Appearance of the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 5

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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 5
“…….”
Wun Hyeon furrowed his brow as he sensed their presence, clutching at his chest.
Though he’d spent these past days recovering from the internal injury, it was impossible for the Qi channels ravaged by extreme poison to heal in mere days.
Even the slightest circulation of Inner Force to read their presence sent a dull throb through his chest.
Yet he could not show weakness before an enemy.
When Wun Hyeon lifted his gaze, suppressing the pain, two masked assassins stood before him.
“What’s this old man doing here? I thought the kid lived alone in this house?”
“Yeah. We never heard anyone else was around.”
Wun Hyeon’s expression darkened.
‘They’ve come to target me, then.’
When the masked assassins revealed their presence, Wun Hyeon naturally assumed they were assassins sent by Nam Goong Mo Hyeon.
Assassins dispatched to cut off his breath—sent by his younger brother, who had failed to find his corpse and finally discovered this place.
But then.
“What do you think? Heard anything?”
“Why hesitate? Just kill the kid along with him and be done with it.”
Their conversation made it certain.
It was Yeon Woo they were after.
Wun Hyeon’s eyes narrowed.
‘First-Class? No—perhaps Second-Class Martial Artists.’
In normal circumstances, merely releasing his Qi would have been more than enough to suppress such trivial opponents.
Even without being able to deploy his Inner Force, they wouldn’t prove particularly troublesome.
‘If I’m to learn why they want to kill Yeon Woo, I should play along for now.’
Wun Hyeon tamped down his anger and spoke in a measured tone.
“What reason have you for wanting to kill the child?”
The masked assassins, who had been conversing with each other, turned to regard Wun Hyeon with cold eyes.
One of them stepped forward, resting a blade across his shoulder.
“Why should a dead man care about such things?”
“Even a man deserves to know why he dies.”
“Ha! Look at this one! He’d do better begging for his life to buy himself time!”
The masked assassins burst into laughter.
Their contempt for Wun Hyeon was unmistakable, yet he paid it no mind.
At this moment, his pride was irrelevant.
“Listen. Since you’re going to kill us anyway, surely you can spare a reason? What exactly is your purpose in killing this child?”
“Why? Because the Gwan Family needs their own son, so the kid here has to die!”
“The Gwan Family?”
‘The Gwan Family…’
The family that had purchased Yeon Woo.
The family that had bought Yeon Woo to send as a substitute child to Ma Ryong Gwan in place of their own.
Now Wun Hyeon understood their true objective.
‘So in the end, their target is bloodline of the Gwan Family.’
If the substitute child dies, the Gwan Family will ultimately be forced to send their own son to Ma Ryong Gwan instead.
These assassins must be targeting whichever child of the Gwan Family is sent there.
‘I don’t know what position the Gwan Family holds within Ma Gyo, but it seems they cannot be openly confronted.’
That’s why they resort to such vile measures, sending assassins after a child, all to draw the Gwan Family’s true heir into Ma Ryong Gwan.
However, the identities of the assassins’ masters and the Gwan Family’s circumstances were no concern of Wun Hyeon’s.
The problem was that Yeon Woo would be the one sacrificed in the midst of this conflict.
And.
“If you kill this child, will the Gwan Family truly send their own son?”
“What?”
“I’m saying—if you kill this boy, won’t they simply purchase another?”
Now that he’d learned their purpose, there was no need to continue respecting men bent on murdering a child.
The masked assassins reacted with apparent surprise at Wun Hyeon’s derisive question.
The old man’s demeanor had shifted so abruptly that it was unmistakably ominous.
Yet the tension lasted only briefly.
The masked assassins broke into laughter again.
“So what? If they buy another, we kill that one too! What can those insignificant fools do? Follow the kid’s shadow?”
If they kill the substitute and the Gwan Family buys another, they will kill that one as well.
How many innocent children would die—whether it be a handful or dozens—was no concern of theirs.
“We just kill whoever they tell us to kill! How many that turns out to be is for the Gwan Family to decide!”
Kkhahahaha! Hahahaha!
They bore no resemblance to people deliberating over children’s lives.
There was not a trace of guilt in them as they laughed and joked as though discussing some trivial matter.
“Utterly shameless wretches,” Wun Hyeon muttered.
Shring—
Wun Hyeon fixed his gaze upon the masked assassins and slowly drew his blade.
At that same instant, his fury became his presence—his Inner Force radiating outward in visible waves around him.
“Has this old man lost his mind…!”
Only when Wun Hyeon drew his blade did the masked assassins finally grip their weapons properly.
Their words remained brash, but nothing more.
Crushed beneath the savage momentum that erupted from Wun Hyeon in a heartbeat, they found themselves instinctively backing away, step by faltering step.
“You—you want to die?! Eh?!”
“I do not regard you as human beings.”
By nature, beasts that prey upon men must have their lives taken.
