Chapter 52: North Venerates Shaolin (2)

A crafty person.

With the Flame-Saber Lord at her side, he manufactures a reason for them to leave.

And then he fixates on her, relentlessly.

Was there really someone who could bear this much hatred toward her?

The Gwak Family’s people?

No.

They had raised her to offer her up as a concubine.

They hadn’t tried to kill her.

In her short life, the only places she’d belonged were the Gwak Family and the Mount Hua Sect.

If she excluded the Gwak Family, that left only the Mount Hua Sect.

So the Mount Hua Sect hired an assassin from the Assassin Organization?

Eunsong’s words came back to her.

— Because I refused to hand you over, something fitting will surely come down as the price that’s due.

Sect Leader Jeongyang’s face surfaced in her mind.

At first, she had thought he was kind.

But now she knew.

That kindness back then had been goodwill born from greed—the greed of a man who believed he could own her.

“...The Mount Hua Sect sent you.”

“I don’t know.”

“Namgung Clan?”

“I said I don’t know!”

At the same time as the shout, his blade lunged in with a single breath.

Paired with the dizzying, blurred footwork of Extreme-Night Full-Shadow Steps, the tip of that blade carried a dreadful, wintry chill.

Soyak stretched one foot back and brought Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge straight down from above.

CLANG!!

The sound of blade striking blade.

Soyak deliberately didn’t put strength into her legs, letting herself be pushed back.

Light as a petal, she drifted—then landed twenty paces away.

But Transcendent Apex was not a realm you could answer so simply.

Because of the rippling Sword Qi, it was hard to judge distance.

It had only lengthened by perhaps half an inch at most, yet her grip tingled and went numb—whether from that, or from the overwhelming internal power she’d met head-on.

‘With Sword Light, it’ll be hard to stand against Sword Qi.’

No matter how incomplete it was, it was still Sword Qi.

No matter how perfect hers was, it was still Sword Light.

Every time they collided, the hilt trembled and her palm throbbed—of course it did.

“...Fine. If you say I can’t live unless I kill you.”

“Your tongue runs long.”

He came again.

Cheonjeong and Cheongak couldn’t even follow that speed and uncanny movement with their eyes.

This was reality.

No matter how much Cheongak was a talent of Mount Hua, he was fifteen.

Only now a First-Rate martial artist.

And more than anything—he had no real combat experience.

Gisan Gwang was a warrior of Namgung.

Even if he was using Assassin Arts that didn’t sit naturally in his hands—

He was a master who’d survived forty years of everything the world could throw at a man.

He knew how to kill.

Cheonjeong started clutching his head, thinking furiously.

Somehow, he had to help Soyak.

‘A way...!’

A sword formation the three of them could weave?

There wasn’t one.

Sword formations were built on the principles of the four directions, the five phases, the six harmonies, and the eight trigrams.

Meaning you needed at least four people.

Then there was only one thing he could do.

Cheonjeong clenched his teeth.

“Cheongak.”

“...What should I do, Head Senior?”

“Soyak’s stamina is weak. So you have to carry me.”

“What are you—Head Senior?”

In that instant, Cheonjeong drove every shred of his internal power upward and stamped a true step.

The ground caved in, and a massive sound shook the earth.

KWAANG—!

Gisan Gwang’s gaze snapped off Soyak and whipped to Cheonjeong.

A true step was a preparatory motion for power.

Sword, fist, spear, palm—no matter the weapon, it was needed to unleash a powerful strike.

And just as that implied, Cheonjeong’s body surged in at once.

A Sword Path drawn in a dizzying sweep through empty air.

It was the Sprouting Flower Sword technique he’d first shown Soyak.

Sprouting Flower Sword, Absolute Form.

Absolute Form — Full Bloom, Burning Desire.

It was a bud that had never been allowed to bloom.

But Cheonjeong had already gained enlightenment once.

Even with the Sprouting Flower Sword, he could make plum blossoms bloom now.

Brilliant red plum blossoms spread and burst open along his Sword Path.

One strike.

One strike that pierced the opening and disrupted the breath was enough.

Soyak wouldn’t miss the gap created by that one strike.

“You—!”

Gisan Gwang roared as he realized the intent.

It wasn’t a Shaolin Lion’s Roar backed by profound art, but it was still a shout loaded with internal power.

For an instant, Cheonjeong felt as if his insides had turned to mud.

But he couldn’t stop.

If he stopped here, it would amount to nothing.

And hadn’t he made a promise to his master?

That he would protect and shelter his fellow disciples—his junior brothers and his junior sisters.

Gisan Gwang’s short sword whipped out, savage.

Fast, straight, clean.

That was a killing sword.

KIIIIIING—!!

When it smashed down onto Cheonjeong’s blade, both sword and arm were knocked up together.

His chest opened wide.

Gisan Gwang decided he would remove these nuisances first.

“Looks like you want to die!”

