Fist Demon of Mount Hua - Chapter 45

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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 45. The Sand Wind Calls for Blood—2
The old man whose face bore deep wrinkles like the marks of time was none other than Geum Gwancheon, master of Geum Ma Jang.
He stood with his arms spread wide, blocking Sim Ok’s path.
“Who are you, young lady, to steal someone’s horse without permission?”
“There’s no time for explanations. Move aside, please.”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. The horse you’ve taken is a precious asset of Geum Ma Jang.”
“I’ll compensate you later. What matters now is Xinjiang’s safety—move!”
“Ha!”
Geum Gwancheon stared at the urgent Sim Ok with an expression of disbelief.
Sim Ok thrust her hand into her chest, meaning to offer whatever money she had on hand. But she soon remembered that she had left all her belongings at Seochen Sanjang. Her coins were among them.
At this moment, she was completely penniless.
“Damn!”
She abandoned all thought of paying and urged the horse forward.
If she had to bear the stigma of theft, so be it. She would make recompense later. That was her reasoning.
Sim Ok kicked the horse’s belly. The startled animal bolted ahead.
“Watch out!”
Geum Gwancheon threw himself aside just in time. Had he been even a moment slower, the horse would have trampled him—it was a perilously close call.
“What in the—?”
Geum Gwancheon propped himself up on his elbows, watching Sim Ok and the horse recede into the distance.
“Catch the thief!”
The stable hands scrambled onto their horses.
They recognized from Sim Ok’s nimble movements that she was a trained martial master, but seeing Geum Gwancheon suffer such an indignity, they could not bear to let it pass.
Above all, the horses were their livelihood. They could not stand by and watch their animals stolen before their very eyes.
Meanwhile, as Sim Ok rode hard, she could scarcely contain her bewilderment and indignation. Never in her wildest dreams had she imagined being branded a horse thief.
Though she resented the stable hands for not understanding her true purpose, this was no time for leisurely explanations.
“Onward to Joong Won—”
Whiff!
Her words cut short. The sharp, piercing sound of something splitting the air had erupted from nowhere.
Sim Ok instinctively ducked her head.
Thunk!
An object whistled past her hair by the narrowest of margins and buried itself in the ground.
The projectile—an arrow—was so powerfully driven that even now its fletching quivered with the force. More than half of it had sunk into the earth.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
A cold, desolate voice rang out across the horse yard.
In that instant, despair flashed across Sim Ok’s face.
‘Already?’
For all her haste, they had caught up to her after all.
Emerging from the curtain of darkness came the martial masters of Seochen Sanjang. At their head rode Jo Hyeol San.
The arrow from moments before had been his. Jo Hyeol San passed his bow to one of his men and approached Sim Ok.
Clop-clop!
The hoofbeats of his horse thundered unusually loud.
A bloodless smile played across Jo Hyeol San’s face.
“Seochen Sanjang is not so insignificant a place that one may enter whenever one wishes and depart without even asking permission. Mistress of a humble inn, you’ve wounded our house grievously.”
“Tsk—!”
“Your recklessness has caused us considerable damage. Why not spare other places your chaos and come with us instead?”
“Not a chance. Do you really think I’ll surrender meekly?”
“Ridiculous. Rejecting kindness and choosing punishment.”
“There was never any kindness to begin with, was there?”
“Perhaps not—but that’s not how the world will see it. After all, who’s here to contradict me?”
“What happened to Heuk No?”
“If you wish to know, come with us willingly.”
Sim Ok shook her head.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“Absurd? So you don’t even care whether your subordinate lives or dies? How callous.”
Jo Hyeol San clicked his tongue. His eyes glowed cold and snake-like.
In his gaze, Sim Ok was merely a novice. She moved exactly as he had anticipated, not a single step differently.
Jo Hyeol San nodded to his men.
“Treat the mistress with courtesy. If we let her slip away, the honor of our house will be dragged through the mud.”
“Yes, sir!”
The martial masters of Seochen Sanjang moved forward and closed their circle around Sim Ok.
“What is this?”
Geum Gwancheon stared at the warriors who had burst in so suddenly, his expression blank.
After more than fifty years in the horse trade, Geum Gwancheon had cultivated a sharp eye for people. He prided himself on reading others better than most.
But Jo Hyeol San and his warriors, as they appeared to his discerning gaze, were no different from ghosts of death itself. The aura emanating from their bodies carried the thick scent of blood.
It was a unique presence that only those who had stood atop the corpses of countless others could possess.
Laborers crowded around him. They too had instinctively sensed that something was terribly wrong with how events were unfolding.
“Well then, Master.”
“Everyone fall back. Quietly!”
Geum Gwancheon issued the order to his workers with measured calm. Yet his mind churned far from the composure his voice betrayed.
“Hah!”
In that instant, the warriors of Seochen Sanjang attacked Sim Ok.
Watching the warriors wield their weapons with a terrifying aura, Geum Gwancheon felt his lips drying out.
