A sharp, satisfying impact rang out as the man’s head snapped to the side, only to return to its original position.
Being stuck in the shadows had been his downfall. The powerful attack struck him square in the face. Despite his sturdy build, he couldn’t withstand a single blow. His head fell forward and he collapsed unconscious.
“Phew, that was nerve-wracking.”
In terms of timing alone, it might have seemed like a one-sided victory. However, in those few brief moments, Baek Woo Jin had felt a sense of danger more intense than ever before.
“So, there are ones here too who can cross into the Shadow Realm.”
In the fantasy world, they were known as the Shadow Clan.
They were people born with extraordinary abilities, the most notable being the power to hide themselves within shadows, just like the man in front of him.
The Shadow Clan had existed since ancient times. Although there had been a time when they had been favored by a king, for most of their history they had been persecuted by other races.
It was the fear of their innate abilities that could take someone’s life at any moment that bred contempt and discrimination against them.
Forced to live their lives in darkness, the Shadow Clan eventually aligned with the Demon King when he invaded the human world. They became his deadly blades, targeting the neck of the Hero.
“Yeah, that was a real nightmare back then.”
A slight chill ran through Baek Woo Jin’s body as he remembered those days.
They showed no distinction between day and night. As long as there was a shadow, they could appear at any time with their sharp daggers aiming straight for his throat.
Thanks to that, from the time he approached near the Demon King’s castle, he couldn’t even think about sleeping peacefully at night; he had to remain tense all day long while preparing for their attacks.
Even for him, who had grown mentally through countless trials, those days were so exhausting and painful that he even thought about taking his own life.
“It would be troublesome if they became enemies again…”
Baek Woo Jin looked at his right hand, which had just reached into the shadows to grab the man’s hair and pull him up.
His once pale fingernails and fingertips were stained a deep gray. From that spot, he felt a tingling sensation and pain, as if he had been electrocuted.
“That’s why I hate it.”
During his days as a Hero, he had endured the torment of the Shadow Clan for as long as a month.
His senses that were sharpened day and night broke through what he believed to be his limits and grew anew, but his mind was on the verge of madness.
Thinking that at this rate he might take his own life before even confronting the Demon King, he desperately sought any possible means to find a countermeasure against them. He was clutching at straws.
The solution was surprisingly simple. He just needed to step into the shadows where they set foot.
Of course, countless experiments and pain followed before he could arrive at this solution. After endlessly observing those who hid themselves in shadows, he too became able to push his body into the shadows.
That place was not just inside a simple shadow but a separate world that projected reality in deep gray tones.
He called it the Shadow Realm.
After somehow stepping into that place, dealing with the Shadow Clan became extremely easy. Relying solely on his own abilities, he waited for them to confidently swim toward him through the shadows, and then simply stabbed them deep.
However, the aftermath was considerable. The deep gray color of the Shadow Realm stripped away the colors of any living human who entered it.
These “colors” did not merely refer to skin tone. It meant that it took away all the emotions humans radiated in many ways.
The only ones who could exist there fully intact were the Shadow Clan.
“In that sense, this guy seems to be a half-breed…”
The man who appeared from within the shadows had emotionless eyes.
He didn’t seem to have entirely lost his emotions yet, but it appeared he had been partially stripped of his “colors” by the Shadow Realm.
“Could he be a half-blood between the Shadow Clan and humans, or is there some special martial art here that allows one to traverse the Shadow Realm?”
Either way, it’s going to be troublesome.
It would be better if he were a secret weapon raised by the Tang Clan. If that were the case, once he rooted out all the rats hiding in the Tang Clan, there would be no need to fight them as enemies.
However, if he was a secret weapon cultivated by another faction outside of the Tang Clan, the road ahead would undoubtedly be more difficult.
The sensation at his fingertips was more important to a warrior than anything else. Baek Woo Jin raised his internal energy and erased the gray color that had stained his fingertips.
