Chapter 932: A Strange Bitch, A Strange Guy, A Strange Guy (17)

I’d thought he was just a little weird—no, really weird—but he turned out to be the Blood Cult’s absolute worst kind of human trash?

How—so you tricked me! Unforgivable!

Seomun Cheong, enraged!

And so, Qing spoke, packing her words with fury.

“Ah, so you’re Blood Cult. But... I’ve never heard of a Plunderer Demon.”

I mean, sure. Getting angry doesn’t make some unknown power gush out of you or let you leap realms.

If getting angry meant you could fight two Transcendent Realm masters at once, Murim wouldn’t be training martial arts right now—it’d be training anger management.

So fine. I’ll settle for later!

I’ll never forget this anger, and on the distant day I reach the Transcendent Realm—no, the moment I break past the Transcendent Realm—I’ll unleash it then.

Right now... I’ve got no choice but to hunch down and scheme for later...

“Ah. In the Blood Cult, they call me the Sword Demon. It’s embarrassing to say out loud, but people also call me the Lightless Sword Demon.”

In that instant, Qing fell into a deep internal conflict.

Do I do it—one, two, three—or not? We’re not strangers, but repeating an honorific epithet for a Blood Cult convert feels disgusting... but if I don’t and he pouts, I’ll end up fighting two Transcendent Realm Blood Cult monsters.

Damn it—if you’re hesitating, that means you should do it!

“Ah, don’t repeat it.” “LIGHTLESS! Ah, yes.”

...You could’ve told me a little sooner.

Thanks to that, the whole atmosphere got painfully awkward.

But the one who needed the Plunderer Demon—the Sword Demon’s cooperation was Qing, and when you’re the one who needs something, you’re the one who bends first, right?

So Qing, for some reason, with an absurd amount of force packed into her voice—gritting her teeth while trying to sound sweet—

“Th-then, Plunderer Demon... s-sir? S-so... why d-did you use ‘Plunderer’? And... why ‘Sword Demon’...”

“What’s a saber? A blade. Then what’s a sword? A blade. Saber or sword, it’s the same blade anyway. But ‘Saber Demon’ sounds lame, doesn’t it? Like I’m about to dump a bunch of nagging on you.”

“Well. True. ‘Sword Demon’ is definitely cooler than ‘Saber Demon.’ And there were times in the past when people didn’t even distinguish between swords and sabers.”

“Right. Exactly. That’s why it ended up like this.”

“Epithet business is serious. Ah—then, sir, could you step aside for a moment? I still have something I need to do, so I’ll finish it quickly, and then—yeah. How about we have a spar?”

“Oh, that’s good. Then hurry up and—hm. This got a bit troublesome.”

Damn it. That didn’t work.

She tried to slide past it naturally, but the Plunderer Demon—the Sword Demon—unexpectedly didn’t lose control of the center of the situation.

“Instead, how about this? I’m curious about the technique you used to do this to Brother Yu. Show it to me.”

At that, Qing spun her brain at full speed.

Before, the Sword Demon had said there was someone he knew who was a full two steps above him. And that “someone he knew” was the Heart-Eating Demon King—meaning the Heart-Eating Demon King was in a higher realm than the Sword Demon.

That move—Forget the Finger That Points at the Moon—worked on the Heart-Eating Demon King, so wouldn’t it work on the Sword Demon too? If I play it right, maybe I can pull off a one-versus-two miracle here and shove two Blood Cult monsters straight down the road to the underworld—

But Qing changed her mind almost immediately.

This wasn’t something she could gamble her life on. Maybe if escape was still possible—but burning through the one arm she had left right now was... no.

So Qing spoke again, in a gentle voice.

“Sir, unfortunately my condition isn’t whole right now. Don’t you want to see the Wish-Fulfilling Sword... performed at my very best?”

She was wagging her tongue, trying to retreat—dangling a hook in front of the Sword Demon: a divine art he didn’t know, swaying it lightly, back and forth.

“The Wish-Fulfilling Sword! That’s a name I’ve never heard. Is there still a divine art out there that even I don’t know? Then I can’t force you to show it.”

“So then—could I withdraw for now, recuperate, and come show you later?”

“Mm. That has logic.”

“Then I’ll come pay my respects after I recuperate. I won’t need that long—so around the full moon next month, where should I find you?”

“Mm, I don’t have anything in particular then, so just somewhere convenient for you—”

“ENOUGH! Sword Demon, what scheme are you plotting now!?”

The Heart-Eating Demon King suddenly exploded.

Damn it, things were going so smoothly, and that bastard just had to wreck the flow—

“Ah, Brother Yu—wouldn’t this be best? If you don’t get treated quickly, you’ll lose the use of a whole lung. If you want to preserve even half of it, shouldn’t we withdraw here?”

