Rebirth of the Heavenly Demon

Chapter 14 – Where My Sword Points (3)

“You bitch. Come here and suck it.”

Yang Gi-gang exuded a neurotic killing intent. It was even more malicious than when his body was healthy.

The maid approached him, trembling.

She recalled the maid who had supposedly died with her throat torn out. Perhaps she was killed for refusing to do this?

But she really didn’t want to. She didn’t even want to look at that hideous thing…

“Should I rip your crotch apart? Do you look down on me too? Huh? You whore!”

“No, no, Young Master.”

She prostrated herself on the spot. Tears dripped onto the floor.

“Please forgive me! I… I have someone I’m going to marry.”

She remembered the face of the man she had promised to marry next year. His face when he was so happy, saying he had saved enough money to rent a small room, while working hard at a shop in the marketplace.

When she heard the rumor that the previous maid had died, she should have eloped with him. She had even considered it.

But it wasn’t easy to leave a place she had lived all her life overnight. She couldn’t do it for his sake either, as he had just settled down.

“Should I call him here? Are you feeling empty without a man?”

“Gasp!”

The maid raised her head.

Yang Gi-gang’s face was gleaming with cruelty. Seeing his snake-like eyes that seemed capable of anything to torment others, she cried out.

“No! Please don’t do that!”

“Then come here.”

Yang Gi-gang, being bedridden, couldn’t bear the rising sexual urge. His mind was filled only with the desire to rape and kill someone.

The woman staggered towards him. Her tear-stained face only stimulated Yang Gi-gang’s lust further.

“Hurry, do it!”

The woman bowed her head and opened her mouth. Her whole body trembled.

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

Endless tears flowed from her tightly shut eyes.

It was at that moment.

Someone covered her mouth from behind.

Not to prevent her from screaming, but to gently close her mouth.

She could tell that this touch meant her no harm. Not just because it was so kind and gentle.

It was because Yang Gi-gang had opened his eyes wide and spat out a curse.

“You bastard!”

The hand that had covered the woman’s mouth now covered her eyes.

The next moment.

Swish!

Along with the sound of a cool breeze.

Slash.

“Aaargh!”

From the terrible scream that came out as if squeezed, the woman could tell. That Yang Gi-gang’s thing had been cut off.

Splash, the sound of blood gushing out for a moment.

Thud! Crack.

This time, she heard the sound of a sword piercing flesh and hitting bone.

“Uurgh!”

Before the scream could fully emerge, again.

Stab!

The sound of flesh tearing was followed by a muffled scream.

The woman learned for the first time that such diverse screams could come from one person.

“Nngh…”

Each time the sword was thrust in and pulled out, a pain-filled groan inevitably followed.

“Please…”

In response to Yang Gi-gang’s plea, a cold voice from behind:

“Then you should have listened when this child begged ‘please’.”

The moment the words ended!

Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!

The sound of the sword tearing flesh was heard repeatedly. It was truly the sound of being hacked to pieces.

The only reason the woman could bear this terrible sound was that the owner of the screams with each stab was Yang Gi-gang.

The screams stopped, and so did the butchery.

As the person behind her was still covering her eyes, the woman couldn’t see the situation unfolding before her. But she could tell that Yang Gi-gang was no longer of this world.

Then a low voice near her ear:

“Child.”

Unlike when dealing with Yang Gi-gang, the tone was so gentle that she almost responded with “Yes.”

“Not all men in this world are like this. You might get bitten by a mad dog in life. But that doesn’t mean you should treat all dogs as mad, right? So forget everything that happened today and live happily with your fiancé.”

It was such a benevolent and gentle speech. It was a young voice, but it sounded like a grandfather speaking to his granddaughter.

As soon as those words ended, sleep overcame her. It was due to the natural touch that had suppressed her acupoints without her knowing.

As she was gently laid on the floor, she could hear the last words as if in a dream.

“You won’t be harmed for being here. Because everyone who would do so will die today.”

***

“Please reconsider, Faction Leader. If we really attack the Byeok Clan Sword Manor, we’ll incur the wrath of the whole Gangho.”

The person making this earnest request was Jeong Yeo, the Deputy Faction Leader of the Yang Minor Faction. He had only recently learned about what was happening.

“Wrath? Did you just say wrath?”

“Faction Leader.”

“My son nearly died. And you dare say such things? Who exactly would be angry?”

“Young Master Yang…”

He couldn’t continue to say that he had it coming. Nor could he say not to cover the sky with one’s palm.

Because Yang Gi-cheol was glaring at him with murderous eyes.

“Please reconsider.”

“Tsk tsk. You’ve become so soft.”

“Faction Leader!”

Jeong Yeo didn’t think he had lived by upholding righteousness. He considered himself somewhere between a chivalrous man and a villain, moderately tainted by the secular world.

No, to be honest, he was closer to evil. He had turned a blind eye to the Faction Leader’s misdeeds several times.

But even evil has its limits, and this was beyond the pale. How could anyone in their right mind think of hiring vagabonds to wipe out an entire sect just because their child got beaten up?

“Please think it over carefully.”

At that moment, another man in the room spoke up. He was the Blood Hound that Yang Gi-cheol had called.

Who was the Blood Hound? He could be described in one simple line:

A man who would kill even his own parents and children for money.

