Chapter 160
IRL Fight (4)
‘Th-This can’t be…!’
Geumjang could not believe what was happening.
His bloodstained palm—and the finger effortlessly holding it back.
A slender finger that looked as though it would snap with a mere squeeze had casually stopped his palm strike.
That would be impossible unless the difference between their martial arts was overwhelming.
In other words, the gulf between the woman and him was as vast as heaven and earth.
“Haaah!”
But Geumjang did not give up. Denying the reality before him, he attacked again.
It was said that masters could gauge the difference between them without ever crossing swords.
Yet Geumjang could sense absolutely nothing from this woman.
She seemed like an ordinary civilian.
Geumjang had reached the Transformation Realm—and not merely its early stage, but the middle stage.
He had undergone bodily reformation and could perfectly control the internal energy that had once rampaged within him like a wild stallion.
Furthermore, what was the current state of the murim?
Had its overall standards not declined drastically because of the Blood Demon’s bloody rampage?
His battle with the martial artists moments ago had confirmed that this was no mere rumor, but the truth.
Thus, both emotionally and rationally, Geumjang had no choice but to deny this impossible situation.
Otherwise, he would have to acknowledge that the woman before him was stronger than he was.
Whoooosh!
His bloodstained palm shot toward the woman’s face once more.
It moved so quickly that the sound of the wind tearing apart could be heard clearly.
Yet the woman maintained the smile beneath her hat and moved her hand.
Just as before, she placed her index finger against his bloodstained palm.
But she did not stop there.
She moved her finger slightly to the side.
To emphasize, it was only a slight movement—at least by the woman’s standards.
Swoosh!
Geumjang’s hand swept past the side of her face.
But that was not all.
Perhaps he had been unable to withstand his own momentum, or perhaps the woman had done something.
Crash!
Geumjang fell.
And in the most humiliating manner imaginable.
He had gone beyond merely kneeling, ending up with both hands planted on the ground as well.
While Geumjang reeled in confusion at the unbelievable reality before him, the woman quietly looked down at him.
“This lady told you to kneel. I did not tell you to crawl like a dog.”
“……”
“Stand again. Then kneel and pay your respects to the heavens—”
Whoosh!
The woman’s command was cut short.
Still on all fours, Geumjang had launched a backward kick.
Unlike before, he did not roar in fury. His expression was cold and calculating.
Perhaps even the woman had not anticipated the surprise attack, for she barely evaded it by tilting her head back.
In that instant, Geumjang forcefully sprang away from her.
“You are an arrogant wench. But I can see that you have reason for that arrogance.”
Geumjang spoke to her in a calmer voice than before.
Seemingly surprised by his reaction, the woman tilted her head slightly.
Her hat made it impossible to see her full expression, but her lips twisted faintly.
“There are fools who believe that the depth of one’s martial arts is everything. That will be your fatal mistake.”
Geumjang had survived the Great War of Righteousness and Blood, in which countless supreme masters had perished.
There was only one reason he had survived that war.
Objectivity.
If an opponent’s martial arts surpassed his own, he acknowledged it immediately.
With a monster like the Blood Demon standing above him, swallowing his pride was nothing difficult.
Geumjang’s specialty was using that exceptional objectivity to find a way to defeat his opponents, no matter what means he had to employ.
Since ancient times, it was not the strong who survived.
Those who survived were strong.
Geumjang, a survivor of the Great War of Righteousness and Blood, perfectly embodied that principle.
“You talk too much. First…”
Rustle.
The woman raised her slender hand.
Geumjang’s expression tightened at the movement.
She then took one step forward.
It was quite literally a single step.
Whoosh!
“…!!!”
Geumjang’s eyes widened.
Despite taking only one step, the woman had appeared directly before him.
It was an overwhelming display of martial prowess that seemed to disregard the very constraints of space.
‘Sh-Shrinking the Earth into Inches?!’
While he stared in shock, the woman slowly extended her raised hand.
“I suppose I must tear out that tongue of yours first.”
Those words snapped Geumjang back to his senses, and he immediately responded.
A cornered mouse could always bite a cat to death.
Without even realizing that he had begun to think of himself as the mouse, Geumjang swept his leg out like a whip.
He planned to break the woman’s balance first and then look for an opening.
Swoosh!
His leg hurtled toward the woman’s ankle with the speed of an arrow.
Until the very instant before it connected, the woman did nothing.
Geumjang rejoiced inwardly, convinced that she had fallen for it.
Tap.
But at some point, the woman had slightly lifted her foot and casually blocked the kick.
At the same time, she thrust her raised hand toward Geumjang’s mouth.
Geumjang had not completely ruled out such a possibility, so he retreated.
Swoosh!
The instant he pulled back, he swept his leg upward, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The thick cloud obscured her vision.
Cowardly?
What did cowardice matter in a fight to the death?
If one could fight with honorable confidence, one could also fight with shameless confidence.
After all, it was not the strong who survived.
Those who survived were strong.
Rooooar!
Taking advantage of her obscured vision, Geumjang unleashed another palm strike.
This time, however, he did not attack her directly. He projected his internal energy outward.
