Chapter 107 - Ugly as You Are

The moment we opened the gambling house doors and stepped outside, sunlight shone down on us—and hidden weapons came flying out of it.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

I easily knocked them aside with the Black Demon Sword. Thanks to the New Eye Procedure, even looking straight at the sun did not dazzle me.

Across the street, the heads of the assassins who had thrown the weapons burst one after another atop the roof.

The Wicked Laughing Demon's palm was extended toward them.

He had unleashed his signature martial art, the Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm.

His outstretched hand closed, leaving his index finger pointing at something.

Finger force shot from it like a ray of light.

ZING! THUD!

Another assassin, leaping toward us from beyond the roof, fell with a hole punched through his chest.

That was his other signature martial art, the Blood Calamity Finger.

That palm and that finger had earned him his place as a Demon Supreme.

I believed those two arts had also played a part in earning him the epithet Wicked. The sight of enemies' heads and torsos bursting apart or being punched full of holes was far more shocking than watching someone get stabbed by a sword.

This was the first proper display of his martial arts I had seen since we left the Cult together. I knew better than anyone how terrifying those two arts were. Once he began rampaging in madness, hell unfolded at his fingertips.

The Wicked Laughing Demon's finger slowly turned toward me. Tension emanated from its tip, as though he might unleash the Blood Calamity Finger at any moment. At this distance, dodging it would be no easy task.

The next instant!

ZING! THUD!

The Blood Calamity Finger skimmed past my face and pierced the forehead of a masked man charging from behind me.

I had not moved an inch.

"Just now, staying still was harder than dodging."

"Was it?"

"You have to suppress the reflex to evade, which is harder than actually evading. All the more so for a master like you, Second Young Master. So you really were the one who killed the Soul-Seizing Demon."

A flash.

This time, my Black Demon Sword cleaved the air. A streak of sword qi skimmed past the Wicked Laughing Demon's face, then split the torso of a masked man charging at his back.

"I did not kill the Soul-Seizing Demon. How long are you going to keep asking?"

"I won't ask anymore. Now I'm certain."

Another assassin rushed us before I could deny it. My sword qi and his Blood Calamity Finger pierced another assassin's body.

"There are a lot of enemies."

"Let's go."

The Wicked Laughing Demon and I walked on together. Deep down, I felt a little excitement. Was he the only one who had been holding back the urge to cut loose?

Wind God's Four Steps, the Heavenly Demon’s Body-Protection Art, and the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art at the eleventh level. I, too, had been forcibly suppressing the desire to put my abilities on display.

If my opponents were assassins trying to kill me, I could unleash my martial arts without any qualms.

As we walked down an alley, four masked men vaulted over the wall and attacked all four of us at once.

Moving at least three times faster than the man trying to stab me, I cut him down and looked back. I had no interest in watching the Wicked Laughing Demon or Blue Face fight. I watched only Yi An.

She was slower than me, but she handled her enemy the same way I had. Her grueling training left no room for the mistakes that might otherwise have occurred.

She dodged the incoming sword so that it skimmed past her shoulder, then cut upward through him with a single stroke.

SLASH!

The long cut reached his jawbone, and the assassin collapsed.

She was neither flustered nor tense.

You're doing well, Yi An.

We emerged from the alley onto the main street, where the carriage was parked.

People went about their business as though entirely unaware of the ambush in the alley.

A shopkeeper yawning, a clerk arranging goods in front of him, an old woman sweeping the street, a child running past her, an old man sitting by the roadside. Across from him, a middle-aged peddler carried a tray of wares and called out to customers, while a man and woman who appeared to be married bickered. There was even a woman shouting down from a second-floor window at a man standing below with his head bowed.

An ordinary moment of everyday life lay before us like a painting.

Just as we, too, naturally became part of that picture, an inexplicable sense of wrongness and danger surged within me, activating the Heavenly Demon’s Body-Protection Art.

"Watch out!"

The attack began at the very moment I shouted my warning.

Every person we had seen was an assassin.

WHOOSH! SWISH!

