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[Chapter 145] At the Final Banquet
“Jeez. What the hell is this all about? On a day when we’re already busy, acting like a bunch of kids.”
A one-eyed man was grumbling profusely as he headed somewhere.
The place he eventually arrived at was the lodgings of the 13th Black Gate Troop.
He had come looking for the members of the 13th Black Gate Troop, who hadn’t shown their faces all morning.
He was one of the instructors who usually taught martial arts to the 12th and 13th Black Gate Troops, and he had a notoriously fierce temper.
The 13th Black Gate Troop didn’t have a mandatory daily routine.
However, there were still certain gatherings they absolutely had to attend.
Like today’s schedule.
That was why he had come looking for them.
“Are you in there? If you are, get out here right now!”
Banging loudly on the door of the lodgings, he shouted in a voice brimming with displeasure.
However, no answer came from inside the quarters.
Ha, don’t tell me they’re still sleeping?
At the thought that it might actually be true, the man’s face crumpled.
The 13th Troop had pulled a stunt like this once before.
They had gotten dead drunk the night before and passed out the entire next day, failing to show up on a day when a mandatory event for the entire Black Gate was scheduled.
“I’ve never seen such insane bastards.”
He had scolded them half to death that day, but they were doing it again, so the man was furious.
There was a limit to acting however they pleased.
Filled with irritation, the man violently threw open the door and stepped inside.
At that moment,
“Ugh!”
The very first thing that assaulted his nose was the coppery stench of blood.
His eyes widened.
“Wh-what the. What is this.”
From the entrance of the lodgings all the way down the hallway and into every room.
Everything was covered in blood.
The momentarily panicked man hurriedly rushed further inside.
He opened every door he came across, hoping there might be survivors, but all he found were corpses.
However, the state of those corpses was…
The man’s eyes shook violently.
It was when he threw open the final door.
“Heavens.”
He stumbled backward involuntarily.
There was a corpse in that room as well.
However, unlike the other corpses that were merely dried up, this one…completely desiccated and torn to shreds, was uniquely and unspeakably gruesome.
He, too, had cut down countless people throughout his life.
Naturally, seeing dead bodies was something he was very accustomed to.
But even for him, the state of this corpse was so horrific it made him want to vomit.
Who on earth could have done such a thing!
He hurriedly tried to head outside to report this incident.
Just then, someone smoothly appeared.
“Who’s there!”
The one-eyed man, shocked out of his wits, hastily drew his sword.
However, the other party was simply smiling silently as he looked at him.
“You are…”
The man’s eyes, momentarily flashing with surprise, soon sank into a cold glare.
He had guessed it after seeing the state of the corpses, but seeing the opponent confirmed it.
It was a familiar face.
The man whose expulsion from the Black Gate had been decided just recently.
However, his appearance had changed bizarrely since yesterday.
He knew. He knew exactly what that appearance meant.
Demonic Human transformation.
There was no way he couldn’t know.
After all, the Heretic Alliance had been in an uproar over that very thing not too long ago.
But again…
“Damn it.”
Sharpening the momentum of the sword raised against his opponent, the one-eyed man scanned his surroundings.
He had to stop him somehow.
Or, at the very least, he had to escape and report this.
“What exactly happened. Just what on earth happened here?”
The man threw out a question, intentionally trying to create an opening.
At his words, the opponent, now a Demonic Human, tilted his head.
“What happened? Ah, ah. You mean that? Keuk keuk. Something very pleasant happened.”
“You…”
It was a smile so chilling it sent shivers down his spine.
The man clearly seemed to have lost his mind.
Radiating a fierce aura, the one-eyed man demanded.
“Is this your doing?”
“What if it is?”
At those words, the one-eyed man’s eyes narrowed.
It was practically a confession.
“Murdering a comrade is grounds for immediate summary execution. You know that, right?”
“And so you’re going to kill me? Someone like you?”
“Ha. You’ve completely lost your mind!”
“Lost my mind. Lost my mind, huh. Keuk keuk keuk. Right, am I crazy? Keuk keuk keuk.”
