Memories of That Day
The memories of that day.
At Wolgyeonpa, the hope of the Orthodox Path was broken.
When they had driven the Heavenly Demon into the trap forged by the considerable combined might of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Nine Great Noble Families, the leadership of the Orthodox Murim believed they could finally put an end to this long war.
The Dark King’s hidden weapons became a cascading waterfall that swept the field. The Emperor’s Sword fully traced its final form. The Five Tigers Blade Emperor’s blade split towering peaks into five, the Taiji Sword Venerable’s Taiji absorbed and scattered every scrap of demonic energy, and the Plum Blossom Divine Sword’s blossoms bloomed in full glory across Wolgyeonpa.
It was, without exaggeration, the grand culmination of a thousand years of Orthodox Murim history—steadily, stubbornly built.
And so…
That’s why it was boring. So utterly, stiflingly old-fashioned.
That creature bared his teeth and mocked it all.
Not a single thing has progressed. You’re always like this—a pack of mediocrities gathering together and prattling on about being the center of the world. It’s so laughable I can’t even be bothered to sneer.
The earth beneath his feet was a red carpet of blood, a sea of crimson where only scattered patches of gray monastic robes and green martial uniforms could still be seen.
This was the soil of Sichuan—the very heart of an Asura Hell that had descended upon the mortal world.
Standing alone in the middle of that sea of blood, an Asura who had long since left human reason behind spoke.
You’re no different, you half-baked little novice who barely qualifies as a monk yet has the gall to stamp layer after layer of precept marks across your forehead. Utterly dull.
“Cough… hack…”
He could not stop the blood surging back up his throat. Hyeondeok Daesa swallowed the agony of his organs being shredded piece by piece and forced his breathing steady.
The arrogant demon who called himself the Heavenly Demon looked down at the monk with a gaze full of weary boredom.
Still… I’ll give you one thing. One of those monks. Exactly one. He was decent enough that I wouldn’t mind handing over another reincarnation for him.
Heh.
The Heavenly Demon laughed and tore open the front of his robe. A fist-sized hole punched clean through his chest.
Where the heart should have been was only emptiness. The flesh around it boiled and stank, blackening as though poisoned, swelling like malignant tumors before bursting and regenerating in endless cycles, trying to fill the void.
But the hole never closed.
Fine cracks spiderwebbed out from that wound across the Heavenly Demon’s entire body, like a shattered porcelain vessel.
Hyeondeok Daesa understood.
That hole would kill him.
The Heavenly Demon smiled an unreadable smile.
That one was worth remembering… Bang Hyo-seon, was it? Or Dang? That single strike—Poison Thunder Shadowless—definitely had some spice. As you can see, my spiritual vessel is cracked. Regeneration can’t keep up with the restoration. Not bad at all.
A thousand years ago it was Bodhidharma. Seven hundred years ago, Lü Dongbin. Two hundred years ago, Zhang Sanfeng. This time it was Jang Hyo-seon who stopped me. Wait—Dang, was it?
“What… what lunacy are you spouting…”
Unable to grasp the meaning in the Heavenly Demon’s words, Hyeondeok Daesa asked in stunned disbelief.
What did that mean? That every Heavenly Demon who had ever invaded the Murim… had been the same person?
Hyeondeok Daesa trembled with shock and disbelief, but the Heavenly Demon continued without a care.
Anyway, that Dark King’s strike was magnificent! I may mix up the name, but that blow is something I’ll be chewing over even in the Underworld. A collaboration of two arts—like a flood dragon carrying a poison core and launching it. Quite the cute little trick.
Thanks to that, I managed to take the black one, but I never got around to claiming the green.
The black side… yes, it felt something like this, didn’t it?
The Heavenly Demon swung one arm. Rain began to fall.
—Shaaaa…
A sudden downpour. Blood-filled puddles erupted into countless ripples, spraying outward in every direction.
Hyeondeok Daesa froze solid—not because he realized every single raindrop carried the force of the Heavenly Demon’s full-powered fist, but because he understood the meaning of the casual technique just displayed.
“Dobansamyang-gwiwon-singong… Myriad Heaven Blossom Rain?!”
As if amused by the monk’s horror, the Heavenly Demon turned his gaze and smirked.
Well, I didn’t manage to steal the green dragon side, but this round has been meaningful enough. Time to withdraw.
“What… what are you saying, you devil?!”
Simple. I had my fun again. Time to go.
And for the first time, he looked straight at Hyeondeok Daesa and smiled with pure malice.
It was the smile of something that was not human, mimicking humanity. Gravel, sand, wind, blood, sky and clouds, the mountain of corpses underfoot—all of them spoke as one.
“That is the truth of the hero who saved Sichuan.
“The Martial Alliance used the sacrifice of Sichuan’s Murim as a stepping stone to buy time. Even with every great master of the age gathered, they still could not bring down the Heavenly Demon.
“The one who actually dealt him a fatal wound was already-dead Hyo-seon.”
“….”
