Reincarnation of the Blood Demon - Chapter 37

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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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The Crimson Demon’s Rebirth
Chapter 37
A Sinister Creature
“Hah.”
In those eyes that made no attempt to conceal their thoughts, Jik Ha-jin felt a sudden throb of pain building behind his temples.
‘Was he always like this?’
The more they spoke, the more a sense of wrongness accumulated. The face was unmistakably the same as his youngest brother in memory, yet the gaze, the voice, the manner of speech and bearing—there was not a single point of resemblance.
Yet setting that aside, the proposal itself was undeniably seductive.
‘Yuk Jang-ro is the second brother’s faction.’
This young master was an object of absolute support among the hawkish faction within the sect, and save for the increasingly prominent grandson of the Grand Elder, he was the most tiresome rival.
‘This is an opportunity.’
If he pressed the matter using the Hwan Hon-mun incident as leverage, even if killing Yuk Jang-ro outright was difficult, he could surely inflict a mortal wound.
Then his younger brother’s foundation would shake as well, and while that fool was paralyzed with fear, he himself could solidify his position as a candidate for the next sect master.
Of course, setting all that aside—
‘If Yuk Jang-ro truly seduced the Hwan Hon-mun into conducting human sacrifice, I cannot let it stand.’
Not only Yuk Jang-ro himself, but the entire Gwe Hon-gak under his command. They would deserve to be torn into countless pieces and displayed as a warning.
The Hwan Hon-mun was his own faction, after all. To lay hands on them meant paying a price in blood.
This was not merely retribution in concept, but the very way one survived in the Hyeol Gyo.
Kill or be killed. If you have been bitten, you must tear back harder.
To be underestimated is to invite death. Not even one bearing the blood of the Crimson Demon was exempt from this law.
Rather, it was precisely because he bore the blood of the Crimson Demon that he could never be underestimated.
‘At minimum, an arm or two—’
While calculating with eyes as cold as winter ice, Jik Ha-jin arrived at his conclusion.
‘There is no reason to refuse.’
Then he smiled gently and reached for the wine cup.
The cup he had not once glanced at since entering the Inn—it held Baek-ju that Jik Un-hui had already poured.
“Your complexion is quite pale. You must have pushed yourself too hard.”
Draining the cup in one draught, Jik Ha-jin spoke with apparent genuine concern for his younger brother’s wellbeing, his tone warm with affection.
“Leave the rest to your older brother. You need not worry about anything now—just rest well.”
His sharp demeanor of moments before flipped like a palm turned over, transforming completely.
Yet to point out such a reversal would earn one a reputation as a fool.
Their interests aligned toward a single point; there was no reason their hands should not join.
“I feel most assured with you here, brother.”
Lifting their lips in tandem, the two brothers laughed together in apparent warmth.
But only for a moment.
“I must take my leave now. Forgive me that I cannot spare more time.”
With their consultation concluded, Jik Ha-jin rose from his seat without a trace of hesitation.
He was so coldly decisive that one might have believed affection foreign to him, yet Jik Un-hui had never sought such sentiment from him in the first place.
For that reason, he could only be taken aback by what came next.
“Before I go, let me embrace you. It has been so long.”
The form of his half-brother loomed suddenly close.
He drew Jik Un-hui’s shoulder firmly into his right arm in a tight embrace, and Jik Un-hui, wearing a strained expression, reluctantly patted his older brother’s back in turn—the gesture of one acknowledging a debt.
Then Jik Ha-jin gave a small start of surprise. Drawing back, he narrowed his eyes with evident confusion.
“Your body is rather cold, isn’t it?”
The body temperature of Jik Un-hui where they had made contact was far too cold to be considered normal.
Rather like someone actively cultivating the Bing Gong.
Jik Un-hui scratched his head before answering.
“…I’ve caught a cold.”
“A cold…?”
Jik Ha-jin tilted his head, his expression growing even more perplexed, then laughed softly and stepped back.
“Well, keeping secrets is your right. I really must go now. We shall see each other again.”
“Yes. Please take care of yourself, brother.”
Jik Un-hui bowed with appropriate respect.
Jik Ha-jin, regarding his younger brother with apparent approval, simply turned his back and departed from the Inn.
The smile that had lingered on his lips—
…
The moment he passed through the door, it vanished as though it had never existed.
Remarkably, the street was empty of all people.
Like a place caught within a formation, the space possessed an eerie stillness.
“Listen.”
In the empty air where no one stood, it came far sooner than expected.
From the inn’s roofline, the alley mouth, even the guest rooms of adjacent buildings—Ma Ryong-dae members stationed throughout the area approached silently and bowed their heads.
“Yes, Lord.”
“Send a Jeon-seo-gu back to headquarters at once. Monitor Yuk Jang-ro and Gwe Hon-gak’s movements in detail. And dispatch messengers to the Hwan Hon-mun main base to gather every scrap of usable evidence.”
“Understood.”
With a raised fist, the members scattered outward in all directions.
Jik Ha-jin moved forward again, his mind turning cold and calculating.
‘Yuk Jang-ro’s tail can certainly be caught. If I weave this properly, I can strangle that second one’s breathing in a single stroke—a perfect opportunity.’
The hand he’d been dealt was excellent. How to play it out was entirely his domain, and as the crown prince, he could execute such political stratagems even with his eyes closed.
Yet Jik Ha-jin’s frown would not ease.
There was only one reason: his half-brother, who had sat across from him moments ago with such shameless composure.
