Chapter 551

Who was he?

I narrowed my eyes at the man who had suddenly appeared.

I had not noticed him.

“What is this?”

No matter how focused I had been on my spar with Yu Yeon, and no matter how much concentration I had shoved into my sword through body-and-sword unity, failing to notice someone approaching made no sense.

“What an interesting thing to say. A lunatic? I wonder if there is anyone else who could say that to me.”

“......”

He reacted to my words as though he simply found them amusing. Seeing that, I tilted my head.

His face was familiar.

It was him.

“Number two.”

If I was number one, then this was the one who had taken the second number.

I did not know his name. I had never heard it. But—

“...Heavenly Sword?”

“Young Master Jin...”

Hyo Yeonri and Woo Young Jin, who had been having their own spar behind us, recognized him.

Heavenly Sword.

Hearing that, I looked at him again.

“So this is him.”

A Heavenly Demon candidate.

One of the Heavenly Demon candidates Woo Young Jin had mentioned. I had heard that among the bastards being compared to the Young Cult Leader, he was the one with the highest chances.

“Good to meet you all. I had no idea you’d be doing something so fun without me.”

Hearing them acknowledge him, Heavenly Sword rose to his feet. He was quite tall, though a little thin.

His impression looked somewhat fierce, but his eyes seemed to be smiling. And there was something sharp and cold about him.

[Not bad.]

The Heavenly Demon evaluated him.

Not bad? There were not many people he evaluated that way the moment he saw them.

The fact that he said it immediately after seeing him meant he really was decent?

“...He certainly does stand out.”

He had caught my eye too. Among them, his atmosphere was particularly different.

“And he has presence.”

He was someone who possessed some kind of presence. As I looked at him—

“You really are different.”

He looked at me and evaluated me as well.

“What is?”

Different how? When I asked, puzzled, the bastard called Heavenly Sword laughed softly and told me.

“You’re different from the other orthodox bastards. Those ones... well, one was crude and one wasn’t bad, but you’re on a different level. I suppose the leader really is different?”

“......”

Was the problem what Peng Dojun had said about me being the leader? Somehow, it felt as if I had become the neighborhood boss of the orthodox faction’s younger-generation prodigies.

Which made no sense.

The words felt ridiculous, but there was also a problem.

“You met them?”

From the way he was evaluating the others, I got the sense that he had actually met them.

When I asked, Heavenly Sword made a subtle expression.

“What do you think?”

“......”

Answering a question with a question, huh.

It was the speech pattern unique to twisted, unsettling bastards. Since I used it from time to time myself, it felt like mirror therapy.

Not that I intended to change.

“Who did you meet?”

That he had met them was already a given. Otherwise, he would not have spoken like that.

At my words, Heavenly Sword’s smile deepened.

“The Wudang one and the big one.”

“Did you fight?”

“Oh. So many questions. What do you think?”

I did not know.

For one thing, his clothes were too clean. If he had fought Cloud Dragon, maybe that made sense, but could he really look that untouched after fighting Peng Dojun?

I was not sure.

Peng Dojun should not have been weak enough for that.

“I’m not especially curious about that.”

“Hm?”

I answered honestly.

“What I’m curious about is what you came here to do to me.”

“Hmm?”

“Are you here to fight?”

Did he want to have a go? What was he trying to do? I could not tell his intent, so I asked.

At my words, Heavenly Sword stared at me. Then, just as he was about to say something—

“...I finally found you.”

Someone else appeared behind him.

“Ye An.”

The bastard carrying Sky-Crushing Palace energy.

Ye An had appeared. Ye An, who was sweating lightly, looked at me and then seemed startled. Ah, so Heavenly Sword and Ye An were on the same team.

“...Young Master Jin. If you keep moving around on your own like this, it makes things rather difficult for me.”

“Ah, my apologies.”

Heavenly Sword looked awkward when he saw Ye An appear.

“I saw something entertaining and without realizing it... Ah, well. My friend is here, so I suppose we can’t talk any longer. What was it you asked? Ah, right. Whether I came here to fight?”

Heavenly Sword looked at me and answered.

“I had no particular intention of that. I’ve already obtained everything I needed.”

He took a bead from inside his clothes and showed it to me.

“I don’t need any more. I merely came to offer a greeting.”

“With me?”

“That’s right. I can see we’ll be clashing often in the future, so I thought it better to come see you in advance.”

“What exactly am I going to clash with you over?”

“That.”

He pointed at my armband. The armband marked number one.

“I figured I would need that if I wanted to take it.”

“Is that a declaration of war?”

“If you’ll package it so prettily, then I’m grateful.”

He was saying he would come to take my armband.

To take it, he would have to fight me, so this was a hint that he intended to spar with me.

Only—

“I’m saying I don’t intend to do it now.”

“...Hmm.”

So he was not going to spar now and had only come to see my face?

This man did whatever he wanted too.

“I’ve given my greeting, so that’s enough. I like you. You’re far better than the others.”

“...Should I say I’m glad you’re satisfied?”

“To some extent? Though if I have one small concern...”

Srrk.

Heavenly Sword approached me. His hand reached out. It felt similar to what Gyo Yeon had done.

This time, I did not block it. The bastard tapped my shoulder a few times.

“It would be that I hope you aren’t weaker than you look.”

Somehow, it felt like a warning.

As I kept saying, something about him was strange.

After saying that, Heavenly Sword stepped back.

He approached Ye An, and as the distance between us opened—

“Haa...”

Woo Young Jin and Hyo Yeonri both exhaled at the same time.

Had they been holding their breath?

Why?

I looked at them strangely.

