Chapter 146 - Even If You're Desperate

The Divine Lord of Yama opened his death register. Then he took out a small container of blood, dipped his brush into it, and wrote my name beside the Wicked Laughing Demon's.

The look in his eyes changed. Earlier, he had seemed half out of his mind. Now he looked as though he had regained his senses—or gone completely mad.

"Our names are side by side. I suppose we'll die together, too."

The Wicked Laughing Demon laughed at my remark.

Our composure made the eldest of the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path, who was examining the Seductress of Supreme Bliss's corpse, roar in anger.

"You bastards! Stop laughing!"

He rose and fixed me with a cold glare.

"The Seductress never once failed with her soul-seizing sorcery. What happened?"

"Big sister must have seen how little internal energy her younger brother had and decided to give him some."

"Cut the bullshit!"

His anger was genuine. And I could feel how deeply personal it was. Apparently, the second and youngest of the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path really should have been calling the Seductress of Supreme Bliss their sister-in-law.

The eldest turned to the Wicked Laughing Demon.

"You knew. You knew the Second Young Master wouldn't fall for it."

Of course the Wicked Laughing Demon had trusted me.

He looked at me. Our eyes met, and we exchanged sound transmissions.

—Now admit it yourself. Say, 'I killed the Soul-Seizing Demon.'

—I did no such thing.

—I'll hear you say it someday.

His eyes smiled through the holes in his mask. Seeing us looking at each other and smiling so casually, the eldest of the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path vented his rage.

"Go on, laugh. Keep laughing all the way to hell."

I addressed the eldest.

"Did that man tell you this before sending you to your deaths? That the Laughing Demon and I killed the Sword Emperor, Baek Manggi?"

"What?"

Not just the eldest, but all the other villains there were startled. They knew that even if they attacked together, there was no guarantee they could kill the Sword Emperor, Baek Manggi. And now the Seductress of Supreme Bliss was dead, too.

"He couldn't have believed you could kill us. He was merely using you to wound us or deplete our internal energy."

The survivors looked at one another. This time, I gave them no chance to devise a plan through sound transmissions.

I addressed the Blood Wolf Saber.

"Blood Wolf Saber. A fight to the death."

I threw the very words he had spoken to the Wicked Laughing Demon back at him.

"You said you spent your life searching for strong opponents, didn't you? Well, here's the man you've been looking for."

Drawing the Black Demon Sword, I spoke to the Wicked Laughing Demon.

"Please kill anyone who interferes with this duel."

Ordinarily, I should have left this fight to him. But we couldn't afford any unforeseen complications now. We had to dispose of these people with as few injuries as possible and get out. Our real enemy was waiting outside.

The Wicked Laughing Demon understood my intention and readily left the fight to me.

"I will."

There were still four others besides the Blood Wolf Saber, but he answered confidently.

The most flustered person in this situation was the Blood Wolf Saber. Having just watched me reverse the Seductress of Supreme Bliss's technique and absorb her internal energy, he must have felt fear deep down. The momentum favored me. I pressed him harder.

"If you truly sought out strong opponents, could you still be alive today? If you really meant it, why didn't you seek out the Martial Alliance Leader? Why didn't you come to my father?"

"..."

"You don't want to fight me, do you? Yet you've spent your whole life forcing people to fight when they didn't want to. Now it's your turn."

The moment I finished speaking, I charged at him.

The Blood Wolf Saber drew his straight-bladed saber.

Though he had lost the battle of wills before the fight began, his reputation was no sham. His saber technique was swift, precise, and powerful.

His saber came at me as though he meant to shatter my sword.

When sword and saber met, there was no metallic clanging. Instead, thunderous booms erupted. With both weapons infused with internal energy, this had become a contest of internal power. The shame of having his hypocrisy exposed fueled his saber.

He hammered at me, again and again and again.

He pressed his attack like a madman. Any other martial artist would already have had their sword or wrist broken.

But I blocked, and blocked, and blocked again.

Beyond our clashing blades, I watched his expression change from moment to moment. His initial ease, when he had believed his opening assault gave him the upper hand, gradually turned to anxiety. By now, it was probably his wrist that was beginning to hurt.

