Chapter 237 : Cult Leader, Descends
Chapter 237: Cult Leader, Descends
In a large open lot where dusty winds blew, there sat a shabby tavern.
In a corner of the tavern, an old man covered in dust sat drinking.
He appeared beyond exhausted, looking utterly destitute, it was the Great Demon.
After the incident at the Baekseon Pavilion, he hadn't returned to the Demonic Cult.
There were only about a hundred survivors left at the time. Finding Yeo Su-in, whom they couldn't locate even with thousands, with this small number was an impossible task.
However, simply returning would have been bidding farewell to his own power.
The Great Demon's heart was frantic. If Yeo Su-in recovered from his injuries and finished detoxifying, suppressing him would become even more difficult.
Furthermore, those who followed him were not few.
At the time, his only thought was that he had to find and kill him quickly.
The Great Demon utilized everything he possessed. He mobilized every Demonic Human he knew. Other Demonic Humans within the cult, and even those he was merely acquainted with.
He promised them that if this matter went well, they could become the main pillars of the Demonic Cult.
Some believed him, and some didn't.
And those who believed him at the time... most died as Yeo Su-in's counterattack began. Those who were lucky enough to survive naturally all left.
Of course, many of Yeo Su-in's subordinates also died in the process. It was the first time since the Asura Demon Sect became independent that so many sacrifices occurred due to internal strife.
But even so, he couldn't kill Yeo Su-in. With his arms and legs cut off, the Great Demon couldn't kill him with the power he had scraped together.
Now the situation was completely reversed.
He was the one being hunted.
After being chased and chased again, the subordinates remaining with the Great Demon numbered only about thirty.
Even in this worst case situation, the Great Demon didn't return to the Demonic Cult. The reason was simple.
Politics requires achievements.
But this defeat destroyed all the achievements he had built up throughout his life.
He had lost the Four Great Sons and the commanders, as well as the experts of the Elders' Council. He had even lost all the Demonic Humans he mobilized afterward.
Truly, it was a case where the tower built with such care had collapsed, and even its foundations had been dug up.
“Bring more alcohol! Bring more alcohol here!”
The Great Demon bellowed. From the outside, he looked like nothing more than a drunken old man who had failed at life.
“Bring the alcohol quickly before I kill you all!”
Someone placed a bottle of alcohol on the table.
Naturally thinking the waiter had brought it, the Great Demon's hand stopped dead as he reached for the bottle.
The person who brought the alcohol was, surprisingly, Yeo Su-in.
“You?”
The Great Demon bolted upright. He staggered as he stood up suddenly. Considering his martial arts, this was something that should never have happened. It wasn't because of the alcohol, but because he was so shocked.
He had searched so much after coming down from the mountain, and today, Yeo Su-in had appeared before him of his own accord.
Yeo Su-in sat across from him.
“Sit down.”
The expression of Yeo Su-in, who spat the words out like a command, was blank.
Two middle-aged men stood side by side behind Yeo Su-in.
The Great Demon could tell who they were.
One was Kwak Kong, the leader of the Night Sky Squad, and the other was Won Kang, the master of the South Tower.
“It is you two.”
In any case, it had been clearly revealed who the traitors were within the Demonic Cult.
The Great Demon hadn't believed in the betrayal of these two at first. Especially the South Tower Master Won Kang, who was rumored to be so eccentric and dogmatic that he didn't get along with others at all.
Well, in this situation, it didn't matter how he had been recruited.
'This is not good.'
The fact that they had entered this place meant that all his subordinates outside had been suppressed.
Anxiety surged through him, but his mind soon grew calm.
'Fine, let's end it here.'
He felt a desire to reach a conclusion, whether Yeo Su-in died or he died.
“Everything was ruined because of you bastard.”
The Great Demon glared at Yeo Su-in as if he would tear him apart and kill him at any moment.
Yeo Su-in sat in the seat across from him and poured alcohol into a new cup that had been upside down on the table. The Great Demon's hand flinched as he watched that action.
