A violet aura shimmered around Chimma’s body. He really was drunk. One should’ve thought, ‘This is our chance!’ seeing him like that, swaying with half-lidded eyes, but no one dared to charge at him. Of course, it was because he was Chimma. Chimma was clearly drunk now, staggering in earnest—so how could anyone even think of rushing him? On top of that, the languid gaze beneath those half-lowered eyelids felt even more terrifying than eyes filled with killing intent.

When the bottle in Chimma’s hand emptied, he picked up another one from the ground. He drank again. He drank to the point where one would wonder if it was even physically possible.

"Ah, I’m getting drunk."

Chimma staggered forward and looked at «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» the Bukhyeolmun Lord and the Blood King.

"Why don’t you come down already? My neck hurts looking up."

At that, the Blood King sat down. As if he planned to watch the fight from a comfortable seat, he sat down in complete ease. It was pressure on the Bukhyeolmun Lord. A silent command: I’ll just sit here and watch. You go and kill him.

'Damn it.'

The Bukhyeolmun Lord couldn’t figure this Blood King out at all. Now that Elder Seo of Binggung was dead, he thought Bukhyeolmun was absolutely necessary to dominate Bukhae. But this man was trying to use him as a disposable piece. He seemed incredibly emotional, yet didn’t even blink at Chimma’s earlier provocation.

The Bukhyeolmun Lord looked at the red smoke rising in the distance behind them.

'He’s even summoned his own subordinates.'

Just what kind of plan is he trying to pull? If he makes this into such a big scene, there's no way to handle the aftermath. Either way, now was the time to fight. Angering this unpredictable Blood King would be even scarier than fighting Chimma.

And if he joined hands with the Blood King and won, he could finally achieve his long-held dream of becoming the top power in Bukhae.

"Kill him!"

At the Bukhyeolmun Lord’s command, seven martial artists simultaneously descended from the wall. Even though their opponent was Chimma, how could they not be afraid? Still, they pinned their hopes on the fact that they were seven.

Ssssst.

The aura that surged up in an instant smothered that hope. From within the mist, Chimma’s voice rang out.

"If the mist rises, run west. Then you might live."

But none of them fled through the opening Chimma had offered. They weren’t just any martial artists from Bukhyeolmun. They were the Lord’s personal underlings, men who had committed every sort of atrocity all their lives under his command. Life or death, they were one and the same.

This time, the aura rising was even more saturated with drunkenness than before. Just being briefly exposed to the mist already had them feeling tipsy. Trying to expel their own internal energy within the mist was a pointless attempt.

If it had been poison, they could have taken an antidote. But it wasn’t poison, and that was what made it most terrifying—there was no way to block it.

Fwoooosh!

One martial artist waved his hand to try and disperse the aura. The mist around his body cleared briefly before returning again. Just as the man waved his hand a second time—

Chimma was standing right where the mist had vanished.

The startled martial artist urgently thrust his sword forward, but it was already too late.

Chimma’s palm gently tapped the man’s forehead.

Thud.

The man collapsed with a dull sound.

By the time he hit the ground, Chimma had already vanished from the spot.

"I told you, if you want to live, run west!"

But instead of fleeing that way, they fired sword energy toward the sound of his voice.

Swish! Shhhh! Shhhk!

Sword energy rained out, but no screams came from Chimma.

"West is that way. No, is it this way?"

Chimma’s drunken voice echoed again. This time, one martial artist launched his body in the opposite direction of the voice and slashed.

'It’s probably just baiting us!'

It was a calculated move on his part, but it couldn’t keep up with a drunk man’s thinking. His blade cut through empty air—and right then, as if waiting for it, an arm looped around his neck from behind.

'How did he read my mind?'

Crunch.

That was his final thought as his neck snapped and he fell limp.

"Ah, I’m getting drunk."

Swish! Swish!

Blades came flying at him from two directions, but Chimma was already gone. He was clearly drunk, yet his movements were faster than anyone’s. This was a domain even the Blood King dared not leap into carelessly.

"All your subordinates are going to die. Even now, you’re still not going to move?"

Chimma’s voice came from within the mist.

But the Bukhyeolmun Lord remained standing atop the wall.

'If I go in there without a plan, I’ll die.'

