Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1186

Thud.

The phone landed a bit too forcefully on the table. The antique wooden table shuddered.

The hand that had tossed the phone onto the table swiped through the air a couple of times before grasping a teacup from which hot steam was rising. The leader, after gulping down the hot tea in one go, placed the teacup down with a slightly steadier hand.

“Insolent bastard.”

The leader’s eyes narrowed.

The humans he liked the most were those who knew their place and obeyed. And the humans he liked the least were those who, with only a little talent, acted arrogantly.

However, the ones the leader actually trusted and used were not the former but the latter.

Humanity might bring peace of mind, but ability filled the belly. For the leader, material wealth and grain were far more important than peace of mind.

The tea he had just drunk like water was also a high-end product that would cost an average person several months’ salary.

The reason he had risen to a position where he could drink such things without a second thought was that he had never been overconfident. He was not a god. He could not be absolutely right.

He had always considered the possibility that someone who seemed inferior to him might come up with an answer closer to the truth, and that was how he had climbed to this steep height.

This time would be the same.

That Chai Ke-chang was someone he could never keep under his thumb. Even if he couldn’t obey like a dog, he should at least be able to snuggle up like a cat, but he was as cold as a snake.

‘A venomous snake, at that.’

How great was the Hongwang [a powerful leader or overlord] to be able to use such a deadly venomous creature like a servant?

He felt a twinge of jealousy, but the leader suppressed the rising jealousy. The Hongwang was the Hongwang, and the leader was the leader. Not everyone could live the same way, nor did they need to.

As long as they could reach the same result, no matter the method, that was all that mattered.

“Shinya.”

Sugiyama Shinya, who had been holding his breath, raised his head.

“Yes, Leader.”

“The contact?”

“It’s been cut off.”

“Hmm.”

The leader slightly narrowed his brow.

Losing contact was generally bad news, but not this time. To ensure quick communication with Yoshinobu, the leader had ordered them to send a signal every five minutes.

The fact that the signal was cut off after the last message that they were heading to the general meeting meant that they had engaged in battle.

If a battle had broken out where they couldn’t communicate, with everyone gathered at Gunsan?

“They’ve engaged Kang Jin-ho.”

“It seems so.”

The leader’s expression became subtle.

They had moved according to the plan, and they had encountered Kang Jin-ho as planned. The fact that things were going according to plan was very good news.

However, the reason he couldn’t be completely happy about this good news was that the battle was taking place at a level he couldn’t reach. He had not understood Chai Ke-chang’s plan until the very end. Yet, things were unfolding exactly as he had said.

According to Chai Ke-chang, at least Lee Hyun-soo and Wiggins in Korea would be able to recognize Chai Ke-chang’s strategy.

And Kang Jin-ho could also guess it.

Wasn’t that strange?

They would predict and guess, yet things would still proceed as planned. It was an incomprehensible statement.

But in reality, things were unfolding exactly as Chai Ke-chang had said.

It was unsettling.

‘That’s why geniuses are…’

Sometimes, he was curious about the world Chai Ke-chang was seeing. But there was no need to get caught up in it. It was better to be in a position to use a genius than to become one.

“So, they didn’t run away.”

“…Yes.”

The leader’s gaze turned to the bonsai tree.

“That’s fortunate. We can avoid making the sacrifices of the Yamashiro-gumi and Kanto in vain.”

Sugiyama Shinya prostrated himself.

‘Sacrifices…’

Yes, it was a sacrifice.

Of course, it wasn’t a voluntary sacrifice, but they had created Japan’s future with their own lives, so it could be called a sacrifice. Whether they were smiling in the afterlife was another matter.

The more he thought about it, the greater his fear of the leader grew.

Fifteen hundred.

The number of people mobilized by the Yamashiro-gumi reached a staggering fifteen hundred. So many people had been sacrificed as bait to target Kang Jin-ho’s life.

Chai Ke-chang’s boldness?

Well…

The strategy itself was impressive, but that was just because he was smart. Shinya thought that what was truly impressive in this operation was not Chai Ke-chang but the leader.

Troops from another country were just numbers.

Calculating and strategizing a battle happening in a place unrelated to oneself was not a big deal. What did it matter to him if hundreds of lives were lost on the other side of the world?

What was truly impressive was the leader who had approved this insane plan of using fifteen hundred elite troops as bait to create an opening to stab Kang Jin-ho.

If Shinya were given the authority over that operation,

would he be able to approve it?

‘Impossible.’

Even though they were the warriors of the Yamashiro-gumi, who were no different from enemies, Shinya could not dare to approve an operation that sacrificed so many lives.

Especially considering the criticism that would pour in if things went wrong.

But the leader had approved the operation without hesitation. He had thrown fifteen hundred lives into an operation that had no basis other than Chai Ke-chang’s intuition and calculations.

Who could dare to follow this boldness?

That was why the leader was a ruler.

“If they watch the conquest of Korea from the afterlife, they will also be satisfied.”

