The moment he confirmed the match results, the Black Dao leader Qiu Jiawu (秋稼誤) immediately mobilized his men.
He had set up double and triple surveillance, so escape would have been impossible anyway, but the young Fist Demon waiting in his own home had clearly resolved himself to die. Otherwise, he could not have said something like that the moment he saw him.
“Did you make a lot of money?”
Qiu Jiawu’s rage shot to the very top of his head.
“You won’t die an easy death.”
He had suffered far too great a loss this time. It was not only his own money he had lost. Because he had drawn in funds from other organizations as well, one wrong step could put his own life in danger.
And on top of that, this green young fighter had turned his insides upside down.
“I told the arena master here about this too. You know who backs this arena, don’t you?”
Qiu Jiawu’s expression hardened. It was precisely because he feared that backing—the Sado Alliance—that he had only ever fixed matches in secret at truly decisive moments.
He had done well until now, only to get caught in the worst possible way this time. This was the first madman of this sort he had ever met. He knew the brat had a temper, but even after leaving that huge scar on his chest to frighten him, he had never dreamed he would do something like this.
“Young whelp, not knowing how precious your life is.”
“It’s your life that must be precious!”
Through this incident, the Fist Demon had made a decision. No matter what kind of life he lived from now on, he would never make friends or family.
How wonderful was that? Even in the face of the bastard’s filthy threats, he could act according to his own temper like this.
Of course, it was a shame. He was going to die here today, so he would never get to put that decision into practice.
Qiu Jiawu gave his men an order.
“Make that bastard kneel before me.”
Qiu Jiawu had no intention of letting this damned bastard die cleanly.
At the command, dozens of Black Dao men drew their weapons all at once. No matter how many victories the Fist Demon had strung together in the arena, their numbers were far too great for someone without internal energy to face.
Even so, the Fist Demon was not cowed in the slightest.
“I’ll fight with the thought that for every one of you I kill, I save one person.”
The Fist Demon took gloves from his robe and put them on. Sharp, awl-like points were embedded in the front of the gloves.
“They’re coated in deadly poison. Even a scratch, and you’ll spend the rest of your life lying in bed eating gruel.”
It was a lie. But this should at least make their movements shrink back somewhat.
Among the gathered Black Dao men, those who had fought the Fist Demon before flinched. The last time they fought him, they had been injured, knocked unconscious, and thrown into utter chaos—now there was poison on his fists too?
“Despicable bastard!”
At Qiu Jiawu’s words, the Fist Demon shouted.
“Why? You lot can run around waving swords, but I can’t wear something like this? You Black Dao trash! Come at me!”
Qiu Jiawu shouted.
“Kill him! Three hundred taels to the one who kills him first!”
With something that took precedence over anything else placed before them, the Black Dao men rushed in all at once, swinging their swords.
The Fist Demon fled toward the rear courtyard. The Black Dao men at the front, chasing him excitedly, suddenly plunged downward.
“Aaaaargh!”
He had dug a pit trap in the courtyard and set spear blades into the bottom.
The Fist Demon had prepared himself to fight properly today. He had not thought he would fight with only his fists. His goal was to survive, and if he was going to die, he intended to take even one more bastard with him.
Several men fell into the trap and died, but the Black Dao men were also veterans of combat. If their opponent had been a martial artist, that would have been one thing, but he was a green youth without internal energy.
They clung to him viciously, swinging their swords. As long as they planted a blade in his body, the enormous sum of three hundred taels would be theirs. The money-mad bastards charged like lunatics.
The Fist Demon’s movements were truly fast. He dodged the incoming swords and threw his fists.
Those stabbed by the awl fists screamed.
Curses flew from all directions, and the Black Dao men ran wild in their excitement. Even as blood streamed from them, they charged in with monstrous cries.
The Fist Demon rolled across the ground, avoiding the blades flying at him from every side.
Leaping to his feet and running toward the wall, the Fist Demon turned and threw a dagger. The dagger sank into the body of the man following him. He threw stones from the ground as well, and even picked up the bastards’ swords and swung them.
Qiu Jiawu shouted.
“You’ve abandoned a fighter’s honor!”
He had said it deliberately to provoke him and keep him from using other weapons, but it had no effect whatsoever.
“I abandoned it because of you. So it’s you killing your own men!”
The Fist Demon fought truly well. Striking, punching, rolling across the ground, leaping up to kick. He rampaged like a wounded beast.
But there were too many Black Dao bastards. No matter how naturally gifted the Fist Demon’s movements were, he was outnumbered.
Blood sprayed from the Fist Demon’s arm and side. He had no time to check where or how badly he had been wounded. He madly swung his fists while dodging the swords flying in from all sides.
Crack!
At that moment, a kick came flying in, and the Fist Demon was sent hurtling through the air, smashing into the piled-up goods in the courtyard before collapsing.
