The Heavenly Killer, Ryeong
Cheonsal Ryeong—one of the Four Great Evils.
A rogue who had committed wanton atrocities solely in the pursuit of cold coin, he had suddenly arrived at the turning point of his life. It had started simply enough: he had intercepted an escort carriage bound for the Qingcheng Sect and snatched an ancient, weathered dagger from the cargo. That theft was supposed to have earned him nothing worse than a pack of Qingcheng swordsmen hounding his heels. Yet it was no mortal pursuer that caught him. An old man—an immortal—had manifested directly from the blade.
And the consequence of that encounter?
“What in the bloody hell is this?!”
Ryeong awoke in a secluded cavern halfway up an unfamiliar mountain. Shaking off a skull-splitting headache, he tried to push himself up, only to be arrested by a foreign, suffocating weight pressing down upon his chest. He snapped his head down in horror. Two soft, pert mounds rose proudly where a flat, sinewy chest ought to have been.
For a heartbeat, all thought ceased. The gears of his mind ground to a dead halt. Ryeong could not fathom what in the world had happened to him.
“That rotten, senile old bastard!”
As his scattered memories snapped back into focus, Ryeong let out an enraged shriek that shook the dust from the ceiling. That ancient immortal had muttered something before vanishing—something about how living a life as a woman might not be such a bad change of pace. He had never imagined the old coot would actually turn him into one! At worst, he had assumed he would be struck dead on the spot and thrust into reincarnation. Worse still, he couldn't feel a single wisp of internal energy. His lower dantian, once an overflowing ocean of lethal qi, sat entirely hollow. No—it wasn't merely empty. It hadn't even been opened.
“Even if you were shoving me into a new body, why the hell did it have to be like this?!”
Realizing she was stark naked, Ryeong snatched up a ragged scrap of coarse burlap that lay discarded nearby and draped it over her shoulders. She had no clue why it was sitting in a mountain cave, but wandering around in the buff was out of the question—the unsettling sway and bounce of her new anatomy felt thoroughly repulsive.
Tying the coarse cloth around herself as best she could, Ryeong stepped toward the mouth of the cavern. Was this what people called divine retribution? Was Heaven telling her to mend her ways and live virtuously from now on—
“Like hell I will! Who says I'm living virtuously?”
Ryeong had not the slightest intention of honoring the old man's parting words. Never kill anyone unless they harbor murderous intent toward you first? Absolute nonsense. Humans were selfish beasts down to the bone. So long as you left them breathing, they were treacherous animals who would plunge a dagger into your back the moment you looked away. Ryeong had already witnessed the ugliest depths humanity had to offer. People pointed their fingers and branded him a blood-crazed slaughterer, but he—or rather, the woman she now was—had always adhered to her own strict principles when claiming a life.
It was the Jianghu that was at fault. The moment a rogue committed the slightest misdeed, rumors blew it out of proportion tenfold; how could a lone wanderer ever hope to stem that tide? Surviving from one day to the next was already a grueling ordeal; she certainly possessed no silver to hire the Haomen to clear her name. The real problem was that living like that had dragged her headlong into this ludicrous fiasco.
She had only one objective now.
The Qingcheng Sect.
She had to reclaim that ancient dagger the Qingcheng bastards valued so dearly and confront the immortal geezer who had reduced her to this pathetic state.
‘Though, even if I meet him, what the hell am I supposed to do?’
Snatching a divine relic back with a powerless, frail body devoid of inner qi? A passing stray dog would laugh until its ribs cracked. Whatever came next, cultivation was the absolute baseline. In the martial world, anyone lacking inner energy was nothing more than prey waiting to be butchered. Fortunately, surrounded by the untamed mountain wilderness, the primordial qi of nature was dense and abundant. Establishing a new dantian in a place like this wouldn't prove too difficult.
Ryeong retreated deeper into the cave. Lingering near the entrance was a sure way to run into mountain bandits. She didn't even know if this territory belonged to the Orthodox sects or someone else; for all she knew, this could be Mount Cheonsan, the stronghold of the Demon Blood Divine Cult. Wherever this was, danger was a certainty, so she instinctively sought out the cavern's furthest shadows.
