novelraw Chapter 22 : Chapter 22
Chapter 22 : Chapter 22
Chapter 22: Why should I do something like that with you!
What I was most curious about right now was, of course, the man's identity.
The time when the Blood Demon began to gain fame was about sixty years ago from now.
That meant this man was a master of the previous generation, nearly a hundred years old, but then there was no way to explain his current vibrant face.
Even if he was holding on with the Vermilion Face Art, which pulled the facial muscles with internal energy, there was one thing that could never be hidden.
That was the human eye.
No matter how great a martial arts master was, if a person lived for a hundred years, white turbidity and murky energy would appear in their eyes nine times out of ten.
But there was nothing like that in that man’s eyes.
Even being generous, he looked to be in his fifties?
At most, he was around my age before reincarnation.
Ultimately, it meant he was not the Blood Demon who had gained notoriety in Hamma Valley…
“Isn't it the principle that only one successor of the Red Mist Demonic Art exists per generation? I heard that the True Origin Energy received from the previous Bishop is further refined and passed down to the next generation through a body-to-body transmission… and that’s why the Blood Demon gets stronger over time.”
“Did you, by any chance, have a master before entering the Nine Phoenix Gates?”
I frowned and asked something else.
“Who is it? The straw you’ve stuck in the Great Murim Alliance? Commander Gang Yu doesn’t have the guts for that, and the Ghost Spirits are even less likely… Don’t tell me it’s that bastard, the Sword Hegemon?”
The one among my eight sworn brothers who always showed his dissatisfaction with me.
The other brothers gained fame as the Seven Kings, but he alone could not become a king.
That bastard’s greed always came before his loyalty.
If he had crossed the line just a little further, he wouldn't have been able to avoid a trip to the prison.
“Internal Ki Arts can never go against the principles of True Origin Energy. But why did you split the energy in two? Wouldn’t that surely weaken your Sea of Ki?”
“Could it be that the Jaegal Clan is helping you return to Xinjiang? But what can you do? The Demonic Cult has truly been utterly ruined. Even if a few secret branches remain, it’s only a matter of time before the Alliance sniffs them out.”
“It’s not like you’re some Wudang Taoist who splits his mind in two, and even if you had learned that mysterious Two Intents Heart Art, would you be crazy enough to plant a Ki Art in your head?”
Only then did I shut my mouth and glare at the strange man.
This was not a conversation.
Extreme selfishness.
Like the cunning Demonic Cult bastard he was, he was revealing none of his own cards and only being greedy.
Well, I was the same in that regard.
From the start, when the Black Way and the Demonic Cult met, the fight was a dogfight.
“Excuse me. Are you going to keep wasting time like this?”
“Both you and I have nothing but time.”
“Hmm. I admit that.”
It was a headache.
I had believed I had the psychological upper hand, but as his notoriety suggested, the Blood Demon was no ordinary man.
Indeed, with such a wicked mind, he was bound to be cursed by all sorts of people.
In the end, to make that annoying mouth open, I would have to take a loss first, but I would rather die.
I didn't want to suffer a single penny's, no, a single fingernail's worth of loss to a Demonic Cult bastard caught in my Heaven and Earth Net.
But just then, the man suddenly changed his attitude.
“We will take turns asking and answering one question at a time. You cannot mix multiple questions into a single one. How about it? Will you do it?”
“What did you say? There’s no alcohol here, and you’re not my Yeonhyang, so what kind of trick is this?”
“Yeonhyang?”
“Damn it! Why would I do something like that with the Blood Demon!”
“If you don't want to, you don't want to. You're making strange excuses.”
The thought of playing a truth game in this gloomy and depressing place, and with the Blood Demon of all people, made me shudder with self-loathing.
Annoyance surged, and I spewed out the fire boiling inside me.
“Your name! Tell me, now!”
“A disciple who has entered the Divine Cult and received the Holy Fire and Demonic Blood is not permitted a worldly name.”
“Ha, playing tricks from the very first round.”
“I have only spoken the truth.”
The man was thinking hard.
It was entertaining to watch the great Blood Demon’s eyes darting around.
Looking at him, a belated regret washed over me that I should have put more thought into my first question.
“What is the name of that bizarre internal art?”
But what was with this bastard?
I had a strong feeling that I was losing out from the very beginning.
