Fist Demon of Mount Hua Prologue

Prologue

The endless stretch of mountains looked like rolling waves. Along a narrow mountain path connecting these waves of earth, twenty Taoist priests walked in silence.

It was still early spring, and the cold wind brushed past their bodies. Shivering slightly, the priests tightened their robes around themselves and hunched their shoulders.

Suddenly, the middle-aged Taoist leading the group raised his head.

The man, who looked to be in his late forties, clenched his jaw tightly. His eyes were bloodshot, and a faint tremor ran through his shoulders.

“Mount Hua made tremendous sacrifices in the war against the Demonic Sect, yet all we received in return was the cold shoulder of the Jianghu. Truly, the hearts of people are fleeting.”

“Senior Brother.”

“We will grow stronger. Strong enough that the world will never again dare look down on Mount Hua.”

There was a powerful resonance in the middle-aged Taoist’s voice. The Taoists following him bowed their heads and clenched their fists so tightly that their knuckles nearly broke. They all shared the same sentiment.

However, only one man — a middle-aged Taoist with a pure and serene demeanor — quietly closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Muryangsubul! Senior Brother has harbored venom in his heart”

The middle-aged Taoist with a chilling aura at the head of the group was Hyun-cheon, leader of the Great Mount Hua Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects.

And that very Hyun-cheon was burning with rage. Mount Hua would move in whichever direction his fury pointed.

‘Where will Mount Hua go from here?’

It was just as the serene-faced Taoist, Hyun So Jin In, let out a low sigh.

Smoke was rising from beyond the hill ahead of them, and as the wind carried over a fishy, bloody scent, the Taoists’ expressions stiffened.

‘The smell of blood?’

Stimulated by the scent, Hyun Cheon suppressed his anger and spoke. “Let’s go.”

The Taoists hurried over the hill, and what awaited them beyond it was a horrifying scene.

“Ugh!”

They were speechless at the sight of the gruesome devastation.

A small village was engulfed in flames.

Roughly thirty houses had either burned down or collapsed, leaving only ashes, and corpses littered the streets.

“Muryangsubul… What in the world happened here…?”

“It seems they were raided by bandits. I did hear rumours recently that bandits have been causing trouble in various places.”

“How could this be!”

Hyun So’s expression turned utterly wretched.

‘Muryangsubul! The Demonic Sect has fallen, and now bandits are plaguing the land. next. What is to be done about this?’

The Taoists spread out and searched the village thoroughly, but they couldn’t find any survivors.

From children to the elderly, over a hundred villagers from more than thirty households had been massacred.

“Cruel bastards. How could they slaughter innocent villagers without mercy?”

“Muryangsubul, please watch over these souls.”

As the Taoists prayed for the dead, Hyun So Jin-in suddenly heard a faint groan.

It was so weak that at first he thought he had imagined it.

“Ugh…”

But when he heard it again, he realized it had not been a hallucination.

“Where are you?”

Hyun So looked around, searching for the source of the sound.

From what must once have been a family’s cherished home, now reduced to a fire-scorched ruin, a faint groan escaped.

Hyun So hurriedly dug through the wreckage. He pushed aside a half-burnt pillar and scooped away the ashes with his bare hands.

“Junior Brother, what is the matter?”

“Senior Brother! What is…?”

“There is a survivor inside!”

At Hyun So’s words, the younger Taoists joined in to clear the debris.

After removing about half of it, the corpse of a half-burned man emerged from the ashes.

The dead man wore a large curved blade at his waist and a vest made from animal hide. Seeing him, Hyun So frowned.

“A… bandit?”

At a glance, his appearance and physique clearly did not belong to this village. The thick calluses on his fists proved it.

Hyun So placed a hand on the corpse.

There was no warmth of the living left in it.

“It seems Junior Brother was mistaken. This man has been dead for quite some time.”

“Then why is the bandit dead? Did one of the villagers know martial arts?”

Hyuncheon and the other Taoists voiced their confusion one after another.

But no one could answer.

Then—

“Ugh…”

The weak groan sounded again.

This time, not only Hyun So, but everyone present heard it.

“Could it be…?”

Hyun So hurriedly flipped the bandit’s corpse over.

Unlike the back, which was exposed to the ashes and burned, the front of the body was relatively intact.

The Taoists’ eyes shook violently.

The bandit’s throat had been torn open as though ripped apart by a wild beast, exposing his vocal cords. The wound on his neck seemed to be the cause of death.

But that was not what shocked the Taoists.

Beneath the bandit’s massive body was a small boy.

The child had simply been hidden beneath the corpse’s bulk.

Whether he had been born that way or had been brutalised by the bandits was unclear, but the boy’s arms and legs were twisted at grotesque angles.

The horrific injuries made it easy to imagine the terrible ordeal he had suffered.

“Hah…”

“Muryangsubul…”

At the gruesome sight, the Taoists coughed awkwardly and turned their heads away.

The boy, who until then had been lying there with his eyes closed like a corpse, suddenly snapped his eyes open.

“…”

The hollow eyes of someone who had lost everything, filled with desperate killing intent, made even Hyun So Jin-in recoil slightly.

“Child!”

Moved by pity, Hyun So reached a hand toward him.

At that moment, the boy painfully turned his head and spat out something he had been holding in his mouth.

Thud.

Something the size of a fist rolled across the ground.

The crushed, blood-red object was unmistakably a piece of human flesh.

“Th-that…?”

A dreadful silence descended upon the shoulders of the Mount Hua Taoists.

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