The Heavenly Demon of the Blue Sky - Chapter 7

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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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Cangntian Heavenly Demon Episode 7
A month had flown past like an arrow shot from a bow.
In place of the wooden sword worn thin from ten thousand swings, Yuhwa and I now gripped old real swords in our hands.
Clang—!
In the Inner Courtyard, sparks flew in all directions with the crisp ring of steel.
“Ha-up!”
Training so fierce it resembled actual combat.
‘Hmm.’
At first, Yuhwa had been tense, her limbs clumsy. But somewhere along the way, she’d developed the sharp bearing of a true swordsman.
My own movements had grown fluid beyond compare to a month ago, and my stamina had improved as well.
Though compared to others my age, I was still a head shorter and lean as a rail.
Still, it was progress by leaps and bounds from where I’d started mere weeks ago.
“That’s enough for today.”
“Ha… ha… Mm!”
As I lowered my sword, Yuhwa sheathed hers, catching her breath in ragged gasps.
Beads of sweat, knotted along her forehead, rolled down her chin and fell to the ground with a soft patter.
“Well done. Go rest inside.”
After watching her disappear, I returned to my room as well.
Deep into the night, I sat in meditation, quietly refining my cultivation in stillness.
“…!?”
Through senses honed sharper than before, I felt unfamiliar presences drawing near.
I opened the door and lightly ascended to the rooftop.
Facing the cool night breeze, I cast my gaze into the distance.
‘Who are they…?’
A dozen shadows were creeping through the ruins of the village.
Why else would masked figures approach with such shameless stealth?
Clearly, they were vagabonds come to strip a fallen house bare.
I dropped from the roof and immediately gathered everyone together.
Handing keys to my sisters, I warned them of the danger.
“There are intruders. More than a few. All of you—hide yourselves in the Storage Building.”
At news of the threat, the servants’ faces went pale.
“Brother, what do you mean to do…?”
I gently pulled free from the grasping sleeve and answered.
“We’ve only just begun to gather some things for this place. I don’t know what alley these strays crawled out of, but I won’t stand idle while my home is gutted.”
“Then we’ll fight too! We can’t leave this to you alone!”
“We’ll stake our lives on it! This time, we won’t run!”
Yeonhwa and Seolhwa drew silver blades from within their sleeves.
Baek and the servants produced the herbs they’d been grinding and picked up brooms and pestles from the floor.
Their resolve was admirable, but I shook my head without mercy.
“You don’t know how to fight. Helping will only get you killed or taken hostage, becoming dead weight.”
I pushed them toward the Storage Building, insisting there was no time to waste.
“Trust me. Staying locked away is the greatest help you can be.”
In my past life, I would have let such eager fighters fight and simply used them to my advantage.
But facing people who would stake their lives for one as weak as I currently am, I found myself wanting to protect them instead.
‘Foolish creatures. As if anything could be more precious than life itself. Tsk.’
Even as I clicked my tongue inwardly, I felt warmth bloom in my chest as I closed the Storage Building door.
Clang—! The moment I shut the heavy iron door behind them, I turned to leave.
“Brother.”
Yuhwa, dressed in a blue martial robe, slipped through the closing gap.
Two real swords—the ones we’d clashed together countless times—hung at her waist.
“I want to come with you. I promise I won’t be a burden.”
It was true that she’d grown stronger through our training.
She could hold her own against the approaching enemies. But.
“Walking the path of the blade and taking a life are entirely different things.”
I fixed her with a cool, unwavering gaze.
“Are you ready to cut flesh, to be drenched in hot blood?”
If I saw even a flicker of hesitation, I would leave her behind.
But Yuhwa bit her lower lip hard, then nodded firmly.
“I won’t abandon my brother to face this alone, not out of fear of blood.”
In her eyes burned a resolve that would bend before it would break.
“Good. Do it.”
He nodded, then extinguished every brazier lit throughout the Inner Courtyard.
Darkness swallowed him whole, and his eyes gleamed with a cool, predatory light.
Like a swift predator waiting in tall grass for prey to wander into reach.

