Chapter 34: Chapter 34
“Now?”
At the suggestion to swing it, Mao asked back, then quickly nodded. Nothing difficult about it.
He slowly raised the Azure Dragon Blade before his face.
“How’s that? Pretty good stance, right.”
Yes, if you ignored everything about it, it was a perfect good-for-nothing pose. Jang I-seo snorted at the pathetic display.
But right at that moment.
“Just a light swing from here… shwk?”
Mao’s blade suddenly began falling toward Jang I-seo with the force of a master swordsman possessed, as if cleaving the world in two.
‘Gah!’
Lightning movement! Dodging meant living. Failing meant dying.
Jang I-seo’s eyes blazed. He wrenched his upper body backward, barely deflecting the Azure Dragon Blade past him.
Snip!
A thin sliver of his bangs floated away.
A moment of silence. Then Jang I-seo leaped to his feet and roared.
“What are you doing?!”
“H-huh…? Yeah, why did it do that?”
“You call that an answer!”
“Urgh!”
But it wasn’t over yet.
SH-SH-SH-SHWK!
Like a man being dragged by his own sword, Mao pressed forward with terrifying divine prowess.
Strong, heavy, fast, shifting.
His blade tip carried countless subtleties. This was not the movement of someone holding a sword for the first time. Unless an absolute master had possessed him.
“J-Jang I-seo! Save me-!”
Mao screamed as his internal energy drained like a rushing current and his body slipped beyond control. Left unchecked, someone would die.
‘Subdue him.’
BZZZT! Electricity surged through Jang I-seo’s body. Then CRACK! A merciless kick, carrying the essence of the Seven-Legged Great Monk, buried itself in Mao’s face.
“Urgh!”
Jaw swinging sideways, Mao crumpled to the ground. CLANG! The blade slipped from his fingers. Situation resolved.
Jang I-seo caught his breath and studied Mao, who thrashed on the ground like an upturned bug, consumed by pain.
‘It’s said that divine artifacts occasionally mirror their master’s internal energy and will. At first, they’re nothing but iron. But once they meet a worthy owner and spend enough time together, they become attuned to that person’s energy and martial arts.’
That was why a perfectly normal farmer who carelessly picked up a murderer’s blade might slaughter his entire family. Or why simply feeding qi into a sword could produce frost patterns along its edge.
Mao’s movement just now was the same.
Judging by what he’d seen, the blade likely carried the residual will of its previous owner. The divine artifact remembered its former master’s martial arts and had moved on its own.
And the Cult Leader surely knew this as well.
‘Heavenly Demon… was the martial art embedded in that blade the real gift?’
If so, regardless of who the previous owner had been, it was likely an unimaginably supreme martial art.
‘Moreover, the fact that it reacted this strongly means it approved of Mao’s extreme yang power. I need to look into martial artists who wielded extreme yang techniques.’
And…
“Until I give permission, channeling internal energy into the Azure Dragon Blade is strictly forbidden.”
Sealed until Mao could control it.
“Wielding it carelessly could injure the Seventh Young Master.”
And everyone around him.
“Hey, I’m already injured, okay? You see my jaw? It fucking hurts.”
“Just answer me.”
“Fine. I got it. What the hell is this thing? It’s not a spirit beast.”
Mao sat up and eyed the Azure Dragon Blade on the ground like a monstrosity. His own body had moved against his will. Of course he was scared.
Jang I-seo exhaled a shallow breath, picked up the blade, and handed it back to Mao.
“The homework. Did he give you anything to complete before your next visit?”
“Of course he did. Told me to dodge his finger wind.”
Hah. Jang I-seo let out a breath of disbelief.
Surely he didn’t mean the same finger wind he’d fired at him. If so, this wasn’t homework. It was a death warrant with a date on it. He’d barely dodged it himself. How was Mao supposed to? That block with the Azure Dragon Blade was obviously the sword protecting him unconsciously.
“He said if I can’t dodge, he’ll kill me too.”
Crises stacked upon crises.
“So I’m thinking. I want to go in.”
“Where.”
“A cave.”
“What does that mean?”
“Secluded cultivation. Give it three years and Father will forget about me entirely.”
Was he seriously saying that? Three years was more than enough time for a Young Cult Leader to emerge. The mission would be over. Jang I-seo pressed his temples and spoke.
“When is the next breakfast?”
“A month from now.”
Tight. Jang I-seo sighed heavily. Mao clicked his tongue.
