Chapter 1

My ill-fated tie with the Demon Cult began ten years ago.

-Your talent is usable. Follow me.

One day, while I was wandering the streets after losing my family, a man spoke to me.

Perhaps it was his pale skin, or maybe it was his spotless clothes that didn’t catch a speck of dust even as dust swirled around.

He had an appearance that didn’t feel real.

He was tall as well, so I had to crane my neck to meet his eyes.

-How usable is my talent?

To my brazen question, the man gave no answer.

He only stared at me with eyes that held no emotion.

I suddenly felt afraid and stepped back at once.

-Uh, I have an appointment, so…

-I am the Heavenly Demon.

With that one sentence, I became the Heavenly Demon’s disciple.

Even after hearing the words “Heavenly Demon,” I didn’t have the nerve to refuse.

But the life that followed was the worst.

First of all, the Demon Cult itself didn’t suit me.

Overall it was stiff and solemn, and a primitive culture that worshiped only the strong flourished.

On top of that, unsure whether it was because they had no sense of the value of life, the people I knew would vanish at the drop of a hat.

-Where is Warrior Kang?

-He died last night. Got into a quarrel.

-And Warrior Oh?

-He was executed for insubordination this morning.”

-…….

For someone who was naturally easygoing, and dreamed of a comfortable life, every day was suffocating.

What suffocated me most was none other than the Heavenly Demon.

Contrary to his appearance, the Heavenly Demon was a very zealous teacher.

He drove his disciples hard whenever he found the time.

Among them, he picked on me the most, as I was the last to join.

-That’s not it. The senses are honed sharp when body and mind face the same direction.

-If the muscles are stiff, the joints move unnaturally. The ultimate of the Path of Domination lies in flexibility. Without flexibility, one cannot pursue the Path of Domination.

Honestly, it was too hard.

The standards the Heavenly Demon demanded of me were too high.

-I c-can’t do this any more.

-You must.

-But aren’t my meridians severed!

True Blood Severed Meridians.

That is the name of the severed meridians I was born with.

Those with True Blood Severed Meridians have qi and blood that surge too easily.

If they overexert their internal energy, their qi and blood will reverse and they will die on the spot.

-That is why I have passed down to you the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art. If you achieve great success in it, you can overcome such severed meridians as you please.

-At this rate I’ll die from the hardship first.

-As long as you do not use internal energy, you will not die from training.

No words got through to the Heavenly Demon.

That was because True Blood Severed Meridians placed no restriction on physical activity.

‘I really can’t do it anymore. Just kill me instead!

One day I couldn’t bear it and rebelled.

Thinking about it now, it was insane. To think that I had dared to show such impudence to the Heavenly Demon.

I had shouted in a fit of anger, and it would not have been strange if my head had flown.

So I squeezed my eyes shut thinking, “I’m dead.”

But unexpectedly, the Heavenly Demon did not punish me.

Instead, he even encouraged me.

-I know it is arduous. Even so, press on. In exchange for suffering from severed meridians, have you not gained outstanding martial talent?

I couldn’t believe it.

Encouragement, from the Heavenly Demon who seemed to be the crystallization of coldness.

Even if only a little, I couldn’t help but be moved.

On the other hand, I was curious.

If my sahyungs¹ had done this, they would have been severely punished, so why didn’t he punish me?

In any case, what the Heavenly Demon said was true.

My martial talent was excellent.

I understood mnemonic verses that my sahyungs needed to hear three or four times after hearing them just once.

My sahyungs were wary of me for that.

Because my talent threatened the succession struggle.

I myself had no interest in such things at all, but it seems that’s not how they saw it.

In particular, my great sahyung picked a fight with me every time we met.

“Oh, the Seven Minute Invincible Hero has arrived. What kind of wondrous martial art will you show us today?”

The time I could fight while using internal energy was about seven minutes. That was the time until my qi and blood began to surge.

During these seven minutes, I was very strong.

Strong enough to overwhelm the sahyungs who had learned martial arts far earlier than I.

