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"What the hell was that, right after we reunited?!"
Having come to her senses, Dang Seo-hee erupted at me and Lee Si-a.
"You gave no warning at all, my whole lower half was boiling over—I was about to lose my mind—and you just ripped my clothes off and fucked me the moment you saw me?!"
"Ever seen a Sex Demon give a warning before he fucks someone?"
"He's not wrong."
"Aaaaaargh!!"
Dang Seo-hee shrieked, tearing at her own hair.
"I nearly died, I'm serious!"
"You didn't die, so isn't that fortunate? I saved your life. I even used a Heavenly Rejuvenation Pill on you."
The Flame Demon dying from a heart attack brought on by peak pleasure would be hilarious. I couldn't even tell anyone the truth. A Harmony Realm master 'going out at her peak.'
Dang Seo-hee vented her anger on the nearest innocent book.
"I really am glad you came to Sichuan, but this is not the reunion I wanted!"
"What kind of reunion did you want?"
"W-Well..."
Dang Seo-hee began to spill her own romantic fantasies.
━ It has been a while, Flame Demon.
━ ...What brings you here?
━ I came because I missed you. Spread your legs.
━ ...I'm not the sort of woman who gives up her body that easily!
"You're overdoing the delusions."
"If he just said 'spread,' wouldn't you have to spread immediately anyway, because of the pact?"
"Am I not allowed to imagine?"
Dang Seo-hee grumbled openly. Since she really had nearly died, we decided to simply indulge the Flame Demon's cute little tantrum. Who else in the world gets to sulk in front of the Sex Demon and the Young Heavenly Demon?
"I can guess why you came. It's because of the Thunder Demon, isn't it?"
"Yeah. How much did you already know?"
"Not 'how much'—I knew most of it. I've actually been leaving it alone on purpose, which is why all the Sex Demons gathered in one place."
Dang Seo-hee's reply was somewhat unexpected.
"Bunching the Sex Demons together in one spot and wiping them out all at once. They call them lust demons, but more than half of them are the scum who gathered here swearing revenge on the Sichuan Tang Clan. I meant to sweep them away in one stroke with this chance."
"You mean you planned to capture them?"
"No. Kill them. They may have crossed the Tang Clan's walls however they pleased when they came in, but they have no freedom to leave."
It hit me anew—Dang Seo-hee had left the Tang Clan because of her martial arts and constitution, but at heart she was a woman of the Tang Clan through and through.
"The Tang Clan is always short on research specimens. I got my hands on some fine samples, so I deliberately let them run loose even after I heard the Sex Demons were flooding in. Until the day they attacked."
She really was the former Earth Qilin Thunder Demon—a bearer of a disposition so excessively cruel it was nearly too much. Though truth be told, this was pretty much the Tang Clan's baseline humanity.
"Anyway, the Thunder Demon behind them is clearly targeting me. Even if they assault the Tang Clan, the core fighting force was going to enter through the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation... So I refurbished the formation for once and was waiting—and then."
Dang Seo-hee glared at me and growled.
"Some mighty somebody wreathed his body in flames and walked straight through the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation, and thanks to that, the whole formation is wrecked. The snakes got heat in their throats and the Fire Bone Mountain dried up and shriveled."
"You're pinning this on me right now? Unbelievable."
I called up the Zhongli Divine Fire Well—to brush dust off Lee Si-a's shoulder.
"Hhghk!"
Dang Seo-hee doubled over clutching her stomach and collapsed to her knees. With my flame-wreathed hand I brushed Lee Si-a's shoulder, swept back her hair, and tidied it neatly.
"S-Stop...!"
Dang Seo-hee's face was caught between a smile and a sob as she begged me.
"Right now I'm, I'm really sensitive...!"
"Why act like this is something new?"
"Because it's been ages since I had the taste of a real, actual cock......."
Dang Seo-hee's face went red and she hung her head low. Since I'd already felt firsthand—with my own organ—that she truly had not accepted a single other man until now, I knew for a fact that Dang Seo-hee was not lying.
"From now on, you've just got to endure as much more as you've endured so far. Good luck, Flame Demon. If you want to enter the Cheon Clan Estate as a Flying Heaven Flame Demon, you'd better have patience."
Lee Si-a was sincerely cheering for Dang Seo-hee.
"L-Little Princess. I'm truly sorry... but could you lend me the Sex Demon for just one day?"
Dang Seo-hee clung to Lee Si-a's legs and pleaded. It was honestly a sorry sight—a woman who, with the Zhongli Divine Fire Well, could produce combat power and inner energy at the Harmony Realm level, groveling before Lee Si-a, who was barely on the threshold of the Peak Realm.
Power really is the ultimate privilege.
"Do you want my cock that badly, Flame Demon?"
"Wait, when you say it like that, the phrasing feels seriously weird."
