Chapter 134 : Chapter 134

Chapter 134. Restoration (2)

Shengzhou, Zhejiang Province.

A middle-aged man entered that place.

The faces of a few residents who recognized the man’s face turned pale.

“Hiiik.”

The person who let out an involuntary shrill scream quickly covered his own mouth with both hands, and those nearby glared at the one who had screamed as if to kill him.

Step. Step.

Every time the man took a step, the commoners of Shengzhou would quickly bow their heads or step back.

Soon, a rumor spread throughout Shengzhou.

That Sura Blood Blade had come to this place.

As if enjoying the terrified expressions of the commoners, Sura Blood Blade strode through Shengzhou with a majestic gait.

Soon, he arrived in front of a building on the outskirts of Shengzhou.

A place with a plaque that read ‘Yeo’s Forge’, it was a forge that dealt with iron, fitting for its name.

But for some reason, the door was locked, and no sound of clashing iron could be heard from inside.

A place that looked like an empty house to anyone.

Sura Blood Blade, who had frowned slightly, shouted.

“Open the door at once!”

A shout imbued with internal energy.

The forge’s door shook violently, but no one came out.

“Heh.”

A vein popped on the forehead of Sura Blood Blade, who let out a dry laugh.

He drew the blade he had been using for a long time and swung it at the door of Yeo’s Forge.

Swish!

The door of Yeo’s Forge was cut clean through by that single strike, in which blade qi was condensed like a ball of thread, even though there was a lock made of iron.

The severed door fell, and a heavy sound echoed.

Thud.

Sura Blood Blade entered the interior of Yeo’s Forge with a proud gait.

Surprisingly, inside the forge, a middle-aged man was sitting.

He opened his mouth with an indifferent expression towards Sura Blood Blade.

“I’ve closed up shop. I won’t charge for the door, so please leave.”

At the words of the owner of Yeo’s Forge, Great Jade Yeo, Sura Blood Blade snorted.

“Do you want to end up like the Pung’un Merchant Group?”

The Pung’un Merchant Group.

The name of a merchant group that was once quite famous in the Zhejiang area and was destroyed by Sura Blood Blade.

It was also the incident that made the already infamous Sura Blood Blade a symbol of fear in this area.

But even at Sura Blood Blade’s threat, Great Jade Yeo’s face was indifferent.

“Kill me if you want to.”

At this, Sura Blood Blade smiled sinisterly.

“It seems you can’t see anything because you trust in your one good talent.”

Soon, Sura Blood Blade’s gaze went beyond Great Jade Yeo.

There was a door behind the space where iron was handled.

“Come to think of it, I heard you have a daughter. Let’s see if you don’t pick up the hammer even if I cut off your daughter’s limbs one by one.”

“……”

The indifferent gaze of Great Jade Yeo wavered.

Sura Blood Blade, who had succeeded in hitting his opponent’s weak spot, snorted once and threw the bundle he had brought at Great Jade Yeo.

With a heavy sound, the bundle fell at Great Jade Yeo’s feet.

Thud.

“Use that black iron to make a blade worthy of use. Every time it doesn’t meet my satisfaction, I will cut off one of your daughter’s limbs. I will come back in three days.”

As if convinced that his opponent could not refuse his command, Sura Blood Blade turned his back and left Yeo’s Forge.

Soon, about a dozen men approached Yeo’s Forge.

They were men from an Underworld gang based here in Shengzhou.

The middle-aged man in the center, the gang leader, clasped his hands in a salute towards Sura Blood Blade and bowed.

“Greetings to Lord Wi!”

As if following his shout, his subordinates also bowed in unison.

“Hahahahaha. Seeing your bright greetings, you must be long-lived fellows.”

“Ahahahaha. I-is there any doubt? It’s all thanks to Lord Wi’s mercy that we can do business here, isn’t it? Ha. Hahaha.”

The gang leader answered, sweating.

He too was a martial artist who had reached a certain level, but he did not dare to defy Sura Blood Blade.

Sura Blood Blade, Wi Hak. He was a man counted among the ten great masters of Zhejiang, and above all, he was known as the second-greatest master among the unorthodox masters in Zhejiang, after the Nine Dragons Fortress Leader.

“D-did you come to that forge on business?”

“That’s right. I plan to stay in Shengzhou until the blade is complete.”

“Then we at the Cheonsu Gang will serve you with the utmost care. Hahaha.”

At the subservient attitude of the Cheonsu Gang leader, Sura Blood Blade nodded with a satisfied expression.

While walking with the Cheonsu Gang leader, Sura Blood Blade glanced back.

From inside Yeo’s Forge, the faint sound of a hammer began to be heard.

A sinister smile hung on Sura Blood Blade’s lips.

***

A day after leaving Shaoxing, we arrived at a place called Shengzhou.

“I smell the stench of trash.”

As I muttered so, the Tang Clan bastard asked sarcastically.

“Have you now reached the state where you can distinguish them by smell?”

“Look at the people’s complexions. If it were one or two, it might be different, but most of them have dark or very angry faces, don’t they? It means there’s a big problem.”

At my explanation, Nam Geon and Junior Sister Baek Hyang nodded.

“H-hyung-ah is right. I-I’ve seen those expressions often.”

“Yes, Senior Brother. I think there is something going on.”

Junior Sister Choyeon looked at me and even asked.

“Then who should I kill, Senior Brother?”

Junior Sister Choyeon was making faster progress than I thought.

Only the Tang Clan bastard, pretending not to understand my explanation, unnecessarily added a comment.

“You saw their expressions, not their smell.”

Appropriately ignoring his nonsense, I approached an old man nearby.

