Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 64

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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 64. The Sword Phantom’s Hidden Killing Art
“Hubei has seen transaction volumes up more than thirty percent year-over-year.”
“In Jiangxi, we’ve cultivated new trading partners, and next year promises even greater transaction volume.”
“Now that we’ve brought the Baekun Trading Company into the fold, it seems we could commence operations in Beijing soon enough. After all, isn’t it said that the darkest place is beneath the lamp?”
The Gold-Masked Man nodded with evident satisfaction as the Silver-Masked operatives concluded their reports.
“Proceeding smoothly.”
Whoosh.
The Gold-Masked Man’s gaze shifted toward the Silver-Masked operative seated furthest back.
“And Seo Dae Joo—what of him?”
“Hah, hah. You expect performance from a recruit who just arrived? Surely that’s too much, sir.”
The Silver-Masked operative flashed an ingratiating smile, his tone dripping with mock deference, but the others narrowed their eyes at him with visible displeasure.
“Still, stepping into your predecessor’s shoes must be demanding work. He was the one who always ventured furthest on salt trade operations.”
“Hah, hah, hah. No need to worry—for me, even the distant routes are close at hand, sir.”
“True enough. Beijing is practically your home territory. Come next year, when we begin distributing salt through the capital, the burden of responsibility will fall squarely on your shoulders.”
“Of course, sir! I’ll keep that Baekun Trading Company bunch under a tight grip!”
“Hm, carefully now—if word reaches the Namgung Clan in Hefei, matters could escalate.”
“Bah, those petty Murim clans. Whether it’s the Baekga Maeng or the Murim Alliance, they’re nothing but lowborn rabble, aren’t they?”
The other Silver-Masked operatives exchanged sharp, knowing glances at his words.
Most of them were either Murim Clan members themselves or had connections within those circles.
“Hah, hah, hah!”
Yet the Silver-Masked operative dismissed their stares with a contemptuous laugh.
‘Ah, I see my younger self reflected in him. Someone raised within palace walls, believing that narrow world to be the sum of all existence.’
The Gold-Masked Man smiled softly to himself.
He too had once dismissed the Murim Clans as Seo Dae Joo did now, having narrowly escaped death more times than he could count as a consequence.
The Imperial Palace harbored no ambitions of subjugating the Murim precisely because it knew such a thing impossible.
‘With enough painful lessons, he’ll learn humility soon enough.’
The Gold-Masked Man’s gaze upon Seo Dae Joo shifted subtly.
‘More importantly, it seems the Eastern Palace faction shows no unusual activity. The fact that they dispatched a new deputy chief so readily is telling.’
It was proof that no one in the palace had yet grasped his treacherous intent.
They were, in truth, remarkably incompetent.
Year after year, more than thirty percent of their funds diverted to the Society—and they hadn’t even noticed.
‘Though even if they did, little would change now.’
The Gold-Masked Man wore an easy smile behind his mask when—
Tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap!
Bang!
Hurried footsteps echoed before a Bronze-Masked operative burst through the door.
“What is the meaning of this? We are in the midst of an executive assembly!”
“Hah! Hah! An att—attack, sir!”
“What?!”
“Who attacks us?”
“Could it be the government army? Surely not—”
The Silver-Masked operatives erupted in murmurs at the Bronze-Masked man’s report. The Gold-Masked Man brought his armrest down with force.
Bang!
“Silence! Who are the attackers?”
“The Paewoong Gate, sir!”
“The Paewoong Gate? What do they want?”
“The Western Salt Storage Facility is under assault! Enemy force numbers at least three hundred!”
“Th—three hundred?!”
The Gold-Masked Man shot to his feet.
Numbers like that meant a full-scale mobilization—the Paewoong Gate committing their entire strength.
“Jeok Do Gwang has lost his mind! Ruling his petty fiefdom in this narrow corner, and now he fancies himself a true power player!”
“Director, what are our orders? At this pace, they’ll reach us shortly!”
The Salt Cartel maintained two storage facilities.
With the Western facility breached, the attackers would soon turn their sights toward the Eastern facility here.
“Assemble all senior operatives! Mobilize every salt merchant!”
“But sir, many personnel are deployed externally. If the enemy truly numbers three hundred and the Paewoong Gate Master himself has joined the fray…”
A Silver-Masked operative voiced his concern, and the Gold-Masked Man raised a fist, hard as stone.
