The God-Possessed Swordsmanship Genius - Chapter 1

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Divine-Blessed Swordsman Genius, Chapter 1

Sshhhhh.

Beneath the pouring rain, Allen opened his eyes.
Hundreds of corpses.
He looked over them one by one, every body cut down in some grisly way.

“Ah…”

A small sigh slipped from his lips.
Was I the only one left alive?
The moment that realization hit him, something like a scream boiled up inside his chest.
But before he could even let it out, he saw Demons swarming toward him in the distance like a pack of dogs.
Watching them come, the words escaped him on their own.

“Those damned Demon bastards.”

Allen hated Demons.
It was the answer he had given whenever anyone asked why he had joined the Death Squad.
Of course, around here, that wasn’t much of a reason at all.

“Is there anyone here who doesn’t hate Demons?”
“So why do you hate them?”

Here, hating Demons was taken for granted, so people asked for something more fundamental.

“I lost my family and my master to them.”
“Revenge for family and friends?”
“Same reason as everyone else, then.”

There had never been any kind of qualification test. The Death Squad needed every hand it could get, and as long as you had the skill, they’d take you.
Demons.
Twenty-two years ago, they had appeared on the Continent and begun slaughtering humans without any purpose at all.
They possessed strength far beyond the human average, and above all, they were pure evil, devoid of anything human.

Empires, kingdoms, and countless famed noble houses.
All of them had crumbled beneath their hands.
It had taken only ten years for four continents to turn into the Demon Realm.
The surviving humans split into two paths.
Either they fought the Demons and died, or they knelt beneath them and became Ma-in.
The Death Squad had chosen the former.

‘Even so…’

Allen rose to his feet.
No hope of victory remained. Still, Allen did not give up.
After all, driving a blade through their hearts wasn’t the only way to take revenge.
The Demons had swarmed in, blotting out the ground in black.
Surrounding Allen, they did not lunge at him right away.
It was as if they were waiting for something.

“Looking for this, are you?”

Allen opened his hand and showed them what was inside.
Resting on his palm was a black orb no bigger than a fingernail, glowing with a gloomy light.
At the sight of it, a cold, bluish glint flashed in the Demons’ eyes.
At the same instant, several of the Demons began to move.

“Don’t come any closer.”

Allen tightened the hand he had just opened and snarled.

“If even one of you takes another step, I’ll smash this to pieces.”

The demons that had been lunging at him all came to a sudden halt.
They were so obedient that some had frozen exactly as they were mid-charge.
It wasn’t just their feet that had stopped. Not a single finger on any of them so much as twitched.

‘It works.’

For the first time, a threat had worked on a demon.
Creatures that hadn’t responded to hostages or offers of any kind were reacting to this orb, and only this orb.
He had no idea what the thing was, or why the demons wanted it so badly.
All Allen and his comrades in the Death Squad had managed to learn was one thing.
The demons were searching for something here, and desperately so.

The Death Squad had staked their lives to obtain this mysterious orb. In a sense, it was the price of their lives. They could not afford to waste it.
Allen opened his hand again, and a slow grin spread across his face.

“I never thought I’d live to see you bat-spawn following orders this neatly. This must be something truly important to you.”
“You’re right.”

Allen looked at the demon who had answered him.
The face was familiar.
It was a demon no member of the Death Squad could ever forget.

‘Valtain.’

He was a high-ranking demon holding the title of duke. He was one of the Top Ten Demons, ranked just below the Demon King himself.
So a big name like that had been here all along.

“That is the object we have been desperately seeking. We’ve searched for it for a very long time. Would you return it to us?”
“If it’s something you’re searching for so desperately, why would I give it back?”
“It is of no use whatsoever to you humans. So I am asking you politely.”
“…Asking?”

Allen’s expression twisted in a subtle, unpleasant way.
That a demon would behave so meekly, and that a high-ranking demon would stoop to asking, made no sense by any measure Allen knew.

“The more you act like this, the more curious I get. What on earth is this thing, that you’d go this far for it?”
“I cannot tell you that. Instead, if it’s another request, just name it.”
“A request? Sure, I’ll take a request.”

A sneer crept onto Allen’s lips.
He looked over the corpses of the Death Squad lying around him.

“Bring these people back to life.”

Valtain could not bring himself to say he would.

“Not just these people. My father, my brother, my teacher. Everyone you killed.”
“That is impossible.”
“Why not! If you slaughtered that many, then at least bring back one of them!”

Allen shouted and clenched the orb as if he meant to crush it. Startled, Valtain hurried to speak.

