Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 163
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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 163
Watching the Ink Flame spread rapidly across the old man’s white hair and brows, Cheon Hui murmured with a puzzled expression.
“I never thought I’d see that flame again in Zhongyuan.”
“……?”
The old man’s eyebrows twitched.
‘He saw it?’
It was absurd.
This Ink Flame—or rather, this Demonic Fire—was the product of a supreme secret art that had revealed itself in Zhongyuan only a handful of times.
And those who had witnessed this Demonic Fire numbered perhaps ten at most in all of the current world.
All of them figures from long ago.
‘There’s no way a mere child would know of it…….’
Just as he was about to dismiss it as nonsense.
“Why has the Tianxia Sect come out into Zhongyuan? They would never leave the Shenxiao Sect unless something extraordinary had happened.”
“……!”
The old man’s eyes widened in shock.
“How could you possibly know about the Tianxia Sect…….”
“Who else but the Tianxia Sect could cultivate the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art?”
At Cheon Hui’s flat words, the old man’s pupils trembled like aspen leaves.
The successive revelations shook his composure far more than anything that had happened recently.
By one chance in ten thousand, he might have been recognized by his Demonic Fire.
But this was different.
For there was only one place in all the world that knew the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art was connected to the Tianxia Sect!
‘……Did the Shenxiao Sect track me down?’
The old man clenched his lips.
He had thought the brat was merely some minor obstacle, but it was not so.
‘Could it be the Black Fiend Sect has come to draw me out?’
The old man’s eyebrows twitched.
To draw him out, they would destroy a sect and kill everyone?
It would be a different matter elsewhere, but the Tianma Divine Sect was more than capable of such a thing.
Gulp—
His throat went dry.
The reason he, once notorious as the Mad Blood Demon, had backed the dark sects and kept to the shadows was for one reason alone.
To avoid the Tianma Divine Sect.
‘After all these years have passed, they were still hunting me!’
Fear gleamed in his eyes.
The old man hastily spread his senses outward.
The Demonic Fire that burned around him became thin threads, dispersing into the surroundings.
Fortunately, they did not yet seem certain of his presence here, for no one was closing in to encircle him.
Which meant……
‘I need only kill that one brat!’
The old man’s eyes gleamed with murderous intent.
Now that the Tianma Divine Sect had learned his location, he had to flee this place at once.
And to do so, he absolutely had to kill the one before him and erase all trace.
The old man gathered the Ink Flame once more.
Whoosh!
It erupted into a frenzy of burning.
Like flames rising from hell itself, as befitted the martial art’s name of Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art.
Flash!
Then the old man’s eyes gleamed.
At the same moment, the roaring flames extinguished, and the old man vanished with them.
Deploying the Heavenly Kill Spirit Step to shrink the distance through the void, the old man closed the gap between himself and Cheon Hui in a single breath, extending his palm technique.
Nine Abyss Forbidden Heaven Seal!
The Demonic Hand, one of the most formidable techniques among the Demonic Path’s many arts, crashed down upon Cheon Hui.
“……Is he insane?”
Cheon Hui’s eyes opened halfway.
In his past life, he had been the Absolute Heavenly Demon himself—the supreme lord of the Demonic Path who had subdued not only the Tianxia Sect but all five great families to ascend to the position of sect master.
He knew all the Demonic Absolute Techniques they had mastered, as well as the methods to counter them.
To deploy the Nine Abyss Forbidden Heaven Seal?
Not even a hollow laugh escaped him.
Cheon Hui twisted his body to the left and deployed the Heavenly Escape Step, pushing lightly off the ground.
Boom!
The spot where Cheon Hui had stood moments before erupted in a cataclysmic blast, unleashing a torrent of wind.
The shockwave sent his hair flying upward, his robes billowing wildly in the gust.
In that instant.
Snap!
A palm thrust through the whirlwind, materializing from the chaos.
“Predictable.”
Cheon Hui tilted his head to the side, and the palm whistled harmlessly through empty air.
Crack!
A belated sound of tearing air followed as the atmosphere fractured, and a searing heat washed across the surroundings.
Then came a stench of Demonic Energy.
“So the next one was here.”
Cheon Hui spun his body and moved his hand.
His sword, held in hand seemingly out of nowhere, slashed toward the empty space on his left.
Thud!
