North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 116

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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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116. The One Who Abandoned and Fled

The blade did not sing.
Gwang-jin understood at once.
Just now he had slashed at the throat. The Beommyeongdo had caught it, and frost had sprayed. Everything as it had been exchanged until now. Yet the cry that should have followed was absent. The metallic shriek that burst from the Nine Holes had frozen at the blade’s edge, unable to extend even halfway before dying away.
Clang!
Blocked again. This time, instead of frost scattering, ice clung to the steel. Where they met… the blade had turned pale white. A whiteness that would not fall away no matter how he shook it.
“Elder! Strike! Where did that attack from before go!”
“Keep your mouth shut and focus on your own work.”
A Palm Technique fell from above.
A withered hand rose from the eaves’ shadow and bore down upon his crown. Aelak tilted his blade diagonally and let it slip past.
The missed palm strike thundered against the courtyard.
Boom!
The courtyard floor sank beneath the handprint. But the force had weakened considerably. The first attack had even cracked stone. Now it barely pressed down at all.
As Hyeon Gong-ja withdrew his Palm Technique and stepped back, he looked away from the blade for the first time.
It was at his own shadow beneath his feet.
The blade that had only been defending had somehow seized the initiative.
When the blade came, he received it and gave ground; when the palm came, he deflected it and advanced. Gwang-jin tried to retreat, but the blade was already there.
It was fast. Swift enough that calling it a Step Technique seemed inadequate. It was simply fast, like a beast outpacing its prey.
Gwang-jin’s arm numbed.
Each time blade met blade, Han Ki crawled up the hilt and froze his knuckles. Frost gathered on the back of the hand that gripped the Sword Method.
“It’s freezing! Elder, my blade is freezing solid!”
“So what!”
“Damn it! Attack! Just attack!”
Clang! Clang!
After receiving two more strikes, Gwang-jin realized something. Hyeon Gong-ja’s replies were growing shorter.
“Elder! Push just a little harder!”
“……”
“Strike the path clear for me! Clear the way!”
This time there was no answer at all.
Screech, screech… shriek…!
He forced Internal Energy up with all his will. Only three or four of the Nine Holes managed to cry out, the rest freezing and blocking before they could even reach the wolf.
Whether it was the blade growing heavy and drooping, or his arm growing weak and drooping, Gwang-jin could not understand why Do-myeong was dying even though it was his own body at work.
‘What’s different?’
Nothing seemed to have changed, yet everything had.
There had been a Palm Technique protecting him, and that Palm Technique had opened the way. Then his blade could spread its wings freely and extend without restraint.
But now everything was difficult.
His blade had dulled. The thicker the frost settled on the edge, the heavier the blade became, and the weaker his attacks grew. And with each loss, the wolf pressed deeper.
Shriek! Crash!
Desperately, both blade and palm came together.
Aelak did not retreat. He met the blade head-on with the Beommyeongdo. And he did not release it.
Crack!
The instant the blades met, frost spread in a flash and bound both edges together.
“No, let go! You monster…!”
Gwang-jin twisted at the waist, trying to wrench his blade free.
Aelak pressed forward with the blades still joined, forcing Gwang-jin into the far corner of the courtyard.
The palm strike that had come together with him lost its target. The swift Body Technique ended in nothing, slamming brutally against the wall instead.
Crash!
A crack splintered across the wall. In the crack, only half of a handprint was impressed.
Crackle!
The frost shattered, and both blades fell apart.
Gwang-jin twisted his body into the corner, clutching his blade to him.
He let him go. Even though he could have struck there and then.
“What… what kind of man are you? Freezing the blade in an instant, freezing even the sound… what kind of martial art is this!”
No one answered his fragmented muttering.
The momentum of their combined assault broke in that place.
The roar beyond the wall had faded considerably.
“Brother! These men have no strength at all!”
“Then finish them! A blade isn’t meant to be carried around unused!”
Harku’s laughter and Garkan’s barking command tangled together, drifting over. But none of the three men inside the courtyard turned to look.
Gwang-jin cried out, his voice hoarse.
“Elder! This won’t work! Is there… anything we can do?”
