Part 34 - A Mountain of Corpses, a Sea of Blood
Black-Clawed Mad Dog.
With his shirt off, his entire upper body was packed tight with black skull tattoos. As a specialized fixer for the Black Bone Sect, he was infamous.
He was nothing like the run-of-the-mill underworld martial artists who learned a bit of martial arts, killed a few ordinary people like government troops, stabbed a couple of sword hands, and then strutted around bragging.
He had made a profession of hunting martial artists who got in the Black Bone Sect's way.
A born gambler of life-and-death matches, who made life-and-death duels his karma.
What he cherished most was his beloved weapon—his black claw.
Forged from an alloy mixed with so-called unbreakable black iron, that claw had snapped countless enemies' weapons, and he had never once doubted it would continue to do so.
And now he was watching that black-iron alloy claw shatter to pieces—in a single move.
"Uh…?"
The countless experiences he had piled up through innumerable life-and-death duels… the razor instincts honed by that experience… none of it mattered.
The opponent's grip that came in while smashing his treasured weapon crushed his breastbone, tore his heart apart, snapped his spine, and burst out through his back.
All of that—in a single move.
The one called Mantis Ghost Demon couldn't even swing his chain sickle once before he was cut into three pieces in midair.
The one called Iron Pillar—after the very first blow—had his body melt under horrific demonic energy, and his breath was cut off.
Even the master of Dark Cloud Art… even Twin Flood-Dragon Hands, who was said to wield twin blades as if they were alive… even One Kill, One Question.
Without managing even a single attack, they were torn apart in the air and turned into a bloody mist.
Each and every one of them had been a known name in Luoyang's underworld martial world.
But not one of them managed any real resistance.
It was one-sided slaughter.
"C-crazy…?!"
Hunting Tiger, Kang Ja-mu, assessed the situation in an instant.
The moment he saw the ones who had climbed the tower first being hacked into chunks and scattered, he turned.
Then he unleashed the movement art he took pride in and ran down the tower's outer wall.
That almost excessive speed of judgment and exceptional movement art had been the number-one reason he'd stayed alive until now.
Of course, this time, he'd met the wrong opponent.
Without even realizing what had hit him, he was dismantled in midair.
His blood and meat sprayed onto those climbing after him.
And the ones drenched in it soon shared the same fate.
Those scaling the outer wall died in droves.
Wherever that figure wrapped in black demonic energy passed, blood blossoms bloomed, stinking of raw gore.
The sight was like an ink-black imugi slithering down the tower.
"You idiots! Don't climb the tower!"
After the first wave rushed in and died so meaninglessly, the ones following realized climbing such a cramped tower was stupidity.
"Spread out and encircle him!"
Nearly a fifth of them were slaughtered in an instant, but they didn't give up easily.
No matter how monstrous the opponent looked, even masters who had reached "the wall" had limits to internal energy.
"Buy time! Somehow, buy time!"
"Don't try to take him head-on! Use footwork! Support from the sides!"
And they believed that if he burned internal energy that recklessly at the start, an opening would surely come.
That was why those who had already reached the wall—or could sense the wall—were watching from the back, waiting for their moment.
All of them thought the same thing.
If his internal energy finally hits bottom…!
***
The young beauty who had fought alongside Gyu against Geumju had received emergency treatment from an agent of Hyunwol Pavilion, and was now up on the roof.
Because she couldn't miss Dark Heaven Venerable One's battle.
"Wow… this is insane. Seriously."
Her small mouth fell wide open.
At first, she too had abandoned the tower and made the same judgment as those encircling Dark Heaven Venerable One from the ground.
Against a master, the key was to drag things out with a rotating battle and exhaust the opponent's internal energy.
But as if mocking that common sense, Dark Heaven Venerable One was sweeping the battlefield with the same strength and speed as at the beginning.
As if he had endless internal energy.
"Amazing…"
Clasping her hands together, she felt a thrilling shiver.
It was the feeling you got when facing an absolute being—awe.
"Crazy…"
At that, a huge man almost completely wrapped in bandages shook his head.
The girl puffed out her cheeks at his reaction.
"What's crazy?"
Trembling at the skin-splitting killing intent you could feel even from far away, the man replied.
"...I've known your head was busted for a long time, but you think that's cool? I can't understand it."
Dark Heaven Venerable One twisted a Black Bone Sect martial artist's neck and ripped it out in one motion—right in the man's sight.
The moment his head was seized, the underworld martial artist fought with everything he had.
But he couldn't properly resist—white hands rising from the ground held him fast.
In the meantime, two underworld martial artists tried to strike Dark Heaven Venerable One from behind with their weapons.
But Dark Heaven Venerable One had already vanished, leaving only the headless torso behind.
As they froze for a moment, having lost their target, Dark Heaven Venerable One rose behind them with a smooth, silent motion.
His hands flashed.
