Chapter 197 - I Will Become the Heavenly Demon

The moment he confirmed the match result, the underworld boss Chu Gao mobilized his men.

With two and three layers of surveillance on him, the young Fist Demon could not have escaped anyway. But as he waited in his own home, he had resigned himself to death. Otherwise, he could never have said such a thing the instant he saw Chu Gao.

["Made much money?"]

Chu Gao was beside himself with rage.

["You won't die an easy death."]

His losses this time were enormous. It was not just his own money he had lost. He had brought in funds from other organizations, too, and one wrong move could put his life in danger.

And now this green young fighter was twisting the knife.

["I've told the master of this arena what happened, too. You know who backs the arena, don't you?"]

Chu Gao's expression stiffened. Fear of its backer, the Unorthodox Alliance, had kept him from secretly fixing matches except when it truly mattered.

Everything had gone smoothly until now, but this time he had picked the wrong man entirely. He had never encountered a lunatic like this before. He had known the brat had a temper, but even in his wildest dreams, he had never imagined he would do this after being frightened with that huge wound across his chest.

["A brat like you doesn't know how precious life is."]

["Only yours, you mean!"]

This ordeal had made the Fist Demon resolve one thing: whatever life he led from now on, he would never make friends or start a family.

How wonderful was this? Even in the face of the bastard's filthy threats, he could do exactly as he pleased.

Of course, there was one regret. He would die here today, so he would never get to put that resolve into practice.

Chu Gao ordered his men.

["Get that bastard on his knees in front of me."]

He had no intention of letting this damned brat die easily.

At his command, dozens of underworld thugs drew their weapons at once. For all the Fist Demon's winning streak in the arena, there were far too many for someone without internal energy to face.

Yet he was not intimidated in the least.

["I'll fight knowing that every one of you I kill means someone else saved."]

The Fist Demon took a pair of gloves from inside his clothes and put them on. Awl-sharp spikes were embedded in their fronts.

["They're coated in deadly poison. One scratch, and you'll spend the rest of your life bedridden, eating nothing but porridge."]

It was a lie. Still, it ought to make them hesitate.

Among the gathered thugs, those who had fought him before flinched. Last time, he had left them injured, unconscious, and in utter disarray. Now his fists were poisoned, too?

["You cowardly bastard!"]

The Fist Demon shouted back at Chu Gao.

["Why? You get to swagger around with swords, but I can't wear these? You filthy underworld bastards! Come at me, all of you!"]

Chu Gao shouted.

["Kill him! Three hundred taels to whoever kills him first!"]

With the thing they valued above all else at stake, the thugs surged forward, swinging their swords.

The Fist Demon fled toward the rear courtyard. The thugs eagerly leading the pursuit suddenly plunged into the ground.

["Aaaaargh!"]

He had dug a pit in the courtyard and planted spearheads at the bottom.

The Fist Demon had prepared to put up a real fight today. He had no intention of relying on his fists alone. His goal was to survive, and if he died, he meant to take as many of them with him as he could.

Several men fell into the trap and died, but the thugs were seasoned fighters themselves. Things might have been different against a martial artist, but their opponent was a green young man with no internal energy.

They pressed him relentlessly, slashing with their swords. All they had to do was drive a blade into his body, and the princely sum of three hundred taels would be theirs. Mad for money, they charged like lunatics.

The Fist Demon moved with incredible speed, dodging incoming swords and throwing punches.

Those struck by his spiked fists screamed.

Curses flew from every direction as the thugs rampaged in a frenzy. Even with blood streaming from their wounds, they charged with wild cries.

The Fist Demon rolled across the ground to evade blades coming from all sides.

Springing to his feet, he ran toward the wall, then turned and threw a dagger. It lodged in the body of a man pursuing him. He threw stones from the ground and picked up their swords to swing as well.

Chu Gao shouted.

["You've abandoned your honor as a fighter!"]

He was deliberately trying to goad him into giving up other weapons, but it did not work at all.

["I abandoned it because of you. So you're the one killing your men!"]

The Fist Demon fought magnificently. He punched and struck, rolled across the ground, and leaped up to kick. He rampaged like a wounded beast.

But there were too many thugs. However gifted his movements, he was hopelessly outnumbered.

Blood sprayed from his arm and flank. He had no time even to check where he had been injured or how badly. Dodging swords from every direction, he swung his fists like a madman.

