The Balance of Killing Intent
There is a thing called your life flashing before your eyes.
When a furious client sticks a knife in you. When you plummet endlessly from a cliff.
With death right in front of you, time slows and strange things flicker across your vision.
And now—this instant, with a sword tip streaking straight for my throat—I saw something uncanny in that stretched-out time.
The optimal path for slaughter. Crimson lines twisted and danced, revealing every seam I could cut to take him down.
Kill!
I had to kill the madman in front of me if I wanted to live. No—if we wanted to live.
The moment that murderous resolve flooded my skull, my body started moving on its own.
Clang!
When you cross blades with a Transcendent Realm master, ordinary iron doesn’t last. So I flicked the flat of his sword, just enough to twist his momentum off-line.
Through the opening that created, I followed the red lines and cut the seam.
Slice—
The instant our two swords crossed in empty air, time snapped back into motion.
Blood erupted right in front of my face. His edge carved across my forearm. But at the same moment—
“Gyaaah!”
Gwang Hyeol-so’s scream tore free. All five fingers gripping his sword had been sheared clean off, neat as slicing tofu.
Clutching the stump, face twisted in shock, he scrambled two steps back.
“Keuk… what the hell are you?! That movement just now—!”
He snagged the falling sword with his remaining hand and shouted like the world no longer made sense.
“I don’t know either, you bastard!”
It really had been a possessed motion. My body felt twice as fast as usual, and even the one swinging the sword had no idea how it had happened.
“You little—! A Peak Realm punk punching through a Transcendent martial artist’s protective Gang Qi? So it really was you who took the head of the Sura Cheonsal Gangsi!”
As expected of a master—he had layered his protective Gang Qi again in that tiny fraction of a second. His suspicion hardened into certainty right then.
“Whatever technique that was, you can cut that Heavenly Killing jiangshi with ease. In that case I can’t leave you alive—not if the great work is to succeed!”
“Hey, stop slapping ‘Heavenly Killing’ onto every damn name, will you?”
The words slipped out the second I caught my breath. Why did they keep sticking that label on everything? It made this Heavenly Killing Star’s ears itch.
“Shut up and die!”
He exploded forward like lightning, reverse hand whipping Gang Qi in a vicious arc.
Jo Harang must have seen the opening; her greatsaber came howling in to exploit it.
Clang!
Crisp sword Gang smashed into murky saber Gang. She had deliberately fouled his momentum for my sake.
I tried to ride the same ability again and cut him down—
What? Why isn’t it working?
It fizzled. Exactly the same way it had when I tried sparring with Jo Harang.
“Why the hell is it doing this?!”
I swung while shouting in frustration.
In that same breath Jo Harang took a hit and cried out.
“Keok!”
Some foot technique had folded her waist like a shrimp and launched her backward.
“Now it’s just you and me.”
The Jinju Eon Clan warriors had already been almost completely wiped out. I had already sent our client, Eon Wol-yeong, fleeing toward the Murim Alliance with Ilhong.
Jo Harang looked unconscious. Exactly as he said—only the two of us left.
“If you’re hoping for another black-clad stranger to crash the party, no such luck today.”
Even I had to agree. We had been only two days from Murim Alliance Headquarters when he caught us. The Eon Clan had supposedly sent a messenger ahead warning of trouble, yet no escort had appeared. Today the goddess of fate was wearing a shit-eating grin instead of a smile.
“What’s with that face? Where did all that murderous spirit from a moment ago go?”
He had read the “whatever, fine” look on my face and sniffed something out.
“Back off now and you’ll get away with just a crippled hand.”
“Heh. Still running that mouth.”
My bluff bounced off him. Gwang Hyeol-so simply grinned and lifted his sword.
He announced he would peel my flesh like fruit, Gang Qi carving me slice by slice into jerky.
“I’ll forgo the pleasure of cutting meat and bone myself. Instead I’ll make you beg me to kill you.”
With that he stepped back into footwork and began firing razor Gang beams.
Shraaaak!
Remembering our earlier exchange, he refused close quarters and simply poured out murderous light. Transcendent Realm technique that split air, brush, and boulders alike.
I had to scramble like a mongrel dodging arrows, weaving frantically in every direction.
“Hah… hah! How does this bastard have endless internal energy…! Ugh!”
Whatever grotesque blood arts he used to suck life force and qi out of people, he could spit that much Gang Qi without even looking tired.
“Why can’t I see it?!”
I shouted, desperate for the kill angle—the red lines that would let me take his head.
Killing intent!
Salsung snapped the answer into my skull, sounding just as irritated. My current killing intent was insufficient.
