OGHOU C11

Chapter 11

Sibchil ran for days on end, never once resting as he used lightness skill1) to escape. He barely shook off the cultists on his tail and hid himself under the lip of a small rocky cave.

He had lived his entire life with death breathing down his neck. So suppressing his presence as if dead came to him as naturally as breathing. Not even an expert with the keenest senses would be able to detect him now.

Watching the silhouettes of the black-robed men recede, Sibchil quietly began to count them, one by one.

‘Should I just kill them all?’

True, he was utterly exhausted. Even so, he reckoned he could handle ten of them if he pushed himself.

No. It would be reckless to make a move without knowing their exact numbers. For now, running was the best option.

He had to get as far away as possible. If captured, he feared the consequences. In the past, he’d just taken a beating, but after what he had done this time, he wouldn’t be surprised if they beheaded him outright.

He never expected—nor hoped—to take the young lord’s place just because he’d defeated him. From the start, nothing that bastard said was worth believing.

He couldn’t clearly recall what had happened that day. In a moment of desperate crisis, something within him had raged out of control, and when he regained his senses, all he saw was the young lord, lying collapsed beneath him, drenched in blood. For all the countless battles he’d survived, such an experience was new to him.

His body convulsing, crushed and broken, the young lord stammered toward Sibchil.

‘Do you… want me to tell you… something interesting?’

What followed hit Sibchil like a blow to the head.

With breath barely hanging on, the young lord looked up at him, twisted into a smirk.

‘Damn it.’

Sibchil bit down on his lower lip, shaking away the memory. He admonished himself not to be swayed by the words of such a bastard and refocused his mind.

He glanced at his own reflection in the pool that had collected under the cave. The face that had been battered nearly beyond recognition was now fully healed. Even the broken nose had reset into place.

Now that he had some adequate inner strength2), wounds healed quickly, as if nothing had happened. Apart from the long vertical scar on his left eye, his face looked almost as if it had never been hurt at all.

He had gotten that scar before he had even begun to learn martial arts, at age five. Not long after he was kidnapped by the cult, a madman locked in the dungeon had lunged at him, trying to gouge out his eye and leaving the wound.

The sharp blade had slashed right above his eye, and though his sight was spared, the scar would remain for life. Had he not barely managed to escape, he might never have seen the world again.

By habit, Sibchil rubbed the scar on his left eye and tried to gauge his location. If his sense was correct, he had passed Qinghai and crossed into Sichuan by now. Using lightness skill day and night, he should have reached here in three days, but evading his pursuers had cost him time.

He had no fixed destination. All that mattered was getting as far from Xinjiang as possible. To a place no one could ever find him.

Late at night, Sibchil slipped into an inn.

He figured he’d have to spend the night here, no matter what. He hadn’t eaten or slept in days—pushing himself any further would only be dangerous.

‘Just one night. I’ll rest for just one night.’

Luckily, the first floor of the inn was pitch dark and deserted, not a soul or even a stray ant to be seen. The perfect place to hide. If luck was on his side, he might even fill his stomach with leftover food in the kitchen.

After hiding under a table for a considerable time, ears alert for movement, Sibchil finally stepped toward the kitchen in search of food.

At that moment—

A man, looking like a ghost, was shambling down the stairs. Sibchil instantly pulled himself behind a wall.

The dragging footsteps led all the way into the kitchen.

Peeking cautiously, Sibchil watched as the man ransacked the cupboards. Soon the man pulled out a liquor bottle and began guzzling it straight from the neck.

‘Is he insane?’

From the look of him, the man had crawled out of bed still in his nightclothes and was now downing booze. The fellow had to be either a lunatic or a drunk.

He couldn’t sit still for even a second, constantly wandering around the kitchen. Watching his erratic behavior grated on Sibchil’s nerves. Oblivious to Sibchil’s hunger, the man showed no sign of leaving the kitchen.

“Aaaargh…”

Clawing at his hair, the man let out a mournful wail. Clearly not all there.

Sibchil swallowed a sigh and simply waited. He had no desire to waste energy dealing with a madman like this.

“Hey, you maniac…”

So he did realize he was crazy, at least. Now the man had stopped, slamming his head against the wall.

What the hell was he doing at this hour? Was he trying to test Sibchil’s patience?

‘I’m not exactly the patient type. If I just cracked that puny skull open—’

Right then, Sibchil’s acute senses picked up an all-too-familiar shadow slipping past the inn’s window. They were cultists.

‘Damn it.’

It was the madman’s fault. The strange noises of him bashing his head had no doubt drawn them here.

He could not stand by any longer. Swiftly, Sibchil slipped into the kitchen. His feet moved as soft and silent as a cat’s, leaving no trace at all.

