The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 12

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

Azure Heaven Demon Lord 012
When I asked him to elaborate, Uncle withdrew a thin book from his chest.
“A list of the disappeared. Distant relatives I knew of, through various connections…….”
Looking it over, there were easily dozens of names. Anyone could see this was premeditated.
If that were true, word of the main house’s reconstruction would spread soon enough.
My household and everyone in it could be drawn into danger. And we’d only just begun to breathe freely.
‘Tsk. How tiresome.’
I wasn’t the type to sit quietly and prepare in secret. The people around me could be swept up as well.
Whoever the culprit was, it seemed better to strike first.
“So you’d hand over everything you own if I save your son? Even your life?”
“Yes, yes! I swear it! I will give you everything I have!”
“Good. The deal is sealed. Don’t forget what you’ve said.”
When I said I would take this on, deep concern shadowed my sisters’ faces.
“Hyeok, your body has only just begun to recover—you can’t take on such a dangerous task…….”
Yuhwa’s eyes narrowed with worry, and she gripped my collar tightly.
Yeonhwa and Seolhwa both tried to dissuade me, asking if I really had to go.
It was touching that they cared, but I shook my head gently.
“I am the head of Namgung. When people bearing our family name are in danger, I cannot simply stand by. Besides…….”
I straightened my shoulders, letting them see the stronger presence that now came from me.
“I’m strong enough to look after myself. Don’t worry.”
At the mention of my duty as head, my sisters could say nothing more.
“We’ve only burdened you with this heavy weight because we’re so inadequate.”
“I’m sorry…… If it becomes dangerous, you must come straight back. You understand?”
“Of course. If I’m not here, you sisters are the head. Watch over things carefully.”
We had servants in the household, and Yuhwa’s skills had grown considerably.
I’d even prepared hiding places deeper in the archive. Things were safer than before.
At my words, my sisters’ worried expressions cleared and they nodded with determination.
“Right! We will!”
After that, I made ready to depart. Dressed in my Blue-Green Martial Robe for ease of movement and securing my sword firmly across my back, I cut a proper figure of a martial master.
Neigh—! As I mounted the Black Horse I’d seized before, Uncle likewise climbed into the saddle, looking haggard.
“I’ll return soon.”
Leaving my sisters waving farewell behind, I kicked the horse’s flank.
Clop-clop, clop-clop—!
Raising clouds of dust as we left the Namgung compound.
Cutting through the wind, I pressed Uncle for details.
“If the escort was wiped out completely, this wasn’t the work of common bandits. What about ransom notes? If they knew the merchant had deep pockets, surely they demanded a substantial price?”
“That’s… that’s what makes this so strange. Days have passed, but no ransom demand has arrived…….”
“They kidnap a wealthy merchant prince and don’t demand payment?”
Furrowing my brow, I pressed further, and Uncle’s lips trembled, drained of color.
“That’s right……. And, and the bodies of the murdered servants… they were truly grotesque…….”
“Grotesque? Where are the corpses now?”
“They’ve been taken to the Morgue of the nearby Government Office, but the condition is so severe they fear it might bring plague. Access is restricted.”
They said they’d burn them soon. I’d need to examine them before that happened.
“Take me there. I need to see with my own eyes.”

