My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 145

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Episode 145. At the Final Banquet
“Good grief. What is this nonsense? On a busy day like this, and they’re not even children.”
The One-Eyed Man was grumbling as he made his way toward somewhere.
Soon enough, he arrived at the Hekmun Thirteen Quarters.
He had come looking for members of the Black Gate Thirteen Division who had been nowhere to be seen since morning.
He was one of the instructors who regularly taught Martial Arts to the Black Gate Thirteen Division and the Twelve Supremes, and his temperament was notoriously fierce.
The members of the Hekmun Thirteen Division were not forced to attend their daily duties.
Yet there were still certain occasions they absolutely had to attend.
Today’s schedule was one of them.
Which is why he had come looking like this.
“Are you in there? Come out at once if you are!”
He pounded on the door of the quarters, his voice thick with irritation.
But no answer came from within.
Could they still be asleep?
The thought that this might actually be the case twisted his face into a scowl.
The Thirteen had done something like this before.
After drinking heavily the night before, he had slept through the entire next day and failed to show up on the day when the entire Black Gate gathered for an event.
“I’ve never seen such mindless fools.”
He had given the man a thorough scolding that day, and now that it was happening again, his anger had reached its peak.
There had to be a limit to how arbitrarily these people could behave.
The irritated man yanked the door open and stepped into the room.
In that instant,
“Ugh!”
The sharp stench of blood struck his nose like a blow.
His eyes snapped wide open.
“What—what is this.”
From the entrance of the quarters through the hallway and into each chamber,
Everything was drenched in blood.
Momentarily stunned, the man hurried deeper into the quarters.
He threw open door after door, hoping against hope to find a survivor, but all that greeted him were corpses.
And the condition of those bodies……
The man’s eyes trembled violently.
It was when he wrenched open the final door.
“Hah.”
He staggered backward involuntarily.
There, too, lay a single corpse.
But unlike the other bodies, which were merely desiccated, this one was shriveled and torn to shreds—so grotesquely mangled that the sight of it was almost unbearable.
He had cut down countless people throughout his life.
The sight of the dead was naturally something he had grown very accustomed to.
Yet even he felt nausea rising in his throat at the sheer brutality of this corpse’s state.
Who in heaven’s name could have done such a thing!
He hurried back outside, intent on spreading word of what he had found.
It was then that someone appeared before him in a flash.
“Who are you!”
The One-Eyed Man drew his blade in alarm, hand trembling.
But his opponent merely smiled silently as he looked at him.
“You……”
The man’s eyes, which had widened in shock, gradually narrowed to slits.
From the state of the corpses, he had already suspected. But now, seeing the figure before him, he was certain.
It was a face he knew.
A man whose expulsion from the Black Gate had been decided not long ago.
Yet he looked subtly different than he had yesterday.
He understood what that transformation meant.
Demonization.
There was no mistaking it.
This very thing had set the Sa-do Alliance in turmoil before.
But now……
Damn it.
The One-Eyed Man raised his blade before him, sharpening his stance as he surveyed his surroundings.
He had to stop him, one way or another.
Or else he had to find a way to escape and get word of this out.
“What in the name of heaven happened here? What transpired in this place?”
The man posed the question deliberately, fishing for an opening.
At his words, the Demonized Being tilted its head.
“What happened? Ah, yes. You mean that? Kehehehe. Something wonderful occurred indeed.”
“You…….”
The smile that crossed its face was so disturbing it sent ice down his spine.
Clearly it was not in its right mind.
The One-Eyed Man’s voice cut through with savage force.
“Did you do this?”
“And if I did? What will you do about it?”
At those words, the One-Eyed Man’s eye narrowed to a slit.
It was as good as a confession.
“Killing a comrade warrants Summary Execution on the spot. You know this, don’t you?”
“So you’ll execute me? You?”
“You’ve gone completely mad!”
“Mad. Mad, yes. Kehehehe. So I am mad then. Kehehehe.”
The Demonized Being shook its shoulders, clutching at its belly.
