Chapter 126

The No-Return Cave was a place that tested the qualities of rising talents.
Whether they could pass through the dangerous trials built inside, and if they could, how long it took and what process they used.
The idea was to assess various factors and separate the gems from the stones.
But that was nothing more than a fine-looking shell.
The truth was collusion among the privileged class.

Those who passed through the No-Return Cave were bestowed elixirs under the pretext of boosting morale and strengthening the cult’s internal forces.
The problem was that, making that purpose meaningless, passing through the No-Return Cave wasn’t difficult at all.
It was no different from walking in, taking a stroll around, and coming back out to receive an elixir.
Because of that, the children of high-ranking families, including the Seven Demonic Houses, monopolized the right to enter this place, and this caused a serious imbalance.
An even greater gap had opened between powerful families and those that were not, when their starting lines had already been different to begin with.

The one who ended this unfair practice that had continued for so long was none other than the Eighth Heavenly Demon.
He greatly strengthened the trials of the No-Return Cave and limited its open period to ten days a year.
It was to save the manpower and resources consumed in securing elixirs.

The upper class, including the Seven Demonic Houses, were dissatisfied, but they did not make a major issue of it.
They thought that if they compressed what had been done sporadically throughout the year into a ten-day period, they could produce roughly similar results.

But the first rising talent to enter did not come out even when it was time.
The second, the third, the fourth.
It was the same afterward.
In the end, a Transcendent master who had shed the label of rising talent decades ago personally went inside.
Surprisingly, even he could not return within the allotted time.
Only long after that did he barely make it out alive, and this was what he reported about the reality inside.

Mechanical formations that sensed pressure and activated the moment one stepped on them.
Hidden weapons and poisonous mist pouring in from all directions.
An enormous maze where one could not even guess where it began or where it ended.
A structure filled with malice, as if it had been made not for a test, but for slaughter.

After that, the number of rising talents who challenged the No-Return Cave plummeted.
Now, only fools acting on bravado went in once in a blue moon and never showed themselves again.

‘And he wants to throw me in there?’

I was so dumbfounded that I was speechless.
There had been many things the Heavenly Demon had done that I couldn’t understand until now, but this was even worse.
I asked the Heavenly Demon directly. It wasn’t my style to just sit there with questions.

“I’m asking just in case. You’re not actually trying to put me in the No-Return Cave, are you?”

The Heavenly Demon’s eyebrow twitched strangely.
That was him smiling.
To shake off the sudden surge of unease, I hurriedly waved my hand.

“Ah, no way. I heard there are plenty of people who go in and come out dead. No matter what, you wouldn’t put your precious disciple in there.”

I looked at the Heavenly Demon and asked.

“Right?”

The Heavenly Demon answered.

“Wrong.”
“Ah.”

Crumble.
I heard the sound of hope collapsing.
The Heavenly Demon said.

“The No-Return Cave is a very suitable place to train the Six Extremes Demon King Step.”
“Don’t tell me the reason you’re telling me to enter that terrifying place is because of a footwork technique? You want me to risk my life and come back with attainment?”
“That’s right.”
“I think the order is wrong. Wouldn’t it make more sense to master it first and then go in to check it?”
“The Six Extremes Demon King Step reveals its true value only when trained through real combat. Learning it in advance is nothing but the shell. Only by moving while personally risking your life can you realize the essence of the footwork.”
“Isn’t that too dangerous? If your most intelligent disciple dies, Master’s heart would ache too, wouldn’t it?”
“I told you before. If you die there, then that is all you amount to.”

The Heavenly Demon spoke coldly.
What an incredible man, seriously.
Does he only think about how to torment his disciple?

“Haa.”

I let out a small sigh.
This was just my lot in life.
When one problem was solved, another appeared, and just when things seemed like they might get comfortable for a moment, the road of suffering opened again.

‘I did have plans to go to the No-Return Cave…….’

I had to obtain something inside.
It was a secret manual said to have been left behind by some past Cult Leader from who knew how many generations ago.
Coincidentally, it was a footwork secret manual like the Six Extremes Demon King Step I was about to learn, but there was a difference.
The footwork in that secret manual was meant only for someone who had learned the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
In other words, it was meant only for the Cult Leader.
Naturally, it would be useless even if I obtained it, but I wasn’t aiming for the footwork itself.
Something I absolutely needed was recorded in the appendix of that secret manual.

‘No matter how I think about it, now isn’t the time. Haa.’

This plan was supposed to be at least a year or two later.
I had heard many times how harsh the environment inside was, so I had intended to go in after growing a bit more.
But out of nowhere, it looked like I’d be going in next month.
Because of the Heavenly Demon.

‘What do I do about this?’

I sank into thought for a moment.
There was no way the Heavenly Demon would take back something he said he would do.
In that case, I had only one choice.
I had no choice but to turn this into an opportunity.
I looked straight at the Heavenly Demon and said.

