〈 Episode 418 〉 Erasing the Stars.
I could see cold sweat trickling. Trembling pupils and a hand clutching his dantian.
The sight of his massive frame powerlessly crumbling showed that my plan was taking effect.
*So it works.*
I had wondered what I’d do if it didn’t. The versatility of demonic qi felt broader than I’d expected.
I examined the collapsed Dang Deok and recalled why he had ended up like this.
That subordinate of Dang Deok whose name I can’t even remember now. Was it Julbok or Jungbok?
I corrupted his subordinate into a demonic human and simultaneously established one objective.
If that guy went back and died by Dang Deok’s hand.
The demonic qi he possessed would spread to the surroundings.
I had applied the principle that when a demonic human dies, the demonic qi it possesses spreads to the surroundings.
I approached him bit by bit and checked my physical condition. Unlike the plan that was working smoothly, there was one problem.
*This is a bit hard.*
Using the demonic qi I had planted in Dang Deok was quite difficult.
I had felt it with the Black Dragon Sword too, but it seemed the higher the opponent’s realm, the more strain it placed to use demonic qi to impose restrictions.
Of course, it would be much better than the pressure Dang Deok must be feeling right now.
I approached him with a deliberately nonchalant expression.
“Nice to see you.”
Dang Deok looked at me with trembling eyes.
He seemed quite bewildered by the demonic qi gradually constricting his body.
“…What did you do to me…?”
“Do you like the gift?”
“You bastard…!”
Dang Deok shouted at me with a heavily contorted face.
“You poisoned me!”
He seemed to be under the mistaken impression that I had fed him poison.
Well. It is poison, in a sense.
*He’s very angry.*
Feeling Dang Deok’s rage, I let out a fleeting smile.
For him, poison was like a dagger to the heart.
Because his body could not build any resistance to poison.
And because of the inferiority complex stemming from the family name he possessed.
Looking at such a man, I smiled broadly and spoke.
“So what are you going to do about it?”
“You wretch!”
KUUUNG—! Fighting spirit erupted from Dang Deok’s body.
Though his body was bound by demonic qi, the force was still incredible.
If we were talking momentum alone, he was perhaps slightly below the Black Dragon Sword.
Seeing this, I could guess that he too was a martial artist who had reached the Hwagyeong.
As I was observing him and gathering information.
Dang Deok growled and bit out words at me.
“You have joined forces with the Poison King…!”
I had to tilt my head at the rather out-of-the-blue remark.
“Why do you think that?”
At my counter-question, Dang Deok spoke with a twisted corner of his mouth.
“The only family capable of using this kind of poison is that shitty family.”
“That’s harsh. Calling them a shitty family. Aren’t you from that family too?”
“You bastard…! How dare you compare me to such a place…!”
“Well… I suppose not. Since they threw you away long ago, you must have forgotten.”
“…!”
At my words, Dang Deok gritted his teeth with a grinding sound.
“Just how much do you know…?”
“I don’t really know that well…”
If you insist on asking how much.
“The Heavenly Martial Body Birth Plan.”
“…!”
“About that much.”
The moment Dang Deok heard my answer, his eyes widened greatly and he began to tremble violently.
He hadn’t thought I would know this much.
*It’s not like I wanted to know this either.*
The Heavenly Martial Body Birth Plan.
Just looking at the name, one might wonder what it was.
But digging into the reality, it was full of filthy and ugly contents.
It was the title of an experiment planned by the previous generation’s expert, the one called the Poison Lord, master of the Dang Clan.
Poison Lord Dang Bi-seong was one who loved the Dang Clan more than anyone.
He held the clan’s status in high regard. He was someone who wished, more than anyone, for the Dang Clan to rise to the highest position.
What was the fastest way to achieve that? It was something Dang Bi-seong always agonized over, but.
The answer was truly simple.
In some ways, it was simple logic.
The fastest way for the Dang Clan to rise to the very top was to possess the strongest martial artist in the Central Plains.
They had sufficient prestige and fame, but the reason none of the four places called the Four Great Families could be called the foremost family was precisely that.
The absence of an absolute being.
Currently, it was the time when the Three Venerables had appeared and the heyday of the orthodox faction had begun.
But it was also an era when a figure who had existed in every age had disappeared.
The World’s Strongest.
The Sword Venerable and the Hegemon Venerable. And the Heaven Venerable.
Talk of who among these three was the strongest merely went back and forth.
But no one could give a definitive answer as to who was truly the certain World’s Strongest.
They were experts operating in their respective established domains, and there was no trend to bother settling this.
It was merely called the Era of the Three Venerables, achieving peace.
One could say it was the most well-balanced era, in a way, but.