“Wait! Wait, calm down. Yes, let’s do this instead.”
“Do what, exactly?”

Valtain let out a heavy breath and spoke.

“Give us that, and we’ll withdraw right now.”
“Now you’ll let me live? Don’t bother. I came here to die anyway.”
“You’ve misunderstood. That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“We Demons will take that and return to the Demon Realm. That’s all.”
“…?”

What did I just hear?
Return? Just like that?
Valtain noticed the question forming on Allen’s face and spoke again.

“Don’t overthink it. You understood exactly what I said. We take that and go back to the Demon Realm.”
“Why… why on earth…?”
“Why? Isn’t it obvious? That’s the only reason we came here in the first place. Do you think we’d cross all this way for this filthy scrap of land?”

Allen didn’t believe him.
He knew well that Demons were skilled at lying with subtlety. They had a talent for blending truth and falsehood like a sweet liquor.
Truth and lies.
There was no way the claim that they’d leave once they had the orb was true.
If there was any truth in it at all, it would be the part about the Demons crossing over because of this orb.

“Don’t give me that crap.”

Allen clenched the orb in his hand as if he meant to crush it.
At once, Valtain and the other Demons flinched in alarm once more.
Seeing their reaction, Allen let out a hollow laugh.

“Just… because of this little thing? Seriously? Just this?”

Judging by their reactions alone, the claim that the Demons had crossed over to chase the orb seemed true. They placed that much importance on it.
What on earth is this thing?
I had thought the lives of the Death Squad were sealed inside this small orb, but that wasn’t it.
The ruin of the Continent was lodged within this orb.

Had they thought Allen, shaken by the shock, might do anything?
Valtain’s voice grew hurried.

“It’s the truth. Once we have that, we’ll leave cleanly. Believe me.”
“…If you give me another condition, I might consider it.”
“Another condition?”
“Take your own life. Right now.”

Allen drew a finger across his throat, aiming it at Valtain.

“If that thing matters more than your own life, you can do it, can’t you?”
“Hey, that’s…”
“What? You had no problem cutting others down like that, but your own life is too precious to give up? Are you scared now that it’s your turn?”
“Name any other condition and I’ll grant it. Just give me a little more time to think-”

Thud.

Then it happened.
A massive presence bore down on them all at once.
Following its movement, the Demons split apart to either side.
Demons dropped to their knees and bowed their heads, as if paying homage to someone.
Allen’s eyes widened.
The beautiful man approaching him captivated his gaze more than any Demon he had encountered until now.
Valtain, one of the Top Ten Demons who had seemed incapable of kneeling, also dropped to his knees and bowed his head.

“I greet the Demon King.”

The Demon King.
The paramount of demonkind, the one who reigned from the highest heaven of all demons.
And.
The enemy of his family and his master.

Many transcendents had lost their lives without ever surpassing that being. Perhaps humanity had lost because no one had ever risen above the Demon King.
This was the first time I had ever faced the Demon King directly.
He was not one to move himself for trifling matters.

Swish.

The Demon King laid his hand on Valtain’s head.
In the next instant, something astonishing happened.

Crack!

Valtain’s head burst like a watermelon.
Who could have imagined that the head of one of the Top Ten Demons could shatter so easily?
Allen watched the scene in disbelief.
The Demon King opened his hand, showing the blood smeared across his palm. It was as if he were asking whether that was enough.
Because he had been so meek, I had nearly forgotten.
Just how deranged demons could be.
And standing before me was the demon at the very summit of those demons.
Under the extreme tension, Allen spoke while chewing the flesh still stuck in his mouth.

“No. That’s not enough. What I demanded was his suicide, not his life.”
“….”
“Or perhaps you’d like to take his place and end yourself? I don’t know what that thing was, but if it’s the Demon King’s life, I’d gladly—”
“Allen Bishuken.”

Allen’s taunting stopped short.
It was because of his own name, spoken from the Demon King’s mouth.
No, it wasn’t just his name.

“The youngest son of Axion Bishuken and disciple of Cyron. A man born carrying Bima’s Curse, unable to hold Mana, a poor soul who nonetheless reached his level through the strength of his body alone.”
“You… know me?”

The Demon King took a step closer.
He paid no heed to Allen’s warning that no one should move.

“Yes. I know you. I know your father and your master as well. They were all strong. You might have reached the same realm as them had it not been for Bima’s Curse, but neither the curse nor time has been on your side.”

The Demon King, whose presence had felt like a natural calamity, knew who I was.
Just as he said, I was insignificant. I was a half-finished swordsman with a body that could neither sense nor hold Mana.
A human that a being of the Demon King’s stature had no reason to know.
And yet, there was only one reason he knew me.

