Descent of the Heavenly Demon
“······.”
“······.”
“······.”
In that instant, silence fell.
In less than ten minutes he had deciphered the tome, mastered it, and even unfolded it to perfection!
Hyun of Adrium…!
Aron, who shared the same origin in Adrium, immediately knitted his brows.
The Goddess Sect that spanned all of Pangenia. He was the son of one of only twelve cardinals in that entire faith, a boy forever hailed as a genius—and yet this refugee-looking bastard was supposed to be better than him?
…This was supposed to be a trial that would last at least a full day.
There was no time limit to begin with. In other words, the entire setup had been designed with a long duration in mind. The rule that standing up meant automatic failure was meant to test endurance, concentration, comprehension, and decryption ability all at once.
No eating. No relieving yourself. Just sit there and read the book.
The top contenders for victory had gathered on the tenth floor of the Tower of the War God. Even setting them aside, nearly a thousand so-called “geniuses” filled the space.
And yet…
Even so.
How is a mere Level 4 doing this?
Hyun of Adrium. The number floating above his head was the lowest present—a four. Compared to the throng of geniuses assembled here, he looked frail and ordinary. There were even people who had reached Level 12. Aron himself was Level 10.
Among everyone who had climbed to the tenth floor through the Warrior Tournament, only this one man was here. That was why Aron had mocked him.
—Level 4?
—Did he take a wrong turn?
—Go suck on your mother’s milk a little longer.
Aron had not been the only one laughing. Everyone knew the number above a person’s head was a numerical measure of martial strength—Level. Naturally the lowest-level participant became the target of ridicule.
Even if the number overhead isn’t absolute, it still serves as a rough standard.
It was common enough for a lower number to defeat a higher one. But there were limits. Cases of someone winning against an opponent two full levels higher were almost unheard of. At Level 4, there should not have been a single person in this place he could beat.
Was he just lucky? Or is his book-decryption talent simply monstrous?
…The very target of all that mockery, Hyun of Adrium, had finished writing his answers faster than anyone else.
Every eye turned toward the knights, filled with the same question: Was that actually correct?
“······ Remarkable.”
That was the first word from the knight who saw the mana crystal completely emptied.
The Eight Houses Knights. The strongest knight order of the Empire and, at the same time, the strongest on the continent. Veterans who had warred against the Abyss and contributed more than any other force to the Empire’s expansion!
Even they, men who rarely found anything surprising, were thoroughly astonished by the present situation.
“However, it is not the correct answer.”
Yet the verdict that followed was the exact opposite. Only then did Aron release a sigh of relief. The “what if” had turned out to be an “of course not.”
Most of the tournament participants were thinking the same thing—Well, that figures—when:
Thud!
Someone new entered the tenth floor of the tower.
“······!”
The moment they saw him, every person present froze as solid as stone. The knights of the Eight Houses were no exception. Their eyes went round and they locked up completely.
“How······!”
The man who appeared strode straight toward Hyun of Adrium. His own face wore an expression of sheer disbelief—more startled, in fact, than anyone else in the chamber.
Why is Lord Raiga here?
Why is he making that face?
······ Raiga. He had come to the examination hall himself, and with an urgency that bordered on desperation.
“How······ did you complete this?”
······ Completed it?
Completed what? Did that mean the book distributed to everyone had been incomplete? And Hyun of Adrium had finished it?
“Did you already know? Or······!”
“Just.”
For the first time, Hyun of Adrium opened his mouth. The answer, however, was anything but satisfying.
Just?
“······?”
“I just looked at it and understood.”
“······ What?”
For a moment Raiga was left completely speechless. Looked at it and understood? He could not begin to grasp what kind of nonsense that was.
The Sutra of Life and Death. This book was an incomplete manuscript. It had existed since the founding of the Eight Houses, yet from the very beginning it had been only half a work. Generation after generation had tried to complete it; not a single person had succeeded. Completing the book had long since become the dearest wish of the Eight Houses.
Even so, the half-finished volume performed one function with absolute certainty.
A book that ignites the Hidden Trait Mutation.
The essential Hidden Trait required to become a successor of the Eight Houses. The previous generation’s heir had to pass on mana and blessings to the next, and absorbing that inheritance completely required the “Mutation.” Thus the book served as a guide that revealed the first clues toward the Hidden Trait Mutation.
Read it, master it, and you slowly gain a mild absorption ability along with the Mutation trait.
Of course, simply reading the book was already difficult. Deciphering and internalizing invisible characters was no easy task. Using the technique learned that way to absorb “a little” of the mana crystal’s power was the entire point of this trial.
Yet this Hyun of Adrium had absorbed every last drop of the crystal’s mana. That was impossible unless he had completed the half-finished book.
Even more astonishing was the absurd statement that followed. The young man made a writing motion with an imaginary pen and pointed at the book.
“Shall I write it down for you?”
Honestly, I was surprised.
The Sutra of Life and Death. The moment I saw what was written inside that book—
Cheonma Shingong?
—it was too similar. The principles of Cheonma Shingong that the evil god inside the Cheonmado had rambled about were almost identical.
At the same time I understood.
…They were originally one and the same technique.
