So? Did Someone Force You to Become the Heavenly Demon?

Chapter 353 : Preparation (3)

He entertained the crazy thought for just a brief moment before letting out a dry chuckle and settling his expression back into something composed."This spot feels a bit too cramped for a proper bout. Why don't we move somewhere else?"

This was a rare chance to cross swords with one of the famed Twelve Heavenly Pillars of the Central Plains, so Il-mok saw no reason to turn him down. Especially not when the man might end up an enemy down the line.

"Hahahaha! You're bolder than you look!"

Hwangbo Ak threw his head back and laughed in a way that reminded Il-mok of Dokgo Pae.

Il-mok led Hwangbo Ak away from the spot, and the rest followed suit. His maids were given along with the daughters and the warriors of the Hwangbo Family, but the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal and Un-baek of Wudang also unexpectedly tagged along.

Il-mok brought them all to the outskirts of Lanzhou as sparring against a powerhouse like Hwangbo Ak anywhere near the Maitreya Luminous Cult's scripture hall would've been a disaster.

They moved at a moderate pace using their lightness skill arts and arrived at a sloping hill before long.

"Spread out."

The moment Il-mok gave the order, the rest of the spectators tactfully backed away, forming a wide circle around the designated battlefield with Il-mok and Hwangbo Ak in the center.

Hwangbo Ak flashed a grin practically dripping with the thirst for battle. "I was going to be generous and let you go first, but that doesn't seem necessary."

"You flatter me."

"Then here I come!"

Before the words had even fully left his mouth, Hwangbo Ak closed the distance in an instant with a burst of movement arts and launched himself forward.

‘Well, at least he has the decency to say hello first before his fists make the greetings. That makes him far more civilized than those meatheads in the Dokgo Family.'

Brushing those random thoughts aside, Il-mok unsheathed the Ascension Sword and immediately lunged at Hwangbo Ak. 

Hwangbo Ak tried to casually sidestep the opening strike with a simple pivot, but the Ascension Sword suddenly whipped around like a lurching snake mid-air.

Left with no other option, he punched forward.

The Sword Force of the Ascension Sword collided head-on with the Force Qi condensed around Hwangbo Ak's fist, and the impact sent a shockwave rolling outward.

Il-mok used the recoil to pull the sword back and simultaneously launched a ranged strike.

A vicious grin spread across Hwangbo Ak's face as he stared down a blinding wall of afterimages. It was clear Il-mok's strategy was to completely shut down his aggressive advances, relying entirely on short, lightning-fast thrusts. 

Hwangbo Ak responded by either slipping past the relentless barrage with the bare minimum of movement or deflecting the strikes he couldn't avoid with his fists wrapped in Force Qi again and again until...

"Hmph!"

Snorting heavily like a raging bull, Hwangbo Ak took a massive step back and roared at the top of his lungs, "HAH!"

A deep crimson Qi surged out from his body and wrapped around him like a second skin.

It was the famed Force Qi Armor.

With a full armor of Force Qi now cloaking every inch of him, Hwangbo Ak charged Il-mok again with wild eyes; in response, Il-mok unleashed the exact same flurry of thrusts.

The Sword Force that coated the Ascension Sword slammed against Hwangbo Ak's Force Qi Armor and detonated on impact, but Hwangbo Ak ignored it entirely and drove forward like a madman while abandoning any semblance of defense.

He closed the gap in a heartbeat and swung a fist straight at Il-mok's face, but Il-mok simply glided backward. 

When Hwangbo Ak followed up with a second punch, Il-mok had already drawn the Ascension Sword back and deflected the strike while using the principle of redirection.

And just like that, their chase began.

Hwangbo Ak barreled in relentlessly, throwing punch after punch with both fists and occasionally sneaking in a surprise kick to sweep Il-mok's legs. But Il-mok kept using his lightness skill to maintain the distance, and used the Ascension Sword to either block or deflect whatever came his way whenever things got dicey.

For over ten minutes, they kept up this relentless back-and-forth exchange.

