Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 119

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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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Chapter 119
Munch, munch.
Cheon Hui chewed the dried meat the merchant had provided, then seized the horse’s reins.
Neigh!
The horse’s cry rang out as it reared up on its front legs.
“Ten days, then.”
Cheon Hui brought the horse to a stop and gazed up at the enormous mountain rising before him—Bang San.
Unlike Huashan, Bang San bore no sheer cliffs or towering peaks.
“So this is it…….”
Cheon Hui released the reins and dropped from the saddle.
The horse was still breathing heavily, having been driven without rest for the past ten days.
“You’ve earned your rest.”
Cheon Hui gave the horse’s head a gentle pat, then swiftly slapped its rump.
“Live as you please now.”
Neigh!
The horse bolted with a bound and vanished into the forest.
“Well then, shall we?”
And Cheon Hui set his feet toward the mountain path of Bang San.
Whoosh—
He unfolded the An Hyang Pyeo and passed through the warping landscape, arriving in a single breath at the location marked on the Jang Bo Do.
“This should be the place.”
He withdrew the Jang Bo Do and spread it open.
“A hundred paces to the left.”
Then he planted his feet lightly against the ground.
Boom!
Cheon Hui shot forward through the air, arriving at a thicket of overgrown brush.
“Let’s see……. There it is.”
The spot was a cliff face.
Vines twisted chaotically across it, as though it had been abandoned for ages.
Cheon Hui strode forward and examined the surrounding area.
Unlike everything he’d seen until now, this cliff alone possessed a different quality to its flow.
‘The current is severed here.’
The natural flow of energy had been interrupted, as though a waterfall had been dammed up with wood.
‘So this is the place, then.’
He recalled the words inscribed on the Jang Bo Do.
Flow Severed Entry, Illusion Becomes Real.
‘When you arrive where the flow is broken, illusion transforms into truth…….’
He thrust his hand forward toward the cliff.
At the moment his palm was about to strike the rock face with shattering force.
Swish!
The response was not what he expected.
“I thought so.”
The corners of Cheon Hui’s eyes curved upward.
His outstretched hand had passed clean through the cliff, disappearing up to his elbow.
Flow Severed Entry, Illusion Becomes Real.
The phrase seemed complex at first glance, but it was simplicity itself.
Enter where the flow is broken.
Then illusion will transform into truth.
In other words.
‘An Illusion Formation.’
The thought completed, he launched himself forward through the cliff face without hesitation.
In that instant his vision twisted violently, and the landscape before his eyes transformed entirely.
“The inside is quite clean.”
Cheon Hui turned his head and surveyed his surroundings.
The overgrown brush and cliff that had loomed before were gone—he stood within a cave.
And.
“Hm?”
A grim sight greeted him.
Dozens of skulls pierced with holes lay scattered across the floor.
“Why are there bodies here?”
It contradicted what the guild master had said.
He’d claimed that not even the imperial court—let alone he himself—could decipher it.
Cheon Hui crouched down to examine the skulls scattered across the floor.
Not a shred of decayed flesh clung to any of them.
Only the occasional writhe of insects disturbed the silence.
“They’ve been dead for at least several decades. Which means someone already decoded the cipher written on the Jang Bo Do long ago…….”
Cheon Hui’s brow furrowed.
He’d been unconsciously certain that no one could possibly find this place by reading the Jang Bo Do.
But he was wrong.
Someone had already deciphered the cipher and made their way into the cavern.
Not just one person—an organized operation.
“If that’s the case, the cavern may already have been plundered.”
The mountain of skulls stacked in this place suggested they’d faced considerable struggle, yet it remained difficult to be certain that the Wu Ying Shen Tu’s hidden sanctuary remained untouched.
“I need to check quickly.”
He rushed forward with quickened steps.
Stop.
A chilling premonition made him pull back.
In that instant.
Screech!
A sharp metallic object shot upward from below with a grinding sound.
