North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 66

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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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66. Where He Stood

Aelak stood beside the campfire, holding the same posture he’d assumed since waking in the night.
“Chief.”
Garkan shifted closer to the fire.
“I’m fully recovered. Even my fingers are back.”
He pressed his hand against his ribs.
Yesterday, touching that spot would have sent pain lancing through him—that tightness beneath the ribs. Now he pressed his palm against it repeatedly, and the tightness had vanished. It felt clean.
“Ahh!”
He exhaled a long, satisfied breath.
Dawn was breaking. Grass blades were jeweled with blood-tinged dew, and the morning moisture had settled over the meadow, leaving it smelling of iron and green.
Dry branches cooled to ash inside the fire pit.
Garkan lifted his wrist, showing the Bing Cheol Sae coiled around it. Only one strand remained, wound steadily about his wrist.
“Yesterday, even a touch would have sent pain through me. Today—nothing. My fingers came back to me in the night.”
He flexed his fingers in sequence, then straightened them again.
The same practiced motion, the same habit—curling from the little finger to the thumb and back, each digit moving without hesitation or slip.
“Serian said it would take five days to heal completely, but here I am after one night. I can fight now.”
Serian pressed her palm against Garkan’s ribs, using two segments of her fingers as a gauge.
Her fingertips lingered at the spot below his ribs, then shifted upward by a hand’s breadth, and returned again to the original point.
She nodded.
“Your Recovery Power is remarkable. It was certainly an injury that should have taken five days or more—but I knew it. The resilience of Aelak’s people is truly monstrous.”
Her voice held absolute certainty.
She withdrew her hand from Garkan’s ribs. Not a drop of blood marked her palm.
Aelak watched Garkan.
His grey eyes paused for a breath, then moved. That was his answer.
‘Good. Fight.’

Taikan knelt on one knee in the grass, his long fingers parting the blades.
Footprints stretched in long lines toward the Eastern Gorge—two distinct patterns. The deep tracks of a running sprint and the shallower marks of a wounded limp intertwined along the grass grain.
“Harku was right. Ten in total. Two of them are wounded. The trail leads past the gorge and into the Mixed Forest beyond.”
Taikan’s voice was measured.
He stretched what could have been said in two words into a longer report. The two wounded needed separate mention. For the sake of capture alive.
Garkan ran his fingers along one strand of the Bing Cheol Sae.
His hand had been empty for days. In that time, Harku had made flowers bloom with his Twin Fang Sabre, Taikan had loosed his bow five times, and Arko had moved between the enemy like poison wind, carving flesh.
Garkan had done nothing but press his hand against his ribs.
He had always said that a sword hand grows strange if you don’t wield it often. He had lived by that saying, and he had lived by it in truth.
He took a step forward.
“Chief. Let me do this. I have to do it today. My hand has been empty too long.”
The tone was absolutely different from yesterday. Yesterday it had been ‘I can go too’. Today it was ‘I must go’.
Aelak glanced toward the Eastern Gorge, then back at Garkan.
“Good. Today it’s Garkan. The rest stay behind.”
A brief command.
Yesterday his mouth had named Harku. Today it named Garkan.
“Thank you!”
Garkan’s shoulders drew in a deeper breath.
Harku’s mouth corner twitched up and down. His Twin Fang Sabre remained in its sheath. Taikan kept his bow across his back.
Among them, today’s task was settled.
Garkan asked quietly.
“Should I bring one back alive?”
Aelak’s answer came at once.
“Not necessary. There’s nothing to gain here.”
Garkan bowed his head. The Bing Cheol Sae let out a soft, clear note from his wrist.

