Among the twelve sons of the Heavenly Demon, those who managed to survive the Bottom Point were then continuously tested for their abilities just because they were the sons of the Heavenly Demon.
“Baek Joong-hyuk. You will stay in the Dark Demon Unit for a year from now.”
The Dark Demon was an assassination unit of the Demonic Sect. That unit was set as the stage to test Baek Joong-hyuk out. Obviously, his older brothers were also given tasks one after another, and just like that, Baek Joong-hyuk was ordered to assassinate a member of the sect. Actually, it wasn’t that difficult. He only had to chase down a low-level member who had caused trouble for the sect and escaped. Baek Joong-hyuk was able to take his life only after 3 days after he had taken up the mission.
The second mission was more difficult than the first one. The assassination target was a member of the Forces of Evil, and the rumors said he was quite abusive and violent. Baek Joong-hyuk went to him immediately and asked for a duel. The duel was quite fierce. The warrior of the Forces of Evil was able to push back Baek Joong-hyuk without himself being pushed back. Nonetheless, his head was cut off because of a single mistake.
Baek Joong-hyuk finished the second mission even faster than the first one. And when the members of the sect saw him return so soon, they commented he was talented enough to run the unit itself.
Nevertheless, his third mission was to assassinate the leader of an orthodox sect. Obviously, Baek Joong-hyuk had no chance of winning against him in a face-to-face confrontation. Unlike how he had dealt with the warrior in the second mission, he couldn’t fight openly this time. Also, as he was ordered to finish the mission in less than a week, Baek Joong-hyuk had no choice but to choose another method. That was the point when Baek Joong-hyuk began to learn about the darkness.
He continuously followed the sect leader while keeping himself hidden. Once he had grasped all of the sect leader’s routines, he attempted to assassinate him. The plan was perfect. The sect leader had never thought that the assassin would be hiding below the toilet, and he met a humble end like that. In the mission, Baek Joong-hyuk was absolutely faithful to reality in order to survive.
As time went on, he came to be known as the strongest of the Dark Demon Unit and preferred fighting his enemies face-to-face, but when he had no strength to stand up while facing his enemies, he knew how to hide in the shadows and used his assassination techniques to the fullest. That was a separate issue from pride. If Baek Joong-hyuk had been a person who held his pride up high from the start, he would have died at the beginning of the tests themselves.
As time passed, Baek Joong-hyuk killed a lot of people. In the process, he mastered the assassination techniques and didn’t choose any other means to carry out his missions. Finally, after one year, the Shadow Ghost of the Demonic Sect had killed 38 masters of Murim. A saying originated because of that—one cannot avoid death the moment they become the target of the Shadow Ghost.
That was the secret of Roman Dmitry, something the current people didn’t know about.
While explaining this operation, when he mentioned that he would face the Hector Kingdom alone, almost all of Roman’s soldiers protested.
“Absolutely not! This does not mean I question my liege’s abilities. As it is my liege we are talking about, I am certain that you can produce results with your skill. Nevertheless, the number of troops of the enemy is too large. The Hector Kingdom has prepared for a full-scale war with its current troops. Even if our liege is someone who is unlikely to get hurt while dealing with Hector, we have no choice but to worry about the worst as we are your soldiers,” said Chris.
Unlike Kevin, who was calm, Chris was trying to stop Roman with an exasperated voice. The other soldiers were no different. Even the newcomer, McBurney, had the same opinion as Chris.
“That is an impossible mission. The southern mountains are too steep. It may seem like you can deal with many enemies with a small number of troops, using the terrain as an advantage at first glance, but it isn’t that easy. It’s because of the limited mobility in this terrain. And since there are very few mountain trails around which human passage is possible, it will be easy for the enemies to pursue you. Please, think again.”
He couldn’t seem to accept Roman’s plan. Actually, with less than 200 troops, it didn’t even make any sense to try and deal with the Hector Kingdom.
Nevertheless, Roman decided to stick to his plan, which was beyond everyone else’s common sense. What he needed now wasn’t persuasion and changing others’ common sense, but blind faith and his soldiers following the plan.
“If you believe in me, follow this plan.”
That was it. As soon as he heard those few words, Chris went silent. New people like McBurney still couldn’t accept it, but all those who followed Roman were different. Who was Roman Dmitry? He was a man who was beyond the common sense of others. In the process of Roman annihilating the Barco family, and even when he dealt with the Blood Fang, they hadn’t seen only one or two parts that didn’t make sense.
And now, Roman had appeared by himself in front of his enemies. As he saw the torches rushing in from all directions, he, once again, surrendered himself to the pitch-black darkness.
Crackle!
All of Hector’s soldiers lit their torches and moved to and fro to find Roman with the help of the illuminated torches, but they still couldn’t find him.
‘The Shadow King’s martial arts started with becoming one with the darkness.’
Baek Joong-hyuk had learned that in the library of the Demonic Sect back when he was known as the Shadow Ghost. The Shadow King was a person who had left a mark in the history of Murim. At first, he was only a simple thief, but he later learned to use the darkness to his advantage and eventually turned into a tyrant known as the Great Thief. Since then, the value of the things he stole continued to change. Rather than aiming for the pockets of the wealthy, he moved on to the sects and clans of Murim.
