First Strike, Certain Victory.
In the world of the Black Knife, it’s like a law for winning.
Most of the alleyway Black Knives are made up of second-rate and third-rate martial artists, not the masters of the Nine Great Sects & One Alliance or the Martial Arts World, which is why their skills are lacking.
When these Black Knives get into a fight, the easiest way to win against an opponent is to draw the sword first and incapacitate them in one blow, or ambush them unexpectedly from behind.
Of course, there are certainly opponents against whom drawing the sword first isn’t viable. In such cases, one can only throw themselves on the ground and beg for mercy.
But what if the master looks like they might actually draw their sword even if you grovel?
“Charge!”
With one command from the leader of Cheon Sal-pa, the martial artists of Cheon Sal-pa, who were closing in on Heavenly Killing Star from all sides, began to rush in unison.
Just one stab is all it takes.
They may look strong, but she’s just a woman, after all. As long as one of the thirty nearby blades pierces her body, the rest is easy. All the rushing Black Knife martial artists thought the same thing.
The dozens of blades converging around the Heavenly Killing Star resembled iron petals. Blades that would slice the flower of the Heavenly Killing Star.
Success.
The Black Knives sensed victory as the blades lunged toward her. But before the blades could even touch her, she vanished.
“Where did she go?”
“Up?”
“She’s gone!”
They had been firmly fixated on one person, stabbing their swords, but she simply vanished. If she had jumped, she’d be in the sky, yet no one could see her even when they looked up.
“Ahhh!”
“Down! Damn it!”
One martial artist looked down beneath him. There she was, barely skimming the ground, evading blades while lying low.
She balanced on one ankle, using it to pivot like a clock hand, and began to harvest ankles.
“Gah!”
“Aaaah!”
“My ankle!”
The Cheon Sal-pa martial artists, startled, tried to back away to avoid losing their ankles, but more than half were already rolling on the ground, clutching their angles.
For a certain victory, one attack had caused too many heavy losses.
“Create the Successful Formation! Form it!”
One of the Cheon Sal-pa officials shouted.
The Successful Formation. A tactic created for a weak group to overcome a strong minority.
A few of the martial artists from Cheon Sal-pa, who had some martial arts prowess, gathered at the command and began to form the Successful Formation.
‘We can win with this.’
Of course, unlike the formidable and mysterious Successful Formation of the prestigious sects, this one wasn’t as potent.
It was learned after treating the second-rate masters to expensive liquor and women.
How much trouble it was for a group of alleyway lifeforms, who didn’t even know the word cooperation, to swing their swords in sync.
But they had also killed martial artists from the Martial Arts World who had tried to extort money, thinking they were high-level masters.
“Oh, they’re coming!”
“D-don’t flinch!”
“Damn it, don’t stick together! Maintain your usual stance!”
The Cheon Sal-pa martial artists were frantic, yet they managed to display the semblance of the Successful Formation.
As they unfurled the Successful Formation, the Cheon Sal-pa martial artists extended their swords toward her perfectly, disrupting each other’s inflections from above, below, left, and right.
If they executed it properly, no martial artist in Chilgok County could contend with this Successful Formation. The officials of Cheon Sal-pa hoped so.
“Gah!”
“My foot! My foot!”
However, their expectations were betrayed in vain.
Before the Cheon Sal-pa martial artists could even attack with their Successful Formation, their ankles were harvested in a heartbeat.
——–
‘This is freaking bad. Damn it.’
The leader of Cheon Sal-pa thought as he watched his subordinates writhing on the ground.
What kind of calamity is this in the shantytown? Isn’t a shantytown a place where people gather, having no one to rely on and worrying about tomorrow’s meals?
These people, even when extorted, have no one to complain to, no one to ask for help. The shantytown is the safest place to safely extort money without too much hassle.
Why would such a master appear in such a place?
“Run!”
“We can’t compete!”
“We can’t win! Flee!”
‘Those idiots.’
The leader of Cheon Sal-pa sneered as he watched his subordinates begin to flee.
This opponent is no ordinary master. It’s a formidable master of unknown caliber.
When knife fights happen among the Black Knives, fingers and arms inevitably fly, intentionally or not. Yet that master is cutting only the parts she mentioned.
It means she is a master that the Cheon Sal-pa, made up of neighborhood thugs and third-rate martial artists, cannot even dream of contending against. And they want to run from her?
“Ugh!”
“Urgh!”
Sure enough, the fleeing subordinates instantly lost their ankles and were thrown back to where they’d been standing.
