Heavenly Killing Star.

It was a term I’d heard a few times, living in the Central Plain.

Stars born to kill someone.

People born with murderous intent and killing aura—people who couldn’t live their lives without spilling blood by killing someone.

Especially in this land of swords and blood, the existence called the Heavenly Killing Star tended to shine with a particularly vicious glare.

A Heavenly Killing Star is usually born a genius.

Not in the scholarly sense—as a martial artist.

Maybe that was only natural. If someone was born to kill, then to achieve that purpose, the body would have to be exceptional.

There were also martial artists who rose to high positions after being born with the Heavenly Killing Star—called things like a killing demon or a killing star.

And among them, the most famous existence was—

‘The Heavenly Demon.’

The war monster who stood at the pinnacle of the DEMON CULT, a being people called the sky itself.

The Heavenly Demon.

‘...The Heavenly Demon is a Heavenly Killing Star.’

Whether it was true or not, the records of the Central Plain said so, and that was enough to force belief.

And if I took Yoo Cheongil’s words and laid them over that—

‘...You’re saying Yuyeon is a Heavenly Killing Star too?’

Saying Yuyeon was a Heavenly Killing Star was the same as saying Yuyeon was born with a fate not so different from the Heavenly Demon’s.

So there was no way I could accept it easily.

I looked at Yoo Cheongil, silently demanding an explanation.

[Why? What’s the problem.]

Yoo Cheongil reacted like none of this was a problem. No—then what, there’s no problem?

Heavenly Killing Star, and you’re acting like it’s nothing?

[Ha.]

Maybe he read my expression, because Yoo Cheongil laughed.

[Sounds like you think the Heavenly Killing Star is something special. It’s not worth looking at like that.]

‘...It’s not?’

[Yeah.]

The tone was: why are you making a fuss over something so trivial? Yoo Cheongil continued, tossing out his words with maddening indifference.

[What, it’s just someone who wants to kill people, and snaps and goes around slicing things up now and then. That’s all.]

“......”

And how is that not special...?

My head started throbbing like it was splitting.

[If you’re a martial artist, you’re supposed to have some freakish temperament like that. Keh-heh-heh-heh.]

Ah....

Only then did it hit me again.

Heavenly Killing Star or whatever—the weirdest one here was that old bastard.

Looks like I picked the wrong person to ask.

‘God, my head.’

Whenever I talked to that old man, my head always hurt.

But then why was he so sure Yuyeon was a Heavenly Killing Star?

‘Is there some trait you can be sure of?’

Killing demon, killing star, Heavenly Demon.

Even Yuyeon—something that let you label Yuyeon a Heavenly Killing Star. There had to be some trait you could point to.

As soon as the question surfaced—

[It’s not hard to spot. If anything, it’s the easy kind.]

Yoo Cheongil said it to me.

[Holding murderous intent inside numbness.]

[That’s what a Heavenly Killing Star is—someone who can do that.]

‘Murderous intent inside numbness?’

No emotion, yet murderous intent. It sounded like a contradiction.

[A Heavenly Killing Star lives exactly the way you think—life focused on killing other people.]

People who have to kill to live.

The kind born with that sort of fate.

‘I know.’

I knew those kinds of people well.

Because that’s what fate was.

Even when I lived as Kim Mincheol, there were a few.

Mad bastards who thought ✪ Nоvеlіgһt ✪ (Official version) they could only live if they killed someone.

My grandmother used to call people like that Heavenly Killing Stars.

And she told me:

‘Never get involved with people like that.’

A life of a star you couldn’t twist away from.

If you didn’t want to be stained by it, don’t keep it close.

That was what my grandmother drilled into me, over and over.

But—

‘You’re telling me that’s Yuyeon?’

It didn’t sit right. The reason I couldn’t accept Yuyeon being a Heavenly Killing Star was simple.

‘Then how did I not see it?’

You’re telling me I failed to notice someone born with that trait?

That was what I couldn’t believe.

‘...No matter what.’

Yeah, even if I’d sealed myself off—

Missing something like that didn’t make sense.

‘And that “murderous intent inside numbness” thing is vague.’

Murderous intent is an emotion too. How do you hold it inside emotionlessness? How is that even possible?

[That’s why it’s a Heavenly Killing Star. Every action holds murderous intent. And the person doesn’t even think of it as an emotion.]

“......Ah.”

That clicked.

They don’t consider murderous intent an emotion. It’s so natural that it doesn’t even register as strange.

So then—

‘Yuyeon was like that?’

I didn’t know. Yuyeon, a Heavenly Killing Star?

‘But if that’s true—’

I saw with my own eyes how she shook and fumbled because she couldn’t kill people.

So how could she be a Heavenly Killing Star?

It was bullshit.

[That’s right.]

Yoo Cheongil nodded.

