Episode 227
The thick cloud of dust settled.
Jeok Wigang slowly walked out and looked toward Nameless, who was fleeing far into the distance.
“Run hard.”
A grin spread across Wigang’s face.
He had planted a Heavenly Mechanism Seal on Nameless and deliberately let him escape.
Wigang turned to Jin Muryang.
“I’m heading out for a bit. If anyone comes looking for me, let me know.”
“Understood.”
Nameless headed to a shabby mountain lodge in a deserted area.
After arriving, he glanced around before slipping inside.
Jeok Wigang watched the entire scene from far away.
“Is that their base?”
It looked far too run-down for that.
Maybe there was some kind of secret passage inside.
Thinking it entirely possible, Wigang carefully moved toward the lodge.
As he approached, he pricked up his ears, listening for any sounds from within.
Someone was hurrying down a flight of stairs.
So there really was a hidden space.
Was their base underground?
Wigang considered it for a moment outside.
Then he decided to go in.
He looked around and moved to the place where Nameless had entered.
Inside the hall stood a crumbling altar.
As Wigang examined the area around it, he felt a faint draft rising from below.
Sniff, sniff.
The musty smell of mold and moss seeped through the cracks.
There was definitely a cavern underneath.
He could simply smash his way in, but if that alerted the people inside and gave them a chance to escape, it would be a problem.
He searched the area again.
There had to be some mechanism that opened the entrance.
An incense burner sat atop the altar.
As he carefully examined it, something about the half-burned incense stick looked odd.
He pulled it.
GRRRT—
A door opened.
Wigang stepped inside, and the door closed automatically behind him.
A dark staircase descended so deep that its end could barely be imagined.
It was pitch-black, but to Wigang it looked as bright as day.
Even from the top, he could see all the way to the floor below.
At the bottom was a passage leading somewhere deeper inside.
Whoosh—
Rather than bother walking down every step, Wigang simply jumped.
Fwoooosh—
Tap.
After landing, he found a long, straight passage stretching out before him.
Sniff, sniff.
The scent confirmed that Nameless had gone this way.
Wigang followed it into the passage.
After traveling for quite some time, he came across another staircase.
He climbed it and emerged into a vast cavern filled with halls of various sizes.
Nameless stood in the distance, surrounded by a gathering of people.
Wigang slowly climbed up.
Then his eyes met Nameless’s.
“H-How did you get h-here?”
At Nameless’s shocked cry, everyone nearby turned toward Wigang at once.
“Who’s that?”
“Th-That’s the Lord of Heavenly Martial Castle.”
“That’s the Lord {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} of Heavenly Martial Castle? He’s a lot younger than I heard.”
“Did he undergo some kind of rejuvenation?”
Everyone tilted their heads.
“He’s the new Lord.”
“What? Then the Heavenly Martial Emperor stepped down?”
“If he isn’t the Heavenly Martial Emperor, why are you so scared?”
“Wait. Don’t tell me that’s the Lord who beat you?”
“Y-Yes.”
The people around Nameless snickered.
“What the hell? You ran all the way back here because you couldn’t handle one little brat?”
“Actually, this works out nicely. I was getting sick of hiding in this place, and now a toy walked right in on its own.”
“You just stand there and watch.”
“Heh heh. We’ll keep him alive so you can vent your anger on him afterward. Just wait.”
Mocking Nameless, they slowly approached Wigang.
Wigang stopped and asked,
“You’re with White Horse Heaven too?”
“Oh? So you came here knowing that? Then there’s even less reason to let you leave alive.”
“That’s right. This place must never become known.”
Wigang smirked.
“Is this all of you? Or are there more?”
The demons of White Horse Heaven laughed as though the question were absurd.
“Why? Aren’t we enough for you?”
“Seems like you should be worrying about yourself first.”
Ignoring them, Wigang looked around.
“I guess I’ll have to subdue you first if I want the rest to come out.”
“Ha ha ha ha! That’s funny.”
“Go ahead and—”
CRACK— CRACK— CRRRAACK!
BOOM— THUD—
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Nameless’s eyes went wide as the demons were subdued in an instant.
That must have been how he himself had gone down.
But this was beyond merely strong.
The demons Wigang had just defeated ranked among the stronger members of the Demon-Slayer class.
Yet in the blink of an eye, they were all twitching on the ground.
Nameless flinched when his eyes met Wigang’s.
Wigang grinned.
“How many are here?”
“I-I can’t tell you.”
“Is that so?”
Wigang raised a fist and punched toward the cluster of halls.
BOOOOM—
CRASH!
A single punch demolished every hall in a straight line.
“Hard to control my strength.”
He had to be careful.
If he made a mistake, the entire place might collapse.
As the halls came crashing down, the demons inside shoved aside the debris and stumbled out.
“What the hell?”
“Which bastard is causing this shit?”
“Damn it! I was sleeping!”
Every one of them looked irritated.
The commotion also drew demons from the other halls.
There were roughly twenty in total.
“What? Why are those guys lying on the ground?”
“Huh? Never seen that guy before. Is he an outsider?”
“Don’t tell me he did that to all of them.”
“Come on. No way.”
They chattered among themselves.
But Wigang’s eyes were not on the demons.
Beyond the collapsed halls, he could see another passage.
Were there more halls clustered together on the other side too?
The air around the entrance shimmered, as though something had been placed there to keep just anyone from entering.
“What’s over there that needs a formation guarding it?”
The demons who had gathered looked at him incredulously.
“You’re in serious trouble right now. That’s not what you should be wondering about.”
Wigang casually ignored them and muttered,
“Never mind. I’ll check myself.”
He moved.
CRACK— CRACK— CRRRAACK!
Heavy impacts sounded one after another.
