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As I fended off the black-clad warriors with my sword, I mulled over why they had ambushed me.
One clue stood out.
They attacked me the moment I arrived here for the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill, and again the moment I secured it.
I parried a dagger aimed at my vitals and kept pressing the woman with questions.
"By any chance, did you lot get thrashed while going after that bastard?"
The assailant didn't even dignify my question with a response. She simply swung her blade to kill me, showing not the slightest curiosity about who I was or where I came from.
The only thing these people seemed to care about was the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill.
I had no idea what drove them to seek it, but to satisfy my curiosity, I needed to subdue them first.
'I can make a rough guess.'
Sam-gu had used the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill from this very place. The attackers must have traced Sam-gu's movements, followed the pill's source, and made their move.
The old apothecary certainly wasn't in league with them. They must have waited here for a long time, desperately hoping someone would come.
"No interest in why I have the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill?"
"Just hand over the pill!"
Perhaps irritated by my questions, the black-clad woman swung her dagger at me even more viciously, aiming for my body. A single graze would surely paralyze me with the poison coating her blade.
'I can make a rough guess.'
There was only one organization with operatives this well-trained. A single word from me could stop this pointless fight, but I deliberately held my tongue.
"How about giving up? If this keeps up, every last one of your subordinates is going to get subdued."
Clang, clang!
Behind me, countless daggers flew through the air and embedded themselves in the ground. Each time a blade was deflected, another black-clad warrior crumpled to the floor, bleeding.
"Guh...!"
"What kind of monster woman—!"
One by one, the black-clad warriors collapsed in shock at Dokgo Yeon's strength. Dozens of assassins, unable to handle a single woman, all lost their blades and were subdued with sword wounds to the shoulder.
Death Break.
The Dugu Nine Swords technique that senses killing intent and crushes the opponent head-on before they can even attempt to kill—her swordsmanship was smooth and graceful. Not a single one of them managed to so much as graze the hem of Dokgo Yeon's clothes with their blades.
"This woman... she's First-Rate!"
"No! She's Peak-level!"
Dokgo Yeon twisted her lips at their confusion and swung her sword even faster. One stroke to deflect an opponent's blade, another to drive her sword into the assassin's body.
Dokgo Ja-yeong was the same, but even before it was corrupted into the chaotic Killing Sword, the Dugu Nine Swords had always been an utterly practical martial art.
In other words, Dokgo Yeon was even more specialized in real combat than in formal duels. Whether one-on-one or one-against-many, so long as it was real combat, the Dugu Nine Swords only grew stronger.
"Hmph."
Dokgo Yeon displayed her power to its fullest as she subdued the assassins. She had the ability and the will to kill them, but at my request, she used just a single sword to subdue nearly thirty assassins already. I kept my eyes on her, ready for any unforeseen danger.
"Yeon, behind you."
"Already saw them!"
Before I even finished speaking, Dokgo Yeon thrust her sword toward an assassin charging from her blind spot. She reversed her grip on the blade and stabbed beside her hip to deflect the dagger, then spun her body forward to right the sword in her grasp.
'Showing off, are we.'
She could have continued the sequence far more succinctly, but knowing I was watching, she traced more beautiful and elaborate sword paths as she engaged the enemy. At times that could lead to arrogance and invite disaster, but Dokgo Yeon's essence had not changed.
Sky-Shattering Divine Sword.
A woman whose approach to combat openly defied the principle of exchange—the give-and-take of forms—that governed Murim warriors. Rather than matching form against form, she sought the weakness in the opponent's technique and crushed them. That was the essence of the Dugu Nine Swords, and it aligned perfectly with Dokgo Yeon's own temperament.
"Haht—!"
With a short kiai, Dokgo Yeon spun her body. Her sword rotated a full circle with her, simultaneously deflecting and knocking aside the blades of three assassins charging from three directions.
"This is easy."
Dokgo Yeon gave a soft laugh and mocked the assassins. It seemed somewhat out of character, but her provocation succeeded in rattling their composure.
Shhk.
Dokgo Yeon slipped inside the assassins' spacing and subdued them ruthlessly. She deliberately struck daggers hard enough to break wrists, stabbed deep into thighs to make them crumple.
