Chapter 225 Lowering The Blue Sword

Chapter 225 Lowering The Blue Sword
The cold steel of the straight sword pressed directly against my Adam’s apple.

It was a sharp, biting pressure, distinct from the freezing, suffocating numbness of the Abyssal Blood-Venom spreading through my chest. A single drop of dark blood welled up where the razor edge met my skin, sliding down the side of my neck to soak into the damp canvas beneath me.

Baek Jin-Woo stood over me like an executioner.

The dim, flickering moonlight bleeding through the grimy warehouse windows caught the wet tracks of tears cutting through the soot and blood on his face. His chest heaved in violent, jagged spasms. The deep blue Qi that had once defined his proud Orthodox lineage was completely gone, replaced by the raw, shaking adrenaline of a man whose entire worldview had just been shattered.

"Five hundred people," Jin-Woo whispered. His voice was a hollow, scraping sound, entirely devoid of the confident diplomat he used to be. "Children. Elderly farmers. You dumped a Demonic poison into their drinking water. You watched them choke on their own blood for three days."

I didn't try to look away. I didn't try to defend myself. I just stared up at him through my single working eye.

"Yes," I rasped. The black sludge bubbled past my lips with the effort of speaking. "I did."

"Why?" Jin-Woo’s voice suddenly cracked, rising into a desperate, agonizing shout. He gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands, the steel trembling against my throat. "Give me a reason! Give me an excuse! Tell me you were forced! Tell me they had a cure!"

"There was no cure," I replied, my voice completely flat, mimicking the dead, mechanical apathy of Assassin Number Seven. "And no one forced me. I was given a target. I was given a timeline. It was the most efficient way to ensure the mission succeeded without exposing myself."

Jin-Woo’s jaw clenched so hard I thought his teeth would shatter. The disgust in his eyes was absolute. It was a physical, suffocating weight pressing down on the warehouse.

He had thrown away his prestigious position. He had shattered his jade medallion. He had fought a hundred armed guards in the underground auction, bleeding and breaking his own body, all because he believed I was a righteous man unjustly hunted by a corrupt Alliance.

I had let him believe it.

And now, he was looking at the butcher of the Sun Village. He was looking at a monster far worse than the Sect Leader he had abandoned.

"I should kill you," Jin-Woo breathed, his dark eyes narrowing into narrow slits of pure, lethal intent. "I should cut your head off and throw it out into the mud. It would balance the scales. It would be justice."

"Do it," I whispered.

I meant it. The cold poison had completely wrapped around the outer walls of my heart. The agonizing pain was fading into a terrifying, hollow void. I was already dying. If his blade ended it a few seconds faster, it was a mercy I hadn't earned.

\[CRITICAL ALERT.\]
\[Time remaining until total organ failure: 10 Seconds.\]

The red system text violently flashed across my vision, bleeding through the darkness of the warehouse.

Jin-Woo stared down at me. He applied a fraction more pressure to the blade. I felt the skin of my throat part slightly.

He looked at my ruined, broken body. He looked at my left arm, bound tightly against my chest, the hand crushed and useless. He looked at the massive, dark bruises covering my ribs, and the black, putrid foam spilling from my lips.

Then, his gaze shifted.

He looked past me, toward the massive, splintered double doors. Outside, the mob was screaming. The sound of heavy boots splashing in the mud and the crackle of newly lit torches seeped through the cracks in the tin walls.

Jin-Woo’s breathing slowed. The violent shaking in his hands began to settle.

"You sat on a hill and watched five hundred people die," Jin-Woo said, his voice dropping back to a quiet, steady murmur. "You didn't blink. You didn't care."

He looked back down at my face.

"So why did you break your own collarbone to free a cage full of slaves?" he asked.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. My lungs were completely seizing.

"Why did you shatter your hand trying to protect a group of orthodox disciples who were actively trying to execute you?" Jin-Woo continued, his dark eyes searching my face for the lie. "Why did you stand in the shadows of this rotten town, risking your own life to return medicine to starving refugees, knowing it would earn you nothing but a target on your back?"

He slowly lessened the pressure of the blade. The cold steel lifted a millimeter off my skin.

"The Butcher of the Sun Village doesn't do those things," Jin-Woo stated, his voice trembling with a profound, heavy realization. "The Butcher of the Sun Village wouldn't have thrown himself in front of a Demonic Elder's fire to save an old man. He would have used that old man as a human shield."

\[Time remaining until total organ failure: 5 Seconds.\]

The edges of my vision turned completely black. The sound of the rain drumming on the tin roof faded into a dull, distant static.

"I don't forgive you for what you did," Jin-Woo whispered, the tears finally spilling over his dirt-streaked cheeks. "I don't know if the heavens will ever forgive you. What you were was a monster."

He took a slow, deep breath, and completely lowered his sword. The tip of the blade hit the dirt floor with a soft, final thud.

"But I know what you are trying to be," Jin-Woo said, his voice ringing with a sudden, unbreakable absolute conviction. "I know the man who bled beside me in the mud. The past is dead, Mu-Kang. The Butcher is dead. You are a man trying to balance a broken scale. And I will not let that man die in the dark."