Absolute Regression

Chapter 702: I Didn’t Come Here to Kill

The women hadn’t fought because of pent-up anger exploding. It was a force that shook their very nature.

The Laughter of Evil Heart.

The unique demonic energy of the Evil Smiling Demon that awakened humanity’s primal violence.

When exposed to the Laughter of Evil Heart, one’s heartbeat quickened, and they became overcome with the urge to kill. In fact, those with weaker inner strength, when heavily exposed, sometimes stabbed and killed the person right beside them.

But assassins were people who knew how to control their emotions better than anyone else. Even with the same internal strength and skill, they were far less affected compared to ordinary martial artists. Moreover, the way they endured and expressed anger and violence was subtly different.

Exposed to the Laughter of Evil Heart, these women couldn’t escape the sharp gaze of the Evil Smiling Demon, who understood malice better than anyone.

Third Beauty recognized the opponent who had removed his bamboo hat. Indeed, this man was someone qualified to act composed even in front of twenty opponents.

“Evil Smiling Demon.”

He already knew that the man tasked with guarding the mistress of the Sky Flower Pavilion was the Evil Smiling Demon. What he hadn’t expected was that on this day, when positions for the final stage were being determined, the man would strike first.

She didn’t know anything about the Laughter of Evil Heart, but she could at least be certain of one thing: the Evil Smiling Demon had used some special method to single them out from among the women.

The Evil Smiling Demon looked at a chair a short distance away. A sign to come and sit.

It was a situation where she had no choice but to hear what he had to say. Third Beauty walked over and sat down.

The other assassins spread out to her left and right, keeping formation so they could immediately launch a joint attack if a fight broke out. But the Evil Smiling Demon didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

‘Up close…’

She could properly see the Evil Smiling Demon’s eyes through his mask. She had glimpsed him briefly during the main tournament, but this was her first time seeing him this near.

Before encountering him this time, she had misunderstood.

She had thought his face must be too sinister to look at directly, or that he must have some terrible scars or burns. That must have been why he wore a mask, or so she believed.

‘To think he was this handsome.’

Just from seeing his eyes and forehead, she could already tell. He was a strikingly handsome man.

‘Perhaps his nose or mouth could still be disfigured.’

Either way, he gave a first impression that made her curious about his true face.

The Evil Smiling Demon asked her,

“Do you have the right to decide right now?”

He was asking if she was bound to only follow what her organization dictated, or if she could make decisions of her own.

“If I do?”

“Tell your subordinates not to kill themselves.”

She had expected the next words to be something like, ‘Because I’ll personally kill you all cruelly!’—a phrase meant to crush their spirit.

But the Evil Smiling Demon’s next words were nothing she could have imagined.

“I didn’t come here to kill.”

Third Beauty silently stared at the Evil Smiling Demon. She felt confused, because it didn’t seem like a lie. He had found all of them, yet claimed he wouldn’t kill them? And this from no one else but the Evil Smiling Demon?

Third Beauty answered quietly.

“We don’t do things like commit suicide.”

As if that was enough, the Evil Smiling Demon nodded.

Third Beauty slowly rose from her seat. His words that he hadn’t come to kill must have been meant to sow confusion, to dampen their resolve.

Chiiiik.

She ripped open the lower part of her palace gown, revealing her thigh. A leather strap bound around it held a dagger. Drawing the dagger, Third Beauty spoke to the other assassins.

“We must kill him. There’s no way the Evil Smiling Demon would ever let us live.”

The assassins all drew their hidden weapons at once.

Some women, like Third Beauty, pulled out concealed daggers. Others wound sharp fishing lines around their hands and pulled them taut. Another drew a soft sword disguised as a belt.

One separated her ornament to reveal a tiny hidden blade, while another pulled out a hairpin. From a bracelet, yet another revealed a dagger with a gleaming blue edge.

Twenty beautiful women, each pulling out their concealed weapons—it was a sight one would rarely witness, even in a lifetime as a martial artist.

The Evil Smiling Demon, rising from his seat, slipped a hand into his robe. None of the assassins knew what might come out, so all of them tensed.

What emerged in his hand was his mask.

The mask covered his face, and the face veil he had worn slipped down gently, like a flower petal drifting away.

Now what concealed the Evil Smiling Demon’s face was not the veil, but a white mask.

Third Beauty and the assassins stiffened. It was their first time seeing with their own eyes the infamous white mask of the Evil Smiling Demon.

