The Princess's Honor and a Bone-Crushing Kick
It was common for people of the Jianghu to picture the master of the Heavenly Slaughter Castle as a blood-drunk, raving murder fiend. In truth, it wasn’t entirely wrong. Yet it wasn’t exactly the same, at least in that the killing stars of the Heavenly Slaughter did not froth at the mouth like mad dogs, biting and tearing at the first sight of blood. Even the image of a blood-mad killer was, in fact, an illusion that successive masters of the Heavenly Slaughter had deliberately cultivated. Since those rare Heavenly Slaughters seldom encountered one another, each simply judged it a convenient personal method for concealing their true nature and made use of it. In reality, the Heavenly Killing Stars were closer to cold, meticulous assassins. Thanks to this, Cheong too—now having received the aura of the Heavenly Slaughter—found her mind sharpening to a keen, crystalline edge.
The first thought that rose was a piercing self-reproach. Why didn’t I think it was strange? Was protective qi some kind of absolute magic barrier? It wasn’t a superconducting shock-dispersing metamaterial, so how could it perfectly absorb every impact? Cheong, who understood superconductivity as roughly meaning “one hundred percent,” had a thought befitting a social-science major as she studied Cho-gwak. It hadn’t been a matter of sword qi versus protective qi from the start. With that much force behind the blow, not only Cho-gwak but even his grandfather should have had flesh split open, bruises blooming, and bones fracturing somewhere.
Her eyes, glazed with indifferent cold, quietly reflected Cho-gwak’s figure. He seemed to have lost his reason entirely.
Well, that makes things easier.
A hot heart and a cool head. It was something every master in the world said at least once, yet even they found it nearly impossible to maintain. Once reason was lost and killing intent took the reins, one became honest. The eyes saw only the spot to pierce; the body followed without deception. The result was an idiot utterly possessed by the single goal of slaughtering the enemy.
With a far lighter heart, Cheong met Cho-gwak’s charge. The tip of the thrusting sword wavered left and right, splitting into three distinct forms—one aiming for the throat, one for the heart, and the last curving diagonally toward the waist. She stepped sideways, twisted her pelvis, and pulled her spine back. A savage blade wind rushed past the front of her neck while her chest stung—Ow! Damn it, cut again.
Even so, with one attack still remaining, the back of Cheong’s hand met the flat of the incoming blade and gently redirected it. Cho-gwak’s body lurched outward along the sword’s path. Cheong slipped left and swung the Boksinjeok. The ten-thousand-year cold-iron club sliced through the air with a sharp whistle, driving toward the hollow behind his knee.
Thud! A strike to the back of the knee sent the leg jerking forward. Cho-gwak collapsed into a kneeling posture, then tumbled away with a clatter. Cheong did not pursue. She simply stood, breathing steadily, her eyes tracking only his form. Again, no impact at all. Strange. Is it possible to transmit zero shock?
Still, would a master of the Harmonious Realm really suffer injury or broken bones from a little rolling? He tumbled across the ground, then sprang up with the rebound and stamped forward again.
“I’ll kill you! You bitch! I’ll kill you dead!”
Hmph. Look who’s talking.
Cheong snorted and instead kicked off the ground, charging to meet him. Because the opponent had lost his reason in rage, dealing with him had become far easier. The reason she always ran her mouth was precisely to provoke this state. Of course, it helped that her own mind had cooled to icy clarity. Yet in her flipped-out killing-star state she still believed herself normal, so none of it felt strange. She simply thought that after taking two solid cuts while being beaten nonstop, she was finally growing accustomed to his sword style.
Cheong thrust the Boksinjeok straight, stabbing firmly into Cho-gwak’s sword guard. The twisting force applied at the origin of the sword path made the technique lose direction, shudder, and drift. She blocked the raking follow-up with her forearm—Ack! Fuck! That burns!—then kicked his shin with all her strength. Cho-gwak lurched forward. The Boksinjeok drew an afterimage and slammed into the back of his head with a crisp crack! He slid across the Tang family courtyard, face drawing a long furrow in the dirt.
Watching him spring up yet again, Cheong continued her vicious calculations. If I wear him down like this, it should work. His internal energy isn’t infinite. How much longer can he keep pouring out protective qi and defensive techniques? But what if he regained his senses midway? If he laughed, ‘Hehe, I lose,’ declared defeat, and fled, could she chase him down and kill him? No, that wouldn’t do. What other means did she have?
Yeorae Shinjang? Too clean a death. On hold. Black Killing Demonic Palm? Even Sosu Magong didn’t work. Tangseon Taluimu? A man with his eyes rolled back probably wouldn’t drool just because his clothes came off.
While checking her arsenal, Cheong extended the Boksinjeok toward the charging Cho-gwak once more. 108 Asura Swords—Heavenly Eagle Capturing Prey. With the image of an eagle snatching a rabbit, the tip of the flute pushed Cho-gwak’s shoulder, twisting the origin of his demon-subduing sword and sending it drawing a completely off-path arc. At that instant she hooked her ankle around his, then—using the anti-gravity principle of the Moon Maiden’s Mountain Walk—kicked off the ground. Cho-gwak flew away in a parabola.
Even amid the chaos, the killing star who never stopped thinking suddenly stretched her lips into a long, wicked grin.
The moment Cheong’s chest was deeply cut, Choe Ri-ong had immediately taken a stance to leap forward. Yet that was all. After cocking his arm to deliver a heavy blow, he stopped. The nature of the life-and-death duel had completely changed.
Only Dang Nan-a, whose insight was lacking, stamped her feet in agitation and clung to the Taesang Family Head.
“Kyaa, how—Grandfather, you have to help Cheong-ah!”
“Let’s watch a little longer. She doesn’t appear seriously injured. Above all… hmm. I would like to ask how the Great Mother trains her disciple.”
