085
085
A courtesan from the red-light district was the Flame Demon!!
In hindsight, it was a shocking truth.
How I found out was absurdly simple—pure coincidence.
'I'd gone to a pleasure house planning to roll around with some loose-lipped courtesan and toss out a few hints about the Dragon Emperor Sword.'
The moment Lee Si-a and I arrived in Chengdu and secured lodgings, I headed straight for the pleasure quarters.
'So I picked the prettiest woman with the most impressive inner energy—and she turns out to be practicing the Flame Demon's martial arts?'
The Flame Demon's martial art, the Zhongli Divine Fire Well, is practically an immortal art that manipulates divine fire. The one who combined it with the Heavenly Demon Art and earned the name of a flame witch who burned everything to ash was none other than the Flame Demon.
It wasn't some common technique like the Three Calamities Sword Art that anyone could learn. It was a martial art used by only a single person.
In truth, I hadn't known Dang Seo-hee was the Flame Demon.
At first, I hadn't even known she was connected to the Sichuan Tang Clan.
I'd simply thought, 'Ah, so this bitch is the Flame Demon.'
'The grudge from my past life can be settled by punishing her with my cock!'
After bedding her a few times, I grew certain she was the Flame Demon. Digging a little deeper, I learned that Seo-hee had left the Tang Clan and become a courtesan, and that the Zhongli Divine Fire Well manual had vanished from the Tang Clan's secret vault—the secret box of the Bandit Demon.
'So Dang Seo-hee swiped the Zhongli Divine Fire Well from the secret box.'
The only method to obtain the martial art the Flame Demon wielded had disappeared from the Tang Clan's secret vault—and then a woman who'd left the Tang Clan to become a courtesan had mastered the Zhongli Divine Fire Well?
Across all of history, there was only ever one Flame Demon within the Tianshan Demonic Cult who'd trained in the Zhongli Divine Fire Well.
The Flame Demon, one of the Eldest Prince's Earth Qilin Three Demons.
I never violated her in the future, but I did drink her blood.
That was the full story of how I came to know that Dang Seo-hee was the Flame Demon.
'Was it coincidence, or destiny?'
I could have easily remained unaware she was the Flame Demon. I could have simply had a taste and moved on.
But during my journey with Lee Si-a, I sought out Chengdu's most celebrated courtesan to soothe my thoroughly agitated Baby Lust Demon and perhaps absorb a little yin to nourish my yang—and what do I find?
- The cave was certainly hot, but inside it was as dry as a desert.
- No matter how much I stimulated her insides with my bedroom arts, no moisture flowed from within.
- The inside was supposed to grow wetter, but it only became more parched.
At first I assumed it was simply her constitution. Then I uncovered the truth.
When I tried to slick her insides with released semen to ease penetration, the semen didn't pool at the end of her passage—it simply vanished with a poof, as if stolen by someone.
Absorbing Yang to Nourish Yin.
The moment I spilled inside her, she was scraping away my inner energy. The instant my qi-laced semen entered, she'd greedily exclaim 'what a treat' and tuck the crystallized yang energy deep inside the precious place where a cock can scarcely reach.
'This rotten bitch dares steal my inner energy?'
I could understand a courtesan who practices Absorbing Yang to Nourish Yin.
'I'd meant to just have a taste and leave, but that's not happening anymore. I'll steal your inner energy right back.'
I was using Absorption of Yin to Nourish Yang on her too, after all.
- Ah, absorption is quite sweet.
I'd convert the blood energy of my testicles into inner energy, hand over a mere ten units of yang energy, and then, unnoticed amid the pleasure, snatch away a hundred in return—my victory. So at first I didn't think much of it.
But the moment I tried to circulate the stolen inner energy, I realized that the energy I'd plundered from Seo-hee was the Zhongli Divine Fire Well itself.
'I held it in and held it in until I finally snapped and went to violate her.'
That day—the day I wept like a child in front of Lee Si-a.
In the future, I'd dreamed of being set ablaze by the Flame Demon right before I was murdered. If the Blood Cult Leader hadn't found me, it would have been no different from death.
So, unable to contain my fury, I violated the Flame Demon.
She welcomed me with a bright smile, knowing nothing, taking me for a client who knew the Dragon Emperor Sword's whereabouts—and I, without a shred of mercy, thrust and thrust and thrust until she lost consciousness.
I scraped the Flame Demon Dang Seo-hee's inner energy down to the very bottom.
And to keep her from noticing my absorption, I slammed my cock all the way to her cervix, battering it against her depths, keeping her mind lost in pleasure.
However, one problem arose.
It was all well and good that I'd plundered her inner energy, but I'd pounded her insides so excessively that I'd stolen the energy all the way down to the floor of her dantian.
