Day 9: The Nine Assemble
"R-Representative!"
"Are you all right!"
"It's an ambush!"
The voices of countless villains who had swarmed in from every direction rang out on all sides.
Yet the eyes of those gathered villains filled with bewilderment in an instant.
Their master—
the Representative who reigned at the absolute peak of the Illuminati, one of the most vicious, most terrible, and most powerful villains alive—wore an expression of pure, radiant joy before a girl he had never seen before in his life.
Hot tears streamed down both eyes. That same Representative eventually bowed his head toward the girl and spoke in a voice of the deepest reverence.
"Thank you for restoring my name, Heavenly Lady."
Heavenly Lady!
The moment that word left the Representative's mouth, the eyes of the countless assembled villains flew wide open.
What was the Heavenly Lady?
Was she not the very existence that not only their master the Representative, but all nine villains who had founded the Illuminati, had been hunting for with burning eyes?
They themselves, however, had no idea why the Representative—or the nine villains of the Illuminati—sought the being known by so many names, Heavenly Lady among them.
They had simply been searching on their masters' orders.
And yet that Heavenly Lady was this girl?
This girl with the purest, most innocent face and eyes...?
Meanwhile, Cheon Seo-ah regarded the Representative, who was still shedding tears of pure joy, and spoke.
"I see. So your name was Hante Gebria."
"That is correct."
Hante Gebria.
The name he had lost long ago while training in the Nine Heavens Nine Demonic True Secrets.
The Representative, hearing once more the name that had been erased even from his own memories, nodded as he answered.
Truly. It was a name he had not heard in far too long.
To hear that name of his from the Heavenly Lady's own lips.
Could there be any greater glory than this?
But joy and glory were only joy and glory.
Right now—
"Then I shall escort you home, Heavenly Lady."
It was time to take the Heavenly Lady and go to their true "home."
"How is it? Does it suit your palate?"
In a room every bit as opulent as the luxurious mansion to which it belonged, Hante Gebria—the Representative—addressed Cheon Seo-ah with a gentle smile as she sat nibbling desserts.
"It's fine."
Cheon Seo-ah nodded while continuously stuffing one dessert after another into her mouth.
It had been a long time since she had eaten Earth's desserts.
No—more precisely, it had been a long time since she had eaten any "sweet desserts" at all.
Ever since she had created Daematcheon and shut herself away inside it for roughly a hundred thousand years, Cheon Seo-ah had eaten nothing whatsoever.
There had been no need to eat in the first place, and beyond that, Cheon Seo-ah herself had never possessed any talent for cooking.
Well...
Daematcheon itself didn't even have ingredients worth cooking with, either.
Daeracheon might have been a different story, but Daematcheon—the new heaven Cheon Seo-ah had created specifically for practitioners of Demonic Cultivation Arts—was still a fledgling sky only a hundred thousand years old.
Moreover, the only living being in all of Daematcheon was Cheon Seo-ah herself, so the very concept of cooking simply did not exist there.
Meanwhile, the Representative watched with a thoroughly satisfied expression as Cheon Seo-ah stuffed dessert after dessert into her tiny, hamster-like mouth without pause.
Seeing that she liked what he had prepared filled him with boundless pride.
That said...
Just when are these bastards going to get here?
the Representative muttered inwardly.
It had already been thirty minutes since he had sent word that he had found the Heavenly Lady, yet there was still no sign of the others arriving.
The rest of them were one thing, but Hyeolrangje—who made his den closest to this hideout—should have been here ages ago.
What on earth was he doing that he would dare drag his feet this much about meeting the Heavenly Lady?
Well...
This way I get to keep the Heavenly Lady's adorable face all to myself, so I can't exactly complain.
"Hm? Did you have something to say?"
"No, Heavenly Lady."
Cheon Seo-ah, still chewing on a macaron, tilted her head and asked as she caught the Representative staring intently at her.
He simply shook his head again with that same gentle smile.
And so Cheon Seo-ah continued to devour dessert after dessert while the Representative watched the sight with a soft, fond smile, as though finding it unbearably cute—
when—
BANG!
"Where is Rakuru!"
Someone kicked the mansion door clean off its hinges and stormed inside.
It was a being whose form was half human and half wolf—something that at a glance could have been dismissed as nothing more than an urban legend of a "werewolf."
"Tsk. Just like a beast. Not a shred of manners to be found."
The Representative clicked his tongue and furrowed his brow.
On the surface he seemed to be complaining about the rudeness of Hyeolrangje, the blood-red-furred werewolf. In truth, he was simply sulking that his private time alone with the Heavenly Lady had just come to an end.
Meanwhile, the moment the werewolf Hyeolrangje finished shouting, he began sniffing the air with sharp, wet sniffs.
The "small help" Cheon Seo-ah had once given him was the Blood Wolf True Body Art.
It was one of the body-refining Demonic Cultivation Arts that, when mastered, transformed the flesh into that of a human-beast blood wolf and granted a body that transcended humanity.
After a few more sniffs, Hyeolrangje locked onto Cheon Seo-ah's scent.
"Rakuru!"
Rakuru.
The name of the ancient evil god passed down through the jungle tribe to which Hyeolrangje had once belonged.
Crying that name, Hyeolrangje kicked open the door to the room where Cheon Seo-ah waited and burst inside once more.
