The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 21

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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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Cang Tian’s Heavenly Demon — Episode 21
Amid the fervent oaths that rang out, I turned the matter quietly over in my mind.
‘We’re short on manpower, that’s for certain.’
The Nam Gung Main Clan House had been rebuilt and now displayed something of its former grandeur.
Yet the surrounding villages still lay in ruins.
There simply weren’t enough people to till the land and live.
But if those who had fled Nam Gung returned to their homeland once more?
‘Our strength would recover swiftly, and I’d have a long game to play for the future.’
The Blood Cult and the Heretic Sect were enormous organizations—too vast to oppose alone.
I too needed to build forces capable of waging war.
What troubled me was that these people had already abandoned their clan and fled; trusting them would be difficult.
‘But looking at the bitterness crystallized in their eyes, they might well be worth employing.’
They had been seized by the Blood Cult, teetering on death’s threshold.
And the savage remorse and guilt of having forsaken their clan had tempered them into entirely different people.
Since they wished to move forward anew, they had become worth gathering.
I exhaled smoke from the cigarette between my teeth and spoke.
“Since you’re so eager to offer your lives, I won’t stop you.”
At those words, Uncle, Nam Gung Gyeong, and the household members prostrate on the ground all stiffened visibly.
“I’ll use these meager lives to the breaking point for Nam Gung’s restoration.”
“C-Clan Master……!”
“Thank you! Truly, thank you, Clan Master!”
They had been given a chance to live once more under the name of Nam Gung.
At that fact, the Nam Gung people rejoiced as though they had been granted salvation.
“Uncle, lead the people back and settle affairs. Set aside the Blood Cult materials I’ve brought this time as well.”
“Very well. Will the Clan Master not accompany us……?”
“I intend to return to the Main Clan House first. We’ll see each other later.”
“I see. I shall obey your command. If word of this spreads widely and the scattered blood of Nam Gung wishes to gather once more, what would you have us do then……?”
“If there are those who wish to assemble again beneath Cheon Ju Mountain, verify their resolve thoroughly before accepting them. But any cowards still looking to save their own hides—cut them away without mercy.”
“I shall remember, and remember again, your words!”
Thus our separate paths were set.
From the stack of money notes I’d meant to tuck away, I withdrew several and cast them out again.
Then, with a gesture of dismissal, I tossed them onto Uncle’s chest.
“Here, take these.”
“Y-yes, Clan Master. Such a sum……?”
As Uncle received the notes in bewilderment, I turned my head dismissively and spoke in clipped tones.
“Take that money to the Government Office first. Go to the morgue there and gather up every last withered corpse of Nam Gung’s people that’s been left abandoned—and give them a proper rite.”
“Ah……!”
“Having died once myself, I’ve learned how vicious a vengeful ghost becomes when it dies wrongfully and never receives even a single memorial offering. What if those spirits blame their deaths on Nam Gung and attach themselves to me?”
For me, it was wisdom grounded entirely in experience.
Yet tears gathered in the eyes of the Nam Gung people as they heard it.
“Having died once……!”
Nam Gung Gyeong let out a sound of anguish, as though his chest were being torn apart.
“The Clan Master lying in sickbed coughing blood, helplessly watching our clan’s annihilation……!”
Then he turned to address the others.
“Though he speaks matter-of-factly, his words are brimming with responsibility for those beneath him!”
“C-Clan Master……! Sob, we failed to fathom such depths……!”
All of them, moved at once, bowed to me with genuine reverence.
Their faces held the look of those who had glimpsed the radiance of a saint.
“No, no! I said I don’t want vengeful spirits attaching to me? Why do you all keep crying!”
I barked sharply, but to no avail. They saw only a benevolent lord affecting stern dignity.
“Hah…….”
A sigh escaped unbidden at the sight of their rose-tinted delusion.
‘What sort of people are these?’
In any case, Uncle and the others began hurrying their preparations for Gangnam.
I too was about to mount my black horse at the gate and ride out alone.
But then.
“Why are you clinging like a leech instead of going to Gangnam with your father?”
I turned, and there was Nam Gung Gyeong, having somehow procured a sturdy mount, drawing up directly beside me.
Unmoved by my curt rebuke, he cupped his fist with spirited resolve.
“Since the Clan Master travels alone toward the Main Clan House, surely there must be at least one pair of hands to guide the way and shoulder the rough work. Please grant me leave to accompany you!”
Still, having a capable hand or two by one’s side was never unwelcome.
A decade can transform mountains and rivers, they say—yet a hundred years had passed since the days when I, the Demonic Celestial Destroyer, held dominion over the realm as Cang Tian.
The terrain and passages of Gangnam had grown unfamiliar enough that I dared not rely solely on the fragments of knowledge lingering in my mind.
Besides, as a former head steward who had managed caravans, he would make a capable guide—sharp of eye for roads and quick with reckoning.
“My father gladly granted me leave, saying I should serve faithfully at your side, Clan Master.”
I noted the brightness in his eyes with a slight nod.
“Then do as you wish.”
“Yes, Clan Master!”
Nam Gung Gyeong’s face flushed crimson at the sound of his own ringing reply.
An unmistakable fervor that could not be concealed.
The prospect of traveling alone with me seemed to quicken his very breath.
‘What is wrong with this one?’
I narrowed my brows slightly.
Recall my former life in the Demonic Sect.
My subordinates trembled like aspen leaves at merely the sight of my shadow.
Fear kept their eyes from even meeting mine.
Yet these Orthodox Faction fools of this present life were decidedly strange.
No matter how coldly I rejected them, how firmly I pushed them away, they persisted with determined effort to remain by my side.
That fervent gaze, brimming with loyalty.
It was unfamiliar and unsettling—a burden I found difficult to bear.
Still, I could hardly command them to cease their devoted reverence.
“Keep your distance. It disgusts me.”
I scratched my cheek irritably and pulled the reins taut. In the next breath, I urged the horse forward into the vast plains in a cloud of dust.
“Hy-yah!”

* * *
Warm sunlight poured across the plains.
Watching the Clan Master’s receding form, Nam Gung Gyeong felt his chest swell with emotion.
‘To the eye, merely a delicate youth—yet the presence one feels radiates a bearing vast as the heavens themselves.’
His reverence for the Clan Master had not come at once.
Once, the Clan Master had been nothing more than a sickly young master, nearly forgotten in existence.
But in that moment, trapped in the Blood Cult’s torture chamber, drained of blood and dying.
When the Clan Master descended through absolute darkness like a savior incarnate.
And that was not all.
With the Nam Gung technique thought lost forever, he had hewn down a towering demon.
In avenging the previous generation, he had announced the Nam Gung revival to all the realm.
Yet what stirred Nam Gung Gyeong’s heart most profoundly was the warmth and depth concealed beneath his frost-edged words and bearing.
‘Even his harsh expulsion of us from the inn—was that not a profound intent to see us shed our weakness and rise of our own strength?’
Had he not delivered those severe reproaches, they would have remained cowards all their lives, crushed beneath the weight of guilt for abandoning their clan.
Though he addressed others with rough words and an icy countenance, beneath lay a benevolence and righteousness as vast as Cang Tian itself—of this he was certain.
‘Too precious a figure to keep knowledge of to myself. When the scattered bloodline gathers at the Main Clan House, none must misunderstand the Clan Master’s profound intention!’
He carefully withdrew something from his breast.
It was the portable writing brush and ink, and the worn notebook he had always carried while serving as head steward of the caravan.
Originally kept for meticulous records of goods and the flow of wealth, its purpose had now transformed entirely.
It had become what he called the Records of the Cang Tian Clan Master—a chronicle of the great Clan Master’s every word and deed.
Thus Nam Gung Gyeong pursued, carefully touching the notebook even upon the swaying horse, jotting down observations as they rode.
Thud-thud.
The Clan Master’s black horse suddenly slowed its pace as they passed through the desolate way.
Nam Gung Gyeong craned his neck forward curiously, only to see several refugees worn from flight sprawled across the middle of the path.
Among them, an old man clutched his chest, wheezing in ragged, labored gasps as his body convulsed.
The horse’s path was completely blocked by his thrashing form.
“……Tsk.”
The Clan Master, seated upon the horse, furrowed his brow and clicked his tongue.
He dismounted, then rummaged through his breast with apparent irritation.
Producing several silver needles, he approached the afflicted man.
‘Silver needles……?’
Nam Gung Gyeong’s eyes widened barely an instant.
Whisp!
With a light flick of his fingers, the silver needle tore through the air and sank into the old man’s acupoint with absolute precision.
“Gahhh—!”
At the same moment, the old man’s eyes rolled back and he spat up a dark clot of blood.
‘Gasp! Could it be—did he just cut off his breath completely?’
Nam Gung Gyeong caught his breath in alarm, when a miracle unfolded before him.
The old man’s pallid complexion flushed with color in an instant, and he began to breathe freely, his airways suddenly clear.
With a single needle application, the twisted Qi and Blood was restored, the blocked Heart Meridian opened—a truly wondrous display of the Medical Arts.
“Dying in the street doesn’t deserve a grand funeral. It just gives the corpse handlers more work. I’ve cleared your airways, now get out of my way.”
Nam Gung Gyeong, who had been staring in stupefaction, gasped sharply.
‘This… this can’t be real…’
A genius not only with the sword, but with the Medical Arts as well!
Warriors typically dismiss medical knowledge as a trivial craft, scorning those who practice it.