It was Qiu Jiawu’s strike, delivered as he waited for his chance.
“Take those gloves off him first!”
They rushed in from all sides and stripped off the Fist Demon’s gloves. In the process, the Fist Demon bit into one man’s throat. The blood the man gushed out sprayed everywhere.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Fists rained down, turning the Fist Demon’s face into a bloody mess.
Qiu Jiawu looked down at the Fist Demon.
“This is the first time I’ve seen such a vicious breed.”
Just as Qiu Jiawu clicked his tongue while looking at his men—
The Fist Demon suddenly flung something from a bottle at him.
Qiu Jiawu waved his hand to block it.
Ssssss.
The liquid that flew at him burned through his sleeve. What had come flying at him was Bone-Dissolving Acid (化骨酸).
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Qiu Jiawu’s eyes rolled with fury as he began trampling the Fist Demon. He had nearly had Bone-Dissolving Acid poured over his face.
Curling his body and trying to avoid his vital points, the Fist Demon sensed that this was the end.
‘This life ends here.’
When he actually thought he was going to die, fear rose in him. It also felt unjust and infuriating to be killed by a bastard like that.
When the beating stopped for a moment, the Fist Demon opened his eyes.
Qiu Jiawu was taking out a dagger.
“I won’t let you die easily.”
The Fist Demon lifted his dazed eyes and looked up at the night sky one last time. He had thought he should at least see the stars or moon before he died.
‘Huh?’
Beyond Qiu Jiawu’s shoulder, farther back on a tree branch, a man was sitting and looking down at him. Thinking he might be seeing things, the Fist Demon closed his eyes and opened them again.
But the man sitting with the bright full moon at his back was still looking down at him. He seemed a few years older than the Fist Demon.
The Fist Demon’s eyes met his. He had never once looked at a person and thought they were frightening, but the moment he saw this man’s cold gaze, fear crossed his mind.
‘Is he the death god come to take me?’
He even had that thought.
But he was not a death god. Someone among the Black Dao bastards had discovered him.
“Huh? There’s someone over there!”
When everyone’s eyes focused on him, the man lightly jumped down from the tree branch.
He had leaped down from quite a height, yet there was not even the sound of his feet landing. At that astonishing movement art, both the Black Dao men and the Fist Demon were startled.
The man slowly walked over and looked at the Fist Demon. He did not give the Black Dao men so much as a glance.
He asked the Fist Demon,
“Can you fight?”
The Fist Demon nodded and raised himself up. His entire body felt as if it would break apart, but he gritted his teeth.
“I can fight.”
Then the man looked at Qiu Jiawu.
“How can you behave so cowardly against a fighter?”
Given that he knew he was a fighter, he was not simply someone passing by. The man already seemed to know why this situation was unfolding.
“Where have you come from?”
Qiu Jiawu was inwardly tense. He was worried that perhaps a master from the Sado Alliance had appeared because of this manipulation.
Then the young man uttered words he had not expected at all.
“Fight fair and square.”
Whoosh.
Before he could even dodge, the man’s finger wind flew in and sealed Qiu Jiawu’s internal energy. A method that could seal an opponent’s internal energy with a single point of a finger was a realm one only heard about over drinks.
Startled, Qiu Jiawu shouted reflexively.
“Kill him! Kill this bastard too!”
But no one dared charge at the man. Even aside from the ability he had already displayed, there was a certain dignity about him that made it impossible to treat him carelessly.
The man looked at the Black Dao bastards and gestured for them to stand in a circle. As if possessed by a ghost, the Black Dao men formed a circle. In that way, a small arena was created.
The Fist Demon, having risen from the ground, clenched his fists. He did not know who the man who had helped him was, but he had only one thought: if he missed this chance, he would die.
Qiu Jiawu likewise realized that if he wanted to survive, he had to kill the Fist Demon. Fortunately, though his internal energy had been sealed, his dagger and sword had not been taken from him.
‘Then I have a chance!’
He had no chance. Qiu Jiawu swung his dagger, lost it, then drew his sword and swung that too, but in the end, even the sword was taken from him.
At last, a fist-to-fist fight began, and there was no way he could handle barehanded an opponent he could not defeat even with a sword.
Thud! Thwack! Crack! Smack!
The Fist Demon’s furious fists drove into every part of his body.
“Why! Why torment someone who was living just fine! Why!”
Qiu Jiawu’s jawbone and ribs broke.
In the end, unable to endure any longer, Qiu Jiawu collapsed and lay there, only panting for breath. The Fist Demon pulled open the front of his upper garment and showed him the wound.
“You told me to look at this scar whenever a stupid thought came to mind, didn’t you? You can look at it all you want and die.”