CRACK!

Just then, a kick sent the Fist Demon flying. He smashed through the goods stacked in the courtyard and collapsed.

Chu Gao had been waiting for his opening.

["Get his gloves off first!"]

They rushed him from all sides and stripped off his gloves. In the process, the Fist Demon tore into one man's throat with his teeth. The man's blood spurted everywhere.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

The punches left the Fist Demon's face drenched in blood.

Chu Gao looked down at him.

["I've never seen such a vicious bastard."]

Just as Chu Gao clicked his tongue at his men, the Fist Demon flung something from a bottle at him.

Chu Gao swept his hand across to block it.

HISSSSS!

The liquid burned through his sleeve. What the Fist Demon had thrown at him was bone-dissolving acid.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

In a blind rage, Chu Gao began stomping on him. He had nearly taken a faceful of bone-dissolving acid.

The Fist Demon curled up, trying to shield his vital spots, but sensed that this was the end.

'So this is where my life ends.'

Now that death felt real, he was afraid. And dying at the hands of a bastard like this filled him with bitter anger.

When the beating paused briefly, the Fist Demon opened his eyes.

Chu Gao was drawing a dagger.

["I won't let you die easily."]

With dazed eyes, the Fist Demon looked up at the night sky one last time. He thought he should at least see the stars or moon before he died.

'Huh?'

Beyond Chu Gao's shoulder, a man sat on a tree branch, looking down at him. Wondering if he was hallucinating, the Fist Demon shut his eyes and opened them again.

But the man, seated with the bright full moon behind him, was still looking down. He appeared to be a few years older than the Fist Demon.

Their eyes met. He had never felt afraid at the sight of another person, but the moment he saw this man's cold gaze, fear came over him.

'Is he a reaper come to take me away?'

He even found himself thinking that.

But he was no reaper. One of the thugs spotted him.

["Huh? There's someone up there!"]

As every gaze turned toward him, the man lightly jumped down from the branch.

He had dropped from a considerable height, yet his landing made not a sound. The astonishing movement technique startled both the thugs and the Fist Demon.

The man walked slowly over and looked at the Fist Demon. He did not spare the thugs so much as a glance.

He asked the Fist Demon,

["Can you fight?"]

The Fist Demon nodded and rose. His entire body hurt as though it were falling apart, but he clenched his teeth.

["I can."]

Then the man looked at Chu Gao.

["Is this any way to treat a fighter? So cowardly."]

The fact that he knew the young man was a fighter meant he was no casual passerby. He seemed to know exactly why all this was happening.

["Where might you be from, sir?"]

Chu Gao was inwardly on edge. He feared that this match-fixing scheme had brought an expert from the Unorthodox Alliance down on him.

Then the young man said something wholly unexpected.

["Fight fair."]

WHOOOOSH!

Before Chu Gao could dodge, the man's finger force struck and suppressed his internal energy. Subduing an opponent's internal energy with a single flick of a finger was a level of mastery he had only ever heard about in tales over drinks.

Startled, Chu Gao shouted reflexively.

["Kill him! Kill this bastard, too!"]

But no one dared charge the man. Even without the skill he had already demonstrated, he possessed a certain majesty that forbade anyone from treating him lightly.

The man looked at the thugs and gestured for them to form a circle. As though bewitched, they obeyed. A small fighting arena took shape.

Now on his feet, the Fist Demon clenched his fists. He did not know who his benefactor was. All he could think was that if he squandered this chance, he would die.

Chu Gao, too, realized that he had to kill the Fist Demon to survive. Fortunately, although his internal energy had been suppressed, neither his dagger nor his sword had been taken away.

'Then I have a chance!'

He had no chance. Chu Gao swung his dagger and lost it. He even drew his sword and attacked, but that, too, was taken from him.

In the end, it became a fight of fists against fists. He could hardly handle barehanded an opponent he had failed to defeat with a sword.

THUD! WHUMP! CRACK! CRACK!

The Fist Demon's furious punches hammered every part of his body.

["Why! Why do you torment people who are just living their lives? Why!"]

Chu Gao's jaw and ribs broke.

At last, unable to endure any more, he collapsed and lay gasping. The Fist Demon pulled open his shirt to show the wound.

