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Chapter 47
“Damn it…!”
The scene turned into chaos in an instant.
Watching it all unfold, Gu Jeong-hyeok felt his entire gut twist with rage.
The ambush plan he had spent nearly three weeks preparing—
The countless artificial bodies and weapons he had invested in—all vanished in a single instant.
Sal Group?
Where in the hell did those lunatics come from?
“No… I can’t falter now!”
With a grinding sound, Gu Jeong-hyeok clenched his teeth so hard they almost cracked, glaring at the swordsmen of the Sword Faction who were still fighting fiercely.
He realized now that the real mistake had been making contact with these low-born thugs in the first place.
‘I need to disappear for now. Hide first… and then—! Wait for the next chance…!’
He tried to calm his thoughts and turn away—
But at that very moment—
CLAAANG—!
A metallic clang rang out as a heavy impact struck his shoulder.
“……!”
Startled, Gu Jeong-hyeok turned his head toward the source.
“Trying to sneak off alone, are you?”
It was Min Jeong-hwan, baring his teeth as he thrust his Sword toward him.
Seeing that face only made Gu Jeong-hyeok’s foul mood even worse.
“You filthy Sword Faction dog… how dare you raise your blade at me?”
CLAAANG—!
Nothing had gone right from the very start.
The trackers sent by his family tightened the noose around him day by day.
The man he had been searching for—Kim Chang-woon—had vanished without a trace.
He had gathered these Sword Faction scum to use their hands for his own ends, and now lunatics who slaughtered nobles were storming in, ruining everything.
For weeks, he had wandered the capital, Hanseong, chasing empty leads, never finding a single trace of Kim Chang-woon.
And just when he had finally discovered the man’s hideout—
Just when he had found his last chance to return to his clan and prove his innocence—
“You filthy bastards! Why do you keep getting in my way?!”
Kiiii-iiiing—!
The power units embedded in his joints whined violently, glowing red as if about to burst.
The unstable synthetic body—its output limiter now fully disengaged—trembled under the strain.
“You crazy bastard…!”
For the first time, the ever-composed Min Jeong-hwan looked alarmed.
He tried to dodge, but he was a heartbeat too late.
The devastating strike—one that could pulverize a man’s body just by brushing him—
Was already within inches of his face.
“Die, you—!”
In that instant, as Gu Jeong-hyeok, blinded by rage, swung down to crush Min Jeong-hwan’s skull—
CLAAANG—!
A sudden steel arrow shot in from the side, slamming into Gu Jeong-hyeok’s arm just before it struck.
It carried the speed and impact of a tank shell.
Wide-eyed, Gu Jeong-hyeok followed the arrow’s trajectory—
And saw him.
“Gu Jeong.”
There, amidst the chaos of the Sword Faction, stood a boy.
Calm, relaxed, completely unshaken—
Bow in hand, his gaze fixed squarely on Gu Jeong-hyeok.
The moment he saw that bow, fury flared in Gu Jeong-hyeok’s chest.
“Kim Chang-woon…!”
The very man responsible for all of this.
Even amid the chaos of battle, Kim Chang-woon’s gaze didn’t waver from him.
“Didn’t I tell you not to show your face to me again? You and I—we’ve finished our business, haven’t we?”
“Watch your tongue. I know it was you who deceived my clan and led things to this disaster.”
“Me? Don’t make me laugh.”
The boy scoffed.
“Was it my fault that Cho Seong-hwan liked to toy with people for fun? Was it me who made the Pungyang Cho Clan secretly experiment on monsters just to outdo the Andong Kim Clan? Was it me who built a monster lab in the middle of Hanseong, feeding people to living abominations?”
His retort was merciless—and Gu Jeong-hyeok had no answer.
“You did all of that yourselves. Twisting your bodies, forcing out nonexistent ‘status power’ just to one-up the Andong Kims.
Tell me, am I wrong?”
Gu Jeong-hyeok’s face twisted, as if the words themselves pained him.
But Kim Chang-woon, enjoying his reaction, went on coldly.
“All I did was drag your dirty work out into the light. Your clan’s downfall was of your own making.”
“No. This is your Andong Kim clan’s conspiracy!”
Gu Jeong-hyeok snapped back sharply.
“You seized control of the government’s main system alone! You command the Royal Guards as if they were your own and trample every other noble house underfoot! Our Pungyang Cho Clan has been fighting to stop your tyranny!”
His voice rose higher, drunk on his own righteousness.
“Joseon is not the country of the Andong Kims—it belongs to the noble families! We are the ones who stood against the monsters and saved the nation from the traitor Yi Chieon! That is why—!”
But he stopped.
The look on Kim Chang-woon’s face made his voice falter.
“...What’s so funny?”
“Why? Go on. I’d like to hear more.”
Kim Chang-woon was laughing.
Laughing so hard he seemed barely able to hold it in—
As if the very words spilling from Gu Jeong-hyeok’s mouth were ridiculous beyond belief.
“What’s so funny, damn you?”
“It’s funny, that’s what. A house-servant with not a drop of noble blood in him, talking like he’s a true son of the clan.”
Kim Chang-woon’s lips curved into a mocking grin.
“You lived your whole life as a servant, and now you’ve even forgotten that you were nothing but a lowborn nobody.”
That final remark—
Snapped the last thread of sanity holding Gu Jeong-hyeok together.
Psshhhk—!
Sensing its master’s fury, the injector on his back plunged a needle into his skin, flooding his body with stimulants.
The fragile thread of reason he’d been clinging to snapped cleanly, and the artificial systems embedded throughout his body roared to maximum output.
Terrible pain engulfed him—but in that moment, it meant nothing.
