Rebirth of the Heavenly Demon

Chapter 111 – Into the Fragrance of the Sword (4)

The old man was still standing on that hill.

“Black Hand Sword is dead.”

Despite hearing the report of his subordinate’s death, the old man didn’t even blink.

“This time, the sacrifice was greater. About sixty died and thirty were severely injured.”

“And them?”

“Their losses were minimal.”

The old man spoke with an incredulous expression.

“Was the Thousand Bow Regiment this strong? I should have recruited them instead of you lot from the beginning.”

The man bowed his head deeply with an ashamed expression. Truly, no one had expected such a result. It felt like being possessed by ghosts.

Moreover, they hadn’t expected the leader, Black Hand Sword, to fall. They knew better than anyone how strong he was.

“Was Black Hand Sword killed by Jong Cheon-rak?”

“No.”

“No?”

“While confronting Jong Cheon-rak, his neck was cut by someone else’s hand.”

“Fool!”

The old man frowned. He was about to ask who the other person was, but stopped. He thought it must have been one of the Thousand Bow Regiment members anyway.

“Where are they now?”

“They’ve entered Sword Fragrance Forest. It seems they’re heading towards the Life and Death Tower.”

The old man’s gaze turned towards a place not visible in the distance.

“It can’t be helped. Deploy him.”

From the old man’s tone and expression, it was clear that he wasn’t happy with this decision.

“Understood.”

As the subordinate withdrew, the old man muttered as if to himself.

“So it ends in such a sordid manner after all.”

***

Seeing the Life and Death Tower again after so long brought back memories.

The Blood Heavens Divine Cult had three holy sites in total. To those who don’t know, it might sound like an extremely sacred place, but the reality was different.

It was a strategic stronghold built under the name of a holy site.

Each holy site had its own characteristics, and this holy site in Sword Fragrance Forest was a place where academic research related to formations and mechanisms was conducted.

Here, I had a fierce battle with the Sword Demon. The Sword Demon was the master of this Life and Death Tower and the guardian demon protecting the holy site.

I defeated him in three hundred and ninety-six moves right in this clearing where I’m standing now. Among masters, four hundred moves might not be considered long.

But during those four hundred or so moves, I nearly died twice. It was only later, when I looked back on that fight, that I understood why I had struggled so much.

It was because of greed.

At that time, my pride in swordsmanship was sky-high, and I wanted to defeat the Sword Demon, who was said to have the strongest swordsmanship except for the Demonic Cult Leader, as quickly as possible.

If I could kill him within a hundred moves?

I wanted to gain the reputation that even the Demonic Cult’s Sword Demon was only worth a hundred moves to me. That greed almost got me killed and made the fight longer.

If I hadn’t been greedy, I think I could have defeated him within two hundred moves. From that fight, I learned never to be greedy about defeating an opponent quickly.

It’s not at all important how many moves it takes to win. Winning is most important, and next is how you win. I learned this lesson properly.

It feels like it was just yesterday that I fought that Sword Demon.

One of the Thousand Bow Regiment martial artists walked over and carefully knocked on the door.

But no one came out from inside.

“The door is open.”

The martial artists went in and checked the interior.

A moment later, the martial artists who went in came out.

“It’s completely empty.”

Jong Cheon-rak’s disappointment was evident. Perhaps he was still not giving up hope until the very end.

‘It seems the person we were supposed to meet has already been taken away by them.’

He probably wants to say this.

But his instinct must be telling him too. That it’s not so.

I understood his confusion. He had devoted his entire life in loyalty to the Martial Righteous Alliance and the martial world. How could he accept the fact that the Alliance Leader was trying to eliminate him?

The group all entered together.

Judging from the dust accumulated everywhere, it had undoubtedly been empty for a long time.

Jong Cheon-rak finally changed his mind.

“We’ll rest for a moment and then depart.”

He couldn’t decide whether to return to the Alliance, or if not, where to go.

Except for the martial artists standing guard, everyone scattered and sat down to rest. They were all exhausted from the continuous battles.

Gal Sa-ryang also looked very tired. After all, since he hadn’t learned martial arts, he must have been the most exhausted.

“Rest here for a moment, leaning against this.”

After guiding him to a wall, I cleared the dust from the floor and laid out some clothes.

“Thank you.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You seem to become more lively in this kind of situation.”

“Do I?”

Gal Sa-ryang nodded.