It was a distance where an attack was possible. Truly, he wanted to strike a single blow and smash that bastard's head.
But he couldn't.
It wasn't because of the two martial artists standing behind. He could feel it from Yeo Su-in's natural movements. That he was a level above him. If he made a hasty attack, he would be the one who ended up defeated.
Instead of attacking, the Great Demon drained his glass. Thinking that this might be the last alcohol of his life, a sudden sense of futility rushed in.
'So it ends like this.'
The Great Demon looked at Yeo Su-in. Yeo Su-in also had a different face than before.
In his blunt face, the futility and anger that must have been caked onto his own face were intertwined, but they were much darker and more shadowed than his own.
“You've changed too.”
“You made me this way.”
He didn't know how Yeo Su-in had spent the past few months.
He had vented his anger for what he had suffered while killing the Great Demon's subordinates. He had let out the anger in his heart to his heart's content.
He thought he had let it out enough, no, he believed that doing so would release all his anger...
The anger didn't dissipate.
He had only recently realized that human anger is not resolved by more anger.
He also realized that the frantic rage of the past few months wasn't just resentment toward the Great Demon.
It wasn't directed at Yao Hong either.
Sometimes, he shouted toward Yao Hong to look, to see that this was him, but it wasn't that either.
The anger was directed at himself.
The anger deep within his heart that Mujin had sparked.
The fundamental anger that started from jealousy toward Lee Jaseung.
It wasn't merely jealousy regarding Baek Seolyoung. It was the self-loathing that Lee Jaseung was better than him. It was the jealousy that came from that.
And Yeo Su-in could feel how powerful anger stemming from jealousy was.
Yeo Su-in said as if lamenting.
“If you hadn't killed my subordinates at the Baekseon Pavilion that day, things wouldn't have tangled up this badly.”
“They killed all my subordinates!”
“It was something that wouldn't have happened if you hadn't chased me in the first place!”
Yeo Su-in shouted loudly. The Great Demon flinched at his booming cry.
But soon, the Great Demon's anger exploded.
Crash!
“In the first place? Did you say in the first place? Dammit! You were the one who dreamed of rebellion in the first place! This is all because of you bastard!”
The Great Demon smashed the table. The alcohol and snacks all spilled onto the floor. Yeo Su-in stared blankly down at the messy floor.
“What meaning is there in saying such things now?”
He would kill the Great Demon here. He would think about what came next after killing him. Right now, his mind was too complicated to reach any conclusion.
Even though the day to kill him had come, he wasn't happy at all.
“Let's end it now.”
Yeo Su-in stood up.
The Great Demon stood up as well.
Yeo Su-in didn't intend to drag the fight out.
He would cut him down in a single clash with his most powerful move.
The Great Demon thought the same. He intended to exert the greatest ultimate technique he possessed.
The two moved almost simultaneously. The one who moved first, if only by a fraction, was the Great Demon.
Swoosh!
Swish.
The single strikes infused with the entire souls of the two flew toward each other.
Attacks crossed where someone was bound to die, no matter who it was.
Slash!
The sound of flesh splitting was heard.
There was no surprise in the result.
Spurt!
Blood sprayed from the Great Demon's chest.
The Great Demon glared at Yeo Su-in with eyes full of hatred. Just as he was about to leave a curse-filled insult before dying, the Great Demon's eyes widened. A person was standing behind Yeo Su-in, though he hadn't noticed when they entered.
Surprisingly, it was Yao Hong.
The man who hadn't left the Cult Leader's Palace for a very long time had finally come down the mountain.
Yeo Su-in was also startled. Yao Hong had truly come up behind him without a single trace.
In other words, it meant that if Yao Hong had intended to kill him, he would be dead already. Yao Hong was far stronger than he had estimated.
The gaze Yao Hong cast toward the Great Demon was chilling. The Great Demon could tell. Yao Hong could have saved him, but he didn't.
