FVN Chapter 364 : Truth (4)
Chapter 364 : Truth (4)
The screaming that had dragged on for hours finally died down.The man who'd been slapped across the face earlier walked back up to the old eunuch and made his report.
"I apologize, Grand Eunuch. It seems the women and children knew nothing. The chieftain we captured alive was no different."
"Tch. Find the next settlement. And if you screw up again like this, I'll have every last one of you put to death."
"Understood!"
The moment the Grand Eunuch finished speaking, the Eastern Depot eunuchs moved in perfect unison. They dealt with the women and children who'd passed out from the brutal interrogation, then packed up and started heading west, following the trail.
What they hadn't accounted for was a fundamental difference between these northern nomads and the people of the Central Plains.
It’s that the nomads didn't stay in one place.
Half a day of tracking the hoofprints left by the child who'd fled on horseback, and by late into the night, they found the remains of a camp that had housed around fifty people.
"Grand Eunuch, the tracks are only a few hours old."
Completely unfamiliar with the nomadic lifestyle of the steppes, the Grand Eunuch simply furrowed his brow and gave a sharp command.
"Start the pursuit. Now."
Following his orders, they spent yet another grueling half-day chasing the trail across the plains. As dawn broke and the dark plains finally became visible, they spotted the fleeing nomads riding hard in the distance.
"Chase them down!"
The Eastern Depot eunuchs spurred their horses forward. They pushed the carriage horses they used for their merchant disguise and the steeds they stole from the massacred nomads to their absolute limits.
As daylight crept in, the nomads seemed to realize they were being chased and began pushing their own horses harder.
It was a strange chase, unlike anything Grand Eunuch or any of the Eastern Depot eunuchs had ever experienced. They could see the nomads clear as day, and the nomads could see them just as clearly, yet the gap between them stayed frustratingly wide.
‘Damn it.’
Grand Eunuch's expression twisted.
He hadn't expected things to fall apart this badly just because one child had slipped through their fingers. Actually, he hadn't even imagined a child could escape in the first place. It simply never crossed his mind that a mere nomad brat could ride well enough to leave the elite eunuchs of the Eastern Depot eating dust.
Seeing the Grand Eunuch's scowl, the Eastern Depot eunuchs clenched their teeth and drove their horses harder.
The chase stretched on. Then, shadows slowly crept across the faces of the eunuchs.
The horses were losing steam. Their pace had dropped sharply.
While they trembled at the thought of the Grand Eunuch's punishment, an unexpected order came from his mouth.
"Dismount! Use your lightness skills and chase them on foot! Their horses are just as spent as ours, so now is our perfect chance to strike!"
The eunuchs' eyes lit up at the order. They leapt from their saddles and launched themselves forward with lightness skills. The Grand Eunuch himself was already airborne, pulling ahead of the pack and racing toward the nomads.
Just as Grand Eunuch had predicted, the gap began closing far faster than before.
By the time Grand Eunuch had managed to cut the distance roughly in half, something went wrong.
Realizing their horses were completely spent, the nomads suddenly split apart in every direction and bolted.
Startled by the sudden maneuver, the Grand Eunuch imbued his vocal cords with internal energy and roared.
"Split up and chase them!"
With the order given, the Grand Eunuch locked his sights onto his primary prey and bolted forward with explosive speed. His target was the mysterious figure wearing the furious mask of the Four Heavenly Kings.
There was no doubt in his mind that this person had a direct connection to the Maitreya Luminous Cult, so Grand Eunuch threw everything he had into catching them alive.
By the time Grand Eunuch had closed in on the masked figure, the rest of the nomads had already scattered in all directions. Across the vast steppe, the shouts and screams of fleeing nomads and pursuing Eastern Depot eunuchs echoed out from every corner.
"Haaaah!"
He was right there. Grand Eunuch finally closed the last of the gap and reached out to subdue the masked rider when—
The masked figure suddenly toppled from the horse and hit the ground.
