Sparks flared between the Drunken Demon’s hand and the blood thread, as though gangqi had collided with gangqi.
Chiiiiik.
Since the start of the fight, the Blood King had never been more shocked.
He had not imagined the man would seize a blood thread with his bare hands. And that was not all.
Jjiiiiik.
The Drunken Demon gripped the blood thread in both hands and tore at it.
“Uaaaaah!”
The Drunken Demon let out a scream full of agony. Even so, he did not let go of the blood thread.
At the very instant his cry reached its peak—
Snap!
The blood thread, which could slice through iron with the slightest touch, was severed.
The moment the blood thread was cut, a short scream burst from the Blood King’s mouth.
“Urgh!”
At that moment, the Blood King had connected the Divided-Body Blood Net to his own true qi in order to unleash even greater power. It was to kill the Drunken Demon with this one move.
But when the blood thread was severed, the meridians through which he circulated his true qi suffered a tremendous shock.
The Blood King gritted his teeth and endured it.
‘Surely he won’t cut another one?’
But the utterly drunk Drunken Demon had no eyes for anything else. Forgetting the pain he had just suffered, he seized the second blood thread in a single motion, as if grabbing a clothesline.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
With as much force as there was agony in his scream.
Duduk!
This time too, he tore it apart and snapped it.
“Ugh!”
When the second blood thread was cut, an even louder scream than before burst from the Blood King. This time, the shock was greater, and his meridians twisted.
In the end, the Blood King could no longer endure it and gave up executing the technique.
Sseut.
The blood threads drawn in every direction vanished.
At that very instant, the Drunken Demon began charging fiercely toward the Blood King.
It was not qinggong used to execute a martial art.
Like an enraged bull, the Drunken Demon charged, scattering a madness-soaked drunken qi.
The Blood King was one who could block sword qi and sword gang as they flew at him without so much as blinking. Yet in this moment, fear arose in his heart. The Drunken Demon, who had torn apart the blood threads with his bare hands and was now rushing at him, was frightening.
‘Not now!’
He had drunk the wine from the Blood Pavilion and ripped through the blood threads. In other words, if he was caught by that madman in his current state, he too might be torn apart.
Still, there was no way that strength could last forever.
‘There’s only one way!’
Just as the Drunken Demon charged like a bull and was about to throw a punch—
Whoooosh.
Something spread from the Blood King’s body like wings and swallowed the Drunken Demon as though enveloping him.
It was the secret art of the Myriad Serpent Blood Art, the Binding Blood Veil.
The Drunken Demon flailed inside the veil.
“Let me out, you bastard! When I get out, you’re dead!”
The Drunken Demon cursed and shouted like a drunkard making a scene.
Then, just when the inside of the blood veil seemed to grow quiet—
Jjiiiiik.
The Drunken Demon tore through the blood veil as well and stuck his head out.
“You bastard, you’re dead!”
Without hesitation, the Blood King released a palm force toward the Drunken Demon.
Swaaaaaak.
Pow!
Struck by the Blood King’s palm, the Drunken Demon was sent flying with his head still protruding from the blood veil.
The blood veil rolled across the ground. It did not move as it rolled, making it seem as though he had died, but then the Drunken Demon began crawling out of the veil like a grub.
Leaping lightly into the air, the Blood King unleashed blood qi in rapid succession.
Boom! Kwaaang! Boom boom!
The earth was overturned, and dust rose into the air. He poured blood qi into the ground as if intending to erase everything in that place altogether.
After that barrage of attacks ended, the rising dust began to settle.
From within it came the sound of ragged breathing.
When the dust cleared, the Drunken Demon stood among the gouged-out holes in the ground. Somehow, he had escaped the blood veil and withstood the blood qi that had poured down upon him.
Even so, a smile formed on the Blood King’s lips. His plan had succeeded. Earlier, when the Drunken Demon had severed the blood threads, the wine qi around his body had been black, but now it had returned to purple.
The effect of the final technique of the Wine God Art, the Wine God’s Utter Intoxication, had faded.
This final technique required an immense amount of inner force, and so it was a technique never used unless one stood at the brink of death.
