Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 42

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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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42
Deep beneath Yongsan Station. The Gaebang’s hideout, where only musty dampness and suffocating silence dwelt.
Cheon Do-hyun leaned against the cold concrete wall, gradually steadying his ragged breath. His body screamed with exhaustion from relentless combat training and extreme conditioning, yet the Taiyu Hunyuan Heart Method spinning in his core continued to circulate vital energy without pause, holding him together.
‘There had been real progress.’
Do-hyun had finally elevated the Heavenly Demon Lord Step from a plateau at 5th Grade to 6th Grade.
The most encouraging achievement was honing the latter half of the Heavenly Demon Sword Method’s forms until he could deploy them without hesitation in actual combat.
This breakthrough would become a formidable weapon guaranteeing his survival in the inevitable clash of force with the Cheolhyul Jangga.
Ting—.
Then, a pure metallic ring cut through his deep reverie. From the darkness, Yi Sang-won, one of the Gaebang’s three pillars, approached, flicking a coin.
“You have a visitor.”
Do-hyun’s closed eyes snapped open. There was no conceivable reason anyone would find their way to this deep, hidden underground bunker to seek him out.
“Out there in the world, you’re already written off as dead—a casualty in some building collapse. I’m curious why anyone would bother hunting a ghost.”
Yi Sang-won’s barbed jest made Do-hyun’s brow narrow. It was the kind of remark only possible because he had overheard Do-hyun’s resolve in his meeting with Seon Young-hun—to sever every tie to the outside world with his own hands.
Do-hyun made no reply to Sang-won’s words and moved silently toward the entrance. There, two alien silhouettes stood—utterly incongruous with the dingy haunts of vagrants.
Uniforms pressed immaculately clean. White collars starched and sharp-edged.
Hair that gleamed with a lustre that promised the sweet scent of shampoo even from a distance.
It was Kim Seung-yeon and Kim Jun-pyo.
After living day in and day out pressed against the rough, crude operatives of the Gaebang, the appearance of two ordinary high school students struck Do-hyun as unsettlingly foreign. The pair stood rigid with tension in the strange underground space where ruthless martial artists passed through, their unease almost painful to witness.
The expression on Do-hyun’s face as he regarded them was devastatingly complex.
Relief that they were safe warred with reproach for their recklessness in pursuing him into this perilous realm.
The moment Do-hyun’s face emerged from the darkness, color flooded back into Seung-yeon’s and Jun-pyo’s pallid features.
“Cheon Do-hyun……!”
“Do-hyun!”
The instant they beheld his face, relief surged through them so powerfully their legs nearly buckled. After all, the news was full of it—the entire school was saying Cheon Do-hyun had died miserably in a building collapse.
Yet Kim Seung-yeon and Kim Jun-pyo alone refused to believe he would lose his life so pathetically in his fight against Jang Gi-han. Retracing their memories of hunting for clues at Yongsan Station together, they had come to this bunker grasping at straws, desperate to confirm whether Do-hyun lived or died.
It was a touching and tearful display of friendship.
“What in the world is this place?”
“It looks like he’s…… been under attack again.”
As Seung-yeon and Jun-pyo took in the scars of intrusion and explosion marking the bunker, and the sight of Gaebang operatives nursing their wounds, they became certain: Cheon Do-hyun was in the thick of a bloody war against Cheolhyul Jangga at this very moment.
They both immediately began thinking of ways they could help.
“You can’t hide here like this. First, we need to recover your lost identity.”
“That’s right, Do-hyun. I asked my brother in secret. He said he found someone trustworthy who can help you legally!”
Seung-yeon cried out urgently, tugging at Do-hyun’s hand. But his feet did not budge even a millimeter.
“Do-hyun……?”
It was like trying to pull an immense boulder rooted to the ground. In the moment Seung-yeon looked up in confusion—
“Leave. Now.”
What emerged from Do-hyun’s lips was a command as cold and dry as frost-edged steel.
The instant he laced that brief sentence with latent Killing Intent, both their faces drained of color like prey animals facing a predator head-on.
The Killing Intent forged through actual murder was not something ordinary people could endure.
Yet Seung-yeon stood firm despite her trembling legs, refusing to back away.
“Let’s go, Do-hyun. We’ll help you however we can.”
“Help me with what, exactly.”
Do-hyun’s voice held not the slightest trace of warmth.
“I’m—I’m already in the 3rd Circle now……! And Jun-pyo will use his connections to do whatever he can……!”
“Enough!”
Do-hyun’s sharp rebuke rang through the narrow underground passage like a bell.
Seung-yeon’s narrow shoulders flinched violently, and Jun-pyo beside her clenched his jaw in shock.
“Can’t you grasp what you’re seeing? Don’t you understand what the Cheolhyul bastards have done to me? If you don’t want to die a dog’s death, stop entangling yourselves in my life.”
His tone merciless, Do-hyun met their crumbling gaze unflinchingly, his eyes unwavering with each word he spoke.
