The Clean Air of Earth
Baal’s simple explanation that they could reach the Abyss of the Void by heading north without fail had concealed a fatal trap.
It had left out how long the journey would take, and how far they would have to travel before they ever arrived.
Yoon Sang-hyuk’s group had been moving for more than a month since leaving Sitrie’s domain.
“So what you’re saying is that everyone knows the Abyss of the Void is somewhere in the frozen lands at the far north of the Demon Realm, but no one’s ever actually gone there, which means nobody even knows how far away it is.”
“That’s right.”
When Ibrahmut answered while picking at his ear, Yoon Sang-hyuk’s eyes turned sharp.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
“You never asked, hyung-nim.”
“Haa…”
Yoon Sang-hyuk let out a long sigh and shook his head, then looked out through the carriage window. A month had passed, but the view outside had not changed in the slightest. It was nothing but a wasteland stretching on without any visible end.
He took his gaze off the window and pulled a sword from his subspace. Gripping the hilt, he drew it from the scabbard, revealing a jet-black blade. Yet strangely, a faint light seemed to drift across the dark steel. It was not darkness at all. If anything, it was the opposite.
The sword in his hand was a trophy from the campaign against the former Demon King’s castle. True to the weapon once carried by a demon lord, it was steeped in a very powerful dark energy.
Yoon Sang-hyuk began to pour his own energy into it. Not the energy he naturally possessed, but something of a different nature.
“Again?”
Ibrahmut grimaced and started scooting away from him as far as the carriage would allow. Arnin, who was also riding inside, glanced around nervously and shifted toward the edge.
The energy Yoon Sang-hyuk was feeding into the blade was divine power.
Why was he pouring divine power into a sword already steeped in darkness?
He had watched Ibrahmut corrupt a weapon imbued with divine power using dark energy to create what they called fallen divinity, and now he was trying the reverse for himself.
Once a fallen divinity was complete, the weapon was said to become stronger than before. It was a way to pass the time on a journey with no known end, and Yoon Sang-hyuk had decided to make a hobby of it.
“If I’d known this would happen, I would’ve brought two carriages.”
Ibrahmut complained, but Yoon Sang-hyuk paid him no mind and kept driving divine power into the sword.
At first it had merely been a way to fight off boredom, but the more he worked at it, the more it pulled him in. There was a strange appeal to it.
Combining two opposing forces into one was not easy. It was harder than mixing oil and water.
But Yoon Sang-hyuk had done something similar before, when he absorbed the energy of Satan’s iron rod. Drawing on that experience, he kept working.
“Fallen divinity… what should we call it once this is done?”
“I’ve never thought about it, so I’m not sure.”
“Hmm. How about refined demonic power? No, that’s good. Refined demonic power. Rolls right off the tongue.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk, who was always teased for having no naming sense, smiled brightly, pleased with the name he had come up with.
“When I finish this refined demonic power, I’ll give it to you as a present.”
“Th-that’s... I’m fine, really. I’m satisfied with the sword I’m using now.”
Arnin answered awkwardly. Seeing that, Ibrahmut spoke with a look of utter disbelief.
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Huh? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Did you see that guy Zephyr fighting Seere?”
“Of course I did. It was an incredible duel.”
“You know what weapon Zephyr was using then? The refined demonic power I made myself.”
“Oh! Is that so? As expected of you. I heard refined demonic power isn’t something just anyone can make.”
“Exactly. Not just anyone can make it. And yet here you are refusing a weapon being crafted by someone who’s basically one of the strongest beings in the Demon Realm.”
Ibrahmut glanced at the sword in Yoon Sang-hyuk’s hand.
“Right now it just feels like nasty divine power, but once it’s finished there won’t be any problem. The energy sealed inside it will be…”
“Chaos.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk answered for him.
For reasons no one fully understood, divine power and dark energy produced an even stronger synergy when united. That was why the beings of the Demon Realm created fallen divinity in the first place. The only reason there wasn’t more of it was that the process was brutally difficult.
“Hyung-nim. If this guy doesn’t want it, can’t you just give it to me?”
“W-who said I didn’t want it? I’m satisfied with the sword I’m using now, but I’ve always wanted something better.”
Yoon Sang-hyuk gave a faint snort of laughter.
“You change your tune fast.”
“Haha, I’m just a little like that. If you want to survive in the Demon Realm, you have to do things far worse than this all the time.”
* * *
Yoon Sang-hyuk sat atop a container box, sword in hand.
Whatever he was trying wasn’t going well, because he kept tilting his head in confusion.
“It feels like it should work, but it won’t.”
Every time he thought he had found the thread and tried to pull apart the tangled knot, it snarled itself back together again as if mocking him.