Since the ragged burlap was her sole possession, she slipped it off to avoid ruining it during cultivation. Looking down to inspect her physique once more... Well, it was an indescribably bizarre sensation.
“Phew!”
Inner demons threatened to clutter her mind. Shaking her head vigorously to dispel them, Ryeong assumed the lotus position. Whether one called it her past life or her previous vessel, the martial art she had once mastered was a secret family heritage.
The Heaven-Killing Art.
Despite its bloodthirsty name, its essence differed fundamentally from demonic or unorthodox methods. In truth, it ran far closer to orthodox cultivation—a late-blooming art that amassed vast internal energy through decades of steady refinement. Frankly, the path ahead looked bleak. Even after forging a dantian in this fragile body, she would have to devote at least a decade of relentless training to the Heaven-Killing Art before seeing real fruit. Still, something was infinitely better than nothing. Firming her resolve, Ryeong began to recite the mnemonic formulas of the Heaven-Killing Art under her breath.
A soft murmur echoed off the stone walls. Closing her eyes, she concentrated wholly on her breath. The drawn air rode along her acupoints, guiding the dormant vital energies within her flesh. Whenever a meridian pathway met an obstruction, she avoided forcing her way through; instead, she exhaled slowly, loosening the tension wound tightly into the vessel. With the next inhalation, she gently nudged against the blockage once more. The softened meridian parted, yielding passage.
She repeated the cycle. Again and again, breath by breath, circulating qi through every pathway until—
“*Cough!*”
The turbid impurities coagulated within her channels, surging upward in a violent wave of congested blood. Without holding back, Ryeong spewed a mouthful of pitch-black gore onto the stone floor. With that, the foulest impurities clogging her meridians were expunged. The remnants clinging to the deeper collateral vessels could be cleansed naturally as her mastery over the Heaven-Killing Art deepened.
The foundational pathways were cleared. Now came the true circulation.
Wuuuung.
The ambient qi of nature flooded through her meridians, converging beneath her navel. She caught the fleeting energy, spinning it into a vortex to anchor it securely in place. Beads of sweat trickled steadily past her temples; it was a delicate procedure demanding absolute, razor-sharp focus. How many hours drifted by?
Fwaaaaah!
“*Gah!* I did it!!”
A miniature core coalesced beneath her navel. Ryeong had finally succeeded in forging her lower dantian.
Outside, night must have fallen, for the cavern had grown pitch-black. It was so dark she couldn't even tell where she had laid down her makeshift garment. Worse than the dark, however, was the stench.
“*Ugh.*”
The foul toxins purged from her flesh gave off an unbearable reek. She wanted nothing more than to plunge into a cold mountain stream and scrub herself clean. Just as that thought crossed her mind, a tiny pinpoint of luminescence caught her eye from the far corner of the cavern.
“What's that?”
It was so faint that it would have vanished had she not strained her gaze. Her curiosity piqued, Ryeong stepped toward the glimmer as if entranced.
Rumble—
“Wait, what?!”
The cavern floor abruptly gave way beneath her feet, sending her tumbling down a steep subterranean chute.
“*Gah! Ahhh!*”
If she had possessed her former strength, she would have deployed her Protective Astral Qi without a second thought. But what good was wishing when she had only just formed an infant dantian? Ryeong tucked her head into both arms and curled tightly into a ball. Flesh wounds were nothing; survival was paramount.
K-BLAM!
“*Ugh...* damn, that stings.”
Fortunately, the fall hadn't lasted long—no more than five seconds before she skidded onto solid ground. Shaking the dizziness from her skull, she lifted her head.
“Where the hell is this?!”
She found herself sprawled inside a massive subterranean cavern bathed in an ethereal azure glow. Luminescent gems embedded across the ceiling resembled glowing night pearls. Their cool blue radiance cast a surreal, mystical pallor over the chamber, but Ryeong's attention was immediately ripped away from the ceiling to something far more wondrous. And for good reason.
Resting right before her eyes was an unearthly panacea that one might spend several lifetimes searching the entire Central Plains for without ever catching a whiff of.