No one could stop Dokgo Yeon's unstoppable momentum. No one, except for one among the black-clad warriors.
"Grr...!"
"That's my Yeon."
I kept up my relentless assault to ensure the only person who could stop Dokgo Yeon could not slip free from my reach. I deliberately swung my blade close enough to graze her collar, keeping her on edge.
"Oh my, skin like white jade. You've been lurking in the dark so much, has it made you pale?"
"Shut your mouth!"
I kept my lips pressed tight and swung my sword faster. I thrust at three points simultaneously, inflicting shallow cuts on both her forearms and her thigh.
"If I shut up, you'll just end up eating more of my blade. Talking messes with your concentration, doesn't it? Right?"
"Y-you...!"
The black-clad woman reversed her grip on her dagger and widened the distance sharply. Then, before I could even lift my foot, she began hurling daggers.
Not one, but dozens. The technique unfolding from her hands drew an involuntary laugh from me.
"You held out without using any forms, and now you finally bring it out—Agile Flower Projection Sword!"
"!!"
The eyes of the dagger-throwing woman trembled. I laid my sword to the side and drew a light breath.
The sword style I needed was the Quick Sword. And as it happened, I knew an excellent method for batting away a scattered rain of throwing blades.
Plum Blossom Worldly Chaos.
I lacked the Violet Mist Divine Art, but using techniques from the Seven Absolute Plum Blossom Sword—familiar to any Plum Blossom Swordsman—I unfurled a counter to the scattered blades. I intercepted and deflected every incoming dagger, and the moment I struck the tip of the last one, I hurled my sword backward.
Shnk—!!
"Aargh!!"
Having concealed her approach behind a screen of daggers and lunged for Dokgo Yeon's throat, the black-clad woman now had my thrown blade buried deep in her thigh. Dokgo Yeon, who had been swinging her sword in a state of no-self, flinched in surprise and widened her distance. I flew forward in a single step and kicked the black-clad woman away.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't notice her."
"What is there to be sorry for? The fault is mine for losing sight of her, even for an instant."
I pulled Dokgo Yeon's shoulder and made her lower her sword. Fewer than ten assassins remained. There was no need to drag this out any longer.
'Taiji Wisdom Sword.'
I borrowed Dokgo Yeon's sword and subdued the remaining assassins with the Sword Control Art. Every one of them was a First-Rate assassin, but against Sword Control Art unleashed at full power from the Profound Realm, they had no defense.
One-quarter of a watch.
In barely a quarter of a watch, we succeeded in subduing more than fifty assassins.
Considering that neutralizing an enemy is far harder than killing them, had we resolved to kill, those fifty-odd assassins would have breathed their last in less than half that time.
"Darling, who are these people?"
"I'm about to find out."
I approached the Peak-level black-clad woman who had been stabbed by my sword and seized her by the throat. Before she could resist, I drove my fist sharply into her stomach.
"Keuhk!"
The woman coughed and spat something from her mouth. At the sight of the acrid violet fluid oozing from the pellet, Dokgo Yeon's expression twisted.
"Poison?"
"A well-trained assassin cuts off the tail the moment the mission fails."
"......."
The black-clad woman closed her eyes in resignation. For an assassin whose suicide attempt had failed, the only remaining option was the mental fortitude to endure brutal torture without opening her mouth.
"Is there a vice-captain among you? The one next in command after this bitch."
"...That would be me."
The black-clad warrior who had been thrown down first laboriously raised his body, one hand pressed to his abdomen. He was the one most grievously wounded after Dokgo Yeon had failed to moderate her strength.
"Go and deliver a message to your unit leader. Tell him that as a great roc soared across the heavens, it suffered an ambush by fledgling crows—and so, to demonstrate the roc's majesty, it made a meal of the crows' captain."
"!!"
The vice-captain scowled and raised a hand signal ordering retreat. One by one, his subordinates scattered in all directions, bleeding.
"Darling, what was that?"
"A secret code. ...I never imagined I'd run into this lot here."
The Killing Shadow Sect.
An assassination group under the direct command of the Heavenly Demon, and once—when I was Chu Ma-gwi—the assassin unit I had briefly been part of.
I became certain of their identity the moment I saw the woman I was holding use the Murder King's forms. For a brief instant, my heart had plummeted at the thought that the Blood Cult's forces had already emerged, but fortunately, these were the Demonic Cult's people, not the Blood Cult's.