Even though he had only dipped in for a very short time, a large amount of internal energy was consumed. Because his current level was far behind what it once was, the erosion speed seemed much faster even for the same amount of time submerged.
“I need to be careful.”
For now, he had no choice but to hope he wouldn’t run into them.
He opened the gourd lid and drank the liquor in quick succession. Feeling the internal energy slowly filling up in his dantian, he infused some of it into his fist and struck toward the wall where the formation was deployed.
Boom!
Since the wall wasn’t that thick, breaking it produced less noise than he had thought. At this level, it probably wouldn’t have been audible to the warriors stationed far away.
A staircase unfolded beyond the broken wall. For some reason, even with his eyes enhanced with internal energy, the dense darkness obscured his view so much that he could barely see the end of it.
“Sniff sniff!”
Baek Woo Jin who started sniffing as if he was possessed by a dog puckered his lips.
“The smell is strong.”
He could smell it.
The smell of death.
Countless people must have met their end here, and perhaps his own death awaited in this place.
“I should send that disgusting old hag on a retirement tour soon.”
Baek Woo Jin drew his sword from his waist and began to slowly descend the stairs.
With each step he took, the stench of death pricked his nose more intensely.
“Did they build an air-raid shelter or what?”
The stairs continued endlessly. Realizing that the reason he couldn’t see the end earlier when he enhanced his vision wasn’t because of something special but because he had to descend so deeply, Baek Woo Jin clicked his tongue in astonishment.
As a space shrouded in deep darkness, it was the most suitable place for enemies to ambush him, but despite his heightened tension, only silence surrounded him throughout his descent.
“Can one even breathe down here?”
He didn’t know how deep underground he had gone. Just how much manpower had they mobilized?
Only after greatly enhancing his vision did he finally begin to see the end of the stairs.
“Wow…”
After descending countless stairs, he arrived at the bottom where a long, extended corridor awaited him.
At the end of it stood a firmly closed iron door that looked extremely solid at first glance.
Hastening his steps, Baek Woo Jin reached the iron door and placed his hand upon it.
“This won’t do.”
In his current state, he couldn’t cut through it even if he died and came back to life.
Not only was it mixed with some iron that was comparable to mithril in the fantasy world, but it was also absurdly thick.
Even if he detonated a Lightning Strike capable of scorching the surroundings, it might only leave a slight scratch.
To cut this, he would at least need something resembling sword energy, and to slice it perfectly in one strike, he would need perfect sword energy.
“It can’t be helped.”
It was confirmed that sneaking in was impossible.
The only remaining option was to politely request entry.
He knocked on the iron door with a fist imbued with internal energy.
Bang! Boom!
“I’m here to deliver some good news!”
“Please open the door for a moment!”
After knocking like that dozens of times…
Creak!
The iron door, which had seemed firmly closed as if it would never open, slowly revealed what it had hidden inside with a loud noise.
There are many madmen in the world. Even in fantasy worlds, he had seen laboratories of mad scientists who conducted inhumane experiments on fellow humans several times.
However, no mad scientist’s laboratory could be more horrifying than this.
As evidence, Baek Woo Jin’s pupils shook greatly for a moment as he gazed at the scene beyond the iron door.
An unbearable sight.
An unimaginable scene unfolded before his eyes. So horrible that it would drive a normal person insane. A sight that even the word “horrible” can’t fully convey.
To the extent that he wondered if this place was hell descended upon the human world.
The vast cavern was filled with dozens, perhaps hundreds, of transparent glass tubes.
Inside the glass tubes were all kinds of animals. And among them were also humans.
There were corpses with their entrails entirely ripped apart, bodies with skin blackened, corpses with two additional arms crudely attached under their armpits, and even bodies where a horse’s lower half had been forcibly stitched to a human’s upper half.
As he watched the horrific scene of humanity’s boundless creativity being unleashed in a direction it should never have gone, he had to fight back his nausea, desperately trying to keep his stomach under control.