The moment the One-Eyed Man saw it laughing with genuine delight, its eyes rolled back, he caught the flicker in those eyes—an opening.
A gap. An instant.
With the creature lost in its own laughter, oblivious to all else, the man suddenly repositioned his blade and lunged forward.
Yet perhaps he should have chosen differently.
His sword flashed.
Without hesitation, a killing strike left his hand.
His blade surged toward the creature’s throat.
And there—the sensation through the steel.
This was the end.
Except—
“……!”
His sharply delivered blade failed to cut the creature’s neck at all.
It wasn’t that his blade had been parried—the weapon could not even leave a scratch on its body.
What devilry was this?
Horror twisted his face as he cried out.
“How—how is this possible?”
“How? Because I have been chosen. Now then, die. Tsk-tsk.”
Its head twisted grotesquely, and it opened its mouth impossibly wide.
It was no longer the shape of any human form.
What had once been teeth now protruded like those of a beast, ghastly and ravenous, directed at the One-Eyed Man.
“Ahhhhhhhhh!”
Yet no one heard his scream.
The quarters were empty of all others.
Squelch. Squelch. Squelch.
Soon the light left his eyes, and his body withered grotesquely.
His corpse fell into the same wretched state as the one already sprawled in the corner.
“Kehehehe. Delicious. So very delicious. Blood this sweet—I never knew. And power surges through me now. So good. So good.”
The Demonized Being’s eyes gleamed.
“Yes. I have been chosen. So then… can I kill them all? Can I?”
“Kill them all then. All those Baeklang Dae bastards first, then every last one of the Sa-do Alliance. Slaughter them all. Tsk-tsk.”
“The thought of bathing in their blood—I can hardly contain my anticipation.”
The man muttered to himself as though locked in conversation.
His mind was already collapsing entirely, yet he remained oblivious to this, trembling only with vast ecstasy, giggling madly.
“Well then. Shall we begin?”
Soon he set out from the quarters, licking the blood from his mouth.
***
The night had grown deep.
By tomorrow they would depart the Sa-do Alliance and return to the Peng Estate in Hebei.
Throughout their stay, the Baeklang Dae had been treated well by the Sa-do Alliance without much incident.
Suspiciously well, one might say.
There had been one disturbance over the matter of the Black Gate Thirteen Division, but that too seemed to have been smoothly resolved at Gui An-ma-gun’s level.
It was unexpected.
Looking at the first impression of this man called Gui An-ma-gun, Yeo Un-hwi had thought he might well seize upon the matter and raise hell about it.
Fortunately, nothing more had come to light.
In any case, the Sa-do Alliance’s night burned with uncommon brilliance.
Huk Mu-je had opened a final banquet in honor of the Baeklang Dae.
And unlike all the previous occasions when only Huk Mu-je and the Baeklang Dae had gathered together, this was a grand affair attended by all the principal figures of the Sa-do Alliance.
A truly audacious decision.
He already knew that discontent about the invitation of the Baeklang Dae to the Sa-do Alliance was considerable both within and without, yet he had made such a decision regardless.
What could possibly be running through his mind?
Why go to such lengths?
“It’s probably confidence,” Yeo Un-hwi said.
“Confidence?”
Yeo Un-hwi smiled and nodded at the murmurs of bewilderment from the Baeklang Dae, who found Huk Mu-je’s decision to arrange this gathering merely perplexing.
There was a commonplace way of thinking about what the Sa-do Alliance should and shouldn’t be.
Such thinking could very well become the greatest shackle upon the Alliance Lord himself.
But Huk Mu-je had deliberated and decided as though such things were of no consequence whatsoever.
As if to prove a point.
Perhaps he believed himself to be the Sa-do Alliance itself.
“…Wow. Truly extraordinary confidence,” one of them remarked.
“But there’s truth in it. Why would he be one of the Twelve Supremes otherwise?”
“Exactly. A truly remarkable man in every respect.”
Yeo Un-hwi released a small sigh as he watched the Baeklang Dae, all of them clucking their tongues in unison.
