Chapter 150. Trying to Row a Boat On Land (21)
He had fallen in love with Ma-Ra’s mother, quit being an assassin, and lived the everyday life of a normal person.
However, a squad from the organization he’d abandoned—Assassin Tower—came to find him, and Ma-Ra’s mother lost her life in the scuffle.
—I could have saved her if I hadn’t been blinded by my emotions.
The drunk Assassin Master had repeated that statement several times.
He managed to run away with his newborn baby, Ma-Ra, and he became consumed with revenge. Displaying unprecedented abilities, he created the Formless Veil and eventually annihilated his enemies, Assassin Tower.
He had raised Ma-Ra with this vengeance in mind, saying that he would make her the best assassin she could be so that she wouldn’t live an unhappy life like he had, not knowing that this life in itself was a misfortune...
Ma-Ra reminisced about her past, her hands slightly trembling.
In the end, the last thing that came to her mind was Woo-Moon—his smiling face and the many memories they had made together.
“Ah...”
Her gratitude toward Old Slave, who pitied her, her hatred and pity toward her father, and her longing, sadness, and anger toward Woo-Moon suddenly came together and filled her heart.
With the rush of emotion, something hot surged up from her chest, and tears flowed from her eyes.
Drip.
A single teardrop fell on the Martial Book of the Death God.
Drip, drip.
Once the tears started to flow, they could no longer be stopped.
Ma-Ra sobbed silently as she surrendered her whole body to her first intense emotions.
It was only after a while that she came to her senses and realized what she had done.
'I... Did I just cry? I.... I can cry too?’
Light exploded before her eyes.
No, it didn't explode in front of her eyes; it exploded within her head. It was just that Ma-Ra couldn’t tell right now.
It was as if her mind was expanding in all directions as her entire body became lighter.
Her qi, which had been sleeping in her dantian, awoke and circulated throughout her entire body with terrifying force, expanding her blood vessels and meridians. The impurities in her body spontaneously exuded from her pores.
A wind stirred as if from within her, enveloping her body and slowly lifting her into the air.
"Ah...!”
And thus, Ma-Ra spent the day floating in the air in a trance.
When she came down to earth and opened her eyes, she had reached the Absolute realm.
She had already mastered her assassination arts, and now that she had also attained the perfection of the Absolute realm, it was time for Ma-Ra to reread the Martial Book of the Death God from beginning to end.
She could now understand many things that she hadn’t understood before.
***
After many days, Ma-Ra came down from the mountain, leaving the remains of the Formless Veil behind along with her past life.
Then, she had a decision to make.
‘Where should I go now?’
She still didn't want to go back to Woo-Moon.
She missed him incredibly, but just the thought of seeing him lay there unable to do anything made her feel like she would come to hate him if she went back now. She had left precisely because she didn’t want to see him in that state.
She descended from the mountain and walked through a nearby village when she suddenly caught sight of someone, and her eyes lit up.
‘That’s an assassin.’
Ma-Ra followed him secretly.
The assassin backtracked every so often and moved windingly over mountains and across rivers, cautiously heading toward their headquarters while clearly trying to avoid a tail. However, they never noticed Ma-Ra following them from behind.
Eventually, the assassin headed to a large tree within a forest, shifted some camouflage at the base of the tree, opened a secret door, and went inside.
Ma-Ra was right behind them. She hid her body in the darkness, seeping through the door like smoke. Even though Ma-Ra was within arm’s reach of the assassin, the assassin didn’t notice her whatsoever.
As they continued to walk through the damp, narrow secret passageway, a large door appeared.
“No. 17, return,” the assassin said quietly as they put a round plaque into the hole in the door. The door immediately opened.
“Congratulations on your safe return.”
The two assassins guarding the door on the inside opened their eyes wide when they saw something whitish emerging from behind No. 17.
“No. 17, you idiot!”
“You came with a tail!”
Surprised, No. 17 turned around and saw Ma-Ra, who had deliberately shown herself.
She was a beautiful girl wearing a white dress.
No. 17 felt fear creeping deep within his heart.
‘Forget that I didn’t notice her even though she was right behind me... What the hell is this aura?!’
At that moment, some other assassins who either heard their colleagues shouting or sensed something unusual began to appear here and there.
“What, it's just a young little bitch?”
“And here I was surprised to hear an intruder came in.”
Ma-Ra took a step inside the room.
No. 17 and the two other assassins failed to stop her, frozen motionless like moths tied up in a spider's web.
“Why are they just standing...? Agh!”
Those who were lucky were able to at least scream before freezing.
The Absolute Qi of the Death God emanating from Ma-Ra’s was like the weight of a mountain bearing down on all fifty-odd assassins, preventing them from moving even an inch.
The sheer bloodlust emanating from her was enough to cause some of the assassins to think they were already dying, causing them to foam at the mouth and piss themselves.
Moreover, this was Ma-Ra holding back.
If she were to genuinely display all of her Absolute Qi, the assassins around her would feel so much pressure that their hearts would stop.
If she were to continue pressuring them like this for any substantial amount of time, the assassins would be completely defeated without any chance to put up any resistance.
However, Ma-Ra let them go after only a moment. Then, she faintly smiled, her smile reminiscent of Woo-Moon’s.
“Here, try fighting back.”
The assassins were filled with a wave of anger so strong that the paralyzing fear that had struck them just a moment before seemed like a dream.
This feeling that arose within them was actually Ma-Ra’s doing—a method of spurring a reaction using one’s Absolute Qi that was detailed in the Martial Book of the Death God.
“AGH!!!!”
“KILL HER!!!”
Ma-Ra's sleeve fluttered.
“Ugh!!”
“Agk!!!”
Before anyone realized it, Silver Moon Discs had already swept past seven of the assassins. All of them fell down.
