Even If I Become the Heavenly Demon
I tore straight across the festival-choked streets.
-Kwa-kwa-kwa!!
“Keuk! Kuaaaaah! Moyong Bi!!”
Jeokmaryeong’s face was locked in my grip. His features had been beaten into a bloody pulp. His fists hammered me without pause, yet I still refused to let go. I drove him forward. Even as I took the blows, even as my nose shattered, even as my face was pulverized, I would not release him.
I screamed.
“You… You bastard!!!”
Smoke rose behind him from Gwando. Everything lay in ruins. I could see the outskirts drawing near. With every last scrap of strength I possessed, I meant to hurl him out of the city.
“Are you even human?!”
-Kwaga-gak!
Jeokmaryeong tried to dig his heels into the earth to brake, but his feet bounced uselessly. The harder he fought to stop, the more my Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul accelerated.
“Ah… Aah!”
Countless people stared at us from among the ruins. Every one of them watched me in a daze—the merchants who had filled the marketplace, the food vendors, the wandering swordsmen, even the ordinary citizens of Gwando. They watched me as I took Jeokmaryeong’s relentless beating and still poured everything I had into driving him toward the outer walls.
-Kwaak!
Jeokmaryeong seized the arm that pinned his face.
“Human? No—before that, I am simply a proud warrior and martial artist! Do you think I give a damn about the lives of insects?”
“You—!”
His leg shot up and drove into my solar plexus.
“Stop, you vermin!”
“Keok!”
I pitched forward. Still carrying the full acceleration of the Hyeol-yeong-mu-hwan-sin-sul, the two of us tumbled madly together. We slammed into the ground, bounced high, and—still spinning—shot forward in a straight line without losing speed. We smashed through a storage shed beside a smoking forge and vaulted skyward.
-Warrur! Splash-splash!
Countless weapons from the forge warehouse fluttered through the air before clattering to the ground.
-Splash!
Through the torrential rain, Jeokmaryeong and I plunged into a broad drainage canal that gathered every scrap of filth and sewage from the entire city.
“Huk… Heok!”
I staggered upright in the rain and looked around.
“This place…”
White steam poured off my back. Black sewage reeking of rot flowed past. Thick wastewater rose to my knees.
“We’ve somehow gotten out of Gwando, Host.”
Mumyeong spoke.
Farther off, Jeokmaryeong—coated in filth—staggered to his feet as well.
“Heok… Heok… Heok…”
We faced each other, both gasping.
“You… damned bastard child…”
Jeokmaryeong wiped the sewage running down his hair and muttered. I could feel it. Both of us had reached our absolute limits—body and internal energy alike. Even the downpour could not cool the heat still raging between us.
“Heok, heok!”
Jeokmaryeong clenched trembling fists and settled into a ready stance. I did the same.
“Hm?”
He checked himself just as he was about to charge. Beneath our feet lay black, rotten water. From the shattered forge warehouse, one of the countless scattered weapons—a single sword—had plunged into the muck right in front of him. His own face was reflected on the blade.
Jeokmaryeong murmured,
“My appearance…?”
He was a wreck. Hair wild, not a single uninjured place left on his body. Countless wounds showed through his torn martial robes. He had smashed an entire city with his bare body in the middle of a life-and-death struggle. Of course he looked like this. And I was no better.
If I could have, I would have simply collapsed into this filthy water and lain there. The stench no longer even registered. Remaining on my feet was agony like needles driven again and again into my brain.
Jeokmaryeong groped at his own face, then lowered his gaze to his body. As if seeing his ruined state for the first time, he truly registered it.
“How dare… How dare…!”
His entire frame began to shake violently. The muscles of his jaw stood out in sharp relief.
“This body that will become the strongest in the martial world… Not even a Guardian, but some lowly third-rate bastard dares to reduce me—Yama King of the Demon Cult, Jeokmaryeong—to this state…!”
Bloodshot eyes glared at me, blazing with the lofty pride of a martial artist and a member of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
“You of all people I will never forgi—!!”
-Kwaang!
I kicked off the black water and my form blurred.
-Gulp.
With Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong I seized the space beside him in an instant.
“What—!”
-Kwaang!
A thunderous impact staggered him. I seized the nape of his neck and slammed his face into the mire-like sewage.
“That makes two of us, Jeokmaryeong!!”
He thrashed beneath my hand. I ground him down harder and roared.
“What sin did all those people commit that you massacred them?! You animal—!!”
His hand flashed like lightning into the back of my knee. The moment my leg buckled, his fist and foot blasted me away. I tumbled out of the canal.
Jeokmaryeong spat blood and shouted,
“The world is survival of the fittest! That righteous path you try so hard to protect—whatever it is—the world has only ever mocked us, pointed fingers, and used us! Hearing that from a bastard who suffered the exact same fate is so ridiculous I can’t even laugh!”