“See? There’s really no answer besides training.”
“You think so too?”
“Yes. So for the next month, consider yourself dead and focus entirely on training.”
“What the hell.”
“In one month, we go to the Cult Leader.”
“Hey!”
Mao shouted in protest. But Jang I-seo ignored him and only tended the crackling fire.
There was no choice. To survive, they had to solve the homework the Cult Leader had assigned.
Mao.
And himself.
Jang I-seo lowered his head and stared at his palms. Dark veins bulged, then slowly receded like breathing. He knew exactly what this meant.
‘I’m dying.’
A shocking realization. He was dying.
This was the aftermath of his encounter with the Heavenly Demon.
‘This is my gift to you.’
The Heavenly Demon’s internal energy that had seeped into his body.
He didn’t need to think deeply about what that gift meant.
Every trace of turbid internal energy in his dantian had vanished, replaced by pure demonic aura.
Yes.
The Heavenly Demon’s demonic aura was now flowing through Jang I-seo’s body. A virulent, deadly demonic aura that his holed vessel could never contain.
‘Homework. Find the clue to curing your body. Though, of course, you won’t have much time.’
One month remained.
Devour or be devoured.
The time left until one of the two became reality.
* * *
If asked to name the three most dangerous places in Cheonsan, one village always made the list.
Its name was Don-u Village.
Literally “Pig and Cow Village.” Originally, it had been a settlement of butchers who raised and slaughtered livestock.
Not much had changed. Except now the pigs and cows were cult members, and the butchers were…
The Slaughterhouse.
Other than the fact that those residing in its tavern belonged to that organization.
*
Inside a sealed room resembling a pleasure house. Through hazy smoke, reddish lanterns cast a decadent glow.
This place was called the Lust Flower Tower.
A low-grade tavern of the worst sort, and the Slaughterhouse’s headquarters.
In its deepest chamber sat three men, flanked by courtesans in revealing garments. And standing before them with hands clasped behind his back was the twin assassin who had ambushed Jang I-seo and Mao. Yo Do-sun, delivering his report.
“So you’re telling me you fled back here alone.”
One of the three seated men, dressed in expensive silk robes, asked with a derisive smile. Oozing nobility from head to toe, he looked utterly out of place in such a wretched establishment.
His social standing matched.
His name was Ma I-sin.
The legitimate heir of the Ma family, the Demonic Cult’s foremost house. The man who had tormented Mao for years.
*
The Bloodless Duke, Ma I-sin. A man without blood or tears.
The finest prodigy of his generation, rated alongside the First Young Master Cheon Mu-gi as the twin pillars of the rising stars.
His appearance was striking. Fierce eyes, a lean build radiating sensuality.
Especially those drunken, hazy eyes, thoroughly decadent.
Well, considering the white powder on the table before him, that was only natural.
It was Soul-Befuddling Powder, a hallucinogen that clouded the mind.
“The adjutant’s skills exceeded expectations. I felt I had to report back no matter what…”
Yo Do-sun denied it, drenched in cold sweat. His brother had died in a single blow. Fighting would have been suicide. What more could he have done?
“Thick-skinned as ever.”
Ma I-sin scoffed. The man beside him chimed in.
“Aw. But his twin brother died, brother. That means he came back having lost a life. Don’t be too hard on him.”
“Th-thank you.”
Yo Do-sun bowed hastily. Tension radiated from every pore. Naturally.
The man who’d just spoken for him was the Slaughterhouse’s rank two.
A hotheaded mad dog who’d bury a hatchet in your forehead the moment things went sideways.
The second of the Sa brothers. Mad Dog, Sa Ho-jeong.
Towering and imposing, with wild curly hair loose around his shoulders. The murderous glint in his eyes alone made him look catastrophically dangerous.
“Wait, what was your name again?”
“…Yo Do-sun.”
“Right. Yo Do-sun. You’re an officer of the Slaughterhouse.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Then you must’ve brought at least one piece of the bastard who killed your brother. Right?”
“Sir…?”
“You couldn’t have just come back empty-handed. An officer of the Slaughterhouse. An eye, an arm. You must’ve brought something.”
“That’s…”
“This bastard’s slow to answer. What is it. Speak.”
Sa Ho-jeong chuckled, scratched under his nose with his index finger, and casually produced a hatchet from his waist. Yo Do-sun’s heart pounded. His legs shook.
Then, like a savior, the taciturn figure who had sat in silence finally spoke.