As I glared at him as if to kill him, a thought suddenly struck me, and my head tilted.
Thinking about it carefully, the only ones who knew about the origin of my internal art were Yang Gyu and Wiji Rip, just the two of them.
“It is the One Ki Divine Origin Art.”
“……What? Then what is your relationship with Jin Gang-cheon?”
Gasp…?
Damn it, what was this?
Yang Gyu and Wiji Rip, could it be that one of those bastards was the straw planted by the Demonic Cult?
How dare the Seven Kings of the Great Murim Alliance be played in the hands of the Demonic Cult?
Damn it, was this why the Black Way was no good?
As such, I gnashed my teeth and swallowed my anger, clenching my jaw.
“……Damn it, asking two questions is cheating.”
“Fine. Your turn.”
Asking here whether that straw was Yang Gyu or Wiji Rip was something only an amateur would do.
It wasn't like I was going to dig up the graves of the dead to curse them, and that wasn't what was important right now.
“Is the blood flowing in your body that of a Jaegal?”
This was a single, meticulous deduction.
From the moment I met this strange man, I had begun to deduce furiously, and the hypotheses intricately woven in my mind were already reaching a conclusion.
Even if he ultimately didn't say his name, he would never be able to avoid this question.
“……It is.”
As expected!
A thrill of pleasure shot through my body.
I had finally uncovered the link between this strange man and the Jaegal Clan.
No matter how great a weakness the Jaegal Clan held over him, this man was none other than a Bishop of the Demonic Cult, comparable to the Seven Revered of Jianghu.
There was no way that this great Bishop of the Demonic Cult could not accomplish the escape from the Demon Subjugation Secret Cave that had been possible for me.
Then, there was only one conclusion.
He wasn't imprisoned by the Jaegal Clan; he had confined himself.
Just then, the strange man’s next question followed.
“……Is Jin Gang-cheon alive?”
Hmm.
It seemed like a light question at a glance, but it truly pierced the core of the matter.
The problem was that I couldn't figure out how to answer it.
If he meant the soul, then I was alive, but if he meant the body, then I was undoubtedly a dead being.
“He is neither alive nor dead.”
“If the truth is not the premise, there is no reason to continue this conversation.”
“What do you take me for? I have only spoken the truth as it is.”
“Are you playing with words?”
“Who started playing games first? If you’re so upright, then reveal your name.”
The strange man, who had been silent for a while with a frown, finally smiled bitterly.
“Indeed, with Xinjiang having fallen, what meaning does the law of the Divine Cult have anymore. My name is Gyun.”
Huh? Jaegal Gyun?
That couldn’t be the name, could it?
This was a reply that definitely cracked my theory.
But at that moment, a flash of lightning struck in my head.
“Don’t tell me you are the son left behind by the Crouching Dragon Under Heaven?”
The strange man glared with his jaw clenched.
“I have told you my name. You should also stop your games.”
Unfortunately, this was a checkmate where I had tried to be clever but ended up getting caught by him.
To think this crazy bastard would actually disregard even the laws of the Demonic Cult.
Grind!
“If we’re talking about a person’s spirit, then Jin Gang-cheon is alive.”
“Does that mean his body is dead?”
“Ahem, one at a time. And you still haven’t answered my question.”
The man's hesitation was palpable.
If my hypothesis was correct, the current question would be the biggest secret of this strange man’s life.
Over a hundred years ago.
A spy from the Gangbuk Alliance, who was secretly active within the Demonic Cult, was instead recruited by the Great Duke of the Demonic Cult and caused a great rebellion, the Calamity of the Blood Alliance.
The predecessor of the Murim Alliance, the Gangbuk Alliance of that time, poured all its resources into issuing a kill order for him.
But he had already become a trusted confidant cherished by the Demonic Cult Leader, going beyond being the Great Duke’s closest aide.
The Crouching Dragon Under Heaven.
A historic event where the greatest talent ever produced by the Jaegal Clan betrayed the Orthodox Murim and became a tool of the Demonic Cult.
As far as I knew, because of that incident, the Jaegal Clan was still not invited to any of the Alliance's events.
“That’s right. I am his son.”
At this point, my wisdom, no, Jaegal Hwi's brain, was becoming frightening.
A Bishop of the Demonic Cult with no duty or responsibility to the Jaegal Clan.
