The Slaughter
They kept coming.
Like waves crashing endlessly against the shore.
One wrong move and I would be swept away by that violent, merciless tide.
Crack! Thud!
I shattered bones and struck vital points with precision. It was the closest thing to mercy I could offer—ending their lives without unnecessary suffering.
Crunch!
Twisting the neck of an unknown man who lunged at me, I let out a quiet sigh.
Anyone who felt no guilt at all would be the one who was truly mad. But there was no other way. There was simply no other choice but to kill.
‘There’s no way to restore them to their right minds anyway.’
I couldn’t feed the detoxification pills to this many people. Even if I could, there was no guarantee they would regain their senses.
The cleanest, most ideal solution was to grant them a painless death.
‘Tsk.’
I clicked my tongue as I looked at Muyoung.
His hands were trembling.
He couldn’t bring himself to strike with killing intent against the charging horde. All he could do was push them back with the flat of his blade or knock them unconscious with the hilt.
‘I really need to fix that man’s mindset.’
Of course, I couldn’t blame him for being soft. When the world collapses and every law, belief, and conviction that once ruled the martial world is crushed, only then can one truly understand.
I had already sent over thirty of them to the underworld. Yet twice that number still poured out.
“Hah.”
I was conserving my internal energy as much as possible, but even that had its limits. Forget internal energy—my stamina was reaching its breaking point.
This fifteen-year-old body, soft from lack of extreme training, simply couldn’t handle them all.
‘No wonder my brother nearly collapsed.’
In the end, the Sword Dragon must have cut down every last one of them. That was how he managed to return to the family.
Perhaps an even worse hell was unfolding deeper inside.
I had to harden my resolve.
“Muyoung.”
I called out to him quickly.
“Watch our rear.”
“……”
At my words, Muyoung reflexively turned his head. In that instant, his eyes shook.
The people he had knocked unconscious were staggering back to their feet.
“Their minds have already been devoured. Knocking them out won’t work.”
“……Then.”
“Kill them. We can’t save them anyway. We won’t last long at this rate.”
Moreover, the longer this dragged on, the greater the risk that Muyoung’s own mind would break. As a peak-level expert, his mental fortitude was strong, but slaughtering these innocent commoners would never leave him unscathed.
“I told you. If you hesitate…… I’ll be the one who dies.”
Muyoung’s expression trembled ever so slightly.
Yes, it was hard to steel oneself. But it only took one time. Once you gave up, everything became easier.
I didn’t care if they called me a hypocrite. What did it matter? Listening to the words of those who wouldn’t die in my place would get me nothing.
The true hypocrisy came from those who had never experienced this hellish situation, yet still dared to wag their tongues.
To survive, one must kill. That was the most fundamental principle of the martial world—the unspoken law that had allowed it to exist until now.
Crack!
Blood splattered across my chest. Before I knew it, over twenty of them had surrounded me.
It wasn’t a dangerous situation, but the blood I shed seemed to give Muyoung the push he needed.
Swish!
In an instant, Muyoung’s sword flashed like lightning. He cleanly severed an opponent’s neck, sending blood spraying as his sword aura erupted in all directions.
Slash!
“Beautiful.”
The color of Muyoung’s sword aura was a pure, clear blue. With his aura now surging, Muyoung stood before me and began unleashing merciless strikes.
‘The first time is the hardest. After that, it flows like water.’
Once he made up his mind, Muyoung’s eyes would no longer waver.
“Muyoung, we’re pushing forward. We need to break this formation.”
We couldn’t afford to be held back here. We charged straight into the village.
Doors burst open from all sides as people rushed out in a frenzy. Every single one of them had lost their reason, swinging whatever crude weapons they held with nothing but killing intent.
Rusty sickles, iron rakes, hoes. Axes and kitchen knives—none of them cared for their own safety as they charged.
‘So this is it.’
If the Blood Hand Poison Emperor had thrown the orthodox sects into chaos, then Sa-an Gwi-gun was despair incarnate. It was as if this were a rehearsal for the Blood-Soaked Night of Gwang-an.
The moment we reached the village center, I searched for the shrine.
‘Where is it?’
How many times had I agonized over this? How many times had I wandered the Central Plains trying to break the formation Sa-an Gwi-gun had set?
“Found it.”
I knocked down the charging villagers and walked straight into the shrine.
It was a tiny shrine. Yet the energy radiating from it clearly enveloped the entire village.
This was undoubtedly the heart of the formation—the core that sustained it.
The moment I opened the shrine door, the stench of blood hit me like a wave. It wasn’t just blood.
Inside the already cramped space stood a hill of corpses piled atop one another.
“Ugh.”
Muyoung gagged, finally grasping the situation.
“What in the world…… Who could do something so insane……?”
His voice trailed off. The most horrifying part was that every corpse belonged to a child. Severely decayed, bones exposed, rotting flesh and dark blood forming pools that reeked of putrefaction.
“Sacrifices.”
I didn’t know the formation’s name, but I knew its activation required the blood of children.
Grind!
