April 12, 2026. Jirisan, Republic of Korea.
22 years and 9 months after the Great Rift.
The massive "Synchronization"—the overlapping of the Ancient Murim's abyss atop the modern world's framework—was already an irreversible tide.
The outskirts of the cities had been devoured by viscous demonic energy, and among them, the forbidden zone of Jirisan where the demonic realm's density was so thick that a normal person's soul would shatter merely by setting foot inside, the roiling Demon Spirit Valley, was surging.
"Haa... fuck, I'm starving to death. Shouldn't there be at least one wild ginseng root popping out?"
Baek Siwoo. Twenty-one years old, a mountain village orphan and high school dropout.
His imposing 185cm frame retained its innate bone structure and rugged musculature even under chronic starvation.
Rough, unkempt jet-black hair fluttered over his sturdy body honed by arduous mountain trekking, and beneath the scorching sun, his eerily pale skin emitted a faint, glossy luster as though imbued with demonic energy.
A rough tone forged by life's struggles and a venomous, distrustful gaze made him appear as an indomitable man—one no one could trifle with.
Siwoo was being led not by his own will, but by a bizarre instinct pulsating through his veins.
It was a place where even ordinary masters would have suffocated and died from the crushing pressure, yet Siwoo's dantian resonated like a magnet with the pitch-black energy deep within the valley.
'...I have to go. Something inside is calling me like mad.'
Finally, he stood before a massive sealing stone.
The moment Siwoo's worn hiking boots stomped firmly on the ground before it, the golden characters that had endured for a thousand years let out shrieks as if welcoming their master and crumbled away.
A heavy vibration that defied causality traveled through Siwoo's sturdy bones and meridians all the way to his brain, and amidst the haze of fragments, Baek Hui slowly raised her head.
The female demon who had rejected even the temptation of ascension a thousand years ago to seal herself away—the First Heavenly Demon.
Silver-white long hair cascaded like a waterfall, resonating with the demonic energy on the ground. A skintight black martial uniform blatantly strained against her voluptuous curves to a surreal degree.
A hyper-bust far surpassing J-cup defied gravity as it surged upward, and with every sigh she exhaled, it swayed with heavy weight as though her uniform would burst apart.
A slender waist that looked graspable with one hand and lush hips were the very embodiment of demonic sensuality that transcended human limits.
"...Found you."
The voice flowing from between Baek Hui's lips was a chilling frost that froze the atmosphere, yet also a rich demonic fragrance that melted Siwoo's soul.
Facing the 'perfect vessel' that would blow away 1,237 years of tedium in an instant, she wore an enraptured smile.
Her crimson eyes raked over Siwoo's sturdy frame, dissecting every blood vessel.
"To think you would be drawn by my demonic energy and walk into these deep depths of your own accord. How commendable."
As Baek Hui slowly approached, her destructive bust filled Siwoo's vision entirely.
Under her momentum, which crushed oxygen at the atomic level, Siwoo's blood vessels felt as though they would burst, yet he glared straight at her with venomous eyes and spat out roughly.
"Who are you...? Enough with this bullshit. Move."
As if pleased by his rebellious, domineering temperament, a cruel yet captivating smile hung at Baek Hui's lips.
"You have finally appeared. My... Heavenly Demon Constitution... that I have waited a thousand years for."
Baek Hui roughly grabbed Siwoo's chin and lifted it.
The scorching vitality and limitless potential she felt through her fingertips. Her heart was already racing at the thought of how she would forge him into a Demon God who surpassed even herself, a Heavenly Demon.
"...!"
Baek Siwoo furrowed his brow and roughly swatted her hand away.
The warmth of her fingers left on his chin burned like a brand, but Siwoo did not back down, firing a venomous glare at her.
"...Were you the one who called me?"
Siwoo's voice was low and rough. The muscles of his arm clenching the hilt of a rusty dagger trembled firmly, never letting his guard down.
