Murim Troubleshooter Dan Mujin-Chapter 135 : I See the Line

Chapter 135: I See the Line
No one entered the basement, but a corpse had gone missing.
When I first heard the story, I thought it was some kind of locked-room mystery.
But the answer to this mystery was surprisingly simple.
The corpse just had to resurrect and walk out.
“Like hell that’s okay, damn it!”
Shwick!
I shouted while narrowly dodging the incoming knife-hand by tilting my chin back.
It was a perilously close strike that chilled the nape of my neck. Maybe it grazed me—red veins burst before my eyes.
“You damned jiangshi bastard!”
Thwack!
A follow-up strike came immediately, as if to tell me to shut up. Sharp claws slashed across my shoulder blade, tearing the air.
More blood splattered, and the corpse poison seeped through my body.
Each knife-hand and claw swipe from the monster shredded my flesh like peeling an apple.
Tatadak!
I wildly swung my Dog-Beating Staff to deflect the attacks, but it wasn’t enough. This thing, which was already no better than a corpse, had reaction speed beyond that of a living person.
Death traced wild trajectories in every direction. I barely dodged one crimson arc aimed at my crown and shouted to my companions.
“Help!”
But Jo Harang was too occupied purging the corpse poison from her body.
Ilhong, too, had exhausted her Small Thunderburst Bombs and hidden weapons, busy fending off the other regular jiangshi.
Which meant—I had to hold off this thing alone for a while.
“Ilhong! Help!”
“...What help?! I’m busy too, you know!”
She shouted as she decapitated one of the incoming jiangshi.
“Does this thing have a weak spot?!”
Tak! Ta-ak!
Even as I yelled, I had to keep swinging my Dog-Beating Staff and stepping through Whirlwind Steps. The Blood Jiangshi kept chasing me with uncanny accuracy, even though it couldn’t see the paths like I could.
“Uh, uhh... The ancient texts said to slap a talisman imbued with virtuous qi on its forehead!”
In other words, we needed a talisman written by a high-powered Taoist, one imbued with Demon-Breaking Qi or Virtue-Destroying Qi.
“We don’t have anything like that!”
The only Taoist around me was the fraud-scented Blusterous Wind Daoist.
“Then sunlight! They say bathing in yang energy paralyzes jiangshi completely!”
“It’s midnight! And we’re in a basement!”
As I shot back more retorts, Ilhong stomped her feet in frustration.
“Argh! Then just cut off its head!”
She charged in with her broadsword, seemingly having purged the corpse poison.
Thud!
It was astonishing every time. Her blade struck flesh, yet the sound was like metal clashing against stone.
The Blood Jiangshi only suffered a shallow wound on its forearm—it didn’t get sliced.
“This makes no sense! Does this thing even have a human body?!”
Jo Harang cried out in disbelief as the monster withstood the strike with its unnatural durability.
“I told you, those aren’t human anymore! It’s probably a Blood-Asura Jiangshi, or maybe an Ironbone Jiangshi! Could even be worse!”
So many types of corpses, for something that’s already dead. Ilhong started listing every kind of jiangshi from the records.
Honestly, I didn’t understand half of it. Just that they were forged through bizarre techniques and sorcery.
“Khk!”
Jo Harang blocked the fierce counterattack with both arms but was pushed back helplessly.
As she coughed up blood, crimson droplets sprayed out—her inner organs were likely damaged.
Shwick!
Then came my turn. The knife-hand struck at a speed barely perceptible to the eye.
Thunk!
Thanks to the red arc, I barely managed to block it with the Dog-Beating Staff—but the sheer force behind it sent me flying nearly a jang, crashing near Ilhong.
The Dog-Beating Staff, though unbroken, was flung far out of reach by that monstrous force.
“C-Captain! That thing’s charging us!”
With eyes rolled white, the jiangshi dashed at us, probably to finish us off.
“Let me borrow this.”
In that moment of crisis, I snatched the slender sword from Ilhong’s hand as she flinched.
For the record, I had never properly learned swordsmanship. Hwang Geolgae had strictly forbidden me from ever holding a blade.
Tsssss—
I raised the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method as I pointed the sharp tip toward the monster. A white thread-like aura rose from the blade.
“W-Wait, Captain. Are you seriously facing that thing head-on?”
Ilhong, terrified of the Blood Jiangshi, suggested we flee instead.
