Chapter 62
Chapter 62
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 62
Chapter Title: An Awl in a Sack
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As I approached Blood Tear Gorge, I scattered Myriad Fragrance to scout the area.
‘Over two hundred men in ambush... Quite the gathering.’
Using Cheon-hyang's ultrasound, I pinpointed their exact locations and marked each spot with the scent of Thousand-Mile Fragrance tracking.
‘I have a rough idea of their positions.’
And so, I passed through Blood Tear Gorge and arrived at the Flame Demon Palace. The martial artist guiding me, a man named Chu Mu-yeol, suddenly stopped at the entrance and looked at me.
"This is the place. Please, go inside."
"Yes, thank you."
The Cult Leader's five disciples would gather here. They say you can survive even in a tiger's den if you keep your wits about you...
As I entered the garden of the Flame Demon Palace, the Ice Demon, Yeon A-ryeong, and the Flame Demon, Cho Yeom-wi, were sitting in a pavilion over a pond.
I bowed deeply, folding at the waist in a show of formal respect.
"Greetings, Senior Brothers, Senior Sister. I am Baek Mu-heun, the sixth disciple, offering my respects."
"Alright. The other senior brothers will be late. They're not the type to arrive early."
"I don't mind."
It was a reflexive answer, but the Flame Demon frowned and said,
"And what if you did mind?"
The Flame Demon, Cho Yeom-wi, stood up and approached me. With each step, waves of fiery energy seemed to raise the surrounding temperature.
"What if you did mind?"
"I meant..."
Just then,
"What are you two doing?"
"...!"
Without any sign of his presence, a figure had instantly appeared between me and the Flame Demon.
The Mad Demon, Wi Ryeon-gwang.
The madman from before had arrived.
"What are you doing."
"S-Senior Brother. We... we were just talking with our junior brother."
It seemed even the Flame Demon found the madman unsettling. The way he stammered and made excuses was quite amusing.
He was the start. As the Mad Demon Wi Ryeon-gwang appeared, the Sword Demon, Cheong Jeong-mun, and the Blood Demon, Cheon Se-geuk, walked into the garden. And so, the banquet between the candidates for the next Cult Leader—the current leader's six disciples—began.
***
I simply listened quietly to the five disciples' conversation. It wasn't my place to interject.
The first to speak was, as expected, the Sword Demon, known as the first disciple. When he spoke, the others listened attentively. As the one closest to becoming the next Cult Leader and the eldest senior brother, his authority was on another level.
"I'm sure you are all interpreting our Master's teachings well, but since the arts we practice are demonic, we must be careful not to fall into Qi Deviation."
"Of course. And since we're all gathered here, I'd like to make a proposal. We are all aware of each other's skills, so how about we share our enlightenments before the succession contest?"
The Blood Demon, Cheon Se-geuk, suggested an exchange.
"Share our enlightenments?"
"Yes. Although we are competitors in the succession contest, we are still martial siblings. This is a way for us to gauge each other's skills beforehand, so we don't have to shed blood directly."
Hearing the Blood Demon's words, the Mad Demon laughed.
"Kekekeke, interesting."
"Of course, I will be the one to ultimately become the Cult Leader, but if I'm to become the eighteenth leader, shouldn't I be one who surpasses our current Master?"
"You want to surpass our Master?"
"Yes. Our current Master is considered the greatest of all past leaders, making him the strongest in the history of our Divine Cult. I'm suggesting we engage in a friendly competition amongst ourselves to surpass such a master."
The Blood Demon provoked his martial siblings.
"Well, it's not a bad idea."
The Ice Demon, Yeon A-ryeong, agreed, and the Flame Demon, Cho Yeom-wi, also nodded.
"I agree as well."
"Sixth disciple, Baek Mu-heun, what are your thoughts?"
The eldest senior brother, the Sword Demon, asked Mu-heun. It was the first time he had been given a chance to speak.
"I..."
I found this situation amusing. I, the Divine Doctor in my past life, had become martial siblings with those infamous as the public enemies of the martial world. And now they wanted to share enlightenments? The Orthodox Sects would faint if they heard this.
"I would be honored."
"...Alright. Then let us meet here again in one year."
"Yes, then, I hope you all remain well until then."
"Everyone, until then..."
Suddenly, the Sword Demon looked at me and said,
"Don't die."
The succession contest for the Cult Leader.
It was a competition for the sky of the Divine Cult itself. This wasn't like the Divine Dragon Assembly, where greenhorns clumsily competed based on martial prowess alone.
