? I knew it—we should’ve killed every last Ghost Blade Sect spawn…!”
“Since I’m cooperating after eating poison, please don’t criticize me too much.”
At those words, Jin Sohan looked at Choo Sahyeok like he found him absurd.
Choo Sahyeok smiled and said,
“It’s true, isn’t it, Unit Leader?”
Jin Sohan let out a small sigh, then asked Jeong Gildo with no emotion at all.
“Unit Leader Jeong, why is this all you brought?”
Jeong Gildo, having lost his words, stared at the sprawled men and chewed over Jin Sohan’s question.
Yeah. Why did I…