SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 70

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 70. A World of Dead Stars (2)
4
‘So cold.’
In the heart of the Snow Plain, So Baek-hyang thought this.
Buried in the white expanse of snow, the world had become colorless, odorless, and silent.
The world was nothing but a cold, blank sheet.
‘So cold…….’
Her flesh was cold. Her bones were cold. Even her blood ran cold.
So Baek-hyang thought further.
‘My belly feels numb.’
‘Mother?’
‘It feels like my organs are stuffed with ice.’
‘Mother.’
‘It’s so cold here.’
She thought and thought. As her thoughts piled upon themselves, her insides froze bit by bit. Soon even the mind that harbored such thoughts grew cold.
So cold.
And nothing but cold in this world.
The retreating back of her mother, growing distant.
How much time had passed?
—…Ahem.
The silence was broken.
—What a curious thing. Truly most curious.
Next, the absence of scent was broken.
—It has been ten days since snow fell in this region and ceased. The depth of the accumulated snow alone measures more than five chi. How is it that this child still draws breath?
Finally, the colorlessness was broken too.
So Baek-hyang looked ahead with young eyes. An old man stood there. He had dug through the snow, and that was the sound. He had grasped her wrist, and the smell of age had wafted over her. The pupils of the old man’s eyes looking down at her were black.
—No ordinary child, this.
The old man was an aged master of the Demonic Sect.
—You were born with an Ice Snow Body. The chill of all heaven becomes your Inner Energy. What a marvel, what a marvel indeed. For a small child to survive more than ten days in the Snow Plain eating nothing but snow—surely this is the Extreme Yin Body spoken of only in ancient texts!
—…….
—Child, what is your name?
So Baek-hyang parted her lips.
—I don’t know.
Her name would not come to mind.
—How old are you?
—I don’t know.
—How came you to be buried in snow like this?
—I don’t know.
—…….
Nothing came to mind.
It was so cold. Her thoughts had frozen, the mind that thought those thoughts had frozen, and thus it seemed all the words held in her head and heart had gone to ice.
—Poor thing. Already buried in the Creation Realm while still so young…….
Old Master sighed.
—Yet you are a perfect vessel for learning the martial arts. Should the Lord of the Northern Sea set eyes upon you, she would spare no fortune to claim you. A fateful encounter! But what manner of encounter is this? Whether our sect becomes your fortune or you become ours, my old eyes cannot easily discern. Yet one thing is certain—you shall be a treasure beyond measure.
So Baek-hyang did not understand. Since a moment ago, she could scarcely make sense of what the old man was saying. The person before her spoke only in words far too difficult.
Stroke.
The old man smoothed So Baek-hyang’s hair.
—Child, will you follow me?
—…….
—I will feed you and give you rest.
That was language she could understand.
She nodded slowly, and the old man spoke.
—No fragrance rises from you. You have no name and know not your origin, so you must be a child born of snow itself. I shall give you my surname. And I shall call you by the fragrance of snow—Baek-hyang.
The fragrance of snow.
—From this day forward, you are So Baek-hyang, a Sect Member of the Demonic Sect.
So Baek-hyang was silent for a time.
Then she spoke.
—Where will I go?
Old Master smiled.
—Where children like you gather, child.
5
“…It cannot be done!”
The Heavenly Demon spoke.
“In all my years, I have never taken a disciple. No matter how far this world has fallen into ruin, my principles remain unchanged. A disciple? Preposterous!”
Hot Spring Cave.
We had left the Snow Plain and arrived at the heart of this world’s last refuge of survivors. The Heavenly Demon and Namgung Un were astonished to find anyone still alive, yet they welcomed us graciously as guests.
But only as guests.
They showed no intention of accepting us as disciples.
“Oh, come now, Heavenly Demon. Why be so stingy about it?”
Namgung Un crunched on a Grain-Avoiding Pill at her side.
“These children from outside survived—remarkable enough on its own. Not only did they survive, but they journeyed through this treacherous world seeking your instruction, and they made it here. That’s worthy of admiration, even affection. Do you really need to be so rigid about it, like in the old days?”
“Admirable and affectionate, perhaps.”
The Heavenly Demon exhaled sharply through her nose.
“Yet the Teacher-Disciple Relationship is a stern law. Our sect does not admit disciples carelessly. Only children abandoned by their parents and forsaken by the world may enter the Demonic Sect.”
“Tsk, tsk. These people call us old-fashioned every day, yet they’re pickier about who they accept than we are.”
