The Masterpiece Doll
“Among the dolls I possess, if we’re talking about the one with the highest performance…”
Thud.
As Cheon Seo-ah murmured and flicked her hand, space tore open and a single massive coffin dropped through the rift.
With a heavy resonance, the enormous coffin revealed itself. The nine villains—no, the eight remaining villains, excluding Geomma, who still had not clawed her way free of her terror—went rigid at the thick demonic qi seeping through the cracks in the casket.
“This is it. You could call it something of a masterpiece.”
Creeeak—
The moment the words left her mouth, the coffin lid opened with a bone-chilling sound, and from within it emerged another Cheon Seo-ah.
From the crown of her head to the tips of her toes, the doll was identical to Cheon Seo-ah without a single discrepancy. Looking from the doll to Seo-ah and back again called to mind the German urban legend of the doppelgänger—or else simply broke the brain with cognitive dissonance.
And yet, even so…
“Hmm… something.”
“Hey. You feel it too? Same here.”
“Amitabha.”
“Yeah, definitely…”
Sensing something, the villains could not quite bring themselves to speak. Cheon Seo-ah, instantly reading what they had felt, offered them a bright little smile.
“The doll looks stronger than I do, doesn’t it?”
At her question, not one of them could answer, nor even manage a nod.
Honestly speaking, it was true. The doll Cheon Seo-ah looked stronger than the real one. If the genuine article looked like a cute, pure, ordinary young girl, the doll wore the same cute and innocent face—yet an overwhelming presence poured off her, the kind that felt ready to crush even a soul into submission.
Seo-ah continued as if nothing were amiss.
“Well, that can’t be helped. I restrain my aura out of consideration for other people, but that thing is a doll. And given the materials used to make it, even with concealment formations engraved all over it, they break down before long.”
“May I ask… what materials were used?”
The Proxy found the courage to ask.
“Hmm. The skeleton is Five Elements Ten-Thousand-Year Wood and the bones of a black tiger aged three thousand years. The eyes came from a True Immortal who had mastered a wide range of ocular arts. The nails were made from the poison fangs of a venom dragon that once belonged to the Radiant Dragon Gate of the Upper Realm. The rest of the materials were all harvested from immortals who had at least reached the Earth Immortal stage.”
Five Elements Ten-Thousand-Year Wood? The bones of a three-thousand-year black tiger?
A True Immortal’s eyes? A venom dragon’s poison fangs?
Immortals of the Earth Immortal stage?
Every single material Seo-ah listed soared so far beyond their comprehension that the villains could only grasp that the ingredients used to craft the doll before them were “extremely rare.”
That aside—
“Miss. How strong is that thing?”
Hyeolrangje, who had already shifted into his half-man, half-wolf Blood Wolf form, bared his sharp teeth as he asked. Standing face-to-face with a doll whose power made the fur across his entire body stand on end—had competitive spirit surged up in him without his noticing?
Cheon Seo-ah answered Hyeolrangje’s question with a gentle smile.
“It should be strong enough to kill all of you at least ten times over in the time it takes to split an instant, and then split that, and split that again, and split it once more.”
…
At her explanation, a heavy silence settled over the nine villains.
They would grant that the doll in front of them was strong. But—
“That’s a bit…”
Hyeolrangje muttered, unable to believe it. And it was not only him. Even Geomma, who had finally clawed free of her fear, and every other villain including the Proxy wore expressions that said they could not swallow her words.
No matter how finely it had been crafted, no matter how rare the materials—
In the end, it was still just a doll, wasn’t it?
In modern terms it was nothing more than an android. And that was supposed to be stronger than them?
That, even coming from their young mistress, was something they simply could not accept at face value.
“Then would you like to fight it?”
The smile Cheon Seo-ah wore as she said it looked more wicked than it ever had before.
“Ohh—! Where is this?”
“It feels as if I’ve been gathered into my mother’s arms.”
“Refreshing.”
The faces of the nine villains brightened as they stepped into the miniature Daematcheon for their match against the doll.
The small Great Demonic Heaven consisted of nothing but a desolate black earth, a black sky, and a black sun—yet thanks to the pure demonic qi saturating every inch of the space, for those who practiced Demonic Cultivation Arts, merely breathing here was enough to create the illusion that their realms were rising. No—in truth, their realms were climbing, slowly but steadily.
Of course, advancing to the next stage would still require proper training, but for all nine villains, the demonic qi they carried was growing purer by the simple act of drawing breath in this place.
That said—
“Number One. Open your eyes now.”
