“I guess if I don’t answer you, you’ll be so curious you won’t be able to close your eyes.”

Jin Cheongha, who had sneered at First Kill Sa Gwirang’s question, asked.

“You know this too. We—no, to be exact, Taoist Kwak and the Beggar Clan’s Sub-Branch Master—but anyway, we fought a battle with that band of roving outlaws called the Red Wolf Society on the main road.”

“That’s right.”

Hidden Moon Forest’s First Kill Sa Gwirang nodded without resistance.

That incident had already spread through the world’s assassin groups, so it was no longer a secret.

And besides, it was Hidden Moon Forest who had obtained the information first and started moving.

“That day, after Taoist Kwak came back having let one of the Red Wolf Society’s watchers get away, he said this. That watcher would be watching us from somewhere in the mountains. So we deliberately chose the direct route that comes to Aju, and we came.”

The Ink-Nail Moon Needles in First Kill Sa Gwirang’s hand trembled.

“What you’re saying is that the Dark Cavern Taoist led us so we would be waiting here in Aju County City?”

When First Kill Sa Gwirang still spoke with filthy language in her mouth, Jin Cheongha slightly knit her delicate brows and nodded.

“Yes. But we only vaguely thought someone would be waiting here. We didn’t know it would be you.”

First Kill Sa Gwirang’s face, covered in wart-like bumps, twisted violently.

It had become clear: they hadn’t been the ones to dig a trap and wait.

They had been the ones caught by the Dark Cavern Taoist’s lure.

“......!”

As First Kill Sa Gwirang frowned like that, Jin Cheongha, a cold sneer lingering at the corner of her lips, said,

“Come to think of it, from your side, you were really unlucky.”

At Jin Cheongha’s sneer, First Kill Sa Gwirang’s gaze turned vicious.

“Child, it’s not time yet to decide which side is unlucky.”

—SPIT!

Secret needles poured out from the tip of the cane First Kill Sa Gwirang was aiming.

—SHHHHK!

They were as fast as a ray of light. In a blink, they crossed the distance of this alley and pierced Jin Cheongha’s chest.

But there was no sound of them burying into flesh.

First Kill Sa Gwirang wasn’t surprised at all, because she already knew what the needles had pierced was Jin Cheongha’s afterimage.

A Transcendent demonic woman—no matter how close the distance—couldn’t possibly fail to avoid mere secret needles.

And Jin Cheongha, unlike her graceful appearance, was viciously shrewd. There was no way she wouldn’t have expected an ambush like this.

Even so, there was a reason First Kill Sa Gwirang had fired off a precious needle anyway.

To unfold her secret killing art, Thought-Shadow Piercing Kill Needles, the opponent had to move with lightness skill.

Secret-needle techniques were, by nature, harder to land on a moving target than a stationary one.

But First Kill Sa Gwirang’s Thought-Shadow Piercing Kill Needles was, uniquely, a needle-killing art calibrated for a moving opponent.

And the faster the opponent’s lightness skill, the greater the effect.

“Accelerate, weaken change. The faster the speed, the fewer the changes. That’s why Thought-Shadow Piercing Kill Needles is the number one needle-killing art under heaven.”

The previous First Kill who had taught her Thought-Shadow Piercing Kill Needles said that, and made her watch a damselfly.

Then he gave her just one day.

If she couldn’t grasp the principle of accelerate, weaken change within that time, he added, he would bore a hole through her head.

It was the day after one courtesan, laughing and screeching, told her there was a poisonous toad at the well, mocking her—someone who had been sold into a brothel and had done nothing but laundry.

The one who dragged her out, when she was locked in a shed and dying for the crime of smashing that woman’s skull with a washing bat and tearing her mouth open, was also the previous First Kill.

When she explained the line: the damselfly did not chase the gnat’s tail, but went ahead first and snatched it—after hearing that, the previous First Kill slipped the secret needle he was holding into his sleeve and said,

“Sa Gwirang. From now on, that is your name.”

