The Start Of The Cleanup (7)

“Huff, huff!”

Gu Hee’s face had gone deathly pale as she hurried along.

By contrast, her body was soaked with sweat. Damp wisps of hair clung to her brow and cheeks, trembling in fear with their owner.

‘I have to run! I have to run!’

The extremity of fear made her limbs creak.

Terror that felt like it would stop her heart made her usually flexible body horribly stiff.

They say people gain superhuman strength when engulfed by fear. Gu Hee believed it. She had to believe it. If she could run through the hills even with her body locked up like this, then terror did draw out hidden strength.

How long did she run like that?

“Sis! Sis!”

“Huff, huff!”

At Gu Hyeon’s cry, Gu Hee came to and turned her head.

He too was gasping for breath. She didn’t realize it, but he looked much the same as she did.

“F, foot’s strange! Wait!”

“Endure it! Right now we run…!”

“Not mine, yours!”

Only then did she realize her right ankle was swollen. She had twisted it completely while running in fright.

“W, with your foot like that, you won’t have speed. Quickly…!”

Gu Hee hurriedly tended to her ankle.

A stab of pain broke out. The bone didn’t seem broken, but the joint felt almost turned.

It was no wonder she had no speed, she’d run unaware in this state. She tried to draw up internal energy somehow to drain the swelling.

Naturally, it didn’t go well.

Qi has restorative power, but if you flood it without proper control, over-restoration can necrotize the wound. Too much is as bad as too little applies to True Qi as well.

In short, it required fine control. And she was in no state to manipulate her Qi delicately.

The more she poured in, the more it tangled and worsened the pain.

As the pain sharpened, so did her fear. Even now the demon was closing the distance.

‘No! It’d be better that I cut it off, there’s no more time to waste!’

Gu Hee and Gu Hyeon had seen with their own eyes that demons existed in this world.

He truly was a demon. Many had been called demons in Murim history, but the one they saw was a different kind of mad fiend entirely.

He turned Dark-Death Blade, Yeom Ho, the Black Bamboo Fort’s second-in-command, said to be no worse than the Fort Master in martial skill, into thick slabs of meat. The match ended in merely three exchanges.

The first strike showed the gap in strength, the second lopped off Yeom Ho’s wrist, and the third severed his ankle, putting the party’s top expert out of the fight.

But the demon did not leave the disabled alone.

He wielded dozens of blades. With a single swing, dozens of edges seemed to sprout and slice Yeom Ho apart indiscriminately.

It was a calm cooking.

That was the only way Gu Hee could describe it. The demon ‘cooked’ Yeom Ho. It looked no more troublesome than chopping vegetables and slicing meat.

The calm process of turning a man into a lump of blood was very brief, but the cuts he left behind gave everyone heart-stopping terror.

Her memories after that were hazy. She thought she’d screamed to block him, but the more she tried to recall, the more it broke apart like a fragmenting dream.

In the end she could only abandon the Fort’s warriors and flee with her brother. Gu Hee was a martial artist who had learned to fight people. She had never learned how to face a demon.

In any case, fleeing was the right act. She believed that, and her younger brother likely thought no different.

“Sis! Fix it, now!”

“I-it won’t work.”

“Damn it! If you keep wasting time, I’m going ahead!”

They were shocking words, but she had no room to feel betrayed by her own brother. Only sheer, crushing urgency pressed on her chest..

“No! We go together!”

“Damn it!”

Gu Hyeon shook off her hand and ran first. Despair rose on Gu Hee’s face.

It was then.

Seogeok. Kwaang!

“Graaah!”

With his ankle neatly severed, Gu Hyeon fell on the spot and smashed his face into the ground. His nose bone broke and two front teeth flew.

“!!”

Gu Hee’s face went ashen-black.

Before she knew it, the demon stood in front of Gu Hyeon, blade hooked over his shoulder for show.

“It may not be my place as the one chasing you, but even so, thinking of abandoning your own flesh and blood to run away can hardly be called human.”

“Huuk!”

His calm voice was all the more terrifying.

“I was told to capture you all alive if possible, but depending on the case, life and death is left to me.”

“S-spare…!”

“The moment you cast off your sister, you died as a person.”

Flash!

Gu Hyeon’s head fell.

Flicking the blood from his blade, Han Cheol-sang spoke blandly,

“The dead ought to act like the dead.”

Gu Hee sank down where she was without realizing it.

“P, please spare me.”

Han Cheol-sang stared at her in silence.

Her breathing grew more ragged, the irregular huffing like someone with a lung ailment.

“P, please, spare me.”

Jureureuk.

In her extreme terror, Gu Hee even wet herself. It was a sight almost excessively pitiful.

Inwardly, Han Cheol-sang was speechless.

Even if Sichuan’s standard was lower than that of other regions, he still could not fathom how an heir of the Eight Martial Houses, said to represent Sichuan’s Murim, could be reduced to such a state.

Realizing anew how soft those from the Eight Houses were, he sighed and leveled his blade at her.

She made a dying gasp. Just being aimed at made her skin prickle.

He hadn’t meant to kill her anyway, but the sight killed even his will to fight.

Puk!

A formless force shot from the blade tip and pressed Gu Hee’s paralysis point.

As paralysis took her in an instant, she was again aghast at the demon’s martial arts.

Force from a blade is by nature extremely sharp, resembling its form. Using such force to press meridians requires an understanding on another level.

The thought that the demon before her would not lose even against those orthodox masters called the strongest in the Kangho appeared in Gu Hee’s mind.

Seureung.

