Chapter 23
How Much Is My Life Worth? (3)
The distance between Cheon Yangho and Baek Socheon was roughly ten steps.
At this range, the shot would not miss.
All he had to do was move one finger, and it would be over.
Yet Cheon Yangho hesitated.
Unable to understand the source of that hesitation, he desperately reassured himself.
I don’t have to trust myself. I just have to trust the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle!
The fact that the Martial Alliance had classified it as a prohibited hidden weapon proved how reliably lethal it was.
Once I kill him, I can live comfortably for the rest of my life. Come on. Press it.
Just as Cheon Yangho’s finger was about to press the hidden weapon’s trigger—
Baek Socheon lowered himself from his handstand, stood up, and spoke first.
“If you’ve come all this way, why don’t you come out instead of standing there?”
Cheon Yangho was so startled that he nearly dropped the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle.
Fortunately, instead of dropping it, he managed to conceal it inside his sleeve.
I even suppressed my breathing. How did he know I was here?
Moreover, he had been told that Baek Socheon did not possess internal energy.
How, then, had he sensed his presence?
Cheon Yangho emerged from the darkness.
“You appeared to be practicing martial arts, so I was about to leave without disturbing you. You’re working hard despite the heat.”
“I thought people in the countryside would be warmhearted, but after coming here, I discovered they’re even more vicious. That’s why I have to keep training.”
“You’re right. The days when people claimed country folk were kind are long gone. Well, keep up the hard work.”
Afraid that the hidden weapon inside his sleeve might be discovered, Cheon Yangho hurriedly tried to turn away.
Baek Socheon’s question stopped him.
“Is the investigation into the Yang Chu case going well?”
“We’re still completely in the dark. The culprit moves so unpredictably that we haven’t found any clues.”
“It couldn’t be that you simply have no desire to catch them, could it?”
Cheon Yangho’s brow immediately tightened.
Look at this bastard.
He concealed the cold anger rising inside him with a smile.
“It must be due to my own lack of ability.”
Now that he knew Baek Socheon was no ordinary opponent, he could not treat him carelessly.
“By the way, how did you notice my presence?”
Cheon Yangho wanted to add, Even though you don’t possess internal energy, but he could not.
Doing so would reveal that he had investigated Baek Socheon.
“My senses are quite sharp. Didn’t I identify the hundred-year-old fleeceflower root inside that box by smell before?”
“Ah, that’s right. You truly possess extraordinary senses.”
Cheon Yangho believed he now understood how Baek Socheon had noticed him.
It was my scent.
He assumed Baek Socheon had detected the smell coming from his body.
This time, however, it had not been Baek Socheon’s sense of smell.
It had been his sixth sense.
After losing his internal energy, his innate senses had developed to an even greater degree as his physical abilities recovered.
Not only had his five senses sharpened, but his instinctive sixth sense had also become far more accurate.
The development of his senses followed the same principle as the strengthening of his physical abilities.
Just as his body had surpassed its limits to compensate for the absence of internal energy, his physical senses had also grown incomparably sharper.
As they spoke, the distance between Baek Socheon and Cheon Yangho had narrowed to only three or four steps.
Naturally, Cheon Yangho’s heart began pounding.
Should I finish him today? At this distance, I can definitely kill him.
He had never heard of any martial artist evading the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle from only three or four steps away.
More importantly, he had already learned from his fellow recruit Gwak that Baek Socheon could no longer use internal energy.
No matter how sharp Baek Socheon’s nose was, he could not smell his way out of the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle’s path.
There was one more fact that tempted Cheon Yangho even further.
Baek Socheon was not wary of him in the slightest.
While wiping away his sweat, he was not even looking in Cheon Yangho’s direction.
Now. All I have to do is move one finger, and twenty thousand taels will be mine.
He would be able to live in luxury for the rest of his life without ever worrying about money.
Wait for the right moment and fire. Fire.
It was not as though this was his first time killing someone, yet his heart was pounding uncontrollably.
Just then, Baek Socheon glanced at him.
“You seem nervous.”
“Do I? It must be because of the heat. I’ve always been unusually weak against hot weather.”
“You’re not unusually weak against bribes too, are you?”
“What?”
“Don’t get angry. It was only a joke. You always seem to take the Shinhwa Gang’s side, so I thought I’d tease you.”
Cheon Yangho nodded with an expression suggesting that he did not mind.
“Bring me a cup of water.”
“Wait here for a moment.”
It happened the instant Baek Socheon turned his back.
Shup!
Both men stopped moving.