Her dantian was left utterly empty. She'd know the moment she woke. So I resorted to a little trick.
- Seo-hee's lower dantian is bubbling with inner energy! Aaaargh!
An inner energy injection, to be precise.
I blew my own inner energy into the place closest to a woman's lower dantian. Circulating the Zhongli Divine Fire Art I'd acquired from the future Flame Demon, I slowly pushed the energy into her belly along with my semen, and she, unaware it was my energy, simply stored it in her dantian.
'As if she could ever imagine such a thing happened while she was unconscious from climax.'
Even if she used the inner energy wildly, she'd never realize it had been swapped. It was circulated through the same Zhongli Divine Fire Well, after all.
The energy packed into her dantian would've felt the same in quantity as always, and as time passed, her inner energy would seem to recover somewhat—so she'd suspect nothing.
She'd never know that the inner energy I'd placed inside her was, as fruit goes, not a seedless watermelon but a rind with no flesh at all.
When she first began to circulate the Zhongli Divine Fire Well, she'd use her own recovered inner energy to exert her true power—but the moment she drew upon what I'd inserted, her firepower would plummet.
And I didn't stop there.
Thanks to Lee Si-a's unplanned, audacious intervention, I handed her the chance to deal with the Flame Demon personally, rather than doing it myself.
- So if I absorb your yang energy, I can negate all of the Flame Demon's attacks?
- Strictly speaking, it isn't negation. It's more like absorbing them into your body. You can't immediately convert them into usable energy during battle, but you won't take any damage.
- Can I trust that?
- If you're wounded, I'll spend the rest of my life tending you by your side. I'll dedicate every drop of my inner energy to restore you, even if it requires Return to Youth.
The day after I exchanged intimacies with Lee Si-a, I infused her with the inner qi of the Zhongli Divine Fire Well.
So that she would suffer no harm, even against the Flame Demon.
Against any other Harmony Realm master she'd be defeated in a second, but against a wielder of the Zhongli Divine Fire Well, I'd pumped her full of inner energy so she'd take no wound at all.
And she absorbed that energy through Absorbing Yang to Nourish Yin.
In martial skill, she was at the peak's mid-level—but in inner energy alone, she stood at the cusp of the Peak Realm and the Harmony Realm: the Young Heavenly Demon Lee Si-a.
And in both martial arts and inner energy, the Flame Demon Dang Seo-hee was a Harmony Realm master—yet she could wield only the Zhongli Divine Fire Well.
The inner energy Dang Seo-hee possessed had passed through me as a conduit and become Lee Si-a's.
'As my master once said.'
- There are two ways to overcome an opponent stronger than yourself. One is to become stronger than your opponent. The other is to make your opponent weaker than you. The White Path pursues the former; the Black Path pursues the latter. ...I hope you will walk the righteous path.
I chose both paths.
Make Lee Si-a strong.
Make the Flame Demon weak.
'The Blood Cult Leader spoke.'
- Wow... that bitch is insane. None of our attacks work on her, but all of hers work on us? The North Sea Ice Palace's martial arts don't work against the Ice Palace Mistress? Isn't this basically cheating? The Ice Palace people could never even dream of rebellion!
I put my experience fighting as the Blood Cult Leader's Blood Jiangshi to use.
Those immortal-type martial arts, especially ones like the Zhongli Divine Fire Well, cannot harm an opponent who operates under the same internal energy art.
'If you don't like it, drain your inner energy and fight.'
So long as she circulates the inner energy of the Zhongli Divine Fire Well,
and so long as she attacks Lee Si-a with an immortal art,
the Flame Demon can never lay a single hair on Lee Si-a.
That was our—Lee Si-a's—perfect plan for defeating the Flame Demon.
* * *
"Urrrgh...."
The Flame Demon staggered, spewing ragged breaths. Collapsed on her rear upon the altar, she pressed a hand to her forehead, forcing out harsh, heaving gasps.
"Sh-Shit...."
Her inner energy was draining at an absurd speed. The internal reserves that had once surged beyond a gapja vanished in an instant, as if snuffed out.
Crackle. Crackle.
Sparks flared along the iron fan, custom-forged for the Hellfire Great Law. Compared to the pillars of flame that had threatened to engulf the entire altar barely a quarter-hour ago, these were less than the sparks kicked up by striking flint.
"Haah, haha. Looks like you're finally wearing out."
Lee Si-a had torn away every scrap of her robes that tangled below her knees. Baring both legs from the thigh down, she showed off two sleek, utterly unwounded limbs.
"But what a shame. I don't have a single scratch."
"What... have you done to me...!"
"I don't know either."
"You fucking bitch!!"
The Flame Demon swung the iron fan wide to the side. With a motion like a distant slap, a fireball burst from the fan and flew.
