Descent of the Demon Master-Chapter 1361. Northbound (1)

“Let’s go!”

Lee Hyeon-Su rapidly charged forward.

However, his steps came to a screeching halt almost right away after realizing that no one was following him. He hurriedly looked behind and shouted at Chang Piljae.

“What are you doing?!”

“Uh... Uh? Uh? Uhhh?”

Chang Piljae mumbled like a man whose soul had left his body a while ago.

If this happened any other day, Lee Hyeon-Su would’ve taken his time waking up the shocked Chang Piljae and brought the NIS agent back to his senses, but not today. He rushed up to the dazed man and smacked the latter in the head.

Smack!

“Wake the hell up, you bastard!”

He didn’t even wait before grabbing Chang Piljae’s collar and yanking the staggering man close.

Lee Hyeon-Su broke into a full-blooded sprint without wasting another second. Chang Piljae still hadn’t sobered up yet and let himself get dragged away, unable to resist Lee Hyeon-Su’s strength.

Dammit, man! One shot is enough to kill us, you know!

Although the battle was more or less wrapped up now, some level of danger still existed. It was possible that one of the fallen soldiers was still alive. Or the snipers could still be taking aim in this general direction.

Kang Jin-Ho would be fine whether it was a sniper’s rifle or a machine gun spitting bullets at him, but that didn’t apply to Lee Hyeon-Su and Chang Piljae. Even a single stray bullet could end their story here.

As such, they had no choice but to run!

Lee Hyeon-Su spotted Kang Jin-Ho and the jeep he had secured some distance away. By now, Kang Jin-Ho had retracted his demonic qi and was waiting silently.

Okay, so I have to get there, and...

That was when Kang Jin-Ho suddenly moved.

“Eh?”

CLANG!

Just as Lee Hyeon-Su let out a stupid-sounding gasp, Kang Jin-Ho reappeared before him, the Crimson Destiny stretching far forward to cover Lee Hyeon-Su’s head. The sword’s position, plus the sharp metallic noise, were enough for Lee Hyeon-Su to figure out what had happened.

Lee Hyeon-Su grimaced. “Another sniper?”

“Yeah. And there’s one more.”

CLANG!

Kang Jin-Ho deflected the second round with his trusty Crimson Destiny, then frowned slightly. “You’re too slow.”

“But this is the fastest I can go, sir!”

“Mm...?”

Kang Jin-Ho escorted Lee Hyeon-Su toward the jeep. Thankfully, though, there were no further attacks targeting Lee Hyeon-Su.

“Uwaaah! Gimme a f*cking break!”

Lee Hyeon-Su finished dragging the still-dazed Chang Piljae all the way to the jeep and threw his living luggage against the stationary vehicle.

Bang!

Chang Piljae slammed into the jeep’s door and bounced off. He rolled around on the dirt once before looking up at Lee Hyeon-Su, his face still one of sheer stupefaction.

“Drive this damn jeep, you moron!”

Chang Piljae alternated his dazed gaze between the jeep and the yelling Lee Hyeon-Su.

“Fuu...!” Lee Hyeon-Su groaned deeply before grabbing Chang Piljae’s collar again. He didn’t stop there, however, and began slapping the dazed man on the face.

“...”

“Get a hold of yourself, you bastard!”

Lee Hyeon-Su slapped Chang Piljae a couple more times before yanking the dazed man close.

“Now, get this through to your thick head! If you don’t pull your pants up right now, we will leave you behind! My hands are already full while trying to save my own life here, okay?! I don’t have the energy to look after your sorry ass, too! Do you understand me?!”

Chang Piljae began nodding animatedly. Such was the intensity of his nodding that his head might have fallen off if he kept doing it for a minute longer!

“Now, move!”

Chang Piljae urgently climbed inside the jeep and turned the ignition on. When Lee Hyeon-Su slipped into the passenger seat, Kang Jin-Ho turned his head and scanned the scenery behind them.

“Assembly Master!”

“Mm!”

Kang Jin-Ho lightly jumped up and landed on the jeep’s rear seat. That was when Chang Piljae gunned the accelerator with vengeance.

Vroom, vrooooooom!

The jeep’s wheels spun noisily and struggled for grip for a second or two before the vehicle shot forward like a bullet.

The road was unpaved, causing the vehicle to rock and shake around like there was no tomorrow, but none of the trio cared about such a thing right now.

