Down with the Heavenly Killing Star
Even in the height of midsummer, a gentle, cool breeze drifted across the mountainside.
In the middle of the clearing, Jo Harang was deep in training, swinging her Hohyeop-do with fierce intensity. Song Ryeong watched from the shade of a tree, then turned to me and spoke.
“Young Master Dan, are you aware that the mortal enemy of the Purple Micro Star is the Heavenly Killing Star?”
Her voice was calm, yet carried real weight.
“Is that so? I’ve only ever heard of ominous stars as old stories, so I don’t really…”
I answered with a perfectly blank expression, as if I knew nothing at all—though inside I felt a sharp, guilty jolt.
What a twisted situation. Of all people, she had to ask me, the Heavenly Killing Star himself. Had she noticed something?
Absolutely… I must not get caught…
The red fingers quivered nervously in front of me. The instant anyone learned I was the Heavenly Killing Star, this place would stop being a cozy home of female friends and become the middle of enemy territory.
For once, Salsung and I were in complete agreement.
“If the Purple Micro Star is the star that guards the peace of the Central Plains, then the Heavenly Killing Star is Heaven’s proxy of punishment—the one that dyes everything in blood. Throughout the long ages the two have been locked in a fated cycle of killing and being killed.”
“…Ah.”
Ironically, the Heavenly Killing Star and Purple Micro Star of this era had become the closest of friends—people who would risk their lives for each other. Of course, that relationship was only possible because Jo Harang still had no idea who I really was.
“And when one reads the flow of Heaven’s will, the time for this generation’s Heavenly Killing Star to appear is almost upon us.”
So she could read that sort of thing as well. Song Ryeong gazed blankly up at the bright blue daytime sky—where no stars were visible—and murmured in a low voice.
“The strange part is that the ominous star seems to have stopped moving… its light has faded…”
She muttered with a look of genuine incomprehension. That was almost certainly because of me—an utterly alien existence who had jammed a stick into the wheel of fate and forced it to a halt. Look at me now: I’d befriended the Purple Micro Star and was even visiting her home.
“Could the Heavenly Killing Star have appeared and then… died?”
I asked carefully. Song Ryeong shook her head.
“We still don’t know. Which is why we must never lower our guard.”
If we grew complacent and it appeared, the entire Central Plains would drown in blood and corpses would pile up like mountains—a true blood calamity.
“Even if a Heavenly Killing Star appears, isn’t there a chance they could come to their senses and live peacefully? Listening to the old stories, I always wonder why it’s so savage every single time.”
It was like the Black Death. Once it swept through, the whole world groaned under a brutal slaughter. The tales of past Heavenly Killing Stars painted them as monstrous as the demon kings of fantasy novels. That would make the Purple Micro Star the righteous hero who stood against them, I supposed.
“Who can say? They call it ‘Mount Tai crushing an egg.’ How could a mere human’s will possibly defy the will that presses down from Heaven and continue living?”
No matter how hard one struggled or fought, one was ultimately destined to lose reason and open the precepts of slaughter. Just as Moyong Cheongjin had once turned his killing techniques on the family member he loved most—Moyong Cheonghye. The Heavenly Killing Star’s story always ended in blood.
“The will of Heaven, is it…”
In the world I came from, that was the sort of nonsense cults spouted. Why should anyone live according to a fate someone else decided? As someone who had crossed over from another world, I simply could not accept it. The idea that the sky itself could toy with my life—and that I was supposed to submit—was absurd.
I looked up at the clear sky and quietly flipped it off.
…
I felt Salsung staring at me, even though she still had no eyes. It was the pitying, exasperated look one gives an egg trying to head-butt a boulder.
Whoosh—!
At that moment Jo Harang’s Hohyeop-do swept violently across the clearing. The air itself tore with a sharp crack as a brilliant blade force flashed; she gathered her internal energy and caught her breath. The residual energy streaming from the tip of the blade gradually stilled the sudden gust.
Was that the Blade Soul of Annihilating Slaughter? Daytime training seemed to be finished.
“Hah… hah…”
Sweat-soaked hair clung to her face. Jo Harang stood with her eyes closed, still half-lost in the afterglow of the technique. Song Ryeong suddenly turned her gaze on me.
“I hear it was thanks to you, Young Master Dan.”
“…Pardon? Thanks for what?”
“Harang’s achievements. When she reached the Peak Realm, and again when she stepped into the Transcendental Peak Realm—every one of those moments, you were at her side.”
A strange warmth had entered her voice. I glanced at Jo Harang and gave an awkward smile.
