Fist Demon of Mount Hua - Chapter 51

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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 51. The Blood Star Descends on Shin Kang—Part 1
Several hundred martial artists thundered across the plains on horseback.
They were warriors bristling with arms—swords, curved blades, and spears. At their head rode a figure bearing an enormous banner.
A massive triangular flag embroidered with the characters “Hyeol Lin” in vivid crimson.
They were the masterless swordsmen of the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak.
Leading them was a man in his late forties whose very presence radiated menace. His brows were thick as caterpillars, his jaw sharp and angular, and his eyes blazed with an intensity that was impossible to ignore.
This was Shim Su Myeong, the master of the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak.
His byeol ho was the Phantom Blade of Blood Scales.
The organization itself was named for his byeol ho—a measure of the man’s formidable reputation.
Beside Shim Su Myeong rode a beautiful young woman on horseback. This was Shim Ok.
‘Father.’
She glanced sideways at Shim Su Myeong.
That Shim Ok had found Shim Su Myeong was nothing short of fortune. When contact with her and Heuk Noh was lost, Shim Su Myeong immediately launched a search, and he located Shim Ok at Mok Ma Jang.
Shim Ok recounted to him everything that had transpired at Seo Cheon San Jang. Upon hearing her account, Shim Su Myeong’s fury blazed.
“They dared commit such an atrocity in Shin Kang Seong.”
Shim Su Myeong immediately mobilized his full strength and set out for Seo Cheon San Jang.
The place had long been a thorn in his side—a perpetual obstacle. He had always intended to settle accounts with them eventually, and so his decision came without a moment’s hesitation.
In truth, he welcomed the opportunity. Subduing Seo Cheon San Jang would establish him as the paramount master of Shin Kang Seong.
In the distance, the silhouette of Seo Cheon San Jang came into view.
Shim Su Myeong drew the curved blade at his waist and shouted.
“Enemy position ahead. We strike in one overwhelming assault.”
“Yes, sir!”
Crash!
At the command, the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak’s warriors drew their weapons in unison.
The horses beneath them surged forward with renewed speed.
The In Ma Il Che—the perfect union of rider and mount—was the very hallmark of the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak. They charged forward with brutal intent, ready to shatter anything that stood in their path.
Yet what should have been their moment of triumph came to nothing. The main gate of Seo Cheon San Jang fell before them without resistance. No one emerged to bar their way.
The moment Shim Su Myeong and his men crossed the threshold, shock drained the color from their faces.
“Gasp!”
“What is this?”
Groans escaped the warriors’ lips. The sight that greeted their eyes was nothing short of catastrophic.
A hell-scape unfurled before them.
Corpses with limbs twisted at grotesque angles, their features obliterated beyond recognition. Some had been cleaved clean through at the torso; others lay liquefied, their shattered skeletons splayed like jellyfish across the ground.
The blood they had shed pooled into streams. The reek of iron hung so thick in the air that breathing alone made the mind reel.
The Hyeol Lin Sal Mak’s warriors were seasoned fighters who had seen countless horrors. Yet not a single one among them—not even Shim Su Myeong, the master himself—had ever witnessed carnage on this scale.
“What in the name of—”
Shim Su Myeong’s eyes trembled.
Seo Cheon San Jang stood as one of the few powers in Shin Kang capable of challenging even the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak. So formidable was it that Shim Su Myeong had prepared meticulously for an assault.
And now it lay utterly annihilated. All that remained was death.
It was then.
“That man. It was that man who—”
Shim Ok murmured absently.
No one had told her the truth, yet some instinct, some woman’s intuition, whispered to her the name of the architect of this slaughter.
Shim Su Myeong’s brow furrowed.
“That man?”
“Sir, there is a survivor.”
At that moment, a subordinate’s voice cut through the horror. Shim Su Myeong turned sharply toward the sound.
“Hmm!”
His pupils contracted.
Shim Su Myeong had spent a lifetime wading through killing fields. Yet what lay before his eyes now was a vision of horror even he had never seen.
A man was pinned against the wall. His limbs were pulped, his chest caved in. Shattered ribs jutted through his skin, a sight so ghastly it was almost unbearable to behold.
What made it truly horrifying was that despite such wounds, the man still drew breath. The Hyeol Lin Sal Mak’s warriors regarded him with eyes full of revulsion and pity.
“Hrrgh!”
From the man’s mouth—now barely more than a bloodied ruin—came gasps so faint they seemed on the verge of extinguishing altogether.
Shim Su Myeong knelt on one knee before the man.
“Who are you? What happened here?”
At the sound of his voice, the man’s eyes fluttered open and fixed upon Shim Su Myeong. Then, impossibly, a smile spread across his ravaged face.
“Hrrgh… Shim… Su Myeong… master of the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak…”
“You know me?”
