Chapter 109: Pulling Off the Impossible

How many times in one’s life would one ever get the chance to bash in the skull of a Royal Guard expert?

And all this while I was out on a client’s adultery investigation.

Puh-uk!

But somehow, I was pulling off that impossible feat.

Not just once—twice.

“Huff, huff.”

My breath burned up to my throat, tasting of iron. Blood dripped down from the gash across my brow where a blade had grazed, blinding my sight.

The Dog-Beating Staff, blazing white as it was wreathed in Staff Qi, crackled in my hands. Squeezed-out inner force rose like threads, weaving into Staff Threads (棒絲) that mirrored sword threads.

And before me, the two Royal Guards, fallen after the brutal battle, lay with their skulls cracked open, red broth spilling and pooling beneath their heads.

“What kind of monster bastard are you…?”

The last remaining Royal Guard muttered in shock, his voice trembling. No matter how madly he stabbed or slashed, I kept rising back up like a damned roly-poly doll, and it was the first time his composure had wavered.

As befitting the secret police of the Imperial Household, he had been silent all along while swinging his sword. But after I rose again despite suffering a mortal wound, even he could no longer hold his tongue.

“Captain, are… are you all right…?”

Ilhong’s voice, filled with both worry and fear, reached me.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the longsword that had sunk deep into my torso, leaving only the hilt visible.

“I-I’m… fine…”

Just saying even a single word was exhausting, yet I waved my hand as though nothing was wrong.

“Fine? People normally die when it’s that bad…”

“Huff, I won’t die… probably…”

A crimson aura shimmered faintly around my body. I mumbled something about my vital organs being missed.

At first, she looked incredulous, but then she remembered witnessing my regeneration before and shut her mouth.

Still, the blood loss was too much. When another surge of blood welled up my throat, my body staggered on its own.

And my eyes grew heavier, consciousness dimming.

“Ha! So you are human after all!”

The Royal Guard, who had stared at me like I was some monster, sneered as his blade flashed once again through the air.

Swae-aek!

Through my blood-soaked vision, his blue Sword Qi traced a vicious arc and nicked past my nape.

Pit! A spray of blood burst out. I narrowly dodged, but there was no time to breathe—another flurry of savage strikes surged like waves.

His blade shredded the air itself. I could only swing the Dog-Beating Staff desperately, blocking the cascading streams of Sword Qi.

“The life of a Royal Guard…! Even your head won’t be enough to pay for it!”

The high-ranked Royal Guard shouted as he pressed on, vowing to tear me apart until not even my corpse remained.

“Yes, die! Die already!”

That damned eunuch, Wang Jinggong, hopped up and down behind him, shrieking for my death. Rotten bastards, the both of them.

Tong! Tong!

The white Dog-Beating Staff and the blue sword clashed endlessly in the dark alley, radiating a chilling presence.

Each impact scattered sparks of Sword Qi and Staff Qi, razor-sharp waves of force sweeping through the alleyway.

“Khk.”

But with each clash, I felt my heels sliding back further.

My dantian’s inner force, which had managed to hold against two peak experts earlier, was reaching its limit against this last one.

Even the Staff Qi wrapped so vividly around the Dog-Beating Staff was starting to blur.

For the first time since stepping into the Peak Realm, I saw the bottom of my dantian.

Facing three peak martial artists at once, my reserves were finally running dry.

“You monster, so your inner force is finally spent!”

The Royal Guard, who had intended a battle of attrition, only to lose two comrades, shouted in a mix of relief and disbelief.

Seizing the chance, he lunged with savage Sword Qi.

Skeog!

A wide swing aimed to cleave me apart. The motion was strangely large, making it easy to dodge—but then, twisting his waist, his sword arced again in a follow-up slash.

A deadly dance of continuous strikes.

“Kh…!”

I tried to evade, but my right thigh gave me trouble. The deep wound left by the second Royal Guard had yet to fully regenerate.

With my sudden movement, I felt the muscles twist painfully beneath my loose clothes. My balance faltered—

And his sharp sword tip drove into my shoulder.

Puhwak!

The horrifying sensation of flesh being split. Blood burst forth, strength leaving my grip as the Dog-Beating Staff slipped from my hand.

Weaponless, I stumbled back, as Wang Jinggong cheered ecstatically and the Royal Guard smirked wickedly.

“Let’s see if you can still rise after your head is cut off!”

