The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 41

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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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The Azure Heavenly Demon — Episode 41
Namgung Gyeong’s chest swelled as though it might burst at any moment.
‘A secret mission with just the Clan Head and me!’
Ever since the momentous declaration to hunt down the Blood Cult,
among all the retainers of the Namgung Clan, only he had been chosen by the Clan Head.
He had been selected as the sole arms and legs to accompany this covert venture.
‘To be favored so greatly! I shall serve the Clan Head’s esteemed body faithfully and repay the kindness shown to me!’
Drawing upon his duties as commander of the Namgung Scout Unit, he moved with meticulous care, surveying their surroundings as he guided the way.
“Clan Head! Please halt! There is a great stone protruding three paces ahead! Your esteemed body may be harmed—allow me to clear it away at once!”
“……Just step over the cursed rock. No need to fuss about it.”
“Ah! Of course, Clan Head! Such gracious words to spare your subordinate’s labor……!”
“You’re loud. Let’s just walk in peace, shall we?”
“As you command!”
At last they arrived at a wild mountain hill on the border of Anhui Province.
Below, the ruins of an enormous estate spread out before them like a vast shadow.
“That is the former main stronghold of the Jinjueon Clan.”
Namgung Gyeong’s voice, heavy with careful observation, grew somber.
Until recently, this clan had held sway over one pillar of the Martial World, basking in glory.
Now it had been reduced to pitiable ash by war with the Seogun Clan.
Only toppled tiles and charred pillars remained, scattered across the barren earth by the desolate wind.
“Seeing what they once were, it feels all too real. A bitter sight indeed.”
Namgung Gyeong swallowed hard and gazed down, then turned to the Clan Head with a question.
“But Clan Head—truly do demons of the Blood Cult hide in a place reduced to nothing but ash?”
The Clan Head turned his gaze toward the thicket.
“They’re here, or they will be. Why not step out and introduce yourself?”
Who else was there? Namgung Gyeong spun around in alarm.
From behind the brush, moving with subtle presence, a young man emerged.
“You have arrived, Clan Head of the Namgung.”
The White Feather Fan fluttered gently.
The newcomer was none other than Jegal Un, Young Master of the Jegal Clan.
Behind him, dozens of elite martial artists moved like shadows, serving as his honor guard.
“Good. You arrived on time?”
“Yes, I was not late.”
As the Clan Head replied casually, Namgung Gyeong’s eyes grew sharp.
A prick of displeasure—that way Jegal Un regarded the Clan Head had never sat well with him.
The strange current flowing from the refined Young Master of the Jegal house.
That subtle, clinging gaze fixed upon the Clan Head!
‘A kindred spirit.’
He grasped it in an instant.
That man, too, yearned for the Clan Head’s favor as he himself did.
A cunning rival threatening his position as the Clan Head’s foremost confidant!
Jegal Un, in turn, caught sight of Namgung Gyeong’s overt wariness and the sparks flashing between them, and his eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Troublesome. Standing so close to the Namgung Clan Head like that.’
They saw through each other at a glance and stood facing one another.
“I am Namgung Gyeong, Commander of the Namgung Scout Unit.”
That alone might have sufficed for an introduction, yet he added more to it.
He wished to display that his bond with the Clan Head was no ordinary thing.
“I was once abducted by a Blood Cult elder and drained of blood, facing certain death. Yet the Clan Head himself came, lifting these four limbs to save my life. In gratitude for such grace, I have devoted myself without hesitation to all hardships, arriving at this place today.”
A fervent, almost zealous light kindled in Namgung Gyeong’s eyes.
“Who in this world has received a debt so heavy from the Clan Head? I have made it my life’s calling and honor to serve as the Clan Head’s arms and legs.”
He smiled broadly, displaying the depth of his devotion.
Yet Jegal Un did not even blink.
Instead, a subtle smile crossed his face behind the fan, and he answered in measured tones.
“I, too, have received grace. The scheming sorcery of the former Jinjueon Clan once threatened to spark a terrible war at the Jegal Clan’s main seat. But through the Clan Head’s brilliant deduction and overwhelming martial prowess, our family was delivered from great peril.”
He recalled that time, his voice taking on a peculiar excitement.
“As one who received that grace, the Clan Head is no less precious and irreplaceable to me than to anyone. A debt beyond measure.”
