The Mad Demon Hand
The old woman murmured with a perfectly solemn expression. “From now on, the martial art I will pass on to you is called the Mad Demon Hand.”
“It is a supreme martial art of the world that receives the power of the King of Hell and swings it like the heaven’s ultimate sword! Its meaning is extremely magnificent and profound. It will take a very long time to understand, but as long as you keep your mind alert, you should be able to memorize it to a certain extent.”
She grumbled all the way, the old hag. I wondered how amazing it must be while listening, but in the middle of it she kept poking fun at me. I frowned slightly. Before I could open my mouth, the old woman coughed and quickly added. “Ahem, memorize this profound recitation well!”
Tsk, she was too quick to pick up on cues.
“……Did you listen carefully?”
How long had the old hag’s boring recitation gone on? Blinking my eyes, the twilight glow had already begun to appear in the south. I wondered how many hours of recitation it had actually taken to cram all that magnificence and profundity and complexity into my head. “Sigh, this must be it.”
Feeling a premonition that I wouldn’t be able to learn any other martial art in the future, I wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth. The old hag said with a suspicious expression, “You didn’t utter a single word of protest, so I recited it five times. You must have listened well, right?”
“……Yeah.”
Thankfully, no matter how magnificent it was, it wasn’t a recitation that lasted several hours. Still, I must have heard it to the end. Feeling a sense of relief in my heart, I recalled the recitation I had heard earlier. “What was it again, Ama()… wait, amateur?”
Automatic translation worked in my head, but the recitation was so full of Chinese characters that simply recalling it gave me a headache. Math, science, and classical Chinese were the subjects I hated most in school. Well, Koreans only needed to be good at Korean. Anyway, my head was throbbing just from trying to recall the content of the recitation, so I reorganized it my own way. Roughly speaking, it went like this.
My demon eats souls, so hands that hold the demon will scream the soul of the sinner facing them and make their skin rot and peel…
‘Is the mad hag middle school delinquent?’ I suddenly thought that, but since the crazy old hag was glaring at me with wide eyes, I just kept my mouth shut. I would interpret the recitation faithfully and swing my hands fiercely while operating the Asura Divine Art. The Mad Demon Hand.
Now that I had a feel for it, I thought this was a martial art the crazy demon would use. The technique made the hand black and infused with demonic energy, as if black flames were burning. The movement of that hand was swift like a goblin that yearns for the sinner’s flesh and cruel like a demon that embraces the soul. The recitation was so ruthless and the will continuous that it worried me as the user.
‘Not trigonometry or Bermuda Triangle, but some dark quadrilateral?’ It seemed like I was only learning dark attributes lately. With the arrival of a new friend, the Heavenly Slaughter Star, Blood Seed, and Asura Divine Art must be delighted. Thinking that, while I was replaying the recitation of the Mad Demon Hand, I felt a familiar sensation. Intimacy. Poison and killing intent naturally seeped into my body. The inherent pleasure of humans and the madness that craves red blood were also contained in this martial art. It was a martial art limited to a specific part of the body, the hands, but the mystery within was the same. All flows return to the origin. Even martial arts of yin and yang are entangled in the same flow. How much alike could they be if they were of the same kind? The foundation had already been laid. The only thing left was to infuse it into this hand. And now it had been done.
[ Acquired Mad Demon Hand. ]
My hand that was snow-white like snow had turned into a demon, and my heart was filled with a poisonous heart. “Not that bad, after all.”
After that, I tore and killed the imaginary enemies and danced the dance of murder. I moved with a light heart, but my body led me like flowing water. This was really the realm of no-self or something. When I came to my senses, the world had already brightened. And the crazy old hag, while I was daydreaming, must have eaten something wrong and got furious. “This can’t be! This is sorcery! It’s definitely sorcery!”
“No, what are you talking about? I don’t know sorcery at all!”
“……Ugh! I! I took the greatest con artist in the world as my disciple! Aigoo, my fate!”
“Huh, where would an honest person like me be!”
What a weird mind. Even though the disciple had learned well, why was she getting angry? I couldn’t understand the old hag’s mind, so I scratched my cheek with my now-dark hand. Of course, as a runaway, our feet and legs were still moving busily in the meantime.
