Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 71

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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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Chapter 71.
Yun Cheon’s fist drove downward toward the door leading to the underground chamber.
Crash—!
The thick wooden door shattered outward with a cry. The hinges twisted, the door swung inward, and damp darkness yawned open before them.
The first thing to assault the senses was the stench. Rotted blood, boiled medicinal herbs, filth and sweat. Air long trapped and festering clawed at the lungs.
“Ugh…!”
Yalü Hee’s expression crumpled instantly.
“What in the world is this place?”
Yun Cheon offered no reply, descending the stairs immediately.
Creak.
The ancient wooden steps groaned under his weight. The moment his foot touched the floor, Yun Cheon’s gaze swept across the underground chamber.
Rags stained with dried blood.
A medicinal pot still warm to the touch.
Quicklime and bone fragments swept into the corners. Along the walls, iron rings set low—at a child’s height—were embedded densely side by side.
This was not merely a place of confinement.
Evidence of breaking and conditioning lay scattered throughout.
Grit.
Yalü Hee ground her teeth.
“…Jinguan Pavilion! These beasts!”
Yun Cheon’s gaze halted on one section of the floor.
Broken ribs.
Skeletal arm bones.
The scattered remains were not those of adults.
“…Hnn….”
Then it came.
Faint breathing echoed from the corner.
“Over there.”
Yun Cheon turned immediately.
Between piles of straw and rags. Children lay collapsed against one another, huddled together. Yun Cheon lifted the jaw of the nearest child.
They were alive. Yet their eyes were vacant, their lips parched and cracked. Another child breathed vacantly, eyes open but seeing nothing.
Yun Cheon’s fingers pressed methodically against the nape of the neck, wrists, and eyelids. The pulse was erratic, the vital energy tangled in places. Beyond mere weakness—bodies long marinated in poison.
“…Severe.”
After that brief utterance, he moved his hands to the next child.
After examining the pulse for some time, Yun Cheon spoke quietly.
“Simply taking them out of here won’t solve this. Unless Saengsa Jjon were here.”
“…They can be saved, though, right?”
When Yalü Hee asked urgently, Yun Cheon did not give a definitive answer.
“Perhaps… I can keep them alive. But whether they’ll recover fully—I cannot promise that.”
With those words, Yun Cheon suddenly discovered something and hastily pulled back the napes of the children’s necks in succession.
Each child bore a different mark upon their neck.
A black star.
A black moon.
And on the nape of a child leaning against the wall, half-conscious, was a black sun.
Yalü Hee’s eyes grew fierce.
“A brand…?”
“It appears so to me as well. It looks as though it was seared with a branding iron.”
Every child being held bore a brand without exception on the back of their neck.
“Jinguan Pavilion… these vile creatures! How could they do such a thing!”
Yalü Hee’s hand froze above the black brand.
Her fingertips trembled faintly.
‘…Yalü Hee must have come from the Demonic Cult herself. Has she never seen anything like this?’
To Yun Cheon, her reaction was rather unexpected.
“Is it rare for those of the Demonic Cult to do such things?”
“Even if doctrines differ between sects… to brand children like livestock. This has crossed every line imaginable!”
Yun Cheon picked up a single sheet of paper that had fallen beside a heap of rags. It was a record sheet splattered with blood.
“The brands appear to have been applied for purposes of classification.”
The characters written in ink were terrifyingly stark.
[Black Star — fifty-seven individuals]
[Black Moon — twenty-two individuals]
[Black Sun — four individuals]
My eyes narrowed.
‘…There is no red star.’
In that moment, my gaze turned toward the staircase above.
The child who had been peering down from beyond the railing of this floor moments ago.
The only child in this underground chamber whose eyes still held life. On the nape of that child’s neck was unmistakably a blood-red star.
“You. Come over here for a moment, would you? I need to check something.”
The child frozen on the stairs hesitated, then descended one step, then another. Fear was written across their face, yet they obeyed Yun Cheon’s words without resistance.
I met the child’s eyes and examined their pupils. Though somewhat clouded, they had not grown dim like the others.
My fingertips quickly pressed along the child’s nape, spine, and the region near the heart meridian. In that instant, my eyes flickered subtly.
‘…Pure and lucid meridians. A constitution resistant to demonic qi?’
I could not determine the precise name for it. Yet with meridians this clear, this was no ordinary body.
I asked quietly.
“What is your name?”
The child bit their lip for a moment.
“…I don’t have one. We were never given names.”
“Then?”
“They called us by numbers… I was Number Nineteen.”
Yalü Hee’s expression hardened.
“They called you by numbers without even giving you names?”
The child nodded faintly.
Then, as if remembering something, his body trembled.
“And… I heard them talking from upstairs.”
Yun Cheon’s gaze snapped directly toward the child.
“Heard what.”
Number Nineteen swallowed hard.
“They said… they’d hand me over separately.”
Yalü Hee’s eyes narrowed sharply.
“Separately?”
“The other children get loaded onto carts and sent away… but they said they’d come verify me personally and take me…”
In that moment.
The intelligence he’d heard from Sa Do Myeong connected in his mind like a single thread. They gathered talented children, filtered them, sent them deeper. And very rarely, there were individuals the main headquarters recovered directly.
‘A sacrificial vessel…!’
A crimson star mark not found on any classification chart.
