Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 139

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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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#139

“So you’ve come after all.”
“Beggar King. What brings you here?”
“Can’t you just turn back?”
“Why?”
“Are you really planning to kill everyone gathered over there?”
“That’s not why I came.”
“That may be your intention now, but what will you do if a fight breaks out?”
Do Pyeong-su answered without the slightest hesitation.
“Kill them.”
The three men glared at him, and Do Pyeong-su stared back with a questioning look.
“If it looks like a fight will break out, we’ll withdraw.”
At Seo Seok-san’s words, Noh Dae-sul’s expression shifted to one of surprise.
“Truly?”
“We came to settle a grudge, not to cultivate one. Still, just to be safe, I’d be grateful if you’d take Sagong Jinin and get him out of here. That old man doesn’t seem like the type who can be reasoned with.”
“And the others seem like they can be reasoned with?”
“At the very least, intimidation ought to work on them.”
Noh Dae-sul shook his head and drew a long breath.
“It doesn’t look like he’ll leave just because I tell him to.”
“Then he wouldn’t have come in the first place.”
“I understand. I’ll get Sagong Jinin out of here by any means necessary. Is there anything else you need?”
“Gather them all in one room. I think it’ll be cleaner to handle it all at once.”
“But that’s… I mean, if anything goes wrong, I’ll be an accomplice along with you lot, won’t I?”
“Look on the bright side. How often does someone get the chance to stand with the Bloodwind Four Lions?”
“Precisely why I’m relieved it’s rare, and all the more puzzled at why this rare opportunity is presenting itself.”
Noh Dae-sul, having gone to the Moun Gaekjan, gathered all the Murim martial artists who harbored grudges against the Bloodwind Four Lions into a single room.
Finding them wasn’t difficult—there was no Murim martial artist who could ignore the name of a Bang-ju of the Sect.
No fewer than thirty-two men crowded into that one room.
“What business brings the Bang-ju of the Sect to summon us in such a manner?”
“Has some new information regarding the Bloodwind Four Lions come to light?”
“Perhaps the Sect has discovered an excellent method to exterminate those pests of the Murim?”
Watching those who posed the questions, Noh Dae-sul found himself thinking, ‘Am I handling this well?’
He’d spoken in jest, but if the Bloodwind Four Lions slaughtered everyone in this room, Noh Dae-sul would become an accomplice—a reality he couldn’t escape.
The words ‘The Bloodwind Four Lions are here—flee at once!’ rose to his throat, but he forced them back down.
Just as Geom U-bin had believed in them, he too wanted to believe in the Bloodwind Four Lions, if only once.
Though the faith didn’t come easily.
“I’ll explain the matter shortly. Sagong Jinin.”
Summoned by Noh Dae-sul, Sagong Jinin answered.
“Yes?”
“Would you step outside with me for a moment? Just outside the door here should suffice.”
“Very well.”
“The rest of you, please wait until I return.”
Since the words came from the Bang-ju of the Sect, not a single person voiced complaint.
Noh Dae-sul led Sagong Jinin out through the Inn Back Garden.
‘I just pray nothing goes wrong.’
From the rooftop, Yeon Geum-hong saw Noh Dae-sul and Sagong Jinin emerge and sent a hand signal to the three men below.
Having used the Facial Transformation Technique, Yeon Geum-hong found it better not to appear before people under the name of the Bloodwind Four Lions. One never knew what complications might arise in the future.
The three men who received Yeon Geum-hong’s signal entered the Moun Gaekjan. They had resolved not to fight, but in truth, no one could predict how events would unfold.
For them, patience had been a tool for cultivating Martial Arts, not something to exercise against other people.
Creak!
Seo Seok-san opened the door, but the thirty-one men inside paid him no mind, absorbed in their own conversation.
“Ahem!”
Not a soul reacted to the cough.
‘These bastards!’
Annoyed from the moment of his entrance, Seo Seok-san kicked over a nearby chair.
Bang!
The chair collided with the table and shattered into pieces.
Only then did the startled gazes of those present turn toward the Bloodwind Four Lions with Yeon Geum-hong absent.
Everyone wore expressions of shock, and after a long moment, someone finally spoke.
“Who are you?”
