Chapter 257: One Assassin
Seo Yu-gyeom alternated glances between Jin Seong-un and the inside of the inn with a baffled look, then headed toward a table.
Food was neatly arranged in bowls.
He picked up a spoon and stirred it around, but he could not even begin to guess what it was supposed to be.
“……What is this.”
“Cheongtang Bamboo Stew.”
Jin Seong-un proudly revealed the na of the dish.
Seo Yu-gyeom’s hand, which had been moving the spoon, twitched for a mont. Cheongtang Bamboo Stew was the signature dish of Seong-un Inn.
Now that he looked closely, it did seem slightly similar. Like a child’s drawing, it was mostly a complete ss, yet a few distinguishing features were sohow still there.
This ti, he checked the bowl placed in front of Phantom Ghost. It was different from the dish he had just seen.
“Then this one.”
“Seolhwa Undon.”
“……This is a disaster.”
Seo Yu-gyeom looked at Jin Seong-un with an incredulous expression. Just as martial arts had ultimate techniques, Seo Yu-gyeom’s culinary ultimate skills were precisely Cheongtang Bamboo Stew and Seolhwa Undon.
If soone clumsily imitated a Murim warrior’s ultimate technique, it would be a grave insult. Seo Yu-gyeom felt much the sa.
After sensing a faint humiliation, Seo Yu-gyeom forced himself to speak.
“I like that you’re trying. But do you think every effort in the world is truly beautiful?”
“I believe that it is.”
Jin Seong-un replied with pure, unwavering conviction. Seo Yu-gyeom stared at his face for a mont, then spoke with a sigh mixed into his voice.
“……Then that’s enough.”
He worked that hard, so it felt wrong to leave only harsh criticism every ti. Seo Yu-gyeom was rciless when cutting soone’s throat, but seeing Jin Seong-un’s cooking made him feel oddly pitiful.
So he roughly gave Jin Seong-un a thumbs-up and then said to Phantom Ghost.
“Phantom Ghost senior, eat it.”
“…….”
Phantom Ghost put on a grave expression.
He pretended to be pondering sothing important.
Seo Yu-gyeom spoke as if it were out of the question.
“Stop spouting bullshit and eat it. The innkeeper put in the effort, didn’t he? Are you saying you’ll ignore soone’s effort right to their face? Then I’ll have no choice but to ignore you too.”
As he said that, Seo Yu-gyeom waved the Heaven-Slaying Dagger in front of Phantom Ghost’s eyes.
Phantom Ghost looked desperately toward Shinsalgwi. However, Shinsalgwi let out a dry cough and turned his head away.
Seo Yu-gyeom scooped up the food with a spoon and shoved it straight into Phantom Ghost’s mouth. His movent was faster and more decisive than when he drove the Heaven-Slaying Dagger into an enemy’s throat.
“Mmgh!!”
“Shut up. Phantom Ghost, you especially were taught by the master from a young age—are you really going to go along with this kind of nonsense now?”
“Seo So-hyeop, are you perhaps using my cooking for retaliation right n—.”
It was then.
Phantom Ghost spewed bloody foam and slamd his head onto the table.
Jin Seong-un wore a shocked expression.
Was his cooking really that bad?
Of course, it was not. Jin Seong-un’s cooking was simply, purely tasteless.
In that brief mont, Seo Yu-gyeom had poisoned the food and shoved it into Phantom Ghost’s mouth.
Seo Yu-gyeom had no intention of leaving them alive.
Hadn’t his master said he would retire? If so, it was only right to kill all the troubleso bastards in advance.
After poisoning Phantom Ghost to death, Seo Yu-gyeom looked at Jin Seong-un’s shocked face and spoke.
“You killed soone with your cooking. This makes it the second ti. That Baek Li Clan bastard also died after eating the Fasting Pill you made.”
“…….”
Seo Yu-gyeom felt the need to instill a sense of caution in Jin Seong-un. After the Baek Li Clan bastard died, Jin Seong-un had stayed out of the kitchen for quite so ti—yet after so ti passed, he had started cooking again.
Now, once more, Jin Seong-un would refrain from cooking for a while. It seed he had been sowhat shocked, but it was an unavoidable choice for the peace of Seong-un Inn.
At Seo Yu-gyeom’s words, the assassins’ faces turned pale. Soone had died from eating that food before?
Since so of them had already eaten the dishes, they felt an inexplicable nausea rising in their stomachs.
‘So it really was poisoned!’
Otherwise, the taste would have been hard to explain. Of course, the food they had eaten was perfectly normal.
Seo Yu-gyeom stared briefly at Phantom Ghost’s corpse, which lay with its head buried in the table, then cut the ropes tightly binding the body with his dagger.
In any case, they could not keep a corpse in the inn, so he roughly tossed it outside.