Baek Hui gazed lazily at her swatted hand, then opened her mouth with a bewitching smile.
"Called you...? Yes, you could see it that way. But it would be more accurate to say your destiny was drawn to me."
"What kind of nonsense is that? How can you even be here? This isn't a place people can walk through."
Siwoo spat out, scanning his surroundings. This was a forbidden zone where the density of demonic energy was so thick that merely breathing felt like his lungs were burning up.
Any ordinary human would have already become a lump of meat rolling on the ground.
But Baek Hui elegantly swept her silver-white long hair back and replied nonchalantly.
"And yet, here you are right now, are you not?"
"I just live nearby and somehow ended up here. Forget that, what do you mean destiny? I don't know anything about that. It's dangerous here, so hurry up and get down."
Siwoo's tone was rough, but mixed within it was the unintentional consideration characteristic of a mountain man.
At Siwoo's disposition—worrying about the woman before him even while struggling under pressure that made it hard to protect himself—Baek Hui let out a small laugh.
"Huhu, ahahaha!"
Silvery laughter vibrated the air of the valley.
Every time she laughed, her massive bust swayed as though her uniform would burst, dizzying Siwoo's vision.
Baek Hui wiped away the tears at the corners of her eyes and raked her bewitching gaze over Siwoo.
"What a commendable child. Do you speak like that even knowing who I am?"
"I don't care who you are. If you don't want to see blood, you'd better get down quickly. I'm at my limit right now too."
Siwoo gritted his teeth with a grinding sound.
Every joint in his body screamed under the overwhelming momentum radiating from Baek Hui's very existence.
Yet he continued to bare his fangs at Baek Hui until the very end, trying to step forward as if to protect her with a beast-like instinct.
That tyrannical yet pure masculine temperament.
Baek Hui's white fingers trailed down Siwoo's rough cheek and gently wrapped around his chin.
At the bizarre sensation simultaneously bearing cold chill and scorching heat, Siwoo's muscles stiffened at the atomic level.
"Truly a covetous body and face. I like you."
Baek Hui's crimson eyes rippled as though they would devour Siwoo.
Every time her breath reached him, a rich demonic fragrance penetrated deep into Siwoo's lungs, paralyzing his reason.
"What is your name?"
"...Ba-Baek Siwoo. If you're staying here, I'll head down first."
Siwoo forced his frozen body to move and answered.
Even with his massive 185cm frame, before this woman's touch, he felt as powerless as a beast caught in a snare.
But Baek Hui only smiled languidly, as if enjoying his defiance.
"Worry not. There will be no problem. More importantly... Baek Siwoo."
A strange light flitted across Baek Hui's expression as she softly muttered Siwoo's name.
It was an expression of indescribable satisfaction and possessiveness, as if the chain of fate she had waited a thousand years for had finally clicked into place.
Rather than releasing his chin, she opened her mouth while applying deeper pressure.
"I am called Baek Hui. The master of the Demonic Cult, and the 'Heavenly Demon.'"
"Wha... what? Heavenly Demon...?"
Siwoo's eyes widened in shock.
Although the existence of the martial world had become known after the Great Rift, things like the Demonic Cult or the Heavenly Demon in modern society were nothing but ancient legends or tales from movies.
"A group called the Demonic Cult doesn't even exist in the current New Murim. An ordinary person like me has never even seen a martial artist... Are you in your right mind right now?"
Siwoo swallowed a hollow laugh as if finding it absurd.
The aura emanating from the woman before him was undeniably beyond imagination, but the weight of the word 'Heavenly Demon' held far too little sense of reality.
But as if mocking Siwoo's disbelief, Baek Hui slowly reached out and pressed against his chest.
As her massive bust drew close enough to press against Siwoo's solid chest, the atmosphere began to vibrate with a scream.
Siwoo couldn't believe the reality before his eyes.
The 185cm giant that he was, he was gasping for air, feeling oxygen-deprived before a mere woman.
