The Heavenly Demon Descends
'...As expected.'
Yeongcheon, the fox yokai who had lived for centuries, peered with deep-set eyes at Lee Seoha—no, at Heukcheon. The long, grown-out hair, the smile brimming with confidence; there was even a bewitching allure to the figure now. Proof enough of that: Ha Seonghwi stood there flushed red, staring at him with a dazed expression.
Yeongcheon studied the Defying Heaven energy wreathing Lee Seoha. He wielded it as though it were his own breath, and its dominion was—impossibly—on par with Lee Seoha's own.
'It makes no sense.'
Yeongcheon had stayed glued to Lee Seoha's side for quite a long time. A fox yokai of centuries, a master of spellcraft in her own right—she had woven spells for his use alone, all to prove her usefulness. And that was precisely why she knew just how absurd his dominion over Defying Heaven truly was. It lost nothing beside a Transcendent's. No—in certain respects, Lee Seoha stood ahead of them. The only being whose dominion could rival his was the Heavenly Demon. Yeongcheon genuinely believed that, though she had no idea what purpose the woman had in hiding her own memories and tampering with theirs.
'It's certain.'
Heukcheon was the Heavenly Demon.
The first to move was the Brigade Leader. That being was dangerous. Another soul had devoured the boy's soul and surfaced in its place—and it carried the very rank of Transcendence. That the body belonged to the boy hardly mattered. A soul of transcendence could wield immense authority on its own; that was what a Transcendent was—a being who rewrote the laws of the world even without flesh. Which was another way of saying that, for now, it was only half a Transcendent.
'If things were going to go wrong, they went thoroughly wrong.'
The Leader gritted his teeth. Where had it all started to unravel? All he had wanted was a bargaining chip against Paewang—the Vice-Commander. Instead, that had drawn the Emperor into the game and built a stage for other Transcendents to step onto. And now the Retribution Brigade could not kill that boy, no matter what it took.
'No—killing him would be difficult now, anyway.'
If they fought that being here and now, the Brigade's numbers would be cut in half. But they had to take him alive. Only with that being in their grasp could they recover the Blood Essence implanted in the Vice-Commander.
As the Brigade Leader racked his brain, Magongnyeo was thinking.
'The Heavenly Demon...'
That figure was the Heavenly Demon incarnate. It matched the old texts word for word. The vessel was male, but there was no mistaking it—that was the Heavenly Demon. An air of 'Throughout heaven and earth, I alone am supreme.' Draped in an aura that declared him the only exalted existence in this world, he simply stood there.
"Come at me, you vermin." he said, a smile overflowing with confidence on his lips.
"Hraaah!"
The first to charge was the man who styled himself the Leader's right hand—a two-meter slab of packed muscle hurling himself forward. BOOM! The ground cratered beneath him as he launched, and power condensed in his fist. Vmmm—! Intent gave the qi shape; the compressed shockwave took form as fist-force.
"Quite the serviceable skill, I see." Heukcheon remarked evenly.
She extended a hand. Defying Heaven energy flooded into it, and the power of Negation wrapped around it entirely. Heukcheon softly closed her fingers into a fist.
"This is the true Black Realm."
The fist-force, condensed and driven downward, met the Negation-clad hand. Thud. A light sound—and in the same instant, Krrrrk—, the fist-force was negated to the last trace, and beyond that, the muscle-bound man's body wrung itself up like a pretzel.
"It disregards all power. An opponent's attack, their defense—before the Black Realm, none of it amounts to anything." The Black God Martial Art was a power for dragging an opponent's very rank down. Heukcheon flicked her hand clean, sparing not a glance for the corpse. All she wished for now was that her master learned something, however small, from watching.
"Which is why I so enjoy foes who come charging in like mindless brutes. It makes them that much easier to kill."
"..."
The Brigade members' wariness climbed thick and heavy as they eyed her. At that wariness, Heukcheon smiled faintly.
"And one more thing—a word of advice for my master."
She walked toward the Brigade as though they weren't even worth a glance.
"Hold your head high. You are far too indifferent, my master. One who stands above all others must never be." Heukcheon said it plainly. The one who was to be her master was numb to everything—and one who reigned above could not afford to be.
In those words, the Leader saw an opening, however brief. SHWAAK! Blood whipped into a storm around him. In the same breath, the Brigade members moved.
"Ha-hah! So today we catch ourselves a Transcendent!" The one-armed warrior roared valiantly and drew his weapon. Behind him, Magongnyeo stood in silence, and at her back something shaped like an Asura faintly bared itself. Three heads and six arms. A figure bearing a sword in every hand emerged, and the arms moved.
Shk.
"What...?"
Magongnyeo's Asura had punched clean through the one-armed warrior's chest.
"Magongnyeo! You dare betray us!"
"Don't be absurd. Unlike the rest of you, who grew strong gorging on Blood Essences, I was merely in a temporary alliance. My condition was the search for the Heavenly Demon." Magongnyeo said it with a smile.
At the same moment, the Leader moved, the storm of blood lunging for her.
