The lingering scent of blood and the weight of death filled the atmosphere.
It was on the night of the red moon—
or perhaps should I call it the night of the Blood Moon.
Who could have expected the once-mighty Blood Demon Sect, a loyal fraction of the Demonic Cult, to lie in waste as it does today?
The very faction that helped the demonic cult become the power it is today.
The very faction that was by far the most loyal, much more than the elders in the cult and any other cult members.
The hunting dogs of the Demonic Cult.
"Ma Hyeonseong! come out here and pay for your crimes against the Demonic Cult!"
A sentence that even the Murim Alliance would never have believed…
A sentence that carried more weight than one could bear.
"My lord, the Demonic Cult is attacking and killing the disciples…"
Why would brothers draw blood from each other?
Why would the most loyal dogs be hunted down for disloyalty?
"Cult Leader, why have you attacked the Blood Demon Faction? What is it that we have done wrong?"
Perhaps the candle of hope still burned faintly. Perhaps respect for the cult leader, even at death's door, still lingered.
"Ma Hyeonseong, you are guilty of treason—colluding with the Murim Alliance in the death of the Young Lord. Come out here and receive your punishments."
The Young Lord of the Demonic Cult.
Unlike his predecessors, Cheon Damheon, the current Cult Leader, had only married one wife. She had died giving birth to his one and only child—his daughter, the Young Lord of the Demon Cult.
Dead?
The one woman who had kept the Cult Leader sane, the one who stopped him from falling into madness after the death of his wife, was dead.
The whole of Murim was about to feel his wrath.
But it was the Blood Demon Faction that would taste it first.
The anger of the Demon God, Cheon Damheon.
"Cult Leader, please spare the disciples, and I will gladly surrender my life… Please, my lord."
Ma Hyeonseong struck to his knees in full martial form, hands clasped together in absolute respect.
…
"Kill them all. But spare only his son, the rest mustn't the sun."
The command of the absolute leader.
Thwackkk!!!
Blood.
Death.
The slashing of swords.
And...
DESPAIR.
Brothers, uncles, fathers, and his own master where all dead.
Their bodies headless and flesh rottening.
The Blood Demon Faction, whose strength once rivaled even the Murim Alliance one of the major forces the eastern continent, was destroyed in a single night.
The night of the Blood Moon.
"Cult Leader, what should we do with the son of Ma Hyeonseong, since you ordered us not to kill him?"
One of the ten elders, Yul Gwancheol, stepped forward to ask.
"Lock him in the Ebon Sepulcher[1] until I say otherwise."
And so it was done.
The remnant blood of the Blood Demon—too young to grasp the depth of treachery—Hyeolmu watched his master fall, his brothers slaughtered and in martial sect destroyed overnight, despair written all over his face.
Spared by a cruel oath.
Bound to a cruel fate.
This is the story of the last heir of the Blood Demon Sect.
The tale of a boy prisoner who will claw his way back from the pits of despair, and carve his path into the Western world.
RISE OF THE BLOOD DEMON
[1] A sinister prison in the demon cult, where even the brightest of minds lay waste. A place where all senses are blocked and even the most sane men becomes insane is just a few weeks