From the darkness, Hyeon Gong-ja spoke.
“…Hold on.”
“What?”
“Just ten exchanges. Hold for ten exchanges and you live. I can end this within ten.”
“You’re sure?”
“There’s one last method. I need time to gather my Internal Power.”
“…Damn it. All right! I can hold ten exchanges!”
Gwang-jin took the old man’s words as encouragement. Strength returned to his grip on the sword.
＊　＊　＊
Hyeon Gong-ja extended his palm and thought.
At first, he’d believed they were nothing to him.
A single barbarian from the North Sea? Savage, perhaps, but still a wild beast—and wild beasts cannot track a shadow. No matter how fierce, they would never catch his Step Technique.
That belief had crumbled with the first exchange.
By now, after several rounds, thought itself had become impossible.
His palm strikes met no purchase. Each time he extended, cold force rushed up his palm center like an eddy. Frost gathered white on his sleeves, and his hands felt numbed as if they were someone else’s flesh. The body that had been lighter than shadow his whole life now hung heavy as wet cotton.
‘I cannot win.’
The moment that thought took root, cold sweat soaked his aged back. The face that had laughed at a single barbarian had long since vanished.
In seventy years, he had rarely let a fight drag on. Always, when his shadow descended softly, his opponent exposed his vital points.
But now…
So Hyeon Gong-ja took out a scales.
On one side he placed his own life, on the other, Gwang-jin fighting beside him.
It was a scale that had never needed to tip.
‘How long will that frightened swordsman hold?’
Half an hour at most. Being generous, half an hour.
But that would suffice. If he could hold off the wolf’s blade for half an hour, in that time he would vault the wall and disappear.
Hold on. The words he’d just thrown to that coward were no lie. He must hold on. Not for that fool’s sake, but for his own.
There was nothing to regret. They’d never been close to begin with—a heretic sect dog… he’d have never met him if not for this journey to the North Sea. There could be no real feeling for such a man.
The one who knocked first asking for help… no, the one who brought enemies to the door.
‘There’s no honor in dying together.’
The old man extended another palm while his eyes swept across the ground beneath his feet.
The path was clear.
Each time torches wavered beyond the wall, new shadows spread across the courtyard. Those flames of the suppression force—they were no different from lighting a road for those who would flee.
＊　＊　＊
The final palm was heavier than any he had extended before.
Boom!
The palm fell upon the crown of the head.
The Beommyeongdo received it lightly and turned it aside. Snow dust scattered across the courtyard. The shadow cast by the flames on the wall wall rippled sharply.
The Beommyeongdo that had deflected the palm hummed low within its sheath.
Aelak’s gray eyes narrowed.
This palm he’d just defended against… loud in sound but hollow within. Not a palm meant to kill a man. A palm meant to push a blade away.
‘He means to flee! A master of the Central Plains martial world!’
Aelak had received such palms before. Those who ran always scattered them like this.
In the next instant, the shadow beneath the eaves vanished.
Hyeon Gong-ja sank without sound. From the eave shadow to the wall shadow. From the wall shadow into the throng of people beyond the wall.
Each time a torch flickered, the shade wavered. Each time the shade wavered, the old body drew one span further away.
One torch atop the wall winked out. Darkness expanded by one space, and Hyeon Gong-ja stepped through that void and was gone.
Not a footfall sounded to the very end.
Aelak did not give chase.
Only his gray eyes sent him off.
Neither Gwang-jin inside the courtyard nor the men outside knew.
“Brother! Something feels wrong. Just now I felt a chill…”
“Keep your eyes forward! Lose focus and your neck snaps!”
The roar continued as before, and the wall stood as before.
One old shadow slipped through the gap. No one in that roar was counting his steps.
*　*　*
Gwang-jin had no idea what was happening.
He’d believed the great Palm Technique that had just erupted was clearing a path for him.
Screech!
He swept his blade in a wide arc across his waist—the same motion he’d been repeating all night. If his own sword missed, the palm strike would come from behind and create an escape route.
Clang!
The Beommyeongdo blocked it lightly. Blocked, then pushed.
Gwang-jin twisted sharply at a right angle and slipped away, trusting his back to the Palm Technique.
