Chapter 291 : Blood Demon Clash (1)
Chapter 291: Blood Demon Clash (1)
Sewoon’s group escaped the horrific space and immediately entered the third floor.
As the darkness lifted and bright light illuminated the surroundings, shock surfaced in everyone’s eyes.
“……!”
“Grr!”
Their reaction was understandable.
The scene unfolding before them was completely different from the labyrinth of the second floor.
This time, rather than the interior of the Blood Palace, it looked as though they had come outside—revealing a sky dyed entirely in blood-red hues.
‘No. This is different.’
It was not the sky outside the Blood Palace they had entered before.
The entire third-floor space had been forcibly connected to a completely different realm through the power of sorcery.
Doom! Doom!
At that moment, the heavy sound of drums suddenly thundered throughout the space.
As dozens—no, hundreds—of drumbeats overlapped, the noise felt as though the world itself were collapsing.
“What is this? Where did these drums come from all of a sudden?”
The Poison Demon, Yelü Seung, scanned the surroundings, but there were no soldiers beating war drums anywhere in sight.
Those drums were not mere noise.
They were a dreadful resonance that constricted the listener’s heart and gnawed at the soul itself.
‘This place…’
In an instant, Sewoon shuddered as a horrific memory resurfaced in his mind.
This was a place etched vividly into his memories.
How could he ever forget it?
This was the main headquarters of the Murim Alliance, where Sewoon had met his final death before his Regression.
It was the vast inner hall where the Blood Demon had achieved unification of the martial world, held a blood-soaked festival using the very existence of the Murim Alliance, and entered amid illusions of traitors.
When Sewoon turned his head to the side, scenes he wished to forget overlapped before his eyes.
A pond where koi once swam peacefully, now rotten and blackened by the blood of anomalies.
The training ground filled with the corpses of countless orthodox martial artists, soaked in blood.
And himself—struggling not to succumb to despair, offering up the eleventh Divine Weapon to the Blood Demon for the sake of one final act of revenge.
Everything was being reenacted before Sewoon’s eyes, like a cruel joke played by the gods.
In the past, he might have lost his reason, consumed entirely by rage.
But Sewoon was different now.
‘I understand what’s going on.’
With eyes that had settled into cold calmness, he focused on grasping the situation.
This was not divine providence. It was a playground created by the Blood Demon to toy with and mock him.
The Blood Demon had simply transplanted Sewoon’s most brutal and tragic past in its entirety.
‘I must not waver over something like this.’
Step.
Suppressing his rage, Sewoon moved forward.
Just as he acknowledged his past pain and subdued his anger—
Shaaah!
Kurrrr!
The tightly shut doors leading from the inner hall to the Alliance Leader’s chamber burst wide open, clearing his line of sight.
As the blood-red mist slowly dispersed,
Far in the distance, a single figure came into view, seated upon the grand teacher’s chair of the Murim Alliance Leader.
“How is it? To your liking, Demonic Craftsman?”
The Blood Demon wore a chilling smile.
His eyes brimmed with both amusement and deep fascination directed toward Sewoon.
Like a child who had discovered the most precious and entertaining toy, pure madness covered his face.
‘Heh heh, still a monster through and through.’
The Poison Demon, Yelü Seung, thought silently as he looked at his opponent.
Shaaah!
The Blood Demon was merely sitting still upon the chair, yet an absurdly overwhelming presence poured out from him.
What emanated from the Blood Demon was madness—and pure enjoyment.
‘Did he ever have such an expression?’
Yelü Seung concealed his genuine shock.
Despite having spent many long years within the Blood Cult, this was the first time he had ever seen the Blood Demon like this.
[Scene Addition 1: A past recollection—from Yelü Seung’s perspective—of the moment when the Blood Demon came to recruit him into the Blood Cult. At that time, the Blood Demon demanded loyalty, but his demeanor was entirely different from how he now desired Sewoon.]
A being who had always worn an expressionless face, never revealing emotion.
Yet now, as he looked at Sewoon—Yelü Seung’s own disciple—he was revealing emotion for the first and only time.
‘What meaning does my disciple hold to that thing…?’
As Yelü Seung sank into such thoughts, Sewoon fixed the Blood Demon with eyes as cold as ice and spoke.
“You’re still the same—resorting to cheap tricks with sorcery.”
Shwaaah!
At the same time, an immense aura overflowed from Sewoon as well.
The harmonious energy that had reached the extreme of the Life and Death Realm pushed back against the Blood Demon’s presence evenly.
Shaaah!
Kwaaaarrrrr!
Like waves from two vast seas swelling to devour one another.
Unlike before, there was not the slightest sign of being overpowered.
Though his energy was being neutralized, the sight only made the Blood Demon’s eyes shine with even greater vitality.
The Blood Demon moved his lips as he gazed at Sewoon.
“I recreated the final moment… so that I might savor our reunion.”
His voice was gentle, as though addressing a cherished retainer, yet the meaning contained within was unimaginably horrific.
Sewoon twisted the corner of his mouth and mocked him.
“Looks like you don’t remember me gouging out your eyes and smashing your brain.”
Before his Regression, Sewoon had turned the Blood Demon’s head into mush with the Invisible Dagger.
Even so, despite having his head torn apart, the Blood Demon had not died and had restored his body to its original form.
The Blood Demon did not grow angry in the slightest and muttered calmly.
“Did I not repay that debt by turning back time itself?”
“……!”
Sewoon fell silent.
A storm raged within him.
The reason the Blood Demon had revived him.
The answer to that long-standing question was now approaching—spoken by the Blood Demon standing before him.