Cheon Yangho was aiming the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle at Baek Socheon.
Baek Socheon turned his head and looked toward his own back.
Something had just flown into it and embedded itself there.
Cheon Yangho’s face brightened.
As expected, nothing unexpected had occurred.
The needle had flown straight into its target so easily that he could not understand why he had been trembling so much.
“Ah, that stings! What is this?”
“What else could it be? It’s the needle that’ll send you straight to paradise through the gates of hell! Hahahaha!”
When Baek Socheon tried to pull it out, Cheon Yangho sneered.
“It’s too late. The needle melts the moment it enters the body. The deadly poison coating it has already spread through you.”
“Why did you attack me?”
“Because someone asked me to, and because I was paid. That’s right. You saw through me. I’m on the Shinhwa Gang’s payroll. They give me more money than the Alliance does. Wouldn’t you take it too?”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s because you’re an idiot. No, wait. You must have received a large salary when you were successful in the Iron Sword Unit.”
The thought of acquiring twenty thousand taels put Cheon Yangho in such a good mood that he began revealing things he had no need to say.
“I obtained this hidden weapon by chance several years ago. I planned to use it either to save my life or when an opportunity came to change my destiny. I never expected that day to be today.”
“At least you were right about one thing.”
“What?”
“This is the moment your life changes.”
Only then did Cheon Yangho notice that Baek Socheon was still standing normally, even though enough time had already passed for him to collapse.
Anxiety surged within him.
Cheon Yangho looked down at the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle in his hand.
Surely it wasn’t defective.
As though reading his anxious thoughts, Baek Socheon spoke.
“There was nothing wrong with the Ten-Step Life-Severing Needle.”
Cheon Yangho became even more shocked when Baek Socheon correctly named the hidden weapon.
“Then why?”
His voice trembled.
“There was a time when assassins hounded me relentlessly. I nearly suffered poisoning several times back then, so I went through a lot. Still, it was a period when the Alliance couldn’t afford to lose me, so they invested heavily in protecting me. A Divine Physician and even a Poison Physician stepped forward and used all kinds of rare medicinal herbs and poisonous plants on me.”
“What exactly are you trying to say...?”
A possibility suddenly occurred to Cheon Yangho.
He flinched and shouted,
“A Body Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons?”
“That’s what people in the martial world call my body.”
“But you don’t possess internal energy!”
“Listen. A Body Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons is the result of altering one’s constitution. An enormous amount of internal energy is required during the process of creating such a body, but once the constitution has been completely transformed, it has nothing to do with internal energy.”
Cheon Yangho was horrified.
Questions flashed through his mind.
What is this? Why did they transform this bastard into someone with a Body Invulnerable to Ten Thousand Poisons? Why would they do that for a mere Iron Sword Unit squad leader?
However, this was not the time to remain frozen in shock.
Cheon Yangho threw aside the empty hidden-weapon cylinder and drew his sword.
There was still hope.
His opponent possessed no internal energy.
Corrupt though he might have been, Cheon Yangho was still a unit captain of a regional division.
His sword thrust toward Baek Socheon’s vital point with speed and precision.
However, his martial arts were one level below Cheuksu’s, while Baek Socheon’s physical abilities had improved since his fight with Cheuksu.
Baek Socheon could have used him as a training partner, as he had done with Cheuksu, or toyed with him without the slightest difficulty.
Instead, Baek Socheon chose to disable him as quickly as possible.
That meant Cheon Yangho possessed no value in either regard.
Swoosh!
Evading the first incoming attack, Baek Socheon struck Cheon Yangho’s knee.
Crack!
A sharp, powerful kick bent the knee joint sideways.
“Argh!”
Cheon Yangho staggered and swung his sword.
As though he had already anticipated that reaction, Baek Socheon leaned backward and kicked him in the abdomen.
Thud!
Cheon Yangho slid backward.
The kick seemed light, yet the pain made him feel as though his intestines were about to burst.
He clutched his stomach with his left hand and attempted to thrust his sword again.
At that moment, Cheon Yangho forgot that his knee was injured, and his balance collapsed.
The next instant—
Pow!
Baek Socheon’s body rotated as though performing a somersault, and his foot struck Cheon Yangho beneath the chin.
There was no magnificent duel.
It ended with that single exchange.
Cheon Yangho was lifted completely off the ground before plunging headfirst into the earth.
Baek Socheon picked up the sword Cheon Yangho had dropped.
He used it to slap the unconscious man’s cheek.
Before long, Cheon Yangho regained consciousness.
