The smell… the smell of wine is just for us.
The two energies clashed, taut and strained.
If anyone, even a great master, were to stand between them, they would not find it easy to endure.
This was not simply because the auras the two men emanated were powerful.
It was due to the nature of these two auras.
Just being there caused dizziness, nausea, and a fogging of the mind.
On top of that, there was the unbearable, foul stench of blood and wine.
“This is too much.”
The Drunken Demon was the first to withdraw his intoxication.
He had already expended his inner energy dealing with the Northern Blood Sect's subordinates, and though not deep, he was injured by the Self-Destruction Art.
He was at a disadvantage in many ways.
So he judged there was no need to waste inner energy by continuing this clash of auras.
With an expression that said he had been utterly defeated in the clash of auras, the Drunken Demon drank a toast to his loss.
"Kuh, bitter. So bitter."
On the other hand, the Blood King did not withdraw his Blood Qi, and the surroundings were filled with it.
It was a Blood Qi so thick with the smell of blood it was suffocating, but the Drunken Demon instead took a deep breath, inhaling the scent.
“Does your blood taste like this too?”
The Blood King glared at the Drunken Demon, his eyes asking what he meant.
“My blood would taste of wine. Does your blood have such a foul taste?”
Was it because the question was about blood? The Blood King answered.
“The day will never come when you know the taste of my blood. No one will.”
At that, the Drunken Demon provoked him.
He clenched and opened his fist in front of his chest, mimicking the explosion of the Self-Destruction Art.
It meant that he would taste his blood then.
It wasn't just any provocation, it was a powerful one.
At that provocation, the Blood King felt his blood run cold.
Mocking me by imitating the Self-Destruction Art? Along with the surging anger, he felt an unfamiliar sensation.
No one had ever been so arrogant towards him.
He knew it was a provocation, but it was one he couldn't help but fall for.
Because of whom did he have to give up on the Great Art and come out?
The Drunken Demon's provocation didn't end there.
He opened his robe.
Blood was stained on the Supreme Heavenly Silkworm Thread tied around his chest.
"Your blood will stain this too, right? I'll have to wash it clean and return it.”
The Blood King could tell that the artifact the Drunken Demon wore was a gift from the Young Cult Master.
“You received such a trivial artifact and became the Young Cult Master's dog?"
It was a counterattack to the previous provocation.
However, when it came to Geom Mugeuk, the provocation had no effect.
“The Young Cult Master is the dog.”
To the Blood King's questioning gaze, the Drunken Demon uttered words that were still incomprehensible.
“You won't believe it, but the Young Cult Master becomes a dog for our sake.”
The time he barked alongside the Poison King in the Training Grounds was a story known by everyone in the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect.
The Drunken Demon didn't explain further.
He wasn't confident he could make the Blood King understand in such a short time.
No, even if he explained all day, the man wouldn't believe him.
Unless you experienced it firsthand, you could never understand a person like Geom Mugeuk.
"But can you afford to be so relaxed? Do you believe your subordinates will arrive first?"
Red smoke was still rising from various places in the distance.
“If this continues, our Young Cult Master will come too.”
“Are you anxious? Afraid your Young Cult Master will come here and die?"
“He won't die. The Young Cult Master.”
The Drunken Demon was certain.
Nevertheless, the reason he hoped he wouldn't come was this.
“I just don't want to make him fight people like us.”
“Like us?"
“Yes, like us."
Without saying what kind of people they were, the Drunken Demon took a drink.
The wine spirit flickered around his body like flames.
“So let's have this foul smell of blood and wine be just for us."
Sssssss.
A dense fog rose around the two men, and the Drunken Demon disappeared into that wine spirit.
The Blood King raised his hand and touched the wine spirit that obscured his vision.
It looked like mere fog, but it was a wine spirit so potent that he could already feel the effects of intoxication.
Throughout the fight with the Northern Blood Sect warriors, the Blood King had been thinking of only one thing.
How would he fight within this wine spirit? How would he break through it?
And he had come up with one method.
The Blood King focused all his senses, preparing for the Drunken Demon's surprise attack, and extended one hand forward.
A hot energy began to rise from his fingertips.
His solution was this.
To burn away all the wine spirit with his Extreme Yang Energy.
Given the nature of the wine spirit, it should be flammable, and the intoxication the Drunken Demon was currently emitting was so potent it should burn even more easily.
Flames erupted from the Blood King's Extreme Yang Energy.
Fwoosh.
As the wine spirit began to burn from his fingertips, a satisfied glint passed through the Blood King's eyes.
But it was only for a moment; the flames that had risen were quickly extinguished.
He had expected the fire to spread in all directions, but it had only burned where the Extreme Yang Energy was focused before quickly dying out.
