The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 18

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

Azure Heaven Celestial Demon Episode 18
Hye Gwang flexed his bronze-hued musculature as he withdrew the Prayer Beads from around his neck.
I took my place beside him and laid out our strategy.
“See it? The enemy commander’s gaze is fixed on the flames Jang Ho is unleashing.”
“Yes, it is so.”
“Sa Do Mu approaches from the blind spot and hurls the Prayer Beads. Use the Buddhist Scripture Technique to bind his arms and torso.”
“I shall remember. And what of you, Clan Master?”
“The moment his fan stops moving, I cut off his breath myself.”
“C-can that truly be done? If even slightly mistaken, the Clan Master’s life——”
“Who exactly are you worried about right now? You, who gained enlightenment through my aid.”
“That is——”
“Spare your concern. Focus. One mistake, and we all meet our maker.”
At my blunt rebuke, Hye Gwang swallowed hard.
A frame so frail it might scatter on the wind. Young, too.
Yet this one had orchestrated everything and granted enlightenment itself.
“Truly……”
Hye Gwang traced back my deeds, then breathed out a quiet exclamation.
“From first to last, nothing about you is ordinary.”
A solemn certainty settled across his features.
“Good. Now that we’ve come this far, we see it through to the end.”
In the same breath, an unwavering Fighting Spirit kindled in both his eyes.
Hiyah!
With a sharp cry, Hye Gwang’s form shot forward like a tiger unleashed.
In the heart of the battlefield, Jang Ho’s flames and Sa Do Mu’s tempest still clashed with savage fury.
The choking stench of burning flesh mingled with the reek of blood, making each breath a struggle.
As the blood flowing from Jang Ho’s mouth deepened, the ferocity of his flames began to wane.
“Khahaha! Wretched rat! Your reserves are finally spent!”
Sensing victory, Sa Do Mu burst into cruel laughter.
He poured forth every last shred of crimson tempest, bent on grinding Jang Ho to dust.
But then it came.
“One hundred eight vexations drift through the world as fleeting dust, yet the Buddhist Heart that pierces them becomes steel that shall never break.”
Hye Gwang drew the Prayer Beads to his chest. From between his lips flowed the luminous radiance of Shaolin.
“Intent becomes golden spheres that cleave the void, and True Qi weaves itself into a net of heaven that binds all directions!”
Over the ebony Prayer Beads wrapped around his palms, a blinding golden light blazed forth like the sun itself.
“What is that!”
Sa Do Mu turned his head too late, only now sensing the heavy Buddhist Qi—just as Hye Gwang hurled the Prayer Beads with all his strength toward empty air.
“By the hand of the Arhat, I bind the karma of this wicked demon into chains!”
Shhhrrrrip——!! The one hundred eight ebony beads, densely threaded together and suffused with Hye Gwang’s crystalline True Qi, swelled massively and stretched across the void in a great spiral.
“A beggar of the Beggar Sect shall aid a monk of Shaolin!”
This was his moment. Jang Ho wrapped the beads in flames.
He drove back Sa Do Mu’s tempest with fire even as the beads descended, utterly obscuring the man’s vision.
“You wretches!”
Sa Do Mu snarled and seized his fan again—but it was too late.
Thick beads fell mercilessly upon him, binding him fast.
The fan he held crumbled to ash beneath Jang Ho’s flames.
Crack! Clang!
“Ahhh!”
With arms and torso bound, Sa Do Mu thrashed and screamed.
The taut Prayer Beads could hold only so long.
‘Now.’
In that fleeting instant, I dropped into Draw Stance and surged forward.
“You will not die so pathetically!”
Grasping the gravity of his plight, Sa Do Mu locked his eyes on me and unleashed pure madness.
He wrung out every last drop of True Qi from his Dantian, and with a subtle rush, the Blood Pouches he carried suddenly floated free into the air of their own accord.
Boom! In the next instant, dozens of pouches burst open at once, birthing a colossal crimson tempest.
“Come! The new Clan Master of Namgung shall be torn to shreds by the vengeful spirits of his own bloodline!”
Without the tool of his fan, he summoned wind with nothing but his inborn True Qi.
A final, desperate thrash—squeezing the life force and Namgung blood to their absolute limit.
“C-Clan Master!”
Watching from afar, Jang Ho and Hye Gwang’s faces drained of all color.
I rushed forward but the tempest was too fierce—I couldn’t advance a single step.
“Gahhh!”