Wun Hyeon raised his blade toward the masked assassins.
In the darkness, his eyes—lowered and narrowed—burned with a keenness sharper than ever before.
“Come.”
“This mad old man!!”
Whoosh—dash dash!
Two masked assassins rushed at Wun Hyeon as though by agreement.
Their skill was, as Wun Hyeon had expected, merely Second-Class at best.
Clang—clang!
No matter that Wun Hyeon could not channel his Inner Force, their blades seemed to him like the fumbling play of children.
Clang—thud—clashing! Crash—
“Ugh!”
“Argh!”
Three exchanges, all told.
The two masked assassins, combined, could not withstand even three exchanges before they fell.
Wun Hyeon had lightly evaded their blades and struck the backs of their necks with the pommel of his sword, rendering them unconscious.
……
Wun Hyeon gazed down at the scattered forms of the masked assassins.
Then he approached one of them, rolled the body over, and searched through his garments.
Shortly, a throwing knife, no longer than a finger, emerged in Wun Hyeon’s hand.
As he turned it over in his fingers,
Wheee—
he suddenly hurled it toward the roof of the house.
Clang!
The sound of the throwing knife striking something echoed down.
Wun Hyeon rose to his feet and looked up at the roof.
There, perched as though he had been waiting all along, sat another masked assassin, holding a short sword.
‘The leader, then.’
The third of the three masked assassins whose presence Wun Hyeon had sensed—and from this one flowed a far darker, more palpable killing intent than from the first two.
Dash—whoosh!
The masked assassin’s form descended upon Wun Hyeon in an instant.
Clang!
Wun Hyeon, as though he had anticipated it all, raised his blade to meet the attack.
The short sword and Wun Hyeon’s blade locked in a brief contest of strength, and the assassin’s eyes—burning with murderous intent—fixed upon him.
In that moment.
……!
Crack—clashing!
The masked assassin swung the short sword in his left hand upward from below.
Wun Hyeon, keeping his right-hand blade locked in place, twisted his wrist to deflect the second strike flowing from the left.
But.
‘Ugh….’
In an instant, a shock like striking a great boulder crashed down upon him.
The assassin’s second blow had been driven forward with a weight far heavier than the first.
‘As I thought… he knows how to channel Inner Force.’
Facing a Second-Class Martial Artist and facing a First-Class Martial Artist were worlds apart.
Where the Second-Class merely transcended the ordinary, a First-Class warrior could pour Inner Force into every stroke.
As proof, a shimmering aura of energy now flowed from the assassin’s body.
Clang! Crash!
The Masked Assassin’s assault intensified.
Though his movements struck Wun Hyeon as monotonous, the problem lay in the Inner Force woven through each blade strike.
A dull throb.
Even though he was deflecting everything without meeting the attacks head-on, a tearing pain radiated through his entire body.
His not-yet-healed frame could not withstand the shock, crying out in agony.
‘Prolonging this will be dangerous.’
Wun Hyeon made his decision.
He could win against this opponent without drawing on his Inner Force, but dragging out the fight would disadvantage him in every way.
So then.
Boom!
“…!”
When Wun Hyeon swung his blade infused with Inner Force, the Masked Assassin’s dagger sprang upward as if repelled.
The Masked Assassin’s eyes widened.
Had he not merely been deflecting the man’s own attacks, struggling to ward them off until now?
And yet he had believed him an amateur, unable to channel Inner Force!
“…!”
But by the time this realization dawned, it was already far too late.
Before the Masked Assassin could even retract his driven-back arm.
Thud!
Something blunt struck his temple.
The Masked Assassin lost consciousness and collapsed.
Thump! Crack!
Watching him fall, Wun Hyeon drove his blade into the earth, using it to barely support his wavering body.
“…Ugh….”
A pain as though his chest were being torn to shreds.
A terrible ache, as if invisible hands were rending his body in multiple directions, overwhelmed him entirely.
‘Pathetic… pathetic….’
What a shameful state he had fallen into.
To be brought to this merely by channeling strength through his blade once.
Gasp… ragged breath….
Leaning on his sword, Wun Hyeon struggled to steady his breathing.
Crackle, crackle.
Wun Hyeon’s gaze turned toward the campfire still burning brightly.
The pheasant meat that Yeon Woo favored lay half-charred over the flames, neglected and still cooking.
Now I need to dispose of these two and call Yeon Woo….
“Still alive?”
“…!”
An unfamiliar voice came from behind him—from where the two Masked Assassins he’d fought earlier lay fallen.
A chill ran down Wun Hyeon’s spine.
“…!”
Reflexively, Wun Hyeon rose and raised his blade toward the source of the voice.
Dark hair pulled high and bound tightly, skin luminous white even in shadow, red lips curved in a mischievous smile.
A beautiful man wearing a white half-mask stood beneath the dim moonlight.

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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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