It was truly an arrogant thing to say.
Who could possibly tell masters like these to all come at him at once?
And yet no one present dared laugh outright.
Their opponent was the current Cult Leader of the Demon Cult.
The demonic energy rippling around his body was unlike anything they had ever seen. A powerful demonic energy that seemed capable of burning away anything it touched.
Of course, that did not mean the gathered masters were frightened. To begin with, those assembled here were far too formidable. There were no fewer than twelve of them.
Gyo Cheon burst into laughter. It was not the rasping laugh of an old man scraping metal, but a loud, forceful laugh infused with internal energy. He laughed like this deliberately, hoping to break Geom Ujin’s momentum.
“Do you even know who these people are, to spout such arrogance?”
Geom Ujin answered calmly. He was still showing courtesy to him out of consideration for Hyeolcheon Doma. He believed that the only person who could make him withdraw that courtesy was Hyeolcheon Doma himself.
“Are they not the people you gathered?”
The wrinkles at the corners of Gyo Cheon’s eyes twitched. To Gyo Cheon’s ears, those words sounded like, “In the end, are they not merely people who came because you called?”
“Yes, you were arrogant from a young age.”
As he listened to the two speak, Hyeolcheon Doma examined the faces of those who had revealed themselves.
First, there were some whose identities could be known from their appearances alone.
When the wall first collapsed, a man had appeared standing behind Gwangcheon Sal.
His entire face was red. Not merely flushed, but red as though it had been drenched in blood. Among those skilled enough to be here, there was only one man with a face that red.
Jeogan Gongja, the Red-Faced Young Master.
He was a madman who went around saying that so much of his enemies’ blood had splashed onto him that his face had turned red. Despite the title “Young Master,” he was an old monster over seventy.
Another figure stood a little distance away.
His identity could be known from the sword he wore. On the scabbard and hilt were ghostly images painted in dazzling colors.
Gwigeomja, the Ghost Sword.
He was a murderous fiend said to kill without fail whenever his ghost sword cried.
Both of these men possessed skill no less than the Black Emperor or the Qilian Monster who had appeared earlier.
No matter how much his master had used his former status as a Demon Sovereign, and no matter how many long years he had prepared, it could not have been easy to take all of them under his command. They were not the sort to readily place themselves beneath another.
‘What did you promise them?’
Whatever it was, it must have been the reason he was able to gather these masters in one place.
This time, Hyeolcheon Doma looked at Geom Ujin.
From the Cult Leader, he could sense no fear whatsoever.
He was enjoying himself right now. His two eyes, as they gazed at them, were filled with a heat Hyeolcheon Doma had never seen in them before.
This was the Cult Leader as he stood on a battlefield.
He had not knocked down that wall simply to show off his own strength. In the Cult Leader’s battles—no, in his life—there was no such thing as bluff.
Hyeolcheon Doma could guess the Cult Leader’s intention.
It would be easier to face them one by one, but if he did that, this fight would become a war of attrition.
It meant that even if he used internal energy, he would have to spend it in proportion to the number of opponents.
But if he fought them all at once like this, he could kill two with a single move.
Of course, it would be that much more dangerous.
Geom Ujin slowly drew the Heavenly Demon Sword.
The draw was neither fast nor slow.
A strand of sharp energy flowed along the blade of the extended Heavenly Demon Sword, then gleamed at the tip. Then the Heavenly Demon Sword began to cry.
Goooooooooo.
It was like a resonance rising from the depths of the bottomless pit of hell.
At the long-unheard cry of the Heavenly Demon Sword, Hyeolcheon Doma’s heart pounded. He wanted to fight beside the Cult Leader. Just as the Fist Demon and the Cult Leader had fought together in their youth, he too wanted to fight beside him.
But this was the Cult Leader’s battle. There was no place for him to step in.
Goooooooooo.
As the Heavenly Demon Sword cried, Gwangcheon Sal sprang up from his seat. Having lived his entire life being called a mad butcher, he was a man who feared nothing. Even when he heard the Demon Cult Leader tell them all to come at him together, he had remained seated in place as if to make a show of it.
And yet the cry of the Heavenly Demon Sword touched an emotion he had never felt before.
Fear.
He was shocked and bewildered by this unfamiliar emotion. He looked down at his own hand. It was trembling.
‘My hand is shaking just because a sword is crying?’
The fear he felt now was not something his head or his heart was feeling.
After all, he had lived his whole life with the thought, “Life ends in death anyway, so there is nothing to fear.”
This trembling was not the trembling of his heart, but a fear felt by his body.
To hell with the order they had decided on. He wanted to charge forward.
