Chapter 532: Curse of Dragon Blood.
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 532: Curse of Dragon Blood.
The Blood Demon was a Calamity.
A being of catastrophe, with the power to command any artifact he subdued, regardless of who had previously bound it with their Qi. Before him, such bonds were meaningless.
Had it been only the Blood Demon who possessed such a power, I wouldn't have found it strange. He was a Calamity, an inhuman monster. Of course he would wield such terrifying authority.
The real problem was that I could do the same.
I possess a power like that of a Calamity.
The thought alone sent a storm raging through my mind.
“Ha…”
A hollow breath escaped my lips.
“The Blood Demon could do it, too.”
[…Yes.]
Just as I had commanded Solar Light and Thunder Fang, so too had the Blood Demon. If that was the case…
“Why are you telling me this now?”
[…]
“You already knew this… didn’t you?”
[…You are not wrong.]
If Elder Shin had realized this the moment Solar Light changed its form for me, he could have told me long ago. Yet he had chosen to reveal it only now. He had even stopped Namgung Myung from speaking, opting to tell me separately.
What was the reason?
[That is…]
“Did you not trust me?”
[…!]
“Is that why you kept it from me?”
The bluntness of my own voice surprised even me, but I forced the emotion down. If the elder had remained silent, I could only think of one reason.
Because he didn’t trust me.
It wasn’t that he feared some problem if I truly were a Calamity. It was only because…
“You were afraid I wouldn’t be able to handle the truth?”
[…]
Afraid that I would be overwhelmed by the revelation and break. His silence was born from concern for a disciple he feared was too fragile.
[…Kid…]
“I understand your intentions, Elder.”
I wondered why that ill-tempered old man was suddenly being so considerate. Damn it all, that just made it harder.
“I won’t break over something like this.”
This was a conclusion I’d reached long ago. Separate from the shock and the disgust, I was stating a simple fact: I would not crumble. I had come too far to be broken by this. I had too much to protect, and the road ahead was still long. Collapsing here was not an option.
“…Even if I am a Calamity, I have no intention of breaking.”
Even with the changes to my body, even if I could replicate the Blood Demon’s power, even if that bastard from the Yeon Clan was right…
“…I won’t break.”
It wasn’t just a reassurance for the elder; it was a promise I repeated to myself. I could not, and would not, break here. I had no intention of stopping. So, while I was grateful for the elder’s concern, I found it a meaningless gesture. It was better to know. Only by knowing could I prepare.
[…The reason I didn’t tell you was not a lack of trust.]
The elder finally began his belated explanation.
[How could I burden a man already drowning in problems, struggling just to control his body and Qi, with such a thing?]
I could understand his reasoning, but it still felt like an excuse. If it was connected to the Blood Demon, he should have told me.
“Then why tell me now?”
[…I intended to tell you later, but that fool Namgung Myung spoke out of turn. I had no choice.]
He claimed he was forced to act because Namgung Myung had brought up the Blood Demon so tactlessly.
“Whatever the case, you’re admitting that, in your eyes, the connection exists, right?”
[…]
The elder didn’t deny it. If even I could see it, it must have been blindingly obvious to him. How could he claim otherwise?
Is this a problem that arose from absorbing Blood Qi?
That was my initial thought, but now I wondered if that was the whole story. When my vessel was on the verge of shattering from an overabundance of Qi, I believed this transformation was a result of battling and absorbing the Blood Demon’s Qi. But if that were the case…
Father’s words bother me.
My father’s words haunted me. How he had seen my mother in my transformed state.
…Then Mother, too.
I was at a point where I couldn’t even properly define my own body. If my mother had a similar appearance… Could my current form be not a result of reconstructing my vessel with the Blood Demon’s Qi, but a change triggered by my mother’s bloodline?
He did say Mother was a Calamity, too.
If that was true, what about Gu Ryunghwa?
Does that mean she could become like this, too?
I thought of my younger sister, probably training diligently on Mount Hua. Could Gu Ryunghwa also one day take on this form? I hoped not. I believed not. This form was ultimately a problem born from my insane, gluttonous body in this life, devouring every type of Qi it encountered. An ordinary vessel would never have shattered without an impossible accumulation of energy.
But one question remained.
I thought my ability to consume various types of Qi was due to the power of the Demonic Absorption Art.
Lately, I’d begun to wonder if that assumption was wrong from the very beginning. I had naturally attributed it to the art. How could I have thought otherwise? But… what if my body was simply capable of it from the start? Had I been mistaken all along?
…In my past life, I never thought to try consuming other types of Qi.
What kind of madman would even consider embracing a foreign Qi? It was suicide. Different cultivation arts were incompatible; they would clash within the same body and cause it to explode. That was precisely why the Demonic Arts were considered so incredible—they allowed any cultivation art to coexist under their authority. The power granted by the Heavenly Demon was immense.
If this isn't the power of that authority…
What if my ability to embrace various types of Qi wasn’t due to the Demonic Arts, but because my body was inherently like that? What if it was possible because I was my mother’s son…?
Gu Ryunghwa might be able to do it, too.
That child might possess the same potential.
If that were true, it would be a truly shitty situation. It would feel as if fate itself was telling me something.
It feels like I was meant to become a Calamity from the very beginning.
There were ways to confirm this. I could go to Gu Ryunghwa and implant a different type of Qi into her to see if her body could maintain it simultaneously. That would be the fastest way, but…
How could I do that kind of bullshit?
If it failed, Gu Ryunghwa’s body could explode. I couldn’t subject her to that just to satisfy my curiosity.
I'd rather just decide that I'm the Calamity and be done with it.
That seemed the cleaner option. As I thought that…
—The world does not make the same mistake twice.
