Kuuuuuuuuu.
Black energy erupted endlessly from the being standing before her.
Wi Seol-a trembled as she faced that energy.
How could anything be so ominous?
And what was this power pushing back such energy?
Wi Seol-a questioned the white energy endlessly surging from her own body.
If one were to ask whether she knew not what it was despite using it herself—
it was because this power was not one currently being wielded by Wi Seol-a.
["What are you doing right now?"]
It might seem the same, in a way,
but currently, Wi Seol-a was in the position of a spectator.
From the moment that unknown figure appeared,
control of her body had passed to another.
Sshiik! Sshiiik!
Successive flashes of light arrived.
Each time the sword blade, condensed from white energy, cut through the air, the energy grazed past, leaving deep traces.
The aftershock was so intense that it brought the illusion that space itself was warping.
She could feel her body's movements.
Even though control had been taken from her—how her legs moved, how her hands moved,
the gaze directed outward—Wi Seol-a could feel it all.
How internal energy moved. What the sword path was like.
She could see all of those minute movements.
It was different from the sword techniques her grandfather had taught her.
‘Similar, yet different….’
The framework was clearly that of the Wolseon Sword Dance.
The flow of internal energy was the same, and accordingly the sword trajectory was clearly her grandfather’s Wolseon Sword Dance, but
the sword unfolding from her fingertips felt slightly different.
The moment she wondered where she had felt this before,
‘…This is.’
she recalled.
The strange sword trajectory she had learned from the Huashan Sect.
The bizarre sword she had wielded under that woman’s tutelage.
There were aspects to the form she had felt then that resembled this.
Then what was this energy?
It too was the same yet different from the golden energy that unfolded along with the Shimgong.
Looking at the flow of internal energy, they seemed identical,
but the energy was deeper,
and much warmer.
"-Focus and feel it."
A voice reached Wi Seol-a’s ears.
Only then did she recall what situation she had been caught in.
She had been admiring the dancing sword
and entranced by the beautifully unfolding energy, forgotten for a moment.
["Sister…!"]
"-I didn’t want to show you like this,"
Even as she spoke, the sword kept moving.
The black, swirling energy still showed no end.
At first she thought it was overwhelming, but seeing the despairing amount of energy, she was left speechless,
yet the woman did not stop.
"-Are you scared?"
Flash.
She slashed with the sword, and light flashed.
The pouring black energy faltered.
It was but an instant, yet the woman took another step.
"-Do you remember being told to realize the essence of the Wolseon Martial Sword?"
She remembered. The essence of the Wolseon Martial Sword was not in the moon.
Bringing up such words now—
Could it mean this power was the essence of the Wolseon Martial Sword?
"-No."
The woman denied it.
"-Do not be bewitched by this power and lose your way. The essence is something you must find on your own."
The white energy surrounding her, blocking the area as she spun,
at a glance, seemed to take the form of wings.
It was surely a power she could never display in her current state.
Wi Seol-a looked past her gaze at the being spewing black energy.
It had a face identical to her own.
How was that possible?
Only questions filled her.
With an expressionless face, only its purple eyes gleamed.
With a single wave of its hand, tremendous energy continuously erupted, crushing the surroundings.
The sword tip cut through the air, blocking the energy once more, but
this time, it couldn’t block everything, scattering it to the surroundings.
Had she reached her limit?
Seeing that, Wi Seol-a spoke.
["Sister… Give it back to me now."]
After saying you wouldn’t arbitrarily take it like this,
yet doing as you pleased again.
The swordsmanship and the energy gathered there were awe-inspiring,
but that was a different matter.
"-Sorry."
The woman apologized.
"-You must dislike that I took your body without permission… But right now…"
She thought this was for his sake.
The woman thought that just this once, it couldn’t be helped, but
["That’s not it."]
Wi Seol-a spat out the words as if denying it.
["If you keep going… You said it was the last time. That you’d disappear if you went any further."]
"-…!"
["Then you can’t do that."]
At Wi Seol-a’s words, the woman inwardly let out a small exclamation.
Because it was different from what she had expected.
"-…Are you worried about me?"
["Can’t I be?"]
It was something she had said once before.
That because her remaining strength was so little, borrowing a body like this had reached its limit.
She had said she could do it maybe one more time.
And that time was now.
And this was what the woman had wished for.
If she could use it for him, there would be no hesitation.
