The Butcher's Way

Long ago there lived a butcher named Pao Ding.

When he set his boning knife to the flesh of ox and swine and took them apart, there was not a finger's breadth of waste in any motion he made, and every action of his kept time with a rhythm of its own. Wherever that short blade passed, bone and sinew parted at once.

His lord, Lord Wen Hui, watched him work and marveled. "How does a man reach a realm such as this?" he asked.

Pao Ding answered him thus:

"When I first began to slaughter oxen, I saw only the ox itself, and my hands could find no purchase. After three years had passed, the whole shape of the ox no longer entered my eyes. I simply follow the Heavenly Principle — setting my blade into the great gaps and hollows between hide and meat, flesh and bone, and moving along the pathways the creature's frame was born to hold. And if I may offer a private judgment: more important than any body one is born with is the crooked temperament one is born with."

At that reply, Lord Wen Hui is said to have exclaimed that, at least within the domain of butchery, Pao Ding had grasped the Way of nourishing life.

KWAANG!!!

Those were not a man's fists.

Every blow was an iron sledge.

"This can't be."

KWAAANG!!! Kwang!!

In the driving rain the Blood Overseer stood with his mouth hanging open, unable to believe the sight before him.

Right in front of his eyes, human beings were being smashed to pieces and flung away.

"Hah… hah!!"

A butcher in black clothes was gasping for breath, red light pouring from his eyes.

Rain hammered down in sheets. White steam rose from him. From the fists he clenched, shreds of flesh and blood pattered to the ground.

In a world filled with nothing but the sound of rain, he tangled with dozens of the Blood Cult's men.

On ground the whole world had turned its back on, a madman and a pack of fanatics bared their claws and tore into one another.

"Hhhk…! Hhhk!"

There were no forms. No dignity. No elegant techniques.

Only rage.

At the furthest pitch of rage he flung out every scrap of martial art baked into his bones, smashing the livestock skulls that loomed before him, kicking them, ripping them apart.

"You bastard!"

One of the Blood Cultists brought a saber down. He caught the blade in one hand.

Ujijik.

Like taffy left out in midsummer heat, the saber bent and warped.

"A… a steel saber…"

The cultist was so stunned he never even let go of the hilt.

He closed the distance. He shoved his fingers into the man's mouth. He tore the jaw clean off.

"…! …!!!"

He wrenched the thrashing cultist's neck around and snapped it like a flea.

Anything that fell into his grip was shredded. Anything his swinging fists met burst apart.

In that place that was nothing more and nothing less than a slaughterhouse, every one of them rushed in like hungry ghosts, killed like hungry ghosts, and died like hungry ghosts.

"How dare you raise a hand against our Blood Cult! Do you not fear the consequences?!"

Tadadadat!

He ran at the cultist who was bellowing while slipping in the rainwater. He climbed onto the man.

"Hahk! Hahk!"

In the rain he raised his fist.

Behind that fist he could see the mountain of dead children. Beside them, the mothers who had tried to hold those children close.

"You—!"

He drove his fist into the cultist's face. He drove it down again. He kept driving it down.

Peoeok! Peok!

Flesh sprayed.

"M… mer—!"

The cultist's face was a mask of blood as he flailed. Fists kept hammering down on top of him.

"You people—!"

He howled. Behind each descending blow he could see the remains of bodies left over from human sacrifice. His teeth chattered with extreme frenzy. He could not even form words.

"You people were hu-hu… human—!"

Peoeok, peok!

Little by little the sound turned wet.

Peok! Peok! Peok! Peokpeokpeokpeok….

Flesh tore. A skull caved in. The ground itself was gouged open.

"You call yourselves human beings, you son of a bitch—!!"

He seized the cultist's body — its head already crushed past recognition and dangling — and hurled it away.

Pupuk!

In the middle of that useless motion, two blades punched into his body.

"Kkeuaaak!!"

Sparks burst in his vision. He screamed and rolled. He clenched his teeth through the bloody foam. Crimson light flared from bloodshot eyes.

Kwang! Kwang! Kwang!

They crossed their weapons and tried to guard, but the guarding arms, the weapons, and the upper bodies of the Blood Cultists exploded outward together as they died.

"It's a monster! Don't close in — kill him with arrows!"

