So? Did Someone Force You to Become the Heavenly Demon?

Chapter 327: Shadow (2)

Following the discovery that the traitorous former Chief Elder was somehow connected to an organization in the Central Plains known as the Silver Moon Trading Company, the Dark Shadow Pavilion immediately launched a large-scale investigation into the entity.

However, there was a problem with this.

The Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Dark Shadow Pavilion could only properly exert their influence in Gansu Province and its surrounding areas.

Unfortunately for them, the Silver Moon Trading Company was a fairly large trading company based in Guangzhou City in Guangdong Province, and the Dark Shadow Pavilion could only collect publicly available information.

The only concrete intelligence they could gather was that the guild was raking in a massive fortune via maritime trade with the Western Regions.

So the Dark Shadow Pavilion took on some risk and escalated its operations.

They left their home base in the Gansu region and sent key martial artists to directly monitor the Silver Moon Trading Company in Guangzhou City.

Among them, the person assigned the most important and difficult task of monitoring the Guild Leader was Seo Wan-pyeong.

Having steadily honed his martial prowess ever since breaking free from Extremity, Seo Wan-pyeong now proudly stood as the second most powerful operative in the entire Pavilion, surpassed only by the Pavilion Lord himself.

Since the Pavilion Lord had to control and command the entire Dark Shadow Pavilion, Seo Wan-pyeong ended up taking on the most difficult field assignment himself.

Late at night, Seo Wan-pyeong slipped into the Silver Moon Trading Company with ease by using the coverage of shadow and managed to position himself near the Guild Leader's quarters.

After a long period of observation, Seo Wan-pyeong moved carefully to avoid making any sound and pulled out a small pill from his chest.

It was a Fasting Pill.

Fasting Pills were commonly thought of as emergency rations eaten to replace meals during secluded training.

But in reality, those who mainly used Fasting Pills were assassins.

Because when one was actively engaged in high-stakes espionage or assassination missions, there obviously wasn't exactly time to sit back and leisurely enjoy a hot meal.

Furthermore, Fasting Pills were indispensable items for preventing biological functions.

Imagine you had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to kill your target or managed to obtain crucial intelligence during espionage and had to flee with it, but an urgent signal suddenly came from your lower bowels.

There would arguably be no worse tragedy in the world than that.

Now, one might rationally argue, 'The mission is far more important, so just soil your clothes and deal with it later.'

But that presented a fatal flaw.

The terrible scent that would waft from it.

That scent could risk exposure while hiding, and even if not discovered, there was a risk of being tracked later.

In any case, Fasting Pills were inseparable items for assassins.

Slowly, Seo Wan-pyeong placed the Fasting Pill in his mouth and gradually dissolved it with saliva to avoid making any sound, all while observing the Guild Leader's quarters.

Someone who appeared to be a senior member of the company had come to visit the Guild Leader's quarters, and they were having a conversation in serious voices.

'Nothing special.'

Seo Wan-pyeong swallowed his disappointment and calmly waited for the right moment.

It was a common occurrence.

Waiting for espionage or assassination was similar to fishing.

Sometimes opportunities came in an instant, but other times it was an endless series of waiting.

And so, he waited in silence for three excruciating days.

Finally, a signal came.

From his lower abdomen, that is.

'Damn it.'

It was because of the water.

If a human goes three days without water, they will inevitably suffer from life-threatening dehydration. So, no matter how highly trained an assassin was, a bare minimum intake of fluids was absolutely indispensable just to stay functional.

In fact, the only reason the urgent urge to urinate was hitting him now was precisely that he had been strictly rationing his sips.

Just then, someone's voice transmission pierced his ears.

—We'll take over tonight, so please go rest a bit, Third Young Master.

It was another Dark Shadow Pavilion operator who had infiltrated the Silver Moon Trading Company.

While they couldn't approach and hide near the Guild Leader's quarters like Seo Wan-pyeong, there were those who had succeeded in disguising themselves as menial workers and slipped into the company.

One of them had sent a voice transmission while avoiding the eyes of the guards watching the Guild Leader's quarters.