A moment ago, watching Eon Clan warriors die in front of me, watching both my staffs get sliced, watching him charge in to kill me—my killing intent had exploded. Now that it had cooled and I had even started circulating the Seongun Simbeop to scatter the wicked thoughts and reclaim my sanity, the emotion simply wasn’t there.
Unleash the kill.
She wanted me to pour it out the way I had before. Easier said than done.
A genuine Heavenly Killing Star probably boiled with the urge to tear someone apart 365 days a year, 24/7, no holidays. I was a half-baked Heavenly Killing Star still clinging to my right mind.
As long as he stayed at range and just flung blades, all I felt was the will to survive. If he would just charge in for a death match the way he had earlier, maybe something would spark.
Shraak!
In the blink of an eye a beam of Gang Qi skimmed my forearm, deepening the earlier wound until the arm felt ready to flop free.
“Looks uncomfortable dangling there. Shall I just take it off for you?”
He grinned, yellow teeth showing. He had seemed like a more solemn master before; fighting me had somehow dropped his class a couple notches.
“You cowardly son of a bitch…! A Transcendent Realm master so scared of a Peak Realm guy he just spams Gang Qi?!”
I bellowed at the top of my lungs that even the Blood Heaven Divine Blade would be laughing, that it was a neighborhood embarrassment to have a Transcendent Realm Blood Sect master frozen stiff by a Peak Realm fighter.
“Ha. Cowardice? Coming from you? The rat who’s been sabotaging the Blood Sect’s great work from the shadows for ages!”
“Shadows my ass! I sabotaged you guys right out in the open!”
Unintentionally, yes. I kept getting tangled up and wrecking their plans every single time.
“You damned rat—you slaughtered Blood Sect disciples with cheap tricks like thunder bombs and you dare act righteous in front of me?!”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, those thunder bombs were your own weapons!”
I had merely adjusted the detonation points of explosives they were already planning to set off. Straight into the middle of their own cluster.
“And I regretted that one hard!”
After that incident the karmic weight of slaughter must have stacked high enough for the Heavenly Killing Star to start talking to me. I nearly jumped out of my skin the first time.
The only reason it stopped at two bloody finger-joints was because I had tried to save Moyong Cheon—my enemy, practically—and racked up some self-sacrificing merit. Otherwise something far uglier than a pair of red knuckles might have shown itself.
These days I just bicker and scuffle with those same two knuckles and somehow keep living.
Instant kill!
Salsung screamed for death, but I had no method. My Seonpungbo had recently reached the sixth stage, yet that still wasn’t enough to match a Transcendent Realm master’s footwork.
“Next I’ll make your head dangle!”
He crowed that the sight would be hilarious, that he would specially refrain from turning my body into a jiangshi and simply shred it instead. My head, he added, would be presented to the Hyeolgyoju as proof.
“Keuk!”
Something crimson flashed; I dropped to one knee, but the Gang Qi still carved my shoulder. A full inch of meat gone. The strike had been aimed at my neck—I had barely twisted enough to escape with this.
“Heh heh. Today that Heavenly Killing Star bitch isn’t here, the girl with the greatsaber isn’t here, and that damned black-clad man isn’t here either. You die alone.”
He looked delighted at the prospect of savoring our private time slowly and thoroughly.
That was when a voice rang out from not far away.
“Boss—!”
Ilhong, having spotted me in danger, was sprinting toward us while shouting my name.
“Hey, are you insane?! Why the hell did you come back alone?!”
I yelled in pure shock. I had already used Eon Wol-yeong to force her away after she insisted on staying and fighting.
“I can’t go! No—I won’t go! What’s the point of surviving alone again…!”
Her voice shook as if a memory she had tried to bury had clawed its way back up. Of all the places for a trauma button to get pressed.
“And who said I’m alone?!”
She shouted between gasps. I glanced past her and saw martial artists charging in her wake.
Warriors in the uniforms of the Demon Exterminating Squad and the Alliance’s cooperative unit, kicking up a dust cloud as they came.
I had written in the messenger’s note that the cargo was sensitive and a Blood Sect ambush was likely. Our paths had simply crossed; the Murim Alliance had sent people after all.
“See that? Who said I was dying alone? That’s the kind of pull Dan Mujin has.”
Even the people I order to leave come running back. Peak Dan Mujin personnel management.
“…Hmph. Then I’ll kill you before they arrive!”
Gritting his teeth, he poured out Gang Qi even more viciously, determined to finish me before the reinforcements closed the distance.
Shra-ra-ra-rak!