The two underworld martial artists died split at the waist, blood and innards spraying out.
Beyond their bodies splitting apart, Dark Heaven Venerable One was holding the head he had ripped out—between his teeth.
The grotesquely gaping maw of that thing crushed the head in a single bite.
And it burst into mad laughter.
Those underworld martial artists who took the brunt of that laughter flinched.
From the maw, the smashed contents of the head dribbled and splattered.
A scene too bizarre for words.
The bandaged man felt disgust and fear at the same time.
"...That can't be a human."
Dark Heaven Venerable One.
When he'd first heard the rumor, he had scoffed a little.
Delivering heavenly punishment on behalf of the heavens?
Childish.
He'd thought it was just some strange righteous hero burning with a sense of justice.
And in truth, he'd felt envy too.
To render the powerful Black Bone Sect toothless in just two days—an achievement he could only dream of.
But the Dark Heaven Venerable One he saw in reality didn't resemble his vague fantasy in the slightest.
It only looked vaguely human.
The unknown, skin-crawling aura wrapping everything around him…
The way he drove people to death with grotesque sounds…
The white hands surging up from the ground and swallowing corpses whole…
The fact he even chewed living people to pieces with a maw packed with spike-like teeth.
It was like something that had just crawled out of the worst nightmare imaginable.
He knew it.
The only reason he could keep his sanity was because he was this far away from that thing.
And above all, because that thing's target wasn't him.
"A monster…"
What other word could possibly name that?
***
"Don't come! Don't come any closer!"
He waited until the very end.
Praying only that the bastard would finally weaken.
But it was a mistake.
The wall was right before his eyes.
Specially recruited for a huge sum by Geumju, he immediately unleashed every technique he knew.
"RAAAAAAH!"
He didn't think about distributing his internal energy, or about what came after the fight.
He poured out everything—truly everything.
Techniques that had felled countless martial artists scorched the front lines into wasteland.
The force was enough to collapse several already-unstable buildings on the spot.
He emptied himself so completely he found himself wondering if he'd ever unleashed his techniques to this extent in his life.
For an instant, he even felt as if he'd glimpsed beyond his limits—attacks executed with terrifying perfection.
"Huff… huff…"
Leaning on his long sword, he barely stayed standing.
His internal energy was rapidly drained to nothing; his vision spun; it felt like every blood vessel and energy channel would burst.
"Ugh—!"
It was an impossible, reckless circulation of inner power—something his usual self would never have done.
He spat out a mouthful of dark red blood.
There was no doubt he'd taken irreversible damage to his dantian.
And yet he could still feel it.
That thing's gaze, through the thick, rising dust.
That freezing killing intent hadn't weakened even a little.
"F—…!"
At the final moment, what filled his vision was the densely packed teeth inside a maw split wide open.
***
This can't be real…
Geumju couldn't believe it.
None of it made sense.
The dreadful aura pouring off him was growing stronger and stronger.
The sulfur stench rising from him was so thick it felt like her nose would rot and fall off.
This is impossible…
Even those who held out to the very end gained nothing.
They all died.
How can this happen…?
No matter how strong he was, she'd believed she could win—because she had even used secret arts learned from that madman of a master.
So she hid and waited.
Waited and waited.
And now she was alone, forced to face him—stronger than he'd been at the start.
No. No…
She tried to scatter the thought that kept surfacing.
That strength… it kept reminding her of the one she feared most.
It was like her master.
The aura, the presence, the outward appearance—none of it was the same, and yet something was unmistakably identical.
That common sense meant nothing.
That nothing, from start to finish, made any sense.
And that someone like her could never grasp its depth.
No, no! I crossed the wall! I became a master!
Even if only temporarily, she had crossed the wall.
The realm everyone dreamed of from the moment they first obtained inner power.
A realm granted only to an extreme few—almost like a privilege.
A realm where a human breaks past the limits of their kind and is reborn as a true superhuman.
She had reached that realm now.
I'm strong now. I'm strong…!
For this secret art, she had even sacrificed her lifespan.
Decades of it.
That was why she could never accept the fate placed before her.
I'll kill him! I'll kill that bastard, and I'll tear those bitches apart too! I'll kill everything that mocked me—without leaving a single one!
She didn't realize what she looked like right now.
That even after stepping—if only briefly—onto the path of a true strong one, she was still hiding in a worn-out building, screaming "I'll kill" only inside her head.
That she couldn't even raise her internal energy, couldn't even let her killing intent spill outward.
"..."
That was why she couldn't admit the whistling she'd been hearing for a while was drawing closer.
She couldn't admit that the desperately sorrowful melody was now sounding right behind her.
She ignored the way the air temperature was dropping.
Ignored the way the sulfur stink was thickening.
"..."
But when she finally felt his breath against the nape of her neck, she couldn't look away anymore.
"So you were here, Geumju."
Then he corrected himself.
"No—should I call you Se-yu-hwa?"