A Strange Reunion
"Leave the rest to me."
Beneath the bamboo hat, a high ponytail swayed against a pale nape. That soft voice, praising the struggle they had endured so far, stirred a strange nostalgia in me.
Cheonghye-noona…?
A name both hazy and bitter. The Moyong Cheongjin part of me was stirring—so it really was her.
But why here?
Ever since she had stabbed me in the gut, I had carefully avoided any contact. And now she appeared in this remote mountain, right under my nose. Had she come to finish what she left unfinished?
"And who the hell are you supposed to be?"
The Soul-Seizing Demon Lord wiped the blood streaming from his ears and nose, snapping the question with irritation.
"Vice Leader of the Demon Slaying Squad, Moyong Cheonghye. The woman who will take the head of a century-old monster today."
Sharp qi gathered along her blade. Moyong Cheonghye raised a chilling sword force, as if she meant to show the wicked no mercy whatsoever.
"So it's you. The Moyong girl who's been slaughtering demonic practitioners like a madwoman lately."
The two of them snarled at each other right in front of me. In the meantime I hastily swallowed the throat-swelling medicine Ilhong had handed over.
"How did you even know I was here? I covered my tracks thoroughly."
The Soul-Seizing Demon Lord asked, twitching a suspicious brow.
"I came looking because I heard there was a particularly vile freak about. To think a big shot like you would pop out—today fortune is smiling on me."
"…Ha! You call meeting me good fortune? You don't even realize you're standing on death's doorstep!"
He sneered that she was the unlucky one instead, and violently unleashed the demonic energy he had stockpiled. Even as blood streamed out again from the forced circulation of his qi, he paid it no mind.
"Even with internal injuries, the inner power I've amassed is at least two full jiazi! Snapping the neck of an arrogant girl like you is nothing!"
"So you swagger around with power forged from other people's blood and tears? How utterly pathetic."
Moyong Cheonghye rebuked him in a cold voice. Enraged, the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord wrapped both fists in thick Fiendish Demon Fist energy. But because his qi and blood were twisted, the demonic energy churned far more unstably than before.
"…Shut your mouth!"
With a curse he stamped the ground and charged. Moyong Cheonghye's sword tip flashed with dazzling light to meet him. While everyone watched anxiously, from her fingertips the Moyong Family's ultimate technique unfolded.
The Moyong Family's supreme sword art—blinding residual light, a flash that could split the sky.
Shiiiik—!
Explosions and battle cries shattered the mountain stillness. Whenever the two opposing energies collided, fierce shockwaves swept in every direction. It was a battle violent enough to split boulders, send stone shards flying, and rip trees up by their roots.
KWAANG! KWAANG!
The Soul-Seizing Demon Lord's Fiendish Demon Fist stabbed toward Moyong Cheonghye's chest. The demonic energy riding his fist howled as if it would tear through flesh.
Shwik! Shwiik!
Moyong Cheonghye received it with soft yet elusive movements. The destructive onslaught of demonic energy was trapped in the sword paths she wove, lost its force, and faded on its own.
Piiing—!
Then she counterattacked with the Moyong Family's swift sword—the Heaven and Earth Wave Flash Sword, flashing residual light.
"Keuk!"
A silver trajectory cut through the air, and one wrinkled ear went flying, spraying blood. Amid the flying crimson, the woman and the old man continued their exchange.
"Who do you think will win, Boss?"
Ilhong had come up beside me at some point and asked while watching the fight with tense eyes.
"Whoever's stronger."
"Come on, I mean who."
"That woman spraying the swift sword."
I'd seen her many times as a kid. Once she started moving as one with her sword, she would occasionally display strikes that seemed to transcend the Peak Realm—unbelievable ones. And the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord was still carrying a fireball rolling through his body from what I'd done to him earlier.
"But 'that woman'…? Boss, don't tell me you don't know the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden of the Demon Slaying Squad? Even if you're out of touch with the jianghu, that's a bit much."
