Heaven Beyond Heaven
How was I supposed to explain this?
My opponent had simply stood there and flicked her fingers a few times. Yet attacks poured forth—invisible, inaudible, without even a trace of qi—leaving me no way to resist.
Whoosh.
Something was coming. I felt nothing, but the moment the woman twitched her finger, my instincts screamed. It was an attack that possessed substance and cleaved through empty air, yet left no trace whatsoever—an assault that transcended the limits of matter itself.
But somehow, a faint murderous intent was steeped within it. The trajectories that had been invisible when she knocked out the North Sea Ice Palace martial artists began to paint themselves in crimson before my eyes the moment they turned on me.
“Hup!”
Shlick—
I flung myself desperately aside, but a red trajectory sliced across my shoulder. Thanks to the Heavenly Killing Star’s ability to read murderous intent, I managed to avoid being severed outright, yet my left arm was as good as useless for a while.
The red-haired woman’s eyes twitched slightly, as if surprised that I had somehow managed to dodge, however clumsily.
“…What the hell are you?”
That was exactly what I wanted to ask. What kind of woman was this, suddenly bursting out of a cave and pulling off something this absurd?
“Ugh—and who exactly are you, then?”
I tried talking to buy time for the Heavenly Killing Star’s body to stem the bleeding. The meaning of those red trajectories a moment ago was clear. When dealing with the North Sea Ice Palace martial artists, the red-haired woman had held back—but against me alone, she was seriously trying to kill.
No, fuck, why!
Why was a master of her caliber going all-out only against me? The curses rose to my throat, but I clung to my reason and forced them down.
“How did you dodge that attack just now? Answer me.”
The unidentified woman approached, her red hair—hair that would turn vermilion under sunlight—swaying. This woman seemed to have the same habit of answering questions with questions that I did.
“Mujin, I couldn’t see that attack at all just now… How did you dodge it?”
Jo Harang looked just as flustered, asking as I suddenly flung myself aside and an invisible exchange of blows unfolded. But this was one of the Heavenly Killing Star’s abilities, so there was no way to explain it.
“This goddamn Murim. Just when you think you’ve gotten used to it, something weird pops out.”
Normally, when something with substance cuts through the air, it leaves some kind of sign. At the very least you should sense the movement of qi. But this woman’s attacks, which I felt nothing from, were defying the natural order head-on. It was exactly like the sensation of first encountering the mystery of sword qi that could split steel like tofu.
Then the woman suddenly flicked her finger again.
Stupid… dod…ge!
Even in the urgency, Salsung made sure to slip in the word “stupid.” I immediately poured massive internal energy into my Yongcheon acupoint and kicked off into the air. Even so, I couldn’t prevent part of my calf from being shlicked open.
“Haaah!”
Seizing the opening, Jo Harang charged at the red-haired woman. Since the attacks were invisible anyway, she chose offense over defense the moment a gap appeared. But the red-haired woman merely flicked her finger once more, looking utterly uninterested in the Purple Micro Star.
“You—I’m not interested in you, so just go to sleep.”
Thud!
The sound of something striking through empty air. Jo Harang’s waist folded mid-charge, and she collapsed like a kite with its string cut.
“Harang…!”
Thankfully her breathing hadn’t stopped; she lay unconscious, chest rising and falling. The problem was that I was now alone in this vast ice cave. I had to face this absurd, monstrous woman all by myself.
“W-wait, can we talk for a moment?”
“Kyahaha. What is there to talk about with one steeped in the moon? Just die.”
Even as I tried to converse, the woman laughed brightly and coolly told me to die.
Whoosh—
This time her murderous intent grew even denser, as if she truly meant to take my head. The strike infused with that intent dyed my vision blood-red.
“Shit!”
But whose body was this? The Heavenly Killing Star that Heaven itself had marked to dye the earth in mountains of corpses and seas of blood. Thanks to that, I achieved the miracle of barely dodging an unavoidable attack.
Thud.
Because the form of the attack was so blurry, I had to fling my entire body each time I dodged, leaving me completely exposed afterward. Yet the red-haired woman didn’t press the attack again; instead she twitched her eyebrows with interest.
“Oh? So it wasn’t a coincidence after all.”
Even my desperate dodges seemed to be nothing more than an unexpected element to her. I felt no urge to close in and counterattack—it was exactly like facing a wall of Heaven Beyond Heaven. It was the same sensation I’d had as a beggar, first encountering a true master like Hwang Geolgae in the back alleys.
“D-do we… happen to know each other?”
I started babbling desperately, just like in my beggar days.
“We don’t.”
“Then why are you specifically trying to kill only me…”
She smirked, reading the look of utter injustice on my face.
“Because you seem to be that guy’s disciple.”
That guy’s disciple? Had that old man gone and caused some incident while drunk? Of all things, why with a transcendent master whose realm I couldn’t even begin to guess?
“What the hell did Hwang Geolgae do?”
“Kyahaha, and who is that? What a strange name to pop out.”
She didn’t seem to know him at all.
“He’s my master. Hwang Geolgae…”
“Hmph. That centuries-old crafty old man… so he’s using that name now.”
I realized there had been a massive misunderstanding here. Hwang Geolgae drank so much every day that he looked thoroughly aged, but he was only just over sixty. Yet she was talking about someone who’d lived for centuries as if he were some spirit beast—exactly what kind of being was she mistaking my master for?
