The Heavenly Killer Star
Ho-yeon moved his left hand with agonizing slowness, steadily depressing the acupoints in strict sequence: Sang-gok, Yeong-tae, and Cheon-chu.
Watching him struggle, Yu Cheon-ryong sneered, dismissing the feeble movements as nothing more than a dying beast's final, desperate throes.
"Look at what a pathetic sight you are. I truly didn't want things to end this way, but you brought every bit of this upon yourself, so what choice did I have? Don't worry, I won't grant you a quick, merciful death. I intend to peel away your flesh strip by strip, heal the wounds, and carve you open all over again until you're on your knees begging for the sweet release of death! Ahaha, hahahaha!"
"...Kff!"
Dark blood trickled from the corner of Ho-yeon's mouth.
Given that his body possessed a formidable natural resistance to poisons, the fact that a mere glancing scratch could incapacitate him meant this toxin was terrifyingly lethal. Beginning with his right arm, a petrifying numbness was gradually seizing his entire frame. Even shifting his fingers seemed an impossible ordeal, yet he stubbornly kept pressing forward, tapping one vital meridian point after another.
"Are you trying to stem the spread of the venom? Don't waste your breath. The poison I used on you is the Golden Thread Snake, procured from an unorthodox sect of the Southern Wilderness—a lethal concoction originally reserved for the Clan Leader of the Jegal Clan himself! No matter how many meridians you seal—"
Before Cheon-ryong could finish his gloating, a masked martial artist stepped forward from the shadows, murmuring in a grim, hushed voice.
"...Young Bureau Lord, those are not acupoints used for arresting poison. It appears he has another design in mind."
"What does it matter? The elite vanguard of the Black Killing Gate and their Master are all gathered right here. What could a crippled wretch like him possibly do? It is merely a corpse's final convulsion."
At last, Ho-yeon's trembling fingertips came to rest over his final target: the Je-mun point.
It was one of the forbidden Death Acupoints—a point where the slightest strike meant instant, irreversible death.
Cough, hack... I'd better pray to the heavens that these bastards are the only ones around here...
He drove his thumb inward with unyielding force.
The instant the acupoint yielded, a staggering, ocean-like torrent of internal energy rushed straight into his dantian. The colossal power roared through his meridian pathways, flooding every fiber of his being. The sudden, violent shift in the atmosphere did not escape the Gate Master, whose face drained of color as he screamed in sheer panic.
"Y-Young Bureau Lord! Stop him right now!"
"Stop him? Stop what in the world are you—"
"...Has it been ten years already? Your physical vessel is in a truly wretched state, Jeong Ho-yeon. Hmm. It seems only thirty percent of my true power has returned."
The man standing before them bore no resemblance to the helpless victim who had been succumbing to venom moments ago. He stood tall and unbothered, as though the deadly toxin had vanished into thin air.
Yet everything about him was fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong.
His eyes burned with a blazing, blood-red luminescence, resembling a feral beast maddened by an unquenchable thirst for slaughter. Even his cadence and tone had undergone an uncanny transformation—as if an entirely different soul had usurped the flesh.
"Was it you vermin who dared to reduce my body to this state?"
He merely cast his gaze upon them, yet an asphyxiating tidal wave of murderous intent crashed down upon the courtyard.
"Kugh...?!"
"Aaargh!"
Without exception, every martial artist present collapsed to their knees under the sheer weight of that suffocating bloodlust. Yu Cheon-ryong, who possessed no martial arts foundation to brace himself against the terror, rolled his eyes back and keeled over unconscious on the stone pavement.
"Still, it is thanks to your meddling that I have been granted a brief glimpse of the outside world, so I shall extend my gratitude. Though, I suppose it will only last long enough for three forms."
As the unbridled aura swept across the grounds, leaving the elite assassins gasping for air on the verge of madness, only the Gate Master managed to wrench his trembling chin upward, his voice cracked with horror.
"J-Just who in the hell are you...?!"
"Oho. At the very least, you seem marginally useful. Your caliber falls dreadfully short of the fellow I crossed blades with ten years ago, but for lack of better sport, you will have to suffice."
