Chapter 113
Chapter 113
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 113
Chapter Title: The First Trial: Demonic Rain
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Tak.
Hyeok Mulin, who had thrust his body into the void, planted both feet on the ground.
As his entire form emerged, the torn rift slowly contracted, vanishing completely soon after.
Left alone in that spot, Hyeok Mulin slowly surveyed his surroundings.
"...Nothing here."
An endless barren plain stretched out before him.
The environment was so utterly different from the outside world that he could tell immediately it was another dimension entirely.
A night sky without a single cloud in sight.
What was peculiar was that, though nothing was visible overhead, the surroundings were surprisingly clear even without light.
There were no sun, moon, or stars. Nothing at all.
Looking down, the ground wasn't ordinary soil either.
The earth was cracked wide open as if ravaged by a severe drought, blackened throughout.
Swipe—
Hyeok Mulin bent his knee and touched the ground with his hand.
It was lifeless land, long dead.
Standing once more, he felt through his skin that even the air differed from outside.
Thick demonic qi blanketed the air—if anyone else had entered, they'd have felt crushing pressure squeezing their entire body.
In such a qi-saturated environment, their body would feel heavy as if burdened with a log.
But Hyeok Mulin's Extreme Demonic Qi was the supreme form above all demonic qi, so he felt no pressure whatsoever.
'What is this place...'
Intended for what purpose?
Nothing could be sensed around him.
Hyeok Mulin stared at the vista ahead before finally stepping forward.
"Guess I should start moving first."
Activating Shadow Swift Step, he strolled leisurely with hands clasped behind his back.
About half a shichen later, his steps halted.
'This isn't right.'
When he first scanned the area, Hyeok Mulin had wondered if the trial might be finding the end of this land.
But after advancing half a shichen, he realized his assumption was wrong.
As he moved, an inexplicable sense of déjà vu had nagged at him, and he soon grasped its cause.
He wasn't progressing to new ground but circling the same spot endlessly.
This wasn't an infinite expanse without end; it was merely a finite space stretched infinitely.
"So what am I supposed to do here?"
Hyeok Mulin still couldn't grasp the trial's purpose.
Simply a place for training?
Where time flowed differently from the outside world, granting extra cultivation time?
Or perhaps an opportunity to deeply infuse his body with demonic qi?
'No, that can't be.'
The Demon God Realm, infamous even among past Heavenly Demons, couldn't consist of such trivial trials.
There had to be something more.
Something...
"......?"
As Hyeok Mulin pondered the trial's meaning, the world around him darkened slightly.
Raising his head to the sky, a crimson crescent moon entered his vision.
Moonlight he'd never seen before.
The instant he saw it, his instincts detected an ominous aura.
'Something's coming.'
Bracing for the true trial's arrival, Hyeok Mulin sharpened his senses.
And as he scanned about with shifting eyes—
Plip. Plip-plip.
Something fell from the sky.
Hyeok Mulin looked up and identified it.
"...Rain?"
A fine, gentle drizzle began falling lightly from the heavens.
Meeting the sudden rain, Hyeok Mulin fell into thought.
This couldn't be meaningless rain.
It must relate to the first trial.
Whatever it was, he'd figure it out starting now...
But his musings were soon interrupted.
Sizzle—
The droplets seemed too fine to harm even an ant, yet upon touching his sleeve, they hissed and melted the fabric.
Witnessing this, Hyeok Mulin let out a faint exclamation.
"Hoo..."
The rain carried not poison, but impure demonic qi.
Glancing around, there was nowhere to shelter from it.
Hyeok Mulin gazed steadily upward.
'I see.'
So this was the first trial.
Whoosh!
With a flick of his hand, he shook off nearby rain and deployed a spherical qi barrier to shield his body.
The falling drizzle bounced off without penetrating.
But maintaining a barrier required internal energy.
Unknowing how long the rain would last, Hyeok Mulin thinned it to the extreme to minimize consumption.
'Nothing like what I expected.'
No known details existed about the Demon God Realm's contents.
He'd entered knowing only that it tested one's worthiness.
So he'd anticipated fighting monsters, leaping chasms a hundred zhang wide, or scaling sheer cliffs.
'Rain from the sky was out of left field.'
This trial wasn't particularly arduous, making his preparations seem overkill.
Mastering precise control and movement with the barrier was helpful, but only to that extent.
Hyeok Mulin trained his martial arts in place during the downtime, awaiting the rain's end.
Several shichen passed, and it naturally ceased.
Dispelling the barrier, he looked skyward.
"This can't be the end."
Surely more awaited.
And a geng later, his prediction proved correct.
Platter-platter—
Rain fell again.
But thicker droplets this time, like beads.
Deploying his barrier promptly, Hyeok Mulin pondered.
The spherical shield sufficed to block it.
Yet even thinned, it wasted energy unnecessarily.