Even from this distance, just the smell was enough to make one feel intoxicated. His men were probably genuinely drunk inside. Their bodies and minds were dulled. They needed to be faster than usual, not slower.

Honestly, if not for the Blood King, this was not someone he would ever dare fight.

He had to find a weakness before all his men were killed.

A scream echoed from the mist. Another one of his men.

Unable to endure the fear, one martial artist launched himself upward through the mist. His goal was simply to escape the aura.

Ffffshhhhhh!

Something shot through the mist like a bullet and shattered his jaw.

The man died without ever knowing what hit him, but the Bukhyeolmun Lord saw it clearly. It had been a pebble lying on the ground. To Chimma, anything within reach became a weapon.

Another burst of impact echoed from the mist.

Thump!

A body was flung out of the mist and slammed against the wall near the Blood King and the Bukhyeolmun Lord. He had already died the moment he’d taken a strike to the abdomen.

This time, one martial artist broke through the mist to the west. He was genuinely trying to run away.

Shhhk!
Boom!

A streak of internal energy struck him down.

The one who sent it was the Bukhyeolmun Lord. This fight must not be exposed to the world. He couldn’t allow disobedience or desertion.

The mist parted to the sides, and from its center, Chimma appeared. The area around him was the only place the mist had cleared.

With drunken eyes, Chimma looked up at the Bukhyeolmun Lord.

In that drowsy gaze, the emotions that dwelled were contempt and ridicule. The Bukhyeolmun Lord clenched his eyes and shouted,

"This is your fault! They died because of you!"

Just then, the seventh martial artist, as if resigned to his fate, bowed his head and walked toward Chimma.

"West isn’t this way."

At the very moment he raised his head—

Chimma quickly raised a protective barrier and crossed his arms in front of his face.

The man had already activated the self-destruction technique—his face and body flushed red with energy.

Boom!

The burst of blood energy from his chest exploded into Chimma. The impact sent Chimma flying backward.

He tumbled across the ground and collapsed. The thick mist surrounding the area dispersed.

"We got Chimma!"

The Bukhyeolmun Lord shouted in delight. It hadn’t been that the Blood King was sending them to die for nothing after all.

"This is what the Lord had planned all along!"

Although he was annoyed that he hadn’t been told in advance, the fact that he wouldn’t have to fight Chimma himself made it tolerable enough.

"Let’s leave before the Little Pill Master returns."

But the Blood King remained seated and simply looked at Chimma, who was lying on the ground. When the Bukhyeolmun Lord’s gaze naturally followed in that direction—

“Ugh... it hurts.”

—to his shock, Chimma was slowly getting up. Chimma rubbed his chest and drank first. The self-detonation had gone off unexpectedly, and in normal circumstances, it would’ve caused serious injury.

But the top-grade Cheonjam silk wrapped around his body had blocked the blood energy from piercing through, sparing him from grave wounds.

‘Little brother, you saved my life.’

Geom Mugeuk had saved him. He had insisted so stubbornly that Chimma wear the top-grade Cheonjam silk no matter what.

A strange glint flickered in the Blood King’s eyes as he watched Chimma. That someone could take such a blow at such close range and be this unharmed was hard to believe.

“He’s wearing a protective vest.”

The Blood King spoke with certainty to the Bukhyeolmun Lord. As his gaze, which had been on Chimma the entire time, now turned toward him, the Bukhyeolmun Lord understood immediately.

‘You want me to go out and fight too?’

In the end, it meant: you too, go out there and die.

The Blood King’s eyes said it clearly:

‘Do you want to die sitting here, or die fighting?’

There are moments when a man wakes up in a dream.

Huh? Was it this? Huh? Was I that kind of person? Huh? Is this what he thought of me? 

That heart-dropping, skin-crawling moment. The one where your face flushes in shame and your voice stammers because you can’t even keep your expression in check.

That was what the Bukhyeolmun Lord was feeling now. He’d at least thought he wasn’t such a disposable existence to the Blood King. But now he realized—the Blood King saw him no different from those dead subordinates.

“Pour me a drink too.”

The Bukhyeolmun Lord leapt down from the wall. Chimma was terrifying, but the Blood King was even more so. No matter what, he couldn’t allow himself to die up there on that wall.

The Bukhyeolmun Lord slowly walked toward Chimma. He intended to strike by surprise as he accepted the drink.

‘There’s only one shot at this.’

