Chapter 59

The Acid Dragon was terrifying.

In barely seven minutes it had neutralized four of the six mercenaries.

Two died after being caught in those vicious jaws, and two melted away without a trace in the acidic spray the Acid Dragon spewed.

‘A famed demonic beast really is different.’

There were people who chased after such dangerous demonic beasts.

In the name of studying their ecology, they observed various things, and the Acid Dragon was a beast they had already encountered several times.

So information like how it was sensitive to the sound of metal or that it spat acidic fluid was already known.

I had only learned about the thing thanks to Great Sahyung, but either way, that creature was now taking care of the assassins in my place.

“Die, die!”

Of course, that didn’t mean the Acid Dragon was unscathed.

One of its eyes had burst, and its hard scales were covered in saber marks.

Rotten fish or not, the middle-aged man was still hacking at the Acid Dragon with ferocity, even though he could not move his lower body freely.

Judging by how ragged its breathing had become, it was clearly nearing its limit.

‘Geuk Mu-hyeok really was strong.’

How had he managed to beat down a monster like this alone.

No matter that Great Sahyung was now at the late Transcendent Realm, and no matter that the gap between realms widened the higher you went.

The difference in outcome between this middle-aged man, who was only a realm or two below him, and Geuk Mu-hyeok seemed like heaven and earth.

Although for the middle-aged man, having his lower body bitten at the start had been a fatal blow.

“Hey, you there. Help me!”

The middle-aged man shouted in my direction.

I could not help a hollow laugh.

“You want me to help the people who came to kill me. Why?”

“If we don’t stop this thing, you will die too.”

“I don’t think I will though.”

I answered leisurely from behind a large rock.

The area around the Acid Dragon had already melted into a mess that reeked, but the beast had stopped spraying acid a while ago.

It seemed to have exhausted all the acidic fluid stored in its sacs, and if that was the case, I had nothing to fear.

I had come with a strategy tailored exactly for dealing with the Acid Dragon.

“You idiot… You cannot handle this thing alone. But the three of us tog— Keheok!”

With a cracking sound the man flew several meters away.

Before the middle-aged man could even finish his sentence, the Acid Dragon’s tail had smashed into him.

He writhed on the ground, coughing up blood, then went limp.

He was dead.

Tsk, tsk. If he had not split his focus on me and just concentrated on the Acid Dragon, he might not have died so pathetically.

“T, this is wrong!”

Perhaps he had decided the situation had turned bad.

The last remaining mercenary turned to flee.

Using Soul-Extinguishing Flash Steps, I blocked his path in an instant.

“Where do you think you are going?”

“G, get out of my way!”

“And if I don’t want to? You came here to kill someone, yet your own life is precious? Your heart is quite rotten.”

“D, damn it!”

The mercenary charged at me.

With the Acid Dragon rushing in from behind, looking for its next victim, he had no choice.

However, this mercenary was exhausted and overly worked up.

I simply twisted my body a little and hooked his leg.

He went down with a crash.

I quickly moved back.

“Goodbye.”

“Kraagh!”

In the end, every mercenary who had come to assassinate me met his end at the Acid Dragon’s jaws.

‘This is what you call justice being served.’

Now only the Acid Dragon and I remained here.

One of its eyes, gleaming with murderous intent, turned toward me.

Without any drawn-out standoff or anything, it kicked off the ground and charged with its massive jaws wide open.

Calmly, I gripped the cold-iron staff with both hands.

I had retrieved it while the Acid Dragon and the mercenaries were locked in battle.

‘Let’s end this in one go.’

I planted my left leg forward with the knee bent and stretched my right leg far back.

I stamped the ground hard, determined there would be no second chance.

Then, as the Acid Dragon thrust its gaping maw straight at me.

‘Now.’

I drove one end of the cold-iron staff precisely into the narrow gap between its upper and lower jaws.

At the same time I drew up all my internal energy and shoved the staff’s other end with all my strength, forcing it upright.

Kwaduk!

The cold-iron staff lodged firmly between the Acid Dragon’s upper and lower jaws. Its mouth was fixed open as if it had been forced to bite down on a bit.

