Fated Existence
An Ominous Star was an ill-fated star—not a person.
So then what, exactly, was this human-shaped thing writhing and loitering right in front of my eyes?
I'd always wondered about that, and Hwang Geolgae seemed to know the answer.
"Tell me more."
And don't get all precious about it, either.
I swallowed that last bit and pressed him for more.
"What, did this old man leave something with you? What's with the high-handed interrogation?"
Hwang Geolgae, throat dry from all the movement, tipped back his wine bottle and muttered between gulps.
"We're both Heavenly Killing Stars. Of course I'm curious."
I answered while staring at the red palm swaying quietly in the air, not a single mark drawn across it.
I'd turned down a fat pile of money and even secured an imperial decree for the Beggar Sect, and all I got back was that the previous Heavenly Killing Star had come from the Demonic Cult.
Talk about leaving a man hanging.
"Easy for you to say… when you don't even know how savage that Heavenly Killing Star was."
Hwang Geolgae let out a sigh. The reason so few records of the previous Heavenly Killing Star remained was simple: everything had been buried under death before anything could be written down.
"My own master tried to stop it and met with a terrible calamity."
"…So he fell gloriously in battle?"
No wonder he'd been so reluctant to bring it up. So there was a story like that behind it.
"No. He fought a bit, figured it wasn't going to work, and ran."
"…"
A thoroughly Beggar Sect choice. Practical. Rational.
"And so an ignominious stain stuck to his name. He spent a long time trying to scrub it off."
In the Murim, turning your back when a great martial duty stood before you was considered the height of cowardice.
Kind of reaped what he sowed, if you asked me. Hmm.
"So why do you keep digging? Is plain curiosity really the whole of it? You're not hiding something from this old man, are you…?"
Honestly. This old geezer was far too sharp for his own good.
"Come on, as if."
I waved it off with a casual laugh. His eyebrow crawled up at a crooked angle.
"…You little bastard. Talk while I'm still asking nicely. What kind of mess did you cause this time?"
My track record was so stacked with disasters that he didn't even bother listening properly anymore.
Claiming total innocence wasn't going to fly.
"A couple of minor things, sure… but there's no way I topped the Imperial Palace job, right?"
There was a saying in the Murim: hide three-tenths of your true strength.
Same principle applied to a good lie—bury three-tenths of falsehood inside seven-tenths of truth.
That was how you fooled a man of the Dragon Head Sect Leader's caliber.
"Hmm. Fair enough… There's a limit to what any human can pull off. You couldn't have caused anything worse than that."
Fortunately, Hwang Geolgae nodded as if that were simple common sense, then started guzzling from the bottle again.
"…"
…
Causing one spectacular disaster had actually paid off here.
Crisis averted, I pressed on about the previous Heavenly Killing Star—the one who seemed to own this hand.
"Master. About the Ming Cult—"
"Ming Cult? That's the kind of title those Demonic Cult scum would use. Call them the Demonic Cult. Demonic Cult."
His brows twitched, and he corrected me on the spot.
It's the Ming Cult, damn it… You old bastard.
Damn old man. On that particular point, I was in complete agreement.
Still, the way he always lost it the moment the Demonic Cult came up only hardened my conviction that Salsung's true identity was the previous Heavenly Killing Star.
"So what happened to that previous Heavenly Killing Star who belonged to the Demonic Cult?"
"What do you think happened? Every Heavenly Killing Star ends the same way."
Hwang Geolgae turned his cup with a bitter smile.
Once this Ominous Star was lodged in your head, everyone walked the same road. An inescapable fate of the Heavenly Killing Star, he said.
"The previous one managed to hold on longer by training in demonic arts… but in the end he lost his reason, slaughtered everything in reach, made the entire Murim his enemy, and met a wretched death."
No matter how hard you struggled, the final stretch always drove the host to ruin. A horrific destiny.
Painting the whole world in blood and screams was just the bonus track.
"So be careful. Don't let your guard down. Accumulate virtue, train the Seongun Simbeop, and constantly weaken the Ominous Star. Otherwise…"
He swallowed the rest, his face going faintly cold as he jostled the hilt of his sword.