Ilhong scolded me as if she were a die-hard fan of the female martial artist, wondering how I could not know her. But how could I not know her? The problem was that I knew her far too well. Which was exactly why I was desperately pretending not to.
Puh-eong!
Meanwhile the fierce exchange of moves continued. And just as my earlier thought suggested, the direction of the match began to reveal itself little by little. Last time, a clash of raw power like this had made Dang Yeohye vomit blood.
"Uweeeek!"
This time it was the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord, his internal injuries worsened, who first spewed a handful of blood. His qi and blood must have completely twisted—the black force energy scattered from his grip. He hurriedly tried to withdraw both fists with startled eyes, but it was already too late.
Seogeok!
A sharp longsword immediately sliced through his fingers one after another. Then a sword strike that stabbed into his lower abdomen at the speed of light and pulled back out.
"Keuaaak!"
The inner power that erupted must have shaken his insides; the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord let out a pained groan. I knew that feeling very well.
"Keuruk—wait, stop! I have something to say!"
The arrogant old man who had called himself "this seat" was gone; now the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord urgently begged her to stop.
"I do not take orders from trash like you!"
Her personality made it clear how she had earned the moniker Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden. Once she decided someone was evil, she tried to cut them down without mercy.
Huh—but why is my gut stinging? Is this what they call post-traumatic stress?
"The Moyong Family is secretly searching for someone!"
Yet the sword that I thought would immediately take his head suddenly stopped dead.
"…Where did you hear that?"
Moyong Cheonghye asked back in a faintly trembling voice.
"The Moyong Family Head put in a request at the Black Market, keuk. To capture a youth around fifteen who matches facial alteration—alive or dead…"
He explained that he had learned of it while taking refuge at the Black Market to evade the Murim Alliance's pursuit. Anyway, the condition for finding the person was "alive or dead." That meant they didn't care if the person was brought back as a corpse. Those Moyong bastards—were they still hunting for me? You'd think they'd have given up by now.
"I… I know that guy's whereabouts."
"…!"
At that statement Moyong Cheonghye's eyes flew wide open in shock. Beside her, I also made a startled face.
What the hell is this bastard talking about, knowing my tracks?
It reeked of bullshit no matter how I looked at it, yet Moyong Cheonghye had lost her cool and was pressing him like someone grasping at straws.
"Tell me. Where is he? No—is he even alive?"
"Keung… the details are written on this sheet of paper…"
As he pulled something from his robes, every hair on my body stood on end with a sudden chill. The Heavenly Killing Star churned violently, sensing killing intent.
"Noona!"
The familiar red trajectory arced toward Moyong Cheonghye's face, and I stretched my arm out without delay. Long poison needles stabbed into the back of my hand with a papapak! Surprise and fury crossed Moyong Cheonghye's face at the sight.
Piiing—!
A sonic boom splitting the air. A blue trajectory flashed, and the man's right arm was sliced clean off. Blood sprayed like a fountain, but he had already steeled himself for mutual destruction—he detonated his true origin energy and prepared to unleash a final technique. Seizing the moment his gaze was fixed elsewhere, I stabbed the poison needles I'd pulled from my arm into his nape. Puk!
"Keuaak! You again…!"
He smashed a kick seething with demonic energy into my chest. Whether from rage or the violent motion, the poison spread quickly; the Soul-Seizing Demon Lord's face turned blue.
"Keok, keuk."
Blood bubbled and leaked from the throat where the needles were stuck. He was dying from the very poison needles he had fired.
"Keuhk… if my qi and blood hadn't been twisted earlier… scum like you…!"
A man of such high martial arts, so meticulous that no one had been his match for a hundred years—today he had stepped squarely on the landmine that was me. He glared at me as if he would kill me, as if that were terribly unfair.
"You bastaaard… what the hell are you… What exactly did I run into…!"
What did he run into? Something related to the Heavenly Killing Star, obviously. The old man had suddenly thrown out a troublesome question that could make me a public enemy of the murim if I answered wrong.
"Man, you talk too much. If you're gonna die, hurry up and die already."
"You little—! You son of a bitch I'll tear to pieces…! Keok!"
