Chapter 71

Chapter 71

Yi-hyeon stopped running.

Behind a warehouse, in an open area facing the sea, Lee Seung-uk lay collapsed on the ground. A short distance away, a man who had been gazing out at the water turned around.

"So you've come."

He looked to be around forty, with a dark complexion, few wrinkles, short hair, and an average build.

He raised a bloodstained hand, scratched his chin, and spoke.

"You're supposedly Australian? I find that hard to believe. Could someone like you really have come from Australia···?"

He was referring to Yi-hyeon's Western appearance and Australian passport, but Yi-hyeon paid no attention to his words.

He walked silently toward Lee Seung-uk and crouched beside him. Then he placed a hand against his neck. There was a faint pulse.

He knew. Lee Seung-uk wasn't dead yet(?). He'd known even before checking his pulse.

But the man was on the very brink of death. His chest had caved inward as though struck by a sledgehammer, and his face was covered in blood. His right shoulder was shattered. His right thigh, too, had been mangled as though a gigantic saw blade had torn through it. That was where most of the blood was coming from.

Ignoring whatever the man beside him was saying, Yi-hyeon examined Lee Seung-uk's injuries, touching various parts of his body to assess his condition. Several minutes passed before Yi-hyeon finally rose and asked quietly,

"Did Li Yongkou send you?"

"Hup!"

For the first time, the man's expression changed.

"How do you know His Excellency's name? What is this?"

Surprise gave way to utter bewilderment on Sun Zhao's face. He twisted his lips as he spoke.

"So His Excellency had a reason for sending me after all. You actually know his name. Looks like I've caught something important today."

The bored expression Sun Zhao had worn earlier vanished, replaced by excitement. His eyes gleamed as he approached.

Yi-hyeon silently surveyed his surroundings. Farther away stood the vehicle belonging to the men Lee Seung-uk had defeated, and several more people lay sprawled on the road.

"I promise you this. I'll tear you up exactly twice as badly as you did this man. You'll find it very refreshing."

Yi-hyeon gestured toward Lee Seung-uk behind him. Sun Zhao gave a short laugh.

"You've got nerve, brat. Especially for someone so young. I think I'll enjoy beating you, too. Just like that bastard···."

Sun Zhao began moving before he'd even finished speaking. By the time the last words left his mouth, he'd already surged directly in front of Yi-hyeon.

He carried no weapon, yet Yi-hyeon felt an enormous pressure bearing down on him.

This bastard is a mass of qi!

It was like having a gigantic boulder rolling straight toward him. The oppressive force was far beyond anything he'd ever felt from another human being. Yet he wasn't intimidated in the slightest. Instead, his blood began to boil.

I want to kill him!

Everything else aside, the mere fact that this bastard had reduced Lee Seung-uk, one of the few people close to him, to such a state was enough to unleash an explosive killing intent.

"Huuu···."

Yi-hyeon gathered his qi with a low, almost whistling exhalation and brought his hands together before his chest. He didn't even want to suppress this opponent by projecting qi as he'd done against lesser fighters. He wanted to collide with the bastard directly, body against body.

Swish!

The air split before Sun Zhao's outstretched fingertips. If Yi-hyeon allowed them to reach his throat, his neck would be sliced open as cleanly as though a blade had struck it.

In a state of absolute concentration, Yi-hyeon gently extended the open fingers of his left hand to meet the attack. His movement was as soft as someone catching a falling snowflake. Yet that gentle gesture stopped Sun Zhao's lightning-fast strike.

Thump!

It was the sound of their first collision. A deep, heavy impact that seemed impossible for two human bodies to produce.

Boom!

Crash!

The shockwave shattered the windows of a warehouse in its path.

Step, step, step.

"Urgh. Cough, cough."

Sun Zhao's legs, as solid as iron pillars, trembled as he staggered backward. Blood erupted from his mouth.

The fight had been decided in an instant.

"Khup! To think someone like you exists. Have you inherited the 'Power of Existence' just like His Excellency?"

It had taken only a single clash. From that one exchange, Sun Zhao knew he'd suffered a fatal injury. Despair gripped his heart.

He strained his fading eyes and glared at Yi-hyeon, but the figure before him kept wavering. At first, he thought his vision had been distorted by the internal energy that had struck him.

