Jijangmyeong thrust his fist toward Gangchan’s face.
As the fist, charged with immense energy, tore through the air, Gangchan twisted his body to dodge and struck Jijangmyeong’s side precisely with his palm.
Even as he received the blow, Jijangmyeong smiled.
Then, like lightning, he brought down his other arm and landed a powerful hit on Gangchan’s abdomen.
Thud… Thump…
Jijangmyeong’s left hand was deeply embedded in Gangchan’s abdomen, while Gangchan’s right hand clung firmly to Jijangmyeong’s left side.
The two stood locked in that stance for a moment, facing off.
Gangchan grimaced from the sharp pain crushing his abdomen, but suppressing the agony, he focused on the energy emanating from Jiyeom behind him.
Meanwhile, Jijangmyeong blinked and looked down at his own torso.
The moment Gangchan struck his side, Gangchan’s Jui Gi surged into his body.
But along with that energy, a foreign power rampaged through his insides, and in an instant, vanished completely.
Jijangmyeong tried to move forward, but his body wouldn’t respond.
As Jijangmyeong realized his body was paralyzed and reeled in shock, Jiyeom, sensing this, screamed and charged at him.
“Brother!!!”
The moment Jiyeom’s shout rang out, Gangchan detected Jiyeom’s movement, now completely exposed and defenseless because of Jijangmyeong.
Making a quick decision, Gangchan stepped back and grabbed the Samhonbu slung across his back.
Then, in a flash, he swung the Samhonbu down at Jiyeom.
The opening move of Hyeolbu Gwi Hon, Bubuhoengyeon, unfolded instantly.
Caught off guard by Jijangmyeong, Jiyeom sensed Gangchan’s attack too late to dodge.
The Samhonbu slashed diagonally across Jiyeom’s torso.
Thud! Swoosh.
Ji Yeom’s upper body separated and fell to the ground, casting a brief silence over the battlefield.
In truth, after his last fight with Jijangmyeong, Gangchan had agonized over how to deal with him.
He’d tried to come up with a solution, but found none.
Realizing forcing an answer wouldn’t work, Gangchan set aside the matter for a while.
Yet, just moments ago, a thought struck his mind like lightning.
If Jijangmyeong could absorb all energies, could he also absorb the Soul Axe?
The Soul Axe wasn’t mere energy—it was a unique weapon containing both energy and form.
If Jijangmyeong mistook the Soul Axe for energy and tried to absorb it, his insides would be shredded from within.
Gangchan staked everything on that possibility.
And his gamble paid off.
When Gangchan struck Jijangmyeong’s side with the Samhonbu, Jijangmyeong instinctively absorbed his energy.
Not missing the opportunity, Gangchan wrapped the Soul Axe in Jui Gi and sent it into Jijangmyeong.
Just as Gangchan expected, Jijangmyeong mistook the Soul Axe shrouded in Jui Gi as pure energy and greedily drew it inside.
In the end, it was as if Jijangmyeong had driven his opponent’s weapon straight into his own body, like a man intent on suicide.
The Soul Axe ravaged Jijangmyeong’s insides, then instantly returned to Gangchan’s hand.
Jijangmyeong died without even knowing what had happened to him.
Having dispatched the Geonsang Gwae twins, Gangchan rotated his stiff body, then immediately refocused.
Amid the tangled melee, Gangchan sensed the presence of his foes.
As soon as the battle between Gangchan and the Geonsang Gwae ended, the enemies immediately hid behind the other combatants.
Gangchan quickly shifted his stance and pulled out the bow from his back.
Given the situation, the enemies would surely attempt to flee.
Someday the Demonic Cult would discover his identity, but eliminating these men would buy him some time.
He sensed a total of six energies.
One of them was stealthily approaching Gangchan.
Gangchan drew his bow at the approaching figure.
Thwang. Whoosh.
Hiding among the crowd to get close to Gangchan, Amyeong Isip Saho sensed the arrow flying toward him and hastily dodged to the side.
But as if the arrow had anticipated Amyeong 24’s movement, it curved and pierced straight through his heart.
He twisted his body at the last moment, but it was already too late.
Amyeong Isip Saho stared in disbelief at the arrow embedded deep in his chest.
“What… the hell…”
His body slumped forward, crashing to the ground.
Five still remained.
Perhaps thinking that any movement would spell death, the others did not so much as flinch, keeping their eyes fixed on the direction the arrow had come from.
But Gangchan possessed the supreme movement technique, Cheonryeongchukji.
While his opponents could not even raise their heads, Gangchan swiftly slipped behind them.
He drew his bow again.
Among the enemy officers, Gangchan searched for one who exuded the same aura as the Demonic Cult and decided to eliminate him first.
‘That one is the leader.’
Dark Shadow Eleven watched from a distance as the Geonsang Gwae were defeated.
The opponent was a young man barely of age, but his skill was undeniable.
As far as Dark Shadow Eleven knew, the Geonsang Gwae should never have fallen so easily.
Their defeat meant that this foe was one he could not possibly contend with.
His mind raced.
‘Where in the world did such a monster appear from?’
There were tales of masters sometimes dropping from the sky in the martial world, but for one to appear in the midst of his own operation was beyond belief.
‘At the very least, one of us must survive to report this.’
The surviving Dark Shadow members were Nineteen, Thirty-Eight, Forty-One, and Eighty-Seven, along with himself.
Dark Shadow Eleven tried to relay orders through sound transmission, but Gangchan’s attacks had scattered them too widely for it to work.
He looked over at Bandang, who still hadn’t grasped the situation.
“Chief, things have gone wrong. Our top expert seems to have fallen.”
Bandang grabbed Dark Shadow Eleven by the collar and growled.
