The Heavenly Kill Star.
Those born under it were so utterly consumed by slaughter that some called them Wanton Slaughter Ghosts in reference to their cruelty.
The name meant exactly what it implied: killing people as one pleased. Whenever a Heavenly Kill Star appeared, it was inevitable that the martial world would be ravaged beyond recognition and swept into a great catastrophe.
Records of past Heavenly Kill Stars showed that not only the Martial Alliance of the Orthodox Sects, but also enormous organizations such as the Unorthodox Alliance and the Blood Cult, had declared them public enemies and actively hunted them to the death.
‘That is what you are, Cheon Murin.’
How terrible must the devastation have been for the entire martial world to unite in earnest to hunt down and kill the Heavenly Kill Star?
Once a Heavenly Kill Star awakened to slaughter, bloodstorms swept through every place he went.
Countless masters were ground to pieces. Wherever one looked after a battle against him, there was only the horror of mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
‘They will undoubtedly try to eliminate you by any means possible. Their revolting hypocrisy will merely compel them to borrow another man’s blade to sever your neck.’
Jin Mudo knew all too well what sort of creatures ruled the Martial Alliance.
They spoke outwardly of justice, benevolence, and righteousness, but their true nature was no different from that of the Demonic Path.
They did not hesitate to kill their enemies when enforcing their own version of justice.
Nor did they accomplish that solely with blades.
With the tips of their tongues, they eliminated political enemies and erased them completely.
Paradoxically, that was why Murin remained alive now.
‘But little time remains. They will use this opportunity as a pretext and come for your life soon.’
Jin Mudo knew how severely the Heavenly Kill Star had harmed them and how they trembled with rage at the mere mention of the name.
But that was their concern.
Murin was Jin Mudo’s disciple.
‘You must endure, Murin.’
There was a reason he had kept himself alive in such a miserable state for a hundred years.
There was a reason he had endured every sneer and contemptuous remark while serving as a spectacle for generations of the Martial Alliance’s young talents.
‘I will help you achieve your revenge! In return, you must help me!’
He sought a thorough reckoning against the bastards who had cast him into hell a hundred years ago.
He intended to achieve it through Murin, his disciple.
He had already devised a plan to get the boy out of this place.
‘If it is this bastard…….’
Among the countless people who had entered Heavenly Prison, Jin Mudo had searched for someone capable of carrying out his revenge in his place. Even as he approached the end of his life, he had found no one.
Yet the bastard he encountered near that very end was the genius among geniuses he had desired for so long!
“Hooo…….”
At that moment, Murin finished his Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation and slowly opened his eyes.
The continuous training had left him exhausted in both body and mind.
That was why Jin Mudo had given him ample time to recover.
Only then could he endure this difficult and grueling struggle.
“Have you finished your Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation?”
Murin nodded.
The more martial arts he learned, the more captivating they became.
Lately, he had become so engrossed in training that he almost felt wronged for discovering such an exhilarating thing only now.
“I have.”
Jin Mudo smiled soundlessly.
His disciple’s voice carried excitement over the strength growing within him day by day.
‘This is when it is most enjoyable.’
Training like a man possessed and experiencing tremendous growth as a result was a wondrous experience every martial artist dreamed of.
For Murin, who was learning the Mad Heaven Demonic Art, the thrill must have been beyond comparison with anything others could experience.
The Mad Heaven Demonic Art was said to be the most powerful demonic art since the world began.
“Good. What is the condition of the Mad Jade?”
Jin Mudo had already resolved to teach Murin properly.
He was now passing down everything he possessed without omitting or concealing a single thing.
The existence of the Mad Jade was included.
Without understanding the Mad Jade, the very core of the Mad Heaven Demonic Art, Murin could never grow further.
“It’s still sitting firmly in my qi center and refuses to move. I don’t know whether that’s how it should be.”
Jin Mudo nodded gravely.
‘He stands at a crossroads!’
A branching path.
Murin now stood at a crossroads in the truest sense.
He had indeed formed the Mad Jade faster and more magnificently than anyone before him.
The nature of his Mad Jade could also be considered the finest in history.
And yet……
‘Your fate will diverge from this point onward.’
Whether the bastard reached Great Mastery would be decided beginning now.
The Mad Jade’s stillness was a favorable sign, but it was also a sign that demanded caution.
‘It is excellent that he is suppressing the Mad Jade’s crazed energy. However…….’
Jin Mudo angled his head toward Murin.
Where did the boy’s limits lie?
“Mm, I want to defeat Peng Jowi soon. I’m thoroughly sick of Fasting Pills.”
Perhaps because he was still young, Murin began grumbling.
Jin Mudo snickered inwardly.
‘As if that were your only reason for provoking Peng Jowi. You cunning bastard!’
Murin was far more brilliant and shrewd than Jin Mudo had expected.
The boy believed he could accomplish nothing by remaining quietly imprisoned in Heavenly Prison.
That was why he wanted to examine the Martial Alliance and Heavenly Prison more closely. It was the true reason he had provoked Peng Jowi.
“Then what do you want to eat most?”
Even so, Jin Mudo pretended not to see through his disciple’s thoughts.
Murin answered as though he had been waiting for the question.
