The Walking Calamity
The next morning, Ouyang Qiangang bade a brief farewell to Han Jo and Pung So-cheong.
Han Jo was returning to the Imperial Palace, and Pung So-cheong to the Hao Sect.
He watched their backs for a moment as they each departed on their own roads, then turned away without lingering.
He hadn't told them a single word about the Heavenly Retinue. That was not something to be shared with people who had merely traveled beside him for a time.
Setting aside the Human-Face Iron Mask of Hahu Gang that he had worn until now, he concealed his face with the appearance of a man in his thirties — an adult in his prime. It was to avoid the pursuit of the Heavenly Retinue. He did not fear them, but this was not the time to clash with them head-on.
As Ouyang Qiangang walked with the Divine Venerable Sword wrapped in cloth across his back, Cheon Un-gi's warning kept circling through his mind.
The Heavenly Retinue...
The crushing weight that the name carried was considerable. One of the Five Great Overlords that had dominated the sagely Murim of this era — a colossal power whose scale and true strength remained unknown to the world.
But Ouyang Qiangang did not shrink beneath the weight of that name.
I have to grow stronger, and learn more. If they're an enemy I must inevitably fight, then that day will come eventually.
He set out for Shandong Province.
His destination was the saltworks managed by Sangguan Wan'er — the Dongryeong Saltworks. Stretching across dozens of li along the coastline where southern Shandong met northern Jiangsu, it was one of the crucial business foundations that would carry the Ouyang Clan's future.
And there, more than three hundred martial artists from the branch families — a force named the Jagangdan — were being trained under Ju Po's supervision.
Ouyang Qiangang had no leisure to shut himself away in some secluded valley for closed-door cultivation. He had to protect the Dongryeong Saltworks under the shadow of Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor's threat, and he had to personally aid the training of the martial artists who had staked their lives on reviving his family.
So for him, the Dongryeong Saltworks was both a training ground and a front line he absolutely could not afford to lose.
Once past Hebei Province and into northern Shandong, he opened his light-foot art toward the southwest. With every step he crossed two or three jang in a single breath, the scenery around him streaming backward in a blur. The Phantom Shadow Divine Art, now at the realm of maturity, was as fast as the wind itself.
Even so, the distance to the Dongryeong Saltworks spanned well over a thousand li, which meant the journey would take some ten days or more.
Doctor, I have completed the system reconfiguration.
After the life-and-death struggle with the Death Spirit Demon Army, with his internal energy — now at the realm of the Three Cycles — serving as her power source, she had been tirelessly exploring new possibilities.
Tell me.
In line with your increased total internal energy, all of my functions have improved by leaps and bounds. The sensory scan range through the nanobots has expanded to a radius of 100 jang (300 meters), and the total volume of nanobots I can release externally has grown to 30,000 units. The speed of still-image data transmission has also increased sixfold, from one image per minute to one image every ten seconds.
Ouyang Qiangang closed his eyes and savored the expanded world he perceived through Akasha. An incomparable flood of information filled his senses.
But above all, the greatest change is the acquisition of the Material Reconstruction ability. Thanks to it, the Autonomous Defense and Attack System — which had previously existed only in theory — can finally be implemented.
Autonomous defense and attack system?
Yes. It is a system that protects you and attacks enemies through independent judgment, separate from your conscious awareness. It will respond automatically to ambushes from blind spots you fail to perceive, and to attacks you are unable to block in time. Of course, if you wish, you can exercise control over it at any moment. I have set the system's physical form to throwing daggers.
The moment she finished speaking, ten jet-black, razor-sharp daggers three chi in length materialized above the head of Ouyang Qiangang, who was running like the wind.
The way they hovered in midair made them look like starved hunting hawks awaiting their master's command. They were the perfect fusion of Ouyang Qiangang's martial arts and Akasha's capabilities.
The ten "fragments of death" floating in the air felt more reassuring than any vow could be.
Ouyang Qiangang named them the Flying Star Cloud Swords.
◆ ◆ ◆
The Flying Star Cloud Swords vanished.
On the afternoon of his fifth day after leaving the Imperial Capital, Ouyang Qiangang, who had been racing in a straight line while avoiding inhabited villages, entered a rugged mountain range. Even at a glance, it was a massive mountain over five hundred jang in height and stretching for dozens of li.
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—
Racing up the mountainside, Ouyang Qiangang furrowed his brow. A familiar smell, carried on the wind, brushed past the tip of his nose.
Burning? Did a wildfire break out somewhere?
At first he thought nothing of it, but before long, his face hardened. Mixed into the thickening stench of smoke was something he knew all too well.
It was the smell of burning flesh.
Ouyang Qiangang raised his head. Above the forest not far ahead, plumes of smoke were billowing skyward.
Without hesitation, he headed toward it. It was not far off his route to his destination — but more than that, a dark premonition urged him on.
Don't tell me...
His premonition was not wrong.
What he saw there was a scene straight out of hell.
Fewer than a dozen homes had all been reduced to ash, and charred corpses lay scattered and rolling in every direction. It appeared to be a village of migrant farmers — the last refuge of people who had lived poor but peaceful lives.
Who did this...