For some reason, the Sword Demon was taking Qing’s side.

Oh. I might even be... a little grateful?

“Don’t talk nonsense! What that bitch did to my mercy—I'll chew her up with my own mouth! I’ll chew her until I’ve swallowed every last piece! Not even a bone fragment left!”

“Mm. Even if it’s you, Brother Yu, that’s difficult. I need her too. And besides... your niece lived, didn’t she?”

“W-what did you say!?”

“Your niece survived, so isn’t that enough? She recovered perfectly from those critical wounds—pure luck. You should just think, ‘It was pure luck,’ and go back to your original mission.”

“What are you even saying?”

“Think of it as getting struck by lightning on the road and be done with it. Who takes revenge on a natural disaster?”

“......”

“The living should live. Don’t keep clinging to that kind of grudge—if anything, let’s go in a direction that benefits everyone.”

The Heart-Eating Demon King’s face went blank, revealing inorganic eyes steeped in thick rage.

It was the kind of expression that looked like it was about to condemn someone for being a creature that shouldn’t exist.

Honestly... it was a statement that deserved to piss someone off.

Blocking someone who had their daughter’s enemy right in front of them, then saying, Hey, your daughter’s alive so isn’t that fine?—of course he’d get furious.

“You call that words!! KHUK—KHUH—KHK—KHUH!”

The Heart-Eating Demon King roared, then suddenly spewed a gush of bloody fluid. He’d avoided the heart, sure—but half of his left lung had been sliced away.

Using a Murim warrior’s mysterious hemostasis—pressing blood points—the Heart-Eating Demon King had outright sealed off one lung, but faced with words that crossed the line into pure bullshit, the airway in that left lung finally ruptured again.

Even while coughing, he urgently jammed a hand into the wound and fumbled around, and the violently leaking blood abruptly stopped.

“See? If you don’t use your hand like that, you’ll have to remove the left lung entirely. If you want to preserve even half of it, let’s stop here, Brother Yu.”

Three thick veins bulged on the Heart-Eating Demon King’s forehead—THWACK!

Even Qing, just listening, wanted to punch him. And the fact he was saying it like he meant it... that was what made it terrifying.

Did the Sword Demon... not have a human heart?

Well, he’d always been kind of like that.

“Bullshit!”

“I’m doing this for you, Brother Yu. You’re already lacking badly in physical capability among the three—Essence, Energy, Spirit—and if your breathing gets cut in half too, you’ll be the weakest Transcendent Realm master. Is that fine with you?”

“You—YOU SON OF A BITCH—this isn’t for me, it’s for you! I’ve watched you for years, you think I don’t know what you’re doing? You want to rip martial arts out of that bitch—this [N O V E L I G H T] is for you, just for you!”

“Just for me? That’s a hurtful thing to say. It’s good for me, good for you... and isn’t it good for the Cult too? Brother Yu needs to preserve his full strength—”

“Not good! How dare you—how dare you put the Cult in your mouth!? That bitch—she has to die right now! A green little brat did this to me! She’ll be trouble forever!”

Qing flinched.

But the Sword Demon just shook his head.

“Now, now. That’s because Brother Yu relied on internal power and neglected training. I’ve fought her a few times—she’s just a demon practitioner who’s unusually strong for her realm. It’s surprising for her age, sure, but that’s how it is. When kids enter Demon Deviation, they get those bursts of explosive power.”

“Right. If you don’t have that kind of explosive power, why would you give up such a nice Harmonization and enter Demon Deviation at all?”

Qing jumped in instantly.

I am Murim’s Formless Poison—how could I possibly let this opportunity pass? I’m not letting him hog it alone!

“See? Even she says so.”

“No—FUCK—hey, you trash bastard! What, are you her bodyguard!? Her teacher!? Why the hell are you taking her side!?”

He’d been acting like an emperor, putting on airs, but in the end coarse, rolling profanity burst out of the Heart-Eating Demon King’s mouth.

That was probably the bottom layer he’d kept hidden under his self-wrapped ‘emperor’ identity. I mean, hiding your bottom layer is normal—and not something you deserve blame for—but still.

“Brother Yu. I’m not ‘taking her side.’ Why are you getting so angry? I understand—your niece went through something horrific. But cool your head. Let’s look farther ahead.”

“Yeah, look farther ahead. Like the Sword Demon said—she didn’t die, she lived. She lived, so let’s call it fine. The living should live. If anything, you can take this as a chance to grit your teeth and come back stronger—an opportunity for growth.”

“Right. You said it well. Brother Yu—doesn’t even she say this? So let’s stop here for today.”