“Hmph! Even so, the Clan Head and I are bound by blood!”
Namgung Gyeong flared up, raising his voice.
“We share the name Namgung! Ours is a Heavenly Bond that cannot be severed!”
At those words, Jegal Un’s eyes grew cold and withdrawn.
He folded the fan and struck his palm with a sharp snap, driving his point home like a blade finding its mark.
“Surely you know the saying—a near neighbor is better than a distant relative? And yet…you speak of Heavenly Bonds. How curious that one who abandoned that noble name and fled when the ancestral house faced ruin now invokes the weight of blood kinship.”
“Kgh…!”
Jegal Un had completed his investigation into everything that had transpired within the Namgung Clan.
Namgung Gyeong’s face flushed crimson, then deepened to purple—caught in the wound of his past cowardice.
Rather than retreat, he thrust his neck forward, veins bulging.
“I—I have already finished regretting my past weakness! Now, with a mind of Certain Death is Life, I have staked everything upon the Clan Head! How could I, who have only now begun to cultivate this bond, possibly be compared to you, who extend such shallow ties?”
“Hmm, and yet you measure the depth of kinship by time alone?”
Jegal Un opened the White Feather Fan once more, tilting his chin upward with ease.
“If two know themselves to be truly necessary to each other, no span of years is required for harmony to flourish. It is as we say—Water-Fish Friendship. If the great Clan Head is the water itself, then I, Jegal Un, am the fish that swims within it.”
Jegal Un’s gaze fixed upon Namgung Gyeong without mercy.
“Though the turbid currents that once scattered around us now flow back, adding some small depth to the pond…in the end, who truly glides freely through those clear waters? None but a fish like myself.”
“Y—turbid currents? Are you calling me muddy water!”
“Ah, forgive me—I spoke of no one in particular. Do not excite yourself so.”
“Tch…!”
The two men glared at each other as though ready to strike, growling low.

* * *
‘…What in heaven are they doing?’
I exhaled sharply, exasperated by the battle of wills unfolding beside me.
In my previous life, when I reigned as the Heavenly Demon Lord.
My subordinates dared not meet my eyes, trembling with terror and bowing their heads to the ground.
They lived in silence, desperate only to avoid drawing my displeasure.
This life was altogether different.
Here they fought tooth and nail for the spot at my side.
Truly, the sight was strange and profoundly uncomfortable.
“What are you two doing?”
“C—Clan Head?”
“My lord…ah, no.”
Like offering drums when expecting rice cakes.
“If you mean to obstruct my path, I have no use for either of you.”
Both men jumped to their feet at the chill in my voice.
“No, no! How could we ever hinder the Clan Head’s way!”
“Quite right! We were merely exchanging cordial greetings!”
As though they had never snarled at all, they threw arms around each other’s shoulders and forced brittle smiles.
“Ha ha ha! From this day forward, we two have sworn a single heart and mind to serve the Clan Head with utmost devotion!”
“Precisely! Is not the Water-Fish Friendship between Namgung and Jegal spoken of us, ha ha ha!”
Their mouths laughed, yet the grip of their hands on each other’s shoulders drew tight with white-knuckled tension.
In their meeting eyes burned a thick contempt for one another.
‘…It seems I am accumulating an unintended pile of complications.’
I pressed my forehead, the headache deepening.
For now, the task at hand took priority.
“Dispense with the prattle. Report on the situation.”
At my word, Jegal Un hastily grasped the White Feather Fan and straightened himself.
He returned to the face of a sharp strategist and opened his mouth.
“Exactly as you foresaw, Clan Head. A devastating war has erupted between the Seogun Clan and the Jinjueon Clan, and the Jinjueon Clan in particular has descended into ruin.”
A bitter and profound reverence gleamed in Jegal Un’s eyes.
“How could you have known? That these two houses would fall so utterly to mutual destruction?”
“It is obvious enough.”
I had lived a life steeped in bloodshed. My answer came flatly.
“When men are blinded by rage and resentment, they lose all sense of proportion. They blame each other, tear each other down, quarrel endlessly. And in time, that becomes their entire world.”
It was a bitter truth.
Jegal Un sighed as though pained.
“Had we known earlier, might we not have stepped in to prevent it? It is a great loss to the orthodox sects.”