I thought they would rush at us like hounds.
Yet all thirty-one people in the hall could not even recall the Bloodwind Four Lions.
“Look at these fools like Do Pyeong-su! They say these are blood enemies, yet they can’t even recognize their own enemies?”
A voice of shock burst from someone’s lips.
“The Bloodwind Four Lions!”
For a moment the crowd seemed startled, but then quips came pouring from all sides.
“The Bloodwind Four Lions, my foot! How old would the Bloodwind Four Lions be now?”
“That’s right! At most those bastards should be in their mid-forties! That bald one probably has to be past fifty by now!”
“I lost my brother to the Bloodwind Four Lions! You think I wouldn’t remember their faces? If those sons of bitches are the Bloodwind Four Lions, I’d head straight home and live as a hermit for the rest of my life.”
Everyone added their piece, trying to prove that the Bloodwind Four Lions were not the Bloodwind Four Lions.
Seo Seok-san, Jang Man-dok, and Do Pyeong-su exchanged glances with one another.
—Nobody recognizes us?
Do Pyeong-su answered through Telepathic Communication with Seo Seok-san.
—Seems we didn’t need to step forward after all.
—Shall we just leave?
When Jang Man-dok nodded, Do Pyeong-su agreed as well.
—Let’s slip out quietly.
Just as they began to turn their bodies halfway.
“They are the Bloodwind Four Lions.”
Someone stepped forward and said so, and in that instant the surroundings fell silent.
The old man with a white beard grown down to his chest was Yeon Seong-su, an Elder of the Kunlun Sect. Yeon Seong-su’s gaze was fixed on Jang Man-dok.
“My brother was turned to a handful of blood by your poison.”
Bok Yang-su, who had lost both his senior brother and his master to Seo Seok-san, asked.
“Are they truly the Bloodwind Four Lions? But the Bloodwind Four Lions should be well over ninety years old by now, and there are only three of them…… Wait! Cheoneum Gwi! It’s you, isn’t it! You’ve lost your hair since then, but there’s no mistaking you, Cheoneum Gwi!”
Seo Seok-san deliberately scratched his bald spot with his forefinger.
“So we can finally settle our business here……?”
Clang-clang-clang!
All thirty-one drew their weapons in unison and launched themselves forward.
They did not attack immediately, but their intention to surround the Bloodwind Four Lions was unmistakable.
Seo Seok-san, glancing around the perimeter, spoke.
“The timing was delayed somewhat, but this is precisely the scene I expected.”
Do Pyeong-su picked up Seo Seok-san’s words.
“Thirty-one isn’t too few? Should we gather more and come back?”
“Let’s just settle with this lot today, poor as the haul is. Though I’ll say, among these, there are a few with some legitimate claim, but there are also several who can hardly be called true enemies. Like that bastard Bok Yang-su.”
“After you murdered my senior brothers……!”
“They were rapists.”
Bok Yang-su, about to protest, fell silent at Seo Seok-san’s low voice.
“You knew better than anyone what kind of men your senior brothers were. So if you spout more nonsense even once more, I’ll tear out that glib tongue of yours.”
Seo Seok-san’s gaze, which had been sweeping across the crowd, settled on two similar-looking men to the left.
“You two are the Gwak brothers from the Jungjeopmang in Yunnan, aren’t you?”
Gwak Yang-u and Gwak Yang-seok, pointed out by Seo Seok-san, wore expressions of guilt.
“Tell me—why did your Bang-ju die?”
Gwak Yang-u bit his lip hard to summon his courage.
“Because he wouldn’t listen to your words! You killed our father for that!”
“That’s right—I clearly told him not to touch the Seokdomunn by force. To compete fairly in developing the marble quarry. But your Bang-ju ignored my warning and killed the Seokdomunn’s Sect Leader.”
“There is no evidence anywhere that our father killed him!”
“Then is there evidence that I killed your Bang-ju?”
“Well…… given the circumstances at the time, there was no one else but you who could have killed our father……!”
“I return that same argument to you.”
The Gwak brothers had nothing to say.
“How will you explain killing my uncle?”
Seo Seok-san looked at an elderly man wearing a black eyepatch over one eye.
“Who are you?”