Even if vanishing like this meant receiving an unimaginable punishment due to the karma accumulated in her soul,
the woman still didn’t mind.
She couldn’t repay what he had done for her,
nor reveal her own existence,
but if she could save him. If she could give him the time that lay ahead,
she was fine with anything.
In such a situation, she hadn’t expected Wi Seol-a to worry about her.
["If this continues… Sister, you’ll disappear. Is that okay?"]
She would no longer be able to see him.
Asking if that was okay.
At those words, a slight smile escaped the woman even as she swung her sword.
"-You are very different from me."
A figure so different from herself.
She rather liked that.
"-That is enough."
If she had met him differently,
if even a little had been different,
it meant she too might have become like that.
"-I hope you find happiness."
Please.
She couldn’t, but please, you must.
Live the life I couldn’t live.
The woman sincerely wished for that.
["Sister…?"]
"-I have one request."
The woman spoke carefully.
"-Please don’t hate Grandfather too much. He had his reasons. At least you… please don’t hate him."
["What?"]
Wi Seol-a spat out the words as if flustered,
but the energy was growing fiercer.
Only then could Wi Seol-a faintly sense it.
That the energy the woman was using now was not only flowing from the dantian.
It came from a much deeper place.
Drawn from such a deep place that she couldn’t reach it at all in her current state.
Where was it coming from?
After using this energy, what would become of Sister?
Power gradually gathered in the sword.
The process was so delicate and perfect.
The stacked energy held not a single gap.
Meaning it was a perfect application.
Perhaps sensing that energy, the opponent was seen tilting its head.
It was closer to an expression of interest than a sense of crisis.
Was it wondering what she would do?
["Sister…! Sto—!"]
The woman recalled.
What would become of her after using this power?
She knew she would receive fitting punishment for her accumulated karma,
but didn’t know what that punishment would be.
Above all,
Could she erase that existence with this?
‘Impossible.’
It was impossible.
The woman knew all too well that this was not an existence that could be handled with just this much.
Because her ‘self’ was the same as her.
She would know even better.
But.
‘Even a little damage.’
Buy time.
She would be able to buy him more time.
What was currently loaded in the sword was not merely energy.
Because she could not touch the Innate Primordial Qi held within the flesh.
She had imbued it with her very existence and karma.
One could say she had embraced her very soul.
A single strike.
It was the endurance for that, yet—
Uung—
"…!"
The woman had no choice but to push aside the meticulously stacked energy and turn her head.
The direction was where he had collapsed.
The Heavenly Demon was no different.
Even the Heavenly Demon, who had maintained the same expression,
was looking somewhere with eyes somehow wide open.
Then, suddenly,
"…Hueo…urk."
Someone let out a groan. Wi Seol-a immediately reacted.
The owner of the groan was, astonishingly, the Heavenly Demon.
******************
Demonic energy constricting his entire body.
Unlike when it blocked the movement of internal energy and rotted the body,
the pain he felt now was slightly different.
Was this what they called resonance?
As if to show that the master of all demons was the Heavenly Demon.
The demonic energy mixed in his body was reacting to the Heavenly Demon before his eyes.
Was that all?
The demonic energy began rampaging inside his body as if to return to the Heavenly Demon.
As if it would blow up his body if not released.
Even though this was a body that had reached the Hwagyeong.
Did merely harboring demonic energy ultimately make him a meaningless existence to the Heavenly Demon?
Then what should he do?
In front of him, Wi Seol-a was confronting and fighting the Heavenly Demon.
The defeated one behind was not in a state to intervene.
The moment the Dark Night Palace Lord regained her strength, both Wi Seol-a and he would be in trouble.
This meant Wi Seol-a might be killed.
It wasn’t concern over who would stop the Heavenly Demon in the future if she died.
He simply didn’t want it.
Her dying.
More than his own death.
That was why he had to break free somehow.
Then how to break this situation?
It was simple.
If the demonic energy was rampaging to return to the Heavenly Demon,
he just had to firmly contain it in his body so that it lost the will to return.
Not shoving it into a corner of the dantian as he was doing now.
It meant making it one with his body.
In other words,
it meant demonizing his body.
Something he had so dreaded from the moment he harbored demonic energy, and had strived to avoid while using it.
It meant shattering it himself and crawling in of his own volition.
He released the strength that had been holding the rampaging demonic energy in check.