He flew into a rage at my cheeky answer, his blood pressure spiked, and the poison must have reached his marrow—he rolled his eyes back. Did I just unintentionally finish him off with my mouth?
And so the breath of the century-old demonic master who had once made the murim tremble in fear was cut short.
"Young hero, are you all right?"
Whether the bastard was dead or not, Moyong Cheonghye was looking at me with worried eyes.
"Huh? Why?"
"Your complexion is terrible. Didn't you take those poison needles earlier as well?"
I did. Not one, but a full five of them. But I had the Heavenly Killing Star's unique self-regeneration, so I thought I'd be fine.
"Ah… damn it."
In that moment, my vision began to spin dizzyingly. I'd been injected with more than five times the lethal poison that had killed even a Transcendental Peak master. Of course I wouldn't be fine. I felt the whole world tilt to one side.
Thud.
Then someone rushed over and caught me as I fell. A faint lotus fragrance lingered at the tip of my nose.
"……"
Moyong Cheonghye gazed down at the young man in her arms with complicated eyes. Why had this youth thrown himself in the way for a stranger, and why, in that urgent moment, had he cried out "Noona"?
It was a question that had been spinning through her head for well over a quarter of an hour.
"Why does he keep reminding me of Cheongjin…"
If that child hadn't been swept up by the falling star and had grown up healthy, wouldn't he be about this build and age by now? When she heard him call her "Noona," she had wavered for a moment—but up close the face was different, and the voice belonged to someone else.
"I'm being ridiculous."
On that cliff, even after he said he had come to his senses, she had cut him off with her own hands. She clearly had no right to miss him. And yet she found herself unconsciously searching for traces of her younger brother in this young man. Moyong Cheonghye dropped her head with a bitter expression.
"Keung."
Just then, the young man stirred in her arms with a groan. Earlier the second daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family had said his name was Dan Mujin, right?
"Miss Dang Yeohye, is he really all right?"
Moyong Cheonghye directed the question at the Tang woman who was regulating her internal injuries beside her.
"Yeah, well. His breathing is stable. And this bastard's poison resistance is higher than mine, so he doesn't go down easy."
Apparently he had a history of gobbling down hundreds of the poisonous mushrooms used in death sentences or something. And as if to prove that unbelievable claim, the young man snapped his eyes open.
"Keuuuk… thought I was a goner."
Even after being stabbed by those poison needles, he simply fainted for a bit and got up fine—like one of those honey-obsessed badgers from the Western Regions.
"Boss, are you okay?"
"Ugh, of course I'm not okay. Thought we were going down together."
The moment he opened his eyes he started chattering with a boy about the same age.
"Ilhong, that bastard's definitely dead, right?"
"Yes, for sure—from the needles in his neck. But Boss."
"Yeah, what?"
"Do you realize you've been lying in the Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden's arms for over a quarter of an hour?"
"…!!"
Dan Mujin's eyes went wide and he bounced upright with a "Hiiik!" That oversensitive reaction felt exactly like he'd touched something he was afraid of, and Moyong Cheonghye felt a little hurt.
He doesn't have to hate it that much…
Ever since she'd earned the moniker Evil-Slaying Divine Maiden, the number of people who treated her comfortably had dropped sharply. Especially children—and that made Moyong Cheonghye a little sad.
"Heehee, you were snoring in her arms. Was 'Noona's' embrace that nice, Boss?"
Ilhong teased him with a grin, as if thinking this was a rare opportunity.
"Haha, what nonsense…"
Dan Mujin was sweating buckets, clearly flustered. His pupils wavered anxiously left and right. He avoided Moyong Cheonghye's gaze yet kept trying to gauge her reaction out of the corner of his eye. She'd heard he was a vagabond of beggar origin—had he once had a close older sister?
"Young hero, by any chance…"
Just as curiosity made her start to pry—
"This can't be. What on earth happened while I was away?"
A man in a scholar's robe looked around at the horrific traces of battle in despair.
"Senior Beggar King…?"
The appearance of the person rumored to have gone missing swept all of her attention away.