Chapter 175

Many of the faces from the banquet were visible.

The dead were all clearly martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan.

Their bodies were covered in wounds, large and small, as if they had fought a fierce battle.

Woo Jang-rak furrowed his brow.

“What could have happened? Don’t tell me Miss Mok Ga-hye and her escort warrior defeated all of them?”

Woo Jang-rak had gauged the levels of Mok Ga-hye and Sinmugeom on their way here.

With Mok Ga-hye’s skills, she couldn’t have taken down this many people even if she died and came back to life. Of course, Sinmugeom was much stronger than her. But he wasn’t strong enough to face so many martial artists at once.

Of course, he could have been hiding his full strength. But even so, he didn’t think he could have handled this many martial artists. If he could, he wouldn’t have been so helplessly beaten by the Demon Pursuit Squad.

‘A third party intervened.’

There was no way Mok Ga-hye and Sinmugeom, who were in a hurry to escape, could have killed all of them. They didn’t have the martial arts skills to do so.

It was clear that someone had intervened and killed the martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan.

‘Who? Was it Juk Hae-jang?’

It was a plausible story.

It was Juk Hae-jang who had hired the Demon Pursuit Squad to stop the Gongpo Sword from entering the Righteous Sword Manor.

If it was them, they had more than enough reason to intervene after obtaining information that the Heavenly Eunuch Clan was pursuing Mok Ga-hye.

Woo Jang-rak approached Pyo Wol.

“This has become a headache. It seems better to get out of here before we get swept up in this.”

Pyo Wol nodded his head without a word.

Woo Jang-rak said to Go Il-pae.

“Let’s set a course for the most deserted area possible.”

“Understood.”

Go Il-pae replied with a grave expression.

No matter how much of a wanderer he was, living with death by his side, seeing so many corpses was not a pleasant feeling.

If it was unavoidable, he would naturally have to fight, but if it could be avoided, it was right to evade as much as possible.

Go Il-pae exchanged glances with the wanderers.

“Seong-hwa! You take the lead.”

“Understood.”

Jin Seong-hwa answered.

He was the guide Go Il-pae trusted the most.

He was quick to assess situations and was familiar with the local terrain, so he could be trusted with the task.

As soon as he received Go Il-pae’s order, Jin Seong-hwa stepped forward and began to lead the way.

“Let’s go this way.”

The wanderers followed him without a word.

They trusted him because they were well aware of his abilities.

Jin Seong-hwa ran at a fast pace.

He moved, searching for the most deserted places possible. But his movement soon hit a wall.

“What the?”

Jin Seong-hwa, who had been running fast, stopped and looked at Go Il-pae.

A look of bewilderment was evident on Jin Seong-hwa’s face. It was the same for Go Il-pae.

A dozen or so corpses were scattered on the path before them.

They had gone out of their way to avoid the battlefield, only to encounter corpses again, so their complexions couldn’t help but harden.

“The Heavenly Eunuch Clan again?”

Woo Jang-rak let out a low groan and examined the bodies.

“These are not martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan.”

That was his conclusion after examining the bodies.

Their clothing and weapons were different from those of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan’s martial artists.

“They seem to be martial artists from Juk Hae-jang.”

The only sect in the vicinity that could mobilize martial artists of this scale was Juk Hae-jang.

Go Il-pae’s expression hardened.

“This has become a headache. If the full forces of both the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang have truly been mobilized, a storm of blood will blow.”

Until she escaped with Sinmugeom, Mok Ga-hye probably hadn’t anticipated that a situation like this would arise.

She had thought the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang would pursue her in sequence, with some time in between. After all, Juk Hae-jang’s movements were bound to be slower than the Heavenly Eunuch Clan’s.

But Juk Hae-jang’s movements were faster than she had expected, and as a result, they collided head-on with the Heavenly Eunuch Clan.

Just as the Heavenly Eunuch Clan had planted spies to grasp information from within Juk Hae-jang, Juk Hae-jang was also monitoring the Heavenly Eunuch Clan’s movements.

The Heavenly Eunuch Clan’s urgent movements were caught in their surveillance network.

It was not very difficult for Yeo Hwa-yeong to find out that Mok Ga-hye had escaped the Heavenly Eunuch Clan.

After a brief moment of deliberation over the unexpected situation, Yeo Hwa-yeong promptly moved her forces to secure Mok Ga-hye.