But no. Yi-hyeon's entire body was actually shimmering like an apparition as he approached.

"I don't know what this Power of Existence is, but there's one thing I do know. You're going to tell me everything you know before you die."

Murmuring the words, Yi-hyeon reached for Sun Zhao's throat.

At that moment,

Bang! Bang!

Three or four men came running from a short distance away, firing their guns. Police officers guarding the surrounding area had arrived.

Just then, Sun Zhao forced his fading eyes open and spoke.

"I wish I could have another chance to exchange blows with you. Without anyone interfering this time."

Yi-hyeon stared at Sun Zhao's face in disbelief. The man moistened his lips with his tongue and gazed at Yi-hyeon with an almost pleading expression.

Yi-hyeon gave a short laugh.

"That's a nice little dream you've got, but I don't have the time. Consider yourself lucky. If I'd had more time, you would've···."

Crunch!

Yi-hyeon tightened his grip slightly, and Sun Zhao's neck twisted grotesquely. His cervical bones snapped out of alignment, leaving his tongue protruding from his mouth in a hideous expression. Yi-hyeon threw the body to the ground and drew his pistol.

If they came at him with guns, he'd answer with a gun.

Bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

Once again, Yi-hyeon finished each man with a single bullet. Without bothering to check the bodies, he carefully lifted Lee Seung-uk from where he lay on the ground. Then he began sprinting eastward along the coast at full speed.

* * *

After meeting Lee Jung-ho in Seoul, Lee Gyu-seong gave instructions to Yu Min-seon as they left the Sinsa-dong safe house.

"Take the first flight tomorrow. Every member of Sky Team is going to Macau. I'll instruct our local operatives to issue you equipment before you move. Your mission is to bring Song Yi-hyeon back, no matter what. Ask General Lee for the exact escape route."

"Yes, sir!"

Yu Min-seon answered vigorously before raising a question.

"Wait, though. Wouldn't our own agency's operatives have better escape routes prepared?"

It was an entirely reasonable question.

Common sense suggested that a national intelligence organization would have better infiltration and extraction routes than a private group. But Director Lee Gyu-seong was adamant.

"We need to preserve those routes for future use, and there's a strong chance they've already been exposed to North Korea or the Chinese MSS. General Lee's route is likely to be safer. To think that man's still capable of operating at that level···."

"Understood."

And so the NIS officially became involved in the Macau incident.

While Sky Team was moving about busily but discreetly in the middle of the night, Yi-hyeon carried the unconscious Lee Seung-uk into a secluded location.

It was Point C, the place they'd agreed to retreat to if something unexpected happened and they became separated.

It was a shabby hotel near the Macau Taipa Ferry Terminal. With the entire territory on alert, airports and ferry terminals were obvious priorities for police patrols. But Yi-hyeon had defied everyone's expectations by slipping into a safe house established near one of those very locations.

Calling it a hotel was generous. The building was barely two stories tall, and its cracked brick walls looked more than fifty years old. It was a place where dockworkers handling cargo near the ferry terminal rented cheap rooms for short stays.

Yi-hyeon silently ascended an exterior iron staircase attached to the dark building and entered a room in a corner of the second floor.

He had sprinted more than five kilometers across northern Taipa Island at full speed while carrying another man. Such stamina was already beyond human limits. Thanks to it, he'd left the police cordon far behind.

Once inside the room, Yi-hyeon didn't even think about turning on the lights. He immediately began examining Lee Seung-uk.

First, he lightly tore open the shirt soaked with blood and sweat and inspected his chest. The collapsed bones had already returned to their normal position. The swelling around his shattered shoulder had also subsided so much that, apart from the dark bruising, it almost looked normal.

Most importantly, Lee Seung-uk's breathing had stabilized.

All that miraculous recovery was actually the result of Yi-hyeon's intervention. Before fighting Sun Zhao, he'd hurriedly infused Seung-uk with qi, repositioning his crushed chest bones and stabilizing his internal organs. He'd also roughly realigned the shattered shoulder and dispersed the internal blood congestion.

The problem was that he'd lost so much blood from his thigh injury that he still hadn't regained consciousness.

Yi-hyeon removed Lee Seung-uk's torn trousers and concentrated.