Hollow Jade Stalactite Milk.
“Why on earth is this here?! Talk about striking gold!!”
A predatory grin split Ryeong's lips as she scrambled toward the stalactite reservoir. Then reality slammed back down on her. Hollow Jade Stalactite Milk was an extraordinary divine elixir, yes—but to someone with a newly formed, fragile dantian, it was practically lethal poison. Her current vessel lacked the capacity to withstand such an overwhelming torrent of celestial qi.
Yet, as she drew closer, she spotted words carved into the stone beneath the mineral basin.
A modest gift. Even with a newly formed dantian, you will have no trouble ingesting this. It should restore your cultivation to some extent. I shall watch your journey with interest.
— Hyeok
Ryeong's lips curled into a crooked sneer. She had no idea who this ‘Hyeok’ was, but there was no mistaking the identity of the person behind those words.
“That crafty old bastard. So this was all part of his grand design, was it?”
Was this supposed to be an act of conscience, or was the old coot merely mocking her? Ryeong couldn't shake the bitter sensation that she was dancing entirely to his tune. Then again, what else could she expect? An immortal possessing the power to wrench a soul from its body and shove it into another vessel—what could an ordinary mortal do against a monster like that?
‘Not that I'm rolling over and giving up.’
The day she crossed paths with that old fossil again, she was going to beat his face into a bloody pulp.
‘Fine. I'll take the loss for now and drink the milk. He left it for me to consume anyway, so I'd be an idiot not to.’
A whole bowlful of Hollow Jade Stalactite Milk. Normally, a single drop alone yielded an immense surge in internal energy. So what would happen if she drank an entire bowl without any lethal backlash? She didn't dare dream of reaching her past summit in one go, but if it could at least push her into the ranks of the First-Rate masters, she would be content.
“Down the hatch!”
Ryeong cupped the glowing azure fluid in both hands and poured it down her throat. The instant she took her fill, the remaining stalactite milk dissolved into thin air. Evidently, it was a one-time boon that vanished the moment hands touched it.
‘Stingy old prick.’
Dismissing the disappearing remnants, Ryeong dropped cross-legged onto the stone floor. A torrential swell of pure Yang energy surged along her meridians, vacuuming up every remaining trace of residual impurity lodged in her marrow.
‘A woman's physique is supposed to be rooted in Yin energy...’
Just as she wondered whether taking in such ferocious Yang energy was safe, the violent tempest of the stalactite milk raged through her meridians.
‘Guh! Are you sure this doesn't have any side effects?!’
Having incinerated the last impurities, the purified energy plunged straight down toward her lower dantian. The tiny core, freshly forged only hours ago, greedily devoured a volume of essence leagues beyond its intended capacity.
Several hours bled away in total stillness.
“*Phew...*”
When Ryeong finally opened her eyes, an awe-inspiring reservoir of pure qi thrummed through her veins. Assessing her newfound strength, her cultivation sat comfortably at the absolute peak of the First-Rate realm. A mere handful of celestial drops had propelled her forward by leaps and bounds.
“At least I won't have to worry about getting pushed around like a weakling anymore.”
In fact, she was more than capable of beating down most martial artists who crossed her path.
“Listen to me, old man. I don't know who you are, and I don't know what kind of game you're playing,” Ryeong spoke into the hollow silence of the cavern, her voice echoing off the azure stones. “Just keep one thing in mind.”
I will hunt you down. No matter what.
Leaving her blood-chilling vow hanging in the air, Ryeong snatched one of the glowing night pearls from the ground and got to her feet. Still buck-naked, she climbed back toward the spot where she had fallen to retrieve her coarse burlap wrap. It was the only scrap of clothing she had to her name.
And soon...
“Dawn's breaking.”
Emerging into the cool mountain air, she was greeted by the pale hues of the morning sky. What an utterly tempestuous day it had been.
A few hours later.
“Please spare our lives, Young Lady! Have mercy on us just this once!!”
Over a hundred rough, seasoned bandits were kneeling in the dirt, kowtowing with frantic desperation before a lone figure.
It was Ryeong.