This time, he conjured his Extreme Yang Energy even more powerfully.
Fwooooosh.
But it only burned a little more than before, and the fire quickly went out.
The wine spirit gathered in that spot once more.
Just then, the Drunken Demon's intoxicated voice came from within the fog.
"If you play with fire, you'll wet the bed at night.”
The Blood King paid him no mind and raised his hand, grasping at the flowing wine spirit around him.
Why isn’t it burning when it feels like it should?
“You could try for a hundred days and it wouldn't burn. My wine spirit is like its master; it's not passionate enough to burst into flames.”
Swish!
The Blood King irritably threw a palm strike in the direction of the voice.
Boom!
The sound of a wall crumbling in the far distance could be heard, but there was no scream from the Drunken Demon.
Swish!
The Blood King turned and caught what flew at him from behind.
It was a pebble, flying at a terrifying speed.
Crumble.
The pebble crumbled into dust and trickled from the Blood King's hand.
Both the inner energy that had thrown it and the inner energy that had blocked it were too powerful for the stone to withstand the impact.
“Do you think you can kill me with a mere pebble like this?"
“That's why I prepared something bigger.”
Whoosh!
What came flying was the large stone lantern that had been standing in the courtyard.
CRASH!
The moment the stone lantern was shattered by the Blood King's palm strike.
From behind, the Drunken Demon appeared and thrust a dagger.
Shik!
The stone lantern was not the only thing that had come flying.
Dodging the Drunken Demon's dagger aimed at his heart, the Blood King unleashed a palm strike.
KWAANG!
Palm strike met palm strike, and pushed back by the force, the Drunken Demon disappeared into the fog once more.
The Blood King's expression was grim.
The Drunken Demon's surprise attack just now had been truly fierce.
He thought that if he had been complacent, thinking, 'Could he kill me with just a stone lantern?', he would surely have been stabbed by the Drunken Demon's dagger.
The fight, which had started like a stroll, began to turn violently serious.
This time, the Blood King was the first to sense the Drunken Demon, and he charged forward, unleashing his Blood Qi.
BOOM!
Fist met fist.
Slide, both men were pushed back, and the number of steps they took was identical.
Their skills were truly on par.
This time, palm met palm, a clash of palm techniques.
Again, they were pushed back by the exact same number of steps.
Right then, the Blood King was the first to use his signature martial art.
As he slid back, orbs of blood had already appeared, floating above the Blood King's other palm.
Amazingly, in that short moment of clashing and being pushed back, he had executed Flying Dagger Blood Rain from his Myriad Blood Arts.
In an instant, the blood orbs transformed into the shape of small daggers.
Shikshikshikshikshikshikshik!
They swept past the spot where the Drunken Demon had been.
It was a power incomparable to the Flying Dagger Blood Rain used by his disciple, Ha Gyeol.
Papakpapakpapakpapak!
Dozens of holes were pierced in the wall behind.
The holes were tightly packed, a sign that if one had been in that area, it would have been impossible to dodge.
But nowhere on the wall was there a trace of the Drunken Demon's blood.
Whoooosh.
For a moment, the wine spirit cleared, and the Drunken Demon revealed himself.
“Hold on! Let me catch my breath.”
The Drunken Demon drank, his expression showing he had narrowly escaped danger.
"Let's take it easy. I thought I'd never get to drink this fine stuff again.”
The Blood King also caught his breath for a moment.
There was no time to recover their inner energy through energy circulation.
Even in this brief pause, they never took their eyes off each other.
“I feel bad drinking alone.”
The Drunken Demon looked at the Blood King and offered his wine flask.
"Let's have just one drink."
The very moment those words ended.
Kzzzzzzzt!
A bolt of force, like lightning, struck down at the crown of the Blood King's head.
The face of the Blood King, who had barely dodged by twisting his body at the last second, contorted.
A deep hole was bored into the spot where he had been standing, and smoke was rising from it.
His head had almost been pierced right through.
The Drunken Demon's surprise attack was no ordinary one.
The Drunken Demon's signature martial art, the Wine God Art.
The second cup, Drunken Poison Wine.
It was named for the single bolt of force falling from the sky, resembling a man drinking wine alone.
“Do you hate the idea of having a drink with me that much?"
With a grin, the Drunken Demon disappeared into the rising wine spirit.
The Blood Qi emanating from the Blood King's body thickened, and a red aura began to flow from his eyes.
Anger surged at the thought that he had almost died.
Whether he knew of that anger or not, the Drunken Demon appeared behind him again and launched another surprise attack.
Shik! Shik!
The Drunken Demon's dagger cut through the air, and the Blood King, who had spun around quickly, unleashed a palm strike into the empty space.