The Drunken Demon, breathing hard, spotted an unbroken wine bottle among the bottles rolling near his feet and walked toward it.
Broken glass pierced the soles of his feet and drew blood, but the Drunken Demon paid it no mind.
That was also why the Blood King could not recklessly charge in. The Drunken Demon was still utterly drunk, and he was still engulfed in madness. The Drunken Demon picked up the wine bottle and gulped down the liquor.
From the beginning, he had placed dozens of bottles of wine in this yard and drunk from them. When facing the martial artists of the Northern Blood Sect, he had protected at least the wine bottles even amid attacks raining down with sword qi, but now almost all of them had been drunk or shattered, leaving only a few intact.
When the Blood King had first heard that the Drunken Demon had come with the Young Cult Leader of the Demon Cult, he had inwardly looked down on him. Among the Eight Demon Venerables, he had thought the Drunken Demon the easiest to deal with.
But his actual skill was enough to say with certainty that he fell behind no other Demon Venerable.
Moreover, most decisively, their martial arts compatibility was poor. Originally, the mere stench of blood exuded by his blood qi should have been enough to crush his opponent, but the Drunken Demon’s smell of alcohol had swallowed up the scent of blood.
His disposition was the same.
Something about the Drunken Demon did not match well with him. There should surely have been fear brought on by blood arts, but it did not work on this lunatic obsessed with liquor.
That was why he could say such a thing.
“Want some too?”
The Drunken Demon’s tongue was so twisted from drink that his words slurred. He was clearly drunk enough that it would not be strange for him to collapse at any moment, yet his eyes alone were clear to the point of transparency.
At the Drunken Demon’s words, the Blood King shook his head.
Did he want to drink? Right now, he felt like killing every bastard who ever drank in front of him again. Liquor? He did not even want to smell it.
Blood was flowing down from the Drunken Demon’s palms. They were wounds he had suffered when tearing through the blood threads and the blood veil. No matter how drunk he was, he should have felt the pain. The soles of his feet, his arms, and his side were all soaked in blood.
“Why are you trying to fight this far?”
Because if I don’t win, the Young Cult Leader will have to fight. Because a loathsome thing like you is one I want to finish with my own hands.
You cannot know the truth of a relationship just by looking. Only when something like this happens do you find out. How much you think of that person.
How much did he think of Geom Mugeuk?
If the Self-Destruction Art explodes, let it explode on me!
That was how he felt. As it happened, he was also the one wrapped in the supreme-grade Heavenly Silkworm Silk.
“Is it because of the Young Cult Leader? Just what did the Young Cult Leader do for you?”
The Drunken Demon began walking slowly toward him, staggering and reeking of liquor.
“Good question. He always comes to me only at the very end.”
The Drunken Demon was staggering not simply because he was drunk. He was exhausted to the bone, and his inner force was nearly at rock bottom.
Watching the Drunken Demon walk toward him, the Blood King felt, for the first time in his life, the premonition that he might lose to someone.
That fear led the Blood King into rage.
‘I’ll kill him.’
That drunken bastard, I’ll kill him with my own hands! I’ll beat him to death with my fists. Let’s see what kind of face your Young Cult Leader makes.
From the Blood King’s two eyes, blood qi filled with killing intent surged forth.
The fight between the two men was a fight between blood and liquor.
Their battle resembled those stimulating, primal smells. It was emotional rather than logical. Curses came before words. It was a fight where the result—one must be killed—came before the question of why he had to be killed. A fight between blood and liquor seemed fated to be that sort of relationship.
The two infused the remaining inner force into both fists. They were not the Fist Demon, yet they fought with their fists like the Fist Demon.
Pow!
The Blood King’s fist struck the Drunken Demon in the chest. Despite that heavy power, the Drunken Demon did not step back. Was he enduring it despite the pain, or was he too drunk to feel pain at all? The Drunken Demon did not dodge and swung his fist in return.
The Drunken Demon’s first punch missed, but his second punch smashed straight into the Blood King’s face.
His jaw twisted, and the Blood King staggered. The punch had landed cleanly, but the Blood King did not fall.
