The leader of the West Heaven Society could scarcely believe his own ears.
Unless he had heard wrong, that young brat had just declared that he intended to smash the Asura Demon Lord's head in.
Has he lost his mind?
It was an entirely reasonable conclusion.
After all, who was the Asura Demon Lord?
He was a disciple of the Dark Heavenly Son.
Even the most notorious villains of the current era had never entirely escaped the Dark Heavenly Son's shadow.
Despite having vanished from the martial world decades ago, the Dark Heavenly Son still wielded an influence greater than that of the Black Plaque Star Lord, who was presently regarded as the foremost figure of the Black Path.
Nam Ilcheon, the West Heaven Society Leader, briefly glanced toward the corpse of Hwang Byeok, the Tiger Hunt Team Leader.
The young man's dark iron staff had shattered Hwang Byeok's head with a single blow.
And although the movement had lasted only an instant, Nam Ilcheon himself had failed to follow it.
That alone proved the young man was an extraordinary martial artist.
Unfortunately, he had chosen the wrong opponent.
There was no doubt in Nam Ilcheon's mind that the Asura Demon Lord would kill him.
However, Nam Ilcheon's own circumstances were hardly reassuring.
His gaze naturally shifted toward Zhuge Lin.
"Are you from the Martial Alliance?"
"...I am Zhuge Lin, Deputy Commander of the Black Tortoise Unit."
Nam Ilcheon cursed inwardly.
A deputy commander of the Martial Alliance? And she's from the Zhuge family?
Things were rapidly spiraling out of control.
It wouldn't necessarily be a problem if the Asura Demon Lord killed the young man and Zhuge Lin.
Although Nam Ilcheon treated him with the utmost respect and served him faithfully, the Asura Demon Lord was not actually a member of the West Heaven Society.
But if those two were killed within the West Heaven Society's headquarters, that would be an entirely different matter.
The Martial Alliance alone was an overwhelming force to contend with.
And of all people, the young woman belonged to the Zhuge family.
No matter how powerful the West Heaven Society might be as an unorthodox organization, neither was an opponent it could afford to provoke.
Nam Ilcheon stole a sideways glance at the Asura Demon Lord.
The old man's ordinarily benevolent face was flushed with an ugly mixture of red and blue.
It was hardly surprising.
A young brat had just announced to his face that he intended to smash his skull.
Nam Ilcheon squeezed his eyes shut, took several deep breaths, and finally summoned his courage.
"Demon Lord, allow me to punish these insolent fools."
"What?"
The Asura Demon Lord's roar exploded through the office.
The very air seemed to ring, and Nam Ilcheon felt his skin prickle.
Nevertheless, he swallowed hard and continued.
"How could I possibly trouble the Demon Lord with a pair of youngsters? I made my request before I understood who we were dealing with. Now that I know they're merely young brats, I'll take care of them myself..."
Thwack!
Nam Ilcheon's head snapped backward.
A sharp pain erupted in his forehead, turning his vision white for an instant.
"How dare someone like you look down on the Black Master's disciple?!"
Nam Ilcheon hurriedly wiped the blood trickling down his forehead.
"T-that's not what I meant..."
Of course, Nam Ilcheon knew of the Black Master.
But he did not know him particularly well.
By the time Nam Ilcheon, now a middle-aged man, had begun establishing his reputation in the Black Path, the Black Master had already disappeared from the martial world.
In fact, Zhuge Lin, who had studied detailed records of the Black Path, knew considerably more about him than Nam Ilcheon did.
Still, even Nam Ilcheon knew that the Black Master had been a terrifying villain.
He also knew that the man had ranked among the foremost disciples of the Dark Heavenly Son.
Even if he's that monster's disciple, he's still just a young brat...
To Nam Ilcheon, the Asura Demon Lord seemed to be making an unnecessary fuss.
He assumed that the old man's personal fear of the Black Master was simply being transferred onto the Black Master's disciple.
But the Asura Demon Lord was not so foolish.
His fear of the Black Master was one thing.
The young man named Cheon Woojin standing before him was another.
He was perfectly capable of distinguishing between the two.
The problem was that the aura emanating from Cheon Woojin was extraordinary in its own right.
The young man's martial abilities were so far beyond what his age should have permitted that the Asura Demon Lord had momentarily mistaken him for the Black Master himself, restored to youth.
The Asura Demon Lord clicked his tongue at Nam Ilcheon.
"Tsk. Pathetic fool. You can't even properly assess the opponent standing right in front of you, yet you call yourself a leader of the Black Path?"
Anger began boiling inside Nam Ilcheon.
For some reason, one infuriating thing after another had been happening to him today.
His subordinates were all as useless as insects.
And now the Asura Demon Lord, whom he had served with absolute devotion, was openly treating him with contempt.
