What Did You Say? (9)
“S-stop them!”
The moment Dan Ja-gang launched himself forward, screams erupted from the Black Ghost Guard elites.
The Manjin Great Elder was someone they had to protect with their lives. That belief, hammered into them over years until it was almost a form of brainwashing, howled at them to throw themselves in front of him and shield him at once.
But legs did not obey as easily as mouths.
Blood-red light blazed from Dan Ja-gang’s eyes.
Black demonic qi coiled around his entire body.
It looked as though the vengeful spirits of all the dead he had slaughtered were circling him. That horrifying, almost unbearable spectacle seized their ankles and held them in place.
Reason said they had to fight. Instinct screamed that they wanted to live. The two clashed again and again within them.
Then, in that instant, the Black Ghost Guard’s elites proved their worth. Overcoming their primal fear, they hurled themselves forward in waves and blocked the path to the Manjin Great Elder.
But doing the right thing did not always lead to the right outcome.
Kwaaaaaa!
Dan Ja-gang’s swinging hand smashed straight into the head of the man who had stepped in front of him.
Kwaaaang!
With a tremendous blast, the shattered skull scattered in all directions like hidden weapons.
The fragments were barely the length of a finger, but the force packed into them smashed through the protective qi the man had raised as if it were paper. And that wasn’t all—the bone shards spun through the air and pierced the frail human bodies around him.
“Kraaahhh!”
The wound in the chest was no more than a hole the size of a fingernail, but the injury in his back was large enough to fit a human fist clean through.
In an instant, Dan Ja-gang turned the dozen men charging at him into a pulpy mess, then bared his fangs and tore into the groaning survivors with savage eyes.
Blood splattered. Flesh was ripped away.
“D-die! You monsteraaaaah!”
Perhaps it was courage, or perhaps only recklessness. Perhaps it was nothing more than a desperate struggle at the brink.
Dan Ja-gang punished those who dared defy him with merciless brutality.
Shaaaaaak!
The blades of black demonic qi bursting from both his hands carved the charging men apart in the literal sense. Bodies reduced to minced flesh scattered as a thick mist of blood rose all around him.
Geumma Haeng. The demon walks the world.
The demonic energy pouring out of him tore the air itself and churned the surrounding space. Before that overwhelming majesty, even the Black Ghost Guard, which had once driven Jiangnan into terror, was utterly powerless.
And then, at that moment, the Manjin Great Elder drove his feet into the ground and launched himself—not forward, but backward.
“Stop him!”
A sharp shout burst from the Manjin Great Elder’s mouth.
There was only one worst-case scenario he needed to consider: dying here.
In the Evil Faction, the fall of the head meant destruction. If he died, the Black Ghost Guard would collapse in an instant, and that had to be avoided at all costs.
Having finished his calculation, the Manjin Great Elder withdrew with all his might.
It might be wretched, but he had to survive this place and escape alive. Only then could he spread word of that mad monster to the world.
But Dan Ja-gang was not so merciful that he would let the prey he had marked simply run away.
Paaaat!
Those standing in the Manjin Great Elder’s way were smashed into bloody mush and scattered like shattered clay.
Having broken, trampled, and pierced through everything in his path, Dan Ja-gang shot after the Manjin Great Elder like a black arrow.
“Kuh!”
Light flashed from the Manjin Great Elder’s waist.
Ghost King Appears!
The ultimate art he was proud to proclaim to the world sliced across empty space. A perfect strike, one with no waste at all. How many had vanished into a handful of lingering souls before this lightning-fast sword?
But.
Kagagagang!
The sword strike the Manjin Great Elder unleashed collided with Dan Ja-gang’s hand and was thrown back in its entirety. The Manjin Great Elder’s eyes widened before he even realized it.
He caught my sword with his hand?
Kyaaaaaaaaaak!
At that instant, from the fingertips of Dan Ja-gang’s raised hand, a massive blade of demonic qi surged upward. A demonic blade like the claw of an asura descending upon the mortal world poured down over the Manjin Great Elder’s head.
Unable to even think of blocking it, the Manjin Great Elder kicked off the ground and rolled sideways.