"Tsk."
Clicking her tongue, Magongnyeo fell back. Blood sheathed the earth, and skewers erupted from its surface—no fewer than several hundred of them, all spearing toward her. KRRRAANG! The three-headed, six-armed Asura at her back swatted every last one aside.
"Commander. Isn't that a rather poor showing? I take it you haven't had blood to drink lately."
"You... I'm going to chew you up nice and slow, bit by bit." the Leader growled.
Watching the scene, Heukcheon let a soft laugh escape. It had been quite a while since she'd felt like this—the first emotion she had known since becoming ——. And it was a rather unpleasant one. But she tucked the feeling away. It was nearly time. From the very start, this had been time meant for Lee Seoha alone. The only reason she had deliberately not summoned the Stars was that he trusted her. And as his teacher, she had no choice but to repay that trust.
"Behold." Heukcheon said evenly, toward Lee Seoha standing off in a corner. The Leader's gaze and Magongnyeo's swung to him. The Leader backed away—preparing to flee. It would do no good. The Leader was going to die here. If she had decided it, then it would be so. Heukcheon took up the Heukcheon Demonic Sword and drove it into the earth.
VWOOOOOM! A black storm erupted. Born no larger than a palm at the tip of the Heukcheon Demonic Sword, it swelled in an instant, devouring everything it touched.
Some of the members chose not to flee—Harun, most notably. He raised his sword to stand against the Bottomless Pit.
"Heh. Now this is something."
Harun lifted his greatsword. It was the reaction of a man mad for the martial way—staking his very life to test his own art. To a warrior, it went without saying. That was a rank one could reach only by going mad for the discipline of the sword. He cut at the storm with his blade. All things have a seam, a grain; he had believed that if anyone could find it, he could. He swung, and the black storm met him head-on.
"Huh...?"
CRUNCH.
The end of it: blade still raised, face still hollow with disbelief, he was swallowed whole by the storm, and his life went out.
The storm devoured everything. Starting from the abandoned factory, it began to swallow the mountains around it. Thud. Thud. The sound of lives being cut short. Screams rose from somewhere; curses were hurled at the Leader through sobs; others stifled their breath and met their end in silence.
Everything was being negated—drawn down into the abyss at the very bottom of hell. Upper rank, Highest Rank, Transcendent: it was power made to kill such beings completely. Power to defy the existences of the outer realms.
Heukcheon's gaze settled on the Leader.
"I—I am not a being meant to die in a dump like this!"
He was of the Clan of the Great Night—and among them, an inheritor of the noble bloodline called True Blood. He might actually die. That simple fact awakened his survival instinct, and with it stirred the power long asleep within his body.
FWOOSH. The Leader's hair—until now doing no more than hold out against the Bottomless Pit—changed, taking on a blood-red form. Blood energy steamed off every last strand, rising as though gravity meant nothing, and the Leader's teeth sharpened—canines, now fangs.
"Heh heh. So this is what it feels like to fully awaken the True Blood!"
Transformed beyond recognition, the Leader kicked off the ground and rose into the sky.
"Behold! This is the power of chosen blood!"
From behind the mask, the Leader shrieked out his malice. He stretched a hand to the heavens, and the power of blood ran along his arm, raising a colossal wave. A blood-red sky. As if tolling the end of the world, the heavens dyed themselves crimson.
"Utterly witless." Heukcheon sneered at the sight.
The Bottomless Pit raised a massive storm from the earth; the all-devouring abyss was now threatening to slip beyond even Heukcheon's control. She gave her hand a light tilt, steering the Defying Heaven energy upward—setting its direction and nothing more, for the abyss of the Bottomless Pit had been created without ever assuming it would be handled. The abyss stretched toward the sky.
"This time is different! Behold! This is the power of the great True Blood—"
The wave of blood blanketing the sky began to be negated, every last bit of it.
"H-how... How can a power like this exist..." the Leader said, his voice hollow.
"Fret not, little mosquito. Those who followed behind you have already gone on ahead, so you won't be lonely." Heukcheon said in a voice like dark silk. She clapped her hands lightly, and the abyss overturned the sky. The blood-red heavens were drowned in black.
It was Defying Heaven.
"Huh? Why is the computer throwing errors?"
"What the hell are you on about? Connect to the satellite right now and check."
The Association kept watch over the demons. Satellites launched into orbit, fitted with the most advanced systems, monitored demon movements from space. That alone suppressed roughly forty percent of their activity—the remaining sixty percent running rampant was the problem. In any case, to trace the error, the Association staff pulled up the satellite feed and checked the site.
"...What... what in the world... is this?"
And then they saw it. Like an abyss devouring all things, the satellite showed nothing but a pitch-black something.
"S-scan every demon's abilities, now! Get in contact with the Highest Ranks—no, with the Transcendents!"
At the very least, a Highest Rank. Perhaps even an event in which a new Transcendent tore down the world's Boundary and stepped through. The Association staff prayed, trembling. Please—let this being not turn against them.