Chapter 483: I Don’t Believe in Legends (19)

The hall was plunged into a cauldron of shock.

Who was Taesan Magun!

A late-Flower Realm master of claw arts.

Claw arts were a branch of martial skill, the collective term for techniques that struck with tearing claws, and Taesan Magun had been their foremost master.

When he swung his hand, the very form of a man was torn apart into fragments — hence the name Taesan.

His temperament was eccentric, and his hands ripped men to bloody shreds with cruelty so savage that he had been branded Magun, a great demon of the martial world.

The one most shaken was Lee Hyhye.

Though her own claw arts were half martial skill and half weapon, bat-like in nature, she had still studied claw techniques.

And had not the head of the senior who stood at the forefront of their discipline just been ripped away?

The people of the Central Plains looked down on martial skills.

Even among martial artists themselves, they divided ranks and despised one another.

At the very top stood fist techniques.

The doctrine of the fist masters held that the true essence of martial arts lay in the fist.

If one asked about the greatness of the fist, one need only raise their head and look to Mount Song.

In truth, this excuse served not only the fist masters but all martial artists of the Central Plains.

Even those who mocked the primitiveness of fist techniques fell silent at the invocation of Mount Song, muttering only under their breath.

“This shameless bastard, with nothing but common fist work to his name, dares to cite Shaolin.”

Below fist techniques stood palm arts.

Under the Tathāgata Divine Palm alone lay a multitude of famed divine skills.

In truth this owed to the Internal Body Water Method, the pinnacle of pure qi cultivation.

The palm, as the most efficient channel linked directly to the dantian, was the most advantageous means of projection.

Of course, the crown of the Governor and Conception meridians lay at the crown of the head, the baihui acupoint, which could release the most devastating force of all.

But the crown of the head was also a fatal weakness.

A direct strike there meant a fate worse than death: reduced to a drooling idiot smearing filth upon the walls.

And though it was shielded by the skull, to use it in martial technique would be hideous indeed.

Then came the Metal-Hand Techniques, boasting utility over brute force.

There were even long-range finger arts among them.

And at the very bottom stood claw arts.

Kicking was not even counted as martial art.

Hand techniques were considered everything other than the fist.

Thus, stripped down to its core, claw arts produced the lowest caste among martial artists.

For what were claw strikes but mere scratching?

Humans had no sharp talons like beasts. How powerful could scratching truly be?

Moreover, claw arts carried an aura of evil in the eyes of the world.

From the Nine Yin Bone-Cleaving Claws of demonic arts onward, even the claw techniques within orthodox sects carried such malice that few would dare learn them.

With the exception of the Minor Demon Witch, no master had ever reached the Profound Realm through claw arts alone.

And so Taesan Magun, standing in the late Flower Realm, on the cusp of the Profound Realm, had been a beacon of hope to all claw artists of the martial world.

Proof that one could attain the Profound Realm not through demonic arts but through claw techniques themselves.

But that dream was gone.

Taesan Magun was gone.

Brought low by a girl young enough to be his daughter — emasculated and beheaded in pathetic ruin.

In that moment Qing dealt the claw masters of the world their greatest despair.

But Qing knew none of this.

Even if someone had pleaded their case, she would only have snorted in derision.

Heh, “claw artist”? Even the name was laughably clawed.

One had better be careful with pronunciation.

Taesan Magun turned out to be clawed, indeed.

But cheer up — it’s not the end of the world.

Still, it was the final fate of one who had walked furthest down his path of martial learning.

For Qing, who still found the martial world difficult to comprehend, Taesan Magun was nothing but a degenerate old pervert laden with karmic evil.

Had she not seen severed heads a hundred times before in the life of a martial artist?

And since the crowd stood stunned, how could Qing let the moment go to waste?

The disciples trailing after Taesan Magun still stared with quivering eyes, unable to tell dream from reality.

The Moonlight Sword No. 10 cleaved through the air.

Why had Taesan Magun died?

Because he had been careless.

Why had his disciples met triple death in one stroke?

Because they too had been careless.

The longer Qing’s sword, the broader its arc.

And the fools, being all of similar height, offered up their necks neatly in a row.

Against the crescent of starlight, three heads rolled at once.

The thrill of one stroke, three kills sent a shiver of ecstasy up her spine.

How could it never grow dull?

Only one disciple of Taesan Magun remained.

When Qing’s descending shadow split his face in half, he finally snapped awake.

The Moonlight Sword lifted high and came shrieking down upon his crown.

The disciple, in panic, raised both hands to block the arc.

Through the harsh external training of Taesan’s Claw, his fingers were tempered to the strength of soft iron — not steel, but iron of middling hardness.

Eight fingers laced together and thrust upward.

In that instant Qing’s Guardian Qi vanished.

She did not need it for this prey.

It was the mindset of a fisherman who deliberately used a soft rod to savor the feel of the catch.

A dull crack, like iron struck.

Four fingers flew into the air, and the Moonlight Sword bit through the interlace.

Though he caught the blade with his remaining fingers, he had not reckoned on Qing’s inhuman strength.

