Chapter 109 - Is It You?

The Wicked Laughing Demon was asking where our relationship stood.

At last, the very concept of a relationship had taken shape in his dealings with others.

I went over to him, looked down at the line he had drawn, then picked up a fallen twig beside it and drew another mark.

It fell far short of the point where I had said I would spare him.

“About here.”

“We haven't come nearly as far as I thought.”

“We've been through a great deal since leaving the Cult, but I feel as though my relationship with you is going in circles, Laughing Demon. We've only come this far because we shared food and drink today. It was the first time we'd eaten and drunk together.”

“Sharing food and drink brought us this far? Then what must we do to get here?”

“We would have to build up a great many experiences and memories to cross this gap. And to get all the way here... wouldn't we have to save each other's lives, at least?”

“Aren't you being too stingy with your marks?”

“My marks aren't stingy. You're simply too reluctant to let other people's feelings in.”

Apparently unwilling to talk any longer, the Wicked Laughing Demon lay down.

“It's all pointless. Other people are just other people.”

I drained the remaining liquor as I watched his back, stubbornly turned toward me.

Laughing Demon, people don't do this because they fail to understand how fleeting it all is. It's still a road we must walk. We live by keeping our tempers in check.

I leaned halfway back and looked up at the sky.

The Wicked Laughing Demon glanced over from where he lay facing away, then looked up with me. The countless stars blanketing the night sky shone equally on everyone: the wicked man who called everything pointless, and the man who doggedly pretended to be good.

After gazing silently at the stars for a long while, the Wicked Laughing Demon spoke abruptly.

“You will have to fight me.”

At times like this, I felt a pang of sadness.

Even beneath such beautiful starlight, the bloody wind raging through his heart would not cease.

“Very well. Someday.”

* * *

We were in no hurry the following day, either.

We had to keep to the agreed route and wait until Yi An and Blue Face returned from their search for Black Kill's leader's hideout.

The Heaven-Reaching Pavilion had the finest intelligence network in the Central Plains. If it set its mind to finding something, it would surely find it.

On the third night after the Wicked Laughing Demon and I had set out alone, the Heavenly Demon’s Body-Protection Art woke me from my sleep.

I sensed people approaching us from every direction. Judging by their stealthy movements, they were assassins.

I slowly sat up and drank water from the bamboo flask beside the campfire.

As I rose, the Wicked Laughing Demon spoke without getting up.

“As expected. Enemies approach, and you wake as though by some uncanny instinct.”

“But you were awake before me, weren't you?”

“I wasn't asleep.”

Come to think of it, the Wicked Laughing Demon rarely slept well at night. Most evil men I had known slept soundly without a care, but he was an evil man who struggled to sleep.

When we began talking, the approaching assassins stopped moving, but they did not retreat. Apparently, they had orders to kill us at any cost.

The Wicked Laughing Demon rose.

“I'll deal with them.”

His voice held a slight note of excitement, perhaps at the prospect of seeing blood.

“Will you be all right in the dark?”

“I prefer it.”

The Wicked Laughing Demon walked into the darkness.

From the direction he had gone came the sound of Blood Calamity Finger being unleashed.

PING!

That crisp sound ended with the sound of flesh being pierced.

THUNK!

That marked the true beginning of the battle.

The sounds of Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm and Blood Calamity Finger rang out one after another.

Hidden weapons flew toward the Wicked Laughing Demon from every direction. Dozens of them sliced through the night air.

The sounds of Blood Calamity Finger and Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm told me he was still alive.

They came first from the left, then from the right. Each was invariably followed by a scream.

I sat and imagined how the Wicked Laughing Demon was fighting from sound alone.

Thanks to the New Eye Procedure, I could have watched if I wished. Instead, I closed my eyes and pictured his movements and the assassins' using only what I heard.

These assassins were no ordinary fighters, either. They were as skilled as those who had ambushed us outside the gambling house.

Daggers cutting through the air, hidden weapons flying, fighters using lightness arts to dart between trees, flesh tearing and bones being crushed.

