Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 78

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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 78.
Jin So Wol gritted her teeth as she rolled her body over the wall and into the undergrowth.
Several shallow cuts stung with a dull throb, and her breath already rose to her throat in ragged gasps.
Even as she fled, Sa Hae Ryong’s cry echoed in her ears.
[Miss Jin! Summon Yun Cheon, the Patriarch! Call him here!]
She had distrusted Sa Hae Ryong.
Yet he had thrown himself forward to carve a path for her escape.
‘Is it right to abandon Iron Shark Gang like this?’
If she retreated now, Iron Shark Gang would fall completely into enemy hands.
Above all, she had failed to complete the first order the Patriarch had entrusted to her.
‘I cannot withdraw empty-handed like this.’
Jin So Wol steadied her breathing, one knee pressed against the damp earth. The Main Gate would already be sealed. If the commotion from the Main Hall had spread, Jeon Man Ho’s subordinates would have locked it down first.
‘If I defy expectation and strike at the heart instead?’
Jin So Wol lifted her gaze.
The outer buildings that connected toward the Riverbank. The narrow Library Archive beside the Training Ground. The small eastern wing where the Warehouse and Messenger Room stood adjoined.
By day, they were merely storage for miscellaneous goods, but even a gang hideout would have at least one means of contacting the outside world.
Jin So Wol’s eyes hardened with resolve.
‘I will not flee. There is still work to be done here.’
She moved low through the brush and shadows.
The Messenger Room door hung half-open.
Inside, a single lantern swayed dimly. Jin So Wol held her breath and slipped through the gap. A man inside spun around in alarm.
Jin So Wol’s blade stopped just before his throat.
“Do you have messenger birds?”
The man’s face drained of color in an instant.
“M-Miss Jin…!”
Up close, she recognized him—the face she had glimpsed at the corridor’s end. A man who appeared to be Sa Hae Ryong’s direct subordinate.
“Answer the question.”
Jin So Wol’s blade touched his neck. Blood beaded and trickled down the steel.
The man nodded frantically.
“There is one hawk. The messenger birds toward the Riverbank have already been seized by Jeon Man Ho’s men, but Sa Hae Ryong’s personal messenger hawk remains… undiscovered.”
Jin So Wol’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“…Have you betrayed Sa Hae Ryong?”
The man’s lips trembled. After a moment’s hesitation, he clenched his teeth and lowered his head.
“I have not betrayed him. I simply failed to act in time.”
Jin So Wol rejected his excuse.
“I did not come to hear excuses. Send a message to the Black Dragon Gang.”
The man’s eyes wavered.
“Write this down. Iron Shark Gang has fallen under Jeon Man Ho’s control. Sa Hae Ryong is presumed subdued. Jin So Wol remains inside, awaiting an opportunity.”
The man asked nothing further.
“Will that suffice?”
“Yes.”
The man hastily picked up his brush and wrote, sealed the letter, then tied the tube to the hawk’s leg.
The hawk spread its wings wide and launched itself through the open window.
A single shadow vanished northward into the pre-dawn sky.
It was the direction where the Black Dragon Gang lay.
After gazing out the window for a time, the man slowly turned his head.
“The messenger has been sent. Security will be tight… what do you intend to do now?”
Jin So Wol nodded curtly.
“I never planned to slip out quietly. I’m going to tear through the inside. Show me how to get back in.”
Jin So Wol’s words made the man’s eyes waver.
‘Unarmed and alone. And for a woman to harbor such resolve…?’
The man bit his lip and spoke with a hardened expression.
“Go around the back of the Training Ground. The patrols are sparse there—you should be able to break through.”
Jin So Wol’s gaze sharpened.
“And then?”
“Follow the Riverbank and you’ll find a narrow passage—a shortcut connecting the Main Hall and the Warehouse. Since it leads away from the exits, they’ll be watching it less closely.”
Jin So Wol studied him for a moment.
Having received his directions, Jin So Wol tore a strip from her garment and bound her shoulder wound tightly. Blood seeped through, but her hands moved without hesitation. She rose to her feet.
Woo Baek Hyeon spoke quietly.
“…I’m sorry, but I cannot go further.”
Jin So Wol continued without pausing. “Why?”
Why?
Woo Baek Hyeon swallowed sharply.
“…Sa Hae Ryong, our gang leader, is imprisoned. I cannot escape alone. When you create chaos, I’ll seize the moment to rescue him.”
A brief silence.
Jin So Wol studied his face quietly.
He was surely afraid. Yet he was not entirely broken. That was enough.
“…What is your name?”
“…Woo Baek Hyeon.”
“You sent the messenger and opened the path. You’ve done your part.”
Jin So Wol tied off the bandage and spoke quietly.
Woo Baek Hyeon’s eyes flickered faintly.
“I am ashamed…”
“We each gain something from this. Survive. Shame can wait.”
Woo Baek Hyeon clenched his teeth and nodded.
