Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 7

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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 7
Shortly before Hyeon Ryeo arrived.
Rustle—rustle—
Cheon Hui traced the incantations written in the Martial Arts Manual with his right hand while his left flipped through the pages in rapid succession.
As he turned through them, he came upon a blank page and shook his head slowly.
‘There are incantations missing now.’
He stared at it with a look of disbelief, then decided to make the best of it and read through the remaining verses.
The heart of the Nanhua Doxue Shou lay in two things.
Orchid Blossom and Doxue—the Pathway Acupoint.
‘Is this what it’s asking me to do?’
Whoosh—
He lifted his right hand and swung it through the air.
Top to bottom, bottom to top.
His right hand, fingers undulating like waves, moved through the air as if riding a drifting wind, flicking through empty space several times.
The two seemingly unrelated words merged into a single technique, and it bore fruit.
‘So that’s how it goes.’
Like handling an orchid blossom, his soft, flowing gestures moved with the current.
Glide—
He marked points along the pathway where the acupoints lay.
Flow must exist for the path to guide.
This principle of flowing guidance, which the final incantation of the manual emphasized, was the very verse that pierced the heart of the Nanhua Doxue Shou.
Tap.
For a brief moment, he had completed the Nanhua Doxue Shou.
‘All the crucial incantations have been lost.’
He realized which verses were missing.
It made sense—the Nanhua Doxue Shou was a technique the Old Woman had once displayed, and he had seen it many times before, so he knew its flow.
In his mind, he recalled the Old Woman unleashing the Nanhua Doxue Shou with the Okkhwan Myobo like a woman possessed.
A vicious and ruthless technique it was.
‘Then…….’
He sketched the form of a person in empty air, then steadied his breath.
Next, he withdrew the soft, billowing right hand he had been moving and tensed his fingers into a blade.
In an instant, the air transformed.
In a flash of time, his right hand, charged with a sharp killing intent, took on the shape of a sword and drew a diagonal slash.
Whistle—
He pulled the form of the person toward him and bound it.
Unlike the Ginna Subeop, which simply deflects an opponent’s attacks, these soft movements rotated the surrounding air to draw the opponent toward him instead.
And then, leaving the opponent defenseless.
Thud.
It pierces through.
Shatter!
The perforated form shattered.
‘Yes, this is it.’
This was the Nanhua Doxue Shou as the Old Woman had wielded it—a ruthless technique that struck the Death Point with absolute certainty and no hesitation.
‘This is the true Nanhua Doxue Shou.’
He recalled the nickname that disciples who had witnessed the Old Woman’s technique once used to call it by.
Soft as an orchid blossom to the eye, yet the moment one drew near, it became as sharp and vicious as a blade that called for blood.
‘Though it’s doubtless been forgotten by now.’
He shrugged his shoulders.
Three hundred years had passed.
It was only natural that martial techniques would change.
Sometimes incantations would evolve; sometimes, as in this case, they would vanish entirely.
The Nanhua Doxue Shou had suffered worse than most.
The reason was not hard to guess.
This was Huashan.
A sect of the Daoist Path.
‘Would the Huashan Sect, which has built a long history as a Daoist school, have kept such a bloodthirsty technique on the shelf? No one learned it, so the verses vanished without anyone ever noticing.’
He glanced at the Library casually.
The Demon Extermination Sword Technique was excellent in its own right, but it lay far from the Daoist sword methods and had been left to gather dust.
‘Well, that’s neither here nor there.’