Grand Eunuch rushed over in alarm and checked. The man's neck had snapped when he fell; he was dead on impact. But upon closer inspection, he noticed thick, black blood oozing from the edges of the man's mask.
The fanatic had bitten down on a hidden poison capsule and committed suicide.
"You sons of bitches!!"
Seething, the Grand Eunuch pushed his lightness skill to the limit to try to catch at least one of the others, but the remaining nomads had already put considerable distance between themselves and him.
The missionary had deliberately waited until the very last possible second to commit suicide, solely to buy time for the rest of his tribe to scatter.
Eventually, the Eastern Depot eunuchs who had scattered across the steppe came filtering back. When they tallied up the dead bodies and the live captives, the total barely passed twenty.
Considering the nomadic group originally numbered over fifty, this elite group of martial artists had failed to capture even half of them.
"You useless trash!!!"
The Grand Eunuch's shrill shout rang out again and again. The Eastern Depot eunuchs kept their heads bowed and said nothing as they trembled where they stood.
"Load those women and children onto the carriage. We move out. We'll track down the next settlement and conduct the interrogations along the way."
After issuing his orders and watching the eunuchs scramble into action, the Grand Eunuch stood alone and gnawed at his thumbnail.
"This was a chance I barely managed to get. A chance to impress the Supreme Eunuch!!"
He was terrified of failing here, of losing the position of Eastern Depot Director back to Eunuch Bang.
With the horses and carriages sorted, the Eastern Depot eunuchs set off again. Most of the horses taken from the previous settlement had bolted during the chaos of the chase, but they'd seized new ones from the nomads they'd caught.
The women and children with their pressure points sealed were loaded onto the carriages. The eunuchs took turns sleeping in shifts to catch whatever scraps of rest they could. Those who weren't sleeping drove the horses and carriages while tracking the trail, and they'd take turns pulling a woman or a child out and continuing the torture.
By that point, it had nothing to do with extracting information about the Maitreya Luminous Cult anymore. Neither the women nor the children knew anything about the Cult's secrets, and deep down, every one of the eunuchs knew it. They were just taking out their frustration on a mission on the verge of failure on people who couldn't fight back.
Days passed as they wandered the barren steppe.
No matter how far they roamed, they couldn't find a single nomad settlement. All they ever turned up were the remnants of camps that had been abandoned not long before.
Eventually, the number of live captives left to torture dwindled down to a mere three, and the food and water rations they had looted from the massacred tribe were dangerously close to running out.
"Grand Eunuch. Someone's approaching."
Out beyond the desolate horizon, around thirty riders were making their way toward them.
"They might be the ones who killed the Martial Alliance's spies."
Hearing his subordinate's report, the deep anxiety shadowing the Grand Eunuch's eyes instantly vanished, replaced by something that looked almost like glee.
"Hehehe. To think our prey would willingly walk right into our laps. It seems heaven hasn't abandoned me just yet."
Grand Eunuch wasn't the least bit afraid. Among all the warriors in the Martial Alliance, save for the Alliance Leader Cheok Pae-myeong, there wasn't a single master who could hold a candle to him.
Unless the one they'd killed was Martial Alliance Leader Cheok Pae-myeong himself, there was nothing to fear.
"Since they are so eager to throw their lives away, let's take a quick breather here and wait for the fools to arrive."
Noticing that his men were utterly exhausted from their grueling march, the Grand Eunuch happily permitted them to rest. When the enemy had drawn close enough, they got back to their feet.
"You pieces of garbage!! How dare you harm innocent people!!"
One man roared at the front of the approaching group and came charging straight at them.
"Hmph."
An Eastern Depot eunuch sneered and broke into a run to meet him head-on.
"Keep half of them alive. We still need information."
The Grand Eunuch threw out the warning just before the fight broke out.
And then, the sound of something being cleaved rang across the steppe.