“Why didn’t we announce this truth? Because… how could anyone possibly say it?”
The Shaolin Abbot closed his eyes, face heavy with grief.
“I simply… could not speak the truth. Not about the Heavenly Demon, and not about what happened that day.”
“…I understand.”
This was a story that must never be known.
Even if one dismissed the claim that the Heavenly Demon was an endlessly reincarnating monster as wild rumor…
The greatest masters of the Orthodox Path who had once contended for the world had all become lonely ghosts.
The only Orthodox master capable of dealing the Heavenly Demon a fatal wound was dead as well!
The Heavenly Demon had survived and was waiting for the day he would return.
And the sole survivor had clung to life only by the Heavenly Demon’s whim!
The moment this fact became public, what would have happened to the Central Plains?
This wouldn’t have ended as mere shame for Shaolin or dishonor for the Martial Alliance.
The very pillars of the Orthodox sky had been slaughtered en masse. Chaos and terror on an unimaginable scale would have followed, and the remaining remnants of the Unorthodox Path would never have quietly faded or withdrawn.
The only reason the great war could end at all was because Hyeondeok Daesa—officially the master who had defeated the Heavenly Demon and the hero of the Murim—had returned alive.
Honestly, Hwi-yeom had suspected the Orthodox Murim and the Imperial Court.
The Beast Palace Lord’s words still lingered in his memory.
Perhaps the Heavenly Demon had been fatally wounded and brought down by the joint assault at Wolgyeonpa… but the one who actually injured Dang Hyo-seon had been traitors among the Orthodox?
But the truth he had just learned was completely different from what he had suspected.
Huh? Then what becomes of the Beast Palace Lord’s claim?
At the time, the Beast Palace Lord had clearly said that, given the war situation, the story of Dang Hyo-seon being killed by the Heavenly Demon and the Demonic Cult made no sense.
Yet looking at the situation now, it did make sense.
Neither of them has a reason to lie… so there’s either a misunderstanding or a truth I still don’t know. I should speak with the Beast Palace Lord sometime.
Hwi-yeom organized his thoughts and spoke.
“…How many people know this story?”
“Aside from a very few within Shaolin, you are the first.”
“Not even my father?”
“That is correct.”
Well, if Father had known, he would at least have told him.
“…Wouldn’t it have been better to tell Father as well?”
Hyeondeok Daesa fell silent for a moment, catching his breath. Then he answered in a calmer tone.
“What good would it have done to force a cruel truth upon a teenage boy who had already lost both father and grandfather to a monster? ‘Your father struck a blow against an unstoppable monster and died—be proud. But that monster will reincarnate and return before long’? I simply did not want to shove that cruelty into a child’s face.”
“Because of that, Father and the Beast Palace came to distrust the Murim. How could Shaolin, the guardian of order…”
“…To be honest, abandoning Sichuan’s Murim was an unavoidable choice. But I hated it. That is why I ran to Sichuan alone.”
Hyeondeok Daesa sighed.
“If the Central Plains Murim is hated, is that not simply reaping what it has sown?”
“…Mm.”
Hwi-yeom did not press further.
Instead he examined the situation more coldly and calmly than ever before.
“…Let us summarize.”
Hwi-yeom closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and ordered his thoughts.
“First, according to your words, Grandmaster, the reason every Orthodox master at Wolgyeonpa was annihilated was because they failed to interest the Heavenly Demon?”
“Of course, I did not personally witness the battle at Wolgyeonpa, so I cannot know the absolute truth. However…”
“The result that the masters who were at Wolgyeonpa all died is an undeniable fact.”
In that case, it was reasonable to assume the Heavenly Demon possessed overwhelming martial force capable of crushing the Ten Great Masters of the World.
“And in the middle of that, the only person who landed an effective blow on the Heavenly Demon was none other than my great-grandfather?”
“Correct.”
“The technique used was called Poison Thunder Shadowless. It was a composite technique combining two arts, and those two arts were most likely…”
“Dobansamyang-gwiwon-singong and Nokryong Singong. According to the Heavenly Demon, the Dark King hid that final technique until the very last moment, then used it as a mutual-destruction strike the instant he was fatally wounded, piercing the place where the Heavenly Demon’s heart had been.”
“But the Heavenly Demon was a monster, so even with his heart pierced he survived just fine?”
“…Yes. Yet it truly was a fatal wound. He said with his own mouth that regeneration was impossible, and when I faced the Heavenly Demon in Sichuan he was… well…”
Hyeondeok Daesa chose his words carefully.
“Cracks ran all over his body, like a drying clay doll that was falling apart.”
“…Then the reason my great-grandfather alone survived Wolgyeonpa…”
“Was probably the Heavenly Demon’s whim. He would have known Hyo-seon would not live long. Or perhaps it was a form of respect for the one who had managed to wound him.”
After all, according to Hyeondeok Daesa, the Heavenly Demon seemed to acknowledge those who possessed power worthy of opposing him.
“…I understand.”
