Chapter 63

Leaving the main altar, I headed to Gangmu Tavern, the place Hwang Seung-hyu had told me about.

It was an ordinary tavern, the kind you could see anywhere.

But whatever was going on inside, the noise was spilling all the way out into the street.

Among those voices was one I knew.

It was the same voice I had heard at the Illusory Hwang Clan’s main gate.

Tilting my head, I stepped inside, only to find utter chaos.

Several tables were overturned, and sharp shards, probably from shattered wine jars, were scattered about.

The cause of this uproar was three warriors of the Blood Heaven Unit and Hwang Seung-jong. All of their faces were bright red, so it seemed they were all nicely drunk.

Kudangtang.

The Blood Heaven Unit’s warriors were running around wildly, making an already messy tavern even worse.

“Grab this bastard!”

“Block him there!”

“Haha. I told you not to make the boys work for nothing. Would it kill you to let a man drink in peace?”

Hwang Seung-jong looked relaxed.

He pushed off chairs with his foot and slid away, or spun across table tops and dropped into chairs on the far side as he dodged their rain of attacks.

They say even when a fish rots, it is still a gizzard shad.

He was not a scion of the Seven Demonic Houses for nothing. He was thoroughly toying with them.

‘But why are they fighting in the first place?’

I was just starting to wonder that.

“We are all men of the demonic path here. We can share a little drink, can we not? Is that really something to get this fired up about?”

“You son of a bitch! We stepped away for a moment and you stole and chugged it! Not a sip, but the whole bottle!”

This lunatic.

I nearly cursed out loud without thinking.

“Hahaha, one must always drink wine before it cools. Leaving behind wine the owner warmed for you is an insult to the wine and an affront to the owner’s sincerity, is it not?”

Watching this scene, Im Yeon opened and closed her mouth a few times, then spoke.

“Are you truly… planning to take that man with you, Young Lord?”

“Yes, I am.”

Im Yeon looked to Ak Mu-jin as if asking for help.

It was no use.

Ak Mu-jin had been silent for some time now. He had taken off his mask.

He seemed to be really hung up on Hwang Seung-jong calling it hideous.

“So the rumors were true that even the Illusory Hwang Clan cast you out as a good-for-nothing. If I do not cut you down today, I am no man of the Blood Heaven Unit!”

In the blink of an eye, the situation turned serious.

The warriors all drew their sabers at once. They meant to spill blood.

‘It will not work out for them anyway.’

Unfortunately for them, the gap between those warriors and Hwang Seung-jong was far too great.

No matter how hard they tried, they would not even graze his sleeves.

“Let us stop there.”

Before the real clash began, I stepped in.

I had no desire to waste precious time watching a one-sided fight.

“Who is getting in the way?”

The Blood Heaven Unit’s warriors shouted fiercely, then gasped when they saw me.

“Gasp, Seventh Young Lord, what brings you to such a humble place…!”

It seemed my face had become rather well known thanks to the Sacred Flame Festival.

Before that, hardly anyone recognized me.

“I have business with that man. Could you hand him over?”

“Ah, how could we refuse a request from you, sir?”

The Blood Heaven Unit’s warriors answered politely.

Then they each shot a glare at Hwang Seung-jong and left the tavern.

When he saw me, the bastard threw both arms up in an exaggerated gesture.

“Oh, and who do we have here? The great Seventh Young Lord. You chased me all the way out here? This is not the sort of place a little young master should be gracing with his presence. Haha!”

“Wonderful behavior you’re showing here. Tsk tsk.”

“Haha. So you are nothing special either, Seventh Young Lord. You will not feel better until you smack me a few times, will you. Of course, you are the one who cut off a fellow Little Demon’s arm.”

Hwang Seung-jong snickered, his face flushed.

He looked pathetically pitiful, to the point of making me angry.

What about me in my past life?

I tried to escape the Demon Cult three times and got caught all three times.

The last time I was even caught by the Heavenly Demon himself, yet my will to escape never broke.

So what was this with Hwang Seung-jong?

I could understand how he felt, but this was going too far.

“Oh no, I am out of wine. Seventh Young Lord, could you step aside for a moment? My wine is on that table over there.”

“You already look completely drunk. How about you stop?”

“How could I. This much does not even count as having had a drink.”

Watching him go on and on about wine, I made up my mind.

I would have to beat this guy up.

I had three reasons.

First, a wastrel only has a chance of becoming human once he has been beaten soundly.

Second, according to Hwang Si-mong, this guy was the only talent who could break through the Frozen Plain.

