Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin-Chapter 123 : Empathy

Chapter 123: Empathy
A sharp clang of metal shook the rolling hills, and a murderous glow flashed.
“How did you notice me!”
Jo Harang’s broadsword sliced through the wind in a rush, and the man who’d seemed like a bodyguard spat out sword qi and met it head-on.
While the brutal fight raged, the fake client who had lured me here twisted his face and barked at me again.
“Your disguise should have been perfect! You didn’t show a trace of killing intent! So why—!”
He thought either our information had leaked beforehand, or his disguise had been insufficient and he’d failed to hide his murderous intent.
But he was completely wrong.
“You were just too ugly. You looked like a villain at a glance.”
No matter how well someone hid their killing intent, they could not deceive the Heaven-Slaying Star’s eyes.
Those eyes saw into the murderous core buried deep inside them, seeing even that black heart through and through.
“Eeeek!”
At my provocation the old man exploded with killing intent and drew his sword.
When he had hooked the bait onto the needle he’d worn a kindly face, but now his true vicious form had snapped into view.
“Enemy of the Blood Cult…! All right, I’ll tear you to pieces!”
Burning with vengeance, the Blood Cult’s elder ignited a crimson flash along his blade.
I had been looking forward to this first assigned job, but it turned out to be a trap set by the Blood Cult.
“Wait, damn it. Now that I think about it, why would the Blood Cult—!”
Was this really necessary? It wasn’t as if Blood Cult masters had nothing to do.
They’d come all the way here to trap a fixer from Beijing?
“Why? Because of the Dragon-Phoenix Tournament, because of Nanman! It was all you! You little scoundrel who ruined the Blood Cult’s great work!”
Wherever we went we interfered with the Blood Cult’s affairs, so of course our danger level had been escalated.
“You were the ones who ambushed me in Nanman while I was minding my own business!”
“Shut up!”
I didn’t even know those bastards were holed up in that corner of Nanman.
But whatever I said, I’d apparently been branded an enemy of the Blood Cult, and Nogo-su launched himself like lightning, his murderous blade flashing.
Sshhik!
Sword qi writhed like a snake and poured toward me. Even though I had read the deadly trajectory in advance, a sudden, irregular attack extended and I could barely respond.
Squeeee! Thwack!
I twisted my body to dodge the sword qi, then kept parrying and deflecting with my Dog-Beating Staff.
Boom!
“Ugh!”
The clash of sword qi and staff qi burst out fierce waves of energy.
My fingertips and toes tingled. With each impact the depth of internal power and martial skill transmitted through was alarming.
The old man certainly looked like one of the Blood Cult’s top masters.
“So you dragged me into this just to catch someone like me—!”
“O Blood-Heaven Deity, let the grudges of the dead cultists be repaid by this Blood-Selling Fiend!”
He snarled that invocation and charged us; we were busy deflecting and bouncing off with the Dog-Beating Staff, barely able to counter. Hearing the Blood Cultist’s name, Ilhong suddenly screamed.
“…Jukgwima!”
“Huh! You know him?”
“He’s the legendary top-tier demonic practitioner who disappeared! And he was a Blood Cultist!”
Damn it — a top-tier master.
No wonder the rebound felt extraordinary in my grip.
“Your blood will flow into my blood arts to the very last drop! And I will use your corpse as material for my next great work!”
What in hell was this “blood art” he was preparing, and what was he going to do with other people’s corpses?
They truly were insane corpse-obsessed maniacs.
“You must have grown complacent upon reaching the pinnacle! So you had the gall to barge into Blood Cult affairs. Then let me make you pay the price today…!”
Though he seemed gaunt and small, the old man’s eyes flashed with murder and madness.
He brought forth a single, blood-red sword that contained all of his pinnacle prowess to cut down his enemy.
“Pinnacle, my ass…”
Hearing the word “pinnacle,” they must have prepared one top-tier and one pinnacle martial artist.
But they didn’t know this.
Recently, a top-tier newcomer had joined our office.
“Harang!”
Top-tier fought top-tier best, didn’t it?
I hurriedly stepped back and called for her support.
“Help!”
A concise, certain command.
“Why! I’m busy right now!”
But she seemed to be having trouble with the Blood Cult pinnacle who was using baffling blood arts.
When I glanced over, the Blood Cultist looked like he was buying time; he withdrew and sprayed blood drops like a rainstorm!
“Help—!”
“I said I’m busy! Hang on a little longer!”
She split all the blood with her broadsword, soaked with qi, and chased after her opponent while shouting.
“Damn it.”
Our opponent was a seasoned demonic practitioner.
He grinned and unleashed a lightning-quick swift sword technique.
“Boss! I’ll help too!”
Seeing me in danger, Ilhong — a first-rate martial artist — drew a thin sword and leapt into the fray.
“No, not you — call Harang!”
But in that instant, how could a first-rate warrior step into a fight above the pinnacle where weapons were being cleaved in half?
I barked at her to get out of the way.
“Why do you always call only Jo Harang for help! I can fight too!”
“Because it’s dangerous…! Hup!”
Bang!
Ilhong, pouting, suddenly hurled a special poison pellet.
It exploded and instantly wrapped me and the Death-Selling Fiend in an emerald-green cloud of vapor.
“You bastard…! You’ll get me caught in it!”
“The boss never minded that kind of thing!”
Now that I thought about it, she was right.
I’d always been resistant to poison, but after being attacked by the human-faced spider I’d melted and regenerated repeatedly, somehow developing a strange immunity.
“Guh! This is insane…! You’re going to engulf our allies with poison?!”
On the other hand, the ordinary Death-Selling Fiend was horrified that her ruthless tactic would sweep allies into the poison as well.
