Chapter 65: War Is the Way of Deception (6)

Heaven-Scorching Sword Tiger, Namgung Byeok.

He wasn’t the kind of person who enjoyed waiting.

It was better to smash things and move with his own hands.

So he decided to move first.

“Waiting here like a dog for that carriage to arrive isn’t my style.”

And there was another reason.

On the way in, he had smashed quite a lot of Night-Heaven Guests.

He had even crumpled their formation.

Would the Night-Heaven Guests in Anhui City really come charging into a safe house that was obviously wrecked?

The moment they saw it, they would turn and run.

If so, it was better to take the choke point first—then strike, ambush, and kill.

Originally, that innocent girl being transported in bonds wasn’t his business.

Jegal Yeon had only asked him to save and protect one child: Cheon Soyak.

But he wasn’t a cold-blooded bastard who could help and still choose not to.

“Well... if it ends up being more than I can handle, Jegal Yeon can handle it.”

He didn’t know what kind of girl she was.

But if she was beyond what he could manage, he planned to send her to the Jegal Clan.

Learning formations and stratagems under Jegal Yeon and becoming a strategist wasn’t a bad life.

Namgung Byeok rose slowly from his seat.

It was about time to leave.

The location of the Anhui safe house he’d pried out through interrogation.

From there to here, there was only one route that could be taken “secretly.”

His body sliced through the air and vanished.

*****

“Namu Amitabha... it’s really been completely smashed...”

Even Gong-eop couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

What kind of expert had come here and run wild?

The formation that looked powerful at a glance had been crushed and shattered by sheer force, warped and mangled into wreckage.

The boulders and wooden stakes that served as the formation’s anchor points were all cracked and broken.

And that wasn’t all.

From the courtyard to the inner rooms, there wasn’t a single place without bodies.

A thick, choking stench of blood saturated the air.

This wasn’t one death, or two.

At least thirty.

And in a narrow room, they were piled up in layers.

As if someone had been tossing away rags, the corpses had been thrown here and there.

Soyak walked into the middle without a trace of expression.

In that moment, Gong-eop felt a cold shiver surge up his spine.

“Young Lady Soyak, it’s danger—”

“There’s no one alive here, Master Gong-eop.”

Blood so thick it drowned out every other scent.

Pools of blood.

The stench of blood.

In the middle of it, the fragile girl’s eyes flashed.

“—Hah.”

Soyak drew in a deep breath.

The remnants of lives that had thrashed violently and then died stabbed into her lungs.

A vast killing intent, and the dead’s lingering thoughts.

Grudge and hatred and murderous intent and obsession.

Soyak inhaled all of it—every last bit.

With each breath, something buried deep in her soul began to wake.

A monster.

The source of the talent she had been given.

A nature that hungered for blood.

It was instinct.

The instinct of the Heavenly Killing Star.

The star of slaughter, killing, murder, and the karma of killing.

Something carved into the soul of a child born under that star—innate, inborn, branded from birth.

It was a horrific, brutal scene...

and yet Soyak felt it in her skin: this kind of landscape was her life, her fate.

What awakened her essence was a concentration of blood-stench she had never breathed before.

The scent of blood.

“Haa...”

Her exhale leaked out through her teeth.

Gong-eop felt “threat” from Soyak.

Even though she was clearly on their side...

it felt like staring at an evil spirit, a slaughter-ghost—something that harmed human beings.

“Young Lady Soyak? Are you all right?”

Even as he spoke, he slowly drew up the power of Prajna Great Ability.

A faint golden radiance rose into his eyes.

It was certainty.

If he left her like this, something terrible would happen.

“...I’m fine. Don’t worry.”

“You don’t look fine at all.”

Soyak slowly gathered her inner power.

In her Mindscape, the black qilin roared and sprinted along her blood channels.

A vast energy boiled up from her lower abdomen.

Enough to make her sleeves snap and her hair whip.

“...Young Lady Soyak.”

“I know. Just give me a moment.”

Soyak knew her own state.

She would feel threatening.

Right in front of them, she was venting killing intent and drawing up inner power.

But Gong-eop waited for her.

When she raised her inner power, the black qilin born from the Harmonization Scripture’s power woke.

A distant roar filling her entire Mindscape.

The divine beast began doing what it had to do.

It tore into the lingering thoughts that had seeped into her fragile body—biting off chunks, devouring them.

