The Great Swordmaster Breaks a Curse
"Get up, you brat."
Whoosh—thud!
Geom Mujin’s mid-range kick sank straight into Sama Ryeong’s solar plexus.
"Kheuk...!"
He was a demonic cultist armed with unshakable faith and conviction, but those things didn’t exactly protect the front of his chest.
At the solar plexus, everyone was equal.
By the great doctrine of solar-plexus equality, the unconscious Sama Ryeong’s eyes snapped open in an instant.
"C-cough...! Cough! Where... is this..."
Gasping, he looked around.
His last memory was being on a ship, and now he was in some forest.
"How...?"
"How else? I snuck you out."
"!"
Sama Ryeong flinched and immediately looked up.
There stood the bastard who had not only ruined his plan, but had thoroughly smeared shit all over it.
"Y-you...!"
His eyes bulged as he exuded killing intent.
Given how thoroughly Geom Mujin had beaten him down, it wasn’t hard to understand.
"Oh? You want me to open my eyes nicely for you?"
With not one damn reason to indulge him, Geom Mujin swung a fist straight at his head.
Smack!
"Gyaaaah...!"
A wretched cry burst from Sama Ryeong’s mouth.
The blow was far weaker than the one that had hit him before he lost consciousness, but it had nailed exactly the same spot again.
So this was the inhuman treatment reserved for prisoners.
It violated the modern Geneva Convention, but this was the Ming Dynasty.
"I pulled you out when you were about to drown, and this is the look you give me?"
"W-what...?"
When the ship was sinking, I had ordered Sodam to get him out.
Dang Yulin and her little crew had been too distracted by the ship going under to notice.
And yet he had the nerve to speak like that even though I hadn’t even rescued him out of some noble desire to help.
Geom Mujin’s protective qi had gone so deep into his face that it was practically part of his skin.
"Heh-heh. So when were you planning to say thank you? Don’t tell me the god you people worship taught you to clamp your mouth shut even when someone helps you?"
"D-don’t... insult me...!"
At Geom Mujin’s sneer, Sama Ryeong ground his teeth.
He should tear this insolent bastard apart for mocking his sacred bloodline with words too filthy to even speak aloud.
He should... but...
"Krrr... Aaaagh...!!"
His limbs wouldn’t move at all.
"Hey now. Why so upset? We’re professionals here. Of course I sealed your pressure points."
Did I really think I’d just drag him off with no precautions?
It won’t budge...!
Sama Ryeong desperately tried to force his demonic qi through his sealed points, but it did no good.
Sealing pressure points wasn’t all-powerful.
Depending on the difference in cultivation, it could sometimes be broken by brute force, but the seal he was under was absurdly solid.
J-just what is this bastard...
How much stronger was he than himself?
His field of vision, blurred by half-melted, crushed eyelids, gradually returned.
And once his sight and focus came back to normal, Sama Ryeong’s eyes flew wide open.
".....!"
At last, he could properly make out Geom Mujin’s face and hair color, which he had never fully seen before.
That face! That hair!
There was no way he could mistake it.
"Great Swordmaster!!"
"What? You finally figured it out?"
I’d been walking around with my mask off from the latter half on, so I didn’t expect him to be this late.
After smashing his face half to pieces with poison, he was awfully shameless about it all.
If not for those things, Sama Ryeong would’ve recognized him right away.
"You obstructed not only the Jeongma War, but now the work of our cult again! I’ll kill you!"
Sama Ryeong shouted himself hoarse.
"You demon!"
The Seven Martial Stars, who had slain Heavenly Demon—their eternal idol, their eternal dignity, their eternal prophet—were no different from Satanic devils.
Watching a demonic cultivator curse someone else as a demon was a rare sight indeed.
But setting that aside, Sama Ryeong felt an absurd sense of despair.
To be captured, and by one of the Seven Martial Stars at that!
The Seven Martial Stars were the head demons who led the demons called the Zhongyuan people.