The Poison Lord did not welcome this.
The Poison Lord must have thought at the time.
That in the gap of such an opportunity, a champion of the Dang Clan should seize the summit.
For himself, it was impossible.
The Poison Lord clearly recognized his own limits. And accordingly, he decided to bet on the future.
That was the starting point of the Heavenly Martial Body Birth Plan.
As for what a Heavenly Martial Body is, it refers to a person who possesses a body and talent bestowed by the heavens.
One who possesses the most perfect body for learning martial arts.
Furthermore, having a brain most suitable for understanding martial arts and a massive dantian ideal for building internal qi.
The most excellent existence for becoming a martial artist.
That is precisely the Heavenly Martial Body.
The Poison Lord wished to raise such a Heavenly Martial Body in the Dang Clan.
By doing so, making him the World’s Strongest in the future and making the Dang Clan be called the foremost family.
That was Dang Bi-seong’s ambition.
This plan, like a bloated ambition, proceeded in a rather cruel form.
A Heavenly Martial Body is not something obtained simply by wishing for it.
Since it is by no means evaluated as a talent that may or may not be born once in a thousand years for no reason.
Rather than hope for such a slim probability, Dang Bi-seong sought to artificially create a Heavenly Martial Body.
An artificial Heavenly Martial Body.
What a contradictory statement.
That was what I thought at first.
As if to prove that thought wasn’t wrong, the experimental method was enough to make even me retch in shock.
First, Dang Bi-seong took nameless orphans from all over the Central Plains, imprisoned them underground, and gave them the surname Dang.
After that.
*He injected them with demonic beast blood.*
He forcibly injected demonic beast blood into the children.
One might wonder what kind of bizarre matter this was, but the records actually said so.
Demonic humans possess muscles incomparably tougher and stronger than ordinary humans. Among demonic beasts, he injected the blood of the primate type, which are most similar to humans.
How were the results?
What do you mean, how—they all died.
It was a natural result. Demonic beasts are completely different creatures from humans.
Even the color of their blood is different.
If forcibly injected with large amounts of this.
Humans cannot endure demonic beast blood, go into convulsions, and die.
This was information I discovered in a very deep place when I found the underground of the Sichuan Dang Clan in my previous life.
Several thousand pages of journals containing such information were found.
If including the missing journals, there might be several times more than this.
Then just how many people died entangled in Dang Bi-seong’s ambition?
Moreover, the youngest child in the records was five years old. At most, ten.
Did such children truly die for Dang Bi-seong’s ambition?
It was something I could not know.
And Dang Deok before my eyes was a victim of such experiments.
Furthermore. I recalled the part written at the end of those several thousand pages of journals.
In a situation where it was natural for them all to die, there was exactly one specimen that succeeded in mixing with demonic beast blood.
By my common sense, it was absurd.
How could a human survive being injected with demonic beast blood? It was not something easily believed, but.
The records clearly wrote so.
Blood Fusion successful.
Increased skin toughness along with a drastic increase in strength… roughly written like that.
I don’t know what method was used, but Dang Bi-seong’s experiment succeeded.
If the records were correct, he must have obtained a body close to the Heavenly Martial Body he desired, but.
At the end, he had written that this test subject was a failure.
Having conducted experiments exceeding thousands of times, if one asks why he wrote failure in such a situation.
The reason was none other than this.
*Lack of poison resistance.*
This lay in the meaning of the experiment.
Because Dang Bi-seong wished for a World’s Strongest to exist under the name of the Dang Clan.
What he considered more important than anything else was not just the body, but whether one could learn poison arts.
In that regard, this test subject was indeed a failure.
Because the conclusion came out that resistance to poison arts could not be developed.
One might wonder how such an excellent body produced such a result, but.
That was the reality, and it seemed Dang Bi-seong recorded it as a failure for that reason.
Of course, since this body alone was excellent, he repeated numerous experiments afterward to create resistance to poison, but.
The results all failed.
Dang Bi-seong’s records stated that this test subject was ultimately eliminated, but.
I was certain.
That the protagonist of the experiment I had spoken of up to now was none other than Dang Deok before my eyes.
*Because the name written in the records was Dang Deok as well.*
There wasn’t just one Dang Deok, and I hadn’t examined all the records, but you could tell just by looking at the characteristics.
The name was Dang Deok.
Possessor of outrageous strength and a body closest to the Diamond Indestructible.
A body incapable of cultivating poison.
Rage toward the Dang Clan.
Couldn’t you tell just by looking at these?
“A failed product who couldn’t become the Heavenly Martial Body. That’s you?”
“…You… just what… are you?”
“Identity?”
At Dang Deok’s question, I briefly pondered my identity.
