North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 110

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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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110. The First Blade

It was a pursuit that had burned through the night.
Gwang-jin twisted the path. At each fork he scattered his traces, then cut through side trails to erase his direction.
He believed he’d shaken them, but the unease remained.
And that unease proved warranted. All his efforts crumbled to nothing.
Aelak no longer gave chase.
Like a hunter herding prey, he’d cut off each bend in the path a step ahead, waiting. At the end of every side trail Gwang-jin chose, Aelak was already standing there first.
‘If I’m caught, I die.’
Cold sweat ran down Gwang-jin’s brow.

Han-gi unspooling from his feet traced the grain etched into the earth. The soil told him first which paths were blocked, which bent away.
The North Sea retainers and the Cheok siblings fell behind, following at a distance.
Ordinarily the retainers would have opened the path—but the one who’d slain Karani was Aelak’s alone. No other hand could touch this.
“The Clan Leader’s pace seems remarkably leisurely.”
Harku spoke, watching the broad back ahead.
“It doesn’t look like hunting at all. More like a morning walk.”
“It’s herding.”
Garkan answered.
“A hunter who knows where the rabbit will run doesn’t need to chase. He’s already waiting at the crossing.”
Cheok Mu-yeong said nothing. He simply kept his eyes on the rough man ahead as he walked.
‘When I fought Uncle Jegal, I should have watched. This time I will. I’ll see the true Jeol-gi.’
One reason he carried his father’s Hoe-mun in his breast—today, he would see that blade.
Cheok Ha-rin reached out and gently caught her brother’s sleeve.
“Brother. Those people don’t seem frightened at all. Laughing while hunting someone down like that.”
“…They’re just accustomed to it.”

The path forked and deadened.
Gwang-jin’s feet faltered for the first time.
The Han-gi trailing at his back grew so close it nearly brushed his skin. As he tried to twist into one more fork, he realized he’d only blocked his own escape.
The hunted turned to face his hunter.
A blood-red broadsword hung loose in his hand.
The Gwi-hyeol-do. A blade the color of dried blood with nine pressure points pierced through its length—the blade of one who wielded the Scarlet Thunder Saber Method.
To the eye, it was merely a weighty broadsword.
Several of Saspa’s swordsmen hastily drew their blades, but Gwang-jin waved them back with a gesture. A professional killer’s pride demanded he finish this himself.
The swordsmen withdrew.
Aelak stood alone before him.
Two men meeting for the first time.
Gwang-jin’s mouth twisted.
“You barbarian whelp are about to die.”
Aelak did not answer. His gray eyes were fixed only on the loose point of the broadsword.
“A beast should crawl on all fours as beasts do. Yet you come without fear.”
Still no answer. Silence returned the provocation unmet.
“…A silent one is always the most troublesome.”
Gwang-jin’s laugh stiffened slightly.

Gwang-jin’s feet cut sideways. A Step Technique that turned beyond sight, carving in a square angle.
Shwing!
The weighty broadsword whipped after his wrist like a lash.
It suddenly rose from the corner, striking down at Aelak’s ribs. There was no afterimage. There was no sound. Only killing intent flashed bright.
Aelak did not evade.
He read the pattern of the Draw technique first. Setting the Beommyeongdo at an angle, he met the dosal’s trajectory head-on, cutting it off at the moment of descent.
Clang!
Blade and sword collided at a single point, stopping with a dull ring. The irregular stroke thrown from the corner was caught by a sword meeting it head-on.
But it did not end there.
Screee…!
A belated cry followed from the blades that collided head-on.
It was the wailing of a ghost through metal.
That cry came from Gwang-jin’s sword. Riding the Beommyeongdo, it resonated through the inside of the wrist. It was a sound transmitted from blade to bone.
Aelak’s wrist convulsed.
The vibration struck the flesh first, and the following sound twisted the inner blood vessels. One strike with the blade, then an ambush through sound.
The attack split in two, striking twice.
“…That blade… the sound echoes from behind.”
For the first time, playfulness drained from Garkan’s voice.
“It feigns a strike with the blade, but the real attack comes from within. Against a sword like that, your meridians rupture without you knowing it. You die.”
“That’s my concern.”
Harku’s fingers fidgeted with the hilt of the Ssang-a-do.
But his feet didn’t move. Gwang-jin belonged to the Clan Leader. The subordinates had no part in this.
“Little brother, that blade seems difficult even for you? Don’t push yourself. Sound as the medium of the strike? It’s an ambush, but quite refined.”
“…Ah, why do you have to say things like that?”
Cheok Ha-rin didn’t fully understand all those words. But she grasped one thing clearly—these northern men acknowledged the blood-red blade as “dangerous.”
Yet none of them seemed worried about their Clan Leader standing before it.