“What are you saying? There’s blood, blood coming out…!”
Yet after several more exchanges, it was Cho-gwak who went tumbling again. He would spring up and charge, only to be thrown, rolled, and shoved off balance. To any observer, the sight was utterly pathetic.
“Isn’t our Cheong-ah winning? But what about the blood? She’s hurt.”
“The child completely deconstructs the forms and uses them at will. Her mind is crystal clear as she reads the attacks and responds. It is not an achievement one should reach at that age.”
Originally, forms were trained as one continuous sequence, imprinting the movements into the body. For the martial arts trained that way to display proper power, one had to assume the correct posture and familiar shapes. In real combat, however, where even a speck of dust could become a variable, how could it ever go perfectly?
Yet once experience accumulated and one understood the underlying principles through real battles, one reached the stage where any segment could be freely extracted and used. In Cheong’s case, however, she had eaten it raw. It wasn’t that she could deconstruct forms; from the beginning, what had been planted in her head were completely disassembled techniques. Moreover, her physical stats had already surpassed human limits. Strength, balance, flexibility, and stamina had all developed beyond mortal bounds, so the scenes she pictured in her mind manifested in the most ideal form.
“But that bastard is still perfectly fine.”
“Isn’t he just making a lot of noise while hitting gently? From what I see, it looks like she is training against a master of the Harmonious Realm.”
The Taesang Family Head had been doing well until he stepped on a landmine. Had Cheong heard, she would have demanded to know whether even the poison old man had gone senile. In the meantime, Cho-gwak—who had been sent flying more than ten times yet still hadn’t regained his senses—was also remarkable in his own way. After all, being helplessly rolled across the floor by a girl who looked like his daughter and a far inferior opponent could only make his rage grow larger, never smaller.
As a result, rough thoughts, anxious eyes, and impure murmurs gradually spread among the Gold Guard subordinates. Honestly, it was just pathetic.
It was right then that Cho-gwak suddenly stopped charging. He stood tall, eyes bulging in astonishment.
“Princess Haryeon? How are you in a place like this…”
And every time he opened his mouth afterward, nonsense poured out.
“You mustn’t. How can you be in such a place?”
“Dignity—you must maintain your dignity.”
“No, it’s not that. I too… I as well.”
“Princess—no, Cheohye! Hye-ah!”
From the government officials’ side came the sound of many people choking on their own breath. Princess Haryeon was, literally, a princess. And Princess Haryeon’s name was not Haryeon. It was merely a title bestowed by the Emperor. The real name of an imperial family member was a sacred thing; merely uttering it was a sin against heaven. Therefore, the Emperor had graciously decreed that she be called Haryeon instead, since they could not dare speak her true name.
Nevertheless, to utter an imperial family member’s real name in broad daylight beneath a blazing sun, in front of countless people, was a deplorable crime that could not even be fully expressed as blasphemy. Even murim people who knew the imperial house like the back of their hand would never dare speak an imperial family member’s true name.
Cho-gwak’s bizarre conduct did not end there. He suddenly hurled away his sword, yanked at his waistband, loosened his belt, and roughly dragged his pants down. He stood his fully erect member upright for all to see, grabbed it with one hand, and began shaking his hips wildly.
“Haha! Do you like it? A princess of the nation is truly lewd! You whore Cheohye!”
To exaggerate only slightly, the sound of blood draining from faces seemed to roar like thunder. The government figures all turned deathly pale, pupils trembling.
“Calling yourself a princess? You’re nothing but a useless whore! This hole is completely loose! Fucking the air would feel better than this, you dog bitch!”
Well, he was actually fucking the air. Everyone swallowed that thought in silence.
“Can’t you tighten up right now! You fucking bitch! Who the hell have you been rolling around with while ignoring this elder Cho-gwak?! What princess! So Haryeon was just the stage name of a courtesan!!”
He kept striking the empty air with one arm in a catastrophe too awful to watch with open eyes. He was so immersed that even as Cheong cautiously approached and picked up the discarded sword, he remained busy shaking his hips.
Cheong poured every ounce of her qi into the blade. Once again, multicolored sword qi erupted in brilliant radiance. She stamped the ground, leaving a deep crater. The terrifying force traveled from sole to ankle, knee, waist, and beyond. A lightning-fast thrust drove into Cho-gwak’s lower abdomen.
Although it was inside an illusion, it seemed his protective qi was nullified while he was in the middle of the act. Even so, the resistance felt like stabbing solid steel; the blade could not endure and snapped cleanly in two. There was no way an ordinary sword could penetrate a body like that wrapped in protective qi. Was it some special external technique? The fabled Diamond Indestructible Body?
Cho-gwak, with the broken blade now piercing both back and belly, looked up at Cheong with disbelieving eyes.
“Princess…? Why…”
Even with his dantian skewered, the drug’s effect remained. Well, if being stabbed could neutralize poison, what use would antidotes be? They might as well just hand out knife stabs instead of acupuncture needles.
Instead of answering, Cheong drew a breath and roared.
“How dare you insult the Princess!! I cannot tolerate it!! How dare you—wait, what was her name again—yes, Princess Suryeon!!! Blasphemy is forbidden! I hate blasphemy! The criminal shall be castrated!”
At the same time, Cheong’s kick drove between Cho-gwak’s legs.
BOOM!
With a roar like a collapsing wall, Cho-gwak’s body shot a full one-and-a-half jangs into the air before crashing down and rolling across the ground. This time the sensation was unmistakable—the vivid feeling of both pubic bones in front and the tailbone area behind all turning to powder and shattering. Above all, the feeling of flesh being caught between pelvis and instep, crushed and pulped, was satisfying. Truly, the greatest satisfaction.