"Looks like she no longer has the strength to make them pretty."
Paaang! Lee Si-a swatted the fireball aside with the back of her hand and began to walk slowly toward the Flame Demon. The Flame Demon, her legs already drained of strength, kept swinging the fan, hurling flames.
"Die, die, just fucking die, you crazy bitch!"
"I wonder which one of us is the crazy bitch."
Lee Si-a moved her hands as if shooing flies, batting away the fireballs. At first they'd been the size of a human torso, then they shrank to half that, to the size of a head, to the size of a fist.
"Euh-heo, hrrrghk!"
No matter how much she roused her inner energy, flames would not rise. The Flame Demon struggled upright and drew a huge breath.
"Blaze Command Tribulation Fire Butterfly!"
"!!"
As the Flame Demon shrieked the technique's name, Lee Si-a raised both fists close to her face. The flames blooming over the iron fan, now spread wide left and right, unfurled their wings into a moth the size of a house.
"Ha, haha! Buuurn—"
Pssshhh——
With a weak hiss, the moth withered into thin air. From the iron fan the Flame Demon thrust forward, a single spark no larger than a matchstick fell and winked out.
"...What was that? Did you just fart?"
"......."
Her final, desperate strike turned futile, the Flame Demon's face drained of all color. Lee Si-a, as if certain of victory, dusted off her hands and closed in on the Flame Demon.
"My victory, Flame Demon. As the Young Heavenly Demon, I will reclaim the title of Flame Demon."
"Th-This cannot be. This cannot...!!"
Flash! Bloodshot veins erupted in the Flame Demon's eyes. Blood began to trickle from lips as red as blood, and Lee Si-a hastily stepped back.
"Bursting Blood? You crazy—!"
"Krrrraaaaaaah——!!"
Shrieking as if her own intestines were twisting, the Flame Demon detonated her inner qi. Demonic energy surged in the crimson glare of her eyes.
- Bi-cheon, do you have any advice for facing the Flame Demon?
- Advice? Did you just say advice? Against the Flame Demon, one of the Ten Demons, who stands far above you? It seems you're laboring under a grand delusion. The Flame Demon is a powerhouse you cannot face on your own! Just as you never dreamed of personally fighting the Flying Heaven Three Demons! It's only because I'm here that you can pull off special tricks — you—
- I was wrong. Summarize, please.
- So... what you must watch for is her rampage using even her latent power through the Heavenly Demon Art.
"Why are gloomy premonitions never wrong?"
"Kyaha-ha-ha-ha!!"
The Flame Demon's entire body ignited. Swathed in dark crimson flames, she poured every ounce of demonic energy into her iron fan, and just as before—no, far larger than before—the moth spread its wings.
"Heavenly Demon Blaze Command Tribulation Fire Butterfly!!!"
Crackle. Crackle.
The inner energy the Flame Demon circulated was now laced with the Heavenly Demon Art. Lee Si-a clenched her fists hard.
"Heavenly Demon Sovereign Step!"
One step forward. Then a second. As Lee Si-a stretched out her legs and leaped, the dark crimson moth lunged at her. Under that brutish body slam, Lee Si-a felt agony as if her entire form were being seared away.
"Kyaha-ha-ha! Now you finally burn!!"
The Flame Demon's genuine joy erupted at the sight of Lee Si-a engulfed in flames. Now the moth would reduce Lee Si-a to charcoal—
"Heavenly Demon Falling Phoenix Strike!"
Crunch! The ashen butterfly was torn in two. Lee Si-a ripped the butterfly apart with both hands, pierced through the flames with her body, and landed before the Flame Demon. The phoenix, gleaming with a turbid gold, had one wing drawn back wide.
"Uh—"
Snkkt.
Like a bird gripping with its talons, a soot-streaked, flame-flickering black hand seized the Flame Demon's face. One leg drove between the Flame Demon's thighs; the other stretched straight back, heel braced against the altar.
"Die."
CRAAASH! As Lee Si-a planted her foot on the altar and drove upward, her knee smashed into the Flame Demon's vitals. The staggering impact from below blasted thought from the Flame Demon's mind.
So she never realized she'd been seized by Lee Si-a, that her body had been lifted into the air along with her.
"Heavenly Demon—"
With a visage twisted like a demon, Lee Si-a slammed the Flame Demon into the altar. The Flame Demon instinctively channeled a Protective Qi Aura into the back of her skull to shield herself, but Lee Si-a's assault didn't end there.
"Force Emission."
Releasing the Flame Demon's face, Lee Si-a clenched her fist.
"Dantian Shattering."
Kwaaaaaannng!!
The moment Lee Si-a's fist buried itself in the Flame Demon's solar plexus, the altar exploded into shards.