The night air was unusually cold, carrying the sharp scent of the river.
Outside the inner wall of the Merchant House compound, Wol hung limp from a heavy wooden pillar. Thick, iron-reinforced hemp ropes were coiled tightly around his chest and wrists, binding him to the solid oak beam. His head was bowed, his long hair falling forward like a curtain of tangled shadows, obscuring his face.
Goo Jung had already handed him over, disappearing into the inner courtyard under the guise of reporting his success. Now, only two guards remained to watch over him.
The area was dimly lit by flickering oil lamps mounted on the stone walls. In the quiet of the night, their voices drifted lazily toward Wol.
"I heard the Leader won't be back until next week," one guard whispered, leaning against his spear.
"Next week?" the other replied, squinting into the darkness. "So the rumors were true. The business he's on this time is something private."
"Must be. Manager Jo has been on edge all day."
Inside his mind, Wol listened. Leader. That was how these men saw Shin Daesok. And if he was away for "private business," it meant something bigger than Wol had anticipated was going on—something he couldn't remember from his past life.
The heavy inner doors groaned open with a slow, grinding crakkk. A figure stepped out into the courtyard, the light from the lantern in his hand reflecting off the silk of his pristine robes.
It was Manager Jo Sang-il. He had a narrow face with sunken eyes and a mouth that looked like it had never formed a single honest word in his life—the face of a man who never resorted to good ways unless he was forced.
He walked slowly toward the pillar, his boots echoing against the cobblestones. He reached out with a gloved hand, lifting Wol's chin by the hair.
"So, this is the brat," Jo Sang-il mused, his voice smooth and cold. "You look remarkably ordinary for someone who cost the Leader thousands in lost revenue. A bit of luck, perhaps? Or did the Mad Dogs just catch you while you were daydreaming at the docks?"
Wol didn't respond.
"Make sure he's alive until the Leader comes back," Jo said to the guards.
He kept his breathing shallow, his muscles completely slack. Jo Sang-il chuckled and let go, Wol's head falling back against his chest. "No matter. The Leader will want to see the face of the one who tried to starve his profits. You'll wish you had stayed a simple fisherman once he's finished with you."
Just as Jo turned to walk back inside, a guard came running from the hallway, his face pale.
"Manager Jo! The signatures... the documents Goo Jung brought to move the woman from the medicine hall as per your order! One of the clerks noticed something. It's a forgery!"
Jo Sang-il froze. He snatched the paper from the guard's hand, his face contorting with a murderous rage. He knew it instantly. It wasn't just a mistake; it was a betrayal.
"Those filthy dogs," Jo hissed. "Lock down the gates! Search every inch of the compound! If they aren't here, hunt them through the slums!"
"They're already gone, sir!" the guard stammered.
Jo Sang-il was clutching his fists, the knuckles turning white as he gritted his teeth in a silent, vibrating fury.
Two Hours Earlier
Inside the dark storehouse of Yeonhwa-ru, the Mad Dogs had sat in stunned silence as Wol explained the plan.
"Are you sure this will work?" Goo Jung asked, his voice low. "If we fail to kill them all and Shin Daesok finds out, he'll hunt us to the ends of the earth."
"Shin Daesok will fall if we do this properly," Wol said, his eyes hard. He held up a piece of parchment. "I forged Shin Daesok's signature. I saw it on the contract he tried to force on Uncle Sung. It's enough to get you past the guards and secure your sister. Don't delay; it'll be a matter of time before they find out."
He looked at the nine men.
"Five of you will enter with me. The other four will be on standby outside, positioned at the four sides of the building. When Goo Jung gets his sister out, come in—we're gonna need a distraction."
"Wait," Dae-ho, the eldest brother, interrupted. "I saw the ledger storage on the west side during a delivery last month. It only opens when Shin Daesok is present. It's where he keeps every transaction record, every debt. It's the best place to hit if we need a distraction."
