Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Blossom Sword Dragon, Myeong-u.

Yul Hwi had first laid eyes on him — the senior disciple of Mount Hua's third generation — five days ago.

The Martial World Registry: a record inscribing only those masters who had earned towering renown across the Central Plains, Orthodox and Unorthodox alike.

It was right after he had sifted through the Registry's Mount Hua-affiliated entries and then narrowed them down further, searching for a suitable target for this new body's first rehearsal.

Apparently dispatched on some mission from the main sect, Myeong-u descended to Hwaeumhyeon every other day leading his junior brothers — naturally drawing Yul Hwi's gaze most frequently.

And the assessment Yul Hwi reached after observing Myeong-u closely was this:

'A textbook Orthodox next-generation prodigy.'

Exemplary, one might say.

Myeong-u, who kept an uncreased smile throughout even the tiresome chattering of his young juniors, was — to someone like Yul Hwi, who had experienced a living hell in the Demon's Gate from a far younger age — nothing more than a sheltered flower who did not know how frightening the world could be.

So much so that the urge to snap him off at the root surged unbidden.

The follow-up assessment, accordingly, grew all the more ruthless.

'A naive brat who blindly trusts in the name of Mount Hua.'

And watching what Myeong-u had repeated three times over his every-other-day descents from the mountain, one felt no hesitation whatsoever about using a man he had never once met as bait.

Having killed only assigned targets and those entangled in the resulting grudges during his days as Annihilation, he had wondered if some prick of unease might arise in his heart. But —

"Oh mercy! P-please forgive me, Daoist sir! If you could just give me one more month...!"

"Dear me. The elder's circumstances are lamentable indeed, but Mount Hua's rules and precepts are strict. I have already made an exception once, so I must ask you to vacate by tomorrow."

"Oh, oh! Then where is this old woman supposed to go...!"

"That would be the elder's affair, not mine. Mount Hua has already shown more than sufficient mercy and compassion."

"Oh...... oh no...!"

"Ahem! Well then."

The old woman who had been selling wild herbs at a small roadside stall collapsed where she stood and began to wail.

'And yet the esteemed Daoist of illustrious Mount Hua doesn't so much as glance back.'

This was the true face of the martial world.

Petty bastards who — without even being the king — ruthlessly wrung the blood and sweat from the powerless, behaving like savages.

And to think they had the gall to methodically buy up the land around their own front yard and play landlord with it.

By comparison, the Unorthodox faction — which at least had the honesty to call its extortion "protection fees" while skimming a few coins — seemed positively civilized.

'......Not that it's any of my business.'

Having been born and raised in the heart of a land governed by the law of the strong devouring the weak, he had no desire to meddle or pass judgment on such things.

He simply found it loathsome and laughable that the very same people turned around and denounced assassins as the most heinous scum under heaven.

'Still...... it leaves a foul taste.'

A memory from very long ago flickered unexpectedly before his eyes.

It was the face of his mother — weeping as she sent her eldest son away to that deathtrap called the Demon's Gate, because she had failed to deliver her tribute on time while raising three young children alone.

"Ohhh! Hoo hoo hoo!"

"......"

The old woman's anguished sobbing, drifting over from nearby at just that moment, painted his mother's slightly blurred face in sharper strokes.

A longing that set a corner of his chest to a seething boil and dried his mouth to dust.

Clench.

Yul Hwi squeezed his eyes shut in haste against the emotions that surged unbidden, and before he knew it, both hands had balled into heavy fists.

'My path of vengeance may well lead to the annihilation of the martial world itself.'

It was an impulsive thought that struck him suddenly.

If this thing called the martial world had never existed in the Central Plains to begin with —

Then perhaps there would have been no land of survival-of-the-fittest called the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, no living hell of kill-or-be-killed called the Demon's Gate?

It was nothing but an absurd fantasy, and there was no undoing any of it now.

'I want to find out.'

Yul Hwi was suddenly curious.

If a great war — one that would not easily be stopped — were to erupt between the Central Plains martial world and the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

And if, as a result, the species known as martial artists were left with far fewer numbers than they had now.

Then how, exactly, would this world unfold?

'It's a road I have to walk regardless, so I might as well watch the journey with a cheerful heart.'

Had the original owner of this body not been him, the boy would have been helplessly dragged off by the Sun and Moon Gate to suffer who knew what degradation.

Until now, Annihilation had never harbored a single question — had merely followed the orders handed down from the Phantom Slaughter Sect with blind obedience.

And it was only now — for the first time since being born, no, since dying and living again — that he had arrived at this point.

'......I kill the martial world.'

The moment he at last held, with an autonomous will, a vast ambition within his breast.

***

The killing mission officially began at the start of the Rat Hour — around eleven at night.

Late enough to be in bed, yet somehow too ambiguous an hour for deep sleep.

He had aimed for the most peaceful, most unguarded moment — when the day's affairs were done and one lay comfortably in bed.

Of course, infiltrating Mount Hua's walls at his current level would be exceedingly reckless, so if the target had to be caught outside in Hwaeumhyeon, it would have to be during the bright hours of day. But —

"Hahahahaha!"

"Hohoho! Dear brother~ Won't you accept a cup from me too~?"

"Haha! Of course! Pour me a nice big one!"

Hahahahaha!

Hohohoho!

'This is astounding no matter how many times I see it.'

Astonishingly, Blossom Sword Dragon Myeong-u spent the night away from the mountain every time he descended to Hwaeumhyeon.

Alone, no less — after sending all his juniors back up to Mount Hua.

