Chapter 95 : Chapter 95
Chapter 095. The Lesser Heavenly Demon (3)
How much time had passed like that?
Footsteps began to reach Bukgung Wan’s ears.
A steady pace, steady strides, a gait utterly devoid of haste. There was an unmistakable air of leisure about it, as though the person were out for a stroll.
Yet what startled Bukgung Wan was not that composure. That was something any decent Peak master could manage.
‘There is no killing intent or battle intent at all.’
Who would strike first was the only question. The man was clearly coming with the intention to fight him. And yet, to suppress one’s presence so completely…
It made Bukgung Wan think that this opponent might be far more formidable than expected.
“Sword Dragon… Sword Dragon Dam Jeok-san.”
Bukgung Wan murmured the name of the man now approaching him.
Then—
“Good to meet you, Lesser Heavenly Demon.”
Dam Jeok-san’s voice resonated through the space, clear and distinct, as though he were speaking from right in front of him.
He had not projected it with internal energy. The moment he opened his mouth, the sheer presence of the man called Dam Jeok-san swelled outward.
“Yes, good to meet you. I am Bukgung Wan.”
He spoke as he slowly rose from the chair in which he had been sunk.
Whooosh!
At the same time, Bukgung Wan’s body inside the tent was wrapped in red mist and, in a single instant, arrived right before Dam Jeok-san.
A mysterious and unfathomable body movement art using the Silent Devouring Divine Art. A feat close to the level of spatial displacement.
“You are the guest, Young Cult Leader, and I am the host. There was no need for you to come out to greet me like this.”
Yet Dam Jeok-san replied calmly, without blinking an eye at the sight.
“Hah.”
A short, hollow laugh escaped Bukgung Wan’s lips.
“Sword Dragon. I thought that if even half of the rumors about you were true, you would be recorded in the history of Murim.”
He continued, struggling to suppress his disbelief.
Throughout the long history of Murim in the Central Plains, there had been warriors who lost their dantian and still managed to rise again.
But Bukgung Wan had never seen one who not only recovered, but surpassed his original realm in such a short time.
At least, not within the bounds of his common sense.
Would it be possible if one cultivated demonic arts classified as forbidden even within the Ming Cult?
‘At least, I could not do it.’
With that thought, the Dam Jeok-san before him appeared even more dangerous. Not merely strong, but someone capable of producing incomprehensible miracles.
Even so—
‘He is not beyond my ability to handle.’
While Bukgung Wan was reaching that conclusion—
“Let us have some tea.”
Dam Jeok-san naturally sat down in the seat opposite the one Bukgung Wan had been occupying.
Without waiting for an answer, he began to brew tea with practiced motions.
“Have you ever heard that the way of tea helps calm qi deviation?”
Seated, calmly pouring the tea, Dam Jeok-san continued speaking.
“That is an interesting claim. It is not entirely wrong. Drinking warm broth does help soothe disordered meridians.”
It was true that the way of tea could calm an agitated mind and erase distracting thoughts. But it was absurd to claim that it could suppress qi deviation.
“Your insight is impressive. I learned it out of desperation, grasping at straws. It was not very effective. Still, I would like to put it to use here, so please sit, Lesser Heavenly Demon.”
“….”
At Dam Jeok-san’s invitation, Bukgung Wan returned to his seat as though he had no choice, crossing his legs as he sat.
Without another word, Dam Jeok-san poured tea into Bukgung Wan’s cup.
“Did you truly mean to just drink tea?”
Holding the teacup, Bukgung Wan asked, unable to hide his confusion.
He had expected a far more perilous situation.
For example—
Testing him by infusing the tea with immense internal energy, scattering tea leaves like hidden weapons in an assassination attempt, or activating a hidden formation within the tent…
That was the kind of tea ceremony Bukgung Wan knew.
“Drink.”
Yet Dam Jeok-san merely offered the tea again, still utterly composed.
For a fleeting moment, Bukgung Wan wondered if poison had been added.
As the heir of the Ming Cult, he had benefited from countless secret arts and possessed a body close to immune to poison. Moreover, his intuition as a sorcerer was extraordinarily sharp. Using poison on him would be nearly meaningless.
And looking into Dam Jeok-san’s eyes—those eyes tinged with faint amusement—there was no sense at all that he would resort to such petty tricks.
“Fine.”
Only then did Bukgung Wan slowly raise the teacup to his lips, prepared to unleash a killing move at once if any scheme revealed itself.
However—
“…The fragrance is good.”
The heir of the Ming Cult was no different from the crown prince of a nation. This was not mere metaphor. The territories they ruled without imperial interference truly rivaled minor countries.
To live as such an heir, one needed at least a basic level of cultivation.
Which calligraphy was elegant, which paintings were beautiful, and which tea was fragrant.
Even by Bukgung Wan’s standards, the tea Dam Jeok-san brewed was clean and refreshing, to the point that one could sense the patience and suffering contained within it.
And yet—
“Did you really come all this way just to share tea?”
“Not necessarily… but that is fine too. You are the one who traveled the long distance, not me.”
Dam Jeok-san smiled faintly as he tilted his teacup. His posture was measured and elegant, plainly conveying that he lacked nothing and felt no urgency at all.
Bukgung Wan did not take appearances at face value. The man must be hiding something. Uncovering that was what he had come to do.
Flutter—
Bukgung Wan’s wide sleeve stirred lightly through the air. That was the only sign of sorcery being invoked.
[Crimson Moon Mirror.]
A detection spell.