So I wanted to gauge his current ability precisely.

The gap between him and the Blood Heaven Unit warriors had been too big, so I had to step in personally.

And third.

‘Just because I wanted to hit him.’

I picked up a wine jar that was half full from a nearby table.

“You want this?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then come take it yourself.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I am saying the one who wins gets to drink it. I actually want to drink this too.”

“But that’s my wine?”

“Not anymore.”

Hwang Seung-jong’s lips twisted.

“So you had another motive after all. Did Father send you? To redeem his worthless son?”

“If you are curious, come take this from me first.”

I twirled my wrist, making the wine jar swing.

The wine sloshed, and a few drops flew out. Hwang Seung-jong’s eyes followed those drops left and right.

With a quiet chuckle, I let go of the wine jar.

“Ah!”

Hwang Seung-jong almost screamed.

He flicked the falling wine jar up with the edge of his foot and caught it in his hand again.

“This time I really will smash it. Take it from me before I do.”

“You are good at teasing people. I will have to fix this little young master’s manners.”

His obsession with wine was real.

He charged at me at great speed, as if he absolutely had to get his hands on the jar.

“Chaht.”

His hand clawed for the jar.

I pulled my right hand back and slapped his shoulder with my left palm.

Hwang Seung-jong’s upper body twisted, but he did not care and kicked out.

He meant to knock my hand and make me drop the jar.

“Not a chance.”

I flicked my wrist sharply upward and tossed the jar. It rose high, almost brushing the tavern ceiling.

Tak.

Hwang Seung-jong kicked a nearby chair.

I stepped onto the chair as it flew past, sprang up, flipped backward, snatched the wine jar out of the air, and landed lightly.

As if he had been waiting for that moment, Hwang Seung-jong punched out.

I brushed it aside with my left hand and kicked him in the side.

“Ghk.”

Letting out a low groan, Hwang Seung-jong staggered back a few steps.

“What are you doing? Did you trade your spell arts for taffy?”

His physical ability was better than I had expected.

I thought it would have rusted badly after he spent so long wandering, but that was not the case.

However, what I truly needed to check was his ability with the spelll arts.

Only then could I gauge the chances of successfully breaking through the Frozen Plain.

If he was hopeless, I might have to rework my plans from scratch.

For example, by taking the Illusory Hwang Clan’s head directly to the Frozen Plain.

I had never believed the claim that only those with the Illusory Demon Talent could pass the Frozen Plain. Too much information about it was already widely known.

“This is ruining the taste of my drink. I will drink somewhere else.”

At the mention of spell arts, Hwang Seung-jong lost interest.

Not only that, he turned his body away.

To that man, I tossed out a line.

“Running away again?”

Hwang Seung-jong froze.

“What do you mean?”

“I heard you tucked your tail and ran in disgrace when you fought Great Sahyung too.”

“…!”

His face twisted.

I had dragged up a memory he did not want to recall.

“The vacant lot behind the True Demon Market. Time, the end of the Rooster hour. The witnesses were-”

“Enough.”

For the first time, a cold voice came out of him.

I let a faint, mocking smile touch my lips on purpose.

“They say you were full of confidence beforehand. That you would show Great Sahyung an illusory hell.”

“I said stop.”

“But when you finally opened the lid, the result was awful. You were overwhelmingly outmatched. You did not even get to properly use those spell arts you were so proud of.”

“Shut up!”

It was in that moment.

A fierce wave of energy surged out from Hwang Seung-jong.

The space around him grew faint, as if something were devouring it.

It seemed he had activated Demon Soul Ten Thousand Manifestations, the Illusory Hwang Clan’s secret inner cultivation art.

“Yes, this is it. Come at me with this momentum. Otherwise I will talk about Great Sahyung until your ears bleed.”

Yet despite that momentum, Hwang Seung-jong did not move.

His expression looked as if something terrible would happen if he used his spell arts.

‘A heart demon.’

When you suffer a great shock from something, just recalling it becomes painful.

For Hwang Seung-jong, spell arts seemed to fill that role.

‘It seems I will need stronger stimulus.’

“Get a grip. Do you think you are the only one who has suffered under Great Sahyung? Some people had their entire clans blown apart. Some died. Your clan is still intact and you are still alive.”

“Sometimes the dead are better off than the living.”

“Then go die right now. You do not actually intend to do that, do you?”

“That is easy to say. If you were me, would it be different?”

“I would not act like I had taken on every misfortune in the world. I would not snivel like a coward either.”

“You… do not know how terrifying the First Young Lord is.”

