The two energies stood tautly opposed.
If someone had been standing between them, even a master would have found it difficult to endure. It was not simply because the aura the two men exuded was powerful.
It was because of the nature of those two auras. Merely being there made one dizzy, nauseous, even left one’s mind hazy. On top of that, there was the unbearable stench of blood and reek of liquor.
“This is too tiring. I can’t keep this up.”
The Drunken Demon was the first to withdraw his liquor qi. He had already consumed internal energy dealing with the Northern Blood Sect’s subordinates, and though not deep, he had even been injured by the Self-Destruction Art. In many ways, he was at a disadvantage.
So he judged that there was no need to continue this contest of aura and waste his internal energy.
With an expression as if he had completely lost the battle of qi, the Drunken Demon drank a cup in defeat.
“Ugh, bitter. So bitter.”
The Blood King, on the other hand, did not withdraw his blood qi, and the surroundings became filled with it.
It was a blood qi so thick with the smell of blood that it seemed to suffocate, yet the Drunken Demon instead breathed it in deeply and smelled the blood.
“Does your blood taste like this too?”
The Blood King glared at the Drunken Demon with eyes asking what he meant.
“I’m saying my blood would taste like liquor, but does yours taste this vile?”
Perhaps because it was a question related to blood, the Blood King answered.
“There will never come a day when anyone learns the taste of my blood. No one.”
At that, the Drunken Demon provoked him.
He clenched and opened his fist in front of his chest, miming the Self-Destruction Art bursting with a bang. It meant that he would taste his blood then. It was not just any provocation, but a powerful one.
At that provocation, the Blood King felt as though his blood had gone cold.
He was mocking him by imitating the Self-Destruction Art? As much as anger surged within him, he also felt something unfamiliar. No one had ever dared act so insolently toward him.
He knew it was a provocation, but it was one he could not help but take.
Because of whom had he been forced to abandon the Great Art and come out here?
The Drunken Demon’s provocation did not end there. He opened his robe. There was blood on the supreme-grade Heavenly Silkworm Silk bound around his chest.
“Your blood will get on this too, won’t it? I’ll have to wash it clean before returning it.”
The Blood King could tell that the object the Drunken Demon wore had been given to him by the Young Cult Leader.
“You received a trinket like that and became the Young Cult Leader’s dog?”
It was a counterattack to the earlier provocation.
But at least when it came to Geom Mugeuk, provocation did not work.
“The dog is the Young Cult Leader.”
At the Blood King’s questioning gaze, the Drunken Demon uttered words that were still impossible to understand.
“You won’t believe it, but the Young Cult Leader becomes a dog for our sake.”
After all, there was no one within the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult who did not know that he had barked together with the Poison King in the training ground for the Poison King’s sake.
The Drunken Demon did not add any explanation. He was not confident he could explain it in a short time so that the Blood King would understand. No, even if he explained it all day, the man would not believe him. Unless one experienced him directly, it was impossible to understand a person like Geom Mugeuk.
“But is it all right for you to be this relaxed? Are you trusting that your subordinates will arrive first?”
Even now, red smoke was rising here and there in the far distance.
“If you keep that up, our Young Cult Leader will come too.”
“Are you anxious? Afraid your Young Cult Leader will come here and die?”
“He won’t die. The Young Cult Leader won’t.”
The Drunken Demon was certain. Even so, the reason he hoped he would not come was this.
“I simply don’t want him to fight people like us.”
“People like us?”
“Yes, people like us.”
Without telling him what kind of people that meant, the Drunken Demon drank. Around his body, liquor qi flickered like flames.
“So let’s be the only ones to smell this vile stench of blood and reek of liquor.”
Sssssss.
A thick mist rose around the two men, and the Drunken Demon vanished into that liquor qi.
The Blood King raised his hand and touched the liquor qi that obscured his vision. At a glance it was only mist, but it was such potent liquor qi that he could already feel himself becoming tipsy.
Throughout the entire time the Northern Blood Sect warriors had been fighting, the Blood King had thought of only one thing.
How would he fight within this liquor qi? How would he break through that liquor qi?
And he had thought of one method.
The Blood King, sharpening every nerve in preparation for the Drunken Demon’s ambush, extended one hand forward.
A searing heat began to rise from his fingertips.
His solution was this.
To burn away all the liquor qi with extreme yang qi.
Given the nature of liquor qi, it would be easy to burn, and the liquor qi the Drunken Demon was exuding now was so potent that it would burn even better.
Flames rose from the Blood King’s extreme yang qi.
Fwoosh.
As the liquor qi began to burn from his fingertips, a satisfied light flashed through the Blood King’s eyes.
But that lasted only a moment. The flames that had risen soon went out.
