As Sagat’s vital energy surged up around him, condensing into a dense, unscattering black-red blood-energy, far off, Gen knitted his brows and was just about to make his move—only to seem to notice something, freezing for an instant, a thick, unmeltable shock welling up in his eyes.
Kure Fuusui, out on the street, had fallen speechless almost the very moment that black-red blood-energy rose around Sagat.
As members of a clan of assassins, they were no strangers to this power that existed only in legend—the Satsui no Hadō (lit.
‘Surge of Murderous Intent’).
Its outward form was ki, but in essence it was a forbidden spiritual energy formed from the coalescence of the ultimate lust for slaughter, an obsession with victory, and negative emotion—one of the very ‘ultimates’ that every assassin pursued.
Though in theory everyone possessed the latent potential, across the whole of history those who could awaken to it were exceedingly few.
Only one who valued ‘winning’ above life itself, above humanity itself, had any chance of touching this forbidden energy at the depths of the soul.
And as the price for obtaining this power, most of those who had awakened to it throughout the generations were gradually devoured by murderous intent, transformed into Asuras who knew nothing but slaughter, losing all emotion, all morality, all mercy.
In the end they died in battle amid endless combat, or were utterly destroyed by the Hadō itself.
And now… As the Satsui no Hadō welled up abruptly, Sagat paid it no mind—he did not even perceive that he had, intangibly, already completed his awakening.
His one remaining eye merely fixed itself fiercely upon Yang, a low growl rumbling in his throat.
Those two fists, sheathed in blood-colored flames of energy, were like a heavy cannon shell fired from the barrel, accelerating to the very limit across an extremely short distance, their faces tearing the air apart with a shrill sonic boom, slamming all their force and murderous intent without mercy into Yang’s chest.
Almost in the instant of contact, a string of shattering sounds came from Yang’s chest.
Not a faint crack, but a dense succession of crisp snaps, like ice splitting apart.
It was as if he had been driven through by an iron hammer—first the crushing and tearing of flesh, then the splintering of the sternum, and finally that golden vital energy, condensed into something physical, flooding into his chest cavity like a torrent bursting a dam, battering the heart, battering the lungs, battering every soft organ within.
In that single instant, Yang’s heart stopped beating.
Not as a figure of speech—rather, as that surging power struck the heart head-on, the heart contracted violently under the sudden pressure, then fell into cardiac arrest.
Blood ceased to flow, oxygen ceased to be carried, and his consciousness in that instant went vast and blank.
With a thunderous boom, Yang’s tall, powerful body, beneath Sagat’s fist, was as light as a withered leaf.
His feet left the ground, his body cutting a perfectly straight trajectory through the air, smashing through the already rickety front gate of the Hibiki Dojo, smashing through the folding screen behind it, smashing through the weapon rack set against the wall, and finally crashing heavily into the wall at the very deepest part of the dojo.
All manner of odds and ends were shaken loose, raining down upon Yang’s body, the scene a chaotic ruin.
“A-Yang!!” (Walnut’s note: In Chinese culture, the prefix “A-” (阿) is placed before a syllable of a name (usually the second character of the given name) to create an affectionate, informal, and approachable nickname, used mainly by family members, close friends, and romantic partners.) Her eyes constricting, Chun-Li’s voice tore through the night sky.
Heedless even of the searing pain in her ankle, she instinctively charged toward the dojo’s shattered gate.
And standing where he was, Sagat too had sunk into a long silence.
There was none of the elation that ought to come with victory.
His face bowed low, shadows falling across it, and together with those ceaselessly trembling pupils, that ceaselessly heaving chest, Sagat could feel that his own body and spirit seemed no longer to belong to him.
He turned, his movements very slow, like a rusted piece of heavy machinery laboring to operate.
“So it’s already over…” Kure Fuusui muttered under his breath off to one side.
“As expected, it really does come down to the professional… Let’s go, Karura.
If we keep hanging around, it’ll definitely become a hassle.” Kure Fuusui instinctively reached out a hand to pull Kure Karura away, but the moment he did, he found he couldn’t budge him at all.
