Chapter 288 – Bonds Come at Unexpected Moments (1)

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Tracking Gi Ye-hwa’s traces after she escaped from Lotus Pavilion was not particularly difficult. Though she thought she was moving stealthily, she could not deceive the scholar’s eyes.

The scholar possessed extremely sensitive senses. He was also the owner of tracking skills rare in the world. He had sharp insight that would not miss even the smallest traces, and possessed a sensitive sense of smell that could distinguish faint fragrances remaining in the air.

Thanks to this, tracking Gi Ye-hwa was as easy as flipping his palm for him.

“Go ahead and flee to your heart’s content. You’re still within my palm anyway.”

Originally, it was said that cornered beasts should not be driven to the extreme. Even a mouse will bare its teeth when cornered, let alone tracking someone who had learned martial arts. One must proceed with leisure to avoid being bitten by small teeth.

So the scholar pursued Gi Ye-hwa with leisure.

Faint footprints, broken grass blades, her body scent faintly floating in the air – all of these became clues. Gathering all these clues, the place he finally reached was the annex of a fairly large inn.

“Is this the new fox den?”

Originally, the more cunning a fox, the more spare dens it prepares. So he thought Gi Ye-hwa would also have spare dens.

“Tsk! The smarter they are, the more they tend to overestimate their own heads.”

He clicked his tongue and leaped over the wall of the annex shrouded in darkness.

Rustle!

With the sound of his clothes lightly brushing against the wall, his figure landed on the floor of the annex.

Thud!

“Huh!”

The scholar exclaimed in surprise.

As soon as he crossed the wall, he felt a nauseating fishy smell. Though his sense of smell detected no odor, his brain was perceiving it that way.

It was the smell of a ruler that could only be felt from beasts that had survived by catching countless raw prey.

The smell of the great tiger he had encountered in the deep mountains of Mount Tai a few years ago was like this.

There was something beyond the pitch-black darkness without a single point of light. Something that emitted a nauseating fishy smell no less than that great tiger.

However, the scholar was not worried.

Though the great tiger of Mount Tai had been formidable, it had ultimately met a miserable death at his hands. He was confident this time would be the same. He trusted his own martial arts that much.

“Let’s see how big a tiger this is.”

Just as he was taking steps toward the darkness, suddenly all the air in the area was sucked toward the darkness at once. Like a giant demon inhaling breath.

“Kuh!”

It was the moment the scholar’s complexion changed.

Whoooosh!

The air that had been sucked in rushed out all at once. The scholar’s body swayed in the rough wind.

At that moment, a fist emerged from the darkness.

“Huh!”

The scholar cried out in alarm and raised his arms to block the fist.

Crack!

“Kuk!”

With a scream, the scholar’s fist shattered like a corn stalk. The scholar cried out in alarm at the shock penetrating his entire body and retreated backward.

Whoosh!

Instantly, intense wind pressure rushed again and swirled around the scholar. In the extremely strong wind, the scholar’s body momentarily floated about one ja into the air.

“What?”

At the moment the scholar was shocked, he emerged through the darkness.

A man with jet-black hair indistinguishable from darkness, emotionless black eyes, and wearing a pitch-black windbreaker robe fluttering in the fierce wind.

“Fist Demon?”

The scholar’s eyes widened as he deployed his protective energy. But before he could even half-deploy his protective energy, the man – Dam-ho’s body – directly struck him.

Bang!

“Kek!”

With a roar, the scholar’s body was flung backward.

His body, shot like a cannonball, went straight through the annex’s wall.

“Chaat!”

Just before being thrown to the ground, he pressed his hands to the floor and regained his body’s balance.

Though he had been ambushed by Dam-ho and his momentum was broken, he too was a martial artist who prided himself on being a master. Though he had suffered serious internal injuries with his organs shaken, he instantly drew up his power to respond to Dam-ho’s attack.

Dam-ho charged through the darkness.

