Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 328

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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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328
Fire
“So you’re telling me to find out for myself…….”
Poong Ri’s voice sank deep, weighted with meaning.
He had caught the intent hidden beneath Cheon Hui’s words, tinged as they were with faint mockery.
“You have no intention of telling me.”
His thick, gravelly voice cut through the air like a barbed spike, circling, probing at Cheon Hui’s ears.
It was like being tickled from within.
Poong Ri’s emotion was leaking out unbidden, bleeding into his voice and coloring it with force.
Shock. Confusion. Rage.
His emotions were roiling violently.
Like a tempest.
‘Gukcheongapnurae is a Qi Technique mastered only by Ryeon Ju and Baek Sa Sin. How in damnation did this bastard……?’
His mind spun at furious speed.
The world tilted, nearly spinning out of focus.
His Baekhoehyeol felt as though it might ignite.
Yet he could not stop thinking.
The unexpectedness of this situation demanded his urgent attention.
‘Could Ryeon Ju have taken on a new disciple……?’
It was his first thought.
And the worst one.
His fists clenched involuntarily.
If this man before him were a disciple sent by Ryeon Ju, then his identity would be exposed—the logic was inescapable.
But soon he shook off that thought.
‘No. If Ryeon Ju had taken a disciple, word would have reached us already. And even if he had raised one, he would never resort to something so tedious as this.’
Poong Ri summoned the image of the Master of Sa Hyuk Ryeon.
Proud, overwhelming, a supreme master of absolute skill.
Even if he had discovered Poong Ri’s true identity, he would have struck him down on the spot—not orchestrated some elaborate scheme like this.
‘And if someone from Sa Hyuk Ryeon had learned my identity and sent this man, they would have tried to turn the Heukgoedanhwan first, before anything else.’
His roiling emotions began to settle.
His reason, shaken by the emergence of Gukcheongapnurae, found its footing once more.
‘Which means this man has no connection to Sa Hyuk Ryeon…….’
His brow twitched slightly.
Relief flooded through him at the certainty that Sa Hyuk Ryeon did not know his secret. Yet the man before him remained an enigma.
‘Then how did he master Gukcheongapnurae? Could Baek Sa Sin have taken on another disciple before his death?’
Poong Ri, facing an opponent shrouded in mystery, had ruled out any connection to the Master of Sa Hyuk Ryeon and was now weaving together the threads connecting this man to Baek Sa Sin, seeking to pierce his veil.
“I can hear the gears turning in that head of yours from here.”
A voice touched with derision reached him.
Cheon Hui, letting the Hwaweol drape loosely from his hand, twisted the corner of his mouth into a cold smile.
Cheon Hui had no intention of killing him easily. He meant to return what he had received—no, double it and more.
So he would sow confusion.
By continuing to hide his identity, a secret that no longer mattered to reveal.
By wielding Gukcheongapnurae, the secret martial art and Qi Technique of Baek Sa Sin—all part of the same design.
Purely to toy with him.
And it had worked exactly as planned.
When Cheon Hui met Poong Ri’s gaze—turbulent with confusion and doubt—he lifted the Hwaweol.
His power from the Plum Blossom Divine Art flowed into it.
In that instant, a gentle wind rose, and his black robe—unadorned with even a single stitch—billowed from the hem upward.
Whoosh—
The force that rippled outward swept the dust at his feet in all directions.
Though he wore simple black garments and his flowing hair was bound loosely in a single knot, an air of mystery emanated from him.
And Poong Ri, facing such a figure, abandoned his thoughts and tensed.
His skin stung where the wind touched it.
The colorless Ki Wave woven into that gentle breeze carried profound force at its root.
The opponent was a master.
Not one to face while tangled in such chaotic thoughts.
After studying Cheon Hui for a moment, Poong Ri swept his fallen hair back.
His eyes sharpened as he did.
His gaze blazed with the keenness of a tiger as he straightened his frame and spoke.
“There’s no point in saying anything more.”
The moment he finished speaking.
Crack!
The floor shattered, and three martial artists clad in gray robes shot upward through the breach.
They possessed an aura far from ordinary.