Yeon Il-Cheon’s words suddenly flashed through my mind. When the master of this world disappeared, the plan to use the Blood Demon had failed. So, the world first suppressed the potential of martial artists to weaken them. In that gap, the world sent my mother to finish the job, but that too had failed.
Or so I had believed.
Perhaps.
Perhaps that wasn’t the whole story. If the world was moving through countless possibilities for the sake of a single outcome… I wondered if its true desire was something else entirely.
If so, what did it want?
Does it truly want me to become a Calamity?
Looking at the situation now, that seemed the most likely probability. Setting aside the ‘why,’ the facts were clear: I had transcended humanity, and all signs pointed in one direction. The world wanted me to become a Calamity.
Just as I settled on that thought…
Then what about the Heavenly Demon?
A contradiction arose. If that’s the case, what is the Heavenly Demon? What was her reason for making me regress? What in the world is she?
And also…
Why didn't the world take away all possibilities?
According to the information Tang Jaemoon had given the elder, the world had only lowered the limits of martial artists. Why not take ‘everything’ away? No matter how much I thought about it, the answer eluded me.
What is it thinking?
Countless paths now stretched out before me, whether I willed it or not. An immense number of paths, their ends not in sight. Yet, I had a feeling that all of them converged on a single destination.
The problem is that the destination is unclear.
Damn it…
To find out, the first thing I had to do was clear.
I have to meet my mother.
I had to find my mother, who was somewhere in the Demon Realm. Only then did I think I would understand the truth of what was happening to me.
Just as I finished organizing my thoughts…
[Kid.]
“…Yes.”
[You are not a Calamity.]
“Haha.”
I let out a dry laugh at Elder Shin’s sudden declaration.
“We've come this far, and you still think I'm not a Calamity?”
I suspected that even Elder Shin knew the truth. He might even be regretting that the descendant he’d met turned out to be a Calamity.
Ah, I don't think that's it.
Given the elder’s character, I doubted that was the case. But his mind was probably just as tangled as mine.
I was about to smile wryly at the thought when…
[Did I not tell you before?]
The elder spoke.
[I told you to believe in yourself.]
“…!”
[Kid, even if you are a Calamity, if you yourself believe you are not, then you are not.]
“That just sounds like willfully ignoring reality.”
[So what if it is? I say you're not. That's all that matters.]
It was an absurdly simple answer. No matter what anyone else said, if I declared I wasn’t, then that was that. It was a statement that revealed how the elder had lived his life, steadfast in his convictions.
But could I do that?
[You can.]
The answer came not from me, but from the elder, his voice filled with firm resolve.
[You can do it.]
Those words felt unusually heavy. Was it the weight of his belief, or the guilt I felt from having glimpsed even a fragment of the elder’s life?
“How can you be so sure? That I can do it.”
[Is there any reason to doubt? You are that kind of person.]
“...”
Having someone else hold a conviction that I myself lacked stirred complex emotions within me. Perhaps the elder had known from the very beginning. He might have already been aware that I could be a Calamity.
And it didn't matter to him?
If I say I'm not, then I'm not.
You're the type of person who would think that way. Was that how he saw me?
If that was the case…
“You're really playing dirty.”
Those words left me with no other choice. There was nothing more despicable than betraying the trust of someone who believed in me.
As I spoke with a hollow laugh, the elder retorted bluntly.
[If you don't like it, go ahead and be a Calamity.]
“…What?”
[If you don't like it, then you'll have to. What else can you do?]
The elder always had to ruin a serious mood by lightening it like this. There was never a heavy ending with him. I knew this was his way of being considerate. And because I knew it so well, there was nothing more I could do.
“…I'll try to manage. Don't believe in me too much.”
[I didn't have much faith in you to begin with, so don't worry. Do you think I trust you because there's anyone else to trust?]
This old man… He just had to put it like that.
“Seriously, you should be glad you're a ghost…”
[That's my line, you bastard. If we had met in person, you wouldn't have even been able to speak to me.]
That was probably true, but I chose to ignore it. So what? We couldn’t meet now anyway.
Just in case.
Even if I really am a Calamity, I'll just have to say 'screw it' and see what happens. What else can I do?
I had no intention of being forced into a situation I didn’t choose. No, it seemed I was already in one, but I was confident in my ability to weasel out of any responsibility thrust upon me. Furthermore, trying to force me to do something I didn’t want?
I'm so ill-tempered that if they push me, I'll bite back. You'd better know that.
I spat the words out internally, a message for anyone who might be listening to get lost.
My head felt utterly exhausted. After so much thinking, were my body and mind finally reaching their limit?
“…I have been cutting back on sleep for a few days.”
For my body, which had reached the Fusion realm, to accumulate this much fatigue meant my condition was severe. Right, first things first. Screw thinking. I needed sleep.
I circulated my Qi, intending to force myself into a deep slumber. One shichen—about two hours—should be enough.
And so, I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.
Exactly one shichen later, when I opened my eyes…
“Whoa! Fuck!”
I couldn’t help but cry out in alarm at the sight that greeted me.
In the dark room, there was someone else besides me. My first thought was an assassin, and I was right. The one who had come for me was an assassin. And he was the most famous assassin in the Central Plains.
“...”
“…What are you doing over there?”
I had to ask. How could I not?
The assassin in the room was the master of the Night Reapers, known as the greatest assassination squad in the Central Plains. The King of the Night, who was said to be able to kill anyone. The Dark King was kneeling before me.
“…Hmm.”
At my question, the Dark King tilted his head for a moment before speaking.
“This is more comfortable now.”
“…?”
I couldn’t understand what he meant.