Chapter 18. Jeonhyeol-Gyo-ryeong

Cheon Gyuin chuckled and once again deployed his Geumnasu and dagger.

Just as the dagger was about to pierce his side, Hugong swung his sleeve and pushed it away. At the same time, he brushed past Cheon Gyuin’s body, spun around, and got behind him.

Tuk!

With his hand formed into a sword seal, he tapped the area near Cheon Gyuin’s spine and then pulled back. The location was an acupoint, but he hadn’t sealed it. It was just an intention to raise his vigilance. A message to tell him to do his best.

“Huk!”

Startled, Cheon Gyuin hastily turned around and corrected his posture.

He had never even imagined that he would expose his back so openly, and his pupils were filled with astonishment.

His hand had touched the Daechu acupoint on his spine in an almost defenseless state.

Was it because he had no internal energy that the acupoint wasn’t sealed? Fortunately, there were no symptoms in the acupoint. But he wasn’t a complete fool either.

Even if he could escape somehow, it was impossible to get behind him by chance. Also, he hadn’t even touched his clothes so far. It was impossible without the subtlety of footwork.

The words of the Second Young Master, Beomyun, suddenly came to Cheon Gyuin’s mind.

He had said that the Eldest Young Master seemed to be learning martial arts.

Cheon Gyuin had dismissed it as nonsense at the time because he had watched the Eldest Young Master’s clubbing.

But…

‘Can only the person who has experienced it directly know?’

It was hard to even guess how much of a skill gap was needed for that. The hesitant movements he had shown earlier were not clumsiness either. A chill ran down his spine.

“Eldest Young Master, it will be difficult to let you commit suicide. Let’s go with being murdered instead.”

“Yes, now you understand. Now, forty-two moves are left. Let me warm up a bit too.”

Shuk!

Cheon Gyuin threw the dagger at Hugong’s forehead and at the same time, he shot out his palm strength. The smile on his face was gone, and he unfolded his ultimate technique, the Six Yang Palm (六陽掌), as if facing a worthy opponent.

Soon, the surroundings were filled with so many of his hand shadows that it felt like an illusion.

It was the attack Hugong had been waiting for.

Because it was quite fierce, his steps in the Formless Step became busier than before, and Hugong had to release his hands, which had been behind his back, once in a while.

When about twenty seconds had passed, Cheon Gyuin’s face turned yellowish-brown. He couldn’t understand the current situation. He was doing his best, but the Eldest Young Master’s movements were almost like a stroll.

The Eldest Young Master, who had been struggling with the splits until recently, was repeatedly disappearing from the hand shadows of the Six Yang Palm. He would retreat, bend his upper body back, suddenly take a half step, then take another full step and turn, and each time, he would be standing in a completely different place.

His movements were concise and had no unnecessary actions, and his evasion path was extremely short. To his astonishment, the distance between them in the exchange so far had not exceeded half a zhang (1.5 meters). Even now, they were within that distance, but Cheon Gyuin felt a sense of hopelessness, as if he would never be able to reach him.

Just as Cheon Gyuin’s frustration was deepening, a change occurred.

“Now, it’s been fifty seconds, so let’s roll.”

Hugong extended his right hand and dug into Cheon Gyuin.

Swish.

He brushed past Cheon Gyuin’s side and tapped his waist with his hand formed into a sword seal. By the time Cheon Gyuin tried to shake him off with his palm strength as if having a seizure, Hugong’s position had already changed.

Then, he continuously brushed past the acupoints on his shoulder and the biceps below it.

“What are you doing!”

Cheon Gyuin shouted.

It was a shout of greater bewilderment.

The points where the Eldest Young Master’s hand touched were the Gyeonjeong and Hyeopbaek acupoints.

He spun around and the next point he touched was the Cheoktaek acupoint on his elbow.

Continuing, he tapped his navel, wrist, and chest, and then the Eldest Young Master slid back and put his hands behind his back as if nothing had happened.

Cheon Gyuin also stopped in his tracks.

His face was already flushed red with shame, beyond paleness.

He hadn’t even touched a single hair, but the Eldest Young Master had tapped seven different acupoints as if he were toying with him and had leisurely retreated. In the meantime, he hadn’t been able to respond at all.

The meaning of this was clear.

It meant that he could kill him whenever he wanted, and it was actually a possible situation.

“Eldest Young Master… what happened?”

The difference in level was clear. Cheon Gyuin admitted it.

But apart from admitting it, he couldn’t help but feel a surge of anger. He growled, suppressing his anger.

“You could have sealed the death points, so why did you only tap seven irrelevant acupoints? Can I take it that you want something from me?”

“…”

“Are you telling me to stand on your side, Eldest Young Master?”

Hugong grinned.

“You have a talent for making people laugh. You think I’d want someone like you? Stop spouting nonsense and just roll and shrivel up.”

“Roll and shrivel up?”

Cheon Gyuin frowned, unable to understand.

‘Does he mean he’ll think about whether to accept me or not after I do that?’

Did he mean he had to do that much to be forgiven? But rolling was one thing, but he had no idea how to shrivel up.

He was contemplating.

Suddenly, his neck snapped.

His ear almost touched his right shoulder.

“Keok!”

Cheon Gyuin’s eyes widened.

It wasn’t his will; his neck had moved and snapped on its own.

He tried to straighten his neck, wondering what was going on, but he couldn’t control it.

Next to move were his arms.

Crack, crackle.

Both his arms began to twist. Was that all? His wrists bent, and his forearms twisted and turned, and the sound of his joints cracking erupted continuously. Cheon Gyuin had to watch his own body with his neck twisted to the side. The turning of his arms and wrists was also not his will.

Crackle, crack.