A colossal palm-shaped mass of energy surged toward where the woman had been standing.
True to his epithet, Blood Hand, even the enormous palm was dyed crimson like blood.
Crack—Crash!
The mighty palm blasted through the woman’s position and destroyed every structure behind her.
Just like the gorilla suspected of being the Blood Demon’s successor, he had carved out an entirely new path.
But Geumjang’s foremost concern was whether the woman had survived.
As he scrutinized the devastated area—
“Are you finished?”
“!!!”
The woman’s voice came from behind him.
Startled out of his wits, Geumjang instinctively launched an attack behind him.
Slip!
“Guh?!”
But he was too late.
Before he could strike, something had already slipped into his mouth.
At the same time, his tongue was firmly seized.
Geumjang stared ahead in shock.
Perhaps the force of his previous attack had blown away her hat, for the woman’s face was now completely revealed.
He had already guessed from the lower half of her face that she was a beauty, but her fully revealed appearance exceeded his expectations by an immeasurable degree.
A peerless beauty.
A magnificent flower blooming in the highest reaches of heaven.
Geumjang was briefly entranced by her beauty and noble bearing, only belatedly becoming aware of his physical condition.
‘My… my internal energy…!’
He could not use his internal energy, despite none of his acupoints having been sealed.
She had done nothing but seize his tongue.
Geumjang was utterly bewildered.
“You seem surprised. I suppose that is understandable. You cannot use your internal energy, after all.”
“Urgh…”
“Now, I shall tell you the one and only way you may survive.”
The woman—the Heavenly Demon—issued the command once more.
“Kneel.”
“If you kneel, I shall at least spare your life.”
Geumjang’s answer had already been decided.
Being unable to use his internal energy was not a problem.
His dantian remained intact.
He still had a secret art that he had intended to preserve until the very last moment.
It would not have mattered even if his acupoints had been sealed.
This secret art functioned entirely independently of them.
“Khehehe…”
“Hmm. It seems you have something to say.”
Hearing Geumjang’s laughter, the Heavenly Demon released his tongue.
With his tongue free again, Geumjang gave her a sinister smile.
“You remain as arrogant as ever. This is why cats end up being bitten to death by mice.”
“……”
“Blood Cult! Remember this day! I shall spill my blood upon this land before I depart!”
Geumjang shouted resolutely and concentrated all his energy into his dantian.
He would use all his internal energy as gunpowder and his dantian as the detonator.
Ordinarily, more than half of Shaanxi would have been engulfed in an enormous explosion.
Yes.
Ordinarily.
“…?”
Geumjang was puzzled.
Why had the secret art not activated?
He had unquestionably gathered his energy within his dantian for this very purpose.
Yet now, he could no longer feel it.
“Is this your dantian? It is as red as blood. Or is that because it is literally covered in blood?”
“…Huh?”
Instead, an excruciating pain erupted in his lower abdomen.
With a dumbfounded expression, Geumjang looked toward her left hand.
Even Geumjang had never seen a person’s dantian with his own eyes.
A dantian was not a tangible organ to begin with, but a convergence of intangible energy.
Yet a crimson mass of energy rested in the Heavenly Demon’s hand.
Then what of his lower abdomen?
Overwhelmed by the pain, he looked down and discovered a hole in it.
Crush!
The Heavenly Demon closed her hand, casually crushing his dantian.
The moment Geumjang witnessed it, all color drained from his face.
His greatest strength—and his greatest weakness—was his objectivity.
Thus, he fully accepted the situation before him.
He understood.
No attack, defense, or desperate struggle would work against her.
She was truly the heaven above the heavens.
“Did you call yourself a mouse? That does not appear to be the case in this lady’s eyes.”
The Heavenly Demon smiled serenely.
To Geumjang, that smile resembled the smile of a reaper.
She then seized him by the neck and spoke.
“You are nothing more than an insignificant insect.”
“……”
“This lady has no interest in insects that bite people.”
The Heavenly Demon, Yu Sowol, issued her proclamation.
“I merely exterminate them.”
Crack!
Geumjang’s neck bent at a right angle.
Yu Sowol casually tossed aside the corpse of Geumjang, who had been toyed with until his death.
Splat!
His body tumbled across the blood-soaked ground.
She looked around.
Perhaps realizing that the situation was over, the people who had been hiding cautiously began creeping out.
Their eyes contained fear, terror, reverence, and countless other emotions.
Yu Sowol said nothing and simply turned her back on them.
Then, as though nothing had happened, she vanished from the spot in an instant.
All she left behind was the traditional hat she had dropped on the ground.
Once even Yu Sowol was gone, the remaining people spoke in trembling voices.
“What… What did I just witness…?”
“I-I don’t know either.”
The situation had been so chaotic that everyone hurriedly asked the others what had happened.
Normally, they would have exchanged their thoughts, but—
“A-A post has appeared on the Gallery! It looks like someone recorded the whole thing!”
“Is-Is that true?”
“It is! Hurry and watch it!”
This was a world where the Gallery existed.
Everyone hurriedly logged into it to witness the Heavenly Demon’s martial prowess for themselves.
“Good heavens…! Such incredible martial prowess…!”
