Chapter 539: Traces of a Past Life (9)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 539: Traces of a Past Life (9)
A past life.
Even after conquering the Murim, even after claiming the title of Best Under Heaven, Baek Joong-hyuk had always thirsted for strength.
He sought to reach the Realm of Heaven. One day, during his repetitive daily training, he realized he needed a way to judge himself objectively. He summoned several people to observe him. He intended to assess his martial arts through a third-party perspective, but the eyes of those whose skills fell so far below his own were of little use. Moreover, because he was the Heavenly Demon, their gaze lacked all objectivity.
It was a natural outcome.
To anyone who had set foot in the Murim, merely witnessing the Heavenly Demon's martial arts made every movement look absolutely extraordinary.
And so, he summoned a painter with no connection to the Murim.
He hoped a skilled artist might record his training exactly as it was. This attempt, made on a whim, turned out to be a massive success. The painter captured the scene before his eyes without any prejudice or awe. How Baek Joong-hyuk swung his sword, how he stepped forward as he lunged—with every completed painting, Baek Joong-hyuk was able to scrutinize his own form.
Repeated training.
Accumulating paintings.
Perhaps having grown accustomed to the Heavenly Demon's presence, the painter eventually paused mid-brushstroke and asked, "That movement just now. Why did you thrust your sword in that manner?"
It was a question asked purely to improve the painting's accuracy.
Baek Joong-hyuk satisfied the painter's curiosity, and the resulting highly detailed paintings allowed him to achieve his goal. He finally grasped his current state. Reflecting upon himself, he refined the martial arts he had once deemed perfect. This eventually became the catalyst for his ascension to the Realm of Heaven. Through this process, he accepted the painter as a friend.
He remembered it vividly.
A gentle face.
Hair that had turned stark white in middle age.
Conversing with the painter, whose brushstrokes flowed like those of a divine immortal, was a rare comfort for Baek Joong-hyuk, who lived a solitary existence. They had never shared any deep conversations defining their relationship. But if a friend was someone you met frequently and shared your thoughts with, Baek Joong-hyuk considered the painter one of his very few true friends.
The painter's name...
was none other than Wang Seok-ho.
* * *
Wang Seok-ho.
Wang Wiryong.
The two figures overlapped in his mind.
Though too much time had passed to find any physical resemblance, he could see the image of Wang Seok-ho the painter in Wang Wiryong.
The problem was... Wang Seok-ho's existence itself.
Wang Seok-ho was not a successor of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
Far from upholding the sect's will, he was merely an ordinary person. If Wang Wiryong was Wang Seok-ho's descendant, the current situation made even less sense. What on earth had happened to the Heavenly Demon Cult? Why would a sect that had conquered the Murim and stood as the absolute best under heaven entrust everything to the descendant of a mere painter?
'The Wang Seok-ho I remember was a serious man. He knew exactly what it meant to leave behind paintings of the Heavenly Demon. He was a man of such great resolve that he would risk his own life to keep his mouth shut if questioned about me. He was well aware that he could not perfectly capture the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique simply by watching my training. Yet, if he passed down the lineage of the Heavenly Demon Cult through generations, there must have been a compelling reason for him to do so.'
He understood.
He accepted Wang Wiryong's existence.
Though many aspects defied common sense, he chose to trust the Wang Seok-ho he remembered.
Roman Dmitry spoke. "The Heavenly Demon Sword Technique you used. How did you learn it?"
If it had been passed down through generations, he needed to verify how.
Wang Wiryong was still in a state of confusion.
He had believed himself to be the rightful successor, but to realize that the ancestor he revered as a core figure of the Heavenly Demon Cult was merely a painter... it was incredibly disorienting. Much like the revelation that Roman Dmitry was the Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk, he struggled to process the truths suddenly crashing down upon him.
But one thing was certain.
Roman Dmitry was undoubtedly the Heavenly Demon.
That destructive strike, which had swept away the entire surrounding area in an instant, could not be explained as anything other than the true Heavenly Demon Sword Technique. Furthermore, if Wang Seok-ho's true identity was a painter, it explained why his family had failed to fully manifest the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique using only the murals before the Great Disaster broke out. The painter's drawings merely copied the outward appearance; Wang Seok-ho himself wouldn't have known the internal elements truly essential to the technique.
Swallowing hard, Wang Wiryong answered with a strained expression. "...I learned it by studying the murals. For generations, our family has passed down the martial arts of the Heavenly Demon through those paintings."
Murals.
In that moment, the pieces fell into place.
