Chapter 8
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 8
Chapter Title: Heavenly Demon
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Days had passed.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
After Jahwa-yeon carried out her personnel reorganization.
The Left Protector Hyeok Yeon-bo had truly become like a tiger with its claws pulled, maintaining silence without any official resistance.
On the surface, the Divine Cult appeared more stable than ever.
'Maybe that physician was just being overly cautious.'
Jahwa-yeon leaned obliquely against the jade throne, propping her chin on her hand as she listened to Geumgang's calm report, thinking that for a brief moment.
Jahwa-yeon was inherently sharp and intelligent.
Thus, she kept the physician's warning constantly in mind.
'Is the Left Protector the type to back down so easily...?'
She hadn't forgotten for even a single instant.
So, with a hint of doubt, she had been closely monitoring the Left Protector's movements.
But over the past few days, his behavior had been nothing short of a defeated man who had resigned himself to everything.
The physician's warning might have just been excessive worry, after all.
Her actions had been correct.
It was right at that moment.
-Kwang!
The heavy doors of the Heavenly Demon Hall burst open roughly, and a bloodied low-ranking warrior staggered in.
"S-Supreme One! This is bad!"
"What is this commotion! Don't act rashly—report properly."
Geumgang, guarding the jade throne, shouted sternly at him with a hardened face.
Geumgang shouted.
"We've clashed with the Azure Heaven Alliance! Our side has taken heavy casualties!"
The warrior held out, with trembling hands, a tattered fragment of the Azure Heaven Alliance's flag embroidered with a blue sky and white clouds.
Jahwa-yeon shot up from her seat.
She had clearly ordered them to refrain from pointless skirmishes with the righteous faction scum.
Then why?
Her voice cut through the air of the Heavenly Demon Hall like ice.
"Who drew their sword first?"
At her chilling question, the warrior mumbled in a voice barely above a whisper, unable to lift his head.
"...Our side."
"......"
With those words, silence descended upon the Heavenly Demon Hall.
A meeting was convened.
Jahwa-yeon, seated on the jade throne, looked at the Ten Demons lined up before her and the defeated soldiers bowing their heads behind them, feeling an intense weariness.
Anger surged from within.
"Did I not make it clear?"
- Avoid meaningless battles.
This was Jahwa-yeon's command.
She was tired.
A full-scale war with the Azure Heaven Alliance was undesirable for both sides.
Even if they won, the Divine Cult would suffer irreparable damage.
It was even less befitting a sovereign like Jahwa-yeon to make decisions swayed by personal emotions.
At that moment, Geumgang's report solidified her resolve.
"The Azure Heaven Alliance has shown no movement yet."
She knew their mutual animosity ran deep, but...
In that case, she would let this incident slide.
However, then.
The Left Protector spoke up.
"Shouldn't we make an example of them—one punishment to warn a hundred?"
At his words, the eyes of several demons thirsting for revenge gleamed sharply.
"If we bow our heads to those righteous faction bastards first, the Divine Cult's prestige will plummet to the ground, and from then on, they'll look down on us even more."
He continued with a mournful expression but a voice full of conviction.
"This is precisely the time to restore the Divine Cult's dignity with blood under the name of the Heavenly Demon, Supreme One!"
Jahwa-yeon grasped the current situation.
If the righteous faction had been the instigators, revenge would be justified.
All wars need a pretext. Wars without one lead the Divine Cult to ruin.
But right now, that pretext lay with the Azure Heaven Alliance.
It was unmistakably their Divine Cult that had launched the first attack.
And even after taking damage, the Azure Heaven Alliance was waiting in silence.
"......"
But look at their eyes.
Jahwa-yeon scanned her surroundings.
The Ten Demons and cultists filled the meeting hall.
Their gazes burned with ferocity.
Much had changed since coming to this world, but their essence had not.
Fundamentally, they were demons.
They did not want a rational sovereign.
Nor rational judgments.
They craved only the Demonic Cult's law of 'blood for blood.'
The question of who struck first was irrelevant.
As Jahwa-yeon appeared to waver in thought.
The Left Protector Hyeok Yeon-bo did not miss that moment.
A sly smile, like that of a serpent, crept onto his lips.
He looked around at the other Ten Demons and spoke in a grief-stricken voice, feigning the worry of an old loyal retainer for the nation's future.
"Can you not see the future our Divine Cult faces if we remain silent like this?"
He sighed and continued.
His voice was filled with heartfelt sorrow.
"We will be branded as dogs wagging our tails to the righteous faction."
At his incitement, the other demons' eyes flared with savage fury once more.
Hyeok Yeon-bo finally turned to Jahwa-yeon on the jade throne and delivered the decisive blow.
"If we're not careful, our Heavenly Demon Divine Cult will become mere playthings for those righteous faction scum."
With those words, in front of all the demons, he slowly dropped to one knee.
Then, bowing his head deeply, he cried out solemnly.
"Please... restore the fallen prestige of our Divine Cult!"
On the surface, it looked like the impassioned plea of a loyal subject.
But Hyeok Yeon-bo knew her well.
She had inherited the blood of her predecessors—intelligent, cold, and one who would never let personal feelings ruin the greater cause.
Thus, she would never choose war.
Hyeok Yeon-bo sneered inwardly.
'Everyone is watching. Your brothers and soldiers have returned drenched in blood.'
'Yet you hesitate on revenge? Are you truly our sovereign?'
And at that moment, he would use her perceived weakness as a pretext to rally the enraged demons and complete the justification for this coup.
Even if, by some slim chance, she lost her reason and declared war, it wouldn't matter.
It would be even better.
The massive damage from a war without justification.
He could simply pin all the blame on the tyrant possessed by her inner demons.
No matter her choice, the scales had already tipped.