“You’re saying things you don’t mean.”

The leader chuckled softly.

“I must seem like a beast to you.”

“N-Not at all.”

“That’s how I feel.”

The leader smiled calmly.

“A beast. Yes, a beast. But so what? To try to get what you want without walking the path of Asura [a path of constant conflict and struggle] is nothing more than a child’s fantasy. If I were afraid of criticism, I wouldn’t have started this in the first place.”

“That’s right, Leader!”

“They must have seen hell.”

Shinya cautiously raised his head to look at the leader’s face.

He could even feel madness in the leader’s smiling face. Unable to bear looking at that face any longer, Shinya bowed his head deeply.

“But thanks to them, we can show Kang Jin-ho hell as well. The hell that Kang Jin-ho is experiencing now must be worse than what they saw. I’m curious what screams he’ll let out. It’s a shame I can’t hear those screams with my own ears and see his distorted face with my own eyes.”

The leader chuckled.

“I can only hope that Yoshinobu has a good way with words.”

“That might be difficult.”

“Is that so?”

The leader quietly closed his eyes.

‘My dagger will be quite sharp.’

It would be nice to feel the sensation of cutting through a heart with his own fingertips, but the sensation of cutting through a heart with a gesture was not bad either. No, it might even be better.

The leader wanted Kang Jin-ho to die as painfully as possible.

That would be the price for tormenting him until now.

Swoosh!

Blood poured down like rain.

“Aaaaaaaagh!”

“Dieeeeeee!”

The screams and shouts pierced his ears.

Thud.

Yoshinobu, with trembling hands, removed something that had flown and stuck to his face.

Flesh.

A piece of someone’s severed flesh had scattered and flown all the way to him.

His beard trembled. The rain of blood had already dyed his hair and beard red.

‘Is this hell?’

If hell was a place that existed to punish humans, there could be no scene more fitting for hell than this.

His nose was tingling.

After constantly smelling the overwhelming stench of blood, his nose felt numb. And his senses were gradually becoming dull.

It was inevitable.

Senses were connected to reality, weren’t they?

If one was standing in a place that was not reality, then senses would naturally become dull.

He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, he had to doubt what he was hearing, and what he was smelling didn’t seem to be of this world. What could he believe, and what should he doubt?

Kang Jin-ho had called them moths flying into a fire.

‘Moths…’

Not a trap, but a fire.

And not people, but moths.

Yoshinobu’s teeth clenched as if they would break.

A trap was something that had a possibility of escape. But moths had no such possibility. Moths that flew into a fire flapped their wings and rushed into the flames.

Wasn’t it the same?

Even if they knew that Kang Jin-ho was waiting for them, even if they understood that all of this might be a trap, there was nothing they could choose. They could only rush at Kang Jin-ho like moths flying into a fire.

Because they couldn’t turn back.

Even if there was no one blocking their path behind them, they couldn’t turn back. Because everyone understood that if they couldn’t kill Kang Jin-ho after coming this far, nothing would be left for them.

That was why they had no choice but to rush forward.

Even if the price for rushing at that monstrous being in front of them was only death.

“Ugh…”

“You must endure it.”

At the sharp voice, Yoshinobu slightly turned his head. His aide, with a pale face, was trembling and desperately whispering.

“If you don’t weaken him enough, you might be defeated instead. You must endure it now. No matter how upset you are.”

He almost laughed.

Did this guy think that Yoshinobu was about to rush at Kang Jin-ho out of anger?

Well…

Whether the body trembled from anger or from fear, it was the same, so they would see what they wanted to see and interpret it as they wanted.

It was better that way.

‘How can a person be like that?’

Yoshinobu forcefully closed his trembling jaw. He couldn’t show this side of himself.

Whoosh!

A sound that tore through the air struck his eardrums. Before he could even feel the throbbing pain in his ears, a severed upper body soared into the air.

The sight of the person whose waist had been cut falling to the ground was clearly visible in Yoshinobu’s eyes.

The eyes, filled with shock and terror, the eyes that were rapidly heading towards death, met Yoshinobu’s.

Thud! Thud!

The lower bodies that had been spewing blood like a fountain collapsed. A wide-open view. Beyond that space filled only with corpses and blood, Kang Jin-ho was slowly approaching him.

It was as if black flames were burning.

A black aura of unknown origin was rising as if it were burning. The shape was like flames, but the texture was completely different from flames. It was thick and dark like tar, burning like weightless flames.

From within the black flames, two streaks of red light like blood flowed out. The moment he met those eyes, Yoshinobu felt his soul freeze.

‘A demon.’

What else could explain that?

That being was a demon.

And they were nothing more than offerings laid out at the demon’s banquet.

Shhh.

The demon’s sword, which had been shining white under the moonlight, was slowly being covered by black flames.

And then…

A rough voice, like scraping metal, pierced Yoshinobu’s dazed ears.

“Why are you so scared?”

“You’re going to die anyway.”

Bloodshot veins appeared in Yoshinobu’s eyes.