Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 248

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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 248
The assault by Nok Lim had ended in failure.
With Cheon Hui’s prowess, the Nok Lim Grand Master had retreated, forced to flee with his tail between his legs.
But that was far from all.
Many of the Nok Lim Daoists could not escape death, their corpses littering the ground.
Those who had survived among them….
“We surrender!”
“Please, we beg you to spare us.”
Every last one of them prostrated themselves in full submission, pleading for their lives.
Those who had tried to flee bore the marks of the stones Cheon Hui had hurled at them—none had escaped unscathed.
Some had lumps on the back of their heads; others bore bruises scattered across their hips, knees, backs, and limbs.
Cheon Hui looked down at them.
Meeting his utterly dispassionate gaze, the Nok Lim Daoists felt as though they stood upon a razor’s edge, gripped by a chilling dread.
Withdrawing his stare from the terrified group, Cheon Hui fixed his attention on Hyeon Sang, who stood beside him.
“So you mean to let these dogs live?”
Cheon Hui asked as if seeking confirmation, his brow narrowing.
No matter how he turned the matter over in his mind, he could make no sense of it.
Spare the enemy? Why?
Whether Hyeon Sang heard the unspoken question or not, the pallid-faced man—who had just finished stabilizing his internal injuries—nodded.
“They are men who have lost the will to fight. What reason is there for more blood to be spilled?”
At Hyeon Sang’s words, color briefly returned to the faces of the Nok Lim Daoists.
But it did not last.
“Blood’s already been spilled anyway. Does a drop or two more really make a difference?”
Cheon Hui spoke with chilling calm.
“Better to kill them now than leave behind future troubles.”
At his sinister words, the color drained from the Nok Lim Daoists’ faces once more.
“Please, we beg you, spare us!”
“We swear we shall never set foot on Huashan again!”
They looked up desperately at Hyeon Sang, their savior, their pleas wretched and raw.
But.
“Silence.”
Hyeon Sang’s tone was glacial.
The Nok Lim Daoists’ faces froze as they beheld his expression, now kindled with cold anger.
“Do not mistake this. It is for my disciples, not for your sake.”
Hyeon Sang spoke with detached coldness, then turned to meet Cheon Hui’s bewildered gaze and opened his mouth once more.
“We are of the Orthodox Sect.”
Hyeon Sang spoke these final words.
He then cast his gaze toward the disciples and senior brothers of the Huashan Sect who were receiving treatment and listening intently, his lips moving as he swept across them.
“I do not fail to understand your heart. Yet if we kill men who have knelt in surrender, what difference shall there be between us and them?”
Hyeon Sang’s eyes grew grave.
Even now, his heart burned to cut down every last one of these Nok Lim Daoists where they knelt.
How many of his disciples had suffered at their hands?
But he could not do it.
Not for Huashan’s future.
‘Now what can I say to that?’
Cheon Hui scratched the back of his head.
Hyeon Sang’s meaning was clear. Huashan was poised to rise, and there was no need to build a reputation for infamy.
There was none.
Rather, by showing mercy to the enemy who had struck first, the Huashan Sect would establish a firm foundation of standing.
“Tsk, well then, it cannot be helped.”
Cheon Hui conceded readily.
The Tianma Divine Sect and the Huashan Sect were not the same.
Neither their position nor their renown matched.
Nor did the way the world looked upon them.
And so their actions too must differ.
If they were to act as the Tianma Divine Sect had, this place would become a second Tianma Divine Sect, not the Huashan Sect.
“Th-thank you!”
“My lord!”
The Nok Lim Daoists, their lives now assured, wept tears of gratitude.
Poised between the realm of the living and the realm of death, they had been consumed by the terror of oblivion.
At last, he would live—if only by surviving his fear.
But then.
“You don’t intend to simply let them live, do you?”
Cheon Hui spoke with an edge that brooked no disagreement.
The faces of the Nok Rim bandits went rigid.
Hyeon Sang nodded slowly, without a word.
Then, turning to face his disciples, he gave his command.
“Seal their Dantians.”
The Nok Rim bandits’ eyes widened in shock.
The Dantian was everything to a martial artist.
Yet to seal them—
Some of them nearly rose to protest, but they did not.
Cheon Hui’s gaze swept across them with a sinister gleam, as though waiting for someone to open their mouth.
‘Is anyone going to resist? I’d love to make an example of one.’
Their throats moved visibly.
To refuse that command here was not merely to lose one’s Dantian—it was to lose one’s neck.
The Nok Rim bandits bowed their heads without resistance.
“Pity. I was hoping at least one would step forward. Then I could handle all of them at once…….”
Cheon Hui smacked his lips with obvious disappointment, muttering to himself. The bandits who heard this felt their skin crawl with dread.
Cheon Hui, observing the flinching bandits, turned to address Hyeon Sang.
