Then let’s die. Hwasan. (2)
The pressure felt different.
He had known that from the beginning. Hadn’t he already experienced it in the Northern Sea and in Hangzhou? And yet…
“Raaaaaaaagh!”
Jo Geol, who had blocked demonic cultist’s claws with his sword, clenched his teeth before he even realized it.
Just as he was about to shove the enemy away, Jo Geol suddenly sensed danger and threw himself backward. The spot where he had been standing was instantly engulfed in pitch-black demonic energy.
Jo Geol pointed his sword straight ahead. It was not an action carried out with any particular intention. It was an instinct – or perhaps something closer to a habit. If one evaded an opponent’s attack while simultaneously pointing a sword at them, the opponent would hesitate to pursue, at least for a brief moment.
It was a natural sword form that countless battles and experiences had engraved into Jo Geol’s very flesh.
Anyone would instinctively be wary of a sword pointed at them. It had nothing to do with the level of one’s martial prowess.
But now, the sword form Jo Geol had built up through countless battles meant nothing against the Demonic Cult.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaggh!”
One of demonic cultists charged straight at him. Without the slightest hesitation or even a hint of wariness.
Confusion welled up in Jo Geol’s eyes.
His opponent was charging towards the very place he wanted him to be. If he thrust his sword now, he could run him through.
That should have been a good thing. So why was he this confused?
“Ugh!”
Jo Geol failed to thrust his sword and flung himself backward once more. In that brief moment, as his chest was left exposed, demonic cultist’s black claws dug into it immediately.
Slash!
At that moment, Tang Soso’s sword, flying in like a flash of lightning, lodged itself in demonic cultist’s neck.
Crack!
The demonic cultist, whose neck had been half-pierced through, staggered backward. But only for a moment. Soon, he let out another horrifying shriek and charged at Jo Geol once more.
Baaaaang!
It was Hye Yeon’s fist, flying through the air without hesitation, that stopped this demonic cultist’s advance.
“Siju.”
“…”
Jo Geol silently bit down on his lower lip. This was hardly a situation that warranted such confusion, yet he could not understand why he had shrunk back so badly.
“Damn it!”
He already knew that they charged forward without regard for their own lives. He knew they would not retreat over ordinary wounds. He even knew that what ruled them was not reason, but a fanaticism he could never hope to understand.
And yet…
Jo Geol’s sword shot forward irritably.
The oppressive force carried by the name ‘Demonic Cult’ held no meaning now. He had not been overwhelmed by the Demonic Cult itself. He had simply been unable to handle a single demonic cultist standing before him.
His insides seethed like molten lava. Unrefined rage coiled around his sword, spewing out wildly like a freshly ignited flame.
Jo Geol’s sword shadows plunged into the midst of the pitch-black mass of demonic cultists. At the sight, Jo Geol unconsciously clenched his teeth.
Crunch! Crack!
His sword pierced the enemy’s flesh without fail. The flesh was so tough and hard that it was impossible to believe he was piercing a human body. It felt like laboriously stabbing through layer upon layer of tanned leather with an awl.
But his attacks got through.
This sensation, which had given him nothing but despair in Hangzhou in the past. No – the sensation he had been forced to suppress with sheer resolve so that he would not be swept away by despair now felt entirely different.
His sword was piercing demonic cultists. As if proving that all the time he had spent honing himself had not been for nothing.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!”
Demonic cultists, their bodies pierced through, charged at Jo Geol like ravenous beasts fighting over scraps, the bloody light in their eyes streaking through the air. Their blood was thick and viscous, stretching in strands rather than flowing.
Jo Geol pierced a demonic cultist once again. Not a trace of carelessness could be found in any attack, one after another. There was not a single wasted movement.
And yet his feet kept inching backward.
He could not advance. He was unable to advance. He could feel a pressure that seemed capable of tearing his body to shreds if he moved even one step farther. Faced with this, even Jo Geol had no choice but to retreat.
“Geol-ah!”
Yoon Jong desperately thrust out his sword to support Jo Geol. Yu Iseol and Tang Soso’s swords also spewed crimson plum blossom sword energy as they mercilessly cut down the charging demonic cultists.
“Sahyeong!”
“Hoo….”
Jo Geol exhaled harshly. His face was already drenched in sweat. He fixed his wavering gaze straight ahead once more.
“Graaaaaaaaaah!”
Demonic cultists were howling. Like tormented evil spirits wailing in the underworld. Jo Geol, his expression rigid as he watched the scene, forced out a few words as if groaning.
“…They are different.”
“What?”
“….Something is different. I’m telling you, those damned bastards.”
“What are you talking about? We’ve already fought demonic cultists before.”
“That’s what I mean!”
Jo Geol shouted as if spitting the words out.
“I don’t know what it is, but they’re different from the ones we knew!”
The tip of Jo Geol’s sword trembled slightly. But they all knew. That trembling did not stem from fear.
They were demonic cultists, just the same. Even the ominous demonic energy they wielded made that undeniable. And yet the difference was unmistakable. They were clearly different from the demonic cultists they had encountered before.
A little more tenacious, a little more…
“They seem like monsters.”
At Tang Soso’s words, Baek Cheon slowly furrowed his brow.
“Rather than saying they seem like monsters, it might be more accurate to say they don’t seem human.”
Something human was missing from them. Far more so than from the ones they had encountered before.
The cultists had always been the sort who seemed to have filled the parts they ought to possess as human beings with something else. But these ones had gone beyond even that. It was enough to make one question whether they could even be called human at all.
“Kaaaahaaaaa!”
Watching demonic cultists roar violently, as though something were boiling inside them, Baek Cheon thought.