Jin So Wol crouched low. Now only one thing remained: reclaim her weapon and shake the Iron Shark Gang to its core.
Her form melted back into the darkness that enveloped the Iron Shark Gang.
* * *
“What rotten luck.”
A patrol circling the back of the Training Ground muttered with a yawn.
“A fire breaks out from the Main Hall in the middle of the night, and they’re dragging people around demanding we capture some runaway woman. What in the world is all this commotion about?”
The man beside him let out a low chuckle.
“I heard she’s quite pretty, though?”
“Tch. Even now, that’s all you can think about?”
“Why else would they order us to capture her alive? It seems Jeon Man Ho himself has taken more than a passing interest—”
The words never finished.
A sharp whisper cut through the darkness.
The night split open. A black shadow drove between them.
“What the—!”
The man in front instinctively tried to raise his spear, but Jin So Wol broke his wrist first.
A sickening crack.
His arm crumpled with a stifled cry, and in the same instant, her other hand seized the spear shaft.
A smooth, fluid motion.
The moment Jin So Wol’s grip closed on the spear, her eyes transformed.
The man blinked stupidly for just an instant.
By then, the spear shaft was already lashing out like lightning, its end driving straight toward his solar plexus.
A heavy thud.
“Kgh—hack!”
The man’s breath stolen, he collapsed to his knees.
“What’s happening?!”
“What’s all this noise?!”
Hearing the screams, several patrolmen nearby turned their heads in unison.
But it would have been better if they hadn’t reacted at all.
A sharp whistle cut the air.
The spear shaft, tracing a wide arc, crashed against the temple of the first man to rush forward. The recoil swept through the two beside him in succession.
“Argh!”
The men cried out, staggering backward.
A sharp sting.
My hastily bound shoulder throbbed, and I felt the wound tear open again.
But it didn’t matter.
“Hah…”
As the weight of the spear returned to my hand, my breathing steadied slightly.
I was no longer the hunted.
Now it was time to bite back.
I searched the fallen patrolmen’s bodies.
Besides the short swords they carried, I found a bundle of keys of unknown origin and a sealed letter pouch.
‘This could be it…!’
I immediately bolted down a side path behind the Training Ground.
The night grew darker, and the river wind strengthened—a fishy breeze instead of salt spray. The Warehouse and docks near the Riverbank were drawing close.
Crawling across the low rooftops, I held my breath and peered down below.
Two torches.
Two sentries guarding the Warehouse.
Four laborers moving cargo to and from the boat.
And a narrow passage connecting the Main Hall to the Riverbank.
‘There’s the Warehouse…!’
Jin So Wol didn’t rush in immediately.
Instead, she calmly surveyed the movements and positions with her eyes.
That was when it happened.
“Tsk, lighting torches in such abundance in the dead of night….”
“Hey! Be careful not to spill it. The oil is dripping.”
“I know! Ugh!”
Two workers were hauling a heavy-looking black jar out of the Warehouse.
‘That’s…! Torch oil!’
Jin So Wol didn’t hesitate.
A soft scrape.
She drew the fire starter from her waist, flicked open its lid, and struck it rapidly—a small spark ignited.
“Huff….”
As she blew on it, the spark flared into flame.
Jin So Wol channeled her inner energy and hurled the fire starter.
Straight at the jar the men were pouring oil from.
Crash!
In an instant, the guards turned their heads.
But it was already too late.
Oil was gushing from the shattered jar.
“What… what is this?”
“Wait, over there—”
Whoosh.
The spark from the fire starter caught instantly.
Crackle.
The small flame became a roaring inferno, racing up the Warehouse walls in seconds.
“Fire!”
“You idiots! I told you to make torches, not set a fire!”
“That’s… that’s not what happened!”
“No excuses! Get the goods out before the Warehouse burns to the ground!”
“Yes… yes, sir!”
Before the chaos could even settle, the flames fed on the oil and shot through the Warehouse roof.
“Fire! The Warehouse is burning—!”
The cry spread throughout the Iron Shark Gang.
From her perch on the rooftop, Jin So Wol watched the scene unfold below, a faint smile playing at her lips.
‘…They never expected a fire here.’
She crouched low and began moving across the rooftops toward the opposite side.
From this moment on, the real operation would begin.
Toward the Main Hall, where defenses were thinning. Toward the place where Sa Hae Ryong was imprisoned.
* * *
“Fire!”
“Over there, which direction!”
“Inside, toward the Warehouse!”
Boatmen who had leaped from the vessels moored at the Riverbank.
Warriors guarding the Main Gate of the Main Hall.
Patrol squads that had been waiting at the Training Ground.
The forces that had been scattered throughout the Iron Shark Gang in pursuit of a single woman moments before now surged toward the Warehouse in unison.
Footsteps and shouts tangled together, shaking the night air of the Iron Shark Gang. Those wielding torches and those carrying water buckets poured out from opposite directions, colliding with one another.
