Morning Sun Fist Sect.
A small martial hall located in the Hwangju Prefecture.
It was operated by Seok Chungmyung, a second-rate fist master once renowned in the past under the nickname Silent Lightning One Fist.
After a long pursuit by the Death Spirit Corps, they finally identified the culprit behind the murder cases plaguing the Hwangju Prefecture area:
Go Jeokyang, the head cook in charge of the kitchen at Morning Sun Fist Sect.
A mere kitchen cook—not even one of the martial instructors—committing murder?
It was an incident that defied common sense.
Moreover, even after carrying out the killings, Go Jeokyang had continued his daily life as a cook without any apparent change. He even seemed to have no memory of the acts at all, maintaining a gentle and cheerful demeanor.
Thus, Bu Eunseol had infiltrated Morning Sun Fist Sect to investigate Go Jeokyang personally.
‘This is absolutely impossible.’
After observing Go Jeokyang for some time, Bu Eunseol shook his head.
Killers share a common trait: the way they look at people is subtly different.
Killers view others’ lives as mere playthings. No matter how ordinary they pretend to be, a murderous glint flickers uncontrollably in their eyes from time to time.
Their gaze treats people not as living beings, but as objects.
Yet Go Jeokyang interacted with others with utmost calm and composure, as if he had never committed such acts. As though the memories of that day had been completely erased.
‘Let’s wait and see.’
Bu Eunseol realized there was definitely some twist behind this.
For several days, he remained hidden within Morning Sun Fist Sect, closely watching Go Jeokyang’s every move.
‘There has to be something.’
An ordinary person would have given up by now but Bu Eunseol possessed an exceptionally sharp intuition and a patience deeper than anyone else’s.
Without even taking a sip of water, he relentlessly observed Go Jeokyang going about his work at the martial hall.
Three days passed like that.
Finally, Go Jeokyang’s abnormal behavior was captured.
Swoosh.
On the night of the Manwol, Go Jeokyang suddenly rose from his bed and stealthily slipped out of Morning Sun Fist Sect.
His sharp, scanning gaze and cautious inspection of the surroundings—he looked exactly like a predator stalking prey.
‘How can his aura and demeanor change so suddenly?’
Bu Eunseol’s eyes narrowed sharply.
If he hadn’t been watching Go Jeokyang continuously until now, he might have mistaken it for the man having altered his temperament and personality through some treasure like the Boundary Prosperity Jade.
Swish!
Once outside the martial hall, Go Jeokyang dashed toward another village with terrifying speed in his qinggong.
A cook who had shown zero martial arts ability was suddenly imitating the movements of a peak expert.
‘He’s changed.’
The look in Bu Eunseol’s eyes as he secretly followed grew strange.
In Go Jeokyang’s eyes—eyes that had shown nothing unusual before—now gleamed the distinctive madness of slaughter-crazed killers.
‘Does he have a way to conceal his killing intent?’
By then, Go Jeokyang had arrived at a small village.
“Heh heh.”
With a low, sinister chuckle, he began flicking his tongue.
He clearly intended to unleash indiscriminate slaughter in this village from this moment on.
‘I cannot let this happen.’
Though he had not yet uncovered the full truth, he could not allow the massacre to proceed.
Swoosh.
Bu Eunseol instantly blocked Go Jeokyang’s path.
“Are you about to deal with this village now?”
“Hrrr…”
As Bu Eunseol stood in his way, Go Jeokyang’s eyes began to glow red. Drool dripped from his mouth, and his canines seemed to lengthen.
‘He won’t respond to words.’
“Kaah!”
When Go Jeokyang lunged forward on all fours, Bu Eunseol lightly flicked a finger wind.
Crack!
Though he struck precise acupoints with lethal accuracy, Go Jeokyang moved as if it were nothing.
‘The positions of his acupoints have shifted.’
Go Jeokyang’s acupoint locations had changed entirely, as though he had become a completely different creature.
Slash! Swish!
Charging like a beast, Go Jeokyang swung razor-sharp claws.
The power concentrated in those nails was so keen it could slice through iron.
But his opponent was Bu Eunseol.
Tap tap!
With another flick of his fingers, Go Jeokyang’s knees bent unnaturally, halting his movement.
When acupoint suppression failed, Bu Eunseol immediately shattered the knee joints.
Bu Eunseol looked down coldly at Go Jeokyang, who writhed on the ground. Then he fired another finger wind, injecting internal energy into his body.
This was to prevent him from severing his own heart veins in suicide.
“Who ordered this?”
“Ughhh…”
But Go Jeokyang only let out ragged breaths.
Swallowing a groan, Bu Eunseol immediately exerted his internal energy.
Whoosh.
Go Jeokyang’s body floated into the air.
“I will definitely make you talk.”
Go Jeokyang was no ordinary killer—several abnormalities had been discovered in his body.
