Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 275

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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 275
On a hilltop overlooking the Estate Grounds of the Hyeol Woo Sword Clan, where Cheon Hui and So Gwang Pae stood locked in confrontation.
While the estate below shimmered with the heat of intense battle, the snow-laden hilltop was wrapped in a cold and utter silence.
Presences emerged from the quiet.
Four in total.
All of them wore black martial robes that stood in stark contrast to the pristine white snow blanketing the world around them.
“Remarkable momentum indeed.”
The eldest among them, positioned farthest to the left, took a step forward and gazed down at the estate below, her voice hushed.
It was extraordinary.
The distance between this hilltop and the estate was roughly a hundred paces or more.
It was a distance from which one could ordinarily scarcely perceive such force.
“Black and crimson interwoven in those robes…….”
A voice, split and ragged, spilled forth.
“Could that boy be the Plum Blossom Divine Art?”
The eyes of a middle-aged man, dressed in robes embroidered with a magnificent golden dragon, blazed with brilliance.
He stood at the center of the estate grounds.
His gaze was fixed upon Cheon Hui, who occupied that space.
Then came the moment.
“What are your assessments of that Plum Blossom Divine Art, you two?”
A bone-chilling voice tore through the air.
The moment one heard that sound—like metal scraping against metal—a chill ran up the spine.
The old woman and the middle-aged man turned to look behind them.
Toward a figure armored entirely in black from head to foot.
Whether man or woman, the figure’s appearance was eerily strange beyond measure.
Under a Pi Poong Ui pulled low, thick black martial robes of considerable length concealed the entirety of their form.
It was painfully clear that this person had no desire whatsoever to reveal themselves.
“Certain death!”
The middle-aged man answered with force and conviction.
The presence felt across this distance was palpable.
It was far too elevated for an age so young.
“In time, he will become a perilous threat to our order. Indeed, even now……!”
A murderous aura flowed from his body.
Intent had risen unbidden within him.
The ominous killing intent caused the very mountain to tremble.
Yet the three standing nearby showed no reaction at all, remaining perfectly still.
As though accustomed to such displays.
“What do you think, Protector?”
“What use is there in hearing the opinions of a lowly crone? I will follow only what the Young Master decides.”
The old woman responded with humble courtesy.
Had those who knew her identity witnessed this exchange, they would have rubbed their eyes in disbelief.
She was none other than Yeo Un Yak, also known as the Star-Radiance Rakshasi.
As a Protector of the Sa Hyuk Ryeon, she was an ancient terror who had once turned Yunnan into a sea of blood.
“I see.”
Having heard Yeo Un Yak’s response, the figure turned his head and posed the same question to the woman who had long stood at his side as an attendant.
“What is your thought on this?”
His tone was markedly different from when addressing the other two—more relaxed, more intimate.
The Cold Woman received this question with a smile as fresh as spring blossoms blooming at her lips.
“I, too, intend to follow the Young Master’s judgment.”
“No—I wish to hear your own view.”
At this further press, the Cold Woman’s smile vanished and her expression turned frigid.
“He must be killed. If we leave him as he is, he will obstruct the Young Master’s path in the future.”
“Obstruct my path…….”
At the Cold Woman’s answer, he turned his head.
Then he took a step forward.
Crunch.
The moment his black leather shoe pressed upon the pristine snow, the surrounding snowfall melted away.
As he continued walking, the snow within a three-pace radius melted along the trail of his footsteps, revealing barren earth of dull ochre below.
A transformation that occurred without deliberate effort.
He had drawn no Internal Force, unleashed no pressure—merely walked.
Yet with each step, the very land itself was remade.
As if he were dying.
Soon he stood at the crest of the ridge.
At the same moment, he stirred the Internal Force that had lain dormant deep within his Lower Dantian, awakening it.
His five senses stretched to their absolute limit.
From the Hyeol Woo Sword Clan below the white ridge came the clash of spear and halberd, ringing in his ears, while the thick scent of blood rode the wind and tickled his nostrils.
Metallic. Deafening.
Yet strangely, his mind and body grew calm.
It was as if he had come home.
His gaze, which had been sweeping across the Hyeol Woo Sword Clan, fixed on a single point.
“……The Plum Blossom Divine.”
He intoned the alias of the man before his eyes.
His chilling voice was hoarse, as though coated in dust, and faded in an instant.
At the same moment, the hem of his long robes fluttered.
Wind began to rise from beneath his feet, stirred by the wave of martial power that erupted of its own accord.
“I need to get closer and see for myself.”
Suddenly, a piercing blue light blazed from his eyes, hidden until now beneath the Pi Poong Ui.
