Reincarnation of the Blood Demon - 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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Blood Demon Reborn
Chapter 42
That’s not how you do it.
A tense silence fell over the gathering—one that Jeok Un-hui had brought about by ignoring the warning and making a bold opening move.
Everyone in the room had understood it.
‘Now, battle is unavoidable.’
Just as Hyeon Won was about to draw his blade without hesitation—
“For someone of his generation to seek harmony with the Heavenly Fate Sword—isn’t that arrogance?”
A young man with a refreshing, composed appearance stepped forward from the back, smoothly restraining Hyeon Won.
“Why not measure yourself against me first, rather than the elder?”
Pale skin and sharp, clean-cut features.
The Heroic Crown bound atop his head, and the pristine Gongdong Sect Martial Robe fitting him perfectly.
He was a picture-perfect Late-Stage Cultivator in white.
The young man clasped his fist in salute and introduced himself.
“I am Jin Gyeon, Second Disciple of the Gongdong Sect. Surely, if you are a warrior of the Blood Heavenly Divine Sect, you’ve heard my name?”
He regarded Jeok Un-hui with a mixture of expectation and competitive pride, yet Jeok Un-hui only frowned as though bewildered.
“What are you suddenly saying? Who are you?”
……
As Jin Gyeon faltered at this unexpected response, Ma Hyeol-jin quickly approached and whispered.
“He is Jin Gyeon, the True Sword of Subduing Demons, the Master’s foremost disciple of the Gongdong Sect. Of late, his reputation has been rising throughout the Nan Zhou region.”
For him to hold the rank of Master’s first disciple despite being listed as Second Disciple—it meant he was quite literally the symbol of the Gongdong Sect’s next generation.
“Ah, a distinguished personage indeed.”
Jeok Un-hui nodded with utterly indifferent expression.
There was far too much he had already accomplished to be impressed by a mere Late-Stage Cultivator.
At this naked dismissal, Jin Gyeon’s face flushed crimson with rage.
“How dare you insult me in such a manner!”
“Where’s the insult? A person can simply not know things.”
“Are you treating me like a fool right now?”
To Jin Gyeon’s indignation, even at Jeok Un-hui’s half-hearted clarification, Jeok Un-hui let out a heavy sigh and spoke in a different tone.
“Hello, I’m Jeok Un-hui, the Third Son of the Blood Heavenly Divine Sect. Have you perhaps heard my name?”
……?
“I asked if you’ve heard of it.”
At Jeok Un-hui’s irritated question, Jin Gyeon answered hesitantly, almost against his will.
“I’m… hearing it for the first time.”
“What? You don’t know me, Jeok Un-hui? Are you insulting me?”
“Ah, no……”
Jin Gyeon fumbled, at a loss. After all, he truly had never heard the name Jeok Un-hui before.
As he grew flustered, Jeok Un-hui clicked his tongue and spoke with a tone of instruction.
“Don’t go thinking the whole world should know you. That’s just excessive self-regard. I’m doing you a favor here, teaching you something important. I’d hate for you to keep behaving this way later.”
……
“Say something.”
“I… understand.”
The entire situation was absurd, yet somehow the words rang true.
As Jin Gyeon nodded in a daze, Hyeon Won and the warriors of the Gongdong Sect watching from the side let out sighs.
Soon enough, Jin Gyeon snapped back to himself and cried out.
“Your words are certainly sharp! But let’s see if your sword is equally so!”
With that, Jin Gyeon drew his blade without further hesitation—the very picture of a hot-blooded young prodigy.
Jeok Un-hui lamented as though troubled.
“I hardly have the leisure to trade blows with some inexperienced boy……”
Yet no one present fit the description of an inexperienced boy better than Jeok Un-hui himself.
All of them regarded him with exasperation, but he was not one to refuse a fight that had already come to his door.
“Come at me.”
He smiled arrogantly and flicked his blade.
Immediately—
Whoosh—
“As you wish!”
Jin Gyeon’s blade came hurtling down like a hawk diving for prey, aiming for Jeok Un-hui’s throat.
Clang—!
The speed of his draw was so fast it seemed impossible for a Late-Stage Cultivator.
The blade that had swept up to block rang out with a heavy, resonant tone.
‘Quite skilled…….’
Without leaving time to think, Jin Gyeon’s blade suddenly blurred.
Slash—
Only the sound of wind being cut pierced the moment.
Clang——!
It swept down with genuine menace. In a flash, he targeted seven vital points.
The Gongdong Sect’s true mountain art—the Seven Kill Sword manifested.
Yet the impact sounds were not seven. At best, two rang out. It was proof that Jin Gyeon’s swordsmanship had neared completion.
“Hah!”
Though his breath caught, Jin Gyeon showed no panic.
From the rebound of the clashing blades, he naturally drew back his sword and readied another strike.
Where before he had pressed with a barrage, now he came with a single blow.
Keen—
The blade, gripped firm, drank in brilliant white sword energy.
Shrieee—
It extended forth.
Crash——!
Shock that numbed the palms.
‘The Light True Sword. It’s been a while.’
Though Jeok Un-hui pressed forward without retreat, Jin Gyeon flowed like water with his footwork, seized the angles, and swung his blade anew.
Attacks cascading without pause. Even when blocked, he didn’t hesitate—only chained into the next assault.
A figure completely transformed from moments before, when clumsiness had been plain. The instant he gripped the sword, it was as if another person stood in his place.
A bearing that embodied why he was the Gongdong Sect’s first disciple.
“Ah……!”
Even some of the Blood Heavenly Divine Sect members watching clenched their fists tight, tension rising.
And yet……
‘Still shallow.’
Jeok Un-hui, parrying every strike, remained utterly serene.