“You seem busy with treatment. Allow me to seal their Dantians.”
Hyeon Sang smiled wryly.
“Do so.”
The moment Hyeon Sang’s words fell, Cheon Hui moved.
He vanished from his seat in a single breath and reappeared before the kneeling bandits, driving his heel into their lower Dantians with brutal force.
Crack! Crack!
“Gack!”
“Hack!”
The sound of bones shattering mingled with delayed screams that continued to pour forth.
“Hyeon Yang and Hyeon Heo.”
“Yes?”
“You called, Sect Master?”
“Take these men to the Prison. Lock them away.”
At Hyeon Sang’s command, Hyeon Heo and Hyeon Yang nodded and moved toward the bandits.
As Hyeon Sang watched the Nok Rim bandits being dragged toward the Prison, he exhaled deeply and turned his gaze away.
The sun, which had hung at zenith, now rested upon the ridge of the mountains, half its face exposed.
Hyeon Sang gazed at the soft glow spreading across the sky and offered a bitter smile.
‘So much has changed.’
Huashan’s landscape had transformed in a single day.
Fractured earth and pavilions lay scattered in places.
That was not all.
Many corpses remained, their spilled blood seeping into the soil.
The Huashan Sect’s history held no precedent for such a sight, and his eyes could not help but reflect bitterness.
Yet he soon shook his head.
Though much had changed, one thing endured.
All of the Huashan Sect’s disciples had survived.
‘There are the wounded, of course…….’
Watching his disciples being carried toward the Medicine Hall, he steadied himself, closing and opening his eyes as he spoke.
“Those still able to move—go to Hwain County and gather medicinal supplies.”
“Understood.”
The disciples who had escaped serious injury kicked off the ground without hesitation at Hyeon Sang’s word.
Hyeon Sang, watching them depart, closed his eyes.
“……What a long day this has been.”
* * *
War, it was said, demanded more effort in its aftermath than in the fighting itself.
The work of gathering the wounded and prisoners consumed countless hours, and then came the surveying of damage here and there, the time required for repairs.
Perhaps for that reason.
Not only the disciples, but the elders of the Huashan Sect—those who would ordinarily remain immobile—bustled about with urgent purpose to handle the cleanup.
And among all of it.
The Medicine Hall was busier than it had ever been.
Dozens of beds filled the Medicine Hall, and groans echoed from every corner.
“Ugh… Master.”
Cheon Go, the keeper of the Medicine Hall, winced.
Seeing the wounds carved into his young disciple’s body, his heart felt as though it might tear apart.
“Hold on just a little longer. You’ll heal soon enough.”
Cheon Go offered the same words he’d given every injured disciple, then turned to shout loudly at the Medicine Hall attendants bustling about.
“Bring more Gold Wound Medicine!”
“Yes, right away!”
Beside him, Shin Ui checked on the collapsed disciples, moving swiftly from one to the next.
“Tsk, tsk—a clean cut, this one.”
Shin Ui reached for the medicine bottle he’d set nearby, observing the gaping wound that split across the disciple’s chest.
He felt the pale liquid inside slosh gently as he uncorked it.
A sharp, pungent odor spread throughout the hall.
The wounded disciple was so overwhelmed by the acrid stench that he forgot to voice his pain, cringing instead, when Shin Ui tilted the bottle without hesitation.
The moment the hemostatic medicine touched the disciple’s split wound—
“Aaaahhhhh!”
The disciple’s face twisted in agony as his body convulsed.
“Bear it, even if it hurts!”
Shin Ui cried out, beads of sweat rolling down his forehead.
At the same time, his fingers moved with extraordinary speed, and in one fluid motion he sealed the wound with sutures.
It was remarkably dexterous handiwork.
“There—that should do it.”
Shortly after, once Shin Ui had finished stitching the wound, he picked up the cloth beside him to wipe the sweat from his brow, then looked up.
“Bring me the next one.”
“Understood.”
A Medicine Hall attendant quickly helped the freshly sutured patient to his feet and withdrew.
Just then—
“M-Master, please, not the An Hyang Dan…!”
At the urgent voice, Shin Ui turned his head almost involuntarily.
At the nearby bed, Cheon Hui was grinning down at Jeok Un, who had sustained internal injuries.
“Shut up and eat it.”
As he spoke, Cheon Hui plucked one of the An Hyang Dans piled like a mountain beside him and shoved it straight into Jeok Un’s mouth.
“Mgh! Mgh!”
Though the pill was in his mouth, Jeok Un resisted swallowing, so Cheon Hui narrowed his eyes and commanded—
“Swallow.”
“Mgh! Gulp!”
Overpowered, he finally swallowed the An Hyang Dan.
As the pill went down his throat, Jeok Un’s face began to turn dark as pitch.
A noxious toxin was surging through him.
