Chapter 743
Morning Sun Fist School.
A small martial arts school in Hwangju Prefecture.
It was run by Seok Chung-myeong, a second-rate martial artist who had once made a name for himself under the epithet Static-Electricity Fist.
After a long pursuit by the Death Soul Squad,
they had discovered that the culprit behind the recent murder cases in Hwangju Prefecture was none other than the school's cook—
a man named Go Jeok-yang.
A mere kitchen cook, not even a martial artist of the school, committing murders?
It was a case that defied common sense.
Moreover, Go Jeok-yang had continued his work as a cook without the slightest disturbance after committing the murders.
In fact, he behaved so warmly and cheerfully that it seemed he didn't even remember what he had done.
This was why Bu Eun-seol had infiltrated the Morning Sun Fist School to investigate Go Jeok-yang.
'This shouldn't be possible.'
After observing Go Jeok-yang for some time, Bu Eun-seol shook his head.
Killing Ghosts had one thing in common—the way they looked at people was subtly different.
To them, human lives were mere playthings.
No matter how much they pretended to be ordinary, the killing intent in their eyes flickered uncontrollably,
and their gaze carried the unmistakable weight of someone who saw people as objects rather than living beings.
But Go Jeok-yang treated others with such tranquility and detachment, as if he had never committed such acts.
It was as though his memories of that day had been erased.
'I'll wait and see.'
Bu Eun-seol sensed that there was more to this.
For several days, he remained hidden within the Morning Sun Fist School, closely observing Go Jeok-yang's movements.
'There must be something.'
An ordinary person would have given up by now.
But Bu Eun-seol possessed extraordinary intuition and patience unmatched by anyone else.
Without even drinking a sip of water, he continued to watch Go Jeok-yang tirelessly.
Then, after three days—
Go Jeok-yang's strange behavior finally surfaced.
Swish.
On the night of the full moon, Go Jeok-yang suddenly rose from his quarters and stealthily left the school.
His sharp, scanning eyes and cautious movements—
It was like watching a predator stalking its prey.
'How can his demeanor and temperament change so abruptly?'
Bu Eun-seol's gaze sharpened.
Had he not been observing Go Jeok-yang all this time, he might have mistaken this transformation for the effect of a precious artifact like the Boundary-Prosperity Jade,
something capable of altering one's temperament and personality.
Whoosh!
Once outside, Go Jeok-yang dashed toward another village with terrifying speed, using a movement technique far beyond that of an ordinary cook.
A man who had shown no signs of martial ability was suddenly mimicking the movement skills of a Peak Master.
'He's changed.'
Bu Eun-seol's eyes darkened as he followed silently.
The Go Jeok-yang who had seemed utterly unremarkable now had the unmistakable glint of madness in his eyes—the kind unique to murderers suffering from Slaughter Frenzy.
'Is there a trick to concealing killing intent?'
By then, Go Jeok-yang had arrived at a small village.
"Heh heh."
With a low, sinister chuckle, he licked his lips.
He was preparing to unleash indiscriminate slaughter upon the village.
'I can't let this happen.'
Even if his true nature remained unclear, Bu Eun-seol couldn't allow the massacre to proceed.
Shwip!
In an instant, he appeared before Go Jeok-yang.
"Planning to deal with this village now?"
"Huuu."
As Bu Eun-seol blocked his path, Go Jeok-yang's eyes burned crimson.
Drool dripped from his mouth, and his canines seemed to lengthen unnaturally.
'No point in talking.'
"Kyaaah!"
When Go Jeok-yang lunged at him on all fours, Bu Eun-seol lightly flicked his fingers, releasing a burst of Finger Wind.
Crack!
Despite striking a critical acupoint, Go Jeok-yang moved as if unaffected.
'His acupoints have shifted.'
It was as though he had become a different creature entirely—even the locations of his pressure points had changed.
Swish! Slash!
Charging like a beast, Go Jeok-yang swung his razor-sharp claws.
The force behind them was so concentrated it could have split iron.
But his opponent was Bu Eun-seol.
Thud! Thud!
