Chapter 203 – Tiger’s Den

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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Edited by Celestial Knight

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Ju-seong began systematically eliminating small-scale evil path sects throughout the backwaters of Jiangxi.

He himself knew that the rational choice was to head north and join the Martial Alliance.

But the crimson thundercloud lodged in his head…

That lightning-flashing thing constantly whispered to Ju-seong.

‘Let’s see blood. More blood.’

It was the killing intent Ju-seong had been born with. Did the stars fixed in heaven not only shine radiantly, but also toy with human lives?

He had suppressed the inauspicious energy of the Heavenly Killing Star until now, but there was no longer any way.

It had fed on Ju-seong’s desire for revenge and grown. His inner demon had been devoured by it as well.

Ju-seong now realized he would never experience anything like an inner demon again.

When the greatest devil had already settled in his head, how could any other devil enter?

‘Kill them. Kill more. These bastards are all in cahoots with those who killed my master.’

The voice whispered. No… since killing intent was merely an energy and couldn’t possibly possess intelligence, this was simply Ju-seong’s own monologue.

Ju-seong muttered like a madman yet acted meticulously and coldly.

He moved through rough paths and mountains so his trail wouldn’t be discovered, and slept in the open.

Since southern China was a region where official authority was inherently weak, even after shedding this much blood, there was no particular pursuit from the government.

After all, Ju-seong had only harmed jianghu people thus far.

And his victims were evil path sects that squeezed the populace and made tax collection annoying, so upright local officials secretly welcomed his activities.

-CHWAJAJAK!

When Ju-seong flicked his wrist, the surrounding trees tilted and fell, and assassins who had been hiding in the trees scrambled up.

Ju-seong growled, crimson light streaming from his eyes.

“What vermin are hiding there?”

By now, an aura befitting one of jianghu’s highest masters was emanating from his entire body.

-CHWARARAK!

The Heavenly Silkworm Thread… which he’d wound around the trees beforehand and used to sever their trunks… now shot up like multiple tentacles.

-TOK, TOK, TOK, TOK!

With minute piercing sounds, the assassins’ bodies were skewered.

Ju-seong reeled them in like fish on lines, dragging them toward himself.

“Guh, guhhhh!”

He personally smashed the skulls of the screaming assassins one by one as they were dragged in.

The last one was being dragged with his ankle pierced.

Ju-seong pressed down on the man’s skewered ankle with his foot and asked.

“Who sent you?”

“Guhhh…! I came from Tiger-Blood Manor!”

“Tiger-Blood Manor… Where is that?”

Another firm press, and the man readily spilled the location.

Ju-seong asked about Tiger-Blood Manor’s location, the strength of its master’s martial arts, and the number of subordinates, then shattered the assassin’s dantian and let him go.

“Tiger’s den… What a name.”

Ju-seong smirked and headed toward the location the assassin had given.

Tiger-Blood Manor was atop a mountain that stood solitary on the plains. Naturally, surrounding it were numerous farmhouses being exploited by the Manor… all granary land.

Ju-seong glanced at the stone cairn stacked at the edge of a field, then passed by and entered Tiger-Blood Manor’s territory.

“Hmm…”

Ju-seong stroked his chin. At first glance, there was nothing unusual about the farmhouses.

He stopped an old man working in the fields and asked.

“Is this Tiger-Blood Manor’s domain?”

The old man lamented at his question.

“Indeed. We pay tribute to the government once, then to the Manor once… there’s no way for us common folk to survive.”

“Mm.”

Ju-seong nodded once, then continued walking.

As he entered the village, the villagers eyed the sudden arrival of an outside martial artist with wariness.

Normally, he would have hidden his face and kept his head down, only buying supplies while gathering intelligence before preparing to attack Tiger-Blood Manor.

But the villagers’ faces were so gaunt and miserable that compassion welled up, and Ju-seong inadvertently shouted.

“Listen, everyone… I’ve come to destroy Tiger-Blood Manor and kill its master. If anyone has grievances about their evil deeds, step forward and speak.”

No sooner had Ju-seong spoken than the villagers raised their hands and suddenly cheered.

“Hurray! A hero has arrived in our village!”

“Are our hardships finally over!”

“…”

Ju-seong furrowed his brows in puzzlement at the sight.