Within a fixed radius, it could sense even killing intent or battle intent that had been expertly concealed.
But Crimson Moon Mirror did not end there. That was merely the beginning.
It slipped into the gaps between detected killing intent or battle intent and amplified those emotions, until they became impossible to suppress.
Once caught by this spell, even Dam Jeok-san would be unable to maintain his current calm.
That was what Bukgung Wan thought—
‘There is truly no intent to fight…?’
The mirror reflected nothing.
And the moment doubt flickered—
BANG!
Dam Jeok-san flipped over the entire table that had been serving as the tea table and charged at him.
“…?”
At the instant Bukgung Wan faltered, unable to read even a trace of battle intent, the ambush struck perfectly.
As Bukgung Wan tried to shove away the table completely blocking his vision—
THRUST!
Dam Jeok-san’s sword pierced through the table and shot straight toward his throat. A trajectory so clean and precise it sent chills down the spine.
“Hah!”
Bukgung Wan let out a delighted laugh. To strike with a blow no different from a killing move, as though he had been waiting for this moment.
Had he not been toyed with from the start?
Yet all he could do now was block the oncoming blade.
Wooooong!
With dark-red mist coiling around both hands, Bukgung Wan pushed against Dam Jeok-san’s sword.
THRUST!
But it was not enough to stop it completely. The blade tore through the crimson mist and even cut into Bukgung Wan’s robes.
The wound itself was no more than a shallow graze.
The real problem was—
“You started this fight, Lesser Heavenly Demon.”
Dam Jeok-san charged forward, his eyes gleaming with something close to madness. It was impossible to understand how he had suppressed such killing intent and battle intent until now.
Slash!
A seemingly casual slash. Yet its aftermath was anything but light. With a tremendous gust of pressure, Bukgung Wan’s garments were torn apart, the result of barely twisting his body aside.
“Damn it!”
A rough curse spilled from his mouth, uncharacteristic of him. Dam Jeok-san was undoubtedly strong once he revealed his power, but not to the point where Bukgung Wan should be pushed back so helplessly.
And yet, losing the initiative had proven disastrous. He could see no way to reclaim the momentum.
If there was no way—
Then he would make one.
Bukgung Wan lightly entwined the index and middle fingers of his left hand and recited an incantation.
“Open!”
Fwoash!
At the same time, a blinding crimson radiance poured forth from behind Bukgung Wan, as though flooding the space.
“Crimson Smoke Without End!”
The ultimate art of the Silent Devouring Divine Art, sparing neither friend nor foe. A killing method that blended sorcery and martial arts.
Created solely for efficient slaughter and destruction, it was a technique that only those who had achieved remarkable mastery in both sorcery and martial arts could wield.
Bloody tears streamed from Bukgung Wan’s eyes as he unleashed Crimson Smoke Without End.
Tsspapapat!
Simultaneously, the blazing light transformed into thorny vines and began to spin violently.
The range encompassed the entire tent. Ordinarily, the technique would spread far wider, but Bukgung Wan restricted its scope and pushed its power to the extreme.
In exchange—
“Ghk…!”
The writhing thorns tore into Bukgung Wan’s own flesh.
Even so—
“This is troublesome.”
Dam Jeok-san, who had been charging with the intent to cut him down outright, was forced to halt his assault.
***
“As expected, he is no easy opponent.”
That Dam Jeok-san had been able to deceive Bukgung Wan completely in the opening clash was the result of his recent training.
Training that distanced him from martial force itself, erasing killing intent and battle intent. Though its purpose had been to steady his own mind rather than deceive an enemy, the result was that Dam Jeok-san had effectively entered a state close to emptiness.
That was how he had deceived Crimson Moon Mirror.
But that was not all.
The moment Crimson Moon Mirror stirred the killing intent and battle intent sunken deep within him, Dam Jeok-san’s true objective was also fulfilled.
Namely, to step away from the martial path he had built and observe himself from the outside.
‘Had I not deliberately suppressed my killing intent and battle intent, Crimson Moon Mirror might have judged my very existence as something impure.’
No—it had almost happened. The thought made his blood run cold.
What had protected him was the Prajna Heart Technique. The inner art that had even suppressed the General’s martial force, born from Shaolin’s Seventy-Two Supreme Arts.
And the same inner art that had guided Dam Jeok-san to the origin of the Six Paths of Reincarnation and granted him a new life.
For a brief moment, Dam Jeok-san wondered if he had yet to truly grasp the full power of the Prajna Heart Technique.
But he had no leisure to dwell on that thought.
Bukgung Wan had escaped his relentless assault by using Crimson Smoke Without End, a technique bordering on mutual destruction.
Kagagagang!
Dam Jeok-san drew even the Red Cloud Sword from his back and slashed apart the thorny vines coiling around him.
Each time his twin blades spat blue flames, the crimson thorns withered away—
Goooo!
Only to grow back again at once. As though to prove that the name “Without End” was no exaggeration or empty boast.
If the opponent had drawn upon an ultimate technique, then it was only proper to respond in kind.
The blue flames blazing along the Red Cloud Sword gradually transformed into a hue close to pure white, infused with the Buddhist aura contained within the Prajna Heart Technique.
And thus—
Unique Ultimate Technique
Heterogeneous Resonance Knot
Red White Extreme Smoke Slash
The technique that had once overwhelmed even the General Jin Ryeo manifested once more.
Heterogeneous streams of genuine qi surged and intertwined, repelling one another to create a destructive force beyond measure.
And the sword that carried that force—
――――――――――――――!
Split apart the world filled with thorny vines.