Normally, when one breaks an opponent’s momentum like this, most martial artists would attempt conversation.

‘Who are you?’, ‘Reveal your identity’, and so on…

But Dam-ho had none of that.

His doctrine was that when you seize momentum, you must cut off the breath in one stroke, and this was what the Solitary Path pursued.

The Solitary Path was not martial arts for sparring but martial arts for killing.

Thud!

The Earth-Heaven Strike gave shock to the texture of the air. The shock transmitted through the air ruptured the scholar’s eardrums.

“Kreuk!”

When his eardrums tore and shock was applied to his semicircular canals, the scholar’s movements momentarily slowed.

The semicircular canals located inside the eardrums are sensory organs that feel the body’s rotation and acceleration. Therefore, when struck, reactions inevitably slow momentarily – this Dam-ho knew from long experience.

The scholar was a master. A master who had reached the realm of transcendence. A master of that level wouldn’t be neutralized just because his semicircular canals were shaken. He merely hesitated briefly. But to Dam-ho, that instant felt longer than eons.

Dam-ho’s palm adhered to the scholar’s chest.

Spiral Yin Palm Energy!

The Spiral Yin Palm Energy was deployed. Spiral-shaped energy twisted the scholar’s chest.

“Kraak!”

This time, unable to endure the pain, a desperate scream burst from the scholar’s mouth.

The agony of his entire body being dismantled dominated his whole being. An ordinary master would have collapsed at this point. But the scholar, as if to prove his martial prowess, made a final struggle.

“Chaat!”

When he spread both hands wide, tremendous force burst forth. The ink-colored energy stream directly struck Dam-ho.

Heaven Net Divine Palm.

It was the highest technique the scholar had learned.

The palm force spread like a dense net, covering the opponent so there was nowhere to escape. The scholar thought this much would be enough to take Dam-ho as a companion to the afterlife.

But his opponent was Dam-ho.

Buzz!

His body trembled momentarily. The ultra-vibration protective technique Shield was deployed.

The energy of the Heaven Net Divine Palm dissipated instantly like snowflakes meeting sunlight the moment it touched the Shield.

At that moment, one thought suddenly entered the scholar’s mind.

‘It wasn’t a fox den but a demon’s lair.’

That was the last thought he had in life.

Bang!

A roar erupted and his chest burst open.

“Kek!”

With a single groan, the scholar rolled on the ground. When his body, which had rolled several times, stopped, his breath had already ceased.

“Ah!”

Only then did Gi Ye-hwa, who had been hiding in the annex, reveal herself. Her flushed red face and rough breathing showed how urgent the situation she had been in was.

After escaping Lotus Pavilion, the first person she thought of was Dam-ho. No matter how she thought about it, the safest place in Dujiangyan was where Dam-ho was staying. So she had run here with all her might.

If the scholar had hurried just a little more and blocked her before she reached this annex, fate might have changed.

“Thank you.”

Gi Ye-hwa expressed her gratitude to Dam-ho.

Instead of answering, Dam-ho looked at the scholar lying on the ground. At that moment, Eum Yu-kyung emerged from inside the annex.

Since they were staying in the same annex, she couldn’t help but notice the commotion.

At Eum Yu-kyung’s appearance, tension appeared on Gi Ye-hwa’s face. Though she didn’t know Eum Yu-kyung’s identity, she had sensed through the energy flowing from her body that she was no ordinary person.

‘Who could that woman be?’

She was a woman traveling with Dam-ho. That fact alone qualified her to receive attention from the martial world.

Eum Yu-kyung stood beside Dam-ho and spoke.

“Do you know who he is?”

“No!”

Dam-ho shook his head.

Eum Yu-kyung’s gaze turned toward Gi Ye-hwa. She was asking for her opinion.

Gi Ye-hwa also shook her head.

“I don’t know either.”

“Really?”

“It’s true. But who are you?”

