The Heavenly Demon's Aftertaste
The Absorbing Star Great Law left my mind hazy. My thoughts felt sluggish, stuttering and breaking apart like a faulty engine. It was as if some transcendent being had taken up residence inside my body and was moving it however it pleased. I don't get it….
I could tell this martial art was the infamous Heavenly Demon Divine Art. The problem was, beyond that, I understood absolutely nothing. I had no idea what sensations were used to manipulate magi, what gestures invoked what principles. Not a single clue. And this was happening inside my own body.
It was the same as the fragment of the Outer God I'd encountered earlier. Utterly incomprehensible.
Overwhelming transcendence….
The difference in dimension itself blocked any hope of understanding or insight. The voice had spoken of the Outer God's death. It claimed to have killed one before.
Even Father doesn't speak lightly of killing an Outer God.
The tone of the voice coiled within me was impossibly light. It was the casual manner of someone who'd won the lottery handing pocket change to a beggar on the street. I'll help you, it had said. And then it did exactly that.
I never agreed to this.
It had seized control of my body without permission. No consent, no discussion. My body moved on its own. Even in the simple act of walking forward, an overwhelming dominance radiated from each ordinary step. It was the arrogance of someone who looked down upon the entire world as beneath their feet.
This is…?
Something had appeared in my hand. I hadn't even noticed when I'd reached out. Even without seeing it, I knew. It was a blade. The sword Ksael had been hammering. But how?
The blade had definitely been riddled with cracks resembling rifts to another realm. Fractures connected to the Outer God that had recognized me. It wasn't something you could just grab with your bare hands. It was a rift that devoured everything it touched. Snatching it might have torn my arm to shreds.
But it didn't.
Not a single scratch marred the hand gripping the blade firmly.
What the…
Instead, it shattered them. I could feel it through my skin—the sensation of glass-like fragments on the blade breaking apart. The hand had seized the rift leading to the Outer God and annihilated it.
…No. It wasn't shattering.
The palm that touched it had swallowed them whole. It had absorbed them. Using the Absorbing Star Great Law that could devour even stars. A miracle even the Demon King or a hero would find impossible.
Just what kind of being…
Since it used the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, it was clearly the Heavenly Demon. That much I could tell. Regina wasn't an idiot. The important question was which novel's Heavenly Demon this was.
It probably wasn't from Murim Reincarnation, the world Namgung Sim and Sosu Manyeo belonged to. The voice I heard inside me was unmistakably female, while the Heavenly Demon in Murim Reincarnation was male.
But these days, there are tons of murim novels with female Heavenly Demons….
It was impossible to pinpoint with just the voice and the Heavenly Demon Divine Art. The only hint I'd been given was that the voice claimed to have killed the Outer God before me….
Where the hell is there a murim story about hunting Cthulhu?
Even crossing over into xianxia territory, Outer Gods were something you could barely scratch. The more I thought about it, the deeper the questions grew. Everything was unknowable. My head was pounding.
Huh?
And at the same time, sensation began returning to my entire body. My vision cleared, and I could hear Ksael's stunned muttering as he stood frozen.
[Just how…]
I stood there as if nothing had happened. One hand still tightly gripping the blade Ksael had been forging. Even though learning Sosu Magong had made my hands nearly impervious to blades, blood was flowing from the hand holding the sword. The wound had appeared the moment the voice relinquished control of my body.
"…My body feels way too fine, considering."
Of course, every pressure point in my body burned hot, and the wound on my hand wasn't shallow, but… compared to the price of having my body stolen by an existence capable of casually absorbing a fragment of an Outer God, it was modest.
But damn, I'm sleepy.
The moment I acknowledged it, exhaustion crashed over me like a tidal wave. My eyelids, now heavy as if boulders hung from them, closed on their own.
A little nap should be fine.
There were no more rifts connecting to the Outer God. Bella and Leona were right beside me, so there shouldn't be any problems. Ksael seemed to be saying something next to me, but my mind was too foggy to make it out. I surrendered myself to the drowsiness and fell into sleep.
"There she goes again."
"What do you mean?"
I hadn't even used Fantasy World, yet I'd been pulled here automatically. I'd only fainted. At this point, I could no longer ignore it. Some unknown change was occurring in the skill Fantasy World that I'd created myself. Whether it was a good direction or a bad one, I couldn't tell.
"Mmm…? What's that?"
Something strange caught my eye. In the sky of Fantasy World.
"It doesn't look like a rift…."
It was a trace as if some transcendent force had forcibly torn apart a portion of space. Beyond it, something like dark crimson fog shimmered, making it impossible to see clearly.
"…It is the trace left behind by her arrival."
"Her?"
