Chapter 66. Heavenly Demon (1)
Chapter 66. Heavenly Demon (1)
1
Heavenly Demon.
This cannot go on.
...Heavenly Demon. Half of the Blood Ghost Unit has been annihilated! The elders declared they would enter the murim and scattered across the land, but their trails have already gone cold. This is no time to be fighting those orthodox fools. This is a crisis for our cult—no, perhaps a crisis for the entire world. The beggars of the Beggars' Sect have been spreading word.......
...Heavenly Demon. As you commanded, we have established medicine halls without regard to sect. Not only the sect leader of the Tang Clan, but the masters of the Mount Mao Sect have all come. We have captured several of the jiangshi and will use them as live test subjects, so within the shortest possible time, results.......
...Heavenly Demon. Even Moonshadow Demon Lord and the Blood Demon have fallen. If we slay a hundred jiangshi today, a thousand new jiangshi will arise tomorrow. We cannot withstand this plague! The medicine halls say that if one blocks the Amun and Cheonchu acupoints with large needles to protect the upper dantian, the jiangshi can be put to sleep, but beyond that, there is no method.......
...Heavenly Demon. Flee to a remote island. If you enter the island and seal yourself away, then no matter if the jiangshi number a million or ten million, those wretches will not be able to cross the sea. Is this the only murim there is? Wherever our cult's banner is planted, isn't that place the murim as well.......
...Heavenly Demon. What weight does a promise made before the great war hold? It was an oath sworn before the world fell into chaos. The order of heaven has changed, so how can the ways of men remain firm? Forget the vow you exchanged with the Murim Alliance Master, and please, bide your time and rise again.......
Heavenly Demon.
Heavenly Demon.
2
"...How did you endure it?"
After a long silence, the first question I asked was this.
How had she managed to hold on.
A hell where the world had ended and people had been reduced to corpses. Even she herself had become half a corpse. With her heart liable to stop the instant the flow of her internal energy was interrupted, I asked how in the world she had endured three years of it.
"......."
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master could not answer right away. They looked at each other. Then, after exchanging a look I could not understand, they nodded together.
"Follow."
The two exited the cave.
I followed after them.
We said nothing as we left the cave. We walked carefully so as not to wake the rest of our party. And so we remained silent for a long while.
The silence broke the moment the cave ended.
"All people die someday."
Outside, dawn was breaking.
"There is an amusing story passed down in the murim. There was once a peak master who reached the realm of immunity to ten thousand poisons and an indestructible diamond body. No poison could eat away at his body, so he was called Uncorroded; no sword could wound his body, so he was called Unwounded."
Heavenly Demon let out a breath, haa.
"One could call him truly invincible. Inwardly Uncorroded. Outwardly Unwounded. How would one kill a man who cannot be harmed by the cruelest poison, who cannot be cut by the sharpest sword?"
The dawn was blue.
In the half-light, the world was nothing but a pale shadow.
"But there is one thing that old stories absolutely never permit. And that is invincibility."
The world turned to shadow. Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master walked through it. One step at a time. Slowly. Where their footprints fell was earth, and from where no footprint fell began the sky—so the only thing distinguishing heaven from earth was the footsteps of people.
"Child from beyond the frontier."
Heavenly Demon glanced back.
We had left the cave and were walking toward yesterday's snowfield—the place where we had been surrounded by martial-artist zombies.
"Can you guess how that peak master died?"
"How did he die?"
"They killed him by setting a Lust Demon on him."
Heavenly Demon raised the corners of her lips.
"The pleasure of yin-yang union is not poison. And certainly not a sword."
"Uh, but wouldn't excessive pleasure be a poison?"
"Correct. And so the Lust Demon did not unleash a storm of pleasure from the start. She took her time, cunningly and calmly. Beginning with the faintest pleasure... until at last he came to indulge in the deadliest pleasure. She conditioned the peak master again and again."
Day broke.
The snowfield grew a little whiter.
That whiteness resembled the breath Heavenly Demon exhaled.