If he could not uncover the truth immediately, he would drag the man back to Majeon and have everything dissected in detail.
There were torturers and mind-reading masters far more skilled than himself waiting there.
Just as he prepared to return to Majeon with Go Jeokyang suspended in midair—
“Pfft!”
Suddenly, Go Jeokyang vomited a thick clot of blood.
Even though Bu Eunseol quickly lowered him to the ground, the man’s eyes had already rolled back—he was dead.
‘The Spirit-Subduing Heart-Seizing Technique?’
He had injected internal energy precisely to prevent suicide, yet the man still died vomiting blood?
‘He cannot be allowed to die.’
Crack crack crack!
In a single move, Bu Eunseol sealed thirty-six major acupoints and immediately infused the Ban-Geuk Method.
But it was useless.
Go Jeokyang had already become a cold corpse.
‘How can breath stop this quickly?’
Even if one severed their heart veins, a person could not perish so rapidly.
Yet Go Jeokyang had turned into a lifeless body in the blink of an eye.
‘I must find at least some clue.’
As a last resort, Bu Eunseol raised the Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra and synchronized it with Go Jeokyang’s true qi circulation.
But no internal energy could be felt in his body at all.
‘What is this…?’
Instead, a bizarre energy flowed throughout his entire form.
It was not internal energy.
It was a chilling aura one might sense only from a freshly emerged Jiangshi leaping out of a grave.
‘Ghost Qi?’
In truth, “ghost qi” was merely a convenient term; it referred to something vague and indefinable.
‘Then…’
Bu Eunseol raised his Crystal Divine Energy and immediately spread it around Go Jeokyang’s corpse.
The Crystal Divine Energy carried the power to break evil.
If the ghost qi he felt was not mere discomfort but something real, it would surely react to this force.
Sssss.
As a faint mist-like Crystal Divine Energy enveloped the corpse, the creepy sensation that had lingered vanished completely.
‘As expected.’ Bu Eunseol’s gaze sharpened. ‘Someone deliberately applied a great method—or forbidden art—to turn him into a killer.’
The fact that it reacted to the Crystal Divine Energy meant someone had artificially imposed a great method or power upon Go Jeokyang’s body.
However, altering both body and soul was something even the Three Realms—with their vast wealth and secret martial arts—could not easily accomplish.
That suggested it was highly likely not the work of an individual, but of a specific organization.
‘This is not something that can be resolved quickly.’
The one silver lining was that the sensation of ghost qi he had detected through Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra remained within his body.
If he could use that, he would be able to track down other killers they had created.
***
Injecting ghost qi into the body of an ordinary civilian, turning them into a slaughter-crazed killer—it was an unprecedented and bizarre phenomenon in the martial world.
Fortunately, Bu Eunseol had mastered the ancient art of Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra, allowing him to clearly sense the ghost qi flowing through Go Jeokyang’s body.
Since that sensation lingered in his own body, finding other killers carrying the same energy would not be difficult.
Bu Eunseol began thoroughly searching the areas near villages where murders had occurred.
‘If it’s only ghost qi, I should be able to detect it without physical contact.’
The circulation of internal energy is as complex and profound as the movement of heavenly principles but a faint energy flowing through the flesh could surely be sensed without touching the body.
Utilizing his immense internal power, Bu Eunseol expanded the reach of Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra like a wide qi wave.
With this method, he could instantly grasp the energy of ordinary civilians within a radius of dozens of yards.
‘There will be someone hiding an aura as subtle as Go Jeokyang’s.’
Go Jeokyang had lived an ordinary life before suddenly transforming into a killer.
Then in other villages where massacres occurred, there would surely be others living normally until they, too, turned into slaughter demons.
Bu Eunseol roamed every corner of the villages, searching for killers hidden behind ordinary faces.
‘Found one.’
After two days of relentless searching, Bu Eunseol finally detected a chilling aura being concealed.
The man was the owner of a fabric shop in the marketplace.
Outwardly, he appeared to be nothing more than a plump middle-aged man. Yet within his body flowed ghost qi comparable to what he had sensed in Go Jeokyang.
‘This time I’ll try a different approach.’
Previously, when he subdued the cook Go Jeokyang at Morning Sun Fist Sect, the man immediately vomited blood and died. He had likely been under an extremely vicious forbidden art similar to the Spirit-Subduing Heart-Seizing Technique.
This time, he would change his method.
Swoosh.
When deep night fell, the fabric shop owner stealthily slipped outside.
Crack crack.
Accompanied by the sound of cracking bones, the owner’s features gradually twisted into something hideous as he walked down the dark road.
Just like Go Jeokyang, once consumed by killing intent, his appearance began to change.
Crack. Thud.
But suddenly, the fabric shop owner collapsed unconscious to the ground.