[That’s why it’s strange. The killing aura she showed when you collapsed last time was absolutely that of a Heavenly Killing Star.]

‘...Huh?’

Killing aura when I collapsed?

I didn’t remember anything like that.

Yoo Cheongil kept staring toward where Yuyeon had been, looking genuinely interested.

[What the hell did that Mal-ko bastard do to block that kind of fate? That’s what I find fascinating.]

“......”

Mal-ko.

The Plum Blossom Single Sword blocked Yuyeon’s fate.

At those words, my brow tightened.

The one saving grace was—

‘There’s someone I can ask.’

There was someone I could question about this.

*****

I went back to my quarters. After finishing training and returning, it was close to dawn.

I washed up quickly and stepped into the room.

[You’re back.]

A living spirit that had been waiting for me. Seongheon.

“Since when have you been here?”

[Heh-heh-heh.... When you get old, you fall asleep early.]

So he came not long after I left to train.

“Then you should’ve just come out.”

Seongheon couldn’t leave the county. That bound-ghost trait of his and all.

And the mountain I’d climbed to train was within the range he could move.

He could’ve come to me, but he chose to sit here and wait.

[You said you were training. It’d be rude to bother you.]

He said it like it was consideration, but—

[What a load of crap. You just didn’t come because it was a hassle.]

Yoo Cheongil immediately scoffed and mocked him.

[Cheongil. You don’t understand the consideration of old age.]

[Like I’ve never been old. You’re dressing up nonsense in fancy words.]

[Of course you wouldn’t know. Even in old age, you never grew up.]

[......You little shit?]

“Why are you suddenly fighting....... I’m tired.”

I tried to stop the old men from starting their little scuffle. I didn’t know why they always did this.

Not that I could actually stop them. In the end, Yoo Cheongil clicked his tongue and snapped at Seongheon.

[So you finally got mature and accepted a Heavenly Killing Star as your disciple?]

[.......]

‘Oh, damn.’

He really just threw that out there.

It was shocking—and, at the same time, it felt weirdly satisfying.

Because it was exactly what I wanted to ask.

[If you’ve got a mouth, use it. You, of all people, who clung to the righteous sect’s principles—breaking the very pact you kept pushing and pushing for with your own hands.]

‘A pact?’

My ears perked up at Yoo Cheongil’s words. A pact?

[Didn’t you set it? The moment a Heavenly Killing Star is found, it gets eradicated immediately.]

“......!”

[Even when the Blade God and I opposed it, you shoved it through, saying it was the choice for peace. And now your newest disciple is a Heavenly Killing Star.]

[Cheongil....]

[Don’t tell me you didn’t know. My eyes aren’t knotholes. That killing aura was absolutely that of a Heavenly Killing Star. So if you didn’t know until now, that just means you did something. Right, Seongheon?]

Under Yoo Cheongil’s barrage, Seongheon stayed silent. Meaning: there was nothing he could say back.

And in the middle of it—

‘Eradicate a Heavenly Killing Star.’

So there really was a pact like that.

Was it a pact of the righteous sect itself, or—

‘Something they decided among themselves?’

From the phrasing, it sounded like a righteous-sect matter. And even though Yoo Cheongil and the Blade God opposed it, Seongheon had forced it through.

Yet even with that pact in place—

‘Seongheon took Yuyeon as a disciple.’

He didn’t kill Yuyeon—someone who looked like a Heavenly Killing Star. He accepted her.

It was impossible not to call that strange.

[Mal-ko. Did you really fall that far? You acted so lofty, and now look at you.]

[......Fall, huh.]

At the word “fall,” Seongheon gave a bitter smile.

[I wasn’t standing in the sky to begin with, so it isn’t a fall. It’s more accurate to call it the harm of ignorance.]

[There you go again, spitting lofty nonsense. If you’re going to make excuses, do it properly. Why did you do it?]

[It was spring.]

[What?]

[In a winter that had frozen solid, that child was spring to me. So how could I cast her out. That, too, must have been fate.]

[Ah. This crazy bastard.]

Yoo Cheongil’s tone changed. Irritation bled through it.

GRRNNNK—!!

In that instant, the things inside the house shook.

Ah, please.

“Old man....... Control yourself. You’ll wake people up.”

[You think I’d get crushed just because a Heavenly Killing Star presses down? Whatever that child means to you, you made the wrong choice. You’re not really thinking a leash will change the nature of a beast that’ll someday devour people.]

Even after I said that, Yoo Cheongil didn’t stop.

[And it looks like it already got a taste of blood, too.]

[.......]

[Did you crush it with a vessel? Or did you bind it with a golden seal? Either way, you’re no different from someone who’s lost faith. The plum blossoms of Mount Hua you chased so hard—fallen to the dirt, dragged down by your own lifespan.]