***
It had been another day since we were climbing the mountain. It meant that the day I had to protect this crazy old hag was only three days left. Thanks to that desirable change, my heart also became at ease and I slept well. I didn’t completely drop my guard, but just by sleeping, my chronically tired body improved quite a bit. My skill, like our footsteps, was gradually advancing forward.
[ Liz - Undertaker ]
[ LV. 2 ]
[ Strength 37 (+1) → 38 ]
[ Health 38 (+1) → 39 ]
[ Agility 39 ]
[ Spirit 40 ]
[ Asura Divine Art 5 stars ]
[ Mad Demon Hand 3 stars ]
[ Titles – Pioneer, New Star, Giant Slayer ]
[ Traits – Immovable Mind, Sword Mastery, Heavenly Slaughter Star ]
[ Skills – Blood Seed, Detect Villain ]
‘Asura Divine Art also leveled up, and Mad Demon Hand grew explosively because of the other traits.’ Thanks to a short spar with the old hag, Mad Demon Hand had grown unbelievably fast. The crazy old man shouted loudly every time I showed even a little progress. I was starting to doubt if he was the right teacher. Well, anyway, the progress of the martial art was smooth, and since my stats had reached the 40s, growth had slowed. True, it was only at the 19th floor, and in the middle floors it was normal for skilled people to have such stats. It had just slowed down a bit, but I was still running ahead faster than anyone else. As long as I didn’t give up and kept going. Thinking that, it was time to climb today’s mountain ridge diligently.
The old hag moving next to me suddenly widened her eyes and stopped in place. Rolling her eyes for a few seconds, the old hag who was faster at noticing than me whispered quietly. “It’s a tracker.”
“Huh?”
I had been wandering only on the mountain paths without even saying the right words, and now they were chasing me? Maybe I had mistaken it for another passerby… When I suddenly thought that, it was indeed the most dangerous moment. “It’s a cultist after all.”
I learned properly while talking to the old hag at night. It was the Sun and Moon God Cult or something, the cult led by that black demon Michael Jackson. Evil people in the Murim world! The trash of the world! “So does that mean the old hag is a former trash?”
I hesitated for a moment, shook my head. Still, we had escaped and become human, so that should be fine. Um, it must be that way. No matter what, the pursuit was terrifyingly fast, as befits the world’s evil people. They had already caught up to our backs without any reward for camping in the mountains…! “Better to fight head-on.”
“Um, definitely.”
In case of emergency, I was thinking of abandoning the old hag, so the old hag and I hid our bodies in the trees and waited for the pursuers. After all, the other side was faster, and it was better to calm my mind and body than to waste strength. “Climbing trees is not that easy either.”
Anyway, after hiding my presence and my body among the leaves for a few minutes, I thought maybe I should have just jumped. Just as I was thinking that, the old hag on that tree whispered. “It wasn’t the cult.”
The moment the old hag’s words ended, arrows and throwing knives fell from the deep blue sky. How many had come? Rain-like arrows rained down. Pa-pa-pak-! Even though they were shooting wildly, for some reason the hit rate on the tree I was on was quite high. “……What? Is there some kind of person discrimination? They don’t land near the old hag much.”
Frowning, I looked around and saw a bird flapping its wings and staring at me in the sky a little further away. ……No way. Yeah, my sad premonitions usually came true. The bird flew away as soon as our eyes met, and soon a puff sound rang in the clear sky, and purple smoke began to descend. Just looking at it, the machine looked good for your health. “Poison.”
The old hag didn’t need to say it, I knew. Sighing, I took a breath of the purple air surrounding me. My tongue would tingle for a long time, and I might get sick. Maybe I’d die.
[ Heavenly Slaughter Star activated. ]
“Of course, you.”
Feeling my whole body’s blood start to boil, I jumped from the tree. The old hag sighed and followed down. The next thing was obvious. We ran back along the mountain path we had walked so far while emitting red-black energy.
[ Combat situation has begun. ]
[ Physical stats have increased significantly. ]
[ Strength 38 → 51 ]
[ Health 39 → 52 ]
[ Agility 39 → 54 ]
It was the moment I started hunting in reverse.