“That's going to hurt, you drunkard.”
The Drunken Demon looked down at his trembling arm.
A red energy swirled around it.
He circulated his inner energy to shake off the red aura.
The Blood King's attack was that heavy.
"Wipe your blood before you talk."
The Blood King also looked down at his own arm.
Blood was flowing from a cut.
The Blood King put his mouth to the wound.
The moment he sucked at it as if drinking the blood, veins popped out all over his face.
Then, his eyes stretched long like a ghost's, and Blood Qi shot out from them.
The Blood King now had an appearance and an aura that were frightening just to look at.
Of course, it had no effect on the Drunken Demon.
Instead, he provoked him even more.
"Why are you looking so hard for the Extreme Cold Body?"
The corners of the Blood King's eyes twitched fiercely.
His opponent was truly focusing on the things that angered him most.
"What are you going to do, extract the Extreme Cold Body? To become resistant to the cold and settle down here in the Northern Sea?"
The intoxicated voice made the Blood King even angrier.
The Extreme Cold Body was not something to be spoken of so casually in a drunken stupor.
"As you know, I'm the one who took the Extreme Cold Body. Should I buy you a set of cotton clothes as an apology?"
It seemed as if the Drunken Demon was just rambling, but every single word was calculated.
“So, if you were going to come, you should have come to us in the first place. Ah, perhaps your skills are the weakest? Is that why you were pushed all the way out here to the Northern Sea?”
Finally, a curse erupted from the Blood King's lips.
"Shut up! You drunken bastard!"
He could tolerate other things, but he could not tolerate being told he was inferior within the organization.
He prided himself on being the most confident.
That was why he could even defy the order to return.
The wine spirit also played a part in his agitation.
Fighting within the intoxication, the Blood King had unknowingly become drunk.
Stab!
Not missing this chance while he was agitated, the Drunken Demon launched a surprise attack.
Appearing from the fog, his dagger stabbed into the Blood King's side.
Thwack!
As he stabbed the side and tried to disappear again, the Drunken Demon's shoulder was struck by the Blood King's blow.
In that moment, the Drunken Demon saw it.
The Blood King's eyes were utterly cold.
The Blood King who had shouted curses was hot, but the one who counterattacked was cold.
It was enough to make one think that perhaps he had been feigning half of his agitation.
Daggers flew and fists flew.
Again, Blood Qi and wine spirit clashed.
Hitting, slamming, rolling, the two men were truly engaged in a fierce battle, a dragon against a tiger.
They fought with emotion packed into every single move.
They fought as if they had met their mortal enemy.
It was a first for both of them.
To have a life-and-death battle with such an evenly matched opponent.
After a round of brawling, the Drunken Demon disappeared into the fog again.
He had expected it, but the Blood King was much more difficult to deal with than he had anticipated.
Moving through the wine spirit while drinking, the Drunken Demon stopped in his tracks.
A single red line was drawn in front of him.
The Drunken Demon looked to the side.
There was a line there too.
Blood Threads, beginning to be drawn one by one, here and there.
Those lines began to draw a picture, using the wine spirit that had spread like fog as their paper.
The Drunken Demon picked up a pebble from the ground and threw it at the line.
Sliiiice.
As if sliced by a treasured sword, the pebble was cut in half.
More and more Blood Threads appeared around him, surrounding him like a spider's web.
It was the Body-Splitting Blood Net unleashed by the Blood King.
The Drunken Demon withdrew the wine spirit.
As he did, the wine spirit that had spread like fog vanished, clearly revealing the dozens of Blood Threads spread all around.
Too many lines had already been drawn, making movement impossible.
The only way out was to break through with protective energy, but he would have to be prepared for a grave injury.
Beyond the red lines, the Blood King could be seen.
Unfurling the Body-Splitting Blood Net had consumed a great deal of his inner energy, but he was smiling.
He was confident he could kill the Drunken Demon with this move.
‘I've trapped him properly.’
There is no gap to escape through.
As if they were alive, the Blood Threads began to tighten towards the Drunken Demon.
The Drunken Demon took out the signature weapon he wore at his waist, the Blood Tears, and spoke.
“You don't know this, do you?"
When he infused his unique inner energy into the Blood Tears, it vibrated once and emitted a pure white light.
Signature martial art, the Wine God Art.
The final cup.
Drunken Wine God.
The Drunken Demon opened the stopper of the Blood Tears and chugged the wine inside.
At that, the violet aura of intoxication flickering around the Drunken Demon's body turned black, and from his eyes, a pure white, mad intoxication flowed.
That madness led to action.
The Drunken Demon grabbed a Blood Thread with his bare hands.
"When we get drunk, we see nothing.”