Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 971

People should always be confident.

Lee Hyun-soo had lived his life believing this as a truth.

In fact, it wasn’t easy for him to survive in this barren and cruel world of martial artists.

To be able to talk to those who could kill him at any moment, break their will, and make them move as he wished was like walking on a razor’s edge.

Besides, there are quite a few crazy people among martial artists.

Even among ordinary people, there are those who are not normal. But in the world of martial artists, the proportion of those who are ‘not normal’ increases exponentially.

Even ordinary people often throw punches when they get excited. If martial artists decide to throw a punch, Lee Hyun-soo has to be prepared for death.

To survive in such a world, the method Lee Hyun-soo chose was confidence and bluff.

This place is like a jungle.

If you show even the slightest sign of being intimidated, you’ll be devoured immediately. Even if you can’t win a fight, you shouldn’t be afraid. If he hadn’t maintained the attitude of ‘Kill me if you can. If you can’t, you’ll die,’ Lee Hyun-soo wouldn’t be where he is now.

Of course, after joining Kang Jin-ho’s ranks, he no longer had to worry about survival as he used to, but even so, Lee Hyun-soo was sticking to his standards.

But…

‘Confidence, my ass.’

There was no use for that damn confidence now.

Confidence is meaningful when you’re talking to each other, or when you’re threatening each other. Once you start throwing punches, confidence is useless.

It’s not like being confident makes the hits hurt less, or that it adds more power to a flying fist.

Which means.

‘I’m useless here.’

The level is different from the start.

Lee Hyun-soo is the worst martial artist in the Assembly. He had learned some martial arts, but he was naturally untalented in martial arts. If he were an ordinary person who hadn’t learned martial arts, he would be someone who could never escape the label of being clumsy.

But this place is where the elites of the Assembly and the elites of England and Europe are clashing.

It’s like the water bottle carrier for a local soccer club playing in the Champions League final.

So what can he do?

The only fortunate thing is that Lee Hyun-soo hasn’t lost his reason even in this urgent situation. Lee Hyun-soo knew exactly what he had to do at this moment.

‘I need to stay quiet and hidden.’

Everyone rushed out of the hallway, but Lee Hyun-soo didn’t try to leave the hallway. Instead, he stuck close to the wall and held his breath.

Erasing his presence so that those who were fighting well wouldn’t have to worry about him was the best he could do.

‘But this is really something else.’

Lee Hyun-soo’s eyes widened as he looked ahead.

It was different.

The people rampaging here now seemed completely different from anyone he had known before.

‘That bastard.’

The guy who is now on top of a British martial artist, throwing ridiculous punches, is the one among the Flame Demons who was so quiet that Lee Hyun-soo was worried about him.

Was his name Park Sang-tae?

He was so weak that it was doubtful how such a guy passed Kang Jin-ho’s test and became a Flame Demon.

But that guy is now on top of someone who has fallen to the ground, throwing punches indiscriminately.

“Die! Dieee!”

…I should have treated him better.

They say that when a quiet person goes crazy, they’re scarier, and that was exactly the case.

The others were the same.

Not to mention the Flame Demons. The Flame Demons were a collection of crazy people officially recognized by the Assembly.

It was natural to understand that the Flame Demons were going crazy.

But it wasn’t just the Flame Demons who were going crazy now.

“Smash them all! Don’t fall behind!”

Kong Young-gil shouted as he kicked a martial artist in front of him.

*Thud!*

It sounded like a hammer hitting a tire when a person kicked another person.

‘That crazy…’

Kong Young-gil was already quite large before.

Compared to Lee Myung-hwan, who he used to hang out with, he felt a head taller. But now, Kong Young-gil had completely escaped the category of ‘being large’.

Bulge! Bulge!

The muscles were pulsating as if they would tear through his clothes.

He didn’t know what Bator had done to those guys, but it didn’t seem like it had been that long since they had trained with Bator, yet they were all swollen with muscles.

It was like, what should he say?

Yeah, a mini-Bator.

If you enlarged that body, it would look just like Bator. The overwhelming pressure felt from Bator’s body was not there because there was a basic difference in size of about two times, but even with that body alone, ordinary people would be terrified.

And it wasn’t just that their bodies had gotten bigger.

The guys who were just young martial artists of the Assembly before being taught by Bator were now pushing back the elites of England. Equal, or even more than equal.

The scene was significant.

It was just the beginning. But the Assembly was changing even at this moment. It felt like the result of that change was visible right in front of his eyes.

They didn’t receive anything directly from Kang Jin-ho.

Of course, the Assembly itself had changed through Kang Jin-ho, and Bator had also joined the Assembly thanks to Kang Jin-ho, so it couldn’t be said that they hadn’t benefited from it, but their martial arts were Bator’s, not Kang Jin-ho’s.

Diversification of martial arts.

They were showing the possibility that even those who had not accepted Kang Jin-ho’s demonic arts could stand on equal footing with the elites of other countries.

‘Now, if only Director Bang’s work goes well?’

If the new martial arts of the Assembly that Director Bang Jin-hoon is teaching can produce that level of efficiency, the Assembly will become truly strong.