The questions in his mind seemed to settle somewhat.
But the most important one remained.
“In your view, Grandmaster, is the Heavenly Demon truly a being who reincarnates?”
“As a Buddhist who speaks of the cycle of rebirth, it is difficult to deny outright.”
“If the Heavenly Demon truly is an endlessly reincarnating existence, why was this fact never widely announced?
“The moment it became public knowledge, he could truly become a living god.”
An existence who possessed power that looked down upon the world, and who revived infinitely even after death—an immortal. If that became widely known, the Heavenly Demon could genuinely be reborn as a god.
“Well, I cannot know the exact reason. Perhaps it is because the interval between reincarnations is long.
“He himself said that a thousand years ago Bodhidharma blocked him, seven hundred years ago Lü Dongbin, two hundred years ago Zhang Sanfeng, and this time Hyo-seon.
“There is roughly a three-hundred-year gap between each. And three hundred years is long enough for people to forget.”
Indeed—if someone claimed to be an immortal living god yet vanished without a trace for centuries, who would believe it?
“Or… perhaps the Demonic Cult already knows, and that is why they revere him so fervently.”
“That is also possible. But more than the reincarnation itself, what this old monk truly feared was that man’s attitude.”
“His attitude…?”
“He did not fear death. He showed neither fury nor resentment. Instead he simply regretted failing to fully copy Hyo-seon’s martial arts.
“And the next time he returns, Dobansamyang-gwiwon-singong will never be enough to oppose him.
“No—rather, we will be the ones who must fear that art.”
Only then did Hwi-yeom feel a belated chill crawl down his spine.
This guy is a genuine lunatic.
Come to think of it, the Heavenly Demon had used the word “round.”
And even while dying, he had only lamented failing to take Nokryong Singong.
Across the long ages there had always been absolute masters who stood in his way.
Bodhidharma, Lü Dongbin, Zhang Sanfeng, and even his own great-grandfather Dang Hyo-seon had all died.
And their martial arts had become the Heavenly Demon’s.
Go ahead and kill me. I’ll just reincarnate. Infinite skill-copy meta… is that it?
He had thought it as a joke, but the reality was a story with no solution whatsoever.
Is it even possible to kill him completely?
The moment the thought reached that point, he felt hollow and had no choice but to stop thinking.
No matter what he came up with now, he realized there would be no answer.
Looking at Hyeondeok Daesa and the Shaolin Abbot—who seemed to have aged years in a short span—Hwi-yeom nodded deeply.
“For now, I understand. It must have been difficult to speak of this, so thank you for telling me.”
“Not at all. I am the one who is sorry it took so long…”
“I understand that you feel a sense of debt, Grandmaster… but excessive humility becomes rudeness. This story was worth every bit of that debt.”
“Do you… do you truly forgive so easily?”
At Hyeondeok Daesa’s words, Hwi-yeom gave a short, almost incredulous laugh.
“I’m not simply forgiving you. I’m going to milk you dry for business, so keep that in mind. And…”
His eyes grew serious.
“It is possible the Demonic Cult has already returned.”
The Shaolin Abbot and Hyeondeok Daesa listened intently.
“You lived through that era of war, so you know—the truly terrifying thing about the Heavenly Demon is not only his world-shaking martial arts, but also his talent for grasping the principles and essence of another school’s arts just by watching them once.
“Those masked men who used the martial arts of the Hebei Peng Family may have been…”
“…We already know.”
As expected of Shaolin, the Tai Mountain and North Star of a thousand years.
They had already known that much and had already anticipated the Demonic Cult’s involvement.
“Of course, according to what you said, Grandmaster, at least two hundred years should remain until the Heavenly Demon’s reincarnation.
“But it is hard to believe the Demonic Cult would move without any basis. They must possess something that makes them believe they can scheme against the Central Plains—that is why they are stepping forward.”
Historically, the Demonic Cult had always been that way.
“Therefore, clearing away old grudges before something major happens is probably wise.”
“I have nothing left to say but that I am sorry…”
“If you truly feel that sorry, then I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
Hwi-yeom personally helped the kneeling Hyeondeok Daesa to his feet and said,
“Would you consider spending your remaining years in Sichuan? It is quite a good place for recuperation…”
At the somewhat abrupt proposal, Hyeondeok Daesa tilted his head, then soon smiled and shook it.
“I feel ashamed to refuse right after saying I would do anything… but that will be difficult. Now that you have forgiven me, there is one last thing I must do before this remaining life ends.”
“What is that?”
“Alliance Leader.”
Hyeondeok Daesa’s eyes shone with profound light.
“I intend to challenge for the position of Martial Alliance Leader.”
While Hwi-yeom, Hyeondeok Daesa, and the Shaolin Abbot washed away old grudges and held a constructive meeting for a productive future, something heaven-shaking was once again beginning to unfold at the Sichuan Dang Family…
“Congratulations. It is pregnancy.”
Sama Yun and Dang Su-jeong had become pregnant at the same time.