Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 267

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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 267
‘A war has already begun?’
At Cheon Hui’s scoffing remark, Jeok Ho Chae Ju’s face flushed with bewilderment.
But he quickly swallowed his confusion and cried out with renewed confidence.
“The Murim Alliance has lost their minds. With the Bi Cheon Society watching them like a hawk, and they start a war with Sa Hyuk Ryeon?”
His Lion Roar echoed across the ground.
Yet none of the attackers paid any heed to his words.
‘They’ve really done it……’
Only then did Jeok Ho Chae Ju realize the Murim Alliance had truly drawn their blades, and shock seized him.
“Is everyone ready?”
Cheon Hui opened his mouth, watching the disbelief in Jeok Ho Chae Ju’s eyes.
“Move out.”
Though Cheon Hui’s command fell, most of the Special Unit members tensed at their first real combat and hesitated to advance.
Then one figure burst forward.
Whoosh!
Tearing through the air at terrifying speed came Dan Ri Gwan Cheon.
In his hands, he wielded a thin, peculiar blade as he deployed the Soaring Cloud Leap Drift, a Light Body Movement technique passed down through generations in the Cheongseong Sect.
“……!”
The Nok Lim Do members lurking behind the wooden palisade flinched, shrinking their necks.
They were overwhelmed by the ferocious momentum of Dan Ri Gwan Cheon, who closed the distance like an arrow.
Crack.
Moments later, upon reaching the wooden palisade, Dan Ri Gwan Cheon swung his blade with tremendous force.
Treading Wind Blade Technique!
The masterful blade art, transmitted most secretly within the Cheongseong Sect, revealed itself to the world.
In an instant, a whirlwind enveloped the blade body.
Then sharp blade light flickered.
Scrape!
A blade wind laden with deadly intent cut diagonally through the wooden palisade.
“Gasp!”
“The palisade gives way so easily……!”
As the wooden palisade slowly collapsed, the Nok Lim Do members hidden behind it cried out in alarm.
“……Still quite a few of them.”
Dan Ri Gwan Cheon muttered softly as he stood atop the severed palisade.
There were quite a number hiding behind the palisade, and the Nok Lim Do members revealed by that single strike numbered far more than expected.
“This will take time.”
As he assessed the Nok Lim Do fighters before him.
‘Flee? No, it’s already too late for that. Then……’
Jeok Ho Chae Ju too swiftly surveyed them, seeking to gauge the enemy’s strength.
And shortly after, a smile played at the corners of his mouth as he reached his conclusion.
‘……The Murim Alliance must have been quite desperate to suddenly declare war like this.’
The composure that had wavered moments before returned.
The enemy numbered barely forty.
And most of them were young.
Though a handful gave off an unusual aura……
‘They’re all greenhorns.’
His eyes narrowed as he watched those whose hands trembled with nervous tension, and he bellowed out.
“Kill them all!”
Jeok Ho Chae Ju’s Lion Roar reverberated once more.
In an instant the Nok Lim Do members spread like a fan and moved in perfect unison.
Thud-thud-thud!
They assembled their formation with practiced efficiency.
The Special Unit members, who had been standing awkwardly, suddenly went rigid at the sight of such skilled movement.
They had unconsciously underestimated these bandits, yet their movements now were genuinely impressive.
“So it’s no accident that Nok Lim belongs to Sa Hyuk Ryeon.”
At this display, Ho Gwang Gae’s brow furrowed.
“Defense, then……? If it comes to this, we’re in for a hard fight.”
Mu Hong drew his sword carefully, muttering to himself.
Generally, defense was easier than assault.
Especially for those who had held this position for so long, they would have every advantage in controlling the battlefield.
Gulp―
The tension pulled taut from both sides like a thread, and someone swallowed hard.
‘Lost the initiative.’
Cheon Hui shook his head slowly.
Unlike the Special Unit members who stood frozen, unable to act, merely watching the Nok Lim Do bandits, the bandits themselves were positioned perfectly, preparing their optimal assault.
‘This is why real combat is necessary.’
They’d surrendered the advantageous ground, and now they were losing momentum as well.
‘This is worse than I thought.’
Cheon Hui’s eyes narrowed.