By the time Wigang had passed through, only unconscious demons foaming at the mouth remained behind him.
He had not simply beaten them down.
He had sealed their pressure points.
Even after waking, they would be unable to move.
Unlike the Four Divine Demons and some of the other demons he had encountered, these people did not appear to have had their memories erased.
Which meant there was plenty of information to extract from them.
Wigang looked at Nameless.
“What’s over there?”
Nameless answered in a trembling voice.
“Th-That is where the C-Calamity Demon-class members reside.”
“Calamity Demon class? What, you have classes?”
“Y-Yes.”
“The Four Divine Demons didn’t know anything about classes. They only knew rankings.”
“It used to be divided by ranking, but we changed to classes.”
“Why?”
“Because many of the higher-ranked demons complained that dividing everyone purely by rank made all hundred of them seem as though they were on the same level. So the Demon-Brain Divine Demon separated us into classes.”
“What class are the Four Divine Demons?”
“Demon-Slayer class.”
“The Dragon-Scale race?”
“Demon-Slayer class.”
“And you?”
“Demon-Slayer class.”
“Those guys lying over there too?”
Nameless nodded.
“I see. Then Calamity Demon comes after Demon-Slayer?”
“Yes.”
“And after Calamity Demon?”
“Fell Demon class. Above them are the Ten Heavenly Demon Stars, and at the very top is the Lord of Heaven.”
“If you fought someone from the Calamity Demon class?”
“We would lose within ten moves.”
“What about Fell Demon class?”
“One move.”
“Interesting.”
Wigang’s eyes gleamed as he looked toward the area where the Calamity Demon-class members resided.
“Are Calamity Demons the strongest ones here?”
“There are Fell Demon-class members here as well.”
“Really?”
Following Nameless here had definitely been the right choice.
“So the living areas are divided according to class too?”
“Yes.”
Wigang turned to look at the demons lying on the ground.
“These guys are useful.”
By useful, he meant they seemed worth taking in as subordinates.
He was already short on manpower.
This worked out nicely.
Wigang looked at Nameless.
“I’ll give you a chance too.”
“What kind of chance?”
“A chance to follow me.”
Nameless stared at him in disbelief.
“Knew you’d make that face. For now, wait here.”
Tap, tap.
In an instant, Nameless’s pressure points were sealed.
“H-How?”
Nameless was stunned.
His pressure points were different from those of humans.
“I can see all of them.”
Wigang patted the immobilized Nameless on the shoulder and walked toward the shimmering entrance.
Nameless laughed inwardly.
That formation had been personally installed by the Demon-Brain Divine Demon.
No matter how monstrous Wigang was, there was no way he could break it.
Just as Nameless thought that—
Grab.
Wigang seized the shimmering formation as though it were a physical object.
RRRIP—
“Gasp!”
He literally tore the formation apart with his bare hands.
How was that even possible?
Nameless could scarcely believe what he was seeing.
The ripped formation collapsed completely, and the entire cavern shook violently.
The disturbance brought the Calamity Demon-class members rushing out.
“W-What the hell?”
“Look over there. The formation’s gone.”
“Why did a formation personally installed by the Demon-Brain Divine Demon disappear?”
“Looks like the shock from it breaking shook the whole cavern.”
The Calamity Demon-class members stared toward the entrance.
Then Wigang appeared.
They looked at him in confusion.
“What? Who’s that?”
“Is he one of ours?”
“Never seen him before.”
The atmosphere grew chaotic.
“Hey! What happened?”
One of the Calamity Demon-class demons shouted the question.
Wigang answered,
“I tore the formation apart.”
Silence fell.
Then the uproar started again.
“What the hell is he saying?”
“No idea. Says he tore the formation apart.”
“Is he insane?”
“He sure doesn’t look like one of us. I’m going over there to check.”
One of the Calamity Demon-class demons shot toward the area occupied by the Demon-Slayer class.
Wigang appeared in front of him.
The demon stared at him in disbelief and threw a punch.
He intended to send this insolent Demon-Slayer-class nobody flying for daring to block his path.
Wigang threw a punch of his own.
The demon grinned as though Wigang had just done something absurd.
THOOOM—
“Ghk!”
A shock like every bone in his body had shattered tore through him, sending him staggering backward.
He stared at his fist in shock.
It hung limp.
Clearly broken.
“W-What the hell...?”
Wigang nodded and walked toward him.
“Definitely stronger than the Demon-Slayer class.”
“Who are you?!”
“Me? Someone who’s been looking for you people for a long time. Nice to meet you.”
“What? You’re from the Central Plains?”
“Yeah.”
Wigang looked around at the Calamity Demon-class demons.
“Three.”
He singled out three of them and punched.
WHOOOOM—
KABOOOM!
The three demons slammed into the wall, their bodies reduced to bloody wrecks.
“Oh? So you really are higher-level demons.”
That strike would have obliterated a Demon-Slayer-class demon, yet these three had survived.
Wigang raised his fist again to erase them completely, then paused as something occurred to him.
“Ah... I can use them for that.”
He decided to keep them alive for now and sealed their pressure points.
“W-What... what just happened?”
“With one strike... he did that to them....”
“What the hell is that human?”
The display of power was absurd.
That single move was enough for every Calamity Demon-class demon present to understand one thing clearly.
They were no match for Jeok Wigang.
“The rest of you are useful.”
What exactly did he mean by useful?
The demons stared at him uneasily.
“All right. Question. How many White Horse Heaven demons are in this place?”
“You think we’d tell you that?!”
CRACK!
“Ghuuugh!”
Thump.
None of them had even seen Wigang strike.
They swallowed hard as they watched their comrade collapse unconscious, writhing in pain.
“It’s not that difficult a question.”

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