In the blink of an eye, an iron grate rose before Cheon Hui’s face, its jagged edges gleaming menacingly.
“So that’s why the skulls had holes in them.”
Cheon Hui’s eyes narrowed to slits.
It was an ingenious and ghastly trap—one that would inevitably cripple anyone caught by it.
“The trap triggers when your foot makes contact. So if I…….”
Cheon Hui channeled the Plum Blossom Divine Art into Cloud Movement.
Immediately, the fragrance of plum blossoms bloomed across his entire body.
“All I need to do is move faster than it can react.”
The moment those words left his lips.
Whoosh!
Cheon Hui shot forward like an arrow.
Thunder Lightning Flying Stream Step!
Deploying the supreme acrobatic footwork that had lain dormant within the cavern, Cheon Hui advanced faster than the iron grate could rise.
Like a single bolt of lightning!
Boom! Boom!
The delayed sound of traps activating echoed behind him.
But Cheon Hui pressed forward, heedless of the noise.
There was more than one trap.
Beyond the iron grates came massive swinging scythes, a torrent of projectiles, and heavy iron mallets.
Yet.
“Too slow.”
Cheon Hui accelerated further.
The traps activated only after he’d already passed, their blades carving uselessly through empty air.
After traversing roughly a distance of ten zhang or so.
“I’ve finally arrived.”
Cheon Hui approached the iron door marked on the Jang Bo Do.
He then tapped at various points along its surface.
Grinding, groaning sound.
The rusted iron door creaked open with a screech.
“Too late.”
Cheon Hui’s disappointment was plainly visible as he surveyed the chamber.
The interior was barren.
A Mok Gab lay overturned on the floor, its lid hanging open.
And that was not all.
Several statues inside the cavern had been completely shattered, and the walls bore what appeared to be deliberate sword marks.
As if someone had done so on purpose.
“There were quite a lot of items…….”
Cheon Hui’s gaze suddenly halted as he observed at least several dozen Mok Gab scattered throughout the space.
From the stone wall behind where the containers lay, thick with dust and untouched, there emerged a familiar presence that drifted eerily through the air.
“Demonic Energy……?”
As Cheon Hui swept away the dust-caked stone wall, the particles scattered, revealing an intricate mural in all its clarity.
In the painting, a middle-aged man stood upright within a roaring inferno, while an old man knelt before him in full prostration.
“That face…….”
After studying the mural for a moment, Cheon Hui’s eyes suddenly widened.
The face of the middle-aged man seemed familiar.
No—more than merely familiar.
“It’s me from before, isn’t it?”
No matter how he looked at it, the middle-aged man’s face matched exactly with his former self.
“Why am I painted here…….”
The moment Cheon Hui reached toward the mural.
“……!”
He froze.
The stone wall behind the painting was hollow, its interior carved into a complex labyrinth.
‘This flow…….’
Cheon Hui drew up his Internal Force.
And the instant he channeled that force through the passage——!
Whoooosh!
The mural blazed with dazzling light.
And then it began to trace a beautiful Array Formation in the empty air…….
“……Why does this exist here?”
Cheon Hui’s gaze turned sharp as a blade.
An Array Formation that absolutely had no place existing in Zhongyuan was now activating.
A masterwork crafted by his former self.
An Array Formation of labyrinths and illusions.
The Tianma Yun Hui Lu.
‘What?’
In his former life, Cheon Hui had once fallen into the trap of the Orthodox Sect and been caught by the legendary Array Formation, the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro.
An endless maze and phantasms.
A method that responded to the mind—harder to perceive than fathoming the depths of ten fathoms of water.
The Gucheon Keum Ma Ro, which repelled all demonic beings, had imprisoned Cheon Hui in that labyrinth.
And that was not all.
Ten paintings had hung upon the walls of the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro.
The divine treasure, the Four Spirits Map, had resonated with the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro to create illusions.
Tempests, waves, celestial dragons, qilins, and more…….
