Damon thought back to the moment he had first seen Linghu Ming. The childhood he had spent at Shaolin Temple, enduring every sort of mistreatment. At the time, Linghu Ming had been a proud lay disciple, receiving instruction directly from the Holy Monk.
Damon had watched Linghu Ming from afar and envied him terribly. In his childish heart, he had even hated Linghu Ming for receiving special treatment because of the difference in their status... But that superiority was soon overturned.
After escaping Shaolin Temple, he learned the Thousand-Man Blood Demon Art in order to break the restriction of the Sevenfold Severance Restriction. Having obtained an atrocious demonic art through the medium of a thousand lives, he was able to become a peerless master in one stroke.
He had surpassed by several levels the achievements Linghu Ming had attained at the time.
Soon after came the Great Orthodox-Demonic War. In a sense, the confrontation between Linghu Ming, a promising young talent of the orthodox path, and Damon, the rising baleful star of the demonic path, was something like fate. Yet the confrontation did not come about easily. Despite how desperately both of them longed for it. Then, amid that, something unexpected occurred. The warriors of Iron Blood Gate, led by Linghu Ming’s father, Iron Sword Master Linghu Chong, encountered Damon’s Guardian Demon King Corps, who had just entered the world. As they had been raised with painstaking effort by Sa Junhwan, the chief strategist of the Baegyo Cult, the might of the Guardian Demon King Corps was tremendous. Under their fierce assault, the warriors of Iron Blood Gate collapsed in vain, and in the process, their sect master Linghu Chong lost his life. Remembering that time, Damon murmured in a low voice.
“I did not kill Linghu Chong. He was struck down by Guo Shiji, the master of Yinming Hall, who blocked his retreat while he was withdrawing. That loathsome bastard Sa Junhwan distorted the truth, but at the time I thought nothing of it. Even if I had faced Linghu Chong, I would have driven a tiger claw into his heart without the slightest hesitation.”
Later, he heard rumors that Linghu Ming was searching for him while grinding his teeth, but Damon paid them no mind. At the time, he was deeply possessed by his demonic nature.
“Kekeke. That wet-behind-the-ears pup—if I ever meet him, I’ll rip out his heart while he’s still alive.”
The meeting between the two did not come easily after that, either. Their encounter happened, by coincidence, during the period when Damon, due to Sa Junhwan’s betrayal, had been branded a public enemy of murim and was being hunted. Damon met Linghu Ming while heavily wounded and surrounded.
“To think I would meet you precisely when I have no strength...”
Damon, lamenting his wretched fate, threw himself off a cliff. But Linghu Ming would not even allow that.
“You think I’ll let you escape?”
As he dangled from the cliff by his hair, Damon was finally able to meet Linghu Ming’s gaze. Linghu Ming’s eyes were filled with boundless hatred and killing intent. Afterward, Damon could not forget those eyes for quite some time. Even long after he came to Truvenia.
And yet that Linghu Ming had been none other than Emperor Crosen. Only then was Damon able to realize the reason Linghu Ming had come here.
“He must have followed after me. If he jumped into the dimensional-transfer magic circle after me, that makes the circumstances certain. But why did he arrive in Truvenia fifty years before I did? The medium Shrekheimer used when he came to the Central Plains must certainly have been something that belonged to him. How could such a thing...”
He racked his brains for a long while, but no answer came. Dimensional transfer was a magic about which there was far more unknown than known. Even though Damon was a 9th Circle master, it was impossible for him to discover a clear reason.
“Can it be explained as a divergence between dimension and time? In any case, it’s difficult. Difficult.”
Shaking his head, Damon turned his gaze back to the stone tablet. As he read on, his face gradually contorted.
「I came here without knowing why while pursuing one man. His name is Dugu Cheng. As the fallen leader of the Baegyo Cult, he is an atrocious murderer possessed by demonic nature. He is also my irreconcilable enemy, the one who murdered my father and my master. With the single-minded resolve to kill Dugu Cheng and complete my revenge, I leapt without hesitation into the cluster of light. Without knowing at all that it was a magic circle in which dimensional transfer had been activated.」
“My guess was right.”
When the process by which Linghu Ming had come here matched his conjecture, Damon shook his head with a bitter expression. He could not explain how it had happened, but it was certain that Linghu Ming had come here by hitching a ride on the dimensional-transfer magic circle that had transported him. Something had simply gone wrong, causing him to be dropped into a world fifty years in the past.
“He must have searched for me with fire in his eyes. But he would only have chased shadows. For the next fifty years, I wouldn’t have been there...”
