North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 109

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

109. Two Hearts Divided

The night had grown deep.
The campfire consumed dry branches slowly, deliberately.
Eight figures sat in a circle around the flames.
Five warriors from the North Sea, and Serian.
Apart from them, the Cheok siblings sat at a distance.
Cheok Mu-yeong kept his sword laid across his knees, his spine rigidly straight. Cheok Ha-rin knelt beside him, her posture modest and composed.
Aelak watched the darkness beyond the fire.
His grey eyes did not blink.
Karani’s Wooden Sculpture lay beside the saddle — the firelight caught its small outline, licking it half into view.
No one could know what he was thinking. Whether he dwelled on Karani, or on vengeance.

“Will they move tonight?” Cheok Ha-rin asked quietly from her brother’s side.
She had spent twenty years confined, living nearly as a captive. Her curiosity about the movements of these rough northern men was natural. Or rather — about him, that man, Aelak.
“Even the finest tracker cannot read signs in the dark,” Cheok Mu-yeong replied in a low voice, as though correcting his younger sister.
“Besides, it’s they who decide when to move. We have no part in it.”
Cheok Ha-rin obediently closed her mouth.
But her eyes would not close.
Her gaze kept stealing across the fire toward the grey-eyed man.
‘What are they thinking, those people?’

Taikan, his bow slung across his back, pressed his hand to the earth. Eyes shut, he retraced the tracks he had examined during the day.

The bent grass lay in a single pattern.
The soil does not lie.
Gwang-jin had not run straight. He had deliberately doubled his path twice.
He wished to believe he had shaken his pursuers.
The pathetic gambit of the hunted.
“Northeast,” Taikan said.
“He’s deliberately twisted his path twice.”
“Twice?” Garkan, the largest among them, stopped mid-step as he adjusted his pack.
“Once to throw us off. Once to convince himself that he’d succeeded.”
Taikan added dryly.
“A common mistake among the terrified. Though in most cases, it works. So I wouldn’t call it a mistake, exactly.”
Taikan’s words had never been wrong. When he said a man was frightened, that man truly was.
“How far would he have gone?”
Garkan set down the bundle he’d been holding.
“He wasted time twisting his path. He couldn’t have gone far.”
“The more frightened they are… the more predictable their flight becomes,” Aelak said quietly.
Serian touched the knot of her belt with the tips of her fingers, speaking in a tone not of censure but of melodious clarity.
“Gwang-jin knows he can’t stand against our blades alone. He saw Je-gal Chan. So his only choice is to find someone and cling to them for survival, don’t you think?”
“If he’s throwing himself on someone’s mercy, that someone must be a swordmaster of considerable skill. Is there anyone like that around?”
Aelak asked without apparent interest.
In truth, the question was directed at Cheok Mu-yeong. He knew the Central Plains Martial Arts World better than anyone. He was the one who had named Gwang-jin in the first place.
Cheok Mu-yeong understood Aelak’s intent perfectly, yet he pretended not to hear and offered no reply.
‘I can’t involve myself any further.’
Serian glanced at Cheok Mu-yeong, then spoke with a slight smile.
“Whoever he seeks, if we head northeast… there’s no doubt a fork in the road will appear.”
Serian held up two fingers.
“One path follows the river. The other crosses the ridge.”

“Which way will a frightened man run?”
“Toward the river. The banks are thick with places to hide.”
Serian folded down one finger with a snap.
“If I had to choose between the two, I’d stake my life on the river.”
“The river, then.”
Harku grinned, the Dual Short Swords draped across his knees.
“So you’re telling me the man whose neck’s about to be slit is cowering right now on some riverbank? This whole thing will be over soon. A trembling wretch like that will crawl away as slow as a snail.”
“Even a snail’s path splits two ways.”
Garkan answered.
“If he bolts up the wrong mountain pass, we’ve got nothing.”
“He won’t.”
Serian’s voice was iron.
“She’s right. In my experience, a frightened man always heads for the obvious hiding place. It’s instinct—they can’t help it.”
Harku spoke.
“But why are you drooling? Why? Just because we’re fellow swordsmen, you’re getting hungry?”
Garkan shoved the back of Harku’s head with his palm.
Harku rubbed the spot where he’d been hit and laughed.
Even so, his thumb traced along the bright edge of the Dual Short Swords. A sharp, cold gesture—testing the keen bite of the blade.
His mouth hung loose with laughter, but his eyes had already drifted toward the prey trembling somewhere by the river.
If Harku’s mouth watered, it meant the man was a strong swordsman worth coveting. However much they spoke of fear, of trembling.
Taikan read the earth’s traces. Serian read people. The place both pointed to was identical.
“We go toward the river.”
Aelak delivered his judgment.
“We depart at first light.”
At those words, his men quietly gathered their belongings.

But in the darkness beyond the campfire’s warmth, an ill omen crept near.
Taikan’s eyes narrowed first.
“Quiet.”
He quickly reached for his bowstring.
“Coming from the forest. At the edge of the light….”
His words were not yet finished.
The darkness split open first.
“Strike down those savages!”
Shadows wielding bright blades rushed in like madmen.
Scouts from the Martial Alliance, chasing the Eradication Order.
Since the Eradication Order was posted across the realm, blades hunting savages were everywhere. Swordsmen mad with greed for the staggering bounty.
Nameless blades with no history stormed forward.
“All of you stay seated. I’ll handle this!”
Garkan reached for the Bing Chulsae.
But his hand had not yet moved.