“Elder. May I ask you something? Excuse me, the Sura Blood……”

“Hi-hiiik!? I-I don’t know anything!”

The old man had a seizure before I could even finish saying the words Sura Blood Blade.

“P-please s-spare me!”

We looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions.

“It seems he is here. Or he has visited recently.”

There was no way such a reaction would come out unless he had caused some trouble.

“First, let’s find someone else and ask.”

Asking this elder any more seemed no different from tormenting him.

If we were unlucky, he might be so startled by our question that his heart would stop.

After asking several young people who seemed to have relatively strong hearts, they all acted as if it were an unspeakable secret and ran away as soon as they were asked.

They seemed to be afraid of getting involved and facing retaliation from Sura Blood Blade.

So I used a small trick.

“I have something to deliver to Sura Blood Blade, that trash……. no, that person. Do you happen to know which forge he visited?”

Only then did a young man kindly answer.

“I-if it’s the forge that Lord Sura Blood Blade visited, it’s a place called Yeo’s Forge.”

The young man answered this way, trembling, as if whispering.

“Then where is that place called Yeo’s Forge?”

After getting the necessary information from the man, we moved towards the place called Yeo’s Forge.

As the distance closed, the faint sound of iron being hammered could be heard.

And mixed in between the sounds of the hammering iron was a woman’s shout.

“Father! Please stop! You know what a vicious man he is!”

Even at the woman’s shout, the sound of hammering continued rhythmically.

“If it’s because of me, we can just run away together, Father!”

But as if he could not bear the woman’s last cry, a thick male voice was heard.

“If we run away.”

Clang!

“Do you think we can live?”

Clang!

“What happened to the Pung’un Merchant Group.”

Clang!

“Have you already forgotten?”

Even while refuting the woman, the sound of hammering was still heard rhythmically.

Just by listening to that rhythmic sound, I could tell that the blacksmith’s skill was not ordinary.

Listening to it, a sense of disappointment arose.

Seeing how they were openly badmouthing Sura Blood Blade, it seemed he was not here.

I didn't want to get involved in a fight between a father and daughter, but they would know where Sura Blood Blade was now.

I took a step toward the wide-open forge.

The door lying on the floor seemed to be the result of that Sura Blood Blade bastard’s rampage.

Looking at the cut section of the door, it was a very clean piece of work.

After gauging Sura Blood Blade’s level from that trace, I turned my head and said towards the inside of the forge.

“May I ask you something?”

Whether she had sensed our presence, the woman, who looked to be in her late teens, was looking this way with her mouth shut.

On the other hand, the middle-aged man opened his mouth with his eyes fixed on some black iron.

“I’ve closed up shop. Please leave.”

I asked the man.

“Is that the iron that Sura Blood Blade entrusted to you?”

“……”

Clang!

I spoke again to the man who continued to hammer without any answer.

“Then please stop. You won’t be returning it to its owner anyway.”

Only then did the man stop his hammering and look this way.

Snorting.

“Heh. It sounds like you’re saying you’ll kill Sura Blood Blade for me?”

I shook my head.

“I’m not killing him for you. He was a target of mine from the beginning.”

“You seem young, yet you are being foolhardy.”

“I’m saying I’ll kill him because it’s worth a try.”

The man sighed and said.

“Haaah. Do you know? There was a place called the Pung’un Merchant Group that was quite famous in this area. There were several peak masters belonging to that place, but that merchant group was shattered by one Sura Blood Blade. So what are you relying on to step forward?”

The man, who had spoken at length for once, added in an indifferent tone.

“I don’t want to drive a young man with a bright future to his death. So please leave.”

As I listened to the man’s words, something came to mind, and I said.

“I was asked by the head of that Pung’un Merchant Group.”

“What kind of nonsense……”

Before the man could finish his words, I drew the Restoring Name Sword.

Shing.

“Are you trying to threaten me since words don’t work? Now I see you’re the same as Sura Blood Blade……”

“This sword is the proof. Last year, I helped a person using the alias Yu Cheol. He said that he originally ran a merchant group in Zhejiang but had to flee because of Sura Blood Blade.”

“……Is that really true?”

As soon as I nodded, the man put down his hammer and got up.

The man strode over to our side.

The man who approached just stared at the Restoring Name Sword as if nailed to the spot, without a word.

The man, who was examining the sword with its blade damaged and cracked here and there, frowned.

“You’ve handled it very roughly.”

“It’s because there wasn’t just one or two villains to be killed.”

The man, who looked back and forth between me and the Restoring Name Sword with a complicated expression, nodded as if he understood.

“It seems the head of the Pung’un Merchant Group was really alive.”

“Did you know him?”

At my question, the man pointed at the Restoring Name Sword and answered.

“That sword. It’s an item I forged.”

This time, I was silent for a moment.

Fate was something you never knew.

To think I would meet the blacksmith who made the sword here.

At that moment, the daughter’s voice was heard from behind.

“Father! Please tell him! The head of the Pung’un Merchant Group would know best how fearsome that Sura Blood Blade is! If he entrusted it to him, it must mean that this chivalrous warrior is stronger than Sura Blood Blade!”

There was a slight contradiction in the daughter’s assumption.

When I received the sword, my skills were far inferior to what they were now.

I could tell just by the trace of the door that bastard had cut.

If I had come for Sura Blood Blade at that time, my head would have been cut off in an instant.

But I didn't bother to say such things.

To hear Sura Blood Blade’s location, it would be better to keep my mouth shut.

This time, as if he was finally going to listen to his daughter’s words, the man opened his mouth with a determined face.

“Sura Blood Blade went to a place called Cheonsu Gang.”

Then, the man held out his hand to me.

“Give me the sword. I’ve closed up shop, but I can still repair a sword I made.”