Chapter 357

A serene expression and an unhurried gait. A clean 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 fierce battle in which no one paid any heed to their own life. The victor and loser were decided just as quickly.

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

“Gaaaah!”

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

What remained where the wave had swept through were corpses dressed in green, 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 from the start, this had been a fight in which the few could never overcome the many.

Even the poison and hidden weapons that formed the foundation of the Sichuan Tang Clan were unable to display their full power.

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

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

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

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

Instead of killing Tang Sadok immediately, he had seated him in a tree atop a hill overlooking the Sichuan Tang Clan.

That way, Tang Sadok could watch his family be destroyed until the moment his life ended.

“Everything is according to the Lord of Heaven’s will.”

Drip. Drip-drip.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord looked up at the sky, which had begun releasing raindrops, then turned around.

The entrance to a cave gaped like a pitch-black maw. Beside a fallen brazier, an old, hunchbacked man lay dead with his eyes wide open.

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

The Black Blood Sword Technique.

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

Realizing the identity of the men who had arrived before him, the Western Heaven Demon Lord followed the stone steps leading underground.

Clear footprints, mixed with blood and mud, remained on the stairs. At least twenty subordinates had certainly visited this place before him.

And most likely…

They’re all dead.

There were traces of people going down, but none of them coming back up.

Once he entered the underground prison, his guess became a certainty.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord had lived a life stained with blood. He could feel the heat of battle lingering in the dark corridor, along with the fishy scent of blood buried beneath the stench.

Who did this?

He wondered as he looked at the fine droplets of blood splattered across the wall.

Skilled work. They were killed without even being able to put up a proper resistance.

With the Sichuan Tang Clan in a crisis as precarious as a candle in the wind, there was no chance any of the clan’s masters would be here protecting outsiders.

If Tang Sadok’s words were true, only three people remained in the underground prison.

The Divine Physician was a negligible 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 suddenly remembered what the Blood Lord had said about Jin Taekyung.

The most arrogant, tenacious young bastard in the world, with enough nerve to let his guts hang outside his body.

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 have a second stroke of luck.

The Sword Saint was not here, and the Fire King was also incapable of fighting.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord intended to easily capture the rats trapped in the jar and return.

Along with the Myriad-Poison Ring they possess.

Squelch. Squelch.

The Western Heaven Demon Lord was walking leisurely when he suddenly stopped.

A solid stone wall extending from the ceiling now blocked his way.

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

He stared at the wall for a moment, then gathered his hands. A dark-red mist coiled around his arm and wrapped around his fist.

Gooooooong.

Everything happened in an instant.

The manifestation, compression, and explosion of qi. Nothing could stand in the path of his Fist Force.

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

It shattered, collapsed, and shook.

The concentrated mass of immense qi shot straight forward, piercing dozens of walls. Stalactites rained down from the ceiling like hail, and a thick cloud of dust rose into the air.

Much better.

The next moment, the Western Heaven Demon Lord looked at the scene he had created and spoke.

“Why don’t you come out now?”

The answer was an ear-splitting sound slicing through the air.

Whoosh!

As the dust cloud split apart, the Western Heaven Demon Lord caught the dagger flying toward his throat and smiled faintly.

“Are you Jin Taekyung?”

“You already know. Why ask?”

Step. Step.

A tall young man emerged through the dust cloud and stared at the Western Heaven Demon Lord with an impassive gaze.

I tried to look unfazed.

Half of any fight was decided by aura. Just because my opponent looked weaker than me, I could not afford to lower my guard. And just because he looked stronger, I could not let myself be intimidated.

Especially when I had come face-to-face with a genuine powerhouse like this.

What kind of monster is he?

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

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

That was not all. He stood there with a faint smile on his face, the very picture of tranquility.

Even the air around him smells different.

The Blood Lord had been an openly insane bastard. This middle-aged man, however, 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 answered while lowering the spearhead of White Flame at an angle.

“I’m pretty entertaining myself.”

“I’ve also heard that you’re ill-mannered.”

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

“Well, I would have to spend more time with you to know for sure. But according to what an acquaintance told me, that seems to be the case.”

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

The smile at the corner of the middle-aged man’s mouth deepened.

“The Blood Lord.”

“…!”

“He says he wants to see you very much.”

“I don’t even want to look at that son of a bitch.”

“You use exactly the same words as that young man, Cheongpung. Your tone is different, though.”

This bastard has already met Cheongpung.

And yet he was here…

I felt the muscles in my face stiffen before I could stop them.

“You, by any chance…”

The middle-aged man smiled and waved his 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 two pieces of good news were that Cheongpung was alive and that the Blood Lord was not here. The bad news was that if I lost this fight, I would be having a group get-together with the Blood Lord.

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

Instead, there’s about a fifty percent chance I’ll become the grilled intestines.

