Chapter 258
Chapter 258
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 258
>Chapter Title: Archenemy (5)
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Who the Hell Told You to Become the Heavenly Demon 258
Archenemy (5)
Flash!
Il-mok boldly charged at the Flying Dragon Branch Leader, swinging his sword.
“Urk.”
While the Flying Dragon Branch Leader barely blocked the strike and let out a choked groan.
Whoosh!
Il-mok had already retrieved his sword, following up with a relentless barrage.
The Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword was not a one-strike-kill technique, but a sword art focused on an endless, flowing chain of attacks.
The path traced by the Ascension Sword flowed ceaselessly like water.
However, it was not like the Wudang school's Supreme Golden Sword Art, endlessly drawing soft circles.
Fast, yielding, fierce, deceptive.
The sword, swung with blinding speed, would curve softly; the softly flowing sword path would suddenly turn ferocious; the ferocious sword art would split into several paths at once, deceiving the enemy's eyes.
Even as it unleashed the essence of ferocity with the blade, the sword qi extended stealthily to target vitals with speed. Variations were interwoven throughout.
A sword art that squeezed the opponent without respite, ultimately forcing them to abandon all hope.
It was named the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword because the entranced face of the victim looked as if their soul had been stolen away.
Il-mok traced sword paths befitting that name, pressing the Flying Dragon Branch Leader.
Slash!
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader, barely blocking or dodging Il-mok's sword and rolling across the ground to endure, was constantly forced backward.
But for some reason.
Il-mok's expression was not particularly bright, even as he relentlessly drove the enemy back.
It was not impatience from the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's hair's-breadth evasions.
True to the name Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword, he impassively pressed the attack for a long while.
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's face, which had been anxiously retreating without hope, suddenly changed.
ScreeEEECH!
A simple yet swift and sharp strike pierced through the gaps in Il-mok's sword path.
Slash!
A chilling slicing sound echoed, and Il-mok's side robe was cut away.
“Hmm.”
When Il-mok narrowly dodged the prepared counterattack, the Flying Dragon Branch Leader showed a strange reaction.
‘You anticipated this.’
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's previous retreats had been an act.
Not to deceive the opponent, but to lure him to a favorable battlefield.
Even now, blood qi was gathering toward the center of the shattered altar due to the steel chains.
Of course, with the altar's core destroyed and the Three Elders dead, the gathered blood qi dispersed futilely into the air.
The problem was the remaining paths where blood qi was converging from all directions.
And since the Demonic Cult's Eighth Young Master wielded a demonic sword that could absorb that blood qi, fighting near it was tantamount to suicide.
That was why he had feigned endless retreat to draw the enemy in.
Yet the opponent had reacted to the ambush.
‘He has more real combat experience than he looks.’
Even as that thought crossed his mind, there was no panic in the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's eyes.
He had reached the battlefield he wanted, and he was confident he could deal with the enemy now.
* * *
‘Tch.’
Il-mok, who had dodged the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's ambush, clicked his tongue inwardly.
He had noticed the act around the third swing of his sword.
Having fought alongside him, he knew the man's skill to some extent.
A master at least his equal, perhaps one or two levels above, being pushed back helplessly made no sense.
And Il-mok could easily infer why the man was pretending to be overwhelmed.
‘Because of the Ascension Sword.’
Nevertheless, the simple reason he continued pursuing and unleashing barrages was this:
Letting him escape would be trouble for their side anyway.
Either way, he had to cling on and kill the bastard here.
He had pursued because he believed there was sufficient chance of victory.
Unlike himself, who had fought while absorbing blood qi with the Ascension Sword, the man must have consumed quite a bit of internal energy in battle.
Right after narrowly dodging the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's ambush, Il-mok maintained his impassive expression and unleashed the same barrage as before.
His judgment was that even if skill was one or two levels lower, overwhelming internal energy superiority would crush him.
It seemed the flow would continue as before, but there was a big difference.
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader, who had floundered about, now calmly blocked or evaded Il-mok's assaults with a cold expression.
ScreeEEECH!
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's counters occasionally slipping through Il-mok's sword path were brutally sharp.
Slash!
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's sword aimed for Il-mok's face, grazing his cheek as he barely turned his head.
Only then did Il-mok realize he had overlooked one thing.
‘…He trained in a technique that minimizes internal energy consumption from the start.’
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's movements were extremely concise.
It was slightly different from the essence of motion within stillness, suppressing speed with slowness.
It was a technique that eliminated unnecessary movements to unleash stealthy, swift killing sword strikes.
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader showed no fear, dodging Il-mok's sword by a paper-thin margin and occasionally counterattacking.
Unable to predict when a vital-targeting counter would come, Il-mok felt his blood curdle with tension despite being the aggressor.
Slash!
Il-mok twisted his body hastily against another sudden counter, and his clothes were sliced.
Each time the Flying Dragon Branch Leader countered, the elegant flow of Il-mok's sword path stuttered.
And due to that unnatural motion, another problem Il-mok had overlooked erupted.
The blood qi absorbed by the Ascension Sword began to rampage.
‘Damn it.’
Il-mok gritted his teeth at the fishy blood scent refluxing from his stomach, but a trickle of blood escaped his mouth.
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader, not missing the blood, smirked viciously.
“The price for recklessly using filthy energy.”
Instead of responding to the provocation, Il-mok swung his sword again.
Opening his mouth might cause more blood to reflux.
Clang!
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader, who had conserved internal energy and only countered sporadically, now clashed swords with Il-mok and switched to offense.
Having noticed the opponent's condition, he saw no reason to miss the chance.
Clang!
