Chapter 98 – The Aesthetics Of Circular Structure
Soaking in the cool stream, I counted slowly to 100 with a heart pounding as if I were cooking ramen.
-Bow! Bow!
30 seconds passed, and the hunting dog that spotted me first ran to the front of the creek and barked fiercely.
-Screech!
“Here it is! The prey is here!!”
50 seconds passed, and a female hunter, presumably the owner of the hunting dog, ran up and blew a horn, signaling my location to the surroundings.
“Kyahaha! Hunt! It’s a hunt!”
“It’s the night of the hunt led by the Goddess!”
“Offer up the prey! Death to the foolish man!”
“Blessings to the Goddess, death to the man!”
70 seconds passed, and like a biker gang full of end-of-the-century sentiment, the huntresses swarmed around me like a pack of dogs.
Holding torches, bows, and spears, they cursed at me, their appearance a typical example of fanatics, to the point of being laughable.
And then 100 seconds.
-Thud! Thud! Thud!
Amid the frenzied shouts of mad huntresses, small footsteps echoed.
As those footsteps drew nearer, the huntresses’ frenzy subsided, and on the large rock right in front of me.
She revealed herself.
“Greetings, Goddess of the Crescent Moon. How’s your shoulder?”
“...You cursed scoundrel.”
“Wow, you look prettier today! I prefer this look over the nightgown from last time.”
“What? Do you see my armor and dare to speak such nonsense?”
“The thicker and harder the shell of a stone crab, the softer and sweeter its flesh. I look forward to tonight’s end.”
As the leader of a hundred thousand demonic warriors in my Heavenly Demon days, I had to speak with elegance and dignity.
Oppressed by Gwi Hyun-sa, and tormented by the Four Heavenly Kings, even the head maid glared at me.
No matter how wise one was in the Demonic Sect, there was a time when one couldn’t see through things.
However, I realized that if you twist polite and cultured words well enough, you could turn them into a weapon that could overturn the opponent’s composure without a single curse.
From then on, instead of reducing my cursing, I refined my speech, developing a tongue so sharp that even the calmest monk would be sent into a fit of rage by the end of a conversation.
Eventually, by the end of the Great Demonic War, I reached a level where I could make the head of the Shaolin, who was fighting a desperate battle with Mount Song as their last stronghold, break their vows.
Without a single curse in a gentlemanly tone, the content of my words was magical rhetoric that infuriated the more you chewed on them.
It was called the Heavenly Demon Mouth Technique.
The key point was to elaborate on vulgar words and curses as much as possible, so that the opponent would naturally accept and understand the words at a level they could comprehend.
“But for a warrior, you show a lot of skin. Do you captivate men’s hearts with that face and thighs while hunting them? If so, I wouldn’t mind being hunted by you.”
“Y-you blasphemous scoundrel...!”
Just like that.
The way her reactions hit home every time I struck with words was immensely satisfying.
“Ah, ahhh! It’s the grace of Lady Artemis!”
“Haa~ It’s so wonderful. This power, this vitality!”
“With the blood of the prey, I shall repay the goddess!”
-Bark, bark, bark!
-Awooo!
The huntresses and hunting dogs, whose entire bodies began to glow faintly as if sprinkled with moon dust, fell into a trance like berserkers, each raising their weapons and shouting.
[My huntresses! Vow keepers of eternal purity! Quench your thirst with the blood of the shameless beast that has dishonored us!]
“For Artemis!!”
“Die! Filthy man!”
-Swoosh!
Simultaneously with the goddess’s command, arrows and spears targeted me from all directions.
The huntresses, who had sworn to hunt eternally with the goddess, proved their skills.
Numerous decoys disturbed my vision, and hundreds of killing blows aimed at all my vital points flew in from all directions.
Was it because Artemis’s divine power was imbued in them? The moonlit attacks seemed to read my movements, changing their trajectory slightly, even showing homing capabilities.
“...So what? I can see everything.”
Still comfortably soaking in the stream, I watched the attacks as if I were gazing at the moon, and I slowly raised my hand, emitting energy.
-Whoooosh...
“Alright, alright. Now you must follow my will. Am I not now a complete demon of the highest demonic state?”
The demonic qi of the Other Heaven’s Path Heaven Arts, which I had taken as my main cultivation technique after the Martial Spirit Cultivation Technique, burned fiercely.
“Shall I then start lightly? Embracing the aesthetics of symmetry, let’s begin artistically.”
The smile reflected on the water’s surface was, even to my eyes, terrifyingly jubilant.
At such perfect timing, the perfect prey was charging at me perfectly.
As a demonic being, how could it not be exhilarating?
When I clenched my high-raised, demonic qi-filled hand, the condensed qi roared.
*-BOOOOOM!! *
The qi trembled in my strongly clenched fist, as if pulling down the sky, and the scattered energy waves made the surroundings shake violently, as if a dragon were ascending.
[Th-this!]
The faces of the huntresses, once filled with ecstatic madness, began to freeze in fear. Artemis, too, turned pale as she recognized the familiar yet now even more terrifying energy.
“Explosion of Agony.”
The beautiful explosion of moonlight that had swallowed the Goddess of the Crescent Moon on Passos Island during the moonlit night.
A rampage of the abyss, perfectly symmetrical to that, swept through the surroundings.