The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 42

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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 Demon 042
The Maze Formation, a secret art of the Jegal Clan, spread out around the thicket in all directions.
It was far from the crude level of simply arranging trees and stones.
The elevation differences of the terrain, the refraction of light, and even the mist rising from the valley had been calculated with meticulous care.
A massive illusion had been planted that would rob one of directional sense.
Such precision that even with eyes wide open, one would stumble down the wrong path.
It reminded me anew why, when my former self had swept through Zhongyuan, I’d been so irritated by those Jegal clan bastards and their scheming.
Jegal Un waved the White Feather Fan, letting a subtle pride show through.
“Layering the principles of the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams onto nature itself is the special forte of our Jegal Clan. Even a bird flying through the void would lose its way within this formation and plummet to earth.”
Certainly, as a terrestrial formation, it approached perfection. Yet.
“Impressive enough, but there’s one thing that needs addressing.”
“Yes? And what might that be?”
I prodded the ground with my sword. Though solid and unlikely to yield easily—
“You’ve overlooked why those Blood Cult rats have survived so tenaciously through the ages, evading subjugation. Perfect or not, if they tunnel underground and flee, how will you stop them?”
“Begging your pardon? Underground, you say?”
Bewilderment crossed Jegal Un’s face. He clearly hadn’t anticipated this.
“Before the Blood Cult took to wielding Blood Qi stolen from the Demon Sect, they were masters of Earth Qi—the natural vitality of the ground itself. When cornered, they’re adept at boring through earth like moles and fleeing into the depths below.”
This was a hardship I’d learned firsthand when facing the Blood Cult in my former life.
I’d hoped we might be prepared for it this time as well.
“I see. Since the Blood Cult guards their secrets so fiercely, we haven’t grasped their methods with precision. But Clan Master, how do you come to know such deep intelligence?”
Because I was the Heavenly Demon who fought them for a lifetime.
If I said that, it would only invite trouble. I answered plainly instead.
“I am of the Namgung line, which was nearly extinguished by the Blood Cult’s ambush. To avenge them, I’ve delved deep into investigating everything about those dogs—their roots, their habits, down to the bone.”
“Your insight already surpasses the wisdom of the Jegal Clan itself. Extraordinary.”
Jegal Un bowed his head in genuine admiration. Namgung Gyeong, who had been quietly observing from behind, felt the same.
“Ah…!”
With reddened eyes, he’d crammed an entire fist into his mouth.
“Good heavens! So the Clan Master, who was small and frail in youth, has labored so hard to avenge the family’s wrongs—and here I’ve spent all this time pathetically running and thinking only of survival…”
Reverence and regret mingled together.
Flames of determination burned bright in his eyes as he gazed at me.
‘Here he goes again, working himself into a state.’
To escape that uncomfortable stare, I turned to the two of them and asked for their thoughts.
“Sentiment aside—if those rats panic and burrow underground, it’ll be a headache to root them out. Before they can, do either of you have a way to bind their feet?”
Then Namgung Gyeong, with his keen eye for terrain, spoke up first with a sound idea.
“As captain of the scouts, I’ve closely surveyed the surrounding landscape while climbing this mountain. I noticed numerous streams, large and small, scattering down from ridges above. What if we slightly divert those water courses and channel them all together into the formation, then release them in a single torrent?”
He pointed toward a dry patch of ground to emphasize his point.
“Sodden, waterlogged earth will weigh heavy on an enemy’s body. Their limbs will sink deep into the mire—escape will be impossible.”
I nodded at Namgung Gyeong’s proposal.
“A fairly sound notion. Saturate the ground thoroughly and neutralize their specialty.”
Namgung Gyeong’s face brightened at my praise, and he flicked a triumphant glance toward Jegal Un.
Jegal Un’s eyebrows twitched, then, as if he couldn’t accept defeat, he stepped forward.
“The scout captain’s eye is not without merit, yet mere mud alone is insufficient to completely shackle their feet.”
He then gestured with the White Feather Fan toward the interior of the formation.
“I will pack the mud thick with plant stems and toxic herbs that fell in autumn and rotted through winter. When the dike breaks and releases the water, those will be swept along with it, transforming simple mud into a vicious, noxious swamp. Then the enemy won’t merely fail to burrow—their bodies will stiffen, wracked with agony, unable to budge.”
