Chapter 3: The Heavenly Demon, Cheon Hong-ryeon
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 3: The Heavenly Demon, Cheon Hong-ryeon
Why was something like that here?
The answer was simple.
This area had been caught in the emergence of a dimensional gate.
Now I understood why Ahyu had pulled me away from the window.
If I had kept my head stuck out, I would have immediately become a target.
“It’s rare for a dimensional gate to open in a city center. Why all of a sudden?”
As Ahyu muttered with a frown, I realized the dimensional entity had moved away from us and pushed myself up.
“It happens from time to time. If a sudden Dimensional Intersection occurs, a gate can appear without any warning, just like now.”
I glanced down at my phone, but as expected, no warning message had arrived.
The meaning was simple.
“A returnee has come through.”
A Dimensional Intersection phenomenon caused by a returnee.
A returnee is someone from Earth who was caught in a dimensional shift, lived in another world, and then returned to Earth.
The problem is that while it would be fine if they returned alone, most returnees trigger a Dimensional Intersection, allowing the dimensional entities from their world to cross over to Earth.
For a gate caused by a typical invader, the invader must first go through a process of surveying Earth.
During that process, they are detected by the dimensional radar network we’ve built, people in the vicinity of the coordinates are evacuated, and then hunters are deployed. That’s the normal procedure.
However, a returnee doesn’t need that survey process.
Because they were born on Earth, they already know it and can cross over without any preliminary measurements.
As a result, when a returnee comes through and a sudden Dimensional Intersection occurs like this, any response is bound to be too late.
Dimensional researchers have conducted numerous studies, but they still haven't found a way to predict the intersections that happen when a returnee comes back.
That’s why returnees are ostracized on Earth.
The casualties from the Dimensional Intersections they cause can range from dozens to hundreds of millions.
The only thing they can do is become returnee hunters and protect Earth from dimensional entities, trying to prevent the loss of life that they themselves caused.
“It must have been a returnee who used to live around here. They would have opened a gate by setting the coordinates they knew. There was no way to stop it.”
I let out a soft sigh and stood up.
Looking out the window, I saw a scene of chaos. Cars were crushed, and people were screaming and running frantically.
There were no more creatures the size of the one from before, but smaller ones were causing havoc everywhere.
“Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be an Erosion-type.”
Among dimensional gates, there are Erosion-types, where the other world itself begins to cross over, and Invasion-types, where typical dimensional entities come through.
Obviously, the Erosion-type is the bigger problem.
Erosion-types are the most dangerous kind because they can completely shatter the native ecosystem or turn the entire area into a land where humans can no longer live.
By a stroke of luck, what had occurred was an Invasion-type.
It was a problem that could be solved as long as the dimensional entities were dealt with.
“...Hyung, you know a lot about this.”
Perhaps it was because I hadn't panicked in the slightest, aside from when my face was first buried in Ahyu’s chest.
Ahyu was looking at me with a sense of wonder.
Of course she would.
I lost my parents to a dimensional gate phenomenon, and with the resolve to prevent such a thing from ever happening again, I had entered a university specializing in hunter studies.
Although I wasn't a returnee or an awakened hunter, there are definitely roles for ordinary people who want to support hunters.
That's why I studied hard enough to earn a full scholarship at university. For someone like me, who had been a promising student, this level of knowledge was basic.
“Ahyu, are you a hunter?”
That abnormal strength from before.
Anyone could see it wasn't the kind of power an ordinary girl could possess.
At my question, Ahyu slowly lowered her gaze and mumbled her lips.
“I’m… not… a hun… ter.”
Hearing her fragmented voice, my eyes narrowed slightly.
I knew what those words meant.
“Are you a returnee?”
Ahyu didn’t answer.
But I knew exactly what her downcast eyes signified.
A returnee.
The day I lost my parents was because of a Dimensional Intersection caused by a returnee.
The memory of my parents being torn apart by the dimensional entities that poured from the gate was still seared into my mind.
And I had once casually mentioned that fact to Ahyu.
After spending five years together, we had shared quite a few stories.
Was that why?
I was finally beginning to understand the slightly off-kilter, unconventional things Ahyu would sometimes say.