He stole from those in the Five Great Clans, such as the Namgung and Zhuge Clans, from those in the Forces of Evil, and even dared to set foot in the Hundred Thousand Mountains. If he hadn’t tried to move up from there, the Shadow King would have been able to live like a legend. Nonetheless, fascinated by the abilities, he came to covet the treasure of the Heavenly Demon, and when he tried to steal it, he met a horrible end.
The invincibility of Shadow King was mainly because he always assimilated into the darkness. Even if he was right in front of the face of someone, it was difficult to discern that, and even when he stepped on leaves, no sound could be heard. He was truly a perfect hider.
When the place that had been illuminated with the fire from the torch until just a moment ago became colored with darkness, Roman moved there.
And,
Puak!
“…Kuak?!“
He attacked the enemy by surprise. The sword that came down from the darkness wasn’t something anyone could easily react to, and the soldiers of Hector only remained wide-eyed as they coughed up blood.
“This!”
“Enemy! The enemy is here!”
FWEEEEET!!!
The whistle rang loudly!
They were already aware that the enemy was nearby, so they narrowed the formation around the dead soldier, but Roman had already escaped the moment he heard the whistle blow.
“Kuak!’
“Ack!”
Soon, screams began to be heard from everywhere. It was from those who were trying to surround Roman earlier. They had thought they had reacted quite quickly, but Roman seemed to appear from all sides and provoke all of them at once.
It was a totally new movement. Hector’s soldiers looked around frantically, but while they were trying to protect each other by closing the gap, Roman managed to aim for the gap that was eventually created.
‘Slowly. One by one.’
The Hector Kingdom had set foot on the mountain that was covered in darkness. They would have thought that the darkness wouldn’t have been a big problem for them, but they couldn’t even see Roman’s movements even though they were relying on the light from the torches.
The Shadow King’s martial arts didn’t turn his body invisible. Instead, it made him assimilate into the darkness by using the energy around him. Nevertheless, his experience of living as the Shadow Ghost was what helped him the most.
The knights of Hector were pissed off. They were those who knew how to use Aura and had taken the lead, but Roman continued to aim for their blind spots even then. Still, he wasn’t moving hastily. The moment they moved away even a little from the line, Roman sent them to the afterlife. As he was blocking the noise with mana, even though a colleague right next to him had died, the enemy did not notice it.
The Hector Kingdom didn’t know that right now, there was only one enemy they were facing, and he was moving by himself in the darkness.
‘The plan isn’t to annihilate all the enemies at once. Nonetheless, killing as many as I can is something I cannot overlook. They will soon start to regret ever stepping foot in this mountain, which is covered in pitch-black darkness.’
The night was long. And most likely, the enemy would soon begin to hope that the sun would rise quickly.
A knight of Hector, Thompson, gulped. His hands and legs were trembling because of what was going on around him.
‘What the hell is happening?’
He couldn’t understand the situation that was happening right in front of him. Obviously, an enemy was aiming for them from all around, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn’t even feel the presence of the enemy, let alone see him.
“There!”
“Move quickly!”
He could only hear the voices of the soldiers, and everyone’s rank didn’t seem to matter now. Whenever they heard the sound of choking and the death of a colleague, all of Hector’s soldiers rushed like crazy toward the source of the sound. The Battalion Commanders couldn’t even control them. When a colleague, who was staying alert right next to them, began to die, anger and fear both intertwined and halted the judgment of the soldiers.
Nevertheless,
Puak!
“Kuak!”
The number of corpses only kept on increasing. Even though thousands of soldiers were searching for the enemy, the shadow of death didn’t even show its face to them before it took their lives. Because of that, they were feeling a kind of fear they couldn’t even put into words. Their faces were dyed with terror.
Thompson, unable to predict just how many enemies were lurking in the darkness, raised his sword with a tense expression. Beads of cold sweat continued to drop down his head. He had not left his position yet. He moved slowly, and unlike other soldiers, he was focusing on his own safety rather than looking for the enemy. And finally, Thompson saw it. At the rear of the formation, soldiers who were moving began to disappear one by one.
Swish!
A lit torch went out. Instead of seeing the soldier’s death, he had only seen the torch vanish. Nevertheless, he just assumed that the soldier had died, as his common sense couldn’t allow him to think of anything else. And as expected, a soldier who later noticed his colleague missing whistled as soon as he could, and all the soldiers with lit torches rushed toward that place instantly.
And,
Swish!
Once again, another torch on another side vanished.
Thompson took a step back. When he saw just how many torches had vanished, he realized something had gone terribly wrong. He had thought that the Hector Kingdom had the obvious advantage, but the current situation couldn’t even be said to represent the ‘A’ of advantage.
Just then,
“The commander!”
“The commander of the First Battalion is dead!”
As soon as he heard about the death of the commander, Thompson felt his feet were on fire. Although there were so many soldiers around the commander, even he had died. It felt like the common sense he had built up was being denied. He was clearly looking around carefully, but the moment he blinked, the entire scenery changed.
‘This makes no sense.’
He ran toward the commander, but instead of picking up the commander’s body, he picked up the Magic Call artifact that was on him.
And,
“Commander Edwin! A ghost has appeared here! Please help us! If we stay here like this any longer, we will all die!”
That was a voice that shocked the people on the other end of the call.
No…
It was more like a scream for help.
Editor’s Thoughts: The assassination techniques are here! Edwin needs to send support quickly if he doesn’t want all his troops in the vicinity of Roman to die. Nonetheless, will they be able to stop Roman with support? It was quite interesting to see a part of Roman’s life in Murim. Edwin’s next decision will be interesting as well.
