Reincarnation of the Blood Demon - Chapter 5

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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 Reincarnation
Chapter 5
I’ll show you the real thing
Time passed. The day of the Life-Death Match arrived.
Blood Heaven Cult External Training Ground.
Jeok Un-hui surveyed his surroundings with a look of distaste.
‘What kind of insane spectacle is this.’
Five-Direction Color Flags in an ominous blood-red hung chaotically from all four corners of the training ground, and Talismans inscribed with baleful characters dangled from every pillar, conjuring an atmosphere that set teeth on edge.
Most striking of all was the Blood Demon Statue atop the grandest platform at the far end—something fashioned to resemble a demon or rakshasa.
One could almost believe this was a human sacrifice altar rather than a training ground.
Dong—! Dong—!
Then, a sinister toll of bells tore through the air, shaking the entire arena.
A man in priestly garb, wearing a grotesque bone mask and draped in crimson robes, ascended the platform and spread both arms wide.
“The illustrious Third Young Master, inheritor of the great bloodline of Blood Heaven, has this day graced this sacred altar to prove through blood the great providence of the Lord of Strength!”
“…What?”
At that very moment, as if waiting for their cue, the spectators positioned around the arena began chanting the name of the Blood Cult with flushed faces.
It was a truly lamentable sight.
Jeok Un-hui, watching from the platform, could not help but wear an expression of bewilderment.
‘Are these bastards all insane?’
His earlier thought that this looked less like a training ground and more like a sacrifice altar was no mere fancy.
What should have been a pure test of martial skill—a Life-Death Match—had transformed into some sinister ritual of slaughter.
‘Even the demon cultists of old wouldn’t stoop to this nonsense.’
What infuriated him most was that the spectators’ enthusiasm, while fevered, seemed utterly natural to them.
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“It’s been so long since we’ve seen a Life-Death Match.”
“And the Third Young Master himself is stepping in?”
“I was bored. This is perfect.”
Common folk who knew nothing of martial arts, warriors with swords at their hips, even third-rate street thugs from the back alleys.
Though ordinarily they would have eyed each other warily, today they stood together as one.
All eyes converged on a single point: the two figures on the platform.
Jeok Sa-bang-ju and Wi Jung-yun, the Third Young Master of the Blood Heaven Cult, Jeok Un-hui.
A burly man and a sickly boy facing one another—quite a spectacle indeed.
“Why are they fighting?”
“Who knows? The air feels ominous enough.”
“Whatever his confidence is based on……”
It was then that vendors hawking snacks and refreshments began circulating, and gamblers started laying wagers on the duel between the two.
“So who do you think wins?”
“The Sage Square Master, obviously. You don’t know the Third Young Master is half a corpse?”
“But if he’s challenging, there must be something he trusts in, no?”
“Trust in what? A cripple’s just looking for a place to die.”
Of course, since most bets favored the Sage Square Master, the gambling tables drew thin interest.
Only the gambler who had set up the wager wore a rotting expression.
And beneath the platform, lost in the crowd, Ju I-gyeom’s face was equally dark.
‘Is this… all right?’
Ju I-gyeom looked up at his superior with a troubled expression.
For the past four days, he had stood watch before Jeok Myeong Palace, yet had no clear knowledge of what transpired within.
He had delivered meals without fail, but the Young Master had not once ventured outside.
Only the occasional sound of something breaking and muffled groans had confirmed the Third Young Master’s survival.
‘He’s been doing something, certainly….’
Whatever it was, for someone with such a frail constitution to master techniques capable of defeating the Sage Square Master in merely four days seemed nearly impossible.
Yet the gaze in Jeok Un-hui’s eyes from a few days past remained vivid in Ju I-gyeom’s mind.
That overwhelming look of a warrior—one who had spent decades on the battlefield.
Because of that gaze, he had lacked the courage to stop him before matters reached this point.
‘What exactly are you planning, Young Master?’
As Ju I-gyeom exhaled a sigh, the platform was wrapped in palpable tension.
Wi Jung-yun, naturally, found his mind equally turbulent.
‘This has all gone terribly wrong.’
Even in a Blood Sect where the strong devoured the weak, directly harming the Patriarch’s blood kin carried a burden far too heavy.
He had never imagined such circumstances would come to pass.
‘If they cast me aside because of this….’
Then this is truly the end. Even if I survive, I’ll be no different from dead.
That entity who approached me was such a major figure that he’d dared touch the Cult Leader’s own bloodline.
Forget the promised reward—even my immediate survival has become uncertain.
At the chilling thought, Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s palms grew clammy with sweat, though he forced himself to shake his head in denial.
