Take Spirit Pills with Caution! (1)

Heavenly Demon.

It was a sobriquet granted only to the most exceptional among the successive leaders of the Demonic Cult, beginning with the founding cult leader, the First Heavenly Demon. The previous cult leader had inherited that title in a line running all the way back to the First—no. He had been hailed as the strongest Heavenly Demon in history, and because it was said he would dye the world in blood, they called him the Blood Heavenly Demon.

He had mastered the demonic arts to their very limit. Unless he ascended as an immortal, or his lifespan simply ran out, it had seemed he would never step down from the seat of Heavenly Demon. That man was dead. Slain, at that, by a single blow from a girl of only eighteen.

It had not been an assassination. It was the duty every member of the Demonic Cult owed, as a matter of course, to the strong: the result of a rank duel.

And so the girl who had newly taken the cult leader's seat, Baek Seong-hwa, was naturally due to receive the title of Heavenly Demon herself, having felled the Heavenly Demon. She had only just become cult leader. Precisely which Heavenly Demon she would be called had yet to be decided.

"They kept tailing me, so I just shook them off. They wouldn't actually follow me all the way out here, would they?"

Baek Seong-hwa, a beautiful girl of eighteen in black martial robes and a cloak worked with lavish embroidery, muttered the words with a faint crease between her brows. The robes and cloak marked her as a woman of the jianghu, and yet she carried none of the weapons a martial artist was expected to bear. One might have taken her for a fist fighter, but she did not even wear the gauntlets a fist fighter ought to have had at her belt. If anything, the jewel-set golden hairpin holding her hair, and the brilliant ornaments adorning her from head to toe, made her look like a young lady of a noble house who had run away on a whim, drunk on dreams of the martial world. She looked nothing like the reigning Heavenly Demon—the one who had ended the Blood Heavenly Demon, strongest in all of history, with a single hand.

"Ugh. I have a feeling they're going to follow me anyway. Should I just go back and kill them?"

But the moment she let a thread of killing intent rise at the thought of the Demonic Cult's elites trailing after her, the majesty of a Heavenly Demon showed itself at once. Grass and trees withered in a rush merely from being exposed to it.

She had been dragged into the Demonic Cult and forced to join. All she had ever wanted was to come home. The cult, however, was an order ruled by the law that the strong stand above all, and without absolute strength it was impossible to leave. So she had killed the strongest person in it.

She had no particular desire for the cult leader's seat. There had simply been no one besides Seong-hwa who could take it, and so long as she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠held the position she could spend the cult's wealth as she pleased. She had become cult leader for her friends, and for no other reason. Which was why the cult's elites—hardly skilled, and yet trying to wedge themselves into her reunion with those friends under the pretext of serving as her escort—were an eyesore.

"No. I told them not to follow. If they come this time, I'll call it insubordination and kill them."

She had been on the verge of turning back to kill them even now. Instead she shook her head and spoke with a coldness that was almost startling. The girl she had been before the cult dragged her away could never have imagined saying such a thing. Life in the cult had changed her. She had come to believe that most conflicts could be settled by strength.

She knew it was wrong. It had sunk into her over three years like a survival instinct, and it would not leave her easily. And so she hoped—truly hoped—that once she was reunited with her friends, she might cast off this twisted way of thinking and become who she used to be. If even one of her childhood friends had come to harm, she might never be able to return to the child she had been. No. The world as it stood would have to bear the wrath of the true strongest Heavenly Demon in history: the one who had ended, in a single blow, even the Blood Heavenly Demon they had called the strongest of all time.

Once she was certain no subordinates were following, Seong-hwa walked on at an unhurried pace. When the ruins, preserved exactly as they lived in her memory, came into view, the screams she had heard that day returned as phantom sound and rang in her ears. If she had possessed then the strength she had now, she could have slaughtered every last one of those fiends without leaving a single one alive.

"A meaningless fantasy."

Telling herself it was nothing more than imagination, she was walking toward the place they had promised to meet when something caught her qi sense, and she turned her head.

A human-shaped thing lay before the tree. Three years had passed, and bleached bones were a common sight throughout the village, so at first she took it for just another corpse. But what her qi sense had caught was not a corpse. More precisely, it was a person on the verge of becoming one. Dying.

"…?"

Looking at the body that would die at once if she did nothing, Seong-hwa approached and tilted her head.

"I'll save them first and ask questions later."

Ordinarily she would have dismissed a complete stranger. Anyone here, though, might be a childhood friend. And even if it wasn't, she had no desire to find a corpse sprawled at the place where she was meant to meet them. So she slowly drew up her internal energy and poured it into the body.

When internal energy is infused into someone who has never trained in martial arts, the qi itself becomes vitality and breathes life through the whole body. It made no difference that this was not the pure internal energy of the orthodox sects, but demonic internal energy reeking of demonic qi.

"What is this?"

The instant she breathed her energy in, Seong-hwa felt that something was wrong. Ordinarily, vitality should have circulated through the body and the color returned to the face. This time it was different. It was like dropping a single pebble into a vast sea. Nothing changed at all.

"This is bad."