At Jegal Un’s words, Namgung Gyeong pointed an accusing finger.
“Hmph! So you mean to capitalize on my water channels!”
“I merely flesh out a skeletal concept with the meat of wisdom, rendering it perfect.”
The two of them were at it again, sparks flying as they leaned in on either side of me.
“Sigh. Here we go again.”
I exhaled softly, and as if nothing had happened, they reluctantly linked arms together.
“Both of you have thought of viable schemes. But if the ground becomes swamp, won’t we be constrained as well?”
At my point, Jegal Un smiled and indicated the shoes he was wearing.
“The Step Cloud Shoes, crafted from the silk of Heaven Mountain Snow Silkworms and reinforced with the hide of a light-bodied spirit beast. The sole has been repeatedly layered and baked with the resin of buoyant timber, light enough to float on water itself, and the surface is densely woven with silk that repels moisture. Even in the deepest mire, no mud clings, and one never sinks. These are rare items that only the Jegal Clan can craft.”
He lightly rolled the toe of one shoe across the ground and continued.
“Moreover, these shoes respond with great sensitivity to wind essence. When we Jegal folk, who have long cultivated Wind Qi, channel our internal force into them, wind gathers beneath the foot and the effect doubles. One can walk across the swamp as if on level ground.”
Hearing this, I looked down at my own feet.
I was already wearing the shoes the Jegal Clan had gifted me at the last Dragon Phoenix Gathering.
“I’m deeply moved that you’re already wearing what I provided…!”
“They’re remarkably comfortable.”
Now there was a reason they fit so well.
“There is a wind that blows through Cang Tian and passes on from the Namgung. If the principle is to infuse Internal Force and hold the wind in place, then I too shall not sink into this mire.”
At my words, Jegal Un folded his fan and bowed his head slightly.
Just then, Namgung Gyeong, who had been listening to our conversation, suddenly thrust out his hand.
“I beg your pardon, Second Master Jegal! Hand mine over at once! I must stand beside the Clan Master and cut down those dogs!”
But Jegal Un let out a dismissive laugh and looked Namgung Gyeong up and down.
“I brought only what was needed, so there are no extra shoes to spare. Even if you were to change into them, your shallow cultivation would never allow you to wield them properly. Rather than stumble about uselessly up front and spoil the formation, why don’t you simply fall back and keep a careful watch on the path by which the enemy approaches?”
“What—how dare you! Are you mocking the sincere devotion I would pour out for the Clan Master!”
Namgung Gyeong bristled and gripped the sword at his waist.
Watching him throw his weight around, insisting he fight at the vanguard, stirred something irritating in me.
“Enough.”
I stepped forward and broke his stubbornness.
“Each man excels at different things. What I expect from you is not to charge ahead swinging a blade, but to scout your surroundings carefully and keep me informed of what unfolds.”
I fixed him with a cold stare.
“To covet a role beyond your measure and die a dog’s death serving no purpose—that would be worthless for you and equally worthless for me. So do what you do well.”
The message was clear: stay out of the way and keep quiet.
But the moment Namgung Gyeong heard my rebuke, his pupils trembled as though seized by an earthquake.
And then he began muttering aloud for all to hear.
“The Clan Master… thinks so highly of even my worthless life! Moreover, he values my talents above all others!”
Namgung Gyeong’s eyes grew red once more.
He beamed with joy, clamped his hand over his mouth, and began backing away.
“I shall remember this always! What I do best… yes, it is to watch all that surrounds us and faithfully record every deed of the Clan Master!”
He hurried behind a thick wooden pillar, his face flushed with excitement as his breathing grew ragged.
“Huff… huff…”
Exhaling dampened breath, he scanned the surroundings with gleaming eyes while fumbling from his robes an old notebook and brush, then began scribbling furiously at whatever seized his mind.
At the sight of this bizarre display, my brow furrowed deeply.
“You fool—stop writing down strange things back there!”
I barked the words aloud, but Namgung Gyeong had already poured his soul into his brush and lost himself in the trance of his work.
“Damn it.”
I swallowed a curse and glanced to the side, where Jegal Un’s reaction seemed unsettling.
“Ah, what romance this is.”
As though he sympathized madly with Namgung Gyeong’s state of mind even in the midst of battle.