It was a life-or-death moment. The Heaven-Slaying Star within me roared as if telling me to fight on, no matter what.

‘…Damn it!’

Just as his blade was about to slice through the air again—

Chaeng!

A sudden flash of steel burst forth, parrying the Royal Guard’s strike.

“What the—?!”

The expert’s eyes widened at the unexpected counterforce.

Seog!

A swift slash, like lightning. It was Cheon Sugong’s blade.

The dazzling sword light cleaved through him before he could even finish his words, his head soaring into the air, severed from his body.

Thud.

In the dark alley, amidst everyone’s stunned gazes, the headless corpse collapsed to the ground.

“Hiiiik! Hiiiieeek!”

Wang Jinggong’s pale face went even whiter as he screamed in terror.

“Urgh, thought I was done for…”

Clutching my thigh, where regeneration had slowed due to repeated cuts, I slumped to the ground.

Cheon Sugong approached, shaking the blood from his blade.

“What’s this, acting like you’d never lift a finger to help me, and then showing up now?”

I shot him a bitter complaint. He looked like a rag himself, barely stitched together, yet still carried that lofty air.

He had profited plenty from me back in Baekyangchon, and now this eunuch only stepped in after I’d been beaten to a pulp.

“Hmph, did I not say I could help, you brat?”

Yes, could. That’s what he had said. Then he had sat back and watched while I got torn apart.

“And besides, this delicate-looking girl kept nagging me.”

Cheon Sugong gestured toward Ilhong.

“I-I wasn’t nagging… I was merely pointing out how skilled Captain is, and how keeping him alive would be beneficial…”

Seems she had been desperately trying to move Cheon Sugong behind the scenes.

“Something like that. Though your behavior, character, even your words—all of it I find displeasing…”

“Wow, thanks for saying that right to my face.”

Even after saving me, Cheon Sugong wore a look of great disapproval.

And as my vision blurred further, I clung to consciousness, waiting for whatever words would follow.

“Still, it would’ve been a waste to just let you die.”

That must have been why he chose to step in and lop off the Royal Guard’s head.

“Ah, I see…”

As we spoke, that crimson aura surged thicker than ever before.

My body swayed where I sat, and I caught sight of Ilhong in the distance, hurriedly pulling medicines from her robe.

“Cheon Sugong.”

“Aye.”

My trembling finger barely managed to point at something.

“That eunuch bastard… catch him… please…”

I was asking him to grab Wang Jinggong, left pale and alone without guards.

“Tch, do you have to keep calling him a eunuch…”

Cheon Sugong furrowed his brow as if no one had ever said that to his face before.

But who cared? I was about to pass out anyway.

“His skull… has to be cracked…”

Mumbling those words, I wavered for a moment, then finally succumbed to the crushing fatigue and closed my eyes.

“Haah, he’s full of holes again.”

With a pained look, Ilhong applied Golden Wound Balm (금창약) and slipped an unknown pill into Dan Mujin’s mouth.

Her hands moved with practiced ease, so much so that Cheon Sugong, who had tied up Wang Jinggong and stood watching, asked in a low voice:

“Does this brat end up like this often?”

Ilhong, who had already used up more than half of the Tang Clan’s emergency medicines, nodded.

“Yes, it’s practically an annual event now… Back in the day, he even took a sword to the gut while saving me.”

She went on, saying there had been countless incidents—whether with the Murim Alliance, or the Tang Clan, or other major affairs—where he had been wrecked again and again.

Greedy and money-hungry as he seemed, sometimes he would suddenly play the chivalrous hero, only to end up like this.

Ilhong muttered that he was a truly complicated and unfathomable person.

“What a bizarre lifespan. Even stabbed through like this, he clings to life.”

Even the Royal Guards, hardened through training as brutal as that of the Eastern Depot, had called him a monster.

Cheon Sugong spoke with mingled awe and doubt.

“…I heard he mastered a very peculiar outer art.”

“Oh? And what sort of outer art would that be?”

“That’s… a sect secret, so I can’t say.”

Ilhong could only fumble for excuses. Flesh and bone melted away, yet his body regenerated, life force defying all reason. She couldn’t explain it, so she wrapped it in half-truths.

“But you also know medicine? Your hands move skillfully.”

Cheon Sugong asked as Ilhong worked.

“I once watched someone from the Tang Clan treat a patient.”

“…And just from watching, you became this adept?”

“I rarely forget what I see, and I grasp things quickly.”

