Chapter 208: The Knights’ Nightly Activities (2)

Lee Han was a knight with a diverse background. However, among all of his backgrounds, the most unusual one was definitely…

-Assassin.

…It was a career that would have frightened others if they heard about it. However, it was rare to see a knight with such a background, and it was also hard to believe that such a knight existed.

Although, Lee Han never really worried if others were to discover this fact. In the first place, he never put in any particular effort to really hide it. Of course, he also didn’t yap around to announce that he was a former assassin, but most of his close acquaintances knew about it already.

There was also another reason why he could reveal it without hesitation, and that was none other than…

-I didn’t kill anyone, so I’m rather proud of that career of mine.

He was raised as an assassin, yes, but before he could even start his main job(?), the organization he belonged to collapsed, and he ended up becoming a free man, making him an assassin who had learned assassination technique but had never killed anyone. After that, he had mostly abandoned the assassination technique while climbing the mercenary ranks and the kingdom’s soldier ranks

Nevertheless…

I didn’t abandon the [knowledge]

Assassination techniques didn’t simply consist of combat techniques. In fact, the organization taught him other important things such as ‘infiltration’, ‘exploration’, and ‘navigation’, as well as various espionage and spy techniques.

Thinking back now, Lee Han thought that the [Black Moon] wanted him to not only play the role of a combatant, but also that of a ranger. Although back when he was with them, he could only sigh at them because they were teaching him all sorts of things…

“Ah, found it.”

Regardless, perhaps the saying ‘as long as someone learns something useful, it is bound to be used,’ was born from cases like these.

Five hours and forty five minutes.

That was the time it took Lee Han to find the entrance to the Great Temple.

Well, he called it the entrance, but…

“It’s just a river with a rapid current.”

The place really was just a river where people would drown and die after falling was commonplace.

Information about the Great Temple was strictly controlled.

What did that mean?

It meant, there was almost no information about it written anywhere. In fact, it wasn’t even on the maps.

Places that didn’t appear on the maps were usually places with great significance. And in the case of the Great Temple, it was because it contained ‘sacred relics,’ ‘graves,’ ‘tombstones,’ and ‘100,000 books’ that honor the kingdom’s great heroes.

In other words, all the [cultural heritages] of high historical value were stored in there, and in the event that the capital were breached during a war, the Great Temple had the ‘duty’ to protect all of those cultural heritages.

That was the reason why the geographical location of the Great Temple wasn’t shown on the map. Even if it were, no one, not even the commander-in-chief of the military or the king himself, could obtain said map.

However…

-Even if I can’t get the map, this lady can tell you what the Great Temple is like.

Among his connections, there was a certain princess who sat really close to the pinnacle of this kingdom. Thanks to her, he was able to get information about the Great Temple, which was considered top secret.

-The Great Temple literally looks like a huge temple. Well, it actually is more like an iron fortress than a temple, though. A wall made of Divine Technique surrounds it twenty-four hours a day, and it extends all the way to the clouds and underground.

It wouldn’t be hard for a knight of his level to break through that wall, but breaking it wouldn’t be wise, as it was the equivalent of him openly declaring, ‘I’m going to invade the temple!’, so, he couldn’t just do that.

-Also, they carved the mountain to make the Great Temple, so they had a natural barrier to protect them, turning them impregnable like a fortress. Well, to others, it would probably make it look more holy and modest.

Was that all?

Of course not.

Because the Great Temple was made by carving out a mountain, they only had a handful of entrances.

-Inside the main temple, there are large farms and abundant water sources, so they’re pretty much self-sufficient. Even if an enemy infiltrates Pendragon and targets the Great Temple, it will be able to last for a year without outside support.

A fortress that received the love of heavens, one that was blessed with Divine Technique. That fact made Lee Han understand why the Great Temple was chosen to store all those relics.

However…

-…There is a water source, you say? Is it from groundwater or a flowing river?

-The latter.

-Hoo…

-Haaa… That won’t be a wise idea.

-But, I didn’t say anything yet…

-Are you not trying to infiltrate through the river?

-…I told you to stop reading my mind, Elder Sister.

In this world, there was nothing that could be called flawless.

Hence why, right now…

“What kind of river is this? I get chills from just looking at it… Why are they so thorough?”

Compared to the 5 whole hours he spent looking for the Great Temple’s entrance, Lee Han had become significantly more haggard when he saw what was in front of him. He tried to invade the riverside, and he found out that there were more people guarding the place than he thought.

Not only that…

-Woof!

-Grrr…

On top of the hundreds of people standing in a tight defensive formation this late at night, a significant number of military dogs were howling ferociously. If he hadn’t dug tunnels here and there while moving to the river, he would have been caught long ago.

They placed this kind of force to guard a single temple? What is this, the Pentagon?

The fact that they had even more thorough defense than the royal castle was ridiculous.

At the same time, Lee Han was also amazed.

He had lost all of his assassination skills, but he was armed with a variety of techniques that were no less powerful.

