At every critical crossroad and every place where thieves could easily hide, members of the Black Snake Unit were patrolling without fail.
The Night Curtain was indeed the pinnacle of stealth techniques. A technique coveted by every assassin. However, that didn’t mean it was without its flaws.
Aside from the way it blurred vision as if a thin veil covered one’s eyes, there was also the drawback that when light approached, the curtain would become hazy and possibly reveal the figure of the person hiding behind it.
Because of this, every time a Black Snake guard carrying a lantern came into view, Baek Woo Jin had no choice but to duck behind a large tree or crouch beneath a wall.
Despite the risks, Baek Woo Jin steadily pushed forward and went deeper inside.
I’ll need to stay sharp from here on out.
The deeper he went, the more guards were stationed at critical positions.
By the time he neared the main hall, the numerous lanterns lit all around made the night feel almost like the break of dawn.
Even the slightest misstep could dispel the curtain. Tension surged within him as Baek Woo Jin carefully moved between the narrow gaps of darkness left between the lanterns; he was walking as if he were balancing on a tightrope.
“Hoo…”
After passing the main hall and moving a little deeper, the number of guards on patrol noticeably decreased.
Baek Woo Jin gazed up at the huge building standing before him.
So, this is the Inner Hall.
This was the place where Tang Seon Yeong had lived since she was a child.
It was an extravagance beyond words. Its sheer size was one thing, but behind the building was a beautiful garden and a pond so peaceful it seemed to radiate happiness just by looking at it.
But if one were to ask whether that made her childhood happy… well, who could say?
Life in that place where she was deprived of freedom must have felt like nothing more than a gold-plated prison.
“Ugh…”
He took a swig of alcohol in an attempt to replenish some of the internal energy drained by the use of the Night Curtain and caught his breath.
As he did so, the image of a young Tang Seon Yeong came to his mind, and a faint, bitter smile escaped his lips. She was so beautiful now; it was easy to imagine how adorable she must have been as a child.
He thought of that sweet little girl secretly shedding tears here while yearning for freedom.
“Alright, I’ve made up my mind.”
He resolved to rescue her, and once all matters with the Tang Clan were settled, to utterly destroy this place.
This place held no memories worth cherishing. It was just a shackle that dredged up past pain and prevented her from soaring freely in pursuit of true freedom.
With that small but firm decision, he rose to his feet. Though brief, the alcohol he had hastily downed had already been converted into internal energy and absorbed into his core.
“Here it is…”
His steps led him to a pond located behind the building.
Faint traces lingered there. Among them, one detail stood out. It was footprints.
Examining the depth of the footprints in the soil, he calculated where they might have been headed.
She stepped back using a movement technique.
Following the direction of her retreat, he came across another set of traces.
“Well, well.”
Alongside the marks left by her footwork landing, there was a distinct sign of a sudden twist in direction.
She was ambushed from behind.
There must have been another enemy waiting where she retreated from the first one, someone so skilled in concealment that she hadn’t even sensed their presence.
The battle had ended the moment it began, leaving behind only sparse traces and little to recover.
In order to find her, he needed to think rationally. He had to deduce her destination from the few clues he had been able to uncover while minimizing the time wasted by unnecessary detours.
The problem was, there were no clues.
“This has gone beyond the realm of reason.”
Now was the time to rely on instinct and intuition.
He climbed to the top of a tall pavilion deep within the building while he was enveloped in the Night Curtain.
He turned his body and swept his gaze over every building within sight.
One of them caught Baek Woo Jin’s attention, pulling him in with an irresistible force.
“The laboratory….”
It was the same laboratory he had visited with Tang Seon Yeong.
Situated in a remote area leading to the mountains, the laboratory was oddly close to the heart of this place.
She had mentioned spending nearly every day here as a child. Perhaps this place had become her haven because it was close to the laboratory.
The thought barely finished before he propelled himself toward the laboratory, landing just in front of it.
A large gate stood in his way. It was constructed with the intricate mechanisms of the Jegal Clan’s essence woven into it.
If this was his first time here, he might have hesitated in confusion or tried to smash it with his sword. But he had already been here with Tang Seon Yeong.
She had repeatedly explained how to deactivate the mechanisms embedded in the gate. As if she expected a situation like this.
“As expected, she’s a wise woman.”
A faint smile appeared on his lips.
She might not have anticipated being kidnapped, but perhaps she had foreseen the possibility of Baek Woo Jin coming here alone.
He moved the iron bars scattered randomly on the front gate to their designated locations.
Clack, clack!
With small mechanical sounds, the iron bars sank into the gate, and the firmly closed doors began to part.
When he reached out and pushed the door, a foul stench that had been sealed inside rushed out, assaulting his nose.
“Ugh.”
It was the kind of smell that no one could ever get used to, no matter how many times they encountered it. He wanted to pinch his nose shut, even if only briefly, but sensory perception was interconnected.
He forced himself to endure it, for fear that blocking one sense would dull his overall awareness.
