In Someone Else's Shoes
A fierce metallic clang rang across the hills, and a murderous flash of blade light streaked through the air.
"How did you know?!"
As Jo Harang's greatsaber cleaved through the wind, the man who'd posed as a bodyguard unleashed sword qi to meet it.
While a brutal clash unfolded to one side, the fake client who'd lured me all the way out here twisted his face and barked at me again.
"My disguise was perfect! I didn't leak even a shred of killing intent! So how—?!"
He figured either the information had leaked beforehand, his disguise had been inadequate, or he'd failed to fully suppress his killing intent.
All of which were wrong.
"You're just too ugly. One look and anyone can tell you're a villain."
No matter how carefully you hid your killing intent, you could never fool the eyes of the Heavenly Killing Star.
It saw straight through to the murderous heart nestled deep inside them—every last black thought.
"You bastard—!"
My taunt detonated the old man's killing intent. He drew his sword.
When he'd been setting the hook with the bait, he'd worn a kindly face. Now his vicious true nature was fully on display.
"Enemy of the Blood Cult...! Fine. I'll tear you to shreds!"
An old master of the Blood Cult, burning with vengeance, raised a crimson flash upon his blade.
I'd been so looking forward to my first named request—and it turned out to be a lure the Blood Cult had dug for me.
"Wait, fuck. Now that I think about it, why the hell is the Blood Cult after me?!"
Was this really something worth doing? It wasn't like Blood Cult experts had nothing better to do.
Coming all the way out here to spring a trap on one troubleshooter in Beijing?
"Why?! At the Dragon-Phoenix Gathering, in the Southern Wilds—it was all you! The scrap who kept interfering with the Blood Cult's great work!"
Apparently, popping up wherever they went and wrecking their plans had bumped my threat level sky-high.
"In the Southern Wilds, you guys jumped me while I was minding my own business!"
"Silence!"
I hadn't even known they were holed up in some corner of the Southern Wilds.
But no matter what I said, they'd branded me a sworn enemy of the Blood Cult. The old master launched himself like lightning, his sword light flashing with murderous intent.
Shiiik!
Snake-like sword qi poured toward my face. Even though I'd read the trajectory of his killing intent in advance, the twisted nature of the attack left me barely able to respond.
Whish! Tak!
I twisted aside to dodge the sword qi, then used my Tagubong to deflect and redirect again and again.
Kung!
"Kh!"
Fierce qi shockwaves erupted from every clash of sword qi and staff force.
My fingertips and toes tingled of their own accord. The deep internal energy and martial profundity that slammed into me with every collision were no joke.
This old man was clearly one of the Blood Cult's top experts.
"So why go through all this just to catch someone like me—!"
"O Blood Heaven God, the grudges of the fallen disciples—this Blood-Selling Ghost Demon shall repay them!"
I was so busy redirecting and batting attacks away with the Tagubong that I couldn't even counter. The moment Ilhong heard the Blood Cultist's name, he screamed.
"...The Blood-Selling Ghost Demon!"
"Hup! You know him?"
"He's a Transcendental Peak Realm demon lord who was said to have gone into hiding! And he was a Blood Cultist all along?!"
Damn it. So he was a Transcendental Peak expert.
No wonder the rebound in my grip felt so wrong.
"Your blood—every last drop—for blood arts! And your corpse I'll use as material for the next great work!"
What blood art was he preparing, and what the hell was he planning to do with someone else's corpse?
Crazy corpse-fetish bastards, the lot of them.
"You've grown arrogant after reaching Peak Realm! That's why you dared stick your nose into the Blood Cult's affairs without fear. So today, this one shall make you pay the price...!"
He looked like a scrawny old man without an ounce of fat, but his eyes alone blazed with killing intent and madness.
And in his hand, a single blood-red sword that poured out every scrap of his Transcendental Peak martial might to cut down his enemies.
"Arrogant, my ass..."
Hearing I was Peak Realm, they'd prepared one Transcendental Peak and one Peak martial artist each.
