Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 309

“Did we get them?”

Jeon Hee-cheon stared at the exploded vehicle, his eyes tense. Some stray shrapnel had flown their way, but they had ducked in time, avoiding any harm.

As the bomb detonated, the cars behind them swerved wildly, and Bang Jin-hoon’s battered G-Class came to a sudden, jarring halt.

Actually, it was more like it had collapsed on the spot rather than stopped. The vehicle was a wreck.

Normally, no one would have survived in that car, but they were dealing with martial artists. And among those martial artists, they were facing the most dangerous ones.

Bang Jin-hoon, who had amassed enough power to challenge a branch leader within the main council on his own, and Kang Jin-ho, who was even more formidable than Bang Jin-hoon. If anyone could have survived that situation, it would be those two.

“Turn the car around!” Jeon Hee-cheon barked.

They couldn’t afford to let their guard down. When facing opponents stronger than themselves, there was no room for carelessness.

The cars swerved across the center line, executing a sharp U-turn. Jeon Hee-cheon, rapidly approaching Bang Jin-hoon’s wrecked car again, pulled a grenade from his pocket, yanked the pin, and hurled it towards the vehicle.

KWAANG!

The ground shook as the grenade exploded near the car.

“Fire!”

Tu-tu-tu-tu-tu!

The machine guns roared, as if they were determined to empty every last round in their magazines.

‘What time is it?’

Jeon Hee-cheon glanced at his watch. The road they had temporarily blocked with the help of the police was about to be reopened. They needed to finish this quickly and deal with the car and the two people who were likely corpses.

“Stop!” Jeon Hee-cheon raised his hand only after the car was completely riddled with bullets.

“Martial artist my ass.”

What kind of era was it where people fought with fists and swords? There were times when he wanted to shove a gun into the mouths of those who bragged about being martial artists and just fire away. Today, he had fulfilled that wish.

And that too, against two martial artists who could be called ‘absolute’ within the Korean peninsula.

Even though he was a martial artist himself, Jeon Hee-cheon felt a strange sense of satisfaction.

‘I did it!’

Means didn’t matter.

In any case, he had killed two martial artists who could have controlled Korea with his own hands. The chairman would surely recognize this achievement. That thought made Jeon Hee-cheon excited.

“Check inside!”

“Is there really a need to check? They must be burnt to a crisp by now?”

“Even if they’re just charcoal, check!”

“Yes, sir.”

Those who got out of the car cautiously approached Bang Jin-hoon’s vehicle. Considering the car body was already charred black from the fire, it seemed impossible for anyone, even an immortal, to survive inside. However, their movements were extremely cautious.

They couldn’t let their guard down until the very end.

That was the iron rule for those who lived in this world.

“…They’re not here.”

“What?”

Jeon Hee-cheon’s face hardened.

“You bastards! Where did the people inside the car go! Search properly!”

“T-Team leader! There’s a hole here!”

Confusion clouded Jeon Hee-cheon’s face.

“A hole?”

“Yes. There’s a hole in the back. It seems they escaped through here.”

Jeon Hee-cheon’s face went blank.

‘A hole?’

Then, in that brief moment when the grenade was flying, they had made a hole in the back of the car and escaped? Inside a car traveling at 150 km/h [approximately 93 mph]?

“That’s impossible.”

Then where were they now?

According to what Lee Hyun-soo had told him, Kang Jin-ho was not the type to endure being attacked.

A hunting dog that never lets go once it bites.

But even among those, a hunting dog with wild instincts.

That was Lee Hyun-soo’s assessment of Kang Jin-ho. He was not the type to run away first unless he was dead or had his limbs cut off.

Then why wasn’t Kang Jin-ho visible?

There were two possibilities.

One was that Kang Jin-ho and Bang Jin-hoon had sustained severe injuries when they escaped the car and were unable to continue fighting.

That was the most plausible explanation, but if that were the case, could they have really escaped so perfectly without being seen by Jeon Hee-cheon?

If not…

‘They’re nearby.’

He felt the hairs on his skin stand on end. Just as Jeon Hee-cheon was about to order them to ‘be on guard,’ a low voice came from behind him.

No, behind him wasn’t accurate.

The voice came from right behind his ear. He could clearly feel the cold and hot air brushing against his earlobe as the voice trailed off.

A low voice.

The moment he heard that low, slightly excited voice, like a devil whispering from hell, Jeon Hee-cheon felt all the strength drain from his body.

A devil was standing behind him.

There was no need to come up with a plan. There was no need to tense up and confront him. Before he could even try to do anything, he felt a burning pain on both of his ankles, as if they had been branded with fire.

“Aaaaaaah!”

Jeon Hee-cheon screamed, instinctively realizing that both of his Achilles tendons had been severed. It wasn’t just because of the pain. With his Achilles tendons cut, there was no way he could escape from the guy behind him. That fact was plunging Jeon Hee-cheon into despair.

Jeon Hee-cheon, who had fallen to the ground, turned around with a terrified expression.

A man with a shadowed face, expressionless, was staring at him under the dark sky where no stars were visible. The shadows cast on the man’s face by the flickering flames from the burning car were also swaying.

Ironically, at that moment, Jeon Hee-cheon thought that such an appearance suited the man very well.

There would be no one else in the world who looked so good looking down on someone from the darkness.

The man’s gaze slowly moved to Jeon Hee-cheon’s hand. Then, very slowly, he began to step on Jeon Hee-cheon’s hand, which was on the ground.

