Chapter 458: A Sad Legend, What Kind of Legend Is It? (8)

Jang Suhwa wore the look of someone betrayed.

“You said you’d spare me...”

“No, I’m just asking a question.”

His eyes rolled frantically, the way juniors did when they were being pushed around.

It’s fine, just say it. I don’t hold grudges.

Mm. I see.

But why did you do it? Didn’t you know it was wrong?

I’m just asking, really.

If you knew it was wrong, why did you do it?

“I only... followed orders...”

“Ah. Orders. Orders are nice, aren’t they.”

Qing laughed under her breath.

So if it’s an order, you can kill people?

Then who pays for the evil born of orders?

The one who gave them?

And if you kill the one who gave the order, is the group innocent?

What about the group’s members?

They enjoy the benefits but dodge the responsibility?

A truly difficult question.

But isn’t that why karmic debt hangs over them so plainly?

Bright red numbers float above, urging Qing: this bastard deserves to die.

“Th-then, I can... go now...”

“Alright. A promise is a promise.”

Qing withdrew her sword, and Jang Suhwa finally took his hand off his throat, attempting a sigh of relief.

But with a hole in his neck, no sigh came out.

Then Qing casually raised her sword and pointed toward Ha Cheondae, still writhing nearby.

To her, he was just some nameless flunky and a lecherous bastard.

“Ah, but look there. Do you think he’s dead or alive? As long as he’s not actually dead, that means he’s alive, right?”

“...!”

Jang Suhwa tried to shout in panic, but again forgot he had no throat left to speak with.

Qing flashed her teeth.

Neat, white, sharp canines.

****

In the orthodox sects, the ratio of female martial artists was around three or four to one.

Seo Mun Surin raged about this.

When new disciples were recruited, it was always men, never women.

So the only female martial artists came from martial families where they learned from childhood.

Even if a woman had extraordinary talent, she was not chosen. Wasn’t the martial world controlled by men, then?

Thus the disciple’s duty was heavy.

The future of every female martial artist rested on her.

If she became the greatest under heaven, the world could no longer scorn women.

But to Qing’s ears, this wasn’t convincing.

Mm. Master, that’s a bit...

It’s not that women aren’t chosen. It’s that women don’t apply.

They don’t measure logs or push-ups. Elders test aptitude, bone structure, and willpower. There is no sect that says, “We’ll take the man and reject the woman.”

Still, Qing had no reason to argue against her Master’s world-by-women theory.

Even if the reasoning was leaps, distortions, and rabble-rousing, the conclusion wasn’t wrong.

If the greatest under heaven was a woman, then yes, more women would enter martial arts.

In the end, if the answer is right, who cares how you got there?

In the Evil Path, the ratio was far worse.

At least orthodox sects were three or four to one.

In the Evil Path, female martial artists were rare.

That much was obvious from the atmosphere.

The Evil Path treated juniors like servants, slaves, or toys.

Any woman could guess what filth awaited her if she entered.

So when a pack of scum raided a village, the result was clear.

Men were slaughtered.

Women survived a little longer, but soon followed.

“We didn’t kill everyone. We’re not butchers, you know. We only cut down the ones who resisted. The women, we kept in the warehouse.”

As though Qing hadn’t seen such filth countless times.

Kill the resisters, keep the women.

And he thought that was an excuse? His desperation had exposed his true intent.

Men were cut down, women were kept. Bastards.

Still, Qing regretted mangling his tongue.

Not the act itself.

But the method.

She should have cut it with her sword.

Instead, she regretted crushing it with her hand.

Her eyes reflected this self-reproach, clear as a sky swept clean after a typhoon.

At some point, killing villains had begun to stir an unpleasant tinge in her pleasure.

That was why her methods had grown simpler.

No more savoring every slice, rejoicing at a jackpot kill.

Now it was just crushing them outright, or ripping out bones and tossing them aside.

There was no substitute for pulverizing bone.

If you just broke it, it might heal. To leave them crippled forever, you had to crush it into shards that could never be set.

And yet, to kill them cleanly with a single stroke was too merciful.

So Qing’s methods grew concise.

Or indirect, like burning them alive inside rolled-up blankets.

You might call it the sight of a thrill-killer restraining her thrills.

But just now, she couldn’t resist.

Once she realized that blocking the throat-hole stopped sound, the only way to silence him was to cut the tongue.

She had pried his jaws open, seized that slick but solid muscle, and crushed it—the frantic clamping of jaws, the teeth pressing into her skin.

Could a so-called Ten Great Demonic Art be worthy of the name if the “beautiful hand” of Absorbing Qi Demonic Art was marred by mere teeth?

It had been so long since she felt such proper satisfaction in her hands.

By the time she came to, she was holding the root of a tongue. She had ripped it out raw.

So Qing had no choice but to regret.

She should have cut it clean with her sword.

But truly, she couldn’t resist.

That little pop as it tore away—

Damn, it’s driving me crazy.

But... it was still amazing.

Yet one of Qing’s few virtues was her easygoing way of brushing off the past.

Still... why did her body feel so heavy?

She hadn’t done much, yet she already felt tired.

Anyway, so there weren’t many left in the village?

The Tyrant Force Sect had invested heavily to seize the Absorbing Qi Demonic Art.

Eleven First Generation, twenty-one Second Generation, thirty-seven Third Generation. Three Elders.

And the Young Lord, Gang Sakmun.

The Tyrant Force Sect called their sect master Heavenly Lord, and since this was his son and heir, he was called Young Lord.

That explained the useless trivia that the “Gang” in Gangpaecheon came from the sect master’s surname.

