Was it shock at seeing me deflect the dagger that had flown in an instant and take down one of the men in black?
The attackers, who had been focused solely on Tang So-wol and had paid me no particular attention, all turned their gazes toward me at once.
What their eyes held was unmistakable astonishment. It was hard to believe that a mere child who seemed to be only at the Age of Fifteen had taken out a first-rate martial artist—and an assassin who had struck by surprise—in a single move.
"…But Tang So-wol, why are you surprised?"
"It just struck me anew that if young hero Cheon had made up his mind, I would have died that day."
"Needless worry."
"Yes. Young hero Cheon would never do such a thing… right?"
Tang So-wol smiled faintly and suddenly struck out with the hand she had been hiding in her sleeve.
BANG!
"Kyaaaah!"
Perhaps he had sensed that he was in danger with his own skill. One of the men who had been slowly backing away clutched his eye and dropped his weapon.
It wasn't a Tang Clan hidden weapon. Just a stone fragment the size of a knuckle had lodged itself in his eye. Which meant he was still alive, presumably.
This wasn't an urgent situation, and the opponent wasn't dangerous, so that was enough.
"Don't bother with the small fry. I'll handle them somehow."
"Then I'll just deal with the big ones."
Letting out a snort, I stared straight ahead, and the three first-rate martial artists besides the assassin flinched. They must have sensed it instinctively—that they were no match for me.
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master, who had been watching for a moment, let out a low hum and waved his hand.
"I'll handle that young one. The rest of you deal with that Tang Clan bitch in the meantime."
"Hehe… We know your heart, sir, so how could we dare strike at your enemy first?"
As the hunchback spoke with a fawning attitude, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master drew his saber and spoke in a dry voice.
"I won't say it twice. There's no need to defeat them—just hold them back so they don't interfere with me."
"Yes, yes! Understood!"
The stiffened hunchback nodded hastily and moved away. Then, whispering something with the others, they all charged at once.
The moment I tightened my grip on the sword, determined not to let a single one of them slip away, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master had already closed the distance and was swinging his blade.
"Tch."
Instead of dodging, I stepped a pace closer—so I could bring my sword to bear before the force behind his saber reached its peak.
Clang!
The base of his blade struck the tip of mine and deflected away.
The gap in raw strength and internal energy was clear, but if I struck with my greatest force at the moment he was weakest, it seemed I could manage.
The problem was speed. It wasn't a huge shortfall, but it was a clear disadvantage on my side nonetheless.
As I gauged the gap between me and my opponent, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master opened his mouth with a faint smile.
"Young brother, you'll have to play with me for a while."
"I'm not interested in men."
"Don't be like that. Take this as well."
The saber flew at me without waiting for an answer, as if he meant to match my level—a pure exchange of techniques with no force behind them.
Clang! Clang-clang!
The sword and saber clashed, ringing out in loud, repeated cries. Sometimes the blade grazed my clothes, sometimes it left small scratches, but the process of trading blows was always the same.
When the Hundred-Kill Blade Master pressed in, I would cut at his weak points to break his flow. I'd try to counterattack by exploiting openings on my side as well, but I couldn't overcome the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's strength, and every strike was deflected away.
Perhaps he thought this would never end. Instead of continuing his attack, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master widened the distance, steadied his stance, and narrowed his eyes.
"You still look like a first-rate martial artist, yet your sword art is this refined… Impressive. It's hard to believe someone your age achieved this much."
"What does age have to do with the sword? A sword kills anyone who makes a mistake."
"That's true as well. I just feel regret. If you, young brother, are this strong, I can't afford to go easy on you."
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master's aura, which he had muttered with a sigh, suddenly began to swell. Soon, a murky heat haze rose above the old but well-maintained saber.
A saber qi glowing with a faint red light. The saber, bearing the symbol of a Peak Realm master, boasted a chilling sharpness just by looking at it.
"It's your choice, young brother. Please don't resent me for being heartless."
"Don't talk nonsense."
He had to kill his opponent, yet he didn't want to be resented. What a comfortable way to think.
A martial artist facing a life-and-death duel must not hesitate.
Unless one is willing to willingly offer one's neck, one must enter with the resolve to kill even if it means being resented.
With the intent of teaching that simple principle, I drew up my internal energy.
Woong—
The internal energy of the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art, housed in my dantian, raced through my limbs and hundred meridians like a colt that had slipped its reins. So fierce was its aura that a chill, as if someone had pressed a blade to my neck, ran sharp down my spine.
But it was fine. What kills a man is a sliver of steel that pierces a vital point. No matter how much it feels like death, one does not die from this.
If someone must die, it will not be me, but the enemy who stands in my way.
"What…?"
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master hesitated, taken aback by my changed aura. That was only to be expected.
Countless crossroads of life and death — kill or be killed. Faced with this simple question, I had always fought to survive.
It was at the end of that blood-soaked path that I reached the Transcendent Peak. And the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art was forged from the very essence of that life of mine.
Killing intent, in the end, is one's will to slay the opponent, channeled through internal energy. The stronger the will, the easier it is to move as one pleases, and the more ferocious the power.