The cultists screamed in the rain like cornered animals. The taut twang of bowstrings cut the air, and three of them drew their strings to the breaking point, taking aim at me.

I ran, ripping the two daggers free from my shoulder as I went.

Kwakwakwang!

It was not the level of a secret art. It was a pair of iron maces.

One of the cultists drawing his bow mumbled blankly.

"Pl-plum blossom leaves? An ogre like that can't be from Mount Hua—"

Peok.

That mutter was the last thing he ever said. His head burst like a thunderbolt shell. The dagger still had force left after shattering his skull; it split the forehead of the man drawing a bow beside him as well.

"Keuk!"

One of them threw even his bow aside and flung himself clear.

"You ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠miserable—!"

The cultist who had dodged with a rolling fall lifted his head — and in his eyes he saw me, malice made flesh, raising a saber I had picked up off the ground.

"N-no—!"

"Die, you son of a bitch!"

Internal energy surged up through my entire body!

"Euaak!"

"Kkeuaaak! Aaak!!"

"O Blood Demon!"

Before the roar and the tremor had even finished, they were tangled together again in the downpour.

Fear began to take root in the eyes of men who had never been more than fanatics.

"I… I stabbed him!"

A cultist who had driven a spear into my shoulder shouted in pure rapture. I coughed up blood.

"Keoeok!"

I swallowed the foam, chopped the spear shaft in half with the edge of my hand, and seized him by the nape. His eyes flew wide. I threw my fist into those eyes.

Kwangkangkwang!!!

Three punches and his face burst apart. In that same instant two blades punched into my gut.

"Aaak!"

I screamed and swung my fists. Two cultists' heads exploded whole. A dagger stabbed my side. Another gouged my shoulder. Another sliced off my earlobe.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! Every last one of you—I'll butcher the lot of you!"

The pupils of my eyes were gone. Nothing remained but detonating red light.

Kwaang! Kwang!

Peokpeokpeok!

Jjeoeong!

In the rain a second rain of blood came down in sheets. Arms and legs flew. I tore and I killed. The Blood Cultists shrieked.

"Impossible — a master of this caliber on the frontier?! Force like that should take a man of at least twenty years' inner energy!"

"The Demon Cult?! Did the Demon Cult send him?! Even the Orthodox wouldn't do this — and neither would the Unorthodox!"

They were overwhelmed. An absolute majority, overwhelmed by a single man. Overwhelmed by terror. Once control cracked, there was no holding it.

"Y-you… you fools! Don't break the encirclement!"

From the rear the Blood Overseer, who had been driving the cultists, tried too late to pull them back together.

"R-run!"

"Lord Blood Demon! Deliver us from this ogre!"

The encirclement collapsed. Every man looked to his own survival.

"No!"

Watching the ring come apart, the Blood Overseer let out a single raw scream. Even so, the formation melted away like a sandcastle before a wave.

What followed was obvious.

The beast had been loosed from its cage.

"Somebody help me!"

Kwarureung!!

White lightning slammed into the earth. The rain grew heavier. Wind began to rise. The downpour shredded sideways on the wind, and every sound in the world tore free at once.

"Somebody help me!"

"Save me!"

"My jaw…! Kkeuaaak!"

"A-aah! O Blood Demon! Look down and have mercy!"

Every time white lightning struck, under that pale flash the Blood Cultists could be seen with their limbs torn off and their bodies bursting open.

"I stabbed his leg! I know I stabbed him! So why?! Why—?!"

One cultist dragged himself forward with the lower half of his body ripped away, screaming as he crawled.

"Why won't you just stop… kkeuaaak!!"

Flash.

Under the white lightning's glare that man was seized by the neck in both hands and pulled, still living, clean out of his torso. Behind him another bolt of white lightning drove into the ground.

The Blood Overseer screamed.

"This isn't even the Demon Cult! Martial power devoted solely to slaughter like this — I've never seen it among Orthodox, Unorthodox, or Demonic!"

It was less a martial artist than a vengeful ghost.

A man who had thrown down his sword and clasped his hands, begging for his life, had his head kicked to pieces under a heel. It was the howling of the Avici Hell.

The cultists no longer even ran. They only thrashed together in a desperate frenzy not to die.

Pukpukpukpuk.

One of them climbed onto my back and stabbed the blade down in a mindless frenzy.