Lifting his gaze, what entered Kure Fuusui’s eyes was Kure Karura staring fiercely at that figure inside the dojo, the one buried beneath the debris.
“Karura?” Kure Fuusui prompted instinctively.
“It’s not over yet.” Kure Karura shook his head, saying in a daze, “Something… is waking up.” “…?” Bewilderment showed on Kure Fuusui’s face.
Of what was happening outside, Chun-Li knew nothing at all.
She simply charged into the dojo on instinct, and then beheld a sight that choked the breath from her.
Yang lay face-up among the shattered weapon rack and the broken plaque.
His chest—Chun-Li scarcely dared to look at his chest.
That fist-imprint was sunk deep into the flesh, the skin all around it scorched black by the surging vital energy, the sternum showing an unnatural depression, splintered shards of bone jutting out from beneath the skin, stark and white, stained with dark red blood.
His arms were splayed out at his sides, the skin forcibly scraped away in a layer by the vital energy, exposing ruined muscle and shattered bone.
His eyes were half-open, but utterly without their former blazing heat—only dim and lightless, the gaze unfocused, the pupils dilated, staring motionless at the precariously dangling light tube on the ceiling.
“A… A-Yang?” Chun-Li’s voice was trembling.
She instinctively reached out a hand, but felt only a wave of icy cold.
The heart was stopped.
With her fingertips pressed against Yang’s carotid artery, she waited a long while, yet still there was not the slightest pulse.
Feeling that corpse growing colder, already drained of every sign of life, Chun-Li felt only a wave of dizziness flood her mind.
Pulse, breath, heartbeat… every physiological response of a living human being had now vanished entirely from Yang’s body.
As a suffocating sense of despair came crashing over her, suddenly, Chun-Li felt something.
It was the sound of a heart beginning to beat.
At the very first, this sound was extremely faint—so faint that even Chun-Li, cradling Yang in her arms, could not truly feel it.
But very soon, that heartbeat grew louder and louder, until it was no longer something only Chun-Li could hear—even Kure Fuusui at her side, and even Sagat, who had been ready to leave, heard it clearly.
And along with that heartbeat, Chun-Li could clearly feel an intangible energy flowing at astonishing speed, carried by the heart’s pumping, through the spine and toward every limb and bone of Yang’s body.
Along the meridians, along the bones, along every muscle fiber and sheath of fascia.
And then, together with the madly writhing flesh and blood, dark red blood-energy burst out across Yang’s entire body.
“The Satsui no Hadō?!” If Sagat and Chun-Li still could not comprehend what this dark red blood-energy was, then for those born into assassin lineages—whether Kure Fuusui or Kure Karura—both were struck dumb where they stood in that instant.
In the records of their families’ archives, the Satsui no Hadō did indeed possess the powers of telepathy, malice-sensing, and mental erosion—even the ability to induce the base murderous intent within another’s body.
But even so, wasn’t awakening to the Satsui no Hadō this quickly just a bit too fast?
Or rather—if the Satsui no Hadō truly were this easy to awaken, it would have long since become commonplace, found on every street corner!
And standing up high, gazing at Yang’s condition, Gen too knit his brows, his withered fingers instinctively rolling at his beard.
But after sensing for a moment, a flicker of shock welled up in his eyes as well.
The reason was nothing else—the murderous intent… was being devoured.
Very soon, not only Gen, but even Kure Fuusui and Kure Karura swiftly perceived that something was wrong.
Rising up from Chun-Li’s arms, Yang had at first still been wreathed in that dark red blood-energy—but immediately after, accompanied by an inexplicable surge of energy.
In the perception of everyone present, that blood-energy was, amid the roaring of Yang’s heartbeat, ceaselessly evaporating and burning away, devoured by that astonishing body heat like coal.
And gazing at Yang, Chun-Li too froze slightly, then said with a touch of disbelief, “A… A-Yang?” “…Ah.” Yang nodded, but then he strode off toward the door, a pair of fiercely burning eyes turning to look at Sagat, brimming with a sickly exhilaration.
“Yo!
Long time no see!” ____ 👻🔥P- Walnut-chan🔥👻 🔥 New history: Path of Elation in Warhammer 40K Help us hit our targets: