And Lim Sa-hyeon did not wish for his daily life and his own humanity to be irrevocably altered because of a wretch like this.

“…”

As Sa-hyeon slowly calmed himself, the hand gripping Namgung Ok-ri’s collar lowered inch by inch. Ok-ri, already unconscious, slumped helplessly like a puppet with its strings cut. Sa-hyeon looked down at the villain of his past, now powerless and limp, his face twisting as if he might cry.

“I said I’d tell you who my Master is. So wake up.”

“…”

Even when he shook the crumpled collar, Ok-ri didn’t stir, his body swaying limply. A heavy despondency pooled in Sa-hyeon’s gut, making him feel sick. The man who had once loomed over his young, weak self like a mountain was nothing more than a petty, despicable human being, and the fact that he had once trembled in fear of such a man left a bitter taste in his mouth.

If it were Master, would he tell me what to do in a time like this?

Pressing his lips together, Sa-hyeon hauled Ok-ri up again and forced his own gaze to meet the man’s vacant eyes.

“If the Moyong Clan of Liaoning and the Hao Sect of Guangdong mean nothing to you…”

“…”

“How about the Immortal Healer, Cho Yoon? He’s my Master.”

On the night he was separated from his Master, Sa-hyeon’s sister had held him close as he swallowed back tears of longing for the peaceful Estate of Deep Mists and warned him.

“Our Master wants to leave the secular world behind. If we reveal who he is before we’re strong enough, bad people will try to use us and Master for their own ends. So you must never tell anyone. If anyone asks where you learned martial arts, just say you trained under some hermit whose name you don’t even know.”

Since then, Sa-hyeon had never once spoken the name of the Immortal Healer, Cho Yoon. While Sa-yeong, serving at the side of Hao Sect Leader Hui, had at least dug through various archives to find records of their Master, Sa-hyeon, who lacked his sister’s brilliance, had simply thrown himself into training with stubborn honesty. Not many years later, he followed Peng Chijeong to Hebei as a Girded Saber (a guard and escort), so he had even less reason to reveal his connection to the Immortal Healer. If the Moyong siblings hadn’t spied on his room, no one would ever have known.

For Sa-hyeon, this was practically the first time he had revealed his Master’s identity since descending the mountain. There was no one in the ruins but himself and Ok-ri, and a man who had fainted couldn’t hear, so he might as well have been talking to himself. On top of that, even after beating Namgung Ok-ri this badly, no one had come; it was clear there was no one nearby.

…At least, that was what he thought until a familiar voice reached his ears.

“Ah, as expected. I said the smell was similar.”

Perhaps from sheer shock, he couldn’t even ask who it was. The moment the voice burst out from an unexpected direction, Sa-hyeon instinctively leaped back, widening the distance between them. Gripping the chain instead of the now-useless Namgung Ok-ri, he raised his head to find the source of the sound. His heart, which he had just barely managed to calm, began to pound violently again, tightening his chest with a hard, unyielding tension.

On the crossbeam where his gaze landed crouched a playful silhouette: a small figure with long, flowing white hair, a strange, unsettling aura, and bright-colored eyes.

It was the boy he had met in the marketplace before coming here.

“What on earth…”

“So Ah-yoon (兒 er, child; 昀 yun, radiance) was your Master. I thought he’d never take in something like a disciple for the rest of his life, so when did he grow up enough to do that?”

Recalling the unidentified forbidden art the boy had used, Sa-hyeon forced himself to look away from that face. Instead, he wrapped the chain around his hand and gripped it tightly, ready to kick the door open and bolt at any moment. His instincts, honed razor-sharp by crisis, screamed at him.

That’s no ordinary child.

“But Cho Yoon (肖 xiao; 淪 lun, to sink, to be reduced)? I definitely gave him the character Yoon, meaning radiance… It really must be true that he changed his name.”

“…I don’t know anything about that. I’ve got nothing to say to you.”

“Don’t be so guarded.”

The boy shook his head as if pitying Sa-hyeon’s sharp, defensive tone, then drifted down to the floor. The way he moved felt alien, as if his body had no weight at all.

Once he landed, the boy walked toward Sa-hyeon in smooth, soundless steps. Sa-hyeon, who had drawn a blade on the boy even before he had blacked out earlier, now drove his fist straight toward the boy’s abdomen without the slightest hesitation. He still couldn’t draw on his internal energy, but the strength in his bare hands, hands that had once torn apart pig iron, was extraordinary. Simple as it was, it was an attack that could not be blocked head-on. The technique, honed by years of training, sliced through the air and whipped up a gust of wind.

The boy’s loose hair fluttered, and the sensation of impact reached Sa-hyeon’s knuckles.

However…

“I didn’t expect Ah-yoon’s disciple to be this type. He must’ve had a hard time teaching you. I don’t know if you’re aware, but Ah-yoon is awful at martial arts that try to crush people with brute force.”

Tap.