If he fought inside the aura, it would be certain defeat.

Chimma opened both arms wide in welcome.

“Finally, I’ve got a drinking buddy. Is it really that hard to have a drink together?”

The Bukhyeolmun Lord took one step, then another, toward Chimma, calming his pounding heart, waiting for that single perfect moment.

The two were now close enough to reach each other with an outstretched hand.

“No cups—let’s just drink straight from the bottle.”

Chimma reached out with the bottle, then asked as if something suddenly occurred to him,

“By the way, are you really that scared of that man?”

It was an unexpected question.

“I respect the Lord.”

“What’s so respectable about someone who sends his subordinates to die because he’s scared of his enemy?”

The Bukhyeolmun Lord felt bitter. He had been the subordinate shoved forward. He didn’t think he deserved to be treated like this.

“Did he catch some kind of weakness on you?”

The Bukhyeolmun Lord said nothing.

Weakness? He had two. The blood technique that could inflate his veins and kill him. And his own ambition to pull down Bukhae Binggung and take that seat for himself. So what was it that had really pulled him here? Which weakness was it that led him to this point?

“Why don’t you join hands with me and fight that bastard together? Then at least we’d die without regrets, wouldn’t we?”

At those words, the Blood King, sitting atop the wall, let a cold sneer creep across his lips.

“Look how that man smiles.”

What kind of smile was it?

Just as the Bukhyeolmun Lord reflexively turned to glance back—

Slick! Thwuck!

—the sound of flesh tearing rang out.

When he looked back at Chimma in shock, there was blood on the dagger in Chimma’s other hand, the one not holding the bottle.

‘What the...?’

The next moment—
SPLURT.

Blood gushed from the Bukhyeolmun Lord’s neck. The moment he turned to look at the Blood King, Chimma had struck like lightning and stabbed him in the throat.

The Bukhyeolmun Lord had only thought of ambushing—but never imagined Chimma would be the one to ambush him. Chimma had already shown such terrifying skill, and had seemed so relaxed in the fight—it was precisely because of that.

“Sorry. Drunken brawls are always messy.”

The Bukhyeolmun Lord wanted to say something in response, but the wound in his neck was too deep. He clutched at his throat, but couldn’t stop the blood pouring out. He collapsed like a sack, eyes wide open in disbelief at such a senseless, humiliating death.

Chimma crouched down and gently closed his eyes.

He had been someone who had to die anyway. Chimma already knew the atrocities he had committed while searching for the Extreme Cold Flesh inside Bukhyeolmun. It had only been a matter of when.

He’d already sensed the Bukhyeolmun Lord wouldn’t betray the Blood King in this fight. And he had also sensed the request for a drink was just a ploy for a sneak attack.

“There’s no good end for anyone standing next to that guy.”

Using the thick scent of blood wafting from the Bukhyeolmun Lord as a snack, Chimma drank. Of course, even while drinking, he didn’t take his eyes off the Blood King for a single moment.

In the air between them twisted cold and heat, heat and cold.

The Blood King finally spoke to Chimma for the first time.

“And yet, no one’s even watching over your side, are they?”

It was a jab at Geom Mugeuk. But it didn’t get through to Chimma.

“Of course they wouldn’t come to a place this dirty and dangerous.”

Instead, Chimma shot back harder.

“For that, I’m really grateful to you. For keeping the Little Pill Master from coming here. He’s not someone who belongs in a place reeking of alcohol and blood. Only humans like you and me should be grabbing each other by the throat and rolling in the dirt.”

The Blood King looked down at Chimma with a strange expression.

“You’re a strange one.”

“I’m drunk. No—you’re not drunk, that’s the problem.”

Babbling nonsense, Chimma drank again. He drank to an excessive degree. But the Blood King saw it. The more Chimma drank, the heavier his eyelids drooped, but the clearer his eyes became.

Chimma motioned for the Blood King to come down.

At last, the Blood King stood and leapt down.

The Blood King had finally stepped forward.

In the place where drunken aura had once filled the air, the Blood King’s blood energy now surged.

“Blood is thicker than liquor.”

The blood energy and drunken aura clashed without yielding an inch.

“You dare compare lowly blood to liquor?”

The smells of liquor and blood, primal and violent, mixed together as the two energies pressed against each other in perfect opposition.