Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#Episode 001

―Light the incense burner at the summit of Geombong Mountain by the Dragon Boat Festival. Not a moment later. Absolutely not!
Clink! Clink!
Blood streaming from his hands dampened the flint, and the sparks wouldn’t catch properly.
Geombong Mountain, ten thousand feet high and scattered with sheer cliffs and razor-sharp rocks, was far too treacherous for an eight-year-old boy to climb.
Yet the boy had scaled it nonetheless.
“Stay calm. There’s still time.”
The boy stopped striking the flint and drew a deep breath.
A glance at the night sky above told a different story—the day was already slipping away, whatever the boy’s self-reassurance.
The flint struck again.
Yellow sparks scattered across the tinder, catching and holding. The boy carefully layered dried leaves atop the fledgling flame.
He had ridden a thousand leagues and then climbed Geombong Mountain itself, leaving his body a maze of cuts and his breath coming in painful gasps, and time was running out—yet the boy did not rush. He understood that urgency demanded composure.
A wisdom rarely possessed by an eight-year-old.
The fragile spark finally transferred to the leaves. The boy piled more leaves and twigs atop them.
Smoke rose from the bronze incense burner—three feet tall and two feet wide, its surface darkened with verdigris—curling upward with the flames.
“Ahhh!”
With a sigh of relief, the boy collapsed backward. The cold stone could not anchor his consciousness as it slipped away.
‘Grandfather. I’ve kept the promise.’
Whether it was pain or a nightmare that pulled the unconscious boy back to waking, he could not say.
His eyes snapped open to darkness still wrapped around him like a cloak, and through the haze four figures emerged from the gloom.
The darkness was too thick to make out their faces.
“Who are you?”
“Geom U-bin.”
“Why did you light the incense burner?”
“Grandfather… Grandfather Ma Gun-ja told me to…”
Though he could not see their faces, he felt their shock ripple through their entire bodies.
“Did you just say Ma Gun-ja?”
The woman’s voice was ice-cold, like frost crystallizing against bare skin.
“Yes. He… he said…”
Geom U-bin wet his cracked throat and continued.
“He’s locked in the Underground Dungeon at Baekrim Sect. Grandfather Ma Gun-ja told me to tell you that.”
The woman with the ice-cold voice asked again.
“How do you know that?”
But a man’s softer, gentler voice cut through her question.
“This is no time for questions. We must hurry and rescue the Sect Master.”
“But we must verify whether this child speaks the truth.”
“How many people outside of us would know the Sect Master’s name?”
A man with a head taller than the other three nodded.
“That’s right. Only the Sect Master himself knows his own name besides us.”
The one who had not spoken until now suddenly vanished before Geom U-bin’s eyes.
At least, that’s how it appeared to the boy.
“The impatient one departed first.”
The word “first” came from just ahead, but “departed” echoed back from a distant place.
“Twenty years. We’ve finally found the Sect Master.”
The large man also vanished. The woman, now alone, asked him a question.
“Do you know of Hwang Chang-hyeon?”
“Yes. If you walk down from the mountain for one double hour, you reach the village.”
“There is an inn there called the Seoun Inn. Go there and wait.”
Clink!
A purse of silver coins fell beside Geom U-bin’s ear, and the woman was already gone. He watched the stars, so close he felt he could grasp them, long after they had departed.
“Baekrim Sect is a terrifying place…”

