“Hmm!”
Outside the Soundless Illuminated Courtyard Formation, Jin Mudo had been watching Murin when a brief hum escaped him.
“Well, look at that.”
A peculiar smile tugged at his lips.
“He sensed the Lesser Killer’s presence? Heh. How fascinating!”
The child who had attacked and killed Murin was known as the Lesser Killer.
His killing intent was exceptionally difficult to detect, so Jin Mudo had expected Murin to struggle here for quite some time.
“Heh. Hehehe! This is truly fascinating!”
The result had defied his expectations.
Murin had died without laying a finger on the Lesser Killer, but even that much left Jin Mudo thoroughly pleased.
“Grow stronger! Hehehe. I can hardly wait to see what you become! Hehehehe!”
A bloodthirsty smile spread across Jin Mudo’s lips.
Was he so delighted by his disciple’s rapid growth?
For the first time in a hundred years, a flush of life had begun to return to his bloodless face.
***
“Hurk!”
Murin’s eyes flew open as tremendous pain tore through his throat, as though a red-hot iron spike had pierced it.
That damned brat!
He had died and the formation had already begun anew, yet the pain refused to fade.
Even after opening his eyes, Murin could do nothing but rub his throat for a long while.
Though it had been an illusion, the agony had felt horribly real.
“Candied fruit.”
Murin frowned.
Of all things, he had never imagined having his throat pierced by the bamboo skewer from a stick of candied fruit.
His greatest mistake had been letting his guard down because the boy looked no older than five.
After frowning in thought for a moment, Murin slowly nodded and rose to his feet.
“So this is the martial world.”
While working at the inn, he had encountered people from every walk of life.
Some had been so broken that they came to end their lives with one final drink. Others deliberately leaned enormous blades against their tables and strutted about with puffed-up shoulders.
Those sorts never lived very long.
Yet the martial artists who swaggered about the inn and pretended to be fearless rarely survived for long.
How foolish.
Back then, Murin had learned a little about the martial world.
Never become the stone that juts above the rest.
And never boast of your strength.
That was the martial world as he had always understood it.
A child.
He truly had never considered it.
A boy barely five years old had become a peerless assassin and pierced his throat without the slightest hesitation.
It was not merely because this place was a formation. The real martial world might hold things even more absurd than this.
Crack.
Murin loosened his body and steeled his mind.
I have to treat everyone I meet as an enemy.
He could never know where the next blade would come from.
It might slide from the sleeve of a merchant smiling as he spoke. It might be drawn from the waist of a lifelong friend.
Yet he could not simply kill everyone. If he revealed his killing intent, the Soundless Illuminated Courtyard Formation would erase him on the spot.
Hoo...
There was only one thing he could trust inside this place: the Mad Heaven Demonic Art.
He slowly circulated its breathing method and stepped back into the street.
“Come and take a look! Everything’s dirt cheap!”
“Mother, please buy me that!”
The marketplace bustled with noise.
Nothing had changed from before.
“Wow! Let’s go get candied fruit!”
The voices of children calling for candied fruit rang out from somewhere nearby.
Murin flinched and turned toward them before he could stop himself.
He’s changed?
The boy who had killed him was nowhere to be seen. Only unfamiliar children ran about in delight.
Crash!
Something shattered noisily beside him, and an old man tumbled to the ground.
A passing carriage appeared to have struck him.
“You senile old fool! Watch where you’re going!”
“F-forgive me, sir!”
His right arm seemed badly injured. Grimacing in pain, the old man clutched his right shoulder with his left hand and repeatedly bowed his head.
“Bah! What rotten luck. Ptooey!”
The coachman, plainly the one at fault, spat as though he were the victim of some dreadful misfortune and drove away.
The old man staggered, then collapsed where he stood.
His arm did not seem to be his only injury.
“P-please... help me.”
Desperation filled his face as he pleaded with the people passing by.
Some tossed him a silver coin. Others sneered and walked past.
Murin watched the old man for a moment, then strode toward him.
“Would you help me to my feet?”
Hope lit the old man’s eyes as Murin approached.
Murin stopped before him and offered a faint smile.
“That’s strange. The coachman was the one who struck you...”
A chill entered his gaze.
“So why are you the one who wants to kill me?”
The instant the words left Murin’s mouth, the old man sprang upright and thrust out his left hand.
He had never been clutching an injured shoulder.
A dagger had been concealed in his left hand, short but more than capable of severing a man’s lifeline.
Grab!
Crash!
Murin had already prepared himself. He caught the old man’s arm, hooked his foot around the man’s ankle, and threw him to the ground.
“Old man, those eyes of yours are far too sharp. How do you expect to assassinate anyone like that?”
“You bastard!”
Murin twisted the old man’s wrist until the dagger fell, then slowly picked it up.
Surge.
Though he restrained his energy with the Mad Heaven Demonic Art’s breathing method, the moment he touched the blade, his thoughts blurred and his blood began to boil.
Murin merely smiled.
Wait. I’ll feed you blood soon enough.
Ignoring the Heavenly Kill Star’s howls, he steadied his mind.
Then he stared directly at the old man’s throat—the place his dagger had to pierce.
“Raaagh!”
Sensing his fate, the old man thrashed wildly. Murin remained impassive as he drove the dagger into the man’s neck.
The old man struggled for a time, then gave one final twitch and grew cold.
Murin watched him die before slowly rising.
Rustle...
At the same moment, the once-bustling marketplace crumbled away like sand.
The Soundless Illuminated Courtyard Formation was dissolving.
***
When Murin opened his eyes, familiar darkness rushed in and swallowed him.
The sensation of leaving a formation and returning to reality was far from pleasant.