Realizing that several people had successfully infiltrated the Silver Moon Trading Company, Seo Wan-pyeong slipped out of the company that night under the cover of darkness.

After taking care of three days' worth of business, he fell into a deep sleep.

He hadn't been able to sleep properly for three days while monitoring the Guild Leader.

As he caught up on sleep, he found himself watching the Guild Leader's quarters even in his dreams.

Floating in the empty air, completely invisible like a ghost.

And in that dream, a mysterious figure dressed entirely in black was having a deeply secretive conversation with the Guild Leader.

Because he had left his post, no one was able to catch that person in black.

Soon his vision shook, and the three people stood before his eyes.

His Master, Eldest Brother, and Il-mok.

—How disappointing. I entrusted you with an important mission, yet you failed because you wanted to take a little nap?

—Third Brother, you really should learn to be more like our youngest.

—Third senior brother, I'm truly disappointed.

The voices of those three pierced his ears like thunderclaps.

Flash!

Seo Wan-pyeong woke up from his sleep with a fright.

In just a few days, his face had grown much paler and the shadows under his eyes had deepened.

'Was it... a dream?'

Startled by the too-realistic dream, Seo Wan-pyeong opened the window and looked at the sky.

'About two hours have passed.'

Seo Wan-pyeong gauged the approximate passage of time from the positions of the moon and stars in the sky, then gathered his things and left the building with a Fasting Pill held in his mouth.

Even though he had specifically stepped away to rest and recuperate, he still refused to let a single bite of actual food touch his lips as it would be troublesome if his body suddenly sent those signals at a critical moment.

After that, Seo Wan-pyeong's daily routine remained brutally identical.

He hid in the shadows near the Guild Leader's quarters and monitored him.

He sustained himself with Fasting Pills and minimal water, and only when sleep deprivation and the urge to urinate reached their peak would he trust the Dark Shadow Pavilion martial artists and leave his post for about an hour.

Even then, he could never rest easily.

He genuinely felt like he would lose his mind out of sheer spite if something massive finally happened the one moment he stepped away.

No matter how many Dark Shadow Pavilion martial artists had infiltrated the Silver Moon Trading Company, it was impossible for them to observe from as close to the Guild Leader as he did.

Elite guards constantly rotated shifts outside the quarters, and the damn Guild Leader simply refused to step outside his room.

He didn't even leave to use the bathroom; he just did his business in an adjacent room and had the servants come in to empty the chamber pots.

It was a glaring testament to just how insanely paranoid the Guild Leader truly was.

In the end, if Seo Wan-pyeong left his post, perfectly monitoring the Guild Leader would be impossible.

Because of that anxiety, Seo Wan-pyeong would typically take only the bare minimum rest before returning.

How long had he been monitoring the Guild Leader while cutting back on sleep every day and sustaining himself with Fasting Pills?

He stared at the night sky with vacant eyes.

Countless bright stars dotted the sky.

'One Fasting Pill. Two Fasting Pills. That big Fasting Pill over there is only half left.'

(TL Note: One Anpan. Two Anpan. Three big Anpan. Search for Yamazaki Sagaru from Gintama, specifically, when he was tasked to monitor a suspected terrorist group and could only eat Anpan.)

Staring at the glowing half-eaten moon, he suddenly felt incredibly sentimental and tragic.

And the next day, he pulled out a Fasting Pill from his chest to fill his hungry stomach and glared at it as if he wanted to kill it.

'Fasting Pill! Nothing but Fasting Pills! These motherfucking Fasting Pills!!'

Several more days passed.

Suddenly, this thought occurred to Seo Wan-pyeong.

'Should I kill him? Just kill him? If I just kill him, can I be happy?'

Rather than endlessly waiting while hidden in the shadows like this, wouldn't it be easier to just kill the Guild Leader?

'I'll kill him! I'll kill the bastard forcing me to live off these disgusting Fasting Pills! The bastard who hasn't let me sleep for over a goddamn month! The son of a bitch who won't even let me take a piss in peace!!'

Clearly the one who had assigned the mission was the Heavenly Demon, but Seo Wan-pyeong was directing his anger at the wrong target.

