Myeong Shin, having left the Iron Workshop, arrived at a marketplace a short distance from the Golden Dragon Clan.
The entire town consisted of this one street, lined with about twenty buildings on either side.
It was a street like a resting place for travelers, situated between villages.
Walking down the unlit street, Myeong Shin arrived at a humble tavern.
Inside the tavern, which had finished its business for the day, a man who appeared to be the innkeeper was wiping down tables with a cloth, cleaning up.
The innkeeper was a truly ordinary man.
His looks, his height, his appearance.
He had a face you might see once in your life.
He had an appearance that, whether you met him as a merchant, a tavern boy, or even a martial artist, you would think nothing of it and pass by.
He had no moles, no scars, no distinguishing features.
As Myeong Shin entered the tavern, the innkeeper, who was wiping the table, spoke.
“Sir, we’re closed.”
“I’ll just have a quick bite and one drink before I go.”
The innkeeper, with a troubled expression, sized up the man's attire.
Seemingly judging that he was not a martial artist, he relaxed his guard.
“You look like you’ve skipped a meal. What were you doing out so late at night without even eating?”
“I was struggling to make a living, and that’s how it turned out.”
The innkeeper put down his cloth and gestured for him to come in.
“Thank you. I’ll eat quickly and be on my way.”
Myeong Shin sat by the window, and the innkeeper went to the kitchen, returning with a drink and a simple snack.
“It’s cold, but it should be edible.”
“Thank you.”
After serving the food and drink, the innkeeper picked up his cloth and went back to wiping the table he had been cleaning before.
Then, he asked abruptly.
“Anything awkward?”
To the unexpected question, Myeong Shin replied.
“It was perfect.”
Putting down the cloth, the innkeeper looked at Myeong Shin.
“It’s been a while since I was a tavern owner. When was the last time?”
“Four years ago, when you killed the Three Righteous Travelers.”
“Ah, that’s right.”
Surprisingly, this innkeeper was none other than the King of Assassins, the current head of the Underworld and the man who would one day become the king of all assassins.
A man who had reached the ultimate state, extraordinary within the ordinary.
The King of Assassins was a man who, upon imitating a hundred lives, became that life itself.
Today, his life was that of a tavern owner.
The King of Assassins started wiping again, this way and that.
How could he make it look more natural? Astonishingly, he was researching and practicing.
“As you predicted, Geom Mugeuk came to see me.”
“What was he like, seeing him in person?”
“He was as special as I’d heard.”
“In what way?”
Myeong Shin recalled the moment Geom Mugeuk had strode forward, grabbed his hand, and pulled the handle.
He remembered the clear, deep eyes that had looked at him then.
“Confident, cheerful, and free.”
“The Young Cult Master has earned quite a few points with you.”
The King of Assassins smiled brightly at Myeong Shin.
One might wonder if a smile suited him, but the King of Assassins was a man of many expressions.
He was also rich in emotional expression.
He could burst into tears at a sad sight, and he knew how to shout and rage like he was truly angry.
But Myeong Shin knew.
All these emotions were practiced, fabricated.
There was only one word that could describe the man he knew as the King of Assassins.
Hollowness.
There was nothing inside him.
Not a thirst for slaughter, nor a filthy greed.
No, it would be more accurate to say he was born with an inner self that could not be filled by anything.
He is like an ice cliff.
Anything that enters his heart simply slides off, down into the endless darkness below.
That was why Myeong Shin believed that the man before him would one day become the king of assassins.
Because in any situation, at any moment, he would not hesitate.
Myeong Shin looked around the tavern.
Devices for ambushes were set up everywhere.
The wooden container for chopsticks in the corner, the old curtain hanging at the kitchen entrance, the pig doll in front of the counter, the hole in the broken wall…
Besides these, countless other things were all devices meant for killing people.
None of them carried the metallic killing intent unique to mechanisms, so an ordinary person would never be able to tell.
And most of them were things he himself had made.
“Are you really going to kill the Young Cult Master?”
It was a question that didn't need to be asked.
This tavern wasn't the only place where preparations were underway.
Myeong Shin’s gaze turned to the building across the street.
He could see inside through the building’s window.
Men were wiping blood off the walls.
When a cart arrived in front of the building, assassins began moving bodies from inside and stacking them on the cart.
The person standing on the roof of the building with his arms crossed was Blood Silk, the most successful new assassin in the Underworld recently.
In thirty-nine assassination missions, he had not made a single mistake.
Among the masters he had killed, the majority were names one would recognize just by hearing them.
He was Myeong Shin's direct junior, but his gaze was not at all that of someone looking at a senior.
Bodies were being carried out of another building as well.
A masked man standing in front of that building gave a light nod of greeting.
