Chapter 68 : Deep Night, Half Moon - How the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult Lives

Chapter 68: Deep Night, Half Moon

The condition of those imprisoned was poor—so poor that they could not even break out of a flimsy prison crudely lashed together from wood.

It would have been strange to dismiss all of their wounds as injuries from a fight alone.

There were too many unnatural marks.

“……They tortured them.”

At the clenched voice of the Iron Demon, Yul Han quietly looked at the Ghost Demon, who could not even twitch, his eyes half-open despite clearly seeing him.

The wound on his shoulder was from a blade. The wide surface made it obvious at a glance that it had been cut by a slashing weapon.

But aside from that, there were countless puncture wounds—stabs from swords, spears, and even sharp skewer-like objects.

Yul Han slowly turned his head and looked toward the Warrior Chief, who was sitting arrogantly at the center.

“Do you speak our language?”

At Yul Han’s calm, chilling voice, the Warrior Chief shrugged his shoulders.

“Roughly.”

“Why is this so?”

“They entered our land without permission.”

“I understand they have passed through before.”

“That was then. This is now.”

It was a nonsensical answer, but for some reason Yul Han nodded.

“Why torture them?”

“Torture? Ah! The wounds. Drawing a prisoner’s blood and smearing it on our bodies to drive away evil spirits is the sacred right of the victor.”

Once again, Yul Han nodded and spoke.

“I am Yul Han of the Bright Cult. If you block us, we break through. If you submit, we stand above you. Might Makes Right. That is the law of the Bright Cult.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m just saying it as it is.”

At the end of his words, Yul Han extended his hand, and the Crescent Blade that had been rolling some distance away flew over and was caught.

It was shorter than the Crescent Blade he usually trained with in the Bright Cult, and its edge was crude and unimpressive, but that did not matter.

“Will you submit?”

At Yul Han’s question, the Warrior Chief snorted with a laugh, stood up, and drew his sword.

From the blade of the Lu Tribe’s Warrior Chief—said to have no equal in the eastern region of the Heavenly Mountains—bluish Force Energy surged upward.

“Quit your nonsense and come!”

“I’ve heard your answer clearly. Then.”

At the moment Yul Han’s nodding motion stopped, the Crescent Blade slowly scraped along the ground.

It moved so slowly one might wonder when it would ever rise, yet from that Crescent Blade burst forth a half-moon-shaped wave of Force Energy at unbelievable speed, lashing into the Warrior Chief.

Bang!

Startled by that impossible speed, the Warrior Chief hurriedly raised his sword to block.

Though it was rushed, he did not take it lightly. His blade was completely wrapped in Force Energy.

And yet.

The Force Energy—believed to be so strong that nothing in the world could block it—was cleanly severed along with his sword.

The Warrior Chief’s eyes widened so much it seemed they might tear as he stared at his sword, now split in half and lying on the ground.

Yul Han asked him calmly.

“I’ll ask again. Will you submit?”

The Warrior Chief slowly lifted his gaze to look at Yul Han, his expression hardening.

The arrogant confidence that had filled his eyes at the start was gone without a trace, replaced entirely by tension.

In a single exchange, he had clearly realized the opponent’s overwhelming strength.

‘Still!’

Reading the resolve in his opponent’s eyes, Yul Han’s Crescent Blade moved again.

At Yul Han’s lightning-fast, whirling advance, the Iron Demon watching nearby unconsciously hunched his shoulders.

Thud!

The very scene he had endured during training was unfolding right before his eyes.

Even though he could see it clearly, even though he could predict the incoming path, he could neither dodge nor block it.

It was a difference in speed.

In the brief instant between the eyes recognizing and the body reacting, Yul Han’s Crescent Blade was already smashing into him.

Just like the Iron Demon back then, the Warrior Chief was no different now.

He had already been struck, yet his sword rose to block it; the Crescent Blade had already passed through, yet his body twisted to dodge.

A look of utter madness and panic was plainly etched across the Warrior Chief’s face.

But that was nothing.

The real ordeal was only beginning. And sure enough.

The Crescent Blade’s movement, which had been circling through the air, striking once and withdrawing, changed into a straight line.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The sound of impacts rang out not once, but two, three times in rapid succession.

He could not keep up even when Yul Han used wide movements. Now, with reduced motion and straight-line strikes, the Crescent Blade’s speed was truly like a lightning flash.

Just as the Iron Demon had ten days earlier, the Lu Tribe’s Warrior Chief began to be beaten senseless.

Thud, bang!

With the continuous sounds of blows, the Warrior Chief’s body was flung back and forth.

It would have been better if he could simply take a hit and fall—but Yul Han did not allow even that.

Each time he fell, Yul Han flung the Crescent Blade upward in that direction, striking again.

Bang!

Just like now, as the Warrior Chief toppled left only to be knocked reeling violently to the right.

Was it because they wanted to save their Warrior Chief, who was being beaten so miserably?

The Iron Demon glanced sideways at the Lu Tribe warriors who were creeping closer and spoke.

“It seems the Vice Cult Leader has no intention of annihilation. Beat them enough, but do not sever their lifelines if possible.”

At the Iron Demon’s order, the Cold Blade Blood and the Flashing Light Blood lowered their heads and charged the Lu Tribe warriors who had been inching forward.

As he watched their clash, the Iron Demon let out a hollow laugh after catching glimpses, here and there, of the bearing of peak master-level experts.

“Heh. To think there are five or six peak masters in a place like this!”

His muttering ended there. The Iron Demon drew his blade, and his figure moved. Soon, Force Energy began to flash across the battlefield where the Lu Tribe warriors fought.

While the tribe’s women wailed continuously, making sounds that might have been songs or something like them, the warriors knelt and struck their own cheeks.

“No matter how much it’s a ritual of defeat, what in the world are they doing…?”

