Audience with the Blood Demon
Once I’d carried the young man out of Ju Ryeong’s hideout, the sticky density of the death qi filling the valley began to thin little by little.
We’d walked for quite a while before we reached the border where the death qi started to slacken in earnest.
There, I saw Jin Sohee, staggering on one knee against the ground.
Her crimson Blood Cult disciple robes were soaked through with sweat, and the tip of the sword clenched in her hand trembled violently.
“...Ah.”
Maybe she sensed me approaching; with obvious effort, she lifted her head.
Her face was so pale it looked bloodless. Her lips had gone dry and cracked, and her eyes had lost their focus.
“Wang...Saryeong?”
She tried to call my name and get to her feet, but her legs, drained of strength, buckled on their own.
I hurried over and caught her shoulder with one hand.
Cold.
A chill rolled off her. Her face was even paler than usual, so she must have poured every scrap of internal energy she had into resisting the death qi.
“Why are you here?”
At my question, Jin Sohee forced up the corners of her mouth and gave a faint smile.
“You promised... you’d wait here. If you didn’t come back, I was going to come get you.”
My brow furrowed.
“How stupid. I told you to go down to the entrance with Lee Cheolgang.
What were you planning to do, hold out here until your inner energy ran dry?
If I hadn’t come back, you would’ve been eaten alive by the death qi and died.”
I meant it. No matter how much of a genius she was called, once her inner energy was exhausted, she wouldn’t be able to withstand the death qi.
“Haa... honestly.”
With a sigh, I supported her.
“I can still walk on my own...”
Jin Sohee protested in a thin voice, but her body, leaning against my shoulder, was heavy as soaked cotton.
I locked my arm firmly around her waist and said, “No more talking. Lean on me. I’ll dress you down properly once we get back.”
At my cold tone, Jin Sohee shut her mouth. For some reason, a faint warmth seemed to rise in her pale cheeks.
She must really be at her limit.
When we reached the valley entrance, Lee Cheolgang, who’d been stomping his feet there in anxiety, came running with a yell.
He looked back and forth between Jin Sohee’s miserable state and the young man on my back, then gaped.
“Wang Saryeong, Jin Sohee!”
“Stop standing there like an idiot and carry this guy. We’re heading back now.”
Lee Cheolgang took the young man from me in a hurry, and our group left Black Valley behind and headed for the Blood Cult main sect.
.
.
.
By the time our team returned to the Blood Cult, word of us had already spread among the trainees.
Black Valley was notorious even within the sect as a land of death.
Everyone had assumed we wouldn’t make it back, or that we’d fail the mission.
But the result was the exact opposite.
We walked back in on our own two feet, and we’d even brought back one of the missing scouting team members alive.
We went straight to the Blood Demon Pavilion. When the door to Vice Pavilion Master Han Gangtae’s office opened, he looked up from the documents he’d been reviewing inside.
“...So you really came back alive.”
There was a strange note of interest in his voice.
“Group 44 leader Wang Saryeong, reporting back after completing the Black Valley mission.
I also rescued one of the missing scouting team members.”
“I see. Then what happened inside Black Valley? And what about the others?”
I gave him the answer I’d already prepared, calm and unhurried.
“The death qi deep in Black Valley suddenly went berserk. The scouting team seems to have mostly been corroded by it and lost their lives.”
“Berserk?”
Han Gangtae’s eyes flashed sharply. He turned to the young man from the scouting team, who had regained consciousness.
“Tell me. What happened to your comrades?”
The young man stared blankly into space for a moment. I’d already tampered with his memory using black magic so that Ju Ryeong’s existence was erased, so there was nothing to worry about.
“...I don’t remember very well. Just enduring the death qi was already my limit, and one by one, my comrades collapsed.
After that everything went dark, and I couldn’t see anything. When I came to, I had already been rescued.”
The altered memory was perfect. Han Gangtae studied me in silence for a moment, then opened a drawer.
“If you succeeded in your mission, you deserve a reward.
This is an elixir called Blood Spirit Pill. Your achievement will also be formally recorded with the higher-ups.”
“Thank you.”
With three Blood Spirit Pills in hand, I left the office, only to find the hallway packed with trainees who’d already gathered after hearing the news. Among them, one figure stood out as he blocked my path.
It was Iron Fist Jang Ho.
Instead of sneering like he used to, he stared at me with a stiff expression.
His gaze flicked over Jin Sohee, who was leaning on me as she headed toward the inner quarters, and the noticeably hardened aura around me.
“...Wang Saryeong.”
Jang Ho clasped his large, rough hands together and gave a respectful martial salute.