There were only two reasons that pouring internal energy into someone would feel like tossing a pebble, rather than stirring any vitality. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The first was that the other's internal power was so profound it devoured hers in the blink of an eye. That was absurd, so she set it aside. There was no reason for someone with internal energy that deep to be collapsed out here, and there was no sign of qi deviation either. He was simply starved.

That left only the second possibility: every trace of energy in the body had been exhausted, and there was no hope of saving him by merely injecting internal energy. In a case like that, he could not be saved without a physician of tremendous skill, or a spirit pill carrying a vast store of power.

"Nothing to be done. I'll at least clear the body away."

Muttering as she looked at the corpse she had failed to save, Seong-hwa raised her internal energy and extended a hand. A vast tide of qi poured forth and lifted the body. It was flawless Void Seizure, without a single flaw to find. A body dead of starvation still carried considerable weight, and yet she moved her qi as easily as she drew breath.

A soft rustle. A light thud.

"What? A rag?"

As the body rose, a scrap of tattered cloth fell from its breast. Seong-hwa frowned and drew the fallen rag toward her.

"Oh. There's writing on it. A will, then? Someone who could read and write, starving to death like this. What a pity."

He could have made a living reading letters and writing them for others, she thought, unfolding the will—and the moment she saw the first line, her brow twitched.

It was a will written on the premise that it would be found here after he was already dead. And the instant she read that first line, Seong-hwa was swallowed by confusion.

Why? If he was here, of course it would be him. Why didn't I think he might be a friend? Was I denying it? Did I never even imagine one of my friends could be broken this wretchedly? No. I never did. That's why…

Frowning at the possibility she had denied without even realizing it, she stopped using Void Seizure to cast Yuun aside and began pouring internal energy into him without restraint.

"No—no. How did we finally meet, only for you to die like this? You can't!"

As she spoke, she thrust a hand into her robes and, trembling, drew out the spirit pills she had brought to share with her friends. They were small restoration pills, gleaming with a blue light. Called Demon-Subduing Pills, they were treasures of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Demonic Cult, refined to purify the demonic qi that accumulated in those who trained in the demonic arts. Even the cult's upper ranks were lucky to receive a single pill a year. They were that difficult to make. Their effect was not limited to demonic qi: they purified every kind of malign energy in the body and converted it into internal energy. If someone who had never trained in martial arts took one, it would cure not only minor ailments but grave illness in a single dose, and forge a healthy body.

A spirit pill of that potency—Seong-hwa tipped it straight into Yuun's mouth.

"P-please! You can't die!"

She had meant to give her friends one pill each. Thrown into confusion by the fact that she had nearly treated her friend Yuun as a corpse and thrown him away, Seong-hwa fed him every last Demon-Subduing Pill.

Yang Jeonghyeon, the Heavenly Thunder Sword and disciple of the Murim Alliance Leader, had come home, and he shook his head at the sight of the ruined village. He had heard the rumor that the place had been reduced to ruins three years ago, all at once, and he had steeled himself. Even so, this was too much. It had become so dank and gloomy that a ghost might step out at any moment. And the great tree they had used as their landmark—the place they had all gathered every morning—had withered to a stick and rotted.

"Huh? What's this?"

Approaching the tree, Jeonghyeon sensed someone beneath it and focused in that direction. A young man about his own age lay there.

"Yuun? It's been a while."

He recognized at once the friend he had not seen in ten years, and drew closer to wake him.

On his way to Yuun, Jeonghyeon saw the words Seong-hwa had written on the ground and nodded.

"He really does look awful. Just how much has he been through?"

Seong-hwa seemed to have done something for him, but Yuun's condition still looked terribly unstable. Grumbling, Jeonghyeon took from his robes the spirit pills he had brought to share with his friends.

"Let's see. A Great Restoration Pill ought to be enough, right?"

Murmuring as he produced the spirit pill that was as much a symbol of Shaolin as the temple itself, he placed the Great Restoration Pill in the mouth of the prone Yuun. It melted at once and slid down Yuun's throat.

"Master said it could bring back even the dead, so this should ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠put my mind at ease. I'd better go find something for this guy to wear."

The village was in ruins, but if he rummaged through them, some intact clothing was bound to turn up. It would feel like stealing a dead person's belongings, yet he and Yuun and the rest of their friends were children of this village. They had all lived like one family. The departed would understand. It would pain them to see a child who might as well have been their own walking around in rags; better, he thought, that the clothes go to good use. And with that, Jeonghyeon walked on.

Pyeon Ja-in, the Divine Physician of Life and Death and disciple of the Wandering Divine Physician, felt an enormous vortex of qi beneath the tree at their meeting place, in the heart of the ruined village, and quickened her steps. It was a violent energy, as if centuries of internal power had been crammed into a single body and were exploding because that body could not contain them.

When she reached the meeting place, a young man lay on the ground, exhaling a terrifying aura. Beside him, one young man and four girls were hopping from foot to foot, at a complete loss.

"You crazy bastards! What the hell did you do?!"

It was obvious her friends had caused some disaster before she arrived. When Ja-in shouted, they darted glances at one another and kept their mouths shut. They said nothing, but from the faint scent of spirit medicine clinging to them, Ja-in could infer exactly what had happened.

These bastards. The moment they decided Yuun was in bad shape, they stuffed every last spirit pill they had down his throat.