The Phantom Demon's Rebirth
The crimson moon dyed the peak in blood.
A darker, more sinister aura than usual blanketed the sky, and the wind carried the thick stench of blood.
Blood Heaven Peak—the main headquarters of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
On that summit, a man drenched in blood knelt on the ground.
He appeared to be in his mid-forties. His clothes, soaked crimson, hung in tatters, and dozens of blades were embedded across his entire body.
His chest, back, shoulders, sides, thighs—even both of his hands.
The sword he had been gripping had long since fallen to the ground, and the steel-like legs that once supported him had collapsed helplessly some time ago.
“It’s over now, Phantom Demon.”
The ones forming the tight encirclement called the man Hwanma.
The Phantom Demon—Hwanma. The strongest under the heavens, perhaps even the strongest of all time.
The man once thought to have no equal in the world now lay in a state worse than death.
Yet those who had attacked him were not the warriors of the Murim Alliance, his longtime rivals.
They were the people of the Heavenly Demon Cult he had belonged to his entire life.
The cult leader stood at the forefront, and even the disciples he had taught with utmost sincerity had joined the betrayal.
Upon seeing the traitors, Hwanma began to laugh as if he had attained enlightenment.
“Hahaha! Hahaha… cough!”
The blood that burst from his mouth spread like a dark crimson mist, staining everything around him.
The cult leader kept his hands clasped behind his back, staring at Hwanma with an expressionless face.
“It’s finished. No matter how strong you are, this is a wound from which you cannot recover. Just give up.”
At the cult leader’s words, those around him let out small sighs of relief.
Long-held fear. Long-held anxiety.
The being who had plunged the world into terror was now dying right before their eyes.
“Kuhahaha! Is this all you had, Cult Leader? After I devoted my entire life in loyalty?”
Every time Hwanma spoke, blood flowed from the corners of his mouth, and his blade-riddled body jerked and shuddered.
With each word, one of the swords embedded in him quivered faintly, spraying fresh blood.
The cult leader spoke without a single tremor in his voice.
“I’m sorry, Hwanma. But you were simply too strong. Strong enough to threaten my position.”
Hwanma had been too powerful.
Whatever he desired came to pass, and anyone who dared oppose him never survived.
In the end, his fame had surpassed even that of the Heavenly Demon Cult itself. The entire Murim—and even the emperor—trembled at his name.
“That is why you must die.”
“Kuhahaha! The thousand-year dream of our cult to conquer the Central Plains is about to come true. And yet…?”
“That achievement will belong to me. It has nothing to do with you.”
“Heh heh!”
Hwanma’s face twisted with bitterness and futility, but with his dying body, there was nothing he could do.
As the crimson moonlight that split the sky dyed the peak even more vividly, Hwanma’s head dropped forward with a dull thud.
His pupils grew dim, and the blood stopped gushing.
Everyone who believed Hwanma’s breath had finally ceased let out sighs of relief.
But that was when it happened.
A chilling black energy began rising from Hwanma’s body.
Woooong—!
The energy slowly ascended into the sky. Though his body remained, his soul was attempting to separate.
The first to react was Hwanma’s eldest disciple.
“That’s…! The Ihon-daebeop?! But that technique was never completed!”
Having stayed closer to Hwanma than anyone and learned directly from him, he recognized it instantly.
“No! We have to stop him!”
If they didn’t kill Hwanma, everything would have been for nothing.
The eldest disciple sprinted forward desperately.
His feet kicked off the rock, launching him skyward as he gathered energy at his fingertips and unleashed a devastating strike.
A blow powerful enough to tear apart even a soul.
But he was too late.
Hwanma’s soul rode the crimson moonlight as it soared upward, scattering and vanishing into the void.
The attack merely sliced through empty air, and the murderous intent that exploded from his fingertips dispersed futilely into the sky.
Beneath the crimson moonlight, Hwanma’s final voice seemed to echo.
I will definitely return. With these hands, I will sever the breath of every last one of you who betrayed me! Ahahaha!!
The voice filled with a curse reverberated throughout the entire mountain range.
They had mobilized ten thousand warriors to kill him, yet only about a thousand had survived.
And that was after they had secretly fed him deadly poison and trapped him in a strange formation to exhaust his strength.
Truly worthy of the title of the greatest of all time—an absolute master.
That Hwanma was coming back.
And he was returning to kill them all.
The surviving members of the Heavenly Demon Cult turned deathly pale.
And so, thirty years passed.
Rain was drizzling outside the window.
Inside a room where the lantern light flickered unsteadily, Seomun Hwan—the third son of the Seomun Clan, now eighteen years old—woke up drenched in cold sweat.
“Whoa!”
The moment his body shot upright, Seomun Hwan gasped for breath.
His mind was spinning.
It had been too vivid to call a dream, too clear in sensation to call an illusion.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“…It all came back.”
The crimson moon.
Dozens of blades.
The eyes of the traitors.
And the martial arts that had dyed the world in blood.
The memories flooded in like a tidal wave.
“I… was Hwanma?”
In his previous life, he had been the Phantom Demon.
The greatest devil of all time, overwhelmingly stronger than the cult leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult, the leader of the Murim Alliance, or any other martial artist.
A man who had killed thousands and subjugated tens of thousands, only to be betrayed in the end by the very sect and disciples he had devoted his life to.
The scene from that day felt as clear as if it had happened yesterday.
When the rage from his past life surged up, the temperature inside the room seemed to drop sharply for a moment.
But then…
Gurgle!
The sound rumbling from his stomach drowned out every other thought.
“Ugh! I’m starving.”
He flopped right back down onto the bedding.
“Seriously, why did I have to remember all this now…”
Revenge? Go back out into the Murim and stir up a storm of blood?
He couldn’t even be bothered to remember all those people’s names again.
Muttering to himself with a sigh, he pulled the blanket over his head.
“Ugh, I’m so lazy and hungry. Hungry and lazy.”
Seomun Hwan sluggishly got up and shuffled toward the kitchen.
He opened the cupboard, grabbed one of the leftover dumplings, and popped it into his mouth, chewing contentedly.
The pleasant feeling of fullness washed over him, and for a moment he felt like he had obtained everything the world had to offer.
“This is paradise. Who the hell needs revenge? Screw that.”
Seomun Hwan, who now carried both the memories and soul of Hwanma.
He no longer desired revenge, the Murim, or power.
He was simply an eighteen-year-old slacker who loved warm blankets and peaceful mornings.