The Slaughter King remained utterly motionless even with a Flying Dagger piercing his brow.
After gazing down at the corpse for a moment, I turned my head toward the direction where Tang So-wol was.
"Still holding up well, are you? Well, I suppose you're not the type to fall so easily."
I let out a snicker at the sight of the purple Poison Mist—faintly thinned but still lingering—and adjusted my grip on the sword. My arm trembled slightly from the accumulated fatigue.
White Sword, Formless Sword, Thunderclap Sword. All of them boasted overwhelming power, but they consumed internal energy and Intent at a devastating rate.
They were all realizations I had gained while flailing desperately against opponents stronger than myself, or enemies that could not be cut down by ordinary means. So it was only natural.
But it was also true that I had leaned too heavily on power alone.
A black tool. If it was sharp and hard, that was enough. That was still how I felt, but… there was no harm in having a sword that was a bit easier to use.
After all, if a sword truly only needed sharpness and hardness, then things like hilts and guards wouldn't exist.
For instance, techniques meant to efficiently suppress an opponent who was clearly weaker than me.
"Since we're on the subject, I might as well test it out."
I must have been tired, because the sword felt heavier than usual, but… on the other hand, my senses were more on edge than usual.
It was worth a try.
I took a deep breath and let it out. Then, with a single step, I closed the distance to the Poison Mist.
It was only natural that the assassins' gazes, which had been using every means to break through the Poison Mist, now focused on me.
One assassin, who seemed the most capable of the lot, spoke up in a flat voice.
"The Valley Lord has fallen. Scatter. Our rendezvous point is…"
"And where do you think you're going? The Slaughter King didn't get a single word out before the end, so I'd appreciate it if you, the one who can still talk, lent a hand."
I released killing intent, pressing down on the space around us. The man who'd been speaking froze mid-sentence, stiff as a board. The other assassins were the same.
Assassins were trained extensively to suppress their own killing intent and to not react to the killing intent of others.
But even so, letting killing intent of this magnitude wash over them was something only the Slaughter King could manage, it seemed.
I raised my sword toward the assassins, who scattered with movements as awkward as if they'd forgotten how to use their internal energy.
A sword meant to cut what cannot be cut, and to reach what cannot be reached.
That was the sword I had pursued upon reaching the Harmony Realm. I could now unleash sword strikes that transcended the level of sword wind and cut through space itself.
If that were so, then unleashing multiple sword strikes at once should not be entirely impossible either.
Invisible, too powerful, too distant. What difference was there between something unreachable for those reasons and something unreachable simply because there were too many of them?
If a sword that crossed space was possible, then a sword that crossed numbers should likewise be possible.
And fortunately, I had once stolen a glimpse of the answer sheet from the One-Blade Asura.
Just as the One-Blade Asura had done, it would be impossible to unleash several overwhelming techniques at once, each one too formidable to ignore…
But if I lowered their power considerably, and focused my Intent solely on dividing the sword strikes—so that rather than sword strikes, they became sharp divisions of internal energy sent to wherever I wished—
Then surely, it could be done.
Wherever my killing intent reached—more precisely, wherever my Intent reached—was my domain, as clear to me as the palm of my own hand.
I focused my mind on each of the assassins who had yet to escape that domain, then swung my sword to cut them all down at once.
"Hah!"
A surge of energy traced the exact same arc as my blade, descending upon the assassins' backs.
The killing intent that filled the surroundings suddenly took form, feeling as though it were rending actual flesh.
Amid the bizarre spectacle of a world seemingly filled with sword strikes, the Poison Mist that had grown hazy naturally dispersed.
Tang So-wol blinked, looking around in a daze.
"Heavens. Did the young hero Cheon do all this?"
"Well, as expected of the Alliance Lord…"
The Twin Ghost Sword's arms were trembling violently, as if he had overexerted himself considerably.
Well. I had expected that kind of reaction. After all, it certainly looked flashy on the surface. But.
"Tch. This is a failure."
The Intent consumption wasn't bad, but the internal energy drain was absurdly severe. And the power was far less than I had anticipated.