The impression was different than when he had worn only the veil. A moment ago, she had thought, ‘Are those eyes really that handsome?’ But once those same eyes sank beneath the mask, the feeling changed entirely.

Those unfamiliar, chilling eyes laughed from within the mask. Staring at the twenty assassins who had drawn their deadly hidden weapons, he laughed.

And then, another pressure was added.

The Evil Smiling Demon drew the dagger of Millennial Cold Iron.

As far as Third Beauty knew—

‘Wasn’t the Evil Smiling Demon known for using palm and energy techniques?’

She had prepared to fight while guarding against those techniques. But now, he had drawn a dagger?

The pressure that dagger gave off in the Evil Smiling Demon’s hand was completely different from when anyone else held it.

Ordinarily, the Third Beauty would have said this before a fight.

No matter who you are, you can’t take on all of us.

But faced with the Evil Smiling Demon’s overwhelming presence, a different thought crossed her mind.

‘I should have shaken those women by the hair and gone out together earlier.’

She could tell her subordinates were feeling the same oppressive weight. Numbers alone didn’t automatically mean advantage.

By nature, assassins moved alone, or according to a meticulously planned operation. Now, they had no plan, and naturally none of the twenty had ever fought together as one.

Even so, there was one thing worth hoping for.

“If each person leaves just one wound, the twentieth person will be able to walk out of here.”

In a situation where morale had been crushed, this was far more useful than vague words about being able to win. Fight to the death, and someone might survive. That someone could be you.

The Third Beauty, true to her role as leader, was the first to hurl herself at the Evil Smiling Demon.

Shwik! Shwiik! Shwik!

Her dagger sliced through the air in rapid succession. Every strike went straight for one of the Evil Smiling Demon’s vital points.

They were attacks born of preparation. She had already thought out how to respond if he blocked or dodged, what the next move would be, even how to counter if she were disarmed by his retaliation.

But what she hadn’t expected—was that the Evil Smiling Demon’s movements would be this fast.

She couldn’t even tell how he had dodged her attacks. In a single flashing instant, the Evil Smiling Demon brushed past her. He was so fast she didn’t even have time to summon her Protective Energy.

She felt something graze her neck.

Ssshhhk.

‘Damn it! I’ve been cut!’

She despaired, certain her throat had been split and blood would gush forth.

But she didn’t collapse.

‘Why?’

She touched her neck. A faint trace of blood stained her hand. Only the blood that had welled on the surface of her skin.

She quickly held her dagger to her throat to see.

A single red line had been drawn across it. Not a deep cut—just the faintest slice.

‘A mistake?’

But it wasn’t a mistake.

The next to cross blades with the Evil Smiling Demon, the Eleventh Beauty and the Twentieth Beauty, were also standing a little ways off, each touching their own throats.

Each of them had suffered what could have been fatal slashes—just shallow bloodlines instead.

‘If he had meant to kill us, we’d be dead already.’

Only then did the Third Beauty manage to look at the Evil Smiling Demon’s fighting objectively.

What she had thought was simply being overwhelmed by speed—

It wasn’t that. The Evil Smiling Demon’s attacks were tracing trajectories no one could have predicted. Even if one could keep up with his speed, those peculiar angles of attack could never be blocked.

The hidden weapons thrown by the Nineteenth Beauty all bounced harmlessly off the Evil Smiling Demon’s dagger. As she faltered to avoid the ricochet, the throats of the Sixteenth Beauty and the Thirteenth Beauty were sliced in succession.

‘How is that even possible?’

What was astonishing was that regardless of each opponent’s level of skill, the location and depth of the wounds were identical.

It was far more difficult than simply cutting their throats to kill them outright.

Twenty wounds, and one of us will survive?

How laughable that must have sounded to the Evil Smiling Demon. Against him, they couldn’t even land a single wound.

Still, not every assassin yielded to the overwhelming gap in power.

Ssshhhk!

The Nineteenth Beauty, whose throat had already been cut once, threw herself at him again. Though she knew he had spared her, she still launched another surprise attack.

Whoooosh—

Of course, it didn’t work. Evading her attack effortlessly, the Evil Smiling Demon seized her by the throat and slammed her into the ground.

Kwang!

As the Nineteenth Beauty struggled to rise and charge again—

“!”

She saw the eyes within the mask staring down at her.

Her whole body erupted in goosebumps. She had never feared death itself, but this wasn’t a matter of life or death.