It reminded him of the woodcutter who wandered into the Peach Blossom Paradise, watched a game of baduk until the handle of his axe rotted away, and finally returned to the mortal world.
An indescribable emptiness seeped into him as he turned toward Jin Mudo.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
Jin Mudo had no eyes, yet the emotions pouring from the depths of those hollow sockets were unmistakable.
“You’re a madman.”
“Is that all you have to say?”
Jin Mudo shook his head.
“How did you notice the Hidden Elder’s dagger?”
Murin answered without concern.
“I smelled it.”
Jin Mudo tilted his head in confusion.
“Smelled what?”
“Blood. And that old man kept licking his lips while he looked at me.”
“Good heavens...”
Jin Mudo had told him to sense killing intent, yet Murin claimed to have smelled blood instead.
Blood or killing intent, the distinction matters little. What an astonishing creature!
Any martial artist who reached a sufficient realm could sense killing intent.
That was how they protected themselves in the martial world, where disaster could strike at any moment.
The smell of blood, however, was different.
Was that not the instinct of a beast?
Murin had smelled that the man who had once killed others, torn into their flesh, and drunk their blood was now hunting his throat.
So you truly are a Killing Star.
To recognize the scent of death-soaked blood meant that Murin himself knew it from taking lives.
In his own peculiar way, Murin had passed the Soundless Illuminated Courtyard Formation.
Jin Mudo fell into thought.
Countless people fail to sense another’s killing intent even after years of training. What am I supposed to do with this monster?
The instinct had been born into him.
The Lesser Killer had caught him only because the situation was so unnatural that he had lowered his guard.
The young man before Jin Mudo possessed from birth what others struggled months or years to acquire.
Teaching a genius is both exhilarating and exhausting.
A smile crept across Jin Mudo’s lips.
Murin was a genius among geniuses.
As his master, Jin Mudo felt an immense burden pressing down on him. Yet his excitement was so great that he could scarcely contain himself.
Hehehe. Excellent.
A bottle of warmed wine would have made the moment perfect.
But there was no chance of finding such a thing in the Heavenly Prison.
The petty wretches of the Martial Alliance had fed him nothing but Fasting Pills for a hundred years.
It was one of Jin Mudo’s greatest complaints.
The tongue was a fickle thing. Feed it the same flavor for three days, and it already showed its disgust.
Yet he had endured the same thing for a hundred years.
“Why are you smacking your lips like that?”
Murin’s voice dragged him from his thoughts.
Jin Mudo cleared his throat.
“When did I ever smack my lips?”
“Weren’t you pretending to chew something just now? Have you finally lost your mind?”
“Hmph. I was merely talking to myself. More importantly, if you don’t want to starve, bring a handful of Fasting Pills from that pile in the corner.”
“Fasting Pills?”
The unfamiliar name drew a puzzled expression from Murin.
“What? You’ve never heard of them? Then you had better get used to them. In the martial world, people routinely enter secluded cultivation with nothing but a jar of Fasting Pills.”
Murin rose, gathered a handful of the pills, and clicked his tongue.
“How is anyone supposed to live on these beans? Even a donkey wouldn’t eat them.”
Jin Mudo smiled bitterly.
An ordinary person would naturally think so.
For a martial artist, however, Fasting Pills were extremely useful.
It was not that they tasted terrible.
They were made from savory large barley, tiny yellow grains of millet, and other ingredients such as Moonheart Fragrance and Heart-Knot Stone. Their flavor was tolerable enough.
The problem was that one did not eat them for a day or two.
“Enough. Keep complaining and they may stop giving us even those. If this were an Unorthodox or Demonic faction’s prison, you would have become a skeleton long ago because there would be nothing to eat.”
Murin frowned.
“The martial world truly makes no sense.”
He had sampled countless dishes while working at the inn. Chef Yeon had been highly skilled, allowing Murin to taste all manner of delicacies.
And now he was expected to eat these hard little beans.
At that moment, the entrance to the Heavenly Prison brightened as a group approached. A rich floral fragrance drifted toward them.
Jin Mudo let out a mocking laugh.
“Heh! A celestial maiden has descended into this hell! Sniff, sniff. That fragrance belongs to none other than the Seomun Clan’s treasured daughter, Miss Seomun Eunsul!”
Murin frowned at the sudden appearance of a woman.
What could possibly bring the cherished daughter of such a prestigious clan to a place like this?
The mystery was soon resolved.
“Watch carefully, Seol. The Martial Alliance never overlooks those who commit crimes. This is the justice we uphold.”
A man with a deep voice stepped forward behind her.
“Seomun Jingwang. Well, well. You must be working hard as the prison warden!”
Seomun Jingwang, eldest son of the Seomun Clan and overseer of the Heavenly Prison, stiffened at Jin Mudo’s words.
“Old man.”
Murin spoke up.
“Did they come here to gawk at us?”
Jin Mudo nodded.
“Of course! What a splendid opportunity this is. They can place living, breathing villains before their eyes, then puff themselves up and preach at us! Hehehe!”
Murin tilted his head, plainly displeased.
“Without paying any silver?”
“What?”
The unexpected question left even Jin Mudo staring at him in bewilderment.
“Think about it. Common decency says you should toss a little silver to the performers when you watch a show. Yet these people are gawking at us without paying a single coin, aren’t they?”
“You insolent wretch!”
Seomun Jingwang stepped forward, but Murin turned his back and sat down.
“If you want to stare at my backside, go ahead. Otherwise, pay me.”
Jin Mudo’s lips twitched.
Then he could no longer hold it in and threw back his head in uproarious laughter.
“Bwahahaha! What a lunatic! Bwahahahaha!”
At that moment, Jin Mudo adored his young disciple.
He was a madman through and through.
For the first time in ages, Jin Mudo felt truly refreshed.