Chapter 355

Killing intent burst out of Ya Suyeong’s body and swept through the entire cavern. Like a knife-gale in the dead center of winter, a cold, razor-sharp presence spread in every direction.

The martial artists nearby all retreated at once.

Someone screamed, and someone else collapsed right where they stood.

Killing intent released by a Celestial Being was something those below that realm could not easily endure.

In an instant.

Ya Suyeong’s body vanished.

No—more precisely, she was so fast she could not be seen.

Without a hint of wind, the hair at Seol Unhwi’s forehead fluttered.

It was the vacuum Ya Suyeong created as she moved.

In her right hand was a black dagger, pulled so quickly it was impossible to tell when.

A faint purple sheen flowed along the edge, as if poison had been smeared there. True to the Pavilion Lord of the Black Robe Pavilion, it was a weapon specialized for concealed killing.

The dagger’s tip shot toward Unhwi’s throat like lightning.

One strike, certain death.

It was an attack thrown with full force by a Celestial Being.

A perfect ambush that gave no room to dodge and no time to block.

Yet Unhwi did not move a single inch.

He merely wore a calm expression.

Thunk.

A strange sound rang out.

Ya Suyeong’s dagger stopped.

Right before Unhwi’s neck—exactly three inches away.

Chief Seong’s hand had snatched the blade itself.

“You crazy bitch. I was just watching in silence, and you dare lay a hand on the young master?”

Chief Seong’s voice was colder than Unhwi had ever heard.

Ya Suyeong, eyes wide, could not understand what was happening. It had been a flawless ambush. Even if the other party was the same class of assassin, reacting when he was not the direct target?

That made no sense. It could not happen.

How...?

“...So you really were a Celestial Being?”

Chief Seong tightened his grip on the dagger.

With a crunch, the blade shattered into pieces.

Then Chief Seong’s body spun. His left foot rose.

There was no time to do anything. The top of Chief Seong’s foot struck Ya Suyeong’s temple with perfect accuracy.

Kwaaang—!!

Bone broke. Ya Suyeong’s body flew in an arc. She only stopped after flying a dozen zhang and slamming into rock.

But Chief Seong’s movement did not end.

The moment he landed, his right hand went to the back of his waistband. And with speed faster than lightning, he drew something out.

A dagger.

It was similar in shape to the one Ya Suyeong used, but slightly larger. A cold chill flowed from its edge.

His eyes fixed straight ahead.

A massive shadow was closing in.

Mujin, the Vajra Youth.

The instant Ya Suyeong was attacked, he had charged in with his monk’s staff, and a terrifying momentum poured out of him, fitting his enormous frame.

“Amitabha!”

Mujin’s staff came down. Golden energy streamed from the falling staff as it split the air—true force from the Adamantine Body Art.

But Chief Seong’s dagger was faster.

Before the staff could reach Chief Seong’s head, his dagger stabbed the staff’s tip.

Staff and dagger collided head-on.

Kwaaaang!

A thunderous roar erupted as if it would shake heaven and earth.

The shockwave blasted outward, shattering the stones underfoot and cracking the walls.

The martial artists nearby were pushed back by the aftermath, bracing their backs against the cavern wall.

In the brief moment the two men slid back a single step, Chief Seong’s leg drove off the ground.

Again, it was almost a streak of light.

Kwaaaang—!!

When Chief Seong’s foot struck the staff, the staff—already cracked from the dagger’s impact—exploded into fragments that scattered everywhere.

“This...”

Mujin was aghast. That staff was a weapon as precious as his life. The weapon that had been with him for decades had just been blown apart.

He quietly pulled back to widen the distance.

Without advancing further, Chief Seong opened his mouth in a low voice.

“Monk Mujin.”

“...Amitabha...”

“If you try to touch the young master again, I will kill you.”

With those words, an immense momentum burst out of Chief Seong’s body.

This was not the aura of someone who had only just reached the Celestial Being realm.

It was stable—and destructive—like someone who had remained in that realm for a long time.

In this moment, with Mujin and Ya Suyeong and every martial artist in the cavern thrown into confusion, only one person remained calm.

Unhwi.

As if nothing had happened at all, he took something from his robes.

A Sin Samyeon.

He placed it between his lips and flicked his finger. A flame sparked to life.

Hoo.

Smoke curled upward. A sweet, faint scent spread through the cavern.

The sight was like a painting.

“There’s a saying that a martial artist’s blade is staked with their life.”

Ya Suyeong and Mujin looked at Unhwi.

“Since you started this, it seems you have no choice but to see it through to the end.”

“...You. Who are you?”

Unhwi said nothing.

“Your name is No-Name? Arrogant bastard. And your senior disciple is Clear Martial Hall? You really think we’re fucking idiots. In this world, what kind of senior disciple calls a junior disciple ‘young master’?”

It was not a slip of the tongue.

From the instant they realized the scheme, they had already made their decision—and revealed it.

Unhwi, exhaling smoke from the Sin Samyeon, spoke briefly.

“Chief Seong.”

“Yes. Young master.”

“Can you handle two of them at once?”

Chief Seong adjusted his grip on the dagger and answered.

“Yes.”

Then.

Unhwi’s eyes flashed.

“Kill them.”

The moment those words ended, Chief Seong kicked off the ground.

