Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 291

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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 291
Sa Hyeol Hwang.
More than two hundred years had already passed since his name first emerged in Kangho and his legend took root there.
Yet despite all those centuries, even the martial artists of today still spoke his name with reverence and dread.
How could they not? Entire factions had crumbled beneath his hand—not just one or two.
The Gongdong Sect, which had boasted centuries of history, fell to Faction Destruction under his shadow, and several among the Nine Factions and One Gang chose to seal their gates for long ages rather than meet his gaze.
His power was such that it seemed to pierce the very heavens.
The supreme master of that age.
The one who ruled the Kangho through terror itself.
But a hundred years ago, when the Sahwangjeon collapsed, his martial arts were believed lost forever.
The martial arts of Sa Hyeol Hwang, thought to have vanished.
His exclusive Ultimate Technique, the Janbaek Janhyeol Jo—crowned with every glorious epithet imaginable—had now been resurrected in Nong Jil’s hands.
Whoooosh!
The Janbaek Janhyeol Jo tore through empty air, rending the very atmosphere asunder as it engulfed Cheon Hui and the ground around him.
Yet despite the terrifying momentum, a strange silence fell.
A quiet as pregnant as the calm before a storm.
But only for a moment.
Then the change began.
Crack—crack—
The earth where the Janbaek Janhyeol Jo had struck trembled as though seized by an earthquake.
It was a sinister harbinger of what was to come.
Soon the ground surface, shaking violently, split with a sharp crack, and then—
Boom!
The entire foundation exploded.
The Naega Jung Su Beop—destroying what lay beneath even as the surface remained intact.
The ultimate expression of Chimtu Gyeong.
A shockwave of apocalyptic force erupted in a circular blast, sweeping across the Mountain Gate and beyond.
Everything in its path was sent flying without mercy.
And among those caught in the tempest was So Un Sa Tae.
The violent shockwave sent her careening through the air for nearly twenty paces.
Crash!
Her body, which had been flying unconsciously, finally stopped when her back slammed against a hermitage, and she crumpled to the ground.
“Cough!”
The shock of impact roused her from unconsciousness into a hazy, half-awakened state.
‘…What…what is happening….’
Still drowsy and disoriented, she forced her eyelids open, struggling to comprehend the situation.
As her vision slowly cleared, everything was tinted red.
Her sight was smeared with blood, but through the blur she could make out the scene before her—and her breath caught in her throat.
“Ha-ha-ha!”
Nong Jil stood amid the utterly devastated ground, laughing with wild abandon at the dust billowing up around her.
She looked utterly mad.
The energy fluctuating around her was violently unstable, and her eyes were turbid with madness and murderous intent.
She looked like someone lost to Juhwa Ipma, consumed by demonic possession.
Yet unlike the others who charged forward in all directions, unleashing their power in chaotic bursts, she moved with rational precision and deliberate judgment.
Which made it all the more chilling.
To maintain reason while in such a state was beyond So Un Sa Tae’s comprehension—a realm she could not fathom.
‘…A Blood Demon.’
As So Un Sa Tae’s blurred vision fixed on Nong Jil and despair took root in her eyes—
“Ugh!”
Nong Jil suddenly let out a sharp cry and stiffened. In the same instant, her expression twisted violently, and her entire body began to tremble.
As though she had been struck by something unseen.
She quickly bent at the waist and snatched up a Gombangdae that lay on the ground.
Her eyes betraying panic, she thrust a hand into her robes and withdrew something.
It was a powder—a mixture of toxic plants and medicinal herbs that she had concocted through her own unique methods.
She hastily poured the powder into the Gombangdae, snapped her finger to ignite the substance with a snap-ignition spark, and immediately brought it to her lips.
“Whoosh.”
As pale white smoke billowed forth, the tremors and pain gradually subsided.
The raging energy fluctuations also slowly stabilized.
“Nearly lost my mind there.”
Her brows lifted sharply.
