Chapter 307 - Underworld's Divine Star Black Flame Dragon (5)

Demonic arts.

Commonly, the term refers to the martial arts practiced by members of the Demonic Cult.

But the Murim Alliance defines the scope of demonic arts more broadly.

A power that twists the natural order and strays from truth.

Any power that defies the laws of the world and exceeds common sense is placed within the category of demonic arts.

This is due to the "Orthodox Classification" that was enacted five hundred years ago, at the same time the Murim Alliance was founded.

For the past five hundred years, the Murim Alliance has eradicated every martial art that fell outside this "Orthodox Classification" and protected the peace of Jianghu.

As a result, in the present age, few people knew the types or traits of demonic arts, and no one thought of demonic arts upon seeing Deung Gohyeon.

"H-Hall Leader! A-Are you all right?"

The other disciples of the Jeondeung Sect were stunned speechless, glad that he had cut down a member of the Dok-a Sect in a single stroke, yet shocked that he had also cut down the Jeondeung Sect disciple who had tried to stop him.

They cautiously called out to Deung Gohyeon, but he did not even pretend to hear them and charged straight at the Dok-a Sect disciples.

SLAAASH!

It was only natural to raise a weapon and oppose an armed opponent.

But the fact that their desperate defenses had no effect was more than enough to paralyze their reason.

SLAAASH!

"Guuurgh!"

Another Dok-a Sect disciple, who had been defending against the sword, had his neck cut along with his blade and sprayed a fountain of blood, until small streams of blood began to flow through the Dok-a Sect's courtyard.

The Dok-a Sect disciples kept retreating.

And each time, Deung Gohyeon chased them down, cutting off necks and tearing bodies apart, and his might no longer looked like that of a warrior, but nothing more than a single evil ghost.

"H-Hall Leader... I-I think you can stop now."

Unable to keep watching, a disciple tried speaking to Deung Gohyeon, but Deung Gohyeon did not even act as if he had heard.

Then, the moment three Jeondeung Sect disciples rushed in from behind to subdue him—

FLASH.

Deung Gohyeon looked at his junior brothers with pitch-black eyes and swung his saber emotionlessly.

"Kuhuk!"

"Guuurgh!"

One had his neck cut off, and two had their arms and legs cut off.

Neither the Dok-a Sect nor the Jeondeung Sect could come to their senses after the chain of events unfolding before them.

"W-What the hell is that madman!"

"H-He attacked his own side...!"

"R-Run!"

Deung Gohyeon, who had even terrified the fearless Underworld, licked his blood-splattered lips and spoke.

"The J-Jeondeung Sect is eternal!!!"

With his eyes bulging wide, Deung Gohyeon charged at the Dok-a Sword once more.

GRIND.

The Dok-a Sword ground his teeth hard enough to shatter them and tried to face him with all his strength.

"You think I'll run away!"

SHING!

But the Dok-a Sword's weapon, clad in Sword Qi, was cut apart, and the instant his two eyes bulged wide just like Deung Gohyeon's—

THUD!

I quickly kicked him away.

"What, kuhuk...!!"

CRAAASH!

The Dok-a Sword flew off and broke a pillar of the hall.

"I just saved your life once."

"... F-Fuck..."

Like someone of the Underworld, the Dok-a Sword expressed his gratitude with a curse.

I left him behind and examined Deung Gohyeon closely.

His face was flushed red, and white steam poured out every time he breathed.

Up to this point, these were typical symptoms that appeared when one took an Exploding Blood Pill, but from here on, something was different.

Eyes like obsidian, with all the whites gone.

A strange energy that cut through all Sword Qi despite not being Sword Force.

On top of that, though he was endlessly spewing out waves of qi, he did not seem to be consuming it as though he were using innate true qi.

It felt as if he were drawing qi from somewhere we could not know.

And above all.

There was a killing intent unpleasant enough to sting the skin, and dense demonic qi that made my eyes ache just from looking at it.

I asked Deung Gohyeon.

"You... learned a demonic art?"

At my question, Deung Gohyeon's gaze followed the Dok-a Sword, then turned to me.

"You... You... What are you, an obstacle?"

"I asked if you learned a demonic art."

"Do you mean to interfere with the Jeondeung Sect!"

Deung Gohyeon drooled like a beast and shouted in a booming voice.

"I'll kill you! Anyone who interferes with the Jeondeung Sect will die!"

No getting through to him, then.

I sent out my intent and raised the Taiyi True Scripture.

My internal energy flowed through my blood vessels and spread through my fine meridians, filling them with power.

I stepped with the Taiyi Eighty Thousand Divine Steps, left two afterimages behind, and took Deung Gohyeon's back.

"Hey, over here."

The moment he turned around in shock, I kicked him in the head and sent him flying thirty feet away.

CRASH, CRAAASH!

Deung Gohyeon smashed into a wooden pillar thick enough that two grown men could not fully wrap their arms around it.

CRACKLE, CRACKLE.

But he sprang to his feet as if he had not taken any particular damage.

What was different from before was—

"I'll kill... I'll kill..."

He was growling through his teeth like a beast that had lost its reason.