“Brother, shouldn’t we be escaping?”
“Let’s run while those bastards are busy dying!”
A few of the subordinates, who had joined when the Cheon Sal-pa was just starting out, gathered near the leader.
“The moment we turn our backs, we’re dead, you morons.”
In fact, the leader of Cheon Sal-pa had been aware since the moment that woman appeared. The only way to escape this place is to either get rid of her corpse or get rid of his own.
“Then what do we do?”
“Damn it, I thought I could live like a human.”
“Shut up. Hey, do we have any lime powder?”
The leader of Cheon Sal-pa asked one of his subordinates if he had the secret weapon to turn the crisis around.
“I have some, but it probably won’t work on a master.”
“Aren’t masters human too? I’ll go first, then everyone charge in. When the lime powder bursts before our eyes, she’ll close her eyes. That’s our chance. That’s the only way we can survive.”
If a large amount of lime powder gets in the eyes, she can lose her sight. They hadn’t used it before because there were other Cheon Sal-pa martial artists around, but now was the time to use the secret weapon.
“Damn it. She saw us!”
At one remark from a subordinate, the leader turned to look at the Heavenly Killing Star.
She was busy snipping the ankles of the subordinates crawling around her while glaring over at the leader.
‘Crap. This is hopeless.’
He felt like he might wet his pants. They barely made eye contact, but his legs felt like jelly.
If she gets closer, he’ll die.
Just by looking at her, all the standing Cheon Sal-pa martial artists instinctively took a step back.
Until a moment ago, they were the predators in the shantytown, but now they felt like herbivores standing in front of a tiger.
The Heavenly Killing Star slowly approached, holding a sword in one hand.
“Brother, I’m counting on you.”
“Just do your job.”
The Cheon Sal-pa leader pretended to be composed in front of his subordinates.
Yeah. Don’t flinch. This isn’t the first time I’ve faced death. The Cheon Snake Blade has saved me every single time. He gripped his Cheon Snake Blade tightly, preparing to face the Heavenly Killing Star.
“Let’s go!”
With a shout of encouragement, the leader took the lead, stepping forward to charge in first. At his signal, the remaining subordinates charged in with good momentum toward the Heavenly Killing Star.
But that was the leader’s trick.
As his subordinates lunged forward, the leader halted his steps.
“Damn it!”
The subordinates realized that the leader had used them as decoys, but they were already too close to the Heavenly Killing Star.
“Ugh!”
“Ah!”
“Take this, you bitch!”
While one of the subordinates was having his ankles sliced off, he poured the lime powder he had saved right in front of her eyes. She stepped back in surprise at the unexpected attack.
‘This is the chance!’
Starting out as a third-rate martial artist, then a second-rate, and now the leader of the Black Knives ruling over Chilgok County.
All of that was made possible by the secret move of the Cheon Sal-pa leader targeting the Heavenly Killing Star’s neck. Even a master would be affected by lime powder. He thought he would survive again.
But that was his delusion.
The Heavenly Killing Star was not surprised at all. She mechanically stepped back, twisting her body to create a vortex like a dragon’s wind, sweeping away the lime powder. Then she swung her sword with the rotational force.
“Uh?”
Why am I lying on the ground? The leader was astonished at the lowered view. He hurriedly grabbed his Cheon Snake Blade, trying to rise to his feet.
But where’s my Cheon Snake Blade? In horror, the leader desperately turned his head on the ground to find his precious blade that had been dropped.
He discovered his beloved blade, now cleaved in two, just three steps away.
It was made with expensive iron from a good forge. Even after over ten years of use, it had never faltered, and yet it was now in pieces.
“Kwahaha.”
A chuckle escaped the leader’s lips.
He hadn’t even realized he was swinging the sword before his Cheon Snake Blade was cut and both his ankles were severed. Is that even possible?
The leader was more astonished than in pain. Just how powerful was she?
Like the mantis, he thought he was the predator devouring powerless bugs, but was she truly a being that saw the entire Cheon Sal-pa as bugs?
“Damn it. I wanted to live until I could defecate on the ground. Guess I’ll be seeing my mom soon.”
The leader recalled his mother, who had warned him that living a life of wrongdoing wouldn’t let him live long. He wanted to say that she was wrong after capturing a district in Chilgok County.
His mother had worked hard all her life and passed away, and now he would have to prove her words right.
He could hear the sound of footsteps nearing him.
The leader of Cheon Sal-pa closed his eyes, accepting the fate that was coming for him.