If this was the result, I might as well have just cut them down directly, one by one. Perhaps because it was the first Enlightenment I gained upon reaching the Harmony Realm, cutting through space itself wasn't all that difficult.
I shook my head and returned my sword to my waist.
Each of them bore a deep sword wound on their backs, but none of them seemed to have suffered a fatal injury.
I gestured toward the assassins who were fleeing—some limping, others half-crawling—and spoke.
"Tang So-wol. May I ask a favor?"
"Heh heh. In that state, it shouldn't be too difficult."
Tang So-wol shrugged her shoulders, then spun in place as if dancing. Thin hidden weapons shot out from between her fluttering sleeves.
They weren't lethal, but the remaining assassins soon slumped to the ground, unable to even deflect Tang So-wol's hidden weapons.
…Not bad.
I should study Tang So-wol's Hidden Weapon Art when I next improve my own techniques.
Hidden Weapon Art and poison art. If used well, they could land a blow even on someone stronger than yourself, and when facing someone weaker without any tricks, they were martial arts that proved highly effective.
That's exactly the right direction for a martial art that's easy to use, as I'd just tried. Whether it's easy to learn is another matter, though.
"Twin Ghost Sword. Finish them off with just enough effort to keep them breathing, and bring the one who gave the retreat order to me."
"Understood…"
He answers well enough, but Twin Ghost Sword sheathes his blade with a face full of gloom.
Given how exhausted he looks, I can guess why.
After all, fighting while protecting someone is more tiring than just fighting outright.
Above all, no matter how much Twin Ghost Sword is a master who has reached the same Transcendent Peak, there's no way his foundation can compare to Tang So-wol's, who received Marrow Cleansing from a young age and grew up eating fine Spiritual Medicine and rare poisons.
I let out a snort of laughter and pointed at a few wandering warriors lying a good distance away, playing dead.
"That one. That one. And that one pretending to be crushed under the collapsed wall. They're all perfectly fine apart from a few scratches, so put them to work as you see fit. And don't be foolish enough to try doing everything yourself just because I told you to."
"Understood!"
With a noticeably brighter expression, Twin Ghost Sword headed toward the wandering warriors I'd just pointed out. He'd handle things from here on his own.
Letting out a deep sigh at the thought that things had somehow been settled, I felt something sneak up and cling to my back.
I turned my head slightly to find Tang So-wol hanging limply, leaning her body against my back.
"You're heavy."
"Eii. A man who carried me all this way without a single word of complaint—I can't believe such words coming from him."
"Maybe you've gotten heavier since then."
"Surely not. If anything, having poured out that much poison, I'd think I'd have gotten lighter."
"What."
Instinctively, I focused on the sensation against my back. And immediately, I was caught.
"…I'm just saying this just in case, but just because you call it a poison pouch doesn't mean it actually contains poison, right?"
"I wasn't thinking anything."
"Such an obvious lie…"
"Tsk. Looks like the recent battle was a bit much for you. Let's find a place to rest for now. We have things to talk about, after all."
"Hmm."
It seemed she was genuinely tired, for Tang So-wol said nothing more and quietly leaned her weight against me.
In a posture that was neither quite carrying nor quite dragging, I brought Tang So-wol to where the Slaughter King's corpse lay.
"First, I'd like you to take a look at this."
"The leader of the assassins… is it? It's no surprise, really—Assassin Valley has fallen under the Demonic Cult, and the Golden Wolf King seemed to have ties with them as well. But it gave me a start at first. To think we'd be ambushed just when I thought we'd won."
"I was the same. I'd just brought down the Golden Wolf King and let my guard down for a moment when I was attacked."
"Ugh. Honestly, it's a bit absurd. Surely the Slaughter King and several other masters died at young hero Cheon's hands."
"Right. I, too, thought Assassin Valley could no longer pose a major threat. That is, until I saw this one."
"Do you know who they are? Anyone who would dare target young hero Cheon's life must be no ordinary assassin."
"It's the Slaughter King."
"…?"
"It really is the Slaughter King. At the very least, it's true that he's using martial arts perfectly identical to the Slaughter King's."
"But still. The Slaughter King is dead, isn't he? Didn't young hero Cheon take him down together with sister Hwa-rin?"
