Invaders from Beyond the Stars
Fwooosh!
As the Vermilion Bird stretched out her hand, black flames spread out in every direction.
It was as if she meant to burn the whole world down. The black flames devoured everything around them as they reached for me, showing not the slightest concern for the safety of the bystanders.
"W-why is Lady Vermilion Bird—?"
"Th-the black flames! The Vermilion Bird has flown into a rage! Wh-what do we do?"
"Quickly, quickly! We must offer a sacrifice!"
It looked like a scene straight out of the end of the world.
"I don't even want to call her one of the Four Guardians anymore."
"The Vermilion Bird served her previous master with utter devotion. I can forgive her for losing her mind at the sight of her master's heir, but to cause pointless loss of life like this..."
Yeongcheon and Heukcheon spoke with looks of pure contempt on their faces.
I calmly watched the writhing black flames through my Sacred Insight Eye. Flame, with Reverse Heaven energy crudely slapped onto it — a fire of the lowest, most shoddy craftsmanship. And yet the rank buried inside it was one that had been forcibly stitched together into something greater.
[The Sacred Insight Eye has pierced the Vermilion Bird's true nature.]
[Proficiency of the Sacred Insight Eye has increased.]
'Pre-supreme rank, then.'
She had surpassed the high rank. But the power I could actually feel was below even that. So yes, she was an opponent I couldn't take lightly — and yet I found myself disappointed.
'That's all she has?'
I thought back to when I had met the Heavenly Demon. The power she'd forged to replace her heart had given me quite a lot of inspiration just from looking at it. The Reverse Heaven energy inside it had been on an overwhelming level in its own right, and the vessel she had crafted for me was an enormous container capable of holding anything and everything.
'Even the purity of the Reverse Heaven energy she gave me was far higher.'
The black flames wielded by this being called the Vermilion Bird were simply mediocre. A low-grade power with nothing worth learning from it. Only slightly better than attacking with raw Reverse Heaven energy, and even the purity was poor.
Absorbing it wouldn't yield much, either. She couldn't handle Reverse Heaven energy properly — she'd simply forced it to fuse with fire. It was laughable that she'd dared to raise that much against me.
'A thousand years of life, wasted.'
I walked toward the Vermilion Bird, disappointment written across my face.
Thud.
With my first step, the black flames writhing around me began to part and carve out a path.
"What?!"
The Vermilion Bird gestured in disbelief — but the flames didn't so much as twitch.
It meant that her black flames now answered entirely to my will. The gap in our control over Reverse Heaven energy was simply overwhelming. I scattered the flames consuming the village one by one as I looked up at her.
"What sorcery is this?!"
"Sorcery? Does this look like something so trivial to you?"
I said with a smirk.
"How arrogant, for one who hasn't even reached the high rank! Even without these pathetic little flames of yours!"
Unholy wings unfurled behind the Vermilion Bird's back — two pairs, unlike my single pair. She rose into the sky and stretched out her hand, and the black flames began condensing in her palm.
"Behold — the ultimate art of the Black God's Martial Arts. Black Jin, the Demon Hand of Black Flames."
A hand wreathed in writhing black fire reached for me. Folding my wings back, she plummeted toward me at a staggering speed.
Black Jin, was it?
Then I ought to answer in kind. I reached out my hand.
Vmmmm!
Black Flame Comet poured out a colossal volume of Reverse Heaven energy, which began condensing into my palm.
"Master really is vicious, you know."
"What's wrong with Master Lee Seoha? My purpose is simply to discipline that mad thing slaughtering people without rhyme or reason."
"You sly little fox!"
"But I am a fox?"
Tuning out Heukcheon and Yeongcheon's banter, I stretched my hand toward the sky.
"Insolent wretch! Even your master, the Heavenly Demon herself, was never this arrogant!"
"Well. Maybe the problem is just that you're incompetent."
"YOU DAREEEEE!!"
The Vermilion Bird poured more power into her Black Jin. Her face went deathly pale — clear proof that she was pushing herself past her limits.
I thrust my palms forward to meet her.
Black Jin collided with Black Jin, flame against flame.
FWOOOOOOM──!
A monstrous shockwave rocked the surroundings. Black flames slammed into black flames and fire scattered in every direction.
Vmmm.
The Reverse Heaven energy she had traded everything to obtain crumbled — and my flames began to devour her black fire.
[Concept stat Reverse Heaven has increased by 1.]
"Wh...at?"
The Vermilion Bird stared, hollow-eyed, at the sight of her flames being swallowed whole. I consumed every last tongue of black fire and drove my Black Jin straight down into her heart.
"GRAAAAAGH!"
Crossing her arms and shrouding herself in black flame, she blocked my strike. But Black Jin shatters every ability it touches — a terrifying force that shakes the body's interior with its shockwave.
Fajing — the issuing of internal power.
It punched straight through the Vermilion Bird's black flames and blew everything within her apart from the inside.
"You — you dare!"
Fwoosh!
The Vermilion Bird's body was momentarily swallowed by black flame, and she reappeared high in the distant sky.
"Hah... hahh..."
"Truly tenacious. Fitting for the one among the Four Guardians with the most stubborn grip on life."
"Indeed. That's why she once made the finest shield, too."
I sized up the Vermilion Bird with my eyes.
Her condition was far from normal. Both arms had half-collapsed from the backlash of the Black Jin, and her chest was caved in.
"Dear heavens... for our guardian deity to be pushed back that far..."
"...Isn't that only natural? That devastatingly handsome man wields the very power of the Heavenly Demon from the old texts."
The Chinese reached my ears, already translated by my Perusal talent. I scratched my head as I glanced over at them.
