Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 2069

The Black King stared blankly at Kang Jin-ho.

As if he couldn’t understand the intention behind the question.

No, it was more like he didn’t even grasp what the question was asking.

His lips, which had parted slightly as if to answer, soon closed tightly again.

Only a question remained where a fleeting fragment of emotion had passed.

“Happiness?”

The tip of his tongue stung.

It felt like forcibly tearing an ill-fitting word from the tip of his tongue.

“What do you mean?”

The cigarette smoke that Kang Jin-ho slowly exhaled dissipated into nothingness.

“Just what it sounds like.”

The Black King shook his head.

“I knew you were eccentric from the start, but…”

A low chuckle escaped his lips.

“I thought you at least knew how to pick your moments, but I guess that was my mistake too?”

The Black King smiled. A smile filled with bewilderment and exasperation. But unlike the smiles he had shown before, this one felt a little awkward.

Even as he received that smile, Kang Jin-ho’s expression didn’t change in the slightest.

“Answer me.”

“Cult Leader…”

“Answer me.”

The Black King closed his mouth.

At the same time, his face subtly contorted. But the emotion he was expressing was clearly not anger.

It was bewilderment. Yes, perhaps it was bewilderment.

The Black King’s eyes reflected Kang Jin-ho’s gaze, his face expressionless. Those eyes, which seemed to hold thoughts that couldn’t be guessed, felt like they were pressing down on him.

The Black King hesitated for a moment before looking at Kang Jin-ho again.

It was truly strange.

When had he ever been so shaken? What was even stranger was that the Black King himself didn’t understand why he was so agitated.

“That…”

He forced open his strangely unyielding mouth, squeezing out a voice that wouldn’t come out.

“That… what does that have to do with this situation?”

“Relevance?”

Kang Jin-ho shook his head.

“There’s no relevance.”

“I’m just curious. Answer me, Black King. Don’t dodge the question. Since you returned to this world, have you ever been happy, even for a single moment?”

The Black King glared at Kang Jin-ho, his face as cold as ice.

“I think I understand.”

*Crack.*

The tip of Kang Jin-ho’s cigarette burned bright red.

Seeing his reaction, as if he understood everything, the Black King bit his lip.

Happiness?

How could such a thing exist in his life?

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Who could understand the heart of a child who had to watch his parents die before his eyes? And the heart of someone who had to run and run, hide and hide, and be frustrated just to survive, without even having time to grieve?”

“I told you, you were lucky. You got the chance to undo the hell you went through! But not me. If I had returned to the moment I could undo everything, maybe I would have had a moment to utter that embarrassing word. But…”

The Black King gnawed on his lip.

“I never had such an opportunity.”

Kang Jin-ho and the Black King’s eyes locked in the air.

“Happiness?”

That smile was terribly twisted. Enough to make anyone who saw it shudder.

“I don’t need such a thing in my life. What I need is an ideal, not something so soft. So…”

The Black King’s voice was filled with conviction.

“So, I’m just going to change it. So that others don’t have to go through the hell I did.”

“Then…”

Kang Jin-ho lightly flicked the cigarette he was holding onto the floor.

“Why didn’t you save the Demonic Cult?”

The Black King’s eyes darkened.

“They were the ones who had to run, hide, and be frustrated, just like you said. If you had wanted to, you could have changed their lives a long time ago. Isn’t that right?”

“But why did you abandon them? Why didn’t you care about their lives? At least the cult never once turned against you, did they?”

“Because it’s meaningless.”

“Why?”

The Black King spat out the words.

“Even if I saved the Demonic Cult, if the world doesn’t change, it’ll just repeat itself. What I’m trying to save isn’t something like a cult. It’s the future of all martial artists. I don’t have the time to care about such small things.”

Kang Jin-ho began to chuckle.

The laughter, which had initially only swirled in his mouth, grew louder and louder until it was clear enough for the Black King to hear.

“…Why are you laughing?”

“Heh heh heh heh.”

“I asked why you’re laughing.”

Kang Jin-ho shook his head.

“There was a time when I thought your logic was right.”

“There were even moments when I thought maybe I was the one hindering you. Maybe you were right, and I was wrong.”

It was grating.

That voice.

“But… it’s all so futile.”

Kang Jin-ho slowly shook his head.

“Then I’ll ask you this…”

His voice pierced the Black King like a blade.

“Who exactly is your plan for?”

The Black King bared his teeth.

“You seem to have a poor understanding, Cult Leader. Didn’t I say? This is for all martial artists…”

“There is no such thing as ‘all’.”

Kang Jin-ho retorted.

“‘All martial artists’ is just a collection of individual martial artists. It’s a concept that can’t exist. Just like there can be happy people, but there can’t be a happy nation.”

“The future of martial artists you speak of…”

Kang Jin-ho drove the point home.

“It’s just a plausible self-justification to create a reason for your life.”