Serian had only to follow today. She had fastened the Eun Seol at her waist, sheath and all. She likely would not need to draw it.
Arko had bound two Gourd Bottles tightly together. Yesterday’s harvest from the corpses.
“Heuk Un Bang Poison. We should take it with us, yes? For safekeeping, at least for now.”
Arko spoke in a low voice.
Serian nodded.
The Heuk Un Bang poison was far inferior to what Arko used, but in the Central Plains where toxins had to be harvested and repurposed, anything was better than nothing.
While the two of them organized the poisons and medicine pouch, Garkan entered the Eastern Gorge.
Mixed Forest.
Branches hung down to shoulder height. Sunlight filtered between the leaves, casting striped shadows across the grass.
He unwound a single strand of Bing Cheol Sae from his wrist.
For deserters, bare hands would have sufficed. But he wielded the Bing Cheol Sae deliberately—to awaken his senses anew.
The chain strand scraped against the earth.
Only one strand remained, but it had been held by a hand that hadn’t moved in days.
Garkan recalled the patterns of the chain.
The Chain Techniques the Central Plains people spoke of—one strand of Bing Cheol Sae unraveled into five configurations.
A binding to sever pursuit, a wrap to ensnare ankles, a throw to strike the torso, a strike to shatter the collarbone, a noose to strangle the neck.
These were the patterns a hand emptied of action would release as pure venting.
Two fugitives sitting in the shadows spotted Garkan and scrambled to their feet, limping as they fled.
Whish!
Garkan hurled the strand backward. It cut across the grassland toward their backs. Both men spun around instantly.
Scrape!
Two curved sabres rose from the shadows.
“Bad luck. You two. The road ends here today. You’re not going any further.”
Garkan spoke as he slowly withdrew the strand.
No—not withdrew. He swung the strand from his wrist instead.
Whish! Clang-clang!
The strand deflected both curved sabres at once.
The force was so tremendous that both sabres flew into the grass. In that instant, the strand whipped again.
“Gasp!”
“Choke!”
Both men’s necks lay in the grass in quick succession.
Garkan gathered the blood-stained strand back to his wrist. Two.
He pressed deeper into the forest.
Three more hid behind a thick trunk. One of them was dragging an injured foot—the one who’d left the deepest tracks.
Garkan threw the strand low across the grass.
It slid between the blades and wrapped around the injured ankle. He pulled.
“Agh! No!”
The man was bound and dragged forward by his own foot.
Garkan swung the Bing Cheol Sae sideways.
Crack! Crunch!
The man struck the trunk and died without even a scream.
The remaining two drew their curved sabres.
But before they could take stance, the Bing Cheol Sae had already pierced both their collarbones.
“Argh!”
A scream erupted.
Garkan moved with brutal efficiency.
The word “brutal” sounds grim, but from the perspective of the dying, it meant the fastest, most painless death possible.
And deaths like this spread rumors faster.
“Exhale.”
Garkan drew one measured breath.
The Bing Cheol Sae strand hummed lightly against his wrist.
‘Five.’
Sunlight sliced diagonally between the leaves.
Garkan looked at his own hand. Yesterday, it had pressed against his side. Today, it held the Bing Cheol Sae. The strand’s patterns unraveled of their own accord.
Not venting rage. The Bing Cheol Sae was calm. The strand hummed to his will as if it knew his intent.
Three more fugitives charged from deeper in the forest, blades raised—men who had seen death and refused to turn their backs.
So even the remnants of Heuk Un Bang held backbone.
Garkan spun the strand overhead. It wheeled through empty air, cutting currents invisible.
Shwish.
The strand wrapped around the first man’s neck.
Garkan twisted his wrist. The man’s neck bent sideways.
The second man raised his sword overhead.
The strand released the first neck, caught the blade, twisted, and snapped it—the sword shattered and the man’s wrist broke with it.
The third man’s chest was pierced before he could even draw near.
Three men. One movement. Done.
‘Eight.’
Garkan slowly retrieved the strands of his Bing Cheol Sae.
Blood clung to the metal.
Garkan wound the chain back around his wrist. Blood dripped across the back of his hand, but he didn’t wipe it away. Blood is Spirit.
One more remained beyond the Mixed Forest.
He lay collapsed in the grass, a deep wound gaping at his side—the work of Harku’s blade from this morning’s ambush.
The wound was grave. He wouldn’t last long.
Garkan stepped close. He lifted the chain toward the man’s throat. To end his suffering would have been a mercy.
But the chain stopped before it touched.
Garkan studied the wounded man.
It would have been simple enough to finish it. Orders were orders—no need to Capture Alive. Nothing to gain here. And yet… wouldn’t a single word be worth something?
A dying man’s last words carried the weight of truth.
When hunting down an Enemy, you grasped at straws desperate enough to break your hands.
But this wasn’t the place to coax out hidden truths. That belonged at the Camp, by the fire.
If the man’s breath failed before they reached it, that scrap of knowledge would be buried forever in the grass.
Garkan slowly gathered the chain back to his wrist.
It troubled the clan leader’s mind, but he decided a single word was worth the risk. He seized the fugitive by the collar and hauled him upright.
Blood and foam spilled from the man’s mouth. Garkan watched for a moment.
“You won’t last long. I’ll keep you breathing just long enough—so answer what I ask before you go.”
He hoisted the fugitive onto his shoulder.
The weight was considerable—heavier than it had been yesterday. Yet his side didn’t pull. His ribs didn’t catch even carrying such a burden.
For an instant, something that might have been a smile flickered across Garkan’s mouth, then vanished.

