The Demon Lord's Bargain
A chilling dread swept over him, making every hair on his body stand on end.
Woon-hyeon recognized this sensation all too well. It was an instinct he had long forgotten during his reign as the undisputed supreme master of the Central Plains—the primal terror of a cornered prey under the predator's gaze.
I couldn't sense him at all...
Even now, staring straight at the intruder with his own eyes, Woon-hyeon could not perceive the slightest trace of qi. The man stood right before him, yet felt as insubstantial as a phantom.
"Why spare them? You could have ended their lives so easily." The man stroked his chin, a faintly puzzled tilt to his head.
Woon-hyeon lowered his gaze slightly. Though he knew full well the blade in his hand could not protect him, he did not lower his sword from the intruder's chest.
"Who goes there?"
"The Dark Shadow Demon Lord. That is what they call me in the Cult."
"The Cult...?"
Beneath the white mask, the man's lips curled into an amused smile.
A bitter weight pressed down upon Woon-hyeon's chest. The masked assailants had taken great care to conceal their identities, withholding who had sent them, their names, and their titles. This man, by contrast, offered his identity with effortless indifference.
"An agent of the Demonic Cult, then."
When measuring danger between those who hide their faces and those who reveal them boldly, the latter was invariably the deadlier threat.
The man belonged to the Demonic Cult. Woon-hyeon could already deduce why they had dispatched an assassin this deep into the wilderness. In truth, ever since taking refuge in the Hundred Thousand Mountains, he had anticipated this day would come.
"You have come to take my life."
He had never harbored any illusions that the Demonic Cult would allow him to live out his dying days in peace. He was the former Murim Alliance Leader who had spearheaded the righteous expedition against the Cult into these very mountains. Had it not been for the betrayal of his half-brother and the Alliance elders, a grand, bloody war between the Orthodox and Demonic factions would be raging at this very hour. And now, the supreme commander of their bitterest enemies lay helpless and half-dead within their territory. With both the opportunity and every righteous pretext at hand, why would they ever let an enemy general draw another breath?
"Yep. Spot on." The Dark Shadow Demon Lord nodded without the slightest urge to deny it. He glanced past Woon-hyeon toward the fallen masked intruders. "Though, I didn't expect you to have company already."
"They did not come to kill me."
"Ah." The Dark Shadow Demon Lord turned his gaze toward the small house. He had already sensed Yeon-woo hiding within. "So you spared them because they weren't after your head? Or was it just some tender-hearted chivalric honor?"
"It was for no such reason."
Woon-hyeon had only knocked them unconscious for Yeon-woo's sake. The girl possessed a remarkably sharp nose; had he slaughtered them, she would have immediately caught the scent of blood. He simply did not wish to terrify the child before he had the chance to explain anything.
"I merely intended to dispose of them elsewhere."
"Hmm..." The Dark Shadow Demon Lord let out a low, acknowledging murmur. His lips curved upward in a jaunty grin. "Then I suppose I can just get on with my business, can't I?"
His slender fingers dropped to the hilt of the sword resting at his hip.
Seeing that, Woon-hyeon slowly lowered the blade he had kept pointed at him.
He was facing a monster whose presence he could not even detect. In a shattered body that struggled to overcome a mere first-rate warrior, defeating the Dark Shadow Demon Lord was a sheer impossibility.
"Giving up so easily? I expected more from the grand Imperial Sword. That's a bit of a letdown."
"I ask only one favor of you."
"They say a man facing death loses all shame."
"Take the child to the Gwan Clan. Simply tell them that assassins came calling; they will understand the rest."
"Me...?"
In that instant, a dense, violet-tinged aura began to rise from the Dark Shadow Demon Lord. The miasma coiled tightly around his frame before creeping outward in every direction—a manifestation of demonic qi so condensed and terrifying that it assumed physical form. Within heartbeats, it engulfed the entire clearing before surging toward Woon-hyeon.
The dark energy seeped into Woon-hyeon's feet, climbed his legs in a flash, and coiled around his throat like an iron noose.
"Kh...!"
A strangled groan escaped Woon-hyeon's lips as the suffocating pressure crushed his windpipe. Yet the demonic qi did not halt; it burrowed ravenously into every meridian of his flesh, gnawing at his body from the inside out.
As Woon-hyeon's consciousness began to slip into an abyss of smothering dark qi, the man's telepathic voice thundered violently inside his skull like a bolt of lightning.
Simultaneously—
"Cough...!"
A surge of burning fluid erupted from deep within his chest, and a mouthful of dark, clotted blood burst past Woon-hyeon's lips. His internal injuries, already pushed past their absolute limits, finally collapsed into complete ruin.
Yet the Dark Shadow Demon Lord did not withdraw his energy. Slaying the Imperial Sword, Namgoong Woon-hyeon, was the direct command of the Heavenly Demon and his sole purpose here. He watched with frigid, dispassionate eyes as Woon-hyeon withered under the crushing weight of his aura.
Right at that moment—
"Stop bullying Grandfather!"
Whoosh—clack!
A projectile whipped through the air, struck the Dark Shadow Demon Lord's mask, and bounced onto the dirt.
He had made no move to block it. He merely looked down at the object that had hit him: a jagged stone roughly the size of a child's fist.