“I just tossed out a few plausible-sounding words and sparred with her a little. She figured everything out herself because her talent is ridiculous.”
Even the most casual remark I dropped would spark sudden enlightenment that she then forged straight into her martial arts. Truly the woman who carried the Purple Micro Star; her martial talent and constitution were on another level.
“The talent of the Purple Micro Star is indeed innate. But reaching the Transcendental Peak Realm at her age is rare even among all the Purple Micro Stars in history.”
The Purple Micro Star’s talent in full bloom—and all of it supposedly thanks to my help.
…
I felt Salsung glare at me again, as if she wanted to dig a hole straight through me. The red energy crouched low, sending a peculiar pressure my way.
“In a situation where the odds of defeating the Heavenly Killing Star have become overwhelmingly high… if we can only find it and destroy it, this era could enjoy a long peace without any anxiety.”
The leader of the Jaha Sect, whose purpose was to mercilessly slaughter evil and relieve the virtuous, let out a regretful sigh.
“Young Master, did you know? When I first discovered Harang, I took it as destiny.”
A sect that hunted the countless villains and demon heads of the Murim, the wicked Demon Cult and Blood Cult, and finally the greatest calamity of all—the Heavenly Killing Star. To encounter a star that matched that purpose so perfectly… of course she would call it fate. From that day on, she explained, she had driven Harang through grueling effort and training so she would be ready to face the Heavenly Killing Star of this generation.
“Yet the Heavenly Killing Star itself simply refuses to appear…”
All preparations complete, and still no enemy. Song Ryeong gave a faintly hollow smile.
“Master, I still believe the Heavenly Killing Star is alive somewhere. I have no proof… but the Purple Micro Star’s intuition is whispering it to me.”
Jo Harang, finished with training, had approached and now slipped between us. She declared that the Heavenly Killing Star was definitely hiding somewhere—while casually looking straight at me.
I gulped. So did my fate-bound partner Salsung.
Jo Harang… that promise of hers to look the other way no matter what… she still remembered it, right?
“So Master, don’t worry—just trust me. I’ll find it somehow and fulfill the sect’s long-cherished wish!”
I could only pray she still remembered. Watching master and disciple enthusiastically unite in their vow to cut down the Heavenly Killing Star, I hastily changed the subject.
“A sect that destroys the wicked and hunts the Heavenly Killing Star… there’s a lot of mystery about it. May I ask who founded a sect like this?”
A mysterious sect with such an unusual founding purpose and origin. The founding ancestor had to have been a famous hero whose name was written in history.
Song Ryeong shook her head and gave an unexpected answer.
“Even we don’t know that for certain.”
“Pardon?”
I tilted my head at the surprising reply. The origins of both the sect and its martial arts were unclear? Most sects treated such things as sacred and recorded them as meticulously as a genealogy.
“Young Master, have you ever heard of the beings from beyond the heavens?”
“…Beyond the heavens?”
From the name alone they sounded like people who stood outside Heaven’s will and framework.
“There are those who cultivate the heavens and the stars. People who, even after grasping the principles of all creation, chose not to ascend and remain on earth. From time to time they bestow kindness upon people—when a truly mysterious connection is formed.”
With a single word they could save a master lost in heart demons; they could casually create peerless martial arts and heart methods the world had never seen. Truly mysterious beings who had abandoned the heavens and chosen the earth—beings for whom the name “beyond the heavens” was perfectly fitting.
“Our founding ancestor received grace from such beings, embraced a great purpose, and established the Jaha Sect. That purpose has been passed down to us even now, after so many years.”
Nourish the power of Heaven, destroy evil, and perform good. The successive sect leaders had thrown themselves into the Jianghu not for the sect’s private gain, but solely to uphold that pure ideal as chivalrous heroes.
“And that purpose has, in this generation, reached all the way to the Purple Micro Star.”
Deep resonance colored Song Ryeong’s voice. In a situation that felt as if everything had been arranged, she said she had felt the existence of destiny more intensely than ever.
So that was how it had been. A mysterious Daoist who carried the energy of the stars passed down martial arts, and that thread of fate eventually reached even an ominous star…
Wait. I’ve heard this story somewhere before.
Suddenly the tale of my master, Hwang Geolgae, rose in my mind. The mysterious Daoist named Ilwol who had saved him from heart demons had, as if arranging a meeting with me, transmitted the peerless divine art known as the Cloud Star Heart Method. That was why, even after discovering the Heavenly Killing Star on the street, he had chosen not to take my head and instead taken me in as destiny.
Could that Ilwol also be one of the beings from beyond the heavens?
