Chapter 194 : Jaseung, Climbs A Big Mountain
Chapter 194: Jaseung, Climbs A Big Mountain
“Where in the world are you taking me?”
Ho Yeonshin asked Lee Jaseung across the campfire.
“You will know when we get there.”
Lee Jaseung leaned against a tree with his eyes closed.
After sending Rain and Ho Yeonseo to Mountain, Lee Jaseung was taking Ho Yeonshin somewhere else.
The two of them were running, using the utmost of their light footwork. Of course, Lee Jaseung could run much faster than Ho Yeonshin, but he matched the other man’s speed.
Ho Yeonshin was shocked. He had secretly believed that no one could keep up with his light footwork, yet Lee Jaseung was matching that speed with ease.
Even when he pushed himself to his limit to shake the man off, Lee Jaseung stayed right with him.
Even if someone told him that Lee Jaseung could run far faster than this, he would not be able to believe it. The speed they were moving at now was already so fast that other people could not even imagine it.
“Make sure you keep your promise.”
At those words, Lee Jaseung answered with his eyes still closed.
“I will.”
Was it because of that striking impression from the day they had met long ago? Or was it because of the debt of life he owed?
He had forced poison down his throat and pushed him into this work, yet hatred strong enough to want to kill Lee Jaseung did not arise.
He did not know much about Lee Jaseung, but there was at least one thing he could tell. First of all, he was not the kind of man who would break a promise.
The other was that if you made him an enemy, he would surely be a very troublesome one.
“Even if you do end up breaking your promise… at least spare my little sister.”
At that, Lee Jaseung opened his closed eyes.
Across the blazing campfire, their gazes met and tangled.
Lee Jaseung understood very well what Ho Yeonshin was feeling at that moment. He too had someone he cherished more than himself.
“I will.”
Ho Yeonshin let out a breath of relief at that answer.
He had secluded himself in the mountains and studied the Nine Divine Demonic Arts over and over. He had concluded that there was only one way to revive the Heavenly Demon Sect. Bringing back the Heavenly Demon Soul.
However, there had been no further progress with the Nine Divine Demonic Arts. In recent days he had sunk into a state of resignation.
During that time, his younger sister had entered the shadowy forces behind the Murim Alliance. She had said she would gain information and power there and wait for the right chance.
From the very beginning she had approached Rain on purpose. She had seduced Mountain’s most cherished man, Rain, and had intended to use him to gain an overview of the entire power balance of the martial world.
Yet in the process, she had come to genuinely fall for Rain.
In any case, she had been making her own efforts to reclaim the Heavenly Demon Sect in her own way.
‘She is better than me.’
Even though she had come to him in a moment of crisis, he could not help but think she was better than he was.
All he had done in the mountains was soak in defeat. Lately he had even started to think that if he could not get it back anyway, then he wanted to live however he pleased and just die.
Of course, even that was not easy. The number one execution target of the Asura Demon Sect had always been him after all.
‘But perhaps?’
He suddenly thought that the ranking might have changed.
Ho Yeonshin looked at Lee Jaseung and spoke.
“I heard you dream of unifying the world. But you will never achieve that.”
“Why?”
“The Asura Demon Sect is not something you can trifle with so easily. What you see on the surface is only the tip of the iceberg. They possess tremendous power.”
“If they have that kind of power, why have they stayed quiet all this time?”
“It is not because they are afraid of some rotten, corrupt Murim Alliance.”
Lee Jaseung guessed the true reason exactly.
“Is it because of you?”
“Yes, me. More precisely, they are afraid of the Heavenly Demon Soul being revived. Yao Hong has been storing up strength all this time in preparation for that day.”
“Then why did he not try to obtain the Nine Divine Demonic Arts in the first place?”
“Even if he wanted to, he could not. The Nine Divine Demonic Arts sit above all other demon arts. No unorthodox arts or demonic arts of any kind work on it. Unless the other side teaches it voluntarily, there is no way to forcefully draw out that martial art.”
“I see.”
He nodded as if it were not a big deal, but at the same time, Lee Jaseung felt a flicker of concern.
What if, against all odds, the Heavenly Demon Soul truly appeared again?
If he wanted to guard against that, the best way would be to kill Ho Yeonshin and Ho Yeonseo and eliminate any future trouble.
However, Lee Jaseung did not do that.
Killing the weak beforehand, just in case, was not part of his way of life.
Instead, he would search for a way to kill the Heavenly Demon Soul. He would strive and train for that.
