Chapter 357

A serene expression. An unhurried gait. A spotless yellow robe.

He alone stood apart—the only person whom the aura of death filling the Sichuan Tang Clan could touch.

“They’re no more than a handful of men at best. Push them back!”

“Fight to the end! We are the Sichuan Tang Clan!”

“Waaaaah!”

With a tremendous roar that shook the earth, two waves crashed into each other. Screams and battle cries mixed together as a thick mist of blood began to form.

It was a savage battle fought with utter disregard for life. The outcome was decided just as swiftly.

“Surround them! Don’t let a single one survive!”

“Gaaaah!”

The black wave of men dressed in black swallowed the wave of green.

When it passed, all that remained in its wake were green-clad corpses scattered like foam.

Watching it all from more than a thousand feet away, the Western Heaven Demon Lord suddenly spoke.

“It’s over.”

Their resolve to stand and fight without retreating was worthy of respect, but they had been hopelessly outnumbered from the start.

Even the poison and hidden weapons that formed the foundation of the Sichuan Tang Clan had been rendered largely ineffective.

The battle—or rather, the war—belonged to Dark Heaven.

“It seems I won’t be able to keep my promise. My apologies, Family Head Tang.”

The more desperate people became, the more their judgment faltered. Tang Sadok had been no exception.

After extracting the answer he wanted by promising to preserve the Tang Family’s lineage, the Western Heaven Demon Lord had taken a simple and cruel course of action.

Rather than kill Tang Sadok immediately, he had seated him against a tree atop a hill overlooking the Sichuan Tang Clan.

There, Tang Sadok could watch his family perish until his own last breath.

“Everything according to the will of the Lord of Heaven.”

Drip. Drip-drip.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord looked up at the sky as rain began to fall, then turned away.

The mouth of a cave yawned open like a black maw. Beside a fallen brazier lay a hunchbacked old man, dead with his eyes wide open.

What caught the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s interest were the wounds carved into the old man’s body.

The Black Blood Sword Technique.

The Black Blood Sword Technique was permitted only to Dark Heaven martial artists.

Having recognized the identity of those who had arrived before him, the Western Heaven Demon Lord descended the stone steps leading underground.

Footprints stained with blood and mud stood out clearly upon the stairs. At least twenty of his subordinates had passed this way before him.

And most likely…

They’re all dead.

There were tracks leading down, but none coming back up.

The moment he entered the underground prison, suspicion became certainty.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord had lived a life steeped in blood. He could feel the lingering heat of battle in the dark corridor and smell the metallic reek of blood beneath the stench.

Who did this?

He studied the fine droplets of blood spattered across the wall.

Skilled. They were cut down before they could put up any real resistance.

With the Sichuan Tang Clan in mortal peril, there was no chance any of its masters would remain here merely to guard outsiders.

If Tang Sadok had told the truth, only three people remained in the underground prison.

The Divine Physician was hardly a fighting force, and Fire King Jeok Cheongang had yet to regain consciousness. That left only one person.

Jin Taekyung, the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord recalled what the Blood Lord had said about Jin Taekyung.

The most arrogant and tenacious young bastard under heaven, with more guts than sense.

For some reason, the Blood Lord had wanted to kill Jin Taekyung even more than the Sword Saint who had cut off his arm or the Fire King.

So he’s skilled enough to survive an encounter with the Blood Lord?

But Jin Taekyung would not be so lucky twice.

The Sword Saint was not here, and the Fire King was in no condition to fight.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord intended to capture the rats trapped in the jar and return without difficulty.

Along with the Myriad-Poison Ring in their possession.

Squelch. Squelch.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord strolled onward, then abruptly stopped.

A solid stone wall stretching down from the ceiling blocked his path.

“Well, now. They certainly made this place complicated.”

He regarded the wall for a moment, then closed his hand into a fist. Dark-red mist coiled around his arm and enveloped it.

Gooooooong.

Everything happened in an instant.

The manifestation of qi. Its compression. Its explosion.

Nothing could stand in the path of his Fist Force.

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

Walls shattered and collapsed. The entire prison shook.

The immense concentration of qi shot forward in a straight line, punching through dozens of walls. Stalactites rained from the ceiling like hail, and a dense cloud of dust billowed into the air.

Much better.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord surveyed the path he had created, then spoke.

“Why don’t you come out now?”

His only answer was a piercing shriek through the air.

Whoosh!

The dust cloud split apart. The Western Heaven Demon Lord plucked the dagger flying toward his throat from the air and smiled.

“Are you Jin Taekyung?”

“You already know. Why ask?”

Step. Step.

A tall young man—Jin Taekyung—emerged from the cloud of dust and stared at the Western Heaven Demon Lord with an impassive gaze.

I tried to look unfazed.

