North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 111

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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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111. The Blade from the Side

Capture a barbarian, and the reward is one thousand silver coins.
That bounty drew blades into their ribs.

Where the dry field path ended, Taikan stopped.
“Hmm.”
He drew a sharp breath and opened his eyes to narrow slits.
Taikan’s gaze fixed on the footprints pressed into earth and the trampled grass beneath.
When a man passes, the grass falls flat. When he hides, the soil drinks the vital force he leaves behind and exhales something suspicious in return.
Taikan read those minute traces one by one, details others could never perceive.
“It’s this way.”
Taikan pointed down the left fork.
“He passed through yesterday. Dragging his feet, favoring the right side—makes it easy to spot. What’s more, his wound hasn’t healed yet.”
“How fast?”
Garkan asked.
“Alternating between walking and running, I’d say… and he keeps glancing back. It’s the gait of a terrified animal. Looking over his shoulder that often? He can’t move quickly.”
Aelak did not answer. He simply walked in the direction Taikan had indicated.
His pace held no hesitation.
The trail Gwangjin had left drew a single line across the earth, laid out before him. He followed only that line. He did not look anywhere else.
A few days ago, he might have glanced at the landscape around him. Now he did not. The gait of an observer had vanished. He walked with the step of a hunter.
Herding. Not catching Gwangjin, nor letting him escape—simply driving him forward on his own legs to somewhere.
This was the way Aelak had chosen.
A frightened prey runs in any direction seeking safety. Aelak wanted to see what would emerge from the direction that man chose to run.
And as he walked that path, Gwangjin would be inside hell itself. The pressure of not knowing when death would come, the terror—it would drain him dry.
Serian followed at his side.
Each time they passed the edge of a village, papers pinned to wooden posts caught her eye. They bore characters written in large, crimson ink.
“It’s a bounty from the Martial Alliance.”
Serian read the notice aloud.
“Six barbarians from the North Sea. That’s us. We’re listed as Public Enemies of the Realm. A price on our heads of one thousand silver coins. They’ve posted a reward.”
Serian smiled faintly.
But her smile faded quickly. She understood what a figure like one thousand silver coins would bring.

