Chapter 51

The murderous aura Heuk Un-hwi was exuding weighed heavily on the air in the rear garden.

I opened my mouth as if nothing were wrong.

“Shall we move somewhere else?”

“What dirty trick are you scheming!”

“Your target is me anyway. Is there any need to drag other people into it for no reason?”

“Young Lord, what do you mean by that?”

Im Yeon cut in, eyes wide with shock.

“We are your guards, Young Lord. We cannot let you fight alone.”

“You had no problem leaving me to fight Unit Leader Ak alone, though.”

“Th-that was because you insisted so strongly, Young Lord—”

“It is the same situation now as it was then, so do not worry.”

Im Yeon hesitated to answer.

Having stayed at the Demon Cult’s main altar for a long time, she knew very well.

She knew how incredibly strong Heuk Un-hwi was with his whip in hand.

He was, after all, the Heavenly Demon’s fourth disciple.

He might even be a step above Ak Mu-jin.

Because of that, it occurred to me that convincing Im Yeon might be difficult.

She was a guard with a powerful sense of duty.

“I will kill you soon enough too, so stop acting up and just wait your turn to die!”

Heuk Un-hwi shouted irritably.

Honestly, even when he talks, it has to be like that.

Ignoring him, I spoke to Im Yeon.

“Wait here. I think I need to show you all a side of me you have not seen yet. You could call it an unsealing, so to speak. Hehe.”

“If you say unsealing… could it be you have finally decided to reveal your true self?”

“Hm?”

I tilted my head.

Calling it my true self felt a bit off, yet it also kind of sounded similar, which left me confused.

“I have known. Up to now, you have never once fought at full strength, Young Lord.”

“…I have not?”

I asked back with a blank look on my face.

If anything, it was the complete opposite.

I had fought with everything I had in almost every battle.

“You have always moved several steps ahead of everyone else, Young Lord. That would have been impossible if you had not been hiding your true level. I assumed there was a profound reason you did not reveal it. If you now intend to break that seal, we will gladly take a step back.”

Im Yeon’s unexpected speech left me at a loss for words.

I had only made a joke, so why was she taking it so seriously?

‘Just what kind of person have you been seeing me as?’

Since I was a regressor, I had acted differently from others plenty of times.

But somehow it seemed I had come across as if I were purposely hiding some incredible power.

“…Anyway, just wait here.”

“Yes, Young Lord!”

“You, come with me. If you are scared, you do not have to.”

“Who would ever be afraid of the likes of you!”

Heuk Un-hwi shouted and followed behind me.

He was so full of confidence that he did not seem to consider even a little that I might have laid a trap.

He was probably thinking only about separating my bones and flesh once my steps stopped.

Before long we arrived at a rear garden that was quite large for the size of the branch.

Big and small trees stood thick, making it look like a small forest.

Deeper in the grove, a charming pavilion sat as if hidden.

I faced Heuk Un-hwi in front of that pavilion.

He sneered at me as if I were ridiculous.

“You were really making a fool of yourself back there.”

“I had no choice, since I did not want to show them anything ugly.”

“You’re not planning to beg for your life where no one is around, are you?”

“Listen to you talk about begging. You really think I brought you here for nothing? It was all strategy, idiot.”

The Hundred-Succession Heuk Clan was known for its extremely fast whip techniques.

As the successor of such a clan, Heuk Un-hwi required a strategic approach.

A rear garden thick with trees was the optimal environment to limit the whip’s power and range. It blocked his vision, left little room to swing, and even if he did swing, the whip would easily catch on the trees.

Of course, for Heuk Un-hwi it might not be a massive handicap.

But for me, a small difference could lead to a huge outcome.

“Strategy? Strateeegyy? Hahaha! Hahahahaha!”

Heuk Un-hwi suddenly burst into maniacal laughter.

His laughter, laden with internal energy, shook the surrounding trees as if in an earthquake.

“Did you think this kind of useless trick would work on me? If there are trees, my Crimson Scaled Dragon Whip will smash those trees, and if there is a forest, it will smash the entire forest!”

Inwardly, I was impressed.

He was brutal and stupid, yet his spirit was impressive.

‘Not that it will last much longer.’

I still had far too much left to do.

If I left Heuk Un-hwi alone, he would get in my way at every turn.

So I had to finish things here.

“Gulp.”

I took out the Tranquil Frost Pill I had been saving and swallowed it.

I felt a chilling energy wrap around my qi and blood.

With this, I would be able to use my internal energy for half an hour.

I planned to do nothing but run away for that entire half hour.

“Did you just take poison to kill yourself?”

“I did not, so just come at me.”

“Hmph, I will tear your pathetic body into tiny pieces!”

No sooner had he finished speaking than Heuk Un-hwi’s whip began to dance.

Kwa-kwa-kwang!

