Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts - 1
“A tiresome, predictable story…. This life is clearly ruined too.”
I looked up at the sky without thinking.
A winter sky so blue it stung the eyes. Beneath it stretched a field of pure white.
The farthest memory I could reach — my very first — was also a snow-white winter plain.
Standing in that snowfield, white breath pluming from her lips, Mother had said:
Son, this is a running game.
The Murim.
A world within a world, ruled by strength.
There, five families stood above the rest, boasting the greatest wealth and the most fearsome power.
The Namgung Family.
The Hwangbo Family.
The Hebei Peng Family.
The Moyong Family.
The Jegal Family.
People called them the Five Great Families.
And Mother had been a concubine of the Moyong Family.
One day, the Family Head of the Moyong vanished without warning.
That same day, Mother proposed a running contest.
We ran endlessly across the vast plain. I didn’t know where we were going, or why we were running.
It didn’t take long to realize it wasn’t a game — it was a flight for our lives.
This isn’t a game. I want to go home. I’m cold.
There’s no one left to protect us now.
Mother kept repeating words a child couldn’t understand.
Mother and son fled until we settled in some mountain hollow of a backwater village.
To keep from freezing to death, we clumsily patched up an abandoned ruin with hands raw from cold.
To keep from starving, we took up hoe and shovel as naturally as lifting a rice spoon.
We survived as poor farmers — fretting over whether rain would fall on the furrows, whether the ears of grain would set properly — scraping by day after day.
We endured like that for long years.
No. This can’t be right.
From sunrise to sunset I wrecked my body with hoe and axe, and still we barely ate.
Mother said we should always be grateful we could live even like this. I couldn’t accept it.
In that destitute life, every approaching winter meant worrying whether we would die.
One winter cold enough to cut to the bone.
On my fifteenth birthday, Mother froze to death.
Wait until the Family Head comes looking for us. If he does, be sure to show him this.
She pressed into my hands the wooden case she had always kept close to her heart.
To the very end, Mother believed the Family Head would come.
Mother had starved.
Mother had grown too frail to endure the cold.
And so Mother froze to death.
“…….”
Inside the wooden case was a golden dragon clutching a black pearl in its jaws.
“Th-this…!”
My eyes flooded red until they felt ready to burst.
My hands shook violently.
— Great Moyong Family
The instant I saw the engraved characters, I hurled the case to the floor.
I stomped it underfoot until it shattered.
“Why to the very end — why to the very end that bastard…!”
I grabbed the golden dragon to throw it away — and stopped.
I clenched my teeth so hard my gums felt ready to split.
“Ugh… uhhh… uhk….”
With trembling hands I clutched the golden dragon.
I pressed it to my forehead and prostrated myself on the freezing floor.
I curled up beside my frozen mother and stayed there.
The sun set.
The moon rose.
A rat slipped out through a gap in the crumbling earthen wall.
It watched the empty room for a long moment, then vanished.
Even as my whole body froze and my lips cracked, I remained face-down on the floor.
“Mother… if — just if, I mean.”
Had a day passed?
Three days?
A week?
“If my fate is to live and die holding my breath in a backwater hole like this…”
Before Mother’s stiff corpse, I croaked in a ruined voice.
“…I refuse to accept that. Never.”
I didn’t even dream of returning to the family.
I only wanted, just once, to live like a human being — to enjoy something of life.
I wanted a roof of broad tiles like a whale’s back, a pretty wife, and meat until my belly burst.
There was no choice to make.
I left the countryside without a plan.
I went to the capital.
Even if my life was to be crushed underfoot like a worm, I resolved to die crushed while at least trying.
To keep body and soul together — and to seize any path to advancement that might exist — I set out to learn martial arts.
I knocked on every sect gate that caught my eye and begged to be taken as a disciple.
“You’re far too old.”
Reality was different.
“You want to enter our sect? Did you bring a letter of recommendation? No? Then leave.”
“Do you have a title? Without one, it’s impossible.”
I hadn’t even aimed for the great powers of the Jianghu — the Nine Sects and One Gang.
Even the minor sects turned me away at the door.
I wanted to collapse where I stood, but I believed that if I did, everything would end.
So I resolved to try harder.
I trailed after wandering martial artists in the marketplace, hoping to learn even a single simple technique.
But there was no way to learn the internal cultivation methods essential to any true martial artist.
No one in the Jianghu handed out internal energy arts to just anyone.
Still, I didn’t give up.
What I lack in internal power, I’ll make up with external strength. Somehow it’ll work out.
I trained my body at the very least, swinging a sword without missing a single day.
I practiced third-rate martial arts and clung to the vague hope that someday a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would find me.
And time simply flowed on, endless and empty.
“Not a scrap of internal energy at your age? What were you doing while everyone else was building theirs? Get out.”
It was my thirty-second attempt.
