Little Demon Reversion to Youth

Chapter 214

"So you can become the Cult Leader now."

"I was a Young Lord like a Cult Leader. I know what it's like to be a Cult Leader."

Bi Jun-hua could not understand Baekji at all.

It was a position above ten thousand people.

At a single word, everyone moved on their own. To be honest, it was a better position than being an emperor.

To refuse that...

"Bi Jun-hua, why do you think your older brother entered the military affairs department?"

"...?"

Her older brother, Bi Jun-hua, was the shame of the Bi family.

To think that the successor of the family head would enter the military affairs department.

Only the family knew that it was because his talent for learning martial arts was lacking.

To touch upon the family's shame. Bi Jun-hua's gaze was not kind.

Baekji, whether he knew or not, said indifferently, "He went because he liked that position more than being the successor of the Bi family, right?"

"So it's irresponsible. It's selfishness to live, doing only what you like, without thinking of the family."

She could not bring herself to say that her older brother's martial arts talent was lacking.

"Is that bad? Is it right to have to take on the position of family head, which you don't even want, just because you were born as the eldest son of the Bi family?"

"Does that make sense? Is the position of family head of the Bi family the position of a village chief? Hmph! Even if it's not as good as the So family, it's the highest honor in the Bi family. It's a position you can't go to even if you want to if you're not qualified."

"Is that qualification to be born as the eldest son of the family head?"

"Of course not! How fierce is the competition when selecting the successor of the family?"

"But the direct eldest son takes most of it. Because he was born as the eldest son."

"Well..."

Bi Jun-hua was at a loss for words. Although she wanted to become the successor of the family, she could not because of her gender.

Although she accepted the old custom, she could not shake off her inner sense of injustice.

"Well, even an incompetent eldest son can take on the position of family head if he wants to. No, is that the case for most families? I suppose there is a desire to pass it on to one's child. But it's not right to take on the position of family head just because you're the eldest son when you don't want to."

Bi Jun-hua thought it was absurd.

Would there be anyone who would refuse the position of family head of a family? Wasn't it more common for brothers to even send assassins and to see blood to take it?

"To be born with a humble status and to live in oppression, or to be born as the eldest son of a noble status and to live, pressed down by a position of family head that you don't want to do. Isn't it the same that your birth presses down on your life?"

"How can that be the same! How many things can you enjoy if you become the family head!"

"It would be good if you enjoyed it because you liked it. But if not?"

'That's absurd.'

Although Bi Jun-hua shook her head, Baekji, pretending not to see, continued to put food in his mouth and continued to speak.

"Although you can't enjoy it properly, the burden on your shoulders is just heavy. Although you are the head of a family, if you raise your head, there is a family with more power, and there is a person with more strength. The sense of humiliation you feel at that time is even greater."

"..."

"That's why there are many twisted brats among the family heads. Because they don't like their own lives, they instead ignore and torment people and live, lording it over them."

Bi Jun-hua closed her mouth.

She could not agree with Baekji's words at all. To come out with some bullshit philosophy that only losers would spout...

As someone who had lived as a direct descendant of a twelve guardian family, Bi Jun-hua could not accept it.

Baekji suddenly said with a serious expression, "Aren't you going to the 'Great Successor War'?"

"Me? How can I?"

"What's wrong with you?"

"I'm a woman, right?"

"So?"

"What do you mean, so? How can a woman ascend to the position of Cult Leader? I can't even become the successor of my family."

"Yes. That's why you can't."

Baekji clicked his tongue.

"My master... no, a certain woman started a merchant sect before she was even twenty. She said she would create the best merchant sect in the world. Isn't it something you can fully dream of as a person, not as a woman?"

"..."

"The reason you can't ascend to the position of Cult Leader is not because you are a woman, but because your ability is not up to it. It's the same for the position of family head."

"What?"

A double wick was lit in Bi Jun-hua's eyes. The original nature of the 'Seven Phases Rakshasa' was on the verge of acting up.

Baekji said, "If you have the ability to lead a family, the head of the Bi family might even consider you as a successor. But what is your nickname? Isn't it the 'Seven Phases Rakshasa'? What kind of family head position can a brat who goes around beating up ordinary people take on?"

"S-seven Phases Rakshasa? What kind of brat says that?"