A child managed alone on the second floor.
If that were the case.
Yun Cheon murmured low and coldly.
“…This child is the vessel.”
Yalü Hee turned to look at him.
“The vessel…?”
Yun Cheon’s eyes had already turned as cold as ice.
“There’s no time to explain in detail. If this child really is the one they’ve been eyeing, there could be a main operation elsewhere.”
“So these wretches were just keeping them here temporarily?”
Yalü Hee quickly surveyed the basement.
Children breathing blankly. Small bodies slumped lifelessly. I couldn’t possibly carry all of them out at once.
“Yun Cheon. The two of us can’t extract this many children all at once.”
“I know.”
Yun Cheon, answering briefly, surveyed the area around the Inn.
The back door behind the Kitchen.
A narrow alley beside the Warehouse.
And closest to here, the tavern where the Feng Yun Ranking notice was posted.
‘Where the Ilwol Trading Company’s intelligence network reaches. That fox will move the moment she catches the scent.’
That was the most certain way to save these children right now. Yun Cheon silently rummaged through his robes. A cold metal piece revealed itself in his palm.
A black iron token split precisely in half.
The proof of trust and commerce between the Ilwol Trading Company and the Black Dragon Gang that Geum Bu Dong had once offered, claiming it was Yu Ha’s will.
Yun Cheon placed the black iron token into Number Nineteen’s small hand.
“Take this with you.”
Number Nineteen’s hand trembled.
“This is…?”
“Any Inn or tavern with the Feng Yun Ranking mark will do.”
Yun Cheon’s voice was short and resolute.
“Show them this token and deliver my message. Yun Cheon, master of the Black Dragon Gang, demands that the Ilwol Trading Company settle their debt.”
Number Nineteen looked up at him with trembling eyes.
“You’re… asking me to escape this place alone…?”
Confusion flickered across the child’s face.
Yun Cheon met those anxious eyes directly and continued.
“Among all the children in this basement, your body is in the best condition. Since you’ve been on this level, you’ve had the chance to scout the Inn’s layout. We can handle the escort guards, but we cannot carry all those children and escape simultaneously. Right now, you’re the only one who can save them.”
The child’s pupils dilated sharply at those words.
But soon the boy’s gaze alternated between the collapsed children and the black iron token in his palm. A faint glimmer of resolve appeared in his trembling eyes.
“…I’ll do it. I promise!”
The child clenched his teeth and nodded firmly.
That was when it happened.
Thud-thud, thud-thud—.
A faint vibration traveled through the Inn’s floor from a distance. The heavy hoofbeats of roughly a dozen trained military horses.
The sound rapidly approached the Inn.
“Someone is approaching.”
Yalü Hee sensed it too.
“They won’t know what happened inside yet. Let’s prepare.”
Yalü Hee gripped the hilt of her black sword, her brow furrowing.
Yun Cheon gestured toward Number Nineteen with his chin.
“We’ll draw their attention. Slip out through the back door near the kitchen. If you run through the alleys, you should reach the Inn attached to the Feng Yun Ranking safely.”
Yalü Hee added quietly.
“We’ll keep their eyes and hands occupied. Don’t worry.”
Number Nineteen finally nodded and spoke.
“…Be careful. Both of you….”
He backed away, gripping the black iron token tightly in both hands. Yun Cheon and Yalü Hee’s voices reached him one last time.
“Don’t look back.”
“We’re strong. Don’t worry and run!”
At the final command, the child swallowed hard and headed toward the back of the kitchen.
Yalü Hee drew her black sword first, twisting her lips into a grin.
“It doesn’t matter how many come. This time, I’m not holding back.”
“Agreed. There’s no reason to show mercy to creatures like them.”
Yun Cheon slowly gripped his sword hilt as well, his gaze fixed on the firmly closed door.
The presence drew steadily closer.
Heavy footsteps halted before the door.
“They’re not moving cautiously.”
“Good. We strike first.”
Click.
The doorknob turned with a dull metallic sound.
Creak—.
The door swung open, and a man in blood-red robes stepped through first.
“These incompetent fools! What are you doing standing around like that? I don’t care about anything else, but if even a scratch appears on the Blood Saint’s vessel, I’ll have your heads—”
His arrogant command never reached its end.
The moment he crossed the threshold, he turned his gaze inward.
It was precisely when the man, caught off guard, fully entered the Inn.
From the darkness, Yun Cheon’s Pursuit Blade tore through space like lightning.
Skreeeee—!
“…What?”
The man never even realized his own head had been severed.
His severed neck spun once through the air before crashing to the ground.
Splurt!
The blood that should have erupted froze solid, locked in place by the frigid essence of the Infinite Frozen Heart Scripture dwelling within his blade.
Thud.
His headless body crumpled where it stood.
The escort party in crimson robes, their faces etched with shock.
“What… what was that? Just now….”
“An ambush!”
“A master swordsman! Don’t let your guard down!”
Yun Cheon surveyed them at a glance, assessing their strength. Dozens of martial artists in crimson robes.
‘An escort detail, then. Quite elite at that….’
For a retrieval operation targeting a single child, their numbers seemed excessive. It meant they had no intention of letting this child slip away.
Yun Cheon flicked away the frozen droplet of blood clinging to his blade’s edge.
Then he angled his sword point diagonally forward.
“Next.”

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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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