Having gotten used to Il-mok's rhythm by then, Hwangbo Ak watched for the moment Il-mok tried to redirect one of his punches with the Ascension Sword, then opened his fist and reached out to grab the blade directly using a grappling technique.

Sword Force crashed against the Force Qi Armor with another thunderous bang, and just as Hwangbo Ak's fingers were about to make contact with the flat of the blade—

Il-mok shot upward with a burst of lightness skill, and the Ascension Sword narrowly slipped free from Hwangbo Ak's grasp.

Hwangbo Ak immediately hurled a flurry of double-fisted strikes upward at the airborne Il-mok, the Force Qi from his hands tearing through the air and rocketing toward him. Yet Il-mok casually stepped on thin air as if it were solid ground, contorting his body to weave through the deadly barrage without a scratch.

A crescent-shaped wave of Sword Force formed along the arc of the Ascension Sword and shot back down at Hwangbo Ak.

Hwangbo Ak blocked the crescent of Sword Force, and when the dust cleared, Il-mok was already back on the ground, sliding the Ascension Sword back into its scabbard.

"I'd say that's a fair enough exchange."

The sparring had stretched well past a quarter of an hour. Hwangbo Ak froze for a second. He exhaled a long, heavy breath through his nose to cool off before finally speaking up. "Feels like you were holding a few things back, but I suppose that's fair enough. Can't say I'm not a little disappointed."

"Couldn't I say the exact same thing about you? This was just a friendly spar, not a fight to the death, so it couldn't be helped."

Even as he said it, Il-mok was already running through the fight in his head.

‘Force Qi Armor, huh.’

He'd already worked out a way to break it.

If he wanted to end things quickly, he could seize an opening when the opponent's movements went wide and shatter the Force Qi Armor outright with a heavy strike. And since Force Qi Armor drained internal energy at an enormous rate, dragging the fight out would work just as well.

Then again, the old man definitely had a few trump cards tucked away too, so there was no guarantee how a real death match would actually play out.

‘Still, he feels a step or two below the Alliance Leader.’

If it had been a real fight to the death, Il-mok estimated he would've won eight or nine times out of ten.

It had been a sparring match against someone a step below him, but the whole thing hadn't been without value.

‘I should probably start working on Force Qi Armor myself.’

In a desperate situation, it might be the one thing that kept him alive, and more than that, it felt like it would pair well with the Ascension Sword. The Force Qi Armor devoured internal energy, and the Ascension Sword could absorb internal energy through blood.

‘It'd be useless against a powerhouse who could tear through it without effort, but against a crowd of weaker opponents, it'd be practically invincible.’

While Il-mok was quietly chewing through those thoughts, Hwangbo Ak's battle fever cooled enough for him to let out a booming laugh.

"We didn't get to see it all the way through, but that's more than enough for me! Plenty good enough for a son-in-law of the Hwangbo Family."

Il-mok paused at that last part.

"Did you mean to say 'alliance'?"

"Hahahaha! Isn't that the same thing? What better alliance is there than father-in-law and son-in-law?"

As ridiculous as Hwangbo Ak's outburst was, Il-mok's first instinct was to glance sideways at Hyeokryeon Seon-ah to check her reaction. After what happened last time, he wasn't sure if she was about to have another episode.

To his surprise, instead of emanating killing intent, she was simply smiling, as if silently telling him not to worry.

‘So she really has broken free from Extremity.’

Noting that with quiet relief, Il-mok turned back to Hwangbo Ak.

"You'd really be alright sending a daughter you treasure so dearly to someone you barely know?"

"Hahahaha. I've already heard plenty about you. You are only thirty-nine, you’ve built a force like this in just a few years, and to top it off, you are nearly my equal in a fight. Who would protest having a son-in-law like that?”

Behind them, Hyeokryeon Seon-ah kept her smile firmly in place as she scoffed internally. 'You foolish Orthodox hypocrite. I'd love to see the look on your face if you found out my dear brother is actually only twenty-three.'

Completely oblivious to Il-mok's real age, Hwangbo Ak just kept talking.

"Besides, our Se-hui has long since come of age. I've been thinking lately that it's my own impossibly high standards that have been getting in the way of finding her a match all this time."

