Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 232

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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 232
“Ha, ha, ha!”
So Yeon Gang burst into raucous laughter.
The Black Shadow Brigade was the most notorious of the Sa Hyuk Ryeon’s military forces, and he was its commander.
And the number of masters who had fallen to his hand was beyond counting.
Even the patriarchs of sects had not escaped him.
The Seven Serpent Swordsman who once tried to flee Sa Hyuk Ryeon, the Spring Breeze Demon Blade, the Sword Saint who had dominated the great rivers, the Song Il Moon patriarch, and countless others……
So many he could not count them on his fingers.
Thanks to that, he had reigned in Kangho as a name whispered in fear for long years.
Yet this youth before him dared to look down on him—how could he help but laugh?
‘When was I last treated like this?’
Before he became commander of the Black Shadow Brigade?
Or back when he was a fresh recruit in the Black Shadow Brigade?
It had been so long the memory had grown hazy.
Perhaps because of that.
After laughing for a while, So Yeon Gang felt a different emotion rising within him.
A cold smile drew itself across his lips.
“Interesting.”
With those words, So Yeon Gang removed his Blood Wind Cloak. His eyes, which had been hidden beneath the thick fabric, now held Cheon Hui’s gaze as he drew the concealed blade.
Sshhk—
A darkly gleaming blade emerged from its sheath.
A special sword forged from a blend of black iron and cold iron, a companion of decades.
He who wielded the Heuk Sal spoke.
“Come.”
At that word, the four Black Shadow Brigade members standing on either side of him gripped their Blood Wind Cloaks.
Then they stripped them away and hurled them toward Cheon Hui.
The Blood Wind Cloaks, fully unfurled, completely blocked Cheon Hui’s vision.
Watching the Blood Wind Cloaks darken his sight like a curtain across the sun, Cheon Hui smirked.
“Ah, very much a Sapa tactic.”
The moment his words ended.
Thwack!
Sharp blades burst through the cloaks, striking toward Cheon Hui’s body.
“Though rather slow.”
Cheon Hui lightly kicked off the ground.
He escaped their range in one swift motion, then pressed close to them as they belatedly grasped the situation and withdrew their blades.
“Think your swords will ever touch me that way?”
“……!”
Cheon Hui drove his blade into the flank of a Black Shadow Brigade member, whose eyes had gone wide.
Thud!
A heavy sensation traveled through his fingertips.
The blade had surely pierced through his ribs and buried itself deep into his organs.
Yet the man made no cry of pain, showed no thrashing.
‘Now that’s something.’
Moreover, the eyes that met his held no fear in the face of death, no regret for a life cut short.
Only coldness. Only a chill.
Cheon Hui twisted one corner of his mouth upward.
“You endure well.”
Blood flowed from his mouth.
The wound was unmistakably mortal.
Yet he radiated a killing intent that made Cheon Hui’s skin prickle.
As the eyes holding Cheon Hui’s gaze gleamed with murderous will amid the shimmering killing intent,
Screee—
the nearby Black Shadow Brigade members surged forward.
Cheon Hui addressed them.
“Keep rushing like that and he’ll die too—you don’t mind?”
He said it while glancing at the Black Shadow Brigade member impaled on his blade, but they showed not the slightest hesitation.
Nor did their comrade himself.
Seeing them make no move to withdraw their companion, Cheon Hui drew the blade from the Black Shadow Brigade member’s waist.
Squelch—
As the blade, driven deep, pulled free, blood and organs spilled forth.
“……Cough!”
As the Black Shadow Brigade member’s eyes widened in acute agony, Cheon Hui seized him by the head.
And then.
Whip!
He hurled the man directly at those rushing toward him without hesitation.
“What the—!”
The Black Shadow Brigade members, who had never imagined he would simply throw a person at them, faltered for just a moment.
It was then that Cheon Hui’s blade cut diagonally through the air.
Shred!
The Black Shadow Brigade member struck by the blade split from his shoulder joint and crumpled rapidly.
Blood and flesh sprayed across those who had been charging toward Cheon Hui.
