Fist Demon of Mount Hua - Chapter 131

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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 130. The threads of karmic debt twist ever more bitterly—2
Thud!
A Qi Wave that shook the very soul struck Cheong Gu Jinren, and his complexion drained white in an instant.
Cheong Gu Jinren was a master who had transcended the peak realm. Yet even such a master felt his insides churn.
“What?”
Cheong Gu Jinren spun around. Before him lay the Murim Alliance warriors, split into two halves by the blast. Between the divided figures, a black shadow moved.
Against the backdrop of the setting sun, that shadowed form stretched long—and from the darkness there emanated a chill that defied all naming.
Cheong Gu Jinren hurled Hwang Hye Ryeong to the ground. She was no longer important to him.
“Who are you?”
“That… that man. Dam Ho.”
The answer came from Namgoong Su.
Namgoong Su’s face had gone ashen. His lips were nearly purple, and his body trembled like an aspen leaf.
Fear, carved deep into the marrow of his mind, rose to life the moment he saw Dam Ho. He clenched his teeth with all his strength to steel his resolve, but it was no use.
Cheong Gu Jinren’s brow furrowed in question.
“Dam Ho?”
“A Gwon Ma, sir. Also known as the Bloodfiend of God’s Strength…”
“Hmph! So it’s that Evil Martial Artist whose infamy has been spreading lately.”
Cheong Gu Jinren gave a snort of derision.
Since arriving in Akyang, it was the name he’d heard most often. But Cheong Gu Jinren put no stock in rumors. Nothing inflated as easily as hearsay.
‘A Gwon Ma? Then he is an Evil Martial Artist? It falls to us Zhenren to root out the sprouts of evil. It is our charge.’
If eliminating a single evil creature could save hundreds of righteous warriors, then such was the solemn duty of men like him.
Thump.
Dam Ho walked forward.
The Murim Alliance warriors who ringed the area shuffled backward, step by hesitant step.
“Why are you…?”
The warriors could not fathom why Dam Ho had appeared here.
Dam Ho paid them no mind, his gaze fixed ahead. His path led toward Hwang Hye Ryeong.
She lay bloodied on the ground, writhing like a broken insect.
Dam Ho’s eyes, as they fell upon her, flickered with terrible light.
He could not have said why. Yet the moment he saw her so brutally ravaged, a fierce and consuming rage boiled up from the depths of his chest.
“Hrrgh!”
“Agh!”
The nearby warriors recoiled from Dam Ho’s fury, their faces bleached white as bone.
“…Orion.”
Hwang Hye Ryeong’s eyes opened, and she spoke his name.
Her white teeth, now stained crimson with blood, were a harrowing sight to behold.
Dam Ho approached her in silence.
“Stop.”
Cheong Gu Jinren stepped into his path.
Dam Ho halted and met his gaze. The instant their eyes locked, Cheong Gu Jinren flinched.
Those eyes—deep and black, unlike any he had ever seen. And within them, a single thread of murderous intent.
Cheong Gu Jinren hastily gathered his Gong Ryeok and assumed a guard stance. His body had moved on instinct alone.
Dam Ho’s head tilted at an odd angle.
“Stand aside.”
“I cannot. You will withdraw from this place. This is no arbitrary affair—it is a Murim Alliance operation. If you wish to avoid becoming our enemy, you would do well to leave now.”
“The Murim Alliance?”
“Yes. This land falls under Murim Alliance jurisdiction.”
Cheong Gu Jinren’s voice hardened. His resolve seemed to bolster the warriors around him.
“Right! This is Murim Alliance territory. We have no reason to cower before him.”
“He is only human.”
The Murim Alliance warriors arrayed around the area began to murmur among themselves.
Those who alone would dare nothing often find courage in numbers. And these were no ordinary people—they were trained martial artists.
Men who had spent their lives answering to no one bore pride to match. Such pride could not be suppressed for long by a single man’s presence.
The murmuring of the warriors coalesced into a massive Sal Gi that descended upon Dam Ho. Hundreds of eyes fixed upon him alone.
An ordinary man would have felt his spirit wither, unable even to draw a full breath. But Dam Ho laughed.
Though the twisting of his lips could barely be called a smile.
“So you won’t yield?”
“Where do you get such audacity?”
Cheong Gu Jinren countered without hesitation. A piercing, frost-edged momentum radiated from his form.
‘He is a spark. Left unchecked, that spark will spread to other kindling. And then those who defy the order we have built will multiply endlessly.’
Cheong Gu Jinren’s severity toward Hwang Hye Ryeong alone was not the whole of it.
He had glimpsed something in Dam Ho—the aura of one who defied convention.
Dam Ho was a lone wanderer who refused to bow to the established order, living as he pleased. If he had been merely an ordinary martial artist, there would be little concern, but unfortunately he was a master.
If Dam Ho were left to his own devices, those who followed him would inevitably rise up against the existing hierarchy.
The order created by great sects like the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans was extraordinarily solid, yet it harbored a fatal weakness—no one could say when it might crumble.
Someone like Dam Ho, left unchecked, would probe that very weakness and tear it open.
‘The common folk always cheer for those who shake the established order. There will certainly be followers drawn to him. He must be rooted out before that happens.’
It was the instant Cheong Gu Jinren quietly marshaled his power.
Bang!
Suddenly, thunder cracked across the courtyard.
Cheong Gu Jinren’s head snapped backward.
His skull reverberated and the world tilted—he could not gather his wits.
“Ugh!”
“E-Elder!”
The murmurs of the martial artists rang in his ears like tinnitus.
Cheong Gu Jinren blinked, unable to comprehend what had happened to him.
“Kh—!”
Searing pain erupted, and in the moment he cried out, all sensation snapped back to reality.