The villagers had gathered. Most of them were ordinary people, but a few bore traces of having trained in the martial arts.
Leaving them behind, I turned my gaze back to the Vermilion Bird.
"You're worse than I expected. Weren't you supposed to be one of the Four Guardians who protected the Heavenly Demon? Show me more."
I spoke deliberately, needling her pride.
She, of all beings, might have something more to offer. That was the hope I held. The Black God's Martial Arts left behind by the Heavenly Demon unlocked new techniques with each stage of growth — and I had already surpassed every one of those stages. These days I relied less on the Black God's Martial Arts than on Black Flame Comet and Heukshin.
"Fine — I'll show you, you whelp!"
The Vermilion Bird roared through gritted teeth. Perhaps the provocation had been worth it, because she now carried a resolve unlike anything she had shown so far.
Reverse Heaven energy coiled in her hand and began to swirl.
"Behold the esoteric art that only the Heavenly Demon could wield — the Bottomless Pit!"
A black vortex began to churn with fury. A maelstrom of black flame and wind filled the entire sky, then rapidly condensed toward a single point. The vortex drank in everything around it and hurtled downward.
'The Bottomless Pit, huh.'
Not a bad technique.
Even I found the Bottomless Pit difficult to control — which meant that, for the Vermilion Bird as she was now, controlling it would be all but impossible.
There was one caveat, though.
My version was only so dangerous because its range was so absurdly vast. The one she was wielding was nothing worth looking at.
I slipped a hand into my pocket and sighed. There didn't seem to be much left worth taking from her.
Spreading my palm, I pushed the Midas Hand and the Talent of the Incomprehensible into extreme overdrive. Then, on top of that, I invoked the Knot of Absorption granted by my conceptual stat of Reverse Heaven.
FWOOOOM──!
A black sphere floated up above my palm.
It hung in the air, brimming with a monstrous gravitational pull.
'No Bottomless Pit for me, thanks.'
No need to swing a cleaver just to catch a mouse. The black sphere hovering over my palm began spinning at a tremendous speed. Reverse Heaven energy spiraled and gathered at my fingertips as I pushed the Knot of Absorption to its limit.
VROOOOOM!
The black vortex began devouring every trace of black flame falling from the sky. The fire of the Bottomless Pit was swallowed whole by a tiny abyss.
[Concept stat Reverse Heaven has increased by 3.]
'Pretty lucrative.'
A respectable amount of Reverse Heaven stat remained in my ledger.
I looked up at the Vermilion Bird.
She stared down at me with an expression of utter futility — the face of someone whose entire lifetime had just been negated.
"She has every right to look like that. She's lived for thousands of years, only to have it all denied by a human who falls far, far short of her."
"And yet, no room for pity. This is a trail left by the previous master. What I cannot forgive is her reckless slaughter of that village's people."
I shot up into the sky in a single bound. The Vermilion Bird tried to flee, but I hauled her in with the Knot of Absorption, seized her by the throat, and looked her dead in the eyes.
"You truly are her heir."
"You're awfully slow to admit it."
"Kheheh. Your temper is even more arrogant. Though given your age, I suppose it's only natural."
With those words, the Vermilion Bird began to laugh as if she had lost her mind.
"Haha. I... what on earth have I been living for, all this time..."
"Any last words?"
"Last words. Ah — yes. There are."
The Vermilion Bird spoke slowly.
"Did you see the chaos in China on your way here?"
"Yeah. Some bandit-looking bastards on my flight had artifacts with them."
"Ah, so the bandits took those. I looted so many relics that I'd clean forgotten about them."
'So she was the culprit.'
It had been strange that mere bandits would be carrying artifacts like those.
Killing the Vermilion Bird might leave me stuck dealing with the aftermath for a while — no, come to think of it, maybe not.
Oh, and did you know?
Know what?
You're too late. Far too late.
The Vermilion Bird's lips curved.
Too late for what, exactly?
Whatever I came here to accomplish is already done. With my death, the ritual will be complete. My original plan was only to use you.
'A ritual?'
An ominous word.
The Vermilion Bird's eyes turned slowly toward me.
Eyes steeped in resignation and hatred — and beneath them, an inferiority complex stronger than both combined.
Kill me quickly. You don't hesitate over things like this, do you?
You know me well.
I tightened my grip on her throat.
Crack.
A sickening sound of twisting, and the Vermilion Bird's neck snapped.
I descended back to the ground. Her eyes were empty. Now was the time to absorb what remained of her Reverse Heaven energy.
BURST!
Without warning, the Vermilion Bird's chest burst open and blood came pouring out. My instincts screamed that something had gone terribly wrong.
The red blood in midair began to change into something deeply wrong.
Crimson turned to black.
Her body crumbled into ash and scattered on the wind.
This was the phenomenon that appeared when a demon died.
POP!
"KYAAAAAAGH!"
"Wh-why, all of a sudden—?!"
Without any warning at all, it began.
Some of the villagers' bodies swelled up and exploded. It wasn't just one or two. The townsfolk's bodies warped and bloated grotesquely, then twisted into lumps of writhing flesh.
"S-save... me..."
A single child reached out toward me.
Before I could so much as lift a finger, the child's body swelled grotesquely and burst like a balloon, showering blood in every direction.
I watched it happen, and my expression hardened into something grim.
'This is dangerous.'
This omen was dangerous. And it was proof that a being who should never, under any circumstances, be allowed to emerge was about to descend upon this place.
I looked up at the sky.
A seed.
There, hanging in the heavens, was an enormous seed.
Ding.
The Apostle had descended.