"See. Even now, if I tell you who it is, you'll go and make a scene. A person who will become a family head shouldn't do that. It's okay if your martial arts are a little lacking. But if your head is lacking, many people will die."

"Wh-what?"

How smart I am. The fact that I am a talent of the Bi family is a sound I hear not only for my martial arts but also for my strategic skills. Bi Jun-hua was excited.

"Being smart here doesn't mean rolling your head. Insight to see things broadly! Empathy to understand others! Judgment to choose the best at every moment! Decisiveness to act without hesitation in a moment of crisis! And so on... ah, can I just spill what I've learned from living as the Young Lord for decades like this?"

Bi Jun-hua was at a loss for words.

"To become a family head means to be responsible for the lives of the family members and the fate of the family. That's why it seems like you enjoy more than others, but in reality, you feel like you're walking on a knife's edge."

"I know."

Bi Jun-hua answered sullenly.

"What do you know? Why is your father hiding his martial arts?"

"..."

"Is the rumor that the men of the Bi family have poor martial arts talent really true? Do you really think your older brother has poor martial talent?"

"Yes?"

"That brat, Bi Wa-yun, no matter how much he hides in front of me, he's in the palm of the Buddha. You're older brother has already surpassed the 'true realm'. But no one knows that. That can be a huge weapon at some point."

"R-really?"

"Why would the head of the Bi family and Wa-yun do that?"

"..."

"You have to know that to be qualified as a family head. For now, you're just a cranky old maid with high martial arts."

"What did you say?"

"Aren't you an old maid if you're over twenty?"

"I-i-ik!"

Since she could not lose her temper in front of the Young Lord, she stood up and ran outside.

* * *

"Keu-eu-eup!"

Hyuk-ryeonhu, who was lying in the 'Blood Exhausting Divine Soup', let out a strange sound and then raised his upper body.

"Oh―!"

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu, who had been waiting, sitting in meditation and circulating his energy on one side, opened his eyes.

Hyuk-ryeonhu stood up from the bathtub where the 'Blood Exhausting Divine Soup' was. A dark red energy rose and enveloped his naked body.

His two eyes seemed to be looking at a distant space beyond time and space.

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu, sensing that the great art had succeeded, ran and knelt.

Although the body was his son's, the soul that was in it was Hyuk-ryeon Ju-pae's.

"I congratulate you on the completion of the great art."

"Keu-eu-eu..."

Hyuk-ryeonhu's body slowly rose into the empty air and then landed outside the bathtub.

Whenever Hyuk-ryeonhu tilted his head to the left and right and raised both his hands to clench and to unclench his fists, a strange sound of his joints cracking echoed.

Hyuk-ryeonhu, who had loosened his body, muttered in a low voice, "A perfect body... a perfect soul... but it's not enough..."

A voice that was somehow tinged with a gloomy energy.

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu trembled.

Hyuk-ryeonhu's gaze turned to Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu and then shot out a red light.

Hyuk-ryeonhu's body momentarily disappeared and then stood in front of the prostrated Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu and grabbed his head with both hands.

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu's entire body trembled like an aspen tree.

"Wh-why are you doing this..."

"I need your 'gong-ryeok' (internal energy). You know the reason... because I pulled the great art..."

"Wh-what?"

"Keu-ha-ha-ha. You have offered both your son and your grandson... is your life, which is on the verge of dying of old age, so precious? If necessary, you must offer the thousand lives of the Hyuk-ryeon family."

Although Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu had raised his internal energy and had tried to strike Hyuk-ryeonhu, he could not even move, pressed down by an enormous energy.

The power of the energy was neither the 'dark soul divine art' of the Hyuk-ryeon family nor the 'Heavenly Demon Divine Art'.

An unprecedented energy that he had never seen before.

"You, you are not Hyuk-ryeon Ju-pae!"

"Hyuk-ryeon Ju-pae? Keu-ha-ha-ha. It is Hyuk-ryeon Ju-pae. I raised that brat to be the Cult Leader."

"Ah...!"

The ominous premonition had come true.

The old soul just used and discarded bodies and moved to other bodies.

"Don't feel too wronged... I am the founder of the Hyuk-ryeon family, Hyuk-ryeonjong-ak."

"―!"

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu's two eyes were colored with astonishment.

