Chapter 82
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 82
Chapter Title: Blood Hand Demonic Lord (2)
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Contrary to what he'd said earlier, the Mad Demon stood still, watching Jinmyeong, Maeng Yo, and Shin Yehyang fight the Blood Hand Demonic Lord.
He had claimed he would stop the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's subordinates, but since the White Tiger Unit was already fighting them, the Mad Demon just stood there.
*This isn't good.*
Jinmyeong couldn't help but sigh, seeing that the Mad Demon, who he'd expected to move at any moment, showed no intention of doing so.
*If he was just going to leave it to us, he shouldn't have shown such fighting spirit.*
That incredible aura had made him want to see a showdown between the Mad Demon and the Blood Hand Demonic Lord, but instead, Jinmyeong was the one facing him.
*And that guy looks like he's going all out.*
Unlike the Mad Demon, who had no intention of moving, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord was brimming with motivation.
"I'll have to kill you whelps quickly and call that bastard over."
It would have been better if he were careless, but the Blood Hand Demonic Lord was intent on killing Jinmyeong, Shin Yehyang, and Maeng Yo in a swift, decisive battle.
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord grinned at Jinmyeong, and his body flickered slightly.
"Hk!"
As the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's body suddenly vanished, Jinmyeong bit his lip and scanned his surroundings.
*Where did he go?*
He'd lost track of his movements.
This was the first time Jinmyeong had ever lost sight of an opponent's movements like this.
*Fwoosh!*
Hearing a sudden sound from behind, Jinmyeong instinctively turned, but the pain in his abdomen came first.
"Keoheok!"
Jinmyeong clutched his stomach in pain and staggered back.
"You're sturdier than I thought."
The attack had been incredibly powerful.
If Jinmyeong hadn't been clad in his protective aura, a hole would have been punched through his stomach.
"Ugh!"
But as if to prove that the protective aura wasn't omnipotent, Jinmyeong coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The pain momentarily dazed him.
*It hurts. This is insane.*
Had he ever felt this much pain since waking up in this world?
No matter how hard he thought, he couldn't recall anything like it.
*I can't find him, so I can't attack with my controlled swords.*
If he could have tracked the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's movements from a distance, he would have attacked with the Heaven-Embroidering Sword Control Arts, but the man was moving at such an incredible speed that he never even entered Jinmyeong's line of sight.
"Ugh!"
Jinmyeong was startled by the massive fist that had appeared before his eyes and tried to retreat.
*Bam!*
But the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attack was faster than his retreat.
"Kkeuk!"
Jinmyeong felt as if his face was caving in.
*Is this the kind of pain those guys I beat up felt?*
Experiencing this pain for the first time, Jinmyeong's mind went blank.
"Get a grip!"
Noticing that Jinmyeong had lost focus, Maeng Yo rushed in front of him.
Not just Maeng Yo, but Shin Yehyang also moved to Jinmyeong's side.
"Keok!"
But they couldn't withstand the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attack and were sent flying backward.
"First, I'll kill you, the most troublesome one."
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord glanced at Shin Yehyang and Maeng Yo twitching on the ground before grinning at Jinmyeong.
Jinmyeong stared blankly at the man approaching him.
*Have I been taking things too lightly all this time?*
Why was that?
Jinmyeong had been thinking he would never die.
*Did I think I had already escaped my fated death?*
He had survived this long as Jinmyeong, a character who didn't exist in the original story, so he thought he had overcome the crisis.
After all, he believed his original fate was to die the moment he first opened his eyes.
But maybe that wasn't his fated time to die after all.
*Is my fate to die now?*
Watching the Blood Hand Demonic Lord approach and raise his hand, Jinmyeong felt a mix of emotions.
The terror and fear of death. But also, a strange sense of relief that everything was finally over.
The comfort of knowing he no longer had to struggle and worry about this and that.
*But dying like this feels a bit unfair.*
He hadn't just been lazing around; he had been striving to prevent Mok Jagyeong from becoming the Heavenly Demon.
He'd awakened in the martial world, learned powerful martial arts, and even had plenty of money thanks to the night-luminescent pearls, but he hadn't gotten to enjoy any of it properly.
Jinmyeong found that incredibly unjust.
*Fwoosh!*
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord, completely oblivious to Jinmyeong's sense of injustice, brought his hand down toward Jinmyeong's head.
"Hmm!"
The Mad Demon, who had been about to move to block the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attack, froze.
He had seen Jinmyeong, who was kneeling on the ground, draw the sword from his waist and swing it to block the attack.
*Clang!*
"Struggling until the very end, I see."
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord didn't think much of Jinmyeong blocking his attack.
He chalked it up to coincidence and attacked Jinmyeong again.
*Clang!*
But Jinmyeong once again blocked his attack with the sword in his hand.
"...You're annoying to the last."
Seeing Jinmyeong block his frontal attacks, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord clicked his tongue and stomped his foot.
His body, which had been in front of Jinmyeong, blurred and vanished in an instant.
*Behind?*
Jinmyeong felt a chill and moved his controlled swords behind him.
*Bam!*
As if his prediction were correct, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord appeared behind him and threw a punch.
*Next, the left?*
Having blocked the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attack by moving his swords in advance, Jinmyeong shifted them to his left.
*Bam!*
Once again, Jinmyeong's prediction was spot on.
"Hmm."
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord grew displeased that Jinmyeong was blocking his attacks.
*How on earth is he blocking them?*
No matter how he looked at it, Jinmyeong was clearly still losing track of his movements.
But something must have happened, because he was suddenly blocking the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attacks.
He was divining his position as if by magic and blocking the attacks.