Not a hollow sect led by one or two strong individuals, but a truly strong sect.

And…

“The Demon Lord is watching! Prove your faith!”

Jang Min was also different from usual.

Usually, Jang Min was so out of it that it made one doubt whether he was really an elder of the Demonic Cult, but Jang Min on the battlefield was definitely different.

Every expression, every word, had something that made people’s blood boil.

That charisma felt like it surpassed even Wiggins and Bator.

‘Indeed.’

While investigating the Demonic Cultists, he had felt that their loyalty was excessively focused on Jang Min, and he had been wary of it. He hadn’t made an issue of it because Jang Min’s loyalty to Kang Jin-ho was beyond doubt, even to an excessive degree.

But the fact that nearly ten thousand people were loyal to someone other than the Lord was something that Lee Hyun-soo had to be wary of.

Even amidst his wariness, he was curious as to why they followed Jang Min so much, and now that he saw his current appearance, he understood.

After all, charisma is half innate.

The Demonic Cultists under Jang Min’s command were also ravaging the enemies like angry wolves. They were the elites carefully selected from nearly ten thousand Demonic Cultists. Their strength was enough to break the prejudice that ‘the demons of China are weak’.

Their individual strength did not match that of the Flame Demons, but they had more venom than the Flame Demons. If anyone were to face the momentum of a demon who rushes in disregarding their own life, they would be terrified.

But the ones who were most crazed here were not the Flame Demons or the demons.

It was the Chevaliers [Knights].

The Chevaliers, clad in armor, were rampaging as if they had truly lost their minds.

And Lee Hyun-soo fully understood the feelings of those Chevaliers.

They were the ones abandoned by the Round Table [a powerful organization].

They had come all the way to Korea, a distant country, to kill Kang Jin-ho, but the Round Table had not done anything to rescue them. They had literally abandoned them.

Those who are betrayed by the one they were loyal to are bound to burn with a desire for revenge that is greater than their loyalty. How much they must have dreamed of this moment while cooperating with the Assembly and holding their breath.

“Sweep them all away! Kill them all!” Vensant raised his voice.

It felt like blood was forming in his voice. It was incredibly intense and incredibly desperate. And the Chevaliers who heard his command were rampaging, disregarding their formation.

Overall, what should he say, it was like…

‘Five minutes before chaos.’

There was no formation or command system. Everyone was just rampaging as they pleased. Bator, who should have been organizing the formation, was at the very front, sweeping away the enemies while losing his mind, and even Wiggins, who would normally have maintained his composure, was firing magic indiscriminately.

If someone with even a little bit of the concept of command in their head saw this scene, they would be speechless at the chaos.

Yet, there was a reason why Lee Hyun-soo didn’t jump out and shout.

It was chaotic and messy.

But it was stronger than that.

The British martial artists who had formed a joint formation were being swept away in an instant. It was a strength that Lee Hyun-soo himself couldn’t believe.

Of course, the fact that Kang Jin-ho had already crushed their momentum was also a factor, but even considering all of that, the martial artists of the Assembly were strong. Overwhelmingly so.

‘So this is it.’

Lee Hyun-soo didn’t miss a single detail of that scene.

The feeling of directing from afar and watching the battle right next to it was completely different. If Lee Hyun-soo had only received the situation from behind as usual, he wouldn’t have felt their strength so vividly.

‘Is that why they brought me here?’

In the end, Lee Hyun-soo is the commander of the Assembly.

If others are field commanders who move on the spot, Lee Hyun-soo was closer to a commander-in-chief who grasps the overall war situation from the back and moves the commanders.

As such, Lee Hyun-soo must know more clearly than anyone else how strong the people he moves are and where they should be used.

If he hadn’t seen this scene with his own eyes, he would have only given ambiguous orders as he had done until now. But now he could know for sure.

What characteristics the martial artists of the Assembly have and how they should be used.

“Stop.”

At that moment, Kang Jin-ho opened his mouth.

Kang Jin-ho, who had already recovered his demonic energy and returned to his normal appearance. But that didn’t mean that the dignity he possessed had disappeared.

The moment those who had lost their minds and were rampaging heard Kang Jin-ho’s voice, they trembled as if they had been struck by lightning and retreated like a tide.

Then, in an instant, they lined up in rows and columns behind Kang Jin-ho.

Lee Hyun-soo clenched his fist tightly.

A harmony of reason and wildness.

The sight of those who had shown no trace of reason being controlled in an instant by one person’s command. This might be the ideal army that Lee Hyun-soo had been hoping for.

And perhaps…

‘It would be terrifying.’

What would it be like to watch from the opposite side as those who had been rushing in like demons were completely obedient to one person’s command?

Wouldn’t it be several times more frightening than everyone going crazy and rampaging?

Perhaps Lee Hyun-soo’s prediction was accurate.

The survivors trembled as they looked at Kang Jin-ho. Their gazes were fixed on Kang Jin-ho as if they were possessed.

At the same time, Kang Jin-ho quietly opened his mouth.