“I’ll go in. But I have a condition.”
“Speak.”
“If I come out safely, give me an elixir.”

The Heavenly Demon nodded.

“Very well.”
“……What?”

I was flustered even though I was the one who had said it.
He agreed that readily?
It was far too unlike the usual Heavenly Demon.
Hadn’t he just said a little while ago that elixirs were only external things and that I shouldn’t rely on them?

“Are you serious?”
“I am. My disciple is entering a deathtrap, so as his master, shouldn’t I at least give him one carrot?”

I tilted my head.
What was seriously wrong with the Heavenly Demon?
He wasn’t the kind of person to say something like this. Was he perhaps feeling sorry for making the training so hard on me?

“However, I also have a condition.”

I knew it.
There was no way the Heavenly Demon would hand over an elixir obediently.

“Bring me the No-Return Blood from inside the No-Return Cave.”
“What is that?”
“An elixir. It should have been retrieved long ago, but I heard it still has not been.”
“…….”

I blinked and chewed over the Heavenly Demon’s words in my head.
If I came out safely, he would give me an elixir.
But in exchange, I had to bring an elixir from the No-Return Cave.

“Ah.”

I understood.

“You’re telling me to personally retrieve the elixir you’re going to give me!”
“Correct.”
“Aren’t you seriously too much? How can you call that giving it to me?”

They say there’s no one in the world you can trust, but to think the Heavenly Demon would toy with me like this.
The Heavenly Demon replied as if it were nothing.

“Everything in this cult is mine.”
“…….”

I lost my words.
It was absurd, but it was true, so I couldn’t refute it.
I crossed my arms.
Thinking about it, it wasn’t necessarily only bad.
According to my original plan, I had only intended to take the secret manual, but now I had learned that there was also an elixir.
The difficulty of obtaining it was obviously going to be extremely high, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find it.

“Well, fine. Just don’t change your words later.”
“Just come back alive.”

One corner of the Heavenly Demon’s mouth rose faintly.

“The No-Return Cave is divided into three zones. If you learn Lightning Step to the third stage, you can pass through the first zone, and if you learn Death-Line Step to the third stage, you can pass through the third zone. Can you do it?”
“Do what? Raise those two to the third stage before the No-Return Cave opens?”

I chuckled.

“You know who I am. I am none other than—”
“Let us begin with the Death-Line Step.”

The Heavenly Demon strode toward the center of the training ground.

“—I wasn’t finished talking yet.”

I grumbled as I followed behind him.
Soon, the Heavenly Demon came to a firm stop.
At the same time, the ground between him and me split in a long line.
He had drawn a sort of line with formless qi.

‘The people who maintain the training ground are going to suffer a lot.’

He smashed up all kinds of ground just to demonstrate footwork, and now he was drawing long lines.
Restoring it was going to be extremely difficult.

“Cross this line by any means necessary.”

The distance between the Heavenly Demon and me was about thirty meters.
And the line was drawn about a meter and a half ahead of him.
In other words, the distance was about twenty-eight and a half meters.

‘He says to cross it, but he’s obviously going to interfere like crazy, right?’

Twenty-eight and a half meters was a short distance I could cross in no time with the Soul-Extinguishing Flash Step.
But right now, it felt not like twenty-seven meters, but twenty-seven hundred meters.

‘Let’s try.’

In my head, I imagined the safest way to reach that line.
I couldn’t focus only on speed.
Even if it wasn’t that complicated, adding variation to my movement in a zigzag pattern was at least a way to raise the odds of success.

Pat!
As soon as I finished thinking, I kicked off the ground with Soul-Extinguishing Flash Step.
Immediately afterward, I sensed something faint. It was as if someone had placed a cold blade against my neck.

‘I have to dodge.’

I instinctively twisted my body, but I was too late.
Seogeok!
My neck was cut.

Kneeling on the ground, I felt my neck.
It wasn’t severed.
Far from that, there wasn’t even a small wound.

“Huff, huff.”

I breathed heavily.
Could there be any fear of death this vivid?

‘Is this…… killing intent?’

He hadn’t attacked with physical means.
Because there was no pain at all.

‘I thought I was going to die.’

No, I really did die.
At least in that moment.

I looked up at the Heavenly Demon.
He stood still with his hands clasped behind his back.

“I told you to cross the line, yet you retreated instead.”

I looked around.
It was true.
Without realizing it, I had been pushed back two whole steps.

“Whew, taking my head off from the start. Aren’t you raising me a little too harshly?”
“If I had, you would already be a dead man.”
“Of course I would.”
“Again.”

I clenched my teeth and stood up.
Vowing that I absolutely wouldn’t retreat this time, I stepped out again.
My solar plexus prickled.

‘Again?’

