The Act of Extinguishing Life
Bang! Clang-clang-clang!
From the cave mouth facing the Demonic Sect came the endless shriek of metal, the thunder of clashing Gang Qi, and the raw din of a desperate battle. Alongside it, carried along the rock walls like an echo, rose someone’s screams and sobs.
“Kraaagh…!”
With every one of those wretched moans, Namgung Jin’s steps grew heavier.
I actually suspected that chivalrous man of being a Demonic Sect dog, even for a moment.
He could barely lift his head for the shame of it. Right now Dan Mujin was alone, locked in combat with a Transcendent Realm master, burning his own life so the rest of them might live.
So somehow…
Namgung Jin clenched his jaw. His chest ached, but he had to honor that will—get even one more person out of this place alive. The cold reality of the moment demanded he accept the sacrifice.
Boom!
Another impact shook the tunnel. Gang Qi had met Gang Qi head-on; a faint residual wave rolled through the cave and stirred everyone’s clothes. Mixed into that aftershock was a weak, unmistakable groan—Dan Mujin’s.
“Brother Namgung Jin…”
A few of them bit their lips, guessing why his voice had lost so much strength. But Namgung Jin, already resolved, only urged the group forward in silence. They had to escape this hellish cave as soon as possible.
And then—
“…Everyone go on ahead. I’ll catch up later.”
Moyong Cheonghye stopped dead and spoke in a low voice. After what Dan Mujin had just done—staying behind alone to fight—everyone spun toward her in shock.
“Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, what are you thinking? You’ll die if you go back!”
Jang Jin, leader of the Chivalrous Righteous Unit, shouted as if she had lost her mind.
“Vice Leader, snap out of it!”
“Are you trying to make his sacrifice meaningless?”
Jeok Unyeop and Namgung Jin both recoiled and planted themselves in her path, determined not to let her turn around.
Moyong Cheonghye said nothing. She simply began to draw her sword from its scabbard with a soft shing.
“Step aside.”
“…”
The sharp intent behind the words—move or I cut—shut every mouth. They all fell back.
Ever since Dan Mujin had joined them, Moyong Cheonghye had been acting strangely. Now she was finally doing something reckless.
“How am I supposed to have found him again… and just give up this time…?”
She murmured it as if to herself. The unit leaders had all but dragged her this far, yet with every step the feeling grew stronger: this was wrong. There were still so many things she wanted to say, so many words she had never managed to deliver. And she was supposed to part from him again without even a single word of reconciliation?
A resolve that ignored life itself settled into Moyong Cheonghye’s eyes.
“This is insane—say something, Young Lady Dang Yeohye.”
Jeok Unyeop recognized that mulish look on the vice leader’s face and jabbed Dang Yeohye’s arm, begging her to intervene. But Dang Yeohye, who had herself been hauled along by Unit Leader Jang Jin, was only staring blankly toward the direction of the screams.
Then she suddenly strode forward to stand in front of Moyong Cheonghye. Everyone watched her back, hoping she would talk the other woman down.
“Shit. I’m going with you.”
The answer that left her mouth shattered every expectation.
“What’s wrong with her now?!”
“Young lady, have you gone mad? If you can’t stop her, at least don’t—”
Under a chorus of scolding, the two women’s eyes met. In that instant a strange sense of kinship seemed to pass between them. Confirming that their hearts were aligned, they broke into a run toward Dan Mujin before anyone else could stop them.
“Hey! You lunatics!”
Jeok Unyeop bellowed for the vice leader and the new recruit to come back, but it was already too late. The two women vanished deep into the cave on light-footwork.
Faced with the familiar sight of his words carrying zero weight, Unit Leader Jeok Unyeop lamented as always.
“I’m going to lose my mind.”
“What on earth is going on…?”
Beside him, Unit Leader Jang Jin and Namgung Sohye looked equally stunned. And Namgung Jin—who had been so certain she was the vicious Heavenly Killing Star—wore an expression of utter disbelief at that self-sacrificing display.
“What the hell… What kind of relationship do they even have?”