The peddler and the bickering couple came at me with daggers. The man and woman coordinated their attacks perfectly, aiming for my left and right sides respectively. I could even see the thick coating of deadly poison on their gleaming blue blades.

The Black Demon Sword struck its targets swiftly and precisely.

As I cut from the man's shoulder through his chest, the woman's dagger skimmed past my ear.

Judging by her speed, she had to be one of Black Kill's finest assassins, yet I could see even the trembling of her eyelashes.

They fluttered faster as she sensed the Black Demon Sword coming at her from beyond her field of vision. Just as she thought to react—

SLICE!

I cut through her waist and turned to find the Wicked Laughing Demon dealing with the peddler.

The peddler, with his tray strapped to him, had scattered poisonous powder at the demon.

The Wicked Laughing Demon swept his hand, sending the powder back at the man who had thrown it. Covered in poison, the peddler rolled on the ground, screaming hideously.

At the same time, the woman throwing hidden weapons from the second floor died pierced by the Blood Calamity Finger, and the man below her who had launched sword qi was shattered by the Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm.

I had not merely been watching. I knocked the woman's hidden weapons aside in every direction while simultaneously neutralizing the man's sword qi with my own. In effect, the Wicked Laughing Demon and I had executed a perfectly coordinated attack.

The child among the assassins rushed at Yi An.

'Cut him down, Yi An! That's no child!'

He only looked like a child. In reality, he was an older adult.

Fortunately, Yi An was not as softhearted as I had feared.

She twisted aside from the child's attack and calmly cut him down. At that very moment, the old man who had been sitting by the road was already lunging at her, thrusting a dagger toward her face. Its poison would kill her with even a scratch.

Even at that critical moment, I only watched. Hoping Yi An would fend him off herself, I did not release my sword qi.

THUNK!

The old man's dagger stopped just before Yi An's eyes as she bent backward at the waist. Her sword, meanwhile, was buried in his heart. She had defeated him by the narrowest of margins, thanks to a waist that remained supple despite her weight.

I was more startled than she was, but not helping her had ultimately been the right choice. This single experience would help her grow more than years of training.

While she dealt with those two, Blue Face killed the shopkeeper and the clerk. Had the Wicked Laughing Demon not killed the old woman sweeping the street with his Blood Calamity Finger during that exchange, Blue Face would have died at the assassin's hands.

That scene offered a glimpse of why Blue Face had devoted his entire life to the Wicked Laughing Demon.

All of this happened simultaneously in the span of a single breath.

We emerged unscathed only because the Wicked Laughing Demon and I were so exceptionally skilled. Their ambush, designed as a perfect combined assault in which none obstructed another's movements, was truly terrifying.

Her face flushed, Yi An spoke with something like a sigh.

"Ah, I killed a child and an old man."

There was a touch of humor in her words, but I eased her mind anyway.

"That child was older than you. And how many people do you think that man killed before he lived to become old?"

"That put my mind at ease in one go."

After reassuring her, I entered a nearby shop.

The merchant who ordinarily did business there lay in a corner, his pressure points sealed. They had arranged this entire death trap while we were inside the gambling house.

The assassins had left the merchants alive to avoid creating the smell of blood. Otherwise, they would all have been killed to silence them.

Just as I released the merchant's pressure points, including the one that kept him mute, and turned away—

SWISH!

An attack came from behind.

SLICE!

I spun like lightning and slashed the throat of the man I had just freed. Astonished by my swift reaction, he toppled over. He was another assassin, planted as a contingency in case the attempt outside failed.

This ambush was genuinely unexpected and dangerous. Anyone other than me would have fallen for it.

The real merchant lay in a small room farther inside, his muting and paralyzing pressure points sealed. I freed him and left the shop.

I went through the surrounding buildings one by one, releasing the pressure points of their captive owners.

Already aware that assassins might be mixed among them, I killed another one posing as an owner before he could swing his sword even once.

When I stepped outside after freeing the person in the last shop, another assassin's body was bursting apart beneath the Wicked Laughing Demon's Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm.

He had been hiding in a box in front of a building the demon was passing.

Even though everyone outside had already been dealt with and their chances of success were slim, they attacked without fail when the appointed moment came.