When the Demon Lord raised his eyes toward the veranda, a glimmer of amusement flared in his violet gaze. Standing on the wooden platform, clutching a small woodchopping hatchet and fuming with righteous fury, was the very same feisty little girl he had met earlier that afternoon.
A wide, radiant grin broke across the Demon Lord's face, and he gave a cheerful wave. "Well, hello! Fancy meeting you again! Did you enjoy the snacks you took from me earlier?"
"Don't act like we're friends, you old geezer!"
Old... geezer...?
The Demon Lord's hand froze mid-wave. The cheerful smile congealed into stone. Her words pierced straight through his chest like a pair of poisoned daggers.
Not again. She called me that this afternoon, too...
While the Demon Lord stood stunned by the insult, Yeon-woo had already stooped down to grab another stone. And all the while, the Imperial Sword was still being smothered to death by the coiling demonic qi.
She hurled the second rock with all her might. "Stop it! I said stop hurting him!"
This time, the Demon Lord raised an open palm. The stone, flying fast and true with all the force the child could muster, jerked to a dead halt in midair inches from his hand.
"I'm sorry, little one, but pebbles like this can't hurt me." His eyebrows drooped with exaggerated sorrow.
With a flick of his will, the suspended stone clattered harmlessly to the ground.
Yeon-woo's jaw dropped in disbelief. But just as quickly, her expression hardened into pure, stubborn grit. Her little hands clamped tightly around the wooden haft of her hatchet.
Realizing what she was about to do, Woon-hyeon desperately reached out a trembling hand toward her. "Yeon-woo... no... don't..."
Before his warning could leave his lips—
"YAAAAAAH!"
Brandishing her hatchet high above her head, Yeon-woo leaped from the veranda and charged across the dirt yard, her pale, bare feet kicking up dust.
Watching the tiny whirlwind rushing toward him, the Demon Lord let out a resigned sigh. "Didn't I just tell you?"
"HYAAAAAAAH!"
Swish—!
Yeon-woo brought the hatchet crashing downward with all her weight. The Demon Lord casually extended his index finger—the same hand that had just stopped the stone—to intercept the blow with careless ease.
"A feeble strike like this couldn't even leave a scratch on m—?"
Every ounce of playful arrogance vanished from his face in a fraction of an instant.
The Dark Shadow Demon Lord tilted his hand, staring down at his index finger in disbelief. A dull, sharp sting throbbed at the very tip of his flesh. And as if to prove his senses were not playing tricks on him, a hairline fissure ran across the skin, welling with a solitary, bright-red bead of blood.
An injury. From a child's toy-like axe.
"Ha!" An incredulous laugh slipped past his lips.
I bled? From a rusty little hatchet the size of a palm?
His gaze shifted, settling on the waist-high child with a profoundly altered intensity. Yeon-woo was already hoisting the axe back into the air, her eyes blazing.
"I told you to stop...!"
Seeing that she was fully prepared to swing such an absurdly dangerous implement a second time, the Demon Lord acted swiftly.
Tap, tap.
"...hurting... him..."
Having her sleeping acupoints struck, Yeon-woo's words trailed off into a drowsy mumble. Still holding the hatchet aloft, she slumped forward and hung limply against the Demon Lord's forearm. Even as soft, rhythmic snores escaped her lips, her tiny fingers showed no sign of releasing their death grip on the axe haft.
It was such an endearing, childish display that the Demon Lord couldn't help but chuckle under his breath.
The suffocating purple miasma that had blanketed the yard withdrew in an instant, melting back into his body like a receding tide.
Cradling Yeon-woo gently in his arms, the Dark Shadow Demon Lord walked over to Woon-hyeon. Having coughed up a pool of blood, the former Alliance Leader was clinging to consciousness by a thread, his chest heaving with shallow, ragged breaths.
The Demon Lord lowered himself onto one knee, meeting Woon-hyeon's eyes at equal height.
Clutching his bruised chest, Woon-hyeon forced his head up. His first instinct was to inspect the girl cradled against the demon's chest. Seeing her peaceful, sleeping face, he exhaled in relief—she was merely asleep, wholly unharmed.
Why did he stop?
The Dark Shadow Demon Lord had come with every intent to kill him. His demonic aura had carried not the slightest hesitation of murder. So why pull back now?
Woon-hyeon stared at the man before him. Through the eyeholes of the white half-mask, a pair of transparent, deep-violet eyes—resembling a boundless midnight sky—gazed calmly back at him.
Then, the corners of those violet eyes crinkled into a smile.
"I'll give you two choices."
Woon-hyeon steadied his breath. The coppery taste of iron coated his tongue.
"One: you die by my hand today, alongside this child."
Woon-hyeon's brow furrowed sharply. He burned to demand why an innocent child had to be dragged into this, but his scorched throat refused to produce a sound, leaving him capable of only glaring with cold defiance.
"The other choice is..." The Dark Shadow Demon Lord glanced down at Yeon-woo resting peacefully in his embrace. A strange, calculating gleam lingered in his gaze as he studied her. "You teach this child."
"...?"
"Until the Demon Dragon Hall opens five years from now, Imperial Sword." The Dark Shadow Demon Lord looked back up, his voice ringing with absolute certainty. "I am telling you to become her master."