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A ground soaked in blood. A stench that stabbed the nose. A flesh-cutting aura wafting in from every side. The loud bawling of cattle. Mayflies and blood-flies flickering before the eyes and ears.
Dongpa Ridge was not a mere bandit den but a butchers’ village.
Yet Neung Je-gang could tell this place differed from an ordinary butchers’ village—not because no one was around, but because there were far too many people.
And not just common butchers with plain knives, but butchers who had trained in orthodox martial arts.
“Got guts, don’t you—climbing all the way up here just to die on purpose.”
The man who stepped forward held, unlike the others, only a tiny three-inch dagger. He was Yuk Cheon-u—the very man the horse-dealer and horse-thief in Quanzhou had spoken of.
Shaving the thick hair on his forearm with the dagger, he said,
“Is this even possible? A butcher with that kind of killing aura…?”
Go So-jeong, leaning her face out the carriage door, went rigid. She was utterly daunted. Yuk Cheon-u’s murderous presence was great enough to call him a true big shot.
“Wahahahaha! So you’re the one—the woman the horse-thief told me to hold onto. I see why that punk got greedy.”
“What did you say?”
Murderous intent flickered across Go So-jeong’s face that had been frozen in shock. When had she ever been called names like that?
“Wahahahaha! Now I can’t hand you over even if that thief comes back. Our people died. I’ll toy with you first so the families of the dead will have no regrets.”
Yuk Cheon-u kept goading her temper.
“Ho-ho-ho-ho! If I spare even one of you today, I’m not my father’s daughter.”
Go So-jeong finally snapped. She kicked the carriage door open and trudged forward, heedless of the blood-wet ground. Mud drenched with gore spattered her clothes.
“Cut them down! You—come play with me. Wahahahaha!”
At his bellow, the butchers trained in martial arts surged forward.
Neung Je-gang stepped in front of Go So-jeong.
“What are you doing?”
“That man is beyond you for now, Miss Go. I’ll take him—leave the rest to you. Majil can’t handle them alone, so watch his back.”
“Ah…!”
Go So-jeong suddenly wanted to lean against Neung Je-gang’s back. Wasn’t he taking the toughest foe for her sake? At the very least, he had proven he cared for her safety.
“No—what am I thinking…?”
She hastily gathered herself and stepped back.
“F-fine. Be careful.”
Whispering it very softly into his ear, she moved toward Majil.
From the woman who’d just been flaring with killing intent and bursting with fury, the switch was so abrupt that a chill ran up Neung Je-gang’s back.
“I didn’t do anything wrong… did I?”
“Wahahaha! A mere youngster dares bar my way?”
When Neung Je-gang blocked him, Yuk Cheon-u tensed—he had heard the tale: a flash in that youngster’s hand and a subordinate’s head had exploded.
But he hadn’t trained for just a year or two—and he had never yet bowed to anyone’s force.
“What’s your name?”
“Wahahaha! I’m Yuk Cheon-u. When you die, tell King Yama properly. Then I’ll have you reborn with the cattle I’ve slain.”
“You’re the second-strongest I’ve met. In courtesy, I’ll take your head cleanly—like the cattle you butchered. Come.”
“What? Second?”
Yuk Cheon-u bristled. He had scoffed even at the Black Alliance’s famed experts. No one had ever called him weak. He had even turned away those who came with bundles of gold to recruit him.
And now—“second”?
Sssk.
Yuk Cheon-u let the hand with the dagger hang loose.
Meanwhile, Majil and Go So-jeong worked together perfectly.
Thud!
“Urgh!”
Thud!
“Gah!”
When Majil stomped with Earth True Energy, the heap of soil turned red with blood sprang up, blocking the enemy’s sight—through that gap, Go So-jeong’s dagger flew and took throats.
Even trained fighters flinched when a dark-red wall suddenly appeared in front of them. The reckless ones who tried to break through it staggered, shaken by the force saturating the soil, and likewise lost their lives to her blade.
Just as True Fire Energy was no ordinary flame, soil infused with Earth True Energy was no ordinary dirt.
Clang!
There was something else that unnerved the butchers: even if they managed to slip an attack between the earthen walls, the man standing before them gave off a metallic ring as if he were made of steel, unfazed by the impact. Their blades—able to split a cow’s neck in one stroke—had never felt so helpless.
“Ke-ke-ke-ke!”