This time, I had to dodge faster.
I covered my front with my arm and twisted my body.

“Keuk.”

I was late.
The sensation of my solar plexus being pierced.
Making a mockery of the vow I had just made, my knees immediately buckled and my hands hit the floor.

“Uuuk.”

I retched.
Stomach acid rose up to my throat.
I hadn’t actually been hit, but my body seemed to recognize that I had.

“Again.”

I staggered to my feet.
I executed Soul-Extinguishing Flash Step.
This time, my heart lurched.

‘I have to react faster.’

I moved more boldly.
Keeping my feet firmly planted on the ground, I bent my knees and leaned my upper body backward.
It was the technique known as the Iron Bridge.
Of course, it didn’t work this time either.
With the feeling that my heart had literally burst, I flopped backward onto the ground.
Thump-thump, thump-thump.
My heart pounded like mad.
Like that, I repeated failure again and again.

“Ugh.”
“Krrgh.”
“Hup.”

Shoulder, leg, arm.
Various parts of my body were smashed.

“Haa, haa.”

Sprawled on the floor, I breathed roughly.
My entire body was soaked in sweat.
There were no real wounds, but every corner of my body remembered death.

“You are still in the same place.”
“I can sense where you are going to shoot your killing intent, Master, but I can’t dodge it.”
“You cannot dodge because you are trying to dodge.”

For a moment, I was puzzled.
Was he telling me not to even try and just take it?
Seeing my expression, the Heavenly Demon continued.

“What did I say earlier?”

While demonstrating Death-Line Step, the Heavenly Demon had said this.
Survival and death were separated by a single sheet of paper. The loser hid behind the paper, but the victor tore through it.
I pondered the meaning of those words.
What was it like when the Heavenly Demon executed Death-Line Step?
The cold-iron dagger had thrust to within an inch of his dantian, but just when I wondered if he still wasn’t going to dodge, he instead closed in from the front and gently pressed between my brows.

‘Wait, is this it?’

Moving forward without dodging.
The Death-Line Step the Heavenly Demon had shown was not simply for dodging, nor was it simply for attacking.
Melting those two things into a single step was the Death-Line Step.

‘Until now, I’d only been trying to dodge the killing intent.’

That couldn’t be helped.
When a person senses the omen of death, they instinctively try to evade.
But I had to go against that instinct.
Only then would I be able to understand what Death-Line Step was.

“Whoo.”

I slowly stood up.
My legs trembled from all the accumulated shock so far, but I planted both feet firmly on the ground again.
I filled both eyes with the Heavenly Demon and stepped forward.
Soon, my left shoulder tingled.
Killing intent rushed in.
The instinct to dodge surged up, but I endured it.

‘Forward.’

The instant I felt the chill of my shoulder being cut off, I threw myself forward.
I did not do it without thinking. It was because I had instinctively sensed the trajectory drawn by the killing intent.
It was different from reading a trajectory with Sword Eye.
If Sword Eye recognized a trajectory as a diagonal line that had to be avoided, this current sensation recognized it as the shortest path I had to brush past.
It was the realization that the fastest route to reach the enemy was, paradoxically, connected to the trajectory of the attack rushing toward me.

‘It worked!’

The chill in my shoulder vanished.
My heart pounded as if it would burst.
It was not from the fear that my arm had nearly been cut off, but from the excitement that I had finally taken one step forward.

Side.
Knee.
Ankle.

I advanced and advanced again toward several deaths.
The killing intent grew stronger, and the speed at which it seized me with fear also grew faster.
Even so, I forced away the sensation of my body stiffening and charged forward one step, then two.

‘I can’t stop.’

Three steps, four steps, five steps.
With my head emptied, I headed forward with only the bare minimum of movement.
My body reached its limit and screamed.
My lungs burned as if they would tear, and my legs were as heavy as if iron weights were hanging from them.
When my consciousness also began to fade, the Heavenly Demon’s voice dug into my ears.

“Hold on to your mind. The starting point of Death-Line Step is overcoming the fear of death caused by killing intent.”

In other words, he was telling me not to submit to fear until the end.
It was probably easy for a genius like the Heavenly Demon.
For me, a step that overcame death was that painful.
But.

“Uaaaaah!”

I overcame the final wave of killing intent.
My vision darkened, but my legs moved on their own.
At last, I crossed the line.
I had done something that seemed impossible.
Immediately, I collapsed flat onto the ground.
I forced my head up and smiled faintly.

“……I crossed it.”

The Heavenly Demon’s face, which had been looking down at me expressionlessly, moved faintly.
This was a smile.
The moment I saw that smile, the tension left me.
In my fading consciousness, I heard the Heavenly Demon’s voice.

“This is why I have no choice but to make excessive demands of you.”

What did he mean?
I wanted to ask, but my mouth wouldn’t open.
My consciousness sank into the depths.