“...I never imagined he would come in person.”

“...That was dangerous.”

They had been fighting each other until just now, but the moment Heavenly Sword appeared, it was as if they had become comrades.

Was he that dangerous?

I looked toward Heavenly Sword, then turned back to Yu Yeon.

“You should go now too. You need to hurry if you want to get beads.”

I had obtained three beads. If Yu Yeon did not move quickly, she might not be able to pass the training.

When I said that, Yu Yeon tilted her head, then pulled something out with her hand.

Huh?

“...What are you?”

They were beads.

Yu Yeon showed me two more beads.

No way.

“You didn’t give me all of them?”

She had more aside from the three she had shown me?

She had been hiding those?

I stared at her in disbelief.

Was she insane? When had she even had those?

“I got tricked.”

Because she had shown me three, I had naturally assumed three was all she had. I had never imagined there would be more.

I had trusted her without realizing it.

So dumbfounded that I let out an empty laugh as I looked at Yu Yeon.

“...Fine. You keep those.”

That was the price of being fooled. I had been had, so there was nothing I could do. If we counted them, I already had a lot on my side anyway.

There was no need to take those too, so I just let her have them.

Then I checked the beads inside my clothes.

“...Hm?”

Something was strange.

What was this?

Why was I short?

The beads inside my clothes were half of what I knew I had.

What? There was no way this was all.

As I frowned at the strange situation—

“Ah, no way.”

A thought crossed my mind.

Heavenly Sword. Was it when that bastard touched my body?

In that instant?

“Ha.”

That was it. There was no other answer.

That little shit.

“He was slyer than I thought.”

I could not believe I had been fooled by this.

So that was why he had approached me. I had been hit in the back of the head from a place I had not expected.

After being struck twice in a row, I laughed without realizing it.

“Hahaha.”

“...What is wrong with you?”

Since I had suddenly started laughing, Woo Young Jin asked in disgust.

“No. It’s just a little fun.”

It had been a while since this had happened.

Usually, if anyone was getting stabbed in the back, I was the one doing it. It had been quite a long time since I had been on the receiving end.

And not through force, but through petty cleverness?

“Fine.”

I acknowledged it.

Heavenly Sword.

It seemed he was the kind of bastard who could make me heat up for the first time in a while.

*****

“What a fine harvest.”

Jin Pyeong.

The young Family Head of the Demonic Way Jin Family, the young man called Heavenly Sword, smiled as he rolled the bead in his hand.

“I didn’t expect to obtain this many. What do you think? Wouldn’t you say this was a decent harvest?”

At Jin Pyeong’s question, Ye An, who had been following behind him, let out a sigh.

“I never imagined you would steal that there.”

“This is what people call killing two birds with one stone. I resolved what I was curious about and obtained something useful too.”

“...What you were curious about. So did you resolve it well?”

“I did.”

His curiosity.

It was the curiosity he had felt from the first moment he saw him.

What sort of person was that man, the Sword Saint’s descendant?

What kind of man was he, for the people of the Demonic Cult to show such interest?

In the end, he was merely one of the orthodox faction.

No matter how much he was the Sword Saint’s inheritor, he should still fall far short of the monster known as the Sword Saint in the stories passed down.

It was strange that even the Young Cult Leader and the elders would subtly bring him up.

So he had decided to see him.

And the inheritor he saw was—

“He was impressive.”

An impressive man.

“He looks like he’d be worth killing.”

Jin Pyeong put it that way and raised the corner of his mouth.

Seeing that, Ye An flinched. His heart trembled at the killing intent drifting from him.

“...As expected.”

Feeling his killing intent, Ye An recalled the one called the Young Cult Leader and compared the two.

The killing intent possessed by the Heaven-Slaying Star was dense and deep. Merely being beside it made one’s flesh tremble, and the atmosphere felt as if it would carve through you as it stood.

On the other hand, this other Heavenly Demon candidate standing before him now—

The absolute genius of the Holy Cult who might already have taken that seat long ago if the Young Cult Leader had not existed.

The killing intent he possessed was different.

It was raw killing intent, different from something condensed. Moreover, rather than a desire to kill, it was a more primal killing intent born from the pure desire to play.

So perhaps—

“More than the curse called the Heaven-Slaying Star...”

Could this killing intent be even more frightening?

That was merely Ye An’s judgment.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“......”

The Sword Saint’s inheritor called Bang Seongyeon and Heavenly Sword, the Heavenly Demon candidate.

What would happen if the two clashed?

When the Young Cult Leader and Heavenly Sword had fought, the result had been a draw.

In a match that looked like a draw to anyone watching, Heavenly Sword had declared his own defeat.

At the time, no one knew the reason.

Even the elders had only forced themselves to accept it because Heavenly Sword had said so.

“Was that really the truth?”

There was no way to know.

Ye An had not witnessed it personally either.

What mattered to him right now was not that.

“How am I supposed to...”

The question was how he should pass this current situation to the Palace—to them.

As someone who had to gather information and send it onward, it was even more of a problem.

“There are too many eyes.”

Perhaps because of the incident that had just occurred, he had too few chances to contact Sky-Crushing Palace.

What should he do?

As he was only biting his lip—

“Ah, Ye An.”

“...!”

Jin Pyeong called Ye An.

“Speak.”

“After this is over, come with me to see my master.”

“...You mean the elder?”

“Yes.”

Jin Pyeong smiled as he spoke.

“I finished my errand, so I have to report, don’t I?”

“......”

Ye An tensed at those words.

The old man Heavenly Sword referred to as his master.

Because perhaps, in this Holy Cult, he was the most frightening being of all.