Chapter 115: The Nine Heavens Fairy Maiden (1)
Chapter 115
The Nine Heavens Fairy Maiden (1)
Having halted the death of the Sound-Splitting Blood Demon, Se-woon immediately moved to the next phase.
Whoosh—
While outwardly emitting only a chilling aura to maintain the illusion—
'This is the perfect opportunity to expand my Reverse Heaven Energy! I'll absorb all of it!'
—he began transferring the Blood Demon's Reverse Heaven Energy he had devoured directly into his upper dantian. The perfectly refined energy of the Blood Demon was transforming into his own.
Oooom—!
An even greater surge of euphoria than when he had absorbed Shaolin's Great Return Pill washed over him. Se-woon was outmaneuvering the Blood Demon's schemes and instead using them as a means for his own growth.
To any outside observer, this entire process had taken place in the blink of an eye.
"......Kkh... Ugh..."
At that moment, the Sound-Splitting Blood Demon let out another pained groan.
But his outward condition was incomparably better than before. His complexion had returned to normal, the bulging veins had receded, and even the terrifying aura that had made him seem less than human had completely vanished from his body.
Yet the expressions of the Cheoncheon Unit members watching the scene were still etched with shock.
'That demonic energy was unreal...'
'The one who caused the Kaifeng Blood Massacre was undoubtedly the master of that power.'
'He definitely called himself... the Blood Demon.'
Two words were branded into the minds of the unit members:
Blood Cult.
Blood Demon.
This was the moment they had uncovered the name of the shadowy force seeking to plunge the martial world into chaos—and the master they served.
—A branch of the Demonic Cult, is it?
—We are nothing like the Demonic Cult. We serve not the Heavenly Demon, but the supreme master of blood, the Blood Demon!
Recalling the Grand Elder's earlier words, the unit members shuddered.
When martial artists spoke of the greatest figure in history, the most frequently mentioned name was none other than the legendary Heavenly Demon.
Yet here were followers who dismissed even the Heavenly Demon as insignificant.
And the power of the Blood Demon they had witnessed firsthand was so transcendent that it could inspire absolute faith in his followers.
It left them reeling, unable to easily shake off the shock.
But then—
"I'll ask again."
Se-woon's voice cut through the silence, snapping everyone out of their thoughts. Having fully absorbed the Reverse Heaven Energy, he resumed his questioning of the Sound-Splitting Blood Demon.
"What is the purpose of this place?"
"......Khh... Mass breeding of gu poison. Raising the Thousand Blood Gu."
Though his eyes were dazed and drool dripped from his lips, the Blood Demon answered precisely.
The question about the breeding facility had been for the unit's benefit.
Se-woon pressed on, digging for more critical information.
"Before you returned here, who did you meet?"
"......The Fourth Elder. Qilian Demon."
Qilian Demon?
Se-woon's eyes flickered with recognition.
History had changed.
Qilian Demon, the master of the Jiangshi Sect among the Nine Great Demon Sects, had never once left the main sect's experimentation grounds in the previous timeline.
"What was his objective?"
"Ugh... He said there was a problem with the mission assigned by the cult..."
A problem?
"Be more specific."
"......He said... he needed my help to obtain 'Beast's Blood' and 'Wildfire'..."
"!!"
Se-woon's eyes trembled violently.
He had clearly realized something.
But the other unit members could only blink in confusion.
'...Beast's Blood?'
'Why is Wildfire suddenly being mentioned? What does this mean?'
'Is the Blood Cult plotting something in the Great Plains?!'
The junior members pictured the vast steppes in their minds, but their guesses were completely off the mark.
In that moment, Se-woon had grasped the Blood Cult's grand scheme.
In the previous timeline, it had been Bai Yecha Heo So-chang who carried out this role—but now, Qilian Demon had taken his place.
'Of course. They moved up the Blood Massacre too. Their next target is the frontier.'
They were accelerating their plans to swallow up the frontier.