Looking up at Baek Socheon standing over him, he shouted,
“Please spare me!”
“Get up.”
“Yes!”
Cheon Yangho sprang upright and immediately knelt.
He was a man who valued nothing in the world more than himself.
Now that his life was at stake, his mind began working solely for the sake of survival.
“Cheuksu is buried beneath your feet.”
Cheon Yangho flinched and looked down at the ground beneath him.
He had already suspected that Baek Socheon had killed Cheuksu.
What shocked him now was the fact that Baek Socheon had buried the corpse in his own front yard.
“Don’t look at me like that. I don’t have a hobby of collecting corpses in my yard.”
“Ah, yes.”
“Still, I suppose there’s room to bury a few more. Cheuksu must be lonely.”
“Please spare my life.”
“Why should I?”
Cheon Yangho understood that one wrong answer would result in his immediate death.
“Please accept this first.”
He held out the envelope Wang Gon had given him.
It pained him terribly to surrender it, but surviving came first.
“Wang Gon gave me this money to kill you, Warrior Baek.”
His first attempt was to shift all responsibility onto Wang Gon.
Baek Socheon extended the sword horizontally, and Cheon Yangho placed the envelope on the flat of the blade.
Slide.
When Baek Socheon raised the sword, the envelope slid along the blade toward him.
Baek Socheon checked the amount inside.
“My life is only worth this much?”
“I was promised the same amount again after succeeding.”
“That’s still only twenty thousand taels. Are these bastards joking? Do you know how large the bounty the Cheukcheon Alliance placed on my head was in my prime? Three million taels.”
Cheon Yangho could not understand Baek Socheon at all as he spoke as though bragging.
No matter how successful Baek Socheon had been in the Iron Sword Unit, three million taels?
This lunatic! Just because he’s holding the sword, he’s spouting whatever nonsense comes into his head.
However, even if Baek Socheon had claimed the bounty was ten million taels, this was a situation where Cheon Yangho had to shower him with praise.
“Wang Gon simply failed to recognize a hero of the martial world.”
“You failed to recognize me too.”
“How could an insignificant wretch like me possibly know anything?”
Cheon Yangho’s tongue moved solely according to his survival instinct.
“Did Wang Gon order the slaughter of Yang Chu’s family?”
“It seems so.”
“Seems so?”
“He never revealed it to me directly... but I am convinced that he did.”
Cheon Yangho quickly described the impression he had received from Wang Gon’s son, Wang U, as well as Wang Gon’s behavior when commissioning this assassination.
“They were definitely responsible. Those dog-like bastards! They’re not even human!”
“Who carried out the killings?”
“I don’t know who the culprit was. I’ll personally investigate it from now on.”
Baek Socheon could tell that Cheon Yangho did not know the Shinhwa Gang had commissioned the Seven Swords Society.
He was nothing more than a corrupt martial artist who accepted bribes.
“From now on, I will serve you, Warrior Baek.”
“Serve me? Why?”
“You’ll find me useful. Give me any troublesome work you don’t wish to handle.”
Of course, the only thoughts inside Cheon Yangho’s mind were his desire for revenge against Baek Socheon and the need to conceal it.
“Listen, Unit Captain Cheon.”
“Please give me your orders.”
“I dislike men with vile tempers. Since my own temper is already terrible, I prefer keeping good-natured people around me. You understand, don’t you?”
Cheon Yangho answered quickly.
“I’ll change my personality from now on. I’ll turn over a new leaf. I’ll do anything you ask.”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
“Is there anything that cannot be accomplished through effort?”
“Fine. Let’s say that’s true. There’s still one problem.”
“Please tell me!”
Baek Socheon stared at him and asked,
“Have you ever spared someone who tried to kill you?”
“I have!”
The answer came reflexively.
By a miraculous coincidence, there had been exactly one such incident.
In truth, Cheon Yangho had not spared the man. He had merely failed to kill him because the bastard had fled far beyond the borders.
“There was once a time when I showed compassion and spared someone!”
The instant he finished speaking—
Swoosh—slice!
Baek Socheon cut through Cheon Yangho’s neck with a single stroke of the sword in his hand.
Splat!
Blood erupted from Cheon Yangho’s neck like a fountain.
He collapsed dead without managing to leave behind a single word.
Looking down at the corpse, Baek Socheon spoke coldly.
“I haven’t.”
Then he looked at the sword in his hand and suddenly realized his mistake.
He tossed it beside Cheon Yangho’s corpse.
“Ah. I said I wasn’t going to use a sword....”