The Demon God Within
Shhhhhhh.
Rainbow-hued energy began to pour from Do-ha's body the moment he finished consuming the Immortal Peach.
Rustle.
Softly, softly.
As the energy settled into the earth, flowers began to bloom across a yard that had held nothing but grass.
"Whoa…"
Canteas watched in open admiration. He had heard that the Immortal Peach was a spiritual treasure brimming with vital energy — but he had never imagined anything like this.
Shaaaaaaa.
The energy billowed out like dense fog, then coiled into tiny whirlpools and seeped back into Do-ha through his ears and nostrils as he sat cross-legged in meditation.
I already opened all three dantians before.
The upper dantian, the middle dantian, the lower dantian — together they were called the Three Dantians. Ordinarily, a martial artist advancing into Super-Peak would have long since circulated and fully opened the Ren and Du meridians. Do-ha had only cracked the entrances and left them unpierced.
Leaving those gates open was normally the same as suicide. Impure energy would keep seeping in through the unsealed openings until the cultivator fell into qi deviation. But Do-ha had deliberately left them ajar and spent his time filtering out every scrap of impurity that tried to enter — all so he could lay the groundwork for a future breakthrough.
From the Profound Realm onward, it's All Streams Return to the Source.
What did that mean? It meant methods he had already experienced would work again. Before the Profound Realm, techniques used once in the past no longer applied — which was why he had climbed to his current stage of Hwayeong by an entirely different path. From the Profound Realm forward, however, the old methods could be reused.
That's why I deliberately left the Ren and Du meridians uncirculated — just the entrances open.
If the martial artists of Moorim ever learned of this, they would have clicked their tongues and called him insane. The method was possible for Do-ha alone; for anyone else it was pure madness. It was the equivalent of flinging the front gate wide open while the street outside swarmed with robbers and thieves.
The energy that was sleeping inside the fruit has finally activated.
Even with his eyes closed in meditation, Do-ha could feel every thread of power radiating outward in exquisite detail.
Kuoohhhhhh!
The energy that had returned into his body began to thrash like a sharpened awl.
Now.
Shwaaaaaa!
Piiing!
Thud!
"Wha—?!"
Canteas, who had been sitting quietly on a bench in the yard watching, shot to his feet in shock. In that instant the rainbow energy punched straight up through Do-ha's head and rocketed into the sky — then, with a shrieking rush of air and a sharp crack, the ascended power drank in the ambient energy of the heavens and came crashing back down through the crown of Do-ha's skull.
Shhhhhh.
Splash.
"It's been a while."
A dark abyss with a thin sheet of water underfoot. Do-ha's consciousness had descended into the deepest recesses of his own mind — far deeper than the place he had forced his way into before using a Dragon Heart and a Yeouiju. If the mind were a building, this was the lowest floor. The final chamber.
"What has taken root in my abyss this time?"
Decades earlier, when he had come here to ascend to the Profound Realm, he had faced himself — a doppelgänger of Baek Do-ha. He had been forced to fight his own double.
"I already have a pretty good idea, of course…"
Then —
Fwoooooosh!
Enormous flames erupted around him. A figure took shape within the fire. Even facing it was enough to choke the breath from his lungs; merely sensing its presence made his heart feel ready to stop.
The Demon God was staring at Do-ha.
"I knew it would be you."
Do-ha's mouth curved into a cold smile. The presence rooted in his heart was the Demon God.
"Let's finish this quickly."
The thing in front of him was neither the real Demon God nor even a fragment of his will. It was only a wall Do-ha himself had constructed. The reason his own double had appeared in the abyss all those years ago was the same — back then, the wall had been himself. Now that wall had simply changed its face to the Demon God's.
But… has the Demon God's expression always looked like that?
He almost looked surprised. The beings that appeared in this abyss were always expressionless.
"Still as insolent as ever, Absolute One."
"?!?"
Do-ha, mid-formation of a Heart Sword, jerked his head up and stared at the Demon God in pure shock. What? Had the Demon God just spoken?
The opponent that appeared in this abyss was nothing more than a wall forged by the mind. It had no self. No ego.
"That look of surprise. But I am the one who is more astonished… that you would reach this stage. Had I known, I would never have spared your life."
"You… how…"
Do-ha, who almost never lost his composure, actually stammered. This was no mere auditory hallucination spun by his own heart. The thing before him was speaking with genuine will.
"How in the world did you recover your power? I never restored your vessel."
The Demon God's brow twitched. This had never been part of his plan. He had kept Baek Do-ha alive so he could toy with a powerless man and inflict as much suffering as possible. And yet the man was reclaiming his former realm at a speed far greater than before. By what means had he repaired a shattered vessel?
It could not have been Do-ha's comrades. To restore Baek Do-ha's vessel required a being of equal or vastