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Seokeok!
The ice shattered. Yoo Seol-ra stared in horror at the sword qi that had cleaved through her Ice White Divine Sword with a single stroke.
The space was too cramped. Her opponent had drawn first. Knowing she shouldn't use the Ice White Divine Art here, her body had failed to react in time.
But excuses didn't matter. They were of a similar martial level, and the opening she'd shown for less than a breath was enough for her opponent's blade to press against her throat.
"You let your guard down, Seol-ra."
"......"
Yoo Seol-ra paused, uncertain how to address the woman holding a sword to her. The woman smiled warmly, as if she completely understood the dilemma.
"Call me unni."
"...Sect Leader, that's—"
"Un. Ni. And just so you know, my name is Ryu Mia."
"...Unni."
Yoo Seol-ra was taken aback by the name, rarely heard in the Central Plains. With just a little thought, the name and the martial art behind it made this woman's identity painfully easy to deduce.
"The Lust-Exorcising..."
"The Lust-Exorcising Abbess is currently in closed cultivation deep within the Emei Sect. The one standing here right now is Ryu Mia, the youngest disciple of Emei."
Unlike Yoo Seol-ra, who had learned Emei's martial arts purely to hide herself as the Ice Demon, Ryu Mia showed no intention of disguising her Emei origins. She had even used the Evil-Subduing Righteousness Sword, the pinnacle technique of Emei meant for confronting demonic arts.
"...Wouldn't it make more sense to disguise yourself as your daughter or a much younger cousin?"
"That's a good idea. As expected of the Ice Palace Mistress. A younger sister... a cousin would fool anyone, wouldn't it?"
"......Unni."
Reflected in the blade of the sword, Yoo Seol-ra's hair was turning white. Though she wasn't using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, as the master of the North Sea Ice Palace, she freely released the ice-cold energy of the Ice White Divine Art.
"You've grown this strong. That's how you saw through my identity so quickly."
"I did. And I can also sense the 'demonic energy' inside you. ...So you're the Ice Demon. Not the male one, but the female Ice Demon."
"......"
Killing intent began to stain Yoo Seol-ra's eyes. She was ready to take this to a Mutual Destruction if need be.
"Don't worry. I won't tell a soul."
"...What?"
"If you, whom I've acknowledged as a disciple of Emei, were exposed as a demon, wouldn't the Emei Sect's prestige crumble? But depending on your answer, I'll decide whether to cast aside my virtue and reveal your identity to the world, or keep my mouth shut."
"...What do you want?"
Ryu Mia stroked Yoo Seol-ra's white hair with her hand.
"The Ice-Colored Demon. He's alive, isn't he?"
"......"
"He must be. And he must have kept you as one of the Six Phoenixes for a reason. Right in the middle of the Murim Alliance, no less. ...Was it for protection, or for causing trouble?"
Feeling the tip of the sword qi brush her uvula, Yoo Seol-ra squeezed her eyes shut.
"...He predicted this."
"What?"
"If the Emei Sect Leader ever discovered my identity, I was to say this: 'If you wish to kill the Lust Demon, be prepared to be violated by him.'"
"......Pft."
The corner of Ryu Mia's lips twisted into a sharp smile.
"So, where is he now?"
"...Wherever there's a woman pretty enough for him to want to violate, I suppose."
"Ahaha!!"
Ryu Mia laughed brightly and withdrew her sword.
"What an insolent remark. Fine. Then you'll have to help me out."
"Help you... with what?"
"Two beautiful sisters from the Emei Sect are wandering around. What could possibly be more appetizing to the Lust Demon?"
"......"
Not just the Lust Demon. Other demons would attack too. Yoo Seol-ra couldn't bring herself to reveal the real reason she had to stay in Henan. She had to think fast and use her head to find a line of reasoning that would persuade Ryu Mia.
"......Wouldn't it be easier for him to approach you if you were alone, rather than two women traveling together?"
"......That is a valid point."
Ryu Mia nodded heavily.
"Very well. I won't question your motives for becoming the Ice White Phoenix. But remember this. As long as you bear the name of the Emei Sect, you must follow the orders of the Emei Sect Leader."
"......"
"So think carefully. What should I do... to lure out the Ice-Colored Demon?"
"You just said you weren't the Sect Leader...."
"My will is the Sect Leader's will. The Ice Palace Mistress is said to be wise through the ages—don't disappoint me. If you obediently tell me how to draw him out, I will keep silent about your hiding out here.... Ahem, I will."
Yoo Seol-ra instinctively knew she couldn't refuse Ryu Mia's proposal. She couldn't break through this absurd situation on her own.
