Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 50
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Chapter 50
Baek Sa-sin clenched the armband in his grip.
Crack—
His fingers, hard as steel, drove deep into the iron band and shattered it.
“Relying on such paltry martial skill, yet still you posture.”
His eyes, which had been spitting out each word as if chewing them, began to turn a pale white, and soon a bone-chilling demonic energy detonated from his entire body.
Boom!
His snow-white hair rippled like waves in the exploding energy, and the once-still air began to rage violently.
The floor beneath the jade throne cracked with a sharp sound.
Fissures spread across the ground radiating from Baek Sa-sin’s position. The floor, which had sunk nearly a foot in an instant, released him as he rose from the jade throne. He then lowered his white eyes, fixing his gaze upon Cheon Hui.
Two pale, otherworldly eyes.
When Cheon Hui turned his head to meet that gaze, Baek Sa-sin spread his left hand wide.
That skeletal palm—skin clinging to bone like the hand of a corpse—was deathly pale and utterly devoid of life.
‘It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this kind of pressure.’
Cheon Hui sensed the vast amount of internal power contained within that palm.
The utterly indescribable, vicious demonic energy swirling in that gaunt hand.
‘Yes. Only with this level of strength does one deserve to be called an overlord of an entire city.’
Cheon Hui’s eyes grew cold.
Baek Sa-sin was formidable.
He lost nothing in comparison to the masters Cheon Hui had known.
At minimum, he had reached the Heavenly Martial Realm—no, he was well-versed in it.
‘Hyeon Do wouldn’t stand a chance against him.’
Even as that thought formed—
Flash!
A pale blue demonic radiance erupted from Baek Sa-sin’s hand, and a shockwave detonated outward.
Boom!
Baek Gwi-seong shook as though struck by an earthquake, and a violent shockwave tore through the chamber.
When the dust cleared moments later, the room’s appearance had transformed entirely.
Walls and pillars lay shattered and fissured.
Decorative objects lay obliterated.
In the chamber now reduced to chaos, only Baek Sa-sin and Cheon Hui remained unchanged.
Yet the atmosphere between them had shifted as drastically as the room’s destruction.
A trembling killing intent hung between them.
Murder blazed in both their eyes, each seeking the other’s throat.
Then Cheon Hui broke the frozen silence by speaking.
“Had I not blocked it, I’d have taken an internal injury.”
Cheon Hui, whose hand now held a sword, recalled the fierce hand technique Baek Sa-sin had just unleashed and brushed the residual vital energy from his palm.
It had been a vicious vital energy indeed.
Though he’d parried it easily enough, traces of it lingered even on the hand gripping his sword.
‘What martial art is that?’
Before Cheon Hui could finish the thought, his eyes sharp and gleaming as he watched Baek Sa-sin—
Whissh—
Baek Sa-sin’s left hand moved again.
That hand, swung like an eagle’s talons, blazed with radiance as it tore through the air.
Simultaneously, Baek Sa-sin kicked off the ground.
Boom!
Before his Nine Springs Eagle Claw Strike could reach Cheon Hui, Baek Sa-sin instinctively drove his heel into the earth and charged forward.
Two martial arts unfurled in concert.
Their speed eclipsed even lightning.
Crash!
As Cheon Hui parried the Nine Springs Eagle Claw Strike, he watched Baek Sa-sin bearing down upon him and calmly turned his blade.
Rather than evade the assault, he instead stepped forward, closing the distance.
Step—
The gap between them: merely three paces.
And within that narrow space, Baek Sa-sin’s Nine Springs Eagle Claw Strike and Cheon Hui’s sword blazed as they moved to kill.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
Sparks flew by the dozens amid a metallic shriek impossible to attribute to flesh striking steel.
Their killing techniques, relentlessly targeting throat and heart and vital points, were grimly efficient and cold as ice.
How many exchanges had passed?
Baek Sa-sin’s brow furrowed.
‘A killing sword with no hesitation at all! Is this really a Hwasan faction master?’
Dissonance gripped his entire body.
The blade his opponent wielded seemed closer to a Demonic Sect technique than to orthodox Daoism.
No—it was different from the Demonic Sect as well.
A killing sword designed purely to subjugate the opponent.
‘It’s almost as if……’
For a moment, a particular school flashed through his mind like lightning, then vanished.
But his thought was cut short.
By then, the blade had already closed to within inches of his face.
Boom!
Sword and hand collided once more.
A tremor rippled through Baek Sa-sin’s palm as pale azure Demonic Energy surged forth, targeting Cheon Hui’s upper body.
Crackle!
Cheon Hui’s left eyebrow twitched.
‘I can’t win this by Internal Power alone.’
Blocking his opponent’s assault head-on meant absorbing the full force of the impact.
‘Then……’
He pivoted on his left foot, redirecting the momentum away.
Baek Sa-sin’s ferocious strike scattered and dissipated in the air, and in that fleeting moment—
Whistle!
