Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 170

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

#Episode 170

Geom U-bin pushed himself upright and swung his legs over the side of the bed, settling into a seated position.
“Since you’ve drawn your sword, it seems you mean to kill me.”
Baek Jong-dan finally understood—Geom U-bin had been waiting for him all along. There was no other way he could wear such composure.
“If you anticipated my arrival yet remain so calm, then you must have your reasons, yes?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
The clarity of the answer left Baek Jong-dan with nothing but silence.
“I was certain you’d come, but how you arrived mattered. Yet here you are, meaning to kill me. It’s become the worst possible scenario I imagined.”
“The worst scenario, you say……”
“You’ve dug your own grave.”
“I decide my own grave. No one but myself determines my death.”
“What arrogant nonsense.”
The voice from behind startled Baek Jong-dan into turning—and the moment he glimpsed the heavily bearded man, a sharp pain shot through the base of his skull.
‘A pressure point strike?’
Clang!
Strength drained from his hand, and his cherished sword clattered to the ground.
“You’ve sealed his pressure points, so killing this bastard falls to me.”
“I took a single spoonful and now you want the whole pot? That won’t do.”
“Woof woof woof!”
“Jang Man-dok, you keep your mouth shut!”
Three more figures emerged before the rigid form of Baek Jong-dan—as if they’d been standing there all along and a black cloth had simply been swept away, making their appearance sudden and jarring.
How many people in the Murim could move like this, deceiving all perception?
Swear to it—not more than twenty.
“So the faction leader goes about assassinating people. The Huashan Faction is finished. Finished.”
At Do Pyeong-su’s words, Yeon Geum-hong let out a scoff.
“Bah! What’s so impressive about the Huashan Faction? If we felt like it, we could wipe them out tonight.”
“It depends on what you want to do. Things could get noisy—should we move somewhere else?”
“No need to wake sleeping people. Besides, our senior needs his rest.”
Yeon Geum-hong’s words meant she wanted to take Baek Jong-dan away with only the Bloodwind Saja, leaving the others behind.
Of course, such a thing required permission, and fortunately Geom U-bin obliged with a nod.
“Very well.”
Do Pyeong-su hooked Baek Jong-dan under his arm. Suspended limply like that, Baek Jong-dan couldn’t shake the feeling that what was happening wasn’t real.
One more knock on the head and he’d startle awake from this dream.
Though he might not rank among the top ten masters of the Murim, if you were naming twenty masters, Baek Jong-dan could claim one of those slots.
Yet these people were subduing him like a child and wielding him at will.
The Bloodwind Saja exited through the window and ran for a quarter hour before coming to a stop.
The Mountain Slope, carpeted with soft grass and kissed by cool night air, made for an ideal location for interrogation.
Do Pyeong-su hurled Baek Jong-dan onto the ground without ceremony.
“What should we start with? Fen Gen Zhao Gu?”
At Do Pyeong-su’s suggestion, Seo Seok-san shook his head.
“Too harsh right from the start. Let’s begin with the Salt Wound Torture. We’ve even prepared salt for it.”
“Sprinkling precious salt into wounds? We can just break his limbs—simple enough.”
Seo Seok-san nodded at Yeon Geum-hong’s words.
“Right then. The legs are mine.”
Do Pyeong-su spoke up quickly.
“The arms are mine!”
“You greedy fools. Four limbs total, so each of us breaks one.”
Rather than waste time squabbling, they decided to follow Yeon Geum-hong’s logic.
Crack!
The sound from Seo Seok-san’s fingers felt to Baek Jong-dan like his own arm breaking.
‘Just a little longer……!’
The sealed pressure point was gradually coming loose. Given the martial skill of these people, fighting was hopeless—but if the seal broke, he was confident he could escape.
“But why hasn’t he said anything since we started? Did we seal his speech points too?”
At Yeon Geum-hong’s question, Seo Seok-san nodded.
“Can’t have him making a fuss.”
“Now I should let her go. I can’t miss hearing her scream, can I?”
“True enough.”
As Seo Seok-san reached out to release the pressure point, Baek Jong-dan’s sealed meridians suddenly opened.
Baek Jong-dan launched an attack at Seo Seok-san’s face. Strike the face to incapacitate one man, then use the recoil to accelerate into the Lightness Technique at greater speed—a perfect two-for-one.
He was certain the ambush couldn’t fail. It was an attack his opponent could never anticipate, and the distance was close enough that he only needed to extend his arm.