At the entrance exam of yet another minor sect, the examiner who had been watching me issued the order to throw me out.
“…What? Sir — Examiner, just a moment—”
I stood there awkwardly, sword still in hand.
The examiner flicked his fingers.
“Are your ears plugged? I said get the hell out.”
“At least let me finish showing what I prepared! From the Six Harmonies Sword Art, I mean—!”
Crack.
Light exploded across my vision.
“Aagh!”
I clutched my nose.
Hot blood poured between my fingers.
“Didn’t you hear the examiner? He said get lost.”
Not even a martial artist.
Just a gatekeeper servant, adjusting his grip on a birch club and snarling threats.
“Y-you…!”
My vision went red.
My heart hammered wildly; humiliation crashed over me.
“Oho, look at that insolent glare! What is the world coming to — a young pup with eyes like some heretical devil!”
The examiner whose gaze I’d met coughed and looked away.
“Lose that look in your eyes! Who do you think you are, acting up!”
They beat me.
“Ghhk—!”
The birch club hurt beyond bearing.
They clubbed me while jeering.
“Where does a worm like you get off!”
I cried from the pain.
I cried from the injustice.
I wrapped both arms around my head, and boots rained down on top of them.
Beaten to a rag, I was hurled out through the gate.
Clang.
The iron sword I’d bought after starving a full week shattered and skittered across the ground.
“A bastard old enough to know better, daring to rub up against us?”
The doors slammed shut.
As if spellbound, I stared at the half-broken sword lying beside me — and met the eyes of my own face reflected in the blade.
I was no longer a boy with chances left to learn.
I’ve already gotten this old.
When had so much time slipped away?
If I’d been given a chance.
If only I’d had a chance.
I was confident I would have struggled more desperately than anyone.
But that chance never came.
I had climbed the mountain dreaming of sweet achievement.
There was no summit — only a fall all the way to the bottom, where I lay twitching.
Once I could at least sleep happily, promising myself fame and glory.
Now I couldn’t even dream that dream.
I wanted to get drunk.
I wanted to forget everything.
Clutching my swollen face, I staggered into a brothel. I bought the cheapest wine and poured it down my throat.
Wine I had never touched while telling myself I was training.
And that became my last drink.
“You’re Moyong Bi, aren’t you?”
A wrecked brothel.
The stench of blood thick enough to choke on.
A figure in a crimson mask held a blade to my throat.
An assassin.
People who made killing their trade.
Two courtesans lay collapsed, skewered like meat on dozens of knives.
The brothel was in ruins.
“Hah… hah…”
I pressed my palm against the blood gushing from my shoulder.
The crimson mask standing before me tilted its head.
“I was told you were third-rate, but you’re holding up well. Born with a martial bone, are you?”
The masked figure’s voice was thin — almost a woman’s.
A slender sword thinner than paper pressed up under my chin.
“Ahaha, look at those eyes burning with spite. Gives me chills — it’s been a while.”
“Sect Master, Elder Pal’s escort seems to have caught wind of us.”
The crimson mask’s laughter cut off cold.
“Escort? Estimated time?”
“About one shichen from now.”
“Well, if that’s all… a little entertainment should be fine.”
The crimson mask smiled again, circling, and beckoned to me.
“Shall we see if your skill matches those eyes? You — pick up a sword.”
“…What?”
The crimson mask continued playfully.
“I’ll give you hope that you might live.”
“Hope?”
The crimson mask raised a single finger.
“I promise. Graze my body even once, and I’ll spare you.”
I stared at her blankly.
“Not enough? Then one more. No matter what happens after this, I’ll spare your life once. I swear it before heaven and earth.”
“Sect Master, forgive the interruption—”
A subordinate at her side stepped forward.
“The client specifically requested the target’s elimination.”
The crimson mask went still.
“What exactly are you implying?”
The masked figure’s pupils narrowed vertically, becoming a snake’s eyes.
Rumble…
Suffocating killing intent flooded every direction.
“Are you saying I would let trash like that so much as graze me?”
“…Ah.”
With a heavy thud, the subordinate slammed his forehead to the floor.
“I-I’m sorry! Sect Master! That was never my meaning!”
“…….”
For a long moment the masked figure stared at the subordinate, then stretched a hand to the side.
“No more complaints? Give me a sword.”
The crimson mask took the blade and tossed it to me.
“Well then, our little bastard young master?”
The sword quivered where it had stuck in the floor before me.
“Want to live? Then thrash all you like.”
“…!”
Reality was merciless.
There was no coincidence. No miracle.
Time blurred past in a frenzy, and my mind forgot the details of the process.
I simply wanted to live.
I told myself I could not die here.
I absolutely cannot die.
I remember seizing the sword, flailing, thrashing.
I screamed and clung to my opponent like a vengeful spirit.
I remembered Mother freezing to death on the ondol floor.