He unleashed a relentless barrage that did not allow a single breath.

The red whip flew in like a living viper and mercilessly destroyed every spot where I had just been.

The trees that blocked its path exploded in all directions.

I used the bare minimum of internal energy as I narrowly avoided his attacks.

I moved between tree trunks, hiding my body behind them, and hopped over the pavilion railings, scratching at his nerves.

“Stop running away, you coward!”

“How about you stop breaking trees? The one you are supposed to hit is me, not the trees.”

“Shut up!”

Heuk Un-hwi swung his whip like a madman, as if to erase the entire grove.

It was idiotic.

Even if he had monstrous internal energy befitting the successor of the Seven Demonic Houses, it was not infinite.

There was no way he could keep smashing around like that for the whole span.

If he did, his dantian would end up completely empty.

Heuk Un-hwi was not so stupid that he did not know that.

‘What if he went so berserk that he lost what sense he had?’

With just a few words, I could shatter what little composure he had.

He was the kind of guy whose composure already started half-broken.

“Why are you so bad at hitting me? Is that whip defective?”

“Shut up! This is a treasure of the world woven from the tendons and hide of a Crimson Scaled Dragon. No sword you bring can even cut it!”

“Then I guess you are the defective one. Tsk tsk, that fine whip met the wrong master.”

“Y-you little…!”

Heuk Un-hwi’s face flushed bright red.

I burst into laughter on the inside.

How could someone be this simple?

As expected, he was a much easier opponent than Ak Mu-jin.

Ak Mu-jin lacked internal energy but had a wealth of experience, which was why I had been left with a lot of injuries when that fight ended.

This time would be different.

Heuk Un-hwi did not know how to break through a situation like this.

“Because of you, a rootless wretch, my dignity has been dragged into the dirt. Father treats me like a cripple. Even if it is not by my hand, you will definitely die. You think you have only one or two people who want you dead?”

“It is not just one or two. There is you and the Elder Council Lord already, so of course there are more.”

“Do not strut around like Master chose you. The next cult leader position belongs to Great Sahyung anyway. You are nothing.”

“I do not care about that kind of thing. Though now that I hear it, it is strange. You say the next cult leader belongs to Great Sahyung. If it is not even yours, why are you puffing up your neck and bragging about it. Did you entrust your sense of self to him, or did he steal it from you with some soul-seizing art.”

“Shut up!”

At my taunts, Heuk Un-hwi completely lost his mind.

He screamed like a madman, in a voice that sounded as if it scraped up the bottom of his dantian.

“I will turn you into meat strips!”

Chwa-chwa-chwa-chwa-chwa!

The whip sliced through the air at a speed my eyes could hardly follow.

The entire rear garden seemed covered in the shadow of the red whip.

It was the Hundred-Succession Heuk Clan’s secret art, the Seven-Slaying Demon Shadow Whip.

Among its techniques, he had unleashed its supreme move, Demon Shadow Thousand-Slashes.

Peo-peo-peo-peong!

Every place the whip tip brushed against blew apart.

The rear garden, which had been so picturesque just moments before, was utterly devastated.

Roars, fragments and dust mixed together until my eyes and ears were almost numbed.

Clicking my tongue, I pushed Whirling Wind Fluttering Leaf Steps to the limit.

The wind pressure from the whip alone was enough to tear my skin, so I could not stop.

If it caught me even once, my body would be shredded to pieces.

‘Just a little more.’

The moment I wanted was not far off.

As I said, Heuk Un-hwi’s internal energy was not limitless.

“Die! Die! Die!”

The supreme move was unleashed again and again.

Storms of Demonic Qi raged wildly.

Then the wind pressure began to weaken little by little.

Heuk Un-hwi’s lips had turned bluish. It was a sign of exhaustion.

There had to be a heavy price for unleashing a move like that over and over.

‘Now.’

Before he could pull himself together, I drove into that opening.

Shortening the distance with Soul-Extinguishing Flash Steps, I imbued the cold-iron dagger with the essence of Insect Courage.

“How dare you!”

Even on the verge of collapse, he was still a master on the threshold of the peak realm.

Heuk Un-hwi improvised on the spot, gripping the whip’s length in his left hand and swinging the handle.

I had already come too close for him to swing the whip normally.

There was still tremendous power in that strike, so I pushed hard off the ground with my toes.

My body spun in the air like a top.

Pat!

The whip handle grazed my body and sliced through the air.

I used the momentum of my spin to dive into Heuk Un-hwi’s chest range.

At the same time.

Puhwak!

The cold-iron dagger grazed his right arm, and I felt the sensation of flesh and muscle being deeply cut along my fingertips.

Thud, the whip and his forearm fell to the ground.

His eyes went wide and fixed on the spot where his arm had fallen.

“M-my arm… my arm! Aaaaagh!”