But the palm never came.
“Old man!”
He snapped upright with his blade, calling out urgently.
He looked at the eaves, the walls, even down at his own feet. Every shadow was empty.
“Old man…!”
The second call came out half-strangled. Instead of an answer, only the roar of voices from beyond the wall rolled across loudly.
“What are you doing, old man! Why won’t you move!”
The third cry was almost a scream. Still no answer.
Only then did understanding return.
‘That bastard.’
Only two remained in the courtyard—the wolf and himself.
His face crumbled with something close to terror.
‘He abandoned me.’
The thought ended immediately. An assassin’s mind grasped such things quickly. Bait—he’d used it himself many times in the Martial World, cutting across kingdoms and empires.
“Damn it. You said to hold on…”
Hold on. Now he understood what those words meant.
It hadn’t meant he was preparing a powerful counterattack while Gwang-jin endured. It meant he needed time to escape.
He remembered the moment they’d entered this place.
The old man had watched him for a long time with displeasure, then reluctantly opened the door. Those eyes, which had been scanning for an escape opportunity, had vanished the moment they found one.
Forty years he’d lived off others’ backs. But today, his own back had been left bare. Only now did he understand what it felt like to be struck from behind.
Strength drained from his knees. The tip of his blade scraped against the frozen ground with a hollow rasp.
‘This… this old thief… after all, I came looking for him asking for help. That’s right, me! Ha-ha! Old man, did you really think you’d get away clean if you abandoned me? You think that monster would let you go? You! You damned old fool…!’
He cursed at the empty shadow.
Yet even as the curses poured out, frost continued to gather on the back of his hand gripping the blade. The killing intent from the North grew steadily tighter around him.
Aelak shifted his gaze toward the wall.
Gray eyes traced the shadow. The wall’s shadow, the man’s silhouette, the cliff’s darkness. The old man’s footsteps had already seeped beyond the reach of torchlight.
On the sixth breath, the steps stopped.
Outside. He was trying to scale the outer wall. Once he crossed it, he’d have countless places to run.
His prey was slipping away before his eyes.
‘You’re not in a hurry.’
It was enough to know who the fourth enemy was. The problem was not knowing who the enemy was—but once he knew, he never lost them. Someday…
Aelak turned his body.
“Deep bonds of loyalty. Helping someone escape, are we.”
The low voice carried across the courtyard and drummed against Gwang-jin’s eardrums.
Gwang-jin’s shoulders went rigid.
With his blade hanging loose, his fractured voice scraped out rapidly.
“Wait. Wait just a moment. I know where that old man is going. I know all his habits, where he’ll hide. Just let me lead, and I can—”
“Unnecessary.”
“But he didn’t just stab me! You have accounts to settle with him too! Let me guide you! I can be a guide, just one—”
“Quiet.”
The distance between them shortened by one step.
“Why! Why is it unnecessary! Think about it again. If that bastard decides to hide, finding him is no simple matter. He’s a man who walks on shadows! Without me, you’ll never find a trace!”
“A human being… anyone at all… stands on earth. Where there is earth, there is a trace.”
The Beommyeongdo descended slowly and came level.
Unlike Gwang-jin’s blade, pale with age, the black sword absorbed even the torchlight, casting nothing back.
“I have one who can pierce through traces. I don’t need you.”
“I… I…”
“You end here.”
“Spare me! I’ll retire, I’ll live in seclusion! I’ll break my blade, erase my name… I swear I’ll never return to the Martial World again. And those men who went to the North Sea—I’ll tell you everything about them. Just spare my life and I’ll do it all.”
“Among the wounds Karani suffered…”
The tip of the Beommyeongdo rose a hand’s breadth.
“Your blade caused the deepest pain. Bone crushed, insides shattered. That agony cannot be forgotten. Take your final stroke.”
Gwang-jin’s grip wavered. The blade trembled in his hand, quivering of its own accord.
“My arm. I can cut off my arm. If I use my Sword Method to sever my own arm… spare me! Please, spare me, you bastard! What good does killing one man do you!”
“Your life… you save it yourself.”
The blade’s tip turned toward the throat of the forsaken man.

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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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