As Sewoon paused, silence settling between them—
‘…He turned back time? Regression?’
A strange light flashed in Yelü Seung’s eyes.
He slowly turned his head to look at the speechless Sewoon.
And upon seeing his disciple’s face, Yelü Seung finally realized the secret Sewoon had been hiding.
Was the Blood Demon truly capable of twisting even the law of time itself?
Yelü Seung’s mind descended into chaos.
He had lived his entire life pursuing martial arts and poison arts, but turning back time went far beyond the domain of martial arts.
It was no different from challenging the very domain of the gods.
In that instant, Yelü Seung realized it through pure intuition.
If the Blood Demon had twisted divine providence itself to send his disciple back into this world, then he undoubtedly possessed a horrific objective that could not be easily imagined.
‘If that is the case…’
Yelü Seung’s eyes—now so distant that they could no longer see even an inch ahead—sank heavily for reasons unknown.
Yet no one noticed that change.
At that moment, Sewoon broke the silence and addressed the Blood Demon.
“Then why did you send me back to the past?”
“……”
At Sewoon’s question, the Blood Demon did not answer easily.
In the Blood Demon’s pupils—filled with emptiness and futility—another light briefly flickered for reasons unknown, only to vanish without a trace.
“That is something you shall naturally come to understand in due time.”
Once again, the Blood Demon responded with words that offered no clarity.
“You’re still playing petty tricks to the very end.”
Shing!
Clang!
The moment that contemptible answer ended, Sewoon drew Pure Yang into his grasp.
As the pure white blade surfaced, a destructive aura surged violently from Sewoon’s physical body.
‘This really is the final battle.’
Sewoon reaffirmed his resolve.
At that moment, the Blood Demon—who had been calmly gazing at the sword pouring forth sword radiance as dazzling as the sun—twisted the corner of his lips.
“So, that is Yoo Jinhak’s power I witnessed at Mount Hua. Remarkable. Is that the final destination you reached?”
“……!”
“Well, in this life you certainly advanced. Though at best, it was nothing more than desperate struggle.”
With utterly emotionless words, the Blood Demon humiliated Yoo Jinhak.
The anger that Sewoon had been suppressing finally flared in his eyes.
He simply could not tolerate hearing Yoo Jinhak’s name spoken by the Blood Demon’s mouth.
“……Do not dare speak the Alliance Leader’s name with that filthy mouth of yours.”
“Why ever not?”
The Blood Demon continued, as though the matter were laughably trivial.
“In every life, across all time, that man died insignificantly without ever exerting a proper influence on the world. What importance could such a being possibly hold—”
Flash!
At that moment, unable to endure the insult toward Yoo Jinhak, Sewoon charged at the Blood Demon.
Kicking off with true force, Sewoon surged forward, already transformed into a streak of light.
Compressing the space between them, he burst forth explosively.
Rumble!
Kra-ga-ga-ga!
In his hand, Pure Yang now radiated several times its previous brilliance.
Flash!
Taaah!
At the same time, Yelü Seung and the Ferocious Divine Corpse followed closely behind Sewoon.
The leading beam of light and the two trailing beams intertwined like spirals as they flew forward.
Originally, the distance between them and the Blood Demon seated upon the Grand Teacher’s Chair was no more than a few zhang.
“Very well. Let us begin.”
Tap.
As the Blood Demon—still seated upon the chair—snapped his fingers, everything changed in an instant.
Shwaaaaa!
Ziiiiing!
All surrounding space stretched long like pulled taffy, and the distance between them began expanding endlessly, like a horizon with no end.
The floor of the Inner Hall extended infinitely, resembling an endless plain.
Everything within the space was moving according to the Blood Demon’s will.
Sewoon’s group was advancing while narrowing the distance at tremendous speed, yet the space itself was expanding at a pace just barely faster.
Though all three had reached the Life and Death Realm, they were unable to close even that fleeting gap.
Tap.
At that moment, the Blood Demon—who had been observing the scene—snapped his fingers once more.
This time, it was not the ground, but the sky that twisted.
Crack!
Kra-ga-ga-ga!
From the edge of the heavens, jet-black radiance erupted.
As if someone had seized the sky with both hands and torn it apart, a massive rift opened wide.
From that grotesque fissure, Anomalous Abominations—nearly infinite in number—began pouring forth.
Kieeeeh!
Chiiiiii!
Like a calamity resembling a swarm of locusts covering the sky, the abominations charged toward Sewoon’s group with horrific screams.
“Insignificant vermin—!!”
At that moment, Poison Demon Yelü Seung struck first, scattering terrifying poison qi from both hands and melting the incoming abominations.
Swaaaa!
Kruuuuumble!
Unlike before his Regression, Yelü Seung—who had perfectly assimilated Angshin Tears and ascended to the realm of a Poison Human—was nothing less than a calamity god descending upon the mortal world.
His poison arts carried destructive power that devoured everything.
“Kuhahahaha!!”
Only pleasure filled Yelü Seung’s ashen pupils.
Hisssss!
Chijijijik!
The abominations melted like mud midair, burning away while releasing a horrific stench.
However, Yelü Seung was not the only one unleashing madness.
Rumble!
Thoooom!
“Grrr!!”
The Ferocious Divine Corpse, infused with Gunggi, swung its massive fists, pulverizing the abominations’ physical bodies into fragments.
Each strike of its fist caused abominations to explode amid thunderous roars.
The overwhelming power of the Ferocious Divine Corpse—born from the fusion of the Heavenly Demon’s physical body and the soul of Gunggi—was annihilating everything in its path.