“For one so young, you were remarkably strong. Had I left you alive, you would’ve posed a considerable threat down the road.”
Whether she’d toppled Nok Lim Dae Je purely by luck was debatable—her raw talent was undeniable.
Add her youth to the equation, and there was no predicting what heights she might have reached.
‘Perhaps she was connected to Pal Mu Sin…’
She shook her head, dismissing the thought.
‘He’s dead anyway.’
Her turbid gaze slowly cleared, settling into a composed calm.
“With the Plum Blossom Divine Art master accounted for…”
She turned her head sharply.
Her eyes found So Un Sa Tae.
To end the war with the Ami Sect, she needed So Un Sa Tae’s death.
“Is it time to see this through?”
As she spoke, she swept back her disheveled ash-grey hair and twisted her lips into a smile.
A demonic smile.
So Un Sa Tae, watching all of this, clenched her teeth.
The killing intent that poured from Nong Jil cut through the air like a honed blade, piercing her body.
She wanted nothing more than to rise and face her opponent.
But.
……
She couldn’t move a single finger.
Nong Jil’s assault had twisted her meridians, and her internal injuries ran deep.
Her vision blurred.
She had no strength left to resist.
‘…I entrust the rest to you.’
She thought of the sect leader who had slipped away through a back passage with the younger disciples, and now she prepared herself to accept the death that was coming.
“Exhale.”
Nong Jil, studying So Un Sa Tae as though she’d already resigned herself to her fate, removed the Gombangdae from her lips.
She felt a sudden surge coursing through her.
The euphoria of the Sacheonjelyae power flooding her body had not yet faded.
As she steadied her mind and prepared to move forward.
“Too bad. I was hoping for more. Janbaek Janhyeol Jo, of all things.”
A low voice sounded from behind.
Nong Jil spun around, startled.
Footsteps echoed through the dust.
A moment later, Cheon Hui emerged, pushing through the thick haze.
Nong Jil’s expression hardened at the sight of him.
Only the hem of his trouser leg was slightly torn; everywhere else, not a mark on him.
“…How do you have no wounds at all?”
The words escaped her before she could stop them.
It was simply unbelievable.
Cheon Hui met her gaze—that look of utter incomprehension—and let out a soft laugh.
“Because I understand it well enough myself.”
Suddenly, Cheon Hui raised his left hand.
His fingers spread like an eagle’s talons.
The shape matched exactly the hand position she had struck with moments before.
Nong Jil stared at his hand in disbelief.
The casual mimicry of the Janbaek Janhyeol Jo was absurd.
A martial art required the proper application of Internal Force and the right disposition to execute correctly.
Could one truly deploy a martial technique by merely copying the form?
But her face soon shifted, draining of color.
The force bearing down on her was far from ordinary.
“What are you—!”
She hastily drew up her Internal Force.
A murky aura layered upon itself, wrapping her body in armor, when—
Whoosh!
Cheon Hui’s left hand swept through the air with terrible force.
Light flashed.
Five streaks of azure light tore through the world like the claws of a dragon.
Whoosh!
They passed through Nong Jil in an instant.
Five blade marks were carved into the ground behind her.
Boom!
A violent explosion erupted.
Dust billowed up from behind Nong Jil’s back.
Her neatly arranged hair came undone again from the blast wave.
‘What on earth is happening?’
Nong Jil was utterly bewildered.
The Janbaek Janhyeol Jo was something her former master had sealed away as a forbidden technique in the past.
‘She said only one existed in all the world.’
Her pupils churned with turbulence.
Her master had once told her that only a single one of these existed under Heaven.
Yet what was this?
The Janbaek Janhyeol Jo was unfolding right before her eyes.
And in the hands of a Huashan Daoist at that.
“How are you wielding the Janbaek Janhyeol Jo…?”
At her question, Cheon Hui twisted his lips.
A thin sneer.
With that expression, Cheon Hui opened his mouth to address her.
“You think I’d tell you that?”
Veins rose prominently on Nong Jil’s forehead.
