Chapter 112 - Sect Annihilations

"Clean work."

Too clean.

That was why the Weapon Monster found nothing particularly remarkable in the wounds on the corpses. He had hoped a close examination of the severed surfaces might reveal what martial arts had cut off their heads...

He examined them for quite some time, but ultimately learned nothing. All he could infer from such clean cuts was that the killer was a formidable expert.

"What about their belongings?"

The Weapon Monster spoke after thoroughly searching the empty folds of one corpse's clothing.

"They had nothing on them to begin with."

The Murim Defense Corps member who had first greeted him and led him here answered. He had been standing quietly behind him all this time.

"Something stinks to high heaven about these bastards. The dead ones and the one who killed them."

"Look at the bodies. Exceptionally clean kills. I can't tell the level or kind of martial arts involved, but one man definitely did this. That's why it stinks."

"Ah, yes."

The Weapon Monster continued, examining the clothing on one of the corpses from various angles.

"These fellows sleeping sprawled out here are all wearing exactly the same thing, as though they bought their clothes at the same shop. That's another thing that stinks."

All the corpses wore black.

But not all black was the same shade. Faded black, muddy black, black with a slight reddish tinge... There were many varieties.

Yet every one of the dead wore pitch-black clothing with almost no difference in shade. They clearly belonged to the same organization.

The Weapon Monster seemed to be giving them only a cursory look, but he was checking every detail. Of course, the Murim Defense Corps had already established that much.

But he saw one thing more. Perhaps that was why he was called the Eight-Technique Weapon Madman.

He thrust a finger deep into the neck of one corpse, then pulled it out. It came away covered in blood that had grown quite thick.

SMACK, SMACK.

"Urk!"

The Murim Defense Corps member had been watching closely, wondering what the Weapon Monster intended to do. Then he suddenly vomited. The Weapon Monster had stuck his blood-soaked finger into his mouth.

He worked it around deep inside, looking for all the world as though he were savoring the blood.

"Hmm! Yes, yes. I thought the color and smell of their blood were fishy. Sure enough, these bastards stink."

"They came from Yunnan. Their blood's all shit-colored, and it absolutely reeks of shit."

"Pardon...?"

The Murim Defense Corps member grew increasingly bewildered. He had no idea what the Weapon Monster was talking about.

But curious or not, the man received no further explanation. This was not something an ordinary member of the Murim Defense Corps would understand, nor did he need to. Once the investigation was over, the Weapon Monster would tell Eulji Tae, who could decide for himself whether to explain it to his men.

'The Hall of Gathered Evil's Killing Shadow Corps, butchered like this right on Zhengzhou's doorstep.'

The Hall of Gathered Evil, and the Killing Shadow Corps.

The Weapon Monster had extracted the decisive clue to their identities from the corpses' blood.

The Hall of Gathered Evil possessed an unusual internal cultivation method called the Hidden Shadow Heart Art.

Practicing it made one's blood slightly murkier than other people's and gave it a distinctive poisonous scent. This was because learning the Hidden Shadow Heart Art required the continual ingestion of venom from a snake called the Palgyobok, found only in Yunnan.

The Hidden Shadow Heart Art was the exclusive cultivation method of the Killing Shadow Corps, an assassin organization operated by the Hall of Gathered Evil. It allowed its practitioners to summon their internal power without readily revealing its force to the outside world.

Still, setting aside the Killing Shadow Corps' presence here...

'Who in the world killed them?'

Had a ghost truly appeared, as the rumors claimed?

'Utter nonsense.'

There was no such thing as a ghost. Even if there were, would one have nothing better to do than single out these bastards? Hadn't there been plenty of onlookers there? Besides, how many other bastards in this provincial capital deserved to die?

'The Murim Alliance in particular is crawling with them.'

And the man at the head of that Alliance deserved to die a hundred times over and more...

That damned old geezer.

'Definitely not a ghost. No.'

If he simply dismissed it as a ghost's work, there would have been no point in coming here to investigate. Nor could that possibly be the answer.

'The Heavenly Demon Castle? The Extreme Yin Cursed Killing Star's chosen one? Or perhaps...'

If someone had killed them in retaliation for an attack by the Killing Shadow Corps, perhaps the Orthodox Faction was responsible.

But something about that explanation did not sit right either.

For one thing, there would have been no need to kill the enemy so stealthily, nor any reason to conceal what had happened.

The killer had moved so secretly that people mistook him for a ghost. And he had assassinated the Killing Shadow Corps members with exceptionally swift, economical swordsmanship.

Of course, the Orthodox Faction had many swift-sword styles, but this felt different. Very different.

'Can a sword truly be this devoid of emotion?'