‘It wasn’t a natural disaster.’

The appearance of demons twenty-two years ago had been far too sudden.
They had emerged without warning and swallowed the Continent in an instant.
Whether they were lesser demons or high-ranking ones like Valtain made no difference. Naturally, I had assumed the Demon King would be no different.
But he was.
They had seen through everything about humanity.
It hadn’t been a storm-like calamity that swept in from nowhere, but an invasion that had been carefully prepared and planned.

“When did you— .”

He had been about to ask when they had planned this.

“…?”

Allen belatedly noticed that his arm felt light.
It was rolling across the floor toward the Demon King.
The instant he recognized it as his own arm, blood gushed from the severed stump.

Fwoosh!

“Gaaaaah!”
“You are remarkable. No human, even one carrying Bima’s Curse, could ever reach the level you have reached.”

He hadn’t even seen it.
Because he was exhausted? No. Even if his body had been whole, it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Rather than marveling at the Demon King’s power, Allen blamed himself and his companions for their mistake.

‘We were thinking about this all wrong.’

Perhaps their defeat hadn’t been due to a difference in strength at all. From the very beginning, it was humans who had underestimated the demons.
The Demon King picked up the arm that had rolled to him.
I could see his calm eyes trembling.
So it seemed the one who had wanted the orb was none other than this Demon King.

Heh, heh, heh heh.

Just then, Allen, clutching his severed arm, laughed like a madman.

“You want it that badly?”

At Allen’s question, the Demon King’s expression chilled over. His instincts warned him of a strange foreboding.
And in the next moment, his gaze wavered like a stone dropped into a lake.

Grin.

“Ta-da.”

Allen lifted his head, the orb pinched between his molars, and grinned.
The Demon King hurriedly checked the orb that had somehow found its way into his hand.
The orb Allen had been holding was a decoy.

“That’s a coffee candy the Hilton Kingdom is proud of. It’s my gift to you, so go ahead and stuff yourself.”

Crunch!
Gulp.

He bit down on the orb and swallowed it in one go.

“Thanks for the meal.”

Pfwuu-buuk!

At the same moment, agony tore through his entire body.
Countless demons lunged at once and hacked him to pieces. Whether they had pierced his lungs and throat, he couldn’t even scream.
At the very end, Allen smiled. In his eyes, the Demon King’s face was twisted.
To make that face contort, just once.
That was the limit of what he could accomplish by giving up his life.

‘Next time we meet…’

Slowly, my consciousness began to fade.
At the moment of death, the whole world turned white.

‘This time, for sure…’

* * *

Smack!

His cheek stung. It felt as though someone was roughly shaking him awake from a sweet sleep.
Allen thought.
Could it be that I survived and I’m being tortured by the demons?
Well, after the taunts I threw at them, they wouldn’t have killed me so easily.
Then a voice reached him.

“Wake up, you bastard!”

Whack!

At the noisy shout, Allen’s eyes snapped wide open.

The darkened world came rushing back in an instant.
Before him stood a bearded man, snickering as he looked over at him.
The hand he was raising told the story.
The lingering numbness in his cheek could only be the work of that palm, big as a cauldron lid.

“So you’re finally up.”
“You slept half a day after getting smacked like that?”
Be grateful you’re not dead. The deputy chief hit you hard, that’s all it is.
“Judging by your clothes, you look like some noble lord. Are you here to make a big score today?”

Dozens of men sat around drinking and smoking pipes. Their laughter rang out, bursting with mirth.
Allen swept his gaze quickly across the room.
An enclosed building.
Whether he’d been captured by these bandits or not, his arms were bound tight with rope.

‘This is…’

As he sifted through a very old memory to grasp his situation, Allen’s eyes lit up.

‘My first mission day?’

Genius Swordsman Blessed by a God

Author │
Heukah-in
Publisher │
Choi Wonyoung
Editorial Division Head │
Lee Hojun
Editing │
Choi Jonggeon
E-book │
Kim Jisoo

Publisher Office │
(Ju) D&C Media
Registration │
Registered April 25, 2012, No. 20-260
Address │
1301-8 Villandt 1-cha, Kolon Digital Tower, 30 Digital-ro 32-gil, Guro-gu, Seoul
Main Phone │
(02)333-2513 Fax (02)333-2514
Email │
[email protected]
Homepage │
blog.naver.com/gnpdl7

UCI G720:N+A092-20261014028

*This book was published by (Ju) D&C Media (Papyrus) under a contract with the copyright holder. No part of its content may be used in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher and the author.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————