“I simply don’t understand it.”
I shook my head, unable to make sense of such behavior.
‘I’m lost. What enchantment has gripped him, exactly?’
In any case, I shouldered my sword and deepened my gaze with cold intent.
“Prepare yourselves.”

* * *
At that very moment.
“Make haste. There is nothing to gain by lingering in this place.”
Gu Ma, leader of the Death Blood Squad, the assassination unit of the Blood Cult, growled low.
His appearance was exactly as his name suggested—he looked like a starving wild dog.
His eyes were split and threaded with bloodshot veins, and his cheekbones protruded grotesquely.
His lips were thin and he smiled frequently, but bitterly—revealing yellowed teeth that hooked forward and sent shivers down the spine.
A deep diagonal scar ran across half his face.
His frame was gaunt, with his neck thrust forward and shoulders hunched inward.
At first glance he seemed skeletal, but the sinews rising from his forearms and the nape of his neck spoke of long years honing his body through rigorous discipline.
At his waist hung an enormous saber, its blade serrated like saw teeth.
Leading his subordinates, Gu Ma ransacked the surroundings thoroughly.
The ancestral home of the Zhen clan had been utterly destroyed in the catastrophic war with the Seomun Clan.
Collapsed pavilions and unrecognizable charred corpses lay strewn about, yet to the Blood Cult assassins, such things were mere decoration in their world of blood and death.
“Commander, we have found it.”
One of the assassins searching the deepest recesses of the ruins, through the half-demolished secret arsenal, trembled at the nostrils.
There was a Blood Scent only they could perceive—a trap laid in secret to track the secret manuals.
When Gu Ma destroyed the wooden box with blood-stained hands, old texts spilled out.
The secret manual on corpse-raising arts from the Maoshan Sect—the very bait they had dangled before the Zhen clan.
And the family transmission texts that had been passed down through generations of the Zhen clan.
“Hehehehe, just as I thought—those foolish Righteous Faction dogs. Unable to restrain themselves, they destroyed one another, and thanks to their mutual annihilation, we have achieved our objective with ease.”
Gu Ma’s eyes gleamed with avarice as he tucked the secret manuals deep within his robes.
“The objective is secured. We depart this place at once before the Righteous Faction vermin catch wind of us.”
With the signal given, a dozen assassins hurled themselves through the shadows like wraiths.
Their movements were covert and swift, every escape route calculated with precision.
It was then, as they passed beneath the foot of the hillside, that something shifted.
Whoosh—
A desolate wind swept down from nowhere, and the mist around them began to thicken with an eerie, unnatural density.
“W-what…?”
The lead assassin faltered, his voice trembling as he came to a halt.
They had been walking the path correctly, or so he was certain.
Yet what lay before them was a place they had already passed half an hour ago.
“What sorcery is this!”
“The road—it’s twisting!”
The panicked assassins scattered in all directions, desperate to find a way out.
But the result was always the same.
When they fled eastward, a boulder from the west blocked their path.
When they hurled themselves westward, a cliff from the south yawned open before them.
Trees and stones around them, even the moonlight itself, writhed like living creatures, utterly destroying all sense of direction.
“This is… this is the Qi Men Dun Jia formation!”
Gu Ma’s eyes widened in shock.
He spun around, his gaze wild with panic, searching the surrounding chaos.
Only one clan in all of Zhongyuan could deploy such an intricate and vast formation in a matter of moments.
“It’s the Jegal Clan! The righteous faction vermin have ambushed us!”
Gu Ma’s voice cracked like a whip, torn between fury and fear.
“Do not lose your nerve! It is nothing but illusion, a pale imitation of nature!”
With that, he pointed downward.
“Bore through the earth! If the surface deceives us, we will carve our escape through the ground itself!”
Before the guardian’s command had even finished, the assassins drove their palms down against the earth in perfect unison.
Crunch-crunch-crunch—!
Murky Earth Qi erupted from their dantians and seeped into the ground.
The solid earth instantly softened like tofu.
Soon a passage large enough for a man to crawl through had formed.
The assassins hurriedly squeezed themselves into the opening, desperate to escape the formation.
“Foolish demons, the Gate of Life is already sealed. Where do you think you are running?”
At the cool voice from above, Gu Ma’s head snapped upward.
