The Woman in the Bamboo Hat
Poison qi and a razor edge of killing intent flashed at her fingertips. Dang Yeohye poured out a savage assault, both hands curled like the talons of a bird of prey.
Her Fierce Jade Claws tore in like a storm—raking, twisting, ripping—yet the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord met every form with the tyrannical Nine Nether Demon Palm and shattered them all.
Crack-crack-crack!
Claw techniques and palm strikes tangled wildly in the air. Each time the four hands collided, a violent shockwave blasted outward.
The air itself screamed as it was torn apart. Attacks flew without pause, one after another.
Demon qi stained the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord’s hands and feet as he carved through the space in front of him. Strikes came at bizarre angles, hunting the vital blood points of Dang Yeohye’s body.
If she died, the pure true qi at her core would scatter, so he tried to subdue her. She seized on that hesitation and hammered him with wave after wave of offense.
Yet no matter how much internal energy he poured out without rest, the Demon Lord showed not the slightest fatigue. How much life force had he already drained?
Crack! Thud!
Everyone held their breath and watched the duel. After roughly thirty exchanges, Dang Yeohye realized her paper-white hands had somehow turned a deep red.
“Hah… hah…”
She had locked her hand qi tight for every clash, yet the destructive demon energy had still shredded her fingers to tatters.
Reading her flinch, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord clenched a fist and drove a lightning-fast punch straight in.
Boom!
Dang Yeohye crossed both arms and barely blocked the unexpected fist technique. The power behind it was so crushing that she was forced to skid nearly a full jang backward.
“Cough!”
She spat a mouthful of dark-red blood. Both arms felt ready to snap.
Worse still was the vile demon qi that had seeped in through her hands and wrists and was now rampaging inside her body.
Feeling that alien, violent energy thrash through her meridians, Dang Yeohye bit down hard on her blood-smeared lips.
“That just now was the Demon-Raising Fist. Even if you wrap yourself in qi, the demon energy drills into you like a penetrating needle. How do you like it?”
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord flexed a palm still crawling with black energy as he spoke. The faint, cruel smile at the corner of his mouth said he already considered the fight won.
“Hmph. That slimy, sour stench suits a withered old fossil like you perfectly!”
Dang Yeohye shot back in a sharp, venomous voice, refusing to yield an inch.
Amused by her poisonous defiance, he gave a short laugh and once more assumed the stance of the Demon-Raising Fist.
…Fuck. What now?
Outwardly she blustered, but the internal injuries felt ominous, and her opponent was at least a Transcendental Peak master.
If she had known it would come to this, she should have listened to her father Dang Yangcheon and stayed quietly locked away in the clan.
His warning that her habit of charging in first would one day bring disaster rose unbidden in her mind.
Should I run even now?
The thought was tempting.
But that brat earlier had risked his life to fight. Could the great Poison Claw Mountain Blood turn tail in front of a bunch of kids?
She steeled her heart and raised her pointed nails once more.
Come to think of it… how did that kid dodge the old monster’s attacks earlier?
Even her ever-changing Fierce Jade Claws had only managed to block. Yet the brat called Dan Mujin had slipped past the fists again and again.
Thanks to that, she had even begun to believe she could hold out until Hwang Geolgae arrived.
“If you had simply stayed still I would have drained your life force last of all. Yet you insist on choosing the cup of punishment!”
Calling her a wench who hastened her own death, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord shot forward.
He unleashed the Demon-Raising Fist in rapid succession, black demon qi wreathing every strike.
Boom! Boom!
Terrifying fist pressure roared down. Black shockwaves shook the earth. With every exchange, thick demon qi piled up inside her body.
At last Dang Yeohye could no longer endure and vomited another mouthful of blood.
Feeling her meridians twist and her organs seize, she flung out poison powder, unfurled Fierce Jade Claws, and retreated swiftly.
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord stuck to her like a shadow, determined to give her no breathing room.
A ferocious barrage poured down, meant to crush her fighting spirit completely.
“Damn it…!”
The metallic taste of blood rode every ragged breath.
Fists that would pulverize flesh and shatter bone rained from every direction the moment she let her guard slip.