‘No, there’s precedent, so it shouldn’t be a major problem. This isn’t my first time, after all.’
He clung to the small comfort that such things had happened regularly during past successions of the Cult Leader.
‘If I just get through this crisis…….’
Thinking this, he cast a sidelong glance at the third son and found him utterly untroubled.
In fact, he wasn’t even paying attention to Jeok Sa-bang-ju.
Certainly not in the manner of someone who’d come for a Life-Death Match.
Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s brow furrowed with anxiety and irritation.
‘What in the world is he thinking?’
* * *
In truth, Jeok Un-hui had no regard for Jeok Sa-bang-ju whatsoever.
‘Why does he keep darting his eyes around? Like some dog desperate for a piss.’
He cast a dismissive glance at Jeok Sa-bang-ju, then simply gazed down at the masses gathered in the arena like ants.
‘Is he not here?’
He searched through the murmuring crowd, but the figure Jeok Un-hui was looking for did not appear.
‘The current Cult Leader, Jeok Wi-geuk.’
A figure who appeared only rarely even in the third son’s memories.
True to a cult leader of a heartless, tearless pseudo-religious organization, he hadn’t shown even his nose despite his youngest son fighting a Life-Death Match.
‘Well, of course.’
Jeok Un-hui was just turning his head away with a cold expression when—
A faint, eerie whisper cut through the air.
‘……What?’
Something unsettling rippled across his senses like a chill.
Following that direction and checking at once, what he saw was…….
‘A carriage?’
A plain, unadorned carriage.
Small enough for only one person, with a coachman whose appearance was equally humble and modest.
The sort of carriage one would see regularly in the marketplace. And the window of that carriage was opened just slightly.
Through the open window, the eyes of the passenger and Jeok Un-hui met.
“……!”
A sudden chill ran through him, and his entire body grew rigid. It was as though his breath had caught in his throat.
It was a strange phenomenon he’d experienced for the first time since his rebirth, yet he already knew what it was.
‘A master.’
The primal, animal instinct humans feel when confronted by a true master.
A master so rare in all the world that he rode in that very carriage.
If a mere glance could inspire such a sensation, then even at peak strength, this was a level of mastery that demanded absolute caution.
And such a person could only be one within the Blood Cult.
‘The Cult Leader.’
The passenger in the carriage was undoubtedly the Cult Leader.
Jeok Un-hui, observing him, felt the corners of his lips rise.
‘Unexpected. I’d naturally assumed he wouldn’t come.’
Though blood relation was blood relation, he’d looked just in case, but truly hadn’t anticipated he would actually appear.
Jeok Un-hui naturally let his gaze drift from the carriage. There was no reason to draw the Cult Leader’s attention just yet.
‘For now, the enemy before my eyes.’
With that thought, he looked ahead, and Jeok Sa-bang-ju spoke with a rigid expression.
“Let me ask you one thing.”
“What?”
“Why are you suddenly doing this? Our relationship was never supposed to reach this point.”
His question was entirely natural. After all, Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s original pretext for approaching Jeok Un-hui had been to correct his constitution.
Yet now he’d abruptly broken the contract unilaterally and turned to attack them.
“Ah, so you’ve realized the truth of the ritual——”
“You’re sorely mistaken.”
Jeok Un-hui cut off Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s words, his cold gaze turning toward him.
“If there’s a reason you’re dying, it’s simply because you overstepped.”
“……!”
Whether it’s the truth of the ritual or whether the human sacrifice itself was a trap—either way, that’s the fact.
To dare commit such verminous acts right before his eyes.
That alone gave him reason enough to kill Jeok Sa-bang-ju.
“If you understand, then shut your mouth and fight.”
That decisive tone allowed for no further conversation.
And to Jeok Sa-bang-ju, such an attitude felt like nothing short of a grave insult.
“This…!”
Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s face twisted in fury as he drew his Straight Blade.
“There are limits to how much disrespect I’ll tolerate!”
Snap.
The sound of reason snapping like a thread.
And then—
“Die!”
Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s Straight Blade tore through the air in a vicious thrust.
Screech!
An ambush with no warning.
In the broader martial world, such tactics were considered dishonorable, yet no one here would fault him for it.
Even caught off guard, it was a matter of skill. There were no rules.
‘That’s how the Blood Cult operates.’
His mouth twitched upward at the lesson well-learned, but only for a moment.
Screech—!
A sharp blade whistled toward his neck.
Jeok Un-hui arched his spine sharply to evade, but suddenly the Straight Blade halted before him, twisted in his grip, and crashed downward on a new trajectory.
Boom—!
