Chapter 63
Translator: uly
Chapter: 63
Chapter Title: Chilgok County's Celestial Slaughter Star - 6
The sun was setting, casting a reddish glow for the people ending their work, concluding a tumultuous day.
Even such sunlight wasn't fairly given to the slum of remote Chilgok County. Normally, only a handful of sunset glow and damp shadows would have been scattered across the slum floor.
But today, blood redder than the sunset was splattered all around the slum of Chilgok County.
"Ugh."
"We have to escape, even if we have to crawl!"
"Spare me."
"My leg!"
The beasts that had calmly preyed upon people who worried more about today's meal than tomorrow, and more about tomorrow than the future. The screams of the blue snakes that had sucked the blood of the poor now echoed through the slum.
Thirty snakes that had not become human were crawling on the ground instead of the sunset, dyeing the slum floor red.
"Yun-ho."
The only woman left standing after finishing what she had declared there opened her mouth.
"I almost couldn't walk because of you."
She picked up a sword and approached the snakes who still had one ankle each left.
"Damn it!"
A blue snake with remaining strength swung its fangs with all its might.
But just as a farmer isn't afraid of a snake's fangs, she deftly deflected the flying blade and severed the snake's limbs.
"P-please spare me!"
"My remaining ankle, please! Aaagh!"
The Celestial Slaughter Star began to separate the unnecessary feet from the snakes that had not become human, one by one, like a fishmonger chopping fish.
"Yun-ho. Because of you. His arm was injured."
The Celestial Slaughter Star remembered his arm, messed up from protecting vital areas.
The hand that served her food. The arm that felt reassuring every time it held her. The shoulder that looked dependable even though he was weak, trying to protect her.
These trash injured that precious arm.
"Aagh!"
"M-my arm!"
She moved around, crushing the Blue Snake Faction members' palms with her feet or cutting off their sword-holding hands as they were.
"Why. Did he. Have to be hit by you?"
As if truly trying to turn people into mollusks, she began meticulously crushing the arm and leg bones of the Blue Snake Faction martial artists.
"Just kill me! Kill me!"
"Uwaaagh!"
Amid her cruel torture, the Black Path members let out pained screams, but her revenge was only just beginning.
"His head was bleeding."
The Celestial Slaughter Star, while checking Kang Yun-ho's condition, looked at his blood smeared on her palm.
'Yun-ho's blood.'
The Celestial Slaughter Star brought her palm close to her face. How much did it hurt? How much did he suffer?
She had heard that some people lose their memory after being hit in the head. If, because he was hit in the head, he lost his memory of her. Could she have endured that?
'Who... are you?'
The Celestial Slaughter Star imagined a situation where he lost his memory and didn't recognize her.
'Ahhh.'
Unbearable. Unimaginable. Such agony. Cannot endure.
'So-hee, you don't remember Oppa?'
She recalled the day she first met him.
'So-hee, long ago...'
'Oppa, when you were young, to So-hee...'
That expression, somewhere between longing and suffering, every time he looked at her.
Ah. So this was how he felt. He was feeling this agony every day.
She never wanted to feel this way again.
The Celestial Slaughter Star looked at the vermin before her with a face cold with anger. How dare these trash nearly make him lose his memory.
They nearly made him never remember her again.
[Kill them.]
These insect-like things. Let's crush their shoulders and chop their arms to pieces. Tear their bellies and pull out their intestines. Pull out their intestines while they're still alive and hang them around their necks. Gouge out their eyes and cut off their tongues. And...
'... No.'
The Celestial Slaughter Star clutched her head and staggered for a moment.
'Just now. That was.'
The Celestial Slaughter Star's killing intent.
Cheon So-hee realized that, for an instant, the dormant killing intent of the Celestial Slaughter Star had pushed its way up from within.
'I need to retreat.'
She had been careless because the killing urge hadn't arisen until now.
Just from cutting people down, the killing urge she thought she was controlling had surged up. She needed to leave this place immediately. If she didn't swallow the boiling anger and retreat now, she could be consumed by the killing urge again.
She needed to meditate on her inner self through Energy Circulation Breathing in a quiet place.
That would be the normal judgment.
'Then what about revenge?'
The killing intent was subtly peeking out from within, but she didn't want to retreat. Can't I just control it? Didn't I train so hard in martial arts for times like this?
I want to take revenge for him.
If I retreat like this, I'll regret it forever.
But how?
'The smell of Yun-ho's blood.'