As the Iron Demon shook his head, Yul Han spoke.

“You shouldn’t think that just because they’re different from us, they’re wrong.”

“I-is that so?”

Yul Han nodded calmly at the flustered Iron Demon.

“The Hundred Paths point fingers at us and call us a Demonic Cult for the same reason—they think what is different is wrong.”

“Hm….”

Perhaps because he compared the Bright Cult and the Hundred Paths, the meaning of Yul Han’s explanation struck the Iron Demon squarely in the chest.

“…They’re different.”

“Yes. They are different.”

The Iron Demon stared quietly at Yul Han as he nodded, then asked,

“Was that why? Why you spared him despite our losses?”

At the Iron Demon’s question, as he looked toward the Warrior Chief kneeling some distance away and awaiting his fate, Yul Han’s expression grew heavy.

“It’s true that we entered their land at our own discretion.”

“Even so, there was no need to go as far as killing and plundering—”

“That’s our standard. Not theirs.”

Thinking that this too was simply a matter of difference, the Iron Demon did not ask further.

Yul Han then asked him,

“Have you summoned the Fifth Elder?”

“Yes. The Flashing Light Blood ran to fetch him.”

“And the Cold Blade Blood is nowhere to be seen?”

“I sent him to the main city. Until the Fifth Elder arrives, I thought we should at least call in nearby physicians from the main city to tend to them.”

At the Iron Demon’s answer, Yul Han turned to look at the Ghost Demon, who still could not stand, and nodded.

No matter how traditional it was, they had handled them far too harshly.

In particular, the First Squad Leader, Myeongho, who had sent a written dispatch to the Golden Flower Manor, was in critical condition.

He had been beaten badly and had lost far too much blood.

Yul Han had hastily helped with Energy Circulation and Recuperation, but his condition remained grave. Because their internal energies were not the same, the effect of the treatment was limited.

As Yul Han watched with concern, the desperate voice of the Warrior Chief reached his ears.

“Even if I am defeated, do not disgrace me!”

The Warrior Chief, kneeling in the center of the clearing and shouting, was covered in shattered and split wounds, a miserable sight.

Well, Yul Han had beaten him with intent.

For him to act like that with such a body was a demand to exercise the victor’s sacred right.

In other words, he was asking Yul Han to cut off his head and smear the blood on his body.

That, he claimed, was the duty owed to a defeated warrior. Not doing so was an insult.

Watching the Warrior Chief repeat that insistence, the Iron Demon grumbled,

“That bastard is raising a fuss even though we’re letting him live.”

At the Iron Demon’s complaint, Yul Han stepped forward with a bitter smile and approached the Warrior Chief.

“Is death the only duty of the defeated?”

“The loser dies. It is the law of the Heavenly Mountains.”

“That is your law. Our law is that the victor decides everything. The life or death of the defeated. And what follows after.”

“Th-that is an insult!”

“When the defeated argue such things, we call it an affront to the victor.”

Yul Han asked the Warrior Chief, whose eyes had gone wide at his words,

“If the laws of the victor and the defeated are different, whose should be followed?”

At Yul Han’s question, the Warrior Chief could not say a word.

Yul Han turned away from him, and this time no shout about not disgracing the defeated followed.

Foshan Fist Sect.

A sect located in Foshan, Guangdong. At one time, it had been so powerful that it was counted among the Fifteen Great Sects of the martial world.

But that was no longer the case.

It still maintained the scale of a major sect, but its reputation was no longer what it once had been.

For over a hundred years, it had failed to produce a supreme expert.

Because of that, it could not protect the seat of Overlord of Guangdong on its own. Now, it shared control east and west with the Dragon Gate to the east.

As could be inferred from the sect’s name, the Foshan Fist Sect’s primary martial arts were fist techniques.

Accordingly, it focused more on External Energy Arts than Internal Energy Arts. The level of its external techniques was so high that it was even called the Southern Shaolin.

Because of the nature of external arts, as opposed to internal energy, it was said to be vulnerable to illusion and spell techniques of unorthodox factions, but it was famous for possessing destructive power great enough to overturn that weakness.

Of course, compared to its days as one of the Fifteen Great Sects, that destructive power had declined disgracefully.

Over the walls of the Foshan Fist Sect, buried in darkness, a single shadow slipped across.

Though countless gate guards stood watch, not a single one noticed the shadow’s movement.

And an hour later, thick murderous aura began to billow and rise from the heart of the Foshan Fist Sect.

Sensing something amiss, the gate guards hurried toward the sect’s center, toward the Inner Courtyard.

“Ah! Elder, inside, what is—uh! Ugh! Kehk!”

The gate guard who had been asking an elder about the situation had his neck seized by the elder’s hand.

Only then did the guard realize.

The elder’s eyes were completely black, without a trace of white.

At that moment, a piece of a strange rumor that had circulated throughout the southern Central Plains came to mind.

As his breath faded, the moon the gate guard looked up at was half— a half moon.

“Grrrk….”

It seemed he wanted to shout something, but only the sound of blood bubbling came from his throat.

That too soon diminished and fell silent.

Such incidents occurred everywhere. Eventually, when the gate guards realized that those emerging from the Inner Courtyard were not normal and tried to resist, the gap in strength was far too great.

Those residing in the Inner Courtyard were all high-ranking martial artists.

Under the black night, beneath the half moon, their strength poured unrestrainedly onto the gate guards.

Watching that scene of utter carnage from atop the roof of a high pavilion of the Foshan Fist Sect, smiling a pale smile, was someone.

It was the very same Man-Sa Calamity Emperor I had seen across the sea in Hainan.

Like someone delightedly watching fish thrashing about after being caught in a net he himself had spread, he observed the situation of the Foshan Fist Sect with an excited expression.