The Tyrant King at Falling Moon Manor in Chang'an
It was truly absurd. The Demonic Cult bastards had taken up residence in Falling Moon Manor once again.
Ha. Seriously. What the hell were they trying to pull?
No matter how I looked at it, this was a provocation. It was no different from openly declaring they wanted to fight me.
An outright show of disrespect. The kind of confidence that said, Come if you dare.
It seemed these guys wanted to turn Chae Ji-gyu’s death into a meaningless dog’s death.
That didn’t sit well with me. I held considerable respect for that man.
But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t understand.
They must have seen the sword wound on Chae Ji-gyu’s body, right?
Crescent Moon. That strike. The sword path I had unleashed carrying my respect for him.
The Demonic Cult had definitely recovered the corpse. There was no way they hadn’t seen that final blow.
If they were properly trained in martial arts, they would have examined the cause of death and analyzed the sword path. There was no chance they missed it.
Yet they still did this? For real? What kind of insane guts did they have?
I decided to see for myself exactly what kind of bastard would boldly declare war like this.
I was curious. I hoped he was someone with the confidence to back up such arrogance.
It couldn’t be some clueless fool running on bravado or a poor subordinate forced to come here crying and eating mustard, right?
Falling Moon Manor. The same pavilion where Chae Ji-gyu had stayed.
Fortunately, the worry I’d carried with me seemed to have been needless.
The aura I sensed from inside was quite decent—demonic energy that burned fiercely yet remained well-refined.
It was interesting. Still not enough, though.
Anyway, I had to meet him. Questions needed answers.
I stepped into the pavilion. It was exactly the same as last time with Chae Ji-gyu.
And once again, the person inside failed to notice my presence.
“If you have a guest, shouldn’t you come out and greet them?”
The instant the words left my mouth, a thunderous boom shook the air as the wall exploded and a rather impressive strike hurtled toward me.
Tsk. Knowing this would happen, I had brought my sword today.
I drew the Dark Name Sword and lightly blocked the blow. Through the shattered gap, the man’s figure came into view.
Impressive build. Short-cropped hair. Deeply tanned skin. A rugged, manly face. And the massive greatsword gripped in his hand.
His second attack came immediately.
A savage slash. Despite the weapon’s heavy weight, the consecutive strikes were faster than most men’s swords.
It was a considerable level. Among everyone I had met since arriving in this murim, I was confident he possessed the highest skill.
When I blocked the second strike just as easily, his expression turned ferocious. The demonic energy that had been rising from him vanished, replaced by pitch-black blade qi wrapping around the greatsword.
Seeing that, I could tell. This man’s level was probably at the realm of Escape Demon.
The same realm Chae Ji-gyu had realized in his final moments.
A realm the righteous path would call the Manifestation Realm.
Thanks to that, the pavilion quickly turned into a wreck.
The man’s blackened greatsword crushed everything it touched as it charged at me.
There was only one thing it couldn’t destroy.
The Dark Name Sword in my hand. The black blade that calmly received every ounce of his sword force.
“Uaaaaah!”
The man roared, then seemed to decide probing wasn’t working. He abruptly changed tactics.
Gripping the greatsword with both hands, he poured every bit of his strength into a single strike.
An excellent decision. He must have realized there was no point in testing the waters and wasting energy.
So he went straight for the strongest blow he could produce.
It was rational. Pretty good, even.
But this one would be hard to block lightly. The killing intent behind it was ferocious.
That was why I swung my sword with genuine seriousness.
Heavy within heavy. Power against power.
This seemed like the best approach against him.
If his most confident strike was shattered, it would go beyond simply blocking the attack and could crush his confidence entirely.
Long ago, there had been a time when I strove to cut through the black wall.
The period when I deeply contemplated how much heavy, powerful force I could pour into a sword.
The single strike I had devised back then. The name of that sword path was Gravity Sword.
A sword path designed to contain the heaviest, most powerful force imaginable. Simple in name, yet born from an understanding of gravity’s overwhelming might.
It was a rather simple name. Heavy and powerful force, so Gravity Sword.
But having studied science, I knew exactly how immense the power of gravity truly was.
That was why I had given it that name.
The sword and greatsword collided.
In the eyes of the man swinging his weapon, I caught a flicker of doubt.
Can I really block this sword?
Can my greatsword overcome his?
It was a natural question, but one he should never have shown in this moment.
Tsk. He should have held absolute conviction in his own strike.
Even if it ended up being blocked.
In that regard, Chae Ji-gyu had been superior. Realm alone didn’t determine everything after all.
Boom!
The instant my Dark Name Sword met his greatsword, a powerful shockwave erupted and the entire pavilion was obliterated.
Some of the Demonic Cult members who had rushed over at the first disturbance were blown away as well.
The now completely open space. There stood the man, still gripping his greatsword, body trembling violently.
Those two arms looked unusable from now on.
Even my own arms were shaking. He probably wouldn’t be able to lift that greatsword any higher than its current position ever again.
“You’re the Tyrant King, right? Tyrant King Gwak Ju-gyeong?”
He couldn’t even answer. He simply glared at me with gritted teeth, as if he couldn’t comprehend the current situation.
I didn’t need to hear a reply anyway.
In the current murim, no one but the Tyrant King possessed that level of skill.
Tyrant King Gwak Ju-gyeong.
One of the two surviving members of the Three Supremes and Seven Kings who had once been called the top ten masters of the murim.
Given that he stood at the Escape Demon realm and had still come so boldly even after Chae Ji-gyu’s death, it had to be him.