Before his transformation could fully complete, Bu Eunseol—who had been hiding—fired a finger wind in advance to subdue him.
‘So the Spirit-Subduing Heart-Seizing Technique only activates once he fully transforms into the killer form.’
After silently observing the fabric shop owner for a long while, Bu Eunseol nodded.
By subduing him before his appearance completely turned beast-like, the acupoint strike worked and suicide was prevented.
‘That means…’
Deep in thought, he carefully examined the unconscious fabric shop owner’s body and placed a hand on him, unfolding Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra.
‘This is…’
Only after applying Heavenly Mirror Heart Sutra to the living fabric shop owner did Bu Eunseol clearly understand what the ghost qi he felt in Go Jeokyang truly was.
‘This belongs to the realm of sorcery or… the Demon Cult.’
Within the fabric shop owner’s body flowed an extremely wicked and malicious evil qi capable of twisting not only human nature but the very flesh itself.
‘Even the Crystal Divine Energy cannot handle this.’
Bu Eunseol’s expression grew grave.
Even though the Crystal Divine Energy contained the power to break evil, it could not fundamentally eradicate evil qi that had completely seized the interior of the body.
Forcibly injecting Crystal Divine Energy would not restore the fabric shop owner to normal—it would kill him instantly.
Ziiing.
At that moment, a strange sensation arose in his mind.
It was not in the realm of super-senses, but rather an intuition unique to Bu Eunseol, honed by constant exposure to all manner of bizarre great methods and sorcery.
‘Someone is coming.’
After a brief hesitation, Bu Eunseol quickly released the acupoints he had sealed on the subdued fabric shop owner.
Then he swiftly climbed high into a tree and completely concealed himself.
Rustle.
With his acupoints freed, the fabric shop owner looked around.
Crack crack.
Gazing up at the moonlight in the distant sky, his eyes changed once more, and his body began to transform again.
Whoosh.
At that moment, a subtle wind blew, and a black shadow slowly materialized in front of the fabric shop owner.
It was a masked man dressed in glossy black robes.
The skin around his exposed eyes was darkly bruised and hollow, as though he had not slept for days.
“Strange.”
The masked man tilted his head as he watched the transforming fabric shop owner.
“I definitely felt the connection break.”
Thump.
Now fully beast-like, the fabric shop owner approached the black-robed masked man and prostrated himself like an animal greeting its master.
“Carry out your task immediately.”
Upon receiving the command, the fabric shop owner launched himself forward with a sharp whoosh.
‘So he’s the ringleader.’
At last, he had found him.
This black-robed man was the one who had turned the fabric shop owner into a killer.
Ping!
The finger wind Bu Eunseol stealthily fired pierced straight into the masked man’s Zhongwan acupoint.
Pff!
Astonishingly, the finger wind passed through the masked man’s body as easily as piercing paper.
Yet the man did not flinch.
Instead, he looked down at the hole in his chest and sneered.
“So there was a rat.”
Crack crack.
In an instant, Bu Eunseol disguised himself as Seolso and descended from the tree, revealing himself before the masked man.
“You are…”
The black-robed man narrowed his eyes as he looked at Bu Eunseol in his Seolso disguise.
“The one called Seolso, disciple of the Bullet King.”
A flash passed through Bu Eunseol’s eyes.
It was true that Seolso had become a rising star noticed by those factions worth knowing, but to recognize him instantly just by face?
Then this masked man not only possessed deep knowledge of the martial world’s affairs, but clearly belonged to an organization operating an outstanding intelligence network.
“Reveal your identity.”
Bu Eunseol extended a finger.
At its tip, a tremendous concentration of internal energy gathered into an Inner Bullet Qi.
“What a boring trick.”
The black-robed masked man muttered lowly, his eyes glinting.
Swoosh!
At that moment, with a very faint sound of tearing air, an unknown force appeared around Bu Eunseol and began to coil around his body.
It felt exactly as though invisible, tough ropes were wrapping tightly around him.
‘Sorcery.’
As the strange power bound him, the ever-flowing Ban-Geuk Method was instantly blocked.
The masked man had sealed Bu Eunseol’s energy without lifting a finger.
“Martial artists always make the same mistake.” The masked man looked at Bu Eunseol with a ferocious smile. “They think that with their martial prowess, they can defeat any enemy.”
“‘Martial artists’… huh.”
At last, Bu Eunseol grasped the masked man’s true identity.
“You’re one of the Abyssal groups.”
Only the Three Families and the Abyssal people referred to martial artists as if they were an entirely different species.
“Indeed, only Abyssal people would target innocent civilians like this.”
The masked man showed a slightly surprised expression. “A mere disciple of the Bullet King knows of us?”
“I also know you’re about to die.”
BOOM!
When Bu Eunseol flicked his finger, a world-splitting force erupted.