Sheathing his blade, Han Cheol-sang folded his arms and leaned on a tree.

He’d meant to press the knock-out point as well, but there was no need as she fainted almost as soon as her paralysis point was struck.

How long did he wait like that?

“Finished?”

He looked up to find Jin-hyeon approaching. Pushing off the tree, Han Cheol-sang bowed his head.

“You’ve worked hard.”

“You had to work harder because of me.”

“The Abundant Prosperity Guild Master and the Divine Spear House Master?”

“Yeah.”

“How did it go?”

“Turns out they were drinking buddies. I sent them to a tavern in the afterlife.”

“So you’ve sent them to share a fine drink together in the afterlife.”

Jin-hyeon glanced at Gu Hyeon’s corpse.

“And this one’s dead?”

“Yes.”

Han didn’t offer excuses. There were none to offer.

Jin-hyeon nodded.

“Right. Good work.”

It was a feeling ill-suited to someone who had just come back from killing, but Han Cheol-sang was a little moved by Jin-hyeon’s demeanor.

It wasn’t that he was colder or more fearsome than expected. The dead Gu Hyeon was the Guild Master’s son. Even if they meant to clean the Eight Houses, killing a house head’s child outright could be trouble.

Yet Jin-hyeon offered no reproach, only words of ‘good work.’ Words and conduct impossible without thorough trust.

He decided not to dwell on it, but Han still didn’t know what Jin-hyeon saw in him to give such trust.

“And this one fainted?”

“She saw me kill the Black Bamboo Fort’s Second Fort Master and was terrified. She’s been in fear since.”

“It’s probably not because Yeom Ho died, but because of the martial arts that killed him.”

“…”

“You kneaded him with Life-Snatching.”

Han started in surprise.

“H, how did you know?”

“The Heaven-Shattering Saber has immense single-strike power, but it isn’t a cruel saber art. In pure killing method and savagery, it can’t match the Life-Snatching Saber.”

“Not that!”

Han tensed without meaning to.

“You knew of my martial art?”

“…”

Jin-hyeon looked at him quietly and nodded.

“Yeah. I knew.”

“H, how do you know? The Life-Snatching Blood Saber isn’t known to the world.”

It seems the combination of Life-Snatching Saber and Heaven-Shattering Saber is called the Life-Snatching Blood Saber.

Jin-hyeon found the name fitting. Having learned both the Life-Snatching Demon Lord’s art and the Blood Saber Demon Lord’s, melding their titles was natural.

“Because I couldn’t help but know.”

“Don’t tell me… you knew I was a descendant of the Divine Saber Sect as well?”

“The Black Society’s compiled info on Mad Demon. The name ‘Divine Saber Sect’ is mentioned there. I thought you might be of it from that, but wasn’t sure. The sect itself is obscure to begin with.”

“I suppose. Even knowing the Divine Saber Sect, you couldn’t know the Life-Snatching Blood Saber. It’s a sealed killing art.”

“Quite a complicated sect.”

Wariness rose on Han’s face.

“You knew about me from the start?”

“The start? You mean when we ate dumplings? Sorry, but no. Until I fought you, I only thought you had an unusual past, I knew nothing of Mad Demon or the Divine Saber Sect.”

“Then how do you know the Life-Snatching Blood Saber?”

“Because I saw that art myself.”

“?!”

“And fought against it.”

“…That’s impossible.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s not! The Life-Snatching Blood Saber…!”

“It’s possible, because I’m the one saying it.”

“?”

“You don’t get it.”

Jin-hyeon gave a wry smile.

“I could have lied to you. I could have feigned ignorance. If you were my enemy or a stranger, I would have.”

“…”

“But I don’t want to deceive you. So I show my sincerity.”

What this meant was ‘my words carry no lie, and I am showing you my true heart, so what I say is true.’

Han couldn’t understand.

“Why on earth…?!”

“You want to ask why? In that case, Brother Han, you are not seeing me properly. I like you, Brother Han. Whatever past you have, I simply trust you. That is why I have nothing to hide.”

His voice grew ever calmer.

“Is it important that I know a martial art no one else knows? Or is it more important that my trust in you is real and won’t waver?”

Han’s eyes wavered.

Confusion rose on the face that had been full of wariness.

“Brushing it aside like that… is cheating.”

Jin-hyeon chuckled.

“I’ve wanted to talk about this sometime. I was watching for a chance, but I let ‘Life-Snatching’ slip out without thinking.”

“…”

“Just as well. You seem unsettled too, so to set the road ahead more firmly, best to shake things out early. Only…”

Jin-hyeon’s eyes, fixed on Han, did not waver at all.

“No matter how absurd the words I say, can you believe me?”

“!”

“If I seriously said I saw spirits, or lived a thousand years, could you believe me?”

Facing him with a troubled look, Han soon sighed.

“Then would I not?”

“…”

“No matter how clumsy I am, I don’t make a fool of someone who respects me and strives for me. Patriarch saw me not as a killer, but as someone with a story.”

“…”

“I know better than anyone how hard that is for anyone.”

Jin-hyeon smiled.

“Thanks for saying that.”

“Alright. Let’s talk inside. First we should take this lady with us, what will you do next?”

“Begin cleaning the Eight Martial Houses. Which is why this is better. Hard work will pile up for you too, so we should clear what we must between us first.”

“…”

“Shall I carry her?”

“Go ahead.”

“Let’s go.”

“…I’m the one carrying?”

“I am the Patriarch, after all.”

“Bloody hell.”

Han couldn’t even spare a regretful word for the fact that Gu Hee had wet herself.