"The Heavenly Demon. She suddenly appeared while you were absent, then vanished just as abruptly along with the Demoness."
"……."
So that's how the owner of that voice had slipped into my body. Just like Sosu Manyeo, she had entered through Fantasy World as she pleased and taken over my body.
…Isn't this dangerous?
A transcendent being who could appear in my dreams at will could now control my body however she liked. Depending on her mood, she could completely take over and run wild.
But there's no way to stop it.
Even summoning and unsummoning characters no longer happened at my complete discretion. It had been that way ever since Namgung Sim's realization rate reached 100%.
"This is all your fault."
"I don't know what you're talking about, but it doesn't seem to be this young master's fault."
More importantly, something Namgung Sim had said earlier bothered me. He had definitely referred to the Heavenly Demon as her.
"By the way, 'her'? Isn't the Heavenly Demon in your world a man?"
"What nonsense are you spouting? The Heavenly Demon has never been a man."
"Now what are you talking about?"
That couldn't be right. I'd read Murim Reincarnation multiple times from beginning to end, so I knew it for certain. There had even been an illustration of a muscular handsome man with his shirt open, labeled as the Heavenly Demon.
…Come to think of it, there had been odd moments before. Whenever we talked about Murim Reincarnation, our conversations would occasionally fail to align.
"…That can't be. Don't you remember? You and Wi Mu-hyeok teamed up to challenge the Heavenly Demon and got completely crushed."
By the way, Wi Mu-hyeok was the name of the protagonist in Murim Reincarnation. He was also Namgung Sim's close friend in the story.
But Namgung Sim made a puzzled face at the name and shook his head.
"Wi Mu-hyeok? I've never heard that name before. And unlike you, this young master is not foolish enough to commit the senseless act of challenging the Heavenly Demon alone."
But you did. You definitely teamed up with Wi Mu-hyeok to challenge the Heavenly Demon and got wrecked.
Again.
The conversation was starting to diverge.
"I've found it strange for a while now. Why do you assume that this young master's world is the same as the one you know?"
"…That's because…"
From the very beginning, when I summoned him, I'd thought I was calling the Namgung Sim from Murim Reincarnation. His question hit me like a blow to the head, leaving me dazed.
What if this Namgung Sim hadn't been the one I knew from the start?
…No. That can't be it.
His personality was slightly different, but his appearance matched the descriptions in the novel perfectly. So did his speech patterns. This was definitely the Namgung Sim from Murim Reincarnation.
…Then one hypothesis suddenly occurred to me.
Murim Reincarnation begins with Wi Mu-hyeok, an ordinary modern person, possessing a character inside a murim novel.
Namgung Sim said he didn't know anyone named Wi Mu-hyeok. In that case, there was only one conclusion.
This Namgung Sim's world is the version of Murim Reincarnation where Wi Mu-hyeok never possessed anyone.
Moreover, it was subtly different from the original story I knew. The Heavenly Demon was a woman, and she had apparently killed an Outer God before.
A parallel world.
I had summoned the Namgung Sim from a parallel version of Murim Reincarnation that I knew. I had no idea why it had turned out that way. It was something I'd have to figure out gradually from now on.
"Sim-ah."
"Don't talk to me anymore. I need to rest."
Only now did I notice that Namgung Sim, who was sitting in a lotus position, looked terrible. There were no visible external injuries, but… his face was deathly pale, and his internal energy was twisted as if he'd suffered severe internal damage.
Had he gotten hit by the Heavenly Demon who came while I was gone?
Hmm. Then I should check on my own condition.
The effects left behind when the Heavenly Demon entered and left my body earlier. Since I was currently in the dream world, I couldn't tell how my real physical body had changed, but I could at least organize anything related to enlightenment.
First, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art.
No good. This was unusable. I'd roughly memorized the circulation paths, but the speed at which it cycled magi was far beyond what I could keep up with.
Even setting aside what principles it operated on or what mental imagery and intent I needed to hold, it's still impossible.
From what I'd grasped, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art was an overwhelmingly tyrannical path. To unleash that level of dominance, I at least needed to match the speed of magi manipulation….
This… is not a martial art the current me can handle.
Even if I'd learned it directly and memorized all the principles and formulas, it would be the same. This was a martial art that existed in a realm of the incomprehensible for me right now. It was at a level where I couldn't confidently say I could use it even after activating False Rebirth.
But it wasn't as if I gained nothing.
I could feel it instinctively. Another martial art that I previously wouldn't have dared to attempt—I could now unfold it.
The Absorbing Star Great Law.
Moreover, the circulation paths for the Absorbing Star Great Law that the Heavenly Demon had personally used remained perfectly etched in my mind.