In terms of individual martial prowess, the Special Unit members surpassed the bandits—except for Jeok Ho Chae Ju.
Yet they stood paralyzed with fear.
‘I need to fix their mindset first.’
Eyes barely open, Cheon Hui addressed the still-motionless soldiers.
“What are you doing? Move.”
He fixed them with a contemptuous gaze, then shook his head slightly.
“This is your chance to build merit, and you’re just going to stand here watching?”
Cheon Hui swept his eyes across them one by one before settling on Dan Ri Gwan Cheon, his lips curving upward.
“All the glory’s going to slip right through your fingers.”
The moment the words left his mouth, Dan Ri Gwan Cheon trampled through the splintered palisade and charged at the Nok Lim Do bandits.
Crack!
A savage gust of wind howled forward.
Dan Ri Gwan Cheon wove the Soaring Cloud Leap Drift with the Treading Wind Blade Technique, advancing unstoppably toward the formation-arrayed bandits.
“Damn it!”
“Hell!”
The Nok Lim Do bandits scrambled to block him.
But against Dan Ri Gwan Cheon—who had reached the pinnacle even among the later generation masters—they crumbled without resistance.
Boom!
Seeing Dan Ri Gwan Cheon’s brilliant display, the soldiers’ eyes transformed.
Why had they joined the Special Unit?
To achieve great deeds and gain renown throughout Kangho.
“We can’t lose.”
“Time to move.”
Ho Gwang Gae and Mu Hong’s eyes flared as they launched themselves forward, and the rest surged after them in a charge.
The Special Unit members crashed into the encircling Nok Lim Do bandits.
Clang-clang-clang! Boom!
Fierce battle erupted on all sides.
Watching the Special Unit members clash with the surrounding Nok Lim Do bandits, Cheon Hui’s eyes lit up.
“Now then, let’s see what each of them is made of.”
* * *
The clash between the two forces was fierce.
The Special Unit displayed their martial prowess to overwhelm the Nok Lim Do bandits, but breaking through their formation proved difficult.
Especially since the Nok Lim Do bandits, true to their bandit nature, eschewed any restraint in their attacks.
They threw dirt, hurled fragments of the wooden palisade to obstruct vision, and occasionally launched hidden projectiles to disrupt the soldiers’ charges.
“Cowards!”
“Ugh!”
“And you call yourselves martial artists?!”
The Special Unit members flinched repeatedly at these unexpected tactics.
Having only ever engaged in formal martial matches and sparring bouts, this style of combat was entirely foreign to them.
Yet even amidst this chaos, certain soldiers were performing brilliantly.
They were disciples of the Nine Major Sects.
Not only Dan Ri Gwan Cheon, who fought alone, but Ho Gwang Gae, Mu Hong, and the other Nine Major Sects disciples displayed their martial prowess as they steadily overwhelmed the bandits.
And among them, one stood out.
Yuk Se Gon, a disciple of Kunlun, furrowed his brow as he faced the bandit before him.
Phew!
Yuk Se Gon, who had been leading the assault against the bandit, beads of sweat trickling down his brow.
‘Why can’t I break through……?’
He’d unleashed his full martial power, yet he couldn’t penetrate the bandits’ encirclement.
The martial arts he’d deployed—the Chasing Cloud Fist coordinated with the Divine Walk Mysterious Footwork—were simple yet potent techniques.
His senior brothers had repeatedly failed to counter this attack properly during sparring matches, usually finding themselves on the receiving end.
But now, every strike was being blocked.
By common bandits, no less.
‘Merely trash like this……’
He muttered under his breath, anxiety creeping in.
His opponents, at best, had reached the Third-Rate level, and the gap between them and a First-Rate master like himself was undeniable.
Yet what was this sight before him?
He hadn’t broken through a single one.
As he bit down hard on his lower lip, struggling to make sense of the impossible situation—
“S-Senior!”
An urgent voice called from beside him.
The moment Yuk Se Gon turned his head in alarm—
Rip!
A burning pain erupted across his forearm.
“Ugh!”
Yuk Se Gon released a sharp gasp, immediately thrusting the back of his left hand upward in a desperate parry.