What kind of master threatened to kill his own disciple at the drop of a hat? It was enough to make a man cry.
This was exactly why I couldn't just dump my worries on him straight.
"Master."
"What is it, you brat."
The sword-waving tantrum seemed to have run its course. Hwang Geolgae settled in properly, chewing dried squid as a side for his drink.
Where did he keep pulling snacks from, anyway?
"What happens to a Heavenly Killing Star when they die?"
I didn't know much about the afterlife. In a way, this whole life in the Murim already was my afterlife. I didn't know a damn thing about how any of it worked.
"Tsk tsk. What's a young man doing asking about that?"
Why ask? Because something that looked an awful lot like the previous Heavenly Killing Star was sitting right in front of me, bound to the Ominous Star without even managing to pass on.
Which meant if I died without overcoming the Heavenly Killing Star myself, I might end up just like that. How was I supposed to not worry?
"This old man doesn't know much either."
"Come on, if you know anything—"
"But the first time I met you and poured qi into your body, I felt something."
He meant that moment in the alley, back when I'd been a beggar.
He'd casually sent qi into me, glimpsed something inside, and become certain I was the Heavenly Killing Star.
"You remember how I used to refuse to lay another hand on your body after that?"
"Yes. You said it was terrifying. That when you dug deeper, you saw something strange."
"That's right. I saw it. An Ominous Star burning with ill omen, and dozens of pairs of eyes dripping bright red blood."
"…"
Just hearing it was bloodcurdling. And that thing was inside me?
"Unidentifiable vengeful spirits were bound there, screaming and thrashing in agony. The killing intent born from that howled in every direction. And from what this old man could tell, those spirits were most likely…"
The previous Heavenly Killing Stars—the ones who had resisted and been swallowed by the Ominous Star in the end.
"…"
Hwang Geolgae swallowed the rest of the sentence with a mouthful of spit, but I was starting to understand what he meant.
Accumulate good deeds, raise the achievement of the Seongun Simbeop, and gradually free yourself from the Ominous Star's influence.
This wasn't something to work hard at. It was something you had to pull off like your life depended on it. I was finally starting to feel it in my bones.
"Master."
"Mm."
"Uh… shall we train? Sword forms and the Seongun Simbeop."
"Heh heh. So now you finally understand why this old man keeps shouting at you to train."
Hwang Geolgae snorted a laugh, set down his bottle, and rose to his feet.
"Half of that was just taking it out on me, though."
"Well, that's true enough."
Apparently it was because I was so damn rude and my mouth was so flippant.
You're not supposed to admit that so readily. You child-abusing old man.
"Aren't you even a little scared of the Child Welfare Act?"
"What in the world is that supposed to be?"
An age where violence and romance walked hand in hand. The sweat that had gathered all over my body went cold.
Hwang Geolgae swayed the way he always did when the liquor hit, but his eyes still flashed with a razor edge.
If you wanted to walk the righteous path in this Murim and keep your hands free of slaughter, you had to be strong.
Mercy was a privilege reserved for the powerful alone.
So I took up the sword hilt again. A killing tool forged by a blacksmith for the purpose of cutting people down.
I knew, faintly, how to see the lines of the Formations. The secret was simple: the will to kill someone.
"Master, don't misread your disciple's battle cry."
"Tch. What now?"
"…Die!"
A sharp sword tip exploding with killing intent. I lunged at the old man in front of me as if I meant to end him.
And I could feel Salsung—those eyeless pupils—staring holes into my back as I went.
Dog-Seizing Step
A massive city gate where a yellow imperial dragon writhed in mid-ascent.
The gatekeepers who guarded Beijing's four directions were the face and example of the Imperial Army, and so they had a duty to maintain dignity and gravity at all times.
Today, however, the heavily armed gatekeepers' faces were full of bewilderment.
The reason was a throng of beggars pouring in from the distance.
"C-Captain. Why is a swarm of beggars coming this way?"
"Hmm."
The dust cloud had been so thick that at first they'd thought some foreign tribe was launching a raid.