Whoosh!
Yellow stellar force erupted from the Gold-Masked Man’s knuckles, and all the Silver-Masked operatives gasped in shock.
“Hah! That… that is…!”
“Gang Gi?!”
“Ha! The master’s martial prowess has touched the heavens!”
“Seungbyokja!”
“Hwagyeong!”
One who scales the wall.
A realm of transcendence.
If the countless martial masters of Gangho were like grains of sand on a beach, these were the highest peaks that existed one to a mountain.
Beings capable of wielding Geom Gang as if it were an ordinary sword, unleashing destructive force akin to a natural calamity.
The Hwagyeong realm was so far removed from all previous stages that masters spoke of it as being closer to divine immortals than to warriors.
Thus, those who ascended the wall to look down upon all others earned the title Seungbyokja.
“Hehehehe, fear not. So long as Gwang Bi Chang stands with you, there is no defeat.”
“Ohohoho!”
“A Seungbyokja fights at our side!”
“Ahahaha! Victory is ours!”
The silver-masked men who had witnessed the astounding realm of Gwang Bi Chang, the golden-masked Salt Cartel master, felt certainty of victory kindle in their eyes.
“…….”
But at that moment, Seo Dae Joo’s thin eyes had grown narrower still.
* * *
Screeeek! Screeeek-screeeek!
With each swing of Jeok Do Gwang’s blade, another head fell.
The blade was a curved sword with teeth like a serrated saw—a Saw-Toothed Curved Blade—its edge fashioned like a row of horse teeth.
The severed edges were so gruesome they looked not cut but torn and shredded apart.
“Leave the wooden-masked ones alone! Focus on slaughtering the iron-masked and bronze-masked!”
As Jeok Do Gwang bellowed with murderous intent, the Paewoong Gate disciples who had taken the Salt Storage Facility descended into frenzied slaughter.
“Die!”
“For the barrier guards!”
“Make them die in agony! Soothe the vengeful spirits of our brothers!”
Slash! Slaaaash!
Thud-thud-thud! Screeeek!
The Salt Storage Facility echoed with ghastly sounds.
The salt workers cowered with heads pressed to the ground, trembling in terror.
“Clean this up quickly and march east! Tonight we erase the Salt Cartel from the Central Plains!”
“Yeeesss!”
“The name of the Hegemon!”
“Might that shakes all directions!”
The Paewoong Gate disciples, their momentum surging, began their eastern advance in unison.
The torchlight reflected off the lake’s surface cast their entire bodies in red, as though they were drenched in blood.
“You dog, Jeok Do Gwang! I see your love of fire has burned away your wits!”
At that moment, a contingent emerged to block the Paewoong Gate disciples’ advance.
At the head stood a bear of a man wearing a golden mask, followed by some ten silver-masked figures and thirty bronze-masked men, with roughly a hundred wooden-masked soldiers behind them.
“The Salt Cartel Master……!”
Whoosh!
The moment Jeok Do Gwang spotted the golden-masked figure, flames ignited in his eyes.
“Don’t you dare think you’ll live after maiming my son!”
“What? What nonsense is this!”
“Don’t play innocent! The reek of your salt-pickled corpses lingered all over the scene!”
The Salt Cartel Master Gwang Bi Chang’s brow furrowed at Jeok Do Gwang’s accusation.
He couldn’t fathom the man’s meaning.
But what mattered now was singular and clear.
They had attacked the Salt Storage Facility, and this matter had to be buried as swiftly as possible.
‘Too many eyes watching. We must slaughter them all and dump the bodies in the Salt Lake!’
Even with the provincial governor’s backing, if word spread too widely there would be no salvaging it.
He had to butcher every last Paewoong Gate disciple and smother this incident before it grew.
“You make groundless accusations! Are you so envious of our enterprise!”
“Grrrrgh. I’ll carve out your guts and toss them to the dogs!”
Gwang Bi Chang and Jeok Do Gwang.
Both understood well that this was a war from which neither could retreat.
“Their forces are only half our strength! Kill them all!”
“Just rabble soldiers playing at numbers! Follow me!”
And so, before the eastern Salt Storage Facility, the final clash between Paewoong Gate and the Salt Cartel was about to unfold.
Tap-tap! Tap-tap-tap!
A masked figure appeared atop the Salt Storage Facility’s roof and began moving swiftly across it.
