Chapter 331: Silver Flower Pavilion (3) |
“Since I haven’t drawn my sword yet, this is a negotiation.”
I had kindly explained just how gentle a person I was, yet for some reason the reaction was not very good.
“So you’re telling me to crawl on my own, is that it?”
“That wording is a bit harsh. I’m saying there might be a way for all of us to resolve this peacefully.”
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon silently glared in this direction. I calmly continued speaking toward him.
“Think about it. A war with the Demonic Cult will happen anyway.”
“Well. I don’t think that will be my war.”
“The Demonic Cult has no intention of leaving you alone. So it will soon become your war as well.”
When I pointed my chin toward Dan Yul, the killing intent of the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon grew thicker and thicker.
Dan Yul’s fingertips twitched, and the eyes that had been closed slowly began to open.
“Lo-Lord? What… who are those people?”
“Shh. Sleep a little longer.”
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon tried to gently press Dan Yul’s acupoints with a soft motion of his hand, so I flicked my finger and blocked it with a wind finger strike.
“No. Since she’s already awake, it wouldn’t be bad to speak with the person involved.”
“Pardon? The person involved? What do you mean, guest?”
“It’s something everyone already knows, so don’t worry.”
A body curled up as if frightened.
Eyes darting around as if observing the situation.
Yet at the same time, feet subtly adjusting their angle while checking the escape routes so she could run away at any moment.
It was the movement of a fairly skilled spy who hid a certain sharpness within apparent clumsiness.
Of course, it was nowhere near enough to deceive the eyes of a Flowering Stage warrior.
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon must have realized it not long after as well. He had simply pretended not to know and continued to watch in silence.
However, problems cannot be buried forever.
I glanced at the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon, whose cold expression seemed to warn me not to say anything further, and then opened my mouth.
“Dan Yul. Or perhaps that isn’t even your real name. Anyway, I know you’re a spy of the Demonic Cult.”
“What?! N-No, that’s not true, Lord! I have nothing to do with the Demonic Cult!”
Dan Yul jumped in shock at my words and shook her head desperately toward the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon.
At first glance, that desperate appearance really did make her seem like someone being unfairly accused.
“The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon already knows. There’s no need to keep acting.”
“Please don’t frame me! Lord! A spy?! Did you really think that of me?! That’s not true, I really…!”
“Stop.”
“…Pardon?”
“I’ll briefly explain the situation. The White Moon Sword Lord already knew that you, Yul, were a spy of the Demonic Cult, and he came here to prepare for the coming war with the Demonic Cult.”
“I don’t quite understand what you’re saying…”
“Before the war begins, he wants me to clearly stand on the side of the Black Lotus Sect. No—more precisely, on the side of the Central Plains.”
“W-Wait a moment. Is this because I once said the Demonic Cult has many amazing techniques since their evil arts are so advanced? I absolutely didn’t mean anything by that! I just said it because it seemed like you had many worries, Lord, and it reminded me of something I’d heard before!”
“I’m sorry. He says that if I don’t decide here and now, he’ll cut both of us down… To be honest, I don’t have the confidence to face him. That man is a monster. Judging by his actions so far and the killing intent I feel, if he says he’ll do it, he will.”
“That’s embarrassing. I’m not that much.”
“Brother Cheon. Brother Cheon. That wasn’t a compliment.”
From behind me, Tang Sowol, who had quietly stepped back, whispered softly and stopped me.
As a fiancé who listened well to his partner, I had no choice but to shut my mouth for the moment.
Though I did place my hand on my sword hilt.
For some reason, Dan Yul flinched and cautiously raised her head.
There stood the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon, wearing the same unchanged expression and a bitter smile.
“Yul… I’m sorry. It seems I won’t be able to grant your request.”
“Lord…?”
“But whether I die by the Heavenly Demon or by the White Moon Sword Lord, my death will be the same in the end. Could you be satisfied with that?”
“I don’t know exactly what kind of place the Demonic Cult is, but spies who fail their duties inevitably get disposed of. But we won’t even reach that point—there’s immediate danger right now, so there’s no other choice.”
