Fist Demon of Mount Hua - Chapter 29

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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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Chapter 29. Neither Grace nor Grievance Forgotten—Part 1
The next morning, Dam Ho left the inn before dawn.
Neigh!
Heuk Gwi, alone in the stable, whinnied with delight. Dam Ho saddled the beast and led it outside.
Toro Ban was still wrapped in darkness.
Dam Ho paused to orient himself, then mounted Heuk Gwi.
As though shaking off the resentment of long confinement in the stable, Heuk Gwi bolted forward with wild abandon.
‘You were stifled too. Like me.’
Dam Ho understood the beast’s heart.
How claustrophobic it must have been for a creature that once ran free across endless plains to be penned in such a narrow space?
Heuk Gwi became a black wind. Dam Ho merged with it, becoming one.
The landscape rushed near, then fell away. The Desolate Wasteland emerged, and distant mountains drew swiftly close.
Dam Ho let Heuk Gwi run until the beast tired of its own will. When exhausted, it would stop on its own.
Dam Ho surrendered to the steed and felt the wind.
Warmth and breeze he had not felt in twelve years. He wanted to savor this moment.
Dam Ho lost all sense of time’s passage.
How long had they been riding?
Suddenly, the pace dropped sharply. At last, Heuk Gwi was tiring.
“All right. Let’s rest a while.”
Dam Ho glanced about, searching for a suitable place to stop.
In the distance, he spotted a large boulder, its shadow pooling beneath.
Dam Ho drove Heuk Gwi toward it.
As they approached, Dam Ho’s eyes narrowed slightly. A nauseating stench of blood filled his nostrils.
Drawing closer, the reek intensified. Beneath the boulder’s shadow lay dozens of corpses scattered like refuse. Decomposition had already set in; they reeked of putrefaction.
Dam Ho dismounted and approached the bodies. A sight so gruesome it threatened to turn his stomach unfolded before him.
The corpses were mutilated beyond recognition. Wounds gaped everywhere like fish gills torn open.
Dam Ho examined one corpse’s wounds carefully.
“They played with them.”
Not a single wound was deep enough to kill instantly.
Those who slew these men had covered their bodies with cuts, as a cat toys with a mouse. They had watched them die in agony.
Suddenly, Jeom So Yi’s words came to mind.
“Bandits?”
Dam Ho began to rise.
That these men had fallen to bandits was tragic, but it was none of his concern.
It was then.
“Ugh…”
A weak groan issued from among the corpses.
Dam Ho pulled aside the other bodies and drew out the source of the sound. The moment he saw the man’s face, his eyes went cold.
The man groaning with a long gash opened from chest to belly was a face Dam Ho knew well.
Bang Woo Gwang—Bang Jin Bo’s father.
Though his entrails were visible through that ghastly wound, Bang Woo Gwang clung to breath with stubborn tenacity. Yet Dam Ho knew his time was measured in moments. It was providence alone that he had lasted this long.
Dam Ho now examined the faces of the corpses scattered about. He recognized several.
They belonged to the Silver Lotus Caravan. Dam Ho grasped what had happened.
Dam Ho channeled Internal Energy into Bang Woo Gwang. Color briefly returned to the man’s face.
Bang Woo Gwang’s eyes fluttered open with effort.
Recognizing Dam Ho’s face, he parted his lips barely.
“Y-you are?”
“Do you have words to leave?”
“What…”
“You know. You won’t last much longer.”
A choked sound escaped him.
Tears streamed down Bang Woo Gwang’s cheeks. Dam Ho watched in silence.
After a moment, having gathered what remained of his composure, Bang Woo Gwang fixed his gaze on Dam Ho. His eyes burned with urgency—the desperate longing to protect something precious, no matter the cost.
“Jin Bo has been taken by the bandits. Please… save Jin Bo. Save my son.”
“…”
“Dam Ho, I beg you. I… that child…”
Bang Woo Gwang seized Dam Ho’s hand with his blood-soaked fingers. Even from a dying man, the grip was heavy with weight.
That desperation traveled through the contact into Dam Ho.
The man’s lips moved like those of a fish gasping.
“Dam Ho, please…”
Dam Ho recalled that he had seen such a look in another’s eyes before.
When his village was attacked long ago, his own father had worn that same expression—the one Bang Woo Gwang wore now.
The only difference was that then, the Hwa San Sect’s priests had come after his father was already dead, whereas Bang Woo Gwang had met him before his breath failed entirely.
Through Dam Ho’s lips came a rough, murky sound.
“If you live.”
“I… thank you. Please… please….”
Bang Woo Gwang’s voice faded. His body grew cold alongside his words.
The light drained from his eyes as he looked at Dam Ho, yet that desperate plea remained.
Dam Ho reached out and closed Bang Woo Gwang’s eyes, then rose and surveyed the surroundings. Not far off, he found numerous bodies entangled in a heap.
Among them, Dam Ho recognized another familiar face.
‘O Gi O.’
The chief escort of the Silver Lotus Caravan—the man who had brought him into the caravan’s fold. Beside him lay Jo Su Gwang, the caravan master, his tongue hanging long in death.
Such anguish that even in death they could not close their eyes. Dam Ho stared into those eyes drained of light for a long while.
They could speak no more, yet those hollow eyes—now extinguished—told far more than words ever could.
Dam Ho gazed silently into their vacant eyes, as if engaged in conversation.