He said it lightly like a joke, and then added with a sharp glint in his eye. "But most importantly, why would I ever form an alliance with someone I wouldn't trust with my own daughter? That's just plain bullshit.”

That was when Il-mok understood what kind of man Hwangbo Ak is.

Despite every impression the man gave off, Hwangbo Ak actually thought things through.

‘To think I had this man lumped in the same category as those lunatics from the Dokgo Family. I almost did him a huge disservice.’

While Il-mok was internally apologizing to Hwangbo Ak, the man went and said something unexpected again. "That was the reason behind my proposal, but if you already have another woman in your heart, then there's nothing to be done."

As he said it, Hwangbo Ak's gaze drifted toward Hyeokryeon Seon-ah.

He hadn't missed the way Il-mok had glanced at her the instant the marriage proposal left his lips.

Hyeokryeon Seon-ah met Hwangbo Ak's eyes and smiled quietly behind her mask.

‘Not bad. For an Orthodox Faction’s hypocrite, he actually understands people.’

Il-mok caught onto the misunderstanding too, but chose neither to confirm nor deny it. Getting married into an Orthodox Faction family was its own headache, and flatly rejecting the man's proposal to his face risked putting a crack in whatever alliance they were trying to build.

If anything, it felt like an opening and Il-mok was about to steer the conversation elsewhere when the silent Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal stepped forward.

"Incarnation of Maitreya, there is something I wish to ask you."

"???"

Il-mok turned to him with a puzzled look, and the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal raised a finger and pointed at Il-mok's side. More precisely, at the Ascension Sword.

"I noticed it while watching your spar earlier, and I sensed something unsettling from that sword of yours. Something that felt very much like the energy those Blood Cult bastards used."

The Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal's heavy words instantly filled the place with tension.

The Ascension Sword had been brought under a fair degree of control after Il-mok had soothed the resentment of the souls bound within it, but the ghostly energy hadn't disappeared entirely. And a master of the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal's caliber was more than perceptive enough to catch onto it.

The reason the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal had bothered to follow Un-baek all the way out here to Lanzhou was the oath Un-baek had once made.

Back during the massacre at Sichuan's hidden cave, Un-baek had been saved by the Maitreya Luminous Cult, and he had promised to grant the Cult any favor it asked of him in return.

The young and naive Un-baek probably blurted it out without thinking much of it, but the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal knew exactly how dangerous a promise that was for a Wudang disciple to make.

If the Maitreya Luminous Cult turned out to be something sinister, they might ask for something truly unthinkable.

So he'd come to see the Cult for himself.

‘A sword quietly leaking ghostly energy.’

As he watched the sparring match between Hwangbo Ak and the masked man, doubt toward the Maitreya Luminous Cult had begun to take root in the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal's mind.

The atmosphere around him shifted to suggest he might draw his own sword at any moment depending on what answer he received, so Il-mok met his gaze and spoke.

"This sword originally belonged to the Blood Cult."

***

Around the time Hwangbo Ak and the Supreme Ultimate Sword Immortal had arrived in Lanzhou, a letter reached the main headquarters of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

The warrior who had brought it ran straight for the Lesser Sun Palace, and the Hidden Guard Pavilion Lord collected the letter from him before passing it to Wi Jin-hak.

"You may go."

After dismissing the warrior, Wi Jin-hak studied the outside of the letter and murmured, "A letter from the Central Plains. If it's marked urgent, it's probably from the youngest."

"That is correct."

Knowing his ever-dependable youngest brother had sent something labeled top secret, Wi Jin-hak felt a mix of tension and curiosity in his chest. He unfolded it without delay and read through it quickly.

"Damn Orthodox Faction fools. I can't believe they got deceived by the Blood Cult's tricks like that."

He let out a derisive snort at the unexpected news, but his expression changed completely when he reached the end of the letter.

Right at the very end of the letter was the suspected name of the faction that had orchestrated the Guizhou Province massacre and framed the Blood Cult for it.

"So, it was the Imperial Family's doing..."                  

The second his eyes landed on that name, waves of killing intent surged within Wi Jin-hak's eyes.