Ashes of Seoksu Village
"Senior brother, this has gotten rather troublesome."
At the words of the man who appeared to be in his early thirties, with a small frame barely five and a half cheok tall, the middle-aged man called senior brother frowned slightly.
"You lost the trail? Sam Sal?"
"That's not it. You should see this for yourself."
The tall, gaunt figure standing six cheok high—so skeletal it was almost uncanny—was I Sal, second of the Ghost Blade Three Killers. The small-framed man was Sam Sal, the youngest of the three.
"What in the……"
Looking where Sam Sal pointed, I Sal quickly understood what his junior meant.
Just then, a man of ordinary build wearing a black bamboo hat appeared behind them.
"So someone got here before us."
"Eldest brother!"
"Senior brother."
Il Sal, first of the Ghost Blade Three Killers, looked utterly unremarkable—yet a murderous aura bordering on ghostly energy flowed from his body.
Any ordinary person would have frozen at the mere sight of him, and against an opponent of similar realm, it could carve out an opening in the space of a heartbeat.
It was the natural effect of the Six Devils Killing Saber and Six Devils Heart Method that the Ghost Blade Three Killers had mastered.
Senior brother's realm has climbed even higher.
At this level, he'd be more than a match for the Qingcheng Sect's chief disciple!
The two juniors could only marvel at how visibly their senior brother's cultivation had grown.
"So you finally finished off the Second Disciple of Qingcheng?"
At those words, Il Sal smiled with satisfaction.
"I did."
The killing intent settled even deeper, thicker.
It meant his mastery of the Six Devils Killing Saber had risen yet again.
"A few more kills, and I'll be able to break through the wall of the Peak Realm."
A martial art that grew stronger with every person murdered.
No wonder the Jianghu called the Six Devils Killing Saber a demonic art. It truly made one wonder whether that thing could still be called human killing intent at all.
Il Sal, his aura now darker than ever, turned his gaze to Sam Sal.
"How many would you say there were?"
Sam Sal answered his question.
"Around ten in total, all of them trained in martial arts."
"Is that so? The Geumo Merchant Guild?"
At Il Sal's words, I Sal shook his head.
"I hear this trade caravan pushed itself rather hard on this trip."
"So what kind of goods would it be……"
Greed gleamed in Il Sal's eyes.
Watching his eldest brother, Sam Sal continued.
"The Geumo Merchant Guild wouldn't have the manpower to spare for this. That's why they hired us, I'd imagine."
Sam Sal chimed in to agree with I Sal's assessment.
"Like my brother says, they don't feel like Geumo Guild men. They barely seemed to care about covering their tracks, as if they only skimmed the scene. Just look at the goods they dropped while gathering everything up……"
"Their conduct is no better than common bandits, but if more than ten of them all knew martial arts, simple outlaws seem unlikely."
"Then you mean… some sect that just happened to stumble on this place? Is there any sect nearby with that kind of manpower?"
At Il Sal's question, I Sal drew a piece of paper from his robe and studied it carefully.
"There's only one sect large enough to move that many men in and out of a place like this."
"Which is?"
I Sal answered flatly.
"The Sichuan Tang Clan."
"The Sichuan Tang Clan… poison users, the lot of them. So they took the goods?"
"Yes. Most likely. Traces of them carting off the other items are left out in the open."
"The Tang Clan's reputation precedes them, and yet their conduct is indistinguishable from the Green Forest bandits."
"Hard to argue with that."
"Let's go. Qingcheng first, now the Tang Clan—the heavens are handing me opportunities."
If it was the Tang Clan, there would surely be masters of Il Sal's caliber. And if he killed one of them with his Six Devils Killing Saber… perhaps he could finally hammer on the wall of the Peak Realm.
"We move. Anyone who stands in our way dies, whoever they are. And the treasure belongs to us!"
Il Sal had decided to claim the very goods the Geumo Merchant Guild had hired them to seize.
