The Supreme Head Chef
Seo Yugyeom had once been a special-grade assassin of Salmak.
He had joined the organization young, and given its nature, he had seen just about everything life could throw at a man. As a result, very little ever rattled him — but the scene unfolding before his eyes now had him tilting his head back and forth in open bewilderment.
Jin Seongun?
Why was that guy here? And how had he gotten his hands on the Vice Master's blade? He'd heard the man had picked up a bit of martial arts, but this was hardly "a bit."
The questions stacked one atop another.
Salmak was the greatest assassin organization in the Central Plains, and its second-in-command — the Vice Master — was a master whom no one in the world would dare dispute. As far as Seo Yugyeom knew, the man stood just shy of the Transcendental Realm. Perhaps he had already crossed its threshold.
And Jin Seongun had stopped a blade swung by such a man in earnest. Not with a weapon, but with a bare hand wreathed in crimson energy.
Just as Seo Yugyeom was narrowing his eyes and shaking his head yet again, the Vice Master sneered.
"You came dragging unnecessary baggage along."
It was a different voice from the one he'd used talking with Seo Yugyeom — the instinctive camouflage of an assassin concealing his identity. Without a flicker of hesitation, the Vice Master drove his straight blade straight for Jin Seongun's heart. Anyone who interfered with a Salmak contract was best killed quickly and quietly.
Clang—!
But the blade met yet another edge. Seo Yugyeom's short dagger had caught it — barely.
"Vice Master. Let's settle this between us. If you ever thought of me as your disciple, even for a single moment, then agree to it."
Seo Yugyeom had no idea how Jin Seongun had known to come here, or how much martial skill the man had actually learned. But he refused to watch someone who had shown him kindness get dragged into this.
He knew Salmak's methods too well to wait for a refusal. Before the Vice Master could answer, his dagger was already flashing out.
Seo Yugyeom, too, was a special-grade assassin of Salmak, and every one of his strikes was silent and swift. Clouds drifted across the sky and darkness briefly settled over the three men's heads; by the time moonlight broke through again, dozens — hundreds — of exchanges had flown between them.
Damn it!
The instant the Vice Master slipped past him, Seo Yugyeom cursed inwardly. The man was already charging toward Jin Seongun as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
Seo Yugyeom's heart lurched. He spun his head — the distance between Jin Seongun and the Vice Master was a single breath. No matter how fast he threw himself forward, he would never close it in time.
"Dodge!"
he shouted.
Jin Seongun did not so much as stir.
Seo Yugyeom assumed the man simply hadn't been able to react to the Vice Master's speed yet.
Then—
Whoosh—!
The Vice Master's blade carved through empty air. Jin Seongun had evaded it with nothing more than a slight tilt of his head backward.
"Huh."
Seo Yugyeom blinked.
The Vice Master was just as flustered, but he could hardly retract his blade now.
"I felt it earlier too — your martial arts are remarkable for your age."
Perhaps embarrassed, he spat out the words needlessly, then began raining attacks down on Jin Seongun once more.
Jin Seongun drew the Black Gorge Sword in answer. He had no intention of using the Blood Demon's arts in front of people if he could help it.
Clang-clang-clang-CLANG—!
The black straight blade and the Black Gorge Sword crossed several times. Jin Seongun parried each strike one by one — until a strange sensation made him raise the sword into a high guard. In that same instant, a frigid, needle-thin blade qi came rushing in.
BOOOM—!
A crushing, heavy blow utterly unlike an assassin's style. Jin Seongun was driven backward, sliding across the ground, though it posed no real threat — nothing close to wounding him.
So assassins throw attacks like that too, huh.
As he was composing this idle critique, something glinted at the edge of his vision — a flash, there and gone in a heartbeat.
Watching from a distance, Seo Yugyeom went rigid. That had to be the Vice Master's specialty — concealed projectiles. The man was famous for being deadlier with hidden weapons than with any blade. Rumor even had it he was born of the Tang Clan of Sichuan.
Even seasoned Peak Realm masters routinely failed to block projectiles flying at their faces and ended up with their foreheads pierced.
Seo Yugyeom exploded forward like a thunderbolt. Nothing outran a hidden dart — but if he poured his momentum into his speed and closed the distance before the barrage landed...