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
Under the barrage of fists, Qiu Jiawu’s breath was cut off.
The Fist Demon rose, panting, and looked at the man.
At that moment, a sword rose into the air before the man.
Shrrrrrrrrrk.
Before the young man, the sword split apart, forming sword-shaped sword qi, and they all rose into the sky at once. Just as the Black Dao men looked up at it with fascinated expressions—
Swishswishswishswishswishswishswishswishswish!
The sword qi floating in the air rained down toward the Black Dao men.
Their heads, faces, and chests pierced by sword qi, the Black Dao men collapsed all at once.
The man did not leave a single Black Dao member alive.
Geom Mugeuk, who had been listening to the Fist Demon’s story, cried out.
“The Flying Heaven Sword Art, Flowing Heaven Form! It was Father!”
“That’s right. It was the Cult Leader.”
Geom Mugeuk was shocked. He had not known that the person who had discovered the Fist Demon was his father.
“He was the Cult Leader at your age. The Cult Leader before he had even been designated successor.”
For some reason, Geom Mugeuk was deeply moved by the fact that his father had saved the Fist Demon.
“Standing there in that place strewn with corpses, the Cult Leader said this to me: ‘Would you like to turn those baby fists into the fists of a real man?’”
“Ah!”
Only now could Geom Mugeuk understand where the words “baby hands” the Fist Demon had said to him had originated.
“So what did you say?”
“I said no. How could I follow him when I didn’t know who he was? What if he was an assassin? What if he was an unparalleled villain? I said, ‘I am truly grateful that you saved me, but I refuse.’”
Geom Mugeuk thought that the Fist Demon, who had said no even in that situation, was remarkable. The Fist Demon of his youth felt vividly alive, pulsing with energy. That liveliness was hidden within this man’s heart. Who could have known that the Fist Demon, who silently watched over his subordinates’ training every day and seemed stiflingly rigid and old-fashioned, had such a youth?
“So what did Father say?”
“He turned away without a word, with a look that said, ‘Suit yourself.’ I was watching the Cult Leader’s back when it suddenly occurred to me that this wasn’t right. If I didn’t follow him, I would never escape this arena for the rest of my life. I had survived this time by luck, but someday I would die while suffering another filthy situation like this.”
The Fist Demon recalled that moment. His fate had changed because of the decision he made in that brief instant.
“Perhaps if the Cult Leader had tried to persuade me to come with him, I might have stubbornly refused to the very end. Back then, I thought youthful recklessness and stubbornness were something admirable. But as I watched the Cult Leader’s back grow farther away, my body moved instinctively. I ran after him. I said I was sorry, that I had changed my mind. Then the Cult Leader looked at me and smiled. You know it too, don’t you? That unique smile of his…”
“That sneer that looks like he’s looking down on people?”
“That’s right, that smile.”
“My father is probably the person in the world best suited to that smile.”
“To be honest, the Cult Leader that day was impressive. He had a different kind of charm from you.”
“Am I impressive too?”
The Fist Demon pretended not to hear me and continued his story.
“The Cult Leader brought me to the main cult and, without saying one thing or another, placed me in the Eastern Fist Gate. And after that, he never once came to see me.”
“That sounds like Father.”
“On my own, I climbed from White Fist to Black Fist. Back then, I truly made blood-soaked efforts.”
With his innate sense and talent for fist arts, and effort on top of that, the Fist Demon of those days must have drawn everyone’s attention.
“On the day I became a Black Fist, the Cult Leader came to see me. As if he had been watching me all along, he came exactly on that day. And do you know what he said to me?”
“What did he say?”
As he recalled that day, the Fist Demon’s voice trembled slightly.
“I will become the Heavenly Demon, so you become my Fist Demon.”
The relationship between the two of them was special not merely because they were people mad for martial arts. It was because they had this hidden past.
Imitating his father, Geom Mugeuk said,
“I will become the Heavenly Demon too, so…”
“You’re too late. I am already the Fist Demon.”
“Ah! That’s right. This is something I should say to Cheon Sohee. Please wait a moment. I’ll find words that suit us.”
The Fist Demon gazed at Geom Mugeuk.
Over Geom Mugeuk’s figure, the image of the young Heavenly Demon Geom Woojin overlapped.
Two people similar yet different. If Geom Mugeuk was light, Geom Woojin was darkness. If one seemed so light he might fly away, the other seemed so heavy he might sink forever.
But the Fist Demon also felt it. That this light and darkness were not so different. That they were dark yet bright, and bright yet dark.
“The Cult Leader took me away from this place, while you brought me here.”
The Fist Demon had met two young candidates for Cult Leader, connected by blood, in this place. He felt this was some great destiny.
Then Geom Mugeuk calmly looked at the Fist Demon and spoke evenly.
“I will become your disciple, so please become my master!”