ROOOAR!

The bastard let out a beastlike roar, kicked off the ground, and flew toward me like an arrow.

SLASH— SLASH— SLASH—

I dodged the saber that cut in within the blink of an eye by a hair's breadth.

However, there was nothing I could do about the strands of hair and hems of my clothes fluttering loose as they were cut by his saber.

These were expensive robes Soso bought for me.

Damn bastard.

"Snap out of it, you son of a bitch!"

I clenched my fist and struck his jaw hard enough to break it.

The bastard's body floated about twenty feet into the air, his head snapping back as if his neck had broken, then he flipped backward once in midair and regained his posture.

LIGHT TAP.

Deung Gohyeon landed on the ground, then vomited up a bowlful of blood before even throwing away the saber he should have treated like part of his own body, crawling on all fours, and beginning to look around.

"Grrrr."

Deung Gohyeon, who had been baring his teeth like an enraged dog, suddenly changed direction and charged at the Dok-a Sect disciples.

"Aaagh!"

When a Dok-a Sect disciple had a fistful of flesh torn from the nape of his neck and died in a single blow, Deung Gohyeon abandoned the dead man and began charging toward his next target.

"M-Madman! What is that!"

"R-Run!"

Watching the chain of events, I could not relax my expression easily.

The aura he gave off was clearly that of a demonic art, yet his behavior was distinctly different from that of a demonic practitioner.

Demonic practitioners were murder-crazed bastards, but they did not lose their reason this easily.

No, rather, because they were colder than anyone else, they thought of murder more easily than anything.

Looking at it from that perspective—

'This is strange.'

The sight of him seemingly losing sight of his purpose and going mad only for slaughter was nothing but awkward.

Moreover, it was hard to accept that someone who prided himself on being from a lay branch of a lay branch of Qingcheng had learned a demonic art.

'Would a member of the Orthodox faction who secretly learned a demonic art reveal it this easily in the first place?'

I, too, possessed a strange ability through the artifact called the Jade Dragon Bracelet, but I could not take it out carelessly.

Because if I did, I would be branded the public enemy of all Murim and would not escape death.

That meant that whether he had intended it or not, the present situation, in which he had revealed a demonic art, should be seen as something outside his own intention.

'What is it... What did I miss?'

While I was lost in thought, the Dok-a Sword sprang to his feet and thrust his sword at Deung Gohyeon.

"Goddamn it, Deung Gohyeon! What the hell are you doing!"

"Kraaagh!"

Deung Gohyeon charged in to bite off the Dok-a Sword's neck even as the blade dug into his hand.

Blue veins began to show on the Dok-a Sword's face, which had flushed scarlet.

This was proof that the Exploding Blood Pill had begun to overload...

'Ah!'

Suddenly, I remembered that starting with the Dok-a Sword, everyone in the Dok-a Sect and the Jeondeung Sect had taken an Exploding Blood Pill.

'Did the Exploding Blood Pill act as some kind of catalyst?'

I drew up the Okcheong Heavenly Star Power and fired the Flying Dragon Claw.

"S-Save me!!!"

Just before Deung Gohyeon bit into the Dok-a Sword's neck, the Flying Dragon Claw wrapped around Deung Gohyeon's neck and pulled his entire body in.

But then.

SCREECH!

Even as he was being dragged in, Deung Gohyeon righted himself and lunged at me.

I drew the Red Light Sword, raised the Okcheong Heavenly Star Power, and formed Sword Force.

SLAAASH—

The Red Light Sword formed a cluster of light and traced a path, but the bastard twisted his body in an impossible direction and avoided the Sword Force.

'He dodged that?'

The moment I recovered my sword and unfolded the Lesser Heaven Sword Technique again—

CRACK, CRACKLE.

At the same time as the sound of bones grinding came from the bastard's feet, he shot forward like a cannonball.

"Crazy bastard!"

BANG!

Deung Gohyeon charged in with his whole body, with no Martial Move or anything.

I raised the Devouring Gauntlet to defend, but the shock spread through my entire body except for the Devouring Gauntlet.

My body floated from the fairly heavy impact and flew backward just like that.

THUD!

The moment my body struck a pillar of the hall and I tried to rise quickly, the bastard had already closed in right before my eyes.

"I'll kill you! I'll kill you! All enemies of the Jeondeung Sect will die!"

I quickly unleashed the Ten Thousand Transformations Invincible Fist and tried to push him away, but perhaps he no longer felt pain, because he continued attacking even as his jaw broke and his nose was crushed.

'You son of a bitch!'

He was not a true demonic art user, but he was as tenacious and sticky as a real demonic practitioner.

It was exactly the kind of sight I had grown sick of seeing in my previous life, the kind that could only be carved into countless people's minds as fear.

GRIND.

Memories of the past surfaced, and my teeth ground together.

"Hey."

"Grrrr! I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"

"You picked the wrong person. I'm someone who shudders at the mere thought of demonic practitioners."

If the bastard did not care about pain, then I simply had to stop caring about pain as well.

I drove my fist straight into the mouth of the bastard who was trying to bite into the nape of my neck.