It was vicious. That was what it looked like when someone beat you with the truth.

[You think you can control a Heavenly Killing Star? Arrogant. Seongheon.]

[.......]

At the word “arrogant,” Seongheon flinched.

The furniture that had been rattling finally calmed down, barely.

[Arrogant.... That’s a fair word.]

Seongheon smiled.

[I never once thought I could control her. I only wanted to show that child a world that was a little more peaceful.]

[Covering the eyes doesn’t turn it into a flower field. One step forward, and it’s a life that drops straight off a cliff.]

That was how Yoo Cheongil described the life of a Heavenly Killing Star.

[Maybe so. But...]

Seongheon erased the smile from his face.

[Maybe not.]

Maybe it wasn’t impossible to change a Heavenly Killing Star. That was what he was saying.

[Ha.]

After hearing it, Yoo Cheongil let out a hollow breath.

[You’ve changed. You’ve really changed.]

[I won’t deny it.]

[Tsk.]

Yoo Cheongil clicked his tongue and went outside.

It was the posture of someone who didn’t want to talk anymore.

“......”

Just like that, it was only me and Seongheon. The air was painfully awkward.

[I’m sorry.]

Seongheon apologized to me.

[I showed you something ugly.]

“It’s fine.”

It really didn’t matter. I’d heard what I wanted to hear.

‘Yuyeon really is a Heavenly Killing Star.’

Seongheon knew and still accepted her.

And—

‘The reason she can’t kill people is....’

Because Seongheon did something to suppress the instincts of a Heavenly Killing Star.

That question was answered.

The problem was—

“May I ask one thing?”

[Ask.]

Now I had something else I needed to know.

“How did that child become a disciple of Mount Hua Sect? Did she come looking for Mount Hua?”

I’d always wondered.

I just couldn’t ask Yuyeon.

One year in childhood. Yuyeon lived with me, then left—so how did she end up stepping into Mount Hua?

‘At least back then, I didn’t know she was a Heavenly Killing Star.’

Maybe it hadn’t awakened yet. I didn’t know. But I didn’t see it.

And yet Yuyeon left the Bang Clan of Liaoning and became a disciple of Mount Hua—more than that, the Sect Master’s disciple.

It didn’t make sense.

Seongheon answered that doubt.

[That child didn’t come to Mount Hua.]

“Then?”

[I went to find that child.]

“......Pardon?”

Seongheon found Yuyeon? What was that supposed to mean?

[Kid.]

“Yes, Sect Master.”

[Do you know war?]

“......If you mean the Orthodox-Demonic War, then I know some of it.”

The great blood catastrophe the DEMON CULT had unleashed.

That was what I knew it as.

[It was a brutal war. One that should never have happened.]

“......”

Why was he suddenly talking about the war? I listened anyway.

[The war ended with the righteous sect’s victory.]

A fact history taught.

[And after the war ended, there were things we had to do.]

“Things you had to do...?”

[Cheongil, that bastard, was stability for the righteous sect—one of its pillars. Jin was no different. The others were the same. Each took on work and moved. That’s what cleaning up after a war is.]

“......I see.”

“Each” there—was he talking about those in the Heaven-Beyond-Heaven?

He didn’t spell it out, so I had to turn it over myself.

But then—

[And what I intended to do at the time... was the removal of roots that must never appear again.]

At Seongheon’s words, my brow furrowed slightly.

“......Roots?”

Roots? What—DEMON CULT remnants?

Just as I was thinking that—

[The seed of the Heavenly Demon.]

“......Huh?”

[It was the work of erasing the bloodline of the Heavenly Demon.]

“......The Heavenly Demon’s bloodline?”

[Yes.]

Did the Heavenly Demon have children?

Ah—maybe—

‘That bastard?’

Baek Cheonin, the one claiming to be DEMON CULT.

Was it him?

But Seongheon continued before I could settle on it.

[I spent years, and finally found it. I should have carried out what was entrusted to me... but...]

Seongheon smiled bitterly and spoke to me.

[...I couldn’t.]

“Why?”

[Who knows. Maybe it was the whim of an incompetent old man. The whim of an old man who wanted to see spring.]

Spring again.

What the hell was with his obsession with spring—

‘Wait.’

“Spring,” and “the seed of the Heavenly Demon.”

A chilling thought slid through me.

‘No. That can’t be....’

It couldn’t. Even if he couldn’t kill her, there was no way it was that.

I forced my mind to reject it and asked anyway.

“......Sect Master.”

[Yes.]

“The bloodline of the Heavenly Demon you couldn’t kill. Don’t tell me... that was Yuyeon.”

[.......]

Seongheon didn’t answer.

Ah, for fuck’s sake.

That silence made my stomach turn in an instant.

That was a truth I never should’ve learned.