The 69th Demon Realm

Nain loved documentaries.

Most cultivators hungered for the future; Nain, by contrast, preferred the past. Because of that, she was unusually well-versed in history and current affairs compared to her peers.

According to the Underworld Registry kept by the United Human Government, the total number of Foundation Establishment cultivators among humanity stood at roughly one million.

Half of them had been deployed to the front lines beyond the Gates, and a great many of the rest guarded mankind among the outer stars. In the end, no more than about a hundred thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators remained permanently on Earth.

Earth itself was partitioned into twenty-six administrative zones, A through Z. The first three held the core facilities of the United Human Government—its beating heart. The final three were hazard zones where torn Gates endlessly writhed. That left the remaining twenty-odd zones, each garrisoned by roughly five thousand Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Whoosh—!

Nain looked down on the ground streaking past beneath her, feelings tangled and hard to name. Even at a speed that shattered the sound barrier, the colossal talisman had been flying for a full hour. The Gate devouring the sky loomed larger by the moment.

What am I supposed to do…

Seeing the world through Geumhae’s eyes, Nain bit her finger on the sofa. She couldn’t tell whether the present situation was a windfall or something that deserved a grimace. An opportunity? Or a disaster about to smash her quiet daily life to pieces?

"I told you to go a little faster."

"This is already maximum speed. Push past Mach 10 and we’ll land in Soft Dragon’s sights. The Korean Peninsula’s unpleasant enough as it is… I have no desire to cross divine sense with that one."

"Tsk. This is why people who live on islands are useless."

From behind came the childish bickering of two Peak Foundation Establishment cultivators. Peak Foundation Establishment—one percent of one percent talent, a true upper crust of which each zone possessed only fifty. And still they squabbled like children.

That was the heart of Nain’s hesitation. Sprawled in comfort, she thought it through.

Honestly, I could reach Golden Core even without a master.

If the two behind her ever heard that, their eyes would turn blood-red and they would come flying. Golden Core was a realm attained by one in ten thousand of Earth’s ten billion cultivators who first reached Foundation Establishment, and then only after surviving a further thousand-to-one cull. To claim you would walk that path alone, without a master?

It was the sort of delusion not even worth rebutting—something only a lunatic who treated cultivation as a joke would say. The old Nain would have been so furious she would have hunted the speaker down to thrash them. But what could she do? Pou’s performance was simply that broken.

I could sever the link with Geumhae this very second if I wanted.

Even with their senses joined, Geumhae was ultimately a clone. Damage to the clone did not reach the true body. If Nain chose, Geumhae’s faint self would reclaim her own flesh again.

"There’s no reason not to, though."

She muttered it seriously from the sofa. Beside her, Pou nodded—as if endorsing the choice.

Nain stroked Pou while she weighed profit against loss. First: what was there to gain?

"Connections. A master. Knowledge money can’t buy, and the secrets of the world."

Not one of them was worthless. As a bonus, there would be her mother’s trust and affection. The person called “master” was almost certainly a “gift” Eun Seolhwa had arranged for her.

And what was there to lose?

"…Nothing?"

She thought it through with merciless care. Nain and Geumhae were true body and clone, but their selves were separate; almost no time was wasted between them. The preliminary experiments with Decia had confirmed it—knowledge was shared, yet the selves did not invade each other.

The completeness of the body was no different from an ordinary person’s, either. Common clones were limp and riddled with defects. Without the opportunity Pou had brought, even Nain herself would never have realized Geumhae was a clone.

In other words, Nain’s time and Geumhae’s time ran on separate tracks. No one would constantly interrupt or encroach on her private training. Through Geumhae’s body she stole a glance behind her.

"Hmm… They don’t seem to know, do they?"

Another crucial reason: those people had no idea Geumhae was a clone. They believed she was Nain herself.

Why? Decia had insisted that any Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator would recognize it at a glance. Had her little sister been wrong? Or were these two simply unusual…?

One’s an old-school pure martial combatant. The other is probably… a Talisman Master.