He was not an assassin from the Underworld.
Yeok-hwa.
A top-tier assassin from the Killing Heaven Organization.
For this job, the King of Assassins had even borrowed the most skilled assassins from other organizations.
In the building next to that one, two assassins could be seen talking while looking up at the sign of a cloth shop.
They were not tied to any organization but were the most renowned assassins of late, the Black Shadow Twin Killers.
Today, this entire street had been annihilated.
Now, these top assassins would take their place.
An assassination mission mobilizing dozens of assassins whose names alone were famous.
There had never been such a large-scale assassination in the history of assassins.
Whatever the outcome, it would be an event forever recorded in the annals of assassins.
“If we kill the Young Cult Master, we’ll all die.”
“Are you afraid of dying?”
Myeong Shin said nothing, simply watching the cart loaded with bodies depart.
Just then, the King of Assassins shouted.
“Wait!”
The King of Assassins strode out onto the street.
He walked over to the cart piled with bodies.
With an indifferent gaze, he grabbed the neck of one of the corpses.
At that moment, the corpse's eyes opened.
He was not yet dead.
It was a faint sign of life that had not been missed, even from the distant building.
Crack.
The sound of a neck bone breaking echoed in the quiet night street.
Coming back inside, the King of Assassins continued as if nothing had happened.
“If we die, we’ll get to see all the people we’ve killed again. Wouldn’t that be nice? Don’t you want to see them?”
After a brief pause, Myeong Shin answered.
“I see them every day.”
The King of Assassins’ eyes gleamed white.
The coldness of it sent a shiver down Myeong Shin’s neck.
“The decision is out of our hands. It was decided from above. So, we just kill the Young Cult Master and get out.”
What on earth were those above thinking? Myeong Shin said worriedly.
“The Heavenly Demon who has lost his son will not just stand by. He will chase us to the ends of hell.”
“We are not in hell. We are here, in this world. If we choose to hide, he will never find us.”
Yes, the King of Assassins could do that.
He was a man who could live undetected, even in the life of the very pursuer chasing him.
“Why me?”
Myeong Shin’s role was to bring the Young Cult Master to this place.
There were assassins who usually handled such tasks, specializing only in luring the contract target to the assassination site.
But the King of Assassins had entrusted that job to Myeong Shin.
An unexpected answer came from the King of Assassins.
“The Young Cult Master resembles you.”
Myeong Shin turned to look at the King of Assassins.
“I hear he imitates a Righteous Path fellow, despite being a demonic practitioner.”
Myeong Shin knew the words were a reprimand to himself, but he couldn't offer any rebuttal.
For an assassin.
Not killing children, not killing those who haven’t learned martial arts.
Not killing those who are not evil.
These were all conditions Myeong Shin had set for himself during his assassination missions until now.
The King of Assassins slowly walked over and stood next to Myeong Shin.
“Shin-ah.”
“!”
It had been a long time since he’d called him by that name.
“Stop with the hypocrisy. If you keep trying to find meaning in killing people for money, it will only make things harder for you.”
Myeong Shin said nothing.
No, he couldn't.
“If we weren’t friends, you’d already be dead.”
He was now clinging, naked, to that smooth ice cliff of the King of Assassins.
If he tried to force himself off, his skin would be torn from his body.
And he was the only person the King of Assassins had ever allowed on that cliff.
“I’ll be on my way now. It probably won’t be easy to bring him here.”
At Myeong Shin’s farewell, the King of Assassins started wiping the table with the cloth again.
“Would killing him be any easier?”
Myeong Shin turned and left the tavern.
The gazes of the assassins standing around naturally focused on him.
From the building across the street, Blood Silk spoke to the King of Assassins.
“How much would the contract fee be to kill an assassin who has grown tired of killing people?”
He was speaking about Myeong Shin.
Rumors had been circulating recently that Myeong Shin was avoiding contracts.
There were even rumors that he wanted to retire.
The King of Assassins stopped wiping and answered quietly.
“An assassin who hates to kill people, is that person not already dead?”
At the King of Assassins’ answer, Blood Silk laughed out loud.
It was at that very moment.
Whoosh!
With a wave of his hand, the King of Assassins pulled Blood Silk, who was standing on the roof of the opposite building, towards him in an instant.
It was a display of divine might backed by immense inner energy.
Even as the King of Assassins gripped his neck, Blood Silk dared not resist.
“P-please, forgive me!”
Despite his plea, the King of Assassins did not hesitate, pulling out a dagger and slicing off his tongue.
Spurt!
Blood from the severed tongue sprayed in all directions.
Blood Silk dared not scream and staunched the bleeding himself.
Not only the assassins of the Underworld but also those from other organizations held their breath.
