Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 2088

The world slows down.

In a world losing its color, a world gradually being stained in black and white, Kang Jin-ho only looked at Cheongma. At the sight of Cheongma, who was drawing out every last bit of his energy to extend his fist towards him.

Fading away.

The world, losing its form, is being dyed gray.

In that gray world, in a world where everything is becoming blurred, only Cheongma’s figure became clearer and clearer.

As if he were the only one existing in this world.

Bloodied.

Covered in wounds.

His usually neat appearance was nowhere to be found. It was a sight that seemed more desperate than miserable.

‘You…’

Cheongma’s image was seared into Kang Jin-ho’s eyes like a brand.

‘…That’s not a look that suits you.’

Well…

It might not be just Cheongma who looks out of place. He himself probably isn’t any different. Because he’s doing something that doesn’t suit him either.

Everything has changed.

The Cheongma of the past might not even exist anymore. The fact that he calls him Cheongma is just lingering attachment. The one standing before him now is not Cheongma, but someone who should rightfully be called the Black King.

And that goes for Kang Jin-ho as well. He has become someone who can no longer be called the Demonic Lord of the Red Sky.

Yes, everything has changed.

They have, and the situation surrounding them has too.

Even this damned world and the two of them.

Nothing has remained unchanged.

‘But it’s strange, Cheongma.’

Even though everything has changed… it feels like nothing has changed at all.

The world… is as cruel to them now as it was then.

Fate is always stirring them up, both then and now.

But even so…

‘It’s not… so bad. Right?’

A faint smile appeared on Kang Jin-ho’s lips.

It doesn’t matter anymore.

The fact that their fight will determine the fate of the world. The fact that they are going down different paths.

Yes, it doesn’t matter that much.

What matters is simply that they are facing each other, and looking at each other.

He thought he existed alone in the world. In that savage world, he thought no one would understand him.

But…

It’s a laughable thing.

That’s why he wandered in search of warmth. He always longed for the warmth that would touch his fingertips. He thought there was no warmth in that world for him to lean on.

So he just longed for it, the world where there was warmth that embraced him.

But…

He realizes it now.

What he sought was there from the beginning.

Only now, only now…

He remembers.

He still remembers.

Cheongma’s appearance when he first approached Kang Jin-ho with a bright smile, his appearance when he reached out his hand to Kang Jin-ho, who was pushing away everything in the world.

Kang Jin-ho pushed that hand away.

But Cheongma came to him again.

He kept reaching out and reaching out until he took his hand.

‘Looking back now…

Maybe that hand, that hand that was extended so casually…

Maybe it saved Kang Jin-ho, who was left all alone.

Why didn’t he know it then?

That the existence of someone reaching out a hand was such a comfort to Kang Jin-ho.

When he thought he was just walking alone in a barren world, that there was someone watching him from one step behind.

Why didn’t he know it then?

That the warmth, that faint warmth that was conveyed from a place he couldn’t reach…

That it kept Kang Jin-ho alive.

His body feels like it’s about to crumble.

But Kang Jin-ho squeezed out every last drop of demonic energy he had left. Even if he had to lose everything as a price for unleashing this attack, he didn’t care.

Feeling the demonic energy gathering at his fingertips, Kang Jin-ho’s eyes slowly sank.

It’s ironic.

He had never felt Cheongma’s presence so close in his life. He had never realized how important each other’s existence was to them as much as he did now.

But now, he and Cheongma are both squeezing out everything to kill each other.

Even though they don’t hate each other.

Rather, even though they need each other’s existence more than anything, they don’t hesitate to kill each other. Even though they know how much deep regret that act will cause each other.

Life is always this strange.

They have to kill each other because they acknowledge each other. Cheap pity, and consideration for each other, can only be an insult to the other right now.

From the beginning, they were the kind of people who could only acknowledge each other in this way.

They were able to come this far because they were twisted, and they were able to lean on each other because they were twisted.

‘Cheongma.’

Kang Jin-ho looked at Cheongma, who was so close he could almost touch him.

People can never truly reach each other.

They can never know what each other is thinking.

But at this moment, Kang Jin-ho felt like he knew what Cheongma was thinking.

‘Yes, we were always two from the start.’

In the past, and now.

The world revolves only around the two of them.

Yes, they can’t reach each other.

Things like people’s hearts.

Even so, Kang Jin-ho reached out his hand.

To the one who was coming to meet him.

To his enemy.

To his friend.

To convey what cannot be conveyed.

To reach a place that cannot be reached.

The hand he extended heads towards Cheongma’s heart.

That attack that contained all of him.

The world is moving away. No, it’s coming closer.

Cheongma could only feel himself becoming isolated.

All his senses are fading away.

He can’t hear, he can’t feel.

The world, dyed in gray, pushes him away as if rejecting him.

Even if he can’t feel it, it’s cold, and even if he can’t hear it, it’s sad.

The only thing he can see is one thing.

Only Kang Jin-ho, who is reaching out his hand towards him.