There were two ways to rid oneself of fear. Flee from it, or eliminate the one causing it.
He had always lived by choosing the latter.
And yet his body would not move.
“Damn it!”
Gwangcheon Sal clenched his fists as though they would burst and muttered a low curse. It was a curse directed at both himself and Geom Ujin.
Behind him, Gwigeomja’s sword began to cry with the sound of a ghost.
Hiiiiiiiiii.
In that instant, Gwigeomja felt it. That cry was different from usual.
‘The ghost sword is afraid!’
It was the first time the ghost sword, which had frightened opponents all its life, had ever felt fear.
‘Because of that sword’s cry.’
Gwigeomja began to soothe the ghost sword by pouring his inner force into it.
But there was one person who showed the exact opposite reaction from those two.
A man slowly stepped forward. He was someone who had never once been overwhelmed by another’s spirit in his life. He was the sort who could not stand the sight of anyone giving him orders.
“If I’m told to come out, then I should come out.”
He was a large man, like Magun, and his bare, muscular upper body made him look like a Vajra guardian.
Saekhon Geumgang, the Lust-Soul Vajra.
He was known to possess a body that could not be cut even by sword energy or sword aura. He was a master of monstrous strength, said to shatter boulders and break treasured swords with his bare hands.
With his bare fists, he had gone around crushing the heads of countless martial artists. The reason his infamy was so great was that he had done it simply for amusement.
But the culmination of his evil deeds was the tattoos on his body.
Tiny tattoos were engraved across his enormous frame. Looking closely, they were images of women. Drawings that captured the women’s distinguishing features.
He tattooed the appearances of the women he had violated and killed. When violating another woman, he would show her the tattoos and say this woman had been like this, and that woman had been like that. That was the sort of lunatic he was.
No wonder he said such things without hesitation.
“If the Cult Leader had been a woman, it would have been quite enticing.”
At that moment, another person moved from behind.
“Demon Cult bastards truly have no manners!”
He was an old man whose voice alone conveyed an extraordinary presence.
“Even if your father were here, he would not dare treat me, Seongna Yeomgun, so carelessly. Who are you to flap your mouth, telling me to come out or not?”
He, too, was a master of the previous generation, infamous throughout the martial world. His martial arts were profound, but he was just as cunning and clever.
Even now, while shouting boldly, he had half-positioned himself behind Saekhon Geumgang, cleverly concealing his body.
If Geom Ujin launched a surprise attack, he would hide behind Saekhon Geumgang. As long as Saekhon Geumgang served as his shield, he would not die.
As the two stepped forward, the others also slowly moved and lined up beside them. Their momentum revived as they came out, but Gyo Cheon stopped them.
“Wait! Move according to the plan.”
At those words, Hyeolcheon Doma asked his master,
“Did you even decide the order of deployment?”
Gyo Cheon gave no answer. The one who answered was Saekhon Geumgang.
“No one wanted to go first or last. If you fight him while he’s fresh, it’ll be hard to kill him. And if you go last, you won’t be able to claim the glory of killing the Demon Cult Leader.”
In other words, they believed that although many of them would die, someone here would ultimately kill the Demon Cult Leader.
‘You’re human too. Can you face this much internal energy? In the end, yours will run dry.’
That was their plan for dealing with Geom Ujin.
“So, Demon Cult Leader, stop acting so arrogant and quietly wait your turn to die. It would be even better if you died by my hand, but the unlucky number I drew is eight. Do you think you can last until my turn?”
At Saekhon Geumgang’s shout, Geom Ujin said to him,
“No. You are number two.”
Number two? Not number one, but number two?
Saekhon Geumgang could not understand. If the provocation had angered him, he should have said number one.
At that very instant.
The surroundings suddenly darkened.
The world went dark as though someone had blown out a lamp. Even with the keen eyesight of masters like them, they could not see ahead.
Gyo Cheon quickly took out a luminous pearl and shouted,
“Prepare for a surprise attack!”
Something astonishing happened. The moment the light of the luminous pearl should have illuminated the surroundings, the darkness began to swallow the light again.
‘The luminous pearl doesn’t work?’
A darkness through which no light could pass. It was truly a darkness they were experiencing for the first time.
The next moment, as if nothing had happened, the surroundings brightened. It had occurred so briefly that they wondered if it had merely been an illusion.
Gyo Cheon looked around, but no one was injured or collapsed.
At that moment, Seongna Yeomgun tilted his head and said,
“I heard something.”
Seongna Yeomgun looked around. When it had gone dark, he had clearly heard it. A sharp crack, like ice splitting, had rung beside his ear.