"Ahh! Rakuru! It's really—really been so long!"
The instant he saw Cheon Seo-ah—mouth full of cake, pure and innocent eyes looking straight at him—tears began to spill from Hyeolrangje's eyes just as they had from the Representative's.
How could he ever forget Rakuru!
The one who had saved him when he was on the brink of death and given him the power to slaughter every last traitor who had dared betray him—how could he forget that Rakuru!
Thus, just as Hyeolrangje poured out his overwhelming joy and charged toward Cheon Seo-ah—
BANG!
An enormous pressure crashed down onto Hyeolrangje's head the moment he leapt through the air.
His body slammed into the floor so hard that it punched straight through and plummeted into the basement below.
At the same time—
"Tsk tsk. What manner of rudeness is this before the Heavenly Demon."
Another man appeared inside the room.
He wore the robes of a Buddhist monk. Upon revealing himself, the man pressed his palms together and bowed deeply toward Cheon Seo-ah.
"This humble monk greets the Heavenly Demon."
"Ah! You're the poor child I once gave the Mara Great Hand Secrets to."
"That is correct, Heavenly Demon."
The Representative called her Heavenly Lady.
Hyeolrangje called her Rakuru.
And the monk who referred to himself as "this humble monk"—Maraseung—called her Heavenly Demon.
Beginning with those three, every last one of the nine who had founded the Illuminati—and who were known to the world as the most vicious, most terrible, and most powerful villains—gathered in full.
The middle-aged gentleman known as the Heart Devourer after receiving the Heart Eating Soul Devouring Great Power Art from Cheon Seo-ah.
The samurai woman known as the Sword Demon after receiving the Swallowing Sea Flood Dragon Sword Art from Cheon Seo-ah.
The elderly man known as the Blood Master after receiving the Blood-Sucking Art from Cheon Seo-ah.
The young man known as Disaster after receiving the Three Eyes Three Disasters Art from Cheon Seo-ah.
The woman known as Asura after receiving the Six Faces Nine Arms Art from Cheon Seo-ah.
And finally the man who had received both the Seven Desires Demonic God Art and the Seven Desires Sword from Cheon Seo-ah—Chilgeomje.
Every last one of them uttered a different, ununified word that all pointed to Cheon Seo-ah.
A faintly complicated expression crossed Cheon Seo-ah's face, and she spoke.
"From now on, please just call me Cheon Seo-ah."
"Understood! Rakuru!"
"Hah. Has your mind turned into a beast's along with your body? The Heavenly Demon herself has asked to be addressed as Cheon Seo-ah-nim, and still you dare put that frivolous word in your mouth."
"Hnnh? You wanna die, you fallen monk?"
A low rumble filled the air as Hyeolrangje and Maraseung locked eyes and began to raise their auras.
Blood-red energy poured from every pore of Hyeolrangje's body in thick streams, while a heavy, savage black energy erupted from Maraseung's entire form.
The moment their auras tangled together, the massive mansion shuddered and the Representative's subordinates inside it froze in terror.
At that moment—
"Everyone here is a pitiful child who has suffered wounds large and small. Please don't fight among yourselves, you poor children."
A soft breeze slipped in from nowhere and circled the room once—
and in that instant, the auras Hyeolrangje and Maraseung had been raising vanished without a trace.
Not only the two who had been flaring their power, but everyone who had been silently watching wore stunned expressions.
Who did they think they were?
If one dared to put it into words, they stood at the absolute peak among all the countless ability users currently walking the Earth.
Of course they knew the power they wielded was fundamentally different in nature from the so-called heroes and villains of the public world—yet that power was still more than enough to be called the strongest.
And yet those two—Hyeolrangje and Maraseung—had had their rising auras snuffed out in a single breath.
But the moment they realized the miracle had been performed by the very "god" they had been searching for—Cheon Seo-ah—understanding settled over their faces at once.
And together—
"We are sorry, Cheon Seo-ah-nim."
All nine bowed their heads toward Cheon Seo-ah and cried out as one.
Had any other heroes witnessed the scene, they would have been struck dumb with horror.
The nine villains had never once bowed their heads to anyone—yet here they were bowing to a girl who looked no older than fifteen or sixteen, a girl with the most innocent face imaginable.
To anyone unaware of the history between Cheon Seo-ah and them, the sight would have seemed nothing short of grotesque. That much was undeniable.
Meanwhile, Cheon Seo-ah wore a faintly awkward expression at their apologies, then...
"Ah, but Hante..."
"Please call me the Representative, Heavenly La—no, Cheon Seo-ah-nim."
"Ah, shall I?"
"Yes. Of course it is an infinite honor to be called by name by Cheon Seo-ah-nim, but..."
The Representative let the rest of the sentence trail off as he discreetly swept his gaze around the room.
The other eight villains were all glaring at him with thoroughly murderous eyes.
Those gazes screamed, Why do you alone get to be called by name by Cheon Seo-ah-nim!—and so the Representative had been forced into this compromise.
Of course—
I'll have to beg her to use my name whenever it's just the two of us.
As the Representative made that private resolution, Cheon Seo-ah opened her mouth with a distinctly unsatisfied look.
"Is there any dessert left, by any chance?"
In front of the girl who asked that question, dozens of completely empty plates lay scattered about.