Forced entirely onto the defensive, Dang Yeohye could barely block, let alone counter.
In the end a palm strike that twisted in at a grotesque angle slammed into her side.
“Ghk!”
With a choked scream she was hurled away. Pain that twisted her five viscera and six bowels tore through her entire body.
She could not even cry out properly; only broken gasps escaped her throat.
A cold sneer on his face, the short old man trudged toward her wretched, sprawled form.
She tried desperately to rise, but her body—meridians tangled by demon qi—refused to move.
Strength drained from her limbs. Her body felt as heavy as if a thousand catties sat upon it. Her vision blurred.
I, Dang Yeohye… dying like this…?
The Beggar King never appeared.
Instead the century-old monster who drank human life force stood right in front of her, both hands wreathed in the wicked demonic art that stole the very source of life.
“Ha…”
The sight reminded her of the Rank-B vagabond who had withered away earlier just like Mok Nae-i.
She had stepped into the jianghu ready for death, yet she never imagined she would meet such a miserable end.
“Older brother… everything… all of it… meaningless…”
Just as she lamented her fate and prepared to squeeze her eyes shut—
Boom—!
A familiar explosion rang in her ears.
The situation was going badly.
Our opponent was a former Demon Head infamous for the Star-Absorbing Great Method.
With the Eight Wall Formation and the escorts already neutralized, if Dang Yeohye fell as well, we were truly finished.
“Ilhong!”
I stamped the ground hard and shouted her name.
As if our minds were linked, she had already drawn a cylindrical hidden weapon, ready to save Dang Yeohye.
Boom—!
Black powder ignited. Sharp flying needles erupted amid flame and sparks.
Sensing them, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord swept his left hand through the air. The resulting palm force became a gale that blasted the needles aside in a glittering rain.
Ta-at!
I used the moment his balance and attention tilted to one side and charged from the opposite direction.
The peerless movement art Whirlwind Steps closed three jang in an instant. I stretched out my hand toward the endangered Dang Yeohye.
But the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord flicked his right hand, and a fist thick with killing intent suddenly filled my vision.
Without the Heavenly Killing Star I would have taken that blow with a stupid “Huh?” I sensed the crimson trajectory aimed at my brow and jerked my head back with everything I had.
I dodged the fist technique by a hair. The fist wind still tore my face open and spattered blood, but I accepted it.
Thump!
I shoved the trembling Dang Yeohye—rising like a newborn fawn—safely aside and planted myself in front of the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord.
“…Hmm? I distinctly shattered your shoulder.”
He checked my face, then gaped at how whole I looked.
“Ah, that?”
I made a show of rolling both shoulders and loosening up.
Earlier that blazing red energy had poured into me like mad and completely restored the bone.
She treated this body as something she would eventually devour, so her care was almost tender.
“Reading my attacks in advance earlier, and now this… you are a strange one.”
“Strange? Old man, maybe your strength’s just failing because it’s your time to die.”
At my taunt the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord’s eyes flashed cold.
“Then this time I will simply chop off all four limbs!”
He layered razor hand qi over his blade-edge palm and roared as he struck.
Ta-at!
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord appeared before me like lightning and swept the glittering hand-blade.
Blood sprayed from my shoulder with a wet “pshhh!” Yet in that split second I leaned my upper body back and at least avoided the severing cut.
“That again. The eyes read, the body follows!”
He could not understand how a First-class and Second-class borderline fighter who had not even reached Peak kept wriggling like a loach and escaping fatal wounds.
I flooded every meridian with internal energy and pushed Whirlwind Steps to the extreme.
Shhhk—!
A sharp fingertip drew a straight line across my abdomen. Blood gushed, but by yanking my waist back I saved the peritoneum; my organs did not spill out for public viewing.
“Kh!”
Attacks rained down in a dizzying storm, each trailing a piercing whistle of torn air.
Hwang Geolgae once said a true master can recover most of his energy if given even a single breath.
So I had to buy time. Even a little more, for the people behind me.
This body would mend no matter how badly it was wrecked, so I tanked the Transcendental Peak master’s strikes with pure flesh, dodging only the truly lethal ones.