There were similarities between absorbing energy from Satan’s iron rod and the work he was doing now, but there was one crucial difference. The biggest difference was the vessel that was being used to unite the two energies.
Satan’s energy had merged with Yoon Sang-hyuk’s own inside his body. Naturally, the energy held within his body could be controlled from beginning to end.
But in this case, the thing doing the unifying was the magic sword itself. He was trying to make the energies become one inside the blade, and they simply refused.
Is it impossible to combine opposing forces? Was I only able to absorb Satan’s energy because divine power wasn’t the center of the standard I used for myself?
Questions chased one another through his mind.
Divine power, dark energy. And my own energy. Aura, mana, dark mana…
Energy had many different names depending on its nature.
The energy of a swordsman was called aura, and the energy of a mage was called mana. Mana itself also had different names and methods depending on whether white magic or black magic used it.
So were all those energies truly different in nature?
In magic, the arrangement of mana in the atmosphere was changed to create various attributes. Could energies be the same thing?
Depending on who absorbed the energy, depending on the nature of the space where it remained, wasn’t it possible that the energy was simply a little different each time?
The deeper his thoughts went, the more questions drifted through his head. He did not grind his brain trying to force out answers. He simply kept asking, and asking again. The one asking the questions was him, and the one hearing them was also him.
Inside my body, my existing energy, divine power, and even Satan’s dark energy are all coexisting. So are they still separate energies? Or are they only my energies now?
He withdrew the divine power he had been pouring into the blade. In its place, he sent in the energy he naturally possessed. It was easier to control and more responsive than divine power, with far less resistance.
He mixed a very small amount of divine power into his own energy and sent it through. There was almost no resistance. He gradually increased the amount of divine power. Resistance appeared. At that moment, he pulled out only the fragment of Satan’s energy that had been mingled into his own and mixed that in instead. As if by magic, the resistance vanished. He gradually increased the amount of divine power again. Whenever resistance appeared, he coaxed and pressed it down by one method or another until it disappeared.
The effort was not wasted. By now, even when he poured in divine power alone, the sword showed no real resistance.
But even after achieving what he wanted, Yoon Sang-hyuk was thinking about something else.
Energy. Different kinds of energy.
The depth of his speculation kept going farther, and farther, and farther.
Divinity. The Demon King Baal is also a divine being. Divine power and demonic power. Aura and mana. Mana and dark mana.
The ultimate question Yoon Sang-hyuk was asking was this:
Could it be that these energies were truly different?
No. Branches spread in different directions, but they all begin from the same root.
Through his breathing, the Demon Realm’s thick, stale air flowed into him. Yet at some point, the staleness was gone. He knew it made no sense, but he could feel a clean, fresh clarity instead.
* * *
“Isn’t this getting a little much?”
Ibrahmut muttered under his breath. No one answered him. Valender von Graus only stood where he was, silently staring up at the container box.
Goooooo…
The energies around them were converging on the container box. It was a vast current of power, so immense that one had to wonder whether a human body could possibly endure it.
“There should be a limit to this. What is he, discovering enlightenment over breakfast?”
At the center of the swirling energies, of course, sat Yoon Sang-hyuk. In front of him floated a single sword. Its blade was still black, but a mysterious light now radiated from its surface.
From the moment Yoon Sang-hyuk had begun searching for an answer until now, after he had found the thread, Valender von Graus had not moved a single step from where he stood. If anyone had approached Yoon Sang-hyuk or tried to harm him, Valender von Graus would have cut them cleanly in two.
A little farther away, Creatin and Arnin stared at Yoon Sang-hyuk with their mouths hanging open, their expressions blank. An overwhelming surge of energy far beyond anything they could have imagined was gathering there. And yet that immense force was being drawn wholly into Yoon Sang-hyuk’s body.
It was powerful enough to make them worry his body might burst apart if it couldn’t bear it. But since Valender von Graus and Ibrahmut showed no particular reaction, they could only keep watching.
The two of them clenched their fists.
Since the moment they had begun the journey toward the Abyss of the Void, Yoon Sang-hyuk had never once displayed his strength outwardly. On the other hand, because Valender von Graus and Ibrahmut were personally teaching him, they knew exactly how strong they were. Yet from the way those two treated him, they had only understood one thing: he was the strongest among them.
But at this moment, both of them could clearly see just how high Yoon Sang-hyuk stood above them.
“Am I the only one who feels like the air around us has changed?”
Ibrahmut muttered suspiciously, looking around. Valender von Graus nodded. He felt the change as well.
The sticky, clinging energy peculiar to the Demon Realm had vanished completely. The air they felt now was…
“Sang-hyuk’s world. It’s similar to Earth.”
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