"The peak master stopped feeling the palm strikes the Lust Demon dealt during their coupling as pain. He came to perceive her whip as pleasure. Even her hand gestures, her steps, and the slightest glance became a source of happiness to him."
Swish.
Heavenly Demon raised her hand.
"At the final moment,"
And she stroked her own neck.
"Lightly. The Lust Demon simply, lightly, closed her hands around the peak master's throat."
"......."
"No great martial prowess was needed. No profound internal power was required. Two hands. She strangled him with nothing but her own two hands. As his throat tightened and his breath failed, the peak master, steeped in pleasure, smiled brightly. They say even his corpse wore a happy smile."
Heavenly Demon giggled.
"The peak master died quite literally in the throes of climax. He was Uncorroded and Unwounded, but not Unfortunate."
The middle of the snowfield.
Corpses came into view. Corpses that moved as if alive despite being dead. They stood rigid, exposed to the dawn's half-light. The corpses did not so much as twitch, so they looked exactly like a forest made of shadows.
"The moral of this story is simple."
"Don't fool around with Lust Demons. That's the lesson!"
The Murim Alliance Master grumbled.
"It's not just an old story. It really happened. Tch! He was a master the Tang Clan had cherished like a treasure, and that wench secretly sent a Lust Demon to assassinate him."
"Heh heh."
The zombies were scattered haphazardly across the snowfield. Perhaps these were traces of them chasing our party yesterday. Heavenly Demon approached those zombies.
"Most young whelps making their first foray into the jianghu are mistaken. They think a martial artist's goal is to reach the realm of invincibility, and that the reason for learning martial arts is to gain immortality and eternal life."
"Heave-ho," the Heavenly Demon grunted as she lifted a zombie.
"Hup."
Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master. The two lifted and carried zombies.
"One who reaches immunity to ten thousand poisons dies not of poison but of something else. One who reaches the indestructible diamond body dies not by the sword but by something else. Do you understand? A person of the jianghu does not simply choose which martial art to learn."
Heavenly Demon moved the zombie with difficulty.
"When you choose what kind of martial artist to be, you are also deciding how you will die."
Heavenly Demon's movements as she carried the zombie were sluggish and slow.
Like a mail carrier delivering a heavy parcel, Heavenly Demon set the zombie down from time to time even as she carried it, breathed deeply, and moved again.
"All people die someday."
This went on and on.
"We know that as well. Why would we resent the simple fact that we are going to die?"
The zombies had apparently wandered about during the night. Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master gathered the scattered zombies one by one.
"...It is simply that we did not wish for this kind of death."
It took a long time.
Neither had much stamina left, and there were far too many corpses.
"I would gladly be assassinated. I would gladly be poisoned. I would gladly fall into an inescapable net and be attacked from all sides, and I would gladly take a blow from those bald Shaolin monks. I would gladly die betrayed by a trusted subordinate, and nothing could be better than dying after a young prodigy challenged me to a duel."
High noon.
By the time the Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master had returned the zombies to their places, the sun hung at the very center of the sky. The snowfield was thick with the two of their footprints.
"However, this kind of death is unacceptable."
Heavenly Demon looked at me, panting.
"You asked how we endure."
"......."
"We simply wish to die as we desire."
The old man of the orthodox faction laid hundreds of corpses in a single line.
The woman of the Demonic Cult laid hundreds of corpses in a single line.
And so the zombies looked exactly like two armies divided and facing off, as if they would charge and begin battle at any moment.
I suddenly remembered.
「Even if the cause of death is the same, the dates of death are all different.」
When we first fell into the world of the Apocalypse and witnessed the zombies.
The conversation our party had shared while observing the forest of corpses.
「We have no choice but to conclude that someone deliberately moved the corpses.......」
「Could it be some kind of grave?」
「A grave, huh. From far away, it looks like the terracotta army.」
At night, the zombies wandered wherever they pleased.
And yet nearly a thousand zombies were gathered in one place on the snowfield.