Gwang-jin’s eyes narrowed to slits.
The first blade, the ambush, landed cleanly. But the barbarian’s wrist didn’t waver.
‘Screech!’
He made the blade vibrate minutely.
Eee-screech!
This time the sound came first. Before the blades even met, the metallic cry pierced through the air and burrowed into Aelak’s ears.
It was a tactic: shake the interior with sound first, then finish with the blade.
In that instant, Han-gi poured from the tip of Aelak’s sword.
That Han-gi froze the path the sound would travel. The metallic screech—eee-screech—stiffened white in the empty air and snapped short.
The sound froze and fell.
Gwang-jin’s blade came in only then. Belated.
Aelak cut off even its trajectory head-on with the Beommyeongdo.
Crack!
The frozen sound and the blade both stopped.
“…That blade.”
Gwang-jin’s voice trembled for the first time.
“How did you freeze the sound? I can’t even see it.”
There was no answer.

Cheok Mu-yeong’s eyes narrowed to razor edges.
‘It isn’t a contest of blades. He reads first what the opponent strikes with, then erases its very substance. Even the sound. Sound is a wave. He killed the wave with Han-gi.’
Something cold swept down his spine.
His father’s sword had a different grain. This man unmade the opponent’s blade before it could even touch—as if it had never existed.
“…That man’s hands are starting to shake.”
Serian murmured low. It was a scent only she could detect. The scent of fear.

Gwang-jin clenched his teeth.
The killer’s final variation came out. He let the broad sword flow through his wrist.
The heavy blade stretched like a whip, then wrapped around in a diagonal arc the opposite way. Feinting right, the blade came wrapped around the opening on the left.
Screeeech…!
Aelak pivoted half his body.
He read the inner grain of the wrapping blade, and cut off its curved neck head-on, driving it down.
Crack!
The broad sword caught and stopped mid-swing.
Gwang-jin recoiled, staggering under the weight of his own blade.
On the Beommyeongdo’s edge, a deep gouge left by the sword was carved in.
Three exchanges. All three times, Gwang-jin’s variations were cut off by a single direct stroke.
“You blocked all three seconds…?”
Gwang-jin stumbled backward without thinking.
The three seconds he had prided as absolute technique… stripped of all absolute offense, the killer couldn’t string the next attack together.
Gwang-jin retreated, and distance opened between the two.
“See? His legs are already going weak.”
Harku let out a quiet laugh.
His hands had long since left the Ssang-a-do. He understood now that no matter what happened, his blades would never cross with Gwang-jin’s.

But Aelak was not looking at Gwang-jin.
His grey eyes were fixed, burning, on the deep groove gouged into the blade’s edge.
That single line brought to mind the Mok-gak fastened to the saddle.
The third scar carved into Karani’s body. One thick Do-heun line. The blade mark and the wooden-staff mark overlapped at the exact same place.
They were not merely similar. They were identical.
Now he understood why the interior had split open at every place the wound had been torn. The blade had struck, and the cry that followed had shredded the inside.
The tremor still lingered in the wrist that had received the blow.
He knew the pain Karani had endured when struck by this blade. Aelak had confirmed it himself, feeling it through his own wrist.
“You. One of eight cowards.”
He spoke in a low voice.
One of eight. The form of murder had fallen into his hand.
His grey eyes sank deeper still. Too full to be called mere anger. The Sal-gi that settled into the depths of his gaze was too profound to be named.

Serian stood at a distance, her eyes moving between the Mok-gak and Aelak.
Her lips parted once.
But the Cheok siblings stood beside her. She swallowed what she knew.
Cheok Mu-yeong did not miss that glance.
‘That single wooden staff has drawn his entire thirst for vengeance. The third. One of eight cowards—the third. Two remain. This fight will not end until all eight are dead. Ah… Father. What have you done?’
Cheok Mu-yeong, without thinking, pressed once against his chest where the Hoe-mun lay.

