CH 292

Did he just say next? This monstrous youth wanted someone else to step up?

In front of him?!

'He's not kidding!'

Sometimes, a certain scene would become the talk of the town. The 'scene' in question would be when a person lost their cool after witnessing the death of their allies, which would make them charge straight at the enemies only to die—or they would get lucky and defeat their enemies.

'Don't f*cking mess with me!'

Unfortunately, such a scene was only possible in movies. Even then, switching the movie's genres would be enough to see how absurd and stupid that action was.

For instance, imagine the genre as a war movie. What if the friendly squad mate you were chatting with suddenly turned into a corpse from sniper fire or in a hail of bullets from an unseen machine gun? Would you get angry and charge straight at the enemy?

Of course not. Such a thing would be impossible unless you were insane!

The smartest choice anyone could make in that kind of situation would be to flee from that location without looking back even once. However, that wasn’t as easy as it sounded.

The two surviving men's trembling eyes barely managed to decipher the intent lurking within Kang Jin-Ho's expression. The latter’s eyes were like a hungry beast glaring at its tasty prey!

'He... He's not gonna let us go!'

One should never show their back to a beast. Even a middle schooler would know that! The moment they foolishly turned their backs and tried to flee... Kang Jin-Ho would pounce on them to cut their heads off from behind. In that case, what should the two surviving men do?

They couldn't fight back. How could they do that against a man seemingly wielding an invisible sword?!

They had a higher chance of winning if they charged at an M60-equipped encampment with nothing but a chisel as a weapon! As long as the distance was closed, anything could happen, after all![1]

In that case, what other choices did they have? Hold the beast's gaze and slowly retreat while making sure never to show their backs? And while standing upright, too? That beast was obviously not some bear but a human being!

Even if the survivors retreated, he wouldn’t let them off the hook. However, that didn't mean combat was an option, either! Even if the two survivors yelled for help, their severed heads would roll on the ground even before reinforcements could arrive on the scene.

So, what choice did they have?

The two men finally realized something. They realized why Director Bang and his men had acted that way even after receiving a barrage of insults and mockery.

“D-don't...”

Tears started trickling down the eyes of the two men. Even their pants got wet as well. But their attention was too focused on the terrifying young man standing before their eyes to notice anything else.

"D-don't kill us... Please...!"

Pride was worth less than a piece of paper when faced with the terror of looming death. These two men thought that they would greet their final moments like a man. Standing tall and proud, all that. Too bad for them, though... they had been deluding themselves all this time.

Death shouldn’t be romanticized. It certainly wasn’t heroic, either. It was simply... scary. That was all!

“Sob...!”

One of the two surviving men sobbed openly. The death he had imagined had some worth to it, at the very least. But this? This was totally pointless. Acting as a messenger of an aging sly raccoon currently hiding in a hole only to die at the hands of a mysterious but terrifying monster? Where was the worth in that? What was heroic about dying in that fashion?!

Search bit.ly/3iBfjkV for the original.

He hadn't even achieved anything, after all!

"Please, don't kill me. I, I...!"

“Mm? You think begging like that will help you keep your life?” Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head, then took a step closer to the sobbing and begging man. He lightly and casually patted the man’s tear-soaked cheek.

“Uh... Uh-euh...?”

The sobbing man's brain was plunged into uncontrollable terror, and his mind rapidly blanked out. He couldn't respond. He couldn't even talk. All he could do was mumble and whimper like an idiot.

“...You're lucky.” Kang Jin-Ho chuckled at this sight. “If we were in the past, I wouldn't have hesitated like this. You should be grateful to the modern era.”

“...I'm sorry?” The sobbing man blinked, but he never got the chance to resolve his confusion.

A dull impact spread from his neck, followed by his consciousness growing dimmer. The sobbing man prayed and prayed some more that he wasn’t dying as he blacked out.

Plop, plop...!

Two figures collapsed to the ground.

"Hmm..." Kang Jin-Ho studied the two fallen figures and quietly groaned. 'I'm not like my old self, then.'

His old self, in this case, would be Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor rather than the crippled Kang Jin-Ho. Back then, he didn't know the concept of mercy or benevolence. He didn't give a damn about the circumstances of those opposing him as well. Back then, he was only focused on the fact that some people dared to block his path.

But now? He spared the lives of two enemies just because they were weak and pathetic.

— Don't be a hypocrite.

And then, there it was, the voice from deep inside. The one hiding within Kang Jin-Ho was ridiculing him.