Moreover, the one launching this ambush was Baek Jong-dan, Master of the Huashan Faction. Even if his newly freed channels had sapped half his power, a rotten carp still floats.
Crack!
Absurdity unfolded. His punch, thrown with absolute conviction, was caught dead in Seo Seok-san’s grip.
“This man is the Master of Huashan. Why is he so weak? Is he a fake?”
“His meridians only just opened. He’s probably operating at thirty percent of his actual power, wouldn’t you say? You should mock Seok-san’s acupuncture skill instead—how does that fool manage to unseal his own points? Tsk, tsk, tsk…”
At Do Pyeong-su’s taunt, Seo Seok-san tightened his grip. Bones crackled—and Baek Jong-dan’s scream tore loose as he collapsed.
“I was giving him hope. Despair tastes better when the fall is from a height.”
“Fine, fine. You’ve broken his arm already—get out of the way.”
“What? No, wait, that shouldn’t count!”
“Count or not, move aside.”
Do Pyeong-su shoved Seo Seok-san back and re-sealed Baek Jong-dan’s pressure points. Thrashing about is just annoying.
“Why… why are you doing this to me?”
“You don’t know?”
There was no way he could know.
“Have you already forgotten who you were trying to kill just moments ago?”
A quarter hour ago, he had attempted to murder Geom U-bin. Fail to kill, and you die—that is the law of the Murim.
Yet human nature is to scheme for survival until the very end.
“Torture me means you want something. What is it you’re after?”
If he heard the answer to that question, he might at least deduce the identities of these four.
And from there, perhaps he could glimpse a way to survive. But from the lips of his captor came a name he never could have imagined.
“Ma Gun-ja. Does that name mean anything to you?”
Those three syllables made Baek Jong-dan’s heart skip. And with the epithet that followed Ma Gun-ja’s name, another title floated unbidden to the surface of his mind.
“The… the Bloodwind Four Lions!”
“Took you long enough to recognize us.”
Now he understood why they were here. But how had the Bloodwind Four Lions tracked him down to this place?
‘The Ink Tablet.’
Of course. Yet from the dead Jong-mok, they could have learned only that Baek Jong-dan was Miao. Nothing more.
That alone was not enough to link Ma Gun-ja to Baek Jong-dan.
“Why would the Bloodwind Four Lions do this to me?”
His voice was strained from the shattered right hand.
“Never mind the past for now. The person you just tried to kill is our elder brother.”
Yeon Geum-hong moved suddenly. She seized Baek Jong-dan’s forearm and wrenched—the bone snapped with terrible ease.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“If you hadn’t tried to kill our elder brother, we might have asked more politely.”
He shrieked until his voice cracked, yet the pain did not diminish. Through his agony, Seo Seok-san’s voice cut like steel.
What had meant to be a polite question—though only they knew the measure of that politeness.
“You slaughtered innocent Miao under the pretext of eliminating Blood Cult remnants in Yunnan Province. And this is the Ink Tablet you lost then.”
Seo Seok-san placed the tablet before Baek Jong-dan’s contorted face.
It was not the original, but a craftsman’s work, made from Geom U-bin’s memory alone. Yet the craftsman’s skill was so fine, and Geom U-bin’s recollection so precise, that not only the appearance but even the patina of age was identical.
“How… how did you…?”
“Do you understand now? We know every sin you committed against the Miao. What we don’t understand is why our Master is entangled with you people at all.”
“I know nothing of Ma Gun-ja, I swear it!”
“Ha! I knew my turn was coming. These types rarely confess easily.”
As Do Pyeong-su stepped forward to break his legs, Baek Jong-dan cried out in panic.
“I truly don’t know! I never so much as glimpsed Ma Gun-ja—only met the tribe she taught Martial Arts to! We slaughtered them because they had learned the art! We believed that tribe was the Blood Cult because they had mastered Martial Arts, but later we learned they had been Ma Gun-ja’s students! That is the only connection between Ma Gun-ja and me!”
“Why would our Master teach Martial Arts to the Miao!”
“How should I know!”
Yeon Geum-hong spoke.
“That Miao man who appeared with our Master’s Black Dragon Sword—you slaughtered his tribe as well.”
“They were truly the Blood Cult.”
“So that made it just? This is what the Orthodox Faction does—apply their own standards without mercy, and kill anything that doesn’t fit.”
“Isn’t the Bloodwind Four Lions just the same?”
“At least we don’t paint righteousness across our own faces.”
Baek Jong-dan ground his teeth and spoke.