“First, I’ll eat a duck coated in clay and roasted. Add a cup of white liquor, and wouldn’t that be paradise?”
If anything had brought him joy during his long years as an inn attendant, it was food.
Delicious food and a warming drink at the end of an exhausting day.
Those were the only moments when he felt glad to be alive.
―You wretch! Have I not told you that gulping it down like that will upset your stomach?
Innkeeper Chang Ho always scolded Murin that way whenever he hurriedly drained a bowl of white liquor.
But he never forgot to slide plates of deliciously roasted duck and chicken toward him.
―Eat slowly! No one else is coming for it.
Warmth dwelled within his gruff tone.
Murin had loved it.
‘Senior Attendant…….’
Along with Uncle Yong and Uncle Yeon, Chang Ho had been a benefactor who allowed Murin to live like a human being.
Perhaps Murin longed for delicious, warm food now because he so desperately missed those memories.
As he briefly sank into sentiment, Jin Mudo’s voice reached him.
“……This will be the death of me! My saliva…… I cannot stop swallowing it!”
“Then what should you do, old man? You’ll have to do your utmost to make sure I win, won’t you?”
Jin Mudo snickered at Murin’s subtle threat.
Strangely, however, the boy’s words had a compelling pull.
“So if you win, this old man will be able to eat hot, delicious roast duck with all those juices running from it and drink white liquor that washes this dry taste clean from his mouth. Is that what you are saying?”
He was being swept along by the boy’s words.
No one could remain sane after eating nothing but Fasting Pills for a hundred years.
The hot, pleasantly rich taste of duck fat that must have vanished from his tongue long ago, and the fiery heat of white liquor tingling down his throat, gradually returned to life across the gulf of a century.
‘Good heavens, how strange! How can I remember the taste so vividly?’
It was driving him mad.
Once Murin’s words drew him into imagining the food, he could no longer stop himself.
Then Murin said something even more astonishing.
“Do you think roast duck is all I can make? I may never have taken up the kitchen knife professionally, but I learned more than twenty dishes from Chef Yeon!”
“T-Twenty dishes!”
“And Chef Yeon could rightly be called the finest cook in Henan Province! How could the food I learned to make under a man like that possibly taste bad?”
GULP―
Jin Mudo swallowed his saliva.
Long ago, he had tasted every delicacy under heaven.
In fact, he had often grown so tired of fine food that he ordered entire tables taken away.
Yet now, he was losing his composure over talk of a single ordinary, unremarkable roast duck.
“I-Is that so? Chef Yeon must be a truly remarkable man! Ahem!”
It was driving him mad.
“Indeed! So you must remember this well, old man! You have to make me…….”
“Yes! I will make absolutely certain that you win! Heh heh! You need not worry about a thing!”
Jin Mudo spoke as though he had staked his life on defeating Peng Jowi.
Only then did Murin nod in satisfaction.
“Promise me. If I don’t win this time, it’s Fasting Pills for life.”
“Good heavens, do not say such ill-omened things! Fasting Pills for life? Unthinkable!”
Jin Mudo hurriedly shook his head.
“Good. Then I’ll resume my training!”
The more one practiced Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation, the faster one’s mastery of martial arts advanced.
That was especially true of the Mad Heaven Demonic Art.
Jin Mudo nodded repeatedly and waved his hand as though urging Murin onward.
“Yes! Begin at once! Hurry!”
He had considered appetite a futile thing all his life, yet the disciple he took in his final years had set his salivary glands raging.
HUMMMM―
Whether or not he knew Jin Mudo’s thoughts, Murin began his Qi Circulation and Breath Regulation once more.
Jin Mudo watched him and sank back into contemplation.
‘I desperately want to see how far you will go.’
He smiled bitterly.
He knew all too well that it was merely his own greed.
His remaining life could not possibly last until this boy—this disciple before him—brought the Mad Heaven Demonic Art to Great Mastery and ascended to heights whose limits no one could know.
‘How cruel the passing years are…….’
If only he had met Murin ten years earlier.
He could have watched over the boy with even greater care than he had shown his other disciples.
‘Hooo…….’
The chance to take revenge on his disciples had brought another source of regret.
“Even if I cannot become your Mount Tai or your vast sea…… I will become the wind at your back. So do not stop. Walk the path you must follow.”
He did not know what fire burned inside his young disciple’s mind and heart.
But everyone carried a story of their own.
At that moment, Jin Mudo prayed that his disciple would walk his path well.
It was the sincere wish of a man like a withered old tree, all his emotions faded and crumbling away, with nothing but vengeance left inside him.
He had just turned his attention away from Murin to contemplate what lay ahead when it happened.
“……!”
Jin Mudo suddenly whipped his head back toward Murin.
Shock.
The unmistakable traces of that emotion were carved across his blind face.
HUMMMMM―
In the direction he faced, Murin merely sat cross-legged exactly as he had before.
Then why was Jin Mudo so startled?
“Could it be, Murin…… You……!”
It could not be detected with the eyes.
Nor could an ordinary practitioner of martial arts perceive it.
Only someone who had learned the Mad Heaven Demonic Art—and brought it to Great Mastery—could recognize this unique aura!
Jin Mudo’s expression grew increasingly rigid.