"To be precise, I took down the Slaughter King alone, and senior Seomun Hwa-rin was dealing with the White Peak Mountain King… Well, anyway. He's a man who died by my hand once."
"Then you're saying the dead Slaughter King has come back to life? Could he be a disciple or something? The Demonic Cult has many side effects, but didn't you say there exists a technique that forcibly drags a martial artist who has reached the edge of Transcendent Peak up into the Harmony Realm?"
"In such cases, it shows. They can use their Aura, but that Aura is soft, or the Enlightenment gained in the process of ascending to Harmony Realm — that one thing, the peculiarity of Intent that makes the impossible possible, should manifest strongly, yet it comes off as somehow half-baked."
The Sword Demon was exactly that.
His Aura could suppress Sword Flame, but when it collided with another Aura of equal strength, it shattered easily.
The Enlightenment that one must become a sword, not a person, to be a great swordsman had granted him an Intent and mental image unbound by physical form—similar to the Formless Sword I now use.
Yet, though invisible, was he not still unleashing a sword bound to the shape of the length and width of the blade he had always used?
"But this second Slaughter King showed no such signs."
Aura, by nature, is born from vast internal energy mixed with Intent, creating an overwhelming presence.
But he, like the Slaughter King I had defeated before, peculiarly used a semi-transparent Aura whose presence was extremely faint.
And what of his stealth art? It was so covert that without the Heavenly Eye or the sharp Qi Sense that claimed the surrounding area as my domain, it would have been difficult to even notice him.
This could never be accomplished with a half-baked Intent.
"Above all, everything else is identical to the first Slaughter King."
"What do you mean, everything else?"
"His gait. The rhythm of his breathing. His judgment when pushed into a corner. His build. His taciturnity. The stealth art of wrapping a Qi Barrier around his skin to hide from everything—so difficult to imitate. And so on. When he fights in black robes, no matter how I look at it, he can only be seen as the same person."
"That's…"
No matter how strictly a master raises a disciple, the disciple cannot help but display a martial art slightly different from the master's.
They may not deviate from the grand framework, but in the finer details, differences between individuals are inevitable.
This is because no two people in the world are perfectly alike.
But the two Slaughter Kings had done it. No matter how one looked, they were identical in every way.
"Wait a moment. You mean to say that's the case when wearing the black robe?"
"That's exactly what I mean. It's also said that it's different once the black robe comes off."
The mask had been slightly torn during the battle, revealing the lower half of the face. When it was fully removed, a rather shocking sight awaited them.
"Ugh!"
"How unsightly."
Tang So-wol hesitated for a moment. Even I, who had seen it once before, couldn't help but furrow my brow upon closer inspection.
And for good reason—the Slaughter King's face looked as if the bones had been forcibly broken and the flesh crumpled, then fixed into a specific shape by sheer force.
A face twisted and twisted again. But one thing was certain: it had originally been a woman's face.
"As expected, different."
"Is there something you've noticed?"
"The first Slaughter King's body was split in half, so the corpse was considerably damaged, but it was definitely a man."
"So, you're saying someone imitated the Slaughter King?"
"An imitation of the Slaughter King, you say. Hmm. Based on what I felt from fighting him directly, a slightly different expression would be more accurate. For example… that he was made into the Slaughter King. Something like that."
As he said this, he drew his sword and cut through the Slaughter King's black robes.
Inside, there was a body twisted just like the face had been. No—twisted far more severely than that.
A grotesque body that seemed to test the limits of the expulsion art. At the sight, Tang So-wol's eyes flew open and she muttered.
"It's been… created, hasn't it."
"If you melt a person down, pour them into a mold, and let them set, I imagine this is what you'd get."
I know it's an absurd thing to say.
But haven't I already witnessed plenty of absurd things?
It's strange that the Heavenly Demon, who noticed my regression, only guided me into conflict with a few Harmony Realm martial artists, and otherwise focused on the internal affairs of the Demonic Cult.
"I need to find out why the Assassin Valley joined the Demonic Cult."
Somehow, I doubt the reason is anything ordinary.