The man wore three swords at his waist—Ho Yeon.
‘It’s somewhere around here…… There!’
Ho Yeon, scanning the surroundings, spotted the structure Mo Yong Yul had described.
It was a ventilation shaft where steam escaped.
Tap-tap! Whoosh!
Ho Yeon vanished into the ventilation shaft without hesitation, as though sucked inside.
* * *
“W-what is this commotion?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
“C-could it be that the imperial army has come to rescue us?”
“Surely not…….”
“If that were the case……!”
As the salt workers inside the facility began murmuring, a masked overseer drew a spear from behind his back and shouted.
“Silence! Any man who grumbles gets thrown into the brazier!”
Whoosh!
Gray killing intent erupted from the masked man’s spear, and the workers fell silent in terror at the sight of it.
Yet several of them continued to glance around, trying to grasp what was happening.
Gong Ja Cheong was among them.
‘Something has gone wrong—this is my chance to escape!’
Whatever was happening, this moment felt like the only opportunity.
Gong Ja Cheong’s hand began to drift downward toward the axe used for splitting firewood.
‘Just a little more…… just a little more……!’
His weathered fingers were reaching for the axe when—
“Oi, what are you doing?”
“……!”
A foot appeared in his line of sight.
He slowly lifted his head.
The masked man stared down at him, his eyes narrowed to crescents.
“Hehehehe, a cunning one. This needs an example, doesn’t it?”
“A-ah…….”
Gong Ja Cheong felt the thread of his life snap.
‘Yeo-an…… I’m sorry…… live strong without this worthless father…….’
Whirr-whirr-whirr! Slash!
The masked man spun his spear and drove its point toward Gong Ja Cheong’s heart.
“Impalement it is.”
Screech!
In the instant the masked man’s spear thrust forward—
Whoooom!
Something shot forth with the sound of dozens of wasps taking flight.
‘Hidden Projectiles?!’
Clack! Tap-tap-tap!
Pitter-patter-patter-patter-patter!
The masked man retreated rapidly, and silver needles began embedding themselves densely in his wake.
Only after he’d slid out of range did the hail of needles cease.
“Who goes there!”
The masked man turned his head toward where the needles had come from.
There he saw a masked figure standing beside the salt vat, above the brazier.
“I’ve got a question for you.”
Ho Yeon looked down at the masked man and spoke.
“Where does the overseer keep his quarters or study? Just need to borrow a ledger or two.”
“You madman!”
“What? Insults to a stranger? Want to die?”
“A lunatic, clearly! Prepared Archery Formation!”
At the masked man’s cry, the sound of bowstrings being drawn echoed from all around.
Creak! Creeeeak!
Ho Yeon tilted his head and muttered.
“This bastard’s got a sharp tongue.”
―Fire needles first and then act righteous about it?
“That was merely a greeting. Spittle and arrows are rather different things.”
―Puh-hahahaha! You speak truth! They’re as different as asking whether that tastes like fermented bean paste or fermented bean paste tastes like that!
―You barbarian! Mind your filthy tongue!
―I refuse.
―Enough of this. Get down from there, boy. Standing alone in such a place only makes you a target.
At Cheon Roe Geom’s words, Ho Yeon laughed softly and replied.
“Do you know why I became a Murim Public Enemy?”
―Because you’ve been slaughtering people indiscriminately, haven’t you?
“Ha, not wrong. But that’s not the whole of it.”
―What then?
“How I killed was what mattered. When my strength was still meager, I was called the Amcheon Sal Gwi.”
―A phantom that murders in the darkness, as it pleases?
“Those who ate precious medicines from childhood and trained in secret martial arts—how could an orphan from the back alleys have killed them any other way?”
Snap!
Ho Yeon extended his hand downward as he continued.
“Testing martial skill and committing murder are entirely different arts. They never grasped that truth—and so they died by my hand.”
“Loose!”
The silver-masked archer cried out once the aim was locked, and dozens of arrows streaked toward Ho Yeon.
Crack!
And Ho Yeon’s fingers closed upon empty air.
In that same instant, every brazier that had lit the Salt Storage Facility guttered out.
“Darkness has never blinded these eyes.”
Tap-tap-tap-tap!
The incoming arrows struck the salt bed, sending sparks scattering into the gloom.
Ho Yeon was no longer where he stood.
The Amcheon Sal Gwi had begun to walk the darkness.

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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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