"That's our distraction," Wol said. "The first explosion will be there. It will make them go crazy. While they're focused on the fire, I'll create a commotion inside. Three of you stay with the sister; Goo Jung and one other will return to the treasury once she's safe. We empty the vault while the compound burns. Then we destroy the entrance to trap them inside."
Present Day
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion rocked the western wing. A pillar of fire erupted from the ledger house, lighting up the sky in a hellish orange.
"The ledgers!" Jo Sang-il screamed, his composure shattering. "Save them! Split up—ten of you to the north wing, ten of you follow the smoke! Kill them! Kill every single one of those bastards!"
Just as he gave the order, the main gates groaned under a second blast. Plumes of black smoke and debris made the entrance impassable.
Jo went crazy, his eyes darting frantically. He caught a flash of movement out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at the pillar.
The boy was gone.
"Where is—"
The scream died in his throat as five of the guards protecting his back fell in a single, silent spray of blood. Wol was standing there, holding a guard's sword. He flicked the blood off the blade with a sharp, cold motion. The light from the fire was behind him, casting a long, growing shadow that seemed to swallow Manager Jo.
The remaining guards attacked as a group, but the mercenary, Iron-Claw Ma, was the one leading the charge. Ma lunged, his gauntlets carving through the air with a heavy, whistling sound.
Wol met the first strike, and he immediately knew he was in trouble. His current body, still recovering from years of malnutrition and the recent strain of his training, was screaming. He couldn't go on the offensive. He could only block and dodge, his movements jagged and desperate.
"You're like a rat," the mercenary sneered, his iron gauntlets clashing against Wol's sword with enough force to vibrate bone. "But let's see how long that stamina lasts. You're already dragging your feet."
Ma was right. Wol felt his Qi reserves hitting the floor. His lungs burned, and his muscles felt like they were being filled with lead. It was a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time—the pure, raw exhaustion of a mission where his Qi hit zero in his past life.
But oddly, he felt joy.
As his breath came in ragged gasps and his vision blurred at the edges, he felt something he had missed since the day his Dantian was first lost in his previous life. He felt alive. It was as if his soul, which had been scattered and lost across two lifetimes, was finally gathering once again. For the first time, he wasn't just an observer in a biological shell; he was returning to himself.
Ma lunged again. Wol raised his sword to block, but the cheap metal couldn't take another mountainous impact.
CRACK.
The sword shattered into a dozen jagged pieces. Ma's fist didn't stop. With no weapon left, Wol instinctually raised his bare hand to guard. The impact was sickening. He felt his bones groan as he was sent flying across the courtyard, his back slamming into a stone pillar.
A group of more than ten guards, seeing him down and weaponless, rushed forward with their spears leveled. Wol didn't stay down. He used a powerful kick-up to snap back to his feet, ignoring the agony in his ribs. He spat a mouthful of dark blood into the dirt and readied his fists.
"Come on," he whispered.
The first guard lunged. Wol dodged the spear tip by a hair, stepped inside the man's reach, and delivered a brutal knee to his solar plexus. He didn't wait for him to fall. He caught another guard's wrist, kneed him in the elbow to break his grip, and spun into a low roundhouse kick that shattered another man's shins.
He took scratches. A blade grazed his arm; a spear point nicked his shoulder. But he focused his mind, calming the frantic beat of his heart. He didn't waste his remaining Qi on every movement. He focused it in his Dantian and only released it at the exact moment of impact—timing his internal energy to the millisecond of contact.
It was a clinical, brutal display of footwork. The guards were just numbers, and one by one, he systematically dismantled them. He ducked under a horizontal slash, grabbed the man's throat, and used his own momentum to hurl him into the path of another attacker.
As the last few guards hesitated, Wol lunged forward, snatched a sword from the hands of the dying man at his feet, and cut down the remaining three in a single, fluid circle of steel.
Ma intercepted him again. The mercenary brought his full weight down in an overhead strike that should have crushed Wol into the stone. But this time, Wol didn't block. He parried.