With a dull impact, an old man materialized from the void, his eyes wide with shock.
“How did you neutralize all of them——!”
It had been the Nine Abyss Forbidden Heaven Seal unleashed at full power.
Yet his opponent moved his body as if he knew the technique intimately, evading every strike with nothing but a twist of his frame.
‘Could it be from the Tianxia Sect…….’
In that moment, the old man’s face twisted hideously.
He unleashed a murderous intent that exploded outward.
Waves of killing intent stretched forth, mingling with Demonic Fire, warping the space around them.
Interesting.
Cheon Hui’s gaze showed intrigue.
‘This power is nearly at an elder’s level.’
The Demonic Energy the old man radiated was vast enough to rival an elder of the Five Great Families, and its density was formidable.
Then the old man raised both his palms.
The Ink Flame that followed moved in a peculiar way, forming a wheel.
“Die.”
The old man’s lips moved slightly as he spoke in a low murmur.
With that, the wheel of Ink Flame rushed down toward Cheon Hui.
But that was not all.
Whoosh!
The old man launched himself forward as well.
Moving in concert with the spinning wheel, he joined his power with the technique and shot toward Cheon Hui.
‘……Is this a new Demonic Absolute Technique?’
A smile bloomed at the corner of Cheon Hui’s lips.
A martial art unlike anything he had seen before was enough to set his heart ablaze with excitement.
Cheon Hui pointed at him with the tip of his sword.
The powerful force imbued with the Inner Power of the Plum Blossom Divine Art suddenly revealed its transparency to the world.
Then Cheon Hui’s sword moved.
Screech—screech—screech—
When the wheel of Ink Flame collided with the blade, a sound that made one’s brows furrow involuntarily tore through the air.
But Cheon Hui paid it no mind, twisting the sword he had swung to deflect the wheel.
Clang!
Sparks erupted in a brilliant shower.
The wheel ricocheted away and vanished rapidly, but in that gap, the old man—appearing from who knew when—opened both his palms wide and thrust them forward.
Boom!
The air burst open in an instant, sending Cheon Hui flying backward.
‘He’s quite skilled.’
By leaping back to absorb the impact, Cheon Hui’s smile deepened even further.
Then he deployed the Heavenly Root Lock.
The moment his feet touched the ground.
Pop—
He immediately unfolded the Divine Form Hundred Changes.
Closing the distance in a single breath, Cheon Hui drew his sword upward from below.
“You wretched thing!”
The old man drove both his palms downward in response.
Crash!
Another explosion tore through the air.
And with that as his opening, the old man drew forth every drop of his internal force, unleashing the Demonic Absolute Techniques at his command.
Cheon Hui continued to move his blade, meeting each unfolding technique as it came.
Clang! Clang!
The hand gripping his blade grew numb, yet his smile never faded.
‘Demonic arts after so long.’
He was appreciating the martial prowess being displayed before him, evading or deflecting each attack as it came.
‘I thought they wouldn’t send an ordinary man, but this much……!’
The old man felt a flicker of urgency.
His attacks were being neutralized.
‘I need to kill him quickly! If I don’t, the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art will consume…….’
Then something in the old man’s mind seemed to snap.
A piercing wail—
His inner power suddenly began to surge violently.
In the same instant, as if sinews had torn, his eyes flooded crimson with blood, and madness consumed him.
“Hak—hak, hehehck!”
The old man burst into wild laughter.
The Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art then ran rampant, shedding Demonic Energy in waves.
“Hmm?”
Cheon Hui narrowed his eyes.
The sight of the old man, seeming to have lost reason and drawing even his innate celestial energy to the surface, matched something Cheon Hui had witnessed countless times in his past life.
“Demonic Possession Deviation? That’s strange. The Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art shouldn’t lead to an uncontrolled rampage.”
Boom!
The old man then rolled across the ground.
The earth three zhang around him cracked open, and a violent shockwave cascaded outward.
Before Cheon Hui could blink, the old man appeared before him, crossing both arms and thrusting them forward.
A low rumble—
His crossed hands, wreathed in Ink Flame, radiated a searing heat as they pierced through Cheon Hui’s abdomen.
A sharp crack—
The space between them fractured, spider-web cracks spreading outward.
Cheon Hui grasped the crossed hands embedded in his abdomen and murmured without emotion.