"You son of a bitch!"

I grabbed his shoulder and threw him forward, then drove my heel straight into his face.

Pit!

A swinging sword scored my cheek. I turned my head and brought my fist down on him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠like a hammer.

"Kkeuak!"

With a single short scream the cultist's crown was driven halfway down into his own torso.

"Stay back! Stay back, stay back!!"

As I came bouncing toward him the cultist flailed his saber wildly. The blade was torn from his grip, and in the same motion he was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠driven throat-first onto his own sword and died.

"Hah… hah…!"

My lungs felt ready to burst. My whole body was pickled in blood. My muscles felt ready to snap. My fingernails and toenails felt ready to tear free. Everything I saw was red. Soaked in bloodwater, I gasped as if my breath might leave me at any second. There were more than three blades still stuck in my body alone.

I should have been dead. Any ordinary person would have died a hundred times over.

I should have stopped him… I should have stopped him. This is my failure.

Mumyeong's mutter reached me from somewhere far away.

"Who the hell are you?! Why are you doing this to us?! How dare you — how dare you raise a hand against our Blood Cult…! Do you not fear what comes after?! We will have our revenge… we will!"

The Blood Overseer shrieked, thick with terror. Gasping, I walked toward him. I crouched in front of him. My shoulders shook with the heave of my breathing.

"Who am I, you ask?"

White thunder crashed down.

"I've got no name worth introducing to something that isn't even human. You got that, you son of a bitch…?"

Flash.

White lightning struck behind me. Shiii… Looking into the rolling red light of my eyes, the Blood Overseer's trousers went damp. In the rain, white steam climbed from my shoulders.

"Th-this is no martial artist…"

The Blood Overseer muttered. His gaze was the gaze of livestock watching a butcher catch his breath after finishing the day's allotted slaughter.

I took the broken-necked cultists I was holding in either hand and flung them to either side.

"An ogre."

"An ogre? Not wrong. I've got the Demon Cult's nightmare living in me, after all."

"What?"

The Blood Overseer said it blankly. The blades stuck all over my body swayed every time I breathed. My clothes were rags and nothing more. At my feet, half the enemy's blood and half my own had made a pool.

"Th-that—! I'll pretend I never saw anything! If you'll only spare my life—! No, I mean—!"

I lifted my fingers and started to lunge, then stopped. Emboldened by the sight, the Blood Overseer threw everything he had into a shout.

"Judging by the look of you, you are a formidable martial artist who commands inner energy and has trained in the martial way — have you no shame as a man of power?! I too am, in my own way, a man of the jianghu. If I am to be crushed to death bare-handed in humiliation, then at least grant me a clean death!"

"…A clean death?"

I repeated it stupidly. The Blood Overseer hurried on.

"Exactly as I said! Orthodox, Unorthodox, or Demonic — if you too are a man of the jianghu who has cultivated martial arts, then—!"

"…."

I drew my fingers back. Watching that descending hand, the Blood Overseer let out a breath of relief.

"Then I shall end myself cleanly, so if you would withdraw ten paces or more from me…"

"Come to think of it…"

Looking down at him, I spoke in a dry, hoarse voice.

"Back when I went around begging to be taught."

"What?"

"There was something I used to hear while getting turned away at every gate. Even now, when I lie down to sleep, it still comes back to me in pieces."

"…A martial artist of your strength, turned away at the gate? That doesn't make any— Wait. What is your identity, then? A martial artist like you would have received systematic training in a sect from childhood…!"

I laughed, a thin, empty little sound. Puhuhu.

"That examiner said it. That my eyes looked wicked — that they weren't the eyes of the Orthodox path. But listening to the name of a certain someone you people keep screaming for every time you die… I think I've finally got a sense of what to call myself."

The Blood Overseer's face twisted with dread.

"W-what are you talking about — stop playing word games and reveal yourself!"

"Heavenly Demon."

Swaaaaa.

The rain filled heaven and earth.

"…What? What did you just say."

With a vacant expression the Blood Overseer echoed me blankly. White breath streaming from my mouth, rolling red light pouring from my eyes, I looked down at the last remnant of the Blood Cult — the Blood Overseer.

Seuk.

I lowered my head. And against his ear, very quietly, I whispered.

Without the slightest hesitation, my hand shot toward the Blood Overseer.