He didn't meet the force head-on. He angled his blade, sliding along the side of the iron gauntlet. The massive momentum of the strike was killed, diverted into the ground beside him. Wol didn't budge an inch; he stayed perfectly on the spot.
Ma stepped back, his eyes narrowing. He could feel the shift. What a monster, the mercenary thought. The kid clearly had almost no Qi left, yet somehow he was making up for it with pure, terrifying technique. The kid was getting stronger as the seconds ticked by, adapting to the pressure like steel under a hammer.
Ma knew dragging this out was a death sentence. He gathered every ounce of his dense, heavy Qi into his right fist. The air around the gauntlet began to warp. "I'll end this now!"
Ma jumped, coming at Wol with everything he had.
Wol didn't move. He stayed low, pulling the sword straight back until the flat of the blade rested horizontally across his vision. For a heartbeat, his own reflection stared back at him from the notched steel—eyes sharp, piercing, and terrifyingly calm.
He didn't use a powered swing. He thrust forward, the movement relaxed, almost casual.
At the very last microsecond, a spark of Qi flared—not coating the blade, but concentrated with needlepoint precision onto the very tip.
Heavenly Demon Ascension: First Form — Void Severing.
The tip of the sword didn't just strike; it crushed the soul of the mercenary's technique at its structural root. As the blade passed through the air, the massive amount of Qi Ma had gathered in his hand was simply destroyed. The iron gauntlet disintegrated, and the mercenary's fist was erased along with it.
Ma fell to the ground instantly, his momentum gone, his arm ending in a cauterized, empty stump. He didn't even have time to scream before the shock took him.
Wol's eyes remained cold as the final guard fled into the smoke. Inside, his body was screaming; his breath was heavy, and his heart was hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. Every muscle was on the verge of collapsing, and his Qi was nearly gone.
But he didn't show the slightest hint of it on his face. He knew that even though the guards were fleeing, any sign of vulnerability would turn them back into predators. He hid the tremors in his hands and walked toward Jo Sang-il with the steady, terrifying stride of a monster.
Wol grabbed him by the collar, his grip like iron, despite the tingle of exhaustion in his fingers.
"Eight years ago. An escort mission to the Western Pass. Nobody returned. Who was it from and what was the escort for? Talk, or I'll cut down your fingers one by one."
Jo Sang-il's eyes darted — calculating, even now. Even with a blade at his throat and his compound burning around him, the man was still weighing options. Still looking for leverage.
"Eight years... I... the Leader!" Jo babbled. "I don't know... please spare me! I didn't mean to offend you, sir! It was Shin Daesok, that bastard made me do this! I'll give you money... yes, I know where the money is stored! Rare herbs and swords...!"
As Jo babbled, Wol pressed the sword to his neck. A thin line of blood dipped from the small cut.
"I said: what happened during that mission?" Wol's voice was as cold as the river in winter. His eyes were void of emotion.
Jo Sang-il felt his soul trembling. For a long moment, something behind his sunken eyes hardened — the last flicker of a man who had spent his whole life trading in secrets, unwilling to give one away for free even at the edge of death. Then the blade pressed deeper, and the flicker died.
"I don't know the exact details! But he said to cover it up by saying it was the Demonic Sect! We followed his order... but I know where you can find the truth!" Jo gasped. "All the top secret letters... the personal requests... he keeps them in his vault! In his office, behind the painting!"
Wol dragged him to the office. Jo moved the picture—a landscape painting that fit perfectly to the wall, unnoticeable unless one knew the secret. Behind it lay a massive iron door.
"This is it," Jo whispered, his voice trembling. "It's a Goryeo-style multi-lock. It can only be opened by the jade pendant the Leader carries on him. If you try to force it, it triggers an internal collapse that will incinerate everything inside."
Wol stepped in front of the vault and closed his eyes. He didn't have the pendant, but he could try it with the same sword technique, only with more precision and control. He visualized the internal mechanisms—the tumblers and the traps.