I remembered that piercingly blue winter.
I remembered running endlessly across the white plain, holding Mother’s hand.
I remembered curling beneath her corpse and weeping in silence.
I remembered being beaten by a gatekeeper, clutching a broken sword, crying myself to sleep in the street.
I will not—
My right arm, the one holding the blade, was severed.
I charged with the severed arm clutched in my left.
My left arm broke and hung useless.
I charged with the blade clenched in my teeth.
Both thighs were pierced through.
I crawled forward on my shattered left arm and lunged.
I could feel the crimson mask growing increasingly unsettled. The game was no longer amusement.
I will not…!
I seized a fluttering hem and hung on. I swung the blade at the masked face.
The crimson mask’s hand-blade snapped my sword.
The broken edge tore across the crimson mask’s cheek as it flew past.
“…Kh!”
The crimson mask’s eyes flew wide.
Blood vessels stood out stark in those pupils.
I cannot die he—!
The instant hope of survival bloomed—
A single flash of light, eye-searingly vivid, tore through every memory.
—Thud.
It was a strike that punched straight through my chest.
The flash shattered the golden dragon hanging at my throat and buried itself in my breastbone.
“Ah— ahhk!”
I flailed with both arms.
I coughed up bloody foam.
“…You… liar… you said… you’d spare…”
“Ah.”
The crimson mask stood frozen.
“I never imagined you’d be this much of a madman!”
“Even trained assassins struggle with mutual destruction like that…! Sect Master, are you unharmed!”
Subordinates rushed forward in a panic.
—Rustle.
The scrap of cloth covering the crimson mask’s mouth slipped free.
On the pale cheek revealed beneath the mask, a vivid red line was carved.
Crimson beads of blood welled up.
“….”
The crimson mask touched her own cheek.
She stared at the blood staining her fingers.
She looked at my face.
Her gaze dropped to her own hand.
Her pupils trembled, almost imperceptibly.
“…I let my composure slip, even for a moment.”
The crimson mask clenched her teeth as if they might shatter.
“The contract is fulfilled. Everyone withdraw.”
They vanished.
I was left alone.
With my chest torn open, blood soaked every inch of me.
It was so absurd I could only laugh.
So this was the end.
I always did my best.
And this miserable finish was what it earned me?
Darkness crept across my vision.
I couldn’t end it like this.
I couldn’t die like this.
I thrashed inside the darkness settling over my eyes.
Unable to accept death, I thrashed more desperately than anyone alive.
Which is why, at first, I thought I’d misheard.
Reach out… your hand.
Reach out your hand.
A voice like frost.
A chill that raced up my spine.
It was the black pearl the golden dragon had held in its jaws.
The voice was spilling from the black pearl that had fallen at my feet.
Hurry. Take hold of me.
Blood coiled around the black pearl. Like an octopus’s tentacles, it beckoned toward me.
“….”
It might have been a hallucination.
But.
It might also have been life’s final chance.
I clenched my teeth.
“Gyaaah… aaagh!!”
With every ounce of strength I had left, I rolled.
I crawled like a worm.
Even through pain like nerves on fire, I forced my body to move.
The pearl glowed blue once more and whispered.
Seize me.
“…!”
One arm had been cut away.
The other had been broken.
I couldn’t grip anything with my hands.
Both arms useless?
Then there was only one way.
Yes — take…
Crunch. I opened my mouth and bit down on the pearl.
The voice faltered in confusion.
—Crunch.
The pearl’s hardness was nothing much.
Through the pain I bit down on the pearl in my mouth with everything I had.
It shattered without resistance.
The startled voice scattered and vanished the instant the pearl broke.
From the shattered fragments, a viscous fluid oozed out and slid down my throat.
Extraction Framework — Full Display Complete
Reinforced Metamorphosis — Application Commencing
Flesh Restoration
Proximate Specimen
Borrowed Rubbing
⚠ Host Elimination: FAILED
⚠ Martial Arts Inheritance: FAILED
⚠ Ego Transmission: FAILED
Like tentacles, black blood wrapped around my body.
My entire body was crushed and shattered to pieces.
I sank into a black lake.
I was dying.
I opened my mouth to scream, and black water forced its way in, flooding down my throat.
I sank deeper.
As consciousness slipped away, a thought drifted through me.
The world is sometimes so predictably cruel that it makes you sad, I thought.
There’s an old saying that in a lifetime, three chances come.
But in my life, not three — not even one chance had ever arrived.
Even if it was something right in front of my eyes,
even if it was from anyone at all,
if heaven existed, I wanted to scream for just one chance.
If only I were given a chance.
If anyone at all would give me just one chance.
If this nauseating, cruel, tiresome, predictable reality would grant me even a single opportunity — I thought I wouldn’t care what the price was.
From within the dark, a viscous voice whispered.
I nodded.
Heavenly Demon Copies Martial Arts