“Hold on tight, everyone!” Chang Piljae shouted. “We will... What the f*ck?! The path is blocked?!”

Lee Hyeon-Su yelled, “Don’t stop! Keep going on!”

“Can’t you see the path is blocked off?! The military truck is...”

Swiiiiiing!

That was when the military truck responsible for plunging Chang Piljae into a bout of panic was sliced apart in half and got pushed aside.

“...”

Chang Piljae stared at the wide-open exit and clamped his mouth shut.

Kang Jin-Ho casually asked, “What’s blocking our path?”

“N-no, it’s nothing, sir!”

Chang Piljae gritted his teeth and buried the accelerator deep into the floor. The jeep vibrated and shook around as if it’d flip over at any second, yet it still somehow continued to roar forward.

Goddamn it! You only die once, am I right?!

The jeep soon escaped the slums and sped down the road.

“...! F-fire! Fire!”

Only then did the remaining soldiers sober up. They started firing their weapons again, but the jeep was already a distant dot in their view by then.

***

“What?! You f*cking mongrels?! Hurry the f*ck up and catch up to them! Now!”

Luo Zhao yelled at the top of his lungs, veins in his throat bulging visibly.

No! We cannot! We cannot let them escape!

Cold sweat now caked his entire body.

Didn’t he promise Wang Long that he’d definitely kill Kang Jin-Ho? And he’d offer his neck if he failed in this mission?

For obvious reasons, one could never take back what they said in front of Wang Long. Losing Kang Jin-Ho now meant one of the two possible fates waited for Luo Zhao. One, he killed himself. Or Wang Long would drag him to God knows where and put him through all sorts of unimaginable torture before executing him!

Luo Zhao didn’t want to welcome either of those possibilities into his life. But the only way to escape from this hellish choice was killing Kang Jin-Ho.

Unfortunately for him, though...

Dammit! What can we even do at this stage?’

Killing Kang Jin-Ho in forested areas was impossible. That was why Luo Zhao forcibly deployed the soldiers into a residential area despite knowing the risks. Even then, his people failed to inflict even a minor scratch on Kang Jin-Ho!

N-no, wait! We all expected this outcome, didn’t we!

Luo Zhao never believed his ground troops would deal grave damage to the target. No, what he wanted was... It was to tie Kang Jin-Ho down. To slow him down! Of course, he failed to do even that, and that hurt his pride a lot, but all these things were still within his calculations...!

“Oh, so you failed.”

Luo Zhao’s body froze stiffly at a voice suddenly coming from somewhere behind him. He slowly turned around to look, his fearful eyes opening wider and wider.

A man with a fairly innocent-looking face was smiling back at him.

“Huh? You...?”

“Vice Chief wanted results, you see? But it seems you’ve failed to produce any good results by the look of things, Major General.”

Luo Zhao’s eyes powerfully quaked like a lone leaf against storm winds.

“Who... Who are you?”

“Goodness me,” the unknown man theatrically sighed. “If I were you, I wouldn’t be wasting my breath asking such nonsense and would have blown my brains out already. That should lessen the pain you’ll go through, you see?”

Luo Zhao nervously swallowed his saliva. He was no idiot and could easily guess that this man was an assassin dispatched by Wang Long!

“N-not yet! It’s too early!”

“Too early? Are you saying you have more tricks up your sleeve?”

“That’s right! My operation hasn’t ended yet! So far, everything has gone according to plan! My plan!”

“Huh? Now there’s a shoddy excuse...”

“No, it’s not an excuse! Kang Jin-Ho cannot be killed off with firearms! That means we must lure him out to an open terrain first! Only then can we hit him with meaningful firepower!”

“Ah, I see. Please continue. However, I hope you didn’t mean the middle of the public road when you said the open terrain.”

Luo Zhao animatedly nodded. “I do!”

“...Seriously?” The unknown man smirked weirdly. “So? What will you do after luring him out onto the open road? Don’t tell me, were you thinking of bombing him or something?”

“We’ll deploy a helicopter!”

“A... helicopter?”

Luo Zhao’s nodding increased in intensity. “Yes! No matter how strong Kang Jin-Ho is, you think he will live after getting hit by an anti-tank missile?! We can strike him as long as he’s in open terrain! We’ll keep firing until he’s dead!”

“I see, I see. So...” The unknown man smirked again. “Your idea was to rain down anti-tank missiles on a stretch of unrestricted public road filled with our citizens? Is that it?”