'The founder of the Hyuk-ryeon family?'

In that moment, his vision turned white, and his thoughts stopped.

Energy was drawn from the top of his head and was sucked into Hyuk-ryeonhu's glabella.

"U-a-a-a!"

His eyes rolled back in the pain of his soul being drawn out.

The scream that echoed through the cave was also brief.

Hyuk-ryeon Seung-mu's body shriveled like a wooden doll. His body, which had been sucked of not only his internal energy but also his 'congenital true qi', collapsed.

Hyuk-ryeon Wi, who had been guarding the outside, heard a sound from inside and listened.

As the sound soon became quiet, he tilted his head and then guarded the cave again.

* * *

Late at night, Baekji returned to the So family.

"Although the 'Bright Left Emissary's' consciousness has recovered, his internal injuries are deep, so it seems he will have to recuperate for quite a long time."

"What's with the Left Emissary? He goes around getting hit on the back of the head."

"How could he have known that the Right Emissary would betray him?"

"Isn't it the closest brat who hits you on the back of the head? To not know that even at that age."

At Baekji's words, So Jeong-hu nodded his head and then changed the subject.

"But to take away the privileges of the twelve guardian families... what are you thinking?"

"Why? Are you disappointed?"

"What is there to be disappointed about? I'm just waiting for the day I go into my coffin, so what do I care what happens to the sect?"

"Hmm. You seem to be dissatisfied."

"Of course not. I have found a candidate to succeed the main family. But are you going to step forward for the 'Great Successor War' yourself?"

"No. Don't expect too much from me."

"Hmm... it will be difficult for the So family to produce a Cult Leader this time."

"You should have raised him well in advance. It's a pity, but there's nothing to be done."

So Jeong-hu rubbed his eyes with both hands and said, "The sect is in a state of disarray. You know that not a single one of the 'Ten Demonic People' appeared at the place of the 'Heavenly Demon's Descent', right?"

"There was no reason for them to come."

"When the Hyuk-ryeon family started a rebellion, they participated."

"Hmm. Who were the brats who participated?"

"It was seven, except for the 'Sword Demon', Lei Mo, and Quan Ma."

"Hmm..."

Each of the 'Ten Demonic People' was a master of the 'flower realm'. In the Central Plains, they were the same as the 'Ten Great Masters'.

The 'Ten Demonic People' did not interfere in the major and minor affairs of the sect and only listened to the Cult Leader's orders.

Since they had listened to the orders of the Hyuk-ryeon family... it was not a matter to be taken lightly.

"Have you found out what they are all doing?"

"The 'Soul Demon' seems to have left the Heavenly Mountains. Since the family of origin had started a rebellion, he must have thought he had to live even if he was alone. The rest are cooped up in their residences."

"..."

"We need to get things straight. If a new Young Lord is elected, they will become a stumbling block."

"I will take care of those brats. What happened to the old ancestor of Mingshan?"

The old ancestor of Mingshan, who had been running away, had been caught by Quan Ma and Lei Mo and had been dragged to the main headquarters.

When he had been disguised as the Cult Leader, he had told the Inner Fortress Lord, who had asked if he would interrogate him himself, to take care of it and to just report.

If the old ancestor of Mingshan had fought the Cult Leader directly, his disguise might have been revealed.

"He's a fake. The funny thing is that it seems the Hyuk-ryeon family didn't even know that fact."

"Aigoo. There's really no easy way. Then it means the real one might be alive?"

"Since there was a real one, wouldn't they have put forward a fake? Since even the fake was barely suppressed by Quan Ma and Lei Mo... I think the real one is probably more than that..."

"Has the identity of the Zhuge family been revealed?"

"He is Zhuge Wen-qing, a talent of the Zhuge family. That brat also did not know that the old ancestor of Mingshan was a fake."

"Who would believe that a brat who has reached the 'life and death realm' is just playing the role of a fake?"

"Anyway, there are quite a few things to take care of."

As Baekji sighed inwardly, So Jeong-hu smiled meaningfully.

"Why are you smiling?"

"It's nothing."

Baekji could see right through So Jeong-hu.

"You seem to be gloating."

"Of course not."

So Jeong-hu feigned ignorance.

'You must stay in our sect for a long, long time.'

(End of Chapter)