The Shadowless Old Monster's Madness
The night was bright under the moon.
Corpses lay scattered everywhere across the ruined tower.
A blood-soaked stench rose from the tips of the countless spears and blade fragments stuck into the bodies, vibrating through the air.
“…So, you want to become a vampire?”
The man with the sword spat out one sentence.
The white-haired old man, disheveled and facing him, shook his head with an exaggerated expression.
“Aah, what a shame! You said ‘ghost’! Vampire Lord! Vampire God! How many wonderful words there are!”
“…?”
“Wait, wait. Considering the moniker ‘ghost’ or ‘Taoist ghost’ also exists… in terms of how it handles the realm like a ghost, the word ‘vampire’ isn’t so bad, is it?! It’s actually quite good!”
“Have you gone mad again?”
“Shut up and listen! Where did I leave off? Ah, right! Revival!”
In an instant, the old man changed his expression several times, then burst into a manic laugh. His eyes sparkled as he stared at the man and muttered.
“Even if you take an internal injury, as long as there’s surplus blood, you’ll recover immediately! The explosive power of bursting blood in the same inner energy is several times greater! When you spill blood outside your body, all kinds of abilities erupt! How magnificent my creation is…”
“Still just some common trash, though.”
“Eek! You call me trash! I kidnapped three hundred talented children and experimented on them, and I also captured and high-strung monks from the Mo San faction and the Jin Zhu sect! The reason every expert in Central Plains trembles is because of me!”
“Common kidnapping and murder.”
“It’s not common! What I did was neither kidnapping nor murder! I was creating a masterpiece! Still don’t understand?!”
The white-haired old man’s teeth gritted as he shouted.
Suddenly, the air all around vibrated, and the storerooms scattered around the estate that once housed the tower exploded with a boom. Dozens of skeletons poured out.
“These fools sacrificed themselves for my art! If you didn’t know that, then you’re even more pitiful! Right now, the greatest masterpiece in all of Central Plains is about to be completed!”
Clank, clank, clank.
The white-haired old man, fueled by rage, jumped around and left bloody footprints everywhere. His name was Yeom Ja-dan.
In truth, names didn’t matter.
He was the mad old man who topped the wanted list jointly issued by the Murim Alliance and the Imperial Court.
**The Shadowless Old Monster**
Leader of the notorious demonic group ‘Muyoungdan’ that terrorized Central Plains.
All his comrades were dead.
The mad old monster muttered while staring at the skull in his hand, mid-jump.
“It’s fine, it’s fine. Right? Even that stupid fool over there will understand if you show it right in front of him. He’ll get it.”
The purpose of the incessant laughter was one and the same.
The cliff with the collapsed tower.
A cave in the center of that cliff.
Inside the deep and vast cave lay a massive formation that could transform an ordinary human into a ‘vampire.’
“How magnificent and worthy of respect my formation is— even the stupidest fool couldn’t feign ignorance if he saw it with his own eyes! Right?”
The blood-soaked stench vibrated all around.
Hundreds of talismans soaked in blood and hundreds of children and monks who had been tortured to death just before entering the cave below the cliff.
Their resentful energy wafted from all directions.
“All right, I’ll spare you specially! After you see the vampire born to rule Central Plains, you can die! Hehehehehe!”
A few steps toward the cliff, then—
“…But.”
He turned his head sharply toward the man.
A look of suspicion suddenly appeared on his face.
“Why have you been silently listening to my story? Thinking about it, I know your name. You’re the Imperial Court’s mad dog who doesn’t understand a single word from the Black Dao faction.”
“…?”
The man stood silently with the sword in his hand.
The moment the old monster’s gaze shifted from him to somewhere in the bushes beside the tower—
“Run━━!”
The man shouted, then threw the tail end of a steel throwing dart he pulled from his bosom. The dart struck the old monster’s chain scythe and altered its trajectory toward the bushes.
Boom!
The little child who had been running swiftly from the shattered rock after being hit by the chain scythe.
“…Ah, one more left.”
“Run! Faster!”
“Hic!”
The only child among those kidnapped for experiments who had not yet died frantically rustled through the bushes and fled down the mountain slope.
The old monster chased after him like a snake, his chain scythe, and the man’s steel throwing darts that deftly changed direction every time.
Clang! Craaang!
In the midst of this chaos, the child who had rushed about so frantically had already become a tiny speck in the distance.
From somewhere below the steep slope.
At that moment, a loud echo of a desperate cry reached this side.
“Dei━in!”
“It’s still visible! Run quickly!”
“For the mercy that saved my life! I will never forget this debt across generations━!”
“You crazy kid! Instead of showing manners, take even one more step away!”
“Puhit!”
The old monster suddenly burst into laughter, sheathed his chain scythe, and began mocking the man.
“Hehehehe! Good, I’ll let that much go.”
