Chapter 91

“Master, who’s that man?”

I asked the Heavenly Demon as soon as we passed through the mountain gate.

The way he treated Gak-myeong, the Abbot of Shaolin, without hesitation, the way he called the supreme lord of the Demonic Path, the Heavenly Demon, ‘Daoist-friend’ like some fellow cultivator, and that dazzling movement art on top of it all.

Everything about him was a bundle of questions.

The Heavenly Demon answered flatly.

“A Taoist.”

“No, it’s not that I don’t know he’s a Taoist. I mean his name, his Daoist title, something like that.”

“There is nothing you need to know.”

Man, so uncooperative.

He’s always like this.

He never gives a straight answer about anything.

“Then at least tell me his affiliation. Mount Hua? Wudang? Or Jongnam?”

“It is Mount Hua.”

“Oh.”

A bit of my frustration eased.

Now that I knew his sect, it became much easier to guess who he might be.

I ran through a few Daoist titles in my head.

‘Red Leaf? Red Pine? Or maybe Red Rain?’

Red Leaf was the Sect Leader of Mount Hua, and Red Pine and Red Rain were his sahyungs.

Those three were about the only ones who could treat Gak-myeong so casually, but I couldn’t narrow it down any further.

“But why is a Mount Hua Taoist helping you, Master? It looked like you had some connection.”

Since I was getting nowhere, I threw out another question.

I had a feeling he would not answer this either, but I could not just swallow my curiosity whole.

“He is someone who owes me an old debt.”

“An old debt? What do you—”

Kuroong!

At that moment, the surroundings changed abruptly.

We had been on a mountain path on Mount Song overflowing with Demonic Qi, yet suddenly we were standing in a place I couldn’t even name.

The air was fishy and turbid enough to stab into my lungs, a field packed with jagged strange rocks showed not a trace of life, and above us was a crimson sky.

At its center a whirlpool of blood-red, darker than the blue of the sky, was spinning.

‘Is that… Demonic Qi?’

It was Demonic Qi, but not ordinary Demonic Qi.

It was extremely impure and violent.

It was of a different nature from any Demonic Qi I had encountered so far.

“Ghk.”

My heart suddenly dropped.

It was because my middle dantian, not even opened yet, had been provoked.

The cause lay in that vortex of Demonic Qi that filled the sky.

“Master, that Demonic Qi… what is it?”

“The dregs of Demonic Qi. Not something that builds up, but something that breaks down.”

I couldn’t make sense of what he meant.

I didn’t have the leisure to, either.

The Demonic Qi was seeping in, twisting my qi and blood and making my internal energy run in reverse.

“Circulate your Perfect Demonic Qi.”

Sensing my condition, the Heavenly Demon spoke.

I immediately circulated my Perfect Demonic Qi through my whole body.

Then the qi and blood that had been about to boil calmed, and my internal energy, which had been violently surging, regained its stability.

As I had experienced several times before, Perfect Demonic Qi had an outstanding effect on steadying my insides.

‘Just where are the limits of Perfect Demonic Qi?’

I inwardly marveled and let out a sigh of relief.

One misstep and I might have taken the road to the Yellow Springs in a way I never expected.

Of course, with the Heavenly Demon at my side, nothing truly fatal would have happened.

“Where are we?”

Thanks to Perfect Demonic Qi I finally had the room to properly look around.

The Heavenly Demon answered in a low voice.

“The Heart-Demon Abyss.”

“The Heart-Demon Abyss?”

It was a name I had never heard in my life.

“Why would a place like this be on Mount Song? You can’t even call this Mount Song anymore.”

“The place is not what matters. There is no corner of the world where Demonic Qi has not lodged. There is only a difference in degree.”

“This is a bit beyond something you can call a difference in degree.”

“The Five Sacred Peaks are special.”

Come to think of it, Gak-myeong had said this.

-We already know you did the same at Mount Heng and Mount Hua. This old monk stands here to plead with the Cult Leader to stop.

Mount Heng and Mount Hua were also among the Five Sacred Peaks.

Just what in the world was the Heavenly Demon doing, going around the Five Sacred Peaks?

Regardless of what I was thinking, the Heavenly Demon continued.

“Demonic Qi, Righteous Qi, Evil Qi. In the process of all the energies of the world being born and vanishing, unavoidable dregs and karma are produced. That is the Heart-Demon Qi you see.”

“Heart-Demon Qi…”

I had never imagined that something like this could exist in this world.

To think there was Demonic Qi this horrifying.

Suddenly the most fundamental question flashed through my mind.

Why had the Heavenly Demon come to seek out something like this?

“Master, what exactly are you trying to do?”

The Heavenly Demon didn’t answer and walked toward the center of the vortex.