“The previous Alliance Leader was like you too. When everyone else was tired, exhausted, and trembling with fear, the Alliance Leader instead became more energetic. That sight gave us great strength.”

Was I like that?

After long years of war, life on the battlefield must have become second nature to me.

Come to think of it, for a while after the war ended, I rather felt empty. Of course, that feeling of emptiness was an emotion I couldn’t express to anyone. I thought I might be called a war maniac.

How about now? I think I might have honestly expressed such feelings to Gwang-du.

Breaking away from my reverie, I raised my head to find that Gal Sa-ryang had fallen asleep leaning against the wall.

I quietly stood up so as not to wake him.

Then I examined the wounds of the injured once more. Thanks to the excellent medicine used, they were in good condition. The Thousand Bow Regiment martial artists caring for their comrades bowed their heads to express gratitude to me.

I also bowed my head politely in return and then went up to the upper floor.

As I slowly climbed the stairs, I remembered going up here after defeating the Sword Demon. While my subordinates were searching the place, I had gone up to the topmost floor.

Entering the room at the top, I vividly remembered that day. Rather than being happy about defeating the Sword Demon, I was preoccupied with thoughts of why it had taken four hundred moves, and I stood by that window endlessly gazing outside.

Thinking about it now, it was truly pathetic. At that time, I was the world’s strongest and the Martial Righteous Alliance Leader. To others, I was almost a perfect person. I realize through my past that the pettiness humans commit has nothing to do with their position.

After looking out the window for a moment, I looked around the room this time. Back then, I was so lost in thought that I didn’t even think to properly examine the room.

The sword stand placed on one side looked ordinary on the surface, but it was made by a highly skilled craftsman. The same was true for the bed and the tea table.

There weren’t many other items, so I had considered it just an attic room, but now I thought this might have been the Sword Demon[1]‘s room.

With that thought, the room looked different. I could see his neat and tidy personality.

Then something caught my eye.

A small padlock was hanging on the wardrobe handle. It wasn’t locking the wardrobe but just hanging on the handle as a decoration.

There were letters written on the padlock. Looking closely, I could see it was made so that letters could be combined by turning a gear-like mechanism.

Click, click.

I turned it this way and that. It seemed to be a padlock that would open only when the letters were exactly right. There were too many letters to properly combine them.

Since it was just hanging as a decoration anyway, there was no need to match the secret word.

I was about to leave when I turned back.

Suddenly, some letters on the gear caught my eye.

Ghost (鬼), Eight (八).

The moment I saw these two characters that caught my eye by chance, one word came to mind.

Eight Demonic Ghost Techniques[2].

It was the name of the Sword Demon’s final technique. When I turned the gear, I found the rest of the letters could be combined as well.

The moment I exactly matched the letters for “Eight Demonic Ghost Techniques”.

Click.

The wall opposite the wardrobe opened.

I was shocked. I matched the wardrobe padlock, but the opposite wall opened? I never imagined such an amazing mechanism existed.

It was a very small room. There was a small writing desk placed there, and on top of it lay a thick book.

The Treatise on Ghost Clan’s Evasion Techniques[3] (鬼門遁書).

When I opened it, it was a book about the formations they had been researching here.

“Ah, this was hidden here.”

I hadn’t discovered this in the past.

I could tell it was because of me.

That day, I was on edge because I hadn’t killed the Sword Demon quickly enough. My subordinates were watching my mood, and naturally, the search of this seventh floor where I was staying wasn’t conducted thoroughly.

Even if it had been done properly, it would have been impossible to find this secret room.

Only I knew that the Sword Demon’s final technique was called the Eight Demonic Ghost Techniques, from what he had said before dying.

How could a martial artist searching the place have known about that technique? Moreover, the wardrobe wasn’t locked, and this padlock was hanging like a decoration, so they probably just turned it once or twice and passed by.

My eyes trembled as I looked down at the Treatise on Ghost Clan’s Evasion Techniques.

It’s a book containing the essence of the Blood Heavens Divine Cult’s formations. It would be of great help in my future grand mission.

I carefully tucked the book into my breast and turned the padlock randomly again.

The secret room door closed.

I left the room and went down to the first floor.

As I slowly descended, I was enveloped by a strange sense of discomfort. I felt an inexplicable ominousness.

Indeed, everyone who had been on the first floor was collapsed.

And to one side, a man was trying to remove the pants of an unconscious Thousand Bow Regiment martial artist.