The Black King glared at Kang Jin-ho with terrifying eyes.

But even the mighty Black King couldn’t easily refute Kang Jin-ho’s words at this moment.

“Is…”

After hesitating for a long time, the Black King continued.

“Is there something wrong with that?”

“Let’s say there is. I don’t have the slightest desire to pretend to be good, but let’s say everything I’ve done is hypocrisy.”

The Black King twisted his lips.

“So what’s wrong with that? No matter what the intention, if others benefit from the hypocrisy I’ve committed, isn’t that enough? A thorough hypocrite is better than a clumsy saint. You should know that, shouldn’t you?”

“Benefit?”

Kang Jin-ho bared his teeth.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you moron.”

At the sudden change in his demeanor, the Black King clenched his fist.

“What you’re doing is no different from what the martial artists did in the past. You’ve only changed the form, but in the end, it’s just an escape.”

“Escape?”

“The martial artists, who could no longer handle the outside world, eventually hid in the shadows of people. They had lived like kings, mocking, ridiculing, and despising ordinary people, but when they could no longer win, they hid as if they didn’t exist in the first place.”

“And now… since even that has reached its limit, all you can do is build a wall and say we’ll live together?”

Kang Jin-ho growled.

“How is that different from what we used to do? Those who used to draw lines between martial artists and ordinary people with swords are now just babbling about drawing those lines with missiles.”

“That’s not progress. It’s a regression to a foolish past, a failure to accept change. There has never been a single successful history of those who sought isolation, anywhere, anytime.”

The Black King pursed his lips and glared at Kang Jin-ho.

“You should know that better than anyone else. Even the mighty Demonic Cult, with its immense power, ultimately failed and fell because it isolated itself from the outside world. And… are we, who are even more disadvantaged than the Demonic Cult at that time, going to build a wall against them?”

*Click.*

Kang Jin-ho took out a new cigarette and put it in his mouth. Then, he lit it with a lighter.

That sight was incredibly striking to the Black King. Kang Jin-ho, who had always used the convenient method of snapping his fingers to light his cigarettes, was now using a tool of civilization to light his cigarette.

He was deliberately going through an unnecessary, inconvenient process.

“That’s not progress; it’s regression.”

“Yes, it might feel comfortable at first. It’ll feel like pulling out a gun pointed at your throat. But that’s just a big trap covered in sweet honey. That comfort will soon begin to strangle those inside. Just like we experienced in the past.”

“You…”

“Listen carefully, Azure Demon.”

Kang Jin-ho said, grinding his teeth.

“There is no paradise in the place you run away to.”

The Black King’s eyes flickered briefly.

“The place you’re trying to create is just a fake paradise where threats are removed. There’s nothing there. Closing your eyes doesn’t make the gun pointed at me disappear.”

“That comfort will eventually destroy us all. If you truly want a future, you shouldn’t run away like that. You have to face it.”

“Such obvious nonsense!”

The Black King gritted his teeth.

“What if we lose then?”

Then he bared his teeth again.

“What if we lose and fall apart? What if we bleed and die? What if the martial artists disappear?”

“Can you take responsibility for that?”

A terrifying vortex of emotion surged from the Black King.

An emotion so intense that it didn’t suit the name of the Black King. But Kang Jin-ho, who received that emotion head-on, simply laughed.

“You’ve forgotten, Azure Demon.”

That laughter was familiar.

Because it was a smile he had seen countless times.

It was unfamiliar on Kang Jin-ho’s face, but at least to the Black King’s eyes, it evoked the image of someone much more familiar than the current man.

“Martial artists are beings who live in a world of such contests.”

“If you’re too afraid of defeat to take the steps you need to take, you’re no longer a martial artist. I’ve said it countless times, but you still don’t understand.”

The Black King opened his mouth as if to say something.

But he soon shook his head.

Parallel lines that could not be narrowed.

His relationship with this man had always been like this. Close enough to touch if they reached out, but never able to merge. Like parallel rails stretching to the ends of the world, they could never meet.

“In the end… we can’t narrow the gap.”

Kang Jin-ho took a deep drag of his cigarette.

“You knew that, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I knew it. But…”

The Black King smiled faintly.

“I just wanted to have a little hope. I’ve lived my life diligently, so I thought I could indulge in that much luxury.”

The two looked at each other.

“To be honest… maybe it’s for the best, Cult Leader.”

The Black King slowly clenched his fist.

“I would have had to fight you someday anyway. Not for some lukewarm reason of competing in martial arts… but with everything on the line.”

The Black King smiled brightly.

“Maybe I’ve been waiting for this moment all along.”

Kang Jin-ho gave a twisted smile.

“Same here.”

For them.

No, for martial artists.

The only way to resolve irreconcilable differences is one way.

The aura emanating from the two began to fill the space.

A gloomy, somewhat sorrowful energy.