With a sneer, Damon cast his eyes upon the stone tablet.
「The moment I entered the cluster of light, I felt my mind grow faint. It was because an indescribable pressure bore down upon my body. Soon after, blood began to gush from my seven orifices. It was a terrible pressure that no human body could possibly endure. From what I learned afterward, it was the pressure that arose because I had leapt in when the mana of the magic circle ran wild after the dimensional-transfer magic had manifested. It was terrifying enough to tear a human body to pieces in an instant. Yet by fortune, I did not die. With the inner force and willpower passed down to me by the Shaolin Holy Monk, I boldly endured the pressure, and the moment I withstood it, I obtained a fortuitous encounter. In the process of enduring the pressure, the Holy Monk’s profound inner force became completely one with my body. In other words, I was able to make the inner force the Holy Monk had passed on to me entirely my own.」
After reading that section, Damon’s mouth fell open. Judging from his own experience, something had occurred that he could not easily accept. In murim, there were very occasional instances in which a previous-generation master, having reached the end of his natural lifespan, transmitted his inner force to a successor before entering nirvana. But in a word, that was like a double-edged sword.
From an arithmetic standpoint, it was only proper that the inherited inner force and one’s own inner force should combine. In reality, however, that almost never happened.
If, by any chance, the inherited inner force exceeded one’s own inner force, nine times out of ten, one would fall into qi deviation. Even if it had been cultivated through the same inner-force method, the attributes of inner force cultivated by oneself and inner force received from another were not perfectly identical. Like water and oil, the transmitted inner force could not mix with one’s own inner force and instead flowed through the blood vessels of the entire body.
Because of that, the recipient had to unify the two inner forces through bone-shaving effort, and even if he succeeded after enduring countless hardships, the amount of inner force he could absorb was only the tip of the iceberg. In the transmission of inner force, absorbing even ten percent had to be considered a magnificent success. The rest simply flowed along the blood vessels and vanished.
Moreover, combining inner forces of different types, cultivated through different inner-force methods, was fundamentally impossible. That was precisely why true masters were rare among those who practiced arts such as harvesting yin to nourish yang or essence-absorption techniques. The transmission of inner force was that difficult. And yet Linghu Ming had perfectly fused the inner force he had received from the Shaolin Holy Monk...
“The Shaolin Holy Monk was the one with the deepest inner force in Shaolin Temple. If he made the inner force of such a person completely his own... Hah. That bastard must have become at least three times stronger than before.”
After letting out a long sigh, Damon’s gaze returned to the stone tablet.
「I could not even guess how long that moment lasted. A time of pain that seemed like endless eons. At last, when that time passed, I was cast out onto the unfamiliar continent of Truvenia. And there, on the spot, I underwent rebirth and bone-remolding. I surpassed the transcendent peak and finally entered the dreamlike realm known as the Profound Realm. Had I not obtained this fortuitous encounter, I would never have founded Arcadia.」
“D-don’t tell me...”
Damon’s eyes widened as if they would split.
The Profound Realm. It was the supreme realm of martial arts that fewer than ten people were said to have achieved throughout the long history of murim. Murder by Will Made Form—in other words, the realm of the half-immortal, said to be capable of killing a person with intent alone, was precisely this. Perhaps, because of that fortuitous encounter, Linghu Ming had been able to accomplish a legend.
Even Damon, who had reached his prime through the Thousand-Man Blood Demon Art, had been far removed from the Profound Realm. For masters of the demonic path to ascend to the Profound Realm was harder than a camel passing through the eye of a needle...
Overcome by emptiness, Damon’s body trembled faintly. His competitive desire to one day meet him and determine supremacy had been shattered without mercy. If Linghu Ming had reached the Profound Realm, then even if Damon’s body had been in normal condition, he would not have dared be his match. He had become a master on an entirely different level from Damon. Damon barely forced out a single word in a parched voice.
“It can only be seen as a truly cruel prank of fate. I lost every scrap of my power and came here, yet that bastard, on the contrary, became explosively stronger in the process of coming here... Looking at it that way, it was a tremendous fortune for me that we were dropped into different times. My life is nothing worth regretting, but at least I did not show him my miserable state.”
There was still more writing on the stone tablet.
