North Sea Martial Arts Warrior - Chapter 8

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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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8. The Bing Xue Dan Strikes

Crash! Shatter!
The mirrors shrieked.
With each step Airak took, the ice mirrors shattered and fell away.
“I see them now.”
Taikan’s eyes opened.
The Way of Wind had opened once more.
“The shell game ends here.”
Ping! Ping! Ping!
Three arrows flew in unison, burying themselves in the backs of the fleeing assassins.
“Ack!”
“Ah, that feels good!”
Harku burst into wild laughter as he charged forward.
Each time the Dual Crescent Blades cut through the air, blood sprayed. An assassin who left no room for fortune—who struck with lethal precision.
“Come on out! I’ll send every last one of you to hell!”
Half a breath.
In that span of time, twenty of the twenty-three assassins lay dead. Three remained. And Han A, the leader of the Bing Xue Dan.
“This… this can’t be happening.”
Han A was trembling.
The traps meant nothing. The explosives meant nothing. The mirrored maze meant nothing.
“How… how is this even possible…?”
He’d heard the legends of the Martial Warrior long ago, but he’d never imagined the gap between them could be so vast.
“Chief! You must flee!”
One of the surviving assassins cried out.
“The rear’s sealed! An avalanche has—”
“The front’s sealed too! By them!”
“Shut up!”
Han A screamed.
“Shut your mouth and let me think!”
But there was no time to think.
Thud. Thud.
Footsteps drew closer.
Airak—he still walked with his arms crossed, moving through the blood-soaked battlefield with casual indifference, as though watching someone else’s business unfold.
“There… there he is.”
Han A’s eyes went wild.
When fear reaches its peak, it becomes madness.
“Kill that one and it’s over! That one alone!”
“Chief!”
“Get out of my way!”
Han A drew his blade.
Cyan sword energy erupted from his weapon.
“Die!”
Han A charged toward Airak.
A killing stroke. A swift blade aimed at the throat. The perfect strike of a Bing Xue Dan leader who had carried out hundreds of murders with flawless execution.
But Airak did not stop. He did not dodge, did not block. He simply walked.
Whoosh!
Han A’s blade reached Airak’s neck. Or so he thought.
Crash!
The moment the sword touched Airak’s skin, it froze white and shattered like glass.
“What…?”
Han A stared blankly at the sword hilt that remained in his hand.
“I don’t understand….”
His voice shook.
“I poured all my inner energy into that blade. It’s a legendary sword that cuts through stone like tofu. And yet… I clearly struck the throat…?”
Whoosh.
Airak passed by Han A’s side.
He didn’t even glance at him.
“Don’t… don’t ignore me!”
Han A shrieked.
“Don’t you dare dismiss me! I am the Master of Bing Xue Dan! One of the greatest masters in the North Sea!”
……
Airak said nothing.
He simply walked on.
“Answer me! Answer when I speak! Why won’t you even look at me!”
Han A tried to strike Airak’s back with the hilt of his remaining sword. But his body wouldn’t move.
“…Why.”
His voice cracked.
“Why won’t my body….”
Killing cold.
In the instant Airak had brushed past him, an absolute chill had infiltrated his body and frozen his veins solid. His heart was hardening. He couldn’t breathe.
“Kuh… hack….”
Han A fell to his knees.
Airak’s retreating form receded in his dimming vision.
“Why… why won’t you kill me….”
Han A’s voice trembled with tears.
“Just kill me… I won’t endure this humiliation….”
“Know your place.”
A thick voice came from behind.
It was Garkan.
He stood with a bloodstained Iron Hammer slung across his shoulder, regarding Han A as one might regard an insect.
“Do you know why our Clan Leader ignores you?”
……
“Because you’re not worth killing.”
Han A’s eyes widened.
“What… what did you say?”
“The Clan Leader doesn’t lift a hand against minnows like you. He wouldn’t even waste the effort to swing a blade.”
“Minnow…?”
“That’s right. You’re just an ant he steps on as he passes. You don’t even register in his sight.”
