North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 31

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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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31. The Price of Blood

Crack!
Kutor’s Eonwol Blade came down in a savage arc toward Airak’s back.
Airak didn’t turn around. Instead, he angled the Bukmyeong Blade backward over his shoulder, meeting the incoming blade with a sharp parry. The moment the two weapons collided—in that instant when metal should have screamed against metal—
An eerie silence fell.
Sound vanished. The wind fell mute, the shouts ceased, even his own breathing disappeared.
The Eonwol Blade froze against the Bukmyeong Blade, and crackling blue frost spread from the point of contact like lightning.
“The sound… it’s gone…!”
Kutor’s face twisted.
Frost crept along the Eonwol Blade’s spine and climbed toward the hilt. That was only the beginning. Airak’s killing cold penetrated through the metal into Kutor’s hand, up his arm, and began to invade his Dantian.
White vapor reversed out of Kutor’s mouth.
“Ugh… gh…!”
The shock of his Internal Power freezing solid. The Fresh Blood in his veins thickened to sludge, his fingers refusing to obey. The Eonwol Blade turned transparent as glass, then shattered with a brittle crack.
Airak turned slowly to face him.
“So you are a veteran of Yeokjeon, after all.”
Gray eyes bore down on Kutor.
“Surviving thirty years was no mere luck.”
Crash!
The Eonwol Blade exploded into fragments, scattering across the Snowy Plain like shards of ice.
A few pieces raked across Kutor’s cheek as they fell.
Something warm trickled down, but he felt nothing. The tips of his fingers had gone numb. The palm that had gripped the Eonwol Blade had darkened to a sickly blue.
Kutor discarded the shattered blade and drew a Short Sword from his waist in reverse grip.
His stance transformed completely.
The wide stance of the great blade narrowed, his center of gravity tilting forward. The martial art he’d concealed for thirty years. The secret assassination technique learned in his youth at Majeon.
“A great blade is strength.”
Kutor laughed low.
“But a short blade is speed.”
“So?”
Airak angled the Bukmyeong Blade diagonally before him.
“You don’t look particularly fast. What exactly do you plan to do with that speed?”
“Cut your throat.”
His body exploded forward like a released spring. He bored in close beneath the Bukmyeong Blade’s guard and unleashed a barrage of rapid thrusts. The first aimed for the throat, the second for the solar plexus, the third for the ribs.
Airak twisted the Bukmyeong Blade to intercept and stepped back.
“Matou! You’ve hidden a forbidden art well.”
The third thrust grazed the edge of Airak’s collar. A thin line of blood appeared.
Kutor’s eyes flashed.
“I’m starting to land blows!”
“Yes.”
Airak’s voice remained steady.
“And that will be your last.”

As the battle intensified, red flowers bloomed across the Snowy Plain.
Garkan pressed two mounted riders simultaneously.
The Bingcheolsae whipped through the air, coiling around one man’s throat; Garkan twisted his wrist and snapped the bone. The second rider seized the opening and drove his blade deep into Garkan’s ribs.
“Gh…!”
Garkan stumbled but did not fall.
A whitish aura rose around the wound as flesh began knitting itself back together.
“Killed two of three. That’s a win.”
Taikan rushed over.
“Are you alright?”
“Just a scratch.”
“Your whole side is exposed.”
“The Airak don’t die from wounds like this.”
“But you’re losing so much blood.”
“Don’t worry. Blood can be replenished.”
When the remaining cavalry charged forward swinging their blade, Garkan let out a low chuckle and drove his fist outward.
Thud!
The rider’s face caved inward.
“Falling before the chieftain brings shame.”
“You’re something else.”
Taikan shook his head.
“I wonder whose stubbornness you inherited.”