If she couldn’t secure Mok Ga-hye, she had to at least get her hands on the Gongpo Sword. Only then could she completely block any room for the Righteous Sword Manor to intervene.

The decision was swift, and the action was even swifter.

It was a much faster response than Mok Ga-hye had anticipated.

Yeo Hwa-yeong dispatched Juk Hae-jang’s martial artists to Mok Ga-hye’s escape route.

The martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang were bound to meet in the middle, and they clashed with all their might.

The clash between the two manors was an inevitable step, but its timing was moved up due to Mok Ga-hye’s escape.

Throughout the forest, martial artists from the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang were clashing.

Even Mok Ga-hye had not anticipated that such a situation would arise because of her escape.

Clang! Clang!

The sound of weapons clashing could be heard from all over.

The situation was escalating more seriously than expected.

“Let’s get out of here, quickly.”

Woo Jang-rak urged the group on.

＊＊＊

A vast forest existed on the outskirts of Enshi.

People called the huge forest, so densely packed with towering trees that the sky was not visible, the Forest of the Dead.

The name was given because it was said that once you got lost in the middle of the forest, you couldn’t get out until you died.

For that reason, even people living nearby did not venture deep into the Forest of the Dead.

The forest Mok Ga-hye had escaped into was the Forest of the Dead.

A woman wearing a veil stood on a large tree that overlooked the Forest of the Dead.

Every time the wind blew, the branch the woman stood on swayed gracefully, but she did not even flinch.

The woman standing erect on the tree was none other than Yeo Hwa-yeong.

She was the one who had orchestrated today’s events.

As soon as she obtained the information that Mok Ga-hye and Sinmugeom had escaped, she mobilized the elites of Juk Hae-jang.

‘As time goes on, the Heavenly Eunuch Clan will only grow stronger. Now is the perfect opportunity.’

Knowing that if the Righteous Sword Manor intervened, the tilted scales could never be righted again, Yeo Hwa-yeong made a bold move.

About three hundred elites from Juk Hae-jang had entered the Forest of the Dead.

They tracked the traces left by Mok Ga-hye and Sinmugeom and entered deep into the Forest of the Dead.

News came in of clashes with Heavenly Eunuch Clan martial artists from all over. But Yeo Hwa-yeong didn’t even bat an eye.

“We must secure the Gongpo Sword. The moment they take it from us, the Righteous Sword Manor will intervene. If the Righteous Sword Manor intervenes, we will be miserably driven out of the home we have lived in for hundreds of years.”

She instead spurred on the martial artists of Juk Hae-jang.

At that moment, an old man with the powerful impression of a lion approached Yeo Hwa-yeong’s side.

The old man, who showed no sign of wavering even as he stepped on a branch as thick as a child’s finger, was none other than the Lion Sword, Ak Chusan.

Ak Chusan opened his mouth with a look of genuine admiration.

“Will you really be okay? The damage will be quite significant.”

“I have to accept it.”

“You are much better than your father. You should have been born a man instead.”

“I think so too. If I had been a man, my father would have handed over full authority to me earlier. If I had taken full control just a little earlier, Juk Hae-jang wouldn’t have been pushed back by the Heavenly Eunuch Clan like this.”

“I suppose so.”

Ak Chusan nodded his head.

It was only last night that he had been ridiculed by Hwa Ok-gi at the inn.

Any other woman would have been shedding tears in resentment until now, but Yeo Hwa-yeong was different.

She thought this was the perfect opportunity, and forgetting the humiliating memory of last night, she moved her troops.

It was a level of boldness that even most men would not dare to imitate.

Ak Chusan admired Yeo Hwa-yeong’s boldness and decisiveness.

This kind of gambler’s temperament had to be innate; it couldn’t be acquired through learning.

‘Heh heh! It will be fun to watch this child.’

Although his own martial prowess pierced the heavens, Ak Chusan had not raised a single decent disciple.

This was because his temper was so foul that everyone he had accepted could not endure it and ran away.

Because of that, he had never once felt the joy of raising a disciple, but watching Yeo Hwa-yeong’s actions, he was feeling a similar satisfaction.

It was then.

“Young Manor Lord!”

Suddenly, a middle-aged man leaped up onto the tree.

The middle-aged man wearing a Heroic Headband was Naeng Chu-sim, the Internal Hall Leader of Juk Hae-jang.

Befitting an Internal Hall Leader, Naeng Chu-sim’s martial arts were profound, and his methods were so cruel that many feared him.

