Descent of the Demon Master

Gawain gasped loudly. He was at the front of the group, waiting for the incoming attack, but Kang Jin-Ho defied his expectations by leaping above the Elder Knights’ heads!

‘That’s insanity!’

What a stupid act that was! Jumping on top of enemies was one of the forbidden actions on a battlefield.

In a battle involving ordinary soldiers, such a move could be utilized to catch the enemy by surprise. If jumping on top of them could even be done, that was!

However, leaping over martial artists would be a fatal mistake. While in the air, you’d be exposed to all sorts of attacks from below.

It should not be done, so Gawain never expected his enemy to do it. And that was why he was slow to react. By the time he realized he must attack, Kang Jin-Ho had already jumped past Gawain and other Elder Knights!

‘Where is he going?!’

Gawain urgently spun his head, then his brows shot up in shock.

“Stop him! Right noooow!”

Understandably, her complexion had turned pale white from the sight of Kang Jin-Ho flying in toward her like a streak of lightning. The other Elder Knights, who should have acted as barricades, had failed to react to Kang Jin-Ho's sudden move! Which meant…

‘Oh, no!’

Bedivere wanted to scream right now.

Only two among the eleven Elder Knights could claim to be bona fide mages, and Bedivere was one of them.

It might seem odd to say only two were mages, though, considering other Knights could use magic to a certain degree. So, the correct thing would've been to consider most of them as mages.

However, Bedivere and Kay were the only members who didn't master any swordsmanship and focused purely on magic to the point where they earned the right to become Elder Knights.

Even then, Bedivere was a bit special. While Kay specialized in ice-type and support magic, she focused on fire-type and explosion magic.

If the Elder Knights were compared to an army, Bedivere would be the artillery. Her job was to stay at the back and bombard the enemy with her maximum firepower whenever she spotted an opening.

Unsurprisingly, her destructive power was the greatest out of everyone here. And it was also versatile, to boot. However, as a mage with zero sword skills, she was naturally hopeless in any and all types of close-quarter combat. As such, it was the other Elder Knights' duty to stand in front of her and provide protection.

‘You useless bunch of idiots!’

Bedivere screamed in her head after realizing that her comrades had failed to do their job properly.

The Elder Knights wouldn’t usually slip up like this. However, remaining calm and cool-headed after witnessing the gruesome death of their comrade was asking too much from them.

Even Bedivere did not expect Kang Jin-Ho to leap over her comrades in front and charge straight at her, so how could she blame anyone else for letting their guard down!

“Shield! Shield! Shield!”

Bedivere rapidly cast her spells. In close combat, she'd get massacred without putting up any resistance whatsoever. However, buying enough time for her comrades to come to her rescue should be doable, at least!

She extracted as much mana as possible in that brief time to pour it into her shield spell.

This shield should be able to hold out for a few precious seconds against even the strongest warrior on this planet.

Bedivere was confident that her shields would withstand the combined assault of the ten… No, nine Elder Knights for a good few seconds!

Her confidence was not misplaced! Her pride was well deserved!

Unfortunately, it turned out that her pride and confidence were fairly easy to trample on.

Shuffle…!

Kang Jin-Ho's Crimson Destiny fluently scythed through the air. This strike was a world apart from his previous tyrannical and ultra-sharp attacks. Its smoothness and gentleness were reminiscent of a caring father lovingly patting his son. And this gentle suppleness easily pushed Bedivere's hardness back.

Even though she believed her shield spells were stronger and sturdier than anything found in this world, Kang Jin-Ho's sword still cut into the protective barriers' grain with consummate ease.

Bedivere was so stunned by the sight of the sword slipping past the shields like a hot knife through butter that her heart nearly leaped out of her mouth. In that split second, her thought process froze up.

Her brain started functioning again just as Kang Jin-Ho’s sword moved. It maintained its supple, gentle trajectory to completely slice apart Bedivere’s protective magic barrier.

“Ah…!”

She didn’t even have the time to feel despair. Her jaw fell like a stunned child instead. And her wide-open eyes took in the sight of Kang Jin-Ho descending toward her like the God of Death!

“Ah… Aaaaaaahk!”

