Chapter 58
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: A Tyrant Can Be a Hero (3)
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“Stop!”
Hong Wi-mun froze.
He, who had squeezed his eyes shut, slowly opened them.
A trickle of blood.
A cut was etched into the left side of his neck. Blood seeped past the cold edge of the blade. His head was still attached.
“No more disturbances will be permitted! Third Young Master, lower your blade at once!”
Seo Ryang’s eyes deepened.
The presence emanating from behind him was stronger than expected. He had sensed it from a good distance away, but it had reached him in an instant.
*‘Not bad.’*
Without turning, he spoke.
“Who might you be?”
“Third Captain of the Black Sun Guard, Hall of Punishments!”
“Aha? You again?”
“I will say it once more! Third Young Master, lower your blade immediately and step back! No more disturbances will be permitted!”
“I don’t want to.”
“W-what did you say?”
“This is a matter between candidates for the succession. It’s not for the Hall of Punishments to interfere. I’m about to wrap things up, so take care of your business and leave.”
“We cannot do that!”
“Hm?”
“Even if you are the Third Young Master, we can no longer overlook your disregard for the authority of the Hall of Punishments!”
“...Oh?”
“This is your last warning! Lower your blade at once and…”
Just then, Seo Ryang slightly turned his head.
The Third Captain’s mouth snapped shut.
“Does the Hall of Punishments have the authority to intervene in a dispute between candidates?”
“...!”
“Speak.”
“However, this area is under the influence of the Hall of Punishments…”
“And what reason do I have to care that this is an area under the Hall's influence? Besides, doesn't the Hall of Punishments' jurisdiction cover both the inner and outer sanctums?”
“…”
“I can show respect, but I have no intention of turning a blind eye to you overstepping your bounds. I don't understand why you people always have to be so dull.”
“Third Young Master!”
“Or what? Does it satisfy you only when every demonic practitioner in the cult, regardless of their status, trembles before you?”
“You go too far!”
In that instant, Seo Ryang’s blade flashed.
*Rumble!*
The Third Captain’s jaw dropped. Though hidden by a mask, his face was contorted in shock. Hong Wi-mun, who had been sweating profusely, was just as dumbfounded.
In the next moment, a massive saber scar, ten feet long, was carved into the ground before the Third Captain's feet.
“...Gulp.”
A single strike had split the earth. The area around the gash, its depth impossible to gauge, was charred black. The ground had been scorched by the extreme yang of his demonic energy.
The Third Captain, who had been staring blankly at the scar, lifted his head to look at Seo Ryang.
*‘Hah!’*
*Flash!*
It was as if lightning flashed from his eyes. Transparent and emotionless, yet filled with a ferocity of unknown origin, his gaze was indescribably terrifying.
Not as Seo Ryang, the Third Young Master of the Divine Cult of the Heavenly Demon, but as Cheon Hajin, the King of Killers.
Having drawn out his identity as the Heretic God for the first time in a long while, his eyes no longer held any trace of demonic energy.
“I don’t like things getting complicated either. So, I can tolerate a fair amount.”
He murmured, one word at a time, and a hazy mist seemed to spew forth with each breath.
“But don't you dare tell me to hold back, not even in jest, when I'm standing before my chosen prey.”
*Crackle!*
The red lightning that had been flowing along the blade surged up his hand and soon coursed through his entire body.
“That is, if you don’t really want to make things difficult.”
He was the Heretic God, cloaked in an aura that defied the heavens. He, who stimulated the fear of death inherent in all living things, now exuded the energy of hell itself—the pinnacle of the inhuman realm.
Who could even open their mouth properly before him? The Third Captain dared not look at Seo Ryang.
*Fwoosh.*
The red lightning that had formed an oppressive atmosphere suddenly died down.
Seo Ryang grinned at Hong Wi-mun.
“An intruder interrupted us, so the finish wasn’t as clean as I’d like. My apologies.”
“...!”
“Let’s see, you said you had no last words, right?”
Hong Wi-mun’s cheek twitched.
Seo Ryang raised his blade again.
It was then.
*Flinch!*
“...Hmph.”
A hint of annoyance crossed Seo Ryang’s face. The killing intent he had painstakingly suppressed was trying to rear its head again.