Dragged downward, his arms followed the blade to his lower abdomen.

From crown to navel, the disciple was split wide.

He collapsed to the floor in a heap.

Yes, this was it.

Guardian Qi was too sharp; it robbed her of the proper feel.

Lightning thrill raced through her body, and Qing’s lips stretched in a rictus grin from ear to ear.

But she wore a Human-Skin Mask, and so the sight was monstrous: a grotesque visage twisted into a nightmare smile, eyes blazing like a fiend’s.

“Ugh.” “Wh-what...!”

Men choked on their breath.

One might sneer — to freeze at the leer of a masked freak? Hand over your manhood if so.

But in Qing’s homeland they had a term: the Uncanny Valley.

To face a semblance less than human, yet too close to human, froze even hardened warriors in place.

“Lecherous fiends! I will not forgive you!”

Qing surged forward.

“Damn it! You fool!” “Ahhh! Young miss!” “Sister!”

“Hah-hah! Yes, that’s it! That’s how my sword—no, my sword-friend ought to be!”

Three sane voices shrieked in panic, while one mad voice laughed in delight — Namgung Sinjae, who had been thrilled by the triple decapitation and bamboo-splitting disregard for defense.

As a swordsman, how could he not be excited?

Thus, a mere five charged headlong into nearly twenty.

Behind them, the parties who had brought female warriors snapped awake.

Having seen only Qing’s back, they had suffered far less shock.

“Damn it! What are you waiting for?!”

Lee Hyhye swallowed her curse and led the second wave.

And so the blood battle was joined.

—

It was precisely the moment the Empty-Blood Hall technicians of the Blood Sect had been yearning for.

The ones who had until now manned the traps in each corridor had all gathered here to gawk at the slaughter of martial men.

At every torch-hidden observation window, red eyes pressed close, unwilling to miss a single spectacle.

Every Blood Sect man bore a grudge against the martial world, the authorities, or both.

One in three was a pervert who found joy only in chaos.

But when it came to the technicians of the Empty-Blood Hall, the ratio shifted to nine in ten.

Each with bloodshot eyes, they stared like worshipers at their god, awaiting this sight of warriors butchering one another.

And why not?

Even without grudges — what in the world was more delightful than watching a fight in perfect safety?

“Wasn’t Taesan Magun’s end a little too anticlimactic? He was still a strong candidate. Who bet on him?”

“Bah, late-Flower Realm my ass.”

“Oh, it was you? Hah! Early elimination, then.”

“Shit. But who the hell is that girl? Anyone know? Anyone with an eye for technique?”

“Hmm... looks like the Moon Maiden Sword, but I can’t be sure. Was the Moon Maiden Sword ever such a vicious killing style?”

One technician squinted at Qing’s chaotic blade work, her sword whipping in jagged arcs.

At times a move of the Moon Maiden Sword surfaced, but only for a moment.

The rest looked like a child flailing wildly.

Innocent? The word crossed his mind, and a chill prickled his skin.

Stabbing, ripping, slicing, cutting — fixated on severing extremities, chopping bodies into scraps, with a twisted smile flashing between.

The innocence was that of a child toying with insects.

Pure malice, crystalline and playful.

Then suddenly — yank!

She pulled the lifeline tied to one man’s neck, and the fellow who had been about to impale himself on a blade went flying backward.

Spared death, the “leash-man” staggered up again, but weak and clumsy, he soon stumbled into more danger.

Each time, the killer with the Moonlight Sword saved him, tugging him back from death.

While one hand hacked men into pieces, the other seemed to have eyes in the back of its head, pulling the leash at the perfect moment.

“A demon? How could such a vicious female demon not be known? She’s closer to our side, isn’t she?”

“If she were ours, why would she interfere with the Grand Plan? No, maybe she’s Demonic Sect?”

“How would the Demonic Sect even insert a map? It takes a year to travel there and back. Hm? That little one with her — his posture is definitely orthodox. Why’s an orthodox brat with such a killing ghost? The others... hard to say.”

Indeed, one small youth bore the clear mark of orthodox training even to an untrained eye.

The others?

A tall woman with twin swords guarded the child calmly.

An older man stood with them as protector, though less aggressive.

One man with twin blades laughed madly, mouth never closing.

“Strange. The fight is one-sided. But Joo Ayo is living up to her name.”

To be exact, it was not Joo Ayo herself but her three followers.

In truth, Lee Hyhye was more famous for those bizarre slaves than for her own epithet.

The three who called themselves her slaves were each a grade higher in skill than she.

Rumors said she was of noble birth and they her bodyguards, or that her bedroom arts had bound three men beneath her skirt.

Thus, the tide turned swiftly in favor of the parties with female warriors.

For the technicians of the Blood Sect, it was a bitter disappointment.

They had wanted a more even match, with half surviving and many wounded.

Then they could watch cripples abandoned to traps, or hurled forward to trigger spears.

“Wait, the number! Isn’t it supposed to be twenty-one? One, two, three, four...”

“Who has time to count! Open the gate! Open it!”

So absorbed in the spectacle had they been that they nearly missed the moment, and scrambled belatedly to the controls.