"What nonsense are you babbling...!"
Strands of Ho-yeon's dark hair began to dye themselves a deep, ominous crimson. The baleful energy radiating from his pores twisted and condensed behind his silhouette, coalescing into the towering manifestation of an ancient, terrifying phantom. The moment the Gate Master recognized that ghastly visage, a strangled gasp tore from his throat.
"T-The... The Demon God...?!"
The crimson-haired figure took a step forward, and the earth groaned beneath his boots like a fault line splitting open.
With every measured stride, the fabric of the surrounding space vibrated violently, bearing down upon every living creature like an invisible mountain. The Gate Master, the only man who had desperately clung to his dignity, finally had his face slammed into the dirt, shivering uncontrollably as his composure shattered into pieces.
"S-Stop... S-Spare me...!"
In the days when Ho-yeon was raised by his six eccentric masters, this primordial power had broken free of its shackles exactly once.
The calamity unleashed on that day was unspeakable.
It had required the combined, all-out assault of all six grandmasters, fighting relentlessly for an entire double-hour, before they could barely subdue the rampaging boy. At the time, Ho-yeon had been merely fifteen years old.
Looking down at the battered, unconscious youth, Paeng Dae-san had spoken with a furrowed brow.
"Brother Jegal. Is there a flaw within the seal? The lad had been doing so well until now, so why did this happen...?"
"...The seal did not weaken. On the contrary, since all of us have taken turns guiding his meridians to suppress the Heavenly Killer Star, the matrix itself should have remained intact."
The Heavenly Killer Star.
A destined vessel of celestial calamity, born under the cursed fate to wage eternal war against the unreachable heavens. Those afflicted with this celestial curse inevitably brought chaos, devastation, and butchery wherever they walked, only to meet a gruesome, horrifying demise in the end.
All his life, Ho-yeon had believed that his internal energy had been sealed out of fear that his Heaven-Earth Body would cause the pure orthodox and wicked unorthodox energies to collide, triggering a fatal qi deviation. But that had been a convenient fabrication. The true purpose had always been to suppress the monstrous nature slumbering within his soul.
"As time passes, simple sealing techniques will no longer hold back the Heavenly Killer Star. In the end, we may have to put an end to this child with our own hands..."
"Kugh..."
He was a disciple they had raised from infancy, no different from their own flesh and blood. The mere thought of executing him made their hearts bleed. As silence fell over the grieving masters, Cheon Jung-baek finally broke the stillness.
"I have a method. However... undertaking it will demand a grievous sacrifice from all of us."
Paeng Dae-san grabbed his shoulders, his voice desperate.
"To hell with the price, just spit it out already!"
"We must take over eighty percent of our own lifetime cultivations and seal them directly into his body. While binding such immense power inside him will inevitably feed the Heavenly Killer Star and make it stronger, the sheer weight of our combined cultivation will guarantee that the seal will never unravel on its own."
It was the only viable salvation available to them.
Yet even so, an agonizing dilemma remained.
Namgung Jung-hyeok gathered the unconscious boy into his embrace, his voice trembling with sorrow.
"If we proceed as you propose, the seal will indeed hold firm. But doing so means Ho-yeon will never be able to cultivate internal energy of his own ever again. He may very well have to live out his days as an invalid..."
The masters hesitated once more. Condemning a martial artist to live as a cripple was a fate worse than death.
"You need not worry on that account. Because his body will be anchored by our vast cultivation, he will merely be barred from gathering new energy; he will not wither into an invalid."
Eon Baek-jung, who had been listening in brooding silence, raised a sharp counterpoint.
"And what happens when he faces mortal peril? If he ventures into the world stripped of internal power, he will surely be slaughtered. If that is to be his fate, we might as well end it here with our own—"
"There is no need for such drastic measures, brother Eon."
It was Dang San-un who cut in with a cool, measured tone.
"The fact that our internal energy is sealed within him means that, under the right conditions, he can draw upon it. Of course, he will never be able to access it under normal circumstances, which is why I shall teach him a forbidden acupoint sequence."
Dang San-un demonstrated the precise sequence along Ho-yeon's body, his fingers coming to a halt over the final, lethal death point.
