The Villain Who Refused to Stay Dead
If you asked me to name the most memorable members of the Demonic Cult from the last Jeongma Great War, excluding the Heavenly Demon himself, I could give you three.
One was the person I wanted to kill most.
Another was the one who’d been hardest to kill.
And the last was the one I least wanted to kill.
All of them were among the greatest experts in the Demonic Cult, the Eight Demon Generals, and Sealing Illusion Demon was the first of those three.
Unlike the other Eight Demon Generals, Sealing Illusion Demon wasn’t a master of martial arts.
Instead, true to his title, he excelled at all kinds of illusion and sorcery.
Even during the Jeongma Great War, when he stood outside the realm of ordinary martial skill with those uncanny, preposterous abilities, he had been a man to watch.
I wanted to kill Sealing Illusion Demon even more than the Heavenly Demon.
Not because we had any deep grudge against each other.
In fact, until the war began, we’d never even met.
And yet I still wanted him dead—more precisely, I wanted him dead and buried.
Because Sealing Illusion Demon was the main villain of the original My Martial Arts Academy.
According to the original setting, he survived the Jeongma Great War, where even the Heavenly Demon and the other Eight Demon Generals died one after another.
If a bastard was the greatest illusion master around, faking his own death was probably as easy as drinking instant cream soup.
Once he’d slipped free of the war, the bastard dreamed of rebuilding the Demonic Cult.
Make the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult Great Again!
That was the slogan Sealing Illusion Demon rolled out as he gathered the cult’s remnants and vanished into the shadows to work in secret.
He did it to restore the shattered Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and take revenge on the martial world.
And because he was busy plotting all kinds of backroom schemes and dirty tricks for that purpose, it was fair to say that he was behind seven or eight out of every ten incidents in the original story.
The protagonist did eventually catch on to Sealing Illusion Demon’s existence around the middle of the story, but there was nothing he could do right away.
Because there was no easy way to find someone who specialized in illusion and had deliberately disappeared.
The two of them only came face-to-face near the very end.
That’s why I wanted to kill him early, myself.
A bitter taste lingered in my mouth.
Knowing all of this already, I’d planned to kill Sealing Illusion Demon and cut off the original events before they could happen.
If I killed the bastard who was basically the source of everything, that ought to be a fundamental solution, right?
But Sealing Illusion Demon had died at the hands of someone else among the Seven Martial Stars.
No—I'd only heard that he had died.
"......"
At the time, I had been fighting another of the Eight Demon Generals.
I wanted to be the one to make absolutely sure he was dead.
But in the middle of a war full of variables, when was anything ever easy?
For one reason and another, I hadn’t been able to strike at Sealing Illusion Demon myself.
I had confirmed his corpse with my own two eyes, but some small part of me still worried: What if the bastard really did survive?
After all, he was the kind of man who could run off using any number of tricks.
That was why, after the war ended, I helped Heo Injun and prevented him from becoming the Poison Demon.
Coming here early and helping Doctor Heo was the right call, but...
Heo Injun hadn’t become the Poison Demon, yet Jamsungdan still existed.
The one at the top of the Neo-Heavenly Demon Cult, just like in the original, was Sealing Illusion Demon.
The details had changed a little, but the broad outline was still the same.
Was there really some kind of force of destiny at work?
No matter how hard I cursed and fought, things still flowed exactly like the original story.
Even after getting my hands so bloody...
Being called one of the Seven Martial Stars, or the Great Swordmaster, didn’t change a damn thing.
"...Fuck."
I was just about to look away from that fact, from the emptiness I’d been trying so hard to ignore, when—
"!"
Tug.
I felt a small force pulling at my sleeve.
Lowering my head, I saw a child clutching my sleeve with tiny hands and looking up at me.
"....."
The child kept glancing back and forth between me and Jo Pyeongho’s corpse, looking anxious.
What, is he worried he did something wrong and trying to gauge my reaction?
He probably didn’t even know what a restriction was, so I supposed that was possible.
Watching him, I snapped out of it.
How pathetic, Mujin.
When you added up the life I’d lived on Earth and in Murim, I was practically sixty, and here I was making a kid read my mood for me.
You really have gone senile, haven’t you?
"It’s not your fault. You did well."
Scritch, scritch.
I patted the child on the head.
It wasn’t just lip service. I meant it.
If not for the kid, Jo Pyeongho wouldn’t have cracked and spilled his information that quickly.
"....."