Crack!
“Khack!”
The Jade Dragon Palm struck true against the jaw of the Nok Lim Do man who’d swung the sickle, and he collapsed to his knees.
“A-Are you all right?”
As Cheol Ho approached with concern, Yuk Se Gon nodded, grimacing through the pain.
“I’m fine. But the others—”
His eyes narrowed.
“……He’s getting back up?”
The Nok Lim Do man who’d taken the blow to his jaw and fallen to his knees was rising once more.
“Expected more from someone claiming Kunlun, but he won’t do either.”
Cheon Hui, watching Yuk Se Gon’s fight from a distance, wore a contemptuous smile.
“This is why flowers from a greenhouse never amount to anything.”
Cheon Hui shook his head with a soft tsk, viewing the situation as one of self-inflicted ruin.
Yuk Se Gon was deploying martial arts powerful enough to kill his opponent, yet at the final moment, his instincts had stayed his hand.
That wasn’t all.
Whether because this was his first real combat or something else, each time he unleashed his techniques, his muscles tensed and his stance crumbled.
As a result, his martial arts came out mangled, stripped of their proper form.
Worse, caught in the urgency of the moment, none of them even recognized their own blunders.
It was only because their opponents were weak that they’d survived this long—had they faced anyone even slightly stronger, Yuk Se Gon would surely be dead.
‘And it’s not just one or two of them.’
Cheon Hui’s eyes narrowed to slits.
It wasn’t Yuk Se Gon alone.
All but a handful were hesitating when it came to killing their opponents.
By contrast, the Nok Lim Do fighters attacked with lethal intent, driven to end lives.
And that difference was vast.
‘They’re turning a winning battle into this mess.’
Cheon Hui’s gaze turned cold.
It was truly pitiful.
“A rabble. A complete rabble.”
What good was martial prowess if the spirit was lacking?
For a warrior walking the path between life and death, there was no weakness more fatal than this.
As he continued his assessment—
“Hmm?”
Cheon Hui’s attention fixed on a woman struggling against one of the Nok Lim Do fighters.
It was the woman he’d first recruited into the Special Unit.
‘Im Ha Ryul, if I recall.’
Her martial prowess was among the lowest of the Special Unit members.
This made sense—she’d learned her martial arts at the Jinmu Gwan, not as a proper disciple of an established sect, so her skill was shallow by necessity.
Still, her fundamentals were solid enough that she’d barely scraped into the Special Unit.
Her current state bore testament to this: her entire body was riddled with wounds.
Her hair, which had once reached to her waist, was now cut short to her neck, and her Martial Robe was torn and shredded in countless places.
The most battered among all the Special Unit fighters.
Yet Cheon Hui held her in high regard. Her solid fundamentals were part of it, but the real reason he valued her highly was simple.
It was the hunger burning in her eyes.
‘People like her accomplish things.’
Cheon Hui’s eyes gleamed as he watched her.
Thud!
“Ugh!”
She had deliberately exposed her abdomen to Nok Lim Do’s Palm Technique, and now her blade drove true through the enemy’s throat, piercing clean through.
Thud!
Blood sprayed across her in a warm rush.
“Hah… hah…”
Drenched in Nok Lim Do’s blood in a single heartbeat, she drew short, ragged breaths.
Her hands trembled faintly.
It was her first kill.
The shock of it was enough to rattle her mind, but she clamped down on her lower lip and forced herself steady.
‘Get a grip!’
She couldn’t afford to break now.
Coming from nothing but a martial commoner—would an opportunity like this ever come again?
She’d bitten down so hard that blood trickled from her lip.
Crunch!
She gripped her trembling hands tight and screamed at herself silently.
‘You have to succeed in this mission. No excuses!’
She forced down the chaos and shock rising in her chest and sharpened her focus.
This was a battlefield.
Schwick—
She wrenched her blade free from the corpse’s throat, lifted her head, and surveyed the surroundings.
‘At this rate, we’re in danger.’
The Special Unit’s advance had stalled.
The only places making real progress were where Dan Ri Gwan Cheon had broken through, and where Ho Gwang Gae and Mu Hong were pressing together.
Everywhere else remained frozen, unable to advance even a step.
