"Mapokdan? Why would an assassin have that…"
Ever since the existence of Innate True Qi had been revealed, attempts to harness it had never ceased.
The most representative of these were the Latent Power Explosion-type martial arts frequently seen among the Unorthodox Sects.
While they granted a temporary explosive growth in internal energy and physical ability, they came with side effects—shortly after, one would collapse from exhaustion, or in severe cases, one's qi and blood would twist, leaving the body unable to use martial arts ever again.
Yet the reason people continued to learn them was simple.
They allowed one to wield, even if only briefly, a power that could never be reached through ordinary means.
Even when I created the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art, I had referenced several Latent Power Explosion-type martial arts. Thanks to that, I had gained the clue to explosive internal energy manipulation.
However, this only mimics the explosive power of Innate True Qi when it is triggered—it does not actually consume Innate True Qi.
If it did, one would face certain death, not just exhaustion or the loss of one's martial arts.
After all, these techniques are learned to escape dangerous situations by any means necessary—what meaning would they hold if they cost you your life?
But the Demonic Cult is a bit different.
When people are already learning demonic arts despite the side effects because they lack proper martial arts, what would Innate True Qi matter to them?
Except for the Heavenly Demon, Demonic Cultists are not particularly strong, but their terrifying aspect lies not in their martial level but in their burning desire for revenge.
Naturally, there was active research into methods of gaining immense power in an instant, even at the cost of one's life.
The Mapokdan is one of the Demonic Cult's secret arts born from that process.
Fundamentally, it is a pill that replicates the effects of latent power explosion-type martial arts.
However, its efficiency surpasses that of the original latent power explosion martial art by several times.
The reason is simple. Unlike other martial artists, they do not take it to survive—their goal is to land one strike on the enemy before them, even if it costs them their own life.
It truly ignites the Innate True Qi, and on top of that, it deliberately induces a Qi Deviation to harness even the backlash. That says it all.
They will suffer excruciating pain and meet an inevitable death… but until the drug's effect wears off, its power is certain.
And now. The two Slaughter Ghosts before me have, for some reason, swallowed the Mapokdan—the Demonic Cult's secret art.
Being a secret art, it must be difficult to produce, and even more difficult to hand over to outsiders, yet here they are.
Their Aura swells wildly. Their skin blackens and begins to die, and in their eyes, the blood-red light of Qi Deviation—a symptom of the condition—flickers to life.
Gwiyeong Sin-tu, startled by the killing intent that had been hidden now running wild like a colt that had slipped its reins, lashing out at everything around us, asked me.
"Hey. You said that was the Mapokdan just now? Do you happen to know what kind of pill those men swallowed?"
"It is a secret art of the Demonic Cult. You said the Assassin Valley had been tracking them on commission from the Demonic Cult… but perhaps the relationship is a bit more complicated than that."
"Here I thought this was all over, and now things are taking a strange turn."
Gwiyeong Sin-tu let out a sigh as if his head ached. His expression was somewhat weary, yet from his firmly shut lips, a resolute determination could be felt.
So I shook my head and spoke in a languid voice.
"Don't."
"And what does this old man look like he's about to do?"
"I wouldn't know about that, but people who have resolved themselves to death usually wear the same expression as you do now, elder."
"Hah, this young one knows a thing or two."
Gwiyeong Sin-tu let out a hollow laugh and settled into his stance. He merely bent his knees slightly and let his arms hang naturally, yet his presence began to fade to an extreme degree.
You could see him with your eyes, but it felt like you were looking at a boulder rolling along the valley floor rather than a person.
I was inwardly impressed by how much more like an assassin he looked than the Slaughter Ghosts of now, and I spoke up.
"Speaking of which, you said you were making a grave."
"That's right. Though it looks like this place will end up being my grave instead."
"If you manage to return from here alive, could you spare a few decent martial arts from among those you planned to bury in the grave?"
"Hoh? If I can make it back alive, I can do that much and more. I'll give you anything except this old man's martial arts."
"Your Light-Body Technique is certainly excellent, but what I've learned isn't too shabby either, so it doesn't matter. More importantly, is that a promise?"
"Fine. Not just the martial arts—I'll even throw in the map with the grave's location as a bonus."
"Isn't that only meaningful after you've passed away, old master? Anyway, it's settled, so please take care of that side."
"Hm?"
He pointed to the side. Tang So-wol and the Vice-Captain of the Poison Blood Squad were being pushed back little by little by the rampaging Slaughter Ghost, which had also consumed a Mapokdan.
"Could you help them out and deal with that one first? I'll manage over here somehow."
"…Will you be all right?"
"You already saw my skills earlier."