The Demonic Human clutched his stomach, his shoulders shaking.
The moment he saw him cackling as if he found it genuinely hilarious, the one-eyed man’s eyes glinted sharply.
‘An opening.’
As the Demonic Human laughed, exposing his back as if he didn’t even consider him a threat, the man instantly adjusted his grip on his sword and charged.
However, perhaps he should have made a different choice.
The man’s sword flashed.
Unleashing a killing strike without hesitation, as if there was nothing more to see, his sword surged toward the opponent’s neck.
And the sensation felt through the blade.
This was the end.
But then,
His sharply swung sword hadn’t cut into the opponent’s neck even the slightest bit.
It wasn’t that the blade was blocked; the sword simply couldn’t leave a single scratch on the opponent’s body.
What kind of ghost’s trick was this?
He shouted with a panicked face.
“H-how.”
“What do you mean how. Because I was chosen. Now then, die. Tsk tsk.”
He twisted his neck bizarrely and stretched his mouth wide open.
It was absolutely not the appearance of a normal human.
Teeth that had protruded like those of a beast before he knew it lunged viciously toward the one-eyed man.
“Aaaaaagh!”
But no one heard his scream.
Because there was no one left in the lodgings.
*Crackle, crack.*
Before long, the life faded from his eyes, and his body shriveled up gruesomely.
Just like that, his body turned into the same state as the corpse slumped in the corner of the room.
“Keuk keuk. Sweet, so sweet. I had no idea blood was this sweet. On top of that, my body is overflowing with power. Good, this is so good.”
The eyes of the man who had become a Demonic Human gleamed.
“Right. I was chosen. So… it should be fine if I kill them all, right? Hmm?”
“Of course you can kill them all. From those White Wolf Troop bastards who made you this way, to the other bastards in the Heretic Alliance, kill every single one of them. Tsk tsk.”
“Just thinking about bathing in their blood makes me so excited.”
The man was muttering to himself as if having a conversation.
His mind was already completely collapsing, but completely unaware of it, the man simply cackled, his body trembling with immense pleasure.
“Now then. Shall we go.”
Soon, licking the blood smeared all over his mouth, he headed out of the lodgings.
The night deepened.
Before they knew it, tomorrow was the day they would leave the Heretic Alliance and return to the Hebei Peng Clan.
During their stay, the White Wolf Troop had been treated surprisingly well at the Heretic Alliance, getting along without any major incidents.
So much so that they wondered if it was really okay.
There had been a brief commotion involving the 13th Black Gate Troop midway through, but it seemed to have been handled neatly by the Ghost-Eyed Demon Lord, Ma Seak.
It was unexpected.
Judging by his first impression, they thought a man like Ma Seak might actually use that incident as an excuse to cause a massive uproar.
Well, it was a relief that the situation hadn’t escalated further.
Regardless, the night at the Heretic Alliance was exceptionally bright.
The Black Martial Emperor was hosting a final banquet for the White Wolf Troop.
And unlike before, when it was always just the Black Martial Emperor and the White Wolf Troop, this was a grand banquet attended by all the key figures of the Heretic Alliance.
It was a truly bold decision.
They already knew there was no small amount of discontent both inside and outside the Heretic Alliance regarding the White Wolf Troop’s invitation, yet he had still made such a decision.
What on earth was he thinking?
Why go to such lengths?
“It’s probably confidence.”
“Confidence?”
As the White Wolf Troop whispered among themselves, simply bewildered by the Black Martial Emperor’s decision to organize today’s gathering, Yeo Woonhwi smiled and nodded.
‘The Heretic Alliance must act like this. They must act like that.’ These cliché ways of thinking.
That mindset might actually be the greatest shackle for the leader of the Heretic Alliance.
However, the Black Martial Emperor thought and acted as if such things didn’t matter in the slightest.
As if to show off.
Perhaps he believed that he himself was the Heretic Alliance.
“…Wow. That truly is an immense amount of confidence.”
“But he’s not wrong, is he? Do you think he’s
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