‘What sound was that?’
Then Seongna Yeomgun flinched.
‘Why are they looking at me like that?’
Everyone was looking at him. Their gazes were directed at his body.
Seongna Yeomgun slowly looked down at himself.
In that instant, puzzlement flashed through his eyes.
His body was misaligned.
A single line ran from his right shoulder to his left waist.
His shifted upper body began to slide down along that line.
‘Huh? Huh?’
Srrrrk.
‘I’ve been cut?’
There had been no pain, nor had he felt himself being struck by a sword.
And above all, he had been standing behind Saekhon Geumgang.
He looked at Geom Ujin.
‘How on earth?’
Just as the speed of his falling seemed to increase, his field of vision lowered. The momentary darkness now gifted him eternal darkness. Blood gushing from his body soaked the ground in every direction.
Saekhon Geumgang was just as shocked.
‘I was standing in front.’
Could it be that this single move of the Demon Cult Leader’s could strike beyond an obstacle?
Unfortunately for him, however, this move was not such a technique.
Rip.
A red diagonal line began to be drawn from his shoulder to his side.
His eyes bulged.
‘No way!’
Srrrrk.
His body also began to shift, then soon started sliding down. Both of them had been cut, but because his body was sturdier, the reaction had come more slowly.
It was a body that sword energy and sword aura could not affect.
And his line was not just one.
Rip, riiip, riiiiip.
On his arm, his waist, his shoulder. Red lines began to spread across his entire body like a spiderweb.
“Uaaaaargh!”
With a single monstrous scream, he sprayed blood and collapsed where he stood.
At that sight, not only Gyo Cheon but the other masters wore expressions of disbelief.
They had not fought madly. It had merely gone dark and then bright again.
Then a strange light passed through their eyes as they looked at the corpse.
Everyone’s eyes began to widen.
The reason they were shocked was not because he had killed a man immune to sword energy and sword aura.
Nor was it because he had known Seongna Yeomgun behind him would die first and had called Saekhon Geumgang number two.
Everyone’s gaze turned to the floor.
On his body, now cut into pieces, the images of the women remained intact.
The Demon Cult Leader had not simply carved him apart at random. He had torn his body to pieces while leaving the tattooed women untouched. The women’s faces all remained exactly as they were.
Floating in the blood, they seemed as though they had finally avenged their resentment and found peace.
Hyeolcheon Doma understood. In the Cult Leader’s own way, he had mourned them.
Everyone’s gaze turned toward Geom Ujin.
In that brief instant, within that darkness, without letting the others hear even the slightest sound.
He had killed him without damaging the images of the women.
The Nine Flames Demonic Art, Fourth Form: Dark Flash.
This was Geom Ujin’s Dark Flash, brought to mastery.
The one who broke the heavy silence was Gyo Cheon.
“Did you not expect him to be strong? Every time he uses the Nine Flames Demonic Art, it consumes an enormous amount of internal energy. So do not be afraid!”
It was then. Someone’s voice rang out.
“You should be afraid.”
At the same time, the one who descended from behind was none other than Geom Mugeuk.
When Geom Mugeuk had returned to the safe house with Seo Daeryong, his father had left a message telling him to come here.
Geom Mugeuk had raced over like the wind with his swift footwork, then quietly hidden himself and watched his father’s fight.
After respectfully greeting his father and Hyeolcheon Doma, Geom Mugeuk looked at the enemies and said,
“Why do you think Father broke the wall? Simply to avoid a war of attrition? If that’s what you thought, then you looked down on Father far too much.”
At that, Hyeolcheon Doma flinched. Geom Mugeuk did not miss that expression.
“So that is what you thought, Elder.”
Flustered, Hyeolcheon Doma wore an awkward expression.
“Our rigid elder, who cannot even lie and say he did not!”
Hyeolcheon Doma looked dumbfounded.
‘You rascal, you can joke even in a situation like this?’
Soon, Hyeolcheon Doma smiled faintly. Yes, if anyone would joke in a situation like this, it would be Geom Mugeuk.
Geom Mugeuk’s gaze turned back toward the enemies. Geom Mugeuk knew his father’s intentions exactly.
“Father was trying to calculate. He wanted to assess all of you and decide how to allocate his internal energy. How to kill this one, how to kill that one. He has probably already drawn the entire picture of today’s battle.”
With no playfulness in his face, Geom Mugeuk said to his father,
“I will watch without missing a single movement you make, not even a single breath.”
Others might not know, but at least for him, watching his father fight was worth more than any wondrous opportunity in the martial world.
“So show me more. Father’s battle—I want to see more of it.”