Bedivere suddenly sobered up, then thrust her hands toward Kang Jin-Ho while screaming. Mana instantly converged in her hands.

Unfortunately, even before she could summon her trademark destructive flames… Kang Jin-Ho’s sword was faster.

Slice.

A pair of severed hands fell to the floor with a wet plop. Bedivere dazedly stared at her hands no longer attached to her arms.

Severed? Her hands? But how?

This spectacle didn't seem real to her senses. There was no pain, so how was she supposed to take this development as reality?

However, she had no choice but to accept it.

Stab!

Kang Jin-Ho’s uncaring blade stabbed into Bedivere’s shoulder. It cleanly sliced through a human being’s tender flesh before stopping mere millimeters away from her heart.

Bedivere stared in stunned silence. “…!”

Kang Jin-Ho looked into her eyes while whispering to her. “There is…”

“…”

“...No such thing as a safe space on a battlefield.”

Those words had the potential to become valuable life lessons for Bedivere. If only Kang Jin-Ho didn’t split her heart open right after saying his piece, that was!

Plop!

Bedivere’s lifeless body fell to the floor. Heat rapidly dissipated from her unmoving corpse.

Kang Jin-Ho turned his head away from her. He could see the remaining Elder Knights charging at him, their minds almost reaching a berserk state after losing two comrades in the proverbial blink of an eye.

“I’ll kill yooooou!”

“Uwaaaaaah!”

Kang Jin-Ho faintly smirked at this sight. They wanted to kill him? How laughable!

Even though they proudly call themselves Knights and whatnot, they had no idea what real war was like. And they had made a fatal mistake by thinking that they could go to war against Kang Jin-Ho!

The Elder Knights might have fought many battles throughout centuries, but Kang Jin-Ho had fought at least twice as many wars as they had. He was a man who basically had lived most of his life in one battle or the other, after all!

As a man with such experience under his belt, Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t help but view these Elder Knights and their methods as sloppy. Amateurish.

Fighting with their comrades side-by-side? Entrusting something they couldn’t do to another comrade?

That whole notion was utterly laughable to Kang Jin-Ho. Maybe such a strategy would've worked when it was an army of ordinary soldiers going up against another army. However, when martial art experts were fighting? That idea would be nothing more than a delusion. An inane daydream!

A martial artist moved differently from an ordinary person with no cultivation.

No matter how much you block their path, no matter how you try to keep your movements and actions as organized as possible… If you couldn't stop the small number of enemy elites moving faster than you, such a thing as a military formation and tactics would ultimately mean nothing.

It was a similar premise to how setting up an air-defense network and deploying hundreds of tanks on the ground to create a figurative wall of steel could not stop a single latest-generation fighter plane.

With these Elder Knights' mindset, it didn't matter how much stronger they could become.

Even the latest and greatest weapons system would be no better than a slightly shinier replacement to old weapons if the operator was too stuck in their fixed ways and didn’t even bother to bring out its full potential.

“You bastaaaard!”

For example, like that Elder Knight, currently roaring and charging at Kang Jin-Ho!

‘What an idiot.’

Kang Jin-Ho frowned deeply. Yes, the Elder Knights just lost two of their comrades. But, so what? People died all the time on battlefields, didn't they?

One shouldn't dare step into an active war zone if they were not prepared to die. Because death was potentially around the corner for everyone and their comrades on a fierce battlefield.

So, for that Elder Knight to lose his cool at the death of his comrades and rush toward a deadly enemy?

‘Well, at least he’s being considerate.’

In this way, the dead comrades wouldn’t feel lonely for long, now would they!

The Elder Knight in question, Hector, crazily dashed toward Kang Jin-Ho at the speed of sound. He raised his mace high. This blunt weapon, filled to the brim with a heavy, dense aura, came smashing down on Kang Jin-Ho's head.

Shuffle…

Kang Jin-Ho’s Crimson Destiny moved fluently once more. His target this time was the side of the mace.

He didn't even try to hit it hard. He wasn't even trying to cut it down, either. He simply pressed the sword to the side of the falling mace with a supple gentleness, then lightly pushed it away.