My whole body throbbed, heavy as waterlogged cotton. How the hell did it come to this? This was never part of my original life plan.
I was supposed to somehow deal with this damned destiny and the Heavenly Killing Star, then live it up in luxury on some peaceful island with the money I’d already made. Instead here I was, rolling around on a freezing cave floor.
“You piece of Central Plains trash!”
The Hell Demon-Slaying Sword fought on desperately amid countless trajectories of murderous intent.
Clang-clang-clang!
I couldn’t bat every blade away, so I knocked aside the heavy ones and let the shallow cuts through, buying time however I could. But even a body blessed by the Heavenly Killing Star has only so much blood and flesh to spare.
As the fight dragged on without end, my legs began to shake as if the ground itself were quaking, and my consciousness grew steadily hazier. Sight and mind took turns sharpening and blurring.
“Brat, your face is as pale as a corpse! Where’s that earlier spirit of yours?”
The hunchbacked old man, Ma Ryun-do, sneered and mocked me. He kept slicing and stabbing every part of my body as if torturing me, maximizing the pain while prying for answers.
“If you want it to stop, talk! Why you know the password from a hundred years ago! That regenerative power that makes someone come to mind, and all those traits…!”
My vision was entirely red. Now that I was alone, the pure killing aura of the Heavenly Killing Star—which I had kept hidden in front of the others—was rising off me in waves.
Clang-clang!
Ma Ryun-do seemed only more certain of something at that prickling aura. He minced my flesh with his sword tip like so much meat, determined to solve the riddle.
I bit down until my lips bled.
“Spit it out—what connection do you have with the Holy Maiden of the Ming Cult…!”
Instead of answering I simply took the cuts with my whole body and kept stalling. At least this way the others wouldn’t be caught by him and could make it back to the Central Plains alive.
Slash!
“Ghk!”
The soft sword that had been shooting in a straight line suddenly flexed like a whip and drove through my shoulder from an impossible angle. Something in the arm’s tendons must have snapped; one arm that had been moving fine went limp as if the power had been cut.
Thud!
Right after, Ma Ryun-do’s palm strike slammed into my solar plexus. Tyrannical demonic energy flooded inside and savagely rattled my organs.
“Khahk!”
Both knees buckled. Blood surged up my throat and my stance dropped hard. But I forced those collapsing legs to plant again, refusing to fall, and glared at him with eyes that still burned.
“Brat, those eyes are full of murder!”
The hunchback grinned as if he had expected exactly that.
“So that was your true face all along!”
Yeah. No kidding.
Now that I was truly facing death, something deep inside me had been boiling up for a while. The instant a bloody, ominous light flared in both eyes, the evil star that had been sleeping so deeply lifted its head like a beast. Exactly the way a parasite thrashes when its host is about to die and it wants to live.
And before I knew it, only one desire was burning in my mind.
The taste of blood… the sound of bones breaking… a heart clutched in the hand… the death rattle when the breath stops…
A scroll of hell unfolded in my mindscape. The two hands that had painted that terrible carnage were none other than mine.
This was dangerous. That intuition rang every alarm. My spirit, which had been walled off behind the solid rampart of good deeds, felt as if it were being swallowed by a tidal wave of raw survival instinct. If I let this endless flood of killing intent sweep me away, even a miraculous victory would not be a true win. The people I cherished might suffer and die by my hand—better to die myself than that.
“Kngh.”
…
Salsung, who had been silent for some time, seemed to be watching me resist the evil star with a complicated look. I had already steeled myself for killing, yet a chilling premonition whispered that if I crossed over into this madness and killed, something would go irreversibly wrong.
Right then—
“Mujin…!”
“Hey, hold on! Your big sister’s coming!”
You’ve got to be kidding me.
The madness of the evil star that had been slowly eating my mind scattered in an instant. The sight of the sisters I had so painstakingly sent away coming back made the word “crazy” burst out of me in a full voice.
“Have you all lost your minds?! What the hell are you doing here?!”
I shouted at them in horror. Two women reckless enough to snap even me—who had been slowly going mad—back to my senses.