Kwaaaaaaaang!
Where the blade of demonic qi struck earth, a vast scar was left behind, as if some monstrous bird had raked the ground with its talons. It was a sight so unbelievable that even seeing it with his own eyes felt impossible.
“You filthy unbeliever!”
Dan Ja-gang threw his head back and roared like a beast.
The Manjin Great Elder broke out in a cold sweat all over his body.
How in the world was this happening?
The one dominating the battlefield was, naturally, Dan Ja-gang. The Black Ghost Guard could not even stop him. So why was that man acting like a wounded beast in a frenzy?
“You—!”
Dan Ja-gang’s hands began to darken to pitch black.
“I won’t let you die so easily!”
The anger in his eyes boiled like lava. Dan Ja-gang shouted as though he could no longer contain his fury. Veins and tendons bulged sharply all over his face.
“I’ll tear that blasphemous mouth that dared speak His name to a thousand pieces! You unbeliever!”
Kwaaaang!
Stamping brutally into the ground, Dan Ja-gang surged toward the Manjin Great Elder once more at a terrifying speed.
The Manjin Great Elder dodged again by throwing himself to the side.
Kwaaaaaang!
The earth where Dan Ja-gang’s fist struck crumbled like tofu. Then it exploded upward as if a shell had struck water.
Paaaat!
Having flung himself clear of the attack, the Manjin Great Elder twisted midair and unleashed Three Swords toward Dan Ja-gang.
Three streaks of sword light, sharp beyond sharp, came flying in at lightning speed.
An ordinary man would evade; another would block. But Dan Ja-gang neither dodged nor defended. Instead, he wrapped himself in demonic qi and charged straight through the sword aura.
What?
Bang!
The black demonic qi he released repelled all three incoming sword strikes. The Manjin Great Elder reflexively kicked off the ground and flew backward.
But he could not keep evading perfectly forever.
Kwadududuk!
Dan Ja-gang’s hand, swept out like the forepaw of a beast of prey, raked across the Manjin Great Elder’s chest. Flesh was torn away in a handful, and blood gushed from his breast.
“Where do you think you’re running, you rat!”
Dan Ja-gang pursuing the Manjin Great Elder looked like a hawk striking down on its prey. Cornered, the Manjin Great Elder clenched his teeth and gripped his sword.
His signature move, the ultimate technique of the Ghost King’s Twelve Streams, Ghost King Tribulation Heaven, burst forth more fiercely than at any moment in his life.
Kwa-gak! Kwagagagagak!
The demonic qi wrapped around Dan Ja-gang and his sword aura collided violently in midair.
“Grrrrraaaahhhh!”
With a monstrous cry that seemed impossible to have come from the Manjin Great Elder’s mouth, sword qi bluer than deep azure tore through Dan Ja-gang’s demonic energy.
Paatt! Paatt!
In an instant, bright red bloodlines slashed across Dan Ja-gang’s body in crisscrossing streaks.
“Yooooooou bastard!”
The follow-up strike, Ghost King Pierces the Sun, shot through the gap where the torn demonic qi had split apart, moving with lightning speed.
Kwaddddduduk!
“…….”
The Manjin Great Elder’s eyes trembled for a moment.
The tip of his sword, filled with a piercing blue sword aura, had lodged itself dead center in Dan Ja-gang’s chest.
Wh—
It was an achievement even he could scarcely believe he had made.
And because of that, the Manjin Great Elder was seized by fear in the next instant.
Could this be a trap……?
Kwaduk!
At that moment, Dan Ja-gang seized the sword embedded in his chest with his bare hand.
“……Rat.”
The Manjin Great Elder instinctively let go of his sword and hurled himself backward. But before he could fully retreat, Dan Ja-gang grabbed his arm.
“Aaaaargh!”
A scream burst from the Manjin Great Elder’s mouth. Dan Ja-gang’s nails pierced his flesh and sank into bone. A blistering pain like the arm was being burned alive surged through him. His entire body began to tremble uncontrollably, as if he had been struck by the ague.
But what drove him to even greater despair than that agony was the sight before his eyes. The sword that had pierced Dan Ja-gang’s chest was being slowly, steadily pushed back out on its own.