"They're assassins serving directly under the Heavenly Demon. One of the Demonic Cult's armed units, distinct from the Ten Demons."
Strictly speaking, the Ten Demons could be considered the Heavenly Demon's personal unit, operating outside the formal hierarchy.
There existed an official structure encompassing all hundred thousand demonic practitioners, and within it, the Killing Shadow Unit stood as the pinnacle of the Demonic Cult's assassin forces—murderous ghosts of the highest caliber.
It was the very assassin unit I had managed to join after killing the Imperial Inspector of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, then using that achievement to earn recognition through a string of successful assassinations.
I even felt a twinge of regret seeing that same assassin unit crumble so pathetically, but the insolence of targeting Dokgo Yeon and me steeled my resolve.
"Yeon, in that inner room there, you'll find a broom. Sweep off that platform for me."
"You're going to take her?"
"Indeed."
Only then did the black-clad woman look back and forth between us with eyes full of confusion. She seemed to doubt whether she had heard correctly, but Dokgo Yeon struck the killing blow to her bewilderment.
"I'll have it tidied up in no time."
"Thank you, Yeon."
After entrusting the light cleaning to Dokgo Yeon, I flung the woman onto the floor. I pulled the blade from her thigh, then took a single Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill from the box I had stored in my breast.
Shuk.
I forced the pill into the assailant's mouth. I felt no sense of waste. There were plenty of pills, and if this woman died here from excessive bleeding, things could get far more troublesome.
"Swallow it. If you don't, I'll feed it to you myself."
"......."
Crunch. The black-clad woman chewed the Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill with fury.
"You stupid son of a bitch...!"
Thanks to the pill restoring a sliver of strength, she tried to flee from me—but I had pressed her acupoints before throwing her down, so escape was impossible.
"Keuhk!"
"What are you so desperate to run from?"
I wrapped my arm around her waist and slung her over my shoulder. Then I laid her on the platform Dokgo Yeon had dusted off.
"From this moment on, if you don't answer what I ask, I will violate you."
Rrrip!
I tore away her lower garments with sheer grip strength. Starting from the blood-soaked portions, I shredded the fabric—there was no need to bother removing them properly.
Her black undergarments, which seemed matched to her black outerwear, reeked of blood-scent and urine. The rather foul smell irritated me.
"A Peak-level expert, pissing herself... Are you really an assassin?"
"......."
The woman said nothing. I had warned I would violate her if she stayed silent, but in this state, violating her was rather awkward.
'Nothing for it, then.'
Fwoosh!
I kindled a flame atop my index finger. The woman, thinking it was Samadhi True Fire, startled and twisted her body—but thanks to the acupoint sealing, she couldn't move a muscle.
"S-stop! Don't do it! You crazy bastard!!"
Fwoosh.
I applied the flames of the Zhongli Divine Fire Well to her groin. The purifying flames, which affected only foreign matter while leaving human flesh unharmed, burned away the filth and rendered her body clean.
"Ugh, just how much did you let loose."
At the sight of something I could scarcely put into words, my will wilted.
Even with a woman who looked as if entry would be impossibly difficult, arousal would normally still stir—yet oddly, faced with this now half-naked black-clad woman, Baby Sex Demon seemed utterly lacking in enthusiasm.
'What's wrong with me?'
"Eek!"
I grabbed Dokgo Yeon's hand and rubbed it against my member. Startled, Dokgo Yeon flinched at first, then began twisting her fingers seductively to match the movement of my hand.
Boiiing.
Baby Sex Demon practically leaped with joy at Dokgo Yeon's touch. My equipment, which usually stood at attention at the mere sight of a woman, was functioning perfectly.
'So it does work on women.'
Then why in the world wouldn't it rise for this black-clad woman?
Though her chest was somewhat lacking, there was undeniably a woman's sex below. A strange feeling came over me, and I reached forward with my fingers and removed her mask.
"......Huh."
What kind of twist of fate was this? At the unexpected identity of this Peak-level expert, I was utterly deflated.
'I know this woman.'
The woman's face, contorted like a demonic spirit, bore a striking resemblance to the venomous visage of Paeng Yuwol.