It tried to bite down and break it when it would not come free, but there was no way a cold-iron staff would snap so easily.

“Keugyaaang!”

The Acid Dragon thrashed in pain.

It whipped its tail and tried to swat me with its front legs, but with its mouth pried wide open, nothing seemed to be in its sight.

That meant two things.

Its angle of vision was off, and it was extremely enraged.

Thanks to that, I could not have let it hit me even if I wanted to.

I dodged easily and climbed onto its back.

It thrashed violently to throw me off, but it was useless.

I was using all my remaining internal energy to cling on.

‘’Time to end this.’

Once the Acid Dragon had exhausted itself, I took out the cold-iron dagger from my breast.

Puk, puk!

I stabbed wildly between its eyes. Blood that was somewhere between brown and gray, a mix of red and green, spurted out.

‘Damn it.’

I frowned.

The back of my hand, splattered with blood, was becoming mottled. Apparently the blood also contained acidic properties.

‘Let’s finish this quickly.’

Enduring the pain, I drove the dagger in again and again.

At last the Acid Dragon’s massive body slammed into the ground with a Koong.

“Phew, it is over.”

I flopped onto my back on the Acid Dragon’s body.

All around, blood and flesh were strewn in a gruesome scene, yet I laughed.

I had wiped out all the mercenaries after my life and even took down the Acid Dragon.

When everything unfolded just as planned like this, it felt as if all my fatigue vanished.

If worst came to worst, I had been prepared to bolt using movement arts, but thankfully that embarrassment never came to pass.

Buuk!

I tore off a strip of my clothes and wrapped it around my hand.

It stung badly, but I gritted my teeth and pulled out the cold-iron staff. The blood running down the staff hissed as it ate through the cloth.

With effort I rolled the staff along the ground to wipe away every bit of acid.

The cold-iron staff had two purposes.

To lure the Acid Dragon and to take it down.

Now that both were done, it had fulfilled its role.

“Heup-cha.”

With some effort I rolled the Acid Dragon’s body over. Without hesitation I slit its belly open with the cold-iron dagger, then grabbed a saber lying nearby and dug into the spot over and over.

After repeating that for quite some time, what I wanted finally appeared.

‘There it is.’

In my hand was a face mirror. It was a hand mirror for reflecting one’s face.

The expression Great Sahyung had worn in my previous life when he held this surfaced clearly in my mind.

He had boldly slit the beast’s belly promising to offer the inner core to the Heavenly Demon, only for a mirror to come out instead of the core everyone expected.

That slippery Great Sahyung had been flustered for once.

The purpose of this mirror had only been revealed much later.

When combined with a certain object belonging to the Illusory Hwang Clan, one of the Seven Demonic Houses, it became a divine artifact that allowed you to pass safely through one of the Four Great Forbidden Regions.

Inside that place slept one of the three elixirs I had to obtain in this life.

If I took that, this accursed True Blood Severed Meridians would improve by about a third, and that alone would make me incomparably freer than I was now.

‘Time to head into the Sacred Flame Cave.’

I would have liked to sit down and circulate my qi.

But I had no idea what might happen outside, so I gave up on that thought.

Instead I took out a fire slip from my breast, held it to the torch Im Yeon had prepared, and blew.

Sparks flew and the torch flared to life.

Holding it, I stepped into the cave.

The inside of the Sacred Flame Cave was simple.

There were no branches in the path, so I simply walked along the wall.

That did not mean there were no issues.

The deeper I went, the denser the demonic qi became. It was to the point that even a Transcendent-level master’s meridians would twist.

However, I was different.

Just as I had been fine within the demonic qi at the Demon Inquisition Corps, I was unaffected this time as well.

The thick demonic qi was unpleasant, yet it could not affect my meridians at all.

It was as if the Perfect Demonic Qi filtered the demonic qi’s poison away on its own.

‘It just keeps getting fascinating.’

A few days before the Sacred Flame Festival, I had visited Demon Valley.

At the time, the Demon Valley Lord had said the Perfect Demonic Qi held limitless potential, and that he was working on categorizing it into stages.