From that day on, First Kill Sa Gwirang, with the eye art she had honed for decades, did not lose even Jin Cheongha’s lightning-fast movements from her sight.

Matching Jin Cheongha’s direction and speed, secret needles burst out from the tip of the Ink-Nail Moon Needles.

—SPIIT!

Like a damselfly that predicts a gnat’s path and intercepts it, the needles would fly ahead and pierce Jin Cheongha’s body.

Jin Cheongha, moving at high speed, had no way to evade.

Because no human being can instantly change direction while accelerated.

Even so, First Kill Sa Gwirang fired secret needles in a continuous stream.

It was because she acknowledged Jin Cheongha as a Transcendent master of the demonic path.

—SPIT! SPIT! SPIT! SPIIT!

After firing all nine secret needles inside the Ink-Nail Moon Needles in an instant, First Kill Sa Gwirang sprang up into the air.

—WHIRRRK!

There was no need to confirm whether Jin Cheongha was pierced.

Now that she knew their true mission—killing the Dark Cavern Taoist—had run into trouble, she couldn’t keep wasting time here.

For First Kill Sa Gwirang, before the Dark Cavern Taoist broke the Hidden Moon Annihilation Formation and came out, she had to use the final method.

If she used that method, Hidden Moon Forest’s elite agents would be blown away along with the Dark Cavern Taoist too—but it couldn’t be helped.

As First Kill Sa Gwirang shot up and flung her body toward the mouth of the alley, her ears caught repeated, clamorous metallic crashes.

—CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLAAANG!

“With tricks this small, you can’t escape this lady’s hands.”

With a sharp woman’s voice, a sinister force shot toward her.

—WOOOOOO!

At the ripping sound like a ghost crying, First Kill Sa Gwirang felt as if the blood paths throughout her body were shrinking.

‘Terrifying demonic energy!’

First Kill Sa Gwirang realized a sword force laden with extreme demonic energy was extending toward her.

And just as Jin Cheongha had said—if she kept flying like this, her body would be cut clean in two by that sword force.

How Jin Cheongha could have blocked the needle-killing art she had unfolded with everything she had, First Kill Sa Gwirang could not understand at all.

No matter how much of a Transcendent master of the demonic path she was, in a situation like that, she could never escape.

‘Unless she’s mastered the absolute demonic arts of the demonic patriarchs.’

The moment that thought reached her, First Kill Sa Gwirang’s spine went icy.

‘This bitch is a direct descendant of a demonic patriarch!’

The instant she sensed Jin Cheongha’s identity, First Kill Sa Gwirang made her decision.

There was only one way to escape the absolute demonic arts of the demonic patriarchs.

“HYAAH!”

With a shout, First Kill Sa Gwirang dragged up even the last of her true qi and flipped her body in a flash. Then she thrust the Ink-Nail Moon Needles toward Jin Cheongha’s sword that had closed in right behind her.

“DIE! YOU BITCH!”

—KRAAANG!

With a thunderous blast, the Ink-Nail Moon Needles shattered into pieces.

The Ink-Nail Moon Needles, at most, made Jin Cheongha’s sword—gleaming ink-black, saturated with demonic energy—hesitate for the briefest moment. It didn’t stop it.

—SHUK! PFFFT! PFFFT!

With flesh and bone being ground apart, First Kill Sa Gwirang’s right hand vanished in an instant—gone up past the shoulder.

Even so, First Kill Sa Gwirang exulted inside.

It had gone exactly as she planned—giving up bone to save her life.

At the moment Jin Cheongha’s sword broke the Ink-Nail Moon Needles and struck her right arm in succession, First Kill Sa Gwirang used the recoil as a stepping stone.

Then she spewed all the inner power true qi she had gathered at once and hurled her body backward.