Kurururk.
Immediately, he could feel the demonic energy rampaging like mad.
It was painful.
It felt like someone was slashing with a knife inside his body.
Yet even while feeling that pain, he maximized the demonic energy even further.
Kiaaaaa!
The illusion of something howling inside his body came over him.
It felt as if the demonic energy was letting out a bizarre scream.
He made it move along the meridians.
The direction was not the dantian.
The destination was the heart.
["Grrrrr!"]
A sound reached his ears.
The beastly thing that hadn’t responded no matter how desperately he’d called until now had finally crawled out.
He wondered if he should be resentful that the bastard was only coming out now.
But that wasn’t it.
‘Was it you?’
He asked the bastard.
‘The one holding the demonic energy back so it wouldn’t return.’
["Grrrr…"]
Even though demonic energy had been contained in his dantian until now,
the reason he hadn’t felt pain and demonization hadn’t progressed.
‘You were blocking it. Right?’
He had thought it was due to the purifying power of the Nine-Flame Wheel Art,
but when he thought back to his previous life, he had sometimes thought differently.
In his previous life, when he fell into the Heavenly Demon’s clutches and became a demon.
Unlike others, the reason he hadn’t been tainted by madness.
He had simply thought it was a special circumstance, but.
If what the World Tree said was true—that the beast had been in his body since his previous life,
perhaps this bastard had been blocking it.
It wasn’t that something sleeping inside him had only now awakened.
Perhaps he simply hadn’t noticed it until now.
And even now,
each time his realm rose and the influence of demonic energy deepened,
the reason this bastard had appeared less frequently was ultimately
because it had been preventing his demonic energy from rampaging.
That was what he thought.
He wondered if the purification was also this thing’s power,
but that was still unknown.
One thing he was somewhat certain of:
‘You don’t want me to become a demon.’
["Grrrr…"]
‘Right?’
This thing didn’t want him to become a demon.
Whether it was true or not, at least that was what he thought.
But.
‘Sorry, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.’
Even if this thing didn’t want it,
he felt he would have had to do it eventually.
In fact, perhaps he had just been putting it off.
He had said he would use everything given to reach his goal,
yet had only delayed it because he didn’t want to become a demon, reminded of his previous life.
If he did,
he felt he wouldn’t be able to return to how things were.
So he had only hesitated.
Grr-kurk.
The demonic energy spread throughout his body and moved even more violently.
With the suppressing force released, it began rampaging as if it owned the place.
He twisted the flow of demonic energy unleashed throughout his body and sent it toward his heart.
The energy instantly burrowed in.
Not all of the demonic energy obeyed, but most surged toward the heart.
Veins bulged throughout his body.
It was incomparable to the pain he had felt in his previous life.
Back then, the Heavenly Demon had bestowed a stigma to make him a demon.
Was it because now he was using his own power to become a demon of his own volition?
He couldn’t be certain of anything.
Now was simply the time to endure.
Opening eyes that felt like they would burst, he looked at the Heavenly Demon.
If he became a demon like this, even if he held out for a moment, he would eventually end up under the Heavenly Demon’s command.
‘Then it’s no different.’
If that happened, the same situation as his previous life would unfold.
That was why he took a slightly different approach.
Something he had been repeating in his head for some time now.
From the moment he realized the Demonic Heavenly Absorption Art had clung to his body even through regression.
As his realm rose, past the point where he could turn others into demons,
reaching this moment.
That as his power grew, he could do the things the Heavenly Demon did, one by one.
It felt as if someone was pushing him from behind, as if saying he could take the Heavenly Demon’s place.
Truly disgusting, wasn’t it?
That the situation he was going through now might contain someone’s will.
When the Heavenly Demon was breathing right before his eyes.
‘Is that really so wrong?’
He lacked the means to answer himself.
Was it because every situation seemed to be saying so?
He too thought it might be possible.
Was this demonic energy truly the Heavenly Demon’s?
How could energy drawn through demonic creatures belong to the Heavenly Demon?
Was it because he was the master of all demons?
How many demons were there now, for all that they were called demons?
Kiaaaaa!
The demonic energy coiled around his heart continued rampaging.
As if to return to the Heavenly Demon.
‘No. I have to think differently.’
He had to change his thinking.
Not that it was returning to the Heavenly Demon.
But that it had found a better vessel and was moving there.