It was language of complete disregard.
Soon her grip tightened.
Snap!
The Gombangdae shattered in her hand.
The broken pipe fell to the ground with a soft tap, but Nong Jil didn’t spare it a glance—she kept her eyes fixed solely on Cheon Hui as she spoke.
“I’ll make you confess.”
In the eyes fixed upon him, a sharp killing intent and madness blazed.
Her pupils grew increasingly turbid.
At the same moment, unstable energy ripples rose from her entire body, soon transforming into an opaque ashen aura.
Death Evil Heaven Energy.
That peculiar force inherent to the Sacheonjelyae—which condensed both heterodox methods and heterodox arts—bloomed forth from her entire being.
“So that’s why you’ve gone mad.”
Cheon Hui murmured as he watched her, speaking as though to himself.
A sharp gleam flashed across his pupils.
His eyes, charged with the inner power of the Plum Blossom Divine Art, read the current flowing from her.
It was turbid and distorted.
Perhaps it was inevitable.
She carried within her living flesh the death energy that only the dead exhaled.
And that wasn’t all.
Evil energy, and even fiendish energy on top of it.
The ashen fierce energy she released was a tangle of all manner of currents that flowed against the natural order.
“It’s a miracle her mind remains intact at all.”
Having assessed her condition, Cheon Hui shrugged and murmured.
She was unstable.
More unstable even than the energy she was releasing.
She was like a tower that might topple at any moment.
It was just then, as he studied her thus.
Her form in his field of vision swelled rapidly.
She had deployed the Sahwan Bo.
Transformed into a single streak of grey light, she clung to the blind spot beyond his vision and thrust her left hand upward in a strike.
Power surged from her palm.
The unstable, chaotic energy burst forth in tendrils across the space, rushing toward him.
A perfectly executed ambush from the blind spot.
But then.
Swift as a whisper—
A red trajectory suddenly appeared, etched clearly into Nong Jil’s vision.
It was the Hwa Weol.
Crash!
A fissure tore through the air.
“Too predictable.”
Cheon Hui’s eyes dropped to Nong Jil, and without pause, he extended his left hand.
A gesture light as dust being brushed away.
But.
Boom!
The sound of a drum bursting echoed across the ground.
Nong Jil crossed both hands to block the strike, and her body flew backward in a sharp arc.
After sailing roughly fifty paces, she landed and immediately drove her foot back into the earth.
Crash!
The ground beneath her heel split open.
And from that moment on.
Boom-boom! Crash-crash!
Deafening booms erupted in rapid succession.
For the two whose thoughts were already spinning at critical velocity, each instant stretched long.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Nong Jil, deploying the Sahwan Bo, vanished and reappeared in dizzying sequence, her attacks unrelenting.
A torrent of ultimate techniques poured forth.
The air shrieked beneath the cascade of martial arts wreathed in ashen Sasa Cheon Ki, and sparks flew.
Dozens of exchanges passed in an instant.
At this pace, one would expect her accumulated force to falter—yet Nong Jil’s momentum only grew fiercer.
As though everything was only now beginning.
Then it came.
Clang!
Sent rebounding by Cheon Hui’s Hwa Weol, Nong Jil halted for a moment, gathering her breath.
“I’ll spare your life. There’s still much I wish to ask you…….”
Then, her voice thick with murderous intent, she stamped the ground savagely once more.
Boom!
A resonant snap of power.
From her entire body, which left clear footprints in the dirt, the Sasa Cheon Ki rose skyward like a dragon ascending.
“In exchange, I’ll shatter every limb you possess!”
Her twin palms raised high with a demoniacal cry, then descended like lightning.
Following the trajectory of those palms pressing downward, space itself twisted and warped.
And gradually, the world around them darkened.
An ashen whirlwind that bit at the skin descended, swallowing the sky.
A storm of Sagi that appeared in concentrated fury only within that space, as though it alone had been torn from the world.
The Sacheonjelyae technique—Returning to Heaven, Manifesting in the World.