All manner of sounds filled the darkness. With my eyes closed, I kept imagining the battle through sound alone.

How I would move. How the Wicked Laughing Demon would move. How I would move if I were an assassin.

I, too, was darting through the darkness. Sometimes I took the Wicked Laughing Demon's side; sometimes I took the assassins'. When I attacked him as one of the assassins, I predicted how he would respond.

All the while, the assassins continued to die.

The darkness, which had always sided with assassins, had betrayed them.

Tonight, it sided with the Wicked Laughing Demon.

PING!

I instinctively tilted my head aside, and Blood Calamity Finger skimmed past my ear.

A scream erupted where it struck.

There had been no need to attack that way. He had undoubtedly fired it in my direction to test me. Had I failed to dodge, it would have taken my ear off. What a nasty disposition.

Then a desperate assassin dropped down in front of me.

“Did you come to me for shelter? Or to kill me, at least?”

Perhaps even he didn't know.

“Die!”

The assassin lunged at me.

Why should the darkness favor only the Wicked Laughing Demon? Its true master was me.

SHING!

The charging assassin fell, his chest slashed through to the bone. I closed the eyes that had remained wide open in death.

The screams all around gradually dwindled, until silence finally fell.

A short while later, the Wicked Laughing Demon returned.

I offered him liquor.

Instead, he gulped down water from the bamboo flask. He now had no qualms about lifting his mask to drink. The heat radiating from him was not merely due to the smell of blood on his body. He still hadn't had enough blood.

“This lot seemed to have come to kill themselves.”

I corrected him.

“They didn't kill themselves. They were murdered.”

“Murdered? By me?”

“No. By their own leader. However vast a million taels may be, the moment they accepted a contract to kill a Demon Supreme, they had to be prepared for total annihilation. If they succeeded in killing you, the Cult would destroy them. If they failed, you would. So why did they accept the contract?”

“Were they threatened, perhaps?”

“I believe the opposite. It means the mastermind in the Unorthodox Alliance who commissioned this promised him something besides money. Probably an important post within the Alliance.”

The Wicked Laughing Demon nodded in agreement.

“And that explains today's reckless attack?”

“Yes. Black Kill's leader is dismantling his organization. He's eliminating every assassin who knows his face so that no one can recognize him. He's throwing away the assassins who spent years earning him money and serving him loyally. Then he'll live under a new identity.”

“So he's more of a villain than I am? I don't like that at all.”

“With this choice, he's sunk from villain to trash.”

“You saw through all of this at a glance, Second Young Master.”

I felt a little guilty toward him. I knew because I had experienced it before. How else could even I have understood the background to such a thing at once?

“Second Young Master, when you become the Heavenly Demon, do be sure to spare me.”

The Wicked Laughing Demon sounded as though he were joking, but I knew that this was precisely the moment when I needed to be on my guard.

For an instant, he must have thought:

'With an opponent like this, shouldn't I kill him before he becomes the Heavenly Demon?'

That's right, Laughing Demon. If I become your enemy, of course you should kill me first. I'm sharing this journey with you to prevent that very situation.

I spoke with conviction.

“Let's work together to reach the survival line.”

The Wicked Laughing Demon laughed loudly, apparently amused by my calling the line we had drawn the survival line.

“The stench of blood is overpowering. Shall we leave?”

“Isn't it a better scent than women's powder?”

“Not to me.”

Just as we finished packing to leave, Yi An and Blue Face arrived. Yi An was startled by the corpses strewn around us, but relieved to see me unharmed.

“The Heaven-Reaching Pavilion has located Black Kill's leader's hideout.”

Blue Face showed us a sheet of paper with the location written on it. It wasn't very far away.

Had we learned it even a little later, Black Kill's leader would have hidden under the protection of the mastermind in the Unorthodox Alliance.

But with the assassination attempt only just having failed, there was a chance he had not yet left his hideout. He would never dream that we could identify him and locate his refuge so quickly.

“Let's have a proper lightness-art race this time.”