Those who wished to become the Cult Leader had used every means necessary to eliminate their rivals. The five present were the ones who had survived that culling.
Poison, assassination, traps, schemes, and all sorts of plots had been employed, yet these five remained. To them, no matter how much martial talent I was born with, I was just a youngster who had barely come of age.
The Sword Demon seemed to have said that with all this in mind.
"Then, let's disperse."
"Yes! Senior Brother."
The Sword Demon, who wanted to prove everything through martial arts, seemed worried about me, but he didn't show it in his actions.
That was because this was the Demonic Cult.
I quickly observed the expressions and emotional shifts of the five disciples.
The Sword Demon: Pity.
A typical gaze from the position of an absolute superior. He probably pitied me for the traps I was about to fall into.
The Mad Demon: Interest.
He's just a madman.
The Blood Demon: Displeasure?
What's with this one...
The Ice Demon: A sense of crisis.
Does she feel threatened by me?
The Flame Demon: Fury.
Come to think of it, I heard the Cult Leader said the Flame Demon would be his last disciple when he took him in. You fool, you should take it up with the Cult Leader then...
After confirming their emotions, I saw off all the disciples with impeccable courtesy and remained until the very end.
"You can go now, too. Ah, my servant will guide you. Follow him."
"Yes, thank you."
"Alright~"
The Flame Demon, waving at me, let out a sneer.
The emotions he showed were elation and joy. He must be ecstatic about the trap he's laid. But...
‘It won't go as you think.’
I bowed my head and waist respectfully to the Flame Demon, then left the palace. The martial artist who had guided me earlier, Chu Mu-yeol, approached to guide me again.
***
A night illuminated by the full moon.
Mu-heun followed Chu Mu-yeol, and soon, Blood Tear Gorge came into view in the distance. An owl was circling in the sky above the gorge.
As Chu Mu-yeol and Mu-heun neared Blood Tear Gorge, the Red Demon Pavilion Lord, Hwang Cheol-ung, dipped his thumb in the Crimson-Faced Blood Heaven Powder, smeared it under his eyes, and touched it to his tongue.
Meanwhile, Chu Mu-yeol, who had been silent all the way from the Flame Demon Palace, finally spoke with a sneer as they reached Blood Tear Gorge.
"Young Master Sa, do you know the saying, 'beauty is a fleeting fate'?"
‘Young Master Sa? How arrogant of him...’
"It means that women of peerless beauty often meet with misfortune or die young, does it not?"
"Correct. At your young age, you are more outstanding than any beauty. But... the nail that sticks out gets hammered down."
‘This bastard...’
What kind of nonsense is he spouting after already setting a trap? If he wanted to say that, he should have come to me before laying the trap. How ridiculous, for people already intent on killing me to offer advice at the last moment.
I saw through Chu Mu-yeol's intentions and decided to play along for a moment. Though it would be a very brief moment.
"It is said, 'an awl in a sack'."
A sharp awl cannot be hidden in a sack; it will eventually poke through. It was a direct rebuttal to Chu Mu-yeol's words.
"An awl in a sack... Are you sure you won't regret it?"
"Not at all."
Chu Mu-yeol gave a sly smile, turned, and shouted. The words that would seal the fate of Baek Mu-heun, the Young Master Sa of the Heavenly Dance Family.
"Now!"
But what met Chu Mu-yeol's eyes as he turned was Young Master Sa, Baek Mu-heun, drawing the Sun and Moon Sword and wiping the blood from its blade.
‘Huh...?’
The world spun.
No, it was Chu Mu-yeol's head that spun through the air.
"Tch, this bastard talked too much."
Without a shred of emotion, Mu-heun glanced down at Chu Mu-yeol's head as it fell after a full rotation.
"It's not just beauties who have fleeting fates, you fool. Tsk, tsk."
Just then.
The Red Demon Pavilion Lord appeared before him.
Seething with rage.
"You rat-like bastard! I finally see you!"
The Pavilion Lord's presence echoed throughout Blood Tear Gorge. A colossal fury burned in his eyes.
With him at the lead, the Sword Demon Ghost Slayers and other Elders' secret units swarmed in, surrounding Mu-heun and the Pavilion Lord inside the gorge.
But Mu-heun's expression was endlessly calm, as Chu Mu-yeol's head rolled to a stop at the Red Demon Pavilion Lord's feet.
Even then, the owl in the sky continued to circle the full moon.