"And it's not even wrong. You're my cock, and I'm your cunt."
"......."
I fell silent at Lee Si-a's audacious remark. When I was with Sagong Hee or Dokgo Yeon, I went to great lengths to watch my language and behavior, but truthfully, Lee Si-a and Dang Seo-hee were no less prone to obscene talk or blunt phrasing—very much as you'd expect from Demonic Cult members.
"Bi-cheon. What do we do? Do you want to go have some fun with the Flame Demon for a while?"
"There's no special need for that."
At my refusal, Dang Seo-hee's face clearly fell and she slumped in despair. She had just tasted the feeling of a real member for the first time in ages—she was basically a vegetarian of almost a year who'd sampled meat and lost her head over it.
Right now she was exercising staggering self-restraint in holding herself back. If we simply left like this, the odds were high she would bolt out of the clan.
"Flame Demon. This secret vault—does it have a passage leading outside?"
"No, I've sealed them all."
"Then we have no choice. All we can do is stay here for the time being."
At my words, Dang Seo-hee beamed brightly, and Lee Si-a shrugged as if she had expected that all along.
"We'll stay until the day the Thunder Demon attacks. Once we repel the assault, we'll leave."
"What? ...Hey, aren't you being way too cruel?"
"What is?"
Dang Seo-hee began to lose her temper in earnest.
"The Thunder Demon gathered the Sex Demons and chose today to attack, you know?!"
"That's why we came today. Do you even know how far we've raced to get here?"
"Yeah. We practically flew all the way from Hubei. Shouldn't you be grateful we timed it perfectly?"
"......You two—do you find tormenting me fun?"
"Yep."
Tears welled up in Dang Seo-hee's eyes.
"What did I do that was so wrong?!"
"For siding with the Eldest Prince?"
"For burning my hair?"
"For not giving me your virginity?"
"That one really is a serious fault. I gave him mine, you know."
"This life... really..."
Dang Seo-hee began to sob pitifully. Feeling a little guilty that we had teased her too much, I sat on a chair and yanked my pants down.
"Flame Demon."
"What."
"The Absorption of Yin to Nourish Yang—won't you do it?"
"......I'm only doing this because it's an order."
With a sulky face, Dang Seo-hee seated herself astride me, facing me. I patted her back and relaxed my body so she could savor the feel of my organ to her heart's content.
"You've accumulated quite a lot of yin energy. Then, I'll draw it out."
"......Hhghk!!"
Dang Seo-hee dug her hands into my back as if clawing me and began to tremble.
* * *
Whether a feverish gust had swept through the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation or not, the Tang Clan was heating up in full preparation for the assault.
"What has become of the children?"
"We have gathered them all in the detached quarters. Should anything happen, the steward will lead them in escaping from the clan."
The Poison Ghost Dang Sa-rim and Crow Chaos Finger Disease Dang O-dok had marshaled the clan's entire fighting strength and completed their preparations to welcome the vengeance demons who styled themselves Sex Demons. The two brothers stepped onto the roof tiles and leaped up to the Tang Clan's highest peak.
"...To think a day like this would come."
"Those scoundrels are enemies of our Tang Clan, every last one of them."
The two brothers could not hide their dismay at the countless mob surrounding the Tang Clan. Among those preparing to attack were some whose grudges had been born from Dang Sa-rim and Dang O-dok themselves, and the majority were those who had been sharpening their blades for revenge against the Tang Clan.
In reality, the ones who had actually gathered to violate Dang Seo-hee probably did not even amount to three-tenths of the total.
"The numbers are truly tremendous."
"This is the karma we have accumulated returning to us."
Hundreds—by some exaggeration, nearly a thousand—masters had formed an encirclement and gathered to attack the Tang Clan. However deep their grudges might be, the fact that so many were openly brandishing swords at the Tang Clan in a short span of time was proof that they had something to believe in.
Geomdam.
The man who had crushed Dang Sa-rim and Dang O-dok in humiliating defeat.
There was intelligence that Geomdam was mixed in among the attackers. If Geomdam really was present, then setting up a defensive line here was practically meaningless.
A Profound Realm master who easily overcame even the Divine Spear—one of the Ten Great Masters of the World—was leading the charge to assault the Tang Clan?
Unless the legendary Poison Immortal, who was said to have ascended long ago, appeared, there was no martial artist in the Tang Clan capable of defeating Geomdam alone. In truth, a single Geomdam was more terrifying than a thousand attackers.
Even if those who had severed contact after throwing themselves to the Demonic Cult were to return, it would likely be insufficient.
━ Geomdam is a lie. That man has no reason to attack the Sichuan Tang Clan. He is definitely an impersonation.
If Dang Seo-hee had not denied Geomdam's existence, the Tang Clan might well have packed their bags and fled by now. They might have swallowed the pride of the Sichuan Tang Clan out of fear of a Geomdam whose very presence was uncertain.
