The Golden Flame of Faith

Seol Hwaryeon strolled down the street wearing a pronounced pout.

I've been left all alone.

The reason was nothing special. She had meant to ask the Elder to hunt demons with her for the first time in ages, but he had already left by the time she came looking.

Or perhaps, she thought, she had simply been a bother. The Elder surely needed time of his own on the weekend, too. She didn't quite understand it herself, but she'd heard somewhere that adults—men especially—valued their time alone.

Seol Hwaryeon glanced down at her clothes for a moment.

"Hey, what're you looking at!"

"Whoa, holy shit. She's fucking gorgeous."

Seol Hwaryeon walked on.

Setting out on a demon hunt without the Elder felt this lonely.

It wasn't like this at first.

Back then, being alone hadn't bothered her. Strong demons would sometimes appear and drive her to the very brink of death, but what of it? Nothing in this world held any connection to her. She killed demons, and she killed them alone—and that, too, was a destiny Seol Hwaryeon was bound to see through, no matter what.

Traveling the city at the Elder's side, cutting demons down together—it had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠become her joy beyond compare. Some called it nothing more than murder, but demons were not human. They were vermin, gnawing this world away bite by bite. She simply hunted them, at the Elder's side, to make this world a little better off.

And as she wandered the streets, she saw it.

…

The Elder, locked in combat with demons.

Shrouded in golden flame, he was fighting them.

Divinity was the power of belief that composed this world.

Faith was the power that thrashed and struggled before it became divinity. The two shared one essence, yet their performance belonged to different dimensions altogether. It was like setting a bicycle and an airplane side by side and claiming that both made travel convenient—the gap between heaven and earth, plain and simple. The difference between a special stat and a conceptual one. However high a special stat climbed, it could never overcome a conceptual stat.

Slowly.

Divinity and faith resembled ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Star Mana: a pure power—belief directed at oneself—filling the vessel, together with the power to imagine it into being. The difference was that divinity and faith demanded a power of one's own be poured in.

The God of the Heavens filled his with lightning; the God of Struggle, with struggle; the God of Light, with light.

If Star Mana was a masterpiece already complete, then ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠faith and divinity required that I become the subject and fill in the power myself—painting upon a pristine white canvas with my own strength.

Yeokcheon…

I mixed Yeokcheon's energy into the golden power. Yeokcheon pushed back. As if it alone had the right to be the subject, it denied the power of faith outright. Faith resisted far less in turn, but the two simply could not fuse. As I'd expected—Yeokcheon's energy could not embrace divinity.

Not yet.

The two powers refused to mix. Then I would substitute—another power of mine, in its place. Binding it to my talent as the Sword Demon would have served well enough, but instead I added the Flame of Immolation to my faith.

Fwoooosh! Golden flames settled into my palm. The Flame of Immolation—it had instilled the frail power called faith with the very nature of fire.

"Divinity…?"

The demon—and the Villain—stared dumbly at the flames cupped in my hands. Golden fire. The power of belief, born of this world's laws, joined with fire's burning nature: a sacred flame.

Faith was the polar opposite of the powers that came from the Outer, for it was rooted in the laws of Earth itself. Divinity was needed to wield those laws—though every now and then, beings called heroes refused it, forcing their own laws upon the world and warping it besides.

Every law of this world could become divinity, and in doing so held the potential to become a god.

Slowly.

I wove faith and the Flame of Immolation into one. The Yeokcheon dominion I possessed drew its strength from a conceptual stat—a stat that ruled concepts themselves—but faith was a different creature. So was the Flame of Immolation. These two were powers utterly unfamiliar to me.

Slow, then, but certain. I had to advance one careful step at a time.

Perhaps it caught wind of what I was doing, because the Villain shrieked:

"Kill that son of a bitch!"

"KUOOOO!" The demon roared—as if in affirmation of the Villain's words.

Crunch! The muscles of its arm swelled into something grotesque. The demon's arm had been about as thick as an ordinary man's thigh; now it had ballooned to the size of a truck, wreathed in a monstrous aura. It would be no exaggeration to call it upper-tier.

Doesn't matter.

It changed nothing. It was an enemy I had to kill either way.

Kiiiiii! The muscle compressed. Some special power of the demon's, most likely—the truck-sized arm shrank in a single instant.

One fist.

——————!