Without waiting for my answer, the Wicked Laughing Demon launched himself forward.

“This time, I'm starting first.”

Blue Face stared in astonishment at his departing back. Ordinarily, the Wicked Laughing Demon would have leisurely yielded the first move to me. Seeing him race off, even resorting to cheating, was a shock. My composure must have been even more surprising, though.

I even took the time to greet Yi An.

“Did everything go well?”

“Yes. We were terribly busy, going back and forth everywhere. I learned a great deal.”

She turned to Blue Face and bowed again in thanks. Blue Face returned the bow politely. I sensed that their relationship was gradually progressing.

“But shouldn't you go? It looks as though you're having a lightness-art race.”

“I should.”

I had to win again so I could tease him.

“You two gather the baggage and follow at your own pace.”

In a flash, I vanished from the spot.

* * *

Black Kill's leader was burning everything he owned in the deserted courtyard.

Every secret document concerning his contracts, his clothes, even his belongings. He burned everything connected to him.

Every assassin who knew his face was dead. No—he had killed them all.

Now he could leave without a care. He would give up being an assassin, scorned by everyone, and live a life he could proudly show to others. He would enjoy wealth and fame in broad daylight. A new life was beginning.

As he prepared to leave his hideout, he casually glanced at the wall—and recoiled in shock.

Someone wearing a white mask was perched on it. What frightened him was that he had no idea how long that person had been there.

“The Wicked Laughing Demon?”

His voice trembled. If this was the Wicked Laughing Demon, he was a dead man.

“No. I'm the winner of the contest.”

The man who pushed his mask up onto his head and grinned was none other than Geom Mugeuk.

Black Kill's leader had no idea what he was babbling about, but he was inwardly relieved that his opponent was at least a young man.

Geom Mugeuk said to him,

“You could have simply left.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If you wanted a fresh start, you didn't have to go this far. You could have entrusted Black Kill to a reliable successor and gone anywhere to live off your skills. Even without that million taels, you've earned plenty of money, haven't you?”

Black Kill's leader flinched when I described his circumstances so precisely.

“Would assassins really be so industrious as to expose the secrets of a former leader trying to start anew? They'd all be busy keeping themselves alive.”

Geom Mugeuk sensed a furtive killing intent from Black Kill's leader. He realized the man was preparing a surprise attack, but pretended not to notice and continued.

“But you couldn't do that. Whenever you closed your eyes, you must have pictured your subordinates betraying you. You'd have been too anxious to live. Do you know why? Because that's the kind of man you are. You would have threatened or killed your own leader to squeeze everything out of him.”

Black Kill's leader listened meekly, but his attention was focused entirely on his sleeve. When his signature hidden weapon, the Wind Wheel, slid down from within it and into his hand, he smiled with satisfaction. At this distance, the strike would be fatal.

“Finished spouting bullshit?”

“I'm finished, but be careful. He's very angry right now because he lost.”

“What the hell are you babbling about?”

At the very instant Black Kill's leader was about to launch the Wind Wheel—

PING! THWACK!

Finger force shot toward him like light and pierced his shoulder. It was too fast to evade.

A moment later, someone swooped down from the sky, striking Black Kill's leader as he landed.

BOOM!

A horrific scream burst from Black Kill's leader's mouth.

“Aaaaaaagh!”

The man standing with his foot crushing Black Kill's leader's pierced shoulder was the Wicked Laughing Demon.

Instead of taking his anger out on Geom Mugeuk, he vented it on innocent surroundings. His Blood Calamity Finger punched holes through the walls on every side.

“Why the hell are you so fast? Why?”

His crushed shoulder hurt so badly that Black Kill's leader could do nothing but scream. Overwhelmed by his opponent's presence, he could not even think of fighting back. Pleas spilled out of him unbidden.

“Urgh! It hurts! Please! You're hurting me! Aaaaaagh!”

Only then did the cold eyes behind the white mask look down at Black Kill's leader.

“Is it you? The bastard going around being more of a villain than me?”