Pyo-wol and the children checked the condition of their bodies while hiding in the ground.
Ordinary people would go crazy or terrified when they saw that they were hiding in the ground without a single light, but the children felt more at ease.
They were more accustomed to darkness than light. They can rest more comfortably when they are in a dark space like this.
In fact, Pyo-wol slept comfortably while hiding. Thanks to it, he was in excellent shape.
An ordinary person would not be able to feel the passage of time if they were in the dark like this, but Pyo-wol knew exactly how much time had passed.
Using his intuition, less than a day must have passed.
‘Afternoon?’
A light of suspicion appeared on his face.
It was around evening when they got here yesterday. A day has passed, and now it will be noon. If they were going to execute a sneak attack, they should have done so last night.
Because the best way to hide assassins was during the night.
An assassination in broad daylight was bound to be a great burden on the assassin. Even for an assassin with excellent stealth skills, it was not easy to completely hide during the day, and it required several times the effort compared to at night.
‘Then are we going to do it tonight?’
He thought that might be the case.
It was not a big deal for the children to hide and not move for a day or two.
Still, he felt strangely reluctant.
The children together with the Fourth Sword and other assassins were all spread out hiding their presence. It should be normal for the area to be this quiet. However, Pyo-wol felt that something was off.
He could feel something ominous.
Even in the underground cavity, many children died whenever he felt this way.
That was then.
Puuc!
Suddenly a spear pierced through the ground where he had been hiding.
Pyo-wol avoided the spear by twisting his body. But not everyone was so lucky.
“Keugh!”
A scream erupted from the mouth of the child hiding right next to him.
There was a long spear stuck in his chest.
Pyo-wol shouted as he kicked out the dirt.
“It’s an attack!”
The children ran out of their hiding place as soon as his cry rang out. The first thing they saw when they came out was a group of soldiers armed with swords and spears.
They encircled the hillside where Pyo-wol and the children were hiding.
“W-What?”
“What’s going on?”
The children, who did not understand the situation, have a bewildered expression. In the meantime, a soldier pulled out a spear that had been stabbed into the floor. A body of a child who had been stabbed to death came out.
“It was true. Assassins were hiding here.”
He muttered as he swung his spear and tossed the body of the dead child in the distance.
“How dare you assassins hide around Qingcheng Mountain? You must not value your lives.”
The man with the spear is named Yoo Jin-ok.
He came from the Qingcheng sect, and was a military man who ran the Jinseong Military Academy.
Yoo Jin-ok pointed at the children with a spear and shouted.
“They have come to attack the Qingcheng sect. Don’t miss a single one and kill them all!”
“Yes, sir!”
The soldiers who were besieging the hillside rushed towards the children all at once.
“What happened? Why are they…”
“Disperse! We’ll regroup once we get out of the encirclement.”
When the children could not properly judge on what to do, So Yeowol gave the order.
At that moment, the children who came to their senses scattered all over the place.
‘We’re at a disadvantage!’
Pyo-wol also ran away and checked the situation. It was not known exactly how many soldiers were besieging the place.
There were only about a hundred people that were visible. If they include the people in hiding, it could have been several times more.
Yoo Jin-ok was a man who was unusually good with a spear. That is why the soldiers of Yoo Jin-ok were also excellent at using the spears. Against assassins who mainly use a short dagger as their main weapon, the spear posed a challenge.
Another bigger problem was that their hideout is exposed and there is nowhere for them to hide.
Assassins showed their greatest power when they utilized the darkness when they attacked. This face-to-face confrontation in broad daylight was inevitably disadvantageous to the children.
“Euk!”
“Kargh!”
The children were not able to respond quickly to the situation and thus were beaten by the soldiers until they collapsed. The children who died couldn’t even close their eyes properly because they could not react in time.
The soldiers also rushed to Pyo-wol.
Shhhhhh!
Their spears went flying towards Pyo-wol from a distance. Pyo-wol’s body shook for a moment before he approached through the narrow gap in between the two soldiers.
“Heup!”
“What?”
The soldiers, who did not know that Pyo-wol would approach them like this, looked surprised.
Quaddok!
Pyo-wol grabbed the man who was closest to him and snapped his head to the side. The man’s neck was broken with a horrific bursting sound before dying.
“He killed one!”
“Die!”
The soldiers, who had unexpectedly lost one of their comrades, hurriedly swung their spears and attacked Pyo-wol. However, Pyo-wol had already kicked off the dead man and flew into the forest.
Pyo-wol had no intention of confronting the soldiers head on here.
Breaking through the siege was an urgent task.
Looking sideways while flying, he saw So Yeowol and several other children breaking through the siege and escaping.
Pyo-wol increased his speed.
“Find them!”
“Do not miss a single one!”
Those who surrounded the children were not just the soldiers of Jinseong Military. There were also many warriors who used different kinds of martials arts.
They continue to attack the children mercilessly. The children did their best to break through the unexpected siege. Still, more children died than those who implemented the siege.
“Lord, I don’t want to die—”
“What did we do wrong?”
Tears flowed from the eyes of the wounded and dying children.
They didn’t do anything wrong. At least after going out into the world.
They felt aggrieved and indignant with the way they’re going to die.
“Those assassins dare to cross the prestigious Qingcheng sect! That alone is enough reason for all of you to die!”
“There is no place for an assassin to set foot on this land!”
Madness was visible on the faces of the soldiers who killed children. They slaughtered them mercilessly.
Pyo-wol climbed up the tree to gain height. Then he hopped from one tree to another like a squirrel while simultaneously avoiding the attacks of the soldiers.
A few soldiers who discovered Pyo-wol even tried to climb up the tree, but could not keep up with his pace.
‘We must move quickly to a safe place.’
Phat!
Pyo-wol finally broke through the encirclement.
He gained quite a few injuries in the process, but nothing fatal. Pyo-wol ignored the pain he felt throughout his body.
The important thing now was to get away from here.
Pyo-wol thought as he ran as fast as he could.
‘What happened?’
They obviously moved in secret. On the way to the mountain, they never met a single person. So, their tracks weren’t supposed to be exposed.
Pyo-wol remembered Yoo Jin-ok’s words.
“It was true. Assassins were hiding here.”
He clearly said so.
This meant that the group of soldiers attacked after receiving information that Pyo-wol and the children were hiding here.
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