A faint shimmer rippled around their bodies, each of them radiating a terrifying Ki Wave.
Poong Ri’s lips curved slightly upward.
Though they had emerged from hiding, these three were no mere shadows.
Residual Blood Demonic Blade Hong So Yak, Wolf-Slaying Sword Sak Il, Yin-Killing Specter Go Ak Young.
Before they were members of the Heukgoedanhwan, they were masters of the Sapa who had once made their names echo throughout Kangho.
The short-haired woman who first pierced the floor and reached Cheon Hui’s side—the Residual Blood Demonic Blade—drew the Geodo from her back without hesitation.
In that instant, her hair stood on end.
Her Internal Force, released with violent intensity, coiled around the Geodo and descended like thunder.
It was the beginning.
The Wolf-Slaying Sword that followed drove into Cheon Hui’s flank, thrusting the Hyeopbong Sword like an arrow, while from the opposite side, the Yin-Killing Specter unleashed the Bidao.
A perfectly coordinated Combined Formation.
Front, right, left.
Cheon Hui observed the Combined Formation erupting from three directions with placid eyes and parted his lips.
“I was wondering when you’d crawl out.”
Cheon Hui had already perceived them long ago.
How they lay hidden in the level below, breath held and presence concealed, waiting for their moment.
Cheon Hui brushed past them without concern, his toes moving.
It was the smallest of gestures.
And in that very instant.
Shriek!
The Residual Blood Demonic Blade’s Geodo split Cheon Hui’s crown clean in two, and the Hyeopbong Sword and Bidao pierced through his body.
“……!”
At the same moment, the three’s eyes widened.
Their attacks had clearly struck their target, yet they felt nothing in their hands.
It was as if the blade had simply passed through.
Boom!
The floor where Cheon Hui had stood shattered into fragments, wooden splinters dancing through the air.
The three’s brows furrowed at the sight.
The silhouette of Cheon Hui, whom they thought they had severed, was growing indistinct.
‘Displacement Illusion……!’
The three realized it simultaneously, their eyes darting in urgent exchange.
Shriek!
The sound of wind being split assaulted their ears.
It came from directly behind.
In alarm, they turned their gazes toward the source of the sound, and there stood Cheon Hui, the Hwaweol raised to his chest.
The three tried to move their bodies in haste.
But before they could.
Flash!
A crimson Ki Wave burst forth and rippled outward, passing through the three in an instant.
A blink of an eye.
A single scarlet line was etched.
Cheon Hui withdrew the Hwaweol he had drawn from left to right, locking eyes in turn with the three who stared at him with expressions of shock.
A moment later.
Splash—
Blood erupted in all directions.
The pupils of their wide, astounded eyes grew duller.
Soon after, along with their heads, the three corpses tumbled through the shattered floor.
A belated thud echoed.
Dust rose from below.
Yet Cheon Hui paid no attention to it, for a vicious Ki Wave was already bearing down from all eight directions.
Heukgoedanhwan members, their forms now revealed, had seized the moment when Cheon Hui sheathed his blade and unleashed a nine-fold assault from every direction.
Roar!
Ki Waves crashed down from all angles.
Each one of them was a Master who had reached the Apex Realm at minimum.
The atmosphere trembled violently at their combined onslaught, and a tearing boom erupted.
Just as the keen blades and metal implements they wielded sought to pierce Cheon Hui like a skewer.
Crack—
Cheon Hui’s deep black martial robe billowed in the wind.
The blade of Hwaweol, which had appeared without warning, lay tilted to one side, radiating sword energy.
At the same moment, the force flowing from Cheon Hui’s entire body overwhelmed the pressure waves being unleashed from all directions.
Poong Ri flinched at the sight.
“Fall back!”
He cried out, having read the ominous momentum emanating from Hwaweol.
Flash!
But Hwaweol was already being swung.
In an instant, the trajectory traced vertically fractured and splintered, appearing to break apart moment by moment.
It was an afterimage.
The Cheonryusingwha Sword.
The ultimate swift blade, kept incomplete for hundreds of years in Amhyang Bidong, unfurled at last.
