Heavenly Demon Lee Jihan
Alright. First, calm down and sort this out one step at a time.
Yesterday I woke up, posted my breakfast proof shot on Magakgal, and headed off to an interview. Same as always, I bombed the interview, came home in a sour mood, and tried to sleep it off.
Then I had a dream—one where I was this incredible being called the Heavenly Demon, and everyone looked up to me. When I opened my eyes, I was a little girl, and my status window had changed too.
In a situation like this, there was only one place left to trust.
Mage Awakener Gallery
The community where every scrap of information about magic and awakeners piled up. If anyone out there knew a thing about the phenomenon I'd just lived through, it'd be someone on that board.
I snatched up my phone in a hurry.
Fingerprint does not match.
"Ah."
Changing bodies had changed my fingerprints, too. Thankfully the passcode still worked, so I unlocked it in a flash and logged into Magakgal.
"Oh, for fuck's sake."
Comments stacked up in a blink. The problem was that every single one of them was trash-talk.
I'm telling the truth, you absolute bastards!
I was just lifting my hands back to the keys to plead my case when—
Blocked IP
Reason: Aggro
Duration: 7 days
"Aaaargh!"
Bang bang bang bang!
The scream barely left my mouth before someone in the next room started hammering the wall like they meant it. Clearly pissed.
Come to think of it, the soundproofing in this studio was absolute garbage.
Calm down.
The neighbor's murderous protest cooled me off a little. Not that cooling off made this dogshit reality any better.
"……."
Okay. Analysis complete.
I was fucked.
First things first—confirm the facts.
I pulled up the new status window again.
Still couldn't get used to it. I decided to check the Heavenly Demon trait first—it was the one that jumped out hardest.
Lord of All Demons. Absolute sovereign of the Nine Heavens. Every demon that exists in this world bows its head at your feet.
"What kind of crap is that."
I'd never seen a description window this unhinged in my life. Granted, I'd never seen anyone else's trait window either—but still. There had to be such a thing as an average.
"And why isn't there a rank on it."
Didn't traits usually have a grade slapped on after the name? Was it really just "Heavenly Demon" and that was it?
"……Yeah. That is it."
Even someone like me, who barely read novels, knew well enough what a Heavenly Demon was supposed to be. Case closed.
"And what the hell is Nine Yin Severed Meridians…."
I already had a rough idea without looking, but I checked out of politeness.
Vessel of Extreme Yin. Frozen meridians devour innate true qi with every passing moment.
Yeah. Still no idea.
Basically my Mana Depletion had been reskinned into murim flavor.
If I'd known it would come to this, I would've read some wuxia.
I'd spent my whole life on the mage path, so martial arts novels had never been my thing. I wanted to be the kind of person who dropped a giant meteor out of the sky like some ninja—not a swordsman who split mountains with a blade.
Come to think of it, that guy did both.
Anyway. Nine Yin Severed Meridians. I was pretty sure I'd heard the name somewhere. One thing was certain, though.
This got worse.
The situation had gone downhill, not up. Never better—only worse.
Hm.
Finished with the status window, I sank down onto the floor. For some reason my legs folded into a lotus seat on their own, but I decided to let the small stuff slide.
Heavenly Demon.
Ruler of all demons. The one every demon obeyed. The description was so vague I still couldn't pin down what it actually meant—and yet, every time I rolled the word "Heavenly Demon" around on my tongue, something in my chest itched.
Heavenly Demon. Heavenly Demon. Heavenly Demon…
—What do you believe a Heavenly Demon to be?
Maybe that was why. Out of nowhere, a voice rang through my head. A voice that felt strangely familiar.
I—This seat—knew the owner of that voice.
"A Heavenly Demon is……."
I took a breath.
"The strongest of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, and—"
—the one who leads the faithful.
I answered, and This seat answered right back, not to be outdone.
—And also the one who must live up to everyone's expectations.
The owner of the voice replied gently.
—Today we shall review the foundations of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art once more. Now, close your eyes.
This seat closed its eyes in quiet obedience.
—Assume the lotus seat, and rest both hands above the navel.
I settled into the lotus seat and neatly layered both hands over my navel.
—Breathe in slowly. Not too fast.
I began to breathe as the voice guided me. I drew the surrounding air deep enough to burst my lungs, took only the energy I needed, and expelled the turbid qi I didn't. Once. Twice.
With the first breath I took the gathered internal energy into the dantian. With the second, I drove that energy racing toward every meridian in my body.
—This is the circulation of breath that forms a martial artist's foundation.
Thud!
The racing internal force slammed into a solid wall and stopped dead.
Nine Yin Severed Meridians.
Nine meridians frozen solid. Without energy of extreme yang, there was no breaking through that wall.
—You say you struck a wall? No matter. Have I not already taught you the means to shatter it?
That was true. This seat already knew how to handle this. Had I not been taught all this time?
Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
A martial art—no, a divine art—for the Heavenly Demon who would one day open the heavens. Nothing could stand in a Heavenly Demon's path. I took the internal force I'd gathered and slammed it blindly into the blocked wall.
Thud!
"Kh—!"
Scarlet blood spilled from between tightly sealed lips. It hurt.
—It is of no consequence. At worst, you die. Nothing more.
