Chapter 2

Chapter 2

'Something — something's gone wrong.'

He had spent a full twenty years risking his life, drifting across the distant Central Plains.

The ten years before that had been hellish days in the Demon's Gate, where lowborn wretches of Cheonsan gathered to compete for the right to enter the Cult.

The instinct forged within that crucible of suffering was screaming.

That something had gone catastrophically awry.

"The village. The village is......"

One of the many villages commonly scattered around the foothills of Cheonsan.

It did not even have a proper name, so the Cult had simply called it Five-Field Village — and his hometown had evaporated as if into thin air.

Along with the mother and two younger sisters who should have been waiting for him in that two-room thatched hut within the small village.

'Where to? Where have they gone?'

Every soul residing in Cheonsan and all of Singang — without a single exception — was a subject of the Cult.

Not a single member of the Cult could ever abandon their livelihood and desert their place of residence without the Cult's permission.

Yet of all places, the farming hamlet right at the base of Cheonsan had vanished whole?

'To the Cult — I need to return to the Cult first and confirm the reason with the main Sect......'

Just as he was struggling to organize the thoughts tangling into chaos unlike his usual self —

Two figures began approaching rapidly from behind.

"......"

But Annihilation did not particularly raise his guard.

This was Cheonsan, the Cult's front yard, and those now approaching exuded the distinctly somber aura unique to the Phantom Slaughter Sect — the same as his own.

They must have deliberately acted that way to signal they were not enemies.

"Annihilation."

"......Number Nine. And Number One, is it?"

As expected, the two who arrived like the wind were familiar faces.

The elite assassins of the Phantom Slaughter Sect, of whom only ten existed.

Number Nine, who like himself had clawed his way up through the hell of the Demon's Gate and earned the Sect's selection, and Number One, who privately held the title of Young Sect Master.

"Show proper respect, Annihilation. He is the Sect Master now."

"...! I pay my respects to the Sect Master."

At Number Nine's frigid voice, Annihilation's body dropped into a full prostration with an instinct bordering on reflex.

The two characters Sect Master, branded deep into his psyche, compelled him to do so.

"Rise. You've been away for a full twenty years — it's understandable that you wouldn't know."

"......"

The moment Annihilation tried to bow his head and avert his gaze from the new Sect Master's strangely gleaming stare —

"Five-Field Village was relocated ten years ago."

"...? Relocated where......?"

"When I ascended to the position of Sect Master, I had it moved within the main Sect's territory."

"Ah."

"Is there a problem?"

"There is not."

To the question that was tacked on eagerly, as if expecting something, Annihilation bowed his head even more deferentially.

Normally, within the Cult where merit outranked station, there was no one in the Phantom Slaughter Sect before whom he need bow his head — save the Sect Master.

But the young master who had secured the Number One position on pedigree alone had now risen to the Sect Master's seat, had he not?

Moreover, the mere fact that Five-Field Village had been relocated to the Sect's own territory — a far superior location — was enough to melt away even the childhood resentment and disdain he had once harbored.

The Sect Master, snorting briefly as if amused by this swift change of attitude, turned on his heel and uttered curtly —

"Let's go."

"As you command."

With no further need for explanations to give or receive, the three set off together toward the Phantom Slaughter Sect's domain.

***

Because Cheonsan was a vast mountain range, the journey from the site of Five-Field Village to the Sect's territory required a considerable stretch of time.

In particular, since Annihilation's condition had deteriorated severely — both internally and externally — from failing to receive proper treatment in time, the pace of travel was inevitably even slower.

And yet, for some reason, neither Number Nine nor the Sect Master, who had personally come all this way to meet him, uttered a single word of complaint about it.

'......Something is wrong.'

After about half an hour of travel, Annihilation's instincts told him that something was off.

At first, he had been so grateful that his family's home had been moved somewhere better that the thought had not even crossed his mind.

After that, he had attributed it to his merits being recognized — having completed every single mission without failure across a full twenty years on his own.

But now, even that no longer provided a sufficient explanation.

'The Sect Master — Number One — personally came out to meet me?'

Him? The one who, despite being the first to clear the Demon's Gate, had been assigned the designation Number Ten because of his exceptionally lowly birth?

The one who had nonetheless earned recognition for his skills, and within a single year had come to be called by the generous name Annihilation by the former Sect Master instead of a mere number?

He still vividly remembered the look in Number One's eyes — brimming with hatred and jealousy — when Number One had personally come to deliver the news after his successful first year in the Central Plains.

"Know your place and conduct yourself befitting your base station. Number Ten."

"No matter what my father says, to me you will always be Number Ten. Understood?"

'And yet, that same man......'

Was saying not a single critical word about him — limping and gasping with his breathing in disarray from the worsening of the injuries sustained from the Fist God.

Not only that, but was actually waiting in silence for him to catch his breath?

For someone to have simply matured and changed with the passing years, Number One was not the sort of person who inspired that kind of trust.

'Has the seat changed the man?'

Unable to discern the truth behind it, Annihilation could only soothe the inexplicable unease that kept surging within him with that thought.

Even though the gleaming looks Number One kept casting were no different from back then, there was simply nothing Annihilation could do about it.

After another painful half-hour of grueling travel —

"!!!"

Annihilation stepped into the territory of the Phantom Slaughter Sect, still lingering in his old memories, and came face to face with the true form of the foreboding that had been tormenting him.

"Ah— aah...!"

THUD—!

His legs buckled beneath him, and he collapsed without even realizing it.