Then Cheon Hui placed his hand on Jeok Un’s back.
In that instant, the Inner Power of the Plum Blossom Divine Art flowed from Cheon Hui’s hand, enveloping Jeok Un.
Driven by that energy, the swallowed An Hyang Dan rapidly broke down, and the energy immediately burrowed into his Lower Dantian, quickly beginning to soothe his internal injuries.
“There—all done.”
Cheon Hui withdrew his hand.
“Uuugh!”
Jeok Un clutched at his belly.
The sharp cramps rippling through his abdomen twisted his face more and more.
He shot upright.
Jeok Un scrambled to his feet and, holding his legs stiffly together, hurried out of the Medicine Hall in a clumsy waddle.
“He’s going to mess himself before he makes it.”
Watching Jeok Un flee so frantically, Cheon Hui let out a quiet chuckle.
Shin Ui, witnessing this, sighed.
‘I was hoping to see what his medical skills were like.’
Since the Medicine Hall was short-staffed, Shin Ui had called Cheon Hui to help, intending to observe his abilities while he had the chance.
But what he’d actually witnessed was—
“Come on, swallow it. What are you doing not eating? This is a universal cure-all, I’m telling you—a universal cure-all. Once you eat it, you’re completely healed.”
For each disciple who came, he did nothing but force an An Hyang Dan into their mouth and then place his hand on their back.
‘So much for witnessing any real medical technique.’
Shin Ui shook his head with a sigh, watching only Inner Power manipulation that had nothing to do with medicine.
How much time had passed like this, he wondered.
Patter-patter—
With the Second Disciple hurrying away in panic, Cheon Hui dusted off his hands and rose to his feet.
“Leaving already?”
Shin Ui, who had just finished treating a patient, asked.
“Well, I’m done here.”
Cheon Hui spoke as if it were nothing.
“Then I’ll be on my way—”
“Wait a moment.”
But Shin Ui stopped Cheon Hui before he could leave.
“I can study medicine later.”
Cheon Hui, expecting Shin Ui to tell him to study medicine as usual, quickly rejected the idea outright.
“You weren’t planning to learn anyway, were you?”
Shin Ui’s expression turned incredulous, and he gestured as he continued speaking.
“Come here. Let me check your condition.”
“My condition?”
Cheon Hui shrugged his shoulders.
“There’s nothing seriously wrong with me.”
“I know. But there’s more than one person worried about you.”
Shin Ui recalled those who had worried about Cheon Hui even while receiving treatment from him.
‘What’s so good about that fellow anyway.’
Shin Ui felt disgruntled at first, then let out a small laugh.
‘Am I any different?’
Truth be told, if Cheon Hui were to say he’d study medicine, Shin Ui himself would be the first to worry whether he’d suffered any injuries.
“Give me your hand.”
Cheon Hui hesitated, looking annoyed at the prospect of leaving, but finally moved closer and extended his hand.
‘This will only drag on longer.’
Shin Ui took Cheon Hui’s pulse.
There was nothing unusual, as expected.
However—
“Did you encounter some opportunity?”
Shin Ui’s eyes narrowed.
A stronger current of Qi was flowing through Cheon Hui’s body than the last time he’d checked his pulse.
“No opportunity—just a slight gain.”
Cheon Hui spoke calmly.
But hearing this, Shin Ui’s expression became one of disbelief as he clicked his tongue.
“What an age we live in. At your age, you’ve already surpassed where you were before?”
Shin Ui couldn’t help but shake his head in amazement.
Though he didn’t understand the martial realms deeply, he could sense it vaguely.
That Cheon Hui had ascended to a higher stage.
The moment Shin Ui took his pulse, a purer and more intense Qi poured forth than any he’d ever encountered before.
The sheer volume was so overwhelming it felt like drowning in a sea brimming with vital energy.
“But it still seems unstable.”
Cheon Hui nodded.
He had gained some insight.
But he hadn’t yet fully integrated it into his own being.
“That’s why I’m working to perfect it now.”
Cheon Hui smiled slightly.
“Tsk. Fine.”
Shin Ui released his hold on Cheon Hui’s wrist.
Cheon Hui rolled down his sleeves and flexed his hand lightly as he stood.
“Then I’ll leave the rest in your hands.”
“I’ll do it whether you ask or not.”
Shin Ui’s words carried a note of rebuke.
Cheon Hui gave him a nod and turned, slipping out of the Medicine Hall.
The treatment seemed nearly complete—perhaps everyone, exhausted, had fallen asleep.
The Medicine Hall, which moments ago had been filled with groans and cries, was now wrapped in silence.
Outside, darkness had already descended.
“Then I should consolidate what I’ve gained.”
With an eager expression, Cheon Hui murmured to himself, then looked up to see moonlight piercing through the darkness before moving his feet once more.
Toward Nagan Peak, his quarters.

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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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