That unique sense of disconnect a returnee feels when they come back to Earth.
The flow of time in the dimension a returnee lived in is not the same as on Earth.
Time in that other dimension could be faster, or conversely, time on Earth could be faster.
They could experience countless events in another dimension and return to find that only a year had passed on Earth.
Conversely, there have been cases where someone spent a single day in another dimension, only to find that 100 years had passed on Earth.
I presumed Ahyu’s case was the former.
That’s what it meant when she said she’d become an adult this year.
‘She’s a returnee, but the reason she hasn’t been active as a hunter is probably because she was still a minor according to her resident registration.’
Although most returnees are treated as exceptions, the basic rule is that one must be an adult to become a hunter.
I didn't know how long Ahyu had lived in that other dimension, but if she didn't want to, they wouldn't have forced her, a registered minor, to become a hunter.
“Ahyu, I told you before.”
And I had told Ahyu when I spoke of my past.
“I don’t resent returnees.”
Just as my parents were killed by dimensional entities, the one who saved me back then was also a returnee.
That person was my older sister, who had been swept up in a dimensional shift and disappeared a few years prior.
The look on her face, so deeply sorrowful and pained as she looked at me…
I still remember it clearly.
And after that day, I never saw my sister’s face again.
I had thought about it.
Returnees just wanted to come back to the embrace of their families on Earth.
They are simply victims, caught in the disaster known as a dimensional shift.
That’s why I went to university.
I didn’t want to create any more victims like myself.
And I didn’t want to create any more victims called returnees.
That was the reason I double-majored in Hunter Guidance and Dimensional Shift Studies.
“They’re victims. And it looks like another victim has just been made.”
I looked out the window.
A returnee who was unintentionally swept into a dimensional shift, suffered to hell and back, and returned only to ruin the place they once lived.
Most of them are tormented by the memory of this day, suffering in agony.
Although I had despaired at reality and walked away, the memory of that time, still lingering in my heart, made my fists clench.
“That’s all it is.”
They shouldn't be condemned.
The ones who deserve to be cursed are the fucking dimensional shifts or the world itself, not them.
“...Yeah, because that’s the kind of person you are, Hyung.”
A faint smile touched Ahyu’s lips, her expression more serene than ever.
She gripped the collar of my shirt tightly and said.
“I’m scheduled to register as a hunter this year. It’s been delayed a bit because I was hesitating, but… the government has guaranteed they’ll support my rescue activities after returning.”
It was merely a system the state had created to make use of troublesome returnees, but at this very moment, that system was crucial.
“You want to save them, don’t you, Hyung?”
The returnee and the people caught in the crossfire.
The thought that you want to save them all.
Even if it was a thought I could never achieve, crushed by the wall of reality, it was a thought that hadn’t changed.
Ahyu took my hand.
A gentle warmth emanated from her soft, white hand.
“I can save them. If you’ll be by my side, Hyung.”
There was nothing I could do for her.
At best, I could only ramble on about dimensional shifts and related topics.
But the deep trust in Ahyu’s eyes as she looked at me made me nod my head without thinking.
“Yeah. I’ll stay by your side for a lifetime.”
Hearing my words, Ahyu smiled just as she had at the beginning.
At the same time, a crimson haze bloomed within her violet eyes.
“That’s a promise you absolutely must keep.”
And with those words, Ahyu’s hood flew back.
As the hood tore away, what was revealed was a set of jet-black martial arts robes, reminiscent of something from a wuxia novel.
Her hair, the color of deep crimson maple leaves, billowed out, and a camellia-shaped hairpin holding it in place glinted in the light.
[ Classification: Murim · No. 9 ]
Returnee Shin So-ra
The Strongest Under Heaven (天下第一人)Heavenly Demon (天魔)
Cheon Hong-ryeon
A blood-red sword, held between the folds of her robes, extended from her grasp as if painting a streak of blood.
“Let us go.”
The Heavenly Demon had descended.
*
Cheon Hong-ryeon. That was the name of a girl in the dimensional world of Murim, into whose body she had been transmigrated.
She was the child of a concubine, and thus the furthest from inheriting the title of Heavenly Demon. For her, who had been transmigrated into that child’s body, the world of wuxia was filled with nothing but hardship.
