My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 6
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Episode 6. His face was as if he’d seen a ghost
‘What in the world…?’
The eldest. No—the Warrior, the sole survivor, trembled violently from head to toe.
He had been certain the scholar was nothing but a common clerk who, maddened by rage, had charged at them without thinking straight.
According to the original plan, the scholar should have come to his senses by now after taking a thorough beating from his brothers, and should be begging for his life.
Then they would have finished him off, dragged him back to Sodam Village, hanged him at the entrance, and made certain no one would ever dare challenge them again.
And unlike the terrified villagers who would tremble at the sight for a long time to come, they themselves had planned to spend the entire night carousing in some brothel.
But then,
‘What in blazes is that?’
The scholar’s eyes.
That gaze had frozen the Warrior solid.
He was a heretic-sect martial artist himself, and he had committed countless murders.
He had survived numerous battles and wars as well.
For this reason, he had never flinched at ordinary murderous intent.
But this was different.
That gaze was not merely the eyes of a common killer.
It was the gaze of one who had severed the necks of countless people beyond reckoning.
How could a mere scholar from such a backwater place possibly possess such eyes?
It was utterly incomprehensible.
And incomprehensible was not all that faced him.
Looking at his two brothers’ corpses—mangled beyond recognition—the Warrior swallowed hard.
He could meet the same fate at any moment.
Drowning in that immense murderous intent, the Warrior barely managed to speak.
“I…”
He looked at Yeo Un-hui with eyes stripped of all dignity.
“What would you have me do?”
He had to survive. At any cost.
That was the only thought that filled the Warrior’s mind.
***
The village chief of Sodam Village stood dumbfounded.
“What on earth…?”
He could not believe the situation unfolding before him.
A quarter hour earlier, the chief had stepped out of his home, unable to find any relief for his troubled heart, and was taking a walk through the village.
And then, passing by the village entrance, he had run into someone.
Someone he had hoped never to see again.
He could only feel dread—wondering why this person had returned to the village, what demands they might make.
And yet,
“As you heard.”
A thick money pouch had been placed in the village chief’s palm.
Moreover, one of the Warriors who had come to Sodam Village just half a day earlier, terrorizing the people and collecting tribute, was now bowing his head before him.
The situation lacked all semblance of reality.
The chief was beginning to wonder if he was dreaming.
“I must apologize again. I am—I am truly sorry.”
The Warrior bowed once more.
The chief did not know what to do with himself in the face of such behavior.
Just half a day ago, this man had seemed ready to kill anything that displeased him.
And now that same man was apologizing with every ounce of sincerity he possessed.
“I will return all the money you paid earlier. Please, I beg you to forgive us. And as a mark of my apology, I have included compensation for the treatment of that friend whom we—whom we injured. It is surely insufficient, but I hope you will accept it.”
“…Yes? No, I really don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
The Warrior’s demeanor had changed entirely, as if he were a different person altogether.
Yet for all that, the chief could not bring himself to believe him outright.
“Forgive me, but is this some sort of test?”
At that, the Warrior shook his head vigorously.
“No. Absolutely not. I understand you wouldn’t believe me, but I am sincere. Tell me—what must I do to earn your trust? Should I kneel? I will kneel.”
“Ah, no! Please don’t do that.”
The more apologies the chief received, the more unsettled he became.
“Well then, you have definitely returned the money and accepted my apology.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“In any case, there will be no repeat of such incidents. And you will see nothing of us near this place. We mean to depart far from here. So I shall take my leave now.”
And with that, the Warrior hurried away into the distance.
“Village headman!”
He turned to see villagers rushing toward him from a distance.
Their faces were startled—they must have wondered what terrible thing these warriors had come to do to the village this time.
“No, wait… is that…?”
The headman’s gaze remained fixed on the distant figure of the warrior, his expression still dazed.
What in the world was happening?
Where had all that murderous presence gone? And why was the man sweating so profusely, his hands trembling? The headman could only stand bewildered.
If he remembered correctly, the warrior’s face had looked as though he’d glimpsed something he was never meant to see—a ghost made flesh.
***
“…I’ve done everything you asked.”
The warrior who had returned from Sodam Village spoke with fear thick in his voice.
Yeo Un-hui, who had been quietly observing the mountain scenery, acknowledged him with the slightest nod, his eyes never shifting.
“So… I can leave now, can’t I?”
“Where do you intend to go?”
“Far from here. To live quietly somewhere.”
“Live quietly, you say… you?”
“Of course.”
At those words, Yeo Un-hui let out a soft laugh.
“Do you truly believe a man can change?”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Without martial arts to sustain you, how could you survive without extorting money from defenseless common folk? You—a deserter from the Black Dao, who fled your organization to save your own skin?”