Tap.
Before the thought could even finish, Jin Seongun had caught the projectile in his hand.
A brief silence followed. All three stood where they were, staring at one another with equally dumbfounded faces.
"...How in the world did you catch that?"
Seo Yugyeom asked. His tone carried genuine curiosity. Jin Seongun, for his part, had only moved on pure instinct, and gazed at the projectile in his hand with an equally absurd expression before answering.
"Something was flying at me, so."
"No, that's not what I—"
Jin Seongun was merely bewildered, but the Vice Master and Seo Yugyeom were positively aghast.
The projectile had been deliberately hurled at blinding speed, timed to the precise moment a cloud swallowed the moon — aimed at the sliver of time before human eyes could adjust to the dark. To catch it with a bare hand meant the man's senses rivaled those of a top-tier Transcendental master.
The Vice Master glared at Jin Seongun for a long moment.
Did I underestimate him too badly?
No. Impossible. He was the Vice Master of Salmak, of all people.
How absurd.
Salmak was the organization that killed more people than any other in the Central Plains. And its Vice Master — himself — was repeatedly failing to kill two men barely into their twenties.
The Vice Master's aura settled into stillness. The look he fixed on Jin Seongun sank colder than before.
He had climbed to his position by killing masters stronger than himself, again and again. How formidable an opponent's martial prowess was had never truly mattered.
Could he kill them, or couldn't he?
That was not a question answered by martial skill alone — not for an assassin of Salmak.
Shhk—!
The Vice Master charged. His movements looked the same as before — until, midway, his form melted into the darkness and vanished.
Jin Seongun, standing rooted in place as ever, swept the Black Gorge Sword to the left.
Clang—!
Sparks burst and lit the surroundings. When the darkness returned, the Vice Master had hidden himself once more, eyeing Jin Seongun from the shadows.
The Vice Master did not believe for an instant that he would lose. He lacked Seo Yugyeom's innate Heavenly Killing Star, but decades of killing were soaked into his very bones.
Grow accustomed to me. That's all I need.
he thought, appearing and vanishing in turn. Human senses were sluggish things. Smell the same scent long enough and you stopped noticing it; blinded by a flash of light, your eyes adapted within moments.
Spiritual sense was no different. Right now, Jin Seongun was blocking attacks by leaning on raw, inborn perception — but the instant that perception grew dulled to him, a single lapse of attention would mean death.
It was the same method a pack of wolves used to bring down a prey larger than themselves: apply just enough threat, endlessly, until the quarry exhausted and dulled.
The Vice Master allotted roughly a quarter-hour for the process. He had once trained Seo Yugyeom, born with the Heavenly Killing Star — he had his own standards for judging prodigies who defied common sense.
And so a quarter-hour passed.
He's holding out better than expected.
Another quarter-hour, then half an hour in all. The one who was tired was the Vice Master.
Jin Seongun — whoever he was — had not moved a single step from the spot where he'd begun.
Only then did the Vice Master finally understand. He stepped out into the open a short distance away.
"Why?"
His voice was thick with fury and shame.
Jin Seongun tilted his head at him.
"What do you mean?"
"You. You're refusing to end this on purpose. Why do you hold mercy in your hands and toy with me?"
Worse, the man's internal energy showed no sign of depleting whatsoever. Unless he possessed infinite reserves, that was a level that made no sense at his age.
Jin Seongun grasped the Vice Master's intent and answered as if it were nothing worth mentioning.
"If I killed a man's master, I might earn his grudge."
With that, he glanced toward Seo Yugyeom.
At the sight, the Vice Master let out a hollow laugh. Such a preposterous reason? Shame gave way to a strange, hollow futility.
"An assassin who betrays the organization dies. By that simple law, that man will die. What right do you have to meddle in our organization's internal affairs?"
"That was when you still had him in your organization."
Jin Seongun said this while idly rolling the wrist that gripped the Black Gorge Sword. It wasn't pain or fatigue — he was laying a kind of trap in case the fight resumed. It wasn't something the Martial Gods had taught him; his body simply did it on its own. The Heavenly Martial Body, no doubt.