Yet as though they had never been startled, they didn’t blink once even as their comrade’s remains showered down upon them.
The situation teetered on the knife’s edge.
They instinctively sensed that if their eyes closed for even a moment, they would meet the same fate as the man before them, and so they sharpened their focus.
By the time their extreme concentration created the illusion that blood droplets and flesh fragments were falling in slow motion.
Slice!
Their necks were severed in a single breath.
Thud!
Two headless corpses pitched forward all at once.
Their severed heads, eyes still wide as though unaware of their own death, rolled across the ground before coming to a stop.
“…….”
So Yeon Gang’s face hardened ever so slightly.
Three of them dead in the blink of an eye.
And three of the finest from the Black Shadow Brigade at that!
‘A true master.’
While watching him face the Nok Rim disciples, he had thought his skills considerable—but he had attributed the overwhelming superiority to the weakness of his opponents.
Yet to display such martial prowess against the Black Shadow Brigade…….
‘The information about the Maehwa Divine Sect was no exaggeration after all.’
Until now, he had refused to believe the reports about the Maehwa Divine Sect.
How could anyone credit that a mere boy barely past adulthood possessed martial prowess surpassing the Blood Wind Sword General?
Who would believe such a thing?
The Blood Wind Sword General was a master who, alongside the Huashan Divine Blade, had brought down Baek Gwi Seong himself.
Yet the moment he witnessed the martial arts Cheon Hui had just unleashed, he was forced to acknowledge it.
No—beyond mere acknowledgment, he was gripped by an unprecedented sense of threat.
‘For the sake of the future, this one must die now.’
So Yeon Gang’s eyes shifted to the side.
The instant his gaze seemed to pierce toward empty undergrowth, he let his voice drop low.
“Kill Order.”
The brush trembled subtly for a moment, and then a thick killing intent flooded forth.
A “Kill Order” was a command issued with the resolve for mutual destruction—a directive to kill the enemy without fail.
Even when assigned the task of annihilating the Song Il Moon, he had never issued such a final command. Yet now it fell for the sake of confronting a single opponent.
It was surely excessive.
But the Black Shadow Brigade members lying in ambush did not think it excessive.
Rather, they all understood.
The movements by which he had killed those three.
They had occurred so swiftly that their eyes could scarcely track them.
It was then that So Yeon Gang issued his final command.
“Kill him.”
Burst!
Black shadows rushed forth from all directions.
Seeing countless Black Shadow Brigade members descending upon him like a tide, Cheon Hui let out a soft laugh.
“So you weren’t going to keep hiding, then?”
Even as the strange-looking shadows covered the sky and swept toward him, Cheon Hui remained utterly serene.
His expression held such peace that one might think he had abandoned all desire to live.
“Well, if you’re going to come out like this, I’m not complaining.”
With those words, he raised his blade skyward.
The blood-stained blade tip pointed toward them, and from its end, a crimson plum blossom unfurled.
A blossom redder and clearer than the blood coating the blade itself.
So vivid it seemed almost real—so lifelike that it appeared strange, even otherworldly, to behold.
Though one might have expected the Black Shadow Brigade members to be captivated by such an uncanny spectacle, they showed no distraction whatsoever and continued their relentless charge.
Like an arrow loosed from a bowstring, their strikes homed in on Cheon Hui alone.
Abandoning all defense, blades driven solely by the will to kill surged toward him with vicious speed, closing the distance rapidly.
Swords that merely carried internal force in straightforward thrusts.
But when dozens of them came at once, the sheer momentum became formidable.
Cheon Hui surveyed the tide of attackers bearing down on him so densely that they blotted out the sun itself.
‘Perhaps the Plum Blossom Full Bloom would suit this moment.’
Recalling the most dazzling and intricate form of the Twenty-Four Water Plum Blossom Sword Art, Cheon Hui set his blade in motion, which had been held pointed at the assembled fighters.
In that instant his sword fractured into dozens, and dozens of plum blossoms burst into full bloom across the void.
The Black Shadow Brigade members narrowed their eyes as dozens of plum blossoms materialized before their senses and began embroidering the empty air.