That was Lee Jaseung’s way. He believed that if the process was right, the result would be good as well. Not every matter in the world would follow that pattern, but at least when it came to how he treated the strong and the weak, he hoped that belief would never change.
And there was one more reason as well.
The one who had left a scar on his body.
The man he truly needed to keep an eye on was that one.
Could he really be the first Cult Leader, the immortal being?
Of course, Lee Jaseung did not believe in immortals.
However, he had the feeling that someday he would meet that man again.
Once he met him again, he would find out.
Who he truly is, and what he is.
* * *
From dawn the next day, the two of them began running again.
After several more days of running like that, they arrived at the Asura Demon Sect’s main base.
“Why in the world have we come here?”
Surprisingly, it was the first time Ho Yeonshin had ever come to this place himself. He had always been on the run with his father. There had been Demonic Humans who supported his father, but his father had scattered them all over the Central Plains.
Ho Yeonshin believed his father had made the right call.
If they had stayed together, their tails would have been stepped on in the end, and they all would have died in the end.
Some of them had died, and some were still alive, waiting for him to call them.
Ho Yeonshin lifted his gaze to the mountains stretching far ahead. That was Great Heaven Mountain, where the Demonic Cult’s main base lay.
When he looked at it, emotion surged in his chest.
It hurt to think that his father must have once fled this place in a state close to panic.
“I asked you why we came here. You are not thinking of assassinating Yao Hong, are you?”
Ho Yeonshin wore an expression that said surely not, then raised his voice.
“That is absolutely impossible. You can never do that alone!”
“There are two of us, are there not?”
“Even so, it’s a no!”
“Then we won’t.”
When Lee Jaseung dropped it after a couple of lines like that, Ho Yeonshin narrowed his eyes.
“So that isn’t actually why you are here.”
“I am not that reckless.”
“Then why did we come?”
Only then did Lee Jaseung reveal his purpose for coming here.
“There is somewhere I want to go.”
“Where?”
“The Heavenly Demon Secret Cave.”
Ho Yeonshin was startled.
He had never imagined that Lee Jaseung would bring him here so that they could enter that place.
“I heard only the Cult Leader is allowed to enter.”
Even Yao Hong had never gone inside. You had to inject the inner Qi of the Nine Divine Demonic Arts into the mechanism at the entrance to go in.
“That is right. Only the Heavenly Demon of the Heavenly Demon Sect can enter. I have never been inside, and neither did my father.”
His father had only told him about it in words. He had said such a place existed. Even his father had not known what lay within. When he left the sect, his father had not been the Heavenly Demon. Only the Heavenly Demon could enter.
“So we should go there then.”
“You bastard! Just what are you thinking?”
“In any case, we will have to go in together, so we can check it out when we get there. You know how to enter, yes?”
Of course, Ho Yeonshin knew how to get inside.
“Do you think Yao Hong would just let anyone slip in there easily? He will have set it up so that you cannot go in no matter what.”
“Of course he will have.”
“Then why are you so confident?”
“Because a lot of time has passed.”
“What?”
“It happened decades ago. Back then, they would have put up an iron wall of defenses. But do you really think that is still the case now?”
His argument was persuasive, and Ho Yeonshin could not refute it.
Lee Jaseung started striding forward.
“Let us go.”
Ho Yeonshin called out from behind him.
“Why? Why is it that you want to go there?”
A strange light passed through both of Lee Jaseung’s eyes. Since he was behind him, Ho Yeonshin could not see that change.
“Your sister tried to rob the secret vault of my main base. I am the type who likes to pay people back for what I get.”
It sounded like it could be true, yet it also felt like words meant to cover up some other reason. Ho Yeonshin could neither fully believe it nor fully doubt it.
“It will not be easy.”
“Probably not.”
Lee Jaseung looked up at Great Heaven Mountain in the distance and spoke.
“If it were easy, I would not have tried in the first place.”
* * *
The two of them climbed Great Heaven Mountain.
Demonic Humans were lying in ambush all over, keeping watch, but there were no experts strong enough to detect the movements of the two.
The real tightening of security began once they drew near the cult’s main base.
However, surprisingly, the entrance to the secret ground was not inside the main base.
“I heard that with every few generations, the Heavenly Demon Secret Cave changed location. Sometimes the cavern was under the quarters of the Cult Leader. At other times, it was beneath some shabby storehouse in the sect grounds. In this generation, the secret cavern is hidden in Great Heaven Mountain.”
“Do you think Yao Hong knows that?”
“Of course he knows. He just cannot enter.”
