King Shura

The Blood Sound Demon, Ju Sang San. He flinched when he saw the people from the Alliance run full speed towards the center. That was because the young lord, Cho Ryu Hyang, was located in that spot.

‘Even so…….’

Ju Sang San made a face of disgust. These people were running with their backs open, knowing full well that he was after their tails?

‘Disrespectful pricks. Do I really look that weak to you?’

Of course, Ju Sang San had no idea that the other side was staking their lives on this one bet. Ju Sang San moved with a face of annoyance.

Fast but quietly. He quickly approached his enemies. And when he arrived at their location, he began to put strength into his fingers.

Pachichichi–

An immense amount of energy condensed into Ju Sang San’s fingertips as it emitted a dangerous sound.

‘Now.’

Pyut–

The energy condensed in his fingertips flew out like lightning, and went for the expert at the very back.

“Uncle!”

When Yu Sul Bin shouted out a warning, the expert at the back, Feng Sul Zi, noticed the danger behind him. At the same time, he spun his body like a top in order to dodge Ju Sang San’s attack.

He only dodged because he had no confidence to block Ju Sang San’s blow. But that was exactly what Ju Sang San was going for. A small pause. That would be enough.

‘First, one guy.’

Ju Sang San faintly smiled in the dark. The expert that fell behind the group just now would be a good target for him.

‘Would you still run with this guy in danger?’

When Ju Sang San exposed his body from the dark, Yu Sul Bin hesitated.

He was contemplating on whether he should save his uncle, or just run. When he did this, Feng Ho Zi quickly warned him with a stern voice.

“Don’t look back.”

“But…….”

Uncle wouldn’t be able to resist that demon alone. Ju Sang San was a harmonious expert. The only way to face that man would be for Yu Sul Bin to make his move.

“Bastard! Do you think you’re the only one prepared to die here? Don’t look at your uncles this lightly!”

Yu Sul Bin closed mouth when he got yelled at. Uncle was right. His uncles weren’t cowards. They weren’t cheaters, either.

Stopping here to go back would be an insult to his uncle’s determination.

Kang–!

When he glanced back, Yu Sul Bin could he Feng Sul Zi desperately trying to keep Ju Sang San occupied. Yu Sul Bin burned the image of his uncle into his mind, then moved on.

‘Uncle will die.’

When he thought that, he felt unimaginable grief from his heart. He was prepared for this event, but when he actually faced the situation in real life, it was unbearably painful.

‘Damn it!’

The only way to make his uncle’s death not be in vain would be to run as fast as he could. That fact alone made Yu Sul Bin go berserk in rage.

“Uaaaaah!”

Yu Sul Bin took out his sword, and began to slash at all the tree roots coming at him.

Chuaa– Chii–!

As they kept moving forward, the amount of the tree roots increased significantly. But even that couldn’t block the raging Yu Sul Bin.

Even though he was carrying a patient on his back, Yu Sul Bin was relentlessly chopping down everything at a rapid pace.

‘I’ll destroy it.’

They were close. The tree roots were annoying, but they would soon arrive at their destination. And whatever there was inside, until Yu Sul Bin didn’t destroy everything there, he would not be calm.

Then.

Ping–!

He could hear something flying towards them again.

‘Already?’

Yu Sul Bin looked back with a pale face. Did his uncle buy them only this much time?

Yu Sul Bin’s face turned demonic when he looked back. That was because he could see Ju Sang San, drenched in blood, coming towards them at a frightening speed.

Then.

Bam-!

Someone behind Yu Sul Bin blocked Ju Sang San with a sword. At the same time, Yu Sul Bin’s face filled with pain.

“Uncle Feng Jin Zi!”

“Go!”

Uncle Feng Jin Zi, the one who always enjoyed reading books in a quiet spot. He covered their back, and stood firmly on the spot.

Yu Sul Bin looked at his uncle with a pained face, then bit his lips and applied strength to his limbs. he couldn’t stop here.

He could see his uncles who were filled with determination running besides him. Yu Sul Bin, and the experts of the Alliance couldn’t turn back now.

‘Damn it! Damn it!’

He thought everything would go smoothly. But didn’t he lose two of his uncles just now? If he counted the injured, too, a total of three people were lost already.

“Uncle, where is it?”

When Yu Sul Bin asked this with a tone filled with malice, Feng Ho Zi squinted his eyes, and pointed somewhere.

“It’s there.”

“Will the formation break if I destroy that?”

“Probably.”

“Alright.”