The cool, stale air of the bunker seemed to cut through his lungs particularly sharply in that moment.
Unable to withstand Do-hyun’s piercing stare, Seung-yeon’s eyes began to redden.
As Jun-pyo watched her fragile state, he wordlessly wrapped his trembling shoulders in his arms.
“……I understand. We’ll go. I’m sorry we couldn’t be of any help.”
With their heads bowed, neither lifting their gaze, the two slowly turned to leave.
As their small figures receded into the darkness, Do-hyun’s fists clenched so tightly his knuckles went completely white—blood draining from them entirely.
He was crushing down the urge to run after them, to stroke their backs, to console their wounded hearts.
‘This is right. This is how it has to be.’
Do-hyun swallowed the bitter truth deep into his chest and turned away.
Yet the outside world was transforming with terrible speed, indifferent to the private agony Do-hyun was enduring—callous and relentless.
#
The eldest son of Cheolhyul Jangga and its true heir: Jang Gi-jun.
When he seized control of the group after receiving his opportunity from Jang Jae-young, the methods of Cheolhyul transformed entirely from what they had been.
Jang Gi-jun was a sadist of the most pathological kind. Rather than simply breaking a man’s bones, he was a demon in human form—one who understood better than anyone how to suffocate the breath from his victims, how to orchestrate suffering in all its most abject forms.
The first thing Jang Gi-jun wielded with Cheolhyul Jangga’s vast capital and influence was complete control of the media.
He mobilized major broadcast networks and massive platforms to artificially manufacture social anxiety and fear.
Sensational fake news and exaggerated reports of unidentified assailants, homeless populations, random assaults and murders, and heinous sex crimes flooded every channel in an endless barrage, day after day.
Through this calculated media campaign, the lethal rumor that had circulated in public discourse until recently—that Cheolhyul Jangga was implicated in illegal Demonic Path operations—was completely buried and forgotten by the masses.
What followed was a massive exercise in state-sanctioned violence masquerading as lawful authority.
Using bribed members of parliament, Cheolhyul pushed through a nationwide “Regulation and Punishment Act for Persons of Unclear Residence and Homeless Populations for Crime Prevention.” The moment the bill passed on a wave of public support, preemptive forced administrative orders descended on the Yongsan Station district—Gaebang’s stronghold.
“There they are—the homeless bastards!”
“Round them all up!”
The Gaebang members who ventured into the streets found themselves trapped in a hellscape where normal operations became impossible.
The Branch Bases across the nation where Gaebang members gathered were branded as “hotbeds of potential crime where vagrants congregate.” The moment a hideout’s location was identified, excavators accompanied by public authority and ruthless demolition contractors descended to obliterate it completely.
Disguised among the thugs wearing employee badges for subcontracted demolition firms were elite operatives from Iron Security, clad in protective gear.
Under the guise of simple homeless evictions, they methodically trampled through Gaebang’s secret underground passages and communication network entry points, sealing each one permanently with concrete.
As a result, the dense information network that had woven Seoul together like a spider’s web became a noose that choked off their own lifeline.
Hideouts were systematically identified by tracing the exposed communication lines, and in a single night, three critical Branch Bases of Gaebang were dismantled simultaneously.
Where there had once been physical assault through force and firepower, there was now suffocation through the deployment of the entire state apparatus of the Republic of Korea. An invisible, dense leash was slowly, methodically, and perfectly tightening around Gaebang’s throat.
A spider perched in a corner of the ceiling, sensing the vibrations of prey caught in its web, skittered forward on trembling legs.
Below it, two men sat facing each other in heavy silence, unaware of the fierce struggle for survival unfolding directly above their heads.
Seon Young-hun, Gaebang’s leader, and Cheon Do-hyun stared at the damage reports scattered haphazardly across a round table, their expressions etched with despair.
“Intelligence from the streets isn’t reaching us properly. Gaebang has been blinded and deafened—this is, quite literally, the worst possible situation.”
Seon Young-hun opened his mouth heavily, his voice fractured with strain.
If this were merely conventional combat—fists, blades, and martial power clashing—Cheon Do-hyun’s overwhelming Martial Power could carve a path through any obstacle.
But their opponent was now wielding invisible weapons of law, media, and administration instead of physical force, systematically dismembering the organization of Gaebang itself.
Do-hyun stared at the damage reports with eyes blazing with fury, yet cold and settled.
Cheolhyul Jangga. They were a voracious monster that had coiled itself within the entire nation of the Republic of Korea as if it were their personal dominion.
With Jang Gi-jun now at the helm, it was clear as daylight that matters would only deteriorate from here.
“They’re grasping and shaking the entire nation. We’ve been fighting inside Cheolhyul Jangga’s jaws.”
“…Yes.”
Do-hyun lifted his head and fixed his gaze directly on Seon Young-hun’s weary eyes.
“We need to change the battlefield itself.”
Cheon Do-hyun had always been forced to fight on desperately unfavorable grounds, but he was also someone who knew how to find a stage where he could win.

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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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