‘That boy couldn’t have annihilated the Hwan Hon-mun alone.’
The Hwan Hon-mun was no minor sect—not something to be wiped out by a sheltered youth with only book learning.
Unless his youngest brother had suddenly obtained some rare celestial fortune, it was impossible.
‘There must have been accomplices.’
But even so. No—it was certainly some portion, but if Jik Un-hui’s personal strength had contributed to the Hwan Hon-mun’s destruction……
‘This is no trivial matter.’
A cloistered fool who had spent his whole life shut away in Byeol-gung, estranged from martial arts—he’d never even considered him a rival for succession, given how far removed he was from the question of heirs.
Yet the youngest brother he’d faced today bore not even a shadow of those old disgraces.
Those eyes were no longer the fragile, unstable gaze of the broken recluse from before—they were a predator’s eyes, eager to devour whatever came within reach.
‘When exactly did he achieve such heights?’
Had he been building strength in the shelter of complete indifference?
As the saying goes: “Seeing yet not seeing.” He’d looked upon him all this time, yet failed to see. Always believing the youngest would remain weak.
In the mere three months he’d been away on assignment—
So much had shifted in the interim that Jik Ha-jin found himself in turmoil.
‘As long as we continue merely exploiting each other as now, we can manage. His shameless intentions are transparent enough, at least to that degree.’
But what if, in time, that apparent indifference he’d feigned came to overstep?
While he was locked in bitter struggle with Yuk Jang-ro and his second brother, what if that boy meant to seize the opportunity and rise as a rival claimant to the seat of power?
No—if he too carried the Patriarch’s blood, he would surely harbor such ambitions.
Before long, Jik Ha-jin’s expression hardened, and he spoke once more into the empty air.
“Whether I was away or present—investigate everything concerning the youngest over the past five years and bring it to me. I’ll need to plant seeds in Nam Hwa-hyeon as well.”
The answer came like a breath of wind, rippling through the air.
—Yes, my lord.
Soon, the last presence faded entirely.
The sparsely peopled street, as if by a lie, suddenly filled with passersby once more.
“Y-Your Highness! We pay our respects!”
“Yes. You’ve worked well.”
Now alone, Jik Ha-jin managed his expression as though nothing had transpired. He remained in Seo Ryong-hyeon, after all, and everything around him was an eye appraising him.
“Caution can never be a fault.”
Jik Ha-jin smiled softly once more.
* * *
“Cunningly done. I’ve finally seen his true face.”
He’d never even said where he was, yet the crown prince had found him here in the inn—found him despite the innkeeper not even knowing he was the third son.
This was proof that the crown prince’s control over Seo Ryong-hyeon had reached its zenith.
Indeed, among all those he’d encountered since his rebirth, the crown prince was among the most formidable.
“……Playing tricks right to the end.”
Jik Un-hui brushed his left shoulder once, his expression uncomfortable.
The place where his brother had held him. And in that moment, he’d clearly felt the faint trickle of true qi flowing in secretly.
His brother surely thought he’d hidden it perfectly, but Jik Un-hui had already reached the pinnacle of Hyeol-gi. He could not fail to sense foreign energy of the same root type entering his body.
It mattered little. That weak trickle never penetrated his meridians fully before Sa-gi consumed it and snuffed it out.
‘Though he couldn’t hide the body temperature.’
Skin cold as if plunged into ice water on a winter’s day.
But what did it matter if he couldn’t hide it? There was nothing Jik Ha-jin could deduce from that alone.
‘It will normalize in time, regardless.’
The abnormally low body temperature was one of the side effects from establishing the Myeong Wol Si Geuk Gyeong.
Sa-gi that hadn’t been completely sealed during the formation of the Myeong-wol now coursed rebelliously through his entire meridian network, producing the phenomenon of cold skin.
Jik Un-hui picked up a wine cup and examined it.
Clink……
Thin ice began to form across the surface of the Baek-ju where his fingers gripped the cup.
‘Bing-ju—rather fitting.’
He swallowed it in one gulp. The first taste was cold, but it transformed at once into a searing, potent heat that flared up brilliantly before subsiding as though it had never been there at all.
Like a single spark of fire dropped onto an endless snowfield.
He had sipped from a bottle since midday in some attempt to soothe his body, but it seemed liquor of this strength was nowhere near enough.
Of course, Sa-gi couldn’t be moved indefinitely without limit, so if left alone it would naturally dissipate.
In the meantime, if he pushed himself too hard with martial arts, his entire body would freeze solid in an instant, or he would suffer from extreme chills that made sleep nearly impossible—minor side effects, but inevitable ones.
If anything, they were laughably light compared to what he had done.
‘Still, I should refrain from going out for a while.’
Since his rebirth, he had never once rested.
How many lives had he already taken in this short span? He gave no thought to karma or blood-debt or such things, but the truth remained that he had pushed himself severely in a very brief time.
It was only because of Jik Un-hui’s monstrous body that he had endured at all—without it, he would have been ruined long ago.
‘Of course, not yet.’
To abandon everything and collapse just because he had dealt with Hwan Hon-mun would be premature—the work was not finished.
‘I’ve wrapped it up. Now I need to report.’
When a commission was undertaken, true completion only came when all loose ends were tied.
So rest would have to wait.
Draining the last of the Baek-ju with a final shake of the bottle, Jik Un-hui rose from the Inn.
“Let’s go. The client awaits.”
Toward Gi Ryeon-san, toward Hyeol Cheon-gung.

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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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