Death held no terror, but those eyes did. They carried the dread that if she erred before this man, she would suffer something far worse than death. The gaze of the Evil Smiling Demon struck at the deepest root of fear.

He left her where she lay, then turned to the Third Beauty and asked,

“Didn’t you say you wouldn’t commit suicide?”

The words carried the meaning that if they persisted, he would kill them all.

The Third Beauty couldn’t respond.

And in that moment, the Seventh Beauty rushed to ambush the Evil Smiling Demon.

Shhhhk!

But when her dagger cut through empty air, what came back was a bloodline drawn across her throat.

Even as she ignored his earlier warning and tried to attack again, the Third Beauty leapt forward and seized her wrist.

The Third Beauty shook her head at the Seventh Beauty. She knew the woman’s temperament wasn’t ordinary, but if she didn’t restrain her, she’d only die in vain. If they provoked the Evil Smiling Demon’s temper further, he might kill them all.

Thus, a wind named the Evil Smiling Demon blew through the Court of Beauties.

And what the wind left behind were blood lines.

Silence swept across the hall.

They looked at each other’s throats in disbelief, staring at the shallow cuts.

The Third Beauty understood.

If the Evil Smiling Demon had truly intended to kill them, this wouldn’t have been a fight—it would have been a massacre.

‘To think he’s this strong…’

Everyone knew the Demon Supremes were terrifying, but none of them had imagined his skill was at this level.

If this had been the Evil Smiling Demon from before Geom Mugeuk’s regression, the outcome would have been far different. Several women would have died, and this place would have turned into a sea of blood.

But now, the Evil Smiling Demon’s internal strength and martial mastery had risen far beyond that time. Added to that were the countless battles of life and death, where he had brushed against mortality again and again. On top of it all, he had mastered the Smiling Fragrance Dagger Art.

The Evil Smiling Demon slowly walked back and sat down in the seat he had first taken.

“Now, all of you sit.”

The Third Beauty exhaled a sigh and sat. She ordered her subordinates to do the same.

“Sit down, all of you.”

The other assassins each returned to their seats.

Just then, as if waiting for the moment, the doors opened, and a masked Faceless Swordsman entered.

The Faceless Swordsman went around, one by one, sealing the pressure points and meridian points of each woman.

At that moment, one assassin launched a surprise attack, aiming to take the Faceless Swordsman hostage. It was the Seventh Beauty, the one the Third Beauty had stopped earlier when she tried to rush at the Evil Smiling Demon.

The next instant—

Ppak!

Struck hard in the chest, the Seventh Beauty was sent flying.

The Faceless Swordsman had avoided her ambush and countered by smashing her with his elbow. Collapsed on the floor, she coughed up blood, though she wasn’t dead.

This Faceless Swordsman was the strongest among the ten who had come this time to serve the Evil Smiling Demon. That was why her ambush had failed completely.

He sealed her meridian and pressure points, then sat her upright again. With her head drooping as she lost consciousness, no one else dared to act out.

In this way, all twenty assassins had their points completely sealed.

‘Not all of us have been caught yet.’

The remaining assassins would surely aid Cha Iran and complete the original plan.

Just as the Third Beauty grasped at this last fragile thread of hope, the sound of a carriage arriving echoed from outside.

When the Faceless Swordsman opened the guest hall’s doors, they saw the carriage outside. It was riddled with hidden weapons, pocked with holes and broken in places—an attack so fierce that it was a wonder the carriage still held its shape.

The Third Beauty’s eyes trembled as she looked at it.

‘No… it can’t be?’

The carriage door opened, and the Seventeenth Beauty, the Fifth Beauty, and the Eighth Beauty stepped down. Seeing that even they had been captured left the Third Beauty deeply shaken.

‘How did he manage to find even them?’

Meanwhile, the Seventeenth Beauty, as she entered the guest hall, spotted her comrades. She couldn’t see the Evil Smiling Demon standing by the window, nor the Faceless Swordsman at the door.

What she did see was her comrades sitting unharmed in their seats. The Third Beauty was there, and even the Seventh Beauty was alive. Their number was twenty.

‘We’re alive!’

But with that relief came another thought—worry about the Faceless Swordsman following behind her.

‘You spared me…’

But she wouldn’t be able to save him. Being the Seventeenth meant she held no authority to make such great decisions.

‘You’ll be the one to die.’