When it came to sheer power, I could confidently say this martial art stood shoulder to shoulder with the ascension mental cultivation methods I had once so desperately craved.
However, the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art had one great side effect.
Just as those who cultivate the arts of the Dao and Buddha become gentle-natured, those who master the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art find their killing intent swelling until they can no longer control it.
But for me, this effect was no side effect at all. After all, the killing intent within the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art originated from me in the first place. Surely I could not fail to control a mere impulse like this.
"Hu…"
I let out a deep breath, focusing my murderous intent into a single point.
The killing intent, forged by a will that had once reached the Transcendent Peak, met the power of the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art and amplified even further.
A thin line of cold sweat trickled down the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's forehead as he took the brunt of it head-on.
"…So the young brother is a rather dangerous one after all."
"Me? That's rich coming from the man who drew his Saber Qi just to deal with a junior so far beneath him."
"Can't argue with that. Well then, let's see which dangerous man comes out on top."
A savage grin stretched across the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's face as he took a single, large step forward.
"Hah!"
The saber flew diagonally toward my neck. Its swinging speed was much the same as before, but the manifested energy would have multiplied its power severalfold.
No matter how much the Eogi Chunggeom reinforced the sword's durability, it wasn't enough to withstand Saber Qi.
If I met it head-on, I'd be cut down before I could last a few exchanges.
In other words, all I had to do was not let my sword touch his.
I stared at the rapidly approaching saber and stepped half a pace diagonally. My body twisted naturally. The saber grazed past my neck, drawing a thin line in the air.
It was a more threatening strike thanks to the Saber Qi, but perhaps my body had grown sluggish under the killing intent that gripped me whole. The movement itself was slower and stiffer than before.
On the other hand, I was pouring out my internal energy without restraint. Thanks to that, I could barely keep pace with the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's movements.
Ignoring the stinging sensation at my neck, I swung my sword. The blade, rising from below to above, aimed at the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's arm.
With his arm fully extended to thrust his saber, this was a strike he couldn't block. On top of that, I sharpened the killing intent directed at him and shot it toward his neck.
From his perspective, my sword must have seemed to target both his arm and his neck at once.
Any normal person would reflexively guard the more dangerous spot—the throat—but the Hundred-Kill Blade Master didn't.
His body flinched, reacting on its own to the killing intent, but he quickly realized it was a simple misperception and forcibly twisted the trajectory of his saber mid-swing.
The saber, which had missed once, now traced a semicircle toward my waist.
Forced as the bend was, both the Aura and the trajectory were as unstable as could be, yet it still carried enough power to cleave a person in two.
"Hoo."
I exhaled the breath I had drawn deep and focused my internal energy into my feet.
Phat-!
Forcing the energy out of my Yongcheonhyeol acupoints sent a sharp sting through my soles, but it let me shove my body forward as if I had been launched.
The distance between us was nearly skin-tight. Because I had closed in so close, instead of the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's saber, it was his arm that slammed into my waist.
Crack.
I heard something break somewhere inside my body. My External Arts were too shallow, so even a blow from an arm that had been swinging a weapon—not even a proper palm technique—left me like this.
Still, I wasn't the only one taking hits.
The sword that had pressed in during the rising slash had become a thrust, and it had pierced the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's forearm.
"Khk…! Get off me!"
Blood in his eyes, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's gaze flared, and he drove his knee straight up at my stomach.
Too close to dodge. So I threw my body backward, not resisting the impact but following the flow.
Thud!
"…!"
A sound like striking a drum made of leather. Even though I'd done my best to absorb the blow, my insides felt like they were being churned.
But the Hundred-Kill Blade Master wasn't in good shape either. Blood gushed from the hole the sword had left when it was pulled out, and his limp arm seemed to lack strength—the tip of his saber kept trembling.
Normally, he would have used Acupoint Sealing to stop the bleeding… but he knew it too. With only one good arm left, if he used it for Acupoint Sealing and left himself open, he'd be torn apart in an instant.
In the end, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master, with one arm hanging limp and holding his saber with the other, quietly stared at me.
"…"
"…"
There were no words. We merely exchanged glances for a moment, but that alone was enough.
As if we'd made a pact, our saber and sword swung at the same time. The sword thick with killing intent and the saber wrapped in Saber Qi crossed through the air without ever touching each other.
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master and I continued to forgo defense, focusing only on evasion and counterattacks. Each time, my robes were slashed, and red lines raced across my body.
It was quieter now without the sound of clashing blades, but the situation was no different from when we'd first exchanged swords.
However, perhaps because he'd been caught once already, the Hundred-Kill Blade Master no longer pushed with brute force, calmly unfolding his Techniques instead.
He aimed for the neck, feigned strikes at the wrist's artery, and pretended to target the heart before striking at the groin.
Every movement was thoroughly focused on vital points. The forms had grown cunning and vicious, yet for that very reason, they were the quintessential saber techniques of the Unorthodox Sects.
Familiar.
Wasn't this the same as me—a martial art created solely to kill people?