That wasn’t the end, either. The Silver Moon Discs moved freely as if they were alive and continued to attack the assassins.
Although it was a shocking sight, the assassins still seemed to rush toward Ma-Ra without even a single care.
“Kill! Kill her!!”
A wave of assassins rushed toward her.
Ma-Ra stretched both arms before her and crossed them in a single motion.
Thwip, thwip, thwip!
Even though her wrist crossbows weren’t loaded, she shot formless arrows and bolts, hitting the assassins.
All twenty-two of the assassins fainted on the spot.
The Silver Moon Discs continued to move and attack the assassins, and eventually, only a dozen people were left.
At that moment, Ma-Ra’s figure disappeared.
Realizing she had used a concealment technique, the assassins instinctively responded in kind, not realizing that their reasoning was clouded by anger.
A moment later, apart from those who were lying on the ground, no one could be seen in the room.
“Ugh!”
“Agk!!”
“Huh?”
Groaning sounds rang out in succession.
Thud, thud.
Unconscious assassins appeared in the air and dropped to the ground.
“Ugh...”
It was only then that the last remaining assassin was able to shake off the anger that Ma-Ra had instilled in him. They ran to the back of the room, pounding on the door there.
“Gate Master, Gate Master! You must come out!”
Ma-Ra, indifferent as always and not looking one bit tired, stood still and looked at the door.
Bang!
A short and grim-looking man came out, forcefully opening the door of the inner chamber.
“Ugh!”
The assassin who had called for him had the door slammed on his face, knocking him aside with blood spewing from his mouth.
Black Assassin, the Gate Master of the Flying Shadow Gate, looked at Ma-Ra with a cold sneer.
It was almost as if he was saying, “How dare you?”
His figure vanished into the darkness.
Ma-Ra stood still. Her head didn't even turn. She just stood there like a stone statue.
A black figure appeared for a moment on Ma-Ra's right and then disappeared.
Next, it appeared behind her, then disappeared once more.
‘You bitch. You dare challenge me with that disgrace of an assassination art?’
Black Assassin secretly mocked Ma-Ra, thinking that she couldn’t see through his concealment technique whatsoever.
Deciding to stop playing around, he appeared behind Ma-Ra and tried to stab her with his dagger.
“Huh?”
He had clearly appeared behind Ma-Ra's back. However, he blinked once, and somehow, Ma-Ra’s expressionless face was right before him, and he was floating in the air, unable to move.
As it turned out, Ma-Ra had grabbed him by the throat and was now holding him up, looking at him with her cold, seemingly endless gaze.
Thwip, thwip, thwip!
Three hidden weapons suddenly flew out from within Black Assassin’s sleeve.
Ma-Ra’s silhouette flickered.
Woosh!
The three hidden weapons seemed to pierce right through Ma-Ra’s abdomen and embedded themselves in the floor.
However, her white gown was still immaculate.
Black Assassin’s face paled. Although he had been unable to see it, he could guess what happened.
It was simple, really.
She had dodged them.
While holding him up at an arm's length, she had used her movement technique to shift her own body in place to avoid his strike before returning to her original position.
However, was it really as simple as it sounded? It was a terrifying thought—to think someone could do something like that at this range and speed.
“...”
The difference in skill was so great that Black Assassin couldn’t even think of protesting.
However, staying like this was becoming increasingly difficult. He was being held up in the air, after all, by a hand grasping his throat.
‘What the hell is with this bitch? Hurry up and say something! Or at least kill me!’
Fortunately, he was still able to breathe—something surprising in and of itself, considering that a hand was grasping his throat.
As a result, he came face to face with Ma-Ra without being able to turn his head in any direction, leaving him terrified.
‘W-what’s with those eyes? It’s like they’re black holes. And they’re so cold, too.’
He was even more terrified by the lack of bloodlust. There was no emotion, nothing whatsoever. He had lived a pretty long life, yet he had never seen anyone like this before.
An hour passed. Then another.
Black Assassin felt like he was going crazy. He was so scared that he closed his eyes. However, that didn’t help at all; all he could think about were her eyes, eyes that seemed like endless bottomless pits.
In fact, Ma-Ra, too, was thinking about something. Namely, what to do next. She felt like she needed to do something but couldn’t figure out the next step.
She wasn’t used to thinking or judging something alone, so she was quiet and lost in thought.
The assassins who had fallen to Ma-Ra’s hand had also woken up one by one.
However, none of them could move. Out of fear of Ma-Ra, they all just stayed still and pretended to be dead.
They, too, were on the verge of going crazy.
‘Please, just say something!’
Another hour passed.
Then, after another two hours, Black Assassin finally burst into tears.
He spoke with a baby-like voice that didn’t match his appearance at all. “Please say something. If you want to kill me, just kill me right away! I'm so fucking scared that I can't stand it! Sob, sob.”
The voice of Black Assassin, which his subordinates were also hearing for the first time, was truly bizarre.
It was like the voice of a three or four-year-old infant. It was so weird that even Ma-Ra had a look of surprise in her eyes.
‘Wasn’t he supposed to be mute?’
‘Wasn’t he rendered mute when the Justice Coalition tortured him?’
Absurd thoughts raced through the minds of the assassins who were pretending to be dead. Among them, there was even one who overcame his fear of Ma-Ra and raised his head to look over at Black Assassin. The voice was so shocking that he had to make sure it really was Black Assassin.
“What the hell do you want? Please, just say something! Is it money?”
Black Assassin was so scared that he was actually crying.
The baby-like voice was Black Assassin's biggest inferiority complex, which was why he had been pretending to be mute in front of his subordinates.
However, right now, he couldn’t care less that he had completely lost face in front of everyone.
The only thing on his mind was his fear of Ma-Ra.