He had expected the fire to spread in every direction, but it burned only where the extreme yang qi had been unleashed and then quickly died.
This time, he raised his extreme yang qi even more strongly.
Fwoooosh.
But it only burned a little more than before; the fire soon went out. The liquor qi gathered back into that spot.
Then, from within the mist, the Drunken Demon’s drunken voice rang out.
“If you play with fire, you’ll wet the bed at night.”
The Blood King pretended not to hear and raised his hand, clutching at the liquor qi flowing around him. It felt as though it should all burn away, so why would it not burn?
“You can try for a hundred days and it still won’t burn. My liquor qi takes after its master, you see. It’s not passionate enough to blaze up in flames.”
Swishhh!
Irritated, the Blood King sent a palm strike toward the place the voice had come from.
Bang!
The sound of a wall breaking apart came from far behind, but there was no scream from the Drunken Demon.
Swishhhhh!
The Blood King turned and caught with his hand what had flown at him from behind. What had shot toward him at a terrifying speed was a pebble.
Rrrrrrk.
The pebble crumbled into powder in the Blood King’s hand and trickled down. Both the internal force sent into it and the internal force that blocked it had been too powerful for it to withstand the impact.
“Do you think you can kill me with a pebble like this?”
“So I prepared something bigger.”
Whoooosh!
What came flying was a large stone lantern that had been standing in the courtyard.
Bang!
The instant the stone lantern shattered under the Blood King’s palm strike—
The Drunken Demon appeared from behind and thrust out his dagger.
Shhhk!
The stone lantern had not been the only thing that flew.
As the Blood King dodged the Drunken Demon’s dagger aimed at his heart, he thrust out a palm strike.
Baaang!
Palm force collided with palm force, and as he was pushed back by that energy, the Drunken Demon vanished into the mist again.
The Blood King’s expression was stiff. The Drunken Demon’s ambush just now had been truly fierce. If he had held the arrogance of thinking, “Could he kill me with nothing more than a stone lantern?” he felt certain he would have been stabbed by the Drunken Demon’s dagger.
The fight that had begun as if they were taking a stroll now began to grow violent in earnest.
This time, the Blood King sensed the Drunken Demon first and charged, spewing blood qi.
Boom!
Fist collided with fist.
Skrrrk. Both men were pushed back, and the number of steps they retreated was exactly the same. They were, in truth, evenly matched.
This time, palm met palm; palm arts clashed.
Once again, they were pushed back by the exact same number of steps.
At that very moment, the Blood King was the first to unleash his unique martial art.
When he was pushed sliding backward, blood beads had already appeared above his other palm. Astonishingly, in that brief instant of collision and retreat, he had unleashed the Flying Blade Blood Rain from the Ten Thousand Deaths Blood Art.
In an instant, the blood beads changed into the shapes of small daggers.
Shk-shk-shk-shk-shk-shk-shk-shk-shk!
They swept through the place where the Drunken Demon had been.
It was a power that could not be compared to the Flying Blade Blood Rain his disciple Hagyeol had used.
Papapapapapapapak!
Dozens of holes were punched through the wall behind. The holes were densely packed, traces that made it clear anyone within that area could never have avoided them.
But there was no trace of the Drunken Demon’s blood anywhere on the wall.
Whoooosh.
For a moment, the liquor qi cleared, and the Drunken Demon revealed himself.
“Wait! Let me catch my breath.”
With an expression as if he had barely escaped danger, the Drunken Demon drank.
“Go easy, will you? I thought I’d never get to drink this good stuff again.”
The Blood King also paused to catch his breath. Neither of them had time to restore internal energy through circulating qi and regulating breath. Even in that brief moment of rest, neither took his eyes off the other.
“I feel bad drinking by myself.”
The Drunken Demon looked at the Blood King and held out the bottle.
“Have just one cup.”
The very instant those words ended—
Craaaack!
A streak of lightning-like astral qi fell onto the crown of the Blood King’s head.
The Blood King, who twisted his body in an instant and barely dodged, had his face contort.
A deep hole had been pierced into the place where he had been standing, and smoke rose from it. In another moment, his skull would have been run straight through.
The Drunken Demon’s ambush had not been an ordinary attack.
The Drunken Demon’s unique martial art, the Wine God Art.
The second cup, Wine God’s Lone Drink.
It was named for the sight of a single streak of astral qi descending from the sky, like one drinking alone.
“Do you hate receiving a cup from me that much?”
Grinning, the Drunken Demon vanished into the rising liquor qi.
The blood qi pouring from the Blood King’s body grew even denser, and red energy began to flow from his eyes as well. Rage surged up at the thought that he had nearly died.
Whether he knew that anger or not, the Drunken Demon appeared behind him again and launched a surprise attack.
Shhk! Shhk!
