"Hoo...."
Murin opened his eyes again not long afterward.
Ordinarily, learning a breathing method took anywhere from several months to several years, but the Mad Heaven Demonic Art belonged to the demonic arts.
That meant that, when one possessed the talent, one's progress could be faster than light.
And here was someone with a Heavenly Kill Physique whose talent reached the heavens, though he himself did not know it.
A martial talent whose intellect, body, and mind were all exceptional.
Moreover, he had the clear goal of revenge, so his concentration was devastating.
Step.
Murin rose again and headed toward the ruffians. After taking so many beatings, Yong Gang's face was a terrible sight.
"M-Murin!"
He looked at Murin miserably. The ruffians also turned to look at Murin and spoke in turn.
"Oh ho, so you are the Murin everyone speaks of! Keh heh heh, how nice! You would be perfect to catch and sell as a slave!"
Filthy desire seethed on the ruffians' faces.
Like roosters distracted by millet scattered before them.
Thud!
"...?"
Then one man suddenly took a stone to the temple and fell straight to the ground.
The attack had come without the slightest warning; it seemed he only felt the pain after he fell.
"Aaaagh!"
"W-What was that?"
"This crazy...!"
Only then did the surrounding ruffians notice that Murin held a large stone in his right hand, blood dripping from it.
But Murin looked at the sword held by the ruffian lying on the ground, then strode over and bent down.
Then he stopped again.
He hesitated, wondering whether he could truly control the sword if he picked it up.
But he gripped its hilt tighter than ever before.
Thump. Thump!
His heart pounded as though it would burst.
At the scent of blood, his mind drifted so far away that it nearly went blank, yet Murin clung to the very edge of consciousness with all his strength.
'Hoo....'
He began the breathing that formed the foundation of the Mad Heaven Demonic Art.
It was still clumsy and not yet properly formed. But it was helping him move his body by his own will.
"A sword? You bastard, do you want to die?"
When Murin took up the sword, the ruffians became even more vicious.
They drew their own swords and surrounded Murin.
Thump—
Murin's chest pounded fiercely once more.
The hot blood that heated his entire body compelled him to rush out at once and cut off their throats.
Grit—
But Murin clenched his molars. Now was not the time for that.
If he lost this fight, he would be trapped here forever.
'I cannot let that happen.'
Murin used every ounce of strength to suppress his urge to kill, until blood seeped through his tightly clenched teeth.
Then, as though nothing at all had happened, Murin simply strode toward one of the men.
"...?"
As the man widened his eyes in puzzlement, something brushed past his neck.
Thud.
At the same time, his headless body fell to the ground.
Splurt!
Hot blood gushed out, and the surrounding ruffians cried out in alarm.
Flash—
At the pungent, metallic smell of blood that stabbed his nose, Murin could no longer endure it, and his eyes rolled back.
Merely circulating the breathing method a few times could not suppress the murderous urge that surged through him so fiercely.
"Your desire to kill is so strong...."
Slash—
The man in white martial arts uniform appeared from somewhere, and Murin met death once again.
"...Urgh!"
His body weighed a thousand pounds.
He knew the method.
But a fatal problem had arisen in putting it into practice.
In the end, Murin's sword, unable to overcome his urge to kill, had summoned the man in white martial arts uniform, and the result was once again his head being cut off.
"Hoo...."
His strength was steadily fading.
Judging by his previous experience, even if he were to leave this formation, his body would probably be in tatters.
But Murin thought the Mad Heaven Demonic Art's breathing method likely had the effect of minimizing that damage as well.
It was probably meant to prevent promising material from being torn apart and killed by the formation's influence.
'I have run into a truly vicious old man, one way or another.'
The unbearable weakness and pain worse than a severe sickness nearly made him lose consciousness.
If he kept trying like this, he would probably die when his strength was exhausted.
Jin Mudo's formation was truly terrifying and extraordinary.
'I do not have many chances.'
One thing was certain: he did not have many chances left now.
At most, perhaps two more.
If he could not conceal his killing intent in that time, he would probably die even after leaving the formation.
"Hey, old man! You chose the wrong person. I am not a beast."
He looked up at the sky and spoke those words.
He was not a beast that starved for blood, ignored all circumstances, and lunged at its prey.
More than anyone else, Murin himself had desperately wished to escape this curse his entire life.
He had seized the chance, and he could not waste it carelessly.
"Old man, do not die of old age before I get out. I will show you."
He sat cross-legged again and closed his eyes.
The verses of the breathing method passed unceasingly through his mind once more. He had reviewed them dozens of times already.
But Murin's sharp mind had begun to dimly realize that the thousand characters composing the breathing method were not the end of it.
'There are hidden verses.'
Martial learning, as he understood it, was a discipline that placed immense concepts, too difficult to express, into the confines of limited characters.