"...The catch is that every single time he taps into that sealed power, the Heavenly Killer Star will claim dominion over his flesh. The duration of that possession will depend entirely on how much energy is released. We must drill it into his skull: unless he stands on the very precipice of death, he must never, under any circumstances, unseal this power."
In all the years since that day, Ho-yeon had unleashed that forbidden seal only twice.
The first time was a decade ago, locked in a desperate duel against a monster from the Demonic Cult.
And the second time was happening right now.
"Cowering in terror already? How dreadfully dull. It seems the rest of you garbage are cut from the identical cloth. Since my time in this world grows short, allow me to grant you a brief, parting spectacle."
With a languid flick of his finger, a sword lying abandoned dozens of paces away broke free from the blood-soaked earth, hurtling across the courtyard straight into his waiting grasp.
A sinister, crimson-black vapor coiled violently around the steel. Unlike ordinary sword qi that flickered like fragile flames, the entire blade crystallized into a radiant, solid construct of pure energy.
"S-Sword Astral Qi...!" the Gate Master gasped, his pupils dilating in pure disbelief.
The crimson-haired sovereign kicked off the shattered stones, launching himself high into the open sky. As he raised the weapon toward the heavens, the crimson blade of astral qi expanded into an enormous, sky-cleaving pillar of destructive light.
A smile steeped in pure, unadulterated madness touched his lips.
Fifth Form: Utter Annihilation
He brought the blade crashing down.
A cataclysmic crescent of astral energy descended, devouring everything in its path.
The shockwave ripped the world apart with a deafening roar. Earth, stone, flesh, and bone were erased in a violent vortex of crimson destruction. When the apocalyptic dust finally began to settle, the entire courtyard was reduced to a scorched, desolate crater where not a single foe remained whole.
Ho-yeon drifted down, his boots touching the smoking rubble with effortless grace.
"...Is my time already up? Hey, you lurking behind the debris."
Amidst the smoldering devastation, nothing seemed to move.
"I deliberately spared your corner from the strike, so do not play the fool. Show yourself, or I will extinguish your breath where you stand."
From beneath a collapsed section of the wooden wall where no one ought to have survived, a slender figure emerged, stepping gingerly across the pulverized bricks.
It was the fragile young porter whom Ho-yeon had gifted a dagger during their escort mission.
"I believe I have seen your face before," the crimson-haired avatar muttered, tilting his head.
"...You have. Does that mean... you are not the gentleman I know?"
"Well, I suppose I am him, yet at the same time, I am not. But that is of little consequence. What matters now is..."
The ominous crimson aura clinging to his skin began to evaporate like morning mist, and his vision blurred at the edges. Strands of his vibrant red hair were already bleeding back into their original, lackluster black.
"Tsk... It seems my time is truly exhausted. Hey, take this."
A heavy object hit the dirt with a dull thud.
It was the pouch filled with gold that Ho-yeon had swindled from the Jegal Clan.
"In a few moments, this vessel will lose consciousness and collapse. It will take quite a while for him to wake up. Take that gold, and keep Jeong Ho-yeon safe."
"Wait, what are you talking—"
Before Seon-yu could finish her question, his legs buckled beneath him, and he slammed face-first into the dust.
"Excuse me...? Mister...?"
In a rundown, decrepit inn so deserted that not a single patron darkened its doors, Ho-yeon lay sprawled across a cot in an upstairs room, lost in an unyielding slumber.
The creak of the wooden door broke the silence as someone slipped inside with quiet, tentative steps.
It was Seon-yu.
She pulled a stool beside the bed, settling down with a weary sigh as she stared at his peaceful, bruised countenance.
"Just when... are you ever going to wake up...?"
At that very second, the corpse-like figure bolted straight upright like an uncoiled spring, thrashing wildly as an ear-splitting howl tore from his throat.
"AUUUUUUUGHHHHHH!"
Caught entirely off guard, Seon-yu shrieked in mortal terror, losing her balance and tumbling backward off the stool.
"KYAAAAAAAH!"
Her skull met the hardwood floorboards with a resounding, hollow smack.