Heuk Un-hwi picked up his own arm with his left hand.

Pain, shock and disbelief were all mixed together in his eyes.

Born as a direct descendant of one of the Seven Demonic Houses, he had become a Little Demon. With a status no one could ignore, he had lived his life wounding and killing others without restraint.

He had probably never imagined that karma would return to him like this.

The shock was so great that he was not even thinking to press his pressure points to stop the bleeding, even though fresh blood was pouring from his cleanly severed arm.

“W-what in the world have you done to me!”

His voice was full of hatred.

I answered coldly.

“Justice.”

“What kind of nonsense is that!”

“You really thought I would leave alone someone foaming at the mouth as he came at me to kill me?”

“I will kill you. I will definitely kill—!”

“You are noisy.”

Bbak!

I smacked him in the temple with the top of my foot.

He lost consciousness and went down with a Kwadang!

‘From now on, stop being a nuisance and live reflecting on yourself.’

I let out a hollow laugh.

Even though it was my own thought, it was absurd.

Heuk Un-hwi was not the kind of person who would reflect.

He would prance around talking about revenge, just like he had shouted earlier.

‘But he will not be able to do anything.’

Heuk Un-hwi still did not know.

He did not know that he had lost everything. That the Blood-Demon Mad Ghost Heuk Un-hwi was finished.

“Hooaaah.”

I flopped flat on my back.

I could not care less about what came next. I was so exhausted I felt like I might faint.

Even so, my mood was very good.

After all, I had taken so much from this bastard in my past life.

The whipping, the mockery, the beatings.

I almost felt grateful he had come at me the same way in this life as well.

The pent-up resentment from back then had completely melted away.

‘I cannot end it here.’

I picked up the Crimson Scaled Dragon Whip lying on the ground.

Using a binding method I had learned before, I tightly tied up the unconscious Heuk Un-hwi’s upper body. With one arm missing and the whip being so long, I still had length left even after wrapping it around him several times.

“You said it could never be cut, right. I will let you stay close to that beloved whip of yours all the way back to the Demon Cult.”

I planned to bring him back to the Cult just like this.

A lot of people’s faces would be something to see.

Gripping the handle, I dragged him out of the rear garden.

A huge reaction erupted at once.

Im Yeon and the guards gaped in shock, and Heuk Un-hwi’s subordinates let out dazed groans before drawing their weapons all at once.

“What in the world have you done to the Fourth Young Lord!”

The man who seemed to hold the highest rank among them shouted as if screaming.

“Can you not see. I cut off the arm he used only for bad deeds.”

“D-do you think you can come out of this unharmed, Seventh Young Lord?”

“I think I will. I am not an idiot. Do you really think I would do this with no plan.”

The man’s pupils wavered.

I did not have any strength left to fight them either.

Even with Im Yeon and the guards joining in, it would be hard to handle even two or three of them.

So from here on, I would make them defect.

“Rather than my future, how about you worry about your own first.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fourth Young Lord came all the way to Shufu saying he would kill the Seventh Young Lord. You are his accomplices.”

“…!”

“Even so, Heuk Un-hwi has his status, so he probably will not die. He is a Little Demon like me. But what about you? Ordinary cult members dared try to kill a Little Demon. Ten times out of ten, this is what you will get.”

I drew my palm across my own neck.

I could feel Heuk Un-hwi’s subordinates agitating violently.

If they had succeeded, it would have been fine.

If I and even my guards had died, there would have been no one left to testify.

The Hundred-Succession Heuk Clan would have smoothed things over somehow.

But they had already failed.

“Do not waste your strength and surrender. I will testify that you did nothing wrong.”

Heuk Un-hwi’s subordinates glanced at one another for a moment.

They were torn, tempted by my words.

One of them opened his mouth.

“…Can we trust you, Seventh Young Lord?”

“I am not like Heuk Un-hwi.”

Soon, with deep sighs, they began dropping their weapons one by one.

Even the man who seemed likely to stand against me for Heuk Un-hwi’s sake until the end did the same.

It had to end up this way.

There was no way there was such a thing as loyalty with a guy like Heuk Un-hwi.

For them, simply keeping their own lives intact was the best choice.

Once the situation settled, Im Yeon rushed over.

“You truly are incredible, Young Lord. To subdue that infamous Fourth Young Lord without a single injury… so this was your true strength.”

“It is not that much.”

“No, I am sure you have reached a realm I could not even imagine, Young Lord.”

“…Well, that may be.”

I could not bring myself to meet Im Yeon’s eyes.

If she found out I had spent the whole fight running away and then won by exploiting an opening, what would she think of me?

“Ahem.”

I covered the awkwardness with a fake cough.

That was how Heuk Un-hwi’s noisy assault came to an end.

Now it was about time to head back to the Demon Cult.