Chapter 146

“What do you want to do with Black Ho?”
“What.”
Boom!
After slicing through the angry Thunder Dragon with the Qingyun Red River Sword with the aura of the Emperor Sword, the madman took a few steps back, dusted off his messy clothes, and opened his mouth.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you’re paying too much attention to Black Tiger?”
“You little ghost.”
Kwang Seung-Seung clicked his tongue and released three tensile energy blasts toward the flying Emperor Sword Formation.
Tut-tut-tut!
I frowned as a series of air popping sounds like drums erupted, once again blocking the Emperor Sword-type’s greatsword.
“Senior.”
“Ah, you bastard, you assume it’s yours.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s yours, and you don’t even care!”
“Of course I’m not interested.”
“Ha.”
I opened my mouth at the sound of an exasperated sigh.
“Why do you covet?”
I cleared my throat and looked at Kwangseung. He and I were already coming to the end of the match.
The intangible energy he had deployed had been dissipated by the bundles of thunderbolts I was unleashing, and I could feel his power diminishing, and I knew I had to step up my game.
“He’s a natural as a killer. His potential is as good as yours.”
His eyebrows wiggled. As if he wasn’t finished, Kwangseung continued.
“Reaching the level of expert killer means that the world of killing recognizes you. You know that.”
“Aldamada.”
“Then do you know that he has artificially suppressed his memories?”
It was the first I had heard of it. I had never heard of such a thing before.
But I thought I knew why. His movements, instinctive in moments of crisis, were swift and stealthy enough to make me cringe.
And he used his auras freely.
“He’s only two years old.”
I said,
“I say again, do not covet.”
I shook my head. Second warning. No matter how great a winner you are, you shouldn’t take what you can’t have.
Perhaps sensing my intentions, he sighed and opened his mouth.
“Do you wish me to live as your shadow forever?”
“A shadow. That’s not fair.”
Black Ho had a stronger sense of responsibility than anyone else.
[I thought, “You’re more stupid than anyone else, and that suits me just fine, since you don’t give a shit what anyone says.” ]
So I asked him.
[ Lend me your strength in this life ].
And I, too, will be responsible for the life and death of the Black Tiger.
“Do not try to take it away from me, for that is impossible, even for you, for I have decided that nothing will be taken from me now.”
I channeled my energy into the tip of the blade. The tip of the sword twitched as if it were alive. The moment I looked at the back of Namgung Mu Baek in the white light flashed before me like a foreground painting.
My family,
My people.
I hope the back of my head reaches the one I’m supposed to protect.
At the same time, I wish him a great future.
“One.”
The sleeve of Kwangseung’s robe flutters. He seems to realize that I’m making a game of it, and a brilliance bursts from his body that reveals the energy that swirls within him like a nodo.
“If he wants it, I’ll let him go, for I truly wish him well, so.”
Thump, thump, thump.
The soul of the Emperor at the tip of the pulsating sword began to stare down at the world, and the Berserker focused on it, unflinching.
“Don’t covet, like that.”
Immersion.
I surrendered as I was, seeing him burst with a radiance as bright as a blazing sword.
The world splits in two.
* * * *
The Void of Salmak Vumakism.
The only authoritative void left in the world was the one that Hapyo had created. It was widely rumored that he was looking for a successor.
A specialist assassin known as the Black Spirit, his eyes flashed with glee.
The man who had wreaked havoc on the world and had previously escaped is within reach.
The secret name he’d received from King Haepyo,
“Zhao Yu Pilsal.
Upon meeting him, I will fulfill the order to kill him. If you bring him back alive, you’ll take his place as vizier, and if you bring him back dead, he’ll take your place as vizier.
That’s how many fugitives are out there, right in front of Hapeyo’s eyes.
He’s heard the tale, and so have many of his men, but he’s the first to listen and reach this far.
This would give him a leg up on the rest of the pack.
The prey’s eyes were cloudy. The one who had been named Number One by the living world stood before him.
“No. 1.”
Ebony chuckled at his words. He’d been watching him, but something was broken. If it hadn’t been fixed in nearly a decade, it was certain.
It wouldn’t have been easy for even a first-class assassin to break through the encirclement of thirty first-class assassins and escape unscathed. Perhaps the aftereffects were still lingering.
“The name was given to those who betrayed the clan with you.”
Numbers 1 through 13.
I slaughtered all of them except for the one in front of me, but this one survived.
“I see.”
“It will not be a pretty death.”
“What is it?”
Even as he spoke, the bay bastard’s eyes flickered in and out of focus several times. I want to grab him and snatch him right now, but I can’t.
We’re in the middle of the Southern Palace. I could get myself killed if I did anything.
Lost in thought, I try to figure out how to lure him out.
And then.
A strange aura stimulates Black Spirit. A sticky, sullen aura. I heard it.