Yao Hong flicked his finger.
Thwack!
The Great Demon's forehead was pierced, and he fell backward.
It was a truly cold-blooded sight. Although he hadn't let go of his ambition to become the Cult Leader until the end, he was still a man who had dedicated his life to the Demonic Cult.
But Yao Hong had eliminated him with a single gesture as if chasing away a bothersome fly. Though he was already dying from a fatal wound, he met an incredibly miserable death.
Yao Hong's gaze turned toward Yeo Su-in.
In that dark and chilling gaze, Yeo Su-in sensed his death.
'It's the end huh.'
He really didn't know his life would end in this way.
“You fool!”
At Yao Hong's word, something surged up in Yeo Su-in's heart.
Anger and apology, hatred and affection. It was an emotion where all those things were mixed.
Then Yao Hong's rebuke flew in, smashing all of that.
“How can you take my place when you are played like a puppet by another bastard?”
Yeo Su-in was startled by those words.
“What do you mean?”
“Who do you think is responsible for you acting like an idiot here? Do you really think you're doing this because you're an idiot?”
The next moment, Yeo Su-in's entire body trembled as if he had been struck by lightning.
“Could it be?”
“Yes, it was all a scheme plotted by a bastard named Lee Jaseung.”
“Do you mean everything from the incident at the Baekseon Pavilion?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean that corrupt Murim Alliance official was also someone sent by Lee Jaseung?”
“That man is the Regiment Leader of the Divine Sword Regiment of the Black Way Alliance.”
Yeo Su-in was horrified. He couldn't believe that everything was Lee Jaseung's script. No, it was hard to believe. That bastard's words and actions were so natural. Just how?
“Why didn't you tell me sooner? If you had at least done that...”
He would have been able to avoid the fight with the Great Demon. He would have been concentrating his efforts on killing Lee Jaseung, not the Great Demon.
Yao Hong answered quietly.
“Because it's something you can only know by experiencing it yourself.”
Yeo Su-in protested like a rebellious child.
“So what if I've learned a lesson? Aren't you going to kill me anyway?”
“You aren't even qualified to die by my hand.”
He didn't raise his voice, but a massive Qi radiated out.
With those final words, Yao Hong walked out of the place.
Yeo Su-in grit his teeth. A sense of misery and defeat rushed in more than the joy of staying alive.
Kwak Kong and Won Kang, who were standing by the door, were at a loss, panicked. They trembled with the fear that Yao Hong might strike them dead in a single blow.
But Yao Hong passed them by without a word, as if they weren't even worth his attention.
Right then, Yeo Su-in shouted.
“Leader!”
Yao Hong's footsteps stopped.
“I! I still... I want to rise to that position of yours.”
It was his desperate sincerity.
The moment he spat those words out, Yeo Su-in could look accurately into his true heart.
That revenge had disappeared from his heart a long time ago.
In its place, what remained was the ambition to become the Cult Leader and command the world.
He was this kind of person.
Someone who wanted power and ambition more than revenge for his massacred family.
After shouting, he felt miserable yet relieved. And it was thrilling.
Yao Hong said without looking back.
“Bring me Lee Jaseung's head.”
Without saying what he would do then, Yao Hong left the place.
Yeo Su-in clenched his two fists.
It was a command given while sparing his life, and he couldn't just run away and oppose Yao Hong.
Because that was a matter directly connected to the basic 'dignity' of one who seeks to become the Cult Leader.
It was an absurd thought, but he held the hope that perhaps Yao Hong might accept him as his successor again. With even the Great Demon dead, he was now the only one left to carry on the lineage of the Demonic Cult.
In any case, such hope was a matter for after killing Lee Jaseung. If he couldn't kill Lee Jaseung, his life was as good as over.
“Summon everyone.”
Yeo Su-in's eyes shone coldly. He felt that the time to truly end things had come.
“We are going to kill Lee Jaseung.”