Slowly, our positions reversed.

Now I was the one hammering away. The Black Demon Sword began pounding his saber. Rather than trade elaborate moves, I drove him back in the very contest of internal power he had intended.

My sword fell too swiftly for him to evade or attempt another move.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

As the heavy impacts continued, an agonized scream mingled with them.

"Aaaaargh!"

Overpowered by my internal strength, his wrist had broken.

But my sword did not stop.

The next blow shattered his saber, now bereft of internal power. The blow after that carved a long vertical gash down his body.

"Wasn't this the life you wanted? To die fighting someone stronger?"

But I saw the resentment and regret in his eyes at the very end. Yes, it was easy to say such things, but truly living that way could not be easy.

Blood spurted in a straight line from the crown of the Blood Wolf Saber's head to his navel as he pitched forward. After a lifetime of forcing others to fight, he died when his own methods were turned against him.

The Divine Lord of Yama and the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path had watched in silence. Partly because of the Wicked Laughing Demon, but also because they had found no opening to intervene in that brutal contest of strength.

They probably hadn't expected the Blood Wolf Saber to lose to me. Overwhelming opponents through sheer internal power was his specialty.

I addressed the Divine Lord of Yama again.

"Did you write it down? The Blood Wolf Saber's name, too?"

Despite watching the Blood Wolf Saber die before his eyes, he showed no fear at all.

"After writing your name, I had no room left for his."

When he stepped toward me, the eldest of the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path stopped him.

"You lunatic. Your opponent is over there."

The eldest intended to avenge the Seductress of Supreme Bliss by killing me.

I walked toward the trio with my sword lowered, blood dripping from its blade. Naturally, the Wicked Laughing Demon took on the Divine Lord of Yama.

"Have you written your own name down already?"

At the Wicked Laughing Demon's question, the Divine Lord of Yama bellowed in a ringing voice.

"I am the emissary sent by the King of the Underworld! The King of the Underworld summons you!"

WHOOM! BOOM!

The Divine Lord of Yama's palm strike collided with the Wicked Laughing Demon's Ultimate Demonic Rampage Palm.

A fierce wind swept over us in the aftermath, and my fight with the Three Warriors of the Bloody Path began as well.

All three rushed me at once.

The eldest's sword aimed for my face, the second's for my chest, and the youngest's for my legs.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

I knocked the incoming swords aside almost simultaneously. I was fast. No, I had to be fast. Their attacks were so swift that unless I kept up, one of them was certain to stab me somewhere.

The directions of their thrusts kept changing. This time, the eldest aimed for my chest, the second for my stomach, and the youngest for my face. The next time, they changed again.

Their attack sequence seemed set through dozens, even hundreds of rehearsals and actual battles. Their coordinated technique was a flawless joint assault, built on a thorough understanding of an opponent's psychology. It was so merciless that anyone other than me would have been stabbed several times already.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

I parried their attacks, continually driven backward.

Then I seized an opening to attack.

When the Black Demon Sword thrust at the eldest, the second helped defend him while the youngest thrust at me.

They had fought together all their lives. Though they had three bodies, they fought as if they shared one mind. It was like battling a monster with three heads and six arms. They were far more difficult opponents than the Blood Wolf Saber. I was certain that, of the four villainous parties who had come today, they were the hardest to deal with.

Four swords tangled together, sweeping high and low. The exchanges allowed not the slightest mistake.

I had no intention of dragging this fight out. That was why I thought of a method I had never used before.

Just as they were driving me back, we slipped away.

Startled, the second frantically looked around. The eldest and youngest had suddenly vanished, and he stood alone with me in an open field.

I had used The Art of Space-Time Transposition to take only him into a new space.

To the eldest and youngest left behind, our figures must have seemed to vanish in an instant.

The second shouted at me.

"An illusion? You coward!"

"Of course. By your standards, fighting one-on-one is cowardly, isn't it?"

I rushed him. The three of them together hadn't been able to kill me. He could never face me alone.

Outside, the eldest and youngest were looking around in alarm.

It would have been one thing if only their opponent had disappeared, but the second had vanished with him.

