Chapter 573

It was a mistake.

Or, strictly speaking, perhaps it was not.

I could have kept him alive. But I did not.

Maybe it was more accurate to say that I could not.

I had to cut him.

Was it a side effect of applying demonic qi?

Or did body-and-sword unity carry some other meaning?

The moment I took that step—and saw something within him firsthand—

I couldn’t stop my sword.

I had to cut him down.

As though I had lived solely to do that.

It was a strange sensation, though.

As I tried to get a hold of that feeling, I checked my surroundings.

“The stench of blood is overwhelming.”

I pulled off my mask as I spoke. Perhaps because of the martial arts I had just used, my body was burning up.

I had killed too many people. At least several dozen enemies had been swept away by my sword.

[Do you feel guilty?]

“Of course not.”

I answered with a snort.

I never thought the Heavenly Demon would ask me something like that. Guilt? Why would I feel that?

“That is something you feel for people.”

[Then the men who died by your hand were not people?]

“Not to me.”

Pity and guilt were things you felt for people worth feeling them for.

“You know that. Those bastards killed countless people.”

[Ha ha.]

The Heavenly Demon laughed at my answer.

For some reason, the sound irritated me.

“Why are you laughing?”

I wanted to ask why the hell he was laughing, but I did not dare.

I did not have that much nerve.

Still—

Something has felt off since then.

Had it begun when I acquired the flame called karmic fire?

Or when I sensed something from that hidden old monster in Azure Moon Sect?

How should I put this?

I felt as though I understood something, yet it also bothered me in some subtle way.

I repeatedly clenched and unclenched my fists, trying to identify it.

He told me not to be impatient.

The Heavenly Demon had said that I did not need to know yet, so I should not be curious.

Like that’s easy.

It was difficult to forget something once I had become curious about it.

Besides, my mind had never been capable of forgetting things in the first place.

[If you are asking why I laughed, it is because what you say does not follow reason.]

The Heavenly Demon continued. It was an extension of our earlier conversation.

[If taking countless lives is a sin, and that is what prevents one from being regarded as human, then do you not see both me and yourself as something other than human?]

If taking lives was a sin, and it kept someone from being treated as human—

Then what did that make him and me?

“What are you asking for?”

I had decided on the answer back in my past life.

“Then neither are we.”

[Huh.]

The Heavenly Demon let out a short breath at my firm answer.

[What did you say?]

“I already answered you.”

[An answer with no room for nuance.]

“I am not the sort of person who bothers with things like that.”

Squelch.

I stepped through the blood I had spilled myself.

AAAAARGH—!!!

A curse-laden shriek rose from behind me.

It was the sound of souls reaching extinction on their own.

I did not turn around.

Their screams reached for me.

The cries of vengeful ghosts could brand curses upon the living, but—

Annoying.

Even that did not work on me.

A curse spat out by vengeful ghosts of that caliber would disappear if I merely cleaned out my ears.

The problem was—

“Anyone else?”

I had killed everyone downstairs. How was I supposed to get information now?

“...Damn.”

This was troublesome.

I considered that as I looked through the inn.

There was almost no human presence left.

Almost.

And that meant—

There are still a few people here.

Especially on the very top floor.

That one.

Fortunately, the presence at the top of the inn seemed to be staying put.

Rather, it was releasing energy, deliberately making it clear that it was there.

What kind of bastard was that?

Whatever it was, if it was inviting me in, I should go.

I headed up, listening to the stairs creak beneath my feet.

Creak.

Creak.

CRAAASH—!!

The instant I reached the next floor, something came flying at me.

“Die!”

Men who had been hiding in wait—

Slash.

“Ghk!”

—were cut down and fell to the floor below.

Thump.

The small sound of bodies striking the ground from that height marked their end.

Do they have no intention of running?

It had been the same earlier.

These men did not seem to consider escape at all.

After the fight downstairs, fleeing should have been their first priority.

Instead, they kept trying to ambush or attack me.

Why?

I remembered something I had been considering for some time.

I could tell just by looking at the expressions of the men who had attacked me.

They do not want to do this.

Their actions carried the air of compulsion.

It felt like they had been given orders that contained none of their own will—orders they had to carry out somehow, no matter what.

Sky-Crushing Palace.

Was their energy the problem?

Those cult bastards had always been like this.

They did nothing but insane shit in my past life, and they have not changed here either.

Perhaps because violence and killing were easier in this world, they were even worse here.

Fucking bastards.

I had barely managed to grind them into dust, and now they were pulling this bullshit in another world.

I held back a sigh.

What else could I do?

I have to grind them into dust again.

Now that I had seen them, I could not simply stand by.

I had made a promise.

“I do not care what form you take, or what world you are born into.”

Those were the words I had spoken as I watched the Heretic Cult Leader’s end, burning away in flame.

“Come back to life as often as you please. I will kill you again every time.”

The words I had spat out, drowned in rage, had become both an oath and a curse I had laid upon myself.

Fuck.

I should not have said that.

Regret was rising right up to my throat.

Of course—

I would do it again anyway.

