Chapter 253
Chapter 253
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 70
>Chapter Title: Demon (2)
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“The throne? I don’t know about that. But you might just be the human embodiment of the demon I’ve been searching for. Ah! Yes. The title that truly suits you is demon.”
Demon.
Mok Kyung-un’s mind went blank at the golden-furred nine-tailed fox’s words.
His focus was solely on the fact that she knew his true name, Jeong.
‘What did she do?’
Even if his mind had been hazy, the odds of him blurting it out himself were low.
Yet she had brought up Jeong, which meant...
‘Did she... see my memories?’
There was no other explanation.
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox toyed with his cheek as she spoke.
“How about it? Does ‘demon’ sound good? Just ‘demon’ feels a bit plain, so maybe add a surname? Like Heavenly Demon or...”
Before she could finish, Mok Kyung-un cut her off.
“Did you see my memories?”
“Oh my. Quick on the uptake. Well, not all of them—just some, I suppose?”
At her words, Mok Kyung-un’s gaze turned icy.
He could overlook other things, but prying into his memories filled him with disgust.
And judging by the current situation, she had forced herself on him.
No— was still in the midst of it.
-Squeeze!
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox wrapped her legs tighter around him, her face flushed as she spoke.
“Haa... You know, since we’ve started, shouldn’t we see it through to the end?”
“......”
Mok Kyung-un didn’t respond.
At this rate, he’d be dragged along by this vixen yokai’s whims.
Whether it killed him or fed him, he had to do something.
With that, Mok Kyung-un tried to rally all the remaining demonic energy in his body to resist somehow.
‘!?’
A glint flashed in Mok Kyung-un’s eyes.
‘My demonic energy has recovered. No— it’s increased.’
The demonic energy in his body had nearly doubled from its original amount.
It was an utterly incomprehensible phenomenon.
He’d been badly injured and even lost consciousness— so why had his demonic energy swelled like this?
But that wasn’t even the end of it.
An enormous amount of yokai power had been absorbed into his body.
It dwarfed what he’d taken from the monster tanuki, the Sea Slayer King, and its purity was extraordinarily high.
‘...It’s too much to assimilate.’
The yokai power was so vast that even after assimilation, it would overflow.
Keeping it bottled up inside might even turn it poisonous.
The corner of Mok Kyung-un’s mouth twitched.
In that case, there was a way to use this pure, immense yokai power.
Mok Kyung-un promptly closed his eyes.
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox spoke in a seductive, lascivious purr, tempting him.
“Why? Don’t like this form? Should I change back to that resentful spirit’s appearance from before?”
-Swish!
No sooner had she spoken than the golden-furred nine-tailed fox swept a hand over her face, unleashing transformation magic.
In an instant, her face became Cheongryeong’s.
“Mortal.”
Even her voice matched perfectly.
Transformed into Cheongryeong, the golden-furred nine-tailed fox bucked her hips and whispered in Mok Kyung-un’s ear.
“Haa. Open your eyes, mortal...!?”
-Flinch!
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox’s eyes sharpened as she looked at Mok Kyung-un’s right hand.
-Crack! Crunch crunch!
Centered on his right hand, his entire arm bulged with veins pulsing alongside the vast yokai power, soon turning pitch black.
At this sight, the golden-furred nine-tailed fox was inwardly stunned.
‘This yokai power...’
It was her own.
Though absorbed by him, yokai power was essentially a deadly poison to humans, so she’d assumed he couldn’t assimilate and use it right away.
Yet he was wielding it without assimilation?
‘This guy... seriously?’
He didn’t seem human at all.
Separate from that entity trapped in his mind, this flesh-and-blood body was undeniably human.
She hadn’t expected this was possible.
Her gaze shifted to Mok Kyung-un’s neck.
A flick of her tail could snap it before he unleashed the yokai power.
But if this boy truly was the human embodiment of the demon that Strongest had prophesied, killing him now would mean losing him before he achieved anything.
“Tch.”
In the end, the golden-furred nine-tailed fox unwrapped her legs and seized Mok Kyung-un with her tail, slamming him toward the floor.
-Boom!
Mok Kyung-un’s body crashed through the floor, burrowing deep.
“Whew.”
With that much yokai power gathered, he could hurt even her, so knocking him out was the only option.
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox clicked her tongue in disappointment.
She’d thought she could finally sate her urges after so long, but not this time.
‘Whatever.’
She could keep him around and tempt him bit by bit.
He was wicked to begin with—no need to corrupt him; just make him hers, and it’d be perfect.
That’s what she thought when—
-Pop pop pop pop pop!
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox hurriedly crossed four tails like a shield in front of her.
At the same moment, a black line streaked past, and then—
-Kaboom!
‘Urk.’
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox’s body shot upward through the ceiling of King Gyeongchin’s chambers.
Someone dropped through the hole, landing lightly on the chamber floor.
-Tap!
It was none other than Mok Kyung-un.
-Drip drip! Plop plop!
Blood trickled from his blackened, grotesque right arm.
Mok Kyung-un stared at it, breathing raggedly.
“Hoo... Hoo...”
The side effect of explosively amplifying the absorbed yokai power with Reverse Blood Killing Art had ruptured the meridians in his right arm.
He’d definitely exceeded what he could handle without assimilation.
Yet, though it was just once, the strike unifying his sword intent with the golden-furred nine-tailed fox’s yokai power itself was of immeasurable power.