It explained how Wang Wiryong had become a descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult, and it revealed the true nature of the martial art that seemed to merely mimic the outward form of the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique.
Although the sequence of events clicked perfectly in his mind, he did not jump to conclusions.
"Lead the way. I will examine these murals myself."
* * *
Meanwhile, Xiao Long waited anxiously outside.
When he heard the massive explosion earlier, he had debated countless times whether to rush inside, regardless of how fiercely Park Min-woo glared at him.
'Calm down. This is the enemy's den. If I act rashly, there will be no way out alive.'
He scanned his surroundings, preparing for the worst-case scenario.
Although Wang Wiryong was stronger than him, if he was in danger, Xiao Long was prepared to risk his life to rescue him. The reconstruction of the Murim. The conquest of the continent. To achieve that grand dream, Wang Wiryong—the descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult—was absolutely indispensable. He was someone who could not be allowed to die in a place like this.
It was an agonizing wait.
Just as his senses were growing razor-sharp, he spotted Roman Dmitry and Wang Wiryong walking out from the distance.
However...
"...Y-Your Majesty?!"
Something was strange.
The two were not walking side by side.
Roman Dmitry walked slightly ahead, while Wang Wiryong followed respectfully behind, as if walking abreast with him would be a grave offense. It was exactly how Xiao Long himself behaved toward Wang Wiryong. Seeing his master display such absolute deference to the man walking ahead, Xiao Long's eyes trembled.
[Xiao Long.]
A voice pierced his ears. It was a Voice Transmission.
As he snapped to attention, Wang Wiryong's voice rang clear in his mind.
[We are heading to China now. Show proper respect to His Majesty, Emperor Roman Dmitry.]
No further explanation was needed.
Wang Wiryong's attitude.
The sudden journey to China.
It was painfully clear. The sequence of events answered every frantic question that had taken root in his mind.
'...Is that man truly the Heavenly Demon?'
The man standing before his very eyes.
Roman Dmitry was undoubtedly the Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk.
* * *
China and South Korea.
Traveling the vast distance did not take much time.
Thanks to the magic of Teleportation, Roman Dmitry quickly arrived at the location of the murals.
"This is it," Wang Wiryong said. "My ancestor left behind these murals, saying that we must preserve the lineage of the Heavenly Demon Cult."
Before his eyes stretched a massive mural.
It depicted a man wielding a sword, performing a profound technique. Roman Dmitry recognized the figure as himself at a single glance. His martial arts from the days before he ascended to the Realm of Heaven were vividly captured on the stone.
He stepped closer.
Stroking the rough surface of the mural, he recalled Wang Seok-ho's face.
'Just what on earth happened?'
Examining the artwork revealed the truth.
The mural did not merely record facts. Through his conversations with Baek Joong-hyuk, Wang Seok-ho had accumulated a layman's knowledge of the Murim. To compensate for what he couldn't physically see, he had added his own imagination to the drawings.
From the beginning, it was impossible to perfectly recreate the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique using only visual depictions. The limitations of practicing the Sword Technique without the Heavenly Demon Divine Art were obvious. Above all, the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique—which was fundamentally unbound by form—required a profound foundation to master.
Countless sword techniques.
Countless martial arts.
One had to understand them all.
Only then could one truly wield the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique without being constrained by rigid forms.
'To have completed even a superficial version of the Heavenly Demon Sword Technique with only this proves that Wang Wiryong's talent is extraordinary.'
He acknowledged it.
Wang Wiryong was a genius.
Had they met back when he was Baek Joong-hyuk, that dazzling talent would have led the young man to a completely different world.
He carefully examined the mural.
That was when he noticed something strange.
A subtle system was hidden within the strokes of the drawings. It was a secret that could never be deciphered unless one knew the true Heavenly Demon Sword Technique—a hidden mechanism Wang Seok-ho had undoubtedly left behind.
Whoosh.
He channeled his mana, infusing the ancient drawings with his energy.
If Wang Seok-ho had hidden something here, he needed to see it for himself.
Flash!
"...W-What on earth is this?!" Wang Wiryong's eyes widened in shock.
The mural was suddenly bathed in light.
The glow, faint at first, began to spread across the massive stone canvas along subtle, hidden pathways. Wang Wiryong had watched over this mural for years, yet he had never known such a secret was concealed within it. He stared at the glowing wall with a dazed expression.
The light spreading across the mural gradually formed a structured pattern of characters, revealing a message left by Wang Seok-ho for someone in the distant future.