My identity…
What should I say. Why did this worry me.
Then I muttered a word that came to mind without realizing it.
“Heavenly Demon.”
“…What?”
“Ah, just let that slide. It was merely something that suddenly came to mind.”
Why did thoughts of the Heavenly Demon suddenly cross my mind? I don’t really know.
Though it was a word I had spat out unwittingly, for some reason Dang Deok nodded his head slightly.
“A devil bestowed by the heavens…. Truly fitting words.”
“This bastard…?”
I couldn’t tell when he had seen me to speak of me like that.
Sudden irritation surged, but I had to suppress my emotions for now.
Creak.
Because Dang Deok was rising up with his spear gripped tight.
“Furthermore…. I now know you are associated with the Poison King.”
“…”
It’s not really like that. But I didn’t bother to deny it.
Because even if I offered a denial here, it didn’t seem like it would get through to him.
And.
*Even if it doesn’t get through, it doesn’t matter.*
Because that wasn’t what was important here.
Dang Deok rose up and aimed his spear tip at me as he spoke.
“You will die here by my hand.”
Though struggling with demonic qi, his spirit remained unbroken.
Even in my previous life when his eyeballs were plucked out by my hand, he had that kind of feel.
“The Poison King, that damned old man’s descendant will also die by my hand.”
His rage toward the Dang Clan ran deep.
Well, it couldn’t be helped; if I had suffered such a fate, I too might have lived for revenge.
Not to mention the bandits said to have gathered under him.
*Were they all people harboring rage toward the Dang Clan?*
They wear the outward appearance of bandits, but their essence is avengers gathered for revenge.
Whether they too were victims of the experiment, I do not know.
I had no interest in that.
I don’t think the Dang Clan did a good deed.
It was a wicked act and perhaps something deserving of criticism and revenge.
*Not interested.*
Sorry to say, but I wasn’t very interested in that matter. Nor in the rage Dang Deok displayed.
His desire for revenge, I could understand it all, but.
*It’s not important to me.*
Brazenly enough, I had something more important than that.
Even if this looked cruel. Even if it felt selfish and ugly.
It doesn’t matter.
I only had to protect what needed protecting.
Dang Deok was merely a chess piece for that.
Just as I was thinking so, Dang Deok continued speaking.
“And, the Poison King. They say that bastard’s daughter is there too, don’t they?”
I frowned at the mention of Dang So-yeol that sprang from Dang Deok’s mouth.
“That wench too, by my hand…”
“Hey.”
When I called out to Dang Deok, he looked at me with strange eyes for a moment.
“Stop there.”
“What?”
“I need to keep you alive and use you, so….”
I forcibly suppressed the emotions boiling up inside.
I felt like going right up to him and snapping his neck, but.
I had to endure.
“If you say any more, I’ll have to kill you. Shut your mouth and do what you’re going to do. Are you going to attack or not.”
“…”
Ha….
At my words, Dang Deok let out a short sigh, then gripped his spear tightly and gradually spread his fighting spirit.
Even though he’s in a state with demonic qi pumped in, this much fighting spirit….
For some reason, the demonic qi I had planted in him didn’t feel like it was manifesting properly.
Could this be.
*Is the demonic beast blood he possesses the problem?*
That might be it. Demonic qi is, before being the energy possessed by the Heavenly Demon.
Since it is also energy contained in demonic beasts’ demonic cores, that blood might also contain resistance to demonic qi.
Then would fighting Dang Deok, who hasn’t been properly eroded by demonic qi, be somewhat of a strain?
Watching him calmly, I reached a conclusion inwardly.
*I’ll know once I try.*
If you don’t try, you won’t know.
That was my conclusion.
In this life, I haven’t had many battles with martial artists who have reached the Hwagyeong.
At best, the Heukryonggeom and the Baekcheon-geomju. Or my father.
Just about that much.
Compared to that, fighting him felt somewhat comfortable.
It just so happened that I wanted to properly fight right after reaching the Hwagyeong.
*It doesn’t matter if I kill him.*
This single sentence alone was considerable help.
Of course, since I need to use him I won’t kill him, but it means there’s no burden.
“I won’t touch your eyes this time.”
“…?”
At my words, Dang Deok made a questioning expression.
“Just. Your eyes looked rather appetizing.”
“…You truly are a bastard.”
Dang Deok, taking it as provocation, immediately launched his massive body at me. Watching that, I raised the corner of my mouth and simultaneously pulled demonic qi to the maximum.
Immediately, demonic qi surged to one side of my heart.
Thump-thump-thump—!
Feeling strength fiercely surging through my entire body, I released energy from my form.
First, I.
*Black Heaven.*
Began by erasing the stars in the sky above.