Even to look upon them inspired a sense of danger.
Yet their bodies were already committed forward—too late to retreat.
“……Hng!”
Clenching their teeth, they wrung out every last measure of their internal force and thrust their blades onward.
The moment steel met blossom.
Boom—
The blossoms burst as though unable to withstand the onslaught, scattering petals in all directions.
The Black Shadow Brigade members’ expressions brightened.
The ominous blossoms were shattering, dispersing into the wind.
But their brightened expressions were short-lived.
“……!”
Plum blossoms drifted through the air.
The moment countless petals, scattered in every direction beyond reckoning, made contact with them.
Thwack!
Fountains of blood erupted from all sides.
Where the petals had touched the bodies of the Black Shadow Brigade members, terrible wounds had opened.
Blood wept from skin rent asunder, and where the plum blossoms had driven deepest, the petals pierced straight through—white bone laid bare.
“Ugh!”
“Ngh!”
Swept away like autumn leaves before the wind, they crashed to the ground, groaning in agony.
Watching those who fell to the Plum Blossom Full Bloom before even reaching him, Cheon Hui moved without hesitation to what came next.
Tap.
He stepped toward one of those still clinging to life and pierced his heart.
“Hack!”
As he watched the corpse collapse amid frothing blood, Cheon Hui tilted his head ever so slightly.
Whistle—
In that instant, a sharp blade flashed past his cheek like a thunderbolt.
“Too obvious an ambush.”
Cheon Hui turned his gaze toward the one who’d wielded the blade and spoke.
So Yeon Gang, who had swung the Heuk Sal, stood radiating ferocious killing intent.
Cheon Hui placed his sole against the back of the corpse impaled on his blade, then pushed smoothly.
Slick—
Withdrawing his sword and flicking it sideways to shake the blood free, Cheon Hui met the fierce gaze of So Yeon Gang.
“Your momentum is impressive.”
“……And you’re far stronger than I’d imagined.”
So Yeon Gang smiled with his mouth alone, then stepped forward.
A single stride.
Yet in that moment his form seemed to stretch, rocketing forward in an instant to stand mere steps from Cheon Hui.
Crash!
A deafening roar tore through the air.
“Ugh!”
So Yeon Gang reeled from the impact, stumbling backward.
“What…….”
Cheon Hui looked at his trembling hand with an expression of disbelief, then gestured his blade toward So Yeon Gang and the Black Shadow Brigade members still standing.
“Stop playing games. Come.”
In an instant, heat shimmer rose from So Yeon Gang’s body.
A toxic killing intent seized the space, and joy flickered in his eyes.
“Pour everything into this.”
Before the words even finished, the killing intent of the surrounding Black Shadow Brigade members ignited.
Their eyes, now wide with lethal purpose, lunged at Cheon Hui in unison.
Screeech!
The Black Shadow Brigade members rushing at Cheon Hui were cleaved by his blade, blood and flesh scattering through the air.
“This isn’t over!”
A Black Shadow Brigade member with a gash splitting open his chest hurled the hidden weapons from his left hand at Cheon Hui.
Whistle!
But that was not all.
Black Shadow Brigade members erupted from all directions, beginning to deploy their assassins’ array.
“How amusing. They don’t seem to fear death much.”
Watching these men charge forward undeterred by mortality, Cheon Hui’s eyes grew cold and piercing.
It was then that So Yeon Gang, executing the supreme Black Shadow Step, closed the distance in mere heartbeats.
“You’ve let your guard down!”
The Heuk Sal unleashed a Sword Qi wrapped in lethal intent.
The Heuk Sal, swathed in Sword Qi roughly a thumb’s width thick, drove toward Cheon Hui’s heart like an arrow loosed from a bow—and in that instant, the blade reached his chest.
“Hardly.”
Cheon Hui laughed sharply and swept his blade through the air.
In that moment, a crimson plum blossom bloomed before his eyes, then swiftly consumed his entire vision.
‘What in the—’
His eyes went wide in alarm.
Crack!
As the world split in two before him, his vision went black.

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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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