Then the second's corpse appeared as though dropped out of thin air. Just as its sudden appearance startled the youngest—

WHOOSH! SHUNK!

The Black Demon Sword shot out beneath the corpse's armpit and pierced the youngest's heart. Given their skill, it was a pitifully abrupt death. But their opponent was me, putting The Art of Space-Time Transposition to use in actual combat.

The youngest fell without even a scream.

I expected the eldest to lose his reason and charge at me like a madman.

Instead, he chose flight. He tried to smash through a wall of the inn and escape, but in a flash, I used Flicker Step to block his path.

Startled, he turned and fled the other way. He flung the Seductress of Supreme Bliss's corpse from the floor at me. This, from the man who had wanted to kill me to avenge her.

"Even if you're desperate, isn't this going too far?"

"Shut up, you bastard!"

Perhaps realizing the fight was already lost, he went completely apeshit trying to survive. He shouted and swung his sword like a madman. But his desperate struggles stood no chance.

Before even five moves had passed—

SHUNK!

The Black Demon Sword pierced his heart, and with even greater speed, severed his wrist.

THUD.

The fallen hand held a pouch. A pouch of poison he had intended to fling at me. At the instant he was stabbed, he had tried to scatter poison over me and take me down with him.

I had known from the outset how vicious these bastards were. I only thought their end had come far too late. They had committed every kind of evil all their lives, yet only died in their twilight years. If I hadn't regressed, they wouldn't even have died here.

Wasn't that far too unfair? No wonder everyone lamented that Heaven was indifferent.

By the time my fight ended, the Wicked Laughing Demon's was over, too.

The Divine Lord of Yama was already dead, his forehead pierced by Blood Calamity Finger and his face buried in his own register. His blood soaked the death register.

"You spent your whole life pretending to be the King of the Underworld's emissary, but when he sees you, he'll say, 'Who are you? When did I ever send you?'"

The Wicked Laughing Demon laughed at my remark, then asked,

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

"I'm fine. What about you, Laughing Demon?"

"I'm fine, too."

Though it might have looked like an easy victory, these enemies were formidable enough that either of us could easily have died.

But we had handled them well and safely overcome another crisis. Without intending to, I kept finding myself surviving brushes with death alongside him.

"You've improved again since I last saw you. Just how strong do you intend to become?"

"I intend to go all the way."

"You're already this strong. Once you learn the Nine Calamities Demonic Art, no one under heaven will be your match."

I truly hoped so. From the bottom of my heart, I hoped no one would be a match for me.

Before leaving, I placed some money on the counter near the entrance. It was enough to repair the damaged inn and replace its furnishings. The money was for the proprietor, who had fled somewhere. He must have been forced into taking part in today's events.

"This no longer looks strange to me."

"As you know, the Demonic Path I pursue is one that doesn't break tables."

"Second Young Master, do you believe we can become good people?"

"I'm not asking us to become good people."

"Then what?"

"I want us to uphold the bare minimum we ought to uphold. Shouldn't we at least be human first, before building the Demonic Path, the orthodox path, or the unorthodox path on top of that? That's all I want."

The Wicked Laughing Demon stared at me in silence for a moment. I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but one thing was certain: he was gradually getting used to the person I was.

"Let's go outside."

"Let's."

We walked out of the inn together.

There wasn't a single passerby outside. The street was utterly deserted.

A man wearing a white mask stood before us.

He was merely standing there, yet his presence was immense—no less imposing than the Sword Emperor, Baek Manggi.

I knew. This was the impostor who had posed as the Wicked Laughing Demon, and the mastermind behind this trap.

"Have you forgotten your manners now that you associate with followers of the demonic path?"

The Wicked Laughing Demon gazed at him for a moment with a complicated look in his eyes, then spoke calmly.

"Greetings, Senior Martial Uncle."

I knew of him, too. He was Yang Cheogi, the senior brother of the Wicked Laughing Demon's master. When I had formed a relationship with the Wicked Laughing Demon before my regression, he had once told me about this senior martial uncle.

Yang Cheogi addressed the Wicked Laughing Demon in a commanding tone.

"Take off your mask."