North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 65

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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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65. That Name Was Added to the List

The campfire consumed dry branches.
Deep night had fallen.
Wind streamed from behind them. The grassland, parched throughout the day, had grown damp again. The shadows of those gathered around the fire stretched long and thin.
Arko picked up a single blade of grass.
“Can you tell something from that?”
Arko did not answer Harku’s question. Instead, he dropped the grass blade into boiling water. He studied the color shift with care, then fished it out and placed it on his tongue to taste.
His brows drew together slightly.
What touched his tongue was not grass. Grass ordinarily carries a sharp, bitter grain, but the slick sweetness flowing beneath that was not of grass.
A lingering aftertaste that clung to the mouth.
A sticky sensation threatening to slide down the throat with saliva.
It was a texture he knew.
“Poison.”
He muttered it with a grimace.
Everyone turned their gaze toward Arko.
“Here? You’re saying there’s poison here?”
Garkan stared at the kettle bubbling furiously, his expression one of astonishment.
“These bastards have skills beyond the ordinary, don’t they? We’ve been standing here with our eyes wide open, and yet somehow they managed to slip poison in? Hell, their sleight of hand is damn impressive.”
Harku, too, widened his eyes.
“The water was fine. I checked it when I drew it. The problem must be with the vessel itself.”
Arko made his report to Aelak.
In that moment, every mind in the group raced forward.
If someone had touched the vessel… when could the vessel have been touched? Where?
The party had not ridden continuously. They had stopped to rest. They had dismounted and walked lightly. At such times, no one had stood guard over the horses. If someone had made up their mind to tamper with a vessel, opportunity had been plentiful.
The methods of their pursuers were shifting, bit by bit. Those who had attacked with blades now seemed to target the supplies themselves. Their persistence was relentless.
“Did anyone drink this?”
“No one yet.”
Serian lifted the kettle away from the fire where it still bubbled.
“We caught it before anyone drank.”
“Fortune favors us.”
Ash settled over the flames.
“To be safe, take an Antidote Pill. Arko.”
Aelak glanced toward Arko.
“Yes, Clan Leader.”
Arko loosened the Medicine Pouch at his waist.
Five Antidote Pills transferred to his palm. The black spheres caught the firelight and settled into the color of dried grass.
He distributed one to Garkan, one to Serian, one to Harku, and one to Taikan. The last pill he took himself.
Aelak received none.
Aelak was immune to poison. When he carved a scar across his chest and was reborn as a North Sea Warrior, he had already attained All Poisons Do Not Invade.
The glacial energy dwelling within his body froze the intrusion of poison itself.
There was a saying among the Fuku Clan elders. The blood of a North Sea Warrior, they said, paused when meeting poison, then flowed again.
The poison hardened where it had stopped.
Arko spoke.
“Dissolve it on your tongue. Don’t swallow the saliva.”

Taikan, who had been sitting at the fire’s edge, quietly took up his bow.
“Three of them. Beyond the outer grassland. Dark clothes with blue-gray shoulder sashes. Curved Blades for weapons.”
Taikan’s ears caught the farthest distance among the group.
It had been that way since his North Sea days. The way grass bowed, the weight of footsteps pressing it down, even the faint metallic scent rising from weapons—he separated and heard each thread.
“Curved Blades.”
Garkan’s Ice-Chain wound around his wrist, then stopped.
“These are different from those who rushed us yesterday. The sashes are different. The blades are different.”
“Many eyes have gone blind chasing the bounty.”
Serian, too, reached to touch her waist sash, as if preparing herself.
In truth, there was no need for her to step forward.
Until now, no masters like the ones they’d fought in the North Sea—Han Bing Sam Su or the Snow Women—had appeared. Only wandering blind swordsmen roaming the Borderlands.
For her to step into such a fight would be contempt for the four of them.
Aelak did not move from his seat. His gray eyes, thoughts unreadable, pierced through the darkness like daggers.
At the end of that gaze hung the phantom that waited: Karani.
His silence sank slowly into the depths of Serian’s heart.
The Clan Leader viewed an ambush of three or thirty with the same expression. It was this that sometimes made her feel a quiet sorrow. Even the act of cutting men had become to him like watching a landscape pass by.
“Arko. Three of them. They’ll have touched the vessel, so they’ll use poison. Poison against poison. Go.”
Garkan issued the command instead of Aelak.
“Heh! Then I shall.”
Arko rose to his feet.
He disappeared into the brush as though to relieve himself.
“It won’t take long.”
“Handle it quietly. Don’t disturb the Clan Leader’s peace.”
Arko’s footsteps faded into the darkness.
His movement technique was discreet. Not a single footfall could be heard.
Whoosh!
He vanished.
The four who remained did not pick up the kettle again. The campfire stayed as it was. The light spreading far and wide was good.
Bait needed to be well seen.