He could have ended it if he’d wished.
Gwang-jin’s first blade had been stopped, unable to follow with a second, only retreating to put distance between them.
Aelak’s Beommyeongdo could pierce that chest in a span. A single line of Han Ki stretched out properly would be the end.
But Aelak withdrew his blade.
He stepped back.
He would not end it in one breath. To kill with a single stroke would be too light compared to what this blade had done to Karani.
He would bleed him dry and kill him.
Only after making him endure the same pain Karani had suffered would he cut him down.
“…Now it becomes a hunt.”
He spoke low and brief.

“He’s simply… not his opponent.”
A small sound escaped from Cheok Ha-rin’s lips.
For three exchanges, the sound of clashing blades and cracking ice had filled the air. Yet no one had fallen. He could have struck down his opponent with the first blade but did not.
“Brother. Why won’t he finish him? He could have done it.”
“…He means to kill him slowly.”
Cheok Mu-yeong answered quietly.
“A quick death won’t satisfy him.”
Even as he spoke, his own spine went cold.

It was then.
The four sword-bearers standing back drew their blades at once—eager to earn their coin, it seemed, or perhaps to open a gap for Gwang-jin to escape.
“Those are mine.”
Harku laughed.
This time, he truly moved.
Shwick! Shwick!
The Ssang-a-do cut twice.
The first two lost their wrists and collapsed.
Garkan’s Bing Chulsae swept low, catching the feet of the remaining two and severing them where they stood.
“Aaaagh!”
“Ah!”
Sharp cries erupted in succession.
It was the blink of an eye.
While Aelak pressed one assassin forward over three exchanges, his two subordinates disposed of four hired blades in a single breath.
Cheok Mu-yeong missed nothing of it.
The leader preserves his enemy, keeping him alive as prey. Those beneath him cut down hired swords as easily as they breathe. All of them were the same.
‘…What does it mean to have such men as enemies?’

Gwang-jin did not miss the opening.
While the foolish swordsmen rushed forward without recognizing their opponent, he turned his back with practiced speed and fled.
Aelak did not pursue him.
He followed that retreating figure only with his grey eyes.
He had confirmed: this man was the master of Do-heun. Today, that was enough.

Once Gwang-jin vanished, the company lagging behind finally caught up.
Taikan immediately set off in pursuit of Gwang-jin’s escape route. But he returned just as quickly.
“…Something is different.”
He reported with narrowed eyes.
“That man… he’s not behaving as he has before. He’s not hiding anymore—he’s fleeing straight ahead. As if to say: come after me if you dare.”
Aelak received the report.
“He knows where he’s going.”
“Yes. He’s running in one direction only, straight and purposeful. Not flight born of panic, but an escape with clear intent—a man who knows exactly where he must go.”
Serian smiled faintly.
“Do you remember? That letter we found in Gwang-jin’s quarters.”
She spoke quietly.
One line, half-consumed by fire, that remained on the paper.
Alone, I cannot endure. I must find someone.
“Now he understands the truth in his bones—he is no match for the Clan Leader. So his only choice remains: to reach someone who can hide him.”
“And who might that someone be?”
Garkan crossed his arms.
“Any man willing to shelter such a fugitive would be no small fish.”
Garkan’s eyes fell directly upon Cheok Mu-yeong.
Cheok Mu-yeong could not evade an answer this time. Yet he harbored no wish to join in their pursuit. He was merely an observer.
Cheok Mu-yeong spoke for the first time.
“If Gwang-jin fled in that direction… it borders the Central Plains.”
He spoke quietly.
“Those who would harbor Saspa assassins in those regions are few. And if my memory serves, all of them have been put to the sword.”
In the end, Cheok Mu-yeong revealed nothing.
Aelak turned his body.
His grey eyes traced the northeastern ridge where Gwang-jin had vanished.
“Taikan.”
“Yes, Clan Leader.”
“Do not let him slip away. But do not capture him either.”
“…You wish me only to follow, then.”
“Let him crawl forward on his own feet.”
Aelak’s voice dropped lower still.
“Perhaps this man is leading us to yet another quarry without knowing it. Whoever that may be, we will crush them thoroughly—and then we will kill them.”
The hunted leading his pursuers to the next prey? Gwang-jin’s figure faded beyond the darkness.
The hunt had only just begun.

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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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