Thoroughly trained, they revealed themselves and attacked even knowing they would die. They had been raised not as human beings but as killing tools stripped of fear.

"I'll bring the carriage."

Blue Face walked across the street to fetch it.

The Wicked Laughing Demon said to me, "Anyone who can offer assassins a million taels must be no ordinary man."

"Yes. In terms of the Cult, his status would probably be equivalent to a Demon Supreme's. For now, he's using outside blades to keep us from picking up his trail, but once we expose the man behind it, masters too powerful for us to handle may emerge."

The Wicked Laughing Demon's eyes shone with the desire to test himself. Among the Eight Demon Supremes, he would resent being called second to anyone in belligerence. The stronger his enemy, the fiercer he burned.

It happened right as we were talking.

WHOOSH! SLICE!

A streak of sword qi cut through the carriage's passenger compartment.

Yi An had released it. She had detected an assassin concealed at the back of the carriage targeting Blue Face as he sat down in the driver's seat, and launched her sword qi.

Inside the diagonally severed compartment lay the assassin, cut apart.

Blue Face got down from the carriage. Even if the assassin had concealed his presence perfectly, failing to detect him was a clear mistake.

Blue Face bowed his head to Yi An, and she bowed back.

Well done, Yi An. Having someone like Blue Face owe you his life was a good thing.

Seeing her excited face flush even more, I teased her lightly.

"You're probably the first person ever to wreck the Laughing Demon's carriage."

Yi An flinched at my words and hurriedly bowed to the Wicked Laughing Demon.

"I'm sorry!"

He played along with my joke.

"That carriage is very expensive."

Yi An answered quickly.

"I'll compensate you."

"How?"

"I'll buy you the same carriage with my wages."

"That would take several years' wages, wouldn't it?"

After a moment's deliberation, she pleaded, "Please give me a discount!"

The Wicked Laughing Demon burst out laughing. I had made him laugh several times, but this was his loudest laugh yet.

"Ugly as you are, you do have a knack for being funny."

Despite being called ugly to her face, Yi An showed no sign of taking offense.

"Give me a bigger discount, and I'll make you laugh even more!"

Then Blue Face came over and said quietly, "I'll contribute my wages as well."

This time, I laughed. Knowing Blue Face was not the sort of person to say such things, I could not help it.

Once the tension had eased, the Wicked Laughing Demon gave Blue Face an order.

"Use every covert network available to find out where Black Kill's leader is hiding."

"Yes!"

Then I told Blue Face, "Use the Heaven-Reaching Pavilion's communications network. Given the circumstances, Strategist Sima will surely understand."

It was the Heaven-Reaching Pavilion that had sent us the information about Black Kill earlier. If Strategist Sima was the man I knew, he would already have authorized us to use their intelligence.

"Understood."

"And take Yi An with you."

"I will."

Apart from the debt he owed her, I wanted to use this opportunity to give her a proper range of experiences.

"You have to work off that wrecked carriage, don't you?"

"Yes. I'll be back, Young Master."

Yi An left with Blue Face.

I assessed the damage the merchants had suffered that day, gave them some money, and returned.

"A show of generosity?"

"Generosity, yes, but who am I putting on a show for? You, Laughing Demon? Someone it would never work on?"

"Those merchants. Or yourself."

I nodded in acknowledgment and said calmly, "Perhaps. But what does it matter whether it's for show or not? What matters to those people is whether they receive compensation."

"You really are relentless about pretending to be good."

"Even living this way, pretending to be good, I've still covered my sword in blood today."

The Wicked Laughing Demon gave no answer.

I walked slowly over and unhitched the horses from the broken carriage.

"The weather's lovely. Shall we ride to the next village?"

"Very well."

I mounted first, and the Wicked Laughing Demon followed. Each of us led one of the remaining horses as we set off at a leisurely pace.

When we still had not broken into a gallop after quite some time, the Wicked Laughing Demon asked, "Aren't we taking things too easy?"

I looked up at the vast, clear sky and said, "What have we got to hurry for? It's always the side that failed that's in a rush."