With another flick of his fingers, Go Jeok-yang's knees buckled unnaturally, halting his movement.
When pressure-point techniques failed, Bu Eun-seol simply shattered his kneecaps instead.
He looked down coldly at Go Jeok-yang, who writhed on the ground.
Then, he unleashed another Finger Wind, this time injecting his internal energy into the man's body.
This was to prevent him from severing his own heart meridian to commit suicide.
"Who ordered you?"
"Ugh..."
But Go Jeok-yang only let out ragged breaths in response.
Swallowing a groan, Bu Eun-seol immediately channeled his internal energy.
Fwoosh.
Go Jeok-yang's body floated into the air.
"I'll make you talk."
This was no ordinary Killing Ghost.
Multiple anomalies had been discovered in his body.
If he couldn't uncover the truth immediately, he intended to drag the man straight to the Demon Hall and lay everything bare.
After all, there were torture technicians far more skilled than himself, as well as masters of the Mind-Seizing Art.
Just as he was about to return to the Demon Hall with Go Jeok-yang suspended in midair—
"Pfft!"
Suddenly, Go Jeok-yang vomited a thick glob of blood.
Bu Eun-seol swiftly lowered him back to the ground, but it was already too late—his eyes had rolled back, and his breath had ceased.
'The Spirit-Sealing Heart-Seal Method?'
He had clearly injected his Internal Energy to prevent suicide. Yet the man had coughed blood and died?
'He must not die.'
Tap-tap-tap!
In a single motion, Bu Eun-seol pressed down on thirty-six major acupoints and immediately infused Reverse Polarity True Qi.
But it was futile.
Go Jeok-yang had already turned into a cold corpse.
'For his life to be severed this quickly...'
Even if one severed their Heart Meridian, a person wouldn't perish so abruptly.
Yet Go Jeok-yang had become a lifeless corpse in the blink of an eye.
'I must find at least a clue.'
As a last resort, Bu Eun-seol invoked the Heavenly Robe Mind Art, synchronizing with the flow of Go Jeok-yang's Qi Circulation.
But no trace of Internal Energy remained in the body.
'What is this?'
Instead, a bizarre energy coursed through every inch of it.
It wasn't Internal Energy.
It was a chilling, eerie presence—the kind one might sense from a jiangshi that had just clawed its way out of a grave.
'Ghost Qi?'
Truthfully, "Ghost Qi" was merely a convenient term—an indescribable, ambiguous sensation at best.
'Then...'
Bu Eun-seol summoned the Water Essence Divine Qi.
And immediately dispersed it around the corpse.
The Water Essence Divine Qi carried an Evil-Breaking essence.
If the Ghost Qi he had sensed wasn't mere discomfort—it would inevitably react to this power.
Ssshh—
As the faint mist of Water Essence Divine Qi enveloped the corpse like rising fog, the creeping sensation he had felt vanished entirely.
'As I thought.'
Bu Eun-seol's gaze sharpened.
'Someone deliberately used a Great Art—or a Secret Art—to turn him into a Killing Ghost.'
The fact that it reacted to the Water Essence Divine Qi meant—
Someone had forcibly applied an artificial ritual or power to Go Jeok-yang's physical body.
However, altering both body and Spirit and Mind—
Even the Three Realms, with their vast wealth and forbidden martial secrets, couldn't accomplish such a feat so easily.
Which meant this was likely not the work of an individual, but of a specific faction.
'This isn't something that can be resolved quickly.'
The only silver lining was that the sensation of Ghost Qi he had detected through the Heavenly Robe Mind Art still lingered in his own body.
If he used this, he could track down more of the Killing Ghosts they had created.
To inject Ghost Qi into an ordinary civilian's body, turning them into a Killing Ghost consumed by Slaughter Frenzy—
This was an unprecedented, bizarre occurrence in the Murim world.
Fortunately, Bu Eun-seol had mastered the Heavenly Robe Mind Art, an ancient and profound discipline, allowing him to clearly detect the Ghost Qi flowing through Go Jeok-yang's body.