Yet to have mastered Acupuncture with such precision—what did that truly mean?
‘The Clan Master must surely have been secretly cultivating the Life-Saving Art to rescue those persecuted souls throughout the Jianghu!’
While Nam Gung Gyeong was moved by this revelation, the vagrants scrambled to their feet and bowed their heads in gratitude.
Their voices trembled with the fervor of those who had just witnessed a miracle.
“Oh, I beg your forgiveness! That you would save a dying old man without asking for payment!”
But the Clan Master snorted and thrust out a thin hand abruptly.
“Who said it was free?”
“P-pardon…?”
“If I’ve saved a life, then payment must be rendered. My Medical Arts come at a price, you see. Hand over everything you have.”
The unexpected demand brought silence, and the vagrants grew flustered.
“Does this look like a jest to you?”
Then he rested his hand on the sword strapped to his back, and the vagrants jumped in panic, frantically searching their belongings.
They scraped together a handful of crumpled copper coins and worn trifles, trembling as they offered them up.
At the sight of the meager, pitiful sum, the Clan Master’s brow furrowed sharply.
“…Are you mocking me? My Medical Arts are worth no more than this pittance?”
With an irritated expression, he withdrew his hand abruptly.
“Never mind, keep it. I didn’t mean to squeeze blood from a stone. Consider tonight’s life-debt a loan—come pay me back when you can.”
He turned away coldly and mounted his horse once more.
As he moved forward, the vagrants, coming to their senses, called out in haste.
“W-wait! At least tell us the name of our benefactor! We swear we shall repay this debt and favor!”
At their plea, the Clan Master turned his head slightly and spoke in an indifferent voice.
“I am the Clan Master of Nam Gung. I’ll collect interest, so make sure you live hard and earn plenty to pay me back.”
With that, he stirred up clouds of dust and galloped swiftly away.
Nam Gung Gyeong, who had been watching the entire scene in a daze, suddenly gasped.
‘Ah… so that’s it…!’
His dark eyes began to tremble violently.
Any hypocrite would have saved the man as an act of charity, asking nothing in return.
But the Clan Master had deliberately played the heartless villain, demanding payment for the life.
Was it not to awaken them to the truth that health and life are treasures far more precious than any material wealth?
‘And more than that! By refusing the money and returning it, he eased the burden of those struggling in poverty. His words about leaving it as a debt—was that not a way to give them reason to repay, kindling hope and purpose so they might not abandon life itself, but persevere with stubborn determination?’
Moreover, in that final moment, he had revealed the name of Nam Gung.
‘With a single act done while merely passing through, the Clan Master has instilled Nam Gung’s noble righteousness deep in the hearts of common folk. Through these vagrants’ words, the tale of Nam Gung’s renewed compassion and benevolence shall spread far and wide throughout the Jianghu!’
To Nam Gung Gyeong, who led caravans and saw through the currents of wealth and the workings of the human heart, the Clan Master’s actions were nothing short of perfect strategy laid bare with chilling precision.
Scratch, scratch, scratch!
He hurriedly retrieved his Notebook and began wielding his brush with frenzied passion.
[While heading toward the Main Clan House, the Clan Master personally saved a starving commoner who lay dying on the road through wondrous Medical Arts. By demanding payment for the life, he imparted the weight of existence itself, yet then refused the coin to ease the burden of the poor.
He bound them by debt, giving them reason and hope to go on living, and finally revealed the name of Nam Gung, scattering the righteousness of our fallen house back into the Jianghu!
Ah! Though he appears cold and mercenary on the surface, within him lies the vast righteousness of Heaven itself—the salvation of the people and the restoration of our house!]
He moved like a scribe inscribing sacred texts.
Having recorded the words in his Notebook, Nam Gung Gyeong clasped it to his chest, moved to tears.
“Clan Master! I have recorded it all! This noble purpose and teaching, I shall pass it down through our line for generations!”
“…Lunatic. What have you been muttering about back there this whole time?”
The Clan Master, riding ahead at a distance, widened the gap with an expression of exasperation.
Even that sight brought joy to Nam Gung Gyeong, so thoroughly had his judgment been clouded.
“Hyah!”
With a face beaming with delight, he kicked the side of his horse and clung to the Clan Master like a leech.
“C-Clan Master! If you pull away so far, how can I capture your precious words in this Notebook? Even the lightest sigh carried on the wind would be profound enlightenment to me! No matter how harshly you try to shake me off, I, Nam Gung Gyeong, shall cling to your shadow like a shadow itself!”
“What are you saying? Ugh, just get back! You madman!”
The Clan Master groaned and pulled his reins even harder, but Nam Gung Gyeong kept pace with unbridled enthusiasm, pursuing him relentlessly.
Across the broad plains, a young Clan Master in genuine flight and a devoted follower in blind pursuit raced on in tandem.

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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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