Unless she combined the Ice White Divine Art and Heavenly Demon Divine Art to forcibly flee Henan, the 'Emei's Ice White Phoenix,' Yoo Seol-ra, could not defeat this woman.
And for that, her best escape plan was—
"...Unni, I happen to be a master of acting."
"Huh?"
"If you give me the right conditions and a role, I can transform to fit the part perfectly. Making someone fall for my acting is my specialty. It's like packing snow in winter to make a snowman."
"...So your usual demeanor is all an act?"
Yoo Seol-ra nodded proudly.
"So what are you trying to say?"
"My master... I mean, the Lust Demon, prefers young women."
Padeuk. Ryu Mia gritted her teeth.
"Are you mocking me right now—"
"If I went outside with you, you'd look so young and pretty that people would think you were the younger one, unni. But your way of speaking still needs work."
"......Ahem."
Yoo Seol-ra seized Ryu Mia's hands. It was a move to prevent her from freely using them to subdue her, while also locking eyes.
"I will turn you... into a perfect young lady, unni. Before you grasped my qi sense, I was doing a pretty good job acting, wasn't I?"
"So in exchange for keeping your identity a secret, you'll teach me how to speak like a girl my age, in a way that matches this appearance?"
"Yes. Who knows? He might even come looking for me."
"...Heh. As expected of the North Sea Ice Palace Mistress. I like it, Seol-ra."
Ryu Mia clasped Yoo Seol-ra's hands in return.
"Let's see you try. Make me into a seventeen-year-old girl."
"......"
Yoo Seol-ra fell into deep contemplation over how to turn the woman in front of her into a young girl.
* * *
Tingling, tingling.
The forest was smashed to pieces by a single slash. The strike unleashed by the Lust Demon shattered trees and tore up the earth. Like a beast commanding lightning had clawed the ground, crackling electric charges still lingered in the soil.
"......"
The Demonic Sword Consort and the Thunder Demon.
The two women stood frozen. The moment the slash, crackling with thunder qi that felt as if it would tear their entire bodies apart, touched them, they had expected death. They instinctively felt their long-lived lives ending beneath a strike that blanketed heaven and earth.
But the slash had grazed past them cunningly.
The ground was split into hundreds of fissures, yet not a single person was hurt.
The lightning bolts that soared into the sky merely split the clouds.
Heaven and earth were rent by thunder and lightning, yet no one was hurt.
"Ha... haha...."
A sense of futility washed over the Demonic Sword Consort as she looked down at her clothes. The blade aura, spreading out like forked lightning, had sliced only the fabric of her garments, leaving not a single scratch on her skin.
- Don't follow me any further. I won't be so generous next time.
It was a flawlessly executed show of force—overbearing, yet gentle.
"We've been played."
An Illusion (幻).
The swords of Mount Hua's Plum Blossom Sword Warriors were similar. They generated noise and the terror of death, but in truth, it was all a trick. The Demonic Sword Consort sank to the ground.
"If this wasn't a blade art... but a sword qi."
What if it had been a 'Sword' art capable of splitting heaven and earth? Just the thought made her fingertips tingle. Every time the Lust Demon unveiled another martial art, the Demonic Sword Consort felt a thrilling pleasure.
If she could die by such a sword art, she would die a hundred times over.
"This man... might be the greatest under the heavens."
The Demonic Sword Consort had faced countless opponents. But never before had anyone defeated her with a sword. Never before had anyone satisfied her with a sword.
Some might say: if you want to fight with the sword that badly, go face the Murim Alliance Leader, the World's Best Sword.
'That bastard only uses the sword as a tool, wielding a killing art (殺法), not a true sword art!'
She only wanted to converse through the sword. She could never acknowledge someone who used a rootless, insolent sword without any respect for the opponent's martial arts as a true swordsman.
A sword must contain Sword Principle (劍理).
If there existed a World's Best Sword, it would be someone the Demonic Sword Consort could acknowledge. The being most versed in the sword under heaven, one who accepts all sword principles.
And while facing him, the Demonic Sword Consort had realized it.
All Rivers Return to the Source.
The holy scripture of the sword, compiled by encompassing all sword principles, spoke to her.
- The sword is merely a tool. I just happen to use it for fucking women.
The sword is a tool.
And how the sword is used depends entirely on the one who wields it.
It can be a blade to save lives by cutting out diseased flesh, a means to prove one's life through honing swordsmanship, a way to teach others, or a tool for threatening and violating others.
"Aah...!!"
The Demonic Sword Consort covered her face with both hands. She realized her choice to rush to Sichuan had not been wrong.