And once I accepted that, the Demonic Cult’s actions made perfect sense.
They must have believed someone of the Tyrant King’s caliber could handle the problem.
He too must have felt a surge of competitive spirit upon seeing that sword wound.
“W-what the… ugh.”
He must have clearly felt the state of his arms, because his expression grew increasingly grotesque.
Escape Demon. The same realm as Manifestation Realm.
A person at that level had lost the use of both arms forever.
No amount of rest and care could restore them. The damage was too severe.
Who knows. Maybe Hwan-gol-tal-tae could fix it.
But without that, this man was finished.
The Demonic Cult revered the strong.
A Tyrant King who could no longer use his arms would become nothing more than prey for those who had hidden their old grudges.
“Damn it! Don’t look at me like that! Just kill me already!”
Of course he understood. He shouted fiercely, still gripping his greatsword.
Rather than live pathetically, he would rather die here and now.
“Yeah. That would be cleaner.”
I granted his wish.
He didn’t possess quite the same spirit as Chae Ji-gyu, but the Tyrant King had his own pride. It wasn’t ugly.
So I swung my sword.
To the man who still refused to release his greatsword, I offered rest with respect.
With a clean slicing sound, the Tyrant King’s head fell.
An anticlimactic end, unbecoming of a demonic practitioner who had reached Escape Demon.
And the countless Demonic Cult members staring at the scene in utter disbelief.
As I sheathed my sword, I felt numerous gazes lock onto me.
The Demonic Cult members who had arrived with the Tyrant King, brimming with arrogance.
But not anymore. They were frozen in shock and horror, unable to utter a single word.
My resounding shout left them all staring at me with dazed expressions.
In the eyes of those who had been bracing for death, a sliver of hope began to rise.
Having said my piece, I turned away from the ruined pavilion and strolled leisurely toward the entrance of Falling Moon Manor.
Countless eyes followed me. Eyes filled with fear and wariness.
Yet none of them attacked. They simply stepped aside in silence.
Well, charging me in a group here wouldn’t be revenge. It would be a dog’s death.
It would only prove they were mayflies who couldn’t even gauge their opponent’s strength before rushing in recklessly.
No matter that they were from the Demonic Cult, since I had spared them, they wouldn’t do something so stupid.
And so I left Falling Moon Manor.
No one dared follow me. Seeing that, it seemed the Demonic Cult members were surprisingly rational.
They had chosen not to let their anger grow any further.
There must have been someone under the Tyrant King with a sharp mind.
Thus, the Demonic Cult’s second attempt to claim Chang’an ended in complete failure.
Pitiful bastards. Yeah, none of this was really the rank-and-file members’ fault.
They probably never imagined the Tyrant King would fall so easily.
Anyway, with the Tyrant King now dead as well, only one of the former top ten masters remained.
The Killing King, wasn’t it? But that guy had nothing to do with the Righteous-Demonic Great War. No, the Tang Family Head was still around. There was the Poison King too. I’d completely forgotten about him.
In any case, one more remnant of the Righteous-Demonic Great War had vanished.
The existence of Tyrant King Gwak Ju-gyeong had been living proof that the final victor of that war had been the Demonic Cult.
But now he was gone. The Demonic Cult would surely be thrown into chaos by this sudden loss.
Experts at the Manifestation Realm didn’t appear easily, after all.
Moreover, they would no longer dare target the Chang’an region.
Somehow, I had ended up single-handedly blocking the Demonic Cult’s advance into the Central Plains.
After the matter with the Tyrant King concluded, the very next day arrived.
The Demonic Cult members withdrew from Falling Moon Manor with surprising cleanliness.
Were these guys so used to retreating? How could they move that fast?
Just to be sure they hadn’t left anything behind in secret, I spent the next several days thoroughly searching not only Falling Moon Manor but every corner of Chang’an.
But there was nothing. It seemed they had truly pulled out completely.
Was it because they respected the strong? When someone powerful spoke, did they actually listen?
In a way, that made sense. There was nothing simpler than that.
With Chang’an clean once more, I resumed my periodic checks on Qing Mountain and the Black Merchant Sect.
Both places remained unchanged. Not a single suspicious sign.
It would be nice if something showed up.
Still, there was no need to grow impatient. Time in the murim had always flowed slowly.
Another day passed, and now it was March. The sun hung high at lunchtime, carrying rather blunt winds.
The season when plum blossoms began to bloom and the surroundings grew a little brighter.
The bitterly cold winter gradually faded, leaving only the memory of how cold it had once been.
Perhaps it felt more pronounced because I didn’t feel the cold at all.
When one becomes numb to the weather, one also becomes numb to the passage of time.
I continued my rounds of Qing Mountain and the Black Merchant Sect.
Occasionally I would also glance toward Falling Moon Manor and the rest of Chang’an.
Just in case some of those who had left were trying to sneak back in unnoticed.
Even if such people existed, they wouldn’t come to Falling Moon Manor. Doing so would make them complete idiots.
It would be the same as proving they had no brains.
But on one such day in March, I discovered an idiot at Falling Moon Manor.
Inside a building next to the completely destroyed pavilion where Chae Ji-gyu and the Tyrant King had fought.
It was unmistakably demonic energy. Which meant it belonged to someone from the Demonic Cult.
What was this? I had clearly told them not to come anywhere near here.
Driven by curiosity, I headed toward the source of the presence.
And there I found a woman dressed in a pitch-black, ornate palace robe.