But we couldn’t do that. If we ran now, she, with her slower movement arts, and the wounded Jo Harang would be caught for sure.
Shwick!
Like a premonition, the crimson arc extended toward me. Its claws followed, tearing the air into five trails.
Thwack!
Agonizing pain surged from my side. Dodging was impossible, so I let it rip through my flank.
Bleeding profusely, I tried to counterattack—and in that instant, I saw it.
A long red line traced across the monster’s body like a thread of fate.
‘What... is that?’
It was strange and eerie. As if telling me, cut here.
It was showing me the most optimal path to kill.
Slash!
And when I followed it—the rotting flesh was really severed.
Even Jo Harang had only managed a scratch, yet half its forearm was sliced in one stroke.
‘...!’
It hadn’t expected that. The Blood Jiangshi paused, momentarily frozen as it retrieved its dangling arm.
“C-Captain. What did you just do?!”
Ilhong stared with wide eyes, but there was no time to answer. The creature tossed aside its ruined arm and lunged again with the other.
Its attack carried no pain or hesitation—it was lifeless and mechanical. Just like that Heaven-Slaying Star who used his own body as bait.
“Ugh!”
I blocked it with one arm, trusting in my own durability.
My arm became a rag in an instant—but I found the sliver of an opening.
Tsssss—
All the karma I had built, and the demon-breaking power I had cultivated from it—
It gleamed in the dark, the aura of the stars repelling evil.
Slaaash!
The sword qi, wrapped in white light, followed the red line and slashed the jiangshi’s neck.
Layers of skin and muscle resisted, but I felt the vibration of cutting through it at my fingertips.
Slash—
And along with a rush of intense liberation, the sound of a blade slicing through flesh rang out.
The head of the Blood Jiangshi spun and flew into the air. Even in its final moments, its empty pupils stared straight at me.
Thud, roll.
As the severed head tumbled to the ground, the two women stared wordlessly with their mouths agape.
I hadn’t been stained with a single drop of blood, yet I looked down in silence at the thin blade that had undoubtedly cut something down.
“…What did I just do?”
Though I had done it, even I was dumbfounded by the trance-like movement.
Lines—red lines revealing the grain of something—started to come into view.
“W-What was that, Captain?! How did you do what even Jo Harang couldn’t?!”
“Mujin! What was that? What kind of trick did you use?!”
Jo Harang and Ilhong clung to me from both sides, shaking me wildly in a frenzy.
They kept asking about that possessed-like movement I’d just performed.
But no matter how they asked, I had no answer to give.
“Yeah… how did I do that…?”
Because I didn’t really know either.
It was just that, at the moment of crisis, I grabbed a killing weapon and activated the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method, and before I knew it, the enemy had died with an ‘ack.’
“Captain, you’ve never even learned swordsmanship. So how did you move like that…?”
I’d only ever snuck peeks at Ilhong’s sword swings. I’d never been formally taught.
And yet, the moment I picked it up, I was able to swing and kill with such proficiency—that’s what they were getting at.
As expected of a Murim killing machine. When it comes to killing, there's no greater talent than this.
This must be why Hwang Geolgae always told me never to wield a blade.
For reference, even with the blunt Dog-Beating Staff, I could always see exactly where to strike to cause the most pain.
But once I picked up a weapon made purely to kill from the very start… killing became all too easy.
Of course, that jiangshi bastard was already a corpse, so it’s not like it would add to my Killing Karma.
“Ilhong, let’s not tell Master about this.”
“If a disciple has talent like this, wouldn’t he be happy...? But sure, since you ask, Captain, I’ll keep it quiet.”
Happy, my ass. I’d be lucky if he didn’t smack me upside the head for doing exactly what he told me not to.
Still… I think I’m starting to understand why martial artists fear and shun Heaven-Slaying Stars.
To be able to see what must be killed.
“Captain, can’t you give me a hint at least? How did you really do it?”
She asked, confused, as she reclaimed her sword—which, by all accounts, was just a regular iron blade.
“Just grip it hard and swing.”
“Seriously? You think that explains it? Who cuts through something like that just by gripping a little harder?!”
“Well, I did.”
“…You’re so annoying sometimes, Captain.”
Well, what could I say? It was genuinely hard to explain.
You just had to accept that this body overflowed with talent.
“My body is made of blades.”