The darkness deepened.
Arko’s poison darts made no sound.
The Ice Energy that flowed in the veins of Aelak’s people wrapped a layer of concealment around him. That chill followed the grain of the grass.
The grass insects did not stop. That was enough.
Just as Taikan had seen, three men lay flat in the grass. One held a ceramic poison vessel in his hand, and the other two, guardians by the look of them, gripped curved blades firmly and watched the front.
Swish!
A poison dart pierced through the neck of the one holding the curved blade.
The second man started to cry out in alarm—but the second poison dart struck home.
The one with the poison vessel quickly retreated. His survival instinct was remarkably sharp. Without even trying to understand what had happened, his body simply fled.
But—Arko was already standing before the man.
Crack!
The man’s neck twisted to the side.
The three who had come to ambush fell where they stood. Not a single groan escaped, just as Garkan had wanted.
“You should have known better. Who we are. Do you really charge at anything for money without even bothering to find out who you’re facing?”
Arko muttered to himself.
His hand, examining the corpses, retrieved the poison vessel.
A small mark pricked into the side of the poison vessel in black thread touched his fingertip.
He traced the mark once more with his fingertip.
The Borderlands were stirring. And from somewhere quite deep within.
He wrapped the stopper of the poison vessel in cloth and set it aside. He also collected the medicine pouch. The tools of the dead were clues for the living.

“This time there are quite a few. Thirty. They’re beyond the ridge, so we can’t see them yet.”
“You can hear that sound? How strange. I mean—hearing something no one else can hear… isn’t that exhausting?”
Harku looked at Taikan with amusement.
“Thirty.”
“Who should go?”
Garkan looked toward Aelak.
The enemy numbered thirty, but they only needed one to go.
“I can go. I’ve recovered now.”
Garkan raised the Ice-Chain wound around his wrist as he spoke.
That he reported to Aelak rather than receiving a direct order meant he wished to move. It had been so long since the wound to his ribs kept him still.
A wound heals when the flesh mends, but a swordsman stiffens in the place where he sets down his blade. Garkan found that unbearable. The sword grows strange in your hand if you don’t hold it often—those words lived on his lips.
“The wind is from the south. We can’t use poison gas.”
Arko fell in with Garkan’s intention.
“Harku.”
Aelak designated him.
Disappointment crossed Garkan’s face, and a thin smile played at the corners of Harku’s mouth.
Harku took the Twin Crescent Blades, one in each hand.
“Since we’re having a guest with a sword, things might get a bit loud. My apologies.”
Harku smiled.
“Don’t laugh.”
Garkan frowned, his brow creasing.
“I’m not permitted to laugh?”
“Harku.”
Aelak called out to Harku.
At those words, Harku immediately brought his Twin Crescent Blades together and bowed.
Before the Clan Leader, there was only obedience.
“I’ll be going.”