There, perched upon a thick branch of the ancient tree, stood a figure in flowing crane robes, sleeves rippling with grace.
It was Jegal Un. The White Feather Fan traced a strange arc through the air.
Secret technique—Wind Sweeps Lingering Cloud.
Whiiiii—!!
A savage gale tore from the fan’s edge, ripping through the forest with vicious force.
It smashed through a section of the riverbank that had been held in check by the formation.
Crash—!
“No—!”
As the levee burst, icy water cascaded down the mountainside in a torrential deluge.
The current swept up rotted leaves and the poisonous remains of toxic herbs that had lain thick on the ground all winter, swelling into a churning flood.
Into the tunnel the Blood Cult assassins had so desperately dug poured a waterfall of toxic black mud and sludge.
“Aaahhh!”
“I’m sinking—!”
The assassins already half-buried flailed desperately in the viscous mire.
Their faces drained of color even as their bodies were engulfed in filth.
Then Jegal Un opened the fan wide and issued his command.
“Now! Attack! Shall we show mercy in striking down demons?”
The warriors of the Jegal Clan who had been lying in wait above dropped from the trees in unison.
They slid across the mire as if it were ice, positioning themselves for the assault.
In their hands gleamed sharp iron brushes—the Iron Brush.
The martial art they wielded was the Heavenly and Earthly Majestic Sword Technique.
It carried the righteousness of the Righteous Faction—unbending, uncompromising, absolute.
As the Jegal Clan’s secret sword art flowed through the Iron Brushes instead, it mercilessly pierced the Vital Points of their enemies, slowed and dulled by the bog.
“Ugh!”
“Argh!”
From all sides, the overwhelming assault came, and the Blood Cult assassins coughed up blood.
Though they drew their blades too late and tried to fight back, they struggled even to pull their waist-deep bodies free from the mire.
Meanwhile, the Jegal Clan had seized the high ground in favorable terrain.
Though the family’s combat strength was known to be unremarkable, this time was different.
“This—this treachery! Insolent bastards!”
As his subordinates fell in one-sided slaughter, Gu Ma’s eyes rolled white with fury.
The madness in his gaze fixed on Jegal Un, who stood at the rear.
‘That one must be the commander! I’ll seize his life and take him hostage!’
His hunched spine snapped straight like a spring, launching him skyward.
In his grip was a serrated blade, its teeth glinting wickedly.
He aimed for Jegal Un’s crown—the man too distracted by redirecting the water’s flow to notice the danger.
“Die!”
The blade fell without mercy.
Jegal Un realized only then that he stood at death’s door.
“Ugh!”
He twisted to escape, but Gu Ma’s blade was far faster.
His neatly bound hair came undone as the killing stroke descended—
Crash—!!!!
Where a bone-shattering sonic boom should have erupted, a sharp metallic shriek tore through the air instead.
In that instant.
A Pure White Sword materialized in a gap no wider than a finger.
“……!”
Gu Ma’s eyes bulged wide with shock, as if they might burst from his skull.
A tremendous gale erupted from the blade—Whoosh—!
“Gahhh!”
He careened backward a dozen lengths before barely catching himself on a tree branch.
Below, his trapped subordinates screamed and perished in the marsh.
From an opposite tree, he fixed his gaze on the meddler who held his sword at an angle.
A blue robe rippled in the eerie wind, long hair streaming behind him.
Then came the pallid complexion and an angelic, youthful face.
In his hand, the Pure White Sword gleamed, and around him coiled a violet shimmer.
And above the boy’s head alone, as if heaven itself were showing favoritism, poured the moon’s light.
Taken together, it was like gazing upon the Milky Way ablaze in the night sky.
“Who—who in the hell are you!”
Gu Ma trembled, startled at the involuntary quivering of his own fingertips.
The aura radiating from the boy encompassed both the heavens and the abyss—no mortal of this world could possibly emit such a presence.
“Who am I?”
The boy rolled a cigarette between his lips in response to Gu Ma’s question.
The strain of parrying that last blow had cost him; a thin stream of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
“Can’t you tell by looking?”
Then he exhaled a long plume of smoke—Whoosh—and curled one corner of his mouth into a bitter smile.
“I am Namgung Hyeok, Clan Master of Cang Tian Namgung.”

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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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