The sword was a martial artist's soul. Every swing carried the wielder's soul within it.

Thus, anyone who practiced martial arts inevitably left traces of their soul in the marks of their techniques. There were no exceptions.

No, there must not be.

Yet these sword marks had no...

Soul.

'Fishy. Very fishy.'

There was certainly something that stank about this unidentified ghost.

"Well, shall we get down to hunting this ghost?"

The Murim Defense Corps member was still giving him an odd look, plainly unable to understand him, but he paid no heed and quietly rose.

"I'm not quite sure whether it's a ghost or a monster yet, mind you. But let's find it first."

With that, he left Nangnang Inn.

"M-monster!"

"A monster? Oh, come on, mister. That's not fair. Ever seen a monster this cute? Oh! Wait, am I wrong? That ghost fellow was pretty handsome too, wasn't he? Well, then, I'll be a cute monster. Hehe."

PFFT.

A childlike hand reached forward, and the man's head melted away. Blood, brains, and liquefied skull mingled into a grotesquely colored fluid.

It streamed down, thoroughly soaking his limbs.

THUD.

The headless corpse then sank forlornly to its knees.

"Watch your mouth. Unless you want a fucking smack."

Not that he had a mouth left to smack, much less one to watch.

At Yeon Youngha's call, Old Uncle, who had been standing silently behind her, bowed.

"These bastards taste like shit and they're boring as hell. What should I do?"

With a dainty little gesture of her pinky, she pointed at the saber wielders of the Great Saber Sect, who still stood before her with their blades leveled at her.

Old Uncle bowed even lower, as though he would have crawled into the ground if it would let him bend any farther.

"Their sect leader has yet to appear, miss."

"True enough. I can feel a fairly entertaining toy coming this way. That must be their sect leader, huh?"

"Most likely."

"Then I'd better clear away the bugs before I really start having fun, shouldn't I?"

Bugs.

To her, the Great Saber Sect's saber wielders were nothing more.

"Grr! Die, you monster!"

His pride wounded by her words, one of the saber wielders charged forward, drawing up all his True Qi as he brought his saber down at Yeon Youngha. Dozens of his fellows had already been reduced to handfuls of filthy liquid, yet they still seemed to have little understanding of what she was—or what a terrifying monster she could be.

"Tsk. You have to be worth playing with before I can play. This is just playing house, isn't it?"

She merely flicked forward the pinky she had been using to scratch her ear.

Half the charging man's head vanished.

It was not sliced off, melted, or shattered. Half his head simply... ceased to exist.

With the remaining halves of his mouth and tongue, he let out a bizarre scream and died.

"Tsk. How do you expect to play with me when you can't even block a little thing like that?"

"Boring. Boring. I said, this is boring. Hurry up and get here."

Yeon Youngha's eyes turned like obsidian, glistening with a mad sheen.

Her fingers began dancing through the air as though plucking the strings of a zither. In time with their movements, the saber wielders melted one by one.

There were no screams, no resistance, no battle.

It was merely play.

As her hands traced patterns through the air as though playing with jacks, the saber wielders' lives vanished in droves.

Running was useless. Her black energy blanketed every corner of the Great Saber Sect, and death soon spread everywhere.

In another brief moment, she and Old Uncle would be the only living, breathing creatures left here. Just then...

A middle-aged man appeared, carrying an eight-cheok saber far longer and larger than his own body.

It was Jang Pilgang, leader of the Great Saber Sect.

Although he did not belong to the Murim Alliance, he was one of the foremost experts in Henan Province. The precise extent of his abilities was unknown, but he was so accomplished that some said he might be a match for an Alliance hall master.

Yet now his expression was terribly rigid, his face utterly ashen. His hands shook so violently around the great saber that he looked ready to drop it at any moment.

Unlike his disciples, he could sense at least the fringes of the uncanny energy pouring from Yeon Youngha.

He surveyed his surroundings with a grim expression.

Most of his dozens of disciples had already become mere handfuls of bloody liquid. Those who remained alive had melted limbs or holes through their necks and faces. They were already crippled or on the verge of death.

His face hardened further. Looking at Yeon Youngha, he spoke gravely.

"Could you not simply let them go?"

He did not even ask who she was or why she was doing this.

The moment he saw her pitch-black eyes, like the bottom of an abyss, he understood all too well that such questions were pointless.

In truth, even what he had just said would be useless. Still, as sect leader, he had to say it. Unless he at least tried, the Great Saber Sect would vanish meaninglessly, without having done a thing.

"Huh? Those things?"

Yeon Youngha playfully pointed her pinky at the crippled saber wielders.

"Yes. These people."

Those things, and these people.

The words laid bare the gulf between how Yeon Youngha and Jang Gangpil saw them.