The corpses scattered around the man.
Pointing at them with his finger, the old monster shook his head with a grotesque expression.
“But this is frustrating! After coming all this way and handing over over ten Imperial Court comrades I rescued, I end up with just one leftover material!”
“…?”
“Don’t you think that? If you had been a little stronger, not just this one, but all of your comrades and hundreds of children could have been saved!”
“…?”
“No, it’s not that! If I go down to that cave and become a vampire, Central Plains will belong to Yeom Ja-dan! And everyone who dies after today because of me will die because you couldn’t stop me! How about it, does it feel good?”
The old monster drew power while giggling.
The man had already thrown the steel dart to the ground and was slowly approaching the old monster with a sword in one hand.
“You’re not strong enough for me! You already know that, don’t you?”
It was literal.
The man who had earned the moniker ‘Shadowless Old Monster’ due to his overwhelming speed was, in normal circumstances, a monster that would have been impossible to catch with the man’s martial arts.
But.
“I’ll just chop off your limbs, so even if you die, you’ll die with the honor of seeing my vampire form for the first time… Kuk!”
That was the moment.
Fwoosh!
Something flashed past the old monster’s face from an entirely different direction.
The old monster’s expression changed instantly.
Realizing a small droplet of blood was dripping from his cheek, he fired a barrage of weapons in every direction, but—
“White Tiger Poison is my specialty.”
“What… what is this…”
“The poison that touched this guy’s blood—even the Murim Lord might not withstand it.”
The man muttered dispassionately.
“Dal was skilled at installing mechanisms. Even geniuses from the Zhuge family didn’t know the principles of these mysterious devices he installed everywhere. The only issue is the time it takes from installation to activation, but… once activated, anyone who doesn’t know the defense will die without knowing how.”
“…?”
“Seon’s specialty is his loud shrill, if anything. Once he starts, you can’t even tell with an elephant herd dancing beside you.”
“…Wait. Then you guys…?”
“Right.”
It was true.
The man hadn’t been silently listening to the old monster’s words only to help the last surviving child.
While his comrades were fighting noisily with the old monster, other comrades had been spreading mechanisms and poisonous liquids mixed with blood throughout the collapsed tower.
All those traps they had planted with full resolve for death began to activate one by one.
Dozens of arrows, poisonous fog, and iron wires tightening from all sides aimed at the old monster’s soles.
The tower that had collapsed, now spraying the scent of death toward the man and the old monster in its center.
“Idiot! If you do this, you’re in danger too…!”
“Today.”
Along with the man’s one line who was also poisoned by the old monster.
“We… all of us… came with the resolve to die together with you today.”
The life-and-death battle between them had begun.
***
The fight was fierce.
The vast estate that once housed the tower, as well as the shape of the mountain slope where the estate was located, changed by the second.
Flesh splattered, bones shattered.
Countless weapons poured from all directions.
Poisonous fog spread, veins pulsed.
In fact, in a one-on-one duel, the outcome should have been decided long ago.
The old monster was a monster among monsters, even when compared to the top three experts in all of Central Plains at the time.
“You’re dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Dead, you bastard!”
“Huuuuk!”
But the reason that monster wasn’t easily ending the man was because of the man’s moniker as well.
**The Imperial Court’s Mad Dog**
The reason the man had earned that moniker wasn’t only because he was unable to communicate with evil people.
In addition to poison and assassins, the moniker was for someone who didn’t hesitate to use lies, deception, traps, or cowardly tactics to eliminate evil people.
It was true.
“…Cough!”
“You, you crazy bastard! Let go! I’ll kill you! Hurry!”
Appearance didn’t matter.
If it meant killing one more evil person in the world, the Mad Dog of the Imperial Court was prepared to give his life.
In that sense.
“Mu-yeong… Old Monster, Yeom… Ja-dan.”
“Let go!”
In the present, having wiped out the most vicious and dangerous assassin group in Central Plains, the leader and the monster who had frightened the common people of Central Plains dying together with him wasn’t particularly scary to this man.
‘It’s a worthy enough cause.’
He knew that too.
That the world wasn’t filled with only good people.
But.
This old monster and the great evil he led weren’t the kind of evil that appeared often. In other words. The man thought sacrificing his own life to eliminate them was a worthy enough cause.
‘But the cave… damn it!’
In a situation where even this old monster would be hard to catch without full concentration, thinking about the cave was a luxury.
Deciding that, now—
“Come… let’s die together.”
“No! Why only me! It’s unfair! It’s unfair!”
Kwa-jik!
The dagger shot from the mechanism device through the abdomen of the man who had embraced the old monster.
“Why only me…”
“Die.”
Clack.
Using the innate formation he possessed and all the poisons and condensed mechanisms prepared for this moment by the best mechanism master, he chose a explosive death to die together with the old monster!