* * *
In the gathering dusk, at the rear gate of the Government Office.
As Uncle pressed thick silver coins into the guards’ hands, turning their attention away—
I slipped quietly into the cold, damp interior of the Morgue.
Between the stench that assaulted the nose, corpses shrouded in white cloth were laid out in long rows.
Flutter—. I pulled back the cloth without hesitation, and a ghastly sight was revealed.
“Ugghhh……!”
Uncle couldn’t bear to look; he covered his mouth and retched helplessly.
Just as he’d described—there wasn’t a drop of blood left in any of them.
They looked as though they’d been drained by some monstrous insect, skin clinging to bone.
‘No wonder they’d call it plague.’
I examined the withered neck and chest methodically.
“Look at this.”
This wasn’t simply death from blood loss.
Where the vessels had run, the skin was caved in grotesquely.
The skin around the major vital acupoints had also turned deathly black.
“It wasn’t merely blood that was extracted—this is the mark of forcing out the essence blood from the entire body along with the vital energy of the Dantian.”
Moreover, there was a hole the size of a fingernail near the Heavenly Prominence Acupoint.
I swept my fingertip across it, infusing a faint trace of Azure Heaven Demonic Qi.
At once, a foreign energy that had congealed in the hardened meridians reacted to my demonic essence and began to seep upward, slow and creeping.
A sharp, metallic reek of blood, and a sticky, nauseating foulness that clung to the skin.
The faint remnants of Evil Arts—something a common master would mistake for ordinary corpse stench or plague, but which no true sight could overlook.
An ordinary master might not perceive it, but the senses of the Demon Lord Who Destroyed Heaven, who once held all demons beneath his feet across the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, could never be deceived.
A vile method—draining the essence blood from a living human and forcing it to burst forth as power, or offering it as a sacrifice.
“A corpse drained of blood, and a series of kidnappings targeting the Namgung bloodline.”
The scattered pieces of evidence assembled themselves into a single shape in my mind.
“This is no mere plague. It is Evil Arts.”
“What? E-Evil Arts, you say……? W-who on earth could……”
“Those who practice Evil Arts while harboring a grudge against Namgung. The Blood Cult itself.”
At the two characters that spilled from my lips, Uncle gasped and held his breath.
“You mean those demons still linger in these lands, preying upon Namgung……!”
“Yes. Only those vile worms know how to suck the blood of others.”
Seeing no need to examine further, I drew cloth over the corpse and fixed Uncle with a sharp glare.
“Did you truly think fleeing would keep you safe forever? How foolish. If you’d abandoned your house, you should have cast off your name as well. I would have been ashamed enough to do it.”
I had no patience for comfort, only bitter words. Uncle wept without fail, his shoulders shaking with each sob.
“I’m sorry……. I beg your forgiveness…….”
“Stop your sniveling. Can’t you cease? Do you think crying will solve anything?”
“Y-yes! Yes, I understand!”
Clicking my tongue at his pathetic display, I wiped the blood from my hands and folded my arms.
‘Even the Blood Cult would find it difficult to penetrate so deep into these distant southern lands beyond the Central Plains…….’
But they had not merely come—they were hunting Namgung people and carrying out kidnappings.
That meant an accomplice was likely. Someone who knew Namgung inside and out.
“Ordinarily, merchant houses are sensitive to market fluctuations and move discreetly along predetermined routes and schedules, do they not?”
“Y-yes, that is so. The route for this trade mission was known only to the workers who set out and a handful of trusted associates.”
“Since all the workers are dead, the answer is clear. Have you recently done anything to earn the resentment of those associates?”
“Resentment? No, nothing of the sort. I have lived priding myself on trustworthiness above all…….”
Yet his body betrayed him—cold sweat began to bead on his forehead.
“Ah, ah…….”
“You recall certain people, it seems.”
“Not long ago, I attempted to force my nieces into arranged marriages…….”
As a result, was he not captured by me and beaten for it?
Uncle’s face drained of color at the memory, and he swallowed hard.
“These nouveaux riche claimed they were receiving women of Namgung’s house, and they spread word all through Hangzhou’s streets, making grand preparations for a wedding feast. But when the marriage fell through and I severed all relations with them unilaterally…….”
In the Martial World, where face is prized like life itself, these wealthy upstarts—who had sought to display their power by borrowing the Namgung name—became laughingstocks.
“I returned the bride price in full, yet they could not accept their shame. I heard they raged that they’d been humiliated, swearing they’d tear me to pieces.…… Surely they wouldn’t have conspired with the Blood Cult……!”
If these regionally powerful upstarts were involved, they would have complete knowledge of the merchant caravan’s routes and the whereabouts of Namgung’s people.
Uncle stood lost, dazed, and I clicked my tongue at his pathetic state.
“You deserve what’s come. Tsk.”
The cause was now clear. If I pressed those bloated fools, information about the Blood Cult would spill forth.
With eyes sharp as frost, I threw open the Morgue door and gave my command.
“We go where those men are.”

* * *
At that very moment.
In the most luxurious Pleasure House in Hangzhou, the wealthiest city in all the realm where goods and silver coins never run dry.
“Ha ha ha! Brother! The wine tastes absolutely exquisite today, does it not!”
A corpulent man draped in the finest silks and adorned with expensive jade rings raised his cup with a boisterous laugh.
Beside him, two men of similar bearing refilled his glass and preened with airs of grandeur.
These were the nouveaux riche who had accumulated vast fortunes through usury and smuggling throughout Hangzhou—the Three Tigers of Hangzhou, as they were called.
“Indeed! Until just days ago, that rat from Namgung had me so furious I couldn’t keep my meals down!”
Hwang, the eldest seated at the head of the table, brought his hand down hard upon it and raised his voice.
“The more I think on it, the more outrageous it becomes! We took in those Namgung wretches, crawling like beggars to escape the chaos of war, and offered them every courtesy!”
“Quite right, Brother! If someone receives such enormous kindness, the least they should do is hand over one of their declining household’s women—it’s only proper!”
“Yet that contemptible dog dared to break his word! We leased entire Pleasure Houses and inns throughout Hangzhou and prepared a grand feast for their wedding!”
As Hwang ground his teeth, Park, the third man seated beside him, smiled with venom.
“Come now, brother. Steady yourself. When all’s said and done, those Namgung women were merely playthings to amuse ourselves with for a few months, weren’t they? Besides, it’s precisely because that banquet fell apart that we’ve been handed an opportunity worth its weight in gold.”
At those words, greedy smiles bloomed across the faces of the nouveaux riches who had been fuming moments before.
“Tsk-tsk, the boy’s right. Word spreads, and now distinguished guests come calling.”
The Blood Cult.
A formidable organization that had reduced the Namgung clan to ashes and sent the Martial World into terror.
A high elder of the Blood Cult had come directly to them with a clandestine proposal.
If they aided in kidnapping those of Namgung blood, the Blood Cult would not only share its precious secret techniques but also secretly dispatch a First-Rate Master to their aid.
The three men, already harboring grievances against Namgung, seized upon this offer as though it were heaven-sent.
Yet their ambitions ran deeper still.
“We’ve made a fortune, yes, but haven’t the martial sects and great families of the Martial World looked down upon us all this time? Calling us upstarts without proper technique or pedigree! But that ends now!”
“Precisely! Once this affair concludes, we’ll stand behind the Blood Cult and become masters of a true noble house!”
“Ha-ha-ha! Who would dare slight us then? The victor writes history, after all!”
“Indeed! Who could have foreseen Namgung crumbling so pathetically? The times have changed!”
“Exactly! Opportunity comes only to those who seize it, and does it matter if the rope we climb is red or blue? Hold fast and rise to glory and riches—that’s all that matters!”
And so they became informants, denouncing anyone bearing the Namgung name to the Blood Cult at every turn.
Innocent souls were dragged away to captivity and sacrifice, yet their consciences bore not a shred of remorse.
Intoxicated by power and the promise of wealth and glory, they clinked their cups with carefree abandon.
“Here’s to the splendor that awaits us!”
Their vulgar laughter sank deep into the glittering night sky.

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