Because it tried to contain the limitless infinite within finite characters with clear limits, it was natural that the concepts could not be fully explained.
'I have to find them!'
Perhaps the reason martial artists spent their entire lives comprehending martial learning was to find that gap.
In other words, he had to find what lay between the characters, in the spaces between their lines.
If he realized it, he would attain great mastery; if he did not, that place would be a cliff's edge.
Hummmm—
Countless characters appeared and scattered repeatedly in Murin's mind as he sat cross-legged.
And how much time passed?
His eyes flashed open.
"So that is what it was?"
Had he found something?
The faintest smile even appeared at the corner of Murin's mouth.
He was not certain, but his expression suggested he had found a clue.
He rose and strode toward the ruffians.
"Who..."
Thud!
One man, who had furrowed his brow at the sight of Murin, took a stone to the head and collapsed.
"You bastard!"
Slash!
The men pointed their swords at him, but at the same moment, a spray of blood burst from one man's chest.
"W...when?"
At that sight, the men did not struggle and rush at him. Instead, they stared stupidly.
They had not sensed any killing intent, yet one of them had been slashed across the chest and died on the spot.
"They say there was a chicken butcher who cut off the necks of chickens thousands, tens of thousands of times."
Then Murin spoke indifferently, as if reciting something.
Though the men frowned and stared at him, he continued.
"At first, the chickens must have sensed his killing intent, panicked, and fled in every direction. He must have struggled terribly just to cut off one chicken's neck."
"...!"
Then a man suddenly caught sight of Murin standing before him with his sword already raised high, and he sucked in a startled breath.
Slash—
And the indifferent blade fell on him.
If he had sensed the killing intent to kill him, he would have tried somehow to block it.
But there had been nothing of the sort in Murin's actions now.
He had merely come over and brought down his sword without thought.
"As that became ten times, a hundred times, he must have realized it without knowing. He was not killing chickens. He was simply cutting off their necks."
Cutting off a chicken's neck to kill it and cutting off a chicken's neck as though chopping wood were different.
The blade that fell mechanically and unconsciously dozens, hundreds of times would have held no killing intent.
That was why the chickens did not evade it, unaware that their necks would be cut off.
"Y-You madman!"
Great agitation rippled through the men.
But Murin looked somewhere, as if waiting for something.
'Thirty breaths so far. The man in white martial arts uniform came to cut off my head at around forty-five breaths.'
In the previous scene, Murin had deliberately released killing intent and determined the time when the man in white martial arts uniform appeared.
'Forty-three, forty-four....'
As time passed, a smile spread across his lips.
"Sixty. How amusing!"
If the man in white martial arts uniform had been arranged to appear at about this point and cut off Murin's head, he would have appeared already.
After all, there had been swordplay either way.
But though blood flew everywhere and blades whirled through the air, the man in white martial arts uniform never appeared.
"What a thoroughly vicious old man."
Murin already knew the answer.
The heart of this Still Blade Law Realm Formation was learning how to conceal killing intent and cut down a target.
For that, the Mad Heaven Demonic Art's breathing method was immensely important.
The instant his breathing became even slightly disordered, his killing intent would have been conveyed through that breath to the man in white martial arts uniform.
But as he breathed with the Mad Heaven Demonic Art's breathing method, he could regain calm in the face of the mad temptation to run wild.
'Of course, this is only the beginning.'
He did not think all his killing intent was under control because of this.
In the eyes of martial artists, Murin was probably no different from a toddling child.
Seen that way, the difficulty of the Still Blade Law Realm Formation must have been precisely suited to him.
In other words, if he found the hidden meaning between the verses of the breathing method, he would live; if he did not, he would die.
It was a simple yet powerful formation governed only by that rule.
"I have received your lesson well!"
"Madman! What are you muttering about?"
The story of the chicken butcher, who had naturally erased his killing intent through countless repetitions.
It was recorded in the first part of the Mad Heaven Demonic Art.
Taken simply, it was an ordinary verse so seemingly meaningless that one could not tell what it was trying to say at all.
But Murin had found the core of the core there.
'Before the intent to kill reaches out, the blade moves and takes a life. What makes that possible is the Mad Heaven Demonic Art's breathing method.'
How one breathed changed the speed and accuracy with which one extended the sword.
Jin Mudo had likely meant to teach him that.
How to swing out the sword without thought and cut off an enemy's neck before the intent to kill reached out.
For Murin, born a Heavenly Kill Star, it was the ideal training method.
Slash—
The man in white martial arts uniform would no longer appear.
Knowing this, Murin's sword danced fiercely through the air.
Unlike his indifferent steps, it was a dance of slaughter that surely stole his opponents' lives.
A smile rested at Murin's lips as he walked between them.