Voom–

The moment Yu Sul Bin heard his uncle’s answer, he put an astronomical amount of strength into his sword. After shaking unsteadily for a while, a white cloud of energy began to seep out of the sword.

“Haa!”

With a shout, Yu Sul Bin leapt to the sky, and threw his sword.

Shuaaa–!

A white lightning descended upon the center of the silver tree with a sharp noise.

‘Break.’

Yu Sul Bin was confident. After all, he was using the Energy Control Technique. It was a mere imitation of the actual technique, as Yu Sul Bin wasn’t proficient at it, yet, but it would suffice.

Koom– Kakakam–!

With a sound that shook the heavens and the earth, the silver tree that got hit by the white lightning split in half.

* * *

To be truthful, making a formation right here on the spot wasn’t hard for Jo Gi Chun.

The original formation broke because of the immense amount of energy generated from the dragon, but wasn’t this originally a place where there were two formations drawn in a single spot?

Jo Gi Chun simply restored the formation from its broken state. But of course, he wasn’t able to restore the formation to its former glory.

Even Jo Gi Chun, the master of maths and formations, wasn’t able to execute the equations that the imugi used in order to create the formations perfectly.

The formation he made hurriedly was the outer formation of protection made outside. He restored that first, and decided to use the inner formation for a different purpose.

Kukuakuang–!

“Watch carefully. This is the last thing I will be teaching you.”

That was the last thing he said. After that, the experts of the Alliance broke through the broken tree.

“I found you, you godforsaken rats.”

Shuaa–!

There was no warning. There were no questions. The man at the front simply stabbed out front. Jo Gi Chun couldn’t dodge the man’s move. Truthfully, Jo Gi Chun had no intention to dodge, either. He just calmly accepted his end.

Stab–

He could feel the cold metal digging through his flesh. Even though he was wearing silver vines like armor, even that couldn’t block Yu Sul Bin’s sword.

Jo Gi Chun threw up blood, and smiled. With this, the formation was complete.

Jo Gi Chun didn’t have the power to be able to activate two formations on top of each other at the same time, but he could activate the formations in order.

Chuaaa–!

Blood spattered everywhere, and Jo Gi Chun’s body fell to the ground with a spasm. The activation requirement of the second formation. With the destruction of the formation’s core, the requirement was met.

“Is it over?”

Yu Sul Bin wondered out loud.

The squirming man on the ground. He could see that this man was the core of the formation as soon as he saw the man. That was because Yu Sul Bin could sense a high concentration of energy gathered inside the old man.

When Yu Sul Bin saw the old man with his heightened senses, he could immediately feel the high energy signature, and stabbed.

But strangely, the energy inside the old man didn’t disperse immediately.

“T, teacher…….”

“Hm?”

Come to think of it, there was that kid who was just standing there like a statue from a while back. The child who just stood there, covered in his teacher’s blood.

“What? Is this old man your teacher?”

Yu Sul Bin smirked as he cleaned the blood off his sword. The child’s whole body was trembling as he crawled towards the dead teacher’s body, and began to shake it.

But there was no way a dead person would be moving. When the old man didn’t respond at all from the child’s actions, the child began to moan like a crying animal.

“Ah, ou. Auu…….”

It looked like the child wa trying to talk, but the words weren’t forming in the child’s mouth.

“Che, what’s this? Showing a little bit of humanity, even though you’re from the Demon Church? Damn it, this is annoying me.”

They were ridiculous people, the Demon Church. Yu Sul Bin took up the sword he was cleaning just a moment ago, and opened his mouth.

“Anyways, it looks like you’re related to the Demon Church somehow, so I can’t let you live.”

It didn’t feel right to kill such a young child like this, but he had to do it. He couldn’t leave any possible threats alive.

Pyut–

The sword dropped down, and a single line approached Cho Ryu Hyang vertically. But…….

“Youuu!”

Kram–!

Yu Sul Bin’s eyebrows twitched. A small shadow had just blocked his blade.

“What? Didn’t you run away?”

Yu Sul Bin grinned when he saw Ju Sang San. He thought he lost the demon for sure. That’s why he had given up on acquiring the Moon Edge Blade Technique altogether, but what was this?

You……. Do you even know who you tried to attack just now?“”

Ju Sang San trembled in rage as he glared at Yu Sul Bin. He almost lost the precious heir to the church just now, didn’t he? Yu Sul Bin’s eyes shined when he noticed the fierce aura generated by Ju Sang San.