The entire attention of the Iron Shark Gang tilted wholly toward the Warehouse.
* * *
At that same moment.
A low stone wall on the western outskirts of the Iron Shark Gang.
Three shadows that had descended along the ridge settled silently into the undergrowth beneath the wall.
“…That fire is quite substantial. With that level of firepower, it doesn’t seem like a simple accident.”
Yu Ha murmured softly, gesturing beyond the wall with the tip of his fan.
The flames rising toward the sky were far from small. Even from a distance, one could see the silhouettes of Iron Shark Gang members rushing in a single direction, illuminated by that firelight.
Yalü Hee asked, holding her breath.
“…How convenient at this moment. Who set the fire?”
“No one knows we’re heading here. But… it seems reasonable to assume something is happening within the Iron Shark Gang itself. Between Jeon Man Ho and Sa Hae Ryong. Either way, this is our opportunity.”
Yun Cheon reasoned through the unfolding situation.
“If Sa Hae Ryong’s forces are still resisting… then Jin So Wol likely remains alive.”
Yu Ha nodded in agreement.
Yun Cheon rose slowly to his feet.
“We go in before that commotion dies down. Now is when defenses are thinnest.”
Yun Cheon’s feet moved first.
Thwip—
His form sprang upward, barely grazing the tiles atop the wall. In a single bound, Yun Cheon descended onto the rooftops within the Iron Shark Gang.
Yu Ha followed in his wake, and Yalü Hee joined a beat later. The landscape of the Iron Shark Gang viewed from the rooftops was entirely skewed in one direction.
“Most of the forces seem to have abandoned their posts around where the fire started.”
“Which way do we go?”
Yu Ha and Yalü Hee looked to Yun Cheon, who held the authority to decide. A wrong choice in direction might prove irreversible.
“…”
Yun Cheon’s gaze turned not toward the Warehouse where flames soared, but toward the unusually quiet Main Hall. The Main Gate was defended by only a handful of remaining soldiers, while the rear of the Main Hall showed almost no movement from subordinates.
“If that fire is Jin So Wol’s doing, then her target lies elsewhere. We… go to the place that was most heavily guarded.”
Yun Cheon spoke curtly.
“Across the rooftops. The shortest route.”
Whoosh—
Three figures leaped from rooftop to rooftop, heading toward the Main Hall.
* * *
Behind the Main Hall.
In the darkness untouched by firelight, Jin So Wol’s spear descended like moonlight piercing through clouds.
In a single instant, the spearhead flashed four times in the empty air.
Whoosh—!
The first man’s throat was pierced clean through. Blood sprayed from his mouth as he toppled backward.
The second twisted his body desperately, but too late. The spear blade carved deep between his shoulder and collarbone, tearing a half-formed scream from his lips. It was a mortal wound. Even if he didn’t die immediately, he could fight no longer.
The remaining two reacted slightly faster.
But Jin So Wol was faster still.
Rather than withdraw the spear, she twisted her grip and struck the closest attacker’s jaw with the shaft’s end.
Crack!
The man’s head snapped backward as though his neck had broken, and he collapsed.
Simultaneously, her foot swept low.
She hooked the last man’s knee, sent him sprawling, then drove the spear’s shaft down into his neck, slamming him against the ground.
Thud!
Gasping for breath, the man clawed at the earth, choking.
A single breath.
One dead, one mortally wounded, two incapacitated.
Yet Jin So Wol’s breathing had already grown ragged.
“…Hah.”
Blood seeped through the bandage on her shoulder.
Each time she wielded the spear, the torn flesh reopened—a sensation that radiated from her shoulder down to her elbow.
Still, she did not stop.
The back door of the Main Hall stood half-open.
Sa Hae Ryong would be inside.
The moment she took a step forward—
A chill swept through the air.
The temperature plummeted.
Jin So Wol’s spine stiffened instantly.
That sensation—already familiar.
The murky, repulsive Asura blood energy she had first encountered behind the folding screen.
Boom—!
A black shadow exploded from within the Main Hall, bursting outward.
“…So you even set fire to the Warehouse. Quite the troublesome woman.”
It was Jeon Man Ho.
A twisted smile hung at the corner of his mouth, yet his stride showed not the slightest hesitation—as though he had known all along that Jin So Wol would come this way.
“But as expected, you came just as I predicted.”
Jeon Man Ho took a slow, deliberate step forward.
“How pitiful—coming to break yourself with your own feet.”
With that single step, the air of the back courtyard grew thick and heavy as a swamp, pressing down upon everything.
A Asura’s blood qi—forced into being by grinding countless sacrifices into nothingness.
The nauseating aura burrowed deep into Jin So Wol’s lungs.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Numbness crept through her fingertips.
Her wounded shoulder screamed first.
Yet Jin So Wol’s grip on the spear shaft only tightened.
Her eyes, fixed upon the monster before her, did not waver in the slightest.

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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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