CRUNCH.

Terrible pain surged through the back of my hand where his teeth had sunk in, but I pushed my fist even deeper into his mouth.

"Try eating this too!"

At the same time, I invoked the Sacred Fire Demon-Extinguishing Hand, and the bastard, who seemed to have lost all sense of pain, opened his eyes wide.

SCREEEECH!

Whether his jaw came loose or his teeth fell out did not matter.

Deung Gohyeon thrashed only to pull my hand out.

I kicked the bastard away just like that, then picked up a stone from nearby and approached him.

As if his brain had burned up from the flames of the Sacred Fire Demon-Extinguishing Hand spreading inside his mouth, the bastard grabbed sand and swallowed it, trying to put out the fire.

Then, when he had barely extinguished the flames in his mouth and was coughing, I smashed the stone into his head.

THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!

The movements of the bastard who had kept resisting slowly died down.

And right before his breathing was about to stop completely—

"You can't die yet."

I placed my hand on the Baihui acupoint on his crown and infused the Okcheong Heavenly Star Power.

The bastard's body, which had looked like it would die at any moment, began to heave again.

And a little while later, perhaps because his reason and senses had returned, Deung Gohyeon let out a scream of pain.

"Kuuh! Kuuh! Kuuh! S-Spare me, spare me..."

His airway had already been burned by the Sacred Fire Demon-Extinguishing Hand, so the bastard could not even breathe properly.

I grabbed the bastard by the hair and asked.

"Where did you get the demonic art?"

"... S-Spare me..."

I slapped the bastard across the cheek and asked again.

"The demonic art! Where did you get the demonic art!"

"D-Demonic art...?"

"Yes, the Heaven-defying martial art you learned. Where the hell did you get it!"

"N-No. I, I learned a divine technique..."

Deung Gohyeon's skill, even generously assessed, was at the level of a First-Rate Warrior.

If I were to make a quantitative evaluation, he was only around the level of a Vice Hall Leader of the Murim Alliance.

And someone like that claimed what he had learned was a divine technique?

"Who was it... Who taught you the martial art?"

"..."

The light in Deung Gohyeon's eyes slowly began to vanish.

I infused more Okcheong Heavenly Star Power.

But.

"The J-Jeondeung Sect... eternal..."

With that as the end, the light in Deung Gohyeon's eyes went out completely.

#

THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP

The trembling of the Dok-a Sword's heart would not stop.

The effects of the Exploding Blood Pill had already been brought under control with a Blood-Suppressing Pill.

Even so, the pounding of his heart would not stop because of the sense of crisis that he had truly faced the moment of death.

'W-What the hell was that...?'

He had survived for decades in the Underworld Murim, where all kinds of bastards existed, but this was the first time he had felt true fear like this.

'I was definitely... dead.'

Especially the moment when Deung Gohyeon had tried to bite into the nape of his neck with teeth full of blood.

Even thinking back on that moment made all strength drain from his body.

The Dok-a Sword turned his head and looked at Deung Gohyeon.

The Black Flame Dragon was clutching him by the collar and asking him something.

The man he had thought was simply a lunatic overflowing with madness had saved his life.

And against a horrifying creature he had never even seen in nightmares, no less.

If the Black Flame Dragon had not come to the Dok-a Sect, then he and all the Dok-a Sect disciples would have buried their bones here.

'D-Don't tell me...'

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

Could it be that the Black Flame Dragon had visited for the safety of the Underworld gangs?

A strange sense of expectation bloomed in his heart.

Perhaps, because he had an identity as someone affiliated with the Orthodox faction, he could not visit in friendship, and had instead come scouting under the Underworld-like pretext of extorting money.

If that were not the case, what reason would he have to risk danger for the sake of the Dok-a Sect, with whom he had no acquaintance?

There was a rumor that, in preparation for Yong So-ah, the rising star of the Orthodox Murim, someday seizing control of Murim, legendary Underworld experts had poured their efforts into creating a joint successor.

At last, the pieces of that rumor seemed to fall perfectly into place.

'Ah...!'

Now that it had come to this, the way the Black Flame Dragon had called him "friend" felt a little more special.

He had been saying it implicitly.

That he was a man of the Underworld.

'As expected... the Underworld Murim's Divine Star.'

Just then, as he looked up at him with eyes of admiration, the Black Flame Dragon rose from his seat.

He shook the blood from his hands and called to him.

"Dok-a Sword."

"Y-Yes, sir!"

Once he realized that the man was the Underworld's joint successor, respectful speech came out on its own.

"Do you know where the Jeondeung Sect is?"

"Why... do you ask, sir?"

The Black Flame Dragon ground his teeth as if he had met an irreconcilable enemy.

"Guide me. I have business there."

"..."

That endless hatred toward the Orthodox faction.

That was a fundamental rage only one who possessed the true essence of the Underworld could have.

Truly, he was...

"What are you doing? Guide me."

"Y-Yes, sir! Understood. I will escort you!"

Now, the Dok-a Sword no longer held the slightest doubt that the Black Flame Dragon was the Underworld's Divine Star.