“I’ve done things worthy of death. Many of them. But you haven’t. At worst, you deceived me… and I’ll forgive that. So live.”
“Fo… forgive…?”
Dan Yul had been listening with her lips tightly sealed and a confused expression. But the moment she heard the word forgive, her eyes suddenly ignited.
As if she had heard something she absolutely should not have heard.
“You… just said you’d forgive me, Lord?”
“Mm…”
On the contrary, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon began stammering as if he had misspoken.
Perhaps that reaction snapped something in Dan Yul.
She flinched for a moment, but then her complexion completely changed as if she had reached a decision.
A frightened young courtesan.
A weak person who had learned martial arts, but only for basic self-defense.
Yet she suddenly shed the anxiety of that position and became completely expressionless.
From Dan Yul’s mouth came a dry voice like a cracked old tree.
“So you knew everything.”
“That—”
“You knew everything, and you still said you’d forgive me? That I should live? Now, after everything?”
“W-Wait, calm down, Yul. I can explain everything.”
“What explanation? Ah… is that it? The usual story where you suddenly feel guilty now?”
“First, could you at least listen to me—”
“Do you think! Do you think that would erase what’s already happened?!”
Her eyes flashed with venom and malice as her arm shot toward the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon’s throat.
Hidden within her sleeve, a small throwing knife glittered in her hand.
Of course, with such clumsy movements—someone who had never properly trained in martial arts could never deal with the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon.
It was literally an action born from despair. Something closer to suicide.
Yet…
Surprisingly, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon simply grabbed Dan Yul’s knife with his bare hand and made no further movement.
He didn’t strike down the person who had tried to kill him.
He didn’t even twist her arm to subdue her.
He merely stood there, blood dripping from his hand, repeatedly trying and failing to say something, gulping empty breaths.
Like a fish that had come onto land and forgotten how to breathe.
At that moment, Dan Yul—who had prepared herself for death—hesitated.
“Hm.”
Thwack!
Dan Yul was struck on the back of the head by my sword still in its sheath, and she immediately slumped forward, losing consciousness.
“White Moon Sword Lord…!”
“She’s not dead.”
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon had obviously noticed my movement, but perhaps because his mind was elsewhere, he failed to react properly.
I let out a long sigh and shook my head.
He examined Dan Yul with a murderous aura as if ready to rush me at any moment.
Only after confirming she was unharmed did the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon finally release a sigh of relief.
Rubbing my throbbing temples, I spoke.
“Now that I see it, this wasn’t even a situation where you could fight properly. Lust Demon or not, how did a warrior who reached the level of an absolute master end up like a toothless cat?”
“…May I lay this child inside first and then speak?”
“Do as you like.”
Though he was called a Lust Demon and underestimated in terms of combat, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon was still a Flowering Stage warrior.
If he wished, he could easily become the ruler of an entire region.
Just by surrounding himself with protective qi, even countless warriors below the Sub-Perfection level could not oppose him.
Moreover, he had survived until now while living as a fugitive within the unorthodox martial world.
His power was certainly not weak, and his temperament was not fragile either.
If he was showing such lifeless behavior now, there had to be a reason.
Unless I discovered it and dealt with it somehow…
Even if the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon stood on the side of the Black Lotus Sect, he would not be able to display his true strength.
After returning the sword that I had not yet drawn to my waist, I continued speaking while still sitting on the floor.
“So? At this point, shouldn’t you explain? What happened, and why you protected someone even while knowing she was a spy of the Demonic Cult.”
“You’re telling me to speak while this is still a negotiation rather than a threat.”
“You understand well.”
“I’m beginning to understand what kind of person the White Moon Sword Lord is.”
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon forced the corners of his lips upward and tapped the spot beside him.
“The bed is wide. Instead of sitting on that hard floor, how about sitting here?”
“…I’m comfortable here.”
“Hoho. I was joking.”
With a tired smile and a thin voice that could hardly be believed to belong to a man, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon spoke after a moment of silence.
“Yul… that child is the daughter of a man I loved. A man whose life I ruined because of me.”