"Salmak's affairs are not mine to consider. Right now, he is nothing more than the supreme head chef of Seongun Inn."
"Cheonsalgwi. So you've tied your fate to a madman."
The Vice Master clicked his tongue at Seo Yugyeom. Come to think of it, did the boy turn against Salmak because he had something to rely on after all? The question crossed his mind briefly — but recalling Seo Yugyeom's reaction when Jin Seongun first appeared, that didn't seem to be it.
Regardless, Jin Seongun spoke.
"Not Cheonsalgwi. Seo Yugyeom. And I honestly can't tell which is madder — making food with care at an inn, or traveling around killing people for money."
The Vice Master was momentarily at a loss for words. He wanted to cut the brat's tongue out, but he had already learned that would be no easy feat.
So he chose a different weapon.
"Do you even know what constitution that man was born with? Once you learn it, you won't sleep soundly a single night for the rest of your life."
"The Heavenly Killing Star?"
"Hah. You know, and you still intend to keep him at your side? You truly must be out of your mind. Do you believe the killing intent of one born under the Heavenly Killing Star can be controlled? That man was born to kill. He knows happiness only in the act of taking lives, and deprived of blood, he will drown in misery until he becomes a demon himself."
Such was the Heavenly Killing Star as the murim commonly understood it — and in truth, examples to match were beyond counting.
Jin Seongun pressed his lips together and looked at Seo Yugyeom for a long moment. The Vice Master's confidence swelled at the sight, while Seo Yugyeom lowered his head slightly.
That was what the Heavenly Killing Star was. A being so feared that no one would keep them close.
Certain his chosen approach was working, the Vice Master pressed on.
"He holds it back for now. But one night, he will fail to master the surging bloodlust. He'll come to you while you sleep and carve your entire body apart with that very dagger. And long after you're dead, he'll keep stabbing the corpse, over and over, without end."
Jin Seongun said nothing for a while. His expression even looked rather grave.
Watching him, Seo Yugyeom was reminded, once more, of exactly what he was.
The Heavenly Killing Star was a curse. A curse so dreadful that even a man as strong and unflappable as Jin Seongun would flinch from it. Sleeping beside one born under that star was like hanging a blade from the ceiling and lying down beneath it.
Seo Yugyeom let out a quiet sigh.
Right. Resignation, then.
Fighting one's born fate was this hard, after all. He would have to settle things before any more dagger-sharp words spilled from the Vice Master's mouth.
Just as Seo Yugyeom tightened his grip on his dagger, Jin Seongun — lost in thought this entire time — finally spoke.
"I don't think Young Master Seo has the skill to carve me into pieces."
The Vice Master and Seo Yugyeom wore identical, soul-drained expressions.
What is this lunatic saying right now?
That was precisely what their faces said. Jin Seongun, for his part, was being perfectly serious. No matter how he turned the man's words over in his mind, he simply could not picture himself losing to Seo Yugyeom.
It wasn't boasting. Unless he fought with his hands and feet bound of his own will and a death wish in his heart, he had no doubt of victory.
Then Jin Seongun spoke again.
"Seo Yugyeom."
"Uh — what? I'm older than you, you know."
"That can wait. Answer clearly right now. Seo Yugyeom — where do you belong?"
Seo Yugyeom looked from the Vice Master to Jin Seongun and back. After a short breath, he opened his mouth.
"Seongun Inn."
"Your status?"
"Supreme head chef."
"Good. That settles it."
Jin Seongun gave a small nod, then turned the Black Gorge Sword toward the Vice Master once more.
His bearing was transformed from everything that had come before. Where he had once calmly parried each strike, killing intent now burned in the blade.
The Vice Master's pupils trembled.
He had believed it from the start — that if he fought like a wolf pack bringing down a wolf, he would win. But the Vice Master had been dead wrong. His opponent was no mere wolf.
All at once, a fire dragon rose within Jin Seongun's sword.
The Sword Immortal's art — the Fire Dragon Escape Sword.
He unleashed an ancient, supreme sword art spanning past and present with a calm, unhurried bearing, and charged.
The Vice Master's straight blade, flung up on pure instinct, was torn asunder — swallowed whole by the fire dragon.