But they hadn't known this:
That our office had recently added a new Transcendental Peak hire.
"Harang!"
Transcendental Peak should fight Transcendental Peak, right?
I scrambled backward and called for her support.
"Help!"
Concise. Clear.
"Why?! I'm busy right now!"
Apparently she was having trouble with the Peak Realm Blood Cultist who was deploying some tricky blood arts.
I glanced over—whether to buy time or not, the Blood Cultist was retreating while spraying blood droplets like flying daggers. Papapak!
"Help—!"
"I said I'm busy! Just hold on a little longer!"
She cleaved through every drop of blood with her greatsaber thick with saber qi, chasing her opponent as she shouted back.
"Son of a bitch."
My opponent was a seasoned demon lord who'd weathered every storm imaginable.
He grinned and unleashed a lightning-fast sword technique.
"Boss! I'll help too!"
Seeing me in apparent danger, Ilhong—a First-class Realm martial artist—drew a slender sword and leapt into the fray.
"No, not you—go get Harang!"
In a fight at Peak Realm and above, where weapons got sheared clean through in a single careless moment, how was a First-class supposed to jump in?
I yelled for him to stay out of it.
"Why do you always only call for Heroine Jo Harang?! I can fight too!"
"Because it's dangerous— hup!"
Boom!
Then a sulky-faced Ilhong suddenly chucked a special poison bomb.
A dark-green cloud of mist exploded and instantly swallowed both me and the Blood-Selling Ghost Demon.
"You little—! I'm getting caught in it too!"
"You're always fine with that stuff, Boss!"
Come to think of it, he had a point.
I'd always been resistant to poison, but after being melted down and regenerated over and over by the Human-Faced Spider, I'd apparently developed some bizarre additional tolerance.
"Cough! You madman...! Dragging your own ally into it...?!"
The Blood-Selling Ghost Demon, on the other hand, was ordinary when it came to poison. He was horrified by this ruthless tactic of engulfing even allies in toxin.
Even by Blood Cult standards, it was apparently an attack method that defied common sense.
"Ptoo!"
He held his breath at once, but he must have inhaled a little in his shock.
He spat out dead blood he'd forced up from inside, but the look on his face said some internal damage remained.
"Pretty-boy bastards...! I'll butcher you both!"
Biting down the pain, he charged us again.
First he slashed his palm with his blade, then sprayed blood droplets like a shotgun blast.
Papapak!
I rolled hard to the side to dodge, then batted away the relentless barrage of sword qi with my Tagubong.
Tung! Tututung!
His movements were clearly slower now, his presence weaker.
"Ilhong, nice work...!"
"Please leave it to me more often from now on!"
"No, let's not do that!"
I shouted back in pure revulsion.
Wasn't that basically a declaration that he planned to keep throwing those things at me?
"Kyaah!"
Just then, Jo Harang's greatsaber bisected the Peak Realm Blood Cultist who'd been flinging every kind of evil art—separating his upper body from his lower.
His torso went spinning through the air. Blood sprayed in every direction.
Smeared head to toe in crimson, she came charging straight toward me to help.
Chaaeng!
She forcefully knocked aside the sword thrust aimed at me. From that single exchange alone, the Blood-Selling Ghost Demon realized she was his match. His expression hardened to stone.
"Harang! Bite him!"
"...For the last time, I am not a hunting dog!"
Right, right—she was the proud tiger of Mount Song, wasn't she?
"Hey, tigers have teeth too. Go bite him!"
"Grrrr...!"
An enraged Jo Harang charged the pale-faced Blood-Selling Ghost Demon, swinging her greatsaber.
Whoosh—!
Atop a sharply cut cliff.
In a place where strange mist rose thinly, the sword light of two masters flashed without pause.
Chang! Chachachang!
A silver blade cut through empty air, met by blood-red sword light.
From the gaps between the murderous techniques, the secret sword art of the Moyong Clan—honed by cutting down countless villains—blazed to life.