'Sion, we can save him, can't we?'

Sion answered Yi-hyeon's desperate question.

- Don't worry, Yi-hyeon. He won't die. What he needs most right now is blood. You dispersed the effects of that man's qi before it was too late, so his condition should remain stable for at least a day. If we obtain blood and give him a transfusion and proper treatment before then, there won't be a problem. By the way···.

'What is it?'

Sion had stopped speaking, so Yi-hyeon asked.

Naturally, he was curious.

- You've grown again, Yi-hyeon. Perhaps you really do advance during intense combat···. In any case, it's strange.

'What's so strange about it?'

Sion thought for quite some time before answering Yi-hyeon's question.

- The Etios, our noble race of mental beings, possess psychic powers far beyond those of the inferior Mtray. Our people advance through stages of meditation, using methods similar to those I taught you. There are no tricks or shortcuts. All that's required is innate talent and concentration that burns unceasingly, like Ermil.

'What's Ermil?'

- Hmm? Haven't I told you? It's the flame of energy that symbolizes our Etios race. A flame that never goes out.

Yi-hyeon wanted to ask whether that flame hadn't ultimately been extinguished when the planet Crowshu was destroyed, but he held his tongue. That wasn't what Sion was trying to explain.

- Anyway, what surprises me is that you're advancing so quickly without undergoing prolonged meditation.

Yi-hyeon nodded inwardly. He'd often heard similar things while studying under Monk Muae.

Even highly accomplished monks who practiced Zen seriously could spend years wrestling with a spiritual question without finding an answer, only to achieve sudden enlightenment shortly after setting out on a pilgrimage. Such enlightenment was called *dono*, a realization that struck as suddenly as a bolt of lightning.

Perhaps it was the effect of actual combat.

The intense focus and complete immersion demanded by an enemy standing before him might be the cause.

Now he needed to find a doctor who could provide Lee Seung-uk with medical treatment, and that wouldn't be easy in Macau. Yet Yi-hyeon didn't feel particularly anxious. He found himself filled with an almost baseless confidence that, with his newly advanced abilities, surely he could manage something like that.

First, he searched Lee Seung-uk's pockets and retrieved his phone. It was the prepaid handset Lee Jung-ho had arranged.

When he switched it on, he discovered numerous missed calls and messages. Most were from President Lee Jung-ho, written using their own particular codes.

He called Lee Jung-ho first. He needed to report his current location and explain the situation.

"Hey, Lee Seung-uk! What the hell are you doing? How could you leave your phone switched off for so long?"

Lee Jung-ho's furious shouting erupted immediately. Lee Seung-uk had developed a habit of keeping his phone switched off because charging a battery wasn't always convenient when operating abroad.

"It's me, President Lee."

"Huh? Oh, Representative! I couldn't reach you, so··· Wait, has something happened to Lee Seung-uk?"

Lee Jung-ho immediately grasped that something was wrong.

Yi-hyeon calmly explained everything that had happened. Lee Jung-ho listened without interrupting once, then let out a long breath.

"The important thing is that you're safe, Representative. I'll arrange immediate treatment for Lee Seung-uk. Yes, I'll send someone shortly. Within two hours. Stay where you are for now."

"Understood."

After Yi-hyeon answered, Lee Jung-ho explained the arrangements he'd recently discussed with NIS Bureau Seven Director Lee Gyu-seong.

"So we'll receive personnel support from the NIS, but we'll use the escape route you've prepared?"

"That's correct. We can't trust their routes at the moment, either. They probably established them more than six months ago."

Normally, when an intelligence organization prepared an emergency escape route, it was supposed to inspect that route at least once every three months. But when peaceful periods dragged on, those inspections became a nuisance and were neglected. With too few personnel and too much work, the checks were repeatedly postponed until the routes fell out of date.

Lee Jung-ho understood the habits of intelligence agencies far too well to rely on an NIS escape route.

After ending the call, Yi-hyeon took a shower in the hotel's dilapidated but functional bathroom. Just as he emerged, someone knocked on the door.

The knocking pattern matched the one Lee Jung-ho had given him, so Yi-hyeon opened the door without hesitation.

A middle-aged man wearing glasses looked at Yi-hyeon and spoke.

"Baby?"

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