* * *
Cheon Hui observed So Gwang Pae.
For someone bearing white hair and pale skin, So Gwang Pae’s features were remarkably youthful otherwise.
At most, he appeared to be in his mid-thirties.
Yet that was merely the surface.
By common knowledge, his true age was sixty.
It meant he had reached a realm where supreme martial power allowed him to slow the body’s aging.
And as proof of So Gwang Pae’s lofty realm, the energy wave radiating from his center warped the space around him, distorting its very form.
One could see his muscles in constant cycles of relaxation and contraction.
A stance prepared to strike at any moment.
Yet for all that, So Gwang Pae did not move rashly.
He merely maintained the distance between himself and Cheon Hui.
“However long I wait, he doesn’t seem likely to come first. I’ll have to go myself.”
Cheon Hui put pressure into his feet.
The moment the tip of his leather shoe gently pressed down on the accumulated snow—
Crack!
Cheon Hui’s body shot forward.
A violent wind rushed in its wake.
In a heartbeat, Cheon Hui reached So Gwang Pae’s immediate vicinity and drew the Hwawol in mid-air.
Shiiing—
The beautiful red-gleaming blade of the Hwawol shimmered into the world.
At the same moment, colorless energy flowed out like thread, wrapping around the Hwawol.
Whoom!
Cheon Hui swung the Hwawol toward the front with all his strength, and the blade, which had risen to his waist, accelerated with the force and cut through in a single instant.
A single slash unleashed while still airborne.
The swift strike that arrived in a flash warped the air itself, slicing through space diagonally.
It could truly be called a transcendent technique.
So Gwang Pae’s eyes flew wide at the deadly stroke that gave him no time to blink.
Overwhelming speed and fierce momentum.
It was a blade that could not be resisted.
There was no possibility of meeting it head-on.
‘I must evade!’
So Gwang Pae rolled his body by instinct.
And in that moment.
Whoosh!
The blade wind that severed his hair struck the Wall at the rear of the Estate Grounds.
Boom!
The earth shook violently.
It was a catastrophic impact, as if struck by cannon fire.
It felt as though an earthquake had struck.
“…….”
A suffocating silence fell over the Estate Grounds.
The intense battles raging throughout the Estate Grounds had come to an abrupt halt.
All eyes had turned, vacant and stunned, toward the Wall.
From the collapsed wall, small stones swirled forth in a cloud of dust.
“……Is, is such a thing even possible?”
“A person did that?”
“Such martial prowess……!”
Shock was written plainly across their faces.
It was beyond belief.
Truly, it was the astounding result of a single sword strike.
Meanwhile, Cheon Hui, who had produced that result, showed no change in expression whatsoever.
“Surprising, isn’t it?”
He merely gazed at So Gwang Pae, whose clothes were now caked with earth.
“Using the Naryeo Tagon, no less.”
Cheon Hui laughed as though amused.
Normally, a clan lord would place great stock in dignity.
But perhaps because he belonged to a heterodox sect.
He had deployed the Naryeo Tagon—something most martial artists would rather die than unsheathe.
And because of that, he had lived.
“……This, this cannot be.”
So Gwang Pae’s lips trembled.
The shock he had received was beyond words.
Yet he could not afford to remain lost in that shock.
“Come to your senses?”
Cheon Hui had drawn close without warning, his grin smug as he stood before him.
“……!”
So Gwang Pae flinched at the blade that had suddenly appeared before his face, and hastily raised his own sword to meet it.
Clang!
A thunderous sound rang out.
As the two collided, the resulting shockwave warped the air, and sparks flew between them for an instant.
Crash!
The impact drove So Gwang Pae’s body backward.
His feet, sunk nearly an inch into the ground, skidded back, leaving long marks across the floor behind him.
It was the aftershock of the force contained in the blade.
“Ugh!”
A groan escaped between So Gwang Pae’s clenched teeth under the violent impact.
In an instant, his stomach churned, and the bitter taste of blood began to fill his mouth.
It seemed he had taken an internal injury.
So Gwang Pae gripped his sword hilt tightly.
The heat transmitted through the hilt, slick with sweat, sharpened his mind.
Immediately, he drew up his Internal Force.
The power of the Hyeol Geom Gyeol swiftly seized his body, spinning through his entire frame.
In a single breath, the Grand Circulation opened.
Blood surged, and steam rose from his body.
Cheon Hui, about to swing his sword again after deploying the An Hyang Pyo, suddenly felt his eyes brighten at the vapor that shimmered into view.
‘Aiming for victory in a single exchange?’