That tactic was beyond normal combat sense even for the Blood Cult.
“Phut!”
I immediately held my breath, but I must have inhaled a little in surprise.
I spat dead blood from my throat, but my face showed signs of internal injury.
“You fiends like parasitic brothers…! I’ll kill you both!”
Clenching through the pain, he surged at us again.
He first slit his palm and scattered blood drops like a shotgun blast.
Pababak!
I hurriedly rolled aside to dodge, then swept aside the relentless surge of sword qi with my Dog-Beating Staff.
Tung! Tututung!
His movements were noticeably slower, his momentum weaker than before.
“Ilhong, good job…!”
“Please leave it to me more often!”
“No, that’s not happening!”
I shouted, horrified.
Was she planning to keep throwing that stuff at me from now on?
“Kraaaagh!”
At that moment, Jo Harang’s broadsword split the pinnacle Blood Cultist who had been weaving sinister arts in two, top and bottom.
His upper body was hacked clean off, blood spraying everywhere.
Splattered in crimson, she charged toward me at once to save me.
Chaaang!
She struck aside the sword aimed at me with a fierce swing.
With just one exchange, Death-Selling Fiend realized she was his match, and his expression hardened.
“Harang! Bite him!”
“…How many times do I have to tell you, I’m not a hunting dog!”
Yeah, yeah, wasn’t she always saying she was the proud tiger of Mount Sung?
“Hey, tigers have fangs too. Go bite!”
“Grrr…!”
Furious, Jo Harang swung her broadsword at the pale-faced Death-Selling Fiend and leapt at him.
Whooong–!
Atop a steeply carved cliff.
Where a faint, strange mist rose, the blades of two masters clashed in blinding bursts.
Chaang! Chachachaang!
A silver blade cut through the air, met by a scarlet sword-light.
Within the deadly gap, the Murong Clan’s secret sword art, which had cut down countless villains, blazed forth.
On the cliff, she unleashed the Sword Flash of Heaven and Earth, scattering sword qi in a flurry of lightning-like swift strikes.
The silver arcs tearing through the air poured down like a meteor shower.
Before that overwhelming force that seemed to split heaven and earth, the Left Blood Law’s crimson energy halted for a moment.
“Huhu, your blade is steeped in killing intent. How many have you slain with this sword art?”
Instead of fear, Left Blood Law let out a delighted chuckle, enjoying her fierce struggle.
Chachachaang!
Murong Cheonghye, sweating and desperately unleashing her strikes, cried out with a stricken face.
“I’ve said it already! I am not the Heaven-Slaying Star!”
But the Blood Cultists refused to listen.
They cursed the heavens for planting the Evil Star in her brother’s body.
And since she had ceaselessly slain villains, to them it seemed nothing more than the Evil Star’s murderous energy being vented.
“Denying it is useless. Your deeds reveal your nature…! Don’t you feel like you’ll go mad if you don’t kill? Aren’t you soothing that surging urge by cutting down villains? Until all the evildoers of the Central Plains are wiped out!”
“No! I said that’s not true!”
“Kahahahat!”
Her desperate cries, full of frustration at this absurd misunderstanding, fell on deaf ears.
And yet, on the very cliff where the Heaven-Slaying Star had been stabbed to death, she was now denying that she was the Heaven-Slaying Star.
That contradiction stirred a strange déjà vu within her.
‘Was this exactly how Cheongjin felt…?’
That suffocating frustration, like shouting at a wall.
Those relentless pursuers, blinded by misunderstanding, trying to kill her.
As she realized it, Murong Cheonghye’s face went blank for a moment.
The Blood Cultists seized the chance and lunged.
Pabababak!
From behind, onlookers flung blood like hidden weapons.
When she leapt to evade, Left Blood Law shadowed her instantly.
Thud!
A heavy fist smashed into her, sending her rolling across the ground as she coughed up blood.
“Don’t worry. That body will be used to summon the Blood-Heaven Deity. You should consider it an honor.”
“……”
They had been muttering incomprehensible things for a while now.
But one thing was clear: whether her brother lived or died,
as long as these men sought the Heaven-Slaying Star, she had to take as many of them with her as possible.
“Hoo.”
So she rose to her feet and gripped her sword again.
On the cliff where her brother had ended, Murong Cheonghye resolved to end it herself.
“C-cowards….”
The Death-Selling Fiend, struck down at last by me, Jo Harang with her tiger’s aura, and Ilhong’s ambush from behind, fell helplessly.
Looking between the three of us, he stammered that we were cowards.
“Cowards? Says the one who dug the trap in the first place?”
I had come here with joy at the thought of making money.
And now? At best, we’d keep the deposit and lose the rest.
I rummaged through his clothes but found nothing worth money.
“There is something worth money.”
Ilhong pointed at the Blood Cultist’s severed head.
Ah, right. The Demon-Slaying Unit and the Murim Alliance were paying bounties for Blood Cultist heads without limit.
Some kind of decree had been issued.
The stronger the master, the higher the price.
“Hey, where are the rest of the Blood Cult stragglers?”
Earlier, when the tide turned against him, he had set off some kind of firework to buy time.
So there had to be remnants nearby.
“Kraaaagh!”
When he delayed answering, I applied Bone-Setting Through Tactile Analysis.
The handy interrogation method I’d learned from Hwang Geolgae.
“Interrogation, you mean?”
“Whatever you call it, if he talks, it’s interrogation.”
Then the bastard pointed toward a cliff not far away.
“There! The Blood Cult remnants! They’re all gathered there!”
And then I saw it — terrain wrapped in strange mist.
“Oh, that’s….”
It was a familiar cliff.
The very same cliff where I had fallen before.