‘They’re supposed to be oppressed people… how can they celebrate so openly without any fear…’

Just then, a strange gleam flashed in the villagers’ eyes.

Ju-seong, who had been mulling his suspicions, suddenly relaxed his expression.

‘Hmm, they must have suffered that much.’

There seemed no particular reason for suspicion.

Ju-seong listened as the villagers lined up before him and aired their grievances about the Manor’s evil deeds one by one.

“Those bastards took a whole five-tenths of last year’s rice harvest as ‘protection tax’!”

“Mm, I see.”

“When outsiders actually came and caused trouble, they didn’t help at all!”

“Mm, mm.”

“They took my daughter…!”

“My word…”

“Their master harmed my father, sob sob…”

“They deserve to die.”

“They took out my intestines!”

“My, they did such things.”

“That’s not all… they ripped out both my eyes, my liver, and my lungs! Said it was for some strange ritual.”

“Indeed… Truly heinous fellows.”

“They pulled out my spine and played with it, laughing. Sob…”

It seemed there’d be no end if he kept listening, so Ju-seong stood up and clapped.

“All right, all right. I’ve heard enough. Truly heinous fellows indeed. I’ll head up that cursed mountain the moment dawn breaks and beat them all to pulp.”

At his spirited declaration, the villagers cheered together.

Not a single person was out of sync… they shouted in perfect unison, their voices echoing uncannily loud.

“Hurray! Long live Young Hero Ju-seong!”

“Hmm, these villagers are lively despite their hardships. But did I ever tell them my name?”

Just then, a beautiful woman approached with a gentle smile.

“Sir, I would like to serve you comfortably tonight.”

“Hm? There’s no need for that.”

“But good food and a warm bed will give you more energy tomorrow, won’t it?”

As the woman spoke in a soft, lilting voice, Ju-seong scratched the back of his head and nodded dumbly.

“Well, that’s not wrong. So I should stay at your residence?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

A woman who kept smiling with her eyes. Ju-seong found his heart fluttering for some reason as he followed her.

She walked with an exaggerated sway of her hips.

‘Hm?’

Where had he seen such movements before? Thinking about it, wasn’t it the women at pleasure houses who walked like that deliberately?

How would a country village woman know such an alluring gait?

‘This feels somehow off…’

As Ju-seong was muttering to himself, the woman suddenly turned around and looked him straight in the eyes.

When their eyes met, Ju-seong felt his trivial thoughts get swept away.

“Young Hero, this is my home.”

The place she’d guided him to was a modest thatched cottage.

“Anyone home?”

Ju-seong called out loudly, but the woman beside him playfully tapped his shoulder and laughed.

“Hoho, my parents had their heads ripped off by some vile witch fifty-eight years ago. I live here alone.”

“Mm, I see. That’s tragic. I’ll definitely go to Tiger-Blood Manor and punish them.”

Ju-seong nodded at her sad story and stepped inside.

He sat cross-legged and began to calm his mind. For some reason, his heart had been restless since arriving at this village.

“…For some reason, the killing intent pressing on my mind has shrunk since I entered this village.”

Ju-seong tilted his head and murmured.

Sinking into his mindscape, he saw the thundercloud had greatly shrunk.

“…Hm? You little bastard, why have you suddenly shrunk like this?”

When the killing intent shrank, the madness also disappeared, which was good for Ju-seong, but he couldn’t understand the reason.

Circling around the thundercloud, Ju-seong experimentally touched the Sword Energy embedded within.

This Sword Energy was something the ancient martial artist Li Bai had left behind using a mysterious technique. While exploring his legacy, it had become embedded in Ju-seong’s upper dantian.

The Sword Energy had remained lodged in his killing intent, controlling it so it couldn’t act up for a while, but…

‘Lately, even that hasn’t been working.’

Ju-seong’s thirst for revenge had been so immense that the killing intent, feeding on it as sustenance, had grown large enough to casually ignore the Sword Energy’s control.

Yet Li Bai’s Sword Energy was still embedded in Ju-seong’s upper dantian.

When Ju-seong gripped that straight sword-shaped object and shook it once…

-…GUOOOOOO…!

Something like a heavy scream came from inside the thundercloud. It seemed Ju-seong’s killing intent was responding to spiritual pain.