Kiiing—
At Cheon Seo-ah’s command, the doll that still lay sleeping inside the coffin began to move with a strange sound. At the same time its tightly shut eyes opened, and the pupils that were revealed—
“Ahem—”
Even the nine villains, who had lived anywhere from decades to centuries and accumulated endless experience, could not hide the wave of revulsion that surged up in that instant.
And no wonder: the doll’s eyes could not possibly be mistaken for a human’s. As those pupils rolled and swept in every direction, a single pupil split into two as if cells were dividing; two became four; four became eight—repeating infinite fission—only to snap back into one in the blink of an eye. And it did so without end.
“It has been some time, Master.”
“It has been a while.”
The doll bowed its head in greeting toward Cheon Seo-ah, and she nodded in return.
However—
“Was it necessary for even the voice to be a perfect match?”
The Proxy asked with an odd expression.
“The original reason I made the doll was because I needed a body double who could die in my place.”
Cheon Seo-ah answered the Proxy’s question as if it were nothing. She was not wrong. The first time she had decided to create a doll was back when she was still stuck at the Soul Transformation stage—when she had, by sheer misfortune, incurred the grudge of an Earth Immortal who had descended from the mid-realm to the lower realm.
The actual situation, though…
Coming all the way down from the mid-realm to the lower realm just because I ground up a single lower-realm sect to refine a magic treasure… Even thinking about it now, I still don’t get it.
Seo-ah grumbled inwardly. Still, later on she had used that Earth Immortal—and countless other immortals—as materials to create the Number One standing before them now.
Meanwhile, the doll fixed its gaze on her and asked,
“Are those insects the Master’s enemies?”
Twitch—
At the doll’s words, which clearly pointed at them, the nine villains’ expressions fractured in every direction. Some bared open displeasure and fury that a mere doll would dare call them “insects.” And then there was another—
“Ahem—! Th-that isn’t… entirely bad.”
Chilgeomje muttered at being insulted as an “insect” in Cheon Seo-ah’s own voice. Perhaps it was because he cultivated the Seven Desires Demonic God Art—a Demonic Cultivation Art that infinitely expanded the seven human desires and turned them into power. In a mere few decades, his tastes had twisted into something thoroughly warped.
Geomma made no effort to hide her disgust toward him.
As for Cheon Seo-ah—
“Insects? How rude. Those children aren’t insects. They’re pitiful children.”
“Correction. Are those pitiful children the Master’s enemies?”
“They’re not enemies. They simply wanted to verify Number One’s performance.”
“Acknowledged.”
Kuuung—
The instant the words ended, black armor woven of demonic qi draped itself over the doll.
“From this moment, I will eliminate the pitiful childr—”
“Number One. Enter Baby Mode.”
“…Acknowledged. From this moment, I will eliminate the pitiful children in Baby Mode.”
B-Baby Mode?
Hearing the exchange between Cheon Seo-ah and the doll, the nine villains’ eyes went wide. Baby Mode. They had no idea what it was, but the name alone felt like an open insult.
And yet the expression, tone, and voice of both Seo-ah and the doll as they said it were so utterly serious that the thought Maybe I’m the one who misunderstood? flickered through the villains’ minds and vanished.
At the same time, the aura of the doll that had entered Baby Mode dropped a full level. Moments earlier it had felt ready to overturn the world with a single gesture; now it radiated a presence roughly equal to the nine villains themselves.
“Number One’s Baby Mode restricts its power to somewhere between Nascent Soul and Soul Transformation. Too strong to call Nascent Soul, yet a little short of true Soul Transformation.”
Nascent Soul? Soul Transformation?
What were those supposed to be?
Even with Seo-ah’s kindly explanation, the nine villains only stared blankly. They had received Demonic Cultivation Arts from her and trained in them, but they were, regrettably, humans of Earth rather than of the cultivation world. Realms that were common knowledge among cultivators were simply missing from the villains’ basic education.
“Simply put, it will only use power on par with yours.”
…
At her gentle clarification, the nine villains’ eyes sank into something heavy.
Yes, they had tensed at that overwhelming aura a moment ago. But to deliberately match the doll’s strength to their own level—and to name that mode Baby Mode?
That was as good as saying—
She’s not even treating us like kids. She’s treating us like newborns.
Of course they knew their young mistress was strong. Overwhelmingly so—so far beyond them that they could not even reach her feet. The very space they stood in right now was proof enough of that.
But still—
“Allow us to correct your evaluation of us, Miss.”
Whoosh—!
Cloaked in black flames that writhed over his entire body, the Proxy stepped forward and spoke toward Cheon Seo-ah. At the same time, the remaining eight unleashed their power without the slightest hesitation and fixed their glares on the doll.