— Will anything change even if you acted this way? With this, do you really think that you can pretend that all the time we have spent together had never happened? Haven't you slaughtered over a thousand souls already? Weren't you the deadliest killer in Zhongyuan's history?

— Do you really think you'd suddenly become a nice guy after sparing two idiots? Mm?

'Shut up!'

Kang Jin-Ho shook his head to interrupt the voice.

“I'm not pretending to be a good person.”

He was simply doing what he wanted, that was all. Indeed, he wasn't under any sort of duress, and he certainly wasn't trying to deny his past. He was simply doing what his heart willed. Being true to his whims, so to speak.

After getting a hold of his unstable thoughts, Kang Jin-Ho glanced at the collapsed men again.

'They got lucky.'

Really, really lucky, indeed. Kang Jin-Ho stared at the two collapsed men and realized something. He would never be able to go back to being Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor again. It was all because living in this world—living in this modern era—had changed him far too much.

'...And there's no need to go back, either.'

Shwwiiing...

Kang Jin-Ho sheathed his sword, then slightly turned his head to address Bang Jin-Hun. “Let's go.”

Bang Jin-Hun could only silently nod and follow. 'I can't read him at all.'

The aura Kang Jin-Ho had emitted up until a few seconds ago was so fierce that those two bastards seemed to have been destined to get skinned alive. A gruesome death like that was on the cards, but Kang Jin-Ho decided to spare them?

'I can't... understand this.'

The 'Kang Jin-Ho' Bang Jin-Hun had been observing from below was far too unpredictable. His behavioral pattern seemed like a mystery. He would tear someone apart to death for no good reason, but sometimes he would simply knock his victims out even though the situation was barreling toward their inevitable demise, like now.

He was such a difficult type of person to understand. No other type of person was harder to deal with than someone who would perform the same actions only to produce different results every time.

Bang Jin-Hun quickly wiped away cold sweat from his forehead. Perhaps...

Could it be that the reason for this unpredictability was that... Kang Jin-Ho himself was suffering from inner confusion and chaos?

'No...'

Bang Jin-Hun quickly erased that 'distracting' thought from his head. It couldn’t be it. It definitely shouldn’t be it.

Whether he liked it or not, he was now in the same boat as Kang Jin-Ho. Since that was the case, he didn't want to imagine that this scary ally of his was a ticking time bomb who couldn't even control himself.

'Well, he's a demonic arts practitioner, so...'

Kang Jin-Ho was a demonic arts practitioner who hungered for flesh and blood, so it was only natural that he would cross the line every so often. That had to be it. Bang Jin-Hun tried to console himself with that thought.

While following Kang Jin-Ho from behind, Bang Jin-Hun noticed the sweat soaking his palms and wiped them on his clothes. This situation felt like he was in an expertly-crafted horror movie.

***

Kang Jin-Ho stared at the mansion before his eyes. “So, is this it?”

“Yes,” said Bang Jin-Hun.

The corners of Kang Jin-Ho's lips slowly curled up. "I hope it'll get more amusing."

“I'm sorry?”

“They have probably prepared many things for us. Don't you think so?”

“...Mm.” While making a tense face, Bang Jin-Hun silently nodded.

An aging raccoon was bound to dig several holes. And when such a sly creature chose not to flee but to stay hidden in one of the holes, there had to be a good reason for it.

'Besides, the security so far has been strangely lax, too.'

Bang Jin-Hun knew all too well that Lee Jung-Geol wasn't the type to step up personally to fight in the name of preserving the Martial Assembly's forces. No, that old man would stop at nothing to protect what he had, even if it meant the destruction of the Martial Assembly in the process.

As such, a man like that welcoming the intruders personally without getting the Martial Assembly involved?

'That wouldn't happen unless that old man is suffering from dementia...'

To know how a person would act, one should take a good look at how they had lived their life so far. And judging from the life story of the man named Lee Jung-Geol, the inside of that mansion should have definitely become a den of tigers and dragons by now.

Bang Jin-Hun glanced at Kang Jin-Ho. "Are we going in?"

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled derisively. "Isn't that what we're here for?"

Bang Jin-Hun immediately realized that he had uttered something useless.

'Right, it's a dangerous place only for someone like me...'

Kang Jin-Ho was a beast. A powerful predator! Such a creature wouldn't worry about some measly traps a raccoon had dug out. If there was an obstacle, the beast would simply destroy it and move on.

