The Heavenly Slaughter Star
Jerdin cautiously extended his slender wrist. Cael slowly placed his fingers on that thin wrist, where pale blue veins were visible beneath skin so translucent it was almost eerie.
The moment his fingertips touched Jerdin's skin, Cael's eyes widened with a sharp glint.
‘Ha?’
The pulse of energy transmitted through his fingertips was far from that of an ordinary human. The blood flow, which should have been steady and rhythmic, thrashed wildly within the veins like a raging beast.
It was as if the energy was emitting murderous intent, seeking to devour its host's body. A violent force bared its fangs, trying to burrow into the tips of Cael's fingers where they pressed against Jerdin's wrist.
‘You dare try to crush me?’
Cael snorted inwardly and subtly summoned his chaos qi, pushing it out through his fingertips. As his chaos qi slammed into it like a wall, the rampaging energy in Jerdin's veins flinched in shock and shrank back into the depths.
With the energy suppressed, Cael could finally examine its true nature lurking within Jerdin's body.
And in the next instant—
‘To think I’d encounter this here…!’
Even after becoming the Heavenly Demon, had he ever been this shocked? Cheon Woo-jin, who had stood at the pinnacle of the martial world for ages and encountered every heavenly opportunity and peerless master under the heavens, was left tongue-tied in astonishment.
The identity of the energy coiled within Jerdin’s body—it was a curse and seed of calamity from the heavens, one that appeared perhaps once every few centuries even in the old martial world.
‘The Heavenly Slaughter Star…!’
True to its name, it was the star of fate born solely for slaughter and destruction.
The energy of the Heavenly Slaughter Star was sometimes called demonic qi, but it was fundamentally different from the demonic qi of the Heavenly Demon Cult. While demonic qi built up through human vices like greed or bloodlust, the Heavenly Slaughter Star was slaughter itself.
A horrific power that ceaselessly implanted impulses into the mind—to tear apart and kill any living being nearby, just by breathing. It belonged to neither righteousness nor evil, and in that way, it resembled the chaos qi Cael had created.
But the true reason martial artists both feared and secretly revered the Heavenly Slaughter Star was something else.
Though it turned people into blood-maddened killers as a side effect, its gift for martial arts was absolute. Even the Heavenly Martial Body—called heaven-sent genius and envied by all warriors—couldn’t match its speed in learning techniques and lethal skills.
The Heavenly Slaughter Star granted demonic talent: instinctively finding the optimal path to sever an enemy’s breath, perfectly absorbing and embodying only the killing moves of any technique seen once.
‘So that’s why this kid felt a sense of kinship with me.’
Cael curled his lips and gazed at Jerdin. The chaos qi flowing through his own body was an alien energy, incomprehensible to ordinary folk and unbound by righteousness or evil.
For Jerdin, who had suffered the Heavenly Slaughter Star’s mad fury his entire life, sensing Cael’s chaos qi must have made him mistake it for something akin to his own.
Cael slowly released Jerdin’s wrist and asked, “Jerdin, I’ll be direct. How many people have you killed so far?”
Jerdin’s narrow shoulders jerked at the unexpected question. Ella, waiting nearby, gasped, but Cael stared deeply only into Jerdin’s eyes.
“Don’t even think of lying. The energy inside you can’t survive without drinking blood. Every time you see a living being before you, the urge to rip out their throat and bathe in their blood must dominate your mind dozens of times a day. Answer honestly. Only then can I help you.”
Jerdin’s lips trembled. His half-brother had pierced straight through the horrific desires huddled deep in his heart.
From childhood, the devil’s whispers had echoed endlessly in his mind: ‘Tear them apart. Kill and drink that red blood.’
Jerdin had endured those nightmarish voices and impulses by locking himself away, terrified of losing control and becoming a monster that slaughtered the innocent.
He pried open his lips, bitten raw and bloody, and rasped, “No one…”
“Hm?”
“No one… I’ve never taken a life with these hands…”
Thick shock flashed in Cael’s eyes at the answer.
‘Is this even possible?’
In his life as Heavenly Demon Cheon Woo-jin, he had seen only one bearer of the Heavenly Slaughter Star. And he’d heard many tales passed down.
Without exception, they all became blood-crazed murderers, public enemies of the martial world, and met their ends torn apart by alliance or cult extermination squads.
The Heavenly Slaughter Star’s killing intent couldn’t be suppressed by mere human will. It was like holding one’s breath—inevitable, like gasping for air. In the end, it numbed reason and turned its host into a killing machine.