“I wondered why his attacks seemed so simple compared to the inner power and skill he possesses.”
Cheon Hui’s gaze pierced through him.
More precisely, it fixed upon the aura that twisted his Qi Meridians at the head.
“Half-broken. That’s why.”
Cheon Hui awakened the Absolute Supremacy Art.
In that moment, an irresistible absolute force flowed from Cheon Hui’s body.
“Ugh—uuugh!”
The old man clutched his head.
“Let me bring you back to your senses.”
As he spoke, Cheon Hui raised his index finger.
In an instant, a flash of light streaked across the air.
Soul Destruction Finger!
The absolute Finger Technique that had subdued the masters of the Tianma Divine Sect with a single digit pierced through the old man’s tangled Qi Meridians.
A soft whisper—
The raging old man stilled, his eyes growing clouded and vacant, standing limp.
Was this what it felt like when one’s spirit drained away?
The old man felt his body becoming infinitely light, sensation fading away one by one.
Cheon Hui, watching the old man stand with vacant eyes fixed upon the sky, sheathed his blade.
“Now it’s time to wake up.”
The moment those words fell—
A soft whisper—
Light returned to the clouded eyes.
The instant he regained consciousness and spotted Cheon Hui.
“Hap!”
He drew in a sharp breath.
Though the Demonic Possession Deviation had briefly robbed him of reason, the image of that figure had been etched deeper in his mind than anything else.
‘Shenxiao Sect has decided to kill me.’
He pressed his lips together tightly, then fixed his gaze upon Cheon Hui and spoke.
“……Kill me.”
Cheon Hui tilted his head.
“Hmm? You wanted to die? I went out of my way to spare you, and now you’re telling me you wanted death after all.”
The old man’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t come to kill me……?”
“What are you talking about? It was you who tried to kill me.”
……
The old man fell silent, struck at the heart of his own contradiction.
“Then let’s just talk for a moment.”
“Talk about what……?”
“Why else would I have spared you? I kept you alive because I want something from you.”
“And if I talk, you’ll let me live?”
“We’ll see, once I hear what you have to say.”
As Cheon Hui spoke of life and death as lightly as one might discuss catching insects, the old man’s expression contorted violently.
“You never learned the second half of the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art, did you?”
At Cheon Hui’s opening question, the old man’s eyes widened to the point of splitting.
“How could you possibly know that……?”
“Simple enough—one can see it. If you’d truly mastered the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art completely, you wouldn’t be in such a state.”
As Cheon Hui spoke with cutting bluntness, the old man’s lips trembled slightly.
“You’re right. I never fully grasped the entire Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art—only the first half.”
The old man offered no detailed explanation for why this was so.
And Cheon Hui did not press him.
He already had enough.
‘At least he’s a member of the Tianxia Sect.’
From the martial arts the old man had displayed earlier, there was no doubt he belonged to the Tianxia Sect.
The problem was that he had never properly mastered the second half of the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art.
And that fact was deeply significant.
The Tianxia Sect would never have allowed someone who possessed only half of the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art to simply walk free.
Yet he had been left alone……
‘He must have left the sect long ago.’
As Cheon Hui pieced together what he’d learned from the exchange, a deeper truth took shape.
‘Tch, bringing back those memories.’
His name was Cheon Yang Gong—one of the few direct bloodline members of the Tianxia Sect.
A prodigy who had been carefully nurtured and cherished by the sect, until the threshold of manhood arrived.
Then he had committed an irreversible sin, and rather than face death, he had fled to Zhongyuan.
He had meant to live in seclusion thereafter.
But he could not last more than a few years.
At an age when blood ran hot and gifted with exceptional martial prowess, how could he endure such solitude?
In the end, he emerged into Gangho and roamed Zhongyuan freely, wielding only the first half of the Nine Abyss Demonic Fire Art.
Thanks to this, he quickly earned a sinister reputation and gained the epithet “Blood Abyss Demon”……
As the saying goes: a long tail gets caught.
The Tianma Divine Sect pursued him relentlessly, and he went into hiding once more.
For more than fifty years.
As Cheon Hui’s reflections deepened further—
‘Hmm, his martial prowess is impressive. If only he weren’t vulnerable to demonic possession deviation……’
Watching Cheon Yang Gong, Cheon Hui spoke in a low voice.
“Would you like me to teach you the secret formulas for the second half?”
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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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