Chapter 366

At the entrance of the vertical cave, a huge pulley and a large box big enough for people to ride in were prepared. The box was so enormous that it seemed a dozen people could ride in it at once.

Judging by the length of the rope connected to the basket, it was clear that it extended at least a hundred Zhang underground.

It was a tremendous depth, so much so that even if someone made it this far, they wouldn’t dare to descend.

No matter how one got down, if the rope was cut from above, they would never see the light of day again. There weren’t many people in the world who would take such a risk and descend the vertical cave.

One of them was Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol was not afraid of the bottomless vertical cave.

The place where he was reborn as an Assassin was just like this.

The damp wind blowing from underground, the musty smell—it was all familiar.

Even with his eyes closed, he could tell what kind of environment lay ahead.

To him, this kind of environment was no different from home.

Therefore, he threw himself down the vertical cave without a moment’s hesitation.

Hwahak!

Pyo Wol injected his Internal Energy into the Dark Dragon Robe. The Dark Dragon Robe then spread wide, catching the wind.

Thanks to this, his falling speed slowed considerably. But it was still not a speed an ordinary person could handle.

A normal person wouldn’t have even dared to open their eyes against the rough wind blowing from below.

Pyo Wol, despite facing the fierce wind, kept his eyes wide open and looked down at his feet.

Everything below him was consumed by darkness, making it impossible to distinguish between the empty air and the ground.

No matter how much he slowed down with the Dark Dragon Robe, if he crashed to the ground like this, he would be severely injured. Yet, Pyo Wol’s expression was utterly calm.

He was counting numbers in his head.

‘Two hundred forty, two hundred sixty, two hundred eighty, now…….’

Pyo Wol fired the Soul Restraining Thread in succession.

Puk! Puk!

The Soul Restraining Thread lodged into the wall, slowing his descent.

When the Soul Restraining Thread broke, unable to withstand the speed and weight, he would fire it again and again.

After firing the Soul Restraining Thread a dozen times like that, Pyo Wol was able to come to a complete stop.

Pyo Wol looked down while maintaining the Soul Restraining Thread.

About a dozen Zhang below, he could see the faint boundary between the darkness and the floor.

Pyo Wol had estimated the depth to the bottom by the length of the rope wound on the pulley. And while falling, he had also counted to gauge the depth.

Pyo Wol’s intuition was accurate.

He had stopped at the precise moment.

Pyo Wol withdrew the Soul Restraining Thread and descended, clinging to the wall of the vertical cave.

At the bottom of the vertical cave, four Martial Artists were standing guard.

One of them looked up at the vertical cave. But all he could see was pitch-black darkness.

His comrade looked at him strangely.

“What’s wrong?”

“No, I thought I heard a sound from above.”

“It must be the wind.”

“It sounded like cloth fluttering, though?”

“You must have misheard. Isn’t the wind incredibly strong?”

“Is that so?”

In the end, the Martial Artist who had looked up scratched his head and looked at his comrades.

His comrades said.

“If you stay here long enough, you start hearing things. Sometimes that wind sounds like the wailing of a ghost.”

“You too? Me too.”

“I don’t know why they’ve set up a guard here, wondering who would come in. They’ve even set up the Thousand Severing Phantom Formation and a perimeter outside.”

“You don’t know the master’s personality? Stop talking and stand guard. If word gets out that we’re slacking on our watch, we’ll be in for it.”

“Hmph!”

The Martial Artists stopped talking and resumed their guard.

They couldn’t even imagine it. The fact that a black shadow was crawling above their heads.

An unimaginably strong grip and a trained body allowed him to move upside down on the ceiling.

Only when he reached a place where the Martial Artists couldn’t see him did Pyo Wol descend to the floor.

“Hoo!”

Descending over three hundred Zhang underground without the help of any equipment was not an easy task, even for him.

Because of that, even Pyo Wol felt a momentary sense of exhaustion.

Pyo Wol paused for a moment to catch his breath.