“Everything I know, I have told you. This happened thirty years ago when I was young, when I was still the Plum Blossom Sword Master. I swear by Heaven I have no connection to Ma Gun-ja whatsoever.”
“So you want to be released just like that?”
Do Pyeong-su smiled wickedly.
“Do we strike you as merciful?”
“I’ve told you everything. What else do you want from me!”
“By your own account, the disciples my master taught martial arts to—you killed them. Have you anything to say to that?”
“That is… that’s….”
“Past or present, you have a habit of laying hands on anyone connected to us.”
A single reason would have been enough for Hyeolpung Saja to execute Baek Jong-dan. Yet they had two.
“Your choices are two. Reveal the truths you haven’t yet spoken and die alone, or confess belatedly while you watch the Huashan disciples fall one by one. Simple, yes?”
“So the Nine Sects will become Eight. It does roll off the tongue nicely.”
When even Do Pyeong-su spoke thus, Baek Jong-dan’s face drained of all color.
“This has nothing to do with Huashan!”
“This happened when you were the Plum Blossom Sword Master. How can you claim Huashan is uninvolved?”
Baek Jong-dan’s jaw trembled so violently with fear that he could barely keep his teeth from chattering. He had always believed that Huashan’s name held absolute power in the Murim.
Even Shaolin Temple, the Taesan Bukto itself, did not dare to disrespect Huashan without cause—or so he had thought, and in truth it was so.
But Hyeolpung Saja was different. With their martial arts, they could lay waste to Huashan entirely. Hyeolpung Saja would suffer losses in the process, certainly, but they were not the sort to fear such a price.
Moreover, if Huashan were destroyed, it was clear they would become public enemies of the Murim. This was one reason why they refrained from making enemies of the Gudaemun Faction or the Five Great Families.
But Hyeolpung Saja had nothing to fear from becoming public enemies. They acted as they pleased and gave no thought to consequences.
The possibility that Huashan might be annihilated this very day pushed Baek Jong-dan into a chasm of terror.
It was a fear a hundred times greater than his own death. And so—
“Kugh!”
Even with his pressure points sealed, he could still sever his own meridians with internal power.
Baek Jong-dan’s body convulsed violently once, then blood streamed from his nose, ears, and eyes as he toppled sideways.
It was the last choice he could make for Huashan.
“What is this? Did he kill himself?”
In his fading consciousness, Hyeolpung Saja’s voice reached him as if through water.
“Huashan… has no… sin….”
Even Jang Man-dok had no way to save someone who had severed their own meridians.
“We meant to kill him, but not like this. Unfortunate.”
Seo Seok-san’s remark drew a long sigh from Yeon Geum-hong.
“Let’s dispose of the body and report to the senior brother.”
“I did not foresee an ending quite like this.”
At the sudden sound of Geom U-bin’s voice, Hyeolpung Saja started in alarm.
“Senior!”
Geom U-bin emerged from between the trees. His expression was taut as he looked upon Baek Jong-dan’s corpse.
“How did you know to come here?”
“I followed you.”
“You followed us?”
“It’s what the disciples are always doing to me.”
That was true enough. It was not the fact of being followed that unsettled them, but rather astonishment at the skill Geom U-bin had demonstrated—following them undetected.
“Then perhaps you heard everything?”
“Yes.”
All of Hyeolpung Saja shook their heads.
“We failed to sense you. Your concealment technique is truly remarkable, senior.”
“Jang Man-dok already noticed. He simply chose not to reveal me.”
“Ah, so that’s why he held back.”
“For now, let’s collect the sect leader’s remains.”
No matter how deep the forest or late the hour, it was best to erase traces quickly.
After burying Baek Jong-dan’s body deep in the earth, Hyeolpung Saja brushed off their hands and asked.
“What do we do now?”
At some point it had become natural to turn to Geom U-bin whenever a decision needed to be made.
“The sect leader’s account doesn’t appear to be lies, but I don’t think he told us the whole truth either. There are several things that don’t quite align.”
Do Pyeong-su spoke.
“We share that suspicion. So shouldn’t we strike at Huashan? Surely one of them knows the truth.”
“Destroy Huashan entirely?”
“They’re implicated in the master’s death. They deserve punishment.”
“But we don’t yet know who bears responsibility. Killing innocent disciples along with the guilty seems excessive. We’re not murderers on that scale, are we?”
Hyeolpung Saja was certainly capable of such a thing, but they could not bring themselves to match Geom U-bin to that level.

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