‘After I fed and housed them all this time. These little bastards.’
Thinking that way, it was disgusting.
The Heavenly Demon had told him,
that this power was his.
No. To be precise, that wasn’t it.
Because he possessed it, it was his power.
If someone shoved it on him when he never asked,
he had to endure at least this much.
He had no intention of giving it back.
Return it? It was his power now. He wouldn’t let a single thing he possessed slip away.
Kiaa…!
The demonic energy kept thrashing about.
Because it was refusing to remain connected to the Heavenly Demon.
He grabbed it tightly.
The pain intensified, and it felt like he would burst at any moment, but
it didn’t matter.
‘Shut up and do as I say.’
If there was something the world demanded of him,
this one time, he was willing to oblige.
‘Since I’ve been staying still. Who do they take me for, some pushover?’
Occupying a corner of the room as it pleased,
and now trying to run off just because the Heavenly Demon appeared?
That wasn’t going to happen.
Krrrrk.
He grabbed all the rampaging demonic energy and shoved it into his heart.
He could feel it continuing to move violently.
If he couldn’t endure, his heart might burst and he could die, but
it was too late to pull back now.
He slowly wove it tightly and crammed it full.
In the past, his body wouldn’t have endured.
But having reached the Hwagyeong, it barely held out.
It was as if
he had been waiting until now to reach the Hwagyeong.
It fit the situation and timing too perfectly to dismiss as delusion.
If that were true,
what did the unknown existence want from him?
‘Perhaps it’s telling me to become the Heavenly Demon?’
A laughable notion. With that mad being right before his eyes.
To call himself the Heavenly Demon when something like that exists.
That was a frightening thought.
It was absolute nonsense.
Amidst it all, he felt something faintly.
As demonic energy accumulated in his heart, he saw a transparent line connected to his flesh.
It was connected to the Heavenly Demon.
His entanglement with the Heavenly Demon in this life wasn’t long, so what was this line?
Was it a sign that the demonic energy in his body was connected to the Heavenly Demon?
His questions didn’t last long.
What this possibly illusory line meant.
Why it was connected.
Whether it was truly related to the Heavenly Demon.
Whether it was or not.
He reached out,
grabbed the connected line, and severed it.
Snip.
The line unraveled so easily.
"…!"
Then the Heavenly Demon’s gaze turned toward him.
As if sensing the line being severed.
Kugugugung!
The moment the line was severed, a change came over the demonic energy held in his heart.
The demonic energy he had barely held back instantly spread throughout his body again.
If there was something different from before,
it was that the demonic energy, which had been accompanied by extreme pain, now felt warm.
First, it permeated the dantian.
It mixed with the internal energy that had remained there.
Unlike the time when one would say it devoured internal energy.
This time, it was slowly mixing.
The demonic energy combined with the remaining internal energy instantly filled the middle dantian.
There was no blockage.
It was incredibly smooth and natural.
As if filling withered traces, after filling the middle dantian with demonic energy,
there was only one place left to go.
The upper dantian.
The demonic energy once again propelled itself toward the frozen, unknown space that was the Hwagyeong.
Its movement was like a tidal wave.
Though it was incredibly fast in a fleeting instant,
he could feel everything about how the demonic energy moved.
With such an obvious presence, how could he not have known?
Demonic energy filled the upper dantian.
Then, intense heat surged into his eyes.
"Haa…."
The extreme pain had vanished long ago,
and he exhaled in an inexplicable ecstasy.
There was no time to bask in it.
Next, he raised his body.
The Heavenly Demon was looking at him.
Though those distinct purple eyes were turned toward him,
what he felt now wasn’t fear or dread, but an inexplicable sense of kinship.
Fwoosh.
Facing that, he ignited a flame at his fingertips.
A flame created not with internal energy, but with demonic energy.
Was that why a black flame tinged with purple light bloomed?
"Ah, fuck."
He spat out a curse.
He hadn’t wanted to demonize, partly because he didn’t want to see this.
In the end, he had once again ended up containing this shitty flame in his body—how could he not curse?
Setting aside the fact that he had finally become a demon and the Heavenly Demon standing before him,
he made a certain resolution as he looked at the flame.
If he wasn’t going to die here,
it was that he wouldn’t get a fucking stupid nickname like in his previous life.
Ridiculously enough, his top priority at this very moment was just that one thing.