Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 39

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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 39
“……!”
“……!”
Both Ha Ujin and Hyun Do, who had been listening alongside him, couldn’t help but gasp.
Yet the reason for their astonishment was plainly different.
“How did they manage the Salhonjae……?”
Ha Ujin made no attempt to hide his shock, but Hyun Do did not.
Granted, the news that the Salhonjae had been defeated was startling, but he accepted it.
‘It’s entirely possible.’
An existence incomprehensible by ordinary measure.
Such was Cheon Hui.
Even he, who had ascended to the pinnacle of the Cheonmu Jigyeong, could not begin to fathom what level of martial mastery Cheon Hui had now attained.
No matter how formidable the Salhonjae might be, if Cheon Hui took the field, victory was assured.
Then why had he gasped?
The reason spilled from his lips.
“……So they actually sent the Salhonjae.”
His murmured words carried a note of turbulence.
That Baekguiseong would dispatch the Salhonjae—known to be the most secretive of the Three Great Units of Baekguiseong—in an effort to crush the Bifung Merchant Guild meant they were deadly serious. The weight of that realization settled heavily upon him.
Baekguiseong had maintained silence for years, concealing itself behind the Paewangmun shield.
Yet now, by sending the Salhonjae, they had broken their long silence with their own hand.
Of course, there was the possibility that it stemmed from the failure of the plan, as Ha Ujin had mentioned, compounded by the Paewangmun’s move toward annihilation.
But to send the Salhonjae against a mere merchant guild?
Wasn’t that excessive?
‘What could Baekguiseong’s true purpose be?’
He sifted through the knowledge accumulated over long years, turning it over in his mind.
How long he stood thus in thought, he couldn’t say.
The first thing that came to mind was, unsurprisingly, something connected to the Jongnampa.
‘Are they trying to starve the Huashan sect by cutting off the Bifung Merchant Guild’s funding? Or perhaps…….’
Hyun Do turned the question over repeatedly, seeking an answer.
‘I can’t say for certain.’
Yet no answer came.
He gave his troubled head a slight shake, then turned to Cheon Hui, who was directly involved in this affair, for help.
“Do you know their purpose? Why Baekguiseong went so far as to send the Salhonjae to attack the Bifung Merchant Guild…….”
“No.”
At the curt reply, Hyun Do let out a rueful laugh.
Wasn’t that answer only natural?
“I asked something foolish, didn’t I? They wouldn’t have told me even if I’d questioned them.”
“That’s not it.”
As he spoke with a bitter expression, Cheon Hui’s response caught him off guard.
“Wait—you mean you didn’t even ask?”
“Why would I ask something like that?”
“Because you need to know what Baekguiseong’s purpose is, don’t you?”
“Why does that even matter?”
Cheon Hui tilted his head, his expression suggesting complete bewilderment.
“The important thing is that they tried to ambush the Bifung Merchant Guild.”
“……!”
Hyun Do stared at him as though he’d been struck in the back of the head, his expression reeling.
‘Has time dulled his thirst for revenge?’
Baekguiseong and the Jongnampa were enemies who could not live under the same sky.
Now that justification had arisen, shouldn’t he be pleased?
Yet here he was, questioning Baekguiseong’s motives.
“Hahaha!”
His thoughts resolved, he tilted his head back and released a hearty laugh.
‘What? Why am I laughing?’
As he stood there, regarding the suddenly raucous Hyun Do with a vacant stare.
“You’re right. Your words ring true.”
Hyun Do folded his arms, speaking as he did.
“The important thing isn’t their purpose—it’s that they attacked, isn’t it?”
What good did it do to agonize over Baekguiseong’s intentions?
The salient fact was that Baekguiseong had laid hands upon the Bifung Merchant Guild.
“If they laid a hand on the Bifung Merchant Guild under our protection, they’ll answer for it. Oh yes, they certainly will.”
As he spoke, Hyun Do’s eyes grew cold, his gaze settling on the location of Baekguiseong.
Then.
“When did they launch their ambush?”
Ha Ujin, who had been watching their exchange in restless silence, finally spoke.
He was visibly agitated.
‘The Salhonjae!’
His position differed entirely from Hyun Do’s.
As a Taoist of Jongnampa, his concern fixed itself on one fact above all: Baekguiseong had moved.
More than that—the appearance of the Salhonjae signaled that Baekguiseong had abandoned the ambitions it had concealed until now.
‘I need to understand what’s happening.’
Cheon Hui, watching Ha Ujin’s poorly concealed urgency, opened his mouth to speak.
“There was no ambush.”
“What do you mean?”
“I killed them before they could try.”
Cheon Hui spoke as though it were nothing of consequence, yet Ha Ujin could not accept the words at face value.
“You’re telling me you detected the Salhonjae’s approach beforehand?”
“Yes.”
Cheon Hui’s expression asked why such an obvious thing warranted questioning.
It was Ha Ujin who was taken aback.
‘He detected them before they could even make a sound!’
Surprise flickered in the eyes of the seemingly unmoved Cheon Hui.
Why had the Salhonjae become so legendary when no one had ever laid eyes on them directly?
When the heterodox sects that had opposed Baekguiseong fell into silence and were erased without a sound, rumors began spreading from Yukhwangmun.
