Book 13 Chapter 12

Reuniting with the Sword Demon

The tide of life that had been rushing in like a wave, ebbed away like the tide of the moon.

The fifteen lurking shadows never showed up.

"Are we done with the introductions, or is this the end of part one, where we're told to just come on in?"

Ryu-yeon Bi silently wondered. I was invited, but I couldn't resist.

"Let's go! "

At his words, people began to stir.

The boy was very short and had a very cute face. His skin was as soft as cotton, the two black jewels in his cute face were very large and clear, and his body was wrapped in a robe as blue as the sea, with colorful gold and silver ornaments here and there. Of course, there was no sword or knife or other weaponry on the boy's body. He looked like he was playing with a ball made of five-colored silk.

The boy was gazing longingly at a beautiful plum tree near the entrance to Hongmae Valley.

"Oh, how cute!"

Qin Lie shrieked, and Hua Shoujing really did agree with her. It was Nan Gongshan who shouted, "I want her as my sister! She felt that if she could have that girl as her sister, she would be willing to trade places with Nan Gongsheng. Of course, this situation couldn't have been pleasant for Namgungsan.

So he didn't ask the obvious question, "What boy is here? Namgungsang walked over to the boy and asked.

"Kid, do you know where the governor of Hongmae Valley is?"

The boy turned around. He was cute from a distance, but up close, he was even cuter.

"Awww, that's so cute!

The women's reaction was understandable. Namgungsang asked again, because it was crazy to think that he might have misheard the question.

"Kid, yeah……"

Flash!

Namgungsang's second question never made it to the end. Instead, he had to scramble away, startled by the cold glare aimed at his heart. It was a surprise.

"Mu, what are you doing! "

Namgungsang cried out as he was thrown backward, the front of his chest sliced open. If he hadn't dodged, he would have been cut to the heart. The boy's right hand, which had been empty a moment ago, now held a cold object that glowed with silver. It was thin as wire and gnarled like a willow branch, but the glow and anticipation within it was unusual. It seemed to be a specially crafted sword. Moreover, it was as fast as it was slender and sharp.

The boy cried out, his face red and swollen.

"I'm not a kid! "

The boy's pouting cheeks were as ripe as an overripe apple. Apparently he didn't want to be called a kid that badly.

"Gahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

A chorus of women chanted behind him. They didn't seem to care about the trivial fact that Namgungsang had just survived a near-death experience. The fact that the chorus included the voice of a spirit made him even more disgusted.

"Ehhh……."

Namgungsang was sighing in despair.

"Possession! What's going on? "

Behind the boy's back, several warriors appeared. Men and women, all with unusual chi, many of them the same chi he'd felt earlier. It was hard to imagine that they had come out to train on purpose.

"Do you want me to continue?

It didn't seem like a bad interpretation.

"Ah, the death penalty! "

The boy called Soyu's face widened as he saw the young man who had walked from the front.

Soon, the man called the Second Death Penalty and Namgung Sang stood face to face. His eyes were as fierce as a hawk's, and upon closer inspection, he had a long, diagonal scar on his left cheek. His weapon seemed to be a slender, deformed sword. The man with the deformity was the first to speak.

"Where are you from?"

The tone of his question was very arrogant. Namgungsang's eyebrows wiggled in annoyance.

It was almost as if he was being deliberately provocative.

"Wouldn't it have been polite to state your name before asking the other person, are all the people of the Temple of Heaven so uniformly rude?"

The Namgungsang gave me a pinzan.

"If you deserve it, you will get it."

The man replies nonchalantly. He does not lose.

"If the death penalty is so disrespectful, then the priests must be so disrespectful, and you need to educate them."

"What happened?"

The man with the deformity asked him a question, and the boy told him his story. When he was done, the man with the deformity clenched his fist and gave the boy a light meal. Then he yelled at him.

"You fool!"

"Sin, I'm sorry."

At this point, Namgungsang's face straightened a bit. But the man's next words crumpled it even further.

"How many times did I tell you not to be timid, not to use your hands with venom, not to have an ounce of pity in them; why did you not aim at the neck, but at the breast, and did you not fail to cut it off because your heart hesitated a breath?"

"Sorry, this death penalty! "

Watching the man chastise the priest for failing to cut his own throat was not a pleasant experience. His insides were bubbling like lava in a volcano about to erupt. The man and a few others behind him seemed to be tensing up, as if he might erupt at any moment.

"Tsk, tsk, how could he fall for such a simple provocation so easily!"

Bi Ryuyeon clicked her tongue in disapproval as she watched. Beside her, Yin Dao was shedding a grotesque grimace. They had been deliberately ignoring their leaders since they arrived. Bing'er had been watching the situation unfold with cold eyes, but Yintao had not. His temper made it impossible.