They did not have to wait long.
In the quiet plains… the right grove of bushes trembled ever so slightly.
“It’s not just one or two.”
Arko muttered.
Twenty, thirty… men gripping sickles, swords, and clubs lay hidden within. Wanderers who’d caught the scent of the bounty and come running. Common sellswords, nothing more, their eyes clouded with thoughts of silver coins.
There were no masters among them. Those who had truly mastered martial arts could be counted on one hand. They had only numbers on their side. And that meant many lives to end.
“There! Six of them! That’s a thousand coins each—six thousand total!”
Someone shouted.
Did that word serve as a signal? The mob roared and rushed at them from the side.
“Barbarian bastards, do you know where you are, swaggering about like that?”
The man in front hefted his sickle and spat.
“Give us your necks gracefully. We’ll make it quick.”
In an instant, the faint traces they’d been following to Gwangjin were scattered beneath the feet of the mob.
Taikan knelt and ran his fingers through the disturbed earth once more.
Gwangjin’s trail nearly disappeared beneath the footprints of the rabble.
Aelak did not spare the charging blades a single glance. His eyes remained fixed only on Gwangjin’s trace.
He would not draw the Beommyeongdo for rabble. To unsheathe a blade for such men would be an insult to the blade itself.
He simply walked.
A wanderer blocked his path. But as Aelak drew near, the man’s hand trembled around his sickle… he could not attack.
The wanderer stepped back.
What happened behind him fell to the five others. And such things were natural.
The man who’d brandished his sickle and shouted could not bring himself to strike at Aelak as he passed. There was a feeling that to attack would mean death… the man’s mouth had gone dry.
“Why won’t the Clan Leader even look at them?”
Garkan spoke in a low voice.
Four of his subordinates and Serian split apart, forming a wall before the hunters.
As the five lined up in a single rank, a barrier materialized between Aelak and the mob.
Hidden behind that wall, Aelak never slowed his pace. He kept walking, paying no attention to the five remaining before him.
Harku ran his tongue across his lips.
“Finally going to feel what it’s really like, eh? There’s plenty of them. Brother, we don’t need to hold back, do we?”
“They came here blind with greed, ready to kill for coin. Go ahead—slaughter them.”
“Our reputation’s going to shoot through the roof.”
Harku’s hands already twitched at his waist. Stifled chuckles leaked from him. His nostrils flared. It was his habit to smell the blood before it spilled.
Garkan unwound the Bing Chulsae coiled around his wrist and gripped it in his hand.
Taikan had already scaled a boulder behind them and nocked an arrow to his Gak Ak Gung. Among them, who was the leader? The one hiding in the chaos, barking orders… the arrow found him quietly in its sights.
Arko straightened his hunched back and checked the wind with the back of his hand. It blew across. His course for dispersing the poison was set.
All five were already prepared—not for a fight, but for a slaughter.
In the moment before the first exchange, a brief silence fell over the dry grassland.
Garkan swung the chain in a wide arc above his head.
Whoosh-whish-whish!
The metal chain lashed out like a whip, wrapping around the ankles of those rushing forward at the front.
The chain bit into flesh and held fast.
In an instant, white frost crystallized on each link. The ankles froze solid. Blood that had been flowing hot congealed where it was.
“Wh—what?”
He couldn’t take a single step. His feet were rooted to the earth, but his body pitched forward.
More than one or two met this fate. The men leading the charge collapsed to their knees across the dry grass. Icy shards crawled up their shins from the frozen ankles.
“I told you—block me and I’ll break you.”
Garkan muttered dryly.
Those following behind were Harku’s work.
Harku gripped the Twin Curved Blades, one in each hand, and spun like a top. The two blades rotated, flicking his opponent’s sword upward from below.
Clang!
The weapon flew from his grip into the air. In that instant, the man’s chest lay wide open.
Harku was already inside that opening.
Cut the ankles and the upper body collapses. Naturally the head drops. Use half a stroke with a rising blade and… the neck parts from the shoulders.
That was Harku’s method of death.
The two blades slid cleanly across the hunched shoulders and ribs. Then, from below, he drove the blade upward through the lowered neck and severed it clean through.
“One, two.”
A low chuckle spread across his lips. The taste of blood was rising.
The smile he’d been about to spread died short.
‘I want to taste the real thing.’
A master like Gwangjin, a real expert’s neck… but avenging Karani fell to Aelak. Among those who hadn’t participated in Karani’s murder, was there not a single master worth the name?
Harku swallowed his laughter and turned his blades again.
Arko slipped sideways through the fray.
His hunched frame slid low across the grass. He checked the wind once more with the back of his hand, then swept his sleeve.
Black smoke rode on the breeze.
The wind that flowed sideways carried that smoke into the faces of the hunters positioned behind.
Those who’d seen the front lines crumble and tried to flee inhaled the smoke. Their eyes flushed crimson in an instant and their throats swelled shut.
“Hack—gasp!”
The men foaming at the mouth collapsed where they stood.
Those who’d been fleeing went down entirely.
The front lines froze and stopped. The middle ranks fell, necks severed. The rear was choked off by poison.
The mob couldn’t withstand the triple assault and crumpled in overlapping heaps across the dry grass. Screams and the clang of steel erupted sharply, then faded just as quickly.
As the sounds died, a few still tried to scatter.
Serian snapped her ribbon weapon with force.
Whoosh-crack!
The Thirteen Ice Blade Chains. Thirteen shards of ice unfurled in a fan pattern.
Sharpened by the Silver Snow blade, the scattered fragments raked across the hamstrings of those trying to flee. Their legs froze solid where they stood.
Serian slipped through the gap. The Silver Snow Step—a gait that left no trace. She moved soundlessly between the men whose legs were bound and thrashing, drawing her Silver Snow blade across each throat.
The soft face of a woman had long since vanished. The woman who stood now was a Hu Keu Tribe warrior.
From the distant boulder, Taikan drew his bowstring taut.
Behind them, a man who seemed to be the leader was still haranguing his men, his voice growing hoarse. Taikan’s arrow flew toward him.
Twang! Whistle!
Before the bowstring’s sound reached the ear, the arrow had already buried itself in that throat.
The leader began to choke on his own words, then toppled backward.
The group’s momentum was entirely broken. It was hard to tell who was hunting whom anymore.
A man seized by the premonition of death hurled himself at Harku in one final, desperate lunge.
Harku dropped low and drove his blade beneath the man’s feet. The man pitched forward onto his face. A blade settled across his neck.
“That’s enough.”
Harku withdrew his weapon.
Five blades, each wielded with its own mastery, had swept the entire band down in moments.
The dry grassland fell silent again.