The vast talisman gliding through the sky rose in her mind. Someone walking the same great path as Nain. Of course they would have been attached as her master.

She set the direction of her heart.

"From this moment on, Nain and Geumhae are separate people!"

Training time and freedom? She had no intention of surrendering them. Connections and a master? They had rolled up to her door of their own accord; she had even less intention of letting them go. Before a vast profit, a corresponding cost usually followed—but to back away when there was no loss at all was to admit you lacked the makings of a cultivator.

Enormous high-high return, zero risk.

"…Well, if they find out Geumhae is a clone, I’m finished."

Still—somehow it would work out, wouldn’t it? Set aside the fact that she was a clone, and Geumhae was no different from any other person. Her spiritual roots were the same Four Spiritual Roots as Nain’s; she cultivated methods without issue and could draw in spiritual qi.

As long as they weren’t dealing with someone who walked that Dao of Contemplation or whatever it had been, there was nothing to fear. Even Nain had first heard of that path on the spot—an obscure minority among minorities.

Nain gazed at Pou’s status window and let out a faint sigh. The truth was, it wasn’t entirely free of risk. Geumhae’s potential itself was a high-risk black hole.

As the true body sharing senses with the clone—and as Pou’s master—a faint intuition stirred in her. The moment Geumhae Changcheon reached Rank 2, Geumhae would inevitably awaken a complete self. Until then, Nain would have to suffer a little.

She could hardly leave a Geumhae who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn’t even manage her own body alone among those old monsters.

"Why am I the only one without divine sense!"

A sudden surge of injustice hit her. If she only had divine sense, she could have postponed pushing Geumhae to Rank 2. If she could deliberately split her consciousness and pilot clone and true body at the same time…

But the divine-sense blossoming of the Five Elements Spirit Ascension Enlightenment Method was a technique you could only even attempt once you reached the fifth Spiritual Star of Qi Refinement.

She hugged Pou and thrashed against the unfairness of the world.

Flutter!?

Caught in Nain’s petty spite, Pou struggled in pure disgust—but there was no escaping those enormous arms.

Whoosh—!

Dooong…

"We’ve arrived."

Seo Seongrak bent down and casually slung an arm around Nain’s neck. She wanted to wriggle free in revulsion, but she could not overpower the raw strength of a Peak Foundation Establishment cultivator. Resigning herself, she stared silently ahead.

In the old days, the Korean Peninsula had held two ancient nations: the Republic of Korea and North Korea. The invaders had treated both as one and carved a single colossal Gate that opened onto the whole peninsula. Already an advanced country, the Republic of Korea had nearly lost its mind at being saddled with North Korea as well.

But it was fine.

Every political and financial elite of the former Republic of Korea who might have voiced that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠grievance had died on the first day of the invasion. North Korea, still failing to grasp the situation, had even marched its army south—but once its leadership died as well, both nations effectively became vegetables.

From there, everyone knew the outcome. Outrage and despair, blood and pain, grief and lamentation… The mere survival of a Korean ethnic identity was a miracle in itself.

Neighboring China had been torn so thoroughly that no ethnic identity remained at all. So why the sudden history lecture—what was the point?

"Uh… uhh…"

Nain’s mouth fell open as she looked up at the Gate. It was monstrously vast. So vast that scale itself refused to apply; her sense of distance shattered and the world spun before her eyes.

It hung right in front of her, yet it felt like a phantom that did not truly exist. Stretch out a hand and she might touch it—yet it also seemed forever beyond reach.

An ominous rainbow hue split the heavens and swallowed a radius of hundreds, even thousands of kilometers. Fragments of the firmament scattered, releasing a bleak, drawn-out sigh. Space warped and smoothed again, throbbing like a heart.

The Gate floating in the void contracted and expanded in turn, vomiting an eerie blood-red light. Earth’s blue sky and a crimson wind locked in a taut contest of force.

"W-what… is this?"

Nain was genuinely rattled. She had been daydreaming about a happy future along the cultivation path ahead of her—only for an unimagined vision of terror to crush her chest flat.

