Murim's Weakest Princess-Chapter 241: Grim Reaper of Duan City

Four days later, Anji returned to the forbidden library. She was severely disoriented after living as a different person. During her journey, she witnessed his tragedy and the choices he made. With nobody to guide him to the more compassionate path, he sought revenge against his biological parents, who tried to dispose of him as a baby the moment they learned he was born under the star of destruction.

In a way, Anji thought it was ironic that the star of destruction was a prophecy that could only be fulfilled by the choices they made. If they had raised him with care instead, they would not have needed to live in fear of that destruction falling upon them. Moreover, they were the governors of Duan City. To use the city as a shield against their flesh and blood must have been the final straw for the sabre legend.

For the most part, Anji observed how slave traders captured the young man because he had been too ill and weak. The slave traders started a fire set to his shabby home to kidnap all the people in the slum. The brass trapdoor was used as an illegal storage place for corrupt officials, whom his deceased step-parents dealt with. Like karma, the dealings of the corrupt officials and barbarians found its way back to the young sage.

Using his wits and talent with his body, the young grim reaper learned from the warriors of the tribe and proved his worth. Unlike the people from the central plains, the barbarians respected the young sabre master as a great and mighty warrior. They were gutted when he refused to marry into their tribe to become one of them. However, they respected his desire to return and seek revenge. In return, the fall of Duan City benefited the barbarians after he left it empty.

Without a a purpose left in his life after reaching the apex of martial arts, the Grim Reaper of Duan City wandered aimlessly and worked as a mercenary from time to time, travelling to see the world. He never found love and could not understand it. He still kept up with his boorish ways, picking fights with those who stared at him the wrong way and winning.

That was until he stumbled onto a blind monk getting duped at a marketplace. His interference had to be the biggest turning point. The blind monk lived alone away from the city to take care of an abandoned temple. The Grim Reaper had been a frequent guest there and even learned he had a talent not only for martial arts but for cultivation after the monk taught him a part of the scripture.

After the blind monk turned into an old man and died of ripe old age with the Grim Reaper of Duan City as a friend, the sabre legend decided that he would enter seclusion to perfect a new set of martial arts with the sabre. He no longer thirst for blood or demand justice. The years of burning incense and chanting the Heart Sutra gave him something he never had before - a sense of peace.

All he wanted was to pass on his knowledge and give others a chance to carve out their own path the way he did. And the only way he knew to do it was through his sabre.

Blinding both his eyes and removing the arm he did not need by severing it, the Grim Reaper of Duan City cast his past behind him and entered the deep chasm of an unknown mountain to deepen his cultivation. There, Anji watched as he fought his heart demons. The lightning that struck the mountain above him during his tribulations were brutal enough that for a long time, people regarded that mountain as one cursed by Gods.

Eventually, the Grim Reaper of Duan City perfected his sabre formula and left behind a poem before he ascended with a piece of his soul imbued in it.

"The strongest blade is not forged by hellfire or hatred. It is born from the purpose of cutting through every defence in front of it and nothing more. To master the art of the sabre is to mutilate without a false sense of grace, but with the fiercest honesty in one’s heart, without holding back, even if you must break. If you seek the path of the crimson sabre, you must be one boorish brute like me."

It was this very poem that the Mystical Qilin Sect had harvested his soul memory fragments from to add to the Memory Crystal collection.

Anji’s head throbbed. Although the massacre at Duan City was brutal and the city truly rained red that day with his sabre covered in the blood of the thousands he killed, the Grim Reaper of Duan City did not kill for the sake of killing. He never hid behind falsities and spoke his mind. He cared not for his reputation, even if he knew tongues wagged behind his back. He accepted the label of being unfilial and wore it like a battle scar. Compared to martial heroes who play petty politics to remain upright, Anji thought he was honourable and truly deserved to become a sage, even if he had chosen a route of destruction instead of salvation.

"How are you feeling?" Yan Ping asked. "Were you able to understand the meaning of empty compassion yet?"

Anji groaned and stretched. After four days of deep meditation, she was feeling stiff. Thankfully, that was it for side effects. She still felt relatively sane.

"Not yet," she sighed. "However, the Grim Reaper of Duan City was very different from the demon others made him out to be. Isn’t it odd that people feared him but would also use him as a guardian to ward off evil spirits?"

Feeling amused by how different Anji’s tone had become without her knowing, Yan Ping nodded. The sabre master’s personality was starting to reflect in Anji’s mannerisms. It would take some time before she was back to herself.

"I find it more odd that you don’t realise just how inappropriately you’re sitting. Your mother would gasp in shock if you didn’t start sitting more demurely."

Even without eyes, Yan Ping could tell how Anji’s new adopted behavioural patterns were reflecting more hooligan than scholarly.

Staring at herself, Anji gasped and quickly apologised. Yan Ping was right. She had not noticed when she started to put her legs up on the table and rocked the chair. It was something the Grim Reaper of Duan City would do instead. This had to be one of those side effects that her teacher mentioned previously.

How terrifying!