And the terms "Beast's Blood" and "Wildfire" could only point to one place.
'The Southern Barbarian Lands.'
The Beast Palace, which ruled that region, was undoubtedly the Blood Cult's next target.
"What did you give him?"
"Khhh! He took the Male-Female Gu Poison from me before leaving."
"......!"
Male-Female Gu Poison.
A particularly horrifying variant of gu poison, born as a mated pair.
If one of the pair suffered pain, the other would feel the same agony regardless of distance.
And while the gu was in torment, the host would experience seizures akin to demonic qi deviation.
'In other words, with the Male-Female Gu, you can completely control your target.'
But who was Qilian Demon planning to use it on within the Beast Palace?
By the time Se-woon had been dragged into the Blood Cult in the previous timeline, the Beast Palace had already fallen into the Blood Demon's hands, so the identity of the coerced individual remained a mystery.
"Who was Qilian Demon planning to use the Male-Female Gu on?"
"That... that...! Gglrk!!"
"!!"
Suddenly, the Sound-Splitting Blood Demon foamed at the mouth and collapsed again.
Convulsing violently, he had completely lost consciousness.
Se-woon immediately checked his pulse.
It wasn't the Blood Demon's influence this time—his mind and body had simply reached their limits.
'Tch. His mental state is shattered. It'll take over a month to restore him to a stable condition.'
Clicking his tongue, Se-woon addressed the unit members.
"Restrain him. We'll take him back and imprison him in the base's dungeon."
"Yes, sir!"
At Se-woon's command, the unit moved with flawless precision to secure their captive.
Watching the Cheoncheon Unit, now united in their faith in him, Se-woon murmured softly,
"You've seen it now. The shadow seeking to engulf the martial world has already reached our doorstep."
"......!"
"But do not fear. The path we walk will become the torch that lights the way for the martial world."
Crrk!
Se-woon gripped the handle of the great axe once more.
Then, without hesitation, he swung.
Swoosh—!
Grk!
Two characters were carved into the wall where the axe's energy had passed.
"From now on, it will be our enemies who fear us."
Cheoncheon (齊天).
Se-woon's declaration of war against the Blood Cult and the Blood Demon.
A day had passed since Se-woon and the Cheoncheon Unit had left.
Amid the eerie, blood-soaked ruins of the breeding facility, mysterious warriors clad in black hats and robes scoured the grounds, concealing their identities.
They meticulously examined the corpses of the Blood Cultists and the traces left behind by the intruders.
"......They rampaged through here like madmen before leaving."
The middle-aged man leading them spoke quietly.
Unlike the others, his temples bore no bulging veins, appearing utterly ordinary—yet the natural authority and presence he exuded were in no way inferior to Sword Emperor Yoo Jin-hak's.
Just then, a subordinate approached him with utmost reverence.
"Great Guardian, we've found it."
At those words, the Great Guardian's eyes gleamed with interest.
Following the subordinate's guidance, he descended into a hidden underground chamber.
The moment they reached the deepest part—
Crrk.
'This is...!'
Both men froze.
The Great Guardian's eyes flickered as he confirmed what lay before him.
"It's unmistakably the trace of that person...!"
The subordinate couldn't contain his excitement as he spoke.
But the Great Guardian felt the same.
His gaze distant, almost nostalgic, he murmured,
"......Indeed. It's identical to the energy left on the ancient tree of Golden Gate Island."
Golden Gate Island was located off the coast of Fujian Province.
And it was the place where the axe—later reforged into the Silver Moon Great Axe that Se-woon had received as a reward from the Martial Alliance—had been discovered.
"To rule the heavens."
Cheoncheon (齊天).
The words were carved into the wall before them.
For a mere mortal to claim dominion over the heavens was the height of arrogance.
But for their master, it was nothing more than the truth.
'Because he is the heavens themselves.'
Then, the Great Guardian of the Heavenly Demon Cult, the Heaven-Piercing Spear Demon Bukri Seung, issued a command to all his subordinates.