Thinking about it, wasn't that strange in itself?
"Hoo......."
"Hm."
Right.
Unless someone was deliberately moving the zombies to one place.
"There aren't many who wandered far today."
Five hundred from the Demonic Cult.
"Last night the moon was clear. Moonlight isn't as strong as sunlight, but it still feeds the jiangshi......."
Five hundred from the orthodox faction.
Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master moved their respective subordinates. It was a great labor that took a full half day. But the two worked in silence.
As if this were simply part of their daily routine.
「That is how we have been waging the Orthodox-Demonic War.」
「And so three years have already passed.」
Snow fell.
"The orthodox murim will never be destroyed by mere jiangshi."
People died.
"The fate of our cult will not be ended by being devoured by mere corpses."
The Nine Great Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans all vanished.
"Truly, if our orthodox faction must perish, it must be solely at the hands of the vile Demonic Cult."
Even if all martial arts manuals gather dust with no one left to read them.
"If our cult disappears from this world, it will be solely by the blades of the orthodox faction."
This world has not yet been destroyed.
Because for the world to be destroyed, two people must still die.
Even if a world has a billion humans, and nine hundred ninety-nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine humans die of plague—if the last one remaining, the final single person, takes their own life, then that world's cause of death is not death by disease but simply suicide.
At least, the Murim Alliance Master and the Heaven of the Demonic Cult believed so.
"Murim Alliance Master. Namgung Clan, Retired Clan Head. Namgung Un."
The old man assumed the fist-and-palm salute.
"I am Bu Wol-seon."
"Demonic Cult Master. So Baek-hyang."
The woman assumed the fist-and-palm salute.
"I am the Heavenly Demon(天魔)."
The sun passed its zenith.
Years had passed since only two people remained in the world.
During those years, the two's sole daily task was deciding what this world's cause of death would be.
"I request the 990th duel."
The destruction of the Demonic Cult by the Murim Alliance Master?
"A sparring match, or a fight to the death?"
Or the destruction of the orthodox faction by the Heavenly Demon?
"A fight to the death (生死決)."
"I accept."
The two martial artists released their salutes.
In the middle of the snowfield, where five hundred orthodox martial artists faced five hundred demonic practitioners, the Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon charged at each other.
I still could not recognize the martial arts the two displayed. To my eyes, they were barely taking steps. With difficulty. Truly, they barely extended their arms.
Their footwork was so slow that even a child could not fail to keep up.
Their hand movements were so feeble that they could not crush even a single tangerine.
"......."
A genre in decline.
A world in decline.
This Apocalypse had been slowly dying over the course of 990 days.
"This is......."
I spoke.
Watching their duel from afar, I murmured without realizing it.
"This can't go on."
My heart was pounding.
"It's absurd."
-.......
"This shouldn't be happening."
A fierce fight unfolded on the snowfield. The Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon, who had once contended for the title of the world's greatest and displayed magnificent martial arts, could now do nothing but grapple like children. They rolled in the snow. They stumbled and kicked at empty air. They grabbed beards and tore out hair.
"Maybe that looks like an incredible fight to you, Sword Emperor. Sure, I'm basically a beginner who's only just started learning the sword. But no matter how profound the principles behind that grappling are, no matter what incredible truths are hidden in it......."
From broad daylight until evening arrived.
The Murim Alliance Master and Heavenly Demon did not stop fighting for a single moment.
"This is an insult."
The sunset glow spread.
Today as well, no victor was decided.
"An insult to the two of them."
A world in decline.
In a world ravaged by an incurable plague, the two martial artists were still strong enough to keep themselves alive. But they had grown too weak to take each other's lives.
"This can't happen."
The world is cruel because one cannot be born as one wishes. Then what is a world where one cannot die as one wishes?
Not being able to properly bring about an end.
Life simply being cut off midway.
-What are you planning to do?
The guardian spirit spoke quietly.
-Are you going to kill Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master in their place? Sure, that could be a merciful gift. If it were me, I would. But whether it's me or you, don't forget that we are nothing more than 'outsiders.'