Looking at Kang Jin-ho, who had lost one eye and was a mess, he felt like laughing for some reason.

‘That doesn’t suit you, Cult Leader.’

That man is suited for nobility. He is not suited for anything in the world, and is only suited to reign alone in a high place.

But…

That might be a slightly sad story.

What should he call his feelings for that man?

Maybe hatred.

Maybe anger.

If not, then just pity.

Well… he doesn’t know.

It’s difficult to summarize his feelings for Kang Jin-ho in one word.

‘Cult Leader.’

Cheongma remembers.

The time when he first saw Kang Jin-ho.

A common outsider who had entered the cult.

The image of a crazy madman who threw himself into the battlefield and fought and fought alone until he was covered in blood.

Yes, Cheongma couldn’t forget.

Kang Jin-ho’s back as he silently looked up at the sky in the middle of a battlefield filled with corpses, covered in blood. Perhaps that image, which was imprinted on his eyes like a brand, created all of these moments.

Because it overlapped.

In that back view, which might have looked cruel to someone, Cheongma saw a crying child.

Himself, who had lost his father and cried alone, himself, who was just hurt by the cold winter wind.

‘Yes, Cult Leader.’

He didn’t need to know.

He didn’t need to understand.

It didn’t matter what kind of person you were.

What Cheongma saw in Kang Jin-ho was himself.

Because it was the back of someone who couldn’t lean on anywhere in the world, and had to bear all of it alone.

Maybe that’s why.

That’s why he approached Kang Jin-ho.

Maybe that’s why.

The reason why he tried to laugh and chat with him and share a drink.

It was comfort. Maybe solace.

When he saw even a little bit of looseness on Kang Jin-ho’s face, which had nothing but loneliness, Cheongma gained a small peace that he couldn’t get alone.

Cheongma thought he was giving comfort to Kang Jin-ho.

A precarious being, who seemed as strong as steel, but was a weak being who could collapse at any moment. He thought that Cheongma was supporting such a person.

But…

‘That wasn’t it.’

It wasn’t Cheongma who supported Kang Jin-ho. It was Kang Jin-ho who supported the collapsing Cheongma. Just by watching him, Cheongma was able to look back at everything he had lost.

He still remembers.

The time when they hadn’t achieved anything yet.

The day they sat facing each other and shared a drink with cheap liquor.

The scent of the liquor that brushed his nose, the small smile that faintly lingered on Kang Jin-ho’s lips across from him, the sound of insects chirping outside the window, and the bright moon that was floating in the sky outside the window.

Sometimes, a small memory that is nothing special makes a person live on.

Perhaps what has allowed Cheongma to endure until now was none other than that small memory of that day.

‘Cult Leader.’

No…

Maybe all of that is meaningless.

He just liked it.

Running forward while looking at his back, the fact that there was someone who was leading him from the front, the fact that there was someone who was blocking the wind of the world that was so cold to him.

‘Looking back, Cult Leader…

He was too weak.

The ideals that were so grand, the hopes that were so high, the dreams that were so desperate that he couldn’t close his eyes without achieving them.

Cheongma was too small and weak to achieve all of that with his own hands.

That’s why he might have looked at it.

The back of a human who was different from him, who was going through all of that, the figure of a person who was never defeated even while being hurt and suffering.

‘Father, I do not regret it.’

It was none other than Cheongma himself who chose all of this. That’s why he doesn’t regret it.

‘But Father, I…’

Cheongma’s eyes sank deeply.

‘From the beginning until now… I regret everything.’

All of his demonic energy, everything he had, surged into his fingertips.

A strike of his soul, that was not enough to describe it.

Kang Jin-ho and Cheongma’s gazes met in the air.

At that moment, Cheongma was seized by a strange sense of déjà vu.

Kang Jin-ho’s eyes overlap with Kang Jin-ho’s eyes from that day. Holding a glass of liquor in one hand, looking at him under the moon.

It feels like the faint smell of liquor is brushing past his nose.

A faint smile appears on Cheongma’s lips as he blankly looks at Kang Jin-ho.

‘I wonder, Cult Leader.’

Am I making the same expression as I did that day right now?

Am I having the same look in my eyes as I did then?

…It doesn’t matter. Yes, it probably doesn’t matter.

But… if it’s just like that… yes, then it would be nice.

There was no need for conversation.

It was enough just to have someone sitting across from him. Even if he wasn’t looking at him, he could be comforted by that indifferent gaze that was turned away to look at the moon.

‘It was fun, wasn’t it, Cult Leader?’

Yes, back then…

It was just fun.

Kwaddeudeudeuk!

Kang Jin-ho’s hand pierces Cheongma’s heart.

Cheongma’s hand pierces Kang Jin-ho’s heart.

The world stops.

It’s quiet.

In a world where everything seems to have stopped, only the rain falling conveys a nonchalant sound of rain.

The cold rain flows down the two men’s bodies.

Indifferently.

And indifferently.