"Really. Really."
"....."
Only after I drove the point home did the child finally look relieved.
Not that his expression changed much.
Right, this world may look like the original, but it isn’t.
In the original, Sealing Illusion Demon’s tail didn’t show itself until much later. But here, it was already visible.
No—thanks to the child’s help, I even had a rough idea where that tail was hiding.
That was a huge difference from the original.
Come to think of it, this kid was also someone who hadn’t existed in the original.
Maybe when two variables met, they created a positive effect.
"All right, let’s go."
I hoisted the child onto my back again.
Whoosh! Flap!
With quick, practiced hands, I wrapped him in the swaddling cloth and threw on my windbreaker.
We’d stayed longer than I expected, but I’d mostly finished what I came for, so it was truly time to leave.
* * *
Geom Mujin, carrying a bundle in one hand, arrived at the ruins—no, at Taeho Sect.
Clomp, clomp.
"Huh! Y-you’re here!"
"We’ve been waiting for you!"
The disciple standing guard at the front gate, which had been smashed to pieces by some black-haired barbarian, straightened up the moment he saw him and cried out in a rigid, military voice.
"Hm? You’re from the Young Sect Leader’s faction?"
"Yes, sir! Thanks to the Great Swordmaster’s help, all of us were released from prison!"
So Andong Shin had managed to free his people safely.
"Is the Young Sect Leader inside?"
"Yes, sir! He’s waiting for you inside, Great Swordmaster! I’ll guide you!"
"Go ahead."
The disciple started leading the way like a private receiving an audience with a division commander.
And that wasn’t all. On the way, the other disciples cleaning up inside the sect would catch sight of him and hurriedly bow their heads.
They’d clearly never met him before, yet they looked terrified; but there was a reason for that.
When they’d come out after being released from prison by Andong Shin, what had been waiting for them was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
The corpses formed a mountain because the factions had clashed, but they had all once been comrades.
A blood-soaked mountain of former comrades was the sort of sight even evil sect bastards would get sick of.
It went without saying whose masterpiece that had been.
Now, they’d been told that they were on the same side by mutual understanding and all that, but that didn’t magically make the monster less scary.
"Th-this way."
The disciple opened the hall door with a trembling voice.
"The Great Swordmaster is entering...!"
Rattle—
"Please, come in."
"Yeah, good work."
"Hwaaaah!"
When I patted the disciple on the shoulder in thanks, he leapt in shock and fell backward.
Crash!
"Ah! You’ve come!"
As soon as I entered the sect leader’s office, Andong Shin, dressed in hemp mourning clothes, came rushing over.
"That’s..."
Hemp clothes are the standard garb for mourning.
At my point-out, Andong Shin clenched his fist between his teeth.
"Hrk... When I went to find my father, he had already fallen at the hands of the murderer and been led by the Valkyrie to Valhalla...!"
"Ah, is that so."
I gave him a casual reply while watching him wipe his eyes with his sleeve.
I wondered whether that murderer was Jo Pyeongho or Andong Shin instead.
I wasn’t particularly curious.
"Still, if he saw a Valkyrie when he entered Valhalla, it was a good death."
"I think so too."
Honestly, I couldn’t resist the Valkyrie angle.
Maybe I should start believing in the Odin religion too.
"But this..."
"I picked it up on the way."
I handed over the bundle I’d been holding.
"Oh... the ringleader’s head!"
As Andong Shin unwrapped the bundle, his eyes went wide.
Inside was the severed head of Jo Pyeongho.
"Heh heh, seeing the face of that traitorous bastard makes my soul feel cleansed."
With his face twisted in agony and blood streaming from his seven orifices, Jo Pyeongho’s head made Andong Shin beam like a child receiving a Christmas present.
"I, Andong Shin, have received a precious gift from you, Great Hero. I’ll have the head mounted high so your mighty name may spread far and wide."
"Don’t."
Why would you raise my reputation with something like that?
"Since I’ve dealt with the ringleader of the rebellion, I hope you’ll keep your end of the bargain too."
"Of course. Bring it in."
"Yes, sir."
At Andong Shin’s gesture, one of his subordinates standing behind him brought forward a rectangular wooden chest.
It was wrapped in luxurious red silk.
Slide—click.
Andong Shin opened the chest.
"As promised, the fur of the high-grade Goema Black-Walk Demon Wolf."
"Ohhh."
Geom Mujin’s eyes gleamed as he looked at the fur hide inside the chest.