“How… could I not? I am… the great master of the Hyeol Sa Pung.”
“The leader of Hyeol Sa Pung? So Hyeol Sa Pung really was an organization created by Seo Cheon San Jang.”
Shim Su Myeong’s expression hardened into something brittle and unyielding.
He’d suspected as much already, but hearing it confirmed struck him far harder than he’d anticipated.
“What happened here?”
“Heh! A demon came calling.”
“A demon?”
“Yes! That creature—that demon in human form.”
Sa Pyeong Gang, leader of Hyeol Sa Pung, began to tremble. The mere thought of Dam Ho was enough to make his body betray him, convulsing without his consent.
“He slaughtered us all. The martial masters of Seo Cheon San Jang, Hyeol Sa Pung—everyone.”
“A demon, you say?”
“Hhh! You’ll understand when you see him. He is……. Ugh!”
Merely invoking the thought of Dam Ho sent terror rippling across Sa Pyeong Gang’s face.
Tears streamed down.
Suddenly, tears spilled from Sa Pyeong Gang’s eyes—but they were tinged crimson, mingling with blood that seeped from his lacerated wounds, giving them the appearance of tears of blood.
Without warning, Sa Pyeong Gang’s body seized with violent convulsions, foam spilling from his lips. But the fit was brief. Soon his body went still. He was dead.
“Hm!”
Before Sa Pyeong Gang’s corpse, Shim Su Myeong found himself speechless.
A suffocating silence fell over the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak wanderers.
Hyeol Sa Pung—once a name that had ruled the wastes through terror itself. And yet its own leader had been so consumed by fear that he’d convulsed and died before them.
Shim Su Myeong rose to his feet and turned to face the others behind him. Countless eyes were fixed upon him.
The same eyes that had surged forward toward Seo Cheon San Jang with such eagerness and confidence. But now—now there was no trace of that earlier fervor in their gaze.
The stench of death that permeated Seo Cheon San Jang had crushed their spirits.
‘This is not good.’
Shim Su Myeong clenched his teeth.
The atmosphere had collapsed into its worst state. With the full strength of Hyeol Lin Sal Mak, such a thing should have been impossible. And yet the miasma of death hanging throughout Seo Cheon San Jang was overwhelming his wanderers.
But retreat was not an option.
“We move to Hyeol Ma Chong.”
“Father?”
“I need to see this myself. Everyone—move out.”
“Yes!”
The voices of the Hyeol Lin Sal Mak wanderers answering him were hollow, drained of conviction. Shim Su Myeong understood. He had no choice but to understand.
‘En Ha Seong’s head must fall by my hand. That’s the only way we preserve even the slightest dignity.’
He didn’t know who had laid waste to Seo Cheon San Jang, but Shim Su Myeong had absolute faith in his own martial prowess.
The byeol ho ‘Hyeol Lin Gui Do’ had not been lightly earned. It was a brilliant treasure, won after hundreds of brutal life-and-death struggles. The entire history of his existence, the sum of all his battles, was crystallized in that name.
“Move!”
Shim Su Myeong unfurled his Gyeong Gong toward Bak Gyeok Dal Bong.
Shim Ok and the wanderers followed in his wake.
“Hm!”
An involuntary gasp escaped Shim Ok’s lips. The path ascending toward Bak Gyeok Dal Bong was lined with corpses. Each body was mangled beyond recognition.
‘It’s him. It has to be him.’
The man she’d encountered at Mok Ma Jang when she’d come to steal a horse. The one who’d struck her cheek and broken her teeth.
Even now, the thought of him made her legs weak, made her entire body tremble.
Shim Ok shuddered violently. She forced herself to suppress the fear rising within her.
‘I have Father beside me now, and the martial masters of Hyeol Lin Sal Mak as well. There’s no reason to be afraid of him. What I did was wrong, yes—but it was all for the greater cause.’
Shim Ok sought to rationalize her actions, and with it, her heart found a measure of peace.
Following Shim Su Myeong, she unfurled her Gyeong Gong and climbed the treacherous slopes of Bak Gyeok Dal Bong. At least she’d been here before; the path was familiar to her eyes.
Shim Ok pointed in a certain direction with her finger.
“It’s that way. We’re almost there now.”
“Hm!”
Shim Su Myeong nodded and quickened his pace.
A vast cavern mouth yawned in the distance. Hyeol Ma Chong.
“We don’t know what dangers might be lurking. Everyone—stay alert.”
“Yes!”
“Ok, you stay close behind me.”
“Understood.”
Shim Ok pressed herself firmly against the back of her father.
His broad back, which had always seemed so reassuringly solid in ordinary times, was visible to her now. That steadfast, shield-like back that had protected her from every peril—but today, for some reason, it appeared strangely narrow.