They say when coincidence piles up too high it becomes inevitability. What on earth had been the intention behind letting such a martial art reach the Heavenly Killing Star? The purpose was beyond anything I could even guess.
In silence I raised a pure white flame of Cloud Star Heart Method energy to my fingertips.
“Mujin.”
Jo Harang spoke as she wiped her tangled hair with a handkerchief. When she looked at me, her eyes still sparkled like stars.
“Like you just heard, my goal is to exterminate the demonic heretics who have abandoned human ethics and protect the peace of the Central Plains.”
And the list of targets to eliminate surely included the Heavenly Killing Star. I swallowed a bitter smile.
“And from now on I want to keep doing that work together with you.”
“…”
She spoke with eyes full of trust, inviting me to join her in thrashing villains and the Heavenly Killing Star. This was an extremely awkward situation. At the same time, it was also reassuring—because she clearly had not the faintest dream of a clue that I was the Heavenly Killing Star. Perhaps that, too, was the result of diligently stacking good deeds as Hwang Geolgae had advised.
“…Of course!”
I answered as brightly as I could force myself to. Jo Harang’s face blossomed with light.
“I knew you’d say that, Mujin!”
Apparently she had been certain that I, of all people, would stand with her against even the Heavenly Killing Star of the world without fear. Under the thick maple tree she raised her Hohyeop-do high, as if sealing a peach-orchard oath. I drew my iron sword in answer and crossed it against her great blade. Clear metallic ringing spread as the edges met.
“Down with the Heavenly Killing Star! When we stand back to back there’s nothing in this world we can’t defeat!”
“Oh… of course!”
And so, on the main mountain of the Jaha Sect that had raised the Purple Micro Star, I raised my voice together with Jo Harang in the cry of “Down with the Heavenly Killing Star.”
…What a complete idiot.
Perhaps it was thanks to the vow we had sworn to defeat the Heavenly Killing Star together, but for a while I ended up training under Song Ryeong’s guidance alongside Jo Harang. Ordinarily a sect’s martial arts were kept secret and outsiders were never taken deep into the fold, yet Song Ryeong accepted me without hesitation.
“Crossing blades with you really does feel like something wakes up inside me! Maybe Heaven’s will is for us to keep helping each other like this forever?”
Jo Harang unconsciously took the collision of their fates as a pleasant stimulus. For several days we polished everything we had learned so far under the guidance of a master who had returned to the pure essence of the arts, training again and again.
When the day of departure finally approached, Song Ryeong suddenly looked at me and said:
“Young Master Mujin… I hesitate to say this, but your martial arts feel rather like…”
“Like what?”
“Like those of a wandering warrior who has survived countless battlefields. They’re rough, the tip of the blade carries killing intent, and you don’t hesitate to damage your own body—that’s what tells me.”
As expected of a true master; she had read my training methods exactly.
“Did you truly learn martial arts under a proper master?”
“No? After hearing the formulas a few times I mostly learned by getting beaten until my body understood.”
“…”
Even the Demon Cult doesn’t train people that stupidly, she seemed to think, visibly flustered by such an absurdly forced educational method.
“To blossom this much talent even in such a barren environment, and with such abundant accumulated merit as well… my judgment was not wrong after all.”
A strange heat seeped into her gaze—almost as if she were coveting something. Or rather, as if she had just marked me as a promising son-in-law. An uneasy premonition made me scratch the back of my neck.
“Young Master, I am bound by deep grudges in the Jianghu and cannot casually go out with you. So I have one request to make of you here.”
Grudges in the Jianghu were like sticky spiderwebs that could not be cut easily. And if she had gone around slaughtering villains the way my own sister had, there would be people nursing hatred everywhere.
“What is the request?”
I nodded and asked back.
“Next time, don’t come up with just the two of you.”
“…?”
I stared at her in confusion. I couldn’t even begin to grasp what she meant. Was she telling me to bring one more person?
“Next time, if possible, come as three… no, if there’s only one more it would feel lonely when you go out on chivalrous adventures, so four would also be fine.”
She smiled serenely, saying a sect should always be bustling and lively.
“…!”
I finally understood her intention and gave a violent shudder. What in the world was this master saying right now?
“Mujin, what does that mean? Coming as four?”
And there was the mountain girl, still completely innocent, asking in a pure voice because she hadn’t grasped the meaning yet. I alone understood and scratched my cheek.
“Come to think of it, five would also be acceptable.”
“Then… we’ll be heading down now…!”
Before the number could climb any higher, I hastily grabbed Jo Harang’s hand and started descending Mount Song.
At any rate, it was finally time to return.