“I can’t get through…….”
In that instant, I realized the young Clan Master’s body was about to be torn to shreds.
‘I’ve crossed countless thresholds of death. What is there left to fear?’
Trapped within the storm, I held my breath against the razor-edged winds that howled around me.
Without blinking once, I poured every fiber of my mind into the rhythm of my heartbeat.
The world around me seemed to move in slow suspension. I existed alone in this moment.
‘This is……. Namgung blood.’
Within the crimson tempest ran the pure essence of the Namgung clan, thick and pervasive.
Consumed by resentment, it could not distinguish friend from foe—it thrashed violently, raging as though ready to obliterate me entirely.
“Gahhh!”
A situation that might have brought despair, yet in that same moment, I saw hope.
‘The blood that rages in the tempest is the same as the blood that flows through me. Then……’
I drew the blade across my left palm and let my blood spill forth.
As Namgung Hyuk’s crimson blood ran down the sword’s edge, seeping into the steel——
I unleashed the Ten Thousand Bloods Return to Origin with explosive force.
‘I will make this storm of resentment my own!’
Instead of forcing down the chaos with raw strength, I cried out to the vengeful souls of Namgung.
“Fallen spirits of the Namgung clan!”
Even as my bones threatened to shatter from the pain, my eyes remained steady and blazing.
“Wander no longer through Nine Heavens in sorrow. I shall unburden your resentment—set down your suffering and gladly lend your strength to the new master of Namgung!”
I drew the Azure Heaven Demonic Qi dwelling in my Dantian to its absolute limit.
In the same breath, thin blood trickled from the corner of my mouth as I roared aloud.
“I, Namgung Hyuk, shall make Azure Heaven great once more!”
My oath, filled with boldness and sincerity, pierced through the heart of the crimson storm.
Crack-crack-crack-crash——!
The vengeful energies that had shrieked and torn at the void suddenly ceased their fierce resistance, as though struck by a lie.
My blood flowing along the blade’s edge met the resentment of the tempest, and a vast resonance bloomed between them.
Only I—a Celestial Demon who had tasted death, the Clan Master of Namgung—could do such a thing.
Sa Do Mu, stripped of control over the tempest, gasped at the empty air, stunned.
“Wh-what……! This cannot be! How does a mere Namgung stripling command blood essence!”
I danced through the air, sleeves fluttering, as I seized the massive blood-wind in my blade.
I smiled coldly, watching confusion flood his face.
“Wretched vermin. Now you’ll pay the price for stealing another’s blood.”
My figure soared into the void, silhouetted against the full moon, draped in demonic presence.
I raised the sword overhead, and the Namgung crimson tempest coiled around it, releasing a terrifying pressure. And then——
‘Even if it is only fundamental sword technique, when one who has reached a great height wields it, the ultimate state blooms upon a sturdy foundation.’
I cast my gaze downward, eyes cold and bearing nothing but pure contempt.
“Devour him.”
A soft pronouncement. And then, a blade falling straight as an arrow.
[Asura Heaven Wind Sword Ultimate State: Explosive Fang]
Boom-boom-boom-crash——!!
The violet Azure Heaven Demonic Qi condensed at the blade’s tip erupted explosively.
It took form as a colossal demon beast’s jaws and fangs that seemed to swallow the heavens whole.
In the next instant, it descended upon Sa Do Mu with merciless fury.
“Shrieeeek! Blood Demon Barrier!!”
Sa Do Mu wrung out every last drop of his remaining life force and erected a barrier of immense thickness.
It was solid enough that, at my current level, I should not have been able to pierce it.
But the vengeful souls of Namgung gathered in my blade, united, and they aided me.
Shatter——!
The demonic barrier shattered like glass, scattering in all directions.
“No, it can’t……!”
Before his cry of despair could even fade, the demon beast’s massive maw closed around Sa Do Mu’s upper body and tore it clean away.
Crack-crunch, snap!
The gruesome, bone-shattering, organ-rupturing sound of annihilation.
From the severed stump where his head and shoulders once were, dark crimson blood gushed upward in a fountain.
The demon who had hungered for others’ blood his whole life had finally paid in blood himself, and died most horribly.
“Enemy commander Sa Do Mu has been eliminated!”
I landed and held my blood-stained blade high for all to see.
Whoosh—!
The liberated spirit of the Namgung Clan wrapped around me gently, then ascended high into the heavens.
The tempest cleared, and fell as crimson rain, pattering down upon us.
