Reincarnation of the Blood Demon - Chapter 38

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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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Blood Demon Hall Life
Chapter 38
Blood Heaven Secret Vault
Screeeee——
With a heavy groan, the massive iron gate swung open slowly, revealing the interior.
‘Back again.’
It wasn’t all that close a distance, yet lately he’d been coming far too often.
This was already the third visit, a sight grown almost familiar now.
‘No, really, it stands to reason.’
Until just a few months ago, this had been his own territory.
Though five hundred years had passed since then, the internal layout had changed considerably.
In any case, Jeok Un-hwi walked across the crimson carpet as if he belonged there.
“Greetings, Father.”
At the end of the Blood Path, seated upon the Throne, Jeok Ui-in gazed out with eyes that glowed with cold brilliance.
Beside him stood an elderly man in white robes, his hand resting on a horse-hair whisk.
The Leader’s gaze and the general’s gaze converged on a single point, and Jeok Un-hwi met their eyes with composure, spine straight.
Then the Leader spoke quietly.
“What is the result?”
Still without preamble, diving straight into the matter at hand.
Jeok Un-hwi answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“It has failed.”
An answer unexpected, perhaps. The Blood Demon Hall fell silent in an instant.
General Heuk Ji-gwang stroked his long beard with apparent interest, while the Leader fixed his son with a gaze of profound depth.
“Why?”
“The situation was already concluded. It seems my eldest brother moved first.”
“Mm.”
As he delivered his prepared reply, silence descended once more—though this time of a subtly different character.
Where the first had held doubt, this one carried understanding.
“Why do you ask, Father?”
Puzzled by a response that differed from his expectations, Jeok Un-hwi questioned; it was Heuk Ji-gwang who answered instead.
“The Crown Prince led the Dragon Martial Corps and invaded Gwihon Gak. It was only two days past. We wondered at it then, but now it begins to make sense.”
“……!”
Gwihon Gak—the power led by Yuk Jang-ro.
Now it was Jeok Un-hwi’s turn to be caught off guard. His eyes widened slightly.
‘So soon?’
He’d known that after their arrangement, a move would come in due course, yet he’d never expected such a brazenly direct strike against Yuk Jang-ro.
It seemed his eldest brother had carried out the deed during the time Jeok Un-hwi traveled to the main residence.
‘The man certainly acts with conviction.’
This was far beyond what he’d anticipated. A hollow laugh escaped Jeok Un-hwi before he caught himself and closed his mouth.
Because there was something notably absent from what Heuk Ji-gwang had said.
Jeok Un-hwi looked toward the Leader and asked:
“Then, Father, do you also understand why my eldest brother struck at Yuk Jang-ro?”
The fact that Heuk Ji-gwang had mentioned not merely the Huanhun Sect but specifically Gwihon Gak suggested he’d already grasped the full picture of events.
The Leader answered readily.
“He claimed Yuk Jang-ro colluded with the Huanhun Sect to scheme sorcery.”
“And what does Father think?”
“It’s likely true. Your eldest brother is not one to move without cause.”
“Then why do you not act?”
The question, however presumptuous it might sound, was swiftly dismissed by the Leader.
“If the Crown Prince has moved, it is his affair.”
Once the Crown Prince stepped forward, for the Leader to intervene directly would be no different from disrespecting the Crown Prince’s authority.
Jeok Un-hwi understood this well enough, and so he held his peace in quiet assent.
Then the Leader posed another question.
“So you’re saying your eldest brother grasped the full situation and then demolished the Huanhun Sect first?”
“Yes.”
“In barely four days since his return?”
“That is what has transpired.”
A brazen answer, truly. Yet the Leader pressed no further. He merely wore his customary thin smile and settled his weary frame into the Throne.
‘He sees through it all, and yet.’
Jeok Un-hwi clicked his tongue inwardly. Both the Leader and Heuk Ji-gwang would surely have seen through his stratagems.
Heuk Ji-gwang was the one who controlled the Blood Sect’s finest intelligence network from its highest echelons, and he was the Sect Master’s trusted strategist.
Since the Sect Master’s eyes reached across the entire territory of the sect, he must have grasped how everything was unfolding from the very start.
Who had annihilated the Huanhun Sect, what deception the Third Son was employing—all of it.
Yet the fact that he deliberately refrained from pressing the matter was a declaration of his will to remain uninvolved in the succession struggle.
‘Or maybe he simply doesn’t care.’
The Sect Master tapped the armrest of the throne slowly with his index finger as he spoke.
“If you truly failed the mission as you claim, then a fitting punishment is in order.”
The Sect Master’s gaze fixed directly on Jeok Un-hwi. Shortly after, he issued a quiet command.
“You will confine yourself to your quarters for one hundred days. I will not permit any external activities during this period.”
Jeok Un-hwi’s pupils dilated slightly. Having claimed failure in the mission himself, he had certainly anticipated punishment. Yet the nature of it was unexpected.
‘That’s actually perfect.’
He’d been planning to rest anyway. Recently, even by his own reckoning, he had been pushing himself far too hard.
Though he’d extinguished the immediate crisis by achieving the Balance of Yin and Yang, his physical condition was in terrible shape.
To put it plainly, if he engaged in even one more intense battle in his current state, he would certainly fall into Devil Absorption on the spot.
‘Things will get complicated within the sect now, too.’
If he became entangled in that struggle, the fallout would touch him as well.
But with self-restraint as his excuse, he could step back from that pandemonium and safely observe from across the river.
Whether the Sect Master had calculated all of this in issuing his command, he couldn’t say, but in any case, what was ostensibly a punishment was practically a boon for him.
Exulting inwardly, Jeok Un-hwi lowered his head with perfect composure.