“Why are there so many damned meddlers?”
*Vwoom!*
The veins on the back of his hand bulged.
This time, it wasn’t that he didn’t strike, but that he couldn’t. A colossal energy had blocked his blade like a chain.
The ability to control a person's movements with formless energy. It was a power worthy of being called a form of telekinesis.
Seo Ryang’s pupils turned red.
*Crackle!*
It now took the complete form of lightning. The brilliant flames and eerie mist patterns he had shown before were nowhere to be seen.
“Don’t stop me. There will be real trouble.”
*Crrack!*
The blade swung down.
The nameless master, who had been wielding the chain of internal energy through the void, was startled.
Telekinesis itself is an art that requires the highest level of enlightenment. It’s difficult to resist with sheer force without achieving an equivalent state.
But the Third Young Master was shattering that enlightenment with his innate monstrous strength and immense demonic energy.
*Vwoooom!*
The chain of internal energy grew stronger.
Now, not just his arm, but his entire body could barely move. The nameless master was also exerting his full power.
*Tremble!*
Seo Ryang’s body seemed to swell slightly, a sign that he was pushing his muscles to their absolute limit.
A battle between a real blade and an unseen force.
“...Fine.”
He had been stopped not once, but twice. It was like pouring oil on his already blazing killing intent.
*Shhh.*
Seo Ryang relaxed his grip.
He even reined in the demonic energy that had been crackling with lightning. Naturally, the chain of internal energy vanished without a trace.
But Seo Ryang hadn’t given up.
He had just decided to get serious.
*Zzzzzzing!*
Three or four tendrils of lightning, thin as capillaries and long as chains, flickered around his body.
A perilous wave of energy. It was like looking at a bomb about to detonate.
As the nameless master, realizing this, quickly gathered his internal energy.
*Boom!*
An explosion roared through the air.
*‘Hah!’*
The nameless master flinched. He was so surprised he couldn’t even deploy his telekinetic art.
A technique that detonates a hidden force in the air to disrupt the flow of internal energy.
In other words, a disruptive energy wave. While not as advanced as telekinesis, it was a dazzlingly brilliant countermeasure.
*Swoosh!*
Seizing that fleeting moment, Seo Ryang’s blade once again surged toward Hong Wi-mun.
*‘You dare!’*
The nameless master gathered his internal energy once more.
In that instant, Seo Ryang’s eyes gleamed.
*Paaak!*
The moment the chain of internal energy tried to bind him, Seo Ryang’s body vanished.
*‘...!’*
He moved so fast that he disappeared from sight for a moment.
But this master was not of a caliber to be flustered just because he lost him with his naked eye. A master’s senses were faster and more accurate than sight, were they not?
Those senses told him.
Where Seo Ryang had disappeared to, and where he was heading.
*‘Don’t tell me?’*
His eyes widened.
*Crackle!*
Seo Ryang, emitting crimson lightning, advanced at a terrifying speed.
At the end of his path was the master himself.
*Flash! Boom!*
The wall of the lone warehouse was swept away by a tremendous blade wind.
The nameless master, Go Gu, shouted.
“Third Young Master!”
*Whoosh!*
Seo Ryang’s figure appeared right in front of Go Gu.
*‘Fast!’*
His depth of demonic energy was sufficient to be called a supreme master, but his skill did not match it. That was Go Gu’s assessment of Seo Ryang’s martial arts.
But this movement technique was different. At least in terms of footwork, he seemed to be on par with himself.
Seo Ryang swung his blade.
*Whirrrrr!*
The martial art of the Heretic God, which had rendered Hong Wi-mun combat-incapable and immobile with a single combination.
It was the Nine Hells Calamity Saber Art, a technique one could only begin to learn after mastering the twelve stances of the basic Heaven-Sundering Three Sabers.
Go Gu threw a punch. Even if it was the Third Young Master, he couldn’t stand still before a saber art so threatening it could cost him his life.
*Papapapang!*
The air screamed under the countless explosions.
The first chapter of the Calamity Saber Art, the six forms of the Six-Linked Hell Wind, unfolded in a single breath.
*Slice!*
The edge of his sleeve was cut off and flew away.
It was only two inches, but he couldn’t even remember the last time his clothes had been damaged by another’s martial art.
