Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 892

The sea had become a battlefield.

In a way, it could be called a naval battle. After all, a naval battle is simply a war that takes place on the sea.

However, the war unfolding on this sea was proceeding in a slightly different manner than a typical naval battle.

Whether to get on the ship or not.

It was a simple question.

But there were those for whom that simple question was incredibly desperate.

“Get up! Get up!”

“Don’t fight down there! You have to get on board! Or we’ll all die!”

Those defending on the ship had some leeway. But those submerged in the cold sea had no such luxury.

They hadn’t thought about it until they jumped into the sea. No, they couldn’t think about it.

What if you lived in a high-rise apartment and a fire broke out?

What if the entrance was blocked and the flames were getting closer?

What would you do?

There’s only one way. You have to open the window and go outside. If you fall trying to escape from a high-rise apartment, you’ll almost certainly die.

But there’s always a chance, one in a thousand, one in ten thousand, that you might survive. Rather than sitting still and waiting to be burned to death, it’s a choice to entrust your life to luck.

That’s exactly how they felt.

If they stayed on the ship, they would surely die. So they had to escape. Jumping into the sea was also dangerous, but not jumping into the sea was even more dangerous.

So their choice was justified.

But think about it.

Would those who fall from a high-rise think the same thing at that moment? Wouldn’t they regret their reckless decision, unable to find another way?

It was the same for them.

It was fine until they jumped into the sea. It was a reasonable and not bad idea. But as the cold water began to soak their bodies, they realized the truth.

They couldn’t go back alive.

The moment the waves crashed and the cold seeped into their bodies, they felt it.

Japan.

It was so far away. It was not a distance that a human could swim. Even if they were warriors and could swim dozens of times more than ordinary humans, it was still an impossible distance.

And this cold water temperature would sap their strength.

Only then did they all realize. That the only ending left for them was to slowly drown.

Then, they saw another ship.

Not as big as the passenger ship they had come on, but a ship of a decent size. A ship that could hold hundreds more if they tried to board.

Could the ship withstand it if they all got on?

Who cares?

They were about to die right now. And there was a place where they could avoid that death. Even if the ship capsized because too many people boarded, they could at least extend their moment of life a little longer.

So what was there to think about?

Their eyes were bloodshot.

The waves and darkness crashing into their faces were driving them. If they couldn’t kill those guys and chase them off the ship, they would all die here. If they were going to die anyway, they should at least fight and die.

Without exchanging a single word, they all instantly had the same thought. And then they acted.

“Drag them down!”

“Kill them all!”

It was too primal a war to be called a battle between warriors. Weapons were thrust at those trying to climb onto the ship. Even as arms were cut off and swords pierced necks, they didn’t stop.

“Jump up!”

Those who realized that they were at a disadvantage changed their tactics. They sacrificed their own bodies as stepping stones, allowing their comrades to step on them and jump onto the ship.

It was something that ordinary people couldn’t even imagine, but they were capable of it. They were the elite, carefully selected even in Japan. If they had a place to step, they could jump to the high deck in an instant.

Some crawled up, some soared up.

A naval battle. Yes, it was a naval battle.

But in reality, it was turning into a bizarre siege.

Under an unspoken agreement that neither the defenders nor the attackers should damage the ship, a fierce and brutal siege was taking place.

The pure white foam turned red.

It was hard to tell because the sun hadn’t risen yet, but the sea had already been dyed red.

There’s no such thing as a clean war in this world.

However, there was one place.

Even after the entire sea had turned into a fierce battlefield, there was still a place that remained calm.

Nakada Yuuji bit his lip slightly.

He couldn’t see it, but just by the sounds he heard, he could guess what was happening in the sea below the ship. Nakada Yuuji was frustrated with them.

‘You moronic bastards.’

It was something that could have been resolved by waiting a little longer.

He didn’t want to blame the guys who jumped off the ship. It was a method they chose to survive. It was better than needlessly increasing casualties by trying to stop Kang Jin-ho. It was a great choice in terms of preserving their strength.

But then they should have waited.

They should have waited for Nakada Yuuji and the other commanders to defeat Kang Jin-ho and retake the ship. Then they could have gotten back on the ship, and it would have been over.

But they couldn’t even think of that and were doing such stupid things.

Stupid, so incredibly stupid.

That was a battle they could never win. And even if they did win, the damage would be too great. In the first place, a siege is a battle where the defending side has several times the advantage. Depending on the situation, even an army ten times larger can fail in a siege.

Wouldn’t it be okay since their forces were several times larger?

Absolutely not.

That concept of a difference of several times is based on the premise that the defending side can control the time spent on the siege and can rest and attack at will.

They had to retake the ship unconditionally in a short time. And they didn’t even have a foothold. They had to struggle in the water, break through all sorts of obstacles, and get on the ship.

It was a battle that didn’t make sense from the start.

A massacre.

They were being killed unilaterally. No one in a position to command an army would want to fight such a stupid war.

Even if those guys were stupid, they weren’t so stupid that they couldn’t think that much. So why were they making such extreme choices?

The reason was here.

Nakada Yuuji swallowed hard.

Scr-r-r-r.

The sound of a sword dragging on the floor was stimulating his ears so eerily.

Kang Jin-ho, his whole body stained with blood, was slowly approaching them, dragging the swords he held in both hands on the floor.

Nakada Yuuji felt a shock that seemed to freeze his soul as he watched that scene.

He had already felt how strong that guy was.

And how amazing he was.

But at this moment, Nakada Yuuji had to feel one more thing.

That guy is a genius when it comes to combat, and that’s an understatement.

What kind of strategy to use.

How efficiently to fight.

It wasn’t about that.

It wasn’t about discussing combat in the realm of a tactician. It was something to be discussed in the realm of a warrior who wields a sword.

Kang Jin-ho instinctively knew what actions he had to take to make his opponent feel the most fear.

That one action, that one expression, that one gesture.

It wasn’t something he calculated with his head. Perhaps Kang Jin-ho wasn’t even aware that he was threatening his opponent. He was just moving as his heart desired.

And that uncalculated movement was now gripping Nakada Yuuji.

Scr-r-r-r.

Even the noise of that sword dragging was tightening his heart.

The fact that he had to fight against that guy was terrifying and horrifying.

Clench.

Nakada Yuuji, gritting his teeth, clenched his fist tightly.

‘That’s why I have to kill him.’

They could only live if he killed him.

Nakada Yuuji was being dragged down to a realm he had never experienced in his life.

For him, war was a kind of aesthetic.

Preparing forces and using those forces most efficiently. And then, by exploiting the opponent’s weakness, maximizing one’s own gains and eroding the opponent’s strength.

That’s how Go and Shogi [Japanese chess] are. If you exclude the fact that they don’t clash with equal forces, war and Shogi are not that different in the first place. After all, Shogi was created by imitating war.

But the place where he was standing now was different.

Kang Jin-ho was grabbing his ankle and dragging him down.

The art of tactics and strategy.

He was being forcibly dragged from the realm of tactics, where minds clash, into a primal realm where they kill each other.

Tactics?

What meaning does that have now?

No matter how ingenious the strategy, it’s meaningless if you can’t stop that guy. Before worrying about where to strike the opponent, they had to worry about who would sacrifice themselves to grab that guy’s ankle.

That’s why Nakada Yuuji could now see more clearly what he had to do.

He was not a force to be reckoned with.

As the weakest of them, he couldn’t be of help in the fight. So he had to do something else.

“Prepare.”

Nakada Yuuji whispered quietly.

In a voice so small that it wouldn’t provoke Kang Jin-ho.

Because it was this kind of situation.

Because he had been dragged into a realm where tactics were of no help, he had to use his head even more. That was his greatest weapon.

Everyone fights with their own weapons, don’t they?

Nakada Yuuji’s eyes quickly scanned behind him.

It wasn’t just them who were overwhelmed by Kang Jin-ho. Kang Jin-ho instinctively suppressed the battlefield he dominated. The problem was that those who were suppressed by that pressure were also his allies.

Batoru, Wiggins, and even Bang Jin-hoon… At this moment, they didn’t dare to follow Kang Jin-ho.

That’s why…

‘Now is the only chance.’

If they started guarding Kang Jin-ho’s flanks, the probability would become extremely low. Right now, at this very moment! They had to attack Kang Jin-ho with all their might.

If a completely different response than he expected came from their side, even the mighty Kang Jin-ho would be flustered. They would aim for that one moment.

This was it from the beginning.

The plan he had prepared when he came here.

Kang Jin-ho would definitely come out alone. He would never wait for the others. He would be picturing a scene where someone would come out one by one to face him and be defeated one by one.

So they would never let him have his way. That arrogance would kill Kang Jin-ho.

Nakada Yuuji’s eyes widened.

“No…”

What he was originally going to say was ‘Now’.

As soon as he gave the signal, everyone here would attack Kang Jin-ho all at once, as if it had been prearranged. Everyone would disregard their lives and unleash attacks on him.

Even if more than half of them died in this attack, it would be a great bargain if they could kill Kang Jin-ho.

But just as he was about to open his mouth.

He saw something strange.

Something hazy…

A hazy something that he couldn’t clearly identify appeared like a small dot in the middle of his vision, and then it began to grow larger.

And then it became clearer and clearer.

Finally…

By the time Nakada Yuuji’s brain realized that the hazy thing was the tip of a sword flying towards his face, it was already too late to avoid it.

‘Th…’

Kang Jin-ho’s sword sliced through Nakada Yuuji’s face, who couldn’t even let out a single scream.

Eerily.