━ Please trust me. Those who are trying to assault the Tang Clan right now have been incited by someone, and Geomdam is simply a convenient lure to deceive them.
The two brothers wanted to believe Dang Seo-hee's words. Only by doing so could the Tang Clan survive.
"Brother, can we truly trust Seo-hui?"
"If we do not trust Seo-hui, then—? That child is not weak. She simply... suffers from an illness."
Dang Sa-rim gave a bitter smile.
Suffering from a disease named Intermittent Estrus Syndrome, Dang Seo-hee had been so deeply afflicted that she had to leave the Tang Clan on her own and walk the path of a courtesan. The Tang Clan, far from sheltering her, had struck her name from the family register and expelled her, erasing her very existence.
And that same woman had returned having mastered a divine art rivaling the legendary martial arts. Three times a day she entered heat and could not lead a normal life, but as long as she was not in heat, Dang Seo-hee could readily muster power on par with Dang Sa-rim himself.
"Let us trust her. If we cannot trust our own blood, whom can we trust?"
"...Yes, Brother. Let us trust Seo-hui—and let us trust Geonmyeon, who trusts Seo-hui's judgment."
Clack.
The two brothers of the Tang Clan each drew their own hidden weapons. In the same moment, the Tang Clan warriors already arrayed in every direction drew their hidden weapons as well, bracing for the assault.
"No one will cross the Tang Clan...!"
* * *
"Whoa, that's repulsive. Look at them, sitting there with mechanical formations laid out and everything."
Dan Sam clicked his tongue as he scouted the Tang Clan's defenses from a distance.
The clan's strongest masters had climbed onto the roof of the highest pavilion, glaring in every direction and ready to hurl thrown daggers. Below them, Tang Clan warriors were standing by so that they could launch poison needles the moment you cleared the outer wall.
"If we go straight in as we are, it'll be a massacre..."
Dan Sam glanced around furtively. He had joined the assault to get revenge on the Sichuan Tang Clan, but he had no intention of throwing his life away like dust just to breach the Tang Clan's walls.
And Dan Sam was not alone in thinking that. Every one of them, without exception, was hoping that Roe Yeon—who had planned the assault—would step forward first rather than themselves.
"It seems you have no intention of coming out."
Roe Yeon covered her face with her fan, her eyes smiling. Dan Sam felt the deep malice lurking beneath that mischievous gaze and shuddered.
'I picked the wrong spot.'
Dan Sam's position was unfortunately right at the center with Roe Yeon—in other words, among the core personnel meant to assault the secret vault of the Tang Clan where Dang Seo-hee was hiding, the Fire Bone Mountain Rain Formation.
He had been driven into a situation where he could not flee even if he wanted to. Dan Sam had already climbed onto the tiger's back, and if he tried to back off now, the huge man standing beside Roe Yeon was likely to slice him apart.
The man wore no fewer than seven swords on his waist and back. With five swords bound fan-like across his back and two more at his hip, even to Dan Sam, a Peak-level martial artist himself, the man carried himself with an overwhelmingly powerful presence.
'Is that guy the Geomdam I've heard rumors about...?'
They said he was a master of dual-sword arts—had he brought seven swords instead of two in order to utterly smash the Sichuan Tang Clan? Dan Sam began to feel an inexplicable fear toward the massive, silent man.
'For someone I heard about through rumors, he doesn't seem that strong...?'
Rather than the legendary martial figure said to have split the Sword Pavilion Canyon, he simply appeared to be about one of the Hundred Great Masters of the World.
"Hey, you there. Are you listening carefully?"
"...Apologies. I didn't hear you clearly."
Had he let his stray thoughts wander too long? Dan Sam got caught dead to rights by Roe Yeon. Clucking her tongue, Roe Yeon pressed him.
"What did I just say about how we're going to annihilate the Tang Clan?"
"I apologize."
"Hah, listen well. We are, you see,"
Roe Yeon gave a light clap. At once, the attackers spread in every direction each pulled something out from their bodies.
"Going to burn the Tang Clan down to the last cinder."
"...Pardon?"
"Are your ears not working? Fire Technique. I said we're burning it all."
Roe Yeon snapped her fingers toward the sky. A bolt of blue lightning flashed across the dark night sky.
"The ones who come rushing out in the firestorm—we just wait outside and lop their heads clean off. Simple, right?"
No sooner did Roe Yeon's fan flutter than the three demons standing behind her launched off their spots and scattered in all directions.
"Aaaaah! Looks like your cunt-house is on fire!!"
"Seems like a firestorm's broken out outside too."
"...Loads of buildings are on fire and it's absolute chaos out there. Sigh."
The Tang Clan had begun to blaze up in scorching heat.