The ultimate technique of death that once made the entire Kangho tremble fell toward Cheon Hui’s crown.
“That’s impossible.”
Yet Cheon Hui remained composed, stepping lightly forward.
As his leather sole touched down, the hard earth beneath turned as soft as mud beneath his weight.
A subtle wave of energy rippled outward like a concentric circle, spreading through the ground where his foot had pressed.
And then.
Boom!
A tremendous shockwave erupted, and Cheon Hui vanished.
Transformed into light, he rose to meet the Returning to Heaven, Manifesting in the World, and drew Hwa Weol upward in one fluid motion.
As the Plum Blossom Divine Art’s power within Hwa Weol stirred forth a faint crimson wave.
Slice!
The technique split in two.
And through that gap, a beautiful crimson radiance shone forth.
Hwa—
A single red plum blossom bloomed.
The Seven-Fold Plum Blossom Sword, fourth form.
Dominating Sky, Blood Blossom Flash.
The darkened sky and the raging whirlwind of Sagi vanished in an instant.
Only one thing remained.
A subtle fragrance of plum blossoms.
It alone drifted gently across the suddenly silent Mountain Gate of Bokho Temple.
Whoosh—
As Cheon Hui brushed the blood from Hwa Weol.
“Hehehehe.”
A faint laugh could be heard.
Cheon Hui turned his head.
Across the desolate ground lay a fallen figure.
It was Nong Jil.
Her condition was horrific.
From shoulder blade to thigh, long sword wounds gaped open, and blood oozed and dripped steadily between them.
Crimson blood pooled across the earth beneath her, spreading and claiming more ground with each passing moment.
Yet she was smiling.
Even facing a fatal wound that would claim her in moments, her smile never wavered.
“You’re strong. Impossibly strong for one so young to have reached such a realm.”
Wonder broke from her lips.
Her words carried genuine sincerity.
“But what a pity. Born into the wrong era, that’s all.”
Cheon Hui finished resheathing his blade and stepped closer to the fallen woman.
“Because of Pal Mu Sin?”
His gaze settled upon her as he spoke.
At that, Nong Jil’s eyes—which had been gazing blankly at the sky—shifted to meet his.
“Heh heh heh, yes.”
“They are certainly formidable.”
The memory of Pae Gun, whom he’d encountered before, made the corners of Cheon Hui’s mouth rise slowly.
Nong Jil’s eyes widened slightly.
“You’ve met them?”
“Briefly.”
“Then you understand well enough. No matter how much you struggle, they cannot be defeated. They are Ban Seon—the Divine Generals are called that for good reason.”
“In other words, I’ll lose?”
Cheon Hui’s smile twisted into something wry.
“Now that’s interesting.”
Nong Jil’s eyes grew even wider.
From Cheon Hui, who wore that smile, there emanated a presence that defied description.
It was no ordinary aura.
It was the very essence that only one who stood as an absolute—an existence unto himself—could radiate.
Like him, the one who had crushed her foundations and drawn her down the unorthodox path……!
Then.
“Anything else you’d like to say?”
As he spoke, Cheon Hui raised the Hwa Weol.
Without hesitation, he drove it downward.
Thud!
The Hwa Weol pierced through her heart.
“Gahhh!”
Blood erupted from her mouth.
Dark blood, blackened with corruption.
At once, ashen energy drained away from around her body and was swallowed by the ground.
Her Sasa Cheon Ki had returned to the heavens.
Perhaps because of this, her once-pale skin turned dark and withered in an instant, her entire form shriveling like dried leather.
In moments, Nong Jil transformed into something like a corpse left to rot for years.
The recoil of Sasa Cheon Ki draining away.
“It’s over.”
Just as Cheon Hui reached to withdraw the Hwa Weol from her heart, Nong Jil’s withered lips moved, her parched voice rasping out.
“Sa… Black Lotus… Master…….”
She whispered the name of him who had utterly transformed her life one last time, then her eyes dimmed, and she breathed her last.

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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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