Rumble, woouuooonng!

The mace, buzzing and rumbling from the aura overload, was easily diverted from its original trajectory. It missed Kang Jin-Ho's shoulder by mere millimeters before slamming down on the ground.

KA-BOOOOOOM!

The floor exploded and overturned as if a dynamite had gone off!

As the debris flew past his face, Hector instinctively realized what he had done. His fearful gaze, previously locked on the floor, slowly shifted to his side.

Beyond the curtains of dust and pebble, he could faintly see Kang Jin-Ho's face. At first, there were the eyes. Then, his lips!

Kang Jin-Ho’s eyes were so cold that merely looking into them almost froze Hector’s soul. On the other hand, Kang Jin-Ho’s lips were ever so slightly curled up in a smirk.

When Hector saw that, he knew what would be his fate.

Kang Jin-Ho’s sword elegantly moved again. Its movement was not fast, but neither was it slow. It was moving… at an adequate speed.

Even then, Hector knew he couldn't fight back or do anything against that attack. That was because… In his vision, all the pebbles and debris flying up seemed to have frozen in time!

After sensing the immediate threat to his life, Hector’s brain overclocked itself and began crazily slowing the time down. As a result, it looked like everything in the world had frozen in space.

That “everything” included pebbles, debris, Hector's comrades, and even his own body! His own flesh couldn't keep up with the brain's signals and could only move agonizingly slowly.

However, in this frozen world, only Kang Jin-Ho moved without any issues as if the restriction of time and space didn’t apply to him.

‘N-no, wait!’

It could only mean that, in the regular-speed world, Kang Jin-Ho’s sword must be moving at a speed no human eye could follow!

Inside this space of serene silence, Kang Jin-Ho's sword slowly dug into Hector's neck. Starting from the sensation of something cold and terrifying slowly kissing his skin, then the feeling of his flesh slowly cleaving apart, and to the feeling of cold metal cutting deeper into the concentration of his nerve cells under the skin…

Hector had no choice but to vividly experience all these sensations! He wanted to open his mouth to scream, but his jaw didn't move. All he could do was scream and scream again in his mind.

As the crippling, maddening pain in excruciating detail

burned deep into his consciousness, endless regret poured into his head, followed swiftly by despair.

All the time Hector devoted to training and his sky-high martial prowess became devices of his torture. His brain followed the training by faithfully responding to the imminent danger to its owner. As a result, Hector now got to taste the horrifying pain most human beings would never experience. And at thousands of times the usual intensity, too!

By the time Kang Jin-Ho's sword finished slicing through the flesh to reach the neck bone, Hector finally felt relief wash over him. This horrifying torture was about to come to an end. Once that blade cut through the bones and finished completely severing his head, Hector would be liberated from this hellish pain!

Slice!

That chilling noise accompanied Hector’s severed head flying in the air.

No one here would know. No one. They would never figure out why the severed head flying in the air was smiling like that! And why it looked so indescribably happy!

Plop!

The severed head landed on the floor and rolled all the way to Kang Jin-Ho’s foot. He didn’t even bother to glance at the dead man’s face while kicking it away.

Without thinking, Gawain hurriedly caught the head of his comrade flying toward him.

“…!”

No one dared to say anything. Their previous leeway had vanished some time ago, after all.

“B-but, how…”

Just before Gawain could say something, Kang Jin-Ho rushed toward the Elder Knights with his trusty swords spread out like wings of a bird of prey! No, not a bird, but a devil shooting out of Hell's gates to destroy the world itself!

Conversation was no longer necessary. Kang Jin-Ho announced that through his actions.

“D-death to our…”

...To our enemies.

Gawain couldn't finish that trademark chant of the Elder Knights. Why? Because his enemy this time wasn't the type to accept death. No, that devil was here to grant death instead!

Failing to figure that out before the battle commenced was the biggest, most fatal mistake these Elder Knights have committed in their lives.

The Crimson Destiny and Azuremourne burned eerily from the pitch-black demonic qi. With the expression of a hungry demon baring its fangs etched on his face, Kang Jin-Ho flew toward the middle of the Elder Knights like a shooting star.

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