“I see. Not by blood, but like your own child… Wait. A man?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Weren’t you someone who liked women? I heard your relations with men were only to recover your yang essence.”
“Oh my. Do you believe the rumors spread among the public just like that? How naïve.”
“What?”
“I spread those rumors deliberately.”
As I slowly edged backward, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon chuckled.
“That way, Yul would think she could deceive me and stay by my side.”
“…What?”
Tang Sowol and I blinked at each other in confusion, and soon the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon continued his explanation.
“It all started around the time I reached the Flowering Stage and began to be called the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon.”
At that time, he had been trying to seduce a warrior monk of Shaolin whom he had kidnapped in order to obtain pure yang energy.
But the monk was extremely rigid and mentally strong, so things did not go as he wished.
Eventually, however, he succeeded.
Yet after finally seizing the monk’s yang energy following long hardship, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon could not simply rejoice in achieving his goal.
Because what satisfied him was not the rising yang energy…
but the fact that he had been joined with the monk himself.
“Uh… so…”
“That was when I first realized it myself.”
“I-I see.”
I instinctively stepped further away toward Tang Sowol.
Tang Sowol also stepped in front of me with a resolute expression.
Seeing this, the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon smiled bitterly and waved his hand as if telling us not to be wary.
“Anyway, after that day I meditated for a long time and finally had no choice but to admit it. My preferences had changed.”
By acknowledging the self he had unconsciously denied, he said he finally reached a complete Flowering Stage.
After that, as widely known, he returned the warrior monk to Shaolin, and the story of what happened spread—thus he came to be called the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon.
But that was only the story that circulated publicly.
The kidnapped monk had his own aftermath.
The shock of the incident led him to destroy his own dantian and request expulsion from Shaolin, saying he could no longer live as a Shaolin warrior monk.
What followed was not much different from the other victims of the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon.
After returning to the secular world, he could not forget the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon, yet could not accept it either.
So like others, he lived a normal life—taking a wife and having a child.
But how long could a family built without love last?
Before long the household completely fell apart.
Eventually, Dan Yul’s mother ran away in anger and was killed by Green Forest bandits.
When Dan Yul’s father learned this later, he blamed himself for her death, fell ill, and eventually died.
Left alone, Dan Yul endured countless hardships when black-path warriors attacked her home, believing her father must have left behind Shaolin martial arts as a renowned warrior monk.
After suffering terribly, she eventually fled all the way to the Demonic Cult.
Dan Yul believed the fundamental cause of her ruined life was the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon violating her father.
“So she hid by my side to take revenge. Without even knowing she had been discovered from the start.”
“I see…”
The first person he had ever loved had left because they could not be together.
Yet because of that, the man’s life collapsed and he died painfully of illness.
The only child he left behind burned with hatred, became a spy of the Demonic Cult, and infiltrated Silver Flower Pavilion.
The Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon learned all of this and chose to pretend not to know, even though he understood the end would not be good.
Because—
“If I touched her life, it would surely be ruined just like her father’s.”
I thought the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon had been bewitched by Dan Yul.
But the circumstances were completely different.
Before my regression, when he died by Dan Yul’s hand…
it must have been because he was willing to save her despite being a discovered spy, secure her recognition within the Demonic Cult, and even give her the internal energy he had accumulated throughout his life.
He had not died because he was deceived.
He died because he chose to be deceived.
So that Dan Yul might at least have a path to survive in the coming chaos.
I do not know whether to call this maternal love…
or paternal love.
But…
one thing is certain.
What mattered was the sincerity of the Brahma Heavenly Lust Demon—not the name attached to it.
As I nodded with complicated feelings, a sudden sense of incongruity struck me.
“Wait. Then you put a girl you think of like a daughter on your bed… Are you insane?”
“Hm? I don’t know what you were imagining, but I was only performing Body-Cleansing and Marrow-Washing.”
“Body-Cleansing and Marrow-Washing?”
“To think you believed I touched Yul like that. White Moon Sword Lord, you might actually have talent to be a Lust Demon.”
“I don’t need that kind of talent.”