That was what I thought as I stood before the door to the inn’s top floor.

My goddamn stubborn streak never did anything but make my life miserable.

“...All right, then.”

I put my mask back on.

Then I wrapped energy around the thing I had brought with me.

WOOOOONG.

A black shield.

I had taken it from a master I killed before.

I poured power into it and hurled it with all my strength.

CRAAASH—!

The shield smashed through the door as it flew forward.

It must have been a fine item, because its destructive force was considerable.

The shield flew on as though it would smash through everything in its path.

Then—

Catch.

It stopped in someone’s hand.

“An arrogant bastard.”

A man had caught the shield, effortlessly stopping the energy I had imbued in it.

He had black hair and a face covered in scars.

“What are you? You have taken my younger brother’s shield quite boldly.”

[Your younger brother...?]

He had called the man from before his younger brother.

Looking closer, they did resemble each other.

“The Twin Ghosts. That was our epithet. Do you know it?”

BOOM.

The man who had been sitting in a chair rose to his feet.

He had a shield as well.

And—

A spear.

A long spear.

The feeling of his energy was different.

They are not even comparable.

A master like that had been sitting alone in an inn like this?

He must have clearly sensed what was happening below.

Why did he not intervene?

Why had he done nothing until his younger brother died?

I wondered whether the two had been on bad terms, but—

“Hwang Bok. Your funeral will be arranged by your brother.”

“...”

For someone who supposedly did not care, he was crying.

He was steeped in grief. It seemed that he and his younger brother had been close.

Then...

There had to be a reason he could not intervene.

I studied the room.

Hm.

A few details gave me the answer.

[It seems you cannot leave.]

“...”

[You cannot take a single step outside this room. Is that right?]

“...How did you...?”

The man reacted with surprise.

The reason I had figured it out was simple.

[Too many things are within arm’s reach, and clothes are scattered everywhere. If you could leave, there would be no need for all these things.]

The chamber pot, the clothes, the food left lying around.

And there was also the fact that he had remained still until his younger brother died.

He had not come out even while the inn was being attacked.

That was evidence too.

[You are bound.]

“...”

[In a way that prevents you from leaving this room.]

“Heh... Hehehe. Sharp eyes.”

Thud.

He raised his shield and lightly swung his spear.

Whoosh.

Wind stirred.

“It is the price of surviving and gaining another life... Had I known it would end this way, I would not have done something like this...”

[A new life?]

“...It is all meaningless... Heh. Hehehe.”

He pointed the tip of his spear at me.

The man who called himself one of the Twin Ghosts released an overwhelming killing intent.

[...]

A chill ran through me.

He was definitely different from the man he had called his younger brother.

“I will kill you. The moment you entered this room, your life was already over.”

[Ridiculous.]

I drew my sword and spoke to him.

[There is nowhere I cannot go. I can go anywhere.]

“You truly are insane. Fine. Die. I have my brother’s funeral to arrange.”

BOOM—!!

He rushed at me at tremendous speed.

The shield came first.

SCREEEECH—!

I caught it with my sword and deflected it.

Heavy.

The hard aura wrapped around the shield pressed against my sword aura as though it would crush it apart.

The shield alone was troublesome enough, but he had another weapon.

“Hup!”

He blocked my attack with his shield and thrust his spear at me.

I twisted at the waist and barely avoided it, but—

Shhk!

“Tsk.”

A shallow wound opened at my side.

Had I been a little slower, the spear would have pierced my abdomen.

How much inner qi did I have left?

Spiritual energy was one thing, but using demonic qi forced me into inefficient circulation.

Body-and-sword unity.

I had to finish this quickly.

I entered a state of complete absorption at once.

Then—

“You bastard—you are a monster!”

His state changed as well.

He entered the world of body-and-sword unity alongside me.

A master who has stepped into that realm.

He too had stepped into unity with his weapon.

Did that make it body-and-spear unity?

The name did not matter.

What mattered was that he could enter this world too.

“I need to find out who you are somehow. I need to see what kind of thing you are.”

He raised his momentum and approached me.

Haa...

I ? NоvеIight ? (Original source) steadied my breathing.

I had already experienced fighting someone who could use body-and-sword unity through Yu Yeon.

It was a battle of one conviction against another.

There it is again.

I saw something else in that space.

If the Moon Immortal sword path showed me the path my sword needed to take—

This...

—then this showed me where to cut.

Was body-and-sword unity the trigger?

It seemed that way.

“DIEEEE!”

He charged at me, inner qi surging from him as he shot the razor-sharp spear forward.

Clink.

I applied hard aura to the Heavenly Demon Divine Sword.

I compressed it and sharpened it further.

My breath caught for a moment.

Crack.

“Huh?”

The spear split apart under my Divine Sword.

Then—

SLASH—!!

“Ghk!?”

I split his shield apart and severed his right arm along with it.

“AAAAARGH!!”

[...Hoo.]

The tense moment passed, and I spoke to him.

[Good. This time, I did not kill him.]

[You truly are insane.]

That was what the Heavenly Demon said in reply.

He sounded like he wanted absolutely nothing to do with me.