“Prevent it?”
A short, derisive laugh escaped me.
“They went so far as to annihilate their own houses, knowing full well the Blood Cult lurked behind it all. Do you truly believe they fought in ignorance? The principals themselves, consumed by their own fury, could not master themselves—what could we outsiders hope to stop?”
“That is…”
“Were you prepared to leap into the fire yourself, risking your own clan’s fate? Or merely to mouth hollow platitudes of peace for the sake of trivial causes?”
From the moment Eon Tae-gyeong killed the successor of the Seogun Clan and the Seogun Clan Head slew Eon Tae-gyeong in turn, the war between those two houses was written in stone.
“If you clumsily mediate or take the side of someone who didn’t ask for your help, the flames of that war will spread to your Jegal Clan. The Namgung Clan faces the same risk.”
As my words ended, Jegal Un’s pupils dilated sharply.
A clarity of judgment that seemed impossible for someone of his tender years.
He appeared startled by the depth of his understanding—how keenly he grasped the Martial World’s ruthless nature.
“Ah…….”
He exhaled a damp breath, then gazed up at me with glistening eyes.
“Indeed……. I, Jegal Un, have learned once more. I beg you, continue to bestow such teachings upon me…….”
His earnest gaze made my brow furrow of its own accord.
‘Is this kid really this shadowy by nature?’
When I first saw him, he was an inscrutable schemer.
But somewhere along the way, his manner toward me had shifted to something like yearning.
The conversation with Namgung Gyeong just moments ago had been the same.
Unsettled by how he seemed to hunger for my words, I steered the conversation elsewhere.
“Never mind that. So, what of the task I instructed you to undertake?”
At my prodding, Jegal Un smacked his lips reluctantly before returning to the matter at hand.
“Yes. As the Clan Head requested, the moment the war between the Seogun Clan and the Jinjueon Clan ended, I led our finest warriors here and have been lying in ambush.”
Jegal Un pointed with the White Feather Fan toward the ruins below the hill.
“Remarkably, we confirmed that suspicious figures have been appearing covertly and ransacking the Jinjueon Clan’s ruins thoroughly. The stench of blood is so pungent it can only be the Blood Cult.”
Jegal Un asked with genuine curiosity.
“How did you foresee it this time? That the Blood Cult would infiltrate these desolate ruins directly?”
“Because of the Corpse Refinement Technique Secret Manuals and intelligence the Blood Cult had handed over to me.”
I answered quietly.
“If those remain within the Jinjueon Clan’s ruins, they will become a weakness for the Blood Cult. They will emerge to erase this vulnerability.”
But that is not all.
“Do you know the secret by which the Blood Cult, that heretical sect, has tenaciously survived and grown powerful through all these long years?”
I contemplated this day, recalling the blood feud with the Blood Cult stretching back through my previous life.
“They are parasites who steal anything, refine it, reshape it to suit their appetites, and consume it. So when the Jinjueon Clan fell, they will not only recover their own Corpse Refinement Technique Secret Manuals—they will attempt to steal the hidden Secret Manuals that the Jinjueon Clan has passed down through generations.”
That is why I had made this request of Jegal Un, who said he would repay his debt.
To lead the Jegal Clan’s elite warriors and lie in ambush at the Jinjueon Clan ruins beforehand.
“Indeed, that is precisely what has occurred.”
Jegal Un nodded deeply in admiration, his eyes gleaming with a sharp edge.
“If the Blood Cult escapes with both the Jinjueon Clan’s Corpse Refinement Technique and their hidden Secret Manuals intact, it is clear that great chaos will descend upon the realm once more. Our Jegal Clan has likewise taken this matter with utmost gravity and has committed our finest warriors to the cause. I beg you, trust in us and employ us as you see fit.”
“You’ve prepared thoroughly, I trust?”
“Of course. We have already identified the escape routes the enemies will take and have laid out the Formation Technique for which our clan is renowned.”
In that moment, I recalled the Jegal Clan’s vexingly intricate Formation Techniques—the very ones that had so often obstructed my path when I wielded dominion as the Heavenly Demon Lord and swept across the Central Plains in my previous life.
‘To think I now employ the scheming of those troublesome fools for my own ends.’
A satisfied smile played at my lips.
“Good. Lead the way.”

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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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