Kang Jin-Ho scanned Bang Jin-Hun and his men. “You lot should worry about that, not me.”

“I'm sorry?”

“Whether you want to follow me or not into this place.”

Bang Jin-Hun clenched his teeth. “From your perspective, this might seem like a joke to you, sir, but we came here knowing that we could die at any moment.”

Kang Jin-Ho silently stared at Bang Jin-Hun. And quite admirably, the latter didn't avert his gaze and stared right back while biting his lip.

"Good..." Kang Jin-Ho chuckled. Satisfaction could be spied from his expression. "Then, I guess it's okay to head inside."

He took the lead and headed to the front entrance. Bang Jin-Hun quietly addressed his subordinates. "I hope none of you is thinking about waiting for him to do all the hard work and then enjoying the fruit of his labor.”

“...Definitely not, Director.”

“Then, let's go.”

“Yes, sir!”

With Bang Jin-Hun at the front, the group followed Kang Jin-Ho and approached the mansion.

'Dammit...'

Bang Jin-Hun nervously scratched his face while taking in the sight of the mansion. Tonight, it looked particularly eerie for some reason.

***

There was no need to break the door down. The front door opened without resistance when Kang Jin-Ho turned the door knob. It was as if the house owner had left it open for the incoming guests.

'How amusing...'

Kang Jin-Ho bared his fangs in a toothy grin. When was the last time he knowingly waltzed into such an obvious trap? It had to be ages ago. As soon as he opened the door, dense killing intent and as-thick-as-oil hostility rode the air to rush into his lungs.

Imagining all sorts of entertaining things hiding within this mansion gave Kang Jin-Ho a powerful shudder of thrill down his spine.

“Kekekeke...”

The pitch-black darkness beyond the doorway felt so intimately familiar. Without a shred of hesitation, Kang Jin-Ho stepped inside. Despite knowing it was a trap, his steps actually got a little quicker. His blood was boiling!

'Maybe...'

Maybe he willingly agreed to do this just to revel in the moment, and that moment was when malicious intent from the opposing sides collided, and people desperately fought to kill each other—it was that kind of a moment.

Much to Kang Jin-Ho's relief, his expectation wasn't betrayed. When he stopped in the center of the mansion's hall, he picked up minute presences around him.

Initially, those didn't seem to belong to humans. The presences were so faint, like they were small animals carefully scurrying about.

Kang Jin-Ho scanned the surroundings, and his interest was piqued even further. He could sense that the number of presences was going up. One soon became two. Two soon grew to three. Eventually, the presences numbered a couple of dozens or so. With Kang Jin-Ho in the center, these 'creatures' circled him.

'Mm? What's this?'

Kang Jin-Ho tilted his head. These martial artists were using stealth and Nightcrawler techniques. Although Kang Jin-Ho looked down on those techniques as only small fries of the dark sects existing in the shadows practiced and mastered them, he still knew enough about them. That was why he was puzzled by how these martial artists applied those techniques. It felt rather 'off' to Kang Jin-Ho.

Without a doubt, what they were executing seemed like a stealth technique, but something about it seemed different. Their technique seemed to be built on a different framework from what Kang Jin-Ho knew.

Kang Jin-Ho continued to scan the surroundings before quietly addressing the man following him from behind. “Bang Jin-Hun.”

“Yes?” Bang Jin-Hun hurriedly responded. He had been observing Kang Jin-Ho from behind, wondering why the latter had suddenly stopped walking.

“Bang Jin-Hun. Does Lee Jung-Geol have ties with Japan?”

“...Yes. Most likely.”

“Ah. I see.” Kang Jin-Ho nodded briefly and resumed scanning the surroundings.

'Is this what they call Ninjutsu?'

He had heard about its existence back in Zhongyuan, but he never had the chance to experience it. To think that he would encounter it in the modern era, though! How amusing!

Moreover…

“...I can kill them without worrying about anything, then.” Kang Jin-Ho leisurely unsheathed Crimson Destiny and Azuremourne as a bone-chilling grin appeared on his lips. He secured his grip on the swords, then chewed the next words out to Bang Jin-Hun and Co.

“Don't come close to me.” He coldly declared. “Otherwise, you'll die.”

These fools who thought of darkness as their specialty—he had to show them what darkness truly was.

1. An M60 is a military machine gun that John Rambo used prodigiously in the climax of his first cinematic outing, Rambo: First Blood. ☜