The Drunken Demon’s dagger sliced through empty air, and the Blood King, who turned swiftly, detonated a palm strike in the air.
“It will hurt, drunkard.”
The Drunken Demon looked down at his own arm, which was trembling faintly. Red energy lingered around it. He raised his internal force and shook off the red energy. That was how heavy the Blood King’s attack had been.
“Wipe off your blood before you talk.”
The Blood King also looked down at his own arm. Blood was flowing from a cut wound.
The Blood King put his mouth to the injury. The instant he sucked, as though drinking the blood, veins bulged all over his face. His two eyes split long like a demon’s, and blood qi surged forth.
The Blood King’s appearance and momentum now were fearsome enough that even facing him was frightening.
Of course, it did not work on the Drunken Demon. Instead, he provoked him further.
“Why are you searching so hard for the Extreme Cold Physique?”
The corners of the Blood King’s eyes twitched fearsomely. Truly, his opponent was focusing only on the points that enraged him most.
“What are you planning to do after extracting the Extreme Cold Physique? Become resistant to cold and settle down here in the North Sea?”
Because the voice was drunken, the Blood King became even angrier. The Extreme Cold Physique was not something to be babbled about while drunk.
“As you know, I took the Extreme Cold Physique away. As an apology, should I buy you a padded coat?”
The Drunken Demon seemed to be saying whatever came to mind, but every single word was calculated.
“So you should have come to us in the first place if you were going to come. Ah, or are you perhaps the weakest among them? Is that why you were pushed all the way out here to the North Sea?”
In the end, curses burst from the Blood King’s mouth.
“Shut up, you drunken bastard!”
He could endure other things, but he could not tolerate being told he ranked low within the organization. He prided himself on being the most imposing of them all. That was why he had been able to defy the order to return.
The liquor qi also played a part in his agitation. As he fought within the liquor qi, the Blood King had unknowingly become drunk.
Puk!
Not missing this chance when he was agitated, the Drunken Demon attempted an ambush. Appearing from within the mist, the Drunken Demon’s dagger stabbed into the Blood King’s side.
Thud!
When he stabbed the side and tried to vanish again, the Drunken Demon was struck hard in the shoulder by the Blood King’s blow. At that moment, the Drunken Demon saw it. The Blood King’s eyes were colder than anything.
The Blood King who had shouted curses had been hot, but the one counterattacking was cold. It made him think that perhaps half of the man’s excitement had been deliberately displayed.
Daggers flew and fists flew. Blood qi and liquor qi collided again.
They struck, battered, and rolled. The two men were truly locked in a fierce battle between dragon and tiger.
Every single move was imbued with emotion. They fought as if they had met an irreconcilable enemy.
It was a first for both of them. The first time they had fought a life-or-death battle against an opponent this evenly matched.
After a fierce bout of grappling, the Drunken Demon vanished into the mist again.
He had expected it, but the Blood King was even harder to deal with than anticipated.
The Drunken Demon, who had been moving while drinking within the liquor qi, stopped walking.
A single red line had been drawn in front of him. The Drunken Demon looked to the side. There was a line there as well. Blood lines began to appear one by one here and there.
Those lines began to draw a picture upon the mist-like liquor qi as if it were paper.
The Drunken Demon picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it at one of the lines.
Saaak.
As if cut by a treasured sword, the pebble was sliced in two.
More and more blood lines appeared around him, surrounding him like a spiderweb. It was the Body-Dividing Blood Net the Blood King had unleashed.
The Drunken Demon withdrew his liquor qi. Then the liquor qi that had spread like mist disappeared, and dozens of blood lines stretching around him became plainly visible.
Too many lines had already been drawn, making movement impossible. The only way was to break through with protective astral qi, but that would mean being prepared for severe injury.
Beyond the red lines, the Blood King could be seen. Though the consumption of internal energy from unfolding the Body-Dividing Blood Net had been tremendous, he was smiling. He was certain he could kill the Drunken Demon with this move.
‘I’ve trapped him properly.’
There was no gap through which to escape.
As if alive, the blood lines began to tighten toward the Drunken Demon.
The Drunken Demon drew the Blood Tears, the unique weapon hanging at his waist, and said,
“You don’t know this, do you?”
When he infused the Blood Tears with his unique internal energy, it vibrated once and emitted a pure white light.
The unique martial art, Wine God Art.
The final cup. Wine God’s Utter Drunkenness.
The Drunken Demon opened the stopper of the Blood Tears and gulped down the liquor inside.
Then the purple liquor qi flickering from the Drunken Demon’s body turned black, and from his eyes flowed a pure white, madness-tinged drunkenness.
That madness led to action. The Drunken Demon seized a blood line with his bare hand.
“When we’re drunk, we don’t see anything in front of us.”