“I am So Yang-deok. My uncle was So Jeong-man of the Three-Bamboo Sword. Twenty-eight years ago in Nanjing, his brain was ruptured by your Eumgong, and he passed away.”
Though bearing countless deaths and forgetting many of them, Seo Seok-san fortunately still remembered the name So Jeong-man.
“That’s right. I admit my mistake cost your uncle his life. And remember this too—Go San-mun, who bore responsibility for your uncle’s death, was destroyed by my hand.”
Go San-mun’s sect leader had deceived Seo Seok-san into killing So Jeong-man, and for that, Go San-mun had suffered the calamity of destruction.
“I’ve made amends for my own error, and if you want more than that, we can settle it here and now. This applies to everyone gathered in this room. You came here seeking revenge against us Bloodwind Four Lions, didn’t you?”
No one answered, but there was no real need to hear their words.
“I’ll give you that chance. If you’ve come speaking of revenge, you must be prepared for it.”
As Seo Seok-san raised his aura, Do Pyeong-su and Jang Man-dok began slowly circulating their Internal Energy.
Whoooosh!
“Let us settle our enmity here today.”
The robes of the Bloodwind Four Lions fluttered despite the still air.
Though the Internal Energy they released barely reached the fifth rank, the thirty-one people surrounding them felt a crushing weight like a ten-thousand-catty boulder pressing on their chests.
They had come running at the news of the Bloodwind Four Lions’ appearance, driven to settle grudges that had accumulated over decades.
But as time passed, they had forgotten. They had forgotten what manner of beings stood before them.
They had forgotten why, across all those long years, they had not taken revenge—why they had merely stacked enmity upon enmity in their hearts.
It was not simply that they could not find the Bloodwind Four Lions.
They could have found them. They had even had the chance to raise weapons against them.
But they had not done so.
Back then, when their memories were still vivid, they had known the Bloodwind Four Lions were a mountain they could never cross.
As the years flowed on, those memories faded and twisted, and hope took root—perhaps now they could take their revenge.
They could not say where that hope had come from.
Perhaps they had put faith in the Murim League, or perhaps they had made vague assumptions that the Bloodwind Four Lions had weakened with age.
In any case, they had steeled themselves and traveled a thousand miles without hesitation to reach this place. And the Bloodwind Four Lions they met had revived, intact, the terror they had felt twenty or thirty years ago.
The Bloodwind Four Lions had not weakened.
Like a boulder that had sat on a mountain peak for ten thousand years, even if another ten thousand years were to pass, they stood before these people unchanged and unchanging.
That fear and dread spread like plague among all thirty-one people gathered in the room.
This is why none had moved at Seo Seok-san’s words about settling their enmity.
Fighting here, they would not even reach half of one of the Bloodwind Four Lions.
The odds of surviving a fall from a thousand-foot cliff were a hundredfold higher than the odds of surviving a battle with the Bloodwind Four Lions here.
How long did the silence stretch, with no one able to move?
A very low voice flowed from Seo Seok-san’s lips.
“Is there no one here who wishes to settle their enmity with us?”
Again, no answer came. So Seo Seok-san spoke once more.
“If you will not repay your enmity now, then forget it. Those who will forget—sheathe your weapons. Those who will not forget—remain as you are.”
The thirty-one people exchanged glances.
They knew they could not win in a fight. But to retreat first was to wound what little pride they had left.
Whoooosh!
The remains of the chair near Seo Seok-san lifted into the air. It was a gesture signaling that the time of waiting was ending.
The Gwak brothers were the first to sheathe their swords.
Whatever hope they had harbored for revenge transformed into the deepest despair in the world.
There was no longer any point in holding a blade.
It is always the first step that is hardest.
Once the Gwak brothers had put away their swords, So Yang-deok followed, and a succession of metallic clicks echoed through the room.
Before five breaths had passed, no one in the room still held a weapon.
“We consider our enmity with you cleanly resolved.”
As Seo Seok-san turned to leave, So Yang-deok spoke.
“There is one thing I wish to know.”
“What is it?”
“Was it truly the Bloodwind Four Lions who destroyed Hyae Geom-mun?”
“No.”
That single answer was enough.
The Bloodwind Four Lions had no need for elaborate explanations.

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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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