***

Wang Do-seok, Sect Master of Baekrim, looked down at Gwak Chun-su, the faction leader, who lay tumbling across the ground after flying backward nearly twenty paces.
Gwak Chun-su, his chest caved in, needed no examination to know he was dead.
“Hold them off! There are only four of them!”
Wang Chae-myeong, the eldest son of Wang Do-seok, rallied his disciples with the enemy’s mere count of four, yet Baekrim Sect found itself overwhelmed by just one of those four.
Jang Man-dok with his Sovereign Poison Fist, Seo Seok-san with his Ghostly Whisper Blade, Do Pyeong-su with his Shadowless Phantom Sword, and Yeon Geum-hong who flung five hidden weapons to fell ten men in a single breath.
Sixty years ago in the Murim, a five-character phrase emerged like an idiom.
Murim’s Five Greatest Scourges.
The five masters whom one should never provoke in all the Murim—four of them, the Bloodwind Four Lions, had appeared at Baekrim Sect.
Or rather, all five.
For the reason these Bloodwind Four Lions had come to Baekrim Sect and raised a storm of blood was their master, Ma Gun-ja, who lay imprisoned in the Underground Dungeon.
‘Greed begets ruin, or so they say.’
Wang Do-seok in his forties had been a man driven entirely by ambition.
He wished to raise Baekrim Sect to rival the Five Great Houses. No—he dreamed of elevating it beyond the Gudaemun Faction itself, to make it the greatest sect under heaven.
That was why he had kidnapped Ma Gun-ja.
He had believed that if he could seize only Ma Gun-ja’s martial arts—those of the man acknowledged as the supreme master regardless of righteousness or evil—he would possess enough to establish himself as the greatest under heaven.
Mountain Poison potent enough to suppress even All Poisons Immunity, Pomelo Powder capable of felling five hundred oxen in slumber, and thirty vats of Mo Great Liquor had all made Wang Do-seok’s plan succeed.
He had prepared six other methods besides, though the rest proved unnecessary once Ma Gun-ja was captured.
That he was taken far more easily than anticipated had struck him as strange, but the elation of having Ma Gun-ja in his grasp had buried his doubts.
Yet Baekrim Sect’s plans had ended there.
For twenty years, Wang Do-seok had not extracted even a fraction of Ma Gun-ja’s martial arts.
Though he had employed every known torture and severed nerve and tendon from limb to limb, Ma Gun-ja had never revealed his gongfu.
Even the sparse screams that once echoed had long since fallen silent.
Within Wang Do-seok’s sight, only the Bloodwind Four Lions remained standing.
The sixteen great halls preserved for a hundred years lay in ruins, and the four hundred disciples who had moved at his command like limbs had all become corpses.
Not a single soul had survived.
The Bloodwind Four Lions had not even permitted the disciples to flee.
Among all of Baekrim Sect, only women and children remained alive. One person had not yet died.
Wang Chae-myeong, the only son, his neck caught in Seo Seok-san’s grip.
He scarcely looked alive at all.
Both his arms were shattered, and blood poured from his mouth in heaving gouts.
Pain stabbed through Wang Do-seok’s chest, yet no fury rose against the Bloodwind Four Lions.
Rage requires the ember of hope to kindle into flame, yet the moment the Bloodwind Four Lions appeared at Baekrim Sect, hope was no longer his.
Five shadows advanced slowly toward Wang Do-seok.
In Seo Seok-san’s grip, Wang Chae-myeong’s shadow swayed like a wind-chime from his shins.
“You say our sect master is down in the Underground Dungeon here.”
Though half his hair had fallen out and his face was mottled with age spots, Seo Seok-san’s voice rang clear as that of a man in his twenties.
His skin, too, was as fine as jade.
When Wang Do-seok did not answer, Seo Seok-san spoke again.
“Show us the entrance to the Underground Dungeon, and I’ll spare this wretch’s life. His martial arts are gone, but the bloodline can be continued.”
“You swear it?”
“Do you truly think we cannot find the entrance on our own? Our time is more precious than this worthless life, so we’re simply saving ourselves the trouble.”
The entrance to the Underground Dungeon was hidden well enough, but they would find it eventually. There was no way preserving his son’s life could matter less than wasting their time.
“If you lift the straw mat from the floor of that warehouse over there……”
Crack!
Wang Do-seok’s index finger, which had been pointing toward the shabby warehouse behind him, twitched slightly.
Wang Chae-myeong’s head had shattered like a lie.
“Jang Man-dok! Give a signal before you smash!”
Watching Seo Seok-san flick his hand clean, muttering something like ‘Damn! Brain matter on these delicate fingers,’ rage surged up in him.
Even without hope’s ember, rage sometimes burns of its own accord. Of course, such fury dies as quickly as it blazed.
Jang Man-dok, most quick to anger, threw his fist forward first.
Wang Do-seok, who had earned fame as Zhejiang Province’s First Fist, met him with a counterfist.
Crunch!
“Ugh!”
In a single exchange, both of Wang Do-seok’s arms were pulped—the gap in their prowess was that stark.
Then Do Pyeong-su’s blade severed both arms, and Yeon Geum-hong’s hidden weapons pierced both eyes. Seo Seok-san, wiping blood from his delicate fingers on the dead boy’s clothing, clicked his tongue.
“If you’re going to kill him, at least do it cleanly.”
Yet Seo Seok-san did not end Wang Do-seok’s breathing either, instead chasing the other three into the warehouse. In all of dead Baekrim Sect, Wang Do-seok’s screams echoed for a very long time.

