Chapter 71: The Master of the Demon-Warding Halberd (3)

KAGAGAK—!!!

A spear shaft that had been fed saltwater and dried.

Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge carved a deep scar into the shaft, then stopped.

Even that had slowed down.

If Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae hadn’t shouted to stop her...

Soyak would not have retrieved her internal power from the sword.

And the man who burst out would’ve been split in half.

“...H-Hk.”

The man who had barely clung to his life dropped to the ground with a thud.

Soyak looked down at him.

A rough-looking martial robe made of tough, coarse material.

But rather than a Mount Hua or Wudang Daoist robe, it was closer to a military uniform.

“Are you from the Shandong Ak Family?”

“Y-Yes, h-hk, h-hh...”

The man couldn’t believe it.

He had clearly seen Sword Light packed thick on that blade.

Instinctively he’d brought up the spear shaft, thinking he was dead.

She returned the internal power embedded in the sword that fast?

A child that age?

And that wasn’t all.

What he’d just faced was unmistakably massive killing intent.

Killing intent so sharp it was close to ghostly.

That child had truly meant to kill him.

“Get a grip. What happened?”

After doing that, she sheathed her sword and held out a small hand as if nothing had happened.

The man felt a chill crawl up his spine.

“I know him.”

At that moment, Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae stepped in.

The man let out a breath like he’d just seen a savior.

“I was on my way to see Uncle anyway.”

“Alright. What is it.”

Uncle?

Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae was this man’s uncle?

Cheonjeong, Cheongak, and Cheon Soyak all blinked, looking back and forth between them.

But then the words that burst from the man’s mouth...

Made them stop caring about Ak Jupae’s family ties.

“It’s a Demonic Cult bastard. There was a Demonic Cult bastard hiding inside the branch family!”

*****

It had been fifty years since the Demonic Cult had been shattered and scattered.

And their horror was steadily, steadily reduced to an old story.

Young, new masters didn’t believe what the old men said.

To elevate their own achievements.

Or to prop up their pride.

They thought it was nothing but impossible exaggeration.

It made sense.

Because that place was a real “religion.”

A lot of young people misunderstood.

But it wasn’t some “martial group” like a sect or a clan.

The Demonic Cult.

Its official name was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

What kind of place was it?

A god that truly existed.

And the Heavenly Demon, the “path” to that god, and the god’s flesh-and-blood vessel.

That was the Demonic Cult’s true nature.

No one knew what kind of being they received power from.

Perhaps even they didn’t know.

Even the name itself couldn’t be pronounced by a human mouth, so it couldn’t be spoken.

Only the Heavenly Demon could speak that name.

Because only the Heavenly Demon was born with the vocal organs capable of it.

That was the condition of becoming the Heavenly Demon.

The one who became the Heavenly Demon was forcibly transformed into a Ten-Thousand-Demons body.

They could freely use every demonic art founded on Heaven-Toppling cultivation.

Heaven-Toppling cultivation.

An operation of internal power that ran the meridian paths in reverse.

Normally, doing that would drive you mad or kill you.

But the Demonic Cult’s demonic energy was different from the internal power righteous sects or unorthodox sects spoke of.

The operation of demonic energy ran opposite to internal power.

That was the correct direction for demonic energy.

And the beginning of demonic arts was not training.

It was a “connection” to god, obtained by consuming a part of the Heavenly Demon’s body.

It didn’t matter if you cut a single strand of hair into dozens of fragments and swallowed just one piece.

All you needed was the connection.

And demonic energy...

Was poured directly into the lower abdomen of the demon-possessed through that connection.

Its quantity and quality would differ depending on training, but...

Demonic energy did not begin from the natural energies of all things.

Gathering natural energy, filtering it, and stacking it in the lower abdomen—that was what the martial world called an “internal-power method.”

But the Demonic Cult used a fundamentally different power.

A power grounded in faith and fanaticism.

*****

Far in the distance, flames were flashing.

Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae ground his teeth.

That place was his home.

The branch family of the Shandong Ak Family.

“I thought it was all cleaned up!”

Ak Jupae couldn’t move faster than his nephew guiding them ahead.

Cheon Soyak, Cheonjeong, and Cheongak followed behind Ak Jupae.

They stepped through footwork, following the subtlety of Lightness Arts.

But in one corner of their hearts, anxiety and expectation were tangled together.

Their goal was to reach the Shandong Ak Family main house.

But could they ignore the fact that the Flame-Saber Lord’s branch family was in danger?

That wasn’t chivalry.

Then...

Did they have the power to fight and win against the Demonic Cult’s remnants?

Here, Cheonjeong couldn’t be sure.

Soyak was strong.

But in a prolonged fight, stamina would drag her down.

Cheongak was strong, but only within “their age group.”

Even Soyak wasn’t completely free of that shackle.