Cheon Hui spun further, tracking Baek Sa-sin with his eyes as he prepared his counterattack, driving his blade toward the bridge of his opponent’s nose.
“……!”
Caught off guard by the sudden riposte, Baek Sa-sin reflexively lashed out with his left hand like a whip.
Crash!
The shockwave from their collision belatedly sent the room into violent upheaval.
The roof groaned and swayed as though it might collapse at any moment, and beneath it, Cheon Hui and Baek Sa-sin locked eyes.
Cheon Hui shook the dust from his blade.
‘Strong, certainly. Very strong.’
They had exchanged only a few blows, yet that was enough to gauge Baek Sa-sin’s martial prowess.
It was no accident he was called an Overlord of the land.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that nearly ninety percent of Baek Gwi-seong’s fighting force was contained in this one man.
“But is that all there is?”
The light in Cheon Hui’s eyes grew cold and indifferent.
An Overlord of the land?
That meant nothing to him.
Who was he?
An Overlord who transcended the land itself—the Overlord of Gangho. No, the Nine Provinces Eight Emperors.
That was who he was.
His blank gaze hardened into something frigid, and a crimson luminescence began to permeate it.
Whoosh—
The Plum Blossom Divine Art that Cheon Hui unleashed now devoured Baek Sa-sin’s presence and aura that filled the chamber.
Baek Sa-sin’s eyes shifted as he observed this change.
“Has the Hwasan faction been deceiving Heaven and Earth?”
His voice dripped with killing intent.
“I thought you were simply quiet, but it seems you deliberately adopted a posture close to isolation to hide your cultivation of this creature.”
Cheon Hui, watching Baek Sa-sin’s misunderstanding unfold, felt no need to correct him, and lowered his blade without a word.
Seven Absolute Plum Blossom Sword, Third Form.
Plum Shadow Heavenly Thunder Dance.
Crimson lightning coalesced upon Cheon Hui’s blade, then descended with thunder-like ferocity.
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
“……!”
In that instant, Baek Sa-sin’s pupils convulsed, and his face contorted.
The blade bearing down upon him seemed certain to split him in two.
Grit—
Baek Sa-sin ground his teeth.
Spewing forth vicious Demonic Energy, he drew forth power from both hands and unified it into one.
Generating a maelstrom suffused with pale azure radiance, he deployed the Nine Springs Total Destruction to shatter the crimson thunder blade.
The Nine Springs Total Destruction, laden with ferocious Demonic Energy, launched toward the Plum Shadow Heavenly Thunder Dance descending like thunder itself.
Leaving a vivid deep blue trajectory in its wake, as though confronting lightning itself.
And moments later, the two forces collided.
Whoosh—
No explosion. No sound of collision.
The silence in this room was absolute, as though time itself had frozen in place.
Yet Baek Sa-sin’s form told the story of what had transpired.
Snap—
The cord binding his hair came undone, and white strands tumbled free.
Between the hair now cascading to his shoulders, his pale eyes gleamed with an eerie light.
“……It has been long indeed.”
Baek Sa-sin’s body trembled as he spoke.
“When was the last time I felt such humiliation?”
“Was that an Energy Suppression Art?”
Cheon Hui emerged from concealment.
His appearance was unchanged, yet his eyes blazed like stars.
“An Energy Suppression Art with such power.”
Having recognized the technique Cheon Hui had just witnessed, fascination kindled within him.
A martial art that, for all its refinement, could do no more than seal an opponent’s movements—a technique abandoned long ago.
That was what the Energy Suppression Art was.
But the Energy Suppression Art that Baek Sa-sin had just deployed was unlike anything Cheon Hui had known.
It was powerful enough not merely to draw in the Plum Shadow Heavenly Thunder Dance, but to annihilate it entirely.
‘Coveting such power.’
He smiled with greedy eyes as he regarded Baek Sa-sin.
“You dare mock me?”
But Baek Sa-sin, misinterpreting that smile as mockery, trembled with outrage and released his aura.
Roaaaaaaah!
Baek Sa-sin’s disheveled hair rose skyward as the air itself began to vibrate.
The manifestation of the Nine Springs White Bone Art.
When this supreme martial art—ranked at the pinnacle of Demonic Absolute Arts—bared its fangs, the very air and heaven trembled with dread.
And those fangs moved to sink themselves into the nape of Cheon Hui’s neck.
Hiss—
Cheon Hui’s lips twisted further.
Sensing the peculiar Demonic Energy that pressed upon his entire frame, he seemed pleased; his eyes narrowed like a serpent’s.
‘This is the Gangho.’
In the instant he drew his sword again.
Whoooosh—
Baek Sa-sin’s momentum surged even greater.
The bone-chilling Demonic Energy of the Nine Springs White Bone Art consumed the room, slowly pressing down upon Cheon Hui.
Swish—
In that moment, like a candle extinguished, Baek Sa-sin vanished.
Moving at a speed the human eye could not follow, Baek Sa-sin shifted to Cheon Hui’s side and unleashed his right fist.