He squeezed every remaining drop of Qi from his Dantian, forcing it toward the edge of the mystery blade. His head felt light, and a cold tingling sensation spread through his limbs. He was on the edge of passing out, his vision swimming in the dark office.
Not yet, his mind whispered. With pure will, he gathered that last bit of essence and sharpened it into a needlepoint of focus. In a single, precise move, he sliced through the iron. The heavy door groaned and swung open.
Jo Sang-il stared in utter disbelief. No one should have been able to bypass that lock without the Leader's key.
Wol ignored him. He reached into the dark interior and found the stack of scrolls. He found the manifest. He found the long, cloth-wrapped object at the back—the mystery sword. Its hilt was damaged, but as he touched it, the blade radiated a familiar, hungry hum that resonated with his spirit. He discarded the notched sword and took the mystery blade.
Wol took every scroll and letter from the vault, stripping off Jo Sang-il's outer robe to use as a makeshift bag.
Before he left, he drew the mystery blade.
Jo Sang-il saw the look in Wol's eyes and finally understood that no amount of bargaining would save him. The calculation left his face. What replaced it was something rawer — not remorse, but the naked fear of a man who had spent his life doing the accounting for other people's cruelty and was now receiving the final bill.
"If I didn't know what kind of person you were, I might have left you alive," Wol said, his voice flat. "But there is trash that doesn't deserve redemption. You and Shin Daesok are cut from the same cloth."
Jo Sang-il opened his mouth one last time — not to plead, but to curse. It was the most honest thing he had ever done. He never finished. His head came away from his shoulders, and the office fell silent except for the distant roar of the fire.
I'll need to find a good smith to reforge this blade, Wol thought, sensing something truly special about the metal as he walked past the chaos.
Outside the crumbling rear wall, the air was thick with the smell of blood and burning cedar. Several dead bodies lay twisted in the dirt—guards and clerks who had tried to flee the inferno, only to be cut down before they reached the shadows of the slums.
Wol stepped through the breach in the stone, his eyes scanning the carnage. Goo Jung stood nearby, his chest heaving, his sword dripping with fresh, dark blood. His younger brother was beside him, similarly stained.
"You got the remaining?" Wol asked, his voice devoid of fatigue despite the ordeal.
"Every last one that tried to run," Goo Jung replied, wiping a streak of blood from his cheek with a trembling hand. He looked at Wol—at the mystery sword in his hand and the bundle slung over his shoulder—and felt a sudden, heavy weight in his chest. It wasn't just gratitude; it was an instinctive recognition of authority.
Wol walked toward the waiting carriage, which was already laden with the gold they had salvaged from the treasury. "Let's go."
He didn't wait for a response. He simply began to walk. And without a word, without a glance between them, Goo Jung and the others followed.
As the carriage began to rattle away from the burning compound and into the maze of the city, Goo Jung leaned forward.
"Shin Daesok is still out there," he said, his voice low and bitter. "That bastard is always annoying, always one step ahead. How do we deal with him? The docks will be crawling with his elite men."
"We're going to attack him on his way," Wol said, staring at the orange glow of the compound as it receded in the distance. "But first, I need to know exactly what he's doing. Whatever business he has tonight... it's shady. Shadier than even you know."
He reached into the bundle at his side and pulled out one of the dark, iron-bound books.
"I have the secret ledgers," Wol said, his eyes reflecting the cold fire of the night. "Everything he's ever hidden is in here."
As the final words left his lips, the last of his strength evaporated. His vision went black, and his knees buckled.
He didn't hit the floor. Goo Jung's strong arms caught him before he fell.
"Thank you... for saving my sister. And for saving us," Goo Jung whispered, his voice thick with emotion as he lowered Wol onto the bench of the carriage. "You can rest now, Wol."
Wol heard the words through a thick fog. He let out a long, shuddering breath and closed his eyes.
That was the end of the Merchant House of River Dragon City.