The blade, overflowing with Sword Qi, snapped toward Cheongak in a single breath.

Before Soyak could even react—

It punched through Cheonjeong’s chest.

“—KGH.”

A short, broken death-rattle.

But Cheonjeong didn’t forget his duty.

He thrust his arm out and seized Gisan Gwang’s sleeve.

Eyes bulging, he hauled every last trace of internal power up and poured it into both arms.

“W-What is this! You can’t cling like this! If you do, then—”

“—Too late.”

SLICE.

In an instant, Gisan Gwang’s right arm was severed.

Above the face covering, his eyes shook.

He’d expected her to go for the throat and had shifted to avoid it.

But she hadn’t.

That crafty girl had attacked the place she could target with certainty.

“You bitch!”

Most people were right-handed.

Gisan Gwang was no different.

You could tell just by how most of his attacks came from the right.

“You’re the one I’m going to kill.”

Starlight flashed in Soyak’s eyes.

It was a star.

The final point of the Big Dipper.

The light of the Army-Breaking Star that turned the world over.

“KRAAAAGH!”

His last struggle.

Internal power began to gather in his left hand.

A chill so cold and viscous she’d never felt anything like it in her life.

Internal energy drenched in killing intent.

If a master who could gather Sword Light and project it as tangible force—

Could he not do the same with his hand?

Light gathered in his left hand until it began to ripple.

Instant-Kill Certain-Death Palm.

A name given because it had to kill with a single move—and because one move was enough to kill instantly.

A martial art made purely for one-strike execution, with only a single technique.

Soyak’s Sword Qi was incomplete.

Gisan Gwang’s was rippling too, but hers was even closer to a heat-haze.

Because it wasn’t proper Sword Qi.

It was nothing but a saturation phenomenon—internal power crammed in until it overflowed.

So if they collided, it would shatter.

And with that much internal power forced in, the internal damage would be severe.

Cheongak realized it was his turn to move.

“Don’t you dare use that trash on my junior sister!”

He charged in, shouting like thunder.

Normally, Gisan Gwang would have casually batted him away and gone right back to cutting Soyak’s throat.

But not now.

He’d lost one arm, and his balance had slipped.

The agony was so intense his body stiffened, his breath faltering.

And more than anything—those eyes.

Even he, someone who’d learned Assassin Arts, felt a chill from those eyes.

For a moment, he was captivated—his gaze stolen.

When bad conditions stacked on bad conditions, even a master could be made useless.

In the end, he couldn’t evade Cheongak’s sword.

SLICE—!!

Cheongak’s blade, sprinting in while stepping Hidden Fragrance Drift, chopped down at Gisan Gwang’s forearm.

If it had been the wrist, it would’ve held.

Instant-Kill Certain-Death Palm’s fierce protective force wrapped the area.

But Cheongak was clever.

He cut just behind it.

“KRAAAAGH!”

A scream of pain rang out—

So violent that even Cheongak, the one who’d made the cut, stumbled back in shock.

But Soyak didn’t blink once.

Her mind was cold.

Like when she killed Ak Seowon—her mind was cold.

“...I heard the martial world is a place where grudges and debts are clear.”

Cheon Soyak spoke quietly.

Gisan Gwang, on both knees, trembling as he shed tears of blood, looked up at her.

He hadn’t known it would end like this.

Soyak had entered Mount Hua barely a month ago.

He hadn’t expected the Head Senior to throw himself in for a junior sister he’d spent only a month with.

And that was his downfall.

He’d dismissed them as boys hovering around First-Rate at best.

In a fight between a Transcendent Apex like himself and a girl standing at the very end of Apex, he thought they couldn’t interfere.

No—he thought they wouldn’t.

That was his downfall.

“I’ll price this grudge and this debt—then take your life as payment.”

At her intent, internal power boiled up.

A black qilin that carried overwhelming killing chill raced through the meridians of her entire body.

From her toes to the crown of her head, a dizzying rage and exultation flooded in—

For a moment.

A truly fleeting instant.

From Soyak’s Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge, Sword Light spread beyond the blade.

It was Sword Qi.

Ninefold Heaven Plum Sword, Fourth Form.

Riotous-Blossom Vortex.

A vortex of flower-wind scattering in chaos.

Imperfect, rippling Sword Qi blended with dark red plum blossoms.

In that instant, Soyak traced more than a dozen arcs with her blade tip.

Each time—each time she stitched another stroke into the air—

Dark red blood and dark red plum blossoms spread.

CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG—!

Had even the time of two blinks passed?

That rippling Sword Qi shredded Gisan Gwang’s body and left a huge plum-blossom pattern carved into the ground.

Soyak never cut his throat on the first strike.

Only after she carved open his knees, his thighs, his lower belly, his remaining left arm—

Only then did she twist the final Sword Path and take his neck.

It must have hurt, all the way to the moment he died.