Exterminating the Blood Sect
“Run!”
Knowing full well what a Thunderbolt Bomb could do, the Blood Sect bastards flung themselves aside the instant the metal sphere hit the dirt.
KWA-BOOM—!
Even so, a merciless fire-demon swept through their ranks. The shockwave and shrapnel cut them down in droves; a significant number of them were out of the fight in the blink of an eye.
“Aaaagh!”
“Gyaaaah!”
Blood Sect disciples burned and thrashing on the ground. Agonized groans rose from every direction as wounds both large and small took their toll.
“How’s that feel up close, you Murim terrorists?”
All I’d done was send their own weapon right back at them. The results, as anyone could see, were spectacular. A gaping hole had been blown straight through the middle of their formation.
“Mujin’s opened the way!”
“Everyone, push forward!”
Seizing what they saw as a chance to break the encirclement and flip the battle, Jo Harang, Moyong Hwi, and Dang Yeohye poured everything they had into their arts and charged.
These were the same elite martial artists who should have been locking horns for the championship at this year’s Dragon-Phoenix Gathering. Now they unleashed every grudge they’d never gotten to settle on the stage—out here, in a real fight.
Puh-ung!
“Damn it! Somebody deal with that poison-flinging bitch!”
“Forget her—look at the greatsword girl! She’s shredding the perimeter!”
The four of us tore through the enemy ranks like a whirlwind. Her saber technique howled like a mountain tiger. Even after we’d thinned their numbers, dozens of them still remained.
“Don’t panic! Same as before—blood arts and revolving battle!”
And among the Blood Sect, one more threat had survived the blast: a Transcendental Peak master. The one rallying the disciples and directing the fight—their de facto commander.
Chae-chae-chaeng!
He casually batted aside Moyong Hwi’s lightning-fast Heaven and Earth Wave Flash Sword. Jo Harang’s greatsword came next; he bent at the waist to slip past it and drove a shin straight into her midsection.
“Die!”
Then he raised a blood-forged membrane—a Blood Veil—and blocked the storm of poison needles Dang Yeohye rained down from the side. She stared, eyes wide at a sorcery she had never seen or heard of.
“Insects, swarming!”
Killing intent rolled off him thick enough to make skin crawl as he lashed out with vicious fist techniques in every direction. I launched myself forward, staff extended, and intercepted the strike aimed at Dang Yeohye. The price was my body sailing through the air.
Thud!
Jo Harang caught a sweeping kick aimed at her waist on the flat of her greatsword, but the clash rang like metal on metal and she skidded backward.
“Keuhk!”
We’d been carving through them beautifully—until we slammed into the reef that was a Transcendental Peak expert. One master could still swing an entire battlefield.
I’d already detonated a Thunderbolt Bomb knowing the slaughter-karma it would pile up… and now we were getting bottled up here anyway.
Right. These bastards had gathered in the first place to take down Thunderbolt Sword Moyong Cheon.
I glanced back at the ragged figure of Moyong Cheon, leaning on Ilhong’s support as he struggled to his feet.
“Noona, you still have any of that poison powder left?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Let me borrow some.”
“Huh? This stuff’s seriously nasty. Even you, if you take one full breath—”
If we stayed like this, we were finished either way. I snatched a fistful of her powder and immediately unfolded Whirlwind Steps, plunging straight into the enemy.
Puh-ung!
A dense cloud of poison powder blanketed everything. The instant it was inhaled, lung-melting toxin billowed out in force. Normally you only flung this kind of thing while running or with the wind at your back—but I trusted my absurd regeneration and charged right into the cloud.
“…You bastard. Planning to die with me, are you?!”
Through the dark-green curtain, the trajectory of killing intent was crystal clear. The Blood Sect master had sealed his breath; he spoke no more. A fist wrapped in fist-qi punched through the powder, streaking for my throat.
I twisted my upper body and took it on the shoulder. Shock hammered through every bone. Gritting my teeth, I stepped in and drove the Hundred Knots Divine Fist into his chest.
“Keuk!”
Exactly as Hwang Geolgae had taught—five fingers flowing like water, then driving home. My reckless charge with my vision blocked, ready to take the hit, threw his breathing off for just a moment. His face began to blacken at once. He’d inhaled a tiny bit of the powder after all.