There were days like that.
Days when absolutely nothing went right.
Days when everything in the world seemed determined to get on your nerves.
For Nam Ilcheon, today was precisely such a day.
"Demon Lord."
His voice dropped.
The Asura Demon Lord gave a hollow laugh at the change in his demeanor.
"What are you doing now?"
"Did you just say that I couldn't even judge the strength of that young brat?"
The Asura Demon Lord burst into hearty laughter, as though the question itself were amusing.
"Yes, that's exactly what I said. Do you have a problem with it?"
"Yes."
"What?"
At that moment, powerful energy erupted from Nam Ilcheon's entire body.
Rumble!
The spacious office began to shake.
After all, Nam Ilcheon was a man who had carved out his position of power with nothing but his fists.
He stared directly at the Asura Demon Lord.
"What will you do if I beat that brat to death right here?"
"What? Hahahahaha!"
The Asura Demon Lord laughed for a long time.
And as the laughter continued, Nam Ilcheon's imposing aura grew steadily more intense.
"Society Leader. No, Ilcheon."
"..."
"If you manage to beat that child to death in front of me, I'll grant you one wish. Anything you desire."
The Asura Demon Lord grinned.
But to Nam Ilcheon, that grin might as well have been saying:
You pathetic fool. How could someone like you possibly kill the Black Master's disciple?
The last thread of Nam Ilcheon's patience was on the verge of snapping.
Struggling desperately to maintain his composure, he forced the words through his teeth.
"If I kill him, Demon Lord, I want you to leave the West Heaven Society. If we lay a hand on a daughter of the Zhuge family, our entire organization will be finished that very day."
"Hoho. It seems the days you spent helping me have been rather difficult for you. Very well. If you kill the Black Master's disciple, I'll withdraw as you wish."
The Asura Demon Lord readily nodded his agreement.
A moment later, both of Nam Ilcheon's fists turned crimson.
Red Hand Defeating Power Fist.
A fist technique that crushed its targets with overwhelming force.
Its name was remarkably straightforward.
But this was the very martial art that had elevated Nam Ilcheon to the position of hegemon over the Black Path of an entire region.
He began striding toward Cheon Woojin.
Yet Woojin made no move to meet him.
Instead, he simply glanced back and forth between Nam Ilcheon and the Asura Demon Lord before speaking.
"Who gave you permission?"
Nam Ilcheon's footsteps stopped.
Even though the Society Leader was radiating an overwhelming aura of killing intent, Cheon Woojin treated him as though he weren't there.
His eyes remained fixed on the Asura Demon Lord.
"Asura Demon Lord, are you afraid of me?"
"...What?"
Woojin casually pointed toward Nam Ilcheon with the Crescent Moon Staff.
"Are you so frightened that you're willing to send a subordinate who has served you faithfully to his death, just to test my abilities?"
"..."
The Asura Demon Lord fell silent.
For some inexplicable reason, he felt as though he were standing before the Black Master himself.
And perhaps that was only natural.
After all, martial arts were not the only things the Black Master and White Master had taught Cheon Woojin.
Martial arts, language, thoughts, values...
They had taught him everything a human being needed to know.
The Black Master and White Master had each taken the blank canvas of a young child's mind and painted it in their own colors.
The result was the Cheon Woojin who stood there now.
And at that moment, it seemed as though Woojin could see straight through the Asura Demon Lord's thoughts.
The Asura Demon Lord had feared the Black Master.
He had feared him so deeply that even now, merely recalling the man caused his body to tremble and his breathing to quicken without his realizing it.
Naturally, that fear extended to the disciple the Black Master had raised.
That was precisely why the Asura Demon Lord had deliberately allowed Nam Ilcheon to step forward.
Before fighting Cheon Woojin himself, he wanted to see just what kind of disciple the Black Master had produced.
Meanwhile, Woojin was growing angry.
To think someone who was my Black Master's junior martial brother would behave so disgracefully...
His voice dropped even lower.
"If you see the Black Master in me..."
"..."
"Are you going to run away?"
Every person in the office was now staring at the Asura Demon Lord.
Yet the old man could find no words to answer.
It was not merely because Cheon Woojin had accurately exposed his intentions.
His expression, his tone, even the atmosphere around him... They're astonishingly similar to the Black Master.
When the Asura Demon Lord had first laid eyes on Woojin, he had simply thought that the young man bore an uncanny resemblance to the Black Master.
But now, for some reason, Woojin seemed genuinely disappointed in him.
Angry, even.
And as that disappointment and anger became more apparent, the image of the Black Master in his younger days began to overlap more and more strongly with the young man standing before him.
Just as the Asura Demon Lord continued his silence—
"You sons of bitches..."