["You told me to look at this wound whenever I got stupid ideas, didn't you? Take a good long look yourself, and fucking die."]

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Under the barrage of punches, Chu Gao breathed his last.

The Fist Demon rose, panting, and looked at the man.

Then a sword floated up before him.

SHRRRRRING!

Before the young man, the sword split into sword-shaped projections of sword qi, which rose into the sky together. The thugs were staring up at them in wonder when—

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

The sword qi suspended in the air poured down on the thugs like rain.

It pierced their heads, faces, and chests, and they fell together.

The man did not leave a single thug alive.

Listening to the Fist Demon's story, Geom Mugeuk exclaimed,

"Shadowed Heaven of the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art! It was Father!"

"Yes. It was the cult leader."

Geom Mugeuk was astonished. He had never known that his father was the one who had discovered the Fist Demon.

"He was your age then. He hadn't even been named successor yet."

For some reason, learning that his father had saved the Fist Demon moved Geom Mugeuk deeply.

"Standing there among all those bodies, the cult leader said to me, 'Wouldn't you like to turn those baby fists into a real man's fists?'"

"Ah!"

Only now did Geom Mugeuk understand where the Fist Demon's remarks about his baby hands had come from.

"What did you say?"

"I refused. How could I follow him without knowing who he was? What if he was an assassin? Or some infamous villain? I told him, 'I'm truly grateful that you saved my life, but no.'"

It struck him as remarkable that the Fist Demon had refused in that situation. In his youth, the Fist Demon had been vibrantly alive. That vitality was still hidden in his heart. Who could have guessed that the stifling, rigid-looking man who silently watched his subordinates train every day had once been like this?

"And what did Father say to that?"

"He turned away without a word, his eyes saying, 'Suit yourself.' As I watched his back, it suddenly struck me that this was wrong. If I didn't follow him, I'd never escape this arena. I'd been lucky to survive this time, but someday I'd suffer this kind of filthy treatment again and die."

The Fist Demon recalled that moment. The decision he had made in those few seconds had changed his fate.

"If the cult leader had tried to persuade me to come along, perhaps I'd have refused to the bitter end. Back then, I thought reckless pride and stubbornness were admirable. But watching his back grow more distant, my body moved on instinct. I ran after him. Told him I was sorry. That I'd changed my mind. He looked at me then and smiled. You know it, don't you? That particular..."

"That sneer that makes it look as though he's looking down on people?"

"Yes, that smile."

"No one in the world wears that smile better than my father."

"Honestly, the cult leader was impressive that day. In a different way from you."

"I'm impressive, too?"

The Fist Demon pretended not to hear me and continued his story.

"The cult leader brought me to the Cult and put me in the Eastern Fist School without a word of explanation. After that, he never once came to see me."

"That sounds like Father."

"I worked my way up alone, from the White Fists to the Black Fists. I truly worked myself to the bone back then."

An inborn feel for fist arts, talent, and hard work on top of that. The Fist Demon must have drawn everyone's attention in those days.

"On the day I became a Black Fist, the cult leader came to see me. That very day, as though he'd been watching me all along. Do you know what he said?"

"What did he say?"

The Fist Demon's voice trembled slightly as he recalled that day.

"'I will become the Heavenly Demon, so you become my Fist Demon.'"

Their bond was special not simply because they were both obsessed with martial arts, but because they shared this hidden past.

Imitating his father, Geom Mugeuk said,

"I, too, will become the Heavenly Demon, so..."

"Too late. I'm already the Fist Demon."

"Ah! You're right. That's something I should say to Cheon Sohui. Give me a moment. I'll find the right words for us."

The Fist Demon gazed at Geom Mugeuk.

Over his figure, he saw the young Heavenly Demon, Geom Ujin.

Two men who seemed alike yet different. If Geom Mugeuk was light, Geom Ujin was darkness. If one seemed so light he might float away, the other seemed so heavy he might sink forever.

Yet the Fist Demon sensed something else: this light and darkness were not so different. They were bright even in their darkness, and dark even in their brightness.

"The cult leader took me away from this place, but you brought me here."

Here, the Fist Demon had met two young candidates for cult leader, bound to each other by blood. He felt that some great destiny was at work.

Then Geom Mugeuk looked calmly at him and said with quiet composure,

"I will become your disciple, so please become my master!"