He dodged the Drunken Demon’s next punch and counterattacked. Their fists crossed as though entangling, and his blow struck the Drunken Demon’s shoulder.
They struck well and dodged well. It looked as if they were swinging their fists wildly, but they were a Demon Venerable and the Blood King. And so the fierce exchange of punches continued, as if to see who would prevail.
Thud!
The Drunken Demon staggered.
Just as the Blood King rushed in, unwilling to miss the opportunity—
Crack!
The Drunken Demon’s headbutt exploded into the Blood King’s face.
It was truly an attack he had never imagined. A headbutt? The Blood King was so dumbfounded and enraged he could hardly stand it.
Puk!
At the same time came the sound of flesh being torn.
As the Blood King stepped back while touching his nose, he saw it: the Drunken Demon lightly retreating far away.
‘Why?’
Just now, when the headbutt had succeeded, should that not have been his chance to press the attack?
At that moment, the Blood King smelled an unfamiliar scent of blood.
The Blood King slowly lowered his gaze to his own chest.
The place where his heart was had been drenched dark with blood. He could feel something hot passing through his chest and flowing down to his abdomen.
The Blood King’s eyes flew wide open.
‘When?’
At the very instant he had taken the headbutt, the Drunken Demon had stabbed his heart with a dagger as swiftly as lightning.
From the very beginning, the Drunken Demon had aimed only for that one move. He had been dead drunk, but that was the Drunken Demon’s drunkenness. The Drunken Demon had charged like a bull not toward the Blood King, but toward this result.
Only then did the Blood King see the dagger in the Drunken Demon’s hand. It had pierced so deeply that the entire blade was stained with blood.
“I told you before, didn’t I? A drunkard’s fight is this filthy.”
He had been fine until then, but the moment he saw that dagger, the strength left the Blood King’s legs, and he sank to the ground.
He hurriedly pressed his acupoints to stop the bleeding, but the place he had been stabbed was the heart. It was not a condition that could be resolved by stopping the bleeding on the outside.
‘I’m dying like this? To that drunkard?’
But on this day, in this place, liquor was thicker than blood.
The Drunken Demon stood at a distance. Even though his fatal attack had succeeded—no, because it had succeeded—the Drunken Demon was cautious.
Because he did not know when the Blood King might use the Self-Destruction Art.
From afar, his eyes met the Blood King’s. As he quietly stared into the man’s eyes, one thing came to him instinctively.
“You can’t be…”
The Drunken Demon asked with a look that truly said, surely not.
“You didn’t learn the Self-Destruction Art?”
Just as one came to know an opponent better after fighting them, he somehow had the premonition that it was so.
And from the Blood King’s expression, he could tell. He truly had not learned the Self-Destruction Art.
He did not want his own end to be one in which he was blown to pieces.
“You, no matter what, this isn’t right. I don’t know about anyone else, but you, at least, should end in a truly splendid, massive explosion, shouldn’t you?”
Even though he had made his subordinates explode with the Self-Destruction Art like that.
“You asked before we fought, didn’t you? Why I didn’t want the Young Cult Leader to fight you people.”
With cold eyes, the Drunken Demon added,
“This is why. You and I, we’re both too…”
The Drunken Demon slowly walked toward him. The Blood King gritted his teeth and drew up his inner force.
He had not learned the Self-Destruction Art, but he had one final move to kill the Drunken Demon.
Flying Butterfly Blood Poison.
If he used the Flying Butterfly Blood Poison, half of his innate true qi would disappear permanently, so he could not use it carelessly. But if he was going to die anyway, he could die together with this bastard.
‘Just a little closer. Just a little more.’
As the Drunken Demon approached, he suddenly took steps backward and retreated.
“What reason do I have to trust a man like you?”
When drunk, the Drunken Demon could smell the scent of death even better.
The Drunken Demon picked up a broken stone lantern from the ground. It was the very stone lantern that had been thrown during their earlier fight and split in half.
Guessing what the Drunken Demon intended to do, the Blood King shouted with difficulty.
“No! Kill me like a martial artist!”
“No. This is perfect for you!”
Shuuuuuk!