Clash!
The instant Cheon Hui’s blade rose to block.
“This space is mine now.”
Baek Sa-sin’s sinister voice echoed through the chamber.
Intense Demonic Energy gathered in his hands.
An Ultimate Technique that released powerful Demonic Energy to pulverize an opponent and reduce them to blood in a single stroke—the Nine Springs Oppressive Thunder.
The Nine Springs Oppressive Thunder drew the space itself inward as though the Nine Springs themselves had manifested in this place.
Fractured walls, pillars, even Cheon Hui—
Everything was pulled toward a single point and began to compress.
Crunch-crunch-crunch!
Soon a massive sphere, as tall as Baek Sa-sin himself, was born.
Drip—
A trickle of blood ran from Baek Sa-sin’s lips, and his face contorted mercilessly.
“……This is the worst.”
Baek Sa-sin wiped the blood away with his sleeve.
Outwardly he appeared unscathed, but inside, Internal Injuries ravaged him.
The Nine Springs Oppressive Thunder was the most alien and destructive of all the martial arts he had cultivated, but its backlash was greater than any other technique’s.
“Yet this is a bargain. Better to cut down the sprout now, before it grows further.”
Baek Sa-sin’s gaze fixed upon the sphere created by the Nine Springs Oppressive Thunder.
That young Daoist who had been his opponent—no. That monster had been peculiarly strong.
As he recalled what might have happened had he not killed him now, should they meet again in some distant future, a chill ran through his marrow.
Even now, with him pressing down on him like this, and he would grow stronger still?
Beyond fear itself, it was terror without equal.
But now there would be no such thing.
He was already bound by the Nine Springs Oppressive Thunder, slowly dying.
Baek Sa-sin withdrew his gaze from the sphere and began to tend to his internal injuries.
“But the damage is considerable.”
Baek Sa-sin’s eyes turned toward the distance.
Most of the presences he felt outside had already lost their souls.
“If only I had not listened to the strategist and instead waged all-out war rather than establish the Hwasan Destruction Array, such a monster would never have appeared in the Hwasan Faction.”
He ground his teeth together.
The great Hwasan Destruction Array had collapsed in an instant, and Baek Gwi-seong—built up over so long—crumbled with it.
“It will take time to recover my strength. Still, with the strategist here, things should move faster than before……”
That was when it happened.
Crack-crack-crack—
An ominous sound came from the sphere, and fine cracks began to spider across its surface.
“What is this……?”
Baek Sa-sin’s eyes widened in shock at a sight he had never witnessed before.
Crack!
The sphere shattered, and from its fragments poured forth an irresistible absolute energy.
“Quite skilled Energy Suppression Art.”
Hearing that absolute voice which seemed to bow even the head of its own accord, Baek Sa-sin’s hands trembled, and his face bore clear marks of bewilderment.
“This is impossible! How could he possess such an aura at that age…….”
Even as he shuddered, denying reality with a cry—
Whoosh!
Blood sprayed across Baek Sa-sin’s vision, and his severed left arm fluttered through the air.
“To press me down, even for a moment.”
The moment those cold words struck his ear, Cheon Hui appeared abruptly before him. Though his appearance was no different than before, the instant their eyes met, Baek Sa-sin understood.
An ungrown monster?
Nonsense.
The monster had already grown.
As an Absolute Being.
Baek Sa-sin’s pupils trembled.
The pain of his severed arm was completely consumed by the presence radiating from Cheon Hui before him.
“What are you……?”
In that instant, Cheon Hui’s lips twisted.
White teeth gleamed between those crimson lips, capturing Baek Sa-sin’s gaze and very soul.
“Ask Yama if you’re curious.”
At the voice that froze his blood, Baek Sa-sin’s complexion turned deathly pale.
Screech!
The blade in Cheon Hui’s hand swept through the air, and a blood-red plum blossom bloomed.
The plum blossom, blossoming as if to swallow the world entire, pierced deep into Baek Sa-sin’s heart, guiding him toward death.
Drip-drip—
Blood flowed from Baek Sa-sin’s lips.
Staring down at the blade that had pierced his heart, he murmured with a hollow expression.
“Hck, to end up like this before I could even point a blade at him……, cough.”
With a moan, he coughed up blood.
Gurgle—
Dark, blackened blood dripped down the blade Cheon Hui had driven in, falling to the floor.
The impact sent Baek Sa-sin stumbling.
Did he feel death approaching?
His eyes, their focus growing blurred, moved to regard Cheon Hui with sharp intensity as his blood-stained lips moved.
“You are strong…… and you will grow stronger still. But in the end, you too will struggle…… like me. In the palm of their hand. The Eight Demon Gods…….”
His body swayed as he spoke, and finally, unable to finish his words, he collapsed.
Thud!
A pathetic end for one who had single-handedly elevated Baek Gwi-seong to the rank of the Six Desolate Sects and dominated Seongseo as an Overlord.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————