My teeth clenched involuntarily. Even though I had seen this sight countless times in my past life, it was never something one could easily grow accustomed to.
Boom!
I toppled the statue of the martial god at the center of the shrine. It had begun to stain with blood. The formation hadn’t fully activated yet.
‘……’
At least one burden had been lifted.
Boom! Boom boom!
The shrine door shook violently as the mindless villagers finally broke through.
Clang!
I infused my foot with internal energy and stomped down on the statue. The moment the core shattered, the energy trapped within the formation twisted wildly before gradually weakening.
“Is it done?”
“I broke the formation. But we can’t restore those people to normal.”
“What do you mean?”
“We have to kill them all.”
“……”
Muyoung’s face darkened at my words. Still, it was better than before.
“The source of life within a person is called innate true qi among martial artists. Theirs is being drained, which is why they’ve lost their minds and are rampaging. Even if we don’t kill them, they’ll only suffer endlessly before dying anyway.”
“Understood, Young Master.”
In the end, we had to kill them all. I opened the door and began snapping necks, ending their lives as quickly as possible. Muyoung did the same. Silently, his sword danced with beautiful lethality, and with each strike, three or four people fell.
“Let’s move.”
Countless corpses now littered the path from the village entrance to the shrine. These were the people we had killed. We continued cutting them down as we headed toward the next village.
It seemed the entire island had fallen under Sa-an Gwi-gun’s scheme.
“This barricade.”
As expected, the path to the next village was blocked by a barricade.
“It looks like the family head built it himself.”
He wouldn’t have been able to cut them down indiscriminately, so he must have erected this barrier to restrict their movements. He had probably been searching for a way to restore them once he returned to the family.
Now I understood why the family head and eldest brother had chosen silence after returning from the Zhushan Archipelago in my past life. This was a problem too great to speak of lightly.
‘More than anything, this land……’
It was clearly Ju family territory. If word of this spread, the Ju family would be finished. In the worst case, even the imperial palace might intervene. The slaughter of children was a dangerous matter that could brand one a public enemy of the martial world.
Whoosh!
I increased my lightness skill speed. From all directions, the soulless charged at us.
Yes—the soulless. That was what I had called them in my past life.
Crack! Snap!
I broke and broke again. By the time the number of soulless who had fallen to my hands exceeded a hundred, the entrance to the next village came into view.
The barricade stood tall. But then—
“You again.”
A chilling voice sent a shiver down my spine.
‘The White-Eyed Killer.’
Sa-an Gwi-gun’s right hand, a man who wielded a troublesome assassination technique. He was here.
Slash!
Before I could respond, my body lurched. A sharp pain shot through my ankle. When I looked down, my calf had been deeply cut. It was a highly concealed throwing technique paired with an incredibly swift, undetectable sword strike.
“Young Master!”
Muyoung rushed over in alarm, supporting me while raising his sword and scanning our surroundings.
“This is the worst……”
A bitter laugh escaped me. Of all people, it had to be the White-Eyed Killer here.
“Don’t move recklessly. This guy…… is strong.”
That wasn’t the end of it. I could feel other presences from every direction.
“Hah, they’ve lost their minds.”
I recognized those energies. How could I ever forget? So that was why I hadn’t seen them until now—they had all been lying in wait here.
Soon, figures emerged from the undergrowth. Clad in dark black stealth uniforms, each bore the mark of a black snake on their necks.
“The Black Snake Unit.”
One of the forces under Sa-an Gwi-gun’s command, specialized in infiltration and ambush. They were death’s messengers who would pursue their targets until they were dead.
They gave no warning.
Swish!
Muyoung’s body swayed violently as part of his robes was torn away in an instant.
“Kugh.”
His pupils trembled. Even Muyoung couldn’t properly track their movements.
‘He still hasn’t fully recovered.’
He had been subjected to Sa-an Gwi-gun’s mental control before. Though the detoxification pill had expelled the demonic energy, it seemed he hadn’t completely recovered.
In other words, the situation was the worst of the worst.
“Back to back.”
I quickly shook off Muyoung’s hand and pressed my back against his.
“Don’t worry about the rear.”
The White-Eyed Killer and the Black Snake Unit. We couldn’t match their mobility, so we had to conserve our stamina and wait for them to approach. Muyoung seemed to understand my intent, drawing up his energy and regulating his breathing.
“They say a tiger gives its all when hunting, no matter how weak the deer may be.”
The White-Eyed Killer’s voice echoed from all directions. It was a high-level sound transmission technique, much like a shaman’s voice that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
“Will you tire first? Or will we fall first?”
His laughter seemed to fill the entire forest.
“Want to make a bet?”
I provoked him instead. The Black Snake Unit excelled at ambushes, but they were no match for Muyoung in a direct confrontation. Moreover, as assassins, they hadn’t trained in joint attack formations. If we simply held out, we would have the advantage.
Furthermore……
“Soon, a very terrifying person who will wipe you all out will arrive.”
Time was on my side. The Blood King would have noticed my absence long ago and would be rushing here by now.