*Strange.*
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord moved behind Jinmyeong once more and attacked his back.
*Bam!*
And once again, his attack was blocked by the controlled swords.
*How did he do that?*
He'd thought something was off, but now he knew for sure.
Jinmyeong moved his swords *before* the Blood Hand Demonic Lord even attacked.
It was as if he knew where the Blood Hand Demonic Lord would strike in advance.
"How did you do that?"
"...Do what?"
"I'm asking how you knew where I would attack."
"I don't know."
Jinmyeong didn't know either.
The only difference from before was that the Divine Arts of Heavenly Flame were circulating without his conscious will.
But the circulation of the Divine Arts of Heavenly Flame wasn't unfamiliar at all.
In fact, it was an incredibly familiar movement to Jinmyeong.
*The internal energy circulation of the Asura Sword Forms.*
The Divine Arts of Heavenly Flame were circulating just as they did when he performed the Asura Sword Forms.
This was the only difference, yet Jinmyeong's senses were in an extremely heightened state.
He could predict where the Blood Hand Demonic Lord would attack. And in reality, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord was attacking exactly where Jinmyeong predicted.
*I still can't track his movements, though.*
He could block the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attacks through prediction, but he couldn't track his movements.
Unlike the attacks, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's movements were completely unpredictable.
*But this is...*
It was a strange feeling.
It was different from before, when he would analyze his opponent's martial arts to predict their attacks.
That was an intellectual understanding, whereas this was an intuitive prediction of where the opponent would strike.
*A sixth sense?*
Something that transcended the commonly known five senses.
An animalistic instinct, or a superhuman perception.
Jinmyeong felt as if he were blocking the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attacks with that sixth sense.
*Could the purpose of the Asura Sword Forms be...*
The Asura Sword Forms are a formless battle sword art.
Since it was a sword art forged on the battlefield, wouldn't its creator have considered a sixth sense to be of utmost importance?
That's why Jinmyeong began to think that the ultimate goal of the Asura Sword Forms might be to cultivate a sixth sense.
"Let me ask you something."
"...You've blocked a few attacks, and now you have the nerve to speak."
He didn't like how Jinmyeong had changed from the terrified, resigned figure he was just moments ago.
"Your organization, what was its name again?"
"...I don't know what you're talking about."
"I think it had 'Heaven' in the name, but I can't quite remember. Was it Heaven Beyond Heaven?"
"Tsk! What a crude name."
"So that wasn't it."
Jinmyeong could tell from the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's reaction that he had the wrong name.
"By the way, it seems you know about us."
"Not precisely. But I'd at least like to know the name."
"..."
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord clamped his mouth shut and glared at Jinmyeong with eyes full of killing intent.
"To think you know about the Society."
"Ah, it was a 'Society'? Not 'Heaven'? Ah, I remember now. It was the Heaven-Shattering Society."
The moment those words left his lips, a thick killing intent poured out of the Blood Hand Demonic Lord and began to pressure Jinmyeong.
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord realized he had made a mistake.
He never imagined that Jinmyeong could figure out the name "Heaven-Shattering Society" just by hearing the word "Society."
"...I can't kill you."
Rather than killing Jinmyeong, he felt he had to take him along.
He had to find out how Jinmyeong knew about the Heaven-Shattering Society.
After all, they operated entirely in the shadows, never revealing themselves.
They had never shown themselves in the past either, which forced the Blood Hand Demonic Lord to consider various possibilities.
"Someone must have told you about the Society."
And he was certain that person must be a member of the Heaven-Shattering Society.
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord immediately rushed toward Jinmyeong.
But he was forced back by the Mad Demon, who suddenly intervened.
"...Appearing out of nowhere. You haven't changed a bit."
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord, as if having forgotten all about Jinmyeong, growled at the Mad Demon.
The dark blue aura enveloping his blood-red hands grew even denser.
"You must have killed the Cult Leader with a sneak attack like that."
"The Cult Leader changed a long time ago."
"...You think I would acknowledge a man like that as the Cult Leader?"
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord seemed to believe that the Heavenly Demon and the Mad Demon had used cowardly means to kill the previous Cult Leader.
"The previous Cult Leader was the coward."
"..."
In fact, it was the previous Cult Leader who had used a subordinate for a sneak attack during a one-on-one duel, but the Blood Hand Demonic Lord showed no sign of believing it.
"None of that matters now."
The Mad Demon pointed his saber at the Blood Hand Demonic Lord.
In response, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord also grew wary of the Mad Demon, searching for an opening.
It was a completely different level of caution than when he had fought Jinmyeong, Shin Yehyang, and Maeng Yo.
The two men unleashed their auras, sizing each other up.
*Fwoosh!*
In that situation, it was the Mad Demon who moved first.
A tempest erupted from the massive saber he swung, engulfing the Blood Hand Demonic Lord.
"Hmph!"
The Blood Hand Demonic Lord scoffed, then leaped into the air to evade the massive storm the Mad Demon had created.
Unlike when he had taken Shin Yehyang's attack head-on, he judged that it would not be easy to withstand the Mad Demon's assault.
Then, the Blood Hand Demonic Lord immediately charged toward the Mad Demon.
*Clang!*
And the Mad Demon, not backing down an inch, met the Blood Hand Demonic Lord's attack.
"Kugh!"
Every time their attacks collided, it felt as if the very earth was shaking.
Even the warriors of the Heaven-Shattering Society and the White Tiger Unit flinched, pausing their battles to watch the two men.
*...A fight between masters.*
And Jinmyeong, too, could not take his eyes off their battle.
He didn't even blink, trying to burn the image of their duel into his memory.