I tried to rise, gasping. The canal mud was slick. My strengthless hands slipped. My face plunged into the filthy sludge. Still sprawled there, I panted and muttered under my breath.
“To be a real man, one must strengthen oneself every day…”
I sucked in air and forced the loosening muscles of my limbs to lock again.
“A hot-blooded man must burn hotter than the red sun itself…”
Jeokmaryeong frowned.
“What did you say?”
“I know. I know better than anyone how filthy this world is.”
Yet even so, the black flame with its pure white wick that burned in my eyes refused to go out.
“My surname is Moyong, but I was born a bastard. I wasn’t born with talent. It was only pure luck that I ran into the nightmare of the Demon Cult and this entire journey began…”
I lifted my head.
“It was confusing. The talent I gained through that opportunity looked good at first glance, but before long I started wondering who I really was. With every step I took, something inside me broke, and I grew empty and afraid of where that path would end. Unlike the refreshing hero tales you hear in the marketplace, this reality never dramatically improved. I despaired without end. Yes.”
I looked at Jeokmaryeong and spoke through a voice thick with blood.
“Jeokmaryeong, for a moment I almost became just like you. No—I’ll be honest. I hated and raged at this world even more than you did. You were right. Looking at our reflections on the water, we resemble each other.”
“What?”
“But even so, I’m different from you.”
I took in my surroundings. Outside the canal, weapons of every kind lay scattered from the shattered forge warehouse.
“In a certain village I met a skinny, weak man. Everyone criticized him, pointed and laughed, called him a clown and refused to acknowledge him… yet he never broke. He held fast to his ideal.”
Three-section staffs, poles, sabers, and swords were everywhere. Two long swords stood crossed and thrust into the earth.
I raised my head and met Jeokmaryeong’s eyes.
“That man was weaker than any third-rate martial artist you treat like vermin. But because he never yielded to any threat or mockery, in the end everyone came to acknowledge him and was changed by him. Even me—full of rage and malice. That day I made a vow. No matter how much this world chases money…!”
I gritted my teeth and stood.
“No matter how much it mocks the pursuit of chivalry as a naive, unrealistic value and continues to rot—!”
-Paaat!
Blue flames erupted from both my eyes.
“I will believe in the goodness this world still holds! That is the chivalry I will practice, and for the sake of that possibility…!”
I clenched my fists.
“I am even prepared to become absolute evil. And if, along that path—”
I lowered my gaze to the ground, then lifted it to the sky. I watched the rain pouring from the black heavens, then looked back at Jeokmaryeong.
“—even if the only road left is to become the Heavenly Demon whom the righteous path calls its mortal enemy… then so be it.”
“I’ve heard enough of this incomprehensible dogshit!”
Jeokmaryeong roared as if the heavens themselves were collapsing.
“How dare you?! Heavenly Demon?!! A third-rate dog from the righteous path dares to speak the symbol of our Heavenly Demon Cult?!”
His nearly spent internal energy surged up again, shaking the earth.
“Playtime’s over! I’ll crush you in one blow!”
This was nothing like the pure martial-arts stance he had used until now.
A technique form…!
His twin fists, wreathed in violet flame, carved through the air again and again.
Eight violet fist-winds thundered toward me, shaking heaven and earth.
Jeokmaryeong was not the type to rely on sophisticated high-level techniques. He preferred to crush opponents with the basic arts of a body whose every function had been explosively elevated by the Heaven and Earth Great Shift. In other words, that alone had always been more than enough. Yet now he unleashed a high-level art founded upon that same Heaven and Earth Great Shift.
-Kwadudududu!!
The eight violet fist-winds crashed toward me. They lacked the refined, intricate structure of the high-level arts I had seen from other masters, but when powered by the force of the Heaven and Earth Great Shift, their sheer might surpassed even certain ultimate secret techniques.
“Keuk!”
I snatched up an iron staff that had tumbled down with us. Black light flared in both my eyes.
Combined with One Reed Crossing Three-Section Staff
Black lightning and a storm of power fused as I swept the iron staff.
-Kwang! Kwaang! Kwa-gwa-gwang!
Jeokmaryeong’s eyes flew wide.
“You deflected them all?!”
“My turn!”
-Uuung!
I hurled the staff away and seized a sword lying nearby. Forty paces separated us from Jeokmaryeong.
Mumyeong shouted.
“Only three uses of Polar Night left! Its range is twenty paces! You’re too far to catch him off-guard! Close the distance first—!”
“No!”
I clenched my teeth.
“That’s more than enough!”
My form blurred.
-Kwarung! Kwarung!
Polar Night stacked twice. In a single breath I crossed the forty paces, slipped into Jeokmaryeong’s guard, and rose above his head.