“How… how did you know that…?”
How indeed.
In his past life, these men had descended upon Sodam Village as well.
For months afterward, they had terrorized the villagers, extracting tribute payments, until a master from the Murim Alliance happened to pass through the area and subdued them, turning them over to the authorities.
That was how Yeo Un-hui had learned of it.
That these were fugitives defeated in a war among Black Dao factions.
Moreover, before and after their arrival at Sodam Village, they had committed countless unspeakable atrocities.
They showed no mercy—not to the elderly, not to children—often killing indiscriminately. They had raped and murdered women who caught their fancy with nauseating regularity.
This was why Yeo Un-hui harbored not a shred of compassion for them.
He had known long ago that they were worthless filth deserving only oblivion.
Of course, even without his intervention, they would inevitably be caught by a Murim Alliance master in a few months’ time and thrown into prison. But so what?
Yeo Un-hui had no intention of waiting those few months out in silence.
These men had threatened the peace of his home in Sodam Village, persecuted and murdered the helpless common folk, and had even coveted his wife.
When all their previous crimes were weighed in the balance, even a lifetime in chains would have been insufficient justice by Yeo Un-hui’s measure.
These men deserved—
‘a far more terrible reckoning.’
Yeo Un-hui turned his head slowly to regard the warrior.
In that moment, the warrior’s heart dropped like a stone.
“Ah… ah. So that’s it. You were never going to—”
Only then did he understand.
From the very beginning, this man had never intended to let him live.
He should have known sooner.
He should have recognized that a man with eyes like that would never show mercy.
“Aaahhhhh!”
The warrior spun around and bolted, desperate to flee.
But—
“Futile.”
The warrior’s body lurched sideways and crumpled forward.
Suddenly, he could no longer control his limbs.
It felt as though something vital had vanished from his body—a terrible sensation of absence.
As a burning pain flared from below, his gaze snapped downward.
One of his legs was gone.
Blood sprayed in a torrent.
“Gah—gaaaaahhhhh!”
Soon Yeo Un-hui approached the thrashing warrior.
Ching.
“Don’t… don’t come any closer!”
Desperation drove the man to draw his sword and swing it wildly.
But—
Thud.
His arm severed clean away.
Still gripping the sword.
A screech tore through the air.
Watching an enormous torrent of blood spray from his arm and shoulder, he fought to keep hold of his senses, urgently stanching the wound.
But the terrible pain—there was no suppressing that.
“Ngh… ngh…”
The Warrior could endure no more. He lost consciousness.
Yet Yeo Un-hui was not the kind to stop now.
Footsteps. Heavy, deliberate.
Yeo Un-hui seized the unconscious Warrior by the hair.
Then he began dragging him, slowly, toward somewhere unseen.
“Ugh… ugh… ngh…”
The Warrior groaned, half-aware in his stupor.
“Where… where are you taking me…?”
He forced the question through pain, but no answer came.
Yeo Un-hui simply continued walking, the Warrior’s hair still clenched in his fist.
How long it took, he could not say.
But at last, Yeo Un-hui’s steps ceased.
And then—
A sharp whistle; a dull thud below.
“Ugh… this… this place…”
It was a pit of considerable depth.
Yeo Un-hui looked down at the Warrior sprawled in the cavity and spoke.
“An old mine. Dug by laborers long ago. They’ve all abandoned it by now, or so I’m told.”
“What? A mine…?”
In that same moment, from nearby—
A sinuous rustle. An unholy hiss.
Terrible sounds began to echo in succession.
This was—
“You… surely you don’t mean…”
In an instant, every hair on the Warrior’s body stood on end.
Despite wounds of the gravest severity, he had not yet surrendered the will to live.
Somehow, anyhow, he had to escape.
The Warrior thrashed and whipped his head about in desperate panic.
Then he saw them.
Hundreds of yellow eyes, glowing in the darkness that encircled him, all fixed upon his form.
“Ah… ah…”
“You said you wanted to live.”
The Warrior lifted his head, staring up at Yeo Un-hui.
“Then survive down there. If you do, I’ll grant you acknowledgment. Though I doubt you will.”
“You… you… you monster! You demon!”
The Warrior shrieked in fury, but Yeo Un-hui was already gone.
Rustling. Rustling. A slithering crescendo.
“Ngh… no… this cannot…”
An anguished hiss.
A piercing wail.
“Ahhhhhh!”
Hundreds of snakes surged toward him all at once.
Slithering. Striking.
Hissing poison and death.
His hand, thrust between them, turned black with venom.
Soon his form vanished utterly into the darkness, leaving no trace.
It was one of the most terrible deaths the world had to offer.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————