The gazes of Myeong Shin, standing on the street, and the King of Assassins met.
Myeong Shin turned and walked away without a word, while the King of Assassins looked for a rag.
“Our Young Cult Master likes to drink in shabby taverns.”
The King of Assassins squatted down and began wiping the blood from the floor with the rag.
“We should send him off from a place he likes.”
When Geom Mugeuk returned to his quarters, Geum Ah-rin was waiting for him.
“Where on earth have you been so late at night?”
She had rushed over after hearing that an assassin had entered Geom Mugeuk’s residence, but he had been out.
She came again and again, but he was gone.
Finally, they met this late at night.
“I’ve just come from a situation where I almost had the highest bounty in martial arts history placed on my head.”
Geum Ah-rin’s expression asked what he meant by that.
I didn't come and go all day to hear such nonsense!
“Are you hurt anywhere from fighting with the assassins?”
“No. It seems they sent assassins cheaper than my own worth.”
Seeing his unchanging jokes, it seemed he was fine.
“Who’s behind this?”
To her question, Geom Mugeuk did not answer honestly.
“I don’t know. I’m a man with many enemies.”
Geum Ah-rin thought that the contractor might be a member of her own family.
No matter how many enemies he had, would they really attack him while he was at the Golden Dragon Clan?
“Don’t die. You have to keep the promise you made to me, don’t you?”
As she reminded him of the promise to make her the successor, Geom Mugeuk asked abruptly.
“Can you kill your brothers?”
“!”
Geum Ah-rin was flustered by the sudden question.
“Do you think your brothers will give up the position of successor so easily? If they were to risk their lives to not give up that position, I’m asking if you could take those lives.”
It would be a lie to say she had never thought about it.
But when Geom Mugeuk asked, she couldn't answer easily.
Neither that she couldn't, nor that she could.
After a long moment, she said.
“I’m not sure.”
With her head bowed, she did not see Geom Mugeuk’s faint smile.
She did not know that because she was a person who answered that she wasn't sure, Geom Mugeuk thought she was the best of the three.
“Think about it seriously once.”
It was time to stop looking at the stars and start looking at the ground she stood on.
Whether that ground would be solid, a mire, or a cliff a thousand leagues deep would depend on her choice and her destiny.
Geom Mugeuk sent her away and stood for a moment in the courtyard, looking up at the night sky.
Then, Hwi's voice came from behind.
“You missed an opportunity to leave your name in the history of the martial world.”
He was referring to the earlier talk of a bounty.
Geom Mugeuk smiled and replied.
“I may be an incarnation of a desire for fame as much as for wealth, but I must decline being recorded in the history of assassins.”
Hwi smiled and came to stand beside Geom Mugeuk.
“The ones behind this are assassins.”
Geom Mugeuk informed Hwi that his suspicion had become a certainty.
It was something Hwi needed to know before his father, who was likely sleeping.
Indeed, once the opponent was confirmed to be an assassin, a strong light flickered in Hwi’s eyes before disappearing.
“The threat to put a bounty on me didn’t just sound like a joke. If they were to set a target, it would probably be me.”
They wouldn’t dare think of trying to assassinate his father.
“You asked me to tell you about assassins, didn’t you?”
There was something he had to tell Geom Mugeuk.
“What comes to mind when you think of assassins?”
Geom Mugeuk answered without hesitation, saying whatever came to mind.
“Surprise attacks, ambushes, cowardice, suicide, poison, vicious, despicable, the highest bounty in history, a shame I couldn't get it. Things like that.”
Hwi smiled and answered the same question.
“When I think of assassins, these are the things that come to my mind.”
And they were none of the things Geom Mugeuk had mentioned.
“Patience, planning, investigation, preparation, study.”
Geom Mugeuk had never thought of these aspects first when thinking of assassins.
“We often tend to think that assassins are impulsive and emotional, but that’s not true at all. There are no people as rational and calculating as assassins. They are men who endure, study, and prepare. That is how they overcome differences in skill.”
The key point Hwi wanted to make was this.
“They will have completed a full investigation of you, Young Cult Master. What kind of personality you have, what you like, how you react in certain situations, and what you say in others. What food you like and who you like. Perhaps they know you better than you know yourself.”
Listening to his words, a thought suddenly occurred to Geom Mugeuk.
Perhaps someone who doesn't know themselves well would die more easily at the hands of an assassin.
“All of an assassin’s investigation and preparation is for this one single moment.”
“What moment is that?”
The moment that everyone knows but forgets for a single instant.
“It is the moment you let your guard down.”
Hwi’s eyes shone as he calmly asked.
“Young Cult Master, when is the moment you are most off your guard?”