Yet this frail boy, barely over ten, had endured that horrific destructive impulse his whole life—without any cultivation method or energy control—relying solely on his mental fortitude.
‘A tough one. No, this goes beyond tough—it’s awe-inspiring. Because he’s young?’
The reason he’d confined himself wasn’t to hide from the world, but a desperate struggle to protect the world from the monster within.
‘Impressive…’
Cael felt a strange and immense interest stirring toward this little half-brother.
Left alone, Jerdin would eventually snap and turn the ducal house into a sea of blood—a historic killer. That must be why the duke had locked him in that tower with no stairs.
There were only two ways to resolve this curse: kill him, or control the Heavenly Slaughter Star’s energy.
But the problem was… in all martial history, the second method had succeeded only once.
Cael’s mind raced.
‘How to control the Heavenly Slaughter Star’s energy?’
First thought: the Taiji of the Wudang Sect, embracing all things and harmonizing yin and yang. Its principles, which birthed his chaos qi, might round up and contain that rampaging killing intent.
But the Heavenly Slaughter energy was inherently distant from Taiji’s harmony.
‘What about Shaolin techniques?’
Shaolin’s fierce anti-demon energy, crushing evil. But Cael shook his head. They’d once tried teaching scriptures to a Heavenly Slaughter Star bearer, but even that failed. It wasn’t true demonic qi, after all. He became the Blood Victory, a shame to Shaolin—a murderous rogue monk.
‘Suppression isn’t the answer.’
Then what? In the Heavenly Demon Cult’s Scripture Pavilion lay countless ancient arts. As Heavenly Demon, Cheon Woo-jin had pored over them all. Even he couldn’t master every one suited to the Demon Body.
One peculiar art came to mind.
‘The Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Arts.’
The Heavenly Slaughter Star was one of the ominous stars among the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gangs. A mad genius born under the ‘Heavenly Ruin Star’ had created thirty-six arts to control them.
The sole success in taming a Heavenly Slaughter Star—the founder of all modern assassin orders, known as the ‘Slaughter God Blood Heaven Child.’
Cael knew the Thirty-Six Heavenly Gang Arts that Blood Heaven Child had used. If neither Taoist nor Buddhist energies worked, only one path remained: hone the killing intent into the world’s sharpest sword.
An intriguing smile bloomed on Cael’s lips. He resolved to forge this pitiful, resilient brother into his secret weapon.
But ultimately, the choice was his.
“Jerdin.”
At Cael’s call, Jerdin looked up with trembling eyes.
“You asked why I don’t go mad, right?”
“Yes… Brother.”
“The answer is simple. I completely dominate and control the energy within me.”
“C-can I… do that too…? I’m at my limit now, Brother…”
Cael rose slowly and approached Jerdin, kneeling to meet his gaze. He gripped the boy’s bony shoulders firmly with both hands.
“You’ve endured hellish agony alone in that room your whole life to avoid becoming a monster. Your patience and will are nobler than any knight’s. I guarantee it.”
For the first time, genuine praise and recognition from another. Jerdin, always shunned and whispered about as ominous and gloomy, felt his eyes well up red.
“But mere endurance won’t save you from ruin. I’ll teach you how to control that horrific energy inside you.”
Jerdin’s eyes widened at Cael’s words.
“R-really…? You mean I can escape this hellish hallucination and pain…?”
“But you must decide.”
“D-decide…?”
“Everyone is born with a fate. Yours is just thicker and crueler.”
“Fate…”
Cael continued. “Your fate demands killing. So tell me—if you must kill, who will you slay?”
“Our enemies… I’ll kill those who become foes of the ducal house.”
Cael was inwardly surprised again. This child, bearing the Heavenly Slaughter Star yet never having killed, didn’t whine about hating it. He had accepted his fate.
‘To think such a kid exists.’
“Heh, good. But nothing in this world is free. If I rid you of your inner hell, what will you give me?”
It was a devil’s bargain. But Jerdin didn’t hesitate.
‘Brother can save me.’
He was certain. And that this brother wouldn’t mistreat him. Not out of family or brotherhood—expecting such sentiment in the ducal house was foolish. But having seen his eyes, Jerdin simply knew.
Thud—
Jerdin dropped to his knees. Prostrated on the floor, a resolute voice unlike any before emerged from him.
“Since you’ll save my life, Brother, I entrust it to you.”
Cael found the situation amusing and absurd.
‘One brother learns Shaolin arts, the other those of the world’s greatest killer. How bizarre indeed.’