The fact that he used a blade instead of a sword, and the fact that he infused it into a tree branch, was a demonstration that all 'weapons' are merely an extension of the wielder's hand—not just the sword!
"My lord bestowed this lesson upon me to...!!"
He had already reached a realm she could not touch. And if he were to father a child, she must be the mother of that child.
"...The greatest under the heavens must absolutely be the World's Best Sword."
The Demonic Sword Consort now had a goal. She had to make this Demonic Cultist, a man who could devastate his surroundings with nothing but his inner energy, pick up a sword.
A treasured blade of the world in his left hand, and the woman named Wang So-hyeon in his right!
The world's greatest swordsman and the world's greatest female swordsman would meet, and the child they bore in the next generation would become the World's Best Sword once again.
The harmony of the Yang Sword (陽劍) matching with the Yin Sword (陰劍) of the Wol Yeong Seonghui Sword!
A life where she would give birth to the child of the World's Best Sword and teach that child her martial arts alongside her husband's!
And a flower-pathed future where she would bequeath the Sword Pavilion, which was practically everything to her, to no one else but her very own 'child'!
- Behold, So-hyeon. Your child and mine. We made this, the Sword God (劍神).
"Aheuk...!"
And she must be his wife. The fact that he already had four wives didn't matter in the slightest.
The greatest under the heavens just wants to be a bit lecherous—what's the problem!
"Huhu, huehehe...!!"
At the monstrous laughter erupting from beside her, the Demonic Sword Consort snapped her head around. The Thunder Demon, still on her knees and trembling as if about to collapse, was drooling and shuddering.
"Demonic Sword Consort.... I've decided."
Flop. The Thunder Demon toppled forward.
"That person is... the future of the Demonic Cult, the one to lead us, the hundred thousand demonic practitioners...!!"
The Thunder Demon thrust both hands high toward the sky. Like a priestess from primitive times offering a prayer to the heavens, she screamed with a demonic face.
"The son of that Demonic Cultist will become the true Divine Demon (神魔) who will bring down the Great Cataclysm upon heaven and earth! Demonic Sword Consort!!"
The Thunder Demon rose to her feet and stood before the Demonic Sword Consort. The Demonic Sword Consort grasped the Thunder Demon's outstretched hand firmly.
"Let's chase him, even if it means our deaths."
"Yes. Even if I die, I will die by my lord's hand."
The two demons' thoughts diverged, but they united in purpose and joined forces.
"We absolutely must teach that man, the Lust Demon."
"The charms we possess...!!"
"We'll prove... that we are absolutely essential beings for your future path!"
The two demons solidified their resolve before the rising morning sun.
"Lust Demon, we will definitely capture you!!"
The Chase-the-Lecher Women's Corps, formed for the sole purpose of capturing a single Lust Demon, quietly announced its founding alongside the sunrise in a nameless forest of Sichuan.
* * *
"!!"
Lightning swirled fiercely. Atop a sheer cliff, in a pavilion overlooking the east, a black-haired, blue-eyed woman barely managed to suppress the faintly trembling energy surging within her.
"This is...."
"Master!!"
White-bearded Taoists rushed up to the pavilion and threw themselves to the floor.
"What is the meaning of this uproar?"
"W-we apologize! The qi over Sichuan has turned ominous...!"
"I already know. An ominous aura (凶氣) has reached us even here, in Kunlun."
The woman grabbed the sword resting against the pillar. The unusually long blade and hilt were trembling as if resonating with something.
"He is not a wicked man (惡人)... yet he feels no shame in committing wicked acts. If one's actions are too extreme, one will eventually be entangled in one's own web. Disciples, listen well. You must ensure that this powerful savage never draws his sword against Kunlun."
"...!! Master, are you saying he is that strong?!"
"Yes. We might even have to bring out the Heaven-and-Earth Net (乾坤網)."
"Heoh...!"
The Taoists exchanged murmurs of shock.
"Sect Leader, wouldn't that be dangerous? If a variable arises in the fate of the Blood Demon running wild—"
"That is not your concern."
The woman offered a faint smile.
"That man will never be able to point a sword at me."
"Why... is that?"
"I wonder."
The woman merely smiled. When she, who was always expressionless, slightly raised the corner of her lips, the Taoists exchanged bewildered glances.
"I don't know either. I just... have that feeling. I suppose I will find out when the day we meet comes."
The woman, the Kunlun Sect Leader, clutched her sword as her white martial arts uniform fluttered in the wind.
"It seems that this person, who seeks to correct the tangled heavenly secrets, and I... are bound by a deep fate."