The rich demonic fragrance piercing his nostrils and Baek Hui's bursting bust filling his vision as she approached were paralyzing his reason.
The closer her face drew, the more Siwoo's Adam's apple bobbed violently, and every time his rough breath touched her jade-like skin, blood surged backwards through his entire body.
"...Urk!"
Eventually, Baek Hui pushed Siwoo's shoulder.
The heavy-built Siwoo collapsed powerlessly to the ground, and Baek Hui mounted him as though pouncing on top.
Though she had sealed away her own unfathomable power, the presence she radiated was already mocking the laws of the mortal world.
"If you wish to become my disciple, you must first etch clearly into that head of yours just who I am."
Baek Hui's crimson eyes erupted with bizarre demonic light, devouring Siwoo's vision.
In that instant, Siwoo's mind was forcibly torn from the reality of Demon Spirit Valley and transferred to a battlefield from a thousand years ago reeking of blood.
It was no mere illusion. It was the pinnacle of illusion techniques, wherein Baek Hui's memories rode her demonic energy to directly ravage Siwoo's meridians and brain as they flooded in.
'...What is this?!'
Siwoo didn't even have time to scream.
Along with an excruciating pain as though his skull were splitting in two, he was engulfed by a bizarre sensation of becoming Baek Hui herself.
Before his eyes lay the sect leaders of the Nine Sects and One Faction—once called the greatest masters of the era—sprawled out in miserable states.
Through her vision, he saw her trampling the pride of the Central Plains alone, standing arrogantly atop a mountain of corpses.
The mnemonic formulas of the 'Heavenly Demon Divine Art' that tore through the air, twisted causality, and pulverized the earth were seared into Siwoo's soul like brands.
The authority of destruction that split mountain ranges with a single swing and made the heavens wail and collapse with a single cry.
Siwoo was being forced to make every single one of his blood vessels memorize the flow of that transcendental power.
With his brain matter boiling and his eyeballs feeling as though they would flip inside out from the agony, Siwoo wept as he experienced in real time thousands of exchanges and tens of thousands of killings he had never undergone.
It was an impact akin to compressing an eon of a hundred years into a single fleeting second and slamming it into his brain matter.
Every one of Siwoo's brain cells screamed, unable to bear the overload of information, and the veins at his temples throbbed as though they would burst, taking on a dark blue hue.
"A-Aaack...! Gaaack!!"
Siwoo let out short groans at the splitting headache and twisted his body.
His muscular 185cm frame convulsed as it rolled across the ground, and cold sweat poured like a waterfall through his jet-black hair.
The Heavenly Demon's memory, which defied causality, ruthlessly trampled his feeble reason, and soon Siwoo's pupils rolled back as he reached his limit, losing focus.
Thud.
The rough breathing that had echoed through the forbidden zone of Jirisan subsided as Siwoo collapsed to the ground.
As the large young man lost consciousness and fell, Baek Hui, who had been covering him, slowly rose.
Her massive bust swayed, unable to overcome gravity, casting a heavy shadow over Siwoo's chest.
"Now you finally know who this lady is. My cute little disciple."
Baek Hui brought her white fingers to the face of the unconscious Siwoo.
Her touch tracing down his cheek—bearing the traces of a rough life—and his sharp jawline was unspeakably lewd and covetous.
In her crimson eyes lurked a possessiveness seeking to compensate for a thousand years of solitude, and a bizarre affection toward her disciple.
Like a collector touching the world's most precious treasure, she brushed aside Siwoo's disheveled hair and smiled bewitchingly.
"To think such a perfect vessel exists... My whole body is already burning up thinking of how to carve and polish you into a Demon God who surpasses me."
Baek Hui's red lips drew close enough to brush Siwoo's ear.
The rich demonic fragrance she exuded seeped into the lungs of the unconscious Siwoo, beginning to awaken the instincts of the Heavenly Demon Constitution that slumbered within his body.