* * *
Meanwhile, at the outer edges of Namgung, ten uninvited guests crossed the threshold.
Eyes glinted in the darkness, hungry and murderous.
They were disciples of Pasanbumon, a minor martial sect that dealt primarily in axes—or so they had been, once.
But their nature was vicious and cruel, and after being expelled, they had descended into common banditry.
They haunted the lawless regions that had grown lax since Namgung’s fall, making their living through plunder and murder.
Their leader stood out among them—a giant of a man, unmistakable even in shadow.
Built like a mountain, carved from stone, with a massive, heavy frame.
Strapped across his back hung an axe as large as a man’s torso, its blade a sickly blue-green.
The Blood Axe. Wang Sam.
Once, he had been Pasanbumon’s most promising disciple.
But he could no longer stomach his master’s insistence on virtue and austere living, and resentment had festered into contempt.
‘If a man gains strength, he ought to slit open the weak and feast like a king—that’s the way of the world in chaos! To spend a lifetime eating thin gruel? To hell with that sophistry!’
In the end, he had repaid his master’s kindness by cutting his throat with his own hands, then gathered disciples of like mind and had thus continued until today.
“Bah. Ptooey.”
One of his subordinates kicked at a charred tile and grumbled.
“Captain, wasn’t this place already picked clean by those Hyeol Gyo bastards? They burned it down too. What could possibly be left worth searching in the dead of night?”
“That’s what I’m saying. Doesn’t look like there’s even a rat left……”
Wang Sam, leading from the front, bared yellow teeth and growled low.
“Fool. Just because this clan fell to ash doesn’t mean it was some backwater provincial house. This is Namgung—once called one of the Five Great Families.”
“Y-yes, Captain, but……”
“A great family always has secret vaults, hidden storage buildings the flames missed. And now that the martial world’s attention has turned elsewhere, heaven itself has handed us this opportunity.”
A sickly blue hunger flashed in Wang Sam’s eyes.
“Search thoroughly. If we’re lucky enough to pocket Namgung’s secret techniques or treasures, we finally get to make something of ourselves! Why should we keep scrounging in the mountains, robbing peasants?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“We’ll use the techniques we steal to build a respectable martial cultivation, buy our way into legitimacy with stolen gold, and then strike out into the light and establish our own sect!”
Wang Sam clenched his fist, his voice rising.
“Once we wear the name of a faction, we can bleed the locals dry with ‘protection fees’ and live like kings.”
His men’s eyes glowed with greed.
“Captain, you’re brilliant! You had it all planned out!”
“Tonight we’ll comb through every last ash and cinder of Namgung!”
The bandits crossed the collapsed threshold of Namgung’s main house with swagger. Then—
Wheeeee—! A wind so cold it froze the marrow swept across the courtyard.
No ordinary night breeze. A deep purple wind that seemed to stain even the darkness itself.
“Wh-what the—?!”
Whoosh! The torches every bandit held snuffed out in unison.
Absolute darkness crashed down in an instant, stealing even the span of a hand’s breadth from sight.
“C-Captain! The torches—!”
One panicked bandit was raising his voice in confusion when—
A blade of eerie, terrible quiet tore through the black, flashing with spectral silence.
Wet-crack! A perfect killing stroke that left no time even for a scream.
The man at the front of the group felt something pass through his neck like a ghost, sharp and absolute.
“Kuh—kuh—”
Blood fountained between the fingers he clamped around his throat.
Before he could even thrash, his body crumpled to the ground.
“Aiiee! Enemy!”
The bandits, drenched in blood and terror, scrambled to raise their hand-axes.
Wang Sam, having just lost one of his men in a blink, drew his massive axe.
“What rat’s this?! All of Namgung’s masters must be dead and buried!”
His roar, twisted with rage, split the courtyard like thunder.
Then, from beyond the veil of darkness, a low, crystalline voice answered.
“Dead and buried? How disappointing to hear such words.”
At once, a real sword sheathed in violet light descended, and two eyes that burned with bestial intensity slowly emerged from the gloom.
“The master of this house is very much alive and watching.”
A drop of blood fell from the sword’s tip to the ground. An overwhelming, suffocating presence.