And with every bite, that slaughter-ghost aura gradually quieted.

In its place, a cold and boundless auspicious energy settled.

A spirit beast that governed death and the afterlife.

The qilin’s auspicious presence.

As the Heavenly Killing Star, she would follow fate and stir up countless blood calamities.

But each time, the black qilin would help her.

Even if the guidance of an evil star led her down the road of blood calamity...

it would let these small hands control that power.

It would take the countless killing intents and the dead’s lingering thoughts—turn them into strength instead.

So that even in the middle of a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, she would not lose herself.

So that she would not become some puppet toyed with by a star.

That was the founding ancestor’s arrangement embedded in the Harmonization Scripture.

The reason Mount Hua’s grand master had made it so only the Heavenly Killing Star could learn this inner art.

“Now... I’m fine.”

Even without her saying it, Gong-eop could tell.

The blood-scent that had filled the space, even the remaining killing intent—everything had vanished.

There were still bodies and blood everywhere, but...

it was shocking how little unpleasant energy remained.

“What did you do, Young Lady?”

“Can’t I call it a secret?”

Soyak looked up at Gong-eop.

The flashing killing intent was already gone.

Only eyes—black and empty, as if they could swallow anything placed inside them and erase it.

“...If you promise you won’t harm the world, I will cover it.”

“That promise, I can make.”

“Namu Amitabha... I truly do not wish to fight you. I will believe you.”

She had been a girl who, for a moment, had released killing intent powerful enough to overwhelm this horrific murder scene.

Gong-eop struck his wooden gong with inner power and steadied his breathing.

The Prajna Great Ability energy he had raised so high began to settle.

“Rakshasa monks, search this place just in case. Young Lady Soyak should come with me—we should check outside.”

“Yes. We will.”

Soyak nodded and followed him out.

Prajna Great Ability still flowed from Gong-eop’s body.

Just not as fiercely as before.

He hadn’t fully lowered his inner power in case something was still here.

Soyak was the same.

Even standing still, her pitch-black hair rippled.

But the reason wasn’t the same as Gong-eop’s.

It was because the black qilin—after devouring all that killing intent and those lingering thoughts—had swollen to a size she wasn’t used to.

The aura she couldn’t fully control was leaking out.

And then—

“My, my. With you spilling your aura like that...”

A middle-aged martial artist burst out from the brush.

Without any warning at all.

An expert so high that neither Gong-eop nor Soyak had sensed his presence.

They had heard of it.

Once someone reached the Transformation Realm, they could hide their inner power as if it didn’t exist.

People commonly called it Return-to-Origins.

“Who are you?”

Soyak stepped forward first and asked.

Her hand rested on the Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge at her waist.

The middle-aged man didn’t seem to care.

As if he was confident he would still be faster, no matter what she did.

“Why do you care who I am? Let’s see. From the look of you... you’re Cheon Soyak, aren’t you?”

“You... know me?”

“I do. Of course I do.”

He snickered and shoved his hand past the brush.

No telling what he would pull out.

Gong-eop’s hands glowed with golden light as he raised his tension to the limit.

Soyak drew Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge.

“Shaolin?”

“...This humble monk is Gong-eop. You should also reveal your identity.”

“That’s a bit difficult.”

Then he yanked something out of the brush.

It was—

a huge carriage.

The horses were gone. Only the carriage remained.

But it wasn’t an ordinary carriage.

It was a convict transport cart: a prison cage of iron bars mounted atop a wheeled frame.

And in the middle of it, a young woman lay collapsed—she looked three or four years older than Soyak.

For an instant, Soyak assumed this man was the leader of Namgung’s assassin group stationed here.

But that didn’t fit.

Then who had killed all those assassins?

Why was this man dragging the carriage by hand instead of hitching it to horses?

Soyak organized the questions, tested the assumptions, and spoke.

“...Did you do this? Did you wipe this place out?”

There was only one answer left.

A middle-aged martial artist who was at least at the entrance of the Transformation Realm.

That meant he was the one who had smashed this place.

“You’re quick. You really are.”

The man grinned and pushed the cart forward.

That was all.

He didn’t even look like he put strength into it.

And yet—

THUUUUM!

A massive sound boomed out, like when Abbot Gwanggyeong slammed the ground with a stone slab.

And the cart charged straight toward Soyak and Gong-eop.