Mercenary Black Mamba

"Unit 37! Hurgh..."

He moaned like an ox\'s mating call. The stinging energy chasing him made all his nerves tremble. His last attempt to buy time for fleeing was in vain.

His entire body drooped like a fish that spent a week in a Japanese restaurant\'s fish tank. With this condition, he could not withstand a single blow from Mu Ssang. He was not his worthy opponent from the beginning.

"Who are you?"

Mu Ssang didn\'t respond.

He glared at Chui Do Shik. The bad blood between them made bad memories resurface. A cave without the slightest light, the days he subsisted on rotten snake flesh and centipedes, the experiments that were repeated every fortnight, licking Chui Do Shik\'s phlegm off the ground.

"Tell me. Who are you for the heavens to favor you so?" Chui Do Shik yelled.

He resented it all. He had trained for 60 years with the finest of qualities. Yet, this twentysomething Korean defeated him. Unless the heavens were mad themselves, this could not happen.

"You see human beings as test subjects only. The heavens must have abandoned you for that. Why do you need to know who I am when you are about to die?"

Mu Ssang\'s eyes flashed with a blue sheen.

"How did you get out of the cave? How did you kill all five guards?"

The question had been plaguing him for the past decade. Because Unit 37 escaped from the cave, the whole scheme was foiled. Now, he risked dying. Chui Do Shik considered himself as a heavenly person. He could not bring himself to admit that he had made a mistake.

"If it is your last wish, I will tell you. I was never soul-washed or submitted to you. The love of my parents for me kept me sane. I drew blood from myself for six months and marked the hundreds of maze tunnels to find the exit. After I got out of the cave, I was helped by Unit 5," Mu Ssang told him plainly.

He knew that Chui Do Shik was recovering inner energy at each moment but he didn\'t mind it. Even if a cockroach becomes a rat, it\'s still the same vermin.

"Ridiculous! Soul-washing is always successful. It cleanses the soul of the subject."

Chui Do Shik glared at Mu Ssang. He couldn\'t believe that Unit 37 could stay sane but to hear that Unit 5 helped him was just ridiculous.

"Guile Jap, you killed hundreds by touching their brains. Yet, you still consider yourself a noble practitioner of spells. You even killed the doctor and the nurse, who healed you, and their families. Do you still consider yourself human?"

"What\'s wrong with that? Every person acts in their self-interest and forges their fate according to their capacities. I am a great heavenly being. Those bugs are insignificant. What are you trying to say?" Chui Do Shik yelled.

"Such absurdities are what you are likely to say. In my eyes, you are the bug. You may resent me. If you successfully made the heavenly army, you wouldn\'t have faced me here. When you killed others, that must mean you have braced death yourself. When I found the girl whose brain was dissected, I resolved to kill you."

The whip trembled in Mu Ssang\'s hand. The people abducted by him near the Bangtae mountain numbered over 200. No one knew how many innocent people died as he exacted his scheme for 30 years in Korea. He was eviler than the voodoo shaman Houngan.

"The divine whip!"

Chui Do Shik gritted his teeth. He needed to retrieve the divine whip at all costs. The Gorgon he lost at the river could be reproduced with current technologies, but the divine whip was a priceless relic of his temple.

He first needed to survive to get the next chance. He used all of his remaining energy to use Body Scatter. His body disintegrated into tiny particles that scattered into the dark.

"Another freak show!"

The divine whip slashed the space. The Resonance Wave conferred a complete awareness of the space. Body Scatter or camouflage was like flaunting one\'s hair in front of a dead woman\'s ghost. Blood spattered and Chui Do Shik\'s presence was no longer felt.

"His heart must be exploded. Was he on the right side?" said Mu Ssang in his mind.

Mu Ssang jumped and stood on the edge of the cliff.

"Mu Ssang, our fight is not over!"

A faint yell was heard.

"It is already over!"

The Cracker shot toward the bottom of the cliff, trailing a rope behind. He didn\'t feel like making a fight scene on the cliff face that was far too often depicted in wuxia novels. If he intended to kill someone, he needed to behead them and puncture their heart right there. When the Cracker overtook Chui Do Shik 150 meters ahead, the rope wound around his ankles.

"It\'s a great catch!"

Chui Do Shik was pulled up by tremendous force.

"No!"