Having discerned So Gwang Pae’s intent, Cheon Hui threw more strength into his feet and leaped forward.
To dodge would be anticlimactic.
But Cheon Hui did not.
Why would he evade something so entertaining?
‘Let me see what you can truly unfold.’
The Inner Power of the Plum Blossom Divine Art surged greatly.
The force that governed every meridian in his body rose beyond the middle vital center and reached the upper vital center.
The Baek Hoe Hyeol opened, and his thoughts spun with quickened speed.
Thanks to that, within consciousness that felt slowed as if time itself had stopped, the Inner Power swiftly wrapped around his eyes.
The entire world became clear, as if held in his hands.
Momentum, flow, the very tremor of the air.
And even So Gwang Pae’s movements as he prepared his strike before him.
Boom!
At that very moment, So Gwang Pae moved.
His body stretched long.
Like a shadow cast by setting sunlight, his form extended and compressed the distance between them with startling speed.
The secret Speed Technique of the Hyeol Geom Gyeol.
The Shadow Step.
So Gwang Pae planted his foot and brought the Hyeol Woo Geom down from above in a devastating arc.
It was an all-consuming strike.
The air itself screamed and tore under the ultimate technique of a master at the Wuji Realm.
In that same instant, the blade split.
One became two, two became four, four became eight, the multiplication repeating again and again.
By the end, dozens of sword phantoms erupted through the void, cascading down like rain.
The ultimate secret of the Hyeol Geom Gyeol.
The Hyeol Cheon Geom U was manifesting.
‘A variation technique infused with the Hwan Geom?’
Cheon Hui watched the Hyeol Cheon Geom U intently, his silent assessment drifting through his mind.
Even as the sword phantoms tore through the air and reached arm’s length away, Cheon Hui’s expression remained composed, untouched by urgency.
So Gwang Pae’s eyes flashed with intensity.
He saw hope in Cheon Hui’s complete lack of defense against the Hyeol Cheon Geom U.
And then, finally, Cheon Hui moved the Hwawol.
In that moment.
A resplendent shimmer bloomed—
The fragrance of plum blossoms spread in all directions.
It was so thick and intoxicating the mind reeled.
And at the same instant, the sky turned crimson.
Though the sun had not yet set, between the reddened heavens, plum blossoms bloomed.
Enchanting and beautiful.
They covered the descending rain of blades entirely.
Then.
A sharp crack split the air—
A single thread of sword light fell like lightning from above, striking down with a thunderous thud.
Cutting down from above as if cleaving the world in two, the sword light severed the crimson sky, the blossoms, and the blade rain all at once.
A sword technique that concealed cruelty within its brilliance.
The Nag Yeong Geom Beop.
A horrible slash tore through the air—
Long gashes of blood appeared across So Gwang Pae’s entire body.
“This… how….”
So Gwang Pae’s eyes trembled.
It was a hollow, vacant stare, utterly lost.
His eyes dimmed of all light, and then he pitched forward, crashing to the ground with a dull thud.
For one who had ruled Serim as the Patriarch of the Hyeol Woo Sword Clan, his death was pathetically hollow.
……
So Gwang Pae’s death brought silence across the entire Estate Grounds.
In particular, the beautiful yet eerie swordmanship Cheon Hui had unleashed sent tremors through the hands of everyone present—friend and foe alike.
And amid that silence, Cheon Hui’s lips moved.
“What are you waiting for?”
It was a light tone for one who had just displayed sword technique at the highest pinnacle of mastery.
“Clean up the rest of them… hm?”
Cheon Hui had been about to order Myeol Jeol Dae to finish the task when his head snapped up.
Malevolent auras were approaching.
At a terrifying speed.
Moments later, four figures clad entirely in black vaulted over the Wall.
……!
“What—?!”
At the sudden appearance of these four, Myeol Jeol Dae and the warriors of Hyeol Woo Sword Clan alike went pale with shock.
Swift as a shadow—
One of the four, whose face was concealed entirely behind a black Pi Poong Ui, raised a hand.
The long sleeves that had covered even the hands slid down, revealing arms that were black.
More precisely, hands wrapped in cloth woven from black rope.
The figure carefully drew back the Pi Poong Ui that had hidden the face.
Ash-grey hair, scorched and faded like burnt kindling, fell away in a cascade.
“Gasp!”
“That… that thing is…!”
Those who saw what was revealed widened their eyes in shock.
Beneath the Pi Poong Ui was not a face at all, but a single mask.
It was no ordinary mask.
Eyebrows that shot upward without knowing the limits of the sky, sharp fangs jutting from beneath…….
The Demon King, the Night Rakshasa.

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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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