Namgung Un shook her head slowly.
“Child, that’s how they are. Since things have come to this, why not set aside this troublesome Demonic Sect and take me as your teacher instead? I am Namgung Un—Grand Patriarch of the Namgung Family and Leader of the Orthodox Martial Alliance. If you become my disciple, I will shower you with affection…….”
“Why can’t you accept me as your disciple, Heavenly Demon?”
I ignored the old man and asked directly. Namgung Un looked slightly shocked, crying out, ‘What! Could it be my name hasn’t spread even to the outside world……!’ I decided to let that pass.
The Heavenly Demon narrowed her brow.
“Did I not just say so? Only children forsaken by the world may enter our sect.”
“The world has changed.”
I spoke quietly.
“Because of this mysterious plague, people have transformed into the Risen Dead. Every martial faction and great family has been annihilated. Since heaven itself has abandoned humanity, we are now all forsaken by the world. Whether you like it or not.”
……
“Heavenly Demon, haven’t the conditions for Sect Entry already been satisfied?”
The Heavenly Demon pressed her lips together.
My words were right, and she knew it.
Besides… I had been a Hunter. I was an orphan who had abandoned the outside world and devoted myself to the Tower. It was embarrassing to claim I had been forsaken by the world, but I could certainly say I had turned my back on it. The [Sect Entry conditions] the Heavenly Demon spoke of, I could fulfill them well enough.
“…Very well.”
The Heavenly Demon rose from her seat.
“If you’re so confident, then demonstrate the Three Calamities Sword Technique.”
She looked down at me intently.
“I shall judge with my own eyes whether you possess the qualifications to inherit this sect’s teachings. Though I expect it will all be hollow words, of course.”
……
I stood as well.
“Thank you for this opportunity.”
I drew the Holy Sword. The blade sang out through the cavernous space with a sharp ring. Everyone turned to watch me, waiting silently to see what sword technique I would display.
Of course, I had no intention of showing the Three Calamities Sword Technique at all.
[Activating skill.]
Demonic Heavenly Divine Art.
This was the technique I had acquired precisely for this moment.
“…Haah.”
As the Divine Art activated, countless movements bloomed in my mind.
Strange and wondrous sword paths.
Yet seeing the path and traveling it were two entirely different matters. I had not yet grasped the Demonic Heavenly Divine Art deeply. If I tried to show off my technique now, I would be torn apart like a magpie chasing an egret—destruction certain and complete.
‘If I’m going to be torn apart anyway.’
Therefore, I remembered.
‘Then I should be torn apart properly.’
The landscape of every Trauma I had experienced so far.
Drawing each one in my mind’s eye in sequence, I swung my blade.
To unleash the Demonic Art.
Throughout my ascent of the Tower, there were cries and screams I had witnessed—cries and screams I could not unsee. They were always raw, vivid, as though I had heard them moments before. I recalled them with that freshness. I colored my heart with their voices.
“Save me.”
“Save me, please. I’m so hungry. Something to eat, please.”
In the basement of some Mansion.
I recalled the voices of children trapped there, tortured.
“I want to live.”
The children were bound in chains. When fire consumed the Mansion. They watched the flames rise before their eyes, yet the chains held them fast—they could not flee. They could only burn.
“I wanted to play a little longer.”
I pulled the children’s cries into my heart and swung the blade.
“No, no—Matou! That sword technique…….”
“…….”
Somewhere nearby, I heard Namgung Un’s voice trembling in confusion. But I ignored it. What I needed to hold in my Heart Image now was not his voice.
Slow. Deliberate. One span at a time.
I swung the sword, summoning what I had to remember.
“Burn it!”
“Burn the witch’s nest to ash!”
In some forgotten corner of the Continent.
I recalled Agui’s voice—trying to save the sick in that place.
“Why?”
“You are human too.”
Black tears had streamed from Agui’s eyes. The Paradise she had made. A small village burning. Men setting fire to men, men consumed by men—that sight had carved itself into Agui’s eyes like a brand.
“You are human, and you know how to weep, yet still you…….”
“You called us monsters. And so you felt no hesitation in setting us alight.”
“Are only you human?”
I pulled Agui’s anguished cry into my heart and swung the blade.
“…….”
“…….”
My sword grew faster. The Demonic Heavenly Divine Art I had gained through death became form. The trauma transplanted into my corpse became meaning, pulsing as will. There were moments when the path seemed to scatter, but then I would draw up my Aura and force the Sword Path to continue.