“He could force his way in, no?”
“If you force the door, it’s set up so that the cavern explodes. There is no way he would do that when he is greedy for what lies within. Also, no matter how much he has betrayed us, he is still a Demonic Human and is claiming to be the Heavenly Demon. Destroying the Heavenly Demon Secret Cave, the symbol of the Heavenly Demon, would not sit well with him. He would lose the loyalty of the Demonic Humans too.”
Eventually, the two of them arrived at the entrance to the cavern.
Just as Lee Jaseung had expected, the formations and mechanisms that had once surrounded the place in countless layers had all stopped.
Originally, operating those mechanisms and formations cost a huge sum of money. On top of that, the formations set here were of the very highest grade, so the cost had been astronomical.
For the first few years, they had been run normally. After that, one by one, they had been shut down, and now every formation and mechanism had stopped. They could not keep pouring a fortune into something for the sake of the slim chance that the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline might someday return here.
That did not mean there was no one guarding the place. There was a being as formidable as those formations and mechanisms.
“Who is there?”
An old man with a hunched back appeared.
He looked from Lee Jaseung to Ho Yeonshin and back again. Realizing that the two of them were not ordinary, he straightened his back and stood upright.
The old man who stood straight was the Red Demon.
He had been an impressive expert even in the past, and now, decades later, he had become an old demonic monster with an immense store of inner Qi.
“You two don’t look like ordinary fellows.”
Without even going through the process of trying to figure out who they were, the Red Demon thrust his hand toward them.
Whoosh!
A tremendous gust swept the area. The two of them had already split to either side, dodging the attack.
The first to strike back was Ho Yeonshin.
Shaaak.
He unleashed Blade Qi through the air. Ho Yeonshin did not bother to hide his anger toward the Red Demon. The old master of the demonic sect was the very one who had betrayed his grandfather.
Boom!
The Red Demon swung both palms and shattered the Blade Qi.
“That won’t work, brat!”
This time, he sent out a palm strike packed with powerful Qi.
Kwoom!
A tremendous wave of force flew at Ho Yeonshin.
He twisted his body and avoided the blow.
Kwoooooom!
Then an even fiercer blast of Qi came roaring in. It was an attack so powerful that there was no way he could dodge.
This time, instead of avoiding it, Ho Yeonshin swung his blade.
Flash!
In the next moment.
The Red Demon stood frozen where he was, eyes wide open. A single streak of light had cut through the wave of Qi he had fired and flown straight at him.
His gaze dropped to his own chest.
There, a lightning shaped scar appeared.
“…That technique is the Cult Leader’s martial art. Could it be?”
His heart burnt out, he could no longer speak and collapsed on the spot.
In terms of sheer inner Qi, the Red Demon far surpassed Ho Yeonshin, and his martial arts were stronger as well.
However, the technique Ho Yeonshin had used was the Nine Divine Demonic Arts.
The Nine Divine Demonic Arts were the supreme art above all demonic arts.
Ho Yeonshin’s Thunderstrike Form had shattered the Red Demon’s attack in an instant and left a mortal wound on his chest.
The Nine Divine Demonic Blade Style consisted originally of seven moves. The reason he had deliberately chosen Thunderstrike Form among them was because he was thinking of Lee Jaseung.
It was a warning that he could carve the same scar onto his chest again. Yet infuriatingly, Lee Jaseung did not show any reaction.
He simply strode toward the entrance.
“Come and open the door already, yes?”
Ho Yeonshin ground his teeth inwardly. Leaving fear aside, should he not at least pretend to be impressed by such a magnificent strike?
‘That bastard!’
Ho Yeonshin walked over to the spot.
At the same time, he felt a strange sense of futility. If it had been this easy to enter the Heavenly Demon Secret Cave, he would have come on his own long ago.
He had naturally assumed the defenses would be so tight that it would be impossible to get in. No, in recent years, he had even forgotten the cavern existed at all.
Yet Lee Jaseung had precisely predicted the current state of this place. He felt as if his own stupidity were being mocked.
‘He really is an incredible man.’
He had to admit what needed to be admitted.
The entrance to the cavern was sealed by a stone door, and beside it a small stone slab was attached. When he brushed off the old dust, he saw a carving of a demonic face.
Ho Yeonshin placed his palm against the old panel beside the stone wall.
Wooooong.
He operated the Nine Divine Demonic Arts and sent his inner Qi into it.
Rumble.
The door that had been shut for decades slowly began to open.
At the same time, a fierce light flashed in Lee Jaseung’s eyes.