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes turned frigid.
Then, from somewhere in the distance, came an odd sound.
Thud... thud... thud...
Ouyang Qiangang approached the source of the sound, muffling his footsteps as much as possible and concealing his presence entirely. He needed to be cautious until he understood the situation.
When he finally stopped walking, the sight that met his eyes was almost impossible to believe.
On a small hill at the village's edge, a boy was digging a pit with a shovel. His face was young — he looked barely fourteen or fifteen. His clothes were stained with soot and blood, and dried tear tracks remained on his cheeks.
Around him stretched a dozen or more small stone graves, lined up in a row — ones the boy appeared to have made himself, each stone piled on with painstaking care.
Taking in the scene at a glance, Ouyang Qiangang felt his chest tighten.
All alone, that child...
The boy dug without rest. The shovel looked too big for his small frame, and blisters had burst on his hands, seeping blood. Still, he did not stop. He was building graves for his dead family and neighbors.
Ouyang Qiangang hid himself behind a tree and watched the boy — not so much out of fear of startling him, but because he was awestruck by the boy's sheer willpower.
Before he knew it, the sun had begun to set, yet the boy still dug on without pause. That small back, silhouetted against the evening glow, looked all the more desolate.
Ouyang Qiangang slowly moved toward the boy.
Crunch, crunch...
Sensing a human presence, the boy stopped digging and turned his head.
The boy's eyes as they met Ouyang Qiangang's were utterly empty. No fear, no rage, no sorrow could be read in them — only a strange hollowness that no child of that age should possess.
Perhaps judging that Ouyang Qiangang was not someone who meant him harm, the boy turned away without a word and resumed digging.
Thud, thud, thud...
A peculiar child.
Ouyang Qiangang asked.
"What happened here?"
Thud...
The boy's gaunt shoulders, as he stopped digging, trembled almost imperceptibly.
"Bandits... came. And it ended up like this."
His voice was slightly hoarse — perhaps from an early change — and so calm it felt as though his emotions had been worn down to nothing, leaving only indifference behind.
Ouyang Qiangang sensed a strange wrongness in the boy's tone. However you looked at it, it was not normal for a fourteen-year-old to be this composed after surviving such a massacre.
"Do you know where those bandits are?"
The boy turned his head toward Ouyang Qiangang. His eyes were still hollow.
"Why?"
"Because they seem like men who must not be left alive."
"Are you a martial artist, mister?"
The word mister caught in his throat, but with the adult's face-mask he currently wore, there was no other way to describe him. He nodded.
"That's right."
The boy said flatly, as if spitting the words out.
"If you want to kill yourself, I won't stop you."
At that, Ouyang Qiangang's eyes sharpened. It was a judgment far too cold and pragmatic to come from a child's mouth.
"I have no intention of doing that."
"The Gusan Stronghold bandits number more than a hundred."
"A thousand wouldn't make a difference."
That was the moment.
Emotion rose into the boy's hollow eyes — astonishment, expectation, and a terrifying killing intent.
Feeling the murderous aura flowing from the boy, Ouyang Qiangang's gaze changed.
What kind of killing intent is this... it rivals the Death Spirit Demon Army's. How is that possible?
To be precise, the killing intent the boy radiated was not stronger than that of the Blood Spirit Human Demon or the Death Spirit Demon Army. But it carried a subtly different quality, and somehow felt even more chilling.
If their killing intent had been forged through honed martial arts and slaughter, the boy's felt as if it had not been made by any artificial means at all. It was closer to something instinctive — as though he had been born a being destined to wield death itself.
An unusual temperament detected. For a boy of his age to radiate this level of innate killing intent is beyond all conventional reason. He appears to possess a non-standard constitution.
A legendary constitution passed down through Murim lore rose to Ouyang Qiangang's mind.
The Heaven-Slaying Star...
The Heaven-Slaying Star — a baleful star lurking in the deepest reaches of the heavens. According to legend, on the day that star resonated with the fates of the mortal world, a child would be born carrying its energy in its entirety.
People called such a child the Great Slaughter Star — a walking calamity.
To them, killing intent was not an emotion; it was an instinct as natural as breathing itself. Without ever learning martial arts, they understood the path of the blade; without ever studying combat, they could perceive the flow of life and death.
But the most dangerous talent heaven could bestow was, at the same time, the most terrible of curses. If they could not master themselves, they were fated — so the tragedy went — to eventually be consumed by their own power and become a monster that would destroy the world.
I cannot rule out the possibility that he was born under the Heaven-Slaying Star, as you suspect. If so, you must approach him with great caution. The Heaven-Slaying Star is a double-edged sword.
Ouyang Qiangang nodded.
That's what I'll do.
He looked around the boy. Beyond the child's small back, dozens of bodies not yet buried lay strewn among the ashes.
Ouyang Qiangang asked nothing more. He simply walked over, silently rolled up his sleeves, and — following the boy's example — began to dig the earth without a word.
He did not use his internal energy. He could not presume to imitate the weight of grief this small child had shouldered alone. He wanted only to honor that desperate will by sweating alongside him.
Even without internal energy, the pace of the burials was incomparably faster than when the boy had worked by himself.