The one silver lining was that the Heavenly Killing Star, faced with a life-or-death crisis, went berserk and let me read the attacks on pure instinct.
Whish! Whish! Whish!
Yet once he decided I was reading him, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord lowered the power of each individual strike and instead flooded me with sheer volume so my body could not keep up.
Hands and feet laced with sharp qi came from every direction.
Long crimson wounds carved themselves into my flesh. An earlobe was sliced off; severed strands of hair hung in the air like blood droplets.
Slash!
One attack cut deep and ripped a long gash down my forearm.
“Kh!”
The wound was so deep white bone flashed.
My whole body was already a blood-soaked ruin. Dizzy from blood loss, I watched the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord shoot toward me again.
Just as the thought that I might actually die this time crossed my mind—
“Hey! Brat!”
Dang Yeohye, having recovered a little energy in the interval, dragged me back while scattering hidden weapons and poison powder.
A calculated move that counted on my poison resistance.
“Why the hell did you come back here!”
It was a scolding for not running away after she had saved me earlier.
“It’s not like this is off-limits. Besides, you came back too.”
If I had left her, she would have been drained dry and the rest of us would have been wiped out automatically. The only reason we still had any chance was because I stepped in to buy time.
“Even a brat like you is fighting. How could I run with my face intact?”
“Enough with the ‘brat, brat.’ Cut it out already. I’m taller than you, you know.”
I had grown so fast over the winter that I even got growth pains.
“…Shut up or I’ll kill you.”
Even with a face that looked ready to die, she bristled the instant I teased her about her height. A perfect berserk button.
Still, with the two of us working together, a fragile hope began to form that we might hold out until Hwang Geolgae arrived.
Then a chilling voice cut through the thick dark-green poison mist.
“You are starting to annoy me.”
Black eyes flashed. Having chewed through the poison powder, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord charged like lightning and unleashed the Nine Nether Demon Palm with both hands.
Thud!
An extreme swiftness whose principle left no room for reaction. The killing technique of a Transcendental Peak master smashed into both my chest and Dang Yeohye’s.
I could not even grunt as I flew through the air for a long stretch. My body was flung down hard.
Agony as if every bone had shattered clouded my consciousness.
“…Gangqi!”
Dang Yeohye coughed blood as she stared at the ferocious energy condensed on the old man’s hands.
It was the Gangqi said to be usable only for a short time once a Transcendental Peak master reached the fully mature stage of the realm.
“Now that the meddlers are gone, shall we finish what we started?”
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord walked slowly toward the blood-soaked Dang Yeohye who had been driven back in a long slide.
I wanted to force myself up at once, but the internal injuries had twisted every strand of qi and blood inside me.
I had poured out even the strength I had suckled as a baby, and this was the result.
I cursed Hwang Geolgae, who had still not returned after chasing that Nanga Peak freak as if possessed.
“You looked like you had found a little hope a moment ago. If you intend to beg for your life, now is the time.”
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord asked in a mocking tone.
“…Fuck off.”
“Heh. A spirited girl to the very end. Your accumulated internal energy must be solid as well. For you I shall specially scour every meridian and extract every last grain of true source qi.”
He spoke as if treating a person like a living jar of internal energy.
But hearing him say he would comb through my entire body, a certain old man who had once nearly killed me while pouring true qi into me, and a tiny trick, flashed through my mind.
“Ugh.”
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord pressed a thumb to Dang Yeohye’s Conception Vessel and seized her by the throat, lifting her.
“Soul-Reaving Demon Lord! Stop—I have a proposal!”
When I shouted at the top of my lungs, he jerked in surprise and scanned me with his eyes.
“…What? How are you still alive? I drove a perfected Nine Nether Demon Palm into you.”
It had not been a half-hearted suppression but a killing technique with full power, so my still breathing clearly astonished him.
An expression of pure disbelief settled on the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord’s face.
“Probably thanks to a spiritual beast I ate earlier.”
“Hmm? A spiritual beast. What kind?”
“The Ten-thousand-year Fire Carp. I swallowed it without knowing what it was in some cave, and it became a fortuitous encounter. That is why I could read your attacks as if divining them, and why I survived that last strike.”