However, his saber lacked depth.
The previous Hundred-Kill Blade Master had lacked talent, and the current Hundred-Kill Blade Master lacked killing intent and cunning.
The martial arts born from those two hands… it didn't take long to see through them.
"That's enough. I've read them all."
"What?"
With my sword hanging toward the ground, I took one large step toward the Hundred-Kill Blade Master. The bastard kept his guard up while swinging his saber at my openings.
But I read that trajectory before it was even swung—through the killing intent he'd already released and the techniques he'd shown me so far.
I moved a breath ahead of him and swung my sword.
This time, it wasn't my clothes that got cut—it was the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's.
"Ugh!"
He sensed something was off and hastily retreated a step, but I didn't let it go, pressing the pursuit tightly.
His clothes were shredded, small cuts opening up as blood sprayed in every direction.
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master gritted his teeth and launched a counterattack, scattering an even more intense burst of Saber Qi, but the result remained unchanged.
Every Exchange they traded left a fresh wound somewhere on the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's body, forced him back a step, and steadily broke down his stance.
"This… this is impossible!"
Unable to make sense of it and backed into a corner, he seemed ready to make a last-ditch struggle. The Hundred-Kill Blade Master poured out all his internal energy, unleashing Saber Qi at maximum output.
The Saber Qi, glowing with a faint red light, swelled up greatly, enveloping the entire blade. The intent was clear — he would cut me cleanly in two, even if it meant taking a wound himself.
I threw myself toward the incoming saber without hesitation, a smirk on my lips.
"I've been waiting for this."
"What?"
To give one's all means to have no thought for what comes after. The Hundred-Kill Blade Master, who knew that meaning well, was flustered, yet he did not lessen the force behind the saber he had already swung.
As if vowing to himself that he would cut through whatever I had prepared in one clean stroke. But.
Clang!
Shwaaak-!
The sharp sword wind tore through my upper garment, and the tip of the greatly swollen saber qi sliced across my upper body… but the cut did not reach even an inch deep.
Because I had struck the flat side of the blade with my sword, which I had never once used to clash directly since I began wielding saber qi.
Naturally, my sword, having absorbed the full force of the rebound, snapped in half from the middle, but in exchange, I was able to deflect the Hundred-Kill Blade Master's full-power strike.
That was more than enough.
Thunk.
The broken blade pierced through flesh and cloth, just barely leaving a one-inch wound on the heart.
"Kuhuk! Huk… I, I…!"
The Hundred-Kill Blade Master grabbed the blade embedded in his chest, heedless of his hands being cut open.
He glanced back and forth between me and Tang So-wol, his mouth opening and closing, then collapsed on the spot.
As I looked down at the dead man with his hollow eyes wide open, blood began to drip from the long gash across my chest.
In an instant, my body was drenched in blood. Even a surface wound this large would cause considerable blood loss, it seemed.
Along with the flowing blood, I let go of useless sentiment as well, then sealed my acupoints to stop the bleeding.
Only after catching my breath did I look at Tang So-wol. Her condition was far from good.
She kept throwing something without pause, but it was all just pebbles. It seemed she had already exhausted all her proper hidden weapons long ago.
Perhaps even those stones were running short. Anxiety was seeping out of her expression and movements.
On top of that, the loose Tang Clan martial robes were soaked in sweat and clinging to her body, and she was gasping as if she might collapse at any moment. Clearly, her stamina and internal energy were both hanging by a thread.
Under normal circumstances, she could have easily taken down those kinds of foes… It seemed the absence of her poison art was more significant than I had thought.
On the other hand, the attackers who had been keeping Tang So-wol pinned down by biting in at just the right angles were relatively fine.
Five or six of them lay dead on the floor, but the rest had only minor injuries and no serious wounds to speak of.
But even that ends here.
Standing before the line I had drawn at the very beginning, I took my stance with the broken sword in hand. The attackers flinched in surprise as they realized I had taken down the Hundred-Kill Blade Master, but…
Perhaps they regained their confidence after seeing my tattered state. The axe-wielding giant who had been fighting at the very front shouted in a booming voice.
"Don't be afraid, look at his sorry state! He got lucky and beat the Hundred-Kill Blade Master, but that brat is half-dead too! Fight! We'll wash away our Karmic Debt and the Master's death with blood!"
- Raaah!
The attackers, who had been gauging the situation, screamed at the top of their lungs and readjusted their weapons. A hopeful atmosphere rose through their resolute Aura.
"Hmph."
Indeed. Among all of us here, the one in the worst shape was none other than me.
My clothes were rags, my whole body was stained red with blood, and my body, on the verge of exhaustion, trembled against my will.
My internal energy was at rock bottom, and my sword was broken, leaving only half of it remaining, so calling me a half-corpse wouldn't be wrong.
But despite all that, I didn't think I would lose.
I tapped the line drawn on the ground with the tip of my foot for no particular reason, then looked straight ahead.
Martial artists charging at me all at once, aiming for me. Toward those bastards, I spread wide the killing intent I had honed sharp.
"Come."