As Seo Wan-pyeong tried to draw his blade, he barely managed to stop that movement with his last remaining shred of reason.

'If I wanted to kill him, I could have done it long ago. What we need is interrogation.'

The Silver Moon Trading Company itself was never the final target.

They needed to find the mastermind giving orders to the Silver Moon Trading Company.

However, simply kidnapping the man wasn't an option either. The heavy patrols of elite guards stationed around the quarters and throughout the guild were a major obstacle.

No matter how skilled Seo Wan-pyeong was at stealth techniques, hiding a kidnapped Guild Leader in the shadows was impossible.

Not unless his Shadowless Fourteen Moves entered Transcendence and he could manipulate shadows more freely.

In the end, attempting an abduction would inevitably leave obvious traces behind.

—Then just slaughter them all! Just butcher every single guard!

'That would also leave traces. In the worst case, if we can't obtain the necessary information from the Guild Leader, the mastermind might go into hiding.'

Without realizing it, Seo Wan-pyeong was having a conversation with himself.

Or to be precise, with another ego named Shadowless Fourteen Moves.

The side effect ego that had been quiet for a while after escaping Extremity was gradually growing in size due to the combined factors of sleep deprivation, anxiety about failing the mission, and his disgust toward the Fasting Pills.

'If I kill the Guild Leader without obtaining any information, Master, Eldest Brother, and the youngest will surely be disappointed in me.'

—Hmm? If you collapse and fail the mission like this, they'll end up disappointed anyway.

'…'

—If you're going to fail, wouldn't it be much happier to just slaughter him right now? Think about it. At the very least, you would finally be free from those disgusting Fasting Pills. Am I wrong?

Right at the exact moment his exhausted mind was about to succumb to the dark whispers of his significantly strengthened alter ego—

"!!!"

—Seo Wan-pyeong sensed some presence from the direction of the Guild Leader's quarters window.

It was a subtle presence, feeling almost exactly like a gentle night breeze drifting through the open window, yet it was just minutely different.

'It's a person.'

On a night when even the moonlight was at its weakest. A visitor who came to see the Guild Leader deliberately at this late hour.

'Finally!!'

Seo Wan-pyeong struggled to compose his trembling body and focused on the presence felt from the Guild Leader's quarters.

—That's right! Now's the time! Attack now and kill them both!

Just then, the side effect's temptation echoed in his mind, but Seo Wan-pyeong didn't give in.

'Shut up! I just need to follow whoever came.'

It is human nature to endure and overcome any hardship as long as a sliver of hope exists.

When the end wasn't in sight, Seo Wan-pyeong had wavered at the side effect's temptation, but now that he could see the end, he could overcome that temptation.

Shaking off the side effect completely, Seo Wan-pyeong closely monitored the room and quickly noticed something incredibly bizarre.

'There's no conversation.'

The person who had come to the Guild Leader's quarters was a master whose presence was almost impossible to detect. And that master hadn't said a single word since earlier.

The same was true for the Guild Leader.

Only the occasional sounds of writing something on paper could be heard.

Seo Wan-pyeong theorized that the master was giving instructions to the Guild Leader through voice transmission right now. And because he couldn't use voice transmission himself, the Guild Leader was forced to respond to those commands in writing.

'Is it because of the guards?'

Seo Wan-pyeong's conviction only deepened. It was a visit from someone who couldn't be discovered even by the guards.

And shortly after, his senses picked up the motion of the Guild Leader holding out a letter and that master took the letter and then slipped back out through the window.

Given it was a pitch-black night with virtually zero moonlight, the stealthy movements of the black-clad figure were so faint they were almost entirely untraceable.

However,

'Hehehehe.'

A starving madman who had been obsessively lurking in the pitch-black shadows for over an entire month would never miss such a presence.

'I won't fail. I won't disappoint Master, Eldest Brother, and our youngest.'

Whoosh.

Unleashing a stealth technique that completely eclipsed even the mysterious stranger's, Seo Wan-pyeong cautiously slipped into the night and began his pursuit.

'The Fasting Pills are over!!'

And silently stalking his long-awaited prey.

A prey named hope.