What was different? What, exactly?
“A barren land.”
At the voice that reached him, his gaze shifted on its own. Yu Iseol had lowered her sword and was muttering as she looked at demonic cultists.
“They lost it. Little by little, all that time, in that place.”
Baek Cheon’s shoulder twitched slightly.
‘And so…..?’
Those who had attacked Hangzhou in the past were the ones who could not endure that barren land. They were the ones who could no longer stand it and had headed for the forbidden land of the Central Plains.
But demonic cultists before them were different. They had chosen to endure that land to the very end. From the moment the Heavenly Demon fell until now, they had simply endured throughout all those long, long years.
‘An absurdly long time.’
Of course, not all of them could have lived for more than a hundred years. But what difference did that make? From the moment they were born until now, a life in which they were permitted nothing but to hold their breath and endure…
‘It’s not something an ordinary person could bear.’
Their beginnings may have been ordinary, but to endure that entire ordeal, something even the word ‘asceticism’ could never fully describe, they must have had to make a choice.
“Either transcend it…… or cast it away.”
A chill suddenly ran down his spine.
It was painfully obvious what they had chosen. Transcendence was not something one could attain simply by choosing it.
‘Do they follow the Heavenly Demon even at the cost of throwing themselves away?’
Even to the point of becoming something that could no longer be regarded as human? Just what was the Heavenly Demon to them?
“……Damn.”
It felt as though his insides had been turned upside down. An inexplicable nausea and intense disgust welled up inside him.
It wasn’t because of hostility towards the Demonic Cult, his ‘enemy.’ This was something far more visceral and distinct, something closer to ‘rage.’
‘Is this why that bastard Chung Myung had always thrown such a fit whenever he heard the name Demonic Cult?’
A Taoist pursues the Tao. But the Tao each person pursues is different. Even if they train in the same sect and under the same Master, the destination they seek is different for each of them.
Perhaps that was why Baek Cheon found it so difficult to understand. More than incomprehensible, it was so revolting that it made him feel sick.
Could anyone really devote themselves so fervently to something so vague, even at the cost of losing their very selves? Was that simply what human beings were like?
And that was the result? The result of tormenting themselves so terribly was….
“To become nothing more than monsters like these?”
His grip on the sword tightened. Rage surged through him so fiercely that his mind seemed to go blank.
“I don’t know how this will sound…”
Baek Cheon clenched his teeth with all his strength.
“But I don’t think we can possibly lose to those fucking things.”
A rare harsh curse slipped from Baek Cheon’s lips. Even so, no one was surprised. Everyone’s insides were churning in the same way.
Only now that they were facing them did they understand. It was as though they had finally come face-to-face with the true nature of the ominous feeling that had been lurking in the back of their minds all along.
It was not the Heavenly Demon. It was the Demonic Cult.
Yes, the Demonic Cult. Their very existence denied everything they stood for.
Unlike those who had devoted their lives to overcoming themselves, these people had thrown away their lives in complete obedience. Unlike those who willingly embraced hardship to reach enlightenment on their own, these people endured pain solely to follow one who stood above them.
That was the result – the very sight before their eyes.
Beings who could not even preserve those things one must never surrender as a human being, capable of nothing but endless wailing.
If they were right, then what did the lives of Hwasan’s disciples amount to?
They could not be right. They must not be right. No, such a way of life must never be accepted. It must not be allowed to exist.
Baek Cheon’s sword trembled violently.
He poured all his energy into his sword, driven by nausea and revulsion that words could never fully express. Then he unleashed a sword strike twice as ferocious as usual.
Demonic cultists charging at Baek Cheon were cut down by his sword, spraying blood in every direction.
“Kahaaaaaaaaa!”
Demonic cultists howled. Was it from pain? Or from rage?
There was no way to tell. They no longer spoke in human language, nor did they express themselves in human ways. A beast would have been easier to understand.
‘How far do they intend to sink?’
What he found even more incomprehensible was that they had chosen that path of their own accord.
Why? Why would they?
Demonic cultists were strong. It was said that demonic arts could make a person strong with ease, but even so, martial arts were still martial arts. That meant the martial prowess they had built up was something they had attained through effort.
But…
“With all that strength, this is the best ending you could choose? You doglike bastards!”
Baek Cheon surged forward, venting the fury that threatened to burst from within him, and thrust out his sword.
Kaaaaaang!
But his sword was blocked by a blade that suddenly sprang out from somewhere. Startled, Baek Cheon’s eyes widened slightly.
‘A blade?’
Among demonic cultists…
“Don’t run your mouth as if you’re so superior.”
“…You?”
The most striking feature of a man whose blade was locked against Baek Cheon’s sword were his eyes, half-hidden beneath his fallen bangs. Twisting his dark, grayish lips, the man growled.
“Bastards like you, who don’t know the first thing about us… hearing you spout that garbage makes my stomach turn.”
Boom!
A moment later, Baek Cheon’s body was violently thrown backward like a cannonball.
“Sasuk!”
Jo Geol and Yoon Jong reflexively caught Baek Cheon from behind.
Still frozen in his sword stance, Baek Cheon stared at the man before him.
Hadn’t he said that to survive those impossibly long and brutal years in that barren land, they must have had to choose one of two paths?
One was… yes. To cast themselves away, like those ordinary demonic cultists.
And what was the other?
“…To transcended it.”
“You’re quite unlucky.”
The man lifted his massive blade and grinned.
“Because I happen to hate Taoists more than anything.”
A chilling gleam appeared in Baek Cheon’s eyes.
Special Spinoff Chapter 66 >>>
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