With a shockwave at its back, the demon's arm came hurtling toward me. A steel fist with neither artistry nor depth—nothing but a wild throw. Yet riding on that overwhelming physique, it became an absurdly dangerous single blow.

The Villain moved as well, a sword already drawn from his coat. Hardened force streamed ceaselessly along the blade, giving it the shape of a true edge, and he swung it at me. It was a blisteringly fast sword, his technique fairly refined. The blade split apart in an instant, spawning dozens of shadows, every one of those strikes carrying extraordinary momentum.

Proof that the Villain, too, had entered the upper tier.

As if I cared.

I focused on the battle. I stoked the Sword Demon's senses awake, and that endlessly sharpened perception showed me the way.

Focus.

Even as I shaped the golden flames, I drew Heukcheon. Planting my foot wide, I poured Yeokcheon's energy into the blade, and my dominion—driven to its very limit—imitated sword aura.

False Sword Aura. Yeokcheon's energy surged, and I swung the sword as though pulling the trigger on the muscles of my arm.

KRA-KOOOOM! Dozens of afterimages burst apart against a single stroke.

"Kghk!"

The Villain vomited blood, staring in disbelief at his sword—now nothing but scattered fragments—and at his own left arm, which had gone flying.

My body hadn't come through clean either. Blood surged the wrong way, and Yeokcheon's energy fell into disarray. And the demon's fist was already within reach.

Fwoooosh! The golden flames moved. Faith was a law that composed this world, and it wielded particular strength against—hostility toward—anything that was not of this world. The golden fire met the demon's fist head-on.

Tsssssss! The golden flames blunted the momentum of that single punch. But that was where it ended; the power had yet to merge completely.

Still, it bought me time. That was enough.

I drove my muscles with the Black God Martial Art. My body answered faster than thought, and Heukcheon swung. Yeokcheon's energy, still surging, crashed into the demon's arm.

KWAAANG! Sword struck fist with a sound like a bomb detonating. I gritted my teeth. Through the shattered gap of the mask over my left eye, I saw the demon charging—its expression strained. Unlike before, it looked desperate.

The Winter Sword— I would not draw it.

Heukcheon was conspicuous enough on its own, but the Winter Sword wielded by the Retribution Brigade's vice-captain was famous beyond all measure. The time to face the Retribution Brigade in earnest had not yet come.

I read my opponents with the Sacred Divine Eye and tuned my body with the Black God Martial Art, fitting myself to them. I forcibly seized the blood surging backward, regulating its current—clean blood circulating smoothly while the dead blood was herded to one side and burned away with Yeokcheon's energy. I compressed my muscles as I moved, conserving my stamina to the utmost, and tempered flesh and bone into something fiercer still.

The Black God Martial Art had been built for exactly this from the very beginning.

Even against a stronger foe.

"KUOOOOO!"

KWANG! The demon roared and leaped high. The instant it landed, both arms raised overhead, it slammed them down. Demonic energy took root in the debris, and countless fragments assailed my body.

What could be dodged, I dodged through the subtleties of the Black Flash Step; seeing through the rest with the Sacred Divine Eye, I beat away the truly dangerous attacks ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with Heukcheon.

Fwoosh! Then I gathered the power of faith once more. Belief coiled tight in my right hand.

Flick. A flame blossomed. The golden divinity took on the nature of fire—the power that punished evil transmuted into the power that burned it to ash.

The demon's arm lunged for my throat. I twisted sideways, loading my body with weight, and condensed the golden flames. My flesh—tempered by the Black God Martial Art into something harder and fiercer—drank in that coiled tension and lent me explosive power in an instant. The demon's expression turned urgent. Yeokcheon's energy was dangerous too, but it seemed far more worried about the golden fire.

The demon shattered its own balance, wrenching its body around. I watched it lurch grotesquely to the far side—and in that same motion, I condensed Yeokcheon's energy into my foot and kicked out with my right leg.

"Kgh!"

The demon's leg stretched with the kick. I stoked Yeokcheon's energy further, with the momentum to tear that kicked leg clean apart.

Schlick. With a sickening sound, the demon's right leg tore right off.

"No…!"

Sensing its own death, the demon shrieked. I stared at it with expressionless eyes and raised my right hand, the golden flames condensed upon it, still blazing.

And I brought my right hand down on the demon's head.