But once seven minutes passed, I became like a wooden training dummy.

Since I couldn’t exert any strength.

Because of that, I always got beaten miserably in the quarterly disciple evaluations.

Those so-called sahyungs deliberately just ran away for seven minutes.

There were times I got riled up and saved my internal energy as much as possible, but the result was no different.

From the start, the Heavenly Demon’s disciples were never easy people.

One day, worn down by the abuse disguised as the Heavenly Demon’s teaching and the nasty pressure of my sahyungs.

A decisive incident occurred that made me detach my feelings for the Demon Cult.

For those with True Blood Severed Meridians, there was a fatal problem beyond comparison with the restriction on the use of internal energy.

A short life.

Because qi and blood were damaged with every breath, one would die young before twenty-five. As long as one didn’t use internal energy one could live seemingly fine, but then die suddenly.

As a countermeasure I was taught the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art, but it was too abstruse to achieve great success in.

I clung to it for seven years since becoming the Heavenly Demon’s disciple, yet there was no progress at all.

My attainment in the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art stopped at the seventh stage.

At that time, I was twenty-three.

I had little lifespan left.

In the midst of that, I came to know.

That in the long history of the Demon Cult, no one had ever achieved great success in the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art.

My breath caught in my throat.

Various questions muddled my head.

Did the Heavenly Demon know this?

If he knew, why did he teach me a martial art no one had mastered?

Did he believe I could master the Nine Heavens Demon-Ascension Art?

Wasn’t it a belief close to a gamble?

When my lifespan was racing toward its end even at this very moment?

On that day, I became warped.

I decided to escape the Demon Cult.

I saw no future, and I could no longer trust the Heavenly Demon.

I would find a cure myself.

And if I couldn’t, I’d toss back a drink under the setting sunset and die free.

With that mindset, I attempted to escape.

It goes without saying, escape was not easy.

The first attempt failed miserably. I was caught without even getting out of the cult.

The second attempt was half a success.

I escaped the cult and fled hard for about half a month, but was discovered in the end.

By none other than the Heavenly Demon.

To catch a mere disciple, the Heavenly Demon moved personally.

After that, for a year, I was placed under discipline.

Outside training hours, I stayed shut in my room.

During that time, I chewed over my failures and prepared to escape again.

The third attempt was a success.

In truth, it almost failed, but I received someone’s assistance.

Thus, after seven years, I left the Demon Cult.

I went straight to Nanjing and met the Life-and-Death Divine Physician.

“True Blood Severed Meridians is an extremely rare kind among severed meridians. To treat it, three elixirs are needed. The order does not matter. With each elixir you take, your True Blood Severed Meridians will improve by one-third. As it happens, I have one—take it at once.”

The divine physician was a man of character.

Without any conditions, he gave me an elixir and treated me.

After that, I wandered the Central Plains to find the remaining elixirs.

When the day was fine, I sat by the river and watched birds fly over the surface, and when the sunset was pretty, I climbed a hill and drank.

Thus two years passed, and I took the second elixir.

With just one more, I would be free of this True Blood Severed Meridians, but whether by some trick of heaven.

The place of the last elixir was none other than the Demon Cult.

It was when I was seriously agonizing over whether to return to the cult.

Rumors came that the Heavenly Demon had been eroded by demonic energy and become a demonic being.

And time passed again.

Now, before my eyes, is the Heavenly Demon.

My master, whose clothes had never borne even a speck of dust.

He sat with his whole body lacquered in blood atop a mountain of corpses piled as if to reach the sky.

He had become a demon exuding dark energy from his whole body and spewing bright-red ghostly flame from his eyes.

“Uhhh….”

From below the mountain of corpses, unending groans spread.

A dozen or so with severed limbs were writhing, barely clinging to breath.

“……”

I was at a loss for words.

They were all faces I knew.

The Murim Alliance Leader, the Heretical Alliance Lord, the Abbot of Shaolin, the Head of the Wudang Sect, the Lord of the Corrupted Blood Sect, and so on.