They were rendered with such vivid clarity that they seemed real, drawing forth involuntary admiration.
‘For it had twisted the very harmony of heaven and earth.’
Yet even the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro could not bind him who was called the Absolute Heavenly Demon, and in the end, it fell to his hands and was destroyed.
Afterward, Cheon Hui expressed his admiration by rebirthing the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro as a new Array Formation.
That was the Tianma Yun Hui Lu.
However, the Tianma Yun Hui Lu carried a grave flaw.
Like the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro, it could only be deployed once.
And there was the matter of the Four Spirits Map’s absence.
When Cheon Hui destroyed the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro, the Four Spirits Map had been torn to shreds and reduced to ash.
So Cheon Hui devised something to substitute for the Four Spirits Map within the Tianma Yun Hui Lu.
For that reason, the Tianma Yun Hui Lu had never once been deployed.
Because the substitute for the Four Spirits Map was none other than the caster’s own death.
Whoooosh!
Cheon Hui’s body was drawn into the light.
He could have escaped at any moment, but he surrendered himself to the Tianma Yun Hui Lu.
Curiosity drove him forward.
Who, why, and to what purpose.
Had someone prepared the Tianma Yun Hui Lu in this place, resolved to pay the price of death itself.
Just then.
Footstep—footstep—
A figure emerged, walking through the brilliant light.
‘It’s finally come.’
This was the great distinction, the defining characteristic of the Tianma Yun Hui Lu.
To be precise, not an actual figure at all…….
But a Death-念.
This was no living thing.
It was the Death-念 of the man who had created the Tianma Yun Hui Lu, made manifest just before death.
Cheon Hui stared at the Death-念.
It was an old man with hollow eyes and hair thinning in patches.
‘How lifelike.’
He had created the Tianma Yun Hui Lu, but he had never actually cast it even once.
And no wonder—who would risk their life for a technique that could only be deployed once?
Unless they were on the very brink of death.
‘Looking at it now, I did craft it well. Doesn’t it seem like a real person in every way?’
A satisfied smile spread across his face.
Compared to the illusions of the Gucheon Keum Ma Ro he had faced long ago, this was no less impressive.
‘But seeing how old it looks… perhaps this is the form from just before the Tianma Yun Hui Lu was activated?’
Most likely, the appearance before him was the form the man had taken at that moment of casting.
‘There’s something familiar about it, though…’
As Cheon Hui continued to stare at the Death-念.
“I did not unfold this for the likes of you to enter… How dare you!”
The Death-念 spoke rapidly, its voice crackling with rage.
And Cheon Hui.
“Oh, so the Death-念 can speak.”
He let out a murmur of wonder.
‘I didn’t know it could even talk.’
Experiencing it directly brought a wholly different resonance.
The Death-念’s brow furrowed.
“How did you know I am Death-念?”
“The Tianma Yun Hui Lu.”
…
The Death-念’s eyes flew wide.
“How could you possibly know of the Tianma Yun Hui Lu…?”
“You can tell by looking. But more to the point—who is this person you speak of, who would give up his very life to unfold the Tianma Yun Hui Lu…?”
“Silence! You are not fit to speak his name!”
The Death-念’s voice grew steadily louder.
“He is the Supreme Being Among Demons, the Greatest Demon of All Ages, and the lord of the Tianma Divine Sect…”
Hmm?
Cheon Hui tilted his head.
The titles and names flowing from the Death-念’s mouth were the very epithets that had worn his ears raw from constant repetition.
“…the Absolute Heavenly Demon!”
That’s me, isn’t it?
Cheon Hui studied the Death-念 carefully.
‘Who is this? There’s hardly anyone I know who would unfold the Tianma Yun Hui Lu for me…’
As he turned this over in his mind, examining the Death-念.
‘Wait…’
When he imagined filling in the sparse hair and smoothing away the wrinkles, a familiar face emerged.
“…Bi Ma?”

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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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