“Is that peerless beauty truly the Heavenly Demon?”
“Was the registered user Heavenly Demon actually the real Heavenly Demon?”
“Don’t be ridiculous! She must have come to punish the impersonator!”
An earth-shattering topic had been dropped onto the Gallery.
During this IRL showdown, Yu Sowol had followed Wi Seorak’s advice.
His advice had gone roughly as follows.
Yu Sowol would go there not as the registered user Heavenly Demon, but as the real Heavenly Demon.
Once there, she would seek out the person who had sullied the Heavenly Demon’s name.
It would be fine if her opponent failed to appear, and equally fine if they did.
Whether they appeared or not did not matter.
After all, she had the justification of being there to punish the one who had disgraced the Heavenly Demon’s name.
Wi Seorak had added that matters would become far simpler if her opponent—and an actual remnant of the Blood Cult at that—appeared.
She would merely have to personally dispose of the Blood Cult remnant and proudly proclaim her identity.
Then what would happen to the registered user Heavenly Demon?
Wi Seorak had offered no advice regarding that.
It could not be helped.
The user had dared to disgrace the Heavenly Demon’s name, so as far as he was concerned, it did not matter whether the impersonator lived or died.
Yu Sowol agreed with that reasoning, so she had said nothing more.
‘He did not seem to suspect that we are the same person at all.’
Contrary to Yu Sowol’s belief, the perceptive Wi Seorak already knew everything.
It was precisely because he knew everything that he had offered no advice on that particular matter.
After considering the problem, Yu Sowol had devised her own solution.
Thus, the present situation was akin to a performance jointly orchestrated by Yu Sowol and Wi Seorak.
The only problem was that her opponent had not been an actor in their performance.
‘It matters not.’
Especially when that opponent had treated human lives like insects.
She might arrogantly call herself the Heavenly Demon, but she was at least a ruler who understood the value of life.
Even when people mocked her on the Gallery for speaking like a senile martial arts fossil, she tolerated it magnanimously.
As someone had once put it, she was simply a little starved for “attention.”
By nature, she was closer to good than evil.
Title: Is the registered user Heavenly Demon the real Heavenly Demon?
(Video of Yu Sowol toying with Geumjang)
Are the registered user Heavenly Demon and the real Heavenly Demon the same person? Is this actually real?
└ Stop bullshitting. Do you seriously think that’s possible?
└ If the real Heavenly Demon used the Gallery, everyone in the Demonic Cult would have a collective heart attack.
└ Wow, but she’s seriously beautiful, lol.
└ Forget her beauty, she’s fucking strong. Look at her toy with him like a dog.
└ Isn’t this going to be deleted? It’s pretty graphic.
└ It keeps getting deleted, but anonymous users keep reposting it.
└ Damn, lol. Blood Cult bastards can’t even get past the Heavenly Demon!
└ Is the Heavenly Demon a god? Is the Heavenly Demon a god?
Title: The registered user Heavenly Demon isn’t the real Heavenly Demon.
I heard what that Heavenly Demon said. She said she came to punish the person who was disgracing the Heavenly Demon’s name.
└ Are you friends with that Heavenly Demon?
└ We’re not friends, but I’m from the Demonic Cult, so I heard the rumors. She said she was going to punish whoever had sullied the Heavenly Demon’s name.
└ Makes sense that people from the Demonic Cult would react like that. The impersonator probably never expected the real one to show up, lol.
└ Is the Heavenly Demon popular in the Demonic Cult?
└ Fairly popular. She doesn’t interfere with us much, and life there is reasonably comfortable.
Title: Junior mod, explain yourself.
What the fuck were you doing while the real Heavenly Demon was coming? Were you just sitting quietly in the background?
└ They summoned the Heavenly Demon and did absolutely nothing else, lololol.
└ Heavenly Demon Summoning Art, damn.
└ “Heavenly Demon Summoning Art,” fucking hell, lolololol.
└ Isn’t that even more impressive? lolololol.
Above all, there was this attention.
Just look at the explosive topic that had set the entire Gallery ablaze.
Both as the Heavenly Demon Yu Sowol and as the person Yu Sowol, she could not have been more satisfied.
Ordinarily, she would have had to explain herself, but… did she really need to?
She could simply sit back and watch.
She could delete a few posts while she was at it.
She could always claim that her explanation had been delayed because she was carrying out her duties as a junior moderator.
└ Wild Grylls) That person isn’t the Heavenly Demon. She wasn’t even using the sword I gave her.
└ Is that sword particularly conspicuous?
└ Wild Grylls) Yeah. It stands out like fucking crazy.
└ She beat him senseless with her bare hands. Why would she need a sword?
└ Wild Grylls) I guess so? But she’s a swordswoman, and she wasn’t carrying anything.
There was even unexpected supporting fire from Grylls.
Yu Sowol was pleased with everything.
‘Truly satisfying.’
Of course—
“That woman really does seem like the Heavenly Demon, though. Is she extremely bored or something? She’s surprisingly young. That must be because of her cultivation level too, right?”
After experiencing a considerably more advanced internet culture, Grylls had already figured out the truth to some extent.