Such confidence could wear those around him down at times.
Yet it was goodwill of a sort.
Since he also understood that there was no falsehood in that goodwill, he could only laugh it off.
Above all, it was their final night.
It was then.
“Ha ha ha! Now then, aren’t you fellows laying it on a bit thick for an old man’s face, what?”
Someone burst out laughing as he appeared.
It was Huk Mu-je, Dok Go-yeong.
Then, waving his hand dismissively, he spoke.
“Besides, I’m not the sort to scheme and calculate every move. I simply thought—what harm could it do to arrange something like this for the last evening, yes? Ha ha.”
What’s more, with himself, Huk Mu-je, present here, no one would dare openly challenge the Baeklang Dae. He merely hoped that those who had come to this banquet and the Baeklang Dae might have good exchanges, but if they didn’t, that was fine too.
Doing exactly as he pleased.
At Dok Go-yeong’s words, Yeo Un-hwi shook his head and replied.
“That’s precisely what overflowing confidence is.”
“Ah. Is it so? Ha ha ha!”
Watching Dok Go-yeong laugh with such easy warmth, Yeo Un-hwi felt an odd sense of regret wash over him.
“In any case, enjoy this banquet to your heart’s content. I’ll bother you a bit later, so steel yourselves.”
“Please ensure we can depart on schedule tomorrow.”
“That’s easily arranged if needed—stay a few days longer. I’d welcome it.”
“I must politely decline.”
“Refusing my invitation so firmly—you alone have ever done such a thing.”
“That is an honor.”
“Shameless fellow. Ha ha.”
Dok Go-yeong laughed heartily, patting Yeo Un-hwi’s back and shoulders with delight, before moving to another part of the gathering.
He had thought that with him present at their side all evening, no one would easily approach the Baeklang Dae.
In truth, it seemed an utterly pointless thing to do, yet from it Yeo Un-hwi was beginning to glimpse what manner of Sa-do Alliance Dok Go-yeong envisioned.
“From the very first meeting, I sensed it—he doesn’t seem like an Evil Sect member at all,” Do-gyeong ventured carefully.
The others of the Baeklang Dae nodded at her words.
Truly, he was a strange man.
At times, watching him, one wondered if he was truly Evil Sect; yet the next moment, Dok Go-yeong seemed to embody the Evil Sect more perfectly than anyone.
They all fell into contemplative silence.
What does it mean to be Evil Sect? And what does it mean to be Orthodox Sect?
Until now, they had simply regarded it as the standard by which to distinguish good men from bad.
But now a doubt had begun to creep in—perhaps it was not so simple.
“Everyone tends to misunderstand,” Yeo Un-hwi murmured.
In truth, he knew better than anyone.
That not all Evil Sect members were rotten, nor were all Orthodox Sect members virtuous.
He had learned this truth painfully, carved into his very bones, in his life before regression.

Yeo Un-hwi clapped his hands together sharply.
Dwelling too deeply on such matters here and now would make it impossible to reach any easy conclusion.
“In any case, today is our last day, so everyone should enjoy the feast. Starting tomorrow, we have another long road ahead of us.”
Had Yeo Un-hwi been alone, the journey would not have taken nearly so long, but he could hardly abandon the Baeklang Dae and leave without visiting his family.
“However, anyone who gets drunk and makes a spectacle of himself should steel himself. I’ve been wanting to test out a certain infernal training regimen, and he’ll be my first subject.”
“Yes…….”
Every member of the Baeklang Dae trembled from head to toe.
The slight smile playing at Yeo Un-hwi’s lips was terrifying enough to paralyze the entire unit.
And so they all dispersed to enjoy the final banquet.
Once they had filled their bellies with delicious food and wine, the rather strained atmosphere began to ease.
That said, no one had yet approached the Baeklang Dae to strike up conversation.
Still, it was not an unpleasant evening.
But then,
“Aaaahhhhh!”
A scream rang out from somewhere, sudden and piercing.
A scream so terrible it was almost unbearable to hear.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————