My brow furrowed involuntarily. The man was one who enjoyed male homosexuality. Moreover, he was an extremely ugly man. Although I truly don’t judge people by their appearance, the only word I could think of to describe this man was ugly.

He stopped his hand that was removing the pants and looked at me.

“Huh? Why are you fine?”

Something had been sprayed throughout the first floor space itself.

Very fortunately, what he had sprayed wasn’t a lethal poison but one that made people lose consciousness. It was a very potent poison, and everyone was exhausted, so they couldn’t avoid being poisoned.

“You must have profound internal energy.”

After finishing his words, he blew out a puff. Something must have flowed out of his mouth.

It wasn’t because of profound internal energy. I had become immune to all poisons, so I couldn’t be affected by any poison or aphrodisiac.

“Wake them up.”

The man smirked at my words.

“Do you know who I am? In the martial world, they call me the Poisonous Fine Gentleman[4].”

Poisonous Fine Gentleman.

It was a name I had heard before.

He was a master of poison arts who was notorious for spraying aphrodisiacs and enjoying male homosexuality. The reason he called himself “Fine” was probably due to his inferiority complex about his appearance.

After unifying the martial world, I had placed restrictions on the use of poisons. Through the war with the evil sects and the Demonic Cult, I had become utterly sick of the endless assassination attempts by poison.

Most sects that used poison were those carrying on the lineage of evil sects and the dark side. They protested, but I dismissed it. Since the righteous side had unified the martial world, they should be able to endure that much.

“Then do you know who I am?”

“Who are you? I’ve never heard of such a young man with such profound internal energy.”

Nevertheless, he was composed. He had complete confidence that I would soon collapse.

“The person who decided not to use such dirty poisons.”

“What?”

My body flew from the stairs.

Puck!

In an instant, my kick flew across the space and turned the Poisonous Fine Gentleman’s jaw.

He spun once and crashed to the floor, then quickly stood up.

“You bastard!”

This time, he tried to spray a deadly poison.

Tap tap.

But I was one step ahead and suppressed his acupoints.

I dragged him outside. Then I searched his breast and found a poison pouch. There were about twenty large and small bottles inside.

“You’ll never know which one is the antidote.”

I opened the bottle caps one by one and checked what was inside.

Seeing me sniffing, he smiled with satisfaction.

But he was shocked to see that I didn’t collapse.

“You… could it be that you’re immune to all…”

At that moment, I held the bottle I had been smelling right up to his nose, and he panicked.

His face turned red as he held his breath. It was such a deadly poison that even though it was his own, he would die if he didn’t take the antidote in advance.

If I couldn’t identify it, I wouldn’t know, but I could distinguish between what was poison and what wasn’t. My body distinguished it, and his reaction distinguished it.

In the end, he confessed which one was the antidote. When I was about to feed him his most deadly poison, he couldn’t endure any longer.

Since I chose from the non-poisonous ones, I wasn’t worried and sprayed it on the first floor as instructed. Ah, of course, I put the removed pants back on.

Shortly after, people started to wake up one by one.

Before they fully regained consciousness, I strode towards the Poisonous Fine Gentleman.

“If you had sprayed poison from the beginning, everyone would have died!”

“I kept them alive to do dirty things. In the end, you were going to kill them all, weren’t you?”

He couldn’t make any excuses for those words.

“Anyway, since I told you the antidote…”

Puk!

Before he could finish speaking, I cut off his head with one sword strike.

When I entered the room again, everyone had regained consciousness.

Jong Cheon-rak asked in surprise,

“What on earth happened?”

I told them exactly as it was.

“I was on the seventh floor and when I came down, everyone had already fallen to that man’s poison. I subdued him, threatened him, and found the antidote.”

“You saved us again.”

“I just happened to be on the seventh floor… I was lucky.”

Everyone looked at me with eyes of admiration. They knew that if it weren’t for me, they would have died several times already.

“This is not the time. We need to move quickly.”

At my words, Jong Cheon-rak asked Gal Sa-ryang,

“What should we do now? Should we return to the Alliance?”

If it was certain that they had been betrayed by the Alliance Leader, he didn’t know how to judge what to do.

Jong Cheon-rak was no longer stubborn. Moreover, after I had repeatedly saved their lives, he had now decided to follow our will.

As if he had already thought about this part, Gal Sa-ryang answered without hesitation.

“We must return to the Alliance.”