"Yes, senior brother!"
The Ghost Blade Three Killers vanished from the scene in swift lightness arts.
"Is it night already?"
Having fully melted the hundred-year icewood essence into his dantian, Samryong slowly rose to his feet.
"Took longer than I expected."
His legs and lower back ached dully—it seemed he had cycled his qi in meditation for quite some time.
Getting up, Samryong drew out the throwing dagger that Oryong had given him.
"Hah!"
The dagger in his hand floated slowly into the air.
"Hup… hah!"
With a sharp cry, the dagger shot out like a flash of lightning, boring straight through the massive tree before him—and that wasn't all. It sank deep into the boulder behind it.
Even standing within the same First-Rate realm, before and after the hundred-year icewood essence were two different worlds.
"So this is the Single Flash Dagger?"
How to put it—the more he mastered the Chaehon Heart Mark, the better he understood what the Single Flash Dagger truly was. It wasn't a perfect execution yet, but at this level, most opponents would meet their deaths without ever realizing they were dying.
"To make this Single Flash Dagger a true one-strike kill, I'll need other arts as well."
Powerful as it was, the Single Flash Dagger had its share of flaws.
Unlike other throwing techniques, it was difficult to change its trajectory mid-flight.
Ordinary hidden weapon arts shifted direction unpredictably, dazzling the enemy's eyes, creating openings, and then inflicting fatal wounds through the gap.
The Single Flash Dagger, however, was a martial art that packed extreme speed into a single burst—exploding all its power in one strike. It was brutally, uncompromisingly direct.
Simple, yet fast.
That was the very essence of the Single Flash Dagger.
So this is why Father called the Chaehon Heart Mark sloppy.
As his internal energy deepened, the unnecessary steps buried in the Chaehon Heart Mark became clearer and clearer.
And if he broke through the wall of the Peak Realm here? He had a feeling he'd be able to execute the Single Flash Dagger to perfection.
"Guess I should head back. Everyone should be at Seoksu Village by now?"
Their main mission was investigating and patrolling for Green Forest bandits or other hostile groups around the area, so they would surely have gathered there.
"Thunder-Chasing Movement Art."
True to its name, Samryong hurtled toward Seoksu Village at lightning speed.
It's pretty far. Just how badly did the instructor botch the route?
Just as he was cursing his instructor's incompetence, a bright light washed over Samryong despite the dead of night.
"Huh?"
At the same moment, the acrid stench of something burning hit his nose, and he understood immediately what was happening.
"…Seoksu Village is burning?"
And not just a house or two—the entire village was ablaze.
"Damn it! What the hell!"
Samryong increased his speed, and when he finally reached Seoksu Village, he froze in horror.
The dead lay everywhere his eyes turned.
"Gah!"
Memories surged up—that time in his past life when monsters had overrun a city.
Am I too late this time too?
For an instant, the world seemed to spin around Samryong.
The helplessness and guilt he had felt in his past life crashed over him like a rising tide.
I… I……!
Slap!
Then he struck his own cheek hard.
"Hoo… Are you going to stand there and do nothing again, Tang Sanlong? Like before?"
Frozen in place by helplessness, guilt, and despair—that was the greater sin.
If only I'd… absorbed the hundred-year icewood essence later… if I'd been less greedy… Damn it! Damn it all!
Samryong bit his lip until it bled.
Killing people who never even learned martial arts like this! Even monsters at least had no reason—these things don't!
It was a scene far too gruesome to have been committed by human hands.
Unable to see clearly through the smoke, Samryong gently closed the eyes of a dead elderly couple and clenched his jaw.
I swear… I will make the ones who did this pay for it with their lives.
With that, Samryong walked into the flames.
There have to be survivors. No—there have to be.
The smoke pouring off the burning village made it hard to breathe, hard to keep his eyes open, but Samryong channeled his internal energy and pushed deeper, ever deeper.
