Cheon Su-rin could not hide his shock inside.
‘The Heavenly Slaughter Star?’
How could Cheon Hyeong-do know that?
It had not even been half a month since the energy of the Heavenly Slaughter Star had manifested.
Naturally, it was a secret he had never spoken aloud to anyone.
“How do you know that, Father?”
Cheon Hyeong-do's tone held not mere suspicion.
There was a coldness in it, as though he had been certain from the very start.
Cheon Su-rin briefly considered denying it, but it did not seem to serve any purpose.
“How I came to know does not matter. All that matters is that you are the Heavenly Slaughter Star, and that the curse has finally manifested.”
“Since... since when have you known?”
“From the very beginning.”
“From the very beginning?”
“Yes. Before you were even a year old, I knew that my son had been born with the cursed slaughter nature.”
To Cheon Su-rin, it was a shock like a bolt of lightning.
The fate he himself had only recently realized, his father had been watching over since he was a newborn babe.
Then had all the kindness his father had shown him until now been an act?
“Why...... why did you hide it from me?”
“Because I didn't want to believe it either. That my son was a child of the cursed star that brings calamity. I wanted to deny it to the very end.”
“.......”
“But in the end, the prophecy has come to pass. Since you have awakened the slaughter nature, I must now fulfill the responsibility given to me.”
“Responsibility?”
“To cut out the sprout before the calamity called the Heavenly Slaughter Star takes root in the Central Plains!”
Cheon Hyeong-do roughly pressed his sword forward.
Pushed back by that cold, sharp pressure, Cheon Su-rin stepped backward.
‘He's serious.’
He truly meant to kill him.
He could not grasp the full circumstances, but the bone-chilling killing intent directed at him was real.
‘Once again.......’
It had been the same in his past life. People whose faces he did not even know had tried to kill him simply because he was the Heavenly Slaughter Star.
And this time, the father who had given him life was pointing a sword at him.
A despair incomparable to the misery Jeok Geon-ho had felt in his past life washed over Cheon Su-rin.
“Father, it's me...... It's the Su-rin you remember!”
“Shut your mouth! Stop playing my son with my son's face!”
“I understand why you're doing this. But my mind hasn't been devoured by the Heavenly Slaughter Star!”
If only he could clear up this misunderstanding.
Cheon Su-rin pleaded with all his heart, but all that came back was a cold gaze.
“Then what is that?”
What Cheon Hyeong-do pointed at with the tip of his chin was Jo Jeong-tak, lying dead with a hole gaping in his chest.
“That man was plotting everything from behind the scenes and targeting Clear Mirror Town. That's the only reason I killed him.”
“That is not what I am asking.”
“......?”
“I never taught you a martial art like that.”
Only then did Cheon Su-rin realize what had gone wrong.
Annihilating Heavenly Slaughter Star Palm. That was the name of the martial art that had ended Jo Jeong-tak's life.
Naturally, it too was a martial art the Heavenly Slaughter Calamity had used in his lifetime.
His son had killed a man using a martial art he had never taught him.
Moreover, if that martial art was as destructive and cruel as could be, it was only natural for him to misunderstand.
“That...... I'll explain.”
“What would explaining change?”
“It can clear up the misunderstanding!”
Cheon Hyeong-do fell silent and was lost in thought for a moment.
The force of the swords pressed against each other loosened slightly.
Cheon Su-rin clung to that momentary hope, but Cheon Hyeong-do pushed his sword even more roughly, as if to cut off even that slender possibility.
“Kgh......!”
In the end, Cheon Su-rin could not hold out and was thrown backward.
He barely regained his balance and looked at Cheon Hyeong-do.
“......I don't want to hear any more.”
“......Father.”
“Don't shake my resolve any further!”
Cheon Hyeong-do's expression was wretchedly twisted.
How could the heart of a father who had to kill his son with his own hands be whole?
It was only an old oath, wound tightly around his heart, that made him raise his sword.
Cheon Hyeong-do moved his sword again.
Countless afterimages of blades bloomed wherever the sword passed, then soon condensed into a single sword qi.
“Show your true colors.”
With a frigid roar, Cheon Hyeong-do rushed in.
Cheon Su-rin moved his sword as well. Not to attack, but to defend.
But the moment the two swords met, Cheon Hyeong-do's sword passed straight through Cheon Su-rin's like a ghost.
‘An illusion.’
Since Cheon Su-rin had learned the same martial art, he responded calmly.
But the moment he turned his head, his eyes were dyed with shock.
‘This is the Thousand Spirits Sword Art I know?’
Everywhere around him was filled with Cheon Hyeong-do.
As if trapped in a room of mirrors, countless Cheon Hyeong-dos surrounded him densely.
Of course, the Thousand Spirits Sword Art was said to contain the principle of illusion, but this far surpassed the level he had known.
In that instant, Cheon Su-rin realized it.
That the Thousand Spirits Sword Art he had learned all this time had been nothing more than a superficial taste of it.
What he saw before his eyes now was the true essence of the Thousand Spirits Sword Art.
“Thousand Spirits Myriad Forms.”
“......!”
“A thousand spirits form ten thousand shapes. Can you find the real me among them?”
Even his voice echoed from all directions at once.
A perfect forest of illusions.
At this absurd situation, a hollow laugh escaped Cheon Su-rin.
“At this point, I'm more curious about who you really are, Father, than about me.”
He had never asked deeply about Cheon Hyeong-do's past.
Seeing his skill, he had only guessed that he had made a name for himself to some degree as a martial artist in the past.
But his guess had missed the mark entirely.
To some degree? Someone who wielded martial arts of this level could not possibly be of ordinary origins.
He was a master who would not fall short even compared to Jo Jeong-tak. No, he was beyond that.