“What is this bastard saying! We came to help, so how about a thank-you!”
While still running, Dang Yeohye mercilessly unleashed a storm of hidden weapons and poison needles. The reckless attack that didn’t distinguish friend from foe swept me up as well, but the surprise also hit Ma Ryun-do with poison yet again.
“You insane bitches!”
He roared in fury, asking if she meant to kill her precious little brother along with him—but I was still fine. Or rather, “fine” was the wrong word; I had endured it with fighting spirit, grit, and a tough body.
“That’s my little brother for you!”
Dang Yeohye ran toward me beaming, as if she had trusted me from the start. Behind her came the high-ponytailed woman who had cut down countless evil necks, her face as fierce as a murderous demon.
“Get your hands… off my little brother!”
The Heaven and Earth Wave Flash Sword—said to be able to split even lightning—unfolded before my eyes like a bolt of silver. A dazzlingly beautiful sword dance, and a sight that was painfully familiar. Only this time the tip was not pointed at me.
Clang-clang-clang!
Ma Ryun-do flinched and threw up a hasty guard against the all-out strike she poured every last ounce of strength into. She had to be seriously wounded, yet the aura pouring off Moyong Cheonghye was so vicious and explosive that he examined her carefully with a puzzled look. Then he saw the strange light in her eyes and recoiled in shock.
“You little bitch—don’t tell me you’re burning your innate true qi bit by bit…!”
Innate true qi. The congenital life force every human is born with. Even I, hearing it, was stunned. So she was shaving away her own lifespan right now in order to save me.
At that reckless, incomprehensible self-sacrifice, I felt Moyong Cheongjin stirring awake deep in my consciousness. The evil star’s whispers receded into the distance; every nerve in my body stood out in razor-sharp clarity. Pure white Seongryeong-gi began to gather at the tip of my sword, like a single thread of light cutting through the dark.
“Kh, these damned bitches!”
Fierce attacks from both women rained down from every direction. Dang Yeohye’s unpredictable footwork and hidden-weapon arts, Moyong Cheonghye’s life-staking sword strikes—together they pressed Ma Ryun-do hard. The opening my sisters had bought with blood and lifespan. I darted in from a blind angle and struck.
But the title of Hunchback Protector was not something won by luck. Even at a disadvantage he sensed my approach and lashed out with his blade.
Whoosh!
The soft sword, coiled in sword-qi, writhed like a living snake and lunged for my heart.
Clang!
Sword-qi met sword-qi. Under normal circumstances the two would only push each other back; neither could cut the other. That was common sense.
Yet in that moment, with every sense fully awakened, my eyes began to see a strange seam. Before, it had been the line that could cleave solid things like a hopping corpse. Now I saw a boundary that looked as if it could slice even formless qi itself.
Even that kind of energy… I can kill it…?
A dividing line that could extinguish even the intangible forces of nature that existed in this world. Hard to believe, but there was no time for doubt.
Slash—
I finished the swing, and against all common sense I cut clean through the Transcendent Realm master’s sword-qi and soft sword together. As naturally as parting flowing water.
“Impossible…!”
The soft sword he had expected to block split in two. When the Hell Demon-Slaying Sword came flying right behind it, Ma Ryun-do’s face twisted in pure shock.
Thuk!
Hot blood sprayed hard—had I pierced the heart? Yet his eyes held more astonishment than pain.
“Grrk…”
Blood seemed to fill his lungs. He could barely breathe, but the dying man’s gaze still moved toward me. Even as bloody foam bubbled from his throat he struggled to say something important.
“You really are… grrk… the same as that person… Heavenly Kill—”
Slash!
I brought the sword down on Ma Ryun-do’s neck without hesitation.
The sensation of flesh parting under my fingertips. Exactly the feeling of extinguishing a life.
Roll… thump.
A Demonic Sect head tumbled to my feet.
And so, not in a haze of unconsciousness but with firm, deliberate will, I committed my second intentional killing.
It was not, however, a murder seized by the same madness as before.
…
Even so, the red handprint seemed to watch me in eerie silence, saying nothing at all.