To minimize expenditure, he devised a new approach.
Crunch.
Compressing the barrier, Hyeok Mulin flattened it overhead.
A qi wall covering just from his head down.
It consumed less than half the energy of a full-body wrap.
The protective range shrank, but its intensity surged.
Fine-tuning the wall would prove useful in special scenarios.
Yet as time dragged, faint impatience stirred in him.
'Still not over?'
He felt no hunger or thirst, but over a day had surely passed.
The rain showed no sign of stopping.
After watching the sky briefly, he resigned himself—nothing more to do but endure.
A day passed, then two, and soon several.
"Trouble brewing."
The rain he'd thought would end soon persisted for days.
He still couldn't retract the wall.
Endless bead-like downpour.
This led to a grave issue.
Days weren't long, but maintaining the wall nonstop without rest drained him relentlessly.
No matter how minimized, prolonged use depleted reserves inevitably.
His Extreme Demonic Qi was nearly exhausted.
'It has to stop soon.'
Hyeok Mulin ceased training altogether.
Standing still, he focused utterly on the wall, shielding minimal space.
Fortune favored his effort—the rain began tapering off.
Once fully stopped, he swiftly withdrew the wall.
Inspecting his dantian, his face hardened.
'This is bad.'
Only a handful—no, a speck—of internal energy remained.
No margin for error in his current state.
If only it ended here...
Swipe.
Gazing skyward, a half-moon filled his eyes.
The crescent had swelled to half, yet no sign the trial concluded.
More must remain.
And soon, his hunch hit true.
Pour—whoosh—whoosh—whoosh—
Torrential rain unleashed.
As if the sky had ruptured, thick sheets hammered the ground unceasingly.
Hyeok Mulin reformed the wall hastily, but the deluge pierced it.
Sizzle-sizzle—
A few drops breached, melting his clothes where they landed.
He thickened the wall immediately.
He'd patched it for now, but it wavered like waves on the verge of collapse.
Assessing it, doubt assailed him.
'Not sure if it'll hold, and even half a shichen's pushing it.'
Gauging intensity, he roughly estimated consumption—his expression darkened.
...Actually, one path existed.
Uncertain if viable.
No one had ever trod it.
But it was his only option now.
To break the impasse, he had to advance further.
Closing his eyes, Hyeok Mulin exhaled.
And resolved.
"A true trial. Forcing me off the cliff, as expected."
A faint smile curved his lips as he opened his eyes slowly.
No hesitation lingered in his gaze.
No time left.
Emitting qi, he deployed not a barrier or wall, but an ultra-thin sword-qi veil.
Going further, he cloaked his entire body in it.
Thud.
Shielded fully in sword-qi veil, Hyeok Mulin sat cross-legged in place.
He challenged the impossible.
Circulating qi inwardly for recovery while emitting it outwardly via the veil.
His final gambit with near-empty reserves.
Countless warriors had tried and failed.
Humans could focus on one thing only.
Emit qi.
Or gather it.
One conduit—pushing both ways clogs it naturally, disruption inevitable.
Circulation and accumulation demanded utmost concentration, unifying all senses.
No spare attention.
Yet Hyeok Mulin aimed for both simultaneously.
Altering his meridians' flow, internal and external energies clashed, lost.
Where to go?
Out?
In?
In the confusion, he didn't sever them but merged.
It never reached his dantian.
Formed and expelled via meridian loops.
Boundaries blurred: entering or exiting?
Thump—
It wasn't smooth.
Meridians contracted, dantian clenched emptily.
Pressure as if they'd rupture anytime.
Then it happened.
Flow accelerated past limits, beyond his control.
'All or nothing.'
But he pressed on, trusting his insight.
The path had opened.
Now, commit.
Pure Soul Divine Demon Art could do it.
So move!
Move...!
Move......!
Repeating inwardly dozens of times, Hyeok Mulin simply observed the Extreme Demonic Qi flowing through him, moving on its own.
Like a living creature, it swam leisurely—then pierced like lightning.
And at that instant.
Flash.
Opening his eyes, black qi swirled around Hyeok Mulin's body.
Gathered externally, emitted instantly.
"It worked!"
Succeeding in fusing intake and output, he clenched his fist in joy.
This granted far greater flexibility in energy use going forward.
'Almost disaster if delayed.'
A moment later, and it might've been his body melting, not clothes.
Yet he'd achieved perfection amid crisis.
Averting doom, shattering the barrier instead.
As if blessing him, the torrent soon subsided.
Back to beads, then drizzle, until clear skies returned.
"Hoo."
Looking up, a full moon bathed the void in ashen light.
And before him, space tore open—a rift to the next stage.
"...And this was merely the first trial."
The Demon God Realm.
Living up to its reputation without disappointing.
Staring ahead, Hyeok Mulin's lips curved into a slow grin.