The young Heavenly Demon had nowhere to escape.
It was a peaceful afternoon.
Yoo Seon-woo sipped his coffee while reading an article on his monitor.
[Breaking News] Heavenly Demon Divine Cult · Azure Heaven Alliance, Large-Scale Armed Clash Near DMZ... Numerous Injuries Reported.
"Wow..."
After days of quiet, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult had finally attacked the Azure Heaven Alliance.
Though called a clash from accidental friction, it was obvious that wasn't the case.
'So this is how he's playing it.'
The Left Protector had presented Jahwa-yeon with a dilemma.
Start a war, suffer massive losses, and become an incompetent ruler.
Or stay silent and become a weak ruler.
She was trapped in a situation where she could neither start nor avoid war.
Neither choice was easy.
A perfect checkmate.
Yoo Seon-woo took a sip of his hot coffee.
The bitter taste lingered in his mouth.
"What do you plan to do?"
He had clearly told her the method.
"Heavenly Demon."
Yoo Seon-woo smiled quietly.
And at that very moment, in the Heavenly Demon Hall.
Jahwa-yeon's face was expressionless.
She was sharp.
No matter what she chose, she couldn't avoid it.
And she clearly realized that the Left Protector, who had presented her with this dilemma, had finally bared his fangs at her.
She had thought Hyeok Yeon-bo's actions stemmed from a momentary lust for power.
A fleeting folly that a single warning would correct.
But she was wrong.
The physician had been right.
It wasn't over.
The moment she acknowledged that fact, an overwhelming sense of isolation enveloped Jahwa-yeon.
Neither the Left Protector cornering her nor the demons clamoring for revenge could help.
Not even Geumgang.
She felt utterly alone in this world.
At that moment, a voice echoed in her mind.
'Physician.'
He had already seen through everything.
From the Left Protector's betrayal to this entire situation.
And the other words he had left her with.
'The one at the highest place cannot fully trust anyone. Sometimes, even cherished retainers must be doubted.'
'Rather than being loved, one must become an object of fear to protect oneself.'
That was the only answer for Jahwa-yeon, trapped in this dead end.
Yes.
Why had she agonized over something so simple?
A beloved sovereign was unnecessary.
An understood Supreme One was unnecessary.
She would discard such foolish attachments.
He had told her to discard them.
Becoming an object of fear—that was the true sovereign.
Cold flames reignited in Jahwa-yeon's previously vacant eyes.
And.
'If war cannot be avoided, it's better to start it quickly.'
He had said to start an inevitable war swiftly.
Jahwa-yeon rose from the jade throne.
She declared in a voice that resounded throughout the Heavenly Demon Hall, to all the demons watching her.
"Ten Demons, heed my command."
At her words, two of the Ten Demons—Sword Demon Heuk-un and Blood Demon Gwang-myeong, excluding the Left Protector and Dark Venerable—bowed their heads simultaneously.
"One has disrupted the Divine Cult's order, deceived me, and led fellow cultists to their deaths."
She looked down at the Left Protector with eyes filled with contempt.
And issued a command that upended everyone's expectations.
"Bring me the head of that accomplice who conspired with him and sowed chaos in the Divine Cult—right now, before me."
The Left Protector's shoulders trembled.
This wasn't the flow he had anticipated.
The situation was going awry.
Dark Venerable Muk-un-hyeon's face, who had been with Hyeok Yeon-bo, drained of color.
Yet neither could defy the command.
Denying it here would be tantamount to admitting treason.
As everyone eyed each other warily, no one daring to move first.
The massive man who had sat with eyes closed, seemingly uninterested in the entire affair until now—Sword Demon Heuk-un—silently rose from his seat.
And uttered a single word.
"As you command."
He reached for the sword at his waist, though no one saw him grip the hilt.
One flash.
-Slice.
There wasn't even time to scream.
His head shot into the air with a fountain of blood.
The last thing the Dark Venerable's eyes saw was probably his own body.
-Thud.
The headless corpse collapsed to the floor.
Only then did the Left Protector, grasping the situation, cry out in shock and rage.
"Wh-what is this! You bitch, Jahwa-yeon!"
It was all exposed.
No way out now.
The moment the Left Protector gathered all his inner energy to explode it outward.
"Heavenly Demon."
Jahwa-yeon simply extended her hand toward him, unmoving.
Her five slender fingers mimed grasping something in the air.
"That's not a name your filthy mouth should utter."
There was no sound, no presence.
Then, the Left Protector's body twisted at grotesque angles, as if crushed in an invisible giant's grip...
-Crack, crunch.
And split precisely in half.
The bisected corpse fell limply to the floor, soaking the Heavenly Demon Hall in blood.
Sword Demon Heuk-un indifferently wiped the blood from his blade on the fallen Dark Venerable's robes.
Then, he turned toward the jade throne.
For the first time, he looked up at the young sovereign with awe in his eyes.
He had always shown minimal respect to her as the predecessor’s daughter and young lady of the house, but never acknowledged her as sovereign.
But now, it was different.
He dropped to one knee and bowed his head deeply.
The Sword Demon asked in a voice rough with a metallic edge but clearer than ever.
"How does it feel to walk the path of domination, Supreme One?"
His voice carried unwavering loyalty.
"While you tread that path, please wield this old sword as you will."
At those words, Jahwa-yeon slowly turned her head.
Her gaze swept over the other demons, frozen in place.
The blind rage toward the Azure Heaven Alliance that had blazed in their eyes was gone without a trace.
And in its place was a primal, pure emotion directed at her.
Terror.
It filled them completely.
'So this is it.'
Not a beloved sovereign.
'Physician.'
Becoming an object of fear.
The way a sovereign protects themselves.
Once again...
He was right.