Clack—
Once more, the Subduing Demon Divine Sword’s blade glanced aside.
The powerful thrust, delivered with all his strength, buckled and slipped away before its force could fully manifest, while the swift strike that followed always came up short by an inch or so.
Each technique he deployed was met as though already known, the opening smothered before it could properly show itself.
Yet still, the one pressing the attack was Jin Gyeon. But everyone understood.
“Not even landing a blow……?”
A Gongdong Sect martial artist’s murmur, tinged with sighs.
Jin Gyeon, who crossed swords directly, felt it all the more keenly.
‘……He reads every move I make.’
As though he were a man who had fought the Gongdong Sect for countless years, tangled with them across ages.
‘This makes no sense whatsoever……!’
Yet Jin Gyeon’s thought was precise.
When the Blood Heavenly Divine Sect was founded, the sect encountered most often was naturally the Gongdong Sect, located in the same prefecture.
And it was Jeok Sa-hyeok in his past life who ultimately crushed that Gongdong Sect and rose to become the supreme master of the martial world.
Naturally, all their techniques were already lodged in Jeok Un-hui’s mind.
‘In any case, I knew these bastards would be like this.’
Five hundred years had passed, yet their swordplay had scarcely evolved.
The flaw of the White Path sects revealed itself here.
“You cling too much to fundamentals, and that’s why you never progress.”
The exact opposite of the Black Path heterodox sects, which suffered from lacking foundations entirely.
Because they merely inherited from predecessors who were too brilliant, their martial learning could only stagnate.
They had an answer key from five hundred years ago—one so complete that half the problems could still be solved with it.
Jeok Un-hui clicked his tongue as though the wind had gone out of him.
‘The old Gongdong Sect fighters were sharper, at least.’
They had been madmen who waged battle every other day. Enemies, yes—but he acknowledged excellence when he saw it.
Of course, compared to them, Jin Gyeon was at the late-stage of cultivation—a chasm—so a difference in skill was inevitable.
Still, if that were the case, guiding the inadequate younger generation was surely the duty of a senior.
“Ah, you don’t do it that way.”
“……?!”
Dodging the incoming blade with only a turn of his head, Jeok Un-hui remarked in a truly galling murmur.
“Don’t expend your qi like that. It’s already leaking as you release it.”
“……!”
“Good heavens, now I’ve wrenched your elbow. Keep swinging like that if you want to end up crippled.”
“……No.”
Confusion flickered across Jin Gyeon’s face, which had been locked in combat focus.
Jeok Un-hui didn’t stop talking.
“And if you’re going to grab your elbow, why are you twisting your legs? Trying to tear your right arm and left leg clean off?”
“Ugh!”
“No, you can’t channel Qi that way. These are Gongdong Sect techniques—there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Could you just……!”
“If you have the breath to complain, use it to stabilize your core. Any more of this and you’ll throw out your back.”
“Arghhhh!”
Jin Gyeon’s concentration shattered completely. He swung his blade with sweat streaming down his face, the sharpness undiminished but his confidence visibly crumbling.
What made it worse was that this Blood Heavenly Divine Sect third disciple’s casual remarks aligned almost perfectly with the teachings his own master had given him.
The aggravating part was how he kept dodging effortlessly while running his mouth—it was infuriating.
‘What in the world is this……!’
The exact same emotions that everyone who’d faced Jeok Un-hui before had felt now swept through Jin Gyeon’s mind.
Jeok Un-hui himself, still directing commentary at Jin Gyeon, nodded and spoke.
“That’s enough. Go ahead and bring it out now. The Chaotic Unity Single Qi Technique.”
The supreme art that symbolized the Gongdong Sect—the Chaotic Unity Single Qi Technique.
A technique unprecedented among all the Division-Heart methods: binding the chaotic energies of Chaotic Unity into perfect equilibrium, governing them as a single unified flow.
Given the Gongdong Sect’s nature as an alliance of multiple schools, this supreme art had arisen as a natural consequence.
It was one of the martial techniques Jeok Un-hui had been studying in pursuit of achieving the union of Yin and Yang, and the very reason he’d drawn this Gongdong Sect boy out to this point in their battle.
‘If I want to confirm whether the Chaotic Unity Single Qi Technique still stands, this is the fastest way.’
The boy was young, yes, but he was the Gongdong Sect’s First Disciple.
Since the Chaotic Unity Single Qi Technique was a secret passed only to the sect master and his direct student, it was certain that Jin Gyeon had been learning it.
But Jin Gyeon responded with a bewildered expression.
“The Chaotic Unity Single Qi Technique……? I heard that fell out of practice more than two hundred years ago?”
“……What?”
Jeok Un-hui’s face went blank for a moment—an answer he hadn’t anticipated at all. But Jin Gyeon, suddenly retreating a step, sharpened his focus once more.
“That’s enough mockery! I’ll face you with the Gongdong Sect’s supreme art!”
Crack——!!
A long blade gripped tight in both hands. Pure white radiance flashed across its edge.
What began as ordinary Sword Energy became, in an instant, Heavenly Thunder tearing through the air itself.
The Heavenly Thunder Subduing Demon Divine Sword.
The supreme swordsmanship of the Gongdong Sect.
A pinnacle art imbued with the profound logic of shattering delusion and destruction—it was said demons would submit at mere contact.
“Take this——!!”
Boom——!!
With a roar like thunder, that strike came forth——
——and was crushed.
Snapped down by a hand steeped in dark crimson Blood Qi.
“What……?”
Jin Gyeon stared at his own blade in shock.
Fragments of lightning and Blood Qi scattered and mixed in the air.
“Tell me again,” Jeok Un-hui said, his eyes cold.
“What exactly fell out of practice?”

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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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