Focus! I can use my qi as a scanner.
Slowly raising his Ten Poisons Divine Art, Samryong spread his energy wide and thin around him.
In his past life, he had detected monsters by radiating mana outward like this—he was simply reproducing the technique with internal energy.
It comes through far more clearly.
Perhaps because this version was woven from pure, refined internal energy rather than raw mana, even its accuracy was on another level.
This was probably how masters of the Peak Realm and Transcendent Peak Realm sensed their opponents.
Anything that stays still—is it a person or an object? Damn it!
He still struggled to distinguish that fine a difference.
"Gasp… gasp……"
Then, a ripple of ragged breathing brushed against the wave of energy he had spread out, and echoed back to him.
A survivor!
Crackle!
The fire raged fiercely, but Samryong doused his body with water to save even one more survivor and plunged into the flames without hesitation.
And where the breathing came from, he saw a familiar figure.
"Instructor!"
"Kghk! Cough……"
Tang Chil-ju slowly lifted his head at the voice calling his name.
"Tang… San…long……"
"Instructor… khk!"
Tang Chil-ju shoved away the approaching Samryong without hesitation.
Did the man despise him even while dying? And yet, in his eyes, there was relief rather than resentment.
"Run… get out of here… cough!"
"Instructor! Who did this? Did everyone fall?"
He had lost a great deal of blood—the light was draining steadily from Tang Chil-ju's eyes.
Tap-tap!
Samryong hurriedly pressed acupoints around the wounds to stem the bleeding, but the man's innards were ruined beyond repair and too much blood had already been lost. Even with immediate treatment, his survival was far from guaranteed.
Perhaps the reduced bleeding brought back a flicker of awareness—Tang Chil-ju looked at Samryong and pointed somewhere.
"They went… that way… they took the others… so you go back… to the clan… to the Tang Clan… to the clan……"
"Instructor!"
Tang Chil-ju's consciousness was fading fast.
"Haah… how foolish I was……. All that wealth and success—what were they worth… In the face of death, it's all so empty……"
"Instructor Tang!"
"Gone in the blink of an eye… gone in the blink of an eye……"
"Stay with me!"
"Too late for me now……. At least you……"
Tang Chil-ju's head dropped, lifeless.
"Damn it……"
He was no longer breathing.
Samryong looked in the direction the man had pointed.
That way, then.
Samryong sprinted along the path Tang Chil-ju had shown him and came across gruesome traces scattered here and there.
"You……"
The girl who had tormented Ki Chaeyun—there was no life left in her eyes.
"What was even the point of all this……"
A girl who had never let go of her blade until her very last breath.
After closing her eyes for her, Samryong ran on, finding dead Tang Squad members and villagers scattered across the grounds.
They may have been Squad 7, the dumping ground for problem children, but in the end they had fought to the last for their mission, as befitted members of the Tang Clan.
There are three of them.
Even the traces alone made it clear these were no ordinary fighters.
Three masters who wielded blades……
Clang! Clang!
As Samryong raced after the trail, the sound of clashing weapons rang in his ears.
"Hahaha!"
Accompanied by a laugh thick with killing intent, a sabre buried itself in Tang Bo's shoulder.
"Gyaaahk!"
"Such lovely screams."
With blood-reddened eyes, I Sal squeezed the blade in agonizingly slowly, toying with Tang Bo like a cat with its prey.
"Aaaaagh!"
"Khehehe! Hahaha!"
Watching I Sal take pleasure in his victim's agony, Samryong drew a hidden weapon.
"Nine-Death Killer!"
"Hm?"
It was unmistakably the same art the Tang Squad members had used—yet the internal force packed within it was anything but ordinary.
"So there was still one worth using left."
Cha-ga-gang!
With ghostly movements, I Sal deflected Samryong's hidden weapon.
But Samryong's attack was only the beginning.
"You will never know a peaceful death."
Samryong's fury poured down upon I Sal.