“Keuk—now…!”
I shouted through the sensation of hundreds of fire ants devouring my body. My lungs dissolved under the poison and regenerated, over and over. Behind me, my companions stared as if looking at a madman—then threw themselves into the fight to back me up.
While Moyong Hwi held the remaining Blood Sect disciples, Jo Harang and Dang Yeohye crashed in at the same time.
“You are completely insane!”
Her massive greatsword spun like a windmill, whipping up a fierce pressure. The poison powder was blasted clear and swept over the Blood Sect fighters behind us. Faces blackened; they vomited blood and collapsed.
“Seriously, how does that body of yours even work?!”
Dang Yeohye, who’d been fascinated by my constitution for a while now, barked a disbelieving laugh as she shouted. Her sleeves snapped hard and a rain of hidden weapons poured down.
The Blood Sect master tried to evade with footwork, but drawing on his energy must have aggravated an internal injury—he coughed up another mouthful of blood.
“Keok!”
He managed a Falling Tower Guard and avoided looking like a pincushion, but Jo Harang’s greatsword was already crashing down.
Kung!
The ground cratered; stone shards flew. He avoided having his face smashed by a hair’s breadth and tried to rise, panic on his face—only for the tip of my staff to cut the wind first and hammer into his chest.
A form of the Dog Beating Staff Technique—thrash once, and thrash hard enough to scold.
The sensation of ribs shattering transmitted through my fingertips. The impact was so severe he couldn’t even scream as he collapsed—the Blood Sect’s field commander, down.
Seogeok!
Worried he might still work some blood sorcery, Jo Harang brought her greatsword down at once and took his head. Everyone watched as the severed head sprayed blood and rolled across the dirt.
“Mujin, why is your finishing always so sloppy?”
“Because I know you’ll clean it up.”
Today, even for the sake of survival, I’d piled up far too much unnecessary slaughter-karma. I’d steeled myself for this sort of thing the moment I set foot in the Murim as a martial artist…
But there’s no need to court the risk of my mind getting swallowed whole.
I circulated the Starfall Heart Method as the thought crossed my mind. The silver lining was that the mountain of good merit I’d earned today by saving my old enemy had the Heavenly Killing Star’s slaughter-energy locked down tight—even after the first real killing spree in ages, it couldn’t run wild.
“Are you all brain-dead, you bastards?! If you don’t want to die, surrender right now!”
Dang Yeohye hoisted the dripping severed head high and shrilled the demand. But even with their commander dead, the Blood Sect only wavered for a moment before raising their weapons again, fighting spirit reignited.
“These guys are seriously something else.”
She set the head down, clicking her tongue.
“No different from thirty years ago. Total slaughter is the only proper conversation.”
Ilhong muttered that beside me. And Moyong Cheon, body still a wreck, drew the sword at his waist.
“All units! Ingest the Explosive Blood Pills!”
One of the Blood Sect disciples roared the order. Ominous-looking pills came out of their robes; every single one of them shoved the pills into their mouths without a second’s hesitation.
“Krrraaah…”
The veins in their eyes burst one after another. A savage, ferocious aura began to rise from them. Their whole bodies shook violently.
“…What the hell is that, Ilhong?”
“That’s a Blood Sect secret elixir that forcibly detonates a martial artist’s innate true qi.”
She looked as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing—its last appearance had been decades ago.
“Innate true qi—isn’t that the kind of thing that kills you if you just burn it?”
“It does. In exchange, for a short time it grants power beyond your actual realm.”
That was the effect of the Blood Sect’s Explosive Blood Pill. In other words, every last one of the dozens of Blood Sect fighters in front of us had entered a holy-war state with their lives discarded.
“These bastards really do try everything, don’t they.”
Poison, bombs, and now biological weapons. No wonder the mere mention of the Blood Sect or Demon Cult made people in the Murim shudder.
“Blood World Asura Soul! Blood Acupoint Heavenly God Descent!”
“For the great undertaking!”
“The hour has come to collect the old blood debt—!”
Eyes rolled back, they began to howl like fanatics. Watching them sent a chill up my spine. We formed a tight defensive circle around Moyong Cheon.
Blood droplets rose, defying gravity, wrapped in qi. They were about to pour their lives into some thoroughly unpleasant sorcery.