But Gang Sakmun had just set himself up in luxury in the village headman’s house.

Truly befitting the heir of a heretic sect.

Living in splendor while making his juniors toil—that was the qualification for inheriting a heretic throne.

Since the Young Lord himself was planted here, no one in the Tyrant Force Sect dared slack off.

Everyone else had gone into the mountains in search of the Shin family’s hidden manual.

So in the village, only Gang Sakmun, his two top disciples, and six Second Generation disciples stayed behind—more precisely, to loaf around.

Of course, they’d laugh and argue that three-shift guard duty was grueling.

They had been six. Now they were four.

And the Third Generation?

They were off scrambling up the mountains to scrounge manuals or herbs.

How could mere Third Generation talk about guarding the base?

One Flower Realm, one Absolute-tier, three Peak-tier, the rest First-class. First-class weren’t worth counting.

Even the heir himself was only Peak-tier. The Absolute was his right-hand man.

Qing’s calculations clicked.

She could sweep this quickly.

The Flower Realm—well, her Master was already inside.

With herself and her Master both, one Flower Realm wasn’t much.

That was when—

“You! Who goes there!”

A booming voice infused with inner qi.

The clash of weapons rang sharp and fierce. This was no ordinary force.

Qing instantly understood.

A clash of Flower Realm masters!

With a single bound, Qing leapt the courtyard wall.

****

Jin Jangmyeong and Murong Juhee lay flat beneath the brush on the western side, waiting for the signal.

They had been told clearly—when the commotion started, both were to scale the wall together.

But when was this commotion coming?

Jangmyeong thought: This is so awkward. When’s unni getting here?

Murong Juhee thought: This is so awkward. Damn it.

The old Murong Juhee would have just left it at that.

Plenty of women wanted to get close to Gunhwa. They always approached her first, flattering her. If they were busty, she’d scold them; if not, she’d feel a kindred bond.

But Murong Juhee was no longer that thoughtless, odd girl.

She had apologized one by one to members of the Phoenix Society for being unpleasant.

She had reached out first to loners who didn’t fit in.

Thanks to this, the Phoenix Society generally acknowledged she had suddenly turned into a decent human being.

Some whispered that with Jin Seol absent, she was seizing the chance to maneuver politically.

But Murong Juhee didn’t mind. It’s all karmic debt anyway.

So now, she didn’t hesitate to speak first.

“Hey, was it Jangmyeong?”

“Unyeon-i. Even small talk, we’re supposed to use aliases.”

“Mm. That, Eon Yeonyeong... mm.”

Murong Juhee faltered.

An alias was one thing, but using the name of a known traitor who sided with the Blood Sect?

No matter if it was an alias, she couldn’t bring herself to say it. So she switched terms.

“Your elder sister called you her younger sibling, right?”

“‘Elder sister’? That sounds weird. You’re weird.”

The little brat dared to speak down.

But this was Jangmyeong’s true nature.

Hadn’t Qing herself once fed her a meal only to be cursed at?

A vein bulged faintly on Murong Juhee’s forehead.

“Before, she saved me—actually, it was what came after that I’m more grateful for. So I decided to call her ‘Elder Sister.’”

“It’s still weird.”

“What’s weird? We call men ‘Young Master’ with the honorific. Why can’t we call a girl ‘Elder Sister’ with the honorific too?”

“Huh?”

Jangmyeong blinked. Oh? That... kind of makes sense?

“So, what is Elder Sister usually like? She must devote herself to training all day, right? That’s how she became the youngest woman to reach Absolute-tier.”

“Yeah.”

“Nothing unusual ever happens around her?”

“No.”

“What about your Great Master? What kind of person is she?”

“I don’t really know either.”

If the other person isn’t willing to talk, conversation won’t form no matter who starts it.

This brat...!

Not that Murong [N O V E L I G H T] Juhee especially craved closeness with Jangmyeong anyway.

So she just clamped her mouth shut.

“Ow, my back. This is more uncomfortable than I thought. Elder Sister must have had a hard time.”

Yes. Fake breasts were incredibly uncomfortable.

Because Murong Juhee treated them like precious treasures, she bent her back in reverse and braced her weight on her forearms even while lying face down, lest they be squashed.

Not only that, they were heavy. The strap at the nape of her neck ached with stiffness.

And the sticky texture, with no ventilation—after only half a day, sweat pooled at her chest, dripping unpleasantly.

Ui-yu was heavier than the real thing.

At that, Jangmyeong’s ears perked up.

“Uncomfortable? Hard?”

“It feels good in a way, but they’re fake anyway. Definitely heavy, and they bounce, so the weight shifts. I can’t even see my feet. How does Elder Sister move so nimbly?”

Not being able to see your feet was a deadly flaw.

Martial artists checked the ground with each step of their footwork.

If you glanced down and saw nothing, it was disorienting.

Of course, people who were naturally large never saw their feet to begin with, so they didn’t realize this flaw.

Like how someone born with three eyes would see the world differently than someone with two.

“Hmph. I still want to be bigger.”

“Mm. Me too. I used to believe when I reached Absolute-tier, I’d grow bigger. That’s why I trained so hard.”

Jangmyeong’s eyes went wide.

“Really? You get bigger at Absolute-tier? But unni’s are the same...”

“I believe it. Rebirth refashions the body into the ideal form. If I dream of an ideal body, won’t it shape itself that way?”

“Ah! How? How do I do it?”

Jangmyeong’s eyes sparkled.

And in those bright eyes, Murong Juhee saw a pain she knew all too well.

And Jangmyeong, too, recognized the same pain mirrored in Murong Juhee’s gaze.

Oh—you too?

Yeah. Me too.