Go Gu’s hands moved in a blur. It was a martial art meant to subdue, not to attack.
That was his mistake.
The Nine Hells Calamity Saber Art was a technique divided into five chapters, but it was also a single, unified art.
The connection between its forms was extremely fluid, leaving the opponent no room to retreat, and its power naturally increased as it progressed.
*Fwoooosh!*
A powerful heat filled the space where the hellish blade wind had vanished. Seo Ryang’s blade glowed red-hot, as if it had just been pulled from a furnace.
Go Gu’s eyes wavered.
The second chapter of the Nine Hells Calamity Saber Art appeared: the Ultimate Avici Saber, which contained the flames of the Eight Hot Hells.
*Fwoooar!*
It was as if the world was being dyed crimson. He had the illusion that massive pillars of fire were erupting from all directions and rushing toward him.
*Baaang!*
Wisps of smoke rose from Go Gu’s body as he was sent flying.
*‘Hot!’*
He had raised his internal energy shield to its absolute limit, so he wasn’t cut, but had his internal energy been even slightly weaker, not a single bone fragment would have remained against that merciless, flesh-searing blade.
Still, it was fortunate that he hadn't suffered any real damage.
Was another attack coming?
When Go Gu lifted his head.
*‘...!’*
*Booooom!*
Seo Ryang, who had vanished with an explosion, was rushing toward Hong Wi-mun.
*‘No!’*
He only moves to kill after confirming that I can't block him with telekinesis. Go Gu felt a chill run down his spine at the crazed Seo Ryang’s obsession with his target.
“Third Young Master! Stop—!”
*Thwack!*
Go Gu’s face hardened. The flustered Third Captain’s eyes also widened.
*Drip, drip.*
His eyes were wide open, as if they would tear. A stream of red blood flowed from the nose and mouth of Hong Wi-mun, who stared up at Seo Ryang with a shocked expression.
A moment later.
“Uweeegh!”
Hong Wi-mun’s face turned deathly pale as he vomited a mouthful of blood. He had already lost a lot of blood, but now he was spewing even more.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
*Sizzle.*
Along with a foul smell, a purple, venomous energy began to leak from his entire body.
Seo Ryang, breathing heavily but looking down at him with cold eyes, spoke.
“I’ve been thinking.”
*Stab!*
The blade that had pierced his abdomen was pulled out. It was just above his dantian, the very spot where the core of the vile poison Hong Wi-mun had accumulated was located.
“Keoheok!”
“Considering how relieved I'll feel later, the burden of killing you is something I can certainly bear…”
Seo Ryang grinned. On a human face, it was an expression more demonic than any demon’s.
“But then I thought of a more satisfying and better way.”
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.
Demonic deviation for demonic deviation, despair for despair.
“You should also lose everything you ever had, right?”
*Fssssst!*
Hong Wi-mun’s hair became brittle.
That wasn’t all. His perfectly honed body began to wither.
He was a man who maintained his muscles with energy cultivation, not physical training. Once the poison core and his dantian were shattered, his frame was immediately and adversely affected.
This was the limit of Hong Wi-mun, who had built his power only through empty concepts for years.
“You won’t die right away, but you’ll be bedridden for a few years with symptoms of poisoning. Of course, even if you heal your body in a few years, you’ll have to start all over again from the beginning.”
Hong Wi-mun trembled as he looked up at Seo Ryang.
“...ou.”
“Hm? What did you say?”
“J-just kill me!”
Seo Ryang bared his white teeth and smiled. He could read the sincerity in his voice begging for death.
How horrifying must it be to watch everything you’ve built up until now crumble before your eyes? It was no wonder Hong Wi-mun was screaming to be killed.
“I'll send you some medicinal tonics from time to time. Sorry that's all your dear older brother can do for you.”
The transformation of Seo Ryang, who had been cold but not cruel, who had thrown tantrums but was not wicked.
*Thud!*
Kicked hard, Hong Wi-mun fell backward limply. A faint trickle of blood seeped from his unconscious form's abdomen.
*Rustle!*
Just then, members of the Hall of Punishments swarmed in from all directions.
Seo Ryang looked around and raised his hands with a smile.
“I know I wasn't released that long ago, but well… do what you will this time, too.”