Dark Sky Lord

Gwan-Je Mountain, located three hundred li east of Tae-Won.

Deep within, there was an underground stone chamber.

The underground stone chamber, consisting of two large and small rooms, was exactly forty-four pyeong. The entrance was a six-ja high and four-ja wide iron door.

There was no separate entrance to the small room. There was only a hole the size of one-ja, blocked by an iron grille, where the southern ceiling and wall met. It was just a breathing hole.

A brown wall that even absorbed the faint light, making it feel gloomy.

A pungent smell mixed in the damp air.

Once you entered there, your breath would naturally stop, and fear would dominate the mind of anyone who entered.

The gateway to hell.

A torture chamber where only death existed.

A place people called Room 18 in Secret Prison.

That place... was his birthplace, where he was born and raised with his father.

Chapter 1: Room 18 in Secret Prison

Although his father had a hunched back, he was the best in torture.

From crawling, he grew up watching his father torture every day.

Perhaps it was natural. The place where he was born and raised was Room 18 in Secret Prison.

Room 18 in Secret Prison consisted of two rooms, one was the torture chamber, and the other was the dwelling where he and his father lived.

The reason their dwelling was there was very simple.

Only those who possessed special secrets were entrusted to Room 18 in Secret Prison. As he tortured them, he couldn't help but hear countless secrets from his father and them.

So from the perspective of the high-ranking officials in the castle, would they let his father and him go outside the building? The secrets might leak out.

He had been helping his father since he was five years old.

Sometimes he would sprinkle water on the floor to clean up the blood, and he would also bring the things his father wanted. Sometimes even torture tools.

In his ears, the screams of the sinners sounded like lullabies. The smell of blood that pierced his nose was no different from the smell of food he ate every day.

But strangely, people called his father the Devil and called him the Little Devil.

"Father, why do people call us that?"

Unable to contain his curiosity, he asked his father.

Then, Father held him quietly in his arms and gently stroked his back. That day, the sound of Father's heartbeat seemed unusually loud in his ears.

After that, he never asked again.

Even if everyone in the world cursed Father, he was the best person in the world to him.

* * *

"In the old days, I lived in the palace. Everyone knew me as the Devil from Hell of Northern-Movement Warriors of Imperial Guard. Hehehe... If it weren't for East Agency, things would have gone well..."

Father always whispered in his ear before going to sleep.

Sometimes, he would talk about the past as if telling an old story, but most of the time, he talked about what happened that day.

"Mu-Ryeong, let me tell you about today. They caught a thief named So Hwa-Sam, who is said to be the best in Shanxi. But surprisingly, he had weak willpower. He couldn't even withstand two hours of torture and opened his mouth. Do you know what he said? Well..."

Whether he was sleeping or not, Father never missed a day as if it was his duty.

"He opened his mouth after two days. I even found out about the martial art technique he possessed... Hahaha, he know quite a useful thing."

They didn't leave out any details about the torture methods used or what the prisoner said.

At the same time, they told him never to speak a word to anyone else.

At that time, he didn't know why his father would tell him everything.

Every day, his father was tormented by unbearable pain that he couldn't bear without confiding in someone, but the young boy couldn't understand.

As time passed, he turned fifteen.

A man was assigned to Room 18 in Secret Prison.

His father tortured him with an unusually serious expression.

That night, his father didn't say a word.

Even while sleeping, he woke up several times to look at him.

It was the first time he had seen him like that.

But he pretended not to notice his father's behavior. He wanted to ask, but he didn't.

He would tell him everything once the job was done.

If only he could see into his father's heart, he would have wished for his father to finish his work slowly.

No, maybe he would have wished for him not to do it at all....

But he didn't know his father's heart.

* * *

Three days of torture.

The air in Room 18 in Secret Prison was particularly heavy.

A person was hanging on the brown stone wall, which had dried blood and changed color. But he was not the shape of a living person.

A pale gray face, a body full of holes like a beehive, dried blood like scales, and a appearance that seemed to have crossed life and death at least dozens of times.

He was already no different from a dead person.

However, even more intense fear arose from his two eyes looking straight ahead.

"Devil... Rather... Kill..."

A trembling voice.

Eyes filled with trembling fear.

But the hunchback standing behind him slowly pulled his hand without any change in expression.

The long needle that was stuck in the back of the person hanging on the wall comes out along the hunchback's touch.

The nine-chi-long needle doesn't just come out.

From the moment the needle came out by one chi, a desperate scream echoed through the bloody brain filled with a pungent smell.

"Kkkk!"

Dozens of hooks attached to the thin needle tear the nerves on the back and scratch the bones as they come out.

Drops of blood gradually fall from the tip of the needle onto the bloody liquid on the floor.

Knock, knock, knock...

The sound of dripping blood was not very loud.