Fortunately, after a short while, his body recovered to some extent.

Only then did Pyo Wol start moving again.

‘They used a naturally formed cave.’

The scenery was identical to the underground cavity where he had trained his Killing Method.

It was clear that the ant-like Caves would continue on and then merge into a huge underground cavity at some point.

‘Could they be raising Assassins here too?’

That was a strong possibility.

This kind of environment was optimal for raising Assassins.

Pyo Wol walked cautiously, wary of any potential Mechanisms or traps.

Perhaps because they trusted the thoroughness of the external security, there were no guards inside.

Thanks to that, Pyo Wol could move about freely.

Pyo Wol walked through the Cave for a long time.

The dark Cave, without even a torch, maximized a person’s fear. But for Pyo Wol, who grew up in such an environment, it evoked no emotion.

A typical Martial Artist would need to light a torch to see ahead, but Pyo Wol’s Eye Power could see through even the darkness.

After walking for a while, just as Pyo Wol had predicted, a truly massive underground cavity appeared.

In the center of the underground cavity, a dozen or so military tents were set up, and many Martial Artists were moving about busily.

Numerous torches were lit around the tents.

The long shadows of the people cast by the torches moved about, looking very bizarre.

Pyo Wol naturally blended in among them.

They had no sense of caution, as they couldn’t even imagine that someone had infiltrated from the outside.

Pyo Wol used the Reverse Bone Skill to change his face to an ordinary one, and changed the color of his Dark Dragon Robe to be similar to the color of the clothes they were wearing.

That alone was enough.

The Martial Artists moving near the tents felt no sense of incongruity from Pyo Wol and recognized him as one of their group.

A middle-aged Martial Artist glanced over his subordinates and said.

“If you’re ready, let’s go. We have to feed the pigs too.”

“Yes!”

The Subordinates replied and loaded a large barrel onto a cart.

The large barrel contained a porridge of unknown ingredients. The smell was so foul that it seemed absolutely inedible for humans.

As they said, it was food fit for pigs.

The Martial Artists pulled the cart and went to the north side of the underground cavity. There, a large iron door existed.

Clank!

They opened a huge lock the size of an adult’s torso and went inside, revealing a Cave with not a single point of light. On the left and right of the Cave, dozens of iron doors, just big enough for a person to squeeze through, were lined up.

A terrible stench was leaking through the gaps in the iron doors.

The Martial Artists who had brought the cart frowned and opened a small window on the first iron door. A person could be seen crouching in the cramped space inside.

He had disheveled hair, a gaunt body, and was wearing a scrap of cloth that barely covered his private parts.

There was no separate place to relieve himself, so the man’s surroundings were filled with excrement. He looked no different from a beast.

The middle-aged Martial Artist, Hwang Ak-chu, banged on the iron door and said.

“Mealtime.”

A Subordinate put the unidentified porridge into a bowl and threw it inside the iron door.

Splatter!

The bowl shook and the porridge splattered everywhere. The man who had been crouching quickly hugged the porridge bowl to his chest.

Even though there was no one else in the iron cell, he ate greedily as if someone would snatch it away.

Seeing this, a bitter smile appeared on Hwang Ak-chu’s lips.

“Hmph! What a pathetic sight. To think he was quite famous in Jianghu, yet he’s no different from a beast.”

“Hehe! Who wouldn’t be like that? No matter how strong-willed they are, it’s useless in here.”

“True enough!”

Hwang Ak-chu nodded.

The one locked behind the iron door was a Martial Artist who had earned the Alias Lightning Flying Sword in Jianghu.

He was a Wanderer with a gambler’s spirit who had roamed Jianghu, proving his strength. But now, he was trapped like this, living a life worse than a beast.

At first, he didn’t even eat the porridge provided here. But there is no one who can endure starvation.

To avoid dying, he had to eat the porridge, and eventually, he was being tamed like a pig.

Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates gave porridge to the others locked in the other rooms in turn. Those who received the porridge ate greedily, as if someone would snatch it away.

Watching them, Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates sneered.

Pyo Wol stood behind them, watching the people locked inside the iron doors.

They were all consumed by despair.

Judging from the conversation between Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates, it was clear that all the prisoners were Martial Artists who had made quite a name for themselves in Jianghu.

It was unknown how they had ended up here. But from their condition, it was clear that this had been going on for quite some time.

“Huuu! Please save me.”

“Aargh! A-a spider bit me.”

“Huuuhng!”

At the sound of Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates passing by, those locked inside the iron doors let out monstrous screams.

Some begged, while others screamed in agony. Listening to the sounds they made, Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates snickered.

No matter how strong-willed a person was, if they were locked up in a place like this for a long time, they were bound to go mad.

Those who were screaming now were in the process of slowly going insane as their minds collapsed.

The despair contained in their screams was vividly conveyed.

Their cries hit the cave walls and were greatly amplified, making it sound as if those who had fallen to the ends of hell were screaming.

It was a scene that seemed like what hell on earth would be.

An ordinary person would go mad just by setting foot in a place like this for a moment. Yet, Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates walked on nonchalantly.

Even after distributing food to all the rooms, Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates did not stop and continued walking.

When they reached the end of the Cave, another large iron door blocked their path.

Clank!

They opened the lock again and went inside.

Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates, who had been sneering at the prisoners until now, took out cloths from their bosoms and covered their mouths and noses.

Their faces were filled with tension.

Hwang Ak-chu said to his Subordinates.

“You must not inhale even a single puff of the smoke leaking from here. One wrong move and you’ll become a cripple.”

“Yes!”

They moved in perfect order, thoroughly covering their noses and mouths as they entered the space beyond the huge iron door.

Pyo Wol also pretended to cover his nose and mouth and followed them.

Once inside the iron door, he understood why Hwang Ak-chu had been so insistent.

From the Cave inside the iron door, a medicinal scent that stimulated a person’s soul was flowing out.

‘A bewitching drug?’

The moment he smelled it, he felt his mind go completely blank.

A drug that gave off such a scent could never be anything normal.

It’s not a simple bewitching drug.

It was clearly a type of forbidden drug that destroys the human mind.

Anyone who used this type of drug in Jianghu was marked as a public enemy of Jianghu.

Even the Tang Clan, which was called the epitome of fear with its Hidden Weapons and poisons, did not handle this type of drug.

Hwang Ak-chu said with a deep frown.

“If we stay here too long, we’ll get poisoned too. Let’s finish the distribution quickly and get out.”

“Yes!”

The Subordinates replied and moved in unison.

In the previous stage, they had freely mocked the prisoners, but now, they were only filled with urgency.

For now, they were somehow blocking the invasion of the Poison Qi with cloth, but if they stayed too long, they would inevitably be affected by the Poison Qi.

There were only a few people locked up here. And they were all incredibly tough individuals. That’s why they were trying to destroy their minds using forbidden drugs.

“First, this one……”

Sreung!

Hwang Ak-chu opened the window of the first room.

A man could be seen crouching in a cramped space where he couldn’t even stretch his legs comfortably.

When the window opened, he glared with eyes full of madness.

His gaze, flickering with madness like a demon crawling up from hell, frightened Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates.

“I’ll kill you. I will kill you. I’ll tear you to shreds and kill you.”

He kept repeating the same words over and over.

Hwang Ak-chu let out a groan.

“Umm!”

Despite continuously inhaling the medicinal scent that could make one’s mind fly away with just a single breath, his mind had not yet completely collapsed.

Instead, he was nurturing his hatred for those who had imprisoned him here. That sight made Hwang Ak-chu and his Subordinates afraid.

Pyo Wol watched the man inside the iron door from behind them.

Coincidentally, at that moment, the man’s gaze also turned towards Pyo Wol.

The two men’s eyes met in mid-air.

‘Gyeok-san!’