There was no trace of his old jealousy or resentment in his eyes now—only the pure awe and self-reproach of a man who recognized another’s strength.
“I acted like a fool last time. I’m sorry.”
At the unexpected apology, a low murmur spread through the surrounding trainees.
Jang Ho, one of the top five among their generation, lowering his head like this?
But Jang Ho ignored everyone else’s stares and went on in his heavy voice.
“Only after you left for Black Valley did I understand. I was just jealous of how far ahead of me you were getting.
You went to Black Valley, completed the mission, and proved it to me in a way I couldn’t deny.”
Proved it? What exactly had I proven to Jang Ho?
Jang Ho raised his head and met my eyes directly. His pupils shone with clear, unwavering resolve.
“You’re the real thing. I can’t deny it anymore. Even if I’m lagging far behind right now, I won’t stay like this.
I’ll train with everything I’ve got and catch up, so until the next martial match, you’d better get even stronger.”
After another short bow, Jang Ho turned on his heel and strode toward the training grounds without a shred of hesitation.
I watched his retreating back and scratched my head.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Who knows.”
Jin Sohee, too, muttered with a dazed expression.
After distributing the Blood Spirit Pills to the rest of the group and sending everyone back to their quarters, I returned to my own room and locked the door behind me.
Inside my robes, the Blood Spirit Pill I’d received from Han Gangtae and the old spellbook I’d taken from Ju Ryeong both felt heavy in my hands.
Blood Spirit Pill, huh. This should help me raise my blood qi.
At first, the power of the Blood Pill had been enough to balance with my death qi, but now the death qi was so dense it almost swallowed everything else whole.
If I wanted to adapt the Blood Cult’s methods, I’d need to raise my blood qi as well.
I sat cross-legged on the bed and placed the Blood Spirit Pill in my mouth.
A hot current ran down my esophagus and swirled around my dantian.
I guided that energy through the blood channels of Death Blood Demon Art and completed a full circulation.
By the time I opened my eyes much later, I had absorbed most of the Blood Spirit Pill’s power cleanly.
“Doesn’t look like much on the outside.”
Even after refining the elixir, there wasn’t a dramatic change, simply because the total volume of death qi inside me was already so vast.
“I’ll just keep building it up little by little.”
What I was aiming for in the end was a balance between death qi and blood qi.
If I could reach that state, maybe I could use death qi for one kind of technique and blood qi for another, and borrow the fighting style of a blood-mage swordsman.
Now that I’d absorbed the elixir, it was time to begin researching the spellbook—when someone knocked on my door.
“Who is it?”
The door slowly opened, and a figure wearing a black face covering appeared.
For a moment I thought it might be an enemy, but the red emblem stitched over the chest was clearly that of the Blood Cult, so I let my guard down a little.
The masked man spoke in an expressionless voice.
“Trainee Wang Saryeong, the Cult Leader has summoned you.”
Unlike his flat tone, the content of his words was shocking.
The Cult Leader. The supreme ruler of the Blood Cult, the master of the Blood Cult.
Someone I should never have been able to see from this far down the ladder had called for me.
Maybe what happened in Black Valley had been exposed. Or maybe they’d found out I’d tampered with someone’s memory.
Either way, it was obvious trouble was coming.
I even considered killing the masked man and running, but it wouldn’t be easy.
“Please lead the way.”
I had no choice.
Once the master of the Blood Cult had decided to see me, that was that.
Could I really hide my aura, my level, before the Cult Leader?
I wasn’t certain. I could only hope.
I gathered my energy as tightly as I could and followed the masked man out.
Every step behind him felt as though a cold tension was tugging at my ankles.
Deeper and deeper into the Blood Cult’s main grounds we went, toward the places forbidden to ordinary trainees, and the air grew heavier with every step.
The Cult Leader...
Even in my previous life, I’d met the greatest powers on the continent many times. And yet I’d never seen them while this weak, so naturally I was tense.
At last we arrived before a massive iron door. The strange patterns carved into it seemed to writhe as though they were alive.
The masked man stepped aside and cleared the way.
“Go in. The Cult Leader is waiting.”
I swallowed once, then pushed the door open. Beyond the deep grinding of metal, I could make out the silhouette of a man seated high upon an elevated throne far inside.
Even sitting there motionless, he dominated everything around him. It was an oppressive presence that went beyond mere cultivation, the weight of a transcendent being who held the lives and deaths of tens of thousands in his hands.
Once more, I drew my aura in tight and even covered it with magic.
Then I walked forward slowly, but without showing weakness, toward the master of the Blood Cult.
The die had been cast. An audience whose reward or judgment I couldn’t yet know was about to begin.