And then, from far off, a voice full of hope.
“Hwi! And Young Hero Dan Mujin!”
The very person who had entrusted Moyong Hwi to me—Moyong Cheonghye, from whom our paths had diverged—was racing this way at the head of orthodox martial artists and the Demon Exterminating Squad.
“All forces! Exterminate the Blood Sect!”
She closed the distance in a single breath with a miraculous lightness skill, Heaven and Earth Wave Flash Sword blazing at her fingertips—lightning itself would have split before it.
Shwiik—!
Five blood-corrupted necks fell in the space of one stroke.
“Uwooooh!”
Then the wave of the Demon Exterminating Squad and the orthodox fighters crashed over the Blood Sect formation.
Even with the Explosive Blood Pills in their systems, the Demon Exterminating Squad was the core military arm of the Murim Alliance. And the thunder of the Great Thunderbolt Bombs had drawn orthodox allies from every direction—so the Blood Sect was subdued in what felt like an instant.
“We can finally breathe.”
A long, heavy sigh rose from my chest. Blood and corpses everywhere. Unquenched embers and shattered wreckage still littered the ground. The scene deserved one word: desolation. All of it the thick scars the Blood Sect had left behind.
“I can’t believe so many of them poured toward Hero Moyong Cheon.”
“And there are traces of three Great Thunderbolt Bombs going off…”
“Hard to believe. How are any of those people still alive?”
Murim Alliance fighters kept glancing our way with open astonishment. The one who’d actually survived the Great Thunderbolt Bombs wasn’t us—it was Clan Lord Moyong Cheon. Only a Transcendent Realm martial artist capable of raising protective gang-qi could take two of those things dead-on and live. One solid hit was usually enough to scatter a body into meat confetti. Then again, if the encirclement hadn’t been this suicidal to begin with, he never would have been caught in the blasts.
“Young Hero—I heard from the Clan Lord. Most of these corpses… you all put them down, is that right?”
Dark circles sat under Moyong Cheonghye’s eyes from a full day of racing around. She pointed at the sprawled bodies as she asked. The mountain of Blood Sect dead made the crowd stir for a moment.
“That few of them took on nearly a hundred Blood Sect fighters?”
“And there was a Transcendental Peak master among the enemies, I heard.”
A brief murmur ran through the onlookers. Several orthodox martial artists looked our way with fresh respect. Well—it had been one hell of a fight.
“First my brother, and now the Clan Lord as well… I have no words adequate for the debt we owe you, Young Hero.”
Moyong Hwi was safe, as requested, and the Clan Lord had kept his life. Moyong Cheonghye offered a formal fist-and-palm salute of gratitude. Even as vice-leader of the Demon Exterminating Squad, she was a person without empty ceremony. I returned the salute as if it were nothing.
“It’s fine. I was going to get paid anyway.”
This hadn’t been free work. With anyone else I might have let it slide—but with the family that had thrown me out, I was going to collect every last coin of what I was owed.
“Oh—martial artists of the Namgung Family.”
While that thought was still in my head, a line of fighters appeared not far off. Pale-blue robes marked them as Namgung. They seemed to have already butchered the Blood Sect force that had gone after the Heavenly Sword, and were now sweeping the Alliance grounds for any stragglers that might remain.
Elders and clan lords from various sects, already joined with Alliance Leader Heavenly Sword, were out on patrol. And at the very front of that procession strode the man everyone called the next greatest under heaven—Blue Cloud Sword Namgung Jin, presence and all.
“He gives off a strange feeling.”
Despite the “Blue Cloud Sword” moniker, the young man carried a staff bristling with wolf-fang spikes. And he held some unreadable, mysterious aura—a little like the first time I’d run into Jo Harang. I had a vague memory of Master Hosoin warning me to be careful about something in moments like this.
“Whoa, though. Up close…”
The closer he came, the more I found myself marveling at the polished jade of Blue Cloud Sword’s features. Until now the best-looking man I knew had been Ilhong in pretty-boy mode.
“He’s seriously handsome. You’re in trouble now. He’s going to steal every woman you’ve got.”
“…They’re free to be stolen. Honestly.”
Ilhong shook her head hard, looking thoroughly done with being treated like a man.