Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 19

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 19
Pant—pant—pant—
Crunch—crunch!
In the darkness, Gwan Hyeok ran without stopping.
The moment he slowed, hands would lurch from the shadows to seize his throat.
* * *
Moments before.
Rustle!
Gwan Hyeok had tried to hide his body but accidentally brushed against the undergrowth.
The Masked Assassins turned toward him.
He couldn’t read their presence, yet he felt it instinctively.
Like a snake drawing near, their hands reached toward him.
The conversation that had been audible cut off abruptly, and the silence became suffocating—a terror that seemed to swallow the world whole.
‘I’m caught….’
He was about to accept that when—
Gwan Hyeok felt something squirm inside his robe.
A rabbit.
“……!”
Gwan Hyeok released the rabbit without hesitation.
It bounded from his arms and vanished into the brush. And then—
“What is it, just a rabbit?”
A Masked Assassin’s voice came from close by.
Just behind the tree where he was hiding.
The Masked Assassin tossed the rabbit aside indifferently and turned back.
It was fortunate the night was dark and the captured rabbit was black.
Had it been otherwise, they would have noticed immediately that the rabbit’s leg was injured.
“What do we do with this one?”
“Take him along for now. If we come back empty-handed, we’ll get beaten to death.”
The Masked Assassins disappeared, taking the servant with them.
Once their presence had completely vanished, Gwan Hyeok—who had held his breath all that time—fled in haste.
He couldn’t go home.
That would mean passing through the spot where the Masked Assassins had been.
There was only one place he could go.
Yeon Woo’s house.
* * *
“Son! Why have you come back again?”
Pant—pant—pant—
“What’s happened that you’ve run here like this?”
Yun Hyeon checked behind Gwan Hyeok.
But there was no sign of pursuit. Which meant—
“Where’s your servant? Did you come back alone?”
In that moment, Gwan Hyeok seized Yun Hyeon’s arm.
“Please—please help me!”
“……!”
Yun Hyeon grasped the gravity of the situation from his expression.
“Tell me what’s happened.”
“Masked men—they took Seok I, they took Seok I!”
Masked men?
Yun Hyeon’s head snapped up toward the roof.
There sat Am Young Ma Gun, cross-legged with his chin propped on his hand, having sensed the commotion and hidden himself, now watching the scene unfold below.
Am Young Ma Gun grinned.
– Another visitor, it seems. Our Yeon Woo’s quite popular.
– I heard—the one they took was this boy’s servant.
– The fools must’ve made a mistake.
Why would they take a servant?
– Help him.
– Why should I?
– They’re after Yeon Woo, aren’t they?
– Even so. How did this boy make it here?
The fact that he arrived alive means they’ve already left, doesn’t it?
— Wait…!
The boy Seok I might still be alive!
But Yun Hyeon said nothing.
Watching the emptiness in Am Young Ma Gun’s eyes, he suddenly remembered.
‘These are Demonic Sect people.’
The life of a weak servant child—they wouldn’t even consider it a human life worth preserving.
He would not help.
Yun Hyeon turned to Gwan Hyeok again.
“Do you know where they went?”
“T-toward the village, or… over the mountain….”
The masked assassins had vanished in the direction of the village, though they surely hadn’t headed straight there.
If so, there was only one possibility.
“Let’s go then. Yeon Woo, you stay here—”
“No! I’m coming too!”
“What?!”
Yun Hyeon gripped Yeon Woo firmly, his expression stern.
“It’s dangerous! Do you understand what kind of people they are? Stay here!”
At least Am Young Ma Gun would protect Yeon Woo.
“No!! I can smell! I can track where they went!”
…!
Yun Hyeon faltered.
Track by scent…?
‘The child’s sense of smell is refined enough to distinguish medicinal herbs. Perhaps tracking might be… possible.’
“Then you must not stray from your grandfather for even a moment. Don’t wander off on your own. If you keep that promise, I’ll take you with me.”
“Yes! I promise!”
Far away, on a rooftop, Am Young Ma Gun looked down in bewilderment.
But Yun Hyeon understood.
If Yeon Woo moved, so would he.
“If you break your promise, no meat for five days—only vegetables. Do you understand?”
Yeon Woo flinched, hesitating.
But soon nodded, resolve settling into his small face.
“Leave it to me!”
As if anything could be left to such a small child.
Yun Hyeon held Yeon Woo’s determined gaze for a moment, then lifted the boy into his arms.
“Can you still run?”
Gwan Hyeok, who had caught his breath by then, nodded.
“Lead the way.”
Tap—tap-tap.
The three figures vanished in an instant into the darkened forest.
Am Young Ma Gun watched the forest where they disappeared, still holding Yeon Woo, his expression dumbfounded. Only then did he brush himself off and rise.
“Tch. I told them not to, but here they go. Making a fuss in the middle of the night like this. This is why I can’t stand the Orthodox Sect.”
A truly bothersome bunch.
Am Young Ma Gun snapped his fingers with a sharp crack.