Since that sensation remained within him, if another Killing Ghost with the same energy existed... tracking them down wouldn't be difficult.
Bu Eun-seol began meticulously searching the villages where murders had recently occurred.
'With Ghost Qi at this level, I should be able to detect it without even touching their bodies.'
The circulation of Internal Energy was as intricate and abstruse as the flow of Heaven's Will.
But something as faint as a subtle energy within the body—he should be able to sense it without direct contact.
Using his immense Internal Energy—
Bu Eun-seol expanded the power of the Heavenly Robe Mind Art like a Qi Wave, spreading it wide.
With this method, he could instantly discern the energy of civilians within roughly a hundred feet.
'There must be someone else hiding an esoteric energy like Go Jeok-yang.'
Go Jeok-yang had lived an ordinary life before suddenly transforming into a Killing Ghost.
That meant in the other villages where massacres had occurred—
There would be others who had lived normally before turning into Slaughtering Fiends.
Bu Eun-seol scoured every corner of the village, searching for a Killing Ghost concealed behind an ordinary face.
'Found one.'
After tirelessly roaming for two days, Bu Eun-seol finally discovered someone harboring that same sinister energy.
It was the owner of a fabric shop in the marketplace.
Outwardly, he was just a plump middle-aged man.
But inside his body flowed Ghost Qi nearly equal to what he had sensed in Go Jeok-yang.
'This time, I'll try a different approach.'
The last time, Go Jeok-yang, the cook of the Jo Il Kwon Sect, had vomited blood and died the moment he was subdued.
He was likely under the influence of an extreme Secret Art like the Spirit-Sealing Heart-Seal Method.
So this time, he would change tactics.
Swoosh.
Late at night, the fabric shop owner stealthily slipped outside.
Crack.
With the sound of bones shifting, his features gradually twisted into something monstrous as he walked down the dark path.
Just like Go Jeok-yang, his appearance had altered somewhat as he succumbed to Killing Intent.
Crack. Thud.
Yet suddenly, the fabric shop owner collapsed unconscious onto the ground.
Before his form could fully transform.
Bu Eun-seol, who had been hiding in secret, had already struck him down with Finger Wind, subduing him beforehand.
"So the Spirit-Sealing Heart-Seal Method only activates once they've completely transformed into a Killing Ghost."
After observing the fabric shop owner for a long while, holding his breath, Bu Eun-seol gave a slow nod.
By subduing him before his appearance fully morphed into that of a beast, the acupoint strike had taken effect—and he hadn't resorted to suicide.
'Which means...'
Lost in deep thought, he carefully examined the fabric shop owner's body before placing his hand on him and unleashing the Heavenly Robe Mind Art.
'This is...'
Only after activating the Heavenly Robe Mind Art on the still-living fabric shop owner did Bu Eun-seol finally understand with absolute clarity the nature of the Ghostly Energy he had sensed earlier from Go Jeok-yang.
'This belongs to the realm of spellcraft—or the Demonic Gate Great Art.'
Flowing within the fabric shop owner's body was an utterly vile and malicious Evil Qi—one capable of warping not just human nature but even the flesh itself.
'Even Water Essence Divine Qi can't purge this.'
Bu Eun-seol's expression darkened.
Even if Water Essence Divine Qi carried the power of exorcism, it couldn't fundamentally erase Evil Qi that had so thoroughly taken root in the body.
If he forcibly injected Water Essence Divine Qi now, far from restoring the fabric shop owner to normal, it would sever his life on the spot.
Zzzzzzt—
At that moment, a bizarre sensation prickled at the back of his mind.
This wasn't the Domain of Heightened Senses.
It was an intuition only Bu Eun-seol—who had been constantly exposed to all manner of grotesque Great Arts and Esoteric Ritual Arts—could perceive.
'Someone's coming.'
After a brief hesitation, Bu Eun-seol swiftly released the acupoints he had sealed on the subdued fabric shop owner.
Then, in a flash, he scaled a tall tree and completely concealed himself.
Rustle—
Freed from the acupoint strike, the fabric shop owner glanced around dazedly.