Slash—!
The sound of sothing being cut.
Thud, thud—the sound of two large chunks rolling across the dirt ground.
Shinsalgwi and Seo Yu-gyeom, as well as Jin Seong-un, could all tell what had happened outside just from the sound. Soone had cut Phantom Ghost’s corpse cleanly in two.
Jin Seong-un gazed outside and said,
“It seems guests have arrived.”
“They’re probably our guests.”
Shinsalgwi said as he firmly gripped his dagger. Seo Yu-gyeom also took up the Heaven-Slaying Dagger and stood side by side with Shinsalgwi.
Suddenly, three assassins—two n and one woman—walked leisurely into the inn.
The twin assassins with cold eyes that contrasted with their aggressive impressions were the Twin Slaughter Ghosts.
The assassin wearing a covert outfit that revealed the curves of her body, with even her eyes covered in black cloth, was Blind Slaughter Ghost.
“There are many of them.”
Jin Seong-un said as he spread his sensory qi widely.
He could feel assassins descending one by one around Seong-un Inn. Even though more than a hundred assassins already filled the surroundings, they continued to arrive.
Jin Seong-un turned his head and looked toward the kitchen.
Moyong Hyeon and Seomun Ak were there.
Because assassins had been visiting continuously of late, Han Seong-chun and Lee Seowon had been sent elsewhere.
Clang—!
A commotion broke out in the kitchen.
It seed an assassin had infiltrated through the back window.
The sound of blades colliding rang out repeatedly, along with dull, heavy impacts like blunt weapons striking.
Kwoooong—!
After a single explosive boom, Seomun Ak and Moyong Hyeon cautiously backed out from the kitchen while looking that way.
Moyong Hyeon’s blade was wrapped in white sword qi like starlight, and Seomun Ak’s blood-sared fists were enveloped in vermilion fist qi.
The two seed to have been lightly cut a couple of tis by the assassins; blood had soaked into the sleeves of their arms and legs.
“There are assassins everywhere.”
Seomun Ak said.
Moyong Hyeon did not even have the leisure to open his mouth.
The two continued to retreat step by step, and Jin Seong-un naturally positioned himself behind them.
“Just focus on the front.”
When Jin Seong-un spoke calmly, their hearts finally began to settle.
If it ca down to it, Jin Seong-un intended to flee while taking the two with him. Seo So-hyeop and his master would surely find a way on their own even without his protection.
Shinsalgwi also assessed the assassins’ overall strength.
He knew the level of Deathshroud better than anyone.
With this level of strength, they could even wage war against a major sect.
“Vice Leader, after all that effort to escape, this is just so inn? You even seem to be trusting those little brats?”
Shinsalgwi did not bother to answer. He was not the type to open his mouth before a fight.
Of course, his disciple was different.
Seo Yu-gyeom imdiately started talking.
“Twin Slaughter Ghost seniors, Blind Slaughter Ghost senior. Wouldn’t it be better if we settled this among ourselves?
and my master against you. Let’s finish it that way. Or what—if all of you swarm in like this, who’s going to go carry out the mission?”
“This is no longer sothing a man who is not even an assassin of Deathshroud should interfere with.”
“So you curse even when soone shows concern. I’m telling you, let’s just end it among ourselves. If you kill us, then afterward go challenge the King of Assassins or do whatever you like.”
The reaction did not seem to land.
If they were the kind to accept such a proposal, they would not have co swarming in like this in the first place.
Of course, Seo Yu-gyeom knew that as well. The aningless proposals he had thrown out earlier were rely ant to subtly draw their attention into conversation.
Seo Yu-gyeom soon brought up the real point.
“No, but listen. Let’s say we all die here. Then you seniors will have to decide who takes the Vice Leader position. Have you talked about that beforehand?”
The twin assassins, the Twin Slaughter Ghosts, glanced at Blind Slaughter Ghost. Their expressions and movents were identical, like a mirror, making them seem like a single person.
The Twin Slaughter Ghosts had strong ambitions for power. They had no intention whatsoever of handing the Vice Leader position over to Blind Slaughter Ghost.
At the sa ti, Blind Slaughter Ghost spoke.
“I have no such thoughts, so stop looking at . That’s instigation.”
“I know that much. Heaven-Slaying Ghost, do you think your petty tricks will work on us?”
It seed they did not know, but Seo Yu-gyeom swallowed those words and calmly continued.
“People speak the truth with their eyes. Do you really trust the words of a woman who has wrapped her eyes tight and completely hidden the truth, like Blind Slaughter Ghost senior?”
The Twin Slaughter Ghosts looked at Blind Slaughter Ghost again.
“……I told you to stop looking. If we fight among ourselves, we’ll both die today.”
“I know.”