The impact cracked the hard blue-steel floor.
Jeok Un-hui retreated steadily, slipping away, while ferocious strikes pursued him in quick succession.
“Pitiful wretch. Do you regret it now?”
Indeed, as if to prove that he had not been in his right mind at Hwi Hong Tower, Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s blade was far sharper and swifter than before.
Against Jeok Un-hui’s frail frame, even a glancing blow would be fatal—and he poured forth a barrage of such strikes.
‘If I land even one hit, victory is mine.’
Though he couldn’t toy with the son of the Blood Cult Master even if he tried, he was determined to inflict exquisite agony upon him before he died.
Boom-boom-boom-boom—!
Each blade strike sung with killing intent, yet Jeok Un-hui continued to slip away by the thinnest margin, again and again.
His expression had not changed in the slightest; he regarded Jeok Sa-bang-ju with an indifferent gaze.
It almost seemed like boredom.
And when their eyes met—
A chill.
An inexplicable coldness crashed down like a weight pressing upon his entire body.
‘What is this…?’
Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s assault naturally faltered.
The spectators noticed it too; whispers of doubt began to ripple through the crowd.
“Wasn’t the Third Young Master supposed to be practically an invalid? He’s dodging pretty well, though.”
“Jeok Sa-bang-ju doesn’t seem to be in good form.”
“Maybe Jeok Sa-bang-ju is just weaker than we thought. I’d beat the Third Young Master myself.”
Despite the fight raging around him, Jeok Sa-bang-ju heard every word. His face contorted, and he forced out a shout through gritted teeth.
“…Evasion at an expert level, I grant you! But this ends now!”
He drew in a long breath as if gathering his focus, then suddenly released a sharp yell.
“Hah—!”
Burst!
A dark crimson aura rose faintly above Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s blade.
The moment his martial art reached Peak Manifestation.
Brief though it was, Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s destructive power had reached its zenith.
“The Cham-ryeong-gwi-do at Peak Manifestation. Now you’ll see what real pain looks like!”
A savage momentum, incomparable to before, came crashing down.
The blue-steel floor bore scars from nothing but the Ki-strike alone.
“Die!”
A blade technique that ground everything it touched—it came hurtling directly at Jeok Un-hui.
Crackle-crackle-crackle—!
A Blade Technique that covered every conceivable angle.
There was nowhere left to escape.
Jeok Un-hui’s face twisted at the sight.
Everyone around him braced for a cry of agony from the Third Young Master, but what emerged from his lips was something entirely different.
“…Cham-ryeong-gwi-do?”
The expression that surfaced alongside that sharp, irritated voice carried unmistakable disappointment.
“So you’re actually calling that the Cham-ryeong-gwi-do?”
With those words, the Short Dagger that had been hanging at Jeok Un-hui’s waist was drawn.
“That Martial Art—”
The moment Jeok Un-hui decided it was no longer worth observing.
“…?!”
Jeok Sa-bang-ju felt a primal chill sweep through him.
Nor was he alone in sensing it.
“Was it only me? Just now…”
“Is it my imagination?”
The martial artists scattered through the crowd, watching the match, suddenly widened their eyes in response to the anomaly they sensed instinctively.
And the scene that followed was nothing short of astonishing.
“—you’re nowhere near that level.”
Jeok Un-hui, having settled into his stance, unleashed a blade strike in the exact opposite direction of the incoming Blade Technique.
Clang-clang-clang-clang!
By the ornate but dull and short Ritual Dagger.
The Blade Technique of Jeok Sa-bang-ju, which appeared to have no openings, was shattered head-on.
Every edge that had filled the space before him twisted and snapped, losing its momentum entirely.
“…!”
Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s eyes flew open in shock that his attack had been repelled, his hand freezing mid-swing.
The cold sneer playing at Jeok Un-hui’s lips deepened.
“What kind of attitude is that in the middle of a fight?”
But what irritated Jeok Un-hui even more was that this fool Jeok Sa-bang-ju was nonetheless treated as a first-rate master within the Blood Cult.
“The standard is laughable.”
Both his Martial Arts and his mastery had declined—catastrophically so.
A thought suddenly gripped him then: he would need to cut out every malignant growth festering within this Blood Cult.
“From this point on…”
The moment Jeok Un-hui changed his grip on the Short Dagger, his momentum shifted entirely.
A genuinely ominous current wrapped around his entire body, and his Stance Form transformed gradually.
Similar in appearance to Jeok Sa-bang-ju’s Cham-ryeong-gwi-do posture, yet doubly more savage and intense.
Jeok Un-hui then smiled and spoke.
“Let me show you the real thing.”

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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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