The Ten Great Masters of the world, representing orthodox and unorthodox alike, had gathered in one place.

In extremely miserable states.

‘How could this….’

Cold and strict though he was, the Heavenly Demon never enjoyed meaningless slaughter.

If he had been, I would already have been a dead man.

But the scene before my eyes now was the product of sheer, pure madness.

At that moment, the Heavenly Demon descended slowly like an evil god, hands clasped behind his back.

As he drew near, his figure came into sharper view.

His pale yet Vajra-like indestructible skin was covered with wounds, and one arm was missing.

“…How on earth did you end up like this?”

I know the cause.

Demonic Qi.

If one succumbs to demonic qi, that is how they’ll end up.

You lose yourself and become a warped being that knows only slaughter and destruction.

The Heavenly Demon I knew no longer existed in this world.

I could not understand.

The Heavenly Demon was by no means one to be eroded by demonic qi.

Rather, he was close to an absolute being who could grasp even the vilest demonic qi without a care.

What had happened.

Why had he been devoured by demonic qi?

“Do you know who I am? It’s me, Baek Su-gyeong. The disciple of yours who once ran away.”

I spoke to the Heavenly Demon.

I knew of course he wouldn’t recognize who I was, and even before that, that he wouldn’t understand my words at all.

Knowing that, I still went on babbling away.

It might have been a grumble to my teacher, or a vain hope he might regain his senses.

It didn’t matter.

Right now, I just wanted to have a conversation with him after so long.

Even if I were the only one talking.

“…You kept that tough act to yourself, yet…”

He was, in name and reality, the number one under heaven.

He was always my ideal, and at the end of the martial path I envisioned, he always stood tall.

That thought did not change even after I escaped the cult and met countless masters across the Central Plains.

Because he was such a man, if he had his consciousness, he would never welcome this situation.

The Heavenly Demon would choose death rather than live eroded by demonic qi.

‘That’s why I’ve appeared here.’

I held a bitter smile at my lips.

I had agonized over the past few months.

Over whether it was right for me to confront the Heavenly Demon.

The conclusion was “Let’s confront him.”

Though I left the cult out of anxiety for the future, I was undoubtedly the Heavenly Demon’s disciple.

I was also indebted to his grace.

He took in me, who was alone and starving, and taught me martial arts second to none in the Central Plains.

He even tried to help me overcome my severed meridians, though it failed.

So I had an obligation.

There was no expert left in the Demon Cult, or in the whole Central Plains, who could stop his rampage.

I didn’t even know whether my sahyungs lived or died, so only I could grant the Heavenly Demon rest.

Therefore I had to stand before the Heavenly Demon.

‘…There is also something I must ask.’

The distance between the Heavenly Demon and me was roughly a couple of dozen meters.

Between us a pool had formed from the blood flowing from the corpses.

Squelch, squelch.

With unpleasant, sticky footsteps, the Heavenly Demon came across the pool.

“……”

I drew my sword.

A deep-blue sword energy like a dark night sea wrapped the blade.

“There is something you don’t know. I am no longer Seven Minute Invincible. Now I can easily last a whole two hours. Within the next two hours—”

Kicking off the ground, I surged forward.

“I will kill you.”

The source of the demonic qi born of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art lies in the middle dantian.

That is, only by piercing the heart can he possibly be killed.

It should be possible.

No matter that he is number one under heaven, he is in a greatly weakened state.

Hwoong!

The sword energy split the air.

From the Heavenly Demon’s straight-thrust fist, black fist energy burst forth.

Kwarung!

With a roar, I collided head-on with the Heavenly Demon.

In the blink of an eye, dozens of exchanges passed.

My sword energy and the Heavenly Demon’s fist energy devastated the surroundings.

The ground split with every step we planted.

The mountain of corpses had long since collapsed.

Torn to shreds by the vortex of energy from our clash, it spattered red rain over the earth.

The battle continued for so long.

It was nearing two hours, so there wasn’t much time left.

I prepared the final strike.