Majil was in high spirits. As he grew used to the method, he took fewer and fewer cuts. And behind him stood a fairy-like Go So-jeong, fighting at his side.
Unlike Majil, Go So-jeong missed no openings. Though she later trained formally, her fighting still bore the stamp of an infiltrator—strike at a weakness and render the foe unable to resist in a single blow.
Shwip!
Her dagger carved the air—
“Kyagh!”
—and a life vanished. That was her way of fighting.
Neung Je-gang breathed qi into the No-Mind Sword. It wasn’t for offense, but to block Yuk Cheon-u’s assaults.
His true attack gathered in his left hand—a mass of thunder-force. Without that, he doubted he could face Yuk Cheon-u.
Tension thickened. Nothing intruded between them.
“Wahaha! I’ll lop your skull off and make a chamber pot of it!”
Vmmm—
Yuk Cheon-u’s dagger shook violently, brimming with qi, poised to burst forth.
“Wahahahaha! Go!”
Kukukukukuk!
A storm of saber-energy howled out—far too strong to have come from such a small blade—raking to shred Neung Je-gang from head to toe.
“Damn it!”
He had miscalculated completely. He had expected Yuk Cheon-u to throw the dagger—a one-strike-kill throwing art like his own Golden-Bell Darts.
But this—this was no mere blade “aura” but a tempest of blade-force; not one or two arcs, but hundreds—thousands! What kind of dog’s-trick was this…?
To think he could block it with the No-Mind Sword had been arrogance. Of all the sword and saber forms he knew, none could withstand such a grand offensive.
“I may have to use the Death-Demon Flow today… Thunderclap is the only thing that might hold it.”
Neung Je-gang, too, crammed thunder-force into his left hand and crashed forward against the storm of blade-force.
Kwachchchchch!
KUAANG!
With a world-splitting detonation, all other clashes ceased; every gaze turned to Neung Je-gang and Yuk Cheon-u.
Neung Je-gang stared at Yuk Cheon-u like a man seeing a monster he could not handle.
“To think such a figure hid in a butchers’ village…”
Even the ferocious Thunderclap Heaven-Shattering Strike could not endure the storm; countless blade-arcs tore into Neung Je-gang.
He dropped the No-Mind Sword—struggling to block would only snap a precious blade.
Whap-whap-whap-whap—THUD!
The blade-force shredded him and then flew on, smashing the horse and carriage he had come in, before fading in midair.
“Chief—no!”
“Aaaagh!”
Majil howled and Go So-jeong screamed and collapsed at the sight of Neung Je-gang ripped apart and flung away in a spray of blood. She buried her face in the reeking ground and covered her ears, unable to look.
“It’s my fault. It’s my fault. Aaah…!”
Her sobbing soaked the field.
Tears streaming, Majil couldn’t move.
“Khk, khk, khk…”
Also blasted back and embedded in a wall, Yuk Cheon-u laughed.
From the youngster blocking him he had felt a presence unlike any other—subtle, terrifying, hidden in the ordinary. He had sensed it from the start.
So he had drawn out the art he’d been concealing—
The Empty-Spirit Seven-Saber Formula.
The strongest, vilest saber art—denounced by demon lineages and acknowledged by orthodox schools—a forbidden technique. He’d had no choice but to use it. A crushing urgency told him that if he didn’t use it now, he might never use it again.
“But still… khlurgh!”
Dark, clotted blood welled up his throat. Clumps of flesh in it told him there was no living on.
“Still… to die together?”
Urgh!
He felt there was no coming back. Even after using the so-called mightiest saber art in history, he had to die.
“That brat had golden—metal qi as well…”
He could only think that. Nothing else could stand against the Empty-Spirit Seven-Saber Formula.
“The horse-thief’s lust for a woman is what killed me!”
All he could do was curse his luck. It wasn’t even a woman he wanted; he was dying for trying to get a woman his kid brother-like friend wanted.
〔Oh? The Empty-Spirit Seven-Saber Formula, is it?〕
Then, in his dying ear, a transmitted voice spoke—a voice he’d heard somewhere.
“Y-you…?”
Yuk Cheon-u wondered if he was dead and seeing a ghost. Even as he faded, he looked where Neung Je-gang’s corpse lay.
Yes—the remains were scattered there. Chunks of flesh strewn with blood.