‘It’s nothing. It’s just my imagination.’
Shim Ok was shaking her head when—
Boom!
A violent tremor suddenly rippled through the entire cavern.
Just as doubt flickered across the faces of those present, the cavern shook once more with tremendous force.
Shim Su Myeong’s eyes grew cold.
A chill crept across his skin—he knew well enough that it came from more than just the frigid air rising from the depths below.
‘Such a Gi Pa.’
A formidable force unlike anything he had ever encountered in his life was now assaulting his senses.
It was as Shim Su Myeong gripped the hilt of his Hyeol Lin Do without conscious thought.
Crash!
With a thunderous roar, the cavern wall before him exploded inward, and something crashed at his feet. The figure writhing there like a shrimp, back arched in agony, was unmistakably human.
“Ugh!”
The man convulsed for a moment before forcing his upper body upright with a stifled groan.
When Shim Su Myeong saw the middle-aged man propping himself up on a blade that shimmered with an uncanny light, he could not help but catch his breath.
“En Ha Seong.”
It was indeed En Ha Seong, the master of Seo Cheon San Jang. Yet En Ha Seong did not seem to notice Shim Su Myeong or the warriors of Hyeol Lin Sal Mak—his gaze remained fixed ahead, blazing with dread.
‘What in the world?’
Forgetting even that En Ha Seong was his enemy, Shim Su Myeong followed the direction of his stare.
Drag. Thud. Drag. Thud.
An alien rhythm echoed through the darkness.
Shim Su Myeong’s complexion shifted entirely. His subordinates and Shim Ok heard nothing, but he—he could feel the tremendous force embedded in those footfalls.
En Ha Seong ground his teeth and rose to his feet.
“That bastard!”
Then, from the darkness, a figure emerged.
Right foot forward, left foot dragging—he limped toward them, and with each step his shoulder trembled slightly.
‘A cripple?’
A black-haired man draped in a leather coat dark as pitch approached, his unkempt hair framing eyes sunken deep as an abyss.
“Ugh!”
The moment Shim Su Myeong laid eyes on him, his body moved of its own accord—he drew the Hyeol Lin Do without thought, his flesh sensing danger before his mind could comprehend it.
But the man paid him no heed. His gaze was fixed on one person alone: En Ha Seong.
“Ah!”
The instant Shim Ok recognized who it was, she let out a cry that was half-whimper, half-scream.
The man advancing on En Ha Seong was Dam Ho.
En Ha Seong leveled the Jeok Seong at Dam Ho and raised his voice.
“Have we any grudge between us?”
His words echoed through the Hyeol Ma Chong.
En Ha Seong’s eyes were bloodshot crimson, and both arms holding the Jeok Seong were swollen and bruised.
Just one blow.
A single punch from Dam Ho was all it took—his entire body had erupted in anguish so total he felt as though he were coming apart. Had it not been for the Jeok Seong, he would have lost his life in that first strike.
Whine!
The Jeok Seong, having collided with Dam Ho’s fist, was groaning out a harsh Daoist Name—as though crying out in torment.
Dam Ho’s gaze grew heavier still.
“There is no grudge.”
“Then why?”
“Because you touched me first.”
“Is that reason enough?”
En Ha Seong’s face twisted into something demonic.
He had long expected complications from operating Hyeol Sa Pung and Hyeol Lang Dae, but he had never foreseen entanglement with someone of Dam Ho’s caliber.
“Is there no room for negotiation?”
“Did you ever offer negotiation to others?”
“Grrgh!”
En Ha Seong clamped his teeth together.
He understood now that the demon-faced man before him would allow no negotiation whatsoever.
“So only one of us can walk away from this.”
“The Gang Ho has always been this way.”
“Very well. I, En Ha Seong, will stake everything on this fight.”
En Ha Seong drew upon his full reserves of power. The formidable Internal Energy left behind by the Blood Demon surged through his body, and the Jeok Seong blazed with an even more sinister light.
“Ha!”
En Ha Seong charged toward Dam Ho.
The sorcerous blade cut through the air of Hyeol Ma Chong with terrible force. And yet Dam Ho still did not move.
“Ah!”
Those watching gasped involuntarily at the sight.
In that instant, Dam Ho’s right foot came down hard against the floor.
Boom!
A violent sonic wave rippled outward through the air, erupting within the Hyeol Ma Chong. The sound reflected off the walls multiplied several times over in seconds, boring into everyone’s eardrums.
“Ugh!”
Ragged gasps forced their way past clenched teeth. The intense sound waves transmitted directly to their brains left them convulsing inwardly, their bodies rigid and unable to move.
The world lurched; objects blurred into double, triple images before their eyes. Yet as masters of considerable Internal Energy, they recovered swiftly, pulling themselves back to their senses.
And in that next moment, an impossible sight unfolded before them.

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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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