“Welcome. How delightful that you’ve crawled into your own grave of your own volition.”

* * *
Moonlight vanished behind roiling clouds, plunging the surroundings into darkness. In that same instant, the tremor of the enemies’ movements transmitted through the soles of my feet.
“Haaah……”
I steadied my labored breathing, made heavy by the Severed Meridian Condition, and let my sword hang long at my side.
The ambush had succeeded, yet their numbers remained overwhelming.
“Don’t lose your nerve! He’s just one man! How can he possibly stand against all of us!”
The enemy commander, gritting his teeth, rallied his men with words—then immediately stomped his foot and charged forward. Boom-crack!
‘Hmm.’
The way their blows connected was no amateur’s work. These were no ordinary bandits.
‘They’ve trained in martial cultivation. Quite deeply, at that.’
Led by their massive commander, they formed a sharp wedge and surged toward me.
Like an enraged bull hurling itself forward.
‘One.’
I retreated, drawing them deep into the courtyard ahead.
Just as they raised their weapons and closed the distance—
“Now!”
At my cry, the tiles above their heads, concealed in darkness, came crashing down in a avalanche.
Then a slender silhouette descended like a butterfly—Yuhwa, who had been lying in wait on the roof.
Landing lightly in the center of their scrambling formation, she unfolded the sword technique she had recently mastered.
Namgung Iron Sword Ten Forms, Third Technique: Cangntian Falling Star.
Twin blades whirled with ferocious momentum, brushing cold steel across their throats.
“Aaaagh!”
In an instant, three men collapsed, blood pouring from their wounds.
“What—what is this! There’s another enemy!”
The men cried out in alarm and moved as one to strike at Yuhwa, who now stood isolated among them, raising their axes.
A desperate moment, surrounded on all sides.
But I was already several moves ahead of them. I pierced through their collapsing formation like lightning.
Pae Young Iron Sword, First Technique: Iron Sword Finger Qi.
Drawing my blade in a long sweep, I traced a crescent arc through the air.
“Kragh!”
Those struck across the ribs screamed. In that moment, the blocked escape route opened.
“Hah!”
Yuhwa slipped through the gap between their axes like water, breaking free.
A coordination born from countless exchanges, pearls of sweat between us.
Though the pitch darkness made our forms invisible to one another, the intensity and direction of each Sword Wind told us everything—position, intention, all perfectly clear.
This, too, was the gift I had gained upon mastering the Sword Principles of Namgung.
The bright, lucid sky of Namgung had turned dark and secretive when the Heavenly Demon entered it.
And that change had spread to those around me as well.
‘Ha.’
A faint smile crossed my lips—a joy I had never known in my past life, when I alone had driven forward through every battle.
So this is what it tastes like to stand back-to-back and fight as one.
A thrill surged through my chest. The battle that followed unfolded exactly as I willed it.
Though their numbers were greater and their limbs tangled in the darkness, we were only two—yet we closed every gap in each other’s defense perfectly.
Squelch! Rasp!
When I deflected an enemy strike smoothly and opened a gap, Yuhwa’s twin blades invariably flew in to claim a life. And when she found herself in danger, my blade would dart out like a serpent, severing wrists and arteries.
Nine enemies fell in the eerie chorus of steel and screams, their bodies sprawling cold against the ground.

“These cursed bastards!!”
The sole survivor, the commander Wang Sam, roared like a beast.
He had just watched his men slaughtered in moments.
His eyes burned with a feral, crimson madness.
“I’ll grind you to meat! Take this—the blade of the Blood Axe, Wang Sam!”
Burning with rage, he announced his epithet and name, then hefted his massive axe and brought it crashing down.
An attack on an entirely different level from his fallen subordinates.
“Tch!”
I sensed I could not evade it. I braced to block instead. But then—
Crack! A searing pain, as though blood itself froze from my lower dantian to my heart.
“Ughhhh!”
Of all times, the chronic symptoms of the Severed Meridian Condition erupted precisely when danger was at its peak.
It was the result of overextending myself, cutting down so many enemies.
“Damn it!”