Crack!
At the same time, a spray of blood burst from around the masked man’s wrist.
The tremendous force had cleanly severed his entire hand at the wrist.
“How is your energy not suppressed?”
“I ask the questions.”
Hoooo.
Concentrating power in his finger once more, Bu Eunseol spoke in a low voice.
“What is your purpose in turning civilians into murderers?”
The masked man glared with wide eyes, not even bothering to staunch the bleeding. He had realized that Bu Eunseol was a master far beyond what he could handle.
“We’ll see about that.” The masked man muttered lowly.
Shrrrr.
Suddenly, his entire body grew faint and began to dissolve like mist.
He was not using qinggong, but rather a mysterious sorcery to escape this place.
Sssss!
But the masked man could not flee.
Bu Eunseol had already spread Crystal Divine Energy all around.
“What is this?” The masked man gaped at the transparent walls surrounding him. “The Bullet King’s disciple can wield such arts?”
“If the same question comes out of my mouth again, you die.”
Bu Eunseol extended his finger.
“Answer.”
“Hmph.”
In that instant, the masked man overlapped his index and middle fingers and thrust them skyward.
WHOOOOM!
Yellow talismans fanned out behind him, then—
Fwoosh!
As the talismans ignited in midair, the power of the Crystal Divine Energy blocking every direction vanished in an instant.
Swooo!
The masked man once again attempted to escape using sorcery.
But it was a vain hope.
BOOM!
A violet bolt of lightning struck down upon the faintly vanishing sorcerer’s head.
This time, Bu Eunseol had unleashed Thunder Spirit Energy.
Crackle crackle crackle.
Exposed to the terrifying Thunder Spirit Energy, the masked man froze in place and immediately perished.
Though the exposure lasted only a brief moment, his clothes had melted away by more than half under the fearsome power, and white smoke rose from his body.
“So he really was a sorcerer.”
Around the melted corpse of the masked man lay various ritual implements and a pile of burning yellow talismans made from locust tree fruit dye—Huaihuang Paper.
“So he used Taoist sorcery to implant evil energy and turn people into killers.”
It was not entirely impossible to drive a person mad through sorcery.
Taoist sects—including the Maoshan school—and certain Demonic Path factions had long researched methods of combining hallucinogenic extreme poisons that damaged the brain with sorcery to freely manipulate humans.
Sssss.
But then something strange occurred.
Fwoooosh!
Suddenly, the dead sorcerer’s body burst into fierce flames as though dry leaves had caught fire.
It was as if dozens of fire essence stones had been poured over him—his gaunt frame ignited and burned away in moments.
It seemed these people, too, had some mechanism in place to destroy evidence the moment they were subdued or killed.
“So this one was merely a subordinate after all.”
—Aaah!
At that moment, a faint, wretched scream echoed from afar.
‘Oh no.’
Only then did Bu Eunseol remember that the killer-transformed fabric shop owner had left this place.
He immediately launched himself toward the source of the sound.
Slash! Swish!
Arriving at the village where the scream originated, he saw the fabric shop owner—now fully a killer—indiscriminately slaughtering people.
‘If I subdue him in that state, he’ll kill himself immediately.’
Unable to find a solution, Bu Eunseol hesitated only briefly before firing a rapid series of finger winds.
Crack!
With dull sounds of destruction, the arms and legs of the slaughtering fabric shop owner twisted grotesquely.
Since acupoint suppression would cause him to vomit blood and die, Bu Eunseol shattered the bones of his limbs to at least preserve his life.
Stagger!
Yet the fabric shop owner, as though feeling no pain, continued attacking people even with broken arms and legs.
‘There’s no way to release it?’
Bu Eunseol bit his lip.
Subduing him would lead to his suicide.
Leaving him be meant innocent civilians would die.
And there was no method to awaken him from the slaughter madness…
‘This might work.’
Suddenly, Bu Eunseol’s gaze fell upon farm tools scattered on the ground.
Hummm!
When he exerted his energy, the farm tools inside a nearby barn pierced through the roof and floated into the air.
Creak.
They bent in midair like taffy, then began adhering to the fabric shop owner’s body.
“Ugh! Urrrgh!”
The fabric shop owner exerted monstrous strength, trying to break free of the metal bindings but Bu Eunseol cleverly twisted and wrapped the metal so that the more force he used, the tighter it bound him.
‘I’ll take him to Majeon and uncover the cause of the slaughter madness and a way to cure it.’
Just as Bu Eunseol prepared to employ qinggong,
Ziiing.
A strange sensation arose from somewhere.
It was a peculiar gaze, as though someone from an immense distance was looking down upon him.
‘Lady Manwol.’
In that instant, Bu Eunseol’s heart pounded.
This clear energy that could be felt even from dozens of li away—it was unmistakably the aura of Manwol.
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