Taikan’s quiver had emptied.
He drew his blade, but his strength gave way. The rider’s sword rushed toward his neck.
In that instant, Taikan’s eyes fixed elsewhere.
Fifty paces off. A single horseman drawing a bead on Airak’s back. One arrow remained in his hand.
A moment to choose.
Taikan didn’t loose an arrow at the blade aimed for his own throat—he nocked it at the enemy threatening Airak instead.
Snap!
The arrow pierced the rider’s neck.
The moment Taikan saw him fall, a blade flashed before his eyes.
He tried to block with his broken bow, but it shattered under the blow.
He raised his left arm to meet the steel, and though the cut ran deep enough to lay bone bare, his right hand still reached out to seize the enemy’s throat.
Then a flash erupted from his side.
Harku’s Twin Crescent Blades raked across the rider’s back.
“Brother!”
“Thank you…”
Their eyes met. No words were needed. A nod sufficed.
Harku turned. His entire body was drenched in blood—whether his own or the enemy’s, he couldn’t tell. Yet a wild, feverish smile clung to his lips.
“Brother, there’s something strange, isn’t there?”
“What is?”
“When I see Fresh Blood, I want to laugh. But I can’t stop.”
Taikan answered while gripping his bleeding arm.
“You think you’re the only one? We’re all mad here.”
“That’s why the chieftain brought us, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
Harku spat blood and laughed.
“Good. Let’s see this through to the end, mad as we are!”
“Of course.”
Taikan threw down the broken bow and drew his blade.
“Wherever the chieftain goes, even to hell.”

Half a watch had passed.
Two hundred of the three hundred lay sprawled across the Snowy Plain.
A silence fell so complete that even the wind seemed to hold its breath. Only white plumes of breath rose into the air.
Frost glistened on the eyes of the corpses, glinting in the sunlight.
Beneath their feet, frozen bloodstains cracked and crumbled underfoot.
The dying scream of a horse stretched on, unnaturally long.
When Garkan exhaled, his breath fell upon the bloodstains. Harku lowered his Twin Crescent Blades and licked the blood from the back of his hand with his tongue. It tasted of iron. A familiar taste.
The reek of blood touched his nose, then froze and vanished.
The groans of the dying interwove like some macabre chorus. Someone called for his mother. Someone else spat curses before his breath left him.
Airak’s company was exhausted as well.
Fresh Blood still dripped from Garkan’s ribs. Taikan’s left arm hung limp. Harku was covered entirely in wounds, and Arko could barely hold his Short Dagger, breathing hard.
Serian too bore a cut on her arm.
Kutor staggered as he raised his Short Sword.
His body was riddled with wounds—chest, arms, legs, all marked by Airak’s blade. Fresh Blood pooled at his feet.
“Still… still going…”
“Doesn’t thirty years feel wasted?”
Airak approached slowly.
“This is enough.”
“Don’t joke.”
Kutor spat blood.
“I’ve fought for thirty years. Thirty years. On this Snowy Plain. In this hell. I won’t accept losing to a monster like you.”
“Then what? Keep going and you’ll truly be dead.”
“Death is death… but I still have to kill you.”
Kutor gritted his teeth and lunged forward. A thrust born of his last reserves of strength. The Short Sword rushed toward Airak’s heart.
Airak tilted his head slightly, slipping the blow.
The Bukmyeong Blade flashed.
Whisk.
Kutor’s head fell from his shoulders.
The severed head rolled across the snow, lips still moving. His pupils trembled, his mouth quivering.
“How… could I…?”
He never finished. Blood and foam leaked from between his lips.
“Majeon… three thousand strong… you too… soon…”
His pupils went dark.