Then, as his gaze fixed on the distant moonlight in the sky—
Crunch.
His eyes darkened, and his body began transforming once more.
Whoosh—
At that very moment, a subtle wind blew in, and before the fabric shop owner, a Black Shadow gradually materialized.
A masked man clad in glistening black robes.
The skin around his exposed eyelids was dark and charred, his hollow eyes making him look as though he hadn't slept for days.
"Strange."
The masked man tilted his head as he observed the transforming fabric shop owner.
"I distinctly felt the connection sever."
Plop.
Now fully beast-like, the fabric shop owner approached the black-robed masked man and prostrated himself like a loyal hound greeting its master.
"Carry out your task immediately."
At the command, the fabric shop owner shot forward with a sharp whoosh.
'So he's the mastermind.'
At last, he had found him.
This black-robed man was the one who had turned the fabric shop owner into a Killing Ghost.
Ping!
Bu Eun-seol's Finger Wind, launched in secret, pierced straight toward the masked man's dantian acupoint.
Thud!
Shockingly, the Finger Wind passed through the masked man's body as effortlessly as if it had pierced paper.
Yet he didn't so much as flinch—instead, he glanced down at the hole in his chest and let out a low, mocking chuckle.
"A little rat was hiding here."
Crunch.
In an instant, Bu Eun-seol—now disguised as Seol-so—descended from the tree and revealed himself before the masked man.
"You..."
The black-robed man narrowed his eyes as he studied the face of Seol-so.
"So you're that Seol-so—the one they call the Bullet King's disciple."
A flash of realization crossed Bu Eun-seol's eyes.
It was true that Seol-so had become a rising star notable enough for major factions to take interest.
But to recognize him at a glance?
That meant this masked man wasn't just deeply versed in the murim's affairs—he was undoubtedly affiliated with a faction that commanded an exceptional intelligence network.
"Reveal your identity."
Bu Eun-seol extended a finger.
At its tip, Inner Energy Bullet Art condensed, brimming with formidable Internal Power.
"How dull."
The black-robed masked man muttered under his breath, his eyes flashing.
Swish!
Then, with an almost imperceptible Sound of Breaking Air—
An inexplicable force manifested around Bu Eun-seol's body, coiling around him like invisible, unyielding threads.
'Esoteric Ritual Arts.'
The moment that strange energy ensnared him, the Reverse Polarity True Qi circulating within him was instantly suppressed.
Without so much as lifting a finger, the masked man had sealed Bu Eun-seol's Internal Power.
"You martial artists always make the same mistake."
The masked man smiled ominously at Bu Eun-seol.
"You assume that with your martial prowess alone, you can overcome any enemy."
"'You martial artists'...?"
Finally, Bu Eun-seol understood the masked man's true nature.
"You're Neither-Human-Nor-Beast."
Only the Three Clans and the Neither-Human-Nor-Beast referred to martial artists as if they were some separate existence.
"Then again, who else but Neither-Human-Nor-Beast would target innocent civilians?"
The masked man's expression showed a flicker of surprise.
"So the Bullet King's disciple actually recognizes us?"
"And I also know you're about to die."
KWA-WOONG!
Bu Eun-seol flicked his finger, and a surge of internal energy powerful enough to split the world poured forth.
THUD!
At the same time, a spray of blood erupted from the masked man's wrist.
The overwhelming force had severed his entire hand clean off.
"How...? My internal energy wasn't suppressed?"
"I ask the questions here."
Goooooo...
Bu Eun-seol gathered another surge of energy into his fingertip, his voice low and icy.
"What is your purpose in turning innocent civilians into murder fiends?"
The masked man didn't even attempt to stop the bleeding, his eyes glaring angrily.
He had just understood—Bu Eun-seol was a master far beyond his ability to handle.
"We'll see about that."
Muttering darkly, the masked man suddenly—
Shhhhrrrrr...
—began to fade, his entire body dissolving like mist as he attempted to escape.
This wasn't a movement technique—it was an esoteric ritual art, a mystical method of vanishing.