This time, his legs. They twisted and bent, and he fell, and even after falling, his whole body continued to twist and shrink. His left arm moved on its own, went behind his back, and shriveled up. As it moved against his will, one of his shoulders was dislocated, and his forearm broke.

Crack-crack-crack-crack!

“Ugh-ga-ga-gak…”

Then, his wrist finally broke, and the joints of his forearm twisted more violently and shattered. His right leg also turned in a way that was hard to bend, and it continuously crackled, and his left foot crawled up towards his face and wriggled on its own, trying to go further.

In the midst of that, his face was not safe either.

One side of his mouth twisted up, revealing his gums, and with a crackling sound, the opposite cheekbone protruded as if it would pierce through the flesh.

“Ugh-ga-ga-gak… ugh-ugh-ugh…”

In this way, several of his bones broke, and some of them crumbled, and Cheon Gyuin lay scattered, wriggling and shriveling up. He couldn’t control it no matter what, and his body continued to move on its own. When he thought it was resting for a moment, it would crack and twist again, and he would shrink, and each time, Cheon Gyuin would gasp for breath and couldn’t even let out a proper groan.

‘The meaning of shriveling up…’

By the time Cheon Gyuin understood, he had twisted and shriveled up, and his body had shrunk to about two-thirds of its original size.

Hugong clicked his tongue as if he were pathetic.

“Tsk tsk, you should have been arrogant while looking at the person. What a disaster. Do you know who I am?”

“Ugh-ga-ga-gak…”

The technique Hugong had unfolded was Gyo-ryeong.

When his own bone-shrinking art, Gyo-ryeong, was applied to others, it became this vicious. By sealing seven acupoints, the opponent would lose control of their body and, without any rules, would twist on their own, and their bones would break, and they would shrivel up and be crushed.

But the current level of Gyo-ryeong was not satisfactory to Hugong. Looking at the way it twisted, he still had a long way to go. It was still only at the second level.

“S-save… Ugh-ga-ga-gak… Eldest Young Master…”

At the sound of Cheon Gyuin desperately begging for his life, Hugong reached out his hand.

“Quiet.”

Pat!

He sealed his mute acupoint to stop the groans. Now, only the sound of his joints cracking could be heard faintly.

Hugong narrowed his eyes towards the door.

Someone was approaching.

‘Who is it? Hmm, two?’

As they got closer, he sensed that it was not one person, but two.

As they got even closer, Hugong’s face broke into a smile as he fully identified who they were. He left Cheon Gyoin as he was, opened the door, and shouted.

“Yun, Bumong. Run.”

Yun and Bumong, who had been walking leisurely, whistling, came running with bright smiles.

“Haha, brother! How did you know we were coming?”

“Eldest brother, could it be that you were waiting?”

But as they entered, they both stumbled back in surprise.

“B-brother… what is this?”

“M-monster, why…”

Cheon Gyuin’s original face was already unrecognizable, and he was still writhing strangely, and his bones were breaking, so it was natural that Yun and Bumong didn’t recognize him.

“It’s Cheon Gyuin.”

“Pardon? Cheon Gyuin, you mean the guard captain? Th-that’s, what?”

Yun just blinked his eyes as if that couldn’t be, but Bumong thought that his eldest brother couldn’t be wrong.

“Eldest brother… it’s that, right!”

“Huh?”

This guy couldn’t possibly know, so Hugong was dumbfounded, wondering what he was talking about.

Bumong shouted with conviction.

“He’s had a stroke! The captain has had a stroke, right? Wow, is a stroke this scary?”

Then he made a fuss, saying they should take him to Physician Pyeon right away.

Yun also made a fuss, saying it seemed so.

Hugong, who was getting a headache, waved his hand.

“Be quiet. Someone might come, so I can’t explain here. Let’s move to another place first. You two carry this guy and follow me.”

Hugong led the way to the study.

When he stood in front of the upside-down ‘Winter’ book on the bookshelf, Yun and Bumong’s eyes widened.

“Are you going into winter?”

“Yes.”

When Hugong took the book and put it back upright, the ceiling, the floor, and everything around them collapsed. The surrounding scenery instantly changed to a white snowfield.

Here, even if they shouted, the sound wouldn’t go outside, and it couldn’t be seen from the outside either.

Hugong explained what had just happened.

Yun and Bumong reacted as if it were ridiculous, but he didn’t bother to scold them.

Confirmation was Cheon Gyuin’s job.

After unsealing Cheon Gyuin’s mute acupoint, Hugong asked.

“Now, from now on, tell me. How did this start, who was the first to lead it, and who were the ones involved?”

“Ugh-ugh-ugh… I was wrong… forgive… ugh-ga-ga…”

In this way, Cheon Gyuin, with his twisted mouth, stuttered out the course of events and begged for forgiveness, and he readily confessed the names of those involved.

The leader was the chief steward.

Among the 32 guards, 8 were involved.

The captain, the vice-captain, and 6 guards.

One from the scholars.

And 5 from the management and accounting side, all of whom had been brought in by the chief steward.

While listening, Yun and Bumong’s doubt turned to surprise, and then their surprise turned to anger, and they burst out in rage.

“That bastard Gwak, the chief steward, how dare he!”

“How can a person be so evil!”

Towards the two of them, Hugong shouted.

“Is it the chief steward’s fault? What have you two been doing all this time? What have you been doing while the family has become like this? I was already out of my mind, but what on earth have you two been doing!”

“Brother, that’s… we were out of our minds too?”

“…Ahem.”

At Bumong’s words, scratching his head, Hugong couldn’t question him further. In his memory, these two had followed and liked Beomhang more than anyone, so their frustration and hurt were just as great.