Gwiyeong Sin-tu hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Very well. Hold on just a little longer. I'll finish this and be right back."
With those words, Gwiyeong Sin-tu moved toward Tang So-wol with his signature footwork that seemed to glide across the ground.
At the same time, the two Slaughter Ghosts, staggering from the sudden surge of power they could barely contain, kicked off the ground simultaneously.
BOOM!
A sound far too loud for an assassin's martial art. The two, having kicked the ground hard enough to dent the earth, closed in with fierce killing intent radiating from them.
Their speed was incomparable to before. I hurriedly stepped in front of them and raised my sword.
"Where do you think you're going."
As if they had been waiting for that, a Willow Leaf Saber came slashing down diagonally while a Thrusting Sword shot forward in a straight line.
Without hesitation, one aimed for my neck, the other for my heart. Seeing their forms, I realized the truth.
They had only pretended to target Gwiyeong Sin-tu. Their real goal had been me from the very start. They must have thought they couldn't bring down Gwiyeong Sin-tu without first removing me from the picture.
I gritted my teeth and took one large step forward. Before their weapons could complete their swings, before the full force had settled into the blows, I thrust my sword upward from below.
My finely tempered red Sword Qi clashed against the Willow Leaf Saber's murky yet dense gray Sword Qi.
KWAANG!
Perhaps because so much power had been poured into the Sword Qi, the sound that rang out wasn't that of metal striking metal, but something closer to a small explosion.
A half-beat later, a recoil proportionate to that level of force traveled up the blade and into my arm.
Needless to say, had it been a moment earlier, things might have been different—but now that they had swallowed the Mapokdan, I couldn't win against them in a contest of raw strength, nor in the power of Sword Qi.
So instead of resisting the impact and bracing myself, I let my body go with the flow.
My body flew a good distance away. Because of the diagonal trajectory, my frame twisted and spun midair.
Thanks to that, the long Thrusting Sword that had been aimed at my heart could only pierce my side rather than my chest.
"Kugh!"
A fistful of flesh was torn away, but that was still far better than having my heart shattered.
I quickly used Acupoint Sealing to staunch the bleeding midair, and the moment my feet touched the ground, I kicked off the earth as if springing, snapping straight the knees I had bent slightly to absorb the impact.
I began concentrating the killing intent I had thinly spread out into a single point, gauging the rapidly closing distance.
These bastards were in a state where they couldn't control their own power, leaking energy profusely, and with Qi Deviation setting in, it was impossible for them to control their killing intent either.
As had been the case until now, predicting their trajectories by sensing the killing intent that brushed past had become difficult. If so, concentrating it all in one place was the right call.
Instead of releasing the seething killing intent outward, I converged it inward.
If everyone is born carrying Essence, Qi, and Spirit from the very beginning, and one's martial level is determined by how skillfully one handles them.
Then killing intent—which can intimidate others with a mere thought and even inflict internal injuries in severe cases—must be the most common and most unrefined application of Intent.
It was for this reason that the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art, by melting killing intent into internal energy, had come to possess power that rivaled other divine arts, and the denser the killing intent melted in, the stronger that power became.
…But the side effects would increase just as much.
The scent of burnt flesh brushed past my nose, mingled with the metallic tang of blood.
My eyes were fixed on the Slaughter Ghost continuing its next technique, but what I saw was an entirely different scene.
A hall engulfed in surging flames. Blood from the corpses covering the floor flowed like a river.
A vision dyed red—simply red—began to creep up from the very depths of my mind.
The day I lost Seol Ri-hyang, the day I lost Seomun Hwa-rin. The day I lost everything except the single sword in my hand.
Before the regression, Tang So-wol had advised me as I wandered lost before a wall. She said that what one holds in one's mind is the ideal of a martial artist.
But what I held was my own hell.
I kill because I want to live. I kill because I want to kill. I kill because I'm angry. I kill to avenge my comrades who were brutally slaughtered. I just kill.
It has been long since I forgot why I wield my sword. All that remains is murderous intent alone.
And my sword was perfected in this hell.
"Hoo."
A breath close to a short sigh. The red scenery that had filled my vision disappeared, and only the two Slaughter Ghosts remained, swinging their weapons with bloodshot eyes.
This time, I extended my sword toward the Thrusting Sword that came charging at my neck.
The Sword Qi wrapped around my blade had become even more distinct. Its Aura flickered like flames, and its color had deepened until it was dyed a blood-red so dark it resembled blood itself.
And so, the moment my sword struck the side of the Thrusting Sword.
Crack!
The blood-red Sword Qi gnawed at and burned through the Thrusting Sword's gray Sword Qi as it advanced, until it was on the verge of snapping the thin Thrusting Sword clean in two.