“Kuh…… kuhhhhh……!”
His eyes, bloodshot from pain, widened little by little. Red flesh was already rushing back to fill the hole that had been blown open in Dan Ja-gang’s chest.
Dan Ja-gang spoke in a low voice.
“I’ll keep you alive. I won’t allow you the mercy of an easy death. But…… this body is useless now, isn’t it?”
In that instant, pain so vast it could have split his mouth open wrapped itself around the Manjin Great Elder’s arm. The arm that had been thick with muscle withered in an instant, shriveling like dead wood.
“Kuaaaaaaaagh!”
From the Manjin Great Elder’s gaping mouth came a scream that was not even adequately described by the word “wretched.”
But at that very moment, the Black Ghost Guard members who had finally caught up roared and rushed at Dan Ja-gang.
“Protect the Sect Leader!”
“Die, you monsteraaahhh!”
Eyes bloodshot, they threw away their own lives and charged at Dan Ja-gang’s back.
Dan Ja-gang did not even turn his head. He simply swung his arm at the attackers. The surging blades of black demonic qi tore all of them apart at once.
Men became flesh strips; weapons shattered into powder and flew away.
Yet the Black Ghost Guard members kept coming, discarding their own lives without hesitation. The reason was simple. The moment the Manjin Great Elder died, their families would die too. They had no choice.
Kagagang!
Even as his lower body flew apart, one man’s sword thrust itself into Dan Ja-gang’s shoulder, and another, his entire body crushed to ruin, clung to Dan Ja-gang’s leg with his one remaining arm.
“You—!”
At last, Dan Ja-gang turned, bloodlight surging from his eyes.
“You filthy unbelievers!”
At the same time, dozens of blades of black demonic qi burst out all at once.
“Die, all of you!”
Kwaaaaaaa!
Blades of demonic qi larger than a human torso spun violently as they swept over the charging men. Flesh and blood spray mixed with those blades, creating a scene that should never have existed in the mortal world.
Kwaaaaaaaahhhhh!
The storm of black demonic qi swept the front line once, then again.
And in a single moment, as though everything had been an illusion, it vanished without a trace.
The world was painted in silence.
Only the blood-soaked ground proved that everything that had happened here was no lie.
With a face that had not yet cooled from its excitement, Dan Ja-gang slowly looked around, then lowered his gaze to what was in his hand.
A severed arm, as dried and twisted as dead wood, had been cut off at the shoulder. A faint sneer touched the corner of Dan Ja-gang’s mouth. He tossed the arm to the ground and muttered,
“Quick on the draw, I’ll give him that.”
The Manjin Great Elder had seized the moment while Dan Ja-gang lost his reason and cut off his own arm to escape.
Normally, Dan Ja-gang would never have allowed the prey in his grasp the slightest chance to flee, but those who pushed demonic arts to the extreme inevitably lost their reason for a brief time. It was a side effect he had no choice but to bear.
Still, for a man who had made a name for himself even in Jianghu, to cut off his own arm and abandon all his subordinates just to run away……
“And those are the best they’ve got……?”
Dan Ja-gang bit down on his lip until it bled.
But then, as though trying to shake off the thickening doubt, he shook his head and muttered as if by habit,
“The Heavenly Demon shall return, and the ten thousand demons shall rejoice.”
He would descend.
The Heavenly Demon would surely descend.
“The Heavenly Demon shall return, and the ten thousand demons shall rejoice.”
And in doing so, He would deny every delusion that existed within him and at last grant him a name.
Only then would Dan Ja-gang find the meaning of his existence.
“Jeokil.”
“Yes, Bishop.”
The Law Enforcement Messenger who answered his command appeared before him and dropped to the ground in a full bow.
“……Kill more of them, and inflict even greater suffering upon them. So that the entire world may writhe in despair and pain.”
“Yes, Bishop!”
Dan Ja-gang gazed down at the blood-soaked earth.
Are You listening, Heavenly Demon? Our cries?
Only after a long while did he slowly turn away.
In the place where they stood, only the arm twisted like dead wood remained alone on the ground.