I mumbled some line I vaguely remembered from somewhere as I scanned the aftermath of the battle.
It hadn’t even been an hour since the fight began, yet the underground chamber of the Jinju Eon Clan had turned into a total wreck.
“Mujin, Mujin.”
Jo Harang, who’d been so tense when we entered, was now looking at me with sparkling, curious eyes.
“Would you spar with me later with a sword?”
“Nope. Not picking one up again.”
That red line I saw while holding a sword—it was unmistakably a line meant for killing.
Sparring while seeing that? I’d be lucky not to kill someone.
Leaving behind the eager scaredy-cat tiger, I turned to inspect the scattered corpses of the jiangshi around us.
Lids of coffins flung open. The shattered state of the basement.
How the hell were we supposed to clean up this mess? I was just starting to think that when—
From within the darkness, a pale face emerged, ghostly and expressionless.
“Gah.”
Jo Harang and Ilhong both flinched, clutching my arms tightly in fear.
“…Dan Mujin, young hero, what is the meaning of this?”
Turned out, it was the one who had requested this job—Eon Wolyeong.
I’d figured she’d be spooky if we bumped into her in the dead of night somewhere creepy, but meeting her here, in a corpse-filled basement? That was just unfair.
“Pardon me, but… you’re human, right?”
I asked, pointing toward her face floating eerily in the dark.
“…How rude.”
Thankfully, she wasn’t a jiangshi or a ghost—just a perfectly living human.
“So, what exactly is going on here?”
Her normally expressionless face now showed clear signs of shock.
She pointed at the signs of the battle and the corpses that had seemingly risen on their own, demanding an explanation.
That’s funny—I was expecting you to tell me.
She asked the exact question I wanted to ask.
And so, the three of us stood there, locked in an awkward silence, staring at one another.
“No way… Jiangshi? That’s supposed to be a lost art, even in the Eon Clan!”
A woman’s voice, laced with shock.
She examined the cold, pale jiangshi over and over again, disbelief painted across her face.
“And this coffin that held the high-level one…”
She inspected the coffin that held the Blood Jiangshi, speechless at the blood-red talismans plastered all over its interior.
She said the phrases written were ominous and vile, unable to hide her fury.
“To dare practice such sorcery… and in the Eon Clan’s basement, no less!”
Far from treating the deceased with respect, someone had pulled an incredibly wicked stunt.
She didn’t yet know who the perpetrator was, but it clearly wasn’t the conventional jiangshi technique—it was twisted and tainted with abnormal sorcery.
“So then, what exactly was this jiangshi? Was it one of those Blood Jiangshi?”
I gave the beheaded one a casual nudge and asked.
After reading the talismans and dissecting the presumed Blood Jiangshi, she gave me a cautious verdict.
“This wasn’t a Blood Jiangshi. Maybe Ironbone Jiangshi… or a Demon Ghoul? Blood Jiangshi? Everything was mixed together—a grotesque hybrid.”
A monster as hard as forged iron, capable of using martial arts, and not easily killed—a truly dangerous jiangshi.
She said all this, then glanced at the cleanly severed neck with a puzzled look and turned to me.
“How did you manage to cut that?”
She remarked that I wasn’t even at Peak Martial Level—and yet she asked that question again.
Which meant I only had one real answer to give.
“Cleanly. I cut it cleanly.”
“…”
At my unenthusiastic reply, Eon Wolyeong’s eyes narrowed slightly in disbelief.
She immediately turned to my companions with a is he for real? look, but Ilhong and Jo Harang just shrugged as if to say we’ve got no idea either.
“Was that jiangshi really that dangerous?”
Jo Harang, ever concerned with justice and the peace of the murim, asked cautiously.
Eon Wolyeong nodded grimly, face solemn.
“Judging by the coffin and talismans, it was still incomplete. And yet, it already had this much power. If one like this were ever completed and unleashed upon the Central Plains…”
Then the murim would see a devastating bloodstorm.
Especially the orthodox factions—they could be wiped out entirely.
“But he cut it easily? With that... white sword qi or whatever?”
Jo Harang gestured toward me with a glance that suggested she wasn’t buying the threat level.
“…What are you, exactly?”
What was I?
Under Eon Wolyeong’s puzzled stare, all I could do was shrug once again.
“A troubleshooter. I’m a troubleshooter.”