Half of any fight was momentum. You couldn’t let your guard down because your opponent looked weaker, and you couldn’t let yourself be intimidated because he looked stronger.

Especially when you were facing the real deal.

What kind of monster is this guy?

I stared at the middle-aged man before me, inwardly clicking my tongue.

If Moses had parted the sea with his staff, this man had carved a new path through the underground prison with a single punch.

And that wasn’t all. He stood there with a faint smile, the very picture of tranquility.

Even the air around him smells different.

The Blood Lord had been openly insane. This middle-aged man, on the other hand, was dangerous simply by existing.

Their martial arts might have been comparable in strength, but they were completely different in nature.

“I’ve heard a great deal about you. You’re an amusing young man, just as I was told.”

I lowered White Flame’s spearhead at an angle.

“I’m pretty entertaining myself.”

“I also heard you lack manners.”

“You’ve got the wrong man. My nickname is Mr. Manners.”

“Well, I would have to spend more time with you to know for certain. But according to an acquaintance of mine, it’s true.”

“You don’t look like you have any friends. Who’s the acquaintance?”

The smile on the middle-aged man’s lips deepened.

“The Blood Lord.”

“…!”

“He’s very eager to see you.”

“I never want to see that fucking bastard again.”

“That young man Cheongpung said the same thing. In a different tone, of course.”

This bastard has already met Cheongpung.

And yet he was here…

I felt my face stiffen despite myself.

“You, by any chance…”

The middle-aged man smiled and waved a hand.

“There’s no need to worry. I won’t kill you. I intend to take you, Cheongpung, and the Fire King back alive.”

I asked with a dumbfounded expression.

“Take us?”

“I told you. The Blood Lord wants to see you. So you’ll be safe, at least until then.”

“……”

“Of course, what happens afterward will be up to the Blood Lord.”

The middle-aged man had given me two pieces of good news and one piece of bad news.

The good news was that Cheongpung was alive and the Blood Lord wasn’t here. The bad news was that if I lost this fight, we’d all be attending a group get-together with him.

Of course, the chances of us having a drink over grilled intestines before parting ways were close to zero.

The odds that I’ll become the grilled intestines instead are probably around fifty percent.

The other fifty percent was the chance I’d end up as grilled tripe.

Damn it. Just thinking about it was making my mouth water.

I swallowed dryly and looked the middle-aged man up and down.

A man who could call the Blood Lord, presumably one of Dark Heaven’s highest-ranking figures, an acquaintance. A man who could unleash that much destructive power with a single punch.

A title came to mind.

“You’re the Western Heaven Demon Lord, aren’t you?”

“Ah, come to think of it, I haven’t introduced myself yet. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Pleasure, my ass.

I stared at the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s two perfectly functional arms and muttered.

“I heard you only had one arm.”

“That was true until ten days ago.”

“What?”

“I had another attached. It wasn’t originally mine, so it still doesn’t move quite as well as I’d like. If you intend to try something, aim for my left arm.”

“…!”

What the hell was this guy?

Even if some kind of suturing operation was possible, he had replaced an arm as if it were a computer component.

Aside from the subtle difference in skin tone, it moved perfectly naturally.

Is that even possible? And in only ten days?

I couldn’t make any sense of it, but I had to set my shock and questions aside for now.

His last remark bothered me even more.

He even told me his weakness.

There could only be one reason for something that absurd.

It was the kind of arrogance only someone certain of his overwhelming strength could display.

And the Western Heaven Demon Lord was strong enough to make arrogance look like composure.

“Damn it.”

I drew a deep breath and fixed him with a cold, level stare.

“Can’t you just pretend you came to visit a patient and turn around?”

“That would be difficult. Setting you people aside, there’s something I have to take with me.”

“Something?”

Instead of answering, the Western Heaven Demon Lord posed a question of his own.

“This old man will ask you this time. Will you surrender? Peacefully.”

“Could you kill yourself for me? Peacefully.”

“Then there’s only one answer.”

Roughly a hundred yards separated us.

The instant our gazes collided across that distance—

Whoosh! Swish!

We both reached out at the same time.

No. When it came to launching our attacks, at least, I was faster.

The only problem was that the Finger Qi the Western Heaven Demon Lord fired reached its target one step before my dagger did.

Striking second, hitting first.

A red warning light flashed in my head. At the same time, my sharpened senses took in everything around me.

The Finger Qi was formless and invisible, yet I could clearly feel its approach. It was a new sense I had acquired while fighting Hwangbo Eom, the Taeeul Merciless Sword.

Now!

I twisted my head and shot forward. Something faster than a bullet grazed my ear.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord watched me with open surprise.

“To evade a Ghost Prison Finger at eighty percent power… You certainly have a talent for surprising people as well—”

“Yeah, Ghost Prison Finger.”

Whoosh!

The Western Heaven Demon Lord’s voice cut off.