“Seeing as you’ve dodged this lady’s formless sword twice, that crafty old man must have taught you the countermeasures.”
I frantically waved both hands, trying to open my mouth and clear up the misunderstanding. But the red-haired woman breezily opened fire without further discussion.
“Then try dodging these as well!”
Her fingers danced in succession. As if responding, crimson trajectories filled the air one after another.
“Huk!”
I immediately bent my waist and barely dodged the first wave by a hair’s breadth. But the formless attacks kept coming without rest. Because their form wouldn’t settle, dodging with minimal movement was impossible. I had to fling my body this way and that as if walking a blade, and as a result my openings became enormous.
“Kehuk!”
A crimson trajectory sliced past my side. Thankfully my guts didn’t spill out, but warm blood soaked a handful of the ice cave floor.
“Keuk—please listen to me! There’s clearly some kind of misunderstanding!”
“Ha. What is there to talk about with moon-mad fools.”
She swept her hand as if to finish me off, and I barely blocked the extending crimson trajectory with the Hell Horse-Slaying Staff, which was wrapped in pure white energy.
Clang!
“Oh, quite a sturdy black staff. Even if you’ve coated it in hardened qi, to withstand this lady’s formless sword…”
“Ugh, as if it could compare to the one that monkey gave you…”
I muttered that with a pale face, realizing I’d nearly lost my head a moment ago.
“Anyway, please listen! I don’t know who you’re mistaking me for, but my master is the Dragon Head Sect Leader of the Beggar Sect, Hwang Geolgae! He’s a cranky old drunk, sure, but he’s not some crafty centuries-old geezer!”
I never thought the day would come when I’d spend my life defending Hwang Geolgae. As I cried out in injustice as if spitting blood, she paused for a moment just as she was about to sweep her finger again.
“Hmm, the Beggar Sect… I’ve heard of it.”
Even for someone sealed in a cave, the name of the world-famous Beggar Sect seemed to have reached her ears somewhere.
“Come to think of it, the staff techniques you unleashed against the White-Haired Snake King… looking at them now, they have the feel of the Dog Beating Staff Technique I saw a hundred years ago.”
Damn, she casually drops units of a hundred years. Just what kind of existence was this woman? And from the way she kept mentioning the moon and madness… I felt a sense of déjà vu. It was like certain events I’d experienced at the Emei Sect.
“But if you’re the disciple of the Beggar Sect’s Dragon Head, you should have a knot or a dog-beating staff, no?”
She was asking for proof. I chewed my lip with a face that said oh crap. Because the Dragon Head Sect Leader had abandoned his duties and was on the run, I was essentially treated as the junior beggar among the Beggar Sect members, but it wasn’t official. And I had nothing to prove it with either.
“I-I don’t have one right now…”
“As I thought—die, disciple of the moon. Before that madness spreads.”
Without the slightest hesitation she issued the death sentence again. And from the word “madness,” I realized something and hurriedly opened my mouth.
“I-Ilwol! I’ve also received the teachings of that one beyond the heavens!”
“…”
It seemed my guess that she was a being from beyond the heavens was correct. When I mentioned Ilwol, another from beyond the heavens who had transmitted the Seongun Simbeop to me, her movements paused for a moment.
“But did you not abandon his teachings and embrace the moon’s energy? Die anyway.”
“No, fuck! Please just listen! It’s energy I had no choice but to take in while saving people!”
Everything I did, she just kept telling me to die. It felt like facing Hwang Geolgae back when he’d been wary of me as the Heavenly Killing Star.
“Lunar qi is not something one can just casually accept, you fool.”
“…There were circumstances. The sect leader of the Emei Sect was going madder and madder because of this energy, and I took it in to stop that.”
I revealed that my profession was a troubleshooter who rushed to solve problems wherever I was called, and explained in detail what had happened there. My explanation about the Wolryeonggi was fairly convincing, and when I once again displayed the Seongun Simbeop’s energy—accumulated starlight blazing pure white—she began to believe me just a tiny bit.
“There’s still one thing that doesn’t add up. Anyone who embraces even a faint lunar qi will eventually have madness seep into their marrow… yet you seem perfectly sane…”
The question of why I wasn’t crazy. In the past I’d heard this about the Heavenly Killing Star; now I was getting this baseless suspicion over a different energy. And how was I supposed to explain this? Should I say that there was something even crazier than Wolryeonggi occupying my head, so this much didn’t even make me snort? Like a torch being overshadowed by the greater light of the sun.
“Of course, seeing how you talk back to this lady so cheekily, you do seem a little off.”
I had no idea why everyone said that. As a modern person, I was acting perfectly rationally.
“I don’t really know either. Maybe because the internal energy forged through the Seongun Simbeop is overwhelmingly vast, the Wolryeonggi is just huddled in a corner of my dantian.”
To prove it, I briefly revealed before her an enormous amount of internal energy—beyond a single jiazi, nearly a hundred years’ worth. When I fully opened my massive qi, her eyes narrowed slightly as if surprised.
“You really are a strange fellow. Not a single ordinary thing about you.”
Tell me about it. How did it end up like this? Anyway, though my martial arts fell short, I’d managed to talk my way out of the misunderstanding and the crisis.
“So… you’ll leave my head where it is?”
“Hmph. That remains to be seen.”
It seemed I hadn’t completely escaped the crisis yet.
“Mmm…”
At that moment, Jo Harang and the North Sea Ice Palace experts began to slowly open their eyes.