My vision flickered, and sensation drained from my legs. This was trouble.
“Hyuk! Watch out!”
In that critical instant, a slight figure darted in front of me and crossed two blades in defense. It was Yuhwa.
Bang—! But unfortunately, her strength and cultivation depth fell far short.
“Agh!”
In the end, her knees buckled and her grip tore. She lost both blades and was sent flying backward.
Flinch—! At the same moment, my brow furrowed sharply.
‘She threw herself forward to protect me…?’
Though I commanded hundreds of thousands of followers, not one of them ever risked their life to shield me.
They only feared and blindly obeyed the power of the Heavenly Demon Patriarch.
But now, this small, fragile bloodline threw herself without hesitation beneath that vicious axe blade, driven by nothing but the will to protect me.
The sacrifice of another—something I had never witnessed once in my entire life.
In that instant, my frozen heart began to pound fiercely, and scorching blood qi melted away the cold yin energy that had been constricting my meridians.
At the same time, sensation began to return to my rigid limbs.
‘Fury born of affection can ease the Severed Meridian Condition…?’
This was something I’d never experienced before. A critical clue, grasped in that moment.
“You dare step forward! Fine! I’ll kill you first!”
The enemy commander’s eyes bulged as he hoisted his axe overhead.
Whoosh—! He brought it crashing down like lightning toward my head.
Crack—! I tore through that split-second gap and shot forward, positioning myself between the fallen Yuhwa and the descending blade, raising my sword.
With this body, I couldn’t meet the commander’s strike head-on.
Then there was only one answer—the subtle principle I felt when reconstructing Namgung’s martial teachings.
‘Softness sometimes overcomes strength.’
In the moment the axe rushed toward my face.
I tilted the flat of my blade at an angle and placed it against the side of the descending axe.
In my previous life, I would have thought such a thing reckless against a raging axe.
But now, with this new understanding, it was different.
Rather than blocking, I thought of riding the flow along the blade’s grain.
Whoosh—! The Cangntian Demon Qi clinging to my sword didn’t resist the axe’s savage rotational force but instead guided the heavy momentum smoothly downward toward the floor.
“W-what…?”
As his all-consuming blow slipped through empty air and skidded across the ground, the commander’s upper body lost its center and lurched forward.
Crash—!
The enormous axe whistled past my feet by a mere hand’s breadth and shattered the defenseless floor beneath.
Simultaneously, with his balance shattered, the commander’s broad back and unguarded neck lay exposed before my eyes.
“Softness consumes strength.”
The tip of my blade, which had gathered all of the enemy’s power, trembled with lethal intent.
“And flexibility embraces sharpness.”
The final form of the Pae Young Iron Sword—the Iron Sword No Trace.
After the gentlest deflection, a vicious killing intent erupted. Shing—!
My real blade pierced straight through the commander’s throat. Blood sprayed forth at once.
“Gahhhhh…!”
The enemy commander spat blood in disbelief, then crashed to the ground like a felled ancient tree—Thud!
Thick blood pooled outward, forming a vast crimson puddle.
“Ah… ahhh…”
Yuhwa, her life spared, gasped in awestruck wonder.
The dark clouds that had hung overhead finally lifted, and soft moonlight began to illuminate me.
“Get up. Who told you to rush forward like that? Do you think I can’t handle a single axe swing?”
I wiped the blood from my blade lightly, then extended my hand down to Yuhwa, who sat crumpled on the ground.
“And I have no use for a foolish disciple who only gapes at their master’s sword.”
At my cold words, Yuhwa’s eyes widened in surprise.
“Remember this—I won’t tolerate the sight of you kneeling and cowering ever again.”
For some reason, my chest felt strangely tight, and I let those harsh words spill out.
Could this be what a master feels—no, what a family feels?
‘To think the greatest prodigy under heaven could harbor so many weaknesses.’
I turned my head away, yet my extended hand remained pointed toward Yuhwa.
Then Yuhwa grasped my hand firmly and answered with quiet strength.
Her face shone with the emotion of one meeting the most reliable family, the one true master upon whom she would depend for all her days.
“Ngh……!”

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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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