Han A’s face contorted.
He had spent his whole life in the darkness of the North Sea honing the art of murder. He had killed hundreds to become Master of Bing Xue Dan. No one in the North Sea didn’t know his name. And yet… an ant?
“You’re lying….”
“Lying? You saw it yourself just now. Did the Clan Leader so much as glance at you?”
……
“His blade touched you and he didn’t even blink. You know why?”
Garkan seized Han A by the hair and lifted him.
“Because you’re not his enemy. You’re just a bothersome insect.”
“I… I am….”
Tears streamed from Han A’s eyes.
It was humiliation. Worse than death.
“I am the Master of Bing Xue Dan…. There isn’t a soul in the North Sea who doesn’t know my name….”
“So?”
Taikan stepped forward.
“Outside the North Sea, no one knows you. You’re just a frog in a well.”
“Sir, not even a frog, really. More like a tadpole.”
Harku giggled.
“A tadpole that thinks it’s a dragon, thrashing about until someone steps on it and kills it.”
“P… please….”
Han A’s lips trembled.
“Spare me… please…. I’ll do anything….”
“What did you say to our brothers earlier?”
Harku asked.
His body was drenched in blood, but his eyes glinted coldly with amusement.
“That you’d soon make them comfortable, wasn’t it?”
“That was… that was….”
“And you said you’d let them slowly wither to death, didn’t you? Breaking off their limbs one by one? Heh-heh. Truth be told, I’m too bored to even talk with trash like you. Let’s finish this quick.”
“No! Please… spare me—”
Whoosh! Crack!
The Iron Hammer cleaved through empty air. Then came the sickening sound of a watermelon splitting open.
Han A’s head vanished without a trace.
The Bing Xue Dan was annihilated.
The assassin collective once called the North Sea’s cruelest—they crumbled to nothing beneath the wolves’ claws.
“Tch. Disappointing.”
Harku kicked at Han A’s corpse.
“Hey, this pauper of a leader—didn’t even have coin on him?”
Arko rifled through the body, muttering.
“Assassins, and they’re this poor.”
“Enough.”
Garkan spoke.
“The clan leader is waiting.”
Four wolves turned to pursue Airak.
The mouth of the Gorge.
Airak stood motionless there.
His gaze was fixed not south, but northward—toward the northern sky.
The direction where Bing Gong lay.
“Clan leader.”
Garkan approached.
“It is finished.”
……
“Clan leader?”
“I know.”
Airak spoke quietly.
“You think someone’s watching?”
“Karani… do you mean the Bing Gong master?”
“No. A rat.”
Taikan’s brow furrowed.
“A rat sent the Bing Xue Dan?”
Harku asked.
“Of course. The Bing Mian Jing is a secret art of Bing Gong—it would never leak to the outside. Whoever it is, anyone capable of exposing the Bing Mian Jing must be… Hah!”
Arko let out a snort of contempt.
Airak’s lip twisted.
“The clues have multiplied. Someone with access to the Bing Gong master’s quarters, someone who knows the Bing Mian Jing, someone who moved the Bing Xue Dan from the North Sea. With that much… I can catch them.”
“Shall we hunt them down?”
Garkan spoke, eyes alight.
“Not yet. They’ll reveal their true colors soon enough—wait. I’m still uncertain of their purpose in killing Karani. We’ll know before long. And… capturing the rat can wait.”
Airak raised his head.
The wind blew. Airak’s voice echoed across the empty expanse on the breath of that wind.
“Everyone will witness it.”
Low though his voice was, its resonance fell heavy as stone, blanketing the whole of the North Sea.
“How the dogs that came to bite me were slaughtered. And that their turn is next.”
Airak turned.
“Let’s go.”
Airak spoke tersely.
“Those who killed Karani are south of here.”
The wind blew.
Airak looked up at the southern sky.
A memory surfaced—a promise from thirty years ago.
‘When your training is done, what will you do?’
‘…I don’t know.’
‘Come with me to see the frozen sea. When the sun sets, the ice turns crimson—it’s beautiful.’
He never went. Not once in all these years.
Airak closed his eyes, then opened them.
The only red things beneath his feet were corpses scattered across the ground.