In her anguish, the Celestial Slaughter Star looked at her palm, tickled by a sudden scent.
Kang Yun-ho's blood on her hand.
It was blood that got on her while checking Yun-ho's head earlier. A wound that nearly caused something she couldn't endure.
Unconsciously, the Celestial Slaughter Star brought her palm stained with Kang Yun-ho's blood to her nose and inhaled, smelling his blood scent.
'Yun-ho.'
Feeling his scent through her nose, she engraved his face in pain onto her heart. Anger boiled. But as much as Cheon So-hee's rising anger, the Celestial Slaughter Star's killing intent soared together.
This isn't enough.
Cheon So-hee licked her palm.
She felt him. Then, his affectionate voice surfaced in her mind.
'So-hee.'
Wait. I'll take revenge and return. In her chest, a cold anger for one man burned the boiling killing intent.
Killing these isn't the Celestial Slaughter Star.
Taking revenge is.
Cheon So-hee.
"The pain Yun-ho suffered. Now, slowly. I'll return it."
Done.
Now it's time to slaughter the snakes.
****
"P-please spare me! Gak!"
"Damn it. Damn it!"
"Huhuhuhuhu"
One. Two. Three.
Cheon So-hee began to deal with the Blue Snake Faction one by one.
By the fifth, or perhaps the seventh, her methods gradually became more brutal.
After passing ten, she began not just chopping them into pieces, but literally disassembling them.
Her cold anger had vanished, replaced by a smile soaked in ecstasy and delight.
'Was it the 29th?'
Ankles. Arms. Legs. Intestines. Severed heads. What was missing? Ah, the heart. The Celestial Slaughter Star split a man's belly and plunged both hands inside. Warm. Feels good.
The Celestial Slaughter Star pulled out the heart through the split intestines, crushed it, and wiped her face with her blood-soaked hands.
"...Mother."
The man, who had been putting up clumsy resistance, had been enduring without even a moan despite the intentional infliction of pain.
'Why did I kill these people again?'
The blood smell is too fragrant. The Celestial Slaughter Star brought her fingertips to her nose to smell the blood. So good. No other scent can be more ecstatic than this.
'Why did I kill them?'
The Celestial Slaughter Star tried to think why she killed these people.
[Why do you need a reason to kill people?]
Right. You don't need a reason to kill people. Why would you need a reason to kill? Killing people is...
[Because it's fun.]
Yes. It's fun. The scream when crushing ankles. The feeling of grating bone when cutting off hands. Cutting joints isn't fun. Slicing through bone yields more enjoyable screams.
The warmth when plunging hands in to pull out intestines is good. Feels like being held in mother's embrace.
"Mom. Mom."
The voice of the man who resisted clumsily to the end is heard. Only after his arms were sliced and bones crushed did he finally scream for his mother like a child.
[Mother?]
I think I killed because of mother. What was it? Sad memories. Memories I wanted to forget. Precious person. I feel like there was something like that.
[Smell the blood.]
Took a deep breath. Fragrant. Feels like entering mother's womb. Yes. That must be why I looked for mother.
[Not enough.]
'Not enough.'
I want to kill more people. This much doesn't quench the thirst. No, rather, the more I kill, the thirstier I become.
[It was boring.]
'It was boring.'
Just ruffians who haven't learned martial arts. Only third-rate and second-rate martial artists. This much doesn't quench the thirst.
I need thrilling murder.
Like when I waited under the bed for three days and nights and pierced the heart of a careless master. Assassination provided thrilling murder. It quenched the thirst.
Lack of thrill.
I want murder so thrilling it makes my heart tingle.
[Kill them all.]
Spreading my senses wide, I feel people trembling, holding their breath inside houses. Will killing all of them do?
'Not enough.'
Whether killing one or ten, it's boring murder. That won't quench the thirst.
She took a deep breath. In the bloody smell, a faint but familiar scent was felt.
His scent.
Affectionate face. Smiling face. A face pretending to know me when I don't know. That kind of face, but it's faint.
'Who is he?'
Even trying to remember, it doesn't come back.
The more I think of him, the more stifling it is. Agonizing. Why do I feel this way?
But, strangely. I remembered that his blood scent was ecstatic. The sweet taste of blood surfaced, and I licked my lips.
If I kill him, will this stifling feeling disappear?
If I pull out his heart, will I feel ecstatic?
[Kill him.]
'Kill him.'
If I kill him, it seems this thirst will be quenched.