One might even think that he had exchanged his supposedly long-dead wife and children for money.

However, Yang Gi-cheol called him whenever he needed something handled discreetly. His efficiency in handling matters was as certain as his greed.

“You’ll need to pay me more. I’ve heard that the reputation of their Clan Leader is quite good.”

“Since when did you care about the reputation of the person you’re killing?”

“As I age, it naturally becomes so. Perhaps I’m maturing.”

“How much more are you asking for?”

“I’ll need at least twenty thousand nyang.”

“It’s not that you’ve matured with age, your greed has just grown.”

“Just tell me yes or no. We’re not in a relationship to exchange jokes, are we?”

In the end, he agreed to pay twenty thousand nyang, twice the original amount.

In exchange, the Blood Hound promised to provide a scapegoat to take the blame for this incident. He promised to use a suitable vagabond to make it look like he and his comrades had annihilated the Byeok Clan Sword Manor.

They decided to use Byeok Ri-dan. The plan was to spread a rumor that he had raped a woman, and a vagabond, who was the woman’s lover, had massacred them in revenge. They would stage it so that the vagabond had committed suicide at the scene after the massacre.

To this end, they were spreading rumors that Byeok Ri-dan had raped a woman.

Overnight, the Byeok Clan Sword Manor would become a trash sect deserving annihilation, and Yang Gi-gang would become a righteous man injured while trying to prevent it.

This is the power of money.

Everything was going smoothly until Deputy Faction Leader Jeong Yeo found out at the last moment. They had proceeded in secret because they were certain he would try to stop it.

The Blood Hound, who had been listening, blurted out,

“Why are you pretending to be so good? You don’t even look that virtuous.”

Jeong Yeo frowned at him.

“This is none of your business.”

A tense atmosphere hung between the two.

The Blood Hound smirked, diffusing the tension. It wasn’t that he was intimidated, but more of a ‘why bother with the likes of you’ attitude.

“How narrow-minded.”

Then, turning to Yang Gi-cheol, he said,

“Such matters should be dealt with swiftly and then we should withdraw. As you know, vagabonds have no sense of belonging. If we delay, secrets tend to leak. If you don’t give a definitive answer now, I’ll disband them immediately. Of course, you won’t get the deposit back.”

“That won’t be necessary. We’ll proceed as planned.”

After making that clear, he tried to persuade Jeong Yeo.

“Although the Byeok Clan Sword Manor’s fortunes have declined, they still wield influence in many places. If we take over all those areas, we can double the power of our main branch.”

If that happens, they would gain hundreds of thousands of nyang in profits in the long run. Twenty thousand nyang would be nothing in comparison.

“The Byeok Clan Sword Manor’s influence in the Shandong region is great because the martial artists here deeply trust Faction Leader Byeok.”

At this, Yang Gi-cheol showed an annoyed expression.

“It sounds like you’re saying my character is inferior to that man’s.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Trust? There’s no such thing in this martial world. There are only two things that exist in this world. The strong and the weak. The strong rule and the weak are ruled. The strong survive, and the weak die.”

Jeong Yeo said nothing. He had long known that his master was greedy. But he didn’t know it was such ugly greed.

“If you attack the Byeok Clan Sword Manor, I will no longer serve you, Faction Leader.”

This was his last card. He had been with the Yang Minor Faction for twenty years. They had been through all sorts of things together. He could assert with certainty that without him, the Yang Minor Faction wouldn’t have grown this much.

He thought that if he went this far to dissuade him, he would eventually give up, albeit reluctantly.

But Yang Gi-cheol’s response was ruthless.

“How dare you impose such conditions? Get out before I kill you with one strike.”

Jeong Yeo felt his breath catch.

Get out before he kills him? Faced with such unprecedented verbal abuse, a storm of disappointment swept over him.

‘What… have I been living for all this time?’

More than hatred towards him, anger at his own foolishness took precedence.

Feeling like he might cry if he stayed any longer, he stood up.

“Stay in seclusion until I call for you again!”

He left the room without answering.

He heard the Blood Hound’s giggling laughter from behind.

“There shouldn’t be anyone coming out of the Byeok Clan Sword Manor’s gates that day.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll wipe out not just those with the Byeok surname, but even the dogs they raise.”

Hearing this conversation before the door closed, Jeong Yeo clenched his fists. He really wanted to rush back in and beat those two to death.

Then he would die.

This is the limit. The limit of the moral sense and capacity that a person like him could exert.

But he had no intention of staying in this place devoid of all human feeling. After this incident, Yang Gi-cheol would try to appease him again with sweet words.

He would leave before that. Because later, he would be discarded even more pitifully.

‘Damn it! I wanted to raise the Yang Minor Faction to be the greatest faction under the heavens.’

As he was walking heavily, burdened by the pain of having to leave the place he had devoted his life to, he felt an inexplicable sense of unease.

When he raised his head, he saw a young man sitting on the roof. The blood dripping from the sword he was dangling formed a stark contrast against the blue sky spread out behind him.

“Who are you?”

Who else?

It was me.

Jeong Yeo reflexively tried to draw his sword.

“Are you going to act like an idiot until the very end?”

Startled by my words, he stopped his action.

“Do you want to end your life dying while trying to protect such a person?”

A heavy silence descended between us, as if pressing down.