Chapter 160

“What is your basis?”

I asked in a somewhat sharp tone.
The Ink Scholar snorted.

“Does a seer speak of evidence?”
“You and I are different.”
“In what way?”
“In that you are not a seer.”

The Ink Scholar’s brush stopped.
He quietly stared at me as though telling me to explain.
I answered calmly.

“A seer does not infer. A seer simply sees. But you do not see. You merely read through evidence and inference.”
“…….”
“That is why I asked what evidence led you to predict the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization.”

The Ink Scholar gave me a strange look.
He asked,

“Strange. You remained calm about everything else, yet your voice changes whenever the Heavenly Demon is involved.”
“Please refrain from jumping to conclusions. Not everyone lives with thoughts as convoluted as yours. This humble one is merely curious. Why did you say that his becoming a demonic fiend is the natural order? What gives you such certainty?”

I deftly deflected the Ink Scholar’s suspicion.
Instead of answering, he raised his brush and wrote something.
I heard him muttering.

“Sang-eon, it seems this man truly has no idea what lurks within the Heavenly Demon. What is there to discuss with someone like that?”

I flinched.
Because of the subtle implication in his words.

‘Something is lurking inside the Heavenly Demon?’

Only one thing came to mind.

Heart-Demon Qi.

-The dregs of demonic qi. Something that destroys rather than builds.

That was how the Heavenly Demon had described Heart-Demon Qi.
If something truly lurked within him, what else could it be?

‘But that’s impossible.’

The Ink Scholar’s intelligence network was far better than expected.
He knew about the Radiant Moon Jin Family’s direct-line token, the obsession of the Myriad Gold Money House owner, and even the conflict between the Beast Palace and Sichuan Tang Clan.

But the Heavenly Demon’s secret was on another level entirely.
Only a tiny handful of people even knew that he left the Divine Demon Gate.
At most, perhaps his personal guards and Gal So-ye.
And I could say with certainty that none of them knew his purpose was to absorb Heart-Demon Qi.

Yet the Ink Scholar knew this?
That made no sense.

‘I have no idea what’s going on.’

Two things were certain.
The Ink Scholar knew something I didn’t.
And he had no intention of giving it up easily.

‘Then I’ll drag it out of him.’

Now was the time to use harsher measures.
I would provoke him more directly.
Until he spat out what I wanted.

“In the name of Heaven Rebelling, we sever the old heavens!”
“……?”
“That is the slogan proclaimed by the organization you belong to. Yet I cannot shake the feeling that it was poorly chosen.”

I wore a provocative smile.

“Because it is not the old heavens that will break. It is the Heaven Rebelling Society.”
“You seem intent on shaking me with worthless words.”
“You may change your mind after hearing the rest.”

I drew upon memories from my previous life.

“Three of the Seven Demonic Houses will fall. A bloody storm will sweep through the Cult, and countless limbs will fly in explosions caused by Heaven Rebelling Society members. But the chaos will not last long. Flesh will be stripped away, fingers torn off, even the meat from their toes ripped free. Every member of the Society, high and low alike. Including you.”

I declared with absolute certainty.

“The Heaven Rebelling Society will be destroyed. And it will leave not a single scar upon the old heavens it tried so desperately to shatter. That is the future I have seen.”

I watched the Ink Scholar’s eyes.
I had prophesied a disastrous future for the organization he belonged to.
As one of its core executives, he had no choice but to react somehow.

Sure enough, an unnatural silence settled over us.
Only the heavy fragrance drifted silently through the darkness.
The Ink Scholar’s brush had stopped as well.
There was no emotion on his face, but that very lack of expression betrayed his agitation.
He spoke.

“You claim to have seen the Society’s destruction. I cannot believe it.”
“Your opinion seems to have changed already. You called it worthless just moments ago. Then again, you will not escape that inferno either. With your crippled body, you will be dragged away and torn limb from limb.”

I continued provoking him to shake him further.
The Ink Scholar snorted and moved his brush.
It was subtle, but his grip on the brush had tightened.

“Sang-eon, this man truly is a foolish fortune-teller.”

The Ink Scholar raised his head.
The corners of his mouth rose awkwardly, as though forced upward.

“The Society is destroyed? Fine. I die? Fine as well. And what does any of that change?”
“Why are you so certain nothing changes?”
“What use is a plow once the seed has already been planted?”

‘The seed and the plow?’

I paused.
The Ink Scholar had said it did not matter if the Heaven Rebelling Society was destroyed.
He had said it did not matter if he died.

Ordinarily, a fanatic would sacrifice his life for his organization.
But this man did not value the organization itself.
Why?

‘Is the Heaven Rebelling Society nothing more than the plow? Something that only tilled the field so the seed could be planted?’

Then what was the seed?
The Ink Scholar had said it earlier.

The seed had already been planted.
The Heavenly Demon had no choice but to become a demonic fiend.
That was the natural order.

‘……The Heavenly Demon’s Demonization.’

What if that was the seed?
What if the Heaven Rebelling Society was merely the plow used to plant it?

‘That’s insane.’

If the Heavenly Demon became a demonic fiend, the Heaven Rebelling Society would be finished too.
Not only the Demon Cult, but the entire Central Plains would drown in blood.
Who could possibly survive that?