She ripped her loose clothes to make bandages as she answered.

Unlike with a certain someone, Cheon Sugong nodded in approval.

She was a sharp child, one who could learn ten things from one lesson. A talent worth fostering.

For many reasons, she was someone he thought could be nurtured slowly at the side of Princess Peach Blossom.

‘Her Highness would need a female companion more than an old man like me.’

No matter the masks or padding in her clothes, or the disguised voice—such tricks could not fool someone of the Eastern Depot.

Especially not Cheon Sugong, whose specialty was seeing through human-skin masks—a skill honed by surviving endless schemes and assassinations.

“Girl, as I asked before—have you thought of working in the Imperial Palace?”

Unlike with a certain brat, his voice turned naturally soft.

Her Highness lived caged in the palace like a bird, shunning scandal, yet ever hungering for stories of the outside world.

With a clever girl like Ilhong at her side, warmth could return to that barren life.

“…What, stealing someone’s subordinate while he’s unconscious?”

But at that very moment, Dan Mujin stirred awake and rose.

“Tch, you couldn’t have stayed down longer?”

“Hah? Why would I? I’m fully awake now.”

Cheon Sugong clicked his tongue. He had thought Mujin would be out for a whole day, but this man’s resilience defied explanation.

‘Could this be one of those so-called legendary bodies…?’ He laughed inwardly.

“You’ve no shame. Come here, Ilhong.”

“Ehh.”

Dan Mujin pulled Ilhong close as though he couldn’t bear to lose her. She allowed herself to be embraced, not displeased.

Watching the two, Cheon Sugong smacked his lips. Their bond was deeper than expected.

“Tsk, tsk. No shame at all. You can’t even thank me for saving your life.”

“Excuse me? I saved you from an assassin before, remember? And you only swooped in at the very last second.”

He claimed the last blow had been his—that he had whittled down the Royal Guard until Cheon Sugong could deliver the finishing strike.

Cheon Sugong simply stared at him. Mujin scratched his cheek and muttered:

“Well, either way… I guess I should thank you, even if you just kill-stole.”

Was this what they called “asking for thanks on your knees”?

For Cheon Sugong, long used to the courtesy of subordinates, the attitude was baffling.

“Anyway, that bastard Wang Jinggong…”

The moment Mujin stood up, he glared at the pale-faced eunuch.

Spotting him bound next to the Seomok Clan’s Clan Head and Madam Yang, he nodded in satisfaction.

Then he strode over, Dog-Beating Staff in hand, ready to “crack the skull” as he’d promised.

“Stop.”

“Ah, what now.”

Mujin turned, clearly annoyed at being interrupted.

Cheon Sugong had noticed it back in Baekyangchon—skilled, yes, but utterly ill-mannered.

“I’ll take him. He’ll be useful.”

Mujin’s brow rose.

“In return, you’ll be compensated.”

His brow sank again. Simple and honest enough.

“So how much are you willing to pay, dear customer?”

Like a sly merchant, Mujin rubbed his hands.

“The Imperial Palace lacks no money. Just hand him over.”

Remembering the gold he’d received for the missing-person job, Mujin stepped aside without fuss.

“But what will you use him for?”

“For Princess Peach Blossom, of course.”

Cheon Sugong answered as though it were obvious.

“Oh, you mean that veiled beauty from before? How’s the princess doing?”

“…You fool, that is not someone you may speak of so lightly.”

Cheon Sugong smacked him on the back of the head.

Puk!

“Damn it, why always the head? Do you even know what’s inside here?”

Mujin scratched at the sore spot.

“Tsk, I was going to ask if you’d like to work beside the princess, but you’re far too foul-mouthed.”

Unlike Ilhong, who was earnest and polite, Mujin was hopeless.

“Hah? I never said I’d agree to that anyway.”

“…Still, from what I saw, your martial strength is extraordinary.”

Cheon Sugong thought back. This wasn’t some ordinary Peak Martial Artist.

Mujin had slain two Royal Guards, sparred with a third, and survived. Even the Eastern Depot avoided clashing with them.

Uncertain at first, Cheon Sugong now made up his mind.

“Therefore, you’ll work with me.”

Ilhong had said his office lacked work, that business was slow.

Well then, let the Eastern Depot provide him with jobs.

“What’s he talking about, Ilhong?”

Mujin nudged her, bewildered.

And just like that, without realizing it, Dan Mujin had secured a new client in the Imperial Palace.

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