Nam Ilcheon, whose face had turned as red as his fists, spat out a furious curse.
He growled through clenched teeth.
When he considered everything they had just said, there was only one possible interpretation.
Both the young brat and the Asura Demon Lord genuinely believed he would lose.
And worse, they seemed to consider that outcome perfectly natural.
Nam Ilcheon could no longer contain himself.
He charged straight at Cheon Woojin.
But even then, Woojin continued looking at the Asura Demon Lord.
His calm, composed profile only inflamed Nam Ilcheon's rage further.
The Society Leader closed the distance with tremendous speed, displaying the prowess expected of a man who ruled a major regional faction of the Black Path.
Then he threw his punch.
A crimson fist aura, resembling a blazing flame, shimmered around his hand.
The concentrated power of a master was formidable enough to crush ordinary metal in a single blow.
As his fist approached, its blazing red aura cast a crimson glow across Cheon Woojin's face.
Closer.
Closer still.
And just as the fist was about to connect—
Cheon Woojin turned his head slightly.
For a brief instant, his eyes met Nam Ilcheon's.
The Society Leader smiled triumphantly.
The young man was still completely defenseless.
At this distance, even the Asura Demon Lord would be unable to react in time.
Die!
His fist struck Cheon Woojin.
Thud!
But something was wrong with the sound.
It wasn't the sharp crack of flesh being struck, nor the crushing impact of a body being smashed.
Just a dull, heavy thud.
What...?
The instant that thought crossed Nam Ilcheon's mind, an agonizing pain shot through his fist.
A dark iron staff stood between his fist and Cheon Woojin.
But Nam Ilcheon wasn't particularly concerned.
He was confident that his strike possessed enough force to smash through the iron staff and crush the young man's head along with it.
Unfortunately, the thing that shattered was his own fist.
T-ten-thousand-year-old dark iron?!
Ten-thousand-year-old dark iron.
Alongside ten-thousand-year-old cold iron, it was renowned as one of the hardest metals in existence.
Indeed, the raw strength of ten-thousand-year-old dark iron was said to surpass even that of its cold-iron counterpart.
And the Crescent Moon Staff was forged from that very material.
But by the time Nam Ilcheon realized what he had struck, it was already too late.
Thwack!
Nam Ilcheon instinctively clutched his left shoulder.
A terrible pain erupted through it.
He knew he had been struck by the staff.
But he hadn't even seen it move.
And before he could recover from the shock—
Thud!
An enormous force slammed into his chest.
He looked down.
The tip of the dark iron staff was buried against his solar plexus.
His breath caught in his throat, and a wave of nausea surged through him.
The tremendous impact was about to send him flying backward.
But at that very instant—
Crunch!
The Crescent Moon Staff was withdrawn with such speed that the movement was almost impossible to perceive.
And before Nam Ilcheon's body could even be hurled away, the staff descended upon his head from above.
The blow crushed straight downward.
Naturally, Nam Ilcheon's entire body was smashed beneath it.
"..."
Silence descended upon the office.
Zhuge Lin and the West Heaven Society's martial artists had been unable to follow what had happened.
Everything had taken place in an instant.
One moment, the Society Leader had been charging toward Cheon Woojin.
The next, the dark iron staff had traced a series of blurred movements through the air.
And three sickening impacts, each separated by only the slightest fraction of time, had sounded in rapid succession.
Now the Society Leader lay collapsed on the floor, his body crushed.
In an ordinary battle, the entire exchange would have lasted no longer than a single breath.
Yet there were two people who had clearly perceived every movement.
One was naturally Cheon Woojin, the man wielding the Crescent Moon Staff.
And the other was—
"Black Master..."
The Asura Demon Lord's complexion turned deathly pale.
To everyone else, the exchange had been nothing more than three nearly simultaneous sounds of flesh being crushed.
But to the Asura Demon Lord, those movements were unmistakable.
He had recognized three familiar, terrifying techniques.
The technique that shattered Nam Ilcheon's shoulder—
Willow Blade Falling Flower.
The technique that struck his solar plexus—
Dark Tail Flash.
And the technique that crushed his entire body—
Black Dark Thunder.
Every single one of them was a technique with which the Black Master had beaten him mercilessly in the past.
The Black Master.
A man the Asura Demon Lord had once feared even more than the Dark Heavenly Son himself.
Cheon Woojin lightly twirled the Crescent Moon Staff, shaking the blood from its surface.
Then his gaze shifted toward the Asura Demon Lord.
"So, are you going to run away?"
To the Asura Demon Lord, even those words seemed to overlap with the voice he had heard so many times before.
The Black Master's voice.
The voice that had tormented him relentlessly.
—Hoho. Hurry up and move. It's more fun when you run away.