She assessed the situation and shouted.
“We need to unite as one! If we keep fighting like this, we’ll end up in defeat!”
Her sudden cry snapped the Special Unit members out of their desperate defense, and they turned to look at her.
‘Even now, she has eyes like that…’
Im Ha Ryul’s brow furrowed.
The glances they cast at her carried an unmistakable air of disdain.
Perhaps it was only natural.
They’d all made the journey here and already gauged most of the Martial Prowess present.
They knew perfectly well that Im Ha Ryul’s Martial Prowess ranked among the lowest in the Special Unit.
So how could they take kindly to her issuing commands?
Just as they began to react with irritation—
“Ha-ha-ha! The lady is right!”
Ho Gwang Gae laughed heartily and spoke.
In the next breath, his eyes gleamed, and he stepped up beside Im Ha Ryul.
“What do you say we unite as one? If we scatter carelessly, it’ll play right into their hands, but if we can punch through one point, I think we have a real chance.”
The others, reluctant as they were, had no choice but to nod and quickly formed a single cohesive force.
‘Not bad at all.’
Cheon Hui acknowledged Im Ha Ryul’s words and, watching Ho Gwang Gae shift the momentum, stroked his jaw thoughtfully.
Those from the major sects tended to look down on other schools.
And if that person came not from a sect at all, but from a martial commoner background—
They would dismiss them outright.
But when Ho Gwang Gae, a beggar from Gae Bang, one of the Nine Factions and One Gang, acknowledged Im Ha Ryul, the soldiers accepted it without resistance.
‘The two of them changed the mood.’
Cheon Hui recalled Im Ha Ryul’s cry and Ho Gwang Gae’s response, and rolled his neck loosely.
“We should make one of those two a unit commander and pair them together. As for the other commander—is there only that one?”
Cheon Hui’s gaze shifted to the side.
There, cutting through Nok Lim Do’s forces without hesitation, was Dan Ri Gwan Cheon.
Crack!
A violent explosion of sound thundered across the field.
Dan Ri Gwan Cheon surged forward with explosive Internal Force, his manner unrestrained and hearty.
Screech! Roaaaaa!
He swung his blade without restraint.
Each stroke took a life.
He harbored no hesitation in killing. His relentless assault was as cold and decisive as a blade.
Roaaaaa!
Blood sprayed across Dan Ri Gwan Cheon’s face.
Yet he pressed forward with an unshaken offensive, swinging his blade toward the Nok Lim Do bandits.
Then, in an instant.
Clang!
His unstoppable blade came to an abrupt halt.
Not by his own will.
Dan Ri Gwan Cheon slowly looked up at the one who had deflected his blade with a bare palm.
A man with a massive frame, his body corded with muscle.
Jeok Ho Chae Ju.
“You reckless foal…….”
Jeok Ho Chae Ju shook out his tingling hand lightly, his eyes snapping wide as he scoffed.
“Your little rampage ends here.”
As the words left his lips, his robes rustled, and his fist swelled to tremendous size.
“……!”
Dan Ri Gwan Cheon’s eyes widened.
The fist shadow was enormous.
An offensive technique radiating such refined and exalted momentum that it was almost impossible to believe it came from a mere bandit.
‘The Kangho truly is vast……!’
Recalling his master’s words, spoken so often, Dan Ri Gwan Cheon drew forth the entirety of his Great Luo Divine Power’s Internal Force.
Roar!
Now it was Jeok Ho Chae Ju’s eyes that widened.
‘Such inner power from a Later Generation Master!’
Jeok Ho Chae Ju clenched his teeth hard.
In that moment, the muscles of his jaw became pronounced, and as they did, Dan Ri Gwan Cheon’s blade moved like lightning.
Boom!
The Internal Force-wrapped fist and the blade shrouded in spinning wind collided head-on in the air.
The two locked in mid-air, fist and blade pressed together, glaring at each other before detonating their Internal Force.
“This bastard……!”
“Hah!”
As the two retreated backward, unable to fully dissipate the violent collision of their Internal Forces.
“Now that I’ve seen all there is to see…….”
Cheon Hui rose from his seat.
“Shall we clean this up?”

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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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