He cut off the thought entirely.
Having accepted the present situation—three hundred years hence—this was nothing to dwell upon.
‘The Nanhua Doxue Shou can wait.’
Thump.
After committing the properly restored incantation of the Nanhua Doxue Shou to memory, he was about to close the martial arts manual with a satisfied expression when—
“Hui!”
A sharp, ringing voice shattered the silence of Manjing Pavilion, and he turned his head.
‘Hyeon Ryeo?’
Her sudden appearance, completely unexpected, broke his concentration on the Nanhua Doxue Shou.
He was just turning toward her with a puzzled expression when—
Grip!
Hyeon Ryeo stepped close and seized his shoulder firmly with both hands. Then, her eyes wide, she cried out loudly:
“When did you learn martial arts?”
“I’m sorry?”
He spoke as if he found the question absurd.
Cheon Hui could have sworn that no one under heaven had mastered more martial arts than he.
Yet she was asking when he’d learned them.
The sheer absurdity left him speechless.
“I’ve known martial arts since before—”
He faltered mid-sentence.
His eyes met hers—and he saw disbelief written plainly across her face.
In those deep, clear black eyes, the bewildered face of a young Daoist flickered like a reflection on water.
Blast it.
Lost in his martial training, he’d been careless.
He wasn’t Jeok Mu-wol anymore—he was Cheon Hui of the Huashan Sect.
Flustered, his eyes darted about until they landed on the martial arts manual in his left hand. He quickly lifted it and forced an awkward smile.
“Ha—just following what’s written in this manual, that’s all.”
“…!”
Crunch!
His shoulder throbbed sharply.
Damn, she’s strong.
Just as pain began to twist his face, Hyeon Ryeo’s grip loosened.
“You learned the Nanhua Doxue Shou just by following a manual?”
She murmured softly, then her expression turned ashen as her hand fell slack.
She leaned her face closer to his.
“Then what was that technique you just demonstrated? The manual has lost portions of the incantations—they’re impossible to master. How could you possibly—!”
Faced with her relentless barrage, Cheon Hui showed his discomfort.
What could he even say to this?
That he’d seen it before? As if she’d believe that.
That he’d recalled it from techniques he used to perform and restored them from memory?
That sounds even more insane.
While he was turning it over in his mind, Hyeon Ryeo seemed to mistake his silence for fear, and gradually her clarity returned.
‘What was I doing…’
She released his shoulder.
With a clearer mind, she considered the situation.
‘I’ve lost it. I’ve truly lost it. Hounding a boy who can barely even demonstrate proper technique…’
Hyeon Ryeo shook her head, blaming herself.
‘He must have fumbled through it without any inner power, and it just happened to look vaguely similar to what the oral tradition describes.’
With that thought, her mind eased.
She met his eyes and spoke softly:
“Forgive me. Without inner power, you couldn’t possibly perform the Nanhua Doxue Shou properly. I don’t know what possessed me—to jump to such a foolish conclusion and push you so hard…”
Cheon Hui remained silent as her words reached him.
Good thing he hadn’t answered.
He’d narrowly avoided what might have become a troublesome situation—or so he thought, until Hyeon Ryeo suddenly pulled him into an embrace.
Sigh. Again?
He shook his head inwardly.
She did this every time they met. He’d tried to resist at first, but now he was simply too exhausted to pull away, so he’d resigned himself to it.
How many seconds had they stood like that?
Hyeon Ryeo released him from the embrace and met his eyes.
“Hui.”
As she called out Cheon Hui’s name, her eyes grew complicated, and she asked carefully.
“Would you like to learn martial arts?”
“I’m sorry? Yes.”
The sudden, unexpected question left him momentarily dazed before he answered almost reflexively.
Hyeon Ryeo nodded in response.
Her expression hardened with resolve as she clenched both fists, then opened her mouth to speak.
“I understand.”
She spoke as though making a vow, then turned and descended the stairs once more.
Clop—clop—
As Hyeon Ryeo disappeared beyond the staircase, Cheon Hui, who had been standing there bewildered, muttered with an expression of disbelief.
“That’s all she came here to say?”
* * *
Two days later, at the hour of the Rooster.
The weather had grown considerably warmer in the interim.
Plum blossoms bloomed in profusion now, wrapping Huashan in their gentle embrace.
Spring had truly arrived.
Beneath a clear blue sky, Cheon Hui left Manjing Pavilion at his usual time and walked along the mountain path toward Mo-ok.
‘The Righteous Cultivation Path is far more different from the Demonic Cultivation Path than I expected.’
He had already skimmed through a hundred Martial Arts Manuals.
In that time, he had learned much.
The Demonic Cultivation Path cared nothing for means or method in pursuit of strength alone.
But the Righteous Cultivation Path was different.
An extension of cultivation.
Most of the Righteous Cultivation Path was like that.
Something about building a path, achieving enlightenment and Feathered Ascension.
Most pursued non-violence.
If that were the case, one might as well skip martial arts altogether and simply cultivate the Heart Method.
What, after all, were martial arts?
They were weapons for killing an opponent.
Yet to merely incapacitate the opponent?
The demon lords of the Demon Cult, who followed the Law of the Strong, would have scoffed and mocked such a philosophy had they seen it.
And yet Cheon Hui found himself intrigued.
‘It’s interesting precisely because it differs from what I know.’
Lost in these thoughts, he walked for a while and soon arrived at Mo-ok.
In an instant, his eyes narrowed.
An unfamiliar pair of shoes lay neatly at the threshold of Mo-ok.
He had been staying here for some ten days now.
In all that time, only Hyeon Ryeo had ever come to this place, and even she had never entered inside the cottage.
He opened the door slowly and stepped inside.
Then, pushing open the door to the dark chamber—
Flash!
Two eyes gleamed in the darkness.
“You’ve come.”
At the gravelly voice, his head turned.
In the center of the room sat a burly, middle-aged man with his arms crossed, legs folded in meditation.
‘Who is this?’
He studied the shadowed figure.
Hair left to fall wildly as though in defiance of order, and a faint scar cutting across one cheek.
He started slightly.
Ghostface Demonblade—so that devil was here. That’s what startled me.
The man before him, with his sharply raised eyes and deep, fierce aura, was no less terrifying in appearance than those counted among the most fearsome in the Demon Cult itself.
Had it not been for the Huashan Sect robes he wore, Cheon Hui would have taken him for that devil’s own brother, such was the raw, brutal cast of his features.
Cheon Hui’s eyes swept over him and suddenly flared with recognition.
It was not merely his outward intensity that stood out.
This man possessed the strongest Qi signature of anyone Cheon Hui had encountered among the Huashan Sect.
‘Stronger than the sect leader?’
In that instant, a figure flashed through his mind.
“Hyeon Do… Elder?”
Click.
Hyeon Do rose to his feet, pushing off the ground with his hand.
Hyeon Do’s head, which had reached Cheon Hui’s chest, gradually rose higher and higher until it nearly brushed the ceiling.
By any measure, he stood well over six feet tall.
With his massive frame, he strode forward and approached Cheon Hui.
“Hmm…….”
His sparse beard bristled as he looked down, and he nodded slowly.
Then his tightly compressed lips—as though he’d gathered all his stubbornness into them—began to open with deliberate care.
“I hear you wish to learn the martial arts.”
Learn the martial arts…… Ah!
Suddenly remembering the conversation with Hyeon Ryeo two days ago, when he’d answered almost without thinking, Cheon Hui found himself nodding despite his better judgment.
“Yes, sir.”
“That’s why I’ve come.”
Hyeon Do lifted his chin as he spoke.
With an expression brimming with pride, he looked down and straightened his spine fully.
“To teach you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
Cheon Hui’s eyes widened in surprise.
‘He must be moved that I’m offering to teach him.’
Satisfied with the astonishment, Hyeon Do broke into a smile and nodded emphatically.
But could he have known?
That Cheon Hui felt no gratitude whatsoever.
Only bewilderment.
‘Learn martial arts from this weakling?’

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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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