He emerged from the Eastern Gorge.
Harku’s mouth twitched upward slightly.
“What took you so long?”
Garkan didn’t answer.
At the Camp, Serian rushed forward first.
She knelt and examined the fugitive’s side.
The wound ran deep. The bleeding wouldn’t stop.
She pressed the area above the wound with the heel of her palm. One blood vessel constricted for a moment. But another rupture opened elsewhere, and the flow resumed.
Her hands now were not hands that saved. They were merely hands buying time—stretching the clock forward by fractions. She understood the difference.
“Arko, do you have poison?”
Arko understood immediately.
He brought the Medicine Pouch and knelt. Then he forced the fugitive’s mouth open with his fingers and crushed a single poison pellet between his teeth.
Black powder dusted his lips.
The fugitive exhaled deeply. But the breath didn’t lengthen.
“It’s poison. A potent one. But it will stimulate his pressure points and bring him back to consciousness.”
Arko spoke briefly.
Serian took the fugitive’s hand in hers.
Her fingers rested on the back of his hand for a single breath.

Aelak stood beside the fire.
He hadn’t moved from where he’d stood all night. The same place. The same vigil.
His grey eyes fixed on the eastern sky.
The grey was giving way to white. The first rays of dawn broke free.
But what he saw was not the eastern sky. He saw Karani. In his mind’s eye, always his Enemy.
The sword scars carved into Karani’s body.
The eastern sky was only where Karani’s phantom lingered.
Garkan approached from behind and reported.
“Nine dealt with. One alive. None escaped.”
Aelak answered without shifting his stance.
“How tiresome. They’ll be back tomorrow.”
Four words, clipped short.
Garkan stepped back.
Aelak’s eyes didn’t leave the eastern sky. Then he turned, fixing Garkan with a gaze cold as winter frost. “What did you learn?”

Garkan spoke.
“Not yet. The wounds are severe.”
“Then we wait.”
Aelak did not move from that spot again.
Somewhere within his grey eyes, Karani trembled. Yet his posture remained steady. He played in a world where surface and depth were worlds apart.

The wounded man’s lips moved slightly.
Serian brought her ear close to his mouth.
“Speak. I’m listening.”
Her hair brushed against the fugitive’s lips.
A fragment of consonant escaped. A vowel followed, thin and trailing, then broke off. His mouth stilled. Serian gripped his hand more tightly.
“Just a little more. One word more.”
She waited for something—anything—to escape him while he still lived.
Another vowel slipped out and ceased.
The fugitive’s hand released the grass blade. But the word remained unfinished. Morning sunlight fell upon his lips.
A fragment hung there, incomplete.

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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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