“Stop your noise and drink. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
A fierce, tiger-like visage on a body as massive as a bear.
“Ah, come on. You always do this when I’m about to do something.”
The eldest of the Sa brothers. Rank one in the Slaughterhouse.
“…Shut up.”
“Hah… fuck. Embarrassing.”
The man who could make even the infamous lunatic Sa Ho-jeong turn his head with nothing but a look.
Tattooed from head to toe with demon imagery. Steel rings on every finger.
“So. Who did this to you?”
The Slaughterer, Sa Do-cheol.
The three men who moved the Slaughterhouse. Ma I-sin and the Sa brothers had begun their march against Jang I-seo in earnest.
*
Sa Do-cheol and Sa Ho-jeong. And Ma I-sin.
The three gathered in the Lust Flower Tower, the Slaughterhouse’s headquarters, formed a truly incongruous alliance.
First, the Sa brothers, as they were collectively known, were widely regarded as Cheonsan’s worst assassins. Their cruelty was legendary. From the hallucinogen Soul-Befuddling Powder to kidnapping and murder without cause. They committed atrocity after atrocity without hesitation.
Meanwhile, Ma I-sin, seated in the place of honor, carried the innate arrogance of Ma family lineage in his very gaze. Every gesture radiated the refinement of noble blood.
Born with his future guaranteed, a being who needed only to grow to possess everything.
Yet such a man chose to associate with the Sa brothers out of everyone available.
A profoundly contradictory and unsettling sight.
But that was only from the outside.
In truth, Ma I-sin believed the Sa brothers were the only people in the entire cult who truly suited him.
That was why he volunteered as their patron and covered up countless incidents on their behalf.
One reason.
Because they were the most primal beings in the cult.
Destroy what you hate. Take what you want. Rip off clothes first when necessary. That raw violence.
He valued it.
In particular, the current Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, which hid its true nature beneath silk robes, enforced strict doctrine, and dealt only in cold transactions, was far from his ideal.
If power was to be worshipped, then the violence that displayed that power should be pursued openly. That was what he believed.
So he considered primal men like the Sa brothers the ideal talent the cult truly needed.
The attitude of being ready to tear everything apart at any moment.
Just like now.
“So. Who did this to you?”
“J-Jang I-seo. The bastard was definitely hit by arrows. I confirmed he was poisoned. I thought I’d already won…”
“And?”
“And then he came at me like lightning… and killed him in a single exchange. A single exchange…”
Even as he spoke, Yo Do-sun’s eyes grew distant, consumed by the memory. A leap of reality he couldn’t believe even having witnessed it.
Jang I-seo in that moment had been like a savage monster wearing a scholar’s mask. A monster that could tear everything apart if it so chose.
“But what was even harder to believe was what came after. I only heard one impact, but his face, throat, collarbones, solar plexus, chest, abdomen, groin. Seven points were all caved in. He moved seven times in an instant. So… I ran. I’m sorry.”
When Yo Do-sun finished, Sa Ho-jeong and Ma I-sin both glanced at Sa Do-cheol. Was such a thing possible?
Killing an officer like Yo Do-sun in a single exchange was already remarkable. Simultaneously crushing seven vital points…
Sa Do-cheol stared at Yo Do-sun without expression and spoke.
“Nothing to apologize for.”
And,
“Kgh!”
He rose, seized Yo Do-sun’s face in one hand, and lifted. Yo Do-sun was tall with a long neck, yet Sa Do-cheol’s frame and grip were overwhelming.
“Kghhhhh…”
The hand rose. Yo Do-sun’s legs left the ground, dangling helplessly. Ma I-sin and Sa Ho-jeong stared, bewildered.
FWISH! Without a moment’s hesitation, Sa Do-cheol charged forward. BANG! He drove Yo Do-sun’s skull straight into the wall.
“Gah!”
Yo Do-sun’s mouth gaped open like a skull’s. Then Sa Do-cheol’s body erupted with brutal energy like a storm.
VWOOM!
His steel-ringed fists clenched tight. Drew far back behind his shoulders.
And KWAANG!
Both fists exploded into Yo Do-sun. So fast that only afterimages remained, and even those shattered beneath a cascade of stone fragments that swallowed the entire view.
But one thing was certain.
“Yo Do-sun’s story checks out. Curiosity satisfied.”
As Sa Ho-jeong shrugged, rank five Yo Do-sun proved his words through his own death.
His entire front, seven points caved in, from a single impact.