"Erase all traces of our presence before the Blood Cult arrives. From this moment onward, the entire cult will focus solely on tracking the remnants of 'Cheoncheon.'"
"As you command."
The moment Bukri Seung's order was given, his subordinates moved with flawless precision.
His gaze returned to the inscription.
The wait had been too long.
For centuries, their desperate yearning for their god—who had never answered—was finally about to bear fruit.
Whether it was a thief who had dared to steal their master's power...
'Or whether our lord has truly returned at last.'
Half an hour later,
they vanished without a trace, just as they had arrived—like a passing wind.
Half a month had already flown by since the controversial Martial Alliance Grand Assembly concluded.
The decisions made during the assembly had begun to shake the martial world's long-established order in unprecedented ways.
Among them, the hottest topic in Sichuan's martial circles was undoubtedly the resurgence of the Sichuan Tang Family, reclaiming its place among the Seven Great Families.
Recently, the Tang Family's prestige had skyrocketed among Sichuan's martial artists.
"Hah! The Tang Family's rise is simply unbelievable!"
"Where have you been hiding, in the Southern Barbarian Lands? Nearly thirty percent of Chengdu's merchants now pay protection fees to the Tang Family."
"I hear they're calling it the 'Three Powers of Sichuan' now—adding the Tang Family to Emei and Qingcheng."
"Three powers? More like the 'Twin Powers'—leave Qingcheng out of it!"
The hero of the Kaifeng Blood Massacre, Tang Se-woon, who had secured a top-tier merit for the first time since the Divine Maiden Sect Leader, was being revered by countless martial artists and commoners alike.
But this wasn't just empty fame built on reputation.
The current Sichuan Tang Family's foundation was not just solid—it was unshakable.
First, the Tang Family Escort Agency, led by the Four Extremes Phantom Lord Tang Se-woon himself, was no longer just one of Sichuan's Four Great Escort Agencies—it was on the verge of becoming Sichuan's undisputed number one.
Their operations had expanded beyond Sichuan, now operating on a nationwide scale.
This was thanks to the full backing of the Namgung Family.
As one of the Four Great Merchant Groups with deep ties to the imperial palace, the Namgung Family had been supporting the Sichuan Tang Family even more vigorously than they had the Hwangbo Family in the past.
The Tang Family, under Se-woon's leadership, absorbed every opportunity without a single refusal.
With escort services of unparalleled quality, wealth was pouring into the Tang Family's coffers.
Rumors even spread that they might rise to become one of the Central Plains' Four Great Escort Agencies before the year's end.
But this wasn't the only good news.
Second, the Tang Family's Medical Hall had begun a meteoric rise under a new name—Cheon Yak Hospital.
Though Tang Se-rin was its inaugural director, everyone in Sichuan, including her, knew the true master behind it was Se-woon.
After all, the hospital's explosive growth was fueled by Se-woon's groundbreaking philosophy.
He taught visiting physicians freely, regardless of whether they were affiliated with the Tang Family or not, under one simple condition:
They must treat patients for as long as they deemed appropriate based on what they had learned.
There were no monetary demands whatsoever.
Yet, not a single physician who had come to Cheon Yak Hospital had left.
Moved by Se-woon's character and medical prowess, they had chosen to follow his path of their own accord.
As a result, patients from beyond Sichuan were flooding in like a tidal wave.
Thus, the Sichuan Tang Family had firmly established itself as the largest medical institution in the martial world, surpassing even Emei.
But amidst all this, one dark rumor about the Tang Family had begun to spread:
The health of Tang Se-woon, the man behind this legend, was deteriorating day by day.
Yet the Tang Family made no official statement.
Amid the swirling doubts and confusion—
"So this is the place."
"......Yes, Master."
The Divine Maiden Sect Leader, the Nine Heavens Fairy Maiden Hwa Wol-young, had arrived at the Sichuan Tang Family.