Night had fully settled over the Azure Sun Sect, washing the tiled roofs in silver light and turning every corridor into a maze of shadows. The bells that marked the end of training had long since faded, and the outer courts had returned to their familiar rhythm of whispers, secret deals, and petty ambitions.
Mu-Hyuk moved through it all as though he had never left.
The Murim Dominator System threaded silent calculations through his senses, building a living map of the sect in his mind. Patrol intervals, blind corners, guard fatigue levels — all of it unfolded naturally, without effort, as if this knowledge had always been his birthright.
Yoo Seol-Ah stayed half a step behind him. Her injury slowed her, but she never complained. Her eyes were always searching his back, as though afraid he might vanish if she looked away.
"Why are we still here?" she finally whispered.
"Because this is where my data is richest," Mu-Hyuk replied.
She did not understand the words, but the calm in his voice forced her to accept them.
They stopped near a storage courtyard hidden between two outer halls. Three low-ranking disciples lounged beside a brazier, laughing about how many bodies had been dumped that afternoon. One of them mimicked a crippled crawl, drawing a burst of cruel laughter from the others.
Mu-Hyuk listened.
He did not react emotionally. The system converted every word into threat assessment, into behavioral patterns, into exploitable weakness.
[Host Emotional Stability: Optimal]
[Engagement Probability: 99.8%]
He moved when the fire crackled.
The first disciple vanished without a sound. The second managed half a gasp before his balance collapsed under perfectly applied force. By the time the third realized something was wrong, Mu-Hyuk was already in front of him, eyes level and empty of hesitation.
[Combat Sequence Complete]
[Dominator Growth Rate: +3%]
The courtyard returned to silence.
Yoo Seol-Ah stood frozen, hands trembling at her sides. She had tended wounds in the medic hall for two years, but nothing had prepared her for the efficiency she had just witnessed. There had been no shouting, no dramatic struggle — only removal.
"Are they…?" she began.
Mu-Hyuk nodded once.
"That fire was too bright," he said, extinguishing it with a sweep of his foot. "Someone would have noticed eventually."
She swallowed, eyes flicking to the darkened brazier.
"You talk like this is maintenance," she said.
"It is."
They continued deeper into the sect's infrastructure, skirting around the inner disciple compounds. Mu-Hyuk avoided areas with dense qi fluctuations, already aware that elders would be monitoring those zones. For now, the outer layers were enough. Every erased piece of trash strengthened him.
[Skill Acquired: Tyrant's Command – Rank C]
[Effect: Host's directives gain compulsory compliance under fear threshold]
The system pulsed faintly as the new ability integrated.
Yoo Seol-Ah felt it.
Not as pain, not as pressure, but as a subtle awareness that the world around Mu-Hyuk no longer functioned under ordinary rules.
"Mu-Hyuk… when this is over," she asked carefully, "what happens to us?"
He did not slow his steps.
"There is no 'us' yet," he answered. "There is only survival. Everything else is something we build later."
She stared at his back, realizing that the man she had known was truly gone. In his place stood something forged in abandonment and precision — a presence that bent the flow of the Murim world without asking permission.
Far above, the Azure Sun Sect slept peacefully.
None of them yet understood that their cleansing had failed — and that their discarded trash had begun removing the foundations beneath their feet.