Sa-hyeon’s fist had really only tapped the boy’s abdomen. The immense power he had loaded through his waist, shoulder, and arm had already vanished without a trace. Bewildered by the inexplicable phenomenon, Sa-hyeon stumbled back in a hurry, his face turning pale.

The boy, still looking completely unconcerned, caught Sa-hyeon’s extended forearm in a firm grip and dug his fingernails in. As those neat, white nails pierced through cloth and skin to anchor themselves in the muscle, pain tore through Sa-hyeon like having nails driven straight into his flesh.

“Ugh…!”

His arm, its acupoints brutally sealed, went dead on the spot. As a chilling numbness crept up and dulled even his sense of touch, Sa-hyeon snapped his other knee up toward the boy’s wrist. He yanked his shoulder back, ready to tear the skin off his own arm if that was what it took to break free.

But again, the strike that reached the boy’s body ended as nothing more than a light tap.

Instead, taking advantage of the opening as Sa-hyeon’s leg came close, the boy’s thin, white thumb drove in deep, an inch or more, into the side of his knee joint.

Along with the horrific sensation of bone scraping against fingernail, a jolt like an electric current shot from his toes up to his pelvis. Sa-hyeon hurriedly tried to right his posture, but his knee buckled helplessly.

Now only two of his four limbs still functioned; he still couldn’t feel his internal energy, and he couldn’t even guess what method the boy was using.

“H-How…”

“Ah, sorry. I don’t really want to hurt my martial nephew either, but this body is so weak I tend to react a bit too sensitively.”

Speaking as casually as if they were chatting over tea, the boy stared at the smear of blood on his thumb, then suddenly put it in his mouth and licked it with an exaggerated smack. He tilted his head, rolling his tongue as if he were genuinely savoring the taste.

Cold sweat soaked Sa-hyeon’s back at the grotesque sight. The sweat he had thought had already dried was seeping out again now that he was face-to-face with this incomprehensible being.

“The smell of medicine is strong. This isn’t something you get in a day or two. It’s not sharp enough to be from eating medicinal pills… Did you maybe take medicinal baths?”

The boy’s smooth, dull eyes rolled once in thought, then settled back on Sa-hyeon.

Sa-hyeon, barely managing to hold himself up by leaning on his captured arm while his useless knee pressed against the ground, stared at him blankly. Even as he tried to stay alert by recalling the forbidden art he had seen in the boy’s eyes, one shocking word after another kept crashing into his ears.

Me? His martial nephew? Does he mean this bastard himself who uses such evil arts is my Master’s senior brother? Does that mean my Master, who’s lived for over two hundred years, has a martial brother who looks like a child? What’s the relationship between this guy and Ok-ri, and why was he hanging around Guangdong?

But Sa-hyeon could never be like his sister.

He lacked the ability to snatch up scraps of information, analyze them, recall every connection, and weave them into a conclusion. All he had, earned through sheer, grinding effort, was a body that would never betray him.

Still confused, Sa-hyeon soon gritted his teeth. The taste of blood, not yet faded, still lingered in his mouth.

He raised his one remaining good knee and drove power into his thigh. Kicking off the ground hard enough to gouge it, he sprang up like a released spring and bared his teeth at the boy’s throat.

He had done it once before; there was no hesitation now. If he could land even the slightest blow, he would bite and tear without mercy. Like a beast, Sa-hyeon meant to rip open the skin of this unsettling creature who resembled nothing but a hollow shell of his Master.

However, just as his target filled his vision, a voice brushed past his ear.

“…Where did you learn to fight so ignorantly? I’m sure Ah-yoon didn’t teach you this.”

His body froze.

Sa-hyeon’s exhaled breath, thin and ragged like leaking air, brushed over the boy’s hair. At the same time, he felt himself being lifted slowly off the ground, his neck imprisoned in the hand of a child who would barely reach his chest.

Crunch.

He couldn’t even tell where the sound echoing in his skull was coming from. A strangled groan slipped out between his lips.

The boy held Sa-hyeon’s massive frame up with one arm as if it weighed nothing and casually kicked his shin. The bone in the leg that had barely been supporting him snapped, all strength draining away. The hand still clutching his arm squeezed as if kneading clay, and Sa-hyeon’s forearm, thicker than the boy’s abdomen, flushed a deep, ugly red with bruises before the bone inside finally gave way.

With his breath and pain both pushed to their limits, Sa-hyeon went limp shortly after.

Wol-ryang let go of his unconscious martial nephew’s neck and instead caught hold of the collar at the back of it. He let out a sigh as if he were the one who had made a mistake, a sigh that was almost a sight to behold. After confirming that Sa-hyeon’s pulse was still beating, Wol-ryang spoke into the empty air.

“We need to change locations. Explain the situation with that guy to Namgung Yeong properly.”

Soon, as Wol-ryang opened the door and stepped outside, Sa-hyeon’s legs were dragging along the ground behind him.

All that remained in the ruins were the one who had been watching the whole scene with bated breath and Namgung Ok-ri, who was barely clinging to life.