Chui Do Shik struck his own ankle with a dagger when he faced Mu Ssang again. His intact ankle was sliced through. Chui Do Shik resumed his fall.

"Don\'t even try!"

The rope wound around Chui Do Shik like silk around a silkworm cocoon. Chui Do Shik was pulled up again and dropped on the cliff.

"I admire your tenacity but you met me."

"You are an unimaginable monster! Even if you kill me, our grand scheme will continue."

Chui Do Shik\'s eyes shone with madness.

"A grand scheme? You mean the CIRO\'s Korean Peninsula Occupation project?"

"How do you know that?"

Chui Do Shik\'s eyes widened like two plates.

"The Predator that was hidden in the Hamaoka nuclear power plant became fodder for my pet. For it to absorb tritium, it must have been hidden there. I will smash you all. Your ninja monastery too."

Mu Ssang grinned coldly. He was planning to send Garuda there to wreak havoc.

"Who are you?"

"I am a monster that strives to be human. You should have stayed in Japan. Now, it is your time to go. If the King of hell asks why you are there, tell him Mu Ssang sent you."

The Pangge grazed Chui Do Shik\'s neck. The severed neck didn\'t shed a single drop of blood. High heat carbonized the tissue. Billion Water Armor buried itself into his right chest. Mu Ssang wrenched out Chui Do Shik\'s heart and concentrated Resonance Wave at it. The heart disintegrated into fine dust and rode the night wind to scatter away.

One\'s soul stays in one\'s heart and one\'s spirit stays in one\'s head. If such an evil shaman\'s head and heart were left alone, they would absorb the spirit present across nature and revive him as a zombie.

"I should make sure he doesn\'t return."

Resonance Wave buried itself into the ground like an enormous drill. Mu Ssang tossed Chui Do Shik\'s head into the bottomless pit along with his prosthetic arm and leg. Dirt and rock slid into the pit.

Along the edge of the cliff, an unsightly, bloody hole was made. Mu Ssang pondered for a moment, then kicked the body. The torso without the head, heart, and limbs fell to the depths under the cliff.

"You don\'t deserve a proper funeral. You shall feed the animals with your own body. That will be the only good deed in your evil life."

Thus, the demon hidden from the world was eliminated. Chui Do Shik was Japanese to his core, but his deeds actually helped Korea evade a certain pitfall and instead pushed Japan into it. This was why the world was an interesting place.

Technically, Chui Do Shik birthed Black Mamba. If he hadn\'t abducted the high schooler Mu Ssang from where he worked as a lumberjack in Bangtae Mountain and practiced soul-washing and various other experiments on him and taught him ninja arts, Mu Ssang would have lived as an ordinary model citizen.

There was an unexpected rain shower. It was a tropical rainstorm characteristic of the tropical rainforest in East Africa. The rain washed away the blood and footsteps left on the cliff.

"Chui Do Shik, if you are ever born again, live like a human, not an animal."

Mu Ssang vanished into the dark.

* * *

Blinding searchlight lit up the camp as bright as day. The surviving agents moved like ants to clean up the mess.

"Jeong, Wakil is coming."

"Hush!"

Jeong Pil-su covered Kim Myung-jin\'s mouth. His palm trembled. He was still traumatized after he witness Mu Ssang behead man after man like a butcher beheading chickens. It was almost surreal to see ninja whose face was struck by Mu Ssang\'s palm had the back of his head burst open as the brain and blood burst out. He panicked when he saw the intruders getting massacred by the whip. Whenever he thought of Mu Ssang, he had goosebumps all over his body.

"Why are you shivering?"

"You haven\'t seen it. He is a natural disaster embodied as human."

"You protested valiantly yesterday evening."

"Be quiet. I was out of my mind then."

"Jeong, where are you going? We still have work here."

Jeong Pil-su ignored Kim Myung-jin and left the place.

"Hail!"

Besson, spotting Mu Ssang plodding closer, hailed him.

"Hail!"

The Luupdeng agents stopped in their tracks and saluted him at once.

"Report the losses."

"Twenty-eight Luupdeng agents and five Operations agents were killed. Three were injured. Fifty-eight intruders were killed. No injured."

"Idiot!"

Mu Ssang kicked Besson\'s shin.

"Ouch!"

Besson jumped in a circle, overcome with pain. The Luupdeng agents were frozen in place. They didn\'t want to be caught in the blast zone.