Aelak did not rise.
Sitting in meditation, he merely twisted his wrist at an angle, lifting his blade’s tip. And from the cold steel flashed a single line of piercing light.
Whiishhh!
Across the darkness.
It passed cleanly through the charging swordsmen in a single line.
Sizzle-crack!
The sound of flesh parting, freezing in an instant.
The light left no trace of its path. But where the light touched, white ice formed in a heartbeat.
The swordsmen in the vanguard froze without a sound.
The wounds froze white.
Even the hands gripping their blades stiffened in place, then collapsed.
As the front fell, those charging recklessly behind them tripped over their comrades in a grotesque tumble.
The ambush ended without ceremony.
Not even a spark from the campfire stirred.
The men had not yet risen from their seats.
As the noise of darkness settled again, Aelak remained in his same posture, watching the flames.
Whoosh!
His blade flew back and was drawn into his embrace.
The Rotating Blade at its zenith.
“Ah! Over already. I was hoping for a proper taste of it.”
Harku withdrew his hands from the Dual Short Swords with a smack of his lips.
“They weren’t worth a handful, Clan Leader. No need to trouble yourself.”
Garkan spoke up.
“Someone wanted to see my blade. This much ought to suffice.”
Aelak said this while gazing into the fire.
No one asked whom he was speaking to.

“Will more of them come, do you think?”
Garkan peered into the darkness.
“They will. The Eradication Order has been issued.”
Aelak answered curtly.
“Each time they come, we’ll lay them down. Either they’ll see their comrades fall and lose their nerve, or we’ll run out of challengers—but they’ll keep coming until then.”
“Should we douse this campfire?”
Serian asked carefully.
“Leave it. These are small fry. If we kill the fire, they’ll only come at us harder.”
“Clan Leader, next time they come, may I handle them?”
Harku asked.
“If you have time to swing a blade, use it to tend your wounds instead.”
Garkan laughed and teased him.

Cheok Ha-rin held her breath.
She had heard no clash of steel, no screams.
Just a line of light had swept past, and the men had collapsed uselessly.
In that brief instant, a thread of cold Han Ki had traced across her spine.
“…How could he…”
A whisper escaped her lips.
“Without even rising from his seat…”
“Ha-rin.”
Cheok Mu-yeong gently gripped his sister’s arm in haste.
It was a warning not to ask further.
Yet Cheok Mu-yeong himself had witnessed it—that moment when steel should have rung out and cries should have risen. Aelak had done nothing but turn his wrist.
Cheok Mu-yeong’s eyes narrowed to slits.
‘That man’s skill… Father must have known. That’s why he warned me not to clash with him.’
He withdrew a single sheet of paper from his sleeve.
An encrypted dispatch from his father, Cheok Un-hui.

[ Return at once. ]

Just one line.
Within that sentence lay all his father’s anxiety.
“Brother.”
Cheok Ha-rin saw the letter and lowered her voice.
“Did you receive it too? That dispatch?”
“…Yes.”
“He’s telling you to come back, isn’t he?”
Cheok Mu-yeong did not answer at once.
That heavy silence was answer enough.
“Will you go, brother?”
Cheok Ha-rin’s voice trembled almost imperceptibly.
“Must I go as well?”
“What do you want to do?”
“…There is still more I need to understand.”
Cheok Ha-rin’s gaze turned again across the fire toward those grey eyes.
“Here. Among these northerners.”
Cheok Mu-yeong saw clearly where his sister’s fixed gaze was directed.
He did not hesitate long.
He laid out to her, one by one, the reasons he would stay.
“First: Father did not order me to leave you alone. If you stay, I stay without question. That comes before anything else.”
“Brother…”
“Listen to me. All of it.”
He cut her off decisively.
“Second. The North’s blade and alliance are clashing in one place. I am the Supreme Swordmaster’s son and Inspector General—I cannot turn away from such a fact and flee.”
He growled low.
“Father said not to clash. But he never told me to turn away and run. Those two are different things.”
“But Father’s orders—”
“Third.”
He gestured with his chin toward the gray-eyed man across the fire.
“If I leave, I’ll never know how strong that man truly is. I need to stay and watch. See more of the blade I glimpsed today.”
‘It will help me when I face Father.’
He kept the rest unspoken.
Cheok Mu-yeong gazed at Aelak’s blade across the firelight for a moment, then looked away. One day, he would have to stand before that glimmering stroke and withstand it.
Cheok Mu-yeong pressed the encrypted dispatch flat again and folded it back into its neat shape. Then, without hesitation, he tucked it deep into his robes.
“Brother.”
Cheok Ha-rin’s eyes widened.
“If you stay as well, Father will be furious…”
“Let him be furious. I’m staying regardless. You pursue what interests you. I will watch what I need to watch. I’m not staying because of you. From now on, I stay as Inspector General of the Martial Alliance.”
His hand went to the hilt of his sword.
This time, he gripped it firmly and did not let go. His cold fingers closed around the handle without release.
“…I understand. I know it’s because you’re worried about me, staying like this.”
Cheok Ha-rin’s gaze turned back to Aelak.
The gray-eyed man still kept Karani’s Wooden Sculpture beside him, staring only into the darkness. She could not fathom what he might collide with in the river ahead.
Even knowing what moved her brother’s heart to travel with them, she could not return to Cheon Geom Mun. Not before she understood Aelak more. Not yet.

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