He looked up.
“Impossible…!”
I poured every remaining scrap of strength into the downward stroke.
Blood-Polished Serpent-Wheel Brushing Sword
A colossal black serpent of black lightning swallowed Jeokmaryeong whole.
“A trick like this—!”
He tore the serpent’s maw apart with his bare hands and reached for me—but I was already gone.
“What—where—!”
He spun like lightning. I was already behind him, having spent my final Polar Night, settling into stance.
Zhongnan Sect Final Secret Art
I roared in a blood-soaked voice. This was the very technique the Great Heavenly Demon Emperor had used, while possessed, to deliver the finishing blow against the Ten Thousand Blood Emperor.
Silver mist wrapped in black lightning swept over Jeokmaryeong.
“Keuaaak!”
He twisted with everything he had, yet the blade still carved more than halfway through his side.
“You damned, damned—!”
“It’s not over!”
I flung away the blackened, ruined sword and charged after the frantically retreating Jeokmaryeong. Along the path I ripped free the two crossed long swords that stood thrust into the earth.
Jeokmaryeong shouted,
“Dual swords?!”
The two blades in my hands drooped toward the ground. With a roar of air I closed to within a breath of him.
“Ah… Ah!”
“This ends now!”
This was the technique used by the strongest opponent I had ever faced.
Thousand-Armed Guanyin
-Kwadududu!!
Each stroke was itself a draw-cut. Dual blades of ultra-high speed lashed toward Jeokmaryeong’s face.
A bone-chilling dread wrenched a scream from him.
“What kind of monstr—!!”
-Kwaga-gak!!
His protective energy was shredded like soft tofu. Fountains of blood erupted from every part of his body. The massive hill behind him was carved into thousands of slices and collapsed.
-Urrrrr!
Mud, cleanly severed boulders, and trees poured down together.
“I… I was… by some third-rate bastard…!”
Even a body enhanced by the Heaven and Earth Great Shift had limits when taking the Thousand-Armed Guanyin head-on. With a short scream Jeokmaryeong was blasted backward.
“Haa! Haa…!”
Compared to the original, the copied Thousand-Armed Guanyin was far less pure. The two long swords in my hands belched black smoke and crumbled into charcoal. The black lightning sheathing my body vanished all at once. The black radiance with its white wick faded from my eyes, returning to their usual soft crimson glow.
“Keok! Keok…! Damn… it…!”
Though he looked ready to die at any moment, astonishingly Jeokmaryeong had not been killed instantly even after taking the technique head-on. He lay unable to move a single finger, facing the torrential rain, coughing blood.
I looked down at him, hands braced on my knees.
“…Still alive after taking the Thousand-Armed Guanyin straight on. You’re tenacious.”
“Keok, keok…! You monster… How can you use the ultimate secret arts of every sect…!”
He kept vomiting black blood. Every muscle in his body was torn; he could not so much as twitch a finger. Yama King Jeokmaryeong lay defeated before my eyes, yet I still could not fully feel that I had won.
“So this is how I survived…?”
Pure white rain fell before my eyes.
“From the prophecy of unavoidable death?”
In a way, this victory had been decided because Jeokmaryeong had not yet completely grasped my capabilities. If we fought again, the difference might have been a single sheet of paper, and I might have been the one to fall. It had been that close.
Muyeong-sintu had prophesied that an encounter with Jeokmaryeong would lead to unavoidable death. I had fought with everything I had, and now I had brought him down.
“Host.”
“Ah. I’m fine, Mumyeong.”
I spoke weakly.
“I’ve used up all my demonic energy. My pure energy is almost gone. I don’t even have the strength to lift a spoon… but still.”
“No. That’s not—”
At that moment.
“Keu… Keuhuhuh… Keuhuhuhuh…”
The fallen Jeokmaryeong let out an eerie laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“You… received a prophecy of unavoidable death, didn’t you?”
The rain kept pouring. Dying by the second, Jeokmaryeong muttered,
“That fortune-teller of yours is filthy accurate. When you meet him in the underworld, pay him a fat fee. Because it looks like his words are about to come true. Keuhuh.”
“What?”
He spat black blood and said,
“Look up, idiot. Did using every last drop of strength, even the milk you suckled as a baby, ruin your sensory perception too? Keuhehe.”
“…!”
I raised my head.
-Swaaaah.
Through the pure-white downpour I saw the collapsed earthen hill. Atop it, nine assassins gazed down in silence, red eyes gleaming.
“Wh-when…”
“The Nine Killing Stars. The Demon Cult’s finest hunting dogs—the ones who can take down even a Guardian.”
Jeokmaryeong laughed weakly.
“Keuk. Without a doubt… the worst possible situation.”