You might say Geom Mujin wasn’t a Zhongyuan native, so maybe he wasn’t a demon?
No. To the demonic cult, he was an Olangkae demon.
Anyway, everyone except them was a demon.
...No choice. For the sake of the cult, I shall perform my martyrdom—
"Look at you, already plotting."
The moment Sama Ryeong seemed to settle on something and tried to surge his demonic qi, Geom Mujin drove a fist into him again.
Crash!
"....!!!"
When the punch slammed into the flesh just below his navel, Sama Ryeong let out a scream beyond words.
Clang-crash!
It sounded as though dishes were shattering wildly right beside his ears.
"What are you doing, trying to become a goema?"
Geom Mujin muttered coldly as he shattered the dantian with a single blow.
In the original novel, the Neo-Demonic Cult’s executives all shared one trait.
When cornered, they turned into goema.
There was a saying in the murim.
- When a demonic cultivator with a high level of demonic arts becomes a goema, they become an even stronger goema.
To everyone’s surprise, this had actually been proven during the Jeongma War.
When the Eight Demon Generals turned into goema... ugh.
Anyway, they believed in that nonsense and, in their final struggle, made themselves into goema.
Not simply blowing themselves up and dying, but fully knowing they would lose themselves forever and doing it anyway.
After I’d already beaten the hell out of them, having them suddenly enter their “final phase” and transform was so fucking annoying.
If I hadn’t known, fine. But knowing and still having to watch that spectacle? No thanks.
"Kheuk..."
Sama Ryeong choked on the shock of having the life source of a martial artist—the dantian—obliterated.
A normal person would have died on the spot, but thanks to Geom Mujin’s careful control, he was still breathing.
For the moment, anyway, he lowered his head.
"...When the age of the End comes, when the age of the End arrives like a thief, the flame of purification shall burn away all sins and works in the Sahwa world and open a new world. Follow me as one hand helps the other and one foot helps another."
Then he began chanting scripture like a madman.
And people said this wasn’t a religious cult.
The passage itself sounded pretty impressive.
The problem was that they used that impressive language as a pretext to do despicable things.
Wait, this bastard is blatantly trying to provoke me into killing him?
He must have realized the situation by now.
Why I’d kept him alive so far, and what awaited him next.
I wanted information, and he had it.
But if he refused to hand it over willingly, what was I supposed to do?
At times like this, you needed torture—the sort that could make even a pig, a mere beast, start talking.
Torture was a contest of endurance.
The one being tortured had to cling on stubbornly and exhaust the other side’s patience, forcing them to kill him out of sheer frustration.
That’s why he’s reciting scripture like that.
He was making it clear that no matter what happened, he had no intention of talking.
And he’s not relying on that alone, either.
Looking down at the back of his bowed head, I rested a hand on the hilt of my sword.
Snikt—
The blade slid free of its scabbard.
"If someone slaps your cheek, you—"
A strange gleam appeared in Sama Ryeong’s eyes as he recited the scripture.
He was drawing his sword—was he planning to kill him already?
That had been the goal, sure, but he hadn’t expected it to happen without even a little torture first.
...No, fine.
He’d never get any information out of the man anyway, but if it ended quickly without torture, that was still good.
He wouldn’t get to see the Neo-Heavenly Cult rise again and open a new world, but if he could help it even a little—
"Ah, don’t start reminiscing about your life already."
Just as he was finishing that last thought, Geom Mujin cut him off.
"The interrogation hasn’t even started yet."
"What?"
"This is the prep work."
After setting the brat down for a moment beneath a tree, Geom Mujin took a stance.
He’d caught a mole back in Gangsaseong too, but he’d done the order wrong.
This should’ve come before making the brat bite him, before starting the interrogation again.
"Looks like you’re banking on the seal Hwanma put on you. Let’s see if you’re still saying that after this."
From among the streams of sword style flowing through his mind, one current rose to the surface.
That current sent a sickly, blood-red sword qi creeping over the sword’s blade like heat haze.