***

He possessed the bearing of a man in his prime and a face that could make a woman’s heart tremble, even past his hundredth year.
But twenty years of captivity had stripped away every trace of the man Ma Gun-ja had once been. The emaciated old man—thin as a dried anchovy in clothes—stared at them with eyes yellowed by jaundice.
The Hyeolpung Saja bowed before Ma Gun-ja, who sat upon the rock, then knelt.
Ma Gun-ja rubbed his dim eyes and studied the four of them intently.
His gaze lingered on Yeon Geum-hong.
“I recognize the others, but who is this young lady?”
“Yes? Master! It’s me! Geum-hong!”
“What? You’re Yeon Geum-hong? Let me see… Geum-hong is forty-two years my junior, so she should be ninety-one this year, yet she looks barely twenty-six… Your Disguise Art must be extraordinary. Take off the mask.”
“Master, you even know my age. How moving!” said Yeon Geum-hong, her eyes glistening with tears.
Two drops of emotion fell from her cheeks.
“But it’s not disguise—it’s truly my real face.”
“Did you use the Half-Restoration Elixir?”
“Five years ago.”
“I envy you. The Half-Restoration Elixir proves that martial skill alone isn’t enough.”
“It’s all a matter of fortune,” she replied.
Ma Gun-ja turned his gaze to Seo Seok-san, who had spoken.
“You’ve had poor fortune these years, it seems. Why is your hairline worse than mine?”
Ma Gun-ja shifted his eyes from Seo Seok-san, who bowed his head in chagrin, toward Do Pyeong-su.
“Well then, Pyeong-su. How is it—have you finished the Thousand Character Classic?”
“Sir, that is… I was too busy searching for you to study…”
“True enough. In Murim, martial prowess is all that matters.”
Ma Gun-ja looked at Jang Man-dok, who sat farthest to the left.
“You’re still as quiet as ever. Let’s drink a cup of wine to clear the mold from your mouth. You brought some, I assume?”
All four drew out gourd flasks the span of a hand from their waists.
A smile rose unbidden to Ma Gun-ja’s lips as he beheld the flasks.
“To drink wine made by your own hands—I could die without regret now.”
Seo Seok-san spoke.
“Master, don’t speak of dying! Drink the wine we make each day, and you must live another hundred years.”
As Ma Gun-ja uncorked the gourd flask and drank in turn, he bent at the waist.
“How are you as disciples compared to subordinates?”
“Sir? A disciple?”
“Why? You don’t wish to be my disciple?”
“N-no! It has always been our life’s dream! But you said you would never take disciples, so we resigned ourselves.”
“I thought I would live a hundred years, two hundred years. It was my own selfishness—I wanted to live more freely. I didn’t wish to pass the karmic debt of the Demon Path that flows through generations down to you. Yet over these twenty years, as you’ve searched for me, you’ve accumulated karma yourselves. I’m sorry.”
The word “sorry” emerged from Ma Gun-ja’s lips.
From the mouth of the most resolute and powerful absolute being in the world, the word “sorry” emerged.
“How can you say such a thing! We have no right to hear your apology! Rather, we are ashamed—we failed to find you sooner…”
Ma Gun-ja’s voice trembled as it fell upon their hunched, weeping backs.
“Though I never called you such these seventy years, you four have always been my disciples. I thought the name Ma Gun-ja was something great, but twenty years locked away revealed it all as hollow fame. I, a pitiful master intoxicated by hollow fame, ask only that my five disciples support one another and live well.”
“We shall remember… five disciples?”
When Do Pyeong-su had counted to three, Yeon Geum-hong elbowed him sharply, thinking Ma Gun-ja had lost count.
“But where is that child?”
“Child?”
“Your elder brother in the discipline.”
“The child who told us where you were, Master?”
“Yes. I took him as a disciple a year ago. Though I say you were disciples of my heart for seventy years, since Geom U-bin was the first formally accepted, he naturally ranks as your elder brother in the discipline.”
The Hyeolpung Saja could not help but be taken aback.
To become the disciple of Ma Gun-ja was a joy beyond compare, yet the reality of having to defer to a child barely dry from the registry was thoroughly bewildering.
“How far is it from Baekrim Sect to Geombong Mountain?”
“About a thousand li, Master.”
“How long would it take without using Lightness Technique?”
“If we hurried, perhaps a fortnight.”
“It was ten days ago that I sent Geom U-bin to you.”
“What? In ten days he covered a thousand li and climbed that treacherous Geombong Mountain to light the incense burner?”
“He must have raced without proper food or rest, to keep his promise with me. You’re all approaching ninety, all of you. You may find it distasteful to bow before an eight-year-old as your senior brother, but as you spend time together, you’ll come to understand—that child more than deserves the rank.”
As he spoke, the gourd flasks emptied completely.
“Now that we’ve drunk and I’ve formally accepted you as disciples, there could be nothing better. Call me Master now.”
At first they fumbled through the title awkwardly, their voices barely audible—softer than a mosquito’s wings—but soon they burst forth eagerly, calling him “Master” in unison.
“Hahahaha! How fine that name sounds!”
“We shall perform the Disciple Kowtow Ceremony!”
As the Hyeolpung Saja rose, Ma Gun-ja straightened his back.
“Now I can die without regret.”
As they performed the fifth kowtow, Ma Gun-ja’s breathing ceased.
They all knew what had happened, yet they did not stop their prostrations, tears streaming down their faces.
And so they became the formal disciples of Ma Gun-ja, whom they had dreamed of following.

And they had gained an eight-year-old senior brother.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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