The death of the vanguard commander.
Yet the Majeon vanguard did not flee.
“Avenge Commander Kutor!”
A captain’s cry rang out. The remaining hundred soldiers charged at Airak. Yeokjeon regulars… they fight even when their commander falls.
Airak closed his eyes.
He drew his Internal Cultivation to its absolute limit. Cold power surged from his Dantian, spreading through every Energy Meridian in his body. The blade-spirit of the Bukmyeong Blade became transparent, and a pale blue haze rose into being.
“Binghuncha.”
In that instant, everything on the Snowy Plain seemed to freeze. Falling snowflakes hung suspended in the air, even the wind turned to ice. Within that stillness, a transparent blade-shadow flashed ten times over.
With the first flash, ten heads fell at once. The second, the third. Those who were cut down never knew they were dead—they took another step forward before collapsing.
Snowflakes began to fall again, and the wind returned.
Ten blade-strikes… and a hundred soldiers lay broken.
Three hundred and nine corpses on the Snowy Plain. Airak alone remained standing, unmarked by a single drop of blood.
A pale blue haze rose one last time from the Bukmyeong Blade, then faded.
“Hah…”
White breath escaped long and slow from Airak’s lips.

The battle had ended.
Airak’s group helped one another to their feet. Serian approached, breathing heavily.
“It’s over…”
“Yes.”
Airak moved to sheathe the Bukmyeong Blade.
But his fingertips trembled faintly. Only Serian caught it, her eyes narrowing slightly.
Airak quickly hid his hands behind his back.
For just a moment—the briefest moment—something clouded his eyes.
The scent of that Huku woman…
‘I wish you wouldn’t kill people, if you could help it.’
Karani’s voice drifting in with that fragrance, the expression on her face when she said such things… her smiling face. Her gentle bearing.
As Serian’s eyes narrowed, Karani’s image flickered across her face. At once, Airak closed his eyes, then opened them. When he looked at Serian again, his gaze had sharpened once more.
“Your arm.”
“Yes?”
“You’re bleeding.”
Serian looked down at her arm. Blood spilled for the first time since she had joined them. She laughed quietly.
“Now I feel like a true member of the group.”
Airak’s eyes wavered for an instant. Karani’s image overlapped his vision again. He turned his gaze away at once.
“Get it treated quickly.”
Garkan stepped in front of Serian.
“Lady Serian, please fall back.”
“I’m not a vase.”
Serian pushed back.
“If we’ve shared blood, we’re comrades. Comrades don’t hide.”
“…Lady Serian.”
“Call me Serian. We’re comrades now.”
Garkan turned to look at Airak. Airak said nothing. He simply gave a slight nod.
“…Understood. Serian.”
That name left Garkan’s lips for the first time.

In the distance, a sound rolled across the earth.
Hoofbeats. An Earth Tremor born of thousands upon thousands of hooves.
“…They’ve come.”
Airak gripped the Bukmyeong Blade again, his gaze fixed southward.
“We need to move before the main force arrives.”
Taikan spoke while steadying his left arm.
Blood still seeped from Garkan’s flank. The wound had not fully healed.
“Have you been idle for thirty years? Why are you all so weak? Can you move at all?”
Airak asked.
“Of course.”
Harku answered.
“I apologize. I will train harder.”
Four subordinates nodded, though unease flickered in their eyes. The vanguard of three hundred had proven this formidable—how then would they fare against twenty-seven hundred of the main force?
Taikan peered southward using his Cheonrian.
Black smoke rose from the direction of Okmun Gate.
“That’s… a blockade signal. They mean to seal the pass.”
Taikan’s voice hardened.
“Someone is stopping us. Ambushes keep coming, and now they’ve sealed Okmun Gate itself.”
“Who?”
Serian asked.
“I have suspicions, but nothing certain yet… We must break through Okmun Gate immediately. A thousand soldiers hold that position.”
“Twenty-seven hundred behind us, a thousand ahead.”
Garkan murmured low.
“Nearly four thousand in total.”
“We head for Okmun Gate.”
Airak spoke without inflection.
Across the Snowy Plain, where crimson flowers bloomed in profusion, six shadows began their advance toward the south.
Behind them, twenty-seven hundred Wild Dogs gave chase. Ahead, the sealed gate awaited.

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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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