It was the sound of an Eastern Depot eunuch being cut clean in two along with his sword.
The massive sword swung by the man who'd come barreling in like a madman had split the eunuch apart with an almost casual ease.
Only then did the Grand Eunuch realize they had made a grave miscalculation.
"So you're the leader of these dogs!!"
The man had noticed the Grand Eunuch's superior cultivation in an instant and came charging straight for him in a straight line. By the time he did, Sword Force was already wreathing his greatsword.
The Grand Eunuch threw his own Sword Force together in a hurry and swung to meet the blow.
A tremendous explosion rang out.
The Grand Eunuch was shoved back three full steps, losing the clash of raw power.
"Ugh."
While Grand Eunuch bit back a groan and clenched his teeth, the masked man came pressing in.
"Pay for what you did to those innocents!!"
The Grand Eunuch barely managed to parry the relentless attacks, and when he couldn't, he threw his dignity aside and rolled across the ground to avoid them. After weathering several exchanges, he let out a sharp shout.
"You! You're Dokgo Ryong of the Demonic Cult!!!"
Since he was working alongside the Supreme Eunuch on the plan to wipe out the martial world, he was well-versed in the top combatants of the Demonic Cult.
The opponent's absurdly high martial realm, his signature greatsword, and his incredibly straightforward swordplay made it easy for the Grand Eunuch to identify the man’s true identity.
"Ha! And you lot are nothing but the Imperial Family's dickless dogs! What business do a bunch of eunuchs have wandering out here!!"
Infuriated by Dokgo Ryong's crude jab, the Grand Eunuch swung his sword with fire in his eyes.
But having fire in your eyes doesn't change anything when you're outmatched.
They were both masters of the same realm, but Dokgo Ryong was at least a cut above the Grand Eunuch.
And on top of that.
"Gaaagh!"
The Eastern Depot eunuchs who had come north with the Grand Eunuch were falling to the Demonic Cult's zealots.
‘This is bad.’
The Grand Eunuch realized his life was on the line, and as that thought crossed his mind, Dokgo Ryong's greatsword came crashing in again.
"Don't you dare look away!!"
The Grand Eunuch barely deflected the blow and was shoved back yet again.
He watched Dokgo Ryong come charging at him once more, and he threw himself sideways to dive behind the carriage that was carrying the captive women and children.
The moment he did, Dokgo Ryong had no choice but to jerk his sword off its path at the last second.
That split-second hesitation told the Grand Eunuch everything he needed to know.
While Dokgo Ryong's redirected greatsword slammed into the ground, the Grand Eunuch was already moving again. He shot out and snatched a child off the carriage with his left hand.
"You miserable little rat, how dare you!!"
The fury burning in Dokgo Ryong's eyes blazed so fiercely it was visible even through the furious Heavenly King mask.
But whether Dokgo Ryong was furious or not, every time he swung his greatsword, the Grand Eunuch thrust the child out in front of him like a shield.
Each time, Dokgo Ryong had no choice but to wrench the sword aside and swing around the child.
"Using a child as a shield!! You filthy dog!!"
Dokgo Ryong's open contempt didn't move the Grand Eunuch one bit.
Instead, he abruptly hurled the child directly at Dokgo Ryong's face and kicked off the ground to retreat. And as he did, he slashed his sword through the air to send a strand of Sword Qi flying after the child he'd just thrown.
Dokgo Ryong desperately swung his greatsword to knock the Sword Qi out of the air and lunged to catch the child.
In that brief moment, the Grand Eunuch had already turned tail and was gone, using his lightness skill to put distance between himself and the fight at full speed, leaving every last surviving Eastern Depot eunuch behind without a second glance.
"Finish off the rest! I will chase that piece of shit to the ends of the earth and cut him down!!"
Dokgo Ryong gently set the child down, then transformed into something like wrath given human form and set off after the Grand Eunuch.