He was the one who had single-handedly severed the breath of the Shaolin Abbot himself, but this time, even he was powerless.

"Heh heh heh heh! How does it feel? Your impression of reuniting with your dear mother and sisters after all this time?"

"Ah...... ah...... aghh...!"

Tall poles, planted in brazen display at the entrance of the Phantom Slaughter Sect.

Three round heads impaled atop them, their eyes torn wide open, staring down at him from above.

Though long years had passed, how could a child ever forget the face of his own mother?

What was more, Annihilation had endured every one of his thousand killing missions driven solely by the wish for his family's peace.

Yet now those very family members — reduced to nothing but severed heads — were sending him grief-stricken gazes with hollow eyes.

CRACK—!

CRUNCH—!

"You tiresome bastard! I kept sending you to die in every hellhole I could find, and you always came crawling back alive — and now you've gone and killed the Shaolin Abbot too? Ha!"

"Gakh! Khk!"

"I should have killed you long ago. Father said you were the talent who would revitalize the Sect, but no — you're just vermin. Vermin that should never have existed in this world!"

CRACK—! THUD, THUD—! THUD—!

The Sect Master rained furious kicks upon him without any further pretense of hiding his true feelings, his face awash with a riot of emotions entirely unbefitting an assassin.

"You killed them. Your mother, who was living perfectly fine digging dirt to survive, and those wretched daughters of hers — they all died because of you."

"AGHH!"

Annihilation lay trampled on the ground, unable to tear his gaze from the heads atop the poles for even an instant, while the Sect Master's ranting right beside him went completely unheard.

'Why...... why?'

Because he could not comprehend it.

He was an assassin who, for the first time in the history of the Phantom Slaughter Sect, had successfully completed one thousand killing missions in the Central Plains.

And the last of those had been finishing off the Fist God himself — ranked third in the Martial World Registry.

And this was how they repaid him?

Give him a handful of coins and let him live in peace, and he would have devoted his life in loyalty until the day he died.

And yet —

"Heh heh heh heh! The man who was always frozen stiff like a sheet of ice can actually make such a stupid face."

"......Why?"

"What?"

"Why? Why......"

Setting everything else aside, he could even understand them discarding him like a hunting dog once the rabbit was dead.

The Sect Master — no, Number One, that rabid colt of a bastard — had despised his very existence from the beginning.

But then —

"Why did you kill my family? Why?!"

"What? Bwahahahaha! Why, you ask?! Because I wanted to see that look of despair on your face!"

"......What?"

"Word of your exploits has traveled beyond the Sect all the way to the Cult Master's throne. Ha! A worthless vermin from the Demon's Gate, daring to...!"

"Ah."

Annihilation understood.

That son of a bitch — who had not inherited even half of what his father, that fearsome tiger of an assassin, had possessed — had been consumed whole by a colossal jealousy.

And it had continued, unchanged, even after ascending to the seat of Sect Master.

"You did all of this...... for that petty reason?"

Immediately after staggering to his feet —

The pupils that had been surging like waves rapidly regained their original dryness.

The flow of qi that had been churning wildly, unable to conceal the turmoil of disrupted emotions, settled into the stillness of a tranquil lake.

"......After all the immense loyalty I've given — this is the repayment you offer me?"

A half-submerged voice flowed out in a low murmur, his feet already stepping naturally back a pace.

"What? You dare say 'you' to me? Ahahahaha! So the wretch finally shows his true colors! Fine then! This is the gift your Sect Master bestows upon a cur who came crawling back from the Central Plains!"

And as if he had been waiting for precisely this reaction, the Sect Master unleashed his killing intent without restraint, igniting a blazing wave of killing intent.

"You die here today, regardless. You think I'd stand by and watch the likes of you catch the Cult Master's eye?"

"......The former Sect Master would weep tears of blood in the afterlife."

"Shut your mouth! I am the Sect Master now!"

For generations, the Sect Master of the Phantom Slaughter Sect could only be relieved of the position through death.

The former Sect Master, already advanced in years, had surely long since died and returned to the earth.

But even so, Annihilation would no longer call the son of a bitch before him Sect Master.

"No — you're just a worthless piece of garbage, a vermin son of a bitch who happened to be born with the right bloodline."

"Keheheheh! No matter what filth you spew, nothing changes."

Behind that brimming boast, seven presences closed in, steadily encircling him from all sides.

The remaining elite assassins — all except Number Nine, who stood at the new Sect Master's side.

It seemed the vacancy created by the former young master ascending to the position of Sect Master had not yet been filled.

But such a trivial detail meant nothing to Annihilation right now.

'I'll die for certain.'

Though each of them was a cut below himself, they were still elite assassins of the Phantom Slaughter Sect — one of the pillars of the Seven Houses of the Demonic Path.

So escaping this place alive in his current condition was impossible.

But —

"Even so, I will kill you without fail. Number One."

If he poured out every last drop of his remaining life force, could he not at least take the enemy before his eyes along as a companion on the road to the afterlife?

Under the pained gazes of his family, still looking down at him from atop the poles unchanged, the last shred of human emotion remaining in the deepest reaches of Annihilation's heart melted away like snow under sunlight, vanishing without a trace.

What filled that void was nothing but a hollow killing intent that would never be quenched.

'I kill them.'

In the midst of the elite assassins who were inching closer, measuring their distance, searching for the angle of attack —

BOOOOOM—!

At last, the innate true qi that had lain dormant within Annihilation erupted all at once, like a volcano unleashing its fury.