[If you have deciphered the secret of this mural, the person reading this message must be the Heavenly Demon himself, or a successor who has inherited his will. Whichever you may be, I wish to leave behind the truth that is being forgotten with the passage of time.]
Wang Seok-ho had poured his entire life into this mural.
After decades of agonizing effort, he had completed the drawings and embedded a secret within them that only the true Heavenly Demon could recognize.
[The crisis began the moment Lord Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk disappeared. When he was present, no one dared to look down upon the Murim, but as soon as his disappearance was confirmed, the Imperial Court enacted a policy to exterminate all martial artists. Their primary target was, of course, the Heavenly Demon Cult. Their goal was to completely crush the faction that had built a force powerful enough to conquer the Murim. The Imperial Court spent years preparing for this extermination. They co-opted figures within the Demonic Cult, scattered agents throughout the Central Plains, and poured vast amounts of manpower and wealth into a single, decisive strike. They refused to allow even a one-in-a-million chance—the slight possibility that a descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult might survive and one day turn the arrows of vengeance back upon them. Thus, with a single, sweeping plan, they sought to completely erase the Heavenly Demon Cult from this world.]
The Heavenly Demon Cult.
They had been objects of absolute terror.
Because they were powerful enough to conquer the Murim, the Imperial Court had hidden its intentions and thoroughly bided its time.
[The Imperial Court's plan was flawless. On the day of execution, the Heavenly Demon Cult was attacked simultaneously from all sides. To ensure not a single survivor or martial arts manual remained, the Imperial Court utterly trampled the sect. They burned the libraries to sever the lineage of their martial arts, and they hunted down any descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult to the ends of the earth. The people living in the Hundred Thousand Mountains wept tears of blood, desperately searching for any sign of Lord Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk. They believed that if he returned, he would avenge them. They believed that if he returned, all their problems would be solved. But their vain hopes were never realized. The Heavenly Demon Cult was completely destroyed. While other sects managed to save a few of their descendants, every single person associated with the Heavenly Demon Cult was slaughtered. I believe the Imperial Court's choice was wrong. Simply because the Central Plains and the Heavenly Demon Cult were deemed threats, they massacred even the innocent.]
The reason the lineage had been severed...
It was due to the Imperial Court's relentless persistence.
Had Wang Seok-ho not been an ordinary citizen, and had he not left the Central Plains around that time, he too would not have escaped death.
[I do not wish for the great existence that is Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk to be forgotten like this. Though my humble abilities cannot dare to fully capture his brilliance, I will remember his existence and carry on the legacy of the Heavenly Demon Cult. O reader who has uncovered the truth of this mural, if you are a descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult, please carry on the will of Lord Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk. And...]
The final passage read:
[If you are indeed Lord Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk himself, please remember that we have waited for you so desperately. We have never forgotten you.]
* * *
Flicker.
The light subsided.
As the glowing words faded away, Roman Dmitry's gaze turned ice-cold.
The destruction of the Murim.
It was just as he had expected. However, he had never imagined that the Imperial Court would so thoroughly eradicate the Heavenly Demon Cult in the process.
'I became their reverse scale.'
The existence of the Heavenly Demon had been absolute.
Because he was so powerful that no one dared to challenge him, the emperor of that era could not rule as he pleased even after ascending the throne. An existence greater than the emperor lived in the Central Plains. The emperor's resentment festered, and the moment the Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk vanished, that pent-up wrath swept away the entire Murim.
It was a cruel irony.
Because of Baek Joong-hyuk, the Murim had enjoyed its greatest golden age, yet because of him, it had also met its tragic destruction.
He turned his head.
Wang Wiryong stood there.
Though his martial arts were meager, Roman Dmitry accepted him for who he was.
"You have worked hard all this time," Roman Dmitry said quietly. "Because of you, the Heavenly Demon Cult was able to preserve its lineage."
In that instant, Wang Wiryong's eyes widened.
Facing Roman Dmitry, the crushing reality hit him. He was not a true descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult. Someone like him had no right to even speak the sect's name.
Yet, the fact that Roman Dmitry—the Heavenly Demon Baek Joong-hyuk himself—had just acknowledged him caused a sudden, overwhelming surge of emotion to well up inside his chest.
He threw himself to the ground.
Slamming his forehead against the floor, he cried out at the top of his lungs.
"Advent of the Heavenly Demon, Submission of Ten Thousand Demons! Advent of the Heavenly Demon, Submission of Ten Thousand Demons! A descendant of the Heavenly Demon Cult pays respects to the Great One!"
It was an ancient phrase left behind in the dusty pages of history.
But here and now, Wang Wiryong cried it out like a man possessed.