A pale, haunting Soul-Settling Requiem—a melody to soothe the restless resentment of the Namgung Clan.
I tilted my pallid, ethereal face upward, feeling the falling droplets in silence.
The sight must have seemed both otherworldly and overwhelming.
The warriors filling the battlefield couldn’t suppress their astonishment.
“The Blood Cult’s elder—felled in a single stroke!”
“Is that… is that truly the swordsmanship of the young master who was said to be so sickly…?”
Primal fear mingled with awe.
I found myself seeing the Demon Sect disciples who once gazed down at me in the Shipman Great Mountains.
“The elder has fallen! Scatter!”
“A monster…! Run!”
The remaining Blood Cult members, seized by panic, threw down their weapons and fled into the forest like hunted beasts, screaming.
Hye Gwang and Jang Ho, who had been staring at me in blank shock, snapped back to attention.
“Amitabha! If we let them escape, they’ll wreak horrors again!”
“You beggars! Earn your keep by dispatching these demons!”
With a mighty shout, they gave chase to the fleeing remnants.
“Ahhhhh!”
The fleeing enemies were bound helplessly by Hye Gwang’s Prayer Beads.
Then Jang Ho’s fists struck vital points, and they vomited black blood.
I had no intention of merely standing and watching.
Slash—! Shink-shink!
With each flash of my blade, the heads and limbs of the fleeing figures tumbled to the ground in heaps, like falling leaves.
“Mercy… mercy…!”
I severed blood vessels and throats with perfect precision, wasting no motion.
Thud—! Crack!
I drove my sword into the final enemy’s heart and twisted it mercilessly.
Thump. The last corpse collapsed onto the muddy ground pooled with blood.
The screams and killing intent that had filled the Chilheuk Forest fell silent as if it had all been a lie.
Around us, the mangled bodies of Blood Cult remnants formed a mountain.
The thick stench of blood pressed heavily upon the damp air.
“Amitabha……”
Hye Gwang rolled his blood-stained Prayer Beads and intoned the Buddha’s name with grave weight.
To kill was a grave taboo of the Buddhist Way.
The weight of blood upon his hands could never be light.
Jang Ho too wore a bitter expression, shaking blood from his clenched fists with a heavy sigh.
Though the Beggar Sect was said to uphold righteousness and honor, such thorough and merciless slaughter weighed even upon the hearts of masters who had weathered countless trials.
Soon both men’s gazes naturally fell upon me, standing alone in the center of the battlefield, waist-deep in blood.
In their eyes lay deep concern.
They seemed to fear that, however justified a clan’s vengeance might be, such a cruel deed was too much for so young a boy to bear.
Jang Ho approached with an awkward expression and spoke carefully.
“Young master… your burden must be great. Even though these are demons that corrode the world, the weight of directly taking life can crush the heart. If you feel sick, don’t hold it back—let it out. It’s like that for everyone at first……”
Hye Gwang too moved closer, adding in a worried tone.
“Indeed, you need not force composure. We shall bear this heavy karma for you.”
These two men offered me sympathy and comfort.
My heart heavy? Sickened by the weight of killing?
I flicked the blood from my blade cleanly through the air.
I drew a cigarette from my robe and placed it between my lips.
A spark that Jang Ho had exhaled was still burning on a post nearby.
Slowly, I lowered my head and lit the cigarette’s end.
With a soft hiss, I drew deeply on the burning cigarette, then exhaled a long plume of thick smoke into the air.
In the center of the battlefield, where curling smoke and crimson rain crossed paths.
I swept back my wet, disheveled hair and closed my eyes quietly.
My heart thundered fit to burst, hot blood surging violently through my veins, pushing back the cold of Absolute Nullification.
No longer the sickly boy of the Namgung Clan, coughing away in a narrow room, but the true self who painted the entire battlefield with blood—this perfect exhilaration of restoration.
“Kuh-kuh……”
A faint laugh escaped between my lips.
When I opened my long-closed eyes, a genuine smile bloomed across my face, impossible to restrain.
“…Young master?”
Jang Ho and Hye Gwang stiffened as they beheld a face so luminous that not a trace of sorrow or guilt could be found upon it.
“Karma, the weight of slaughter—let you others bear such burdens.”
Blood beaded at the rim of his eyelids as he answered in a languorous voice.
“I find myself mad with joy in this moment alone—crushing my enemies beneath my feet and drawing breath.”

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