What if a Demonic Cult master above mid Transcendent Apex appeared?

What if Ak Jupae was in a situation where he couldn’t help them?

Cheonjeong ran through every case in his head, but...

He only realized there was no “certain” way to protect his martial siblings.

Because the enemy was the Demonic Cult.

The closer they got to the origin of the fire, the more something seemed to tighten around their throats.

No one told them, but Mount Hua’s three young disciples understood instinctively.

Demonic energy.

An aura not of this world.

“Raise your internal power even more. You’re Mount Hua disciples—your inner method itself will resist demonic energy.”

Ak Jupae spoke flatly.

He seemed to be raising his internal power as well.

Cheonjeong and Cheongak drew up the internal power of the Primordial Clear-Heart Method to the fullest.

Demonic energy mixed into the air, stabbing into their lungs.

But each time it entered, they burned it away with pure internal power, so it was at least bearable.

Soyak...

She could feel that demonic energy was murky.

But she realized it couldn’t harm her body.

Because the black qilin of the Harmonization Scripture was snarling, dominating the Eight Extraordinary Meridians throughout her body.

“It’s dispersing demonic energy.”

That was exactly it.

The internal power of the Harmonization Scripture was literally “erasing” demonic energy wherever it touched.

It wasn’t canceling it out, and it wasn’t mutual annihilation.

It was erasing it one-sidedly.

Every trace of demonic energy that touched the Harmonization Scripture’s energy running through her meridians vanished without a mark.

“This way!”

Ak Seo-il.

The son of the Shandong Ak Family branch head—and the young head.

A master who had learned the Flame-Dragon Saber Canon to the very edge of Apex.

If even he had to flee, what kind of situation was it?

If it were simply a matter of force, it would be solved now that Ak Jupae—at the entrance to Transformation Realm—had arrived.

But unfortunately, the problem wasn’t a lack of force.

“The Demonic Cult will be reborn! The Heavenly Demon will return!”

Glittering eyes.

Hair turned into a wild mess by the heat, standing on end.

Eyes so bloodshot they wept tears of blood.

In the sea of fire where she flicked her tongue, someone was held in the grip of a woman’s thick arm.

“P-Please... spare me, sniff... spare me...”

“Seogyeong...?”

Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae’s pupils shook.

It was Ak Seogyeong—his niece, his younger brother’s youngest daughter.

That child was in the woman’s grasp.

With a cold, blue-edged sickle pressed tight to her throat.

Her feet were bare, as if she’d been dragged around.

Her neck already had scratches here and there.

The sickle’s edge must have grazed her throat more than once.

That was why all color had drained from Ak Seogyeong’s face.

A look of fear and terror, frustration and despair.

Soyak bit her lip, thinking of her own past at last.

“Uncle! Uncle!! Please save me!!!”

A hostage.

Only then did he understand why his younger brother hadn’t been able to do anything.

His younger brother even had a grand sobriquet—Lightning-Flash Calamity Flame—and he was also the branch head.

But with his daughter taken hostage, what could he do?

“...Where is Jugwang.”

“Father... he...”

Ak Seo-il lowered his head with a jerk.

Ak Jupae clenched his teeth.

Dead, then.

“...How did this happen! He should’ve comfortably reached mid Transcendent Apex!”

“Mother was taken hostage, so he...”

They were vicious and sinister.

That was why, in front of a fourteen-year-old girl, they killed her parents and set the house on fire.

“Do you want to save this child?”

The woman looked this way with insane eyes and cackled.

Flames surged.

She likely hadn’t done it alone.

“Why are you doing this!”

“Why?”

At Ak Jupae’s question, the woman burst into laughter again, as if she were tearing apart.

A horrific, sticky demonic energy poured out of her body in thick waves.

So much that even the fingertips of the hostage Ak Seogyeong had already been stained black.

“Why else! Why would it be! This is prayer! This is the sound of a trumpet! A declaration that the Demonic Cult’s rising cannot be stopped! A lantern that gathers comrades!”

And in that moment—

The woman raised the sickle high.

The sickle’s tip shot straight toward the hostage Ak Seogyeong’s nape.

“Accept the offering! The offering!!!”

Flame-Saber Lord Ak Jupae realized, in an instant, that he was too late.

But Soyak wasn’t.

She felt the killing intent.

In the split second right before it happened, she felt the “certainty” that the woman would kill the girl she was holding.

An instinctive sense she had as the Heavenly Killing Star.

A gut certainty about death, murder, corpses, and blood.

A distant internal power gathered at her feet, then snapped her body forward.

So fast it looked like an afterimage would remain where she stood.

In the middle of a crimson sea of fire whipping around with dizzying heat—

Soyak’s Falling Blossom Tranquil Edge surged out of its sheath as she ran.

And a brilliant radiance billowed and spread across the blade.

Sword Qi.