I had been proud that the ominous star’s energy made my internal reserves second to none, yet this bastard seemed to boast an equally monstrous quantity. Probably accumulated through the same kind of twisted methods I used.
Boom!
While I tumbled around covered in blood, Ilhong yanked the lines on her hidden weapons. Black-powder blasts and a continuous rain of poisoned needles.
Tat-tat-tang!
Gwang Hyeol-so brushed them aside like gnats and casually flicked a single strand of Gang Qi toward her.
She twisted to dodge, but her movement was too slow; the beam sliced her near the waist. Momentum carried her tumbling forward, spraying blood across the dirt.
“You son of a bitch! How dare you touch my precious subordinate…!”
So this was what it felt like when your eyes flipped completely red.
Murderous will surged up from my chest like a fountain. The paths of slaughter reappeared. I felt my body move on pure instinct.
Taat!
I detonated the vast reserves of internal energy in my dantian through the Yongcheon point on my foot. My body shot forward as if consciousness and flesh were both racing at several times normal speed.
The moment that ominous killing aura erupted again, Gwang Hyeol-so immediately stepped back to open distance.
That was when it happened.
Whoosh!
A massive greatsaber streaked through the air at terrifying speed and sealed off his retreat path.
Even half-conscious, Jo Harang had forced herself upright and wrung out every last drop of strength to help me.
I needed that single heartbeat of hesitation more than anything.
Slice!
The sensation of cutting traveled up my fingertips—tough skin and muscle, countless vessels, hard bone parting.
Fwoosh!
Blood fountained and the wrist holding his sword flew free. Both hands he needed for sword techniques and fist techniques were gone.
Thrust!
I didn’t let up for a second. I drove my blade straight into his dantian. Blood gushed and I felt the enormous quantity of internal energy he had been holding scatter into nothing.
“Got you, you bastard!”
Who’s the real rat skulking in the shadows now?
I jabbed his mute and paralysis points in the same motion. Only after both hands were useless, his dantian pierced, and his pressure points locked did I finally let out the breath that had been stuck under my chin.
“Hah… hah…”
The tension drained and the strange lines faded from my sight once more.
After tasting the sensation a few times, I was starting to understand the conditions. I had to want someone dead—want it the way the successive Heavenly Killing Stars had wanted it.
Kill!
And because I had used the power she gave me for killing merely to subdue instead of finishing him, Salsung practically jumped up and down in outrage.
Not a chance. Who do you think that would benefit?
I shook my head. A situation where I had to kill or die was one thing. What use was a corpse that couldn’t talk? We weren’t the Blood Sect raising jiangshi. Keep him breathing and we could squeeze him for information and rewards.
“You—left-blood dharma, was it?”
He held a fairly high position inside the Blood Sect. The Murim Alliance would recognize the merit and pay a fat bounty. Maybe this time I could finally clear every last debt I owed Eun Hwaran. I was already daydreaming golden futures when a faint voice reached me from far off.
“Mujin…!”
Vice Leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad, Moyong Cheonghye.
She looked horrified at the sight of me painted in blood with one arm dangling.
But… Mujin? Why was she suddenly calling me so familiarly?
“Oh my, look at me! Young Hero Dan Mujin, are you all right?!”
“…”
It was a strange feeling. Back when I had panicked and called Moyong Cheonghye “noona,” had she felt something like this?
I was still staring blankly at her as she ran toward me when—
“Die, you rat!”
Gwang Hyeol-so, whom I had been certain was fully suppressed, somehow released his pressure points and drove his fingers deep into one of my vital points.
“…Ugh!”
“Heh. I refuse to die like this. I’ll drain every drop of your blood and every scrap of your internal energy!”
Some bizarre blood art. My whole body locked up as if bound, and a rough, wicked energy rampaged through me like an occupying army.
And that was more than enough to provoke the thing that lived inside me—just like it had in the past.
“…!!”
He had been gloating while stirring around inside me; suddenly his eyes flew wide enough to tear.
“Keok!”
A handful of dark-red blood sprayed from his mouth. He had coughed up blood. His pupils shook without rest, as if both body and mind had taken catastrophic damage.
He must have glimpsed something Hwang Geolgae once said should never be seen.
“Grrk… you… what the hell are you…!”
He pointed at me with a trembling hand from where he lay on the ground, eyes full of disbelief.
Then, as if he finally understood, he tried to scream in pure horror.
“E-endless killing intent… this… it isn’t that bitch—you’re the real Heavenly Kill—”
“…”
Slice!
A sword flashed. Blood sprayed.
An unavoidable stroke for someone who had glimpsed a truth he was never meant to know.