"I know."
The two martial artists did not want to kill themselves.
If they had to die, they wanted only to die by each other's hands.
The Demonic Cult would not be destroyed by a mere plague. It would fall only after being defeated by the orthodox faction.
The orthodox faction would not succumb to a mere epidemic. It would be shattered by the coming of the Demonic Dominion.
Such an end.
A proper conclusion.
An acceptable terminus of life.
Even if I barged in and killed the two of them, that would be neither an [end] nor a [conclusion]. It would not even be a merciful gift.
That sort of thing is nothing but [scribbles] a child scrawls onto the back page of a storybook.
That sort of thing won't do.
"I."
I spoke to the guardian spirit.
"I will bring this world to a close in my own way."
-And what way is that?
I did not answer the guardian spirit's question.
The half-light deepened.
"I-it's already evening. You old fool."
"Perhaps because it's winter... huff. The days are short......."
"Tomorrow, I will surely settle this."
"As if you're the one to talk......."
The 990th day of the Orthodox-Demonic War naturally came to a truce.
Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master withdrew their hands and returned to the cave, looking even more exhausted than yesterday.
"Where did you go?"
Our party greeted us.
Viper stood watch at the cave entrance, while the Pharmacist and Medicine King were busy researching something, surrounding a zombie. It was the zombie of the Wudang Sect leader that had startled us yesterday.
"We were examining the patient. Yesterday, we were too flustered to......."
"Have you made any progress?"
Medicine King and the Pharmacist looked at each other. Medicine King clicked his tongue first.
"Not yet."
"Yes... th-this kind of virus is a first for us."
That figured.
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master said they would rest first and walked to the far side of the cave. I watched the two martial artists recede, then turned to the Pharmacist.
"Boss."
"Yes?"
"Be honest with me. If you were to make a cure, roughly how long do you think it would take?"
"Ah. Um, uhh."
The Pharmacist hemmed and hawed.
"If I'm being truly honest... at least 120 days."
"It might take twice or three times that. Schedules like this are always set generously. Even set generously, they always fall short."
Medicine King added curtly. The Pharmacist hung her head low.
"...Yes, he's right too. That's truly the worst case, but......."
Hm.
"So should I take it as 100 days at the shortest, 300 days at the longest?"
"Uh. That's......."
The Pharmacist hung her head low.
"I-in truth, I might not be able to make it at all. The facilities and environment are poor, and at this point I can't make any guarantees. Death King, I'm sorry....... You believed in me and brought me to a stage like this... developing a cure within the time limit is impossible."
The time limit.
When sending us into the Apocalypse, the Librarian had said:
「When you open your eyes, it will be a world ten days before the Chronicles of the Heavenly Demon meets its unfortunate Serialization Cancellation.」
「I look forward to seeing you deliver a splendid ending.」
In other words, no matter what happens.
Ten days from now, the world will truly be destroyed.
Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master, who have barely survived until now, will die as well.
It was precisely those ten days that the Pharmacist called the time limit.
"I'm truly sorry......."
"No."
I shook my head.
"That's enough."
"Wh-what?"
"Don't worry, Boss."
The dagger at my waist.
I slowly stroked the hilt.
"I'll resolve the time problem somehow. Don't give up, and keep researching."
"......."
"What I told you yesterday when we first fell into this world. You remember, right?"
This place is not an ordinary book.
It is unmistakably a world.
We came to save the world.
"......."
The Pharmacist nodded carefully.
The two of us shared a certain look.
"...I-I remember. Of course I remember, Death King......."
I nodded as well.
"What I have to say is the same as yesterday. The time limit being right around the corner, not being able to escape the Apocalypse forever if we fail to clear this stage—cut out all those useless thoughts. I will do my best in my position, so you just show me your best as well."
"Cut out all useless thoughts......."
"Yes, I promise. I'll handle all other problems myself."
I said.
Toward the person who would later be called the Alchemy Ministry Head.
"Trust me and work."