"Hmph, you little bastards, you're out of your depth!"

The saltiness gnashed his teeth. He wasn't the only one to be provoked.

"Ew!"

Beside me, Bi Ryuyeon sighed softly.

"Stop! "

As the delegates from the Heavenly Martial Academy and the Heavenly Pavilion were engaged in a nerve-wracking confrontation, a man who appeared to be an old swordsman and his entourage rushed over from the other side with a shout.

"Why can't you stop, I told you to stay out of trouble! "

The old swordsman's momentum was overflowing with majesty. The old swordsman's entire body was filled with an unusual energy, a prayer that overwhelmed others.

Some of the young men killed the momentum to see if they could defy the old swordsman. For they know that there is no good in defying this old man.

But the old swordsman was quite recognizable.

"What? Grandpa!"

The first to pretend to know was Bi Ryuyeon. He had seen the old man once. An old man who called himself a sword transcendent.

For a moment, the old swordsman's face crumpled, like a piece of paper that had been tossed in the trash with a failed sentence.

"Huh? Yeah, you!"

In an instant, Gumma's face was as red as iron forged by hundreds of blows. It was the result of a fire that had boiled over in a matter of hours, wandering around inside his body without finding an outlet.

"Mr. Nosa, do you know him?"

A young man at Gumma Transcendence's side asked in a low voice, and Gumma grunted as if he had been waiting.

"That bastard! I don't know!"

"??? "

We were all dumbfounded by the unexpectedly strong reaction.

But there was another face she recognized. It was very strange that she knew not one, but two people, even though she was famous for her extremely narrow relationships.

Bi Ryuyeon's gaze landed on a middle-aged man who had followed the sword horse. He was quite impressive, so he definitely remembered him.

And she wasn't the only one who remembered him.

At first, even those who came face-to-face with him didn't recognize him, as he was dressed plainly like a servant and his face was half-hidden by a gigantic shade. Except for Bi Ryuyeon, everyone saw him from a distance, but he made such a strong impression that they all remembered him.

He had been asked to join the trip by someone he respected more than anyone else.

"Haven't we met before?"

The man waved his hand in response to Mo Yonghui's question and replied in a nonchalant voice.

"Hahaha, no way, you must have the wrong person."

In fact, he had never really met Mo Yonghui. This time, it was Bi Ryuyeon who asked.

"What, haven't we met somewhere and somehow before? "

"Hahaha! Well, I got the wrong person……."

The man's eyes widened as he turned his head and made eye contact with Bi Ryuyeon. In front of him stood the person he couldn't believe, but who had made him so determined to meet her again and see her with his own two eyes, with a smile that looked exactly like that creepy smile.

The man had to spend a great deal of time and effort to control his turbulent self.

"Yes, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course, of course.

Suddenly, you start to feel impatient. There is something he must do here. To do so, he must not reveal his identity yet. None of the disciples of the Temple of Heaven knew his true identity. He wished he had disguised himself more properly.

"That's pretty weird. I'm pretty sure I've seen this before……."

For some reason, Bi Ryuyeon did not pursue the matter further, and soon forgot about it. Mo Yonghui, however, was still suspicious. His eyes were piercing, as if he could sense the man's hidden intentions.

"Phew……."

He breathed a huge sigh of relief. The delegates from the Heavenly Martial Academy, who had been giving him the benefit of the doubt, were already inside.

'That was dangerous……!

My heart was still racing.

"You didn't get caught, did you?

He was not to reveal his identity, for he had already made it clear. He was merely an observer, hiding in the grass, watching closely. His identity might hinder his current role, but it did nothing to help.

"I need to be more careful! "

The man muttered to himself, and the sun set quietly over his shadow.

The setting sun was like a golden flame in the dusk behind the sharp shadows of Mount Humsan, towering like the spearhead of a feverish army.

"Beautiful!"

A cold-faced man with an icy gust of wind looked down. A frozen, new moon-like smile curved the corners of his mouth. But his icy pupils remained silent, as if he didn't know how to laugh.

The sky at dusk is a beautiful red, like blood, he thought.

"Did you know that once every three hundred years the phoenix throws itself into the flames and is reborn anew from its ashes? "

Regeneration and Resurrection!

"The Phoenix of Eternal Life. So is the Creed of the Flame… but it's so outdated now!"

At that moment, an intense light flashed in the man's eyes.

"Now I will reborn you in the flames of rebirth."

His voice was filled with determination. The man continued.

"The old past lies here in gray ashes, and a new history is born in the dawning light; the old story ends here, and a new one begins!"

With a flutter of wings, a large hawk folded its wings and perched on his shoulder, its mood majestic. The hawk's feathers were red, as if painted with brushes in the setting sun reflected in the man's eyes.

Red Hawk……. The hawk's name was Red Lightning.