Kim Chang-woon.
If he could smash that hateful face to pieces, he would gladly do far worse.
“GRAAAAH—!”
With a howl, Gu Jeong-hyeok slammed his foot into the ground and lunged at Kim Chang-woon.
The speed was like a cannon shot.
Without his synthetic body, any ordinary man wouldn’t even have had time to react.
“I’ll kill you—!”
In an instant, he closed the distance; Gu Jeong-hyeok thrust his hands toward Kim Chang-woon.
He was almost there.
His monstrous, contorted hands glowed red—just as he was about to tear Kim Chang-woon limb from limb—
KWOONG—!
With a dull impact, Gu Jeong-hyeok’s body stopped mere inches from Kim Chang-woon.
Blocking his charge with both hands was Seo Taewoong, Chang-woon’s bodyguard.
The power shafts mounted on Seo Taewoong’s shoulders spun furiously, channeling brutal force through his entire frame.
“You lowborn servant—what makes you think you can thrust your face forward like that?”
“You… Seo Taewoong…!”
His hands couldn’t reach.
But the bodyguard had anticipated this.
The instant Gu Jeong-hyeok clenched his fist, a grenade launcher popped out from the back of his hand with a heavy mechanical whir.
A restraint weapon that couldn’t even scratch an opponent with a synthetic body like Seo’s.
Yet it would be more than enough to kill Kim Chang-woon, who had no artificial body at all.
‘I’ve won.’
Thinking that, Gu Jeong-hyeok fired the grenade launcher at Kim Chang-woon without hesitation.
SWEETCH—!
A high, metallic screech—and the right arm outfitted with the grenade launcher was sliced cleanly in half.
“…huh?”
The next thing Gu Jeong-hyeok saw was Moo-yeong appearing out of thin air amid black smoke.
Seeing that, Gu Jeong-hyeok could not comprehend what had just happened.
‘Who is that bodyguard? Where did he come from?’
That wasn’t even the worst part.
A synthetic body of class-one or higher was cut down in a single stroke?
There was only one explanation…
“An aura user…?”
Dazed, Gu Jeong-hyeok felt his mind swim.
An aura user with a synthetic body.
No record of such a bodyguard existed in the court’s registers, nor in the Andong Kim clan database he’d intercepted.
To keep such a guardian hidden from the clan, and to amass this kind of power while evading family surveillance—
“What the hell are you plotting—!”
“Don’t worry about it. Say hello.”
As Gu Jeong-hyeok’s words spilled out with bitter heat, Kim Chang-woon murmured with a smiling face.
“This is the friend who sent your young master on his final road.”
“You—you…!”
SWEETCH—!
All knowledge of the incident meant nothing now.
Moo-yeong’s blade sliced through his legs, and Gu Jeong-hyeok—slick with synthetic parts—collapsed, limbs folding like spent machinery.
“A noble’s dog acting like a gentleman—how laughable. The more I look, the funnier it gets.”
When Kim Chang-woon reached out, one of the Sal Group members handed him a pistol.
A cheap, common piece you could find in any back alley.
Most of the people who die in the alleys end up shot by guns like this.
“Gu Jeong-hyeok…!”
“Honestly, I’m not really in a position to say anything.”
With a click, he chambered a round and leveled the gun at Gu Jeong-hyeok’s pale, lifeless face.
Seeing him so pale and broken, Kim Chang-woon twisted the corner of his mouth, looking almost pitying.
“My life before this was a hundred times funnier than this one, after all.”
BANG—!
With a short report, Gu Jeong-hyeok’s life was cut off.
His client—who’d been struggling and failing—died limp and senseless.
At the sight of Gu Jeong-hyeok’s death, the remaining Sword Faction members under the Cheongwoo Association immediately dropped their weapons and surrendered.
“If Moo-yeong gets filmed, that’s a problem. What about the cameras?”
“The Sal Group handled it. They deliberately destroyed some of the cameras in the first volley… their work was neat.”
“Good. My judgment wasn’t wrong, then.”
The Sal Group members sheathed their swords and bowed their heads.
Passing among them, Kim Chang-woon looked down at the Cheongwoo Association swordsmen now kneeling before him.
“What will you do with them?”
“Hm. What should we do?”
Answering lightly to Min Jeong-hwan—standing at his side—Kim Chang-woon spoke in a casual tone.
“Honestly, I hadn’t intended to walk this far.”
“……!”
“The new Sal Group recruits were supposed to sort out the riffraff and roughly kill Gu Jeong-hyeok… I thought the remaining swordsmen would be useful.”
He’d planned to accept them after forcing their surrender—nothing more.
As he muttered that and stepped forward one pace—
“But you know what.”
His voice shifted in an instant.
A tone utterly devoid of feeling.
Not a demon’s contorted face like Gu Jeong-hyeok—but the Cheongwoo Association members who met Kim Chang-woon’s gaze had to bow their heads.
A deadly chill.
The young master looking at them was angrier than even their dead employer.
“You—what did you say about our orphanage just now?”
“……!”
The faces of the Cheongwoo Association members drained of color.
“No matter how lowly you are, you don’t touch the children.”
Saying that in a voice without mercy, Kim Chang-woon turned his back and added without hesitation:
“Kill them. Leave not a one alive.”
Upon hearing those words, the Sal Group members drew their swords and raised them one by one.
Only the sound of blades sliding clear the air—a terrible silence followed.
Pleading voices, cries of repentance, and bawling filled the factory space, but no one listened.
The swordsmen gathered in the empty warehouse trembled and flung themselves to the floor in terror.
THUD—!
With the heavy iron gate shutting, the warehouse fell utterly silent.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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