And yet the Ink Scholar’s attitude supported that absurd assumption.
I dug deeper.

If the Ink Scholar did not care about the organization or even his own life.
If he cared only insofar as they were tools.
If his true objective was the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization.
If all the incomprehensible things he and the Heaven Rebelling Society had done were merely stepping stones toward that goal.

‘What was written in the proclamations wasn’t merely prophecy!’

The Ink Scholar was trying to make it happen himself.
From the beginning, the only thing he had wanted was the Heavenly Demon’s Demonization.

“……Why are you trying to turn the Heavenly Demon into a demonic fiend?”

The Ink Scholar’s eyes narrowed.
He said,

“Do you understand what you just said?”
“I do.”
“No, you do not. You did not see just now. You read. Just as I do.”

In other words, he was saying that I was not a true seer either.
It was a sharp observation.
Just as I had seen through the Ink Scholar’s nature, he had seen through mine.
But I could hardly admit that.

“One who reads may not see, but one who sees can also read. That is the difference between you and this humble one.”
“……Your tongue is more troublesome than your eyes that see the future. In any case, whether you saw it or read it, the result is the same.”

The Ink Scholar shook his head.

“Do you know why I agreed to meet you?”
“You were curious. About who I was, why I could predict the future, and just how precise my prophecies were.”
“There was another reason. To determine whether you were an observer or an intervener.”
“With your plans and those of the Heaven Rebelling Society?”

The Ink Scholar didn’t answer. He looked down at the paper and muttered as his brush moved.

“Sang-eon, do you know? Those who see merely observe, but those who read inevitably intervenes. We cannot leave this man alone.”

He gave a slight nod.
At that, the eerie woman who had stood motionless like a doll until now began to move.
She released the wheelchair handles and began slowly turning in place.

‘Hm?’

I doubted my eyes.
Her fingers and joints moved strangely.
Each joint bent in a different direction, as though moving independently.
It looked as though she were pulling invisible strings or engraving patterns into the air.

Each time her fingertips swept through the air, branches trembled and the ground faintly vibrated.
It looked as though the woman and the forest were breathing as one.
A faint light spread beneath her feet.

‘So it comes to this after all.’

I had considered from the start that they might have laid down a formation.
Now that possibility had become reality.
The strange woman seemed to be central to the formation’s activation.

I shook my head.

“You are not the only one who prepared. Did you really think I would enter enemy territory without taking precautions?”

I pursed my lips.
Ppiiiiiit-!
Thousand-Li Sound.
The sharp whistle Flying Swallow had taught me cut through the darkness.

I glared at the Ink Scholar and thought,

‘Now that it’s come to this, I might as well capture him.’

My visit to Soul-Bewildering Forest had been half a success.
I had formed an idea of the Ink Scholar and Heaven Rebelling Society’s objective, but I still did not know the specific reason or method.
So now that things had come this far, capturing the Ink Scholar seemed like the better option.
With enough time, I felt I could dig more out of him.

‘We can catch him.’

Du Jung-baek was waiting outside.
An Extreme Demon Realm master was hardly something one encountered every day.
His mere presence would be a tremendous advantage.

The Ink Scholar could never have imagined he was here.
He did not even know who I truly was.

‘Flying Swallow just needs to do her part.’

Just as her mischievous face came to mind,

Spat-
My vision went black, then returned almost immediately.
We were standing in the middle of a desert beneath scorching sunlight.

“Young Lord, are you all right?”
“It’s a formation.”

Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin immediately moved close to me.
They were taking defensive positions because none of us knew what danger might appear.
Without answering, I looked around.

‘This feels remarkably real.’

This was no crude formation.

‘How long will it take to break?’

I wasn’t overly worried.
Because I trusted Hwang Seung-hyu.
The only problem was that breaking it might take some time.

‘We just have to hold out until then.’

That was when it happened.
Several pillars of sand erupted upward as sweltering heat battered my skin.

“Watch out!”

I sensed something.
Heaven Rebelling Society members were inside the pillars of sand.

Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin easily subdued the figures bursting from the sand pillars.
More pillars continued to erupt as the environment shifted.
Heaven Rebelling Society members kept appearing from all directions, but neither of them faltered.

‘Heh.’

I nodded in satisfaction.
They said experience nourished growth, and all the things those two had gone through were clearly paying off.
How reassuring.

Jjiiiiiiik——!

Before that satisfaction could even fade,
space suddenly tore open.
Two grotesquely bent hands reached through and pried the long tear in space wide.
Then a stitched-together body slipped through.

It was the eerie woman.

“…….”

I swallowed hard.
A sense of foreboding washed over me.
She had merely appeared, yet the atmosphere inside the formation had changed completely.

“Y-Young Lord.”

Im Yeon moved closer to me.
Ak Mu-jin broke into a cold sweat and raised his saber upright.
They had sensed it instinctively too.
This was no ordinary situation.

Kkigigik. The woman twisted her head at an unnatural angle.
Her previously empty eyes fixed on me.
Then, as those eyes curved into crescents, dense killing intent gathered within them.

“Kkyahahahahahat!”

At the same instant, the eerie woman charged.
Letting out a spine-chilling cackle as she came.