When he entered the laboratory, its dim and lifeless interior looked almost identical to his last visit. It still felt unsettling, the kind of place you wouldn’t want to spend time in.
“Is this not the place…?”
That was strange. He had felt such a strong sense about it.
Some might scoff at relying on mere intuition, but things were different when it came to Baek Woo Jin.
His instincts were honed by countless trials and tribulations and they had sometimes trumped logical reasoning.
“It’s too soon to jump to conclusions.”
He channeled his energy with careful precision, and his vision expanded to its limits. Distant objects became as clear and detailed as if they were right in front of his eyes.
Even the smallest scratch on the wall was magnified, which allowed him to examine his surroundings with careful attention.
Among the seemingly ordinary objects, one caught his eye.
“That is….”
It was the wall furthest away. He walked toward it without hesitation.
The change was subtle, and almost imperceptible unless one looked closely, but there was one section where the energy flow twisted and bent sharply.
It was a pattern he had definitely seen before.
“A formation, huh.”
This place was among the most important locations in the Tang Clan. The fact that the building’s entire design had been entrusted to the Jegal Clan for an enormous sum of money was enough to gauge its significance.
In such a place, the presence of a formation was entirely plausible. However, the problem was that part of the formation laid out here felt strikingly familiar to Baek Woo Jin.
Disabling it by locating its components was beyond Baek Woo Jin’s capabilities. That required someone with a deep understanding of formations, like Jegal Yeon Ji.
The only method available to Baek Woo Jin was to destroy the formation with brute force.
Although it might cause some commotion, this spot was a bit far from the inner hall, so as long as he was careful, he believed he could minimize the noise. As he slowly gathered energy and prepared to obliterate the wall, his hand moved to the hilt of his sword.
Swish.
The sharp sound of something slicing through the air reached his ears with stark clarity.
It was fast. Fierce.
He twisted his body to the limit, almost straining his side, to dodge the attack. A long iron bar shot out and pierced the space where his heart had been moments before.
When he turned his head, he saw a large figure standing still while blinking its eyes.
“Was it you?”
Perhaps it thought the attack was an unavoidable, lethal blow.
With a beat of delay, the figure began to retract its arm and tried to retrieve the iron bar. Baek Woo Jin kicked its side and spoke again.
“The bastard who captured the young lady.”
Though he acted calm, Baek Woo Jin’s heart was pounding fiercely.
If it had approached from a distance, he should have sensed its presence. If it had been nearby, there was no way he wouldn’t have noticed.
Yet it appeared directly behind him, bypassing all the usual signs that should have alerted him.
Baek Woo Jin felt a strong sense of foreboding from the figure’s ghost-like martial arts.
This is just like that.
He recalled a similar experience in the fantasy world. Back when he had set up camp near the Demon King’s castle, he had been on night watch when a demon suddenly appeared and launched an attack, throwing him into a panic. The situation now was exactly the same.
Even when he was at a far higher level of strength than back then, he had failed to sense anything and left his back exposed.
The figure, which had been kicked quite forcefully, showed no change in expression and stood upright without hesitation.
“Diiegh.”
The figure spoke in a stiff, unnatural voice that was hard to believe came from a human. At the same time, its body began to sink into the ground.
No, not the ground. It sank into its shadow.
The figure was hiding itself within the shadow. It slipped between shadows and aimed at the blind spots of its opponent.
“Well, isn’t this interesting?”
Baek Woo Jin let out a hollow laugh as he watched the guy slowly slip into the shadows.
Soon, the figure had completely hidden itself within the darkness.
It could appear wherever there were shadows. In a place like this, full of various objects that cast shadows, it had chosen the perfect battlefield for its abilities.
However, Baek Woo Jin could see it. He could discern where it was moving, where it would emerge, and exactly where it would attempt to skewer him.
“If you stay in there too long, you’ll ruin your body, you fool.”
Like he was scolding a child, Baek Woo Jin spoke softly as he reached under a large jar that cast a shadow in the moonlight. His hand slipped seamlessly into the darkness beneath it.
Then his hand vanished into the shadow as well.
“Now, let’s see…”
As his hand rummaged through the shadow, it caught onto something.
“Gotcha.”
So, you were here.
Gripping whatever it was tightly, he pulled his hand back with force.
“Welcome.”
“……”
“This must be your first time being dragged out, huh?”
What his hand brought out of the shadow was the head of a man who had been hiding and waiting for an opportunity to strike from within.
“…..?”
The man who had been pulled out by the neck and could not fully emerge from the shadows looked up at Baek Woo Jin with wide eyes. It seemed like he couldn’t start to comprehend what had just happened.
Baek Woo Jin smirked and raised his other hand.
“Hiding in such an obvious spot wouldn’t work.”
That just makes it easy to see you.
The man was still unable to grasp the meaning of Baek Woo Jin’s cryptic words, and his eyes darted around in confusion before a fist crashed down on his face.
“Take a nap.”
Bam!
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