His excuse every time was that he was worried about Hwaeumhyeon because of the Sun and Moon Gate causing havoc in neighboring Sanseo.

"Oh my! You tease~"

"Now, now! Hold still. Ahem!"

Yet once his juniors had departed, he would change clothes in his guest room and indulge in precisely this sort of debauched revelry at a pleasure house every single time.

'Madman.'

The private suite on the top floor of the five-story pleasure house.

Having already witnessed this pattern twice, Yul Hwi — who had positioned himself a step ahead, hiding in the shadows of the ceiling — spat an icy sneer inwardly.

This was not a rebuke of a Daoist secretly indulging in wine and women.

He was a Daoist and a martial artist both, and one who had earned the epithet Blossom Sword Dragon in the martial world at that.

'A swordsman who leaves even his sword behind to go chasing after wine and women.'

His scorn was directed solely at the preposterous spectacle of a man who had left behind not only his Mount Hua robes but even the Plum Blossom Sword that was their twin symbol, abandoning them in his guest room.

'And they're propping up a man like that as the next head disciple. Mount Hua must be nearing the end of its fate.'

The few Mount Hua Daoists he had killed in the past had never been so careless, which made this feel genuinely bizarre.

"Oh my...!"

"Now, now!"

'What a disgrace.'

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at the drinking table was already shifting toward something decidedly more sordid.

Having no desire to watch any more of this revolting display, Yul Hwi resolved to wrap up the killing mission he had prepared.

All while harboring a deeply sincere doubt about whether Mount Hua — having witnessed the true nature of a man like this — would actually send out the caliber of person he wanted.

Slide.

"!!!"

Timing his descent to coincide with the sound of the courtesan's garments coming undone, he alighted behind Myeong-u like a feather.

Without sparing so much as a glance at the courtesan — who had been wearing a thoroughly amorous expression until she spotted him and recoiled in shock —

Press.

Yul Hwi drove his fingers deep into the lethal pressure point on the back of Myeong-u's neck.

"Ghhk!"

With one hand on the courtesan's sash and the other clutching at his own trouser hem, the man had been in no position to respond to such swift and stealthy work.

Thud.

"Move and I kill you. Make a sound and I kill you. Do anything that annoys me and I kill you."

"...!"

Clamping his hand roughly over the ashen-faced courtesan's mouth, Yul Hwi continued his frigid warning in a dry, emotionless voice.

"Do you know who this man is? If you do, blink once. If not, blink three times."

Blink.

"......Gutsy. Carrying on a tryst with Mount Hua's senior disciple of the third generation, right in Mount Hua's own front yard."

"......"

"This man is dead. So if you want to live, run — now."

Slowly peeling his palm away, Yul Hwi wiped the saliva slicking his hand on the hem of the courtesan's skirt and began rattling off the words he had prepared, his tone cold and measured.

"Mount Hua will soon be annihilated by our Sun and Moon Gate."

"?!"

"But someone like you will be hunted down by those topknot bastards first, branded as the killer. Perhaps even tortured."

"!!!"

"So if you want to live, you need to run far. Very far. Somewhere Mount Hua's reach will never extend."

Tremble, tremble, tremble!

Tears pooled in the eyes of the courtesan, who was shaking helplessly, at a complete loss in the face of this sudden turn.

Yul Hwi looked down at her with indifference for a brief moment, then jerked his chin toward the door.

"Do you have the luxury to just stand there? Mount Hua's movement arts are fast. Fast enough that if you leave even a trace behind, they will find you."

"Hh, hhk!"

A sob finally broke free, torn loose by unbearable terror.

But rather than saying a word about it, Yul Hwi merely jerked his chin toward the door a second time.

As the courtesan staggered to her feet to escape the immediate threat of death, a quiet piece of advice slipped into her ear.

"If I were you, I'd head west. Even just as far as Cheonghae past Gamsu would be enough — the Mount Hua bastards wouldn't dare rampage there."

"Ah...!"

"If you understand, then get lost. Before I change my mind and kill you after all."

"Hee, HEEEK!"

CLATTER—!

At the faintest wisp of killing intent he let slip at the end, the courtesan — who had not learned a single move of martial arts — was immediately terrified into fleeing the room in a clamor of stumbling footsteps.

As her presence slowly receded beyond the pleasure house, Yul Hwi turned his full attention to Myeong-u's corpse for the final task.

There was no chance that a pleasure house in Mount Hua's own front yard would harbor any underworld riffraff, so there would be no one left to interfere.

"Hmm."

'The Moon Vein's yin-cold qi arts.'

The Moon Vein — one of the two great lineages that comprised the Sun and Moon Gate.

Despite having roamed every corner of the world, he had never had a single point of contact with that unfamiliar name. And now he had to imitate it convincingly.

So that the hidebound old men of Mount Hua would channel every ounce of their immeasurable disappointment over the discovery of their prodigy's corpse in a pleasure house into hatred and hostility directed entirely at the Sun and Moon Gate.

'It's hardly difficult.'

After all, the Sun and Moon Gate was the only faction in the current Central Plains that employed yin-cold qi arts.

Imitation or not, all he had to do was compress cold qi and force it into various parts of the corpse.

After that final task — taking a mere quarter of an hour — Yul Hwi, too, departed.

"KYAAAAAH!"

At the end of the Snake Hour, around eleven in the morning, when the sun was bright and high —

The piercing scream of a maidservant who had come to clear the drinking table, tired of waiting, broadcast the events of the previous night across every corner of Hwaeumhyeon.

And it took only a single double-hour for that news to reach Mount Hua.