From within the darkness came the sound of measured footfalls.
Nearly thirty wandering swordsmen walked forward without torches, holding their breath.
Curved Blades and short swords glinted in the murk.
Five figures in the vanguard approached with great caution. All five had drawn bows, their grips practiced and assured.
Harku rotated his Twin Crescent Blades with fluid grace. The steel sank deep into his hands. At the end of an inhaled breath, the blades stilled.
Hiss-slash! Shriek!
The ankles of the two lead swordsmen were severed as though caught by a snare.
Harku favored beginning with the ankles. When enemies fell, their torsos would buckle, and all he need do was catch them with his blade.
Harku rose, sweeping his Twin Crescent Blades upward. Those with severed ankles jerked their heads back. They were split by the ascending steel.
“Two.”
Harku plunged into the darkness.
The Twin Crescent Blades cut through the shadow. A light whistle through air—three shoulders fell away in succession. One man raised his blade to block, but his shoulder fell with it.
Black streams of blood scattered diagonally across the grass.
“Beautiful work. Ah—but the elder said not to smile!”
“They’re enemies!”
Only now did the group realize they were under attack. After five were already dead.
“Just die. It hurts worse if you die after losing your hands.”
Crunch!
The Twin Crescent Blades severed a swordsman’s neck.
The martial arts of the Central Plains were far too weak.
Compared to such skill, the bandit gangs of Majeon seemed almost respectable.
Bandits were men hardened to slaughter, but these were merely blind blades corroded by greed alone. Bandits spat curses before they died. These men chose flight instead. That was the difference between them.
In moments, some twenty swordsmen lay fallen.
Their blood, mingling with the morning dew, gave the fresh dawn a metallic taint.
“Retreat!”
Someone shouted in alarm.
Harku did not pursue those who fled.
Part of him wanted to follow them to the end and cut off their lives. But… Taikan had spoken. Don’t be stained by blood.
He’d talked back to him then, but Taikan’s words carried weight no less absolute than the Clan Leader’s. They came from a heart that cherished his younger brother.
“Even if I chased them, I’d only catch three more. I’ll let them go.”
Harku smiled crookedly.
He wiped his blades on the grass.
The blood slid along the grass’s grain. It was his brother’s teaching: clean a blade until its edge is dry.
He cleaned both slowly.

Taikan examined the corpses.
Serian pulled a ceramic Poison Vessel from the chest of the first body.
“It’s a Poison Vessel.”
“The scent?”
“Grass Poison.”
Serian searched the bodies and recovered two more Poison Vessels and one Medicine Pouch.
“This type is applied to the inside of containers.”
“So you don’t drink it directly—but if you boil water like they did before, it spreads through the vapor. That’s how they did it.”
Arko stared at the Medicine Pouch.
“The sash is distinctive.”
Taikan lifted the sash of the second swordsman with one finger.
Sewn into the inner blue-grey cloth was a small seal in black thread. It depicted a single swath of black cloud flowing diagonally.
“Black cloud.”
“That’s a cloud? I thought it was something else.”
Serian stepped closer, her gaze falling upon the seal.
‘Black cloud? Heukyun Bang. A Frontier sect.’
There was a method that surfaced in her mind.
The First Discipline of the Fuku Clan taught her about sects of the Central Plains, but in truth, nearly all of them were schools adjacent to the north. By contrast, she knew almost nothing of southern sects. There was no information.
Still, she had seen the name Heukyun Bang written on paper before.
In one corner of the archive, there was a small book bound with paper. On one page of that book, Heukyun Bang was written. That was all—just two lines describing it as a minor sect of the Borderlands, one that took on contract killings.
“Heukyun Bang.”
She spoke.
“Is it a major sect?”
Taikan asked.
“It doesn’t seem to be very large. There was no detailed mention of it.”
“You said it was a Borderlands sect… Is it closer to Majeon? Or more toward the assassins?”
“As for the details…”
Serian hesitated.
It was only learned knowledge, not precise knowledge.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not important.”
Aelak rose to his feet.
Whether it was Heukyun Bang or anything else made no difference to him. To one who came with a blade, he would meet with a blade. The path he had to walk led south, and Heukyun Bang simply stood in that way.
The length of the list meant nothing to him.

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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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