He crept up behind the man, who continued banging his head on the wall, still oblivious.

Just as the man’s head was about to slam into the wall again, Sibchil reached out and cupped the man’s forehead, stopping him just short.

“What—?”

Startled by the shadowy hand, the man spun around. Sibchil immediately lowered his hand from the man’s forehead, clamped it over his mouth, and pinned him to the wall.

“Mmff—!”

The man’s eyes went wide. Trembling with shock, he began to gasp for air, chest heaving, eyes darting, flailing arms pushing weakly at Sibchil, but he was no match.

“Shh.”

Sibchil hushed him, focusing all his senses on the presence outside. The cultists were drawing closer.

The inn fell silent, not even a mouse stirring. Sibchil only prayed the cultists would pass by, his eyes on the man before him.

After ten years in the underground dungeon, Sibchil’s night vision was second to none. He calmly examined the man’s features in the gloom.

A large hand covered half the man’s face, revealing only a wide-eyed pair swimming in terror, though those eyes gazed back at him unflinchingly. With every blink, the man’s long lashes brushed against Sibchil’s hand.

They were about the same height; their eyes met exactly. Bizarrely, Sibchil found himself unable to look away, caught by that gaze.

He was nothing but an exasperating madman, yet why couldn’t Sibchil tear himself away?

For a moment, it felt as if time had stopped.

‘A pleasant scent…’

Was it the smell? A fresh, nameless floral fragrance hovered at the tip of his nose.

But that was not all.

The hair fluttering in the breeze, the softness of skin under his palm—all of it threatened to steal Sibchil’s senses away entirely.

How much time had passed? Suddenly, the man, who had stayed still and silent, began to struggle again, jolting Sibchil back to reality. The cultists’ presence could no longer be felt; they had already gone far away.

Sibchil released his hand from the man’s mouth. The body, still pressed up against the wall, slumped forward, hands on knees, gasping for breath. His nose and lips were flushed red from the pressure.

‘Looks like… I’ll have to kill him?’

Whoever he was—a madman, a drunk—now that he’d seen Sibchil’s face, he couldn’t possibly be allowed to live.

Sibchil closed his fingers around the man’s neck. That slender neck fit neatly in his grip.

“Kh…”

He began to squeeze, slowly tightening his hold. Such a fragile neck could easily be broken with one hand.

He was prepared to kill the man then and there.

At least, until that forgotten name slipped out from the man’s lips.

“Cheon… Cheon Muho?”

Startled, Sibchil had no choice but to release his grip.

Cheon Muho. The name he’d carried before he was ever called Sibchil. A name he’d thought he’d forgotten, yet here it was, spoken for the first time from a stranger’s mouth.

His heart thundered in his chest.

“How do you… how do you know that name?”

Not even the cult knew that name—so how did he? Who was this man?

In truth, inside Cheongyeon the man’s mind, alarm bells were blaring.

‘Scary scary scary scary!’

How could anyone not recognize him? Pitch-black hair just like the novel’s description, crimson glints in his dark eyes, and the scar running across his left eye.

‘And he’s so handsome! Anyone could tell he’s the future final boss!’

He was none other than Cheon Muho, the antagonist of the original novel who became sect leader by twenty-five and bathed the world in blood.

Cheongyeon just wanted to collapse on the spot and bawl. Never had he dreamed the Heavenly Demon would appear like this.

Jeha and now this, too. Why did they always show up at such unexpected times?

Thanks to this intruder in the night, he had long since forgotten the nightmare that had plagued him.

‘So terrifying…’

Wait, he was supposed to be fifteen? How was this fifteen? Did all the kids here grow up on tonics or something?

Grown man Cheongyeon was utterly cowed by a middle-school-age boy.

There was nothing he could do. If the story followed the original, he was destined to be killed horrifically by this boy. No wonder he was terrified, no matter how young the boy looked—he justified himself over and over.

His heart pounded in his chest.

‘What should I do now?’

Cheongyeon recalled the vow he’d made soon after possessing this world.

‘I’ll never be the kind of adult who sells off teenagers for a few coins. If a kid like that ever shows up at my inn, I’ll not only hide him—I’ll hold him tight and protect him!’

Hold him tight? What nonsense.

This wasn’t holding him tight—this was trembling in fear, sir.

Footnotes

1. Lightness Skill (경공, qinggong) – An advanced martial arts technique that allows the user to move rapidly and almost weightlessly, often depicted as running across rooftops, water, or long distances with supernatural speed and agility.

2. Inner Strength (내공, neigong) – The inner energy cultivated through martial arts training. An expert’s body heals far faster than normal, and may even regenerate serious wounds.