The other person in my memory laughed. Is that so? Well, if %#!@-nim says so, then I guess it is.
Thud!
I drove internal force into the blocked meridian again.
Thud! Thud! Crack!
After several brutal collisions, blood soaked my mouth thoroughly—and at last a fissure opened in the tightly sealed meridian, and a path appeared. I forced internal energy through that narrow gap. Bit by bit. Slowly.
I repeated the process nine times in total, until a complete opening formed in every frozen meridian.
…….
How much time had passed? By the time I'd bitten my lip so hard the blood already flowing mixed with the blood welling up from inside, until I could no longer tell them apart—the internal energy that had ridden the meridians completed a full circuit of my body and formed a single circle. A tiny universe.
—That is the Small Heavenly Cycle.
In a flash, This seat's eyes snapped open.
—You know what you must do next. Go.
Yes. This seat knew. Hadn't that person taught me—taught me—again and again?
"I'll be back."
A short farewell. I threw on some clothes and stepped outside without a second thought.
Far off in the dark, a tower rose so high it seemed to mock the sky itself.
Hm.
Far. Even in my original body, walking there would have taken a full hour at least. In this stunted little frame, it would take even longer.
But that didn't matter either. Distance was no wall to me now.
Thud!
I folded the earth and ran through the air.
"Shrink Earth."
In a mage's terms: teleport.
Whoosh!
The small body wrapped in a haze of light vanished without a trace.
"Yaaawn."
Kim Cheol-su, the admin in charge of controlling access to the Tower, stretched out a long, lazy yawn. "Admin" sounded nice, but he was basically a security guard. Stopping clueless newbies from charging in the moment they awakened, and keeping reckless entries in check—that was his main job.
"Ugh, I'm beat."
He rubbed his gritty eyes, fighting the drowsiness that came with a rare night shift.
Maybe I'll just browse the gallery.
When you were bored, nothing beat a community board. Sure, looking at your phone on duty was straight-up slacking—but how many lunatics were really going to enter the Tower in the middle of the night?
"Hmm-hmm."
Kim Cheol-su hummed under his breath as he pulled out his phone. For all his appearance, he was a proper mage-class awakener, with full clearance to log into Magakgal. Under the fixed nickname "Allah's Magic Wand," he was already smiling at the thought of another night of happy gallery-crawling.
What kind of garbage post should I drop today.
Just imagining it was thrilling. The second he powered on his phone—
Whoosh!
"Huh?"
Some little kid burst into existence right in front of him in a swirl of light.
Am I dreaming?
He scrubbed his eyes hard. A child popping out of thin air? That didn't make any sense.
But no matter how many times he rubbed his eyes, the reality in front of him refused to change. Hair black as ebony. Eyes the color of blood. A girl who would clearly grow into a stunning beauty still stood there, gazing up at the Tower.
"Hey, kid, it's dangerous up ahead, so maybe…."
At Kim Cheol-su's attempt to stop her, the girl slowly turned her head.
What kind of look is that…….
The moment their eyes met, Kim Cheol-su sucked in a sharp breath before he could stop himself. That was not an aura a kid who looked maybe middle-school age should be putting out. Infinitely savage. Overwhelmingly vast. As if every scrap of mana that existed in this world were bowing its head at that girl's feet.
"Kid, it's dangerous, so get back—"
Kim Cheol-su pulled himself together like a professional and reached for her.
"Entry."
But the girl's hand was already stretching toward the Tower a beat faster.
"Huh?"
Just like when she'd first appeared, light swallowed her whole—and she was gone.
"I'm fucked."
Kim Cheol-su's mouth fell open.
"……."
I didn't answer. It wasn't worth answering.
NIGHTMARE selected automatically.
Glory to the challenger.
Fwoosh!
My vision drowned in a blaze of light. When I opened my eyes again, the first thing I saw was a pack of goblins drooling all over themselves.
About ten of them, roughly.
Accounting for one on Easy, three on Normal, and five on Hard, the count had basically doubled overnight. On top of that, their weapons were a full mixed bag—swords, spears, bows. Truly Nightmare difficulty. The gallery always said if you wanted to die fast, pick Nightmare—and looking at the mob layout, the intent to murder the challenger was obvious.
But that wasn't the important part.
"Your heads sit high."
The sheer insolence of mere vermin locking eyes with This seat was deeply unpleasant.
"Kerek!"
The goblins all seized their crude weapons at once and charged This seat.
"Do not stand in This seat's path."
Thud!
I stomped a true step. The rebound from driving deep into the earth traveled cleanly through foot and leg and waist, then shot out to the tips of my arms. To shore up a body this pathetically frail, I layered magic on the spot.
"Strength Enhancement. Acceleration. Hardening."
Spell after spell wrapped my flesh in layers. Running out of mana was not a concern. The path was open, and every demon in this world belonged to This seat—so in this moment, Severed Meridians were no obstacle at all.
Wuum!
Vast mana condensed over my clenched fist, ready to erupt. I drove that fist straight into the charging vermin.
"Get lost."
Heaven-Shattering Annihilation
The earth itself screamed.
"Heavenly Demon."
I tossed a short line at the notification windows cascading through the air.
1st:Heavenly DemonSSS
2nd:-SUPER-S
3rd:Blood DemonS
And just like that, the world flipped upside down.