***
After gaining a new life in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, Mu-heun had felt a strange sense of novelty about the ceaseless threats. The Red Demon Pavilion Lord, Hwang Cheol-ung, using the Crimson-Faced Blood Heaven Demonic Arts, possessed internal energy rivaling a Peak Demonic Master, signaling that he was an opponent Mu-heun couldn't face alone.
However, without any change in expression, Mu-heun asked the Pavilion Lord,
"Let me ask you one thing."
Hwang Cheol-ung found it bizarre that Mu-heun could ask a question so calmly in this situation.
"Ha! You truly are something else. So relaxed even when you're about to die."
"Why did you join hands with the Sichuan Tang Clan?"
"What's a dead man going to do with that information?"
However, the Pavilion Lord, having manifested a forbidden demonic art, was in no state to answer. Instead of a reply, he unleashed a sharp blade energy.
The blade energy flew at high speed. But Mu-heun raised his Sun and Moon Sword and blocked it lightly.
"You blocked that surprise attack in an instant?"
"Are you not going to answer my question?"
A battle of wills unfolded in their disjointed conversation. Red blade energy rose from the Pavilion Lord's Red Demon Saber. The shimmering waves of energy dyed the entire Blood Tear Gorge crimson like a sunset, resembling a river of blood.
He had merely summoned his blade energy, yet the ground trembled, and a tingling numbness ran through Mu-heun's fingertips and toes. Instead of answering the second question, another attack came flying.
"Twenty-Four Forms of the Red Demon Saber. Nineteenth Form. Raging Wave."
Like a spring bursting from the earth, a massive crimson torrent erupted. It was high enough to swallow an entire grand pavilion. It had surged to that height in the time it took for a leaf to fall from a tree to the ground.
The surging torrent soon became a great waterfall, and the waterfall, in turn, became a wave.
Unlike the crimson waves used by Ak Jin-sam and Wi Gun-seong, this colossal wave, on a completely different scale, rushed toward Mu-heun with a ferocious momentum that threatened to swallow everything in an instant.
Facing the fiercely approaching wave, Mu-heun clashed the yin and yang energies in his dantian. To be precise, he clashed the two dragon-shaped forms of the Heavenly Demonic Energy.
A tremendous explosion of energy erupted from his dantian. Mu-heun circulated the energy of the Five Elements around it, sublimating all that power into the original Heavenly Demonic Energy—the energy of pure yang.
"Violet Sun Arts."
A violet flame flickering at the tip of the Sun and Moon Sword flashed like a bright light before gathering into a single, round point. It looked like a round sun clutched by a black dragon.
‘The ultimate technique I used in the duel with Seol Ha-ryeong.’
But the Red Demon Pavilion Lord laughed and said,
"That won't be enough to block my technique!"
He was right.
The Red Demon Pavilion Lord, Hwang Cheol-ung, was a man who had completely mastered the realm of the Transcendent Demon, and thanks to the Crimson-Faced Blood Heaven Demonic Arts, his internal energy had reached the level of the Peak Demon.
No matter how strong the martial artists who participated in the Divine Dragon Assembly were, they could not reach Hwang Cheol-ung's level, and the same was true for Mu-heun.
The Sun Arts that Mu-heun had used against Seol Ha-ryeong alone could not block Hwang Cheol-ung's tsunami-like wave.
That is, if Mu-heun was still the same as he was back then.
The Five Elements energy residing in Mu-heun's dantian met with the Myriad Fragrance, constructing a formation formula in the atmosphere.
Formula of Wind.
The wind drove the air moving through the narrow Blood Tear Gorge. The condensed atmosphere was sucked into the violet sun formed at the tip of the Sun and Moon Sword.
A large amount of oxygen was added to the sun, and Mu-heun once again detonated all the energy in his dantian.
The Pavilion Lord's violently raging wave seemed ready to cover the entire gorge, while Mu-heun's violet sun was a ball small enough to fit in one hand, but it was in a state of extreme compression.
‘I can't pass up the chance to clash with the internal energy of a Peak Demon.’
The moment Mu-heun's small sun, born of that thought, collided with the massive wave.
A sound of tearing air erupted in all directions, centered on the two of them.
A powerful explosion that shook the entire Blood Tear Gorge occurred. The ground where Mu-heun and Hwang Cheol-ung stood was blown to smithereens, and the surrounding cliffs and forest were devastated.
"Sunrise."
The cause of all these strange phenomena was the violet sun at the tip of the Sun and Moon Sword. Having swept up the atmosphere of the entire Blood Tear Gorge to fuel itself, the violet sun displayed its power like a sunrise cresting over the massive wave.