I persistently tracked the reason why such a person would become the overseer of the Nine Phoenix Gates and serve the Jaegal Clan.
I pieced together large and small fragments of Murim history, clues that had been scattered about, and finally completed a single hypothesis.
And that hypothesis was thus revealing itself as reality.
“As expected, the Crouching Dragon Under Heaven was a truly remarkable figure. To even make his son one of the Five Great Bishops of the Demonic Cult.”
A deep suspicion arose on the face of the strange man, no, Jaegal Gyun.
“Are you really the son of the Jaegal Clan Head?”
“Why now?”
“Khuhuhuhu!”
A sorrowful laugh.
“Hmph… Isn’t it truly laughable? From the Jaegal Clan’s perspective, my father is a traitor of the age who left an indelible stain on the family. If you are a Jaegal, no, at least a member of the Orthodox Faction, you should not be able to swallow your boiling anger, yet you call him great? Are such words of praise something that can come from your mouth?”
Hoo, quite sharp.
Did he mean that even if one became a dirty Demonic Cultist, a Jaegal was still a Jaegal?
I wanted to proudly declare that I was a member of the Black Way, but alas, as long as I was wearing the body of this genius, I could not do so.
“Whether you roll to the right or to the left, what’s great is great. Is the Bishop of the Demonic Cult some dog’s name? It’s right below the pinnacle of two hundred thousand Demonic Cultists.”
Suddenly, his gaze began to scan me up and down.
As if scanning a woman’s body through her silk clothes, his gaze was incredibly fierce.
“What’s with that look?”
“You are truly a strange one. Your appearance is that of a complete novice brat of Jianghu, yet the eloquence from such a young one's mouth is as cunning as an old master who has rolled through Jianghu as much as one can.”
As expected of a Demonic Cultist, the way he spoke.
His heated gaze was burdensome, so I silently feigned indifference.
But then, a surprising remark flowed from his mouth.
“If the Great Murim Alliance has fallen, could it be that Jin Gang-cheon has hidden himself in the Jaegal Clan?”
“Huh? What do you mean by that?”
Jaegal Gyun was smiling mysteriously.
“The clan head is someone more than capable of doing so. Isn't your father someone who thinks of the family's interests first in any situation?”
It was horrifying to even imagine, but if I, with nowhere to go, had been caught by the Jaegal bastards…
Ehem.
What he said was right.
It would bring a greater return to the Jaegal Clan to wait and observe the Sword Saint’s reaction rather than immediately handing me over to the Murim Alliance.
But did Jaegal Myeong-won, no, my father, have that kind of backbone and courage?
I was quite curious.
“You clearly have a thorough understanding of the Great Murim Alliance's internal affairs. How would a young junior of the Jaegal Clan know about Gang Yu or the Sword Hegemon? This is strong evidence that you and that Jin Gang-cheon are in contact.”
Pfft.
“I see you’re not the Blood Demon, but the Brain Demon.”
“Are you going to deny it?”
Unable to deny his words, I laughed in futility.
“Well, you’re not wrong. That Jin Gang-cheon has flowed into this Jaegal Clan.”
In an instant, the look in his eyes changed completely.
“Is he truly alive?”
“The One Ki Divine Origin Art that I received from him is the proof.”
“I will meet him at once!”
“Huh? Why you?”
Jaegal Gyun's two eyes.
It was a desperate look I had never seen from him before.
“As long as the Divine Demon has disappeared, he is the only hope!”
Suddenly, his gaze changed like that of a woman craving a man’s affection, making me feel utterly disgusted.
I asked back, full of suspicion.
“Well, I don’t think you two are that close?”
“It doesn’t matter! Whatever price he demands, I must seek his cooperation! If he is alive, many things can be achieved!”
Oh, this was truly his sincere feeling.
In that case, this hegemon of the Black Way couldn't possibly not exploit that sincerity, right?
“But what can you do? I’m the only one who can meet Jin Gang-cheon.”
“……What?”
Wink.
“I mean, the one who sheltered the homeless Jin Gang-cheon in the Jaegal Clan wasn’t my father, but this very body.”
“I-is that really true?”
“Of course. This is a fact that no one in the Jaegal Clan knows.”
Done.
I had finally gotten this Demonic Cultist by the throat.