Of course, that sort of thing didn't happen here, nowhere near the frontier.
"Looking at the marks on their belts… Beggar Sect disciples."
The captain, confirming their identity with inner-energy-enhanced vision, let out a low hum.
"There's too many of them, and they're filthy. Shouldn't we stop them?"
"Did you not see the imperial decree His Majesty issued? Leave them be…"
Beijing was, by nature, a solemn city where the imperial capital sat, and anyone who caused a ruckus would normally be met with a brutal thrashing.
But not long ago, the Son of Heaven himself had revoked his earlier command and ordered that the Beggar Sect be allowed in.
What wind had blown through the court was anyone's guess, but this was clearly the fallout.
"Let's go. We walk the imperial capital with our heads held high."
"The ragpickers who came years ago—"
"—didn't die after all. We're back!"
Still, who had managed to turn the heart of that inscrutable Son of Heaven? That alone remained a deep question for the captain.
And at that same hour—
After the Beggar Sect had withdrawn from Beijing over a certain incident, the Haomu Gate had built a monopoly on information in the city. The news of the Beggar Sect's return threw them into chaos.
Haomu Gate agents stretched across the city raced against the clock to report it, and eventually the word reached Hong Hyehyang of the Shinbi Pavilion, disguised as a pleasure house in Beijing.
"The Beggar Sect has poured in…? In a whole swarm?"
"Yes! I just saw it myself."
"There were enormous numbers of them—but the Beggar Sect was clearly banned from the capital."
Hearing the startled voices of her subordinates, the Shinbi Pavilion Master's long brows curved.
Someone had turned the Son of Heaven's heart.
How many people in Beijing were capable of a stunt like that?
She already had a fair grasp of the suspicious old man who hid behind the name Hwang Geolgae.
And of that ominous disciple of his as well.
She'd been so focused on other matters lately that she'd neglected the Imperial Palace side of things.
"So you pulled something off after all, that brat."
Her eyes fixed steadily on the direction of a certain detective agency.
Having shaken free of clan and duty, Dang Yeohye's steps were light and swift beyond measure.
Poison Claw Blood Maker Dang Yeohye crossed from Beijing to Shaanxi in a single burst of lightfoot skill.
She headed for the rendezvous point she'd been notified of by another Murim Alliance branch on the road, intending to meet Moyong Cheonghye.
The moment she stepped into a certain inn, a thick reek of blood flooded her nostrils.
And there stood Moyong Cheonghye, sword dripping blood, radiating the full atmosphere of the rumored Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden.
"Um, Heroine Moyong Cheonghye—what on earth is this situation?"
Even the famously sharp-tongued Poison Claw Blood Maker knew you had to look before you lay down.
In front of a fiercer, more merciless female master—and her future superior—Dang Yeohye carefully opened her mouth.
"If I had to put it simply… a scene of murder to silence witnesses."
"…"
She went pale at Moyong Cheonghye's casual reply.
"I had to cut them all down before they could send the letter."
A letter.
"You had to silence them that thoroughly? Just where was this letter headed that—"
The Vice Leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad turned her head, met Dang Yeohye's eyes, and answered.
"Most likely the Demonic Cult."
"…!"
Dang Yeohye's eyes went round.
The absolute powerhouses who ruled Sipmandaesan. Unlike the Blood Cult that skulked in hiding, they still stood strong and flaunted their might.
A clash would raise a storm of blood so certain that even the Murim Alliance preferred to avoid them.
"I'm just going to head back."
"You can't, Dang Yeohye. I've already accepted your enlistment. I look forward to working with you."
But the Vice Leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad only smiled like a fiendish yaksha and told her it was impossible.
"And you—you're rather close with my little bro… no, with Hero Dan Mujin, aren't you? I'm curious what sort of relationship that is. I'll need to hear about that as well."
"…"
She looked ready to settle in and dig for every last detail.
There was a strangely sister-in-law-ish air about the Vice Leader now, and Dang Yeohye broke out in an unexplainable cold sweat.
I think I stepped into the wrong mess.
They said leaving home meant hard times.
Dang Yeohye already wanted to go back home.