“I shall reflect deeply upon my failings.”
Just as he turned to leave the Blood Demon Hall, the Sect Master rose from his throne.
“Follow me.”
“Pardon?”
He asked without much thought, but the Sect Master had already turned away and was walking toward somewhere else.
Toward a narrow passage behind the vast Blood Demon Hall, constructed symmetrically with the throne.
‘That’s…’
Jeok Un-hwi’s eyes narrowed. He already knew where it led.
“Do go ahead, Third Son,” Heuk Ji-gwang urged.
At the strategist’s prodding, Jeok Un-hwi nodded reluctantly and followed the Sect Master.
Thud-thud.
Footsteps echoed through the long corridor, yet even though they had only just passed through, the sound seemed to reach him from very far away.
Scattered blood-red night pearls inlaid here and there barely illuminated what lay directly ahead, their light swallowed by the darkness without spreading any further—as though consumed by shadow itself.
Jeok Un-hwi understood: the moment he stepped into the corridor, he had already entered an array formation.
An array formation that contained Martial Principles of a caliber incomparably higher than anything he had encountered before.
‘Of course. It couldn’t be any other way.’
This was the threshold guarding the most secretive place in the Blood Sect.
Father and son advanced in silence. Jeok Un-hwi had no particular reason to speak, and the Sect Master was not a man prone to idle conversation to begin with.
Then the Sect Master stopped. A metal door similar to the one in his chamber. Yet the carvings that might have adorned it were absent—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that carving was virtually impossible.
The door’s material was not mere steel, but Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron.
The Sect Master gazed at the door and spoke.
“The Blood Heaven Secret Vault.”
The Blood Heaven Secret Vault.
The greatest treasure repository of the Blood Heavenly Divine Sect, where the finest Divine Artifacts had been accumulated across centuries.
He had of course known all along where the passage led—for he was the one who had built the Blood Heaven Secret Vault.
“Though I confess I understand your meaning… why have you brought me to this place?”
The Sect Master replied briefly, as though it were obvious.
“Choose one and take it.”
“…!”
A statement made without elaboration, yet it was scarcely something to let pass unremarked.
Jeok Un-hwi’s brow furrowed slightly.
The mission had failed. Regardless of the circumstances, that was the current result. It had been a choice made after careful calculation, and he harbored no regrets—yet this development was entirely unforeseen.
“… Is such a thing permissible?”
A choice certain to invite complaint about favoritism and preferential treatment.
To his deliberately abbreviated question, the Sect Master responded with an arrogant laugh.
“Why should I seek anyone’s permission to give away what is mine?”
An utterance of unparalleled audacity—the attitude of one who held everything under heaven in the Blood Sect as his own possession.
Yet because that very attitude pleased him, the corners of Jeok Un-hwi’s mouth lifted to match.
“A fair point indeed.”
Clink.
He stepped beside the Sect Master and placed his hand upon the vault door.
The distinctive chill of Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron crept along his meridians, seeping deep into his bones with a penetrating cold.
As he and the sect leader pressed forward together, a heavy sound echoed through the vault, and the Blood Heaven Secret Vault swung wide open, revealing its interior.
Though they’d traveled through the narrow passages of the Blood Demon Hall, a towering pavilion now loomed before them, perched atop sheer cliff faces.
Against a backdrop of golden stone, the sect leader tilted his chin toward the vista.
“Late though it may be, it is a gift for overcoming your natural weakness.”
* * *
Thud!
The moment Jeok Un-hwi stepped inside, the Blood Heaven Secret Vault sealed shut behind him.
A space completely isolated from the outside world.
“Don’t be shy about it, boy.”
He chuckled softly to himself as Jeok Un-hwi began a slow tour of the vault’s interior.
The vault was vast beyond measure—spacious enough that it might as well have been called a secondary palace rather than a mere storage chamber.
The sight differed markedly from the vault he remembered. Which made sense. Five hundred years had passed.
In that time, the Blood Sect had declined only once—if that—and the vault itself, hidden behind gates of Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron and sealed by supreme Array Formations, faced virtually no risk of plunder.
So long as no extraordinary disaster occurred, treasures would have accumulated steadily.
This was the result.
‘I could spend all day looking and still not see everything.’
A strange mixture of satisfaction and vertigo washed over him. Jeok Un-hwi clicked his tongue and moved deeper inside.
The first thing that caught his eye was an array of countless weapons, arranged in meticulous rows.
‘This is….’
Jeok Un-hwi stopped before a black halberd, its surface shimmering with an eerie cyan light.
Not a speck of dust marred its pristine surface. Below it hung a nameplate with annotations.
There was no need to read it. He already knew what it was.
‘The Ghost Crying Blade.’
Long ago, during the Blood Mountain Decisive Battle, he had personally slain the vice-leader of the Sword Sect’s first branch and seized this Forbidden Weapon.
That the Ghost Crying Blade was displayed here meant the other weapons were at least of comparable caliber.
A glance confirmed it—the collection was indeed extraordinary.
‘The Blood Moon Sword, the Heaven Breaking Fist Armor, the Four Sun Bow….’
Some he had heard of, others he hadn’t, but they shared one trait: each was a Divine Artifact capable of igniting bloodbaths across the martial world if brought forth.
Looking further, there were forbidden weapons seldom used even in the martial world, alongside defensive armors of all kinds.
All these items stretched across the entire first floor of the vault.
The first floor of the Blood Heaven Secret Vault was the armory level. Which meant the other floors surely brimmed with different treasures.
‘This is extraordinary.’
Even Jeok Un-hwi, renowned throughout the realm, could not suppress his awe.
Feeling his anticipation swell even further, Jeok Un-hwi ascended the vault’s staircase.

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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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