***

The moment Chief Seong and Mujin clashed, Ya Suyeong rose from the rock. Blood ran from the corner of her mouth, but killing intent still writhed in her eyes.

She had already decided.

She did not know what those two were.

But she would.

No matter what it took, she would kill them here.

“Junior... you’re truly something.”

“I didn’t do anything, senior.”

That was right.

Unhwi did nothing. He only watched.

“You called him ‘young master’... fine. You must be some scion of a great family. I’ll send you to the underworld today.”

Ya Suyeong pulled something from her robes. A black pill.

Unhwi’s gaze tightened.

It did not look like a cultivation resource. It seemed to be a spirit pill of the unpleasant sort.

“Do you think eating that will change anything?”

“It will.”

“I see.”

“...Did you think our Black Robe Pavilion was something you could take lightly?”

“I have never taken you lightly. You simply weren’t an organization worth my attention.”

“...You talk like absolute shit. You little hatchling.”

After staring at Unhwi—who did not bother to answer—Ya Suyeong tossed the pill into her mouth.

At once, black energy surged up from her body.

The instant he saw it, Unhwi understood.

What that pill was.

“You will meet a bad end.”

“...”

“Even if you take the Demon-Alliance Blood-Qi Pill, nothing will change much. And if you’ve decided to die as vermin—neither martial artist nor assassin—then I can’t respect that choice.”

Ya Suyeong ignored him.

The Demon-Alliance Blood-Qi Pill was a taboo even in the martial world.

It had only one effect—and that effect was enormous.

It turned innate primal energy into demonic qi.

“See you in a bit. You won’t get to die easily.”

With that, Ya Suyeong lunged toward Chief Seong, who was locked in fierce battle with Mujin.

“...Amitabha. This humble monk will show sincerity as well.”

As two Celestial Beings released their power at the same time, Chief Seong’s eyes flashed.

He withdrew the dagger. Then he took out a new weapon from behind his back.

A long, slender sword. The blade carried a blue tint like ice, and a cold chill flowed from the sword itself.

The treasured sword of the White Snow Specter Corps,

the Ice-Snow Sword.

Until now, his understanding had been insufficient to wield it.

But not anymore.

“Snow-Shadow Thirteen Swords.”

Chief Seong murmured low.

In an instant, his form blurred—like a shadow appearing and vanishing within a blizzard.

Cloud-Mist Flow Steps.

It was the moment the White Snow Specter Corps’ supreme movement art unfolded.

Ya Suyeong’s eyes widened.

“Wait... that’s... the White Snow Specter Corps’—?”

Before she could finish, Chief Seong’s sword arrived.

First sword, Snowflower Flying Dance.

Dozens of sword-shadows bloomed in midair—beautiful as snowflakes riding the wind, and deadly.

Ya Suyeong ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) hurriedly blocked with her dagger, but the shadows had no substance. The true attack came from elsewhere.

Second sword, Ice-Soul Shatter Heavens.

A blue blade aura poured from Chief Seong’s sword tip. The air it touched froze in an instant.

Ya Suyeong dodged to the side, but where the sword aura grazed, a thick layer of ice formed across the floor.

“You... you—surely you aren’t...?”

Chief Seong did not stop.

From the third sword through the thirteenth, every form of the Snow-Shadow Thirteen Swords unfolded in succession.

Third sword, Snow-Mountain Collapse. Fourth sword, Ice Dragon Emerges from the Sea. Fifth sword, Lonely Cold Wind...

Each sword form carried a different trait. Some were fast and sharp, some heavy and overpowering.

Some specialized in ambush. Some were wide-area attacks.

But every form shared one thing.

Cold.

Where Chief Seong’s sword passed, ice blossoms bloomed, and the moisture in the air froze, shedding tiny snowflakes.

That was the true essence of the Snow-Shadow Thirteen Swords.

Ya Suyeong and Mujin blocked desperately, but both were being pushed back.

Ya Suyeong in particular had already been grazed several times by blade aura, taking wounds.

She thought he was an assassin, but he wasn’t.

He was a swordsman wearing an assassin’s skin.

“The White Snow Specter Corps... had martial arts like this?”

Mujin was the same. He did what he could to block with the shattered remnants of his staff, but even the Adamantine Body Art struggled against the freezing blade aura.

It was then.

Chief Seong drew his sword back—and then pulled the dagger at his waist.

At the same time, black energy and blue energy surged up from his body together.

The pinnacle of an assassination art created over twenty years by the White Snow Specter Corps’ Corps Master.

The Ice-Soul Venom-Sovereign Formula.

He opened his mouth and began to recite the formula verse.

Cold as Venom.

Ice-Soul Shatters Heaven and Earth.

When the recitation ended, blue energy rose from Chief Seong’s body. Extreme cold spread outward like poison.

It was cold that pierced flesh and bone to freeze even the soul—an energy that dissolved life itself.

That was the ultimate extreme the Corps Master had pursued.

The air around Chief Seong turned white.

Chief Seong stepped forward.

His body blurred.

Cloud-Mist Flow Steps.

Mujin hurriedly drove his Adamantine Body Art and threw a punch.

The direction was the upper right.

His instincts screamed at him. There.

Interestingly, the prediction was correct.

Kwaaaang—!!

The instant Chief Seong’s dagger collided with Mujin’s fist, a brief smile flickered at Mujin’s lips.