Chapter 402

A cart was moving along a narrow, grass-covered path.

A man and a woman were riding in the horse-drawn cart.

The man was driving the horse, and the woman was leaning against the cart’s wall with her eyes closed.

They were Pyo Wol and Hong Ye-seol.

The two had left Poyang Lake and were passing through a nameless wild mountain.

They didn’t know the mountain’s name, but Yeom Huisu had said he had seen someone presumed to be Sin-ui in this area.

They had been searching the vicinity for days.

Pyo Wol suddenly looked back.

Hong Ye-seol had her eyes gently closed, enduring the pain.

She had already faced two perilous situations.

If she hadn’t stimulated her Innate Vitality by ingesting the Black Bloom Spider’s venom, she would have stopped breathing. Fortunately, she had survived, but the aftereffects were severe.

An immense pain had assailed her.

Even in agony that felt like hundreds of flying daggers stabbing her entire body at once, Hong Ye-seol did not let out a single groan.

Pain was something she was very familiar with, and her pride would not allow her to succumb to this level of pain and groan.

Pyo Wol didn’t say a word to Hong Ye-seol.

He understood how she felt.

If he were in her position, he would have done the same.

Though they were different in many ways, they had one unchanging commonality.

It was that they were both born as Assassins.

The identity of an Assassin, imprinted on their instincts since childhood, never wavered under any circumstances.

Consoling Hong Ye-seol would be of no help.

The best thing to do was to find the one called Sin-ui.

Pyo Wol turned his attention away from Hong Ye-seol and searched for traces of Sin-ui. However, finding any trace left by Sin-ui was not easy.

It had been over ten days since Yeom Huisu had witnessed Sin-ui.

Sin-ui could have left in the meantime.

‘Did he find Sin-ui?’

Pyo Wol thought of Yoo Soo-hwan.

Hong Ye-seol’s situation was urgent, but Yoo Soo-hwan was just as desperate.

With each passing day, the possibility of fully recovering his Martial Arts diminished.

Pyo Wol continued to drive the cart through the undergrowth, searching for traces of Sin-ui.

“Hm!”

Suddenly, a peculiar light flickered in Pyo Wol’s eyes.

A completely unexpected trace had appeared before him.

A deep, wide furrow, as if a giant rock had rolled by, stretched across the path.

Pyo Wol got down from the cart and examined the furrow.

The soil was damp.

It was proof that the furrow had been made not long ago. The trees and grass in the furrow’s path were all crushed.

Ssssk!

At that moment, Ghost Fang, which had been coiled around Pyo Wol’s arm, slithered down.

Ghost Fang flicked its small tongue, smelling the earth. Then it looked at Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol replied as if he understood Ghost Fang’s words.

“Yes! I know, too.”

Just then, Hong Ye-seol opened her eyes and looked at Pyo Wol.

“What is it?”

“I think someone I know is nearby.”

“You mean Sin-ui?”

“No! Someone else.”

“Someone else?”

Hong Ye-seol wore a puzzled expression.

Pyo Wol’s face was rigid.

The Pyo Wol she knew was not one to reveal his emotions on his face under any circumstances.

Being an Assassin herself, she knew this fact all too well.

Pyo Wol answered.

“Gyeong Musaeng.”

“Gyeong Musaeng?”

“The Life-Death Guest.”

“You mean the Second of the Eight Constellations?”

“That’s right! This furrow is definitely the mark left by the Horned Dragon he rides.”

“Good heavens!”

Hong Ye-seol was truly shocked.

Even to an Assassin like her, the Eight Constellations were beings as distant as celestial dragons frolicking above the clouds. Gyeong Musaeng was among the highest-ranking of them.

The thought that such a being was in the same space made her feel as if her breath was catching in her throat.

‘A Horned Dragon…’

She had heard of it.

A serpent that failed to become a Dragon.

But there was a huge difference between vaguely hearing about it and seeing its tracks firsthand.

The trail left by the Horned Dragon was truly immense.

She had never imagined that a monster with such a massive body actually existed.

Just looking at the furrow left by the Horned Dragon made the hair on her entire body stand on end.

Pyo Wol muttered.

“The Life-Death Guest appearing here means the Ghost King is nearby.”