Dam Ho’s fist was buried in his chest. Had he not quietly drawn upon his power in defense, the impact would have torn clean through him—such was the force of the blow.
“You… you coward…….”
Crack!
In the next instant, Dam Ho’s fist came down from above, driving downward.
Bang!
Cheong Gu Jinren’s head whipped to the side.
His teeth scattered like rain, and blood drenched his face and chest.
Cheong Gu Jinren’s body crumpled to the ground like a felled log.
……
The fevered energy that had filled the arena moments before drained away in an instant.
Cheong Gu Jinren lay gasping on the ground, blood pouring from his mouth. His mind had already fled. Compared to the fierce presence he had radiated only moments ago, his frame was pitifully broken.
He barely clung to breath, his vital energy hanging by a thread—his fate uncertain. And if he lived, it was unlikely he would ever chew food with his own teeth again.
“Elder!”
“How dare you!”
The disciples of Cheong Seong Sect who had accompanied him erupted in fury at the sight of their master’s ruin.
They trembled with killing intent, ready to rush forward, but Dam Ho did not even glance in their direction.
His eyes were fixed on Hwang Hye Ryeong, who now bled from head to foot.
Watching her gasping for breath, her whole body awash in blood, something rose unbidden in him—a rage he could not contain.
Since entering the Jianghu, he had never felt his emotions so violently stirred.
‘Why?’
The question rose unbidden in Dam Ho’s mind.
“O…older brother.”
Hwang Hye Ryeong’s voice trembled, her breathing shallow.
Dam Ho lifted her and hoisted her onto his back. Even as her mind wavered, she gestured toward Muk Il Gwang.
“We have to take him too.”
“Right.”
Dam Ho responded and scooped Muk Il Gwang under his arm.
Carrying two people, yet Dam Ho showed no sign of strain.
That sight struck the assembled warriors as supreme arrogance—treating all of them as mere puppets. None could contain their rage.
“Demonic Qi!”
Namgoong Su’s cry cut across the courtyard.
His eyes fixed on Dam Ho glowed a bloodshot crimson.
“Do you understand what you are doing? To raise your hand against the Murim Alliance’s gathering!”
“The Murim Alliance?”
“Yes. It was established to preserve the order of the Jianghu against the Demonic Cult. And you—you have dealt it a tremendous blow. How will you account for this? It is always the likes of you who are the problem. You know only your own strength, but never think of how to use it for the Jianghu’s good. Irresponsible ruffians, every one.”
Namgoong Su poured all his fury upon Dam Ho in a torrent of words.
‘If only you had not existed…. If only you had never crossed my path….’
A fury like molten fire surged from his chest, climbing toward his head.
In eyes already bloodshot, madness glimmered.
Everything had gone awry the moment Dam Ho appeared.
It was Dam Ho who had derailed his once-promising life, forcing him to endure an indelible shame and humiliation.
Yet he had no power to resist, so he endured.
Dam Ho’s martial prowess, which had annihilated the Namgoong Clan’s Gold Sword Unit, was truly formidable.
Even his uncle Namgoong Chang’s spirit had been broken by him. Namgoong Su alone could do nothing. But now hundreds of martial artists surrounded him.
Not only the Namgoong Clan’s warriors, but martial artists from the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans were mixed evenly among them. To make enemies of them was to make enemies of the entire realm.
“Hand over that woman at once. If you refuse this proposal, there will be nowhere in the Central Plains where you can set foot.”
“Namgoong’s words are just.”
“If he defies the will of Jianghu any further, we must designate him as a public enemy of the realm.”
Many voices rose in agreement with Namgoong Su’s demands.
Their murmuring grew like a rolling snowball, swelling in an instant.
But Dam Ho paid them no heed, his attention fixed entirely on the condition of Hwang Hye Ryeong, whom he carried on his back.
“Brother. How can we…”
“Save your breath and focus on your breathing.”
“But…”
Hwang Hye Ryeong looked around with anxious eyes.
Countless figures stared at them with murderous intent. Even the stoutest heart would quail in such circumstances. Yet Dam Ho stood unmoved, as though oblivious to their gaze entirely.
At last, Namgoong Su’s rage erupted.
“Can’t you hear me, you rootless bastard…”
“I hear you fine.”
“You?”
“And you’ve forgotten my warning, it seems.”
In that moment, the blood drained from Namgoong Su’s face.
How could he forget?
The humiliation of that day.
Dam Ho’s words that day.
Fear surged through him like a tide. Yet he did not flee.
To retreat now would be to live forever haunted by his dread of Dam Ho. Anything was preferable to that.
Namgoong Su’s voice cracked as he shouted.
“Stop your nonsense and hand over the woman.”
“What if I refuse?”
“From this moment, you are an enemy of the Murim Alliance.”
“That’s absurd.”
“What?”
“Who decides such things? You? Or everyone here?”
Dam Ho glanced across the gathered crowd. The warriors of the Murim Alliance flinched.
In that moment, one of them cried out.
“It is the will of all the Central Plains!”
“That’s right!”
One voice became ten, ten became a hundred, spreading like wildfire.
A strange madness gripped the hall.
Dam Ho moved toward them.
Scrape! Thud! Scrape! Thud!
His distinctive syncopated stride—dragging his left foot, stomping with his right—left an ominous resonance in their chests.
“Ugh!”
Namgoong Su’s face contorted.
He should have retreated now. His heart screamed it, but his pride refused to heed that cry.
“Attack! Show him that the Murim Alliance is the pillar of Jianghu!”
Crack!
In that instant, Dam Ho struck the ground.
His Movement Method was Chung Bo.
His weapon was Pa Seong Chui.
His target was Namgoong Su.
The shock on Namgoong Su’s face was vivid before his eyes.
Boom!

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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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