* * *

At that same moment, somewhere deep within Bing Gong, in a sealed chamber.
Crash!
A teacup fell to the floor.
Mukara’s hands were trembling.
“Next, it’s your turn.”
Airak’s voice seemed to ring through the sealed chamber. Too vivid to be a hallucination—his killing intent had raced across thousands of leagues and struck directly against her eardrums.
“Ah… ah….”
Mukara staggered backward, her legs giving way beneath her as she sank to the floor.
“The Bing Xue Dan… gone so easily….”
She wrapped her hands around her own throat.
The place where Han A had stood just moments ago burned as if sliced by a blade.
“A monster… a Martial Warrior… he’s not human….”
Pure terror. The assassin clans that once dominated the North Sea crumbled like scarecrows. And that was after he’d swept aside every rabble hunting him for the bounty.
“This is unbearable…”
Her teeth chattered against each other.
The strength of the North Sea wouldn’t be enough. The Bing Xue Dan—all of them—had been annihilated in half an hour.
“Twenty-three. The Bing Xue Dan had twenty-three members. The North Sea’s greatest assassins. Half an hour? How is that possible? How?”
She slammed the table.
The back of her hand split open, blood flowing freely. But Mukara felt nothing.
“I have to stop him… somehow….”
Suddenly, a thought flashed through her mind. In that same instant, her eyes brightened.
Her trembling hands stilled.
“…Yes. There’s still a way.”
Mukara rose slowly to her feet.
Her eyes had changed. Fear had lifted, replaced by cold calculation.
‘I’ll grant him—the Martial Warrior is strong. But even the strong have weaknesses.’
She pulled back a curtain hanging along one wall of the chamber.
‘If strength won’t work, I’ll use my mind. That’s how I’ve survived thirty years.’
Three Ice Tokens glowed with a pale, frigid light.
‘Only fools fight face-to-face. A true victory is won before your enemy even sees it coming.’
“The Three Great Beasts of Cold Ice.”
She spoke the words coldly.
“Seolwon Ma-ung. Geukya Gwiran. Dongto Bingho. The North Sea’s true monsters.”
Her hands seized the Ice Tokens and fastened them to the legs of a messenger bird.
Cold light filled the chamber.
“Go. Tell them the Martial Warrior has appeared.”
As the command fell, the messenger bird shot upward into the empty air.
There was no need to tell them to kill the Martial Warrior. The moment they learned of his presence, they would come of their own accord, seeking to bring him down—those few who possessed the power to destroy a Martial Warrior.
Three messenger birds pierced through the window, vanishing into the northern night sky.
“And if that’s still not enough….”
She approached the desk.
Her hand trembled as she took up the brush. But her writing was steady and precise.

– The Martial Warrior of the North Sea lives. A Martial Warrior is the greatest warrior of the North Sea, born from the Airak Clan, and the Airak Clan is… … heading toward the Central Plains. Stop them. By any means necessary.

A secret letter bound for the Central Plains.
She sent forth the fourth and final messenger bird.
Watching it disappear into the darkness beyond the window, Mukara’s lips twisted into a bitter smile.
“Three beasts of the North Sea, and the masters of the Central Plains besides. Even if you can defeat them all, you’d have to be a god.”
Yet she did not know.
That what she had set in motion was the seed of a far greater calamity. And that calamity would, in the end, consume even her.
The wind blew.
A wind carrying the scent of blood swept toward the Central Plains.
The wolf’s fangs were already bared. And now, the beasts of the North Sea had opened their eyes.
The hunt was growing vast.

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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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