I answered him calmly while he still held Dang Yeohye by the throat.
Of course every word was pure bullshit. I had never even seen the first character of the word “spiritual beast” in my entire life.
“On top of that I still have not fully digested the overflowing Yang energy, so more than thirty years’ worth of power remains dormant throughout my meridians.”
But spiritual medicines and spiritual beasts were the sort of things almost no one had actually eaten; only rumors flourished and easily deceived people.
“Hmm. Why tell me all this so willingly?”
Naturally the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord suspected a scheme first.
“Take me instead. Let her go.”
At my words Dang Yeohye’s eyes flew wide open.
“Hey, stop talking crap and just run—mmph!”
The Soul-Reaving Demon Lord sealed her mute point, annoyed by the noise.
“An interesting tale. Yet if I can simply take both of you, why should I?”
I picked up one of the poison needles he had earlier blasted away with a gale and pressed it to my own throat.
No matter how many years of internal energy lived inside a body, once you died only a hunk of meat remained—completely worthless.
“…Heh. You two must be quite close. To think a righteous heroine would form a bond with a boy this young.”
He seemed to have misunderstood that I was risking my life to save her.
In truth I was gambling to kill the bastard, but whatever.
“Fine. I can simply let this girl g—hup!”
Pretending to release Dang Yeohye, he shot forward like an arrow, snatched the poison needle, and sealed my mute point.
He smiled crookedly, then placed index and middle fingers on my Conception Vessel exactly as before.
“Heh-heh. The internal energy you have accumulated at such a young age is indeed unusual.”
An unfamiliar true qi raced from the Bright Hall point through the Central Pivot point and into every corner of my body.
He had not found everything yet, but he seemed to believe my words were at least partly true; a satisfied expression already spread across his face.
“Good. First I shall absorb your internal energy with the Star-Absorbing Method. Child of the Dang Clan, watch your little husband wither and die just like Mok Nae-i. Keh-keh.”
Wicked energy gathered at his fingertips. At the very instant he prepared to drain everything I possessed with the Star-Absorbing Great Method—
The foul demon qi thrashing through me like an occupying army finally woke something inside.
“Ugh?!”
Blazing crimson energy of the Heavenly Killing Star bloomed throughout my entire body.
An eon of slaughter karma reverse-flowed along the invading true qi and poured into him in a single heartbeat.
When I turned my eyes, I saw a face flushed so red it looked ready to explode.
“I don’t know what you saw, but give my regards for me.”
“Uuuuurgh—!”
In those few seconds he must have taken catastrophic internal damage; the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord vomited blood.
He flung me away with every ounce of strength and staggered backward as if bouncing off a wall.
“Kyaaah! You son of a bitch…!”
Eyes blazing with pure killing intent, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord glared at me in absolute rage.
“What the hell was that just now! What did you show me…! Uuuurgh!”
He poured out another massive volume of blood. Not only from his mouth—streams of blood ran from ears, nose, and eyes as he screamed.
Judging by the look of him he was probably bleeding from below as well. So this was the legendary Seven Orifices Spouting Blood.
Hwang Geolgae had said he himself survived only because he cultivated the Cloud Star Heart Method; anyone else would have gone straight to the Yellow Springs. Turns out that had been pure truth.
“I will tear you apart and kill you—!”
Yet the sheer depth of his accumulated internal energy kept him from dying on the spot.
Forcing down the energy that raged like a fireball inside him, the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord charged at me.
“Mutual destruction, is it? Well, better than dying alone, I guess.”
My final gamble seemed to have succeeded only halfway.
Still, intending at least a last struggle, I gripped a poison needle and began gathering energy—
Chaaeng—!
A long, straight Eastern-style longsword suddenly flew in and powerfully struck aside the Soul-Reaving Demon Lord’s Gangqi-wrapped fist.
With a flutter of martial robes, a slender female master landed lightly beside me.
“I heard everything from afar, young hero. Quite the spirit.”
She lifted her bamboo hat slightly as she spoke.
The characters for Demon Extermination were inlaid on her scabbard.