“Well, well, it’s been a long time since we’ve had a guest.”
From within the cavern came an aged voice.
After focusing his sight, he finally noticed a splendidly adorned chair at the far end of the chamber. Seated upon it was an old woman wearing a mask adorned with bizarre patterns. She was waving a pale, bony hand in his direction.
He walked past the corpses, step by step, and approached her.
“Welcome, Jade-Faced Divine Dragon. You must be here to rescue Miss Tang Seon Yeong, am I right?”
The woman greeted him as if she was meeting him for the first time. This was Head Craftsman Jin Mi Yeon.
Baek Woo Jin looked into her eyes, which were visible through the mask.
It’s real.
They were the same.
The eyes of the young, beautiful maid who had attended him in the guest room were identical to the ones staring back at him now.
However, there was no need to acknowledge this. The fewer secrets he revealed, no matter how small, the better for keeping his hand concealed.
“Are you the Head Craftsman?”
“Well, well, I am indeed.”
Baek Woo Jin raised his killing intent and threatened her.
“Hand over the young lady.”
Even a person with nerves of steel would have collapsed, with their legs giving out and trembling with fear. However, Jin Mi Yeon seemed completely calm.
As Baek Woo Jin stood there with a cold expression, the Head Craftsman pressed a large button located beside her chair.
Clunk.
At that moment, a section of the wall behind her to her rear right rotated, revealing the opposite side.
“……!”
Tang Seon Yeong was hanging there. She was bound tightly with chains.
“Miss Tang.”
Though her head drooped lifelessly without the slightest movement, she reacted to Baek Woo Jin’s voice.
With great effort, she slowly lifted her head and, amidst the horrific scene, caught sight of Baek Woo Jin standing firm.
“Baek… Woo Jin…”
She seemed to want to say more, but even raising her head appeared to exhaust her, and she struggled to voice anything further.
“Hohoho! I’ll ask you once again. Will you make a deal with me?”
Baek Woo Jin’s desire was to grab the old woman by the neck and snap it right then and there. However, the situation was not in his favor. She held all the leverage.
“Name your terms.”
The only option available to Baek Woo Jin for the moment was to respond to the deal Jin Mi Yeon had prepared.
“Miss Tang Seon Yeong is currently in an extremely unstable condition. If much more time passes, the aphrodisiac saturating her body will spread entirely.”
The basic effect of the drug was to incite sexual arousal in its target. However, as with anything, too much of it turned into poison.
If the aphrodisiac, which had already dyed her body, were to spread fully all at once, there would only be two possible outcomes.
If the aphrodisiac completely saturated her body, and drove her half-crazy, she would either live in a perpetual frenzy, craving the vitality of men, or become a broken shell of herself.
Neither outcome was one he could allow.
“I will give her the antidote and release her. Furthermore, I promise never to touch her again.”
Jin Mi Yeon laid out the terms of the deal.
“In exchange, Young Master Baek Woo Jin, you must become my test subject.”
“Well then, what do you say?”
It was a simple proposal, and at that moment, he realized the truth.
“Ah, shit… I’ve been had.”
He had fallen into a trap.
Tang Seon Yeong hadn’t been brought here to be used as a test subject again. She was nothing more than bait, a hostage to lure him to this place.
“No… don’t… never agree…!”
Tang Seon Yeong whose voice was barely audible rasped out a desperate plea. Her words were filled with fear.
Baek Woo Jin glanced at her, then lowered his head deeply.
Even if he had known this was a trap, it would have made no difference. He would have still come here to save her. That much wouldn’t have changed.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Baek Woo Jin made his decision. Raising his head, he looked directly at Jin Mi Yeon who gazed down at him from her seat and spoke.
“If you prepare good meals with alcohol three times a day, I’ll agree.”
“Hohoho!”
“Ah… no…!”
The voices of the two clashed. One was brimming with joy, and the other was heavy with despair.
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