Within that slowed instant, his widening pupils reflected me closing in right before his eyes.

My speed lay beyond anything he had imagined—far beyond the limits of a Peak master.

Stamina, Strength, Agility. And the Flamefire Path.

I poured everything into a single step. I erased the distance and tore through the air.

The fire dragon crouched within my qi sea spread its wings and soared. White Flame’s transparent spearhead became the dragon’s claw, plunging toward my enemy.

Heavenly Strike.

Kraaaaaash!

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

It was a tremendous reverberation.

As if to attest to the ferocity of the fighting, the corpses of enemies and allies piled together in tangled heaps collapsed.

The pavilion shook as though struck by an earthquake. Even those swinging weapons at one another staggered as they momentarily lost their balance.

“An earthquake! It’s an earthquake!”

“Damn it, why now…?”

An earthquake was a calamity no human strength could stop.

The tremor lasted only a moment, but it was enough to fill everyone with fear.

Everyone except the two men facing each other in the ruined Family Head’s Hall of the Sichuan Tang Clan.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

The old man, the First Fiend, threw back his head and roared with laughter, then turned toward Cheongpung.

“You felt that just now, didn’t you?”

Cheongpung nodded, looking dazed.

“Yes.”

Of course he had. The tremor had been an immense wave of qi, powerful enough to be felt from hundreds of yards away.

The First Fiend continued with a sneer.

“It seems the Demon Lord has finally made up his mind. Heh-heh.”

“I know. It’s really amazing.”

“He has finally cast aside his last shred of mercy and embraced killing intent. Neither the Fire King nor that disciple of his will survive. Do you understand what that means?”

“Yes. My Benefactor really is amazing.”

“Now that we no longer need to worry about the Blood Lord’s feelings, even I won’t show you any mercy from here on—what?”

The First Fiend paused and frowned.

He couldn’t begin to understand what the greenhorn before him had just said.

“Your Benefactor? You mean the Fire King’s disciple?”

But Cheongpung’s next words were not directed at the First Fiend.

In fact, none of his answers had been directed at him from the start.

A quiet murmur slipped from Cheongpung’s lips.

“At first, I thought I was far ahead of him. But before I knew it, he’d already come this far…”

Cheongpung gazed toward the distant source of the tremor, his eyes shining with joy and ruefulness.

No one else in the Sichuan Tang Clan could have guessed the truth—not even the First Fiend standing before him.

But Cheongpung knew.

“There’s no doubt. It’s my Benefactor.”

Cheongpung had been happy on Huashan, but he had also been lonely.

The beautiful scenery, the animals he could play with, and even the grandfather he revered more than anyone else could not fill a certain emptiness within him.

“There are many young prodigies your age in the Murim. The Ten Dragons and Phoenixes are the best among them.”

“Hmm. Then are the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes stronger than me?”

“Huh? What kind of question is that? Of course you, Pung, are—”

“Grandpa?”

“Ahem. Of course you’re still lacking, Pung.”

“Gasp! Really?”

“O-Of course! The world is vast, and there are many masters. So you’ll have to keep working hard at your martial arts from now on, right?”

“Yeees…”

From the single thoughtless remark his grandfather had let slip, Cheongpung felt the unfamiliar emotion in one corner of his heart grow stronger.

Only later did he learn its name.

Competitive pride.

Which of us is stronger?

He wanted to find out. He wanted to pit his martial arts against theirs and spend time with them.

And so Cheongpung left Huashan and ventured into the world. Then, on a sunny winter day, he met him.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble, may I have one candied hawthorn skewer?”¹

“…Mujin. Give him one.”

That was Cheongpung’s first meeting with Jin Taekyung.

His Benefactor in name, his friend in truth—and now, his one and only true rival.

A gentle smile touched Cheongpung’s lips.

“I know. My Benefactor feels the same way I do.”

“…!”

Flames rose in the First Fiend’s eyes as he watched this.

This greenhorn would have died long ago if not for the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s orders, yet he dared to ignore him. That alone had sealed his fate.

“You little bastard…”

The First Fiend raised his twin axes, their blades caked with scraps of human flesh.

Then he saw what was happening before him and froze like a statue.

Swooshhh.

The wind was blowing.

A scarlet wind of qi flowed from Cheongpung’s body, slid down his wrist, and streamed into his sword.

It passed over the plum blossom engraved upon the hilt, coiled around the blade, and finally bloomed into a single crimson plum blossom.

Crackle-crackle-crackle!

A halo of light, more brilliant and destructive than anything else.

A dazed voice escaped between the First Fiend’s lips as he stared at the unbelievable sight.

“…Sword Force.”

The product of great martial artists. Proof that its wielder had reached the exalted realm known as Supreme Peak.

Yet the twenty-three-year-old young man’s face wore an innocent smile wholly unsuited to a great martial artist.

“So, shall we begin?”