Five shadows hidden in the darkness instantly moved into position behind him.
“Where’s their hideout?”
“This way, sir.”
“Good.”
I had planned to wait a while longer and observe.
“But we might as well finish them now.”
If that’s what our esteemed future Sect Leader desires.
* * *
“This way!”
Cradled in Yun Hyeon’s arms, Yeon Woo pointed without hesitation toward a single direction.
It was neither the path toward the village nor the direction where the mountain pass lay.
“Th-this way…?!”
It led to a cliff with nothing beyond it?!
Gwan Hyeok was bewildered.
He had been the one to encounter the masked assassins—what could this boy possibly know to guide them like this?
‘Was that earlier talk about tracking by scent really true?’
Could such a thing even be possible?
I don’t smell anything at all??
Yet the adult who was actually helping them didn’t doubt for a moment and simply followed Yeon Woo’s directions, leaving no room to turn back.
Gwan Hyeok clenched his teeth and hurried along behind the pair.
He could only pray that nothing terrible had happened to Seok I.
“Keep going! This way!”
Yeon Woo led them forward eagerly.
Following a scent was not difficult.
The path carried a sweet smell.
The aroma of dried fruit—Yeon Woo’s favorite.
“Over here!”
Yet Yeon Woo’s expression was not bright.
Mixed with that achingly familiar sweetness came a sickly metallic stench—the smell of blood.
The scent of an assassin.
“I…!”
In an instant, Yeon Woo’s hand froze, raised and still.
“Gasp—guh—”
Gwan Hyeok, breathing hard from the chase, grasped the reason at once.
‘Beyond this is…’
A cliff. A vast, empty chasm.
Gwan Hyeok’s heart sank.
He’d kept hoping it wouldn’t be—but they’d come to a precipice.
‘There’s no way he would have gone to a place like this…’
“Grandfather.”
“What is it? Have we arrived?”
Yeon Woo stared at Yun Hyeon and nodded firmly.
“Beyond here.”
“I see.”
Yun Hyeon set Yeon Woo down and, without hesitation, pushed through the undergrowth ahead.
And then he saw it.
A vertiginous cliff stretched before him.
Yun Hyeon approached the cliff’s edge and gazed into the darkness below.
Whoooooosh—
A violent wind swept through the narrow gorge, its howl fierce and foreboding.
No trace of presence could be felt.
And that was precisely what told him.
What lay beneath this cliff.
Yun Hyeon exhaled a low breath, then widened his Ki Sense to survey the surroundings.
Rustle—rustle—
Yeon Woo and Gwan Hyeok pushed through the undergrowth behind him.
Yun Hyeon turned to face them.
“Stay here. I’ll go down and come back.”
Gwan Hyeok felt his heart drop like a stone.
‘Really? This is… the place?’
Even when Yeon Woo led them to this strange place, even when they arrived to find an actual chasm—
he’d been so consumed by the thought ‘We’ve come the wrong way’ that he’d never let himself consider another possibility.
Or perhaps a possibility he’d been deliberately suppressing.
As Yun Hyeon turned to leave—
“Wait, please!”
Gwan Hyeok’s hand trembled as he reached out to stop him.
His lips quivered against his will as he stammered.
“Down there… what if there’s… something d-dangerous…”
Yun Hyeon didn’t answer.
He only watched the trembling child with pitying eyes.
……
A fierce wind tore at the three of them, whipping their clothes.
Gwan Hyeok looked away.
“I… I also want to…”
Take me with you…
“You cannot.”
……
“Bring him here. Wait for me in this place.”
That was the entirety of his resolute answer.
In the next instant, Yun Hyeon vanished again, swept away by a rough gust of wind.
Thump—
Gwan Hyeok’s legs, robbed of all strength, finally buckled beneath him.
His entire body trembled violently, and he could not bring himself to lift his head.
Woooooo—
The wind keened through the gorge once more, lamenting.
It sounded like someone’s bitter cry of grief.
* * *
“Didn’t I tell you? There was no point going.”
On the far side of the gorge, atop a massive boulder.
Am Young Ma Gun clicked his tongue in derision as he watched Yun Hyeon and his party finally track down the vanished child.
“Perhaps it would have been better if they’d never found him at all.”
After all, only Yun Hyeon knew of the thing’s existence below.
If they turned back now….
“……!”
In that moment, Am Young Ma Gun sensed Yun Hyeon’s Ki Sense sweeping the vicinity.
But what he sought was not assassins.
“Tch, keke keke kek.”
What he sought was Am Young Ma Gun himself.
This blatant aura was as good as a silent threat—a warning to keep watch over the children, lest he abandon them to face him.
“Ah, this is driving me crazy. That old tiger.”
Missing nearly all his teeth, and yet his fighting spirit remains intact.
Really, thorough doesn’t begin to cover it. What a nuisance.
Am Young Ma Gun dropped himself into a cross-legged seat atop the boulder with a heavy thump.
Whooooooo—
The rushing wind lifted his black hair high, sending it billowing about him.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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