After several exchanges of blocking and dodging the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's sword.
As expected, the rampaging blood qi racing through Il-mok's meridians worsened.
Caught between life and death, Il-mok's mind frantically recalled the past to find a way to survive, like a panoramic life flash.
And one solution—not quite a solution—came to mind.
‘Can I do it?’
He first assessed its feasibility, but soon realized it was pointless.
‘If I can't, I die anyway.’
Resolved, Il-mok forcibly redirected the rampaging blood qi's flow.
Amid agony surging through all his meridians, the blood qi, following the twisted path, flooded into the Ascension Sword.
Whiiiiiing!
The sword qi coating the humming Ascension Sword fragmented finely, spreading in all directions.
Like threads.
It was not creating sword threads.
The dozens of strands of sword qi spread like a spider web in all directions, pressuring the Flying Dragon Branch Leader.
It resembled Dan-bin's Dark Bead Blood Thread Art executed with sword qi.
In fact, Il-mok was imitating her technique.
The solution he had just thought of was what he realized during their spar.
Freely manipulating qi flow at will.
The path toward Transcending Demon, but one he had not taken a single proper step on.
And now, not even in normal conditions, but with blood qi rampaging, he attempted it.
Suddenly, sword qi strands burst from the Eighth Young Master's sword, flying like a spider web; the momentarily startled Flying Dragon Branch Leader hurriedly withdrew.
Slash!
Consecutive slicing sounds echoed, and the spot where the Flying Dragon Branch Leader had stood was shredded by sword qi.
“Tch.”
Il-mok lightly clicked his tongue in disappointment.
Unlike Dan-bin's Dark Bead Blood Thread Art, without threads as a medium, he couldn't control them after launching.
Swallowing his regret, Il-mok charged at the Flying Dragon Branch Leader, swinging his sword.
But it was not a motion from training the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword.
‘I won't rely on familiar flows.’
Forget habitually executed motions.
Forget the natural qi flows learned through the Soul-Stealing Heartless Sword.
Simply, at every instant, forcibly draw the most optimal movements and qi flows.
At the sudden change in the Demonic Cult Eighth Young Master's sword art, bewilderment colored the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's face.
The previous sword art had been variable, but with some flow and pattern.
But now, the man's movements had none of that.
It was as if a Demonic Deviation-stricken madman was swinging wildly.
But the surprise was brief. The seasoned Flying Dragon Branch Leader soon regained composure and calmly dealt with the Eighth Young Master's sword art.
Dismissing it as the opponent's final struggle.
Slash!
An unexpected path sliced off the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's sleeve.
Slash!
Dodging the bizarre strike by a hair, the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's counter drew faint blood from Il-mok's forearm.
A burning hot pain rose from his forearm, but Il-mok's face showed no change.
Compared to the agony transmitted through his meridians while handling the rampaging blood qi, it was nothing.
No, before long, Il-mok no longer felt even that pain.
Forget forms. Forget years of training. Forget pain. Forget himself.
In the selfless state, only the sword filled Il-mok's mind.
‘What is this….’
Before long, pushed back again, the leisure and coldness vanished from the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's face.
And belatedly, certain information surfaced in a corner of his mind.
- A genius who handled sword qi at just sixteen, sword aura at seventeen.
- Talent surpassing the current Heavenly Demon, Hyeok-ryeon Il-hwi, as the demonic path's greatest.
Anecdotes about the Demonic Cult's Eighth Young Master, heard while gathering intel on the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
He had dismissed them all as absurd nonsense back then.
‘Getting stronger while fighting…?’
Only then did the Flying Dragon Branch Leader realize the young boy fighting him was truly an unprecedented genius of the martial world.
And moreover.
‘If he's that speck, it means he reached this level in just three and a half years!’
Realizing that, the Flying Dragon Branch Leader gritted his teeth with a resolute expression.
His goal had changed.
‘I must kill him here. Even if it costs my life.’
If the boy lived and grew, a horrific demonic reign over the Central Plains might unfold.
While the Flying Dragon Branch Leader resolved to mutual destruction alone.
Il-mok, lost in the selfless state, had reached his limit.
In a way, every moment was the limit.
As the blood qi's rampage intensified, he merely handled it with ever-higher insight.
Like walking on thin ice, the precarious tug-of-war between Demonic Deviation and enlightenment finally hit a dead end.
Against the blood qi violently raging as if about to burst from every orifice, Il-mok in the selfless state conceived a bizarre method.
With his mind already consumed by the koan of the sword, Il-mok executed the thought without hesitation.
He forcibly gathered the rioting blood qi from his entire body and led it to the Ascension Sword, as if collecting poison spread through the body and expelling it.
The blood qi, hard to control even dispersed, layered densely upon convergence, forming sword aura on the Ascension Sword.
The bizarrely crackling aura from repulsion looked less like sword aura and more like sword lightning.
Whiiiiiing.
Perhaps due to the repulsion, the peerless Ascension Sword screamed as if about to shatter.
Gazing at the fearsome sword lightning, the Flying Dragon Branch Leader boldly thrust his sword.
Not to block or clash with it.
‘Die together.’
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader's sword grazed past the Eighth Young Master's blade, heading for his heart.
At that exact moment, Il-mok, forcibly controlling the blood qi, completely released his control over it.
CRASH!
A shattering sound pierced the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's ears.
The sword aura on the Ascension Sword fragmented into hundreds of shards, scattering in all directions.
The shards' glow filled the Flying Dragon Branch Leader's vision.
‘No… way.’
The Flying Dragon Branch Leader, riddled with dozens of holes throughout his body, halted his thrust just before Il-mok's heart.