“We must be prepared to accept some collateral damage! It can’t be helped, as it’s for the greater good! As long as we can get rid of Kang Jin-Ho, this level of sacrifice is...”

Clap, clap, clap...

The polite-sounding claps immediately shut Luo Zhao’s mouth shut. The unknown man applauded as if he was genuinely impressed.

“Sir, what an incredibly well thought-out operation this is! As a matter of fact, it’s too unconventional and creative for an idea cooked up by your tiny brain. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

That sarcasm, that mockery in his tone! Luo Zhao obviously knew what this assassin was trying to do here, but his priority was buying himself enough time.

“That’s why you must sit back and watch the rest of the operation unfold! If I still fail to kill Kang Jin-Ho after this, you can do whatever you want! However, we’re still in a combat situation. Not even the Party Leader can interrupt the commander in the middle of an operation!”

“Ah, that. Yes, you’re right. There’s that.”

The unknown man smirked suspiciously.

Luo Zhao’s stiff expression softened a tad. As long as he could oversee this operation, then...!

The unknown man asked another question, his voice rather cheerful. “So? Is the helicopter on its way?”

“Of course it is! You think I’d forget? It will pursue Kang Jin-Ho on its own.”

“Aha, I see. So, the pilots know who the target is. And they have already been instructed to rain down absolute destruction once they find him. Is that right?”

“Yes, that is right!”

“I see, I see. Now then. Major General, there’s something I don’t quite get, so can you help me understand?”

“...What is it?”

The unknown man tilted his head innocently. “In that case, why do we need you now?”

“...What?”

Slice!

That was when the unknown man suddenly swiped with his hand. By the time his lightning-fast hand stopped moving, it was carrying the head of the person he had been talking to until now.

The head belonged to Luo Zhao!

Plop!

The headless body collapsed on the ground. The unknown man wordlessly stared at Luo Zhao’s wide-eyed face filled with disbelief for a few seconds before dropping the severed head.

He dusted his hand to get rid of the blood while looking at the head rolling away, then tutted softly.

“This is why I hate people who don’t want to listen.”

A helicopter? Anti-tank missiles? This moron wanted to kill Kang Jin-Ho with a missile, which was slow enough for ordinary people to spot it mid-flight if they paid attention?

Waiting for a lightning bolt to hit Kang Jin-Ho would have had higher odds of success than that!

“How the heck did he climb so high up with that brain of his?”

The unknown man wryly shook his head, then turned around to leave. With this, the 71st Special Missions Brigade would no longer be able to justify its existence.

The man pulled out his phone and dialed a number.

“...Yes, Vice Chief, it’s me. It’s as you thought. They lost him. Oh, him? He’s on the floor, and... Hold on, sir. His severed head has rolled a bit too far from the rest of his body to answer you... Yes, yes. Of course.”

The unknown man chuckled before updating the Vice Chief of the current situation.

“This idiot has apparently requested helicopter support. In my opinion, it’ll be better to rescind that order, sir. That will only worsen the situation, after all. Although I’d love to see the Demon King slice apart a military helicopter in the middle of a public road... I mean, that’s the stuff you only see in movies... Oof. Understood, sir. We’ll pursue him.”

The man ended the call before casually shrugging.

“Is it because he’s old? He can’t even take a joke.”

A person should have some sense of humor, though. Maybe he should’ve kept the Major General alive for a bit longer? His ability to make people unintentionally laugh out loud was uncommon in a modern military, after all.

“Well, then. It’s time to earn my keep, isn’t it?”

The man’s gaze locked into the general direction where the jeep carrying Kang Jin-Ho had disappeared to.

“Now there’s a scary prospect, alright.”

He wasn’t joking this time; his fear was genuine. The “Kang Jin-Ho” he had witnessed was literally the embodiment of demonic. He deserved to be called the avatar of the devil.

The man didn’t have a hope in hell of surviving a head-to-head against Kang Jin-Ho. However, was there a need to do that? When the man was a soldier, not a martial artist?

A martial artist’s goal was to defeat the enemy, but a soldier’s goal was to fulfill his orders.

He’d do anything to achieve the desired outcome!

“Go after him.”

Shuffle...!

The moment the unknown man said those three words, a pair of shadows rose silently from the ground and shot forward at an unbelievable speed.

The unknown man stared at those two shadows before leisurely heading in the same direction.