As if there were invisible stairs set in place, he stepped on the air and rose toward the sky.

“Master!”

The Heavenly Demon’s voice rang through the entire Heart-Demon Abyss.

“I will rule the Heart-Demon Qi.”

“Rule it? Why?”

“…”

If I could, I wanted to at least grab the hem of his robe.

Since my regression, I had never found the Heavenly Demon harder to understand than now.

To rule it meant he would absorb the Heart-Demon Qi.

“Master, stop. This is insane!”

Just seeing and feeling it was enough to know.

Heart-Demon Qi was not an energy that humans could handle.

Even though the Heavenly Demon was a being that had surpassed human limits, absorbing such a colossal amount of Heart-Demon Qi would be a tremendous trial even for him.

Moreover, this was not the first time, but the third.

And there were still two more to go.

No matter how great the Heavenly Demon was, this could not leave him unscathed.

‘Was this the problem?’

The last moments of my previous life came to mind.

The demonic Heavenly Demon looking down on the world with empty eyes from atop a mountain of corpses.

Perhaps the cause of that was Heart-Demon Qi.

‘I have to stop this somehow!’

But how?

The Heavenly Demon was already over a hundred meters above me.

No matter what I did, I could not reach him.

‘Then I have to talk him down.’

“Master! Think this through carefully! What do you gain by ruling something like that?”

“Order.”

Order?

What kind of…!

“Are you really doing this because you want to become a Demon God? That isn’t a good thing. You might stop being you, Master!”

That was the most I could say at this point without revealing the future.

The Heavenly Demon was more than worthy of being called a Demon God, but what good was that.

He would lose his reason.

The Heavenly Demon didn’t listen to my words at all.

He simply stood at the center of the vortex with unwavering resolve.

It was despairing.

There was no way left for me to stop him.

The Heavenly Demon stretched out his right hand.

In that instant, the whirlpool of Heart-Demon Qi began to be sucked into his palm.

Guuuu—

A bizarre sound boomed as if heaven and earth themselves were roaring.

With that as the start, strange phenomena began to unfold.

Udududuk!

The ground underfoot split open with loud cracks.

The densely packed strange rocks were uprooted and shot up into the sky.

The sight of hundreds, thousands of rocks floating in the air didn’t feel real at all.

It was like being trapped in a particularly nasty nightmare.

At the center of all this calamity stood the Heavenly Demon.

He stood as unshakable as Mount Tai while holding back the raging torrent of Heart-Demon Qi with a single hand.

I stared up at that sight, utterly dazed.

For a moment I wondered if the Heavenly Demon had already risen to the rank of Demon God.

It was then.

Kwaaaaa—!

An uncontrollable storm of Demonic Qi erupted.

I was helplessly swept up in the shock wave.

At the same time, my world went dark.

When the light returned.

I was standing on a familiar street.

That street from ten years ago, so familiar I was sick of it.

The very place where the Heavenly Demon had first reached out his hand to me.

-Your talent is usable. Come with me.

I unconsciously lifted my head.

The Heavenly Demon, draped in a pure white long robe, was gazing at me with eyes full of pity.

It was the same sight I had seen in the vision at the Sacred Flame Cave.

‘No, it’s different.’

In the Heavenly Demon’s deep eyes, there was another emotion I had never read there before.

And that was.

‘Regret? Sorrow? Guilt?’

I couldn’t define it with a single word.

What did that gaze mean?

Why was he looking at me like that?

Before that question could clear, the world went dark again and then regained its light.

I had become the Heavenly Demon.

Blood covered my entire body.

In my right hand, a still-warm heart throbbed.

That heart, whose owner I didn’t even know, I, no, the Heavenly Demon, looked at it as if it were nothing.

Pasak.

When I closed my hand lightly, the heart burst apart in vain.

A captivating smile spread across the Heavenly Demon’s lips.

‘Why… does this feel good?’

The whole world was burning and collapsing.

The sky, the earth, nothing remained intact.

The only thing living and breathing in this world was the Heavenly Demon, and him alone.

“Hahahahaha!”

The Heavenly Demon let out a mad laugh.

He was full of the sense that he had brought everything to the end it was destined for.

That arrogant chosen-one mindset that everything should, in fact, be grateful to him.

My head was a mess.

What was this scene trying to say?

Was this the future the Heavenly Demon wanted?

Or the future the Heavenly Demon would meet?

I had no idea which it was.

Flash!

When my mind snapped back, I was standing in a pitch-black space.

Inside that space, the Heavenly Demon was facing off against something.

‘A devil?’

A vast mass built up layer upon layer from sludge-like energy.

On its blood-red body, veins thicker than a human torso writhed disgustingly, and dozens of eyes that had sprouted irregularly across its surface rolled their eyeballs about in all directions without focus.