When he shook the sword a few more times…

-KKWARRUREUNG!

Red lightning flashed in all directions, and then…

-CHWAJAJAJAK!

It suddenly ripped through the sky. Ju-seong looked around his mindscape in surprise.

What he had thought was the sky inside his mindscape was merely a sheet of blue cloth.

‘Something invaded my mindscape and was suppressing my upper dantian?’

Ju-seong furrowed his brow and opened his eyes. His head felt like it would split, and killing intent stabbed painfully inside his skull.

Looking outside, it was already night.

As he rubbed his temples, someone knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Sir, I’ve brought some wine. Would you open up?”

“Hmm, wine the night before a fight. I’ll just have the side dishes.”

When Ju-seong opened the door, the woman in a gauze dress entered carrying a wine tray.

Earlier she’d been dressed like a country maiden, but now she wore something scandalously suggestive… like what you’d see on the night streets of Chengdu, Sichuan.

Ju-seong didn’t touch the food and asked.

“Come to think of it, I never even heard your name. What is it?”

“Yes, my name is Cheon Hwa-yeong… KYAAAK!”

Before she could finish, Ju-seong threw a punch that caved in her nose.

Despite her flattened nose, the woman smiled seductively and approached Ju-seong.

“You seem to prefer it a bit rough, sir.”

Ju-seong leaped to his feet, looking down at the woman with eyes cleared of confusion.

“…No killing intent is stirring… you’re not a living person.”

“Hehehe, now you realize? How foolish. Had you just died wrapped in my skirts without noticing, it would have been a peaceful passing.”

“Silence! You wicked thing!”

Ju-seong roared and struck a palm blow.

“KYEET!”

He roughly struck whatever it was… ghost or monster… and sent it flying beyond the door, then…

‘…I learned from Master that fire is the specific cure for illusory formations or ghost formations.’

Ju-seong immediately pulled a small porcelain bottle from his robe and smashed it.

It was actually seed oil used as an ingredient for wound medicine.

He flicked a spark created from his fingers onto the spilled oil, and a large fire blazed up.

“KYAAAA! NO!”

The woman screamed bizarrely and lunged at Ju-seong with sharpened fingernails.

“Bring it.”

Ghost or whatever, Ju-seong didn’t care… he threw a punch that sent the woman flying.

-PUSEOK!

The sound of something shattering.

When he regained his senses, the cozy cottage he’d been staying in had transformed into a decades-old ruin that was now burning, and…

“Urgh.”

On the wine tray the woman had brought were rotting, greenish human fingers.

-KKI-E-E-E…!

The beautiful woman was twisting her limbs and shriveling up on her own.

Soon, only a handful of ashes remained where she had been, with smoke rising above them.

The smoke’s shape exactly resembled the woman who had just attacked Ju-seong.

Perhaps she was trying to change into a form that living attacks couldn’t harm, intending to target Ju-seong again.

“So this is the second phase.”

As Ju-seong assumed the opening stance for Flame Crow Six Stage Art, the woman’s voice echoed inside his head.

[Thank you for releasing me from the binding curse, sir.]

Ju-seong tilted his head at the woman’s suddenly changed attitude.

“…Huh? She’s turned nice.”

When Ju-seong approached and waved his hand through the smoke curiously, the voice spoke panickedly.

[Ah, please don’t wave! I’m in the middle of passing on… I wanted to tell you something helpful…]

“No, just go quickly. How many decades have you been here?”

Ju-seong waved both hands through the smoke, and the soul or ghost or whatever it was scattered, leaving only a final cry of gratitude.

[Thank you…!]

Ju-seong murmured indifferently.

“I thought there might be ghosts, but I didn’t expect to actually see them like this.”

Then he looked beyond the ruin’s fence and murmured.

“And I didn’t expect to see a hundred-odd of them at once…”

Somehow, the villagers had all gathered and were surrounding him, their eyes glowing with an eerie green light.

The scarlet flame of Flame Crow Six Stage Art blazed in Ju-seong’s hands.

Since they weren’t living beings, Ju-seong’s killing intent wasn’t particularly triggered either.

Feeling like he’d returned to his senses for the first time in a while, Ju-seong grinned.

“Well then… Let’s all go to the afterlife together today.”