This was the price he’d been promised in exchange for helping him reclaim Taeho Sect.
Here, a high-grade Goema referred to the level used to classify Goema.
For efficient categorization, the Murim Alliance had created four ranks according to danger: Gap, Eul, Byeong, and Jeong, with Gap being the highest.
Gap-grade meant a danger level that could threaten an entire city.
The child riding on my back was Byeong-grade... no, if I considered his potential, Eul-grade might even be possible.
"Please take it."
"Nice."
I ran my hand over the black fur hide.
The sleek pelt felt incredibly good to the touch.
So this was why people went on and on about fur.
What’s more, as befitted the hide of a Goema, it boasted excellent protective qualities.
Without thinking, I fiddled with my windbreaker.
The windbreaker had been a faithful workhorse as my armor up to now, but there was one thing I’d always disliked about it.
It’s too plain!
The windbreaker was nothing but black all over. To put it kindly, it was clean and simple; to put it badly, it was ugly.
......
Hearing that, the windbreaker yelled, If you hate it, don’t wear me! but Geom Mujin never heard it.
If I customized that windbreaker with the Black-Walk Demon Wolf’s fur hide...
A fur cloak? Yeah, I can’t resist that.
Let me be clear: style matters.
Even if the guy trying to kill me was chasing after me from behind, it was worth making time for—
...No, not that much.
Clack!
Geom Mujin tucked the fur hide into the wooden chest and slipped it under his arm.
"Ah..."
Andong Shin looked at the chest with a regretful expression.
That had been something his father had secretly set aside to sell when he needed cash in a hurry.
How many times had he imagined, someday when he became sect leader, having a stylish outfit made for himself?
Thanks to that, he’d survived by drawing Geom Mujin into this mess, but a loss was still a loss.
"Besides that, as a token of our gratitude, we’ve prepared a modest drinking table. What do you think?"
Geom Mujin sniffed the air.
Sure enough, there was a faint smell of alcohol, food, and women’s powder in the room.
Well, look at me, getting treated for once in my life.
"No, it’s late, so I’ll pass."
Listening to the soft, tiny breathing of the child on his back, Geom Mujin declined.
Let’s save the drinking for another time.
I’d gotten what I came for, and now I was about to head back when Andong Shin called out to stop me.
"J-just a moment, please!"
"What is it? I want to go."
It already felt bad enough making the kid keep riding on my back like this and sleep.
"M-may I tell others about what happened with you this time?"
"About me?"
"Yes, exactly! I’d like to spread far and wide the righteousness with which you helped me, Andong Shin, set justice back on its feet!"
He was saying, “Can I tell people about this like it’s drinking-snack gossip?” but what he really meant was, “Can I tell people we’re on friendly terms?”
"......"
Geom Mujin silently looked at him for a while, then nodded after a strange little pause.
"...Do whatever you want."
There was equal parts pity and secondhand embarrassment in that answer.
"Thank you!"
But Andong Shin had no way of knowing that, so he bowed deeply in gratitude.
"Then I’m off."
"Take care!"
"Take care!"
Andong Shin and his subordinates shouted at once.
Flash!
Kicking off the ground, Geom Mujin launched himself into the night and vanished into the darkness.
The back view of one of the Seven Martial Stars, arriving like the wind and leaving like the wind!
They felt fear at that absurd display of skill, but even now, if you were a proper Murim man, it was the kind of scene that made your heart pound.
And yet, for some reason, that back view that should have looked so cool somehow seemed as though he were fleeing in a panic.
Andong Shin and the disciples had no idea why.
* * *
After Geom Mujin had run away—no, after he’d left.
"Kekekeke..."
Andong Shin, who had been bowing with clasped fists, his head lowered, began to tremble at the shoulders.
There was a saying: a crisis can turn into a blessing.
Although the sect’s strength had been reduced by the Young Sect Leader’s rebellion, they had also wiped out their internal enemies in one stroke.
From here on, all I need to do is fill those empty seats with my own people!
And on top of that, he’d gained something rarer than any treasure: a personal connection with the Great Swordmaster.
In the martial world, connections were strength.
If he promoted that aggressively and drew people in...!
"Heh heh...!"
The age of Taeho Sect’s glory starts now!
Just thinking about it made him laugh.
But that ambitious plan never had a chance to come true.
A few days later, Taeho Sect would be annihilated.
By the disaster that suddenly stormed the place—Maehyang Sword Hee.