Atop the cliff, she unleashed the Heaven and Earth Wave Flash Sword, scattering sword qi in bundles with light-ray-swift strikes.
Silver trajectories tore through the air like a streak of meteor. Before that sword light, which seemed ready to split heaven and earth, the blood-red aura of Jwahyeolbeop faltered for a moment.
"Heh heh. Your blade work is steeped in killing intent. How many have you killed with this sword art until now?!"
Jwahyeolbeop seemed delighted by her desperate struggle, letting out a soft, mad laugh.
Chachachang!
Drenched in sweat, pouring out sword strokes without pause, Moyong Cheonghye shouted with a look of pure disgust.
"I'll say it again! I am not the Heavenly Killing Star!"
But the Blood Cultists had no intention of listening.
Resenting the heavens that had sunk a cursed star into her younger brother's body—
The way she had tirelessly cut down the wicked of this earth looked, to them, like nothing more than the Heavenly Killing Star venting its nature.
"Denial is useless. Your deeds speak to your nature...! You're going mad with the urge to kill people, aren't you? You soothe that surging emotion by slaughtering villains! Until the wicked of Liaoning are wiped from existence!"
"No! I told you that's not it!"
"Kwahahahat!"
She shouted in frustration at the absurd misunderstanding, but it didn't land at all.
And yet here she was, atop the very cliff where the Heavenly Killing Star had been stabbed to death, denying so desperately that she was the Heavenly Killing Star. A strange sense of familiarity began to rise inside her.
Was Cheongjin feeling exactly like this back then...?
This frustration of shouting at a wall. And the throng of people who piled on misunderstanding after misunderstanding and tried to kill her for it.
The moment she realized that, Moyong Cheonghye's face went blank.
And the Blood Cult throng didn't miss the opening.
Papababak!
Those watching from behind sprayed blood like hidden weapons. When she kicked off the ground to dodge, Jwahyeolbeop stuck to her like a shadow.
Puk!
A heavy fist slammed into her hard.
Moyong Cheonghye rolled across the ground and coughed up a handful of blood.
"Don't worry. That body of yours will be used to summon the Blood Heaven God. You may even consider it an honor."
"..."
They'd been muttering incomprehensible things from the start.
But one thing was certain: whether her younger brother was alive or dead—
As long as they had business with the Heavenly Killing Star, these bastards meant to take at least one more of them.
"Huu."
So she rose, and once more took hold of her sword's hilt.
Here, where her younger brother had met his end, Moyong Cheonghye steeled herself to see an end of her own.
"C-cowardly..."
Brought low at last by the combined assault of me, Jo Harang with her tiger's aura, and Ilhong striking from behind, the Blood-Selling Ghost Demon collapsed helplessly.
He looked between the three of us and stammered something about us being cowards.
"Cowards? That's rich, coming from the guy who set a trap."
I'd come out here in a good mood, thinking about the money.
At this rate I'd only keep the advance and kiss the rest of the payment goodbye.
I patted him down, but there was nothing worth selling.
"There is something that sells, though."
Ilhong pointed casually at the Blood Cultist's head.
Ah, right—the Demon Exterminating Squad and the Murim Alliance were buying Blood Cultist heads without limit.
They'd even put out some kind of bounty order for it.
Apparently the stronger they were, the more they paid.
"Hey. Where are the rest of the Blood Cult remnants?"
When the battle had started going against him earlier, he'd set off some kind of firework and tried to stall for time.
There were definitely leftovers nearby.
"Kyaaagh!"
When his answer came too slowly, I applied Bone-Splitting Tendon-Rending. A handy interrogation method I'd learned from Hwang Geolgae.
"Interrogation?"
"If it makes him talk, it's interrogation."
He pointed toward a cliff not far away and shouted.
"There! The Blood Cult remnants! They're all gathered there!"
A landscape wrapped in strange mist came into view.
"Wait. That place is..."
A strangely familiar terrain.
In other words—it was the very cliff I'd fallen from before.