-Look at this bastard……?
The Backhoe Spirit had said that Demonic Art was the world’s raking claw.
But the more I wielded the Demonic Heavenly Divine Art, the more my thoughts shifted.
It was perhaps not a claw at all—but closer to a scream. A cry of anguish.
-Wow.
My Sword Path wove itself again and again until it became a Sword Dance.
-If you’d been born in the martial world, you’d have joined the Demonic Sect without question. That’s clear now.
My Sword Dance was never beautiful. It was clumsy. Ungainly. There was no scent of blossoms—only the reek of burning. If a sword technique could have a face, mine was simply the face of someone scorched by fire.
Nothing but screaming.
No matter how wondrous the principles of Yin and Yang, the world born from them is only sorrowful.
No matter how sublime the words of the Classics, a single cry from a wretched human cannot be overcome.
A sword stance that holds the world’s sorrow is sharper than techniques that contain Yin and Yang.
A blade swung to the rhythm of a single cry is stronger than a sword that moves by mysterious principle.
The deeper the sorrow, the baser the cry—the stronger the blade becomes.
And so we are strong.
The Strong Survive.
That was the Demonic Sect’s teaching.
“Speak.”
“Say that Martial has forgotten Justice, and Justice has lost Martial.”
“Speak thus, and I shall grant you death as you wish.”
The Heavenly Demon was the sky of that teaching.
The highest heaven.
The Heavenly Demon must know every cry of every sect member, and release them all through the blade. Each line of the Heavenly Demon’s Sword Path must be a scream toward this world.
Thus does it prove that somewhere in this realm, those who cried out and poured forth anguish once existed.
“All the world has become emptiness.”
“Decades of years are nothing but vanity, nothing but vanity.”
Even that heaven.
Even the Heavenly Demon screamed at the final moment.
“Ahahaha. Heee, hahahaha!”
Laughing in madness.
“Hahahaha! Ha, ahahaha…….”
I pulled that laughter into my heart and swung the blade.
“…Enough.”
I swung the sword.
“Stop this.”
I swung the blade.
“Did I not tell you to stop!”
Suddenly my sword halted.
Not because I willed it to stop. A wooden rod—the Heavenly Demon held up the wooden rod, pressing hard against my blade, locking it in place. Dark inner energy coiled along the rod, rippling.
“You…….”
The Heavenly Demon murmured softly.
“Where did you steal the teachings of our sect and learn them?”
Her eyes had turned pitch black.
“You cannot deceive the Lord of this sect! No matter how clumsy and unrefined your form was, what you deployed just now is unmistakably the Demonic Heavenly Divine Art. In all this world, only those born to Demonic power can master such an art—and I have never laid eyes on your face before.”
“……”
“Speak. Where did you steal it?”
Only then did I realize how exhausted I truly was. My breath came in ragged gasps. My entire body was drenched in sweat. The Holy Sword in my right hand felt heavy as stone.
I looked around. Namgung Un and my companions all stood silent, watching me with held breath. Through the gaping ceiling of the cave, starlight from the night sky poured down like rain. Perhaps far more time had passed than I’d felt in those moments.
“Do I……”
I forced my lips open.
“Do I have the qualification?”
“……”
“Do I have the qualification to become your disciple, Heavenly Demon?”
The Heavenly Demon fell silent.
After a long silence, the woman turned away. She walked deeper into the cave, toward its distant darkness. Her back was the back of one who refuses—no one could follow her.
Had I possessed even a fraction more strength, I might have pursued her. But I did not.
“Sa… Sa Wang?”
Thud.
My knees gave way.
“Sa Wang! Are you all right? Sa Wang!”
My vision swam. In my fog-dulled mind, I understood: I had burned through far too much Aura at once. I would likely remain unconscious through the entire night.
I tried to smile at the Pharmacist to reassure her, but even that proved beyond me. Already the darkness was closing in.
-Tsk.
Just before I lost consciousness, I heard the Backhoe Spirit’s voice.
-You deployed an art beyond your capacity, you foolish little sparrow, and nearly killed yourself doing it. This is precisely why I’ve always said one must build from the foundation up.
The Backhoe Spirit let out a sigh.
-But then again……
And then.
-You were not such a foolish sparrow after all. I’m rather proud of you, little one.
I lost consciousness.
S-Rank: A Hunter Must Die to Survive (Serial)
Author │ Shin Noah
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
ⓒ Shin Noah 2019
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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