“D… dead…”
〔Not entirely. In any case—tell me about that Empty-Spirit Formula. You wouldn’t want such an ancient art to vanish here, would you?〕
“N-no way? The Dea—”
A dreadful thought struck him. If he was right—if it was true—then the world was ignorant: that the cursed art said to make one unable to die truly still existed.
〔If you mean the Death-Demon Flow, then yes. Now—feel like saying where the Empty-Spirit Formula is? You don’t have much time.〕
“Khk—khk! I’ve lost. Completely lost. Wahahahaha!”
Yuk Cheon-u laughed, suddenly seeming hale, unlike a moment ago.
Returning-light, returning-glow.
“Fine—let’s see it. Let’s see how you toy with the martial world using that. Wahaha! In the exact center of this building there’s a post for tying cattle. Knock it down—what you want is beneath. Wahaha! Uuugh!”
Thud.
With that, he said all he had and passed. The end of that brief clarity hit like a bolt.
“Brother Yuk!”
“Brother Yuk!”
The surviving butchers, elated by his booming laugh, then watched his head loll. As with their foe, he was dead.
“Wraaaaaaah!”
“We’ll kill you all! Wraaah!”
They needed something to take revenge on—a chance to vent the despair of lost hope. In front of them were the weeping Go So-jeong and Majil.
Majil also needed a chance—a way to vomit up the rage that filled his chest. Hadn’t Go So-jeong vowed to wash this filthy butchers’ village in blood anyway? He decided to fulfill that vow in her stead.
“Everyone dies!”
Vmmm—
Though Neung Je-gang had told him swelling flames was foolish, Majil felt his chest would burst if he didn’t.
Whoosh!
Thud!
The butchers’ village was swallowed by fire. Majil hurled flames everywhere as if to erase all trace the village had ever existed—at people, at buildings, at everything his eyes beheld.
“Uwaaaaaaah!”
He had nothing anyway. The vicious life he’d clung to since the Forbidden Demon Prison had only been extended because he met Neung Je-gang. If he died now, he would have no regrets.
He had only one thing—loyalty to Neung Je-gang—and even that had scattered to the wind.
His frenzy shattered the butchers’ will. Unlike Majil, they had things: families they’d sent to safety, money saved coin by coin from slaughtering countless cattle.
But if they died, it would all be nothing. With Yuk Cheon-u gone, they couldn’t throw their lives away for revenge.
Those with nothing need not fear death—Majil and the butchers proved it with their actions.
In the butchers’ village at Dongpa Ridge, the ones who would die had died, and the ones who would flee had fled.
When all was over, a rat of a man crept in, peering around.
The horse-thief—the very one who had set today’s disaster in motion.
“Wh-what happened here? Did an army attack?”
Staring at the smoking ruins, he looked dumbfounded. He had come to claim the woman he coveted, but the scene before him was nothing like what he’d imagined.
“Brother Yuk?”
By the collapsed wall of the slaughterhouse sat a slumped figure. He went closer.
“It really is Brother Yuk… Who could kill him?”
He couldn’t believe it. With him here, even the Black Alliance had behaved carefully in this place.
Yet before Yuk Cheon-u’s corpse, he felt no sorrow or pity—he’d never had loyalty to begin with. He’d stayed close only because Yuk was strong; now that he was dead, he was just meat.
The horse-thief looked around—and then, unexpectedly, he saw the woman he’d wanted, collapsed.
“Is she dead too? Damn. If she weren’t, I could have tried something—what a waste.”
He turned away, leaving the butchers’ village behind without regret.
“Uuungh…”
Then—a groan from somewhere.
He snapped his head around.
“What luck is this?”
It was a woman. A groan leaked from her lips.
He hurried to her and pressed his ear to her chest.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
Her heart beat strong.
“Haha! I really am lucky. Right—let’s get out of this stinking place first.”
He moved to lift her into his arms—
Whirrrr—
A strange sound came from behind. He turned—and doubted his eyes.
Chunks of flesh floated into the air, spinning like a whirlwind. From the ground—no, from under the ground—red blood seemed to gush up. It soon merged into one.
“Gh—ghost!”
Woman or not, he no longer cared. Unable to believe what he saw, he ran faster than he ever had in his life.
Tck!
But in that instant, a light tap struck the back of his neck, and his body wouldn’t move. As a martial man, he knew—someone had sealed an acupoint.
“Heh-heh-heh… The rat has come to the very place it will die.”
Someone stood before him.
“A g-ghost?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and played dead.
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