Gi Ye-hwa answered and then asked about Eum Yu-kyung’s identity. At this, Eum Yu-kyung’s gaze turned toward Dam-ho. She was asking if it was okay to tell the truth.

Dam-ho answered.

“I’ll tell them. This is Eum Yu-kyung, the Holy Maiden of the Demon Cult, and this is Gi Ye-hwa, the Vice Sect Master of the Hao Sect.”

“…”

“…”

The two women, surprised by each other’s identities, looked at each other’s faces.

None other than Dam-ho had vouched for their identities. The most trustworthy person in the world.

Gi Ye-hwa sighed first.

“Whew! Even mobilizing all our intelligence networks, I couldn’t find out, yet you appear before me so easily.”

“I feel the same way, Miss Gi.”

“Anyway, I’m pleased to meet you like this, Miss Eum.”

“Me too… I’m pleased to meet you.”

The two women made fist-and-palm salutes.

Though their respective positions were different, there was no reason for them to oppose each other at the moment. In the awkward atmosphere, the two introduced themselves.

While they were greeting each other, Dam-ho quietly stared at the scholar’s corpse. The two women also looked at the scholar’s corpse.

The scholar had no particular distinguishing features. Even in death, his bland face and expression remained the same. But there was something strangely bothersome about him.

Dam-ho reached out and grabbed the scholar’s neck. Then something caught on his fingertips. Dam-ho lifted his hand as it was.

Rip!

Instantly, the scholar’s facial skin tore and dangled from Dam-ho’s hand.

Seeing this, Gi Ye-hwa muttered.

“A human skin mask?”

Human skin masks made from human facial skin were extremely precise, making it almost impossible to distinguish them with the naked eye. Especially the precision of the human skin mask Dam-ho was holding exceeded imagination.

“A human skin mask.”

Eum Yu-kyung’s expression stiffened.

Making human skin masks was never easy. Usually, most were made by peeling the facial skin of dead people through special processes, but human skin masks made this way were not very precise.

The most precise human skin masks were indeed made from the skin of living people. Because vitality was completely preserved, there was almost no difference in expression from the living. However, because they peeled the facial skin of perfectly living people, they inevitably incurred the wrath of the martial world.

What Dam-ho was holding was certainly made from the facial skin of a living person. It was so precise that even Gi Ye-hwa, who had long worked in intelligence, hadn’t noticed.

After the human skin mask was removed, the scholar’s real face revealed was very handsome. With distinct features that would have been called quite handsome in his youth, graying beard and eyebrows, and a large mole on his right temple that was particularly impressive.

Gi Ye-hwa stared at the scholar’s face for a long time. There was a name that came to mind.

“Could it be… him? But he should have died long ago.”

“Why? Do you know him?”

“Well…”

At Eum Yu-kyung’s question, Gi Ye-hwa trailed off. She wasn’t confident enough.

Dam-ho’s gaze turned toward Gi Ye-hwa.

“Speak. Who is it?”

“Well… the overall features are exactly like someone I know. But he…”

“Who?”

“The appearance of Taiji Scholar Go Ju-wol was exactly like this. He was a renowned handsome man in the martial world, but his charm was diminished because of the large birthmark on his right temple.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“According to what our Hao Sect has determined, he died over thirty years ago.”

Dam-ho frowned.

“He died?”

“Yes!”

“But he was actually alive?”

“That’s right.”

Eum Yu-kyung, who had been listening to Gi Ye-hwa’s words, spoke up.

“Is that a problem? Though it’s not common for people to fake their deaths and go into hiding, it’s not completely unheard of.”

“In most cases, that’s true. But this time is special.”

“Why?”

“When the First Righteous-Demonic War was reaching its climax, there was a suicide squad from the Righteous Alliance that raided the Demon Cult’s headquarters. Go Ju-wol was a martial artist included in that very suicide squad.”

“That’s…”

“He’s known to have died at the Demon Cult’s headquarters. He…”

Suddenly, silence fell over the area.