They shared the same underlying principle. Yet a slight difference remained. Cheonma Shingong amplified mana, while the Great Absorption Technique drew mana in. Those two functions were meant to exist together. Somehow they had been split apart.
Worse, I had never even learned the Great Absorption Technique from the Cheonmado. Why? Had the evil god simply never taught it? Or did even the evil god himself not know?
So this is why the evil god was sealed inside the Cheonmado.
The reason a demon who had once looked down upon the heavens ended up sealed inside a single blade. Perhaps the one who sealed him had deliberately divided the martial art because the demon was simply too powerful—so that the demon could never again be completed, never again burst into the world.
The problem was the content written in the Sutra of Life and Death itself.
A great deal has been lost.
This book, too, was incomplete. It looked as though someone had deliberately erased sections, leaving an unfinished work. I thought I understood the reason as well.
They left only the parts that could still be learned, because the rest was impossible to master.
Without first learning Cheonma Shingong, the Great Absorption Technique could never be fully acquired. So they had preserved only the necessary fragments that could still be practiced—enough for the power of the Eight Houses to be properly inherited, enough for the Hidden Trait “Mutation” to awaken.
······ The first master of the Eight Houses sealed the first Heavenly Demon.
A truth I had never known. That made them mortal enemies. The first master of the Eight Houses had wanted his own power, techniques, and blessings to pass down through the generations. He had made that possible by using the Heavenly Demon’s martial art. Therefore, under normal circumstances, the Heavenly Demon’s art should never have been completed for all eternity.
······ He could never have imagined that someone like me would appear.
Hah.
Because I possessed the Cheonma Shingong taught directly by the evil god—its principles and its interpretation—I could see the missing sections the instant I looked at the half-finished Sutra of Life and Death.
And at the same time—
Cheonma Shingong has been completed as Cheonma Shingong – Record of Life and Death.
You can now use Heavenly Demon Descent.
It was complete.
The Cheonma Shingong that even the Heavenly Demon himself had never finished. The martial art that even the evil god had lost!
“······ You’re offering to write down the missing sections?”
At the same moment, Raiga’s hands trembled faintly. The Sutra of Life and Death was not merely a tool for triggering Mutation. It was the cherished wish of the Eight Houses. How tirelessly they had labored to complete this book. Now that wish stood on the very brink of fulfillment. How could he not tremble?
He won’t be able to learn it anyway.
Of course I had not offered to write it down without thinking. If I filled in those missing parts, he would have no choice but to accept me as his disciple. He would have to declare me the undisputed winner. And even if I revealed the lost sections of the Sutra of Life and Death, he still would not be able to master them. Only by first learning the Cheonma Shingong taught by the evil god could the art be completed—and there would never again be an opportunity to learn Cheonma Shingong.
Just as I was about to nod—
Rumble!
The tower began to shake like a mad thing.
Thud! Thud-thud-thud!
Dirt rained down from the cracked ceiling. The floor swayed left and right so violently that keeping one’s balance became difficult.
“W-what’s going on?”
“I-is it collapsing?”
People stared at the tower that seemed ready to come down around them, faces full of confusion. No one could tell what was happening. Was this another trial? Every gaze turned toward Raiga.
“······.”
But one look at Raiga’s expression told them it was not. His face had hardened in an instant as well. The difference was that Raiga already knew what was about to happen.
“War God Karas······ you bastard······!”
All challengers on the 10th floor will be moved to the 11th floor.
Participants who have not challenged the tower will be automatically excluded.
Face the new trials and forge yet another myth!
Ascend to the 30th floor of the tower and challenge the Champion!
Those who forge a new myth will be remembered for eternity.
War God Karas.
He wanted to see it.
How beautiful is the one who surpasses their limits.
He wanted to watch the challengers of the tower break past their own boundaries. He still had not forgotten the thrill of the day that man had climbed the tower and challenged him. That man had continuously shattered every limit, defeated the Champion, slain the Demon of Jealousy Sancha, and restored Karas’s godhood—then thrown down a challenge to the War God himself.
I want to see a record that should never be broken… get broken anyway.
Randolph. The records he had set were unprecedented. Yet as master of the tower, War God Karas longed to watch those records be renewed. Even setting that desire aside, challengers who would face the Champion needed to appear at regular intervals.
······ Foolish humans.
But the ones below were far too complacent. At this rate they would never surpass any “limit.” They could not even conceive of climbing to the thirtieth floor and challenging the Champion. A mere tournament victory was nothing compared to challenging the tower itself—yet they dared to end things on the tenth floor?
Once you set foot on the tower, you must keep climbing until the end. You do not get to decide the finish line yourselves.
So Karas had enforced his own “rules.” He forced them upward.
They will fight one another, compete, and break past their limits. But that is not all.
The newly restructured tower was different from before. It would no longer serve merely as an arena for combat. True struggle lay elsewhere.
The battle against one’s own self is the surest path to transcendence.
That was the most certain way to know oneself and surpass every boundary.
The Tower of the War God. Those who climb it. Those who climb, and climb again, until they stand at the peak. They alone shall be completed as War Gods.
At that same moment, Isabella—who had just arrived in the Balan Kingdom—could only stand there in bewilderment.
“Wh-where did he go?”
······ Because Randolph had vanished without a trace.