“And also, Heart-Eating Demon King, you should have a conscience, you know? The Sword Demon is helping you. And in the first place—you lost to me. I wiped the floor with you. If you lost, admit defeat cleanly. What kind of man acts this pathetic?”

“That’s true. Brother Yu—she says ‘a man,’ you know.”

“If the Sword Demon had come a little later, your daughter—what was her name? Yu Ryang? She’d be an orphan with no parents starting today. Hah—seriously, the Sword Demon saved you a niece today.”

“Mm. I didn’t just save Brother Yu. I’m saving you too—so next time we spar, prepare one more martial art.”

The terror duet of mouths!

“KRAAAAGH!! YOU BASTARD—YOU BASTAAARD!!! KHK—KHUH—KHUH! HUUURK!”

The Heart-Eating Demon King spewed blood again.

“Oops, Brother Yu. Calm down, calm down. Good—hold on. I’ll open your energy channels a bit and guide my internal power. Soothe your rage, quickly.”

Mm. How do I put this.

If this keeps going, the Heart-Eating Demon King might actually drop dead from demon deviation while screaming, What the hell, you bastard—

The enemy of my enemy is my ally... so if I seriously recommend the Sword Demon quit the Blood Cult as a reward for taking down the Heart-Eating Demon King—

You know, there’s that group founded by that Great Hero—what was it—Jong Jeongpil? From the Five Wolves Under Heaven. The Righteous Harmony Society.

A sect that bans private ownership of martial arts, shares them collectively, and aims to raise the public realm through joint authorship and joint distribution.

...Honestly, it sounds like it might suit him.

Even so, Qing’s fingers twitched.

When the Sword Demon declared the Blood Cult, her heart had dropped and her vision had gone black—but unexpectedly, she’d bought time.

Her right arm, which had been hanging limp and slack, could now move—barely, painfully—but it could move.

It wasn’t far now.

Even if she couldn’t circulate internal power—if she could recover to the point she could roughly swing—

Then she could run around, baiting the Heart-Eating Demon King—now saddled with lung damage and demon deviation—and look for the angle to finish him.

As a sinister, shadowy gleam rippled through Qing’s eyes—

THUD...!

With a light tremor through the ground, something dropped down between Qing and the two demon monsters.

A boulder.

No—not a boulder, uuuugh.

Qing’s expression changed into the face of someone who’d just seen a bug crawling over a dumpling—no, the face of someone who’d just found half a bug left inside a dumpling she was already eating.

Because the boulder—shaped like an iceberg—slowly rose up, and the thing that appeared was...

Not a familiar—no, it was definitely a face she knew, and yet it still looked unfamiliar.

No—she’d seen it enough times that it made no sense it still wouldn’t get familiar.

Seriously, how does it manage to be newly ugly every single time?

It was the owner of the Black Warrior Dance—an ugly hunchbacked man—

Kim Heojung.

Damn it. How did I not think of that.

If the Plunderer Demon—the Sword Demon showed up here, of course this bastard could show up too.

But even if she’d realized it, what could Qing have done?

Her arm was bad enough that escape was hard anyway.

And right now, the best move was exactly what she’d been doing: quietly stabilizing her internal injury while adding a few lines to the Sword Demon’s—malicious precisely because he had no malice—mental attack.

And more than anything...

Maybe Kim Heojung showing up wasn’t only bad.

Even if there was still that misunderstanding about stealing secret manuals, surely they could still join hands against the common enemy—the Blood Cult—

“You—YOU FUCKING BITCH!”

Ah. Never mind.

Qing gave up instantly.

A trait of introverted people when they finally explode:

They prepare careful, logical objections—then the only thing that comes out is rough breathing and a generic curse.

“Th-thief bitch! F-fuck! From—From the start! You—You were after the secret manual! Idiot—idiot—FUCK—how—how could you—FUCK—me—NGH— I could’ve just given it to—F-FUCK!”

Tears rolled straight down Kim Heojung’s face.

When someone’s wronged so hard it makes them furious, they can cry—and it gets hard to speak, too.

Qing desperately waved her one arm. Her right arm was shredded, so this was her best effort.

“Sir—misunderstanding! It’s a misunderstanding! I didn’t steal the secret manual—Gongryang Sayoon shoved it into my bag on her own, and—right, Gongryang Sayoon! Where is she!?”

The Sword Demon tossed out a single line.

“She ran.”

“See!? Gongryang Sayoon ran! She ran because she had a guilty conscience! She shoved it all onto me and—”

“Not that. That one proposed.”

“Ah.”

The Sword Demon tossed out another single line.

“She smashed through the wall and ran. Tsk. I never imagined I’d see her with that kind of desperate expression.”