That Baekguiseong possessed the Salhonjae—a force so concealed in its infiltration arts that no one could detect them.
The Salhonjae had existed as nothing but rumor, a phantom militia without substance.
‘If that’s the case—’
Ha Ujin’s eyes widened with realization.
‘Some of the Salhonjae were caught reconnoitering for the ambush!’
With this assumption in mind, he stared at the Bifung Merchant Guild, satisfied with his reasoning.
‘That makes sense. If all of the Salhonjae had come, the guild wouldn’t still be standing.’
Ha Ujin began to misunderstand.
It was natural enough, really.
Who would believe that a youth not yet twenty had slaughtered the entirety of Baekguiseong’s Salhonjae?
It was nonsense.
‘If that’s so, the rest of the Salhonjae might come back once they gather their forces.’
His misunderstanding deepened, and there was no one to correct his thinking.
‘I’m worried about what comes next.’
Ha Ujin, his eyes still fixed on the Bifung Merchant Guild, shook his head and then turned to Cheon Hui with a determined expression.
“Would it be presumptuous to ask if I might stay at the Bifung Merchant Guild?”
“Pardon?”
Cheon Hui looked at Ha Ujin’s resolute gaze with an exasperated expression.
“You’d have to ask the merchant lord about that.”
* * *
That night.
Cheon Hui’s mind, having returned to his room, was consumed by thoughts of the Nakmaecheonuwhwa he had unleashed earlier.
Sword energy had blossomed in all directions, a feast of steel.
The Nakmaecheonuwhwa had severed the breath of those called the Salhonjae far more beautifully and mercilessly than he had imagined.
‘Martial arts must carry killing intent with them, after all.’
Pure white teeth showed between his lips.
Whether killing intent was woven into a technique or not.
For one who had reached the Realm of Transcendence, even that alone made a vast difference.
Particularly, he was the Patriarch of Cheonma Shingyo.
Having wielded the Magong Jeolhak—a martial art saturated throughout his life with practical combat, Demonic Energy, and killing intent—the disparity was greater for him than for others.
‘I’ve improved somewhat, but…’
He lifted his eyelids, clearing his vision.
The room was dark with its windows and door shut tight, yet it posed no obstacle.
The interior appeared as bright as midday.
When had it begun?
His Eye Power had not only shattered the boundary between night and day—his sight had grown clear as if this had always been the case.
A cold flame ignited in his eyes.
A blue Ghost Fire blazed up as if it would consume not just the room, but himself as well.
‘Not yet.’
His pupils, which had been fixed on empty space, softened slightly. No—he was not seeing empty space at all. He was seeing the past.
A lean man with jet-black hair scattered across both shoulders.
The man’s eyes were crystalline.
So transparent and pure that his own reflection breathed within them.
For a moment, he smiled faintly.
‘Is this what I was?’
The man before him was himself.
More precisely, himself from a past life—Dok Go Gu Yeon, known as the Absolute Heavenly Demon.
The overwhelming Demonic Energy, the commanding presence, and those ice-cold eyes seemed to pierce through everything about whoever beheld them.
‘So that’s why all who faced me alone feared to meet my gaze.’
Now that he confronted this phantom form, he could understand the hearts of those who had once feared him.
He narrowed his eyes, fixing his gaze upon the false image—the figure of Dok Go Gu Yeon, the Absolute Heavenly Demon.
‘It will take time to reach that level.’
His current goal was his former self.
But there was still so much lacking.
Whoosh—
As he closed his eyes with the thought, then opened them again, the phantom image of his past life scattered like dust, as if from a dream.
He rolled his neck gently from side to side.
Crack—crack—
His body had grown quite stiff from sitting so long, and as his neck crackled, he felt a lightness return to his limbs.
“The most urgent matter is…….”
He recalled the Internal Energy he had just sensed.
Compared to the Demonic Energy he had accumulated over long years, his current Maehwashin Gong Internal Energy was like a drop against an ocean.
And then there was the matter of his body.
It was a miraculous and extraordinary vessel capable of absorbing and releasing all Internal Energy, yet it was still in a state of constant growth.
‘This may take more time.’
With Internal Energy, there were many methods—spirit pills, elixirs, and the like.
But with the body, there was nothing to be done.
How could one defy the laws of nature?
‘Though I did try to defy them, didn’t I?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
After all, wasn’t it he who had defied nature’s greatest law—life itself?
“Well, if I can finish my growth quickly and simply accumulate Internal Energy, I should be able to catch up to my former realm quite rapidly.”
He felt confident.
Indeed, despite his body being unstable and his Internal Energy desperately insufficient, technique alone had allowed him to surpass the Mujeuk Jigyeong and reach the Cheonmu Jigyeong.
And now, if he completed his growth?
In this world, nothing was easier than retracing a path one had already walked.
“In the end, only time is the answer, isn’t it?”
When that time would come was impossible to predict.
But what could he do about it?
It was the only solution.
He simply had to wait patiently until his current body finished growing.
“There’s nothing I can do right now.”
He sprawled out on the bed.
Then a thought suddenly struck him, and a faint smile played at his lips.
“I want to try deploying other techniques too. I wonder if the others won’t come today?”

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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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