"Heh. Scared you, did it?"

Seo Seongrak stroked Nain’s head with a gentleness unlike his usual self. Suppressing the tremor in her body, she looked sideways. In a field of vision that had spent a lifetime cataloguing his frivolous, empty-headed antics, she now saw her grandfather’s face set in utter seriousness.

Shrrk, shrrrk.

The woman beside them folded and unfolded her fan as she spoke.

"You’ve never entered a Gate before?"

"Well, yeah. This is the first time."

Snap.

The woman folded her fan with a sharp click; her eyes narrowed.

"Then this will be your first time as well—looking upon a Gate’s true face. Will you be all right?"

"Hahaha! In that regard, this one’s better than me. I’ll stake my word on it. Just get us inside already."

Seo Seongrak was right. Nain drew a deep breath and slowly quieted the tension and trembling in her body. Honestly, the shock had been enormous.

It was nothing like the tame silhouette ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠she had watched from Future Special City. If something like this hung in the sky all day, most people would have gone mad long before they ever thought about cultivation—it was that grotesque, that terrifying.

"Ordinarily the Golden Cores up in the sky keep formations in place. Early- and mid-stage Qi Refinement types would lose their minds looking at that."

"Indeed… remarkable. A mere second Spiritual Star of Qi Refinement, and yet she looks upon a Gate without going mad."

Wooooom…

The colossal talisman carrying the party shuddered.

"I honestly didn’t believe it, but at this level, she may be worth looking forward to."

Fwaaat!

The talisman blazed with white radiance. The sensation of lifting and gliding through the air flooded every nerve of her body, vivid and immediate.

A precursor to spatial transfer!

She hurriedly ducked her head and clung to the talisman. No warning, then a spatial jump—did these people possess not a shred of consideration?

The talisman’s trembling cut off at once. Nain’s own shivering body stilled with it. And in that infinitesimal gap, a rebound that velocity itself could not define seized them.

Thoom!

The world flickered pure white. Consciousness went distant; some writhing shape slid past. They became a single line joining point to point and punched through the Gate.

Woom…

"U-uep…!"

She clapped a hand over her mouth and dry-heaved. Even as a clone, the shared senses sent the entire world spinning. Tears welled naturally from weak tear ducts.

"Enough theatrics. Get up."

Seo Seongrak forced Nain—still bent double—upright. And then a beautiful landscape flooded her vision.

Ching~

There was a sun here too. A clear orange star poured down warm light; a mild breeze brushed her cheek. Green forests and mountains filled the horizon, and beyond them stretched a blue sea.

Birds with wings spread wide drifted easily across the sky. It was nature brimming with life. The scenery was so utterly unlike anything she had vaguely imagined that Nain’s head turned of its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠own accord.

"This… is a Demon Realm?"

She had pictured something desolate, thick with demonic qi, crawling with hideous demonfolk and monsters… Yet it looked no different from ordinary Earth nature.

"Quite the shock, is it?"

The woman, covering her mouth with an ornate fan, stood beside Nain and spoke softly.

"The Sixty-Ninth Demon Realm. Once it was a peaceful planet that flowered with civilization just as ours did, but…"

KRAAAAAH!

From far away came a roar, and a “mountain” stood up. Across the seemingly peaceful vista, a giant of earth rose and swung a fist. Then a silent grove of trees wove itself together of its own accord, becoming a single spear that pierced the giant through.

The giant, a spear driven through its solar plexus, rolled across the ground and threw up a cloud of dust.

"As you see, it was invaded by the demon race and became part of the Demon Realms."

From the sea a colossal tentacle surged upward, thrashing the clouds as it searched for something. An explosion burst from underground and a purple fog billowed out. Skinless animals bounded cheerfully across the plains.

The nature that had looked merely peaceful was, on closer inspection, a grotesque demonscape strewn with horrors.

"And now I’m going to drop you over there. Excited? Heart pounding, isn’t it?"

"Pardon?"

At Seo Seongrak’s nonsense, Nain’s mind went blank.

Drop me… over there?