The ultimate move of the Asura Demon Sword shot toward the Heavenly Demon’s heart.

The result—

‘Got him!’

My sword pierced the Heavenly Demon’s heart.

But—

“…I’m screwed.”

I lowered my gaze.

The Heavenly Demon’s arm had pierced my abdomen and was jutting out behind me.

Mutual destruction.

“You’re disgustingly strong, as expected.”

Cough, blood poured out with the cough.

I straightened my gaze again.

A distance so close our foreheads might touch.

There was nothing in the Heavenly Demon’s eyes.

No thought, no emotion.

Only emptiness filled them.

“Pathetic. To lose to mere demonic qi.”

I gave a faint laugh and went on.

“There’s something I want to ask you. Why did you let me go?”

When I made my third escape, someone suddenly appeared before my eyes.

It was the Heavenly Demon.

I thought I was done for.

I figured since my first two attempts had failed, I might never get another chance to try again.

The Heavenly Demon said.

-Do you truly wish to leave?

I answered honestly.

I shouted, driven by spite, that I hated the suffocating atmosphere of the Demon Cult, hated the annoying sahyungs, and more than anything, hated him most of all.

Surprisingly, the Heavenly Demon showed an expression I had never seen before.

Pain.

On the face of the ever-cold Heavenly Demon, pain appeared.

Then he turned his back after leaving just one sentence.

“Seek the divine physician at White Flower Pavilion in Nanjing.”

So it was.

He was the one who made me go to the divine physician, and the one who told me where he was.

It was all the Heavenly Demon.

“No matter how I think about it, I can’t understand. Why you permitted my escape when you’d tried to keep me by any means? Why you told me the divine physician’s whereabouts?”

There was so much more I wanted to ask.

Why you took me as your disciple?

Just how you came to be eroded by demonic qi?

But the Heavenly Demon still gave no response.

“Say something. Will you not say a single word to the end?”

Right, what can I expect of the Heavenly Demon. He spoke little even before being consumed by demonic qi.

I will likely die without resolving my questions. Perhaps it is the sin of abandoning and leaving my master.

There is a scene that kept coming to mind on my way to meet the Heavenly Demon.

The last look he had on his face.

The pained face, unlike him, would not leave my mind.

‘What if I had not left?’

Could I have stopped the Heavenly Demon from being consumed by the demonic qi?

Maybe I was too rash.

Since the Heavenly Demon knew the divine physician’s whereabouts, he might have done something when my lifespan neared its end.

“The distance is too close… I have no strength to push you away.”

Strength was draining from my legs.

Kneeling side by side, facing the Heavenly Demon.

“Life’s nothing much, isn’t it…?”

I barely lifted my head to look at the sky.

Unlike the ruined earth, the sky was damnably clear.

‘So it ends like this.’

I felt a little regret.

I had lived too desperately, bound by my severed meridians.

If I had trusted the Heavenly Demon, I might have met a different outcome than now.

Well, it’s a late regret.

‘It would be nice if I could live once more.’

Perhaps because it was time to die, a stray thought came.

I figured I knew the solution to the severed meridians, and if I lived again, I could live a much better life.

‘And be able to do something about this man too.’

If I started anew, I would become far stronger than I was now.

Then I might resolve it before the Heavenly Demon was consumed by demonic qi.

No, I could just become stronger and laugh at him all I wanted.

“Master, is this all you amount to?” and so on.

‘Well, it wasn’t a bad life after all.’

I had become the Heavenly Demon’s disciple, and I had roamed the Central Plains to my heart’s content.

This much is fine.

‘Enough idle thoughts.’

My eyes keep closing.

It seems it’s time to go.

Looking at my master’s still-empty eyes, I gave a low laugh.

“Heh heh…”

I naturally, slowly closed my eyes.

I was sure that I did.

“…?”

But for some reason, my eyes were forced open.

And before me stood the Heavenly Demon of the past.

“Your talent is usable. Follow me.”

I had returned to the past.

To the time when the Heavenly Demon was just reaching out his hand.