Sssshhhk!
But he didn't get far.
Bu Eun-seol had already spread Water Essence Divine Qi across the surroundings.
"What... is this?"
The masked man gaped at the transparent walls enclosing him.
"Since when does the Bullet King's disciple wield such tricks?"
"If I have to ask the same question again, you die."
Bu Eun-seol extended his finger.
"Answer me."
"Hmph."
In an instant, the masked man crossed his index and middle fingers and thrust them skyward.
KWA-WOOO!
Yellow talismans burst from behind his back, scattering into the air—
WHOOSH!
—and as they ignited, the Water Essence Divine Qi sealing the area instantly dissipated.
Shwooo!
Seizing the moment, the masked man activated his ritual art again, trying to flee.
But it was futile.
KWA-RUNG!
A violet bolt of lightning struck down upon the fading figure.
This time, Bu Eun-seol had summoned Thunder Essence Divine Qi.
ZZZZT—CRACKLE!
Exposed to the terrifying force, the masked man froze mid-motion—then collapsed, dead.
The exposure had been brief, but devastating.
More than half his robes had melted away, and white smoke curled from his scorched body.
"So he really was a Taoist..."
Around the melted corpse lay scattered Dharma Instruments and talismans made from Pagoda-Tree Yellow Paper—
—all burning in thick, smoldering piles.
"They used Taoist arts to inject evil energy and turn people into Killing Ghosts..."
It wasn't entirely impossible to drive people mad with ritual arts.
Sects like the Mount Mao Sect and certain factions of the Unorthodox Path had long researched methods of controlling humans—
—combining hallucinogenic Extreme Poisons with spellcraft to damage minds and manipulate them at will.
Sssss...
But then, something strange happened.
WHOOSH!
The dead Taoist's body suddenly burst into flames, burning like dry leaves set ablaze.
As if dozens of Fire Essence Stones had been poured over him, his withered frame was engulfed in an instant.
Clearly, these people had some kind of failsafe—a mechanism to destroy evidence if they were subdued or killed.
"So even this bastard was just a pawn..."
—AAAGH!
Just then, a distant, agonized scream echoed faintly.
'Damn it.'
Bu Eun-seol suddenly remembered—the fabric shop owner, now a Killing Ghost, had already left this place.
He shot forward.
SWISH! CRACK!
Arriving at the village where the scream had come from, he found the transformed shop owner slaughtering indiscriminately.
'If I subdue him, he'll commit suicide immediately.'
Unable to think of another way, Bu Eun-seol hesitated only a moment before unleashing a rapid barrage of Finger Wind strikes.
CRUNCH.
With a dull, crushing sound, the fabric shop owner's arms and legs twisted grotesquely.
Sealing his acupoints would make him vomit blood and die, so Bu Eun-seol had shattered his limbs instead—just to keep him alive.
TWIST!
But the man, seemingly impervious to pain, kept attacking even with broken limbs.
'There's no way to undo this...?'
Bu Eun-seol bit his lip.
Subduing him would trigger suicide.
Leaving him unchecked meant more innocent deaths.
And there was no way to snap him out of this Slaughter Frenzy...
'Then this is the only way.'
His gaze snapped to the farming tools scattered on the ground.
WHUMMM!
Channeling his internal energy, he summoned the tools from the village warehouse—
—sending them tearing through the ceiling and into the air.
CRREEAK.
They twisted like strands of taffy before wrapping around the fabric shop owner's body.
"Ugh! Ugh!"
The man strained with monstrous strength, trying to break the metal bindings.
But Bu Eun-seol warped the iron, coiling it tightly to immobilize him completely.
'I'll take him to the Demon Hall—find the cause of this Slaughter Frenzy and a way to undo it.'
Just as he prepared to activate his movement technique—
Zzzzziiing...
A bizarre sensation prickled at his senses.
It was a strange, distant gaze—as if someone far away was watching him from above.
'Lady Man-wol...'
His heart skipped a beat.
This unmistakable energy, so vivid it could be felt from dozens of li away—
—it was none other than the energy of the Man-wol.