“They’ll all eat it…! Why, why meee…!”
“What…?”
“There are nine more like me!”
The man’s expression changed at the words that shot from the old monster’s mouth with a tragic face.
“But why are you only killing me, you bastardaaaaak!”
“That’s…”
“You idiot! Do you think I’m the end?!”
At that moment, the man saw the tattoo of the sun and moon, carved small behind the old monster’s wide-open eyes, suddenly glow bright red!
“Our cult… is…”
Flash━━!
The heavens seemed to flash.
Heaven and earth exploded.
***
His consciousness was hazy.
Day or night?
The universe.
Where was he surrounded right now?
‘Ah…’
In his foggy state.
‘That… what are you saying…’
The man’s consciousness kept chasing one place.
‘Nine more…’
The old monster’s words right before he died.
The tattoo of the old monster he had seen for an instant.
**Sun and Moon**
Did that mean there were more evil people as vicious as the ones we treated as great evils and eliminated?
‘Then… it can’t be…’
Not yet.
He couldn’t die yet.
He couldn’t allow those greedy evil ghosts to rampage across the world.
‘Ah…’
Evil is to be eradicated.
At some point, repeating the one thought he had always held sharper than any sword!
“…It can’t be!”
The man’s eyes snapped open.
And in that moment.
“Eh?!”
A strange sight appeared.
Until just now.
It had been right before crossing the Three Paths of Heaven after choosing to die together with the old monster in the life-and-death battle… where was this place?
Darkness.
Seeing a faint night sky in the distance, it seemed like they were not far from the entrance of the cave.
“Kuk.”
Pain suddenly arose.
More precisely, the man realized the excruciating pain drumming through his entire body and the fact that one leg bone had broken.
But… something was odd.
It was because the injuries from the fight with the old monster were surprisingly light.
The moment he had a question.
“Cough!”
The intense smell that stung the man’s nose enough to forget all the previous thoughts.
‘…Blood stench?’
He instantly realized.
The fact that thick blood stench was vibrating in all directions around him.
On top of that.
‘Wait, what is this.’
The coughing sound just now was completely different from the voice he usually recognized.
Not only that.
The moment he realized the fact, he started feeling the hand covering his mouth and then groping his whole body, and an unease began to arise.
‘My body… is it?’
The many questions that followed in a chain the moment the question arose.
‘How did the fight go?’
‘Did I survive?’
‘Did I die? In the afterlife? Or a dream?’
‘If that were the case, the senses are too vivid.’
‘No. I clearly remember my elbow and ribs being shattered, so why is my body so skinny?’
‘Is my body mine?’
‘At least it’s not the body I was familiar with until just now.’
The man, enduring the pain, groped his whole body.
Though it was hard to believe.
Even the muscle, the length of his limbs, and the sense of touch itself.
‘My body… is not it!’
Around the time he reached this strange conclusion, he suddenly found something in his pocket.
‘…The Fire Extractor!’
The man, still feeling like it was a dream, took the Fire Extractor in his half-doubtful mind and lit the fire.
Whoosh!
He finally saw it.
“…!!!”
Not only the unfamiliar hands and arms visible under unfamiliar clothing.
Hundreds of talismans densely attached to the cave ceiling and the eerie patterns scattered with crimson blood lines throughout the cave.
There was no time to be surprised.
A talisman attached to the ceiling above his head seemed to fall.
Pallak…
The talismans stuck to all around the cave fluttered like hundreds of bat swarms and flew at the same time.
The blood stains that had dried in the cave began to rise like living snakes and shoot toward the man from all directions.
Shuaaara━!
In this situation that was a dream or reality, the man immediately recalled.
‘Impossible.’
The words before the life-and-death battle with the old monster.
In other words.
The story of the cave on the cliff where the formation to turn entrants into vampires had been completed.
‘This is where… that vampire…’
That was the moment.
Tadak!
As the talismans flying from the closest range stuck to the man’s entire body, the blood lines writhing around him shot toward the man’s nose and mouth.
“Kraaaa!”
The blood lines spread throughout his entire body.
Following that path, the inner energy of his whole body boiled, and then, in resonance, it began to tremble slightly in his dantian.
Along with that, the bones throughout his body shattered.
Udukdok!
The man’s mouth opened wide with the pain.
But.
This was just the beginning.
After the attached talisman disappeared in red smoke in the air, other talismans from behind flew together with the blood lines.
Pallak, pallak, pallak, pallak!
The same process repeated.
“…Kuaaaaaaaaah!”
As the excruciating pain grew stronger than before, the man’s consciousness began to fade as he roared.
Thud.
Just before losing consciousness, he felt.
A strange sensation with its head raised from somewhere in his dantian.
“-nim!”
The voice of an unfamiliar person faintly heard from outside the cave.
“Where are you, young master!”
[Movement/form description]