His voice trembled slightly.

His face had gone pale, as if he was feeling an immense fear.

“The First Young Lord is not human. He is cunning and cruel. And his domineering demonic qi is…”

“I know.”

I completely agreed with him.

Great Sahyung was extremely strong.

There were very few masters in the Demon Cult who could face him head-on.

But what made him truly terrifying was his ruthless disregard for means and methods.

Hwang Seung-jong had experienced that to the bone.

“You must have been overwhelmed by helplessness. Great Sahyung must have terrified you. You probably felt self-loathing for being swallowed by those feelings. So how long are you going to stay like this?”

“Until all those memories disappear. I never want to feel that horror again.”

“So you plan to live your whole life cowering in fear of Great Sahyung?”

“…Before long, you will understand me too.”

“Great Sahyung is a wall to you. To someone else, he is nothing more or less than an obstacle that must be passed.”

“And that ‘someone else’ is you?”

“Yeah. If you do not believe me, check for yourself. You can take the wine jar while you are at it.”

“…”

“What’s with that unsure face? Are you cowering not only before Great Sahyung now, but before me too? Then again, you did take a few hits, so I suppose that makes sense.”

I provoked him with a full dose of ridicule.

Deep anguish flickered across his contorted face.

He was struggling over what to do.

“Wow. Even after all this, you still won’t come at me. At this rate, when the Illusory Hwang Clan gets swallowed by the Demon Bell Geuk Clan, you will just sit and watch too?”

Maybe that was the finishing blow.

At last, his eyes came into sharp focus.

“…If you truly insist, I will show you my spell arts.”

“Good. That is what I wanted.”

I rejoiced inwardly.

Thanks to going on and on about Great Sahyung, I could finally see his true ability.

A heart demon must be overcome with a heart demon.

Syusyusyuuk.

Hwang Seung-jong snapped both sleeves sharply.

A dozen yellow objects shot toward me.

‘Talismans?’

Talismans were one of the Illusory Hwang Clan’s fundamental arts.

It seemed that even in his debauched life, he always carried these.

I hurled the wine jar I had been holding straight forward. Several of the talismans flying in stuck to it like magnets.

Peopeong! Peongpeong!

The jar shattered into pieces and wine scattered in all directions. It seemed they were exploding-type talismans.

I drew my body back and grabbed a leg of an overturned table, then threw it.

Perhaps because of its bulk, all the remaining talismans latched onto the table and exploded.

In the meantime, astonishingly, Hwang Seung-jong’s body had multiplied into several.

Those copies fired dozens more talismans at me in unison.

Peongpeongpeong!

Talismans exploded in a wild series of blasts.

I dodged or threw objects to intercept them, but the tavern’s interior was too cramped to completely neutralize them.

“The simplified formation, the Shattering Demon-Soul Formation, is complete.”

Only then did I look around.

Fragments of tables and chairs that had been smashed by the talismans were gathered in a circle around me.

‘This is more like it.’

Just as I was satisfied inwardly, the environment around me began changing moment by moment.

A seashore with waves crashing, a volcanic crater spewing hot lava, an arid desert with not a trace of moisture.

The rapid shifts in scenery were dizzying.

However.

‘It’s not perfect.’

The Dream-Walking Formation I had experienced at the Illusory Hwang Clan made it nearly impossible to distinguish reality from unreality.

But this Shattering Demon-Soul Formation was different.

Whether because it was a simplified formation or because Hwang Seung-jong’s skills had rusted, I could feel something beyond the illusion.

The sense I gained from the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art, now at the third stage, pinpointed Hwang Seung-jong’s position.

His presence steadily drew closer to me.

He was planning to attack me while I was trapped in the illusion.

I closed my eyes without hesitation.

When his presence drew near, I pulled up half of the internal energy I had left.

Raging Gale Convergence.

With the fist technique that gathers raging wind and sweeps everything away in its flow, I struck Hwang Seung-jong dead on.

Kwadang!

The illusion shattered, and the inside of the tavern came into view again.

Hwang Seung-jong had sunk to the floor, clutching one side of his face.

He spoke with a bitter look.

“You are strong. No… maybe I have grown weak.”

“How do I compare to Great Sahyung?”

“…Not even close. But–”

“–But you see the possibility, right?”

“…”

I nodded in satisfaction.

His silence was answer enough.

“In truth, this is not what really matters.”

Looking down at Hwang Seung-jong, I continued.

“What matters is that you passed.”

“…What?”

“You passed.”

His gaze on me turned blank.

Now, shall we have a constructive conversation?