“Hoh? What’s this? Is this kid really that important?”

“…….”

Ju Sang San didn’t respond. Instead, he put his hands together, and got in a certain position. He gave up on running a long time ago. He wasn’t about to leave the heir here and run. He was going to stake his life here to fight.

But the problem was, he wasn’t certain that he would be able to save the young lord, even if he threw away his life.

‘Even so, this old man’s not about to let you die earlier than me.’

He wasn’t about to see that happen, even if he got blinded in the process. As Ju Sang San prepared himself for death, however, something happened.

Dudududuk–!

The formation was beginning to shake violently. Feng Ho Zi, who had been observing at the whole situation carefully, turned stiff.

“Move back, Sul Bin.”

“What?”

“This is suspicious.”

“What do you mean?”

“……..It’s a formation.”

“Again?”

What was that all about? Don’t formations end when the core gets destroyed? He destroyed the core just now, so why was there something else happening? This was getting annoying.

“Even though he’s an enemy, he’s truly someone to be respected. To think the man created a formation expecting something like this to happen.”

Feng Ho Zi could barely see it. The final creation of the dead man lying over there. When he sighed in amazement, the ground split like a turtle’s shell, and red magma began to spout from the cracks.

The Rage of the Fire Dragon. That was the final formation Jo Gi Chun created in his final moments.

Krrr–!

“Hee!”

When Yu Sul Bin leapt away from the red magma seeping out of the ground, the child who had been hugging the old man’s body looked up. At that moment, the two looked at each other straight in the eye.

“You impudent brat……..”

The child was looking at him with a eyes that would appear only in nightmares. The emotion portrayed onto that face was all too clear.

‘Resentment (怨恨).’

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Cho Ryu Hyang was glaring at Yu Sul Bin from inside the formation. His teacher died throwing up blood in front of him. Thanks to that bastard’s sword. What was he doing all that time?

Cho Ryu Hyang opened his eyes as much as he could, and looked at Yu Sul Bin’s face. His face, movement, expression, and speech.

Cho Ryu Hyang burned all that in his mind like a tattoo. He would never be able to forget about this man now. Not even in his dreams……

“Young lord…….”

Ju Sang San thought that the death of Jo Gi Chun was inevitable. There really was no way to save the man in time. And at the same time, he was infinitely grateful for what Jo Gi Chun had done.

The man died in the stead of Cho Ryu Hyang. Thanks to Jo Gi Chun, Ju Sang San was able to save the young lord in time.

What would’ve happened if Yu Sul Bin used his sword at the young lord first? What would’ve happened if the one on the ground right now wasn’t Jo Gi Chun, but was Cho Ryu Hyang, instead?

Ju Sang San probably would’ve gone insane.

“……..Follow me.”

Cho Ryu Hyang took his eyes off Yu Sul Bin, and used the Faultless view of the world.

There was no time to be sad, nor be angry anymore.

That would make him go against his teacher’s wishes.

But even when walking, he couldn’t really accept the fact that his teacher just died. He felt like he was going to go mad. He could hear the sound of his heartbeats ringing in his ears.

Cho Ryu hyang desperately tried to think of other things as he moved through the formation.

But it was all useless.

There was probably no one who would be able to maintain his sanity when covered in his teacher’s blood, in front of the teacher’s corpse. But Cho Ryu Hyang barely managed to not let go of his sanity.

‘This formation won’t last long.’

Cho Ryu Hyang grit his teeth. They had to get away from the formation as fast as possible, before the formation used up all its power. The one thing that pained him the most was the reality of not being able to recover even his teacher’s corpse.

There really was no time.

If they hesitated here, trying to recover teacher’s body and get killed by the people from the Alliance, they really would’ve made teacher die a dog’s death.

They had to avoid that at all costs.

‘I will……. I will definitely come back.’

Cho Ryu Hyang knew why his teacher made a formation like this. His teacher wanted to spare the life of this foolish disciple. Jo Gi Chun wanted to save his disciple so much, that he sacrificed his life for Cho Ryu Hyang.

And when he thought that, Cho Ryu Hyang’s body began to tremble uncontrollably again. At the same time, his vision blurred. Cho Ryu Hyang quietly cried while wiping his eyes with his sleeve. He wanted to cry and shout from grief on the spot, but there simply was no time.

‘I still had a lot of questions to ask him…….’

It hurt. But he didn’t know where exactly it hurt. Cho Ryu Hyang. On the day he lost his first teacher, he realized what unforgettable pain and resentment felt like.