"I ordered you to focus on the defensive with groups of three. Why did you enter a full-on battle?"

"That is..." Besson stuttered.

"Because our front was disrupted, our losses increased. If you disobey me again, I will cut off your head."

"I won\'t, sir!" Besson yelled with all of his might.

He didn\'t even realize that the Special Military Advisor didn\'t have the authority to execute Luupdeng agents. Overwhelming force was in tremendous charisma and power.

Mu Ssang checked the dead bodies and nodded. The intruders all had the sides of their feet calloused but had their heels smooth. Their fingerprints were erased and their palm was also calloused. These hands and feet were those of ninjas specialized in steps and surreptitious intrusion.

"Dear Advisor, are there many like these in Japan?"

"Few are as skilled as these. Several dozens at most."

"Good to hear."

Fabius shuddered. If it were not for Mu Ssang, they would have been decimated within 10 minutes. He wanted to ask why they were attacked but refrained from doing so. He didn\'t dare to ask a question to someone whom he was not sure if that person was even human.

"Thank you."

Besson bowed deeply.

"It\'s thanks to the Luupdeng\'s courageous fight. I will make sure that the higher-ups hear about Major Besson and his colleagues\' courage and sacrifice."

"Thank you, Advisor."

Besson\'s expression brightened. Mu Ssang indeed deserved his throne. Mu Ssang was not a dictator at all.

"Sun!"

"Aye, Wakil!"

Sun Woo-hyun ran up to him and dropped his head.

"The old Jap said it\'s a divine weapon. It will make up for your lack of skills."

Mu Ssang tossed the whip to Sun Woo-hyun.

"Whoa! Thank you so much!"

Sun Woo-hyun was glad that he received a gift instead of a kick in the shin.

"Zulu!"

"Aye, Zulu is here."

"You did a great job."

Mu Ssang tossed the Muramasa to Zulu. It was a weapon worthy of Zulu who had a lot of hostile energy.

"Long live my king. Thank you."

Zulu received the sword politely. Thus, Sun Woo-hyun and Zulu ended up owning the two relics from Higashi Honganji.

"Is she dead?"

Mu Ssang asked indifferently.

"I just left her there. I thought she might die from bleeding if I removed the kukri," Sun Woo-hyun answered promptly, realizing right away what Mu Ssang meant with the question.

Zulu sprinted to Hwa Ja and returned quickly.

Mu Ssang looked down at Hwa Ja. The squinted eyes, glaring eyes, pig nose, and protruding cheekbones. It was an unforgettable face.

Hwa Ja was the culprit who ruined his childhood and adolescence. She was one of the reasons he ended up as Black Mamba. He didn\'t expect his vile step-sister to appear across the world in the innermost depths of Africa.

He revived her cells with Resonance Wave. Hwa Ja\'s eyes slid open. There was a glimmer of enlightenment now.

"Do you recognize me?"

"You maniac! You don\'t die at all," Hwa Ja cursed with twisted lips.

"Do you still hate me?"

"Of course, I do. I have too many things."

"What about what you have?"

"Don\'t spout nonsense. You are much more fortunate than I have ever been."

Mu Ssang nodded. Her words were crude but held truth. Happiness springs forth from within, not from outside. As she approached her imminent death, Hwa Ja finally seemed to have realized the meaning of life.

"I thought I would end up like this!"

There was certain wetness in Hwa Ja\'s voice.

"I can let you live."

Hwa Ja was a living zombie. It was going to be much easier to resuscitate her compared to an ordinary human.

"Fuck off! Live happily ever after!"

Hwa Ja closed her eyes. Mu Ssang grimaced. With clenched teeth, he took the kukri out of her body. Her heart, barely holding together, burst open. It was just as his teacher said. She indeed ended up dying in a foreign land after doing nothing but hurt others.

"Bury her properly, Sun Woo-hyun."

A stone grave was made on the western perimeter of the jungle east of the Great Rift Valley. Sun Woo-hyun read Mu Ssang\'s mind and made sure no animals would sully the grave.

"I knew this would happen!"

Mu Ssang engraved such a phrase on her gravestone and sighed.

"Life is said to be painful because there are so many obstacles to overcome. To live is to endure. A lifetime of a hundred years is too short just to love each other. If she looked into herself instead of blaming and hurting others, this wouldn\'t have happened. She only introspected at the moment of her death. What a lonesome life!"