Just like how realms were divided into Peak, Transcendent, and so on.

By the time I visited again, I would probably be able to hear a more systematic explanation.

I did not know how long I walked like that.

Finally I reached the deepest part of the Sacred Flame Cave.

There the Sacred Flame was.

A blue flame burning alone in midair without any support.

I gazed at the flame as if entranced.

It was incredibly calming, yet ecstatic at the same time.

‘Should I touch it?’

The Sacred Flame burned everything it touched.

However, they said if you touched the Sacred Flame while carrying the ritual implement, you would see the most intense and meaningful scene of your life.

It was an oral tradition, and Great Sahyung had also testified that it was true.

They said the first Heavenly Demon had gained enlightenment from this flame and founded the Demon Cult. Perhaps that was because of the scene he had seen.

If so, what scene would I see?

‘It’ll probably be that final moment.’

I expected it would be that wretched moment when I had died together with the Heavenly Demon after he turned demonic.

That was probably the biggest reason I had been given a second life.

I steadied my heart and slowly reached my hand toward the Sacred Flame.

The instant my fingertips touched the flickering flame, a familiar voice struck my mind.

“Your talent is usable. Follow me.”

What appeared before my eyes was the very moment the Heavenly Demon had taken me as his disciple.

The Heavenly Demon’s figure, clad in a spotless white long robe and looking like someone not of this world, etched itself onto my retinas.

“…”

I was at a loss for words.

Why this scene?

I did not know, but for some reason a corner of my chest ached.

From that moment on, my life had been utterly changed.

If the Heavenly Demon had not taken me in then, what kind of life would I have lived.

Perhaps I would have kept wandering the streets and starved to death before I even reached twenty-five.

Or I might have met an even more miserable end.

Yet in my previous life I had complained like someone who had never known hunger.

It was not that I had no gratitude toward the Heavenly Demon. That was why I had gladly died with him.

But while the Heavenly Demon had been himself, I had never managed to express those feelings.

‘…Wait.’

I felt something off in the scene, which had somehow come to a halt.

What was it?

‘His expression.’

Only then did I realize.

There had been pity in the Heavenly Demon’s expression.

‘That makes no sense.’

The Heavenly Demon was not someone who would show emotion to an orphan he had just met.

Yet pity.

That carefully reaching hand.

These were things that did not suit the Heavenly Demon at all.

Flash!

In that instant, the Sacred Flame was once again blazing before my eyes.

The vision the flame had shown me was over.

My head spun.

Why had the Heavenly Demon looked at me with that expression?

I had always thought he had taken me as a disciple solely because of the True Blood Severed Meridians.

Now it occurred to me that might not be the whole story.

Because it was the Heavenly Demon of all people, even that small expression felt laden with meaning.

‘…Why did the Heavenly Demon take me as his disciple?’

It had been the same in the past, and it was no different in this moment.

I still did not know anything.

Quietly, I opened the carrying box.

As I brought it near the Sacred Flame, a portion of the flame slid into it as if returning home.

I closed the box and gazed at the Sacred Flame for a moment.

It was still comforting.

For some reason it felt like I could circulate my qi before it without a care.

I finished my circulation and left the Sacred Flame Cave.

“It’s the Seventh Young Lord!”

“The Seventh Young Lord has returned!”

I returned in the late afternoon, just as the sunset was about to fall.

As soon as I entered the main altar, a tremendous cheer erupted from the followers who had been waiting for me.

“Young Lord, you are safe!”

Im Yeon and Ak Mu-jin’s group rushed over to check on me.

I waved lightly to show I was fine and headed toward Ten Thousand Demons Hall.

The followers lined up on both sides of the path were all smiling brightly without exception.

Only Heuk Jin-pung, Patriarch of the Hundred-Succession Heuk Clan, was glaring at me in the distance with a face like he had bitten into dung, but I could not care less about his mood.

As I stepped onto the altar, my eyes met the Heavenly Demon’s.

His gaze was as calm as ever, yet for some reason the face I had seen within the Sacred Flame overlapped with it.