Airwalking, tunnel digging, Bending Body Launch—with those skills he could turn into a bird or a mole, depending on the situation.

…But those skills were utterly useless here as the temple’s guards would aim their arrows at the flying birds. They even manually planted long spears into the ground one by one, so much so, to the point that one would wonder if there was something valuable buried underground.

Before he came here, he thought that the temple had set fire to the forest, but it seemed like they were still a temple in the end. They didn’t do anything to the mountains or fields that would turn them barren.

They did believe that Light of Brilliance is One that governs life.

I can see why they wouldn’t carelessly destroy nature.

…Still, for a religion that governs life, they treat human’s life like weeds.

Regardless…

Even after Lee Han mobilized all his skills, knowledge, and experience and barely managed to reach the lake that served as the temple’s water source. He still could see soldiers stationed around the place.

I am a turtle…

He continued to move secretly, hiding his presence to the extreme.

It was said that turtles’ heartbeat was as slow as their walking speed.

Slowly… Even slower…

Only 6 beats per minute.

Considering that the average human heart beats for around 60 or 100 beats per minute, it’d leave someone to wonder if achieving something like that was really possible.

Lee Han was just slowing his heartbeat to the speed of a turtle, but if one were to think that such slow heartbeat was the reason why turtles could live a long life, such a feat became something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Hence why…

I did it…

If this turtle breathing method, gait, and heart movement were applied to humans, the effect it had would be amazing. After all, it was a technique that made it possible for one to freely control the relaxation of the body’s muscles and organs.

Hoo…

Haa…

Hoo…

Saaaaaaaak…

-[Turtle Breathing Method].

It was a secret technique that wasn’t really a secret for the murim practitioner who often pretended to be dead and posed as the perfect corpse. What Lee Han did was applying the technique for espionage.

Completely hiding his presence. He completely merged with the darkness, making no one knew that a person was crawling.

However, since Lee Han was still faster and more agile than a turtle, his speed was still pretty quick. As he became more and more integrated with his surroundings, there were fewer and fewer people who noticed his presence even though he was clearly passing by five soldiers.

“I’m done checking.”

“No one is there.”

“It’s quiet.”

“How about the hounds?”

“They show no reaction!”

Not a single person recognized that Lee Han was passing through them.

It was as if in their eyes, he was just an inanimate object.

He wasn’t wearing an invisible cloak or operating advanced scientific stealth weapons or anything too. Instead, he was just passing by, lowering his presence and twisting their senses, and yet that was enough to fool the guards.

-Sniff-!

He was worried that the hounds would notice his scent, but this was the moment when the wisdom of the former assassin shined.

-…Whimper?

-???

Before this, he used various herbs to mask his scent, and they showed their effectiveness.

Whoosh-!

However, even though he had avoided the hounds and the guards, blind arrows and spears that flew randomly were still threats to him.

Stab-!

“Arrows?”

“Huh? Was there a rock over there?”

However, as long as he had ‘Vajra Body’ even if an arrow or spear flew to him, it still wouldn’t be able to make him whimper, let alone scream.

Just like that, he dived into the cold river without hesitation.

“What is that?”

“Is it a fish?”

“Don’t get too close. The river is full of giant crocodiles and poisonous water snakes.”

“Things like those live in the river?”

“They released them on purpose. We don’t want humans to trespass into the river, do we?”

“What kind of lunatic would even do that? The river’s pretty much turned into a sea due to the Divine Technique.”

“Right?”

“Well, it could be that they just want to kill themselves…”

…Those guys, too bad I can’t fucking hit them and leave.

The knight who had unintentionally earned the titles [Crazy Man] and [Idiot] continued diving, barely holding himself back from releasing his Breath Holding Technique due to his anger.

He then proceeded to move deep enough to the point that he couldn’t hear the voices of the guards anymore.

Kwaang-!

A deafening sound echoed.

At the same time, the shockwave created by the collision of a spear and an axe that was larger than the average battle axe tore the air apart.

Even the most skilled knights, the so-called high-level knights, would not be able to react to such speed, accuracy, and destructive power.

Even though it was a skill that had all three elements, in reality…

“Let’s stop joking around, Mad Wolf. Will there be a point in infiltrating if we keep going?”

If someone heard that the clash they just had was just them playing around, a mere form of greeting between the two, they would’ve gotten a headache.

However…

“You were the one who showed your killing intent first, Black Lion!”

…The problem was that the ‘playing around’ wasn’t something that they both agreed upon.

“This is a sign of joy in the North!”

“If you want to lie, at least try to be convincing!”

Even among the northerners, he’s the only one who’d call this a greeting.

He is even more ignorant than that thug…!!

The intruders recognized each other despite their masks, and the masked man with the spear ground his teeth.

It was only natural, after all, because of the ignorant Northerner…

-Intruder!!

-They are underground! They are underground!!

The enemies found their location.

This clash happened just 30 minutes before a certain knight swam through the rough waters and entered the cave.