An illusion.
The feeling of his ears deepening.
He narrowed his eyes, thinking it couldn’t be, but then his new model flickered to life and disappeared. The countless Reapers who had closed the distance and formed an encirclement panicked.
He was an express killer, and none of them would be able to escape his gaze.
“Follow me!”
I’d rather you get me out of Anhui’s way.
* * *
With a few flashes of light, the darkness in front of them, like walking through a fog, opened up. At the same time, as he faces the open road, his body twists, and the power of the Four Hundred Seas rushes in.
Black Tiger’s body stopped on a forest road on the outskirts of Anhui Province. Here, in a forest of birch trees that stretched out and pierced the ceiling, he surveyed his surroundings.
The moment.
A sword light flashed before his eyes.
The sight of thirty or so sword rays splintering through the air was nothing short of spectacular.
Then, a flash of light erupted in Black Lake’s mind once again. Black Lake’s body trembled slightly as his stiff body became flexible.
It was like that.
The latent moments.
The entire scene unfolds in front of him.
In the past,
He suddenly remembered the sword light of a first-class killer of thirty, who was preventing him from being sentenced.
What did he do then?
Black Tiger’s blade stretched out towards the blackness of the blackness, the blackness of the blackness, the blackness of the blackness that stood in the way.
Seo Geuguk.
“What is it that makes you so eager to lunge?”
Flesh splits. Heads split, shoulders fled, thighs flung into the air.
In an instant, the eyes of the living creatures are extinguished.
The flesh of their eyes is cut away, replaced by rotten copper eyes.
“This is how it was.”
Black Lake’s eyes cleared, and he felt all the restraints loosen.
One stroke.
Every time his dagger glowed, the newcomers who stood in his way were cut in two, and it didn’t matter how many shadows they were.
The surrounding birch forest was quickly transformed into a land of death, as the flurry of flesh began to be sliced and diced.
“……You, you……!”
A man wearing a black robe and covering his mouth sends a panicked gaze. Black Ho read his gaze and realized that the aura he exuded was not much different from his own.
“Specialized killer. What’s your name?”
“……Kyung-young.”
“Good.”
Noticing the change in Black Ho’s mood, Black Young narrowed his eyes and scanned the area around him.
“You……. You’ve been hiding your skills.”
“Of course not.”
I finally found it. A memory of the past.
Why I had forgotten.
“I wanted to live, because of your vicious minds that would chase me to my death.”
“Hmph! Yes, yes, you do remember. You remember how terrifying their viciousness is.”
“No.”
He shook his head. Black Ho grunted several times, then wiped the blood off his dagger.
“I’m afraid that you will continue to interfere with the rest of my life.”
……Bothered.
Ebony mumbles something under his breath.
“To lose my memory, to hide my ears, I put a ban on myself, to make sure that everything, from my radius of action, to my life, would be free of any trace of the killing, so.”
Black Ho continued.
“Once again, don’t bother, unless it’s for something else.”
Black Young’s expression, which had been impassive, crumpled every time he looked at No. 1, Black Ho. It crumpled every moment.
“You’re such an ass. You think you can escape my hand.”
Eunuch’s dagger slices through countless red lines. The swirling feast of red lines transformed into a terrifying killing spree.
The redder it became, the more concentrated it became, until it looked like it would tear Black Lake apart at any moment.
“He said you only need to take your supplies.”
“Who said. Hae-pyo.”
“Haepyo! How dare you use that name……!”
Black Ho’s eyes darkened as he glared at Black Young.
“He cut Yeonhee’s stomach and killed my child, so…”
A pitch-black aura enveloped the birch forest, and in an instant, the newcomer melted into the shadows. A solid line of blood flickered in the air.
“This time, I will come to kill you.”
Clang!
Thud, thud, thud.
In a place that has been turned into a death field.
Just as blood was filling the birch grove, a lance rolled across the ground.
The black tiger, which had slashed thirty people and ripped out the throats of express killers, had a dagger in its mouth.
“……hu.”
Black Ho’s mind was dizzy, a swelling mass of memories, overlapping his past lives with his life in the Southern Palace.
“Perhaps it’s time to leave.”
Staying in the Southern Palace would surely take its toll. The Southern Palace, the place that reminded her of him, she felt it was right to leave as soon as possible.
The life he had guaranteed her.
The life he had guaranteed her. The life that had been so dark, with moments of hope.
So she had to leave. He had to leave the feast of death and walk the path of light.
As he turned away from the birch grove.
“Where are you going, running away again, just like before.”
I didn’t feel a thing. I didn’t know how he appeared.
Just as he was about to leave, the same boy who had appeared in front of him when he had felt skeptical because of Mr. Pfaff’s treachery, now a full-grown man, was speaking from behind him.
“Grand Duke.”