If she were to dwell on each and every one of the horrific things she experienced in the Demonic Cult just for being of the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline…
A bitter taste was all that filled Cheon Hong-ryeon’s mouth.
But after enduring all that hardship, she rose to the position of Heavenly Demon.
She conquered the Murim and spread the will of the Demonic Cult to all under heaven.
There was no other way.
For her, born as a child of the Heavenly Demon, it was the only way to survive.
But what meaning did any of it have?
This wasn't the world she had lived in, and the countless factions she had crushed with the power of the Heavenly Demon were still sharpening their blades, seeking revenge.
She was tired.
It was so hard.
Her life, which had been that of a mere middle school student, had been marred and ruined by the title of Heavenly Demon ever since she was transmigrated.
Inside, she was slowly rotting away.
One day, a memory surfaced.
The face of her stepsister, whom she had strangled to death with her own hands.
It was the first life she had to take to survive, she who had been an ordinary middle school girl from the Republic of Korea.
Although her sister had tried to assassinate her first, that memory still plagued her mind, even after countless other killings.
But the Heavenly Demon could not rest.
Just as she expected.
Eventually, the Murim Alliance was established to drive out the Demonic Cult, and they came for her with their swords drawn.
How absurd.
What was this Murim Alliance?
In the end, they were just as rotten as the Demonic Cult, yet they preached of a great cause. It was something she could never comprehend.
It was their rotten politics that had allowed the sickness of the Murim to fester, giving birth to the Demonic Cult in the first place.
In the end, the Heavenly Demon rose once more.
She put an end to the Murim Alliance with her own hands and sat alone upon a river of blood that flooded the land.
The war between the Demonic Cult and the Murim Alliance had left the world in ruins.
It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the world had collapsed.
The vast central plains were no longer a place where people could live.
The Heavenly Demon quietly recalled a memory.
Of a bright, cheerful middle school girl living under her parents’ care in Korea.
Was it too late?
But what meaning was there in staying here?
The Heavenly Demon rose from her seat.
And she opened a dimension.
To return to her long-lost home.
And when the Heavenly Demon returned…
The Dimensional Intersection she caused took the worst possible form: a Murim Erosion.
As if reliving the past, Cheon Hong-ryeon’s eyes trembled.
It could only be described as a living hell.
The few survivors from the Murim Alliance, believing the dimensional shift to be a trick of the Demonic Cult, slaughtered countless civilians.
And the land, which had died due to the war between the Demonic Cult and the Murim Alliance, began to poison the world.
The land where she was born and raised instantly became a barren wasteland where no one could live.
In that chaos, Cheon Hong-ryeon searched for her parents, who existed only as faint figures in her distant memory.
By a stroke of immense luck, her parents were alive amidst the chaos.
But she didn't know.
She didn't know how the Magi she was unconsciously emitting would affect ordinary people from Earth, who were not from Murim.
Her parents recognized her. They embraced her, patted her back, and cried for her.
They were glad she was back.
They told her again and again how glad they were that she was alive.
Her mother and father, who had quit everything to search for their daughter who had been missing for a year, looked terribly gaunt.
Hearing their heartfelt words, the Heavenly Demon, who had lost her expressions for so long, broke down and wept on the spot.
And in that moment, her parents coughed up blood and collapsed.
Overcome with the joy of finding their daughter, her parents, who had embraced her and cried, didn't even realize the Magi seeping into their bodies.
To the very end, they were just thankful and happy that their daughter was alive.
There was nothing Cheon Hong-ryeon could do.
To save her parents who were dying from her Magi, she needed to find a doctor or do something.
But having just crossed dimensions, Cheon Hong-ryeon had no way to control her Magi.
The Heavenly Demon wailed.
Having returned to Earth after decades, she was shunned for being a returnee.
And her parents, who had died because of her, became an unbearable regret she could never resolve.
September 11, 2026.
That was the day she returned from being Cheon Hong-ryeon to being Shin So-ra.
And a few months after that.
Broken and a wreck of a person, she would find her one and only salvation.
In a game she happened to stumble upon.
But the story of the love that began to bloom in her heart from that moment on was a tale for another time.