The Ghost King was a being called the greatest enigma in Jianghu.

His ability, close to immortality, had become the target of many powerful figures.

Pyo Wol knew a certain amount about the Ghost King’s secret.

Right now, he would be in the form of Do Yeon-san.

He had abandoned his original body and transferred to Do Yeon-san’s.

In this way, the Ghost King had maintained his life by transferring to bodies similar to his own.

Normally, Pyo Wol would have had no reason to concern himself with the Ghost King.

There was no reason for him, a third party, to get involved in the grudge between the Ghost King and the Life-Death Guest. But the situation had now changed.

He had a thought that perhaps the Ghost King’s power could save Hong Ye-seol.

If he was certain he could find Sin-ui, there would be no reason to fixate on the Ghost King, but as of now, there was no other way.

Hong Ye-seol had already been to the threshold of hell twice.

If she had another seizure, even the Black Bloom Spider’s venom might not be able to save her.

Pyo Wol decided he had to take a risk at this point.

He unhitched the cart from the horse.

It was impossible to track the Horned Dragon’s trail with a cart attached to the horse.

Pyo Wol placed Hong Ye-seol on the horse’s back.

Hong Ye-seol silently mounted the horse. She didn’t even ask why. She believed that if Pyo Wol was acting this way, there must be a valid reason for it.

Pyo Wol led the horse carrying Hong Ye-seol and tracked the Horned Dragon’s trail.

Finding the Horned Dragon’s trail was not very difficult. A deep, wide furrow continued onward.

Pyo Wol followed the trail left by the Horned Dragon.

The Horned Dragon’s trail led to a nearby lake.

The nameless lake was quite large.

It wasn’t as vast as Poyang Lake, where the end was not in sight, but it was still wide enough that it would take at least half a day to circle its perimeter.

Circumstantially, it seemed the Horned Dragon had entered the lake.

He didn’t know where it might have exited after crossing the lake, so he had to search everywhere. But Pyo Wol was not disappointed.

He had already anticipated this level of hardship.

Pyo Wol led the horse and circled the lakeside.

He had gone about halfway around the lake.

Pyo Wol finally discovered a massive trail of destruction.

A dense reed bed had been laid to waste, and shattered rocks were scattered nearby.

There, a scale the size of an adult’s palm lay on the ground.

It was clearly the mark of the Horned Dragon’s rampage.

The Ghost King and the Life-Death Guest, Gyeong Musaeng, had clashed here.

Pyo Wol spread his Qi Sense wide and looked around. But he couldn’t feel the Qi Wave of either person anywhere.

‘Have they already left?’

Pyo Wol felt a sense of disappointment.

He had wasted a lot of time searching for the Ghost King.

The sky was already growing dark.

It was unreasonable to move any further.

Pyo Wol had no choice but to find a spot near the lake with Hong Ye-seol.

After leveling the ground, he gathered dry wood and lit a campfire.

“Hoo!”

Sitting by the campfire, Hong Ye-seol let out a sigh without realizing it.

Her complexion was pale.

In the short time Pyo Wol had been preparing to camp for the night, her condition had noticeably worsened.

Pyo Wol sat behind her and said.

“Circulate your Qi! I’ll help you.”

“Yes!”

Hong Ye-seol immediately nodded and began her Qi Circulation.

Pyo Wol placed his palm on her Life Gate Point and helped her with her Qi Circulation.

After one round of Qi Circulation, Hong Ye-seol’s condition improved slightly. But her pale face still looked precarious.

“That’s enough now. Thank you.”

At Hong Ye-seol’s words, Pyo Wol removed his palm.

Pyo Wol took out some beef jerky from his robes and asked.

“Want some?”

“Yes!”

Hong Ye-seol did not refuse.

In truth, she was in no condition to eat anything. Her mouth felt paralyzed, unable to taste anything, and she couldn’t even feel hunger. Nevertheless, she forced herself to chew the jerky.

She knew well that to live, she had to chew and eat even a stone to fill her stomach.

Pyo Wol also chewed on jerky beside Hong Ye-seol.

The pace at which the two chewed the jerky was extremely slow.