The stone lantern, carrying the last of the Drunken Demon’s remaining inner force, flew toward him.
Kooong!
The stone lantern crushed his face and upper body outright.
Blood flowed out from beneath the stone lantern. Far more blood flowed from the Blood King’s corpse than from an ordinary person’s.
The Drunken Demon staggered over, sat leaning against the stone lantern, and drank.
At last, the life-or-death battle had ended.
The blood flowing across the ground soaked his backside. The Drunken Demon silently looked down at the flowing blood. His own face was reflected in it.
Whiiiiik.
Bang!
Two people fell down there.
The one who had slammed his opponent into the ground as if hurling him down was Geom Mugeuk.
The man who died along with the gouged-out ground was the very cook who had killed the innkeeper earlier at the inn. He had come here after being summoned by the Blood King, but died without even seeing his master’s face.
Geom Mugeuk and the Drunken Demon’s gazes met in midair. There were so many things he wanted to say, but what came out of the Drunken Demon’s mouth was this.
“You’re late again.”
At those words, a surge of emotion rose in Geom Mugeuk’s chest. The Drunken Demon would never know how much he had longed to hear those words again.
Geom Mugeuk walked over to Chwima and sat down beside him. Without a word, Chwima handed him the remaining liquor.
Geom Mugeuk drank deeply, then passed it back to Chwima and said,
“They got here a while ago.”
Beyond the shattered wall, corpses lay scattered everywhere. Like the cook who had died at the very end, they were the subordinates the Blood King had summoned.
“Quite a lot of them came.”
They had continued arriving while the two men fought, and Geom Mugeuk had dealt with them one after another as they appeared.
Chwima understood. If even a few of them had joined that razor-close fight, he would have died.
Geom Mugeuk stared straight at Chwima and said,
“You were amazing, hyung.”
A smile Chwima could not hide spread across his lips.
As he smelled the rising scent of the Blood King’s blood, Chwima gave now the answer he had not given earlier.
Why was he fighting so hard for the Young Cult Leader?
Because he wanted to hear those words.
You were amazing, hyung.
Chwima lifted the bottle, then grimaced.
“Ahh, now that the tension’s gone, it hurts like hell. I’m going to lie down. My whole body feels like it’s been beaten black and blue. Right, I really was beaten half to death, wasn’t I? Aaah. I’m going to die because I tried to act cool for no reason.”
Grumbling in a way that was both exaggerated and not, he lay down. The floor was soaked with blood, but he paid it no mind.
“If you were here, you should’ve come to save me first.”
Geom Mugeuk knew well that he did not mean it. Chwima had truly wanted to kill the Blood King with his own hands.
The Blood King’s men were one thing, but there had been another reason Geom Mugeuk had not joined in.
He had been worried that another of the Twelve Zodiac Kings might intervene.
In the last fight with the Fighting King, someone had taken him away at the end. There had been every chance the same thing might happen this time. They might even intervene in the battle directly.
So, in preparation for anyone barging into the fight, he had kept strict watch from the outside. Even while dealing with the Blood King’s subordinates, he had watched and watched again to see if anyone was approaching.
Was that why? Or had there been some other reason?
This time, no one appeared.
Yes. Just as their side had changed beyond comparison with the past, the circumstances on the other side must have changed greatly as well. Those who should have been alive were dying, and they were likely failing to obtain what they were supposed to obtain.
Grrrr.
At the sound of snoring, he turned and saw that Chwima had fallen asleep. Having exhausted both his internal energy and his mental strength, he was completely drained.
Geom Mugeuk was about to lift him from where he slept in that blood-soaked place, then stopped.
The expression on Chwima’s sleeping face looked far too peaceful. Right now, he was not lying in a pool of blood.
He looked as peaceful as he had when, drunk, he had jumped into the lake in front of Chwimong Pavilion. It was the very same expression he had worn lying on the lake, gazing up at the stars in the night sky. It seemed the blood soaking his back had become a lake, calling that moment back to him.
Geom Mugeuk quietly closed his eyes as well. Thinking of the stars in the night sky he had looked up at together with him while lying on the lake, he drank the remaining liquor.
“This liquor tastes good.”