Throughout the tumult, Aelak had not slowed his pace.
He continued to follow Gwangjin’s trail. He did not look back at what was freezing or cracking behind him.
Harku wiped the blood from his blade with a handful of grass, surveying the pile of corpses.
“One Thousand Silver Coins isn’t easy to come by, is it? It’s difficult. Where in this world is there anything free?”
His grumbling carried an edge of disappointment.
“I thought he was worth something when he came spitting and waving that scythe. But we barely got to use our hands. Why show up at all if this is all you’ve got?”
“That’s greed talking.”
Garkan rewound the chain around his wrist as he spoke.
Frost that had clung to the links melted slowly, dripping as water.
“Now that your reputation has grown darker, the bounty ought to rise as well.”
“If the price goes up, then at least it’ll be worth looking at.”
“I doubt it will. It’s not just because a thousand coins is too little that only these kinds of men show up. Skilled warriors know something. They know this is a place to die.”
“Which is exactly why the price goes up. To hire other hands to do it.”
Garkan shrugged.
“I just hope some competent fighters come next. We ought to taste what the Central Plains blade-work is really like.”
Harku let out a dry laugh.
Over the reek of blood, the brothers exchanged their banter.
Serian tucked away Eun Seol as she spoke.
“Stay focused on Karani. This isn’t the time to admire Central Plains martial arts.”
“Just joking, Serian.”
Harku drawled his reply without conviction.
Serian knew it was no joke, but said nothing more.
Arko searched the corpse of one of the men.
A worn piece of paper emerged—a sheet with six faces sketched in red ink. He ran a fingertip across it once, then set it back down.
“Their leadership is a blunt instrument.”
He muttered it to himself, self-mockingly.
“Every time something like this gets stuck to us, the flies start gathering. How many more times will we have to do this?”
No one answered.
Aelak had already moved far ahead.
The group behind him, occupied with their gathering, had become irrelevant. Following the traces Taikan pointed out, he pressed forward in silence, guided by another man’s eyes.

The pursuit line drew taut again.
Taikan returned to where he had fallen behind and reread the scattered tracks.
His brow furrowed subtly.
Gwangjin’s footprints veered off at each fork in different directions. He had turned west yesterday and north the day before. At first glance, they looked like the wandering prints of a beast fleeing blindly in all directions. But when Taikan traced each branch in sequence, the crooked paths began to converge—narrowing toward a single point.
It was not the movement of one being pursued. It was the movement of someone heading somewhere.
Taikan spoke low, his voice reaching Aelak’s back.
“Clan Leader.”
Aelak’s pace halted.
“Gwangjin… I think he has a destination.”
Wind swept across the dry grassland.
Aelak did not answer. He did not turn around. His gray eyes narrowed, focusing entirely on that single line of pursuit that Gwangjin had laid down.
The pursued one… has he found someone to rely on?

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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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