Kyaaaaah—
The blood-red energy was somehow different from every sword qi he had used before.
Just looking at it felt like you could hear the screams of the underworld.
"G-Great Swordmaster...! Y-you... that... th-that is...!?"
Sama Ryeong’s eyes widened at the energy radiating from the sword qi, but Geom Mujin raised one finger and pressed it to his lips.
"Shh."
Mujin Sword Style
Gwichal Sword
Jusahaegeom
Geom Mujin’s sword cut across Sama Ryeong’s neck.
* * *
Slash—!
A blood-red line was drawn across Sama Ryeong’s throat.
"Kheok!?"
As the blade’s sensation swept over his neck, Sama Ryeong let out a final cry, but something was wrong.
"Huh?"
His neck had clearly been cut, and yet it was still attached.
"Don’t be surprised. That wasn’t your neck I cut."
Clatter—!
Geom Mujin tossed aside the sword, its blade broken by the recoil from that last technique, and said,
"...Then what did you cut?"
Sama Ryeong asked, but his curiosity was answered almost immediately.
Swish—
A grotesque pattern appeared over the skin of his neck.
Only for a moment—the faintly glowing design quickly lost its light and faded away.
"N-no way! You cut the seal with a sword!?"
Seeing that, Sama Ryeong was shocked.
He could feel the seal placed upon him disappearing.
And worse, this was a seal laid by that person.
"Huh... good. Looks like it works on seals at Hwanma’s level too. As expected of me."
I stroked my chin while looking at his neck.
Jusahaegeom cuts curses and sorcery, unlike my other techniques.
I’d designed it to target Hwanma, but I’d never actually gotten to use it on him during the war, so this was my first real test. Glad to see it worked.
Still, whether it would work on the real Hwanma remained to be seen.
"...You monster!"
Sama Ryeong was stunned.
Cutting sorcery with a sword? Did that even make sense?
Martial arts and sorcery were separate domains.
And yet this man had done it.
At that point, wasn’t it as good as saying a sword could do anything?
Only then did Sama Ryeong finally realize, once again, who stood before him.
Why the Zhongyuan martial artists, whose pride and self-respect in the sword reached the heavens, called this foreign barbarian the Great Swordmaster despite the countless swordsmen among them.
"G-Great Swordmaster..."
Sama Ryeong caught a glimpse of the answer.
"Yeah. I’m the Great Swordmaster who took off your Heavenly Demon’s head."
"O-oguh...!"
Whether he was startled or not, Geom Mujin shoved a small, light black object into Sama Ryeong’s mouth.
The liquid leaking from it slid down his throat.
Gulp— gulp—
With his jaw held fast, he had no choice but to swallow it.
"Heh, heh. Drink every last drop."
"Ogohoho...!"
Once he’d stuffed the final drop into his mouth, Geom Mujin put the object—the medicine bottle—away.
It was a leftover truth serum from when he’d interrogated the escorts.
"Uuuh, uuugh..."
As the truth serum coursed through his veins, Sama Ryeong’s face slackened into a dazed blur.
His mind went hazy, and he started wanting to say anything at all.
"Then let’s start the interrogation."
Geom Mujin grinned.
* * *
"...That is everything I know."
"Got it."
When the interrogation ended, Geom Mujin stood up, leaving the dazed Sama Ryeong behind him.
His face looked vaguely dissatisfied, and that had been exactly right.
For the bastard truly didn’t know anything!
What kind of bullshit was this?
These fucking lunatics. They wipe every memory except the ones needed for the mission before they go out...
I examined the mask he had worn.
Unlike the outside, where nothing was engraved, the inside was densely carved with intricate sorcerous patterns.
According to him, it was the mask used during missions, and he’d erased his memories through it.
"You go this far just for confidentiality?"
"That is the cult."
Muttering in disbelief to myself, I had apparently taken it as a question, because Sama Ryeong answered.
"Ah, shut up!"
Thud-!
"Kyaaaah!"
I kicked the bastard away.