“Kkeuek!”

The man curled up the corners of his mouth as he watched him groan in pain.

“You’ve done something interesting.”

There was a hint of amusement in his voice.

But that fact didn’t reassure Jeon Hee-cheon. Even a three-year-old would know that the amusement was not directed at him in a friendly way.

“Wait.”

The man, Kang Jin-ho, took his foot off Jeon Hee-cheon’s hand and turned around. He saw the others who were at a loss, looking at Jeon Hee-cheon, who was being suppressed by his gaze.

“I’ll be back after finishing up quickly.”

Leaving behind a low declaration, Kang Jin-ho slowly began to move.

As he watched that scene, something strange caught Jeon Hee-cheon’s eye.

‘A shoe?’

CRUNCH!

At that moment, a shoe slammed into his mouth with terrifying speed.

Jeon Hee-cheon, who couldn’t even scream properly, grabbed his mouth and rolled on the ground. It was an instinctive action, but it only resulted in the pain in his hands and feet becoming even worse.

The owner of the shoe spat out curses as he looked at the groaning Jeon Hee-cheon.

“I thought I was going to die, you bastard.”

Bang Jin-hoon glared at Jeon Hee-cheon with eyes full of hatred. If Kang Jin-ho hadn’t shown any signs of wanting to keep him alive, he might have torn Jeon Hee-cheon apart with his bare hands by now.

For a moment, he really thought he was dead. His heart was still pounding from the death that had come from a direction he had never imagined. He still hadn’t fully grasped what had happened in the instant the grenade exploded.

In an instant, he felt suffocated and pain around his neck, and then he was in the sky. Kang Jin-ho had grabbed his neck and flown through the part where the rear window and the roof of the car connected.

If it hadn’t been for Kang Jin-ho, he would have died.

If he had been hit by the grenade head-on, even his trained body wouldn’t have been able to withstand it. Even if he had barely survived, if he had been left in that car injured, he would have become a well-cooked piece of charcoal, and even if he had escaped, he would have been riddled with bullets.

‘Damn it, if I hadn’t come here today…’

What would have happened if these guys had targeted him alone on his way home, instead of going to pick up Kang Jin-ho?

He didn’t even want to imagine it.

“You bastard!” Unable to contain his anger, Bang Jin-hoon kicked Jeon Hee-cheon, who was groaning on the ground, several times.

If he had been defeated in a fair fight, Bang Jin-hoon wouldn’t have felt wronged even if he had died. But this was not the way a martial artist should act.

“Thug bastards.”

He had no intention of remaining an old man clinging to the romance of the past, but there was a limit to everything in the world.

“Did Kim Seok-il tell you to do this, you son of a bitch?” At that moment, Bang Jin-hoon threw all the minimal respect he had for Kim Seok-il into the gutter. What kind of respect was there for someone who tried to eliminate his rivals in such a way?

“Crazy bastards, really.”

A terrorist attack using machine guns and grenades in the middle of South Korea. And that too, in the middle of a national highway!

This was something that could only happen if they had decided to go completely off the rails.

‘I need to prepare again.’

Until now, the preparations for the showdown with the Yeongnam Association had been made under the assumption that the opponent would come out in a normal way. He had thought they might go to extremes, but that extreme was beyond Bang Jin-hoon’s expectations.

Kang Jin-ho was right.

Kim Seok-il was clearly under more pressure than he thought.

Such a guy was capable of anything. With the current complacent approach, they would only be caught up in Kim Seok-il’s pace.

‘If I were alone, that is.’

Bang Jin-hoon looked at Kang Jin-ho’s back with admiration.

If Kang Jin-ho hadn’t been there, he would have died. He was safe because Kang Jin-ho was there. He thought he had gone through his fair share of ups and downs, but Kang Jin-ho had calmly overcome every crisis as if it were nothing.

He was ashamed of himself for panicking, screaming, and showing such an unsightly appearance.

“You guys messed with the wrong people. You should have looked at who you were messing with before doing this.”

Bang Jin-hoon said, pressing down on Jeon Hee-cheon, who was groaning on the ground, with his toe.

“Especially you, you’re screwed now. Do you know what it means that that man spared you? If I were you, I’d bite my tongue right now.”

Jeon Hee-cheon’s body trembled.

‘Biting your tongue won’t kill you, though.’

Bang Jin-hoon quietly looked at Kang Jin-ho.

Looking at his scorched clothes, it seemed like today wouldn’t end without bloodshed. Kang Jin-ho, whom he had seen so far, was a person who never showed mercy to those who targeted him.

As if to prove his thoughts, Kang Jin-ho quietly opened his mouth.

“Try to run away.”

The men who had surrounded Bang Jin-hoon’s car looked at Kang Jin-ho with bewildered faces.

‘How did he know?’

– If things go wrong, never try to fight them.

– They are using this method because they cannot be dealt with in a normal way.

– If even one person wants to survive, run away the moment you feel something is wrong.

Those were the words they had heard from Lee Hyun-soo.

But Kang Jin-ho had somehow figured out their intentions. He hadn’t missed the fact that their center of gravity had shifted slightly backward unconsciously.

“I don’t like that either.”

Kang Jin-ho quietly bared his teeth.

“Try to run away. Who knows? Maybe one of you will be lucky enough to survive.”

In the dark night where the moonlight and flames flickered.

Kang Jin-ho was slowly approaching them like a grim reaper.