Crash!
The weapons assaulting from every direction shattered helplessly against the Cheonryusingwha Sword.
But that was not all.
“Ugh!”
“Hack!”
The Heukgoedanhwan members wielding the shattered weapons coughed blood and tumbled backward.
The residual force of the Cheonryusingwha Sword traveled through the broken weapons and tore open their meridians.
Over a dozen fell in an instant.
Cheon Hui raised Hwaweol again.
The red light followed Hwaweol’s movement, drawing a beautiful arc across the space.
‘Not yet.’
Cheon Hui released his Internal Force.
Suddenly his vision expanded wide.
The force stimulating his Baekhoehyeol acupoint broadened his perception in a single instant.
A radius of ten zhang lay beneath his awareness.
Those encircling him now were far more than what he could see.
What was visible was only a portion.
At least seventy or more were closing in.
Having grasped their positions, Cheon Hui poured Internal Force into Hwaweol and stomped with true force.
Crack!
Fissures spread across the ground beneath his foot, and the shockwave rippled in all directions.
And in that moment—
Whoosh!
Cheon Hui’s form flashed and vanished, launching forward.
It was instantaneous.
Before Poong Ri could react, Cheon Hui had closed the distance and swung Hwaweol upward from below.
A swift blade of overwhelming speed.
The Cheonryusingwha Sword unfolded once more.
‘If they mean to keep hiding…’
Cheon Hui’s eyes gleamed with killing intent.
He had no intention of waiting for them.
Instead, he meant to draw them out.
And the method was simple.
Attack the enemy before him—Poong Ri.
Screech!
The crimson blade path left afterimages in its wake.
The sword energy of Hwaweol, infused with the force of the Plum Blossom Divine Art, carved deep traces through the air.
“…!”
Poong Ri’s eyes widened.
‘I won’t be caught so easily!’
Force surged from Poong Ri’s entire body, and his Pure White Armor began to radiate with spiritual power.
The Yeongsasimgyeol, which wielded innate energy.
For all the life force it devoured, its power ran far purer and stronger than other Internal Force techniques.
Intense energy surged toward his left hand.
A tingling wave of force bloomed from the open palm and spread up to his shoulder.
Simultaneously, his heel lifted.
The toe of his weighted leather shoe stamped heavily against the fractured ground.
Crack!
The shattered floor split open, heaving upward.
From within it, Poong Ri rapidly spiraled the Internal Energy originating from his shoulder’s Tianqing point, driving it forward through his palm.
A palm technique laden with all his weight and force.
The Evil Extreme Blood-Drawing Palm.
His wide-open hand met the descending blade that had aimed to sever his right shoulder clean away.
Boom!
A deafening roar erupted as though heaven and earth were being remade, and a heavy concussive wave spread in all directions.
The Hwacheonru Pavilion shuddered violently.
The floor beneath them sank inward in a wide circle, and wooden planks shot upward as if defying the laws of nature itself.
The sword’s trajectory, which had seemed ready to cleave through everything, scattered without a trace.
In its place, only the scent of blood filled the space.
“A touch shallow.”
Cheon Hui murmured flatly.
His eyes were on Poong Ri before him, where that thick scent of blood emanated from.
His left hand was ruined.
The blade of the Hwaweol had pierced straight through his open palm, completely severing his middle, ring, and little fingers.
Blood dripped.
Poong Ri looked at his left hand, now bearing only thumb and index finger, and suddenly burst into laughter.
“Ha ha ha ha!”
“What, you think I’ve lost my mind over just this?”
As Cheon Hui spoke with a jeering tone.
“There’s something you’ve forgotten.”
Poong Ri twisted his mouth even further.
Then, his fierce eyes flashing, he lifted his head and called out.
“Leader of the Heukgoedanhwan.”
Before the words had even finished, a man dropped down from above.
He was a lanky fellow, tall and skeletal.
But Cheon Hui’s gaze fastened not on his appearance, but on what the man held in his hand.
And rightly so—for gripped in the man’s hand was Ho Gwang Gae’s throat, which Cheon Hui had momentarily forgotten.

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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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