But every time that sound echoed in the room, the person hanging from the stone wall, chained up, trembled and shivered.

His body had long turned into a dried-up piece of meat in the slaughterhouse.

Even so, it was hard to believe that he was still alive, still feeling pain.

'I wish they had just killed me...'

The only hope for the person hanging from the stone wall was death.

But he knew very well how futile the hope of dying immediately was.

Although not well known in the world, his opponent was the torture expert of the Gangho Eight Overlords. They would never allow him to die before he spoke.

“If you want to speak, just nod your head whenever you want. If you want to die comfortably. It's not like you can hide it...”

A cold and sharp voice echoes in his ears.

He clenches all his strength and stares at the owner of the voice.

A hunchback steps forward.

An indifferent gaze, a perfect expressionless face.

It's a face where all human emotions seem to have been exterminated.

'You devil...!'

At that moment, it seemed like Kwopchu was extending his hand to the side.

A small hand accepted the needle and handed Kwopchu a small black bottle the size of two fingers.

In an instant, his eyes shook violently like a shipwreck on a stormy sea.

He knew. He knew the pain that would be transmitted through his wounded body if the liquid in the black bottle flowed into it.

Having already experienced it once, he didn't want to endure that pain again, which seemed more severe than any punishment in hell.

In the moment of hesitation, the lid of the black bottle opened with a pop.

The smell of blood mixed with a sour scent pierced his nose. Just by smelling it, he felt a pain that tore his soul apart.

'Ah, no!'

In the end, he gave up everything and nodded his head.

“I... will... speak...”

Emperor Hider, Yang Cheo-Gi.

It had only been three days since he was brought to Room 18 in Secret Prison, which was once the secret guard of Lord Castle, to speak about the 'Lord's Secret'.

That night.

His father patted his back and hugged him tightly.

“Mu-Ryeong, my son, there is no need to be sad. After all, this is your father's fate. But still, you were lucky to have lived here for over twenty years, avoiding the eyes of East Agency. Moreover, you have even left behind such a talented son in this world, haven't you?”

On that day, his father said even more words.

He knew that it was his last night with his father, so he silently shed tears, making his father's chest damp.

And the next morning.

His father pierced a needle, the length of one-ja, into his heart and took his own life.

He knew.

Why his father had pierced his own heart!

* * *

If you were to ask where the Greatest Clan in Shanxi is, the Gangho members would not hesitate to point to one place.

-That would be Lord Castle, one of the Eight Overlords in Gangho!

Lord Castle stood proudly, occupying the middle of Gwan-Je Mountain, which rose steeply to the east of Tae-Won, overlooking the Shanxi martial arts world with arrogance.

Room 18 in Secret Prison was located right at the deepest part of that Lord Castle.

The people of Lord Castle showed no sadness at the death of Gwan-Je Mountain. They wrapped the body of Gwan-Je like a filthy animal carcass and dragged it away.

And they pondered over what to do with Little Devil.

It was impossible to let him out.

Should they kill him, or keep him alive and make him do errands in Secret Prison? They had to choose one.

But it was not difficult to come to a conclusion.

To them, a fifteen-year-old boy was nothing more than a trivial target.

Furthermore, there was only one person who knew about the numerous torture devices and strange medicines in Room 18 in Secret Prison.

In the end, the people of the castle made him in charge of Room 18 until a new owner appeared.

However, within a month, a surprising fact was revealed that shocked everyone.

It turned out that Gwan-Je, the Hell Hunchback, Dok-Go Heon, knew all the torture techniques of the Gangho's First Overlord.

The people of the castle decided to test him. To see if he only knew the techniques or if he could actually perform torture.

To conduct the test, they put one prisoner in Room 18 in Secret Prison.

He performed the first torture excellently.

Without changing his facial expression and without a flicker in his eyes, he dissected the flesh and bones of the person.

The sincere people looked at him with a disgusted expression as he tortured.

'Little Devil, he truly is a venomous snake.'

'He's young, but more venomous than his father.'

'If we release such a person into the world, Gangho will curse us.'

From that day on, he became a torture expert.

Room 18 in Secret Prison became his once again.

That day, he lay on the bed where his father used to sleep, silently shedding tears and making a vow.

'I won't perish in this world, just as Father said!'

* * *

It has been a year since he became the owner of Room 18 in Secret Prison.

During that time, the number of prisoners handled by the Little Devil, Dok-Go Mu-Ryeong, was nineteen. They were all people who had made a name for themselves in Gangho.

However, when they were brought to Room 18 in Secret Prison, they had become so frail that Dok-Go Mu-Ryeong could kill them with one hand.

Dok-Go Mu-Ryeong tortured them and eventually ended their lives, as painlessly as possible.

And finally, on a day in March, when the spring breeze was in the air, the twentieth prisoner was brought to Room 18 in Secret Prison, as if it were fate.