The Twin Slaughter Ghosts decided to close their ears. That insolent brat’s words were strangely precise in stabbing at their own heart.
They realized that Shinsalgwi had not taken him as a disciple for nothing.
Just as the Twin Slaughter Ghosts were about to glare at Seo Yu-gyeom again, they suddenly realized sothing. While they had been alternating their gaze between Seo Yu-gyeom and Blind Slaughter Ghost, soone in the inn had already disappeared.
The Twin Slaughter Ghosts instinctively twisted their bodies and swung their long straight sabers. Even when fighting, they moved like mirror images.
Clang—!
Two straight sabers barely blocked a single dagger that fell from the air.
Shinsalgwi had already seized the space above their heads. At the sa ti, Seo Yu-gyeom surged in, aiming for the Twin Slaughter Ghosts’ backs.
The Heaven-Slaying Dagger tore through the darkness like lightning.
A silver straight saber thrust in abruptly and intercepted the trajectory of the Heaven-Slaying Dagger.
Kaang—!
It was Blind Slaughter Ghost.
Even with her eyes covered, she responded precisely to Seo Yu-gyeom’s movents.
That beca the signal flare. From all sides, assassins began to surge in like a black tide.
Boom—!
Purple smoke filled the narrow inn. Jin Seong-un sensed the poison spreading through the smoke and said,
“Hold your breath.”
Moyong Hyeon and Seomun Ak tightly held their breath and swung their blade and fists respectively at the assassins charging in from the front.
When Jin Seong-un gently moved his sword once, the slowly spreading sword wind pushed the poisonous mist away in all directions. He thought it was fortunate that it was a late hour with no people around.
As the poisonous mist cleared, the assassins filling the inn ca into view. They were stabbing to death Phantom Ghost’s disciples, who had still been bound and were only watching for an opening.
They killed forr comrades without the slightest hesitation. Since they did not know what Phantom Ghost and his disciples might have discussed with Seong-un Inn, they intended to eliminate variables from the outset.
So butchered Phantom Ghost’s disciples, while others endlessly surged toward Jin Seong-un, Seomun Ak, and Moyong Hyeon.
Seomun Ak and Moyong Hyeon felt dizzy.
Even chaotic lees among martial artists were difficult, but when the opponents were assassins, the difficulty doubled.
Assassins pursued optimal efficiency. Their blades drew chilling trajectories as they surged along the shortest paths.
Blades ca from every direction. Unlike ordinary martial artists who distinguished between the neck, heart, and other vital points, they sought to stab absolutely everywhere.
Seomun Ak swung his fists repeatedly. To conserve inner power, he wrapped them not in fist force but in fist qi.
Moyong Hyeon had no such luxury. He did not stop moving the Northern Star Sword, wrapped in sword qi.
If Seomun Ak entrusted his body to instinct and intuition while pouring out fist qi, Moyong Hyeon operated an extrely delicate sword art even amid the chaos.
Cuts rapidly multiplied across their bodies.
The only reason their breathing still continued was because Jin Seong-un was guarding their backs.
‘This won’t do anymore.’
Jin Seong-un thought so.
If the fight dragged on to the end, it was uncertain who would still be standing at the last mont. The assassins’ strength was truly formidable, but the strength on this side, including Shinsalgwi, was no joke either.
There was just one problem. In the process, Moyong Hyeon and Seomun Ak would certainly die.
The decision was swift, and the action instantaneous.
After cutting down the throats of three assassins in front of him with a single sword strike, Jin Seong-un grabbed the hems of Moyong Hyeon’s and Seomun Ak’s clothes.
He stomped the ground, spreading a shockwave of qi in all directions. As the assassins halted for a mont and flinched, he used the rebound from the stomp to launch his new form.
Moyong Hyeon and Seomun Ak, who had been striking straight ahead with sword and fists, were dragged out by Jin Seong-un as if they were paper dolls.
Outside.
Jin Seong-un sent voice transmission to Seo Yu-gyeom and Shinsalgwi at the sa ti. If the two were surrounded by over a hundred assassins in that narrow inn, there would be no chance of victory.
Shinsalgwi and Seo Yu-gyeom did not cling to pride and responded imdiately to Jin Seong-un’s voice transmission.
Like flowing water, Jin Seong-un, Seomun Ak, Moyong Hyeon, Seo Yu-gyeom, and Shinsalgwi escaped outside in an instant.
They intended to fight while changing locations.
By moving across cities and fortresses, they planned to disrupt the assassins’ cohesion and attempt to defeat them individually.
However, the mont they stepped outside, the plan was wiped clean in an instant.
A man wearing comfortable black martial attire stood a short distance away, quietly watching them.
Jin Seong-un understood instinctively.
That single assassin was far more dangerous than all one hundred assassins behind him combined.
There could be only one such assassin under heaven.
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