He prayed desperately that Jo Hyeol San would pay them no mind.
But contrary to his fervent wish, Jo Hyeol San’s gaze turned toward the laborers.
“There are far too many eyes here, it seems.”
“W-we saw nothing, sir.”
Geum Gwancheon answered hastily. At his words, the laborers bowed their heads and cast their eyes down.
The corner of Jo Hyeol San’s mouth lifted.
“Good instincts. It’s clear you’ve lived a long life in this world—your perceptiveness is sharp indeed.”
“…”
“But here’s the problem: I don’t trust people’s words. Least of all the promises of the uneducated and ignorant.”
“You, you mean—?”
Jo Hyeol San’s gaze shifted toward Sim Ok.
Sim Ok was surrounded by warriors, fighting desperately for her life. She was drenched in blood, her appearance wretched beyond measure.
For now she held on somehow, but she was so precarious that collapse could come at any moment. There was no reason for Jo Hyeol San to concern himself with her.
Instead, his killing intent was directed at Geum Gwancheon and the workers of Geum Ma Jang.
“Consider yourselves unlucky. A calamity has happened to wander into this place. That’s how the world works. You think you can prosper alone, but it never works that way. Your fate is determined by whom you encounter. You are such a case. If you must resent someone, resent that wench who brought this calamity upon you.”
“We have done nothing wrong.”
“I told you—your guilt or innocence is irrelevant. You’re not important enough to warrant reasons for your execution. Tsk! This is irritating. Must I really answer every ignorant fool?”
In that moment, some of the warriors behind Jo Hyeol San drew their blades and stepped forward.
Geum Gwancheon’s voice cracked as he screamed.
“Run! Everyone run!”
“Aaaah!”
The laborers fled in panic. The warriors of Seochen Sanjang pursued them.
Slice!
“Argh!”
With each sweep of their blades, the laborers fell.
Geum Ma Jang became hell in an instant.
Only moments ago, the laborers had been laughing and talking. Now death came for them without warning.
“W-why us?”
In the eyes of a laborer whose belly had been split open, an expression of bitter injustice flickered.
He had lived honestly, without cutting corners. He worked hard, and at last things had begun to improve. The unfairness of dying now, just when life was becoming bearable, was crushing.
He wanted to live. Yet his entrails spilled through the fingers clamped over his abdomen.
“Hnn, hnn! Go back in. Please…”
The laborer tried to push his intestines back inside. But cruelly, they kept flowing out.
Plop.
His entrails fell to the ground in a pool of blood.
“So unfair!”
Those were the last words the laborer spoke in life.
“Dongwol!”
An older laborer saw his death and rushed forward. The two had shared a particularly deep bond. He could not turn away from his companion’s corpse.
Whoosh!
“Agh!”
But he never reached the dead man. Death found him first.
“This can’t be happening. How is this possible…”
Geum Gwancheon’s cheeks trembled violently. His eyes were bloodshot red, as if blood might drip from them at any moment.
People he had worked alongside his entire life were dying. The family business built across generations was crumbling.
Geum Gwancheon could neither understand nor accept what was happening before his eyes.
“How…?”
Then it happened.
“Grandfather!”
A young girl’s cry, almost a scream, pierced through Geum Gwancheon’s ears.
“So, So Hye?”
Geum Gwancheon recognized at once that the voice belonged to his granddaughter, Geum So Hye.
He turned his head to see Geum So Hye standing with Geum Jung Gwang, both staring toward him.
Geum Gwancheon’s voice tore from his throat.
“Run! So Hye, run!”
“Grandfather!”
“Now! Go!”
Geum Gwancheon’s anguished cry rang out again. Only then did Geum Jung Gwang seize Geum So Hye’s hand and turn to flee. But their pace was far too slow.
To Geum Gwancheon’s eyes, it seemed impossibly sluggish, unbearably so.
He watched two martial masters from Seochen Sanjang dash toward them. They closed the distance in seconds.
When their blades fell, these two would cease to exist in this world.
“How can this be happening…”
“That’s how the world works. It’s not how one lives that matters—it’s which current one rides. Unfortunately, the current you rode ends here.”
Jo Hyeol San clicked his tongue and turned away.
Meanwhile, Sim Ok had also heard Geum Gwancheon’s cry—a desperate, nearly inhuman sound. Yet she had neither the leisure nor the strength to save the people of Geum Ma Jang.
She was barely managing to protect her own life.
All of this was happening because she had come seeking Geum Ma Jang.
‘There’s no choice. I have no choice.’
A fat tear rolled down Sim Ok’s cheek.
She wielded her Martial Arts desperately while stealing a glance at Geum So Hye and Geum Jung Gwang.
Whoosh!
A blade descended upon them from behind like the reaper’s scythe.
Knowing a scream would follow, Sim Ok squeezed her eyes shut without thinking.
Boom!
In that instant, a Thunder Sound crashed down toward the earth, reverberating across the ground.
Footsteps sounded in its wake.
Swish! Thud! Swish! Thud!

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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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