After a long time had passed, Dam Ho closed their eyes and rose to his feet.
Dam Ho climbed onto Heuk Gwi’s back.
Having rested for a moment, Heuk Gwi thrust forward with renewed vigor. There was not a trace of weariness in its movements.
“Let’s go.”
Heuk Gwi leaped forward as though it had been waiting for nothing else.
＊＊＊
Bang Jin Bo’s eyes were streaked with tears.
He could not believe what had befallen him. He could not comprehend why he was in this place.
Bang Jin Bo was trapped inside a small wooden cage—much like one used to confine beasts.
He was not alone in the cage. The younger merchants from the Silver Lotus Caravan shared his fate. There were some fifty of them.
Everyone else was dead. The caravan master Jo Su Gwang, and Bang Jin Bo’s own father as well.
Jo Su Gwang had set out with another caravan, wary of bandit attacks. Two caravans meant one hundred and fifty souls—he had believed no band of outlaws would dare strike them.
But his judgment was wrong.
The bandits came without hesitation, unafraid even of the combined force.
The escorts under O Gi O fought fiercely, but they could not withstand more than a hundred raiders.
All the escorts were slaughtered, and countless merchants fell. Bang Jin Bo had witnessed it all with his own eyes.
The bandits had built a great bonfire in the center of the clearing and were reveling in their spoils. On one side of the ground lay goods stolen from the caravan, arrayed in abundance.
A heavily built man sat before the bonfire, holding up a Night Pearl the size of a child’s fist to the firelight.
“Hehe! Fortune smiles upon us today. A Myo An Stone of such quality.”
All the goods plundered from the caravan combined were not worth a tenth of this stone.
This was the greatest haul since he had begun his raids here.
His name was Dong Ja Chu, chieftain of the Blood Wolf Bandits, who preyed chiefly on merchants traveling between the Western Regions and the Central Plains.
The Blood Wolf Bandits were a mix of Han, Hui, and various other peoples. What united them was their martial prowess and their refusal to settle in one place.
They roamed the Toro Ban region, pillaging—killing men, stealing goods, selling what they took, and spending the coin on drink and women.
After fondling the Myo An Stone for a while, Dong Ja Chu turned to an attendant nearby.
“What of them?”
“We sent word through a courier. They should depart soon. They’ll arrive within two or three double hours.”
“Is that so? What shall we do until then?”
Dong Ja Chu’s eyes gleamed dangerously in the firelight.
His gaze suddenly fixed on the caged prisoners.
“Bring them here.”
“Why do you ask, chieftain?”
The owl-faced deputy commander Jo Bok tilted his head in confusion. At this, Dong Ja Chu broke into a cruel smile.
“I’m bored.”
“Ah!”
Jo Bok’s face twisted into a sinister grin, understanding at once.
He strode to the cage and scanned the trapped prisoners. Those who caught his gaze shrank back.
“Why do you do this to us?
“You’ve taken our goods—let us go, please.”
Several pleaded, but Jo Bok let their words pass unheeded and said:
“Bring out this one and this one.”
“Yes, Deputy Commander!”
The men hauled out the prisoners Jo Bok had indicated—Jang Han, in his early thirties, and a young man in his early twenties.
Jo Bok and his men threw Jang Han and the young man down before Dong Ja Chu.
The two lay prostrate before him, confused and helpless. Dong Ja Chu gazed down at them with a blood-tinged smile.
“Do you know what your fate is?”
“What?”
Jang Han’s head snapped up abruptly. He was a merchant traveling with the Silver Lotus Caravan.
The frail young man couldn’t even lift his gaze, trembling uncontrollably as Dong Ja Chu’s voice reached his ears.
“Soon enough, some people will arrive. I intend to sell you to them as slaves.”
“That’s impossible!”
The color drained from both Jang Han’s and the young man’s faces. Dong Ja Chu savored their expressions.
“Once you’re sold into slavery, you’ll never see daylight again. Not a single person among those they’ve taken has ever survived. So I’m going to give you a chance.”
The moment Dong Ja Chu finished speaking, Jo Bok beside him tossed a sword to each of the two men.
Confused, they could only blink in bewilderment.
“Fight. The one who wins goes free. Hehehehe!”
“Hehehehe!”
Laughter erupted from all around.
The eyes of the Blood Wolf Bandits gleamed with murderous intent.
This was their entertainment alone.
Watching ordinary men tear into each other for the price of freedom—it was among the greatest pleasures they knew.
The fight between these common folk, who had never held a sword in their lives, was fierce in its own way, offering a thrill entirely different from clashes between martial masters.
Jang Han’s head jerked up as he stared at Dong Ja Chu.
“Do you mean that? Truly?”
“Of course. If you win, I’ll set you free. If you lose, I’ll release him instead. What do you think? Isn’t that reason enough to fight?”
Conflict flickered in Jang Han’s eyes.
‘For freedom? I won’t spend my life as a slave.’
A wife and children waited for him at home.
No matter what, he had to return to them.
Jang Han grasped the sword. A deadly gleam kindled in his eyes, while the young man continued to shake.
“I—I can’t do this.”
“Hehehehe! Then you die now.”
“That’s…”
Tears rolled down the young man’s cheeks like pearls.
Shink!
Jo Bok drew his blade and pressed it to the young man’s throat.
“Take up the sword, you coward.”

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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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