Yeo Hwa-yeong asked urgently.

“What happened?”

“A problem has arisen.”

“What?”

“The Heavenly Eunuch Clan has deployed additional troops.”

“What?”

“It is said that follow-up troops have departed from the Heavenly Eunuch Clan. At this rate, even if we secure Mok Ga-hye, we will have no choice but to have her taken away due to our inferior numbers.”

“They can’t have that much leeway either, yet they’ve deployed more troops?”

“It seems Hwa Yu-cheon is leading the troops himself.”

“That’s…”

Yeo Hwa-yeong’s expression hardened.

The top expert of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan was Hwa Yu-cheon. But it was extremely rare for him to move personally.

Since the Heavenly Eunuch Clan established itself in Enshi, the number of times Hwa Yu-cheon had personally made a move could be counted on one hand. But once he moved, he always achieved the results he wanted.

The reason Juk Hae-jang had been pushed back by the Heavenly Eunuch Clan until now was because of Hwa Yu-cheon alone. The influence of that one person was as great as that of hundreds of martial artists.

Naeng Chu-sim said.

“How about we retreat for now? If this continues, the Manor’s sacrifices will only increase.”

“I can’t do that. We’ve already made many sacrifices. If we retreat now, it will be worse than not having started at all.”

“But…”

“How many troops are left at the Manor?”

“Seventy-eight from the Outer Hall is all we have.”

“Deploy all of them.”

“But if we do that, the Manor will be completely empty.”

“It’s the same for them. We have to settle this here. If we retreat even from the Forest of the Dead, there will be no place left for Juk Hae-jang to stand.”

Yeo Hwa-yeong was resolute.

Naeng Chu-sim realized that he could not change her mind.

No matter what he said, her decision would not change. The clash with the Heavenly Eunuch Clan was unavoidable anyway.

In the end, Naeng Chu-sim sent a carrier pigeon and summoned the waiting Outer Hall troops to the Forest of the Dead.

“Waaah!”

“It’s the Heavenly Eunuch Clan bastards.”

“The Juk Hae-jang vermin have appeared.”

Carried on the wind, the voices of people and the clashing of weapons could be heard from all over.

The original objective of taking the Gongpo Sword from Mok Ga-hye had long since vanished from people’s minds.

The martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang clashed, burning with hatred for each other.

Killing and being killed, the Forest of the Dead was becoming a forest of the dead, just as its name suggested.

＊＊＊

Pyo Wol raised his head and looked at the empty air.

A thick blood scent was embedded in the blowing wind.

On the way here, he and his party had already seen over a hundred corpses.

They were all martial artists from the Heavenly Eunuch Clan and Juk Hae-jang.

In some places, the martial artists of the Heavenly Eunuch Clan were dead, and in others, the martial artists of Juk Hae-jang were found.

Their bodies were horribly mutilated, and their blood stained the ground red.

The mutilation of the corpses grew worse as they went on. It was proof that as the fight dragged on, their hatred for each other deepened.

“Great Hero Pyo!”

Woo Jang-rak approached Pyo Wol.

His face was as hard as a stone.

He was a man who never lost his composure under any circumstances, but he couldn’t do so now.

The atmosphere inside the Forest of the Dead was too ominous.

If they were to run into martial artists from the Heavenly Eunuch Clan or Juk Hae-jang, a major incident could occur.

This was because martial artists blinded by rage might attack without distinguishing friend from foe.

Because of that, Woo Jang-rak’s subordinates and the wanderers were in a state of extreme tension.

Their anxious feelings were transmitted through the air to Pyo Wol.

Suddenly, Pyo Wol’s gaze turned forward.

It was because the blood scent felt particularly thick.

“What is it?”

Without answering Woo Jang-rak’s question, Pyo Wol walked toward the place where the blood scent was wafting from.

When he pushed aside the bushes, he saw about twenty corpses strewn about.

There were martial artists from the Heavenly Eunuch Clan, and there were also those presumed to be martial artists from Juk Hae-jang.

The blood they had shed had formed a small pond.

In the middle of it all, someone was sitting slumped over.

A man, his head bowed powerlessly, gasping for breath. His whole body was stained with blood, so much so that even the shape of his face could not be distinguished.

But Pyo Wol recognized the man’s identity at a glance.

“Sinmugeom.”

Hearing his voice, the Blood Human, Sinmugeom, barely raised his head.