“Is that all you have to say? I trusted you and stormed in here, and this is what happens?”
He squeezed harder, shouting, but Dark Shadow Eleven coldly brushed off his hand and retorted.
The once-friendly Gu Jinhyuk was nowhere to be found.
“You idiot, you’re the master of this place, not me. No matter what I said, the decision was yours, and so is the responsibility.”
The unexpected shift in Dark Shadow Eleven’s attitude left Bandang at a loss for words.
“Wha, what? You—”
Dark Shadow Eleven sneered.
“If you want to survive, you’d better start thinking about how to run.”
With those words, Dark Shadow Eleven slipped away from Bandang and disappeared into the chaos like a ghost.
When the assassins’ attacks ceased, the fight became utterly one-sided.
No matter how brutal Heukhobang had been, they couldn’t overcome their numerical inferiority.
Moreover, Heukhobang’s cruelty only enraged the Hangju forces further, making their attacks fiercer.
“Don’t let a single one of them live—kill them all!”
“Kill them all!”
Riled up, the Hangju underworld rushed in, and the Heukhobang fighters began to feel the fear of death.
One man threw down his weapon and raised his hands in surrender, and soon others began to lay down their arms as well.
But the first man to surrender was immediately surrounded and beaten by Hangju’s underworld men.
Thus, the brawl among the dark factions neared its end.
Meanwhile, Gangchan kept his eye on Dark Shadow Eleven.
Dark Shadow Eleven exchanged something with a nearby man, then suddenly slipped away into the crowd.
Missing his chance, Gangchan silently expanded his Jui Gi to search for him.
At the same time, Dark Shadow Eleven cautiously searched for Gangchan’s position and crept into the densest part of the melee.
He had no idea how to respond to such supernatural archery.
Cautiously moving to the edge of the battleground, he thought he was nearly safe when something shot toward him at tremendous speed from his right.
Sensing he had no time even to think, Dark Shadow Eleven lunged forward, pressing close to the left side of the man in front of him.
Swoosh. Thud!
The arrow grazed past him and struck another man’s chest among those huddled in the rear.
‘I dodged it.’
Relief washed over Dark Shadow Eleven, sweat trickling down his spine.
But when he checked the man who’d been felled, despair struck as he realized he hadn’t been the one to evade death.
The fallen man was Dark Shadow Eighty-Seven.
Now, including himself, four members of Dark Shadow remained.
They could see all their movements were being tracked, but they had no idea where the enemy was.
They were being hunted.
Dark Shadow Eleven judged that if this continued, they would all die.
‘If we abandon defense and scatter in different directions at once, at least one of us might survive.’
The battle was nearly over.
If he was going to act, it had to be now.
He pulled out a firework from his robe.
This firework was a special tool permitted only to Dark Shadows One through Ten.
It had been handed to him when Dark Shadow Ten died not long ago.
Once the firework was launched, everyone was to retreat and report the situation immediately, no matter the reason.
He yanked the string hard.
Whoosh… Bang!
A blue firework exploded in the sky, and several figures darted for the outskirts like lightning.
The moment the firework burst, Gangchan understood their plan from the swiftly moving energies.
Four energies scattered in different directions.
Rising to his feet, Gangchan quickly drew his bow and fired in four directions.
Thwang. Whoosh. Thwang. Whoosh.
Arrows flew in succession—thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The four fleeing men collapsed to the ground.
After a brief silence, one of the men struck by an arrow quickly leapt up and tried to run.
Dark Shadow Eleven felt the arrow whistling in from behind and twisted at the last moment, dodging it.
But he couldn’t avoid it completely—the arrow sank deep into his shoulder.
Nonetheless, Dark Shadow Eleven managed to put some distance between them and continued his escape.
Watching the man fleeing with an arrow in his shoulder, Gangchan nocked another arrow. The distance between them had already stretched to more than 150 paces in an instant.
Thwang. Whoosh. Rumble.
The arrow rumbled low as it cut through 150 paces, then suddenly accelerated and struck the fleeing man squarely in the back like a flash of light.
Wham!
The battle had halted, and everyone near Gangchan stared at him.
Meanwhile, Heukhobang’s chief, Bandang, still didn’t quite grasp what Dark Shadow Eleven had meant.
What was certain was that the external Dark Shadow squad he’d relied on was now completely wiped out.
Bandang quickly scanned the area for a way to escape, but he was already surrounded by the Hangju forces.
Because Dark Shadow Eleven had warned him too late, there was no way out.
‘Why did I trust him so blindly…’
Fury rose within him as reality finally sank in.
As the Hangju underworld closed in, Bandang dropped to his knees and raised his hands in a sign of surrender.
Gwak Jagoh, approaching Bandang, felt his irritation boil over at the sight.
So many had died for this man’s foolish ambitions, yet he was now begging for his own life in such a pathetic, servile display.
Unable to contain his anger, Gwak Jagoh began pummeling Bandang without warning.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
As Gwak Jagoh’s unrestrained fists rained down, Bandang instinctively curled up to protect his vital spots.
But Gwak Jagoh, nearly out of his mind with rage, continued beating him mercilessly.
By the time he was done, Bandang’s face was so swollen he was barely recognizable.
After the fight ended, Gangchan glanced around and sought out Gwak Jagoh and Kang Bulhae.
When Gangchan approached, Gwak Jagoh and Kang Bulhae rushed over and knelt before him.
“Master, you have saved our lives once again.”
“Thank you, Master.”
Gangchan raised his hand and bid them to rise.
“Please, get up. This is no time for this. Quickly take care of the aftermath so there are no further casualties. Then go and report the situation here to the Cheonhyangru Mistress and bring back her instructions for what to do next.”
Receiving words of thanks still felt awkward and uncomfortable for Gangchan.