The countless Cheon Hyeong-dos began to move at the same time.
It was a declaration that the talking was over.
To clear up the misunderstanding, he first had to endure this onslaught.
‘Thousand Spirits Myriad Forms, he said.’
It was certainly a tremendous ultimate art, but it was not as perfect as its name.
When he observed calmly, he could see its weakness.
‘Not all the illusions are precise.’
Creating illusions consumed an enormous amount of qi and mental strength.
All those countless illusions could not be identical to the real body.
Looking closely, among the illusions standing like a folding screen, only a very few moved with precision.
Cheon Su-rin focused his mind and followed the trajectory of the real body.
Whoosh—.
Cheon Su-rin swung his sword, but it cut only empty air.
In that instant, Cheon Hyeong-do thrust his sword from the side.
CLANG—!
This time it was real.
The countless illusions cleared away, leaving only one Cheon Hyeong-do.
“......How did you sense my approach?”
What's more, Cheon Su-rin had blocked the attack with considerable ease.
Surprise filled Cheon Hyeong-do's eyes.
“No matter how many there are, the real body is only one.”
“.......”
“The swords of illusions carry no killing intent.”
The dense killing intent lodged only in the real body's strike.
To Cheon Su-rin, whose senses had sharpened since awakening the Heavenly Slaughter Star, telling it apart was not particularly difficult.
“It seems I underestimated the Heavenly Slaughter Star.”
Cheon Hyeong-do swept his sword aside and withdrew.
In that instant, numerous illusions formed around him again.
Even though his attack had been blocked, he did not seem to intend to change his method.
Cheon Su-rin once again tried to sense the killing intent and pick out the real body.
On the left, he felt killing intent.
Whoosh—.
He swung his sword to defend, but the opponent's strike was not blocked and passed through his sword.
‘An illusion?!’
He had clearly felt killing intent.
While he was flustered, Cheon Su-rin realized that he was sensing killing intent from several directions at once.
‘He can even replicate killing intent?’
It was an unbelievable level.
If illusions carrying killing intent were mixed in, even if only a few, there was now no way to tell which was the real body.
Four Cheon Hyeong-dos closed in on him from all sides at once.
SLASH—!
Cheon Su-rin chose one of them and defended, but unfortunately, it was not the real body.
A sharp blade sliced across his left arm.
“It missed.”
“.......”
“You had better show your true colors quickly. Next time, I won't miss.”
Cheon Hyeong-do hid himself among the illusions again.
Cheon Su-rin glanced at his bleeding left arm.
‘He's strong.’
At this rate, even holding out was reaching its limit.
The only way to turn the situation around was the martial arts of the Heavenly Slaughter Calamity.
But the moment he brought them out, he would have to be prepared to kill his father.
‘Killing my father with my own hands.’
Even though his father had raised his sword first, killing his own father with his hands would be no different from the tragedy of his past life.
Killing family would ultimately be the same as surrendering to the will of the Heavenly Slaughter Star.
-Kill.
The whisper of the Heavenly Slaughter Star came to him.
He had not heard it for a while, but the moment it saw a gap in his heart, it burrowed in ferociously.
As expected, the Heavenly Slaughter Star wanted him to kill his father.
Cheon Su-rin knew by instinct that the moment he gave in to that temptation, his body and mind would be stolen by that thing once more.
“......Shut up. That man is not someone I have to kill.”
The only ones he had to kill were the wicked.
He had sworn that his slaughter nature would be turned only toward them.
Fwip—.
Cheon Hyeong-do pounced at him from all directions again.
Unless he used the martial arts of the Heavenly Slaughter Calamity, this time too, he would have to make a defense that was nearly a gamble.
SQUELCH—!
In the end, Cheon Su-rin failed to block it.
The cold blade pierced deep through his abdomen.
“......What are you doing?”
Even though his attack had succeeded, Cheon Hyeong-do did not look pleased at all.
He voiced his doubt, and if anything, anger could be felt in his voice.
“Why didn't you block it? Why won't you use the martial art you used to kill that man?!”
Cheon Hyeong-do could not understand why the boy would not wield against him the terrifying power that had torn Jo Jeong-tak apart.
At his question, Cheon Su-rin smiled faintly and spoke.
“Because you're...... not someone I have to kill, Father.”
“What do you.......”
“The Heavenly Slaughter Star kept tempting me to kill you. But I held it back.”
“......!”
“Because this time...... I have no intention of losing to the Heavenly Slaughter Star.”
Cheon Hyeong-do could not understand every meaning in those words.
But he felt to the bone that the boy before him was walking a path completely different from the 'seed of calamity' he had known.
“......Did you not awaken the slaughter nature?”
“I did. But I'm fighting it. I swore I would never...... commit a meaningless killing.”
In that instant, red blood gushed from Cheon Su-rin's mouth.
The sword he had been holding fell limply to the ground.
Only then did Cheon Hyeong-do hastily pull out his sword and catch his collapsing son in his arms.
He was shocked even at his own actions.
It was the perfect chance to kill the Heavenly Slaughter Star, so why was he holding this child in his arms?
“......No.”
Cheon Hyeong-do realized it too late.
That the one he had stabbed was not the Heavenly Slaughter Star, but simply his one and only son.
He wailed and buried Cheon Su-rin against his chest.
“Su-rin! Pull yourself together! You can't die like this!”
That wail did not reach Cheon Su-rin's ears.
As the blood flowed, his consciousness grew fainter and fainter.
In the end, Cheon Su-rin's eyes slowly closed.
“Su-rin!”
The scream of Cheon Hyeong-do, wailing as he held his son, who was growing soaked in blood, echoed long through the desolate mountains.