「The one reading this may perhaps be Dugu Cheng, my irreconcilable enemy. He, too, would know the written language of the Central Plains... But even if that is so, I do not care. Though he is the enemy who killed my master and my father, as I contemplated the end of my life, I completely erased my desire for revenge against him from my heart. For he, too, was merely a pitiful sentient being who was swept up in schemes and unable to live his own life. Rather, I feel a trace of gratitude toward him. For he was also a benefactor who guided me here, led me to enter the Profound Realm, and allowed me to fully unfold the true meaning of martial arts. As a warrior who held a sword, I take pride in having lived a truly satisfying life. For I, who had been merely the sect master of a single martial sect, was given the opportunity to save countless humans rushing toward their end and to pioneer a new continent. Therefore, I wish to leave one thing for Dugu Cheng, who gave me that opportunity. It is the secret of the restrictive art placed upon him, the Sevenfold Severance Restriction, and its forced-activation incantation. This is something I heard directly from the abbot of Shaolin Temple. Of course, I do not know how much help it will be.」
At that moment, Damon’s eyes flashed sharply. The veil over the Sevenfold Severance Restriction, which had long since become a part of him, was at last about to be lifted.
「The Sevenfold Severance Restriction was originally a mental restrictive art unique to Buddhism, handed down for the purpose of preventing high monks from falling into heart demons during ascetic practice. Because the practitioner’s inner force and will penetrate into the mind of the recipient and become a part of it, it can impose an advanced mental restriction. Since it takes root as part of the mind, the Sevenfold Severance Restriction develops in the same way as the recipient’s mind grows. Perhaps Dugu Cheng was able to neutralize the Sevenfold Severance Restriction with the Thousand-Man Blood Demon Art because the restriction was still in its initial stage. Once the Sevenfold Severance Restriction has grown to a certain degree, even a demonic art far more vicious than the Thousand-Man Blood Demon Art cannot neutralize the restriction. The activation condition of the Sevenfold Severance Restriction is, fundamentally, when one harbors killing intent toward a sentient being—that is, a human. The recipient cannot deceive the Sevenfold Severance Restriction by any means. That is because the restriction itself has taken root as part of the mind. If murder was committed despite this restriction, there is only one possible case: the recipient passed over the act without recognizing that he had killed.」
As Damon read the secret of the Sevenfold Severance Restriction, he nodded continuously.
“So that’s it! Because it was part of my mind, the Sevenfold Severance Restriction could still work even after I changed bodies.”
The more he read, the more Damon felt his strength drain away. According to the secret, the Sevenfold Severance Restriction was a shackle of heavenly punishment from which he could never escape. There existed no method anywhere to break the Sevenfold Severance Restriction, which had become part of his mind. Except for one: the end of life...
「Regrettably, even the abbot knew no more about the Sevenfold Severance Restriction. As it is a restrictive art that grows endlessly according to the development of the recipient, no one can predict its later course. Thus, I leave here the forced-activation incantation of the Sevenfold Severance Restriction. It is an incantation that activates the restriction even if the recipient does not harbor killing intent, and if it is recited aloud before the recipient, it takes effect immediately. If that happens, the recipient will suffer a tremendous blow to his mental world, and nine times out of ten, he will not survive.」
Below the writing, an incantation was densely written. In a sense, the phrases resembled a passage from a Buddhist scripture.
After reading the incantation, Damon engraved it clearly in his mind. He intended to erase the writing on the stone tablet, but for the sake of caution, it seemed better to remember the incantation. Before he knew it, a hollow laugh slipped out.
“Hehehe. So a dirge fatal to me has been created.”
There was still more writing on the stone tablet.
「Though I have cast off my resentment, I still cannot help but hate Dugu Cheng. That is because he is a sinner of the ages who cruelly abandoned the bonds of heaven. He did not know gratitude toward the one who saved his life and brutally murdered my master, Venerable Huijing. Though the restriction called the Sevenfold Severance Restriction had indeed been placed upon him, the venerable monk was deeply concerned for Dugu Cheng and loved him as well. Considering the matter, the only reason Dugu Cheng was able to cling to life, however desperately, was because of the venerable monk. If not for his care, he would not have lasted even three years at Shaolin Temple.
Do you know, Dugu Cheng? Fifteen days before you murdered him, the venerable monk transmitted all of his own inner force to me and prepared to enter nirvana. What he said to me then was this: that since he could no longer care for you, I was to take you in on his behalf and look after you for the rest of your life. Bearing those words deep in my bones, I entered closed-door cultivation to fuse the inner force I had received. And yet, before even fifteen days had passed, you murdered the venerable monk...」
Damon sprang to his feet. Due to his agitation, his eyes were bloodshot red.
“No. That isn’t true. I never murdered the Holy Monk. If I had, I would have died on the spot.”
Damon’s words were the truth. There was no possibility that he, who was under the Sevenfold Severance Restriction, had murdered the Holy Monk.