-Mortal!
Cheongryeong, now translucent, approached Mok Kyung-un.
She looked worriedly at his bloodied, mangled right arm.
-Are you alright?
“Who knows. It’ll be fine, won’t it?”
-...Where does that kind of talk come from? That hand and arm of yours...
Cheongryeong clicked her tongue at the sight.
The immense yokai power in Mok Kyung-un’s strike had astonished even her.
It must have been from what he absorbed from the golden-furred nine-tailed fox.
Trying to wield such tremendous power, even temporarily, naturally wrecked his hand and arm.
Ignoring his limp right arm, Mok Kyung-un approached Cheongryeong.
Then—
-Whoosh!
Cheongryeong turned her head away in bewilderment.
He was stark naked at the moment.
Moreover, his manhood was still prominently aroused, making it hard to look.
“What’s wrong?”
-You... right now... your state...
Unable to finish her sentence, Cheongryeong flustered Mok Kyung-un into realizing his condition.
“Ah.”
Mok Kyung-un extended his left hand toward the left side of the chamber.
King Gyeongchin’s outer robes hung there.
No pants in sight, but he tied the sleeves around his waist to cover his lower half.
Cheongryeong glanced over, then half-turned her head and grumbled curtly.
-You look just like a beast in heat.
“......”
Mok Kyung-un shut his mouth.
Normally, he’d brush it off, but the faint memory surfaced of bedding the golden-furred nine-tailed fox—transformed into Cheongryeong’s likeness—right in front of the real one.
Even if under the vixen’s spell, thinking about it with the person herself present felt oddly awkward.
Was Cheongryeong reacting because of that?
After a pause, Mok Kyung-un asked her.
“Are you upset?”
-Upset?
“Yes.”
-Would this lord get upset over something like that? I’m just a dead resentful spirit anyway. What do I care who you sleep with and make a fuss over?
For someone unbothered, her tone was awfully raised.
She even stuttered.
Mok Kyung-un said outright.
“Even so, that vixen yokai transformed into your form, so it felt like I was doing it with you. So I wondered if...”
-Stop! Stop! Stop!
“......”
Cheongryeong scolded him to cut off his words.
That scene kept replaying in her mind, driving her mad.
As she’d just said, she was already dead—her only purpose lingering was to resolve her grudge.
But the heart didn’t work that way.
‘Damn it!’
The image kept forcing her to fixate on Mok Kyung-un.
Rationally, she knew the golden-furred nine-tailed fox had done it to cloud his mind.
But conversely, he hadn’t seen her as a woman.
When he’d said he slept with Wi So-yeon, the third disciple of the Heaven-Earth Society leader who resembled her, he’d framed it as mere utilization.
‘...What the hell?’
This time felt different.
Why had he held out fine until she took her form, then reacted?
Dwelling on it made her care, despite the resentful spirit nonsense.
It was as if this mortal...
‘...Could he see this lord as a woman?’
Clutching her head, Cheongryeong peeked at Mok Kyung-un.
After that incident, he gazed back with his usual unaffected eyes.
Seeing that sparked anger in her.
Was she the only one overthinking and making a scene?
Her emotions swung wildly, beyond control.
That was when—
-Swish!
A hand touched her head.
Only Mok Kyung-un could directly touch her spirit body.
Feeling his gentle touch, Cheongryeong’s cheeks flushed scarlet despite being ethereal. Panicking, she wrapped her arms around herself and shouted.
-D-don’t touch!
“What if I don’t?”
-What?
Cheongryeong’s eyes widened.
What was this guy saying?
Truly flustered, she hugged herself tighter and backed away.
-...Are you really a beast? Like that fox bitch—no, vixen. Anyway, after messing with that slut, what? Dead or not, now you want a go with a resentful spirit too?
“......”
-So pent up you’re desperate to...
“What are you talking about?”
-What do you mean? You, to this lord...
“If you stay like that, your spirit body will scatter and dissipate, you know?”
-Huh?
“I was going to share some of the absorbed yokai power, but seems you misunderstood.”
-......
For a moment, she was mortified.
Mok Kyung-un shrugged toward her, approached, and extended his hand.
“Should’ve asked first. Mind if I transfer some yokai power?”
-......
Unable to meet his eyes, Cheongryeong quietly nodded.
If her spirit body weren’t weakened, she’d crawl into any hole available.
Watching her, the corner of Mok Kyung-un’s mouth twitched.
He then placed his hand on her spirit body to infuse the absorbed yokai power.
But right then—
-Tap!
Someone lightly descended through the ceiling.
It was the golden-furred nine-tailed fox.
‘Damn!’
Mok Kyung-un shoved Cheongryeong’s spirit body behind him and rallied his demonic energy.
He’d condensed that immense yokai power into a single point, infused it into his sword intent, and unleashed it—yet she’d endured.
Virtually unscathed.
The only difference: one tail was partially severed.
Just the tip sliced off.
‘...Just part of a tail?’
Worthy of her titles as one of the Six Demons and a great spirit beast near divine.
He hadn’t been a match from the start.
Tension thickened the air to a razor’s edge when—
-Plop!
The golden-furred nine-tailed fox, her face fierce, casually tossed aside the severed tip of her tail and spoke.
“For a moment, I thought about just killing you. Let’s end it here.”
‘!?’