Pyo Wol had always had a habit of chewing slowly and thoroughly, and Hong Ye-seol was too drained of energy to eat quickly. So, the speed at which they ate the jerky was similar.

“Hoo!”

Only after finally finishing the last piece of jerky did Hong Ye-seol let out a sigh.

She closed her eyes and leaned her head on Pyo Wol’s shoulder.

Pyo Wol looked down at her for a moment before opening his mouth.

“Was the assassination of the Seven Sages Scholar an order from the Hundred Wraith Union?”

“Yes. It was a mission given directly by the Union Leader.”

“Is that common?”

“It’s absolutely not common.”

“So it’s highly unusual.”

“That’s right. They didn’t even tell us who the client was. They usually share information with the Ten Blood Assassins, even if not with the other Assassins.”

Hong Ye-seol replied with her eyes closed.

Her eyebrows were trembling faintly. It was proof of how conflicted she felt.

She was thinking that a great chaos might begin because of what she had done.

She had killed countless people on commission, but the aftermath had never once escalated into a Great Chaos Under Heaven.

If the assassination of the Seven Sages Scholar truly sparked a Great Chaos Under Heaven, she couldn’t even imagine how she would bear that Karmic Retribution.

Pyo Wol didn’t ask any more questions and stared at the campfire.

The fiercely burning fire made Pyo Wol imagine many things.

He was staring blankly at the fire like that.

Suddenly, he felt someone’s Qi Sense in his perception.

Pyo Wol, without panicking, looked beyond the campfire.

In an instant, someone appeared without a sound.

A figure that materialized abruptly, as if tearing through the darkness.

The figure’s appearance was so sudden that if Pyo Wol hadn’t been an Expert of Martial Arts, he would have mistaken it for a ghost.

Pyo Wol silently watched the figure.

An expressionless face, dyed red by the campfire.

Like a person who had lost all emotion, not a single fragment of feeling could be detected in the black pupils.

Pyo Wol thought those eyes greatly resembled his own. But there was a fundamental difference in his gaze.

While Pyo Wol intentionally blocked his emotions from showing, the figure seemed to have truly lost them.

It seemed that no joy, anger, sorrow, or pleasure could affect him.

The figure stared intently at Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol also stared intently back at him.

A suffocating silence descended upon the campfire.

Feeling a strange atmosphere, Hong Ye-seol cautiously opened her eyes.

She was startled to see the figure sitting across the campfire. But, like a seasoned Assassin, she did not show her agitation.

It was a boy who looked to be in his late teens.

Faint burn scars remained on his forearms where his sleeves were rolled up.

‘Who is he?’

At that moment, Pyo Wol spoke.

“Ghost King, or Do Yeon-san. Which one are you?”

The boy who had appeared before his eyes was none other than Do Yeon-san, who had been the Do-je of the Iron Mountain Workshop.

The boy who had been so happy after selling Pyo Wol the Feather Needles he had made himself.

The child who had lost his only younger brother, Su-in, to Jo Igwang of the Nanjing Jo Clan, and had stained Tai Lake with blood.

That ill-fated child, who had ultimately achieved his revenge but had his body stolen by the Ghost King, had appeared before Pyo Wol again.

Even now, inside Pyo Wol’s robes, were the Feather Needles that Do Yeon-san had made for him.

The Ghost King, wearing Do Yeon-san’s face, opened his mouth.

“I… remember. I saw you at Tai Lake, didn’t I?”

“Are you the Ghost King?”

“That’s what everyone calls me.”

“What happened to Yeon-san?”

“Well…”

The Ghost King trailed off with an expressionless face.

He clearly had Do Yeon-san’s face. But the feeling was different. The warm Qi that he had once felt from Do Yeon-san was completely gone.

It was only Do Yeon-san on the outside; the Ghost King had clearly taken complete control of his body.

He didn’t know how it was possible, but since it was happening right before his eyes, he had no choice but to believe it.

Just then, the Ghost King’s gaze turned to Hong Ye-seol.

“The woman. She’s in pain.”

“And?”

“There is a way to heal her.”

“Is that true?”

Hong Ye-seol’s face lit up in spite of herself.

“But there is a condition.”

The Ghost King’s last words were directed at Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol asked.

“What is it?”

“Help me.”