It was a form that could only be described with the word ‘devil’.

Krooo—!

The devil let out a howl.

At the same time, beams of blood shot out from dozens of its eyes.

Their power seemed to deny the very laws of the world.

Wherever the beams swept past, impossible fissures formed and space was torn.

This was not martial arts.

It was closer to divine punishment handed down by some godlike being.

Gulping, I swallowed dry without realizing it.

Could even the Heavenly Demon stop that?

My worry was made pointless when the Heavenly Demon didn’t so much as twitch.

He didn’t seem to intend to block or dodge the devil’s attack at all.

Because there was no need.

Dozens of beams of blood vanished in midair like lies before they could even touch the Heavenly Demon.

“…!”

I stared, eyes wide, at the sight.

No, I felt it.

The Formless True Qi the Heavenly Demon unleashed didn’t collide head-on with the beams.

It was crushing the core that allowed the beams to exist.

Internal energy as vast as the sea.

A mind’s eye that pierced the essence of all things.

A near-miraculous control that wielded immense power thinner and sharper than a needle.

It was a realm that could not be attained unless those three things were perfectly blended into one.

But the Heavenly Demon possessed all of them, and so every attack of the devil faded into meaningless thrashing before it could even be completed.

‘This is the Heavenly Demon…’

I had prided myself on knowing the Heavenly Demon’s strength better than anyone, but in this moment I realized anew how unfathomable his realm truly was.

However, I couldn’t just sit there in awe.

I now knew that the Heavenly Demon was absorbing Heart-Demon Qi.

I didn’t know if that was truly the cause, but it felt like the future where the Heavenly Demon became a demonic being had taken several steps closer.

To stop that.

I would have to surpass that realm.

‘If it were me, what would I do?’

The Heavenly Demon’s method was a realm I could not even imitate.

To surpass him, I would have to find my own answer.

It was impossible for me as I was now, but if I completely cured the True Blood Severed Meridians someday…

‘Right, that is it.’

In a flash, the answer came to me.

Revolving Annihilation.

An art of dismantling, not of destruction.

Inside me, Perfect Demonic Qi and Chaotic Demonic Qi, which should never be able to coexist, both dwell.

Using both of these kinds of Demonic Qi together was something only I could do.

Just as the Heavenly Demon had his own path, I had a path that belonged only to me.

“…”

Once I realized that, a sudden change came over me.

The two kinds of Demonic Qi inside me began to move on their own.

Each drew unfamiliar routes through my upper body and lower body.

There was not a single blockage along the paths the two Demonic Qi followed.

When the two energies finally returned to my dantian, I found that a great change had taken place.

My dantian had expanded, my internal energy had increased, and my Chaotic Demonic Qi core had also grown larger.

The flow of my internal energy was smoother than before as well.

Most crucially, the Nine Heavens Demon-Reversing Art, which had been stuck at the third stage for quite some time, rose to the fourth stage.

‘So you can gain enlightenment in a way like this too.’

I was inwardly impressed, when the scene from just before suddenly came back to me.

What happened to the Heavenly Demon?

As soon as I had that thought, the vision before my eyes vanished.

When I came to, what I saw was the Heavenly Demon drawing in the last traces of Heart-Demon Qi.

Only then did I realize.

That what I had thought was a devil had been Heart-Demon Qi itself.

That the Heavenly Demon had at last succeeded in absorbing it.

Once all the Heart-Demon Qi was gone, the scenery shifted back to the inside of a mountain.

It was even quiet, as if nothing had ever happened.

Just then, the Heavenly Demon, who had been floating in the air, began to fall powerlessly.

“Master!”

I used the Soul-Extinguishing Flash Step to catch him.

But that proved unnecessary as the Heavenly Demon’s falling speed suddenly dropped right at the end.

He landed easily on both feet as if nothing were wrong.

For a second I wondered if I had underestimated him, but that was not it.

Unstable Demonic Qi ripples were coming off the Heavenly Demon.

His pupils flickered red and black over and over, giving an extremely precarious impression.

On top of that he staggered, so I quickly rushed to support him.

“Are you all right?”

The Heavenly Demon narrowed his eyes.

It looked like he was grimacing, but he was actually smiling.

“How amusing. To think a day would come when you worry over me.”

“Amusing? Do you even realize what you have just done, Master?”

“Do you?”

“I…! Ugh. I shouldn’t even start. Let’s just move.”

“Before that, let go of me.”

“Let go of what. You look like you can barely walk.”

“You are seeing wrong.”

“Just stay put and behave.”

“…”

I half-dragged, half-supported the Heavenly Demon as we retraced our way back down.

I thought he would be more stubborn, but unexpectedly, the Heavenly Demon let himself be led along without much resistance.