The Willow Leaf Saber flew at me with the force to cut me in half at the waist, forcing me to dodge.
"Tch."
I clicked my tongue and retreated, and only then did the Slaughter Ghost, startled, pull back his Thrusting Sword. Now I could see—he was the one who had been charging at me before turning around and heading for Gwiyeong Sin-tu.
Could it be that he'd taken fright? The moment our eyes met, the man shrank back.
That was a sight I never expected to see from an assassin of Assassin Valley, famous for removing emotion—especially fear—from its killers.
Perhaps it was because he'd fallen into a Qi Deviation and his emotions had run wild. If so, he was worth testing.
I drew up the killing intent pooled in my blood-red mental landscape in a single surge. It was a level that even I could not control.
If I could have done that from the start, my mental landscape wouldn't be so horrifying.
It wasn't killing intent sharpened like a blade as usual, nor focused on a specific person—just pure murderous intent poured out without restraint.
The eyes of the two Slaughter Ghosts, touched by the viscous killing intent that seeped into everything around it, trembled faintly. At their obvious agitation, I curled the corners of my mouth into a grin.
"What's the matter? Didn't you throw away your lives just to kill me?"
"…You monster. Who's the real Slaughter Ghost here?"
I swung my sword at the one muttering under his breath. He hurriedly raised his Thrusting Sword to block.
Right after, a Willow Leaf Saber swung in a wide arc came down, aiming to sever my shoulder.
But its speed was noticeably duller than before. Still faster than before he took the Mapokdan, but at this rate, I could manage to respond.
That was enough. Even if I couldn't read the trajectory through the killing intent surrounding me, I still had two perfectly good eyes.
The direction of his feet, the twist of his waist, the angle of his shoulders, and his gaze—all of it.
Just as I had dismantled countless martial arts before, this time I began dismantling my opponent's every movement to predict them.
It wasn't perfect, but it was more than enough to use right now.
Clang! Crack! Kaaaang!
Three blades collided again and again. Each time, the Slaughter Ghost's gray Sword Qi shattered like sparks and scattered.
Kill or be killed. In all those moments, I didn't need to be superior to my opponent. Wasn't it enough to simply overwhelm the instant our swords clashed?
Before his arm fully extended, I took a step forward to meet his blade, grinding our Sword Qi against each other—but the moment it looked like it would turn into a full-on contest of strength, I immediately pulled my body back.
From time to time, sword strikes I couldn't dodge or block left wounds on my body, but none managed to cut through muscle and bone.
I couldn't avoid the bleeding either, and my whole body became drenched in blood, but in exchange, I was able to wield my sword without retreating against the two of them.
The only problem was my internal energy, which was draining rapidly. It was about time I could no longer draw out my maximum Sword Qi like this.
"Kugh! This is…!"
"That poisonous snake of a woman!"
The bodies of the Slaughter Ghosts, which had been moving without rest, clearly slowed.
It wasn't because my internal energy was running out, nor because the Mapokdan's duration had ended. The cause was above their heads.
It was the Iron Butterfly, leisurely flapping its wings in the sky above.
Soul-Chasing Flying Butterfly. A secret hidden weapon said to be wieldable only by the direct line of the Tang Clan.
Unlike ordinary hidden weapons that basically trace a straight or curved line, it glides through the sky in bizarre, unpredictable trajectories.
Each time the Iron Butterfly flapped its wings, faint purple poison powder scattered through the air, and that powder must have touched the heads of the two Slaughter Ghosts.
Of course, some of the powder fell on me as well, but beneath my tongue lay the Blood Poison Wine Tang So-wol had given me.
The foes who had been fighting me on equal terms suddenly turned sluggish, so it didn't take long for the conclusion to be reached.
Slicing!
The Slaughter Ghost wielding the Willow Leaf Saber had its arm severed near the elbow, then half its neck was cut through, and it collapsed.
The Slaughter Ghost wielding the Thrusting Sword tried to block my sword but ended up having its Thrusting Sword shattered into pieces, lost its eyes to the fragments imbued with its own Sword Qi, and then fell with its neck cut open.
With Tang So-wol's intervention, victory and defeat were decided in an instant. Realizing this, I was struck by a wave of pride and exhaustion, and I blankly stared up at the sky.
There, the Soul-Chasing Flying Butterfly was stubbornly circling above my head.
"?"
Poison powder was piling up on my head as if snow were falling.
Whether it was the Paralysis Poison, my body was gradually going numb, and seeing Tang So-wol's expression as she looked this way with teary eyes and worry, I understood.
"Ah."
The massive killing intent I had drawn up from my mind was still surging, encroaching on my surroundings.
In other words, to anyone watching, it looked like a perfect Qi Deviation.