The other fifty percent was the chance of becoming 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 someone presumed to be one of Dark Heaven’s highest-ranking figures his “acquaintance.” A man who had demonstrated this much destructive power with a single punch.

One person’s title came to mind.

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

“Ah, now that you mention 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 one attached. It wasn’t originally mine, so it still doesn’t move quite as well as I’d like. If you’re going to try something, aim for my left arm.”

“…!”

What the hell was this guy?

Even if I granted that some kind of suturing operation was possible, he had swapped out an arm like a computer component.

Aside from the subtly different skin tone, its movements were perfectly natural.

Is this even possible? In only ten days?

I could not understand it at all, but I had to set aside my surprise and questions for the moment.

What bothered me more was what he had said at the end.

He even told me his weakness.

There could only be one reason for this kind of absurd behavior.

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

And this man—the Western Heaven Demon Lord—was powerful enough to make arrogance look like ease.

“Damn it.”

I took a deep breath and glared at the Western Heaven Demon Lord with a cool, level gaze.

“Can’t you just turn around and leave, as if you’d only come to visit a patient?”

“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 asked me a question.

“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.”

We stood roughly a hundred yards apart.

The instant our gazes collided across the space between us—

Whoosh! Swish!

We both reached out at the same time.

No. At least when it came to launching our attacks, 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.

He struck second and hit first.

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

The finger qi was formless and invisible. But I could clearly feel the energy approaching. It was a new sense I had acquired while fighting Hwangbo Eom, the Taeeul Merciless Sword.

Now!

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

The Western Heaven Demon Lord watched me with an expression of surprise.

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

“Yup, Ghost Prison Finger.”

Whoosh!

The Western Heaven Demon Lord’s voice broke off.

In that slowed instant, his widening pupils reflected my figure rushing right up to him.

It was a speed beyond the range he had imagined, something that had far surpassed 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 pierced through the air.

The fire dragon curled within my qi sea spread its wings and took flight. The transparent spearhead of White Flame became the dragon’s claw as it plunged toward the enemy.

Heavenly Strike.

Kraaaaaash!

Rumble-rumble-rumble!

It was a tremendous reverberation.

As if proving the intensity of the battle, the corpses piled together in a tangled mass of enemies and allies collapsed.

The pavilion shook as though an earthquake had struck, and even those swinging weapons at each other staggered, momentarily unable to keep their balance.

“An earthquake! It’s an earthquake!”

“Damn it, of all times…”

An earthquake was a calamity that human strength could not stop.

The reverberation appeared and vanished in an incredibly brief moment, but the people were terrified.

Everyone, that is, except for the two people facing each other in the Family Head’s Hall of the Sichuan Tang Clan, which had already become a ruin.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

After releasing a great roar of laughter toward the heavens, the First Fiend turned toward Cheongpung.

“You felt that too just now, didn’t you?”

Cheongpung nodded with a dazed expression.

“Yes.”

He had no choice. The reverberation had been a tremendous wave of qi, powerful enough to be felt from hundreds of yards away.

The First Fiend continued in a sneering voice.

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

“I know. It’s really amazing.”

“He has finally thrown away 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 stopped and frowned.

He could not understand what the greenhorn in front of him had just said.

“Your Benefactor? You mean that disciple of the Fire King?”

But Cheongpung’s next answer was not directed at the First Fiend.

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

A quiet murmur slipped between 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 place beyond where the reverberation had begun, his eyes sparkling with joy and ruefulness.

No one else in the Sichuan Tang Clan could have guessed it—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.

There was something that could not be filled by the beautiful scenery, the animals he could play with, or even the grandfather he revered more than anyone.

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

“Um. Are those 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 lacking.”

“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.

He learned the name of that emotion only later.

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 out into the world. On one sunny winter day, he met him.

“If it isn’t an imposition, could I have just one candied hawthorn skewer?”¹

“…Mujin. Give him one.”

That was Cheongpung’s first meeting with Jin Taekyung.

A person who was his Benefactor in name and his friend in truth. And now, his only true rival.

A gentle smile formed at the corner of his mouth.

“I know. I know my Benefactor thinks the same way I do.”

“…!”

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

The young brat who would have died long ago if not for the Western Heaven Demon Lord’s orders had dared to ignore him. His fate was as good as sealed.

“You little bastard…”

The First Fiend raised his double axes, their blades caked with someone’s flesh.

And then, at the sight of what happened before his eyes, he froze like a stone statue.

Swooshhh.

The wind was blowing.

A scarlet wind of qi flowed from one person’s body, slid down his wrist, and passed onto his sword.

It traveled past the plum blossom engraved on the hilt, wrapped around the blade, and finally bloomed into a single red plum blossom.

Crackle-crackle-crackle!

It was 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?”