It was the body method called Carp Spring—flopping like a carp to gain force—driven to completion by grinding down even her own weapon and right arm as fuel.

—WHIRRRK!

Blood sprayed like a fountain from her sleeve, now whipping wildly because her right arm was gone, but First Kill Sa Gwirang didn’t care at all.

“You can never leave here!”

Jin Cheongha shouted sharply as she chased like a hound.

—WOOOOOO!

When she drew her sword back and struck again, the ghostly wail filled the alley again.

‘Vile bitch.’

First Kill Sa Gwirang spat a curse inside and rummaged into her chest with her one remaining hand. Then she immediately scattered a handful of powder toward Jin Cheongha.

—PAFF!

“You bitch—come to hell with me!”

At the powder Sa Gwirang scattered and that razor-edged cry, Jin Cheongha, who had been driving forward in pursuit, hesitated.

She thought the old assassin might be throwing a vicious poison.

FWAAASH!

In that moment, a blue flash flared and the alley brightened for an instant.

‘Ah—damn it!’

What Sa Gwirang threw wasn’t poison powder, but powder that triggered a blinding flash.

To forget that assassins use flashes or smoke as a means of saving their lives.

By the time Jin Cheongha realized Sa Gwirang had played a petty trick and tried to chase again, the old woman’s figure was already gone from the alley.

—CLINK-CLINK-CLINK!

As Jin Cheongha was about to sprint after her, she spotted an iron ball rolling on the alley floor.

When First Kill Sa Gwirang flipped her body, Jin Cheongha had seen something fall from the assassin’s pack. This was it.

“......!”

A bad feeling pricked her. Jin Cheongha quickly picked up the iron ball and examined it.

It was a dark, round iron sphere, with a cord attached—coiled in multiple layers.

Jin Cheongha’s face went pale the moment she saw it.

That cord was unmistakably a fuse used to light an incendiary bomb.

An assassin wouldn’t carry a mere incendiary bomb on their back.

‘Then... a Heaven-Shaking Thunder!’

Where a terrifying bomb like a Heaven-Shaking Thunder would be used didn’t need a second thought.

There had been a reason the assassin had fled even at the cost of sacrificing an arm—her life itself.

‘If she throws that many Heaven-Shaking Thunders into the five-colored flags where Taoist Kwak is trapped....’

It was horrifying even to imagine.

No matter how much of a Transformation Realm master someone was, as long as they were human flesh and blood, there was no way they could avoid being harmed.

‘I have to stop that, no matter what.’

Jin Cheongha started running out toward the main road.

—PAAANG! PAPAPAAANG!

A series of violent ripping blasts rang out, and then the noisy instrument sounds abruptly stopped.

And sharp screams from the crowd filled the space they left behind.

“AAAH!”

“AAAAH!”

After the tearing screams, people began shouting from everywhere.

“Murder!”

“They killed the acrobat troupe!”

“A killer! A killer’s here!”

—WHIIIT!

Jin Cheongha leapt out of the alley in one bound and saw the main road of Aju County City plunged into chaos with panic-stricken spectators.

‘Ah...!’

People crashing into each other and falling, people trampled underfoot, people flailing in confusion because they couldn’t find where to go—it was nothing but a hellscape.

At the center—where everyone was screaming and trying to get away—one person stood holding a blue-gleaming sword, drenched head to toe in blood.

Around that person, the five-colored flags lay scattered on the ground, torn apart or snapped at their poles.

And it wasn’t only the five-colored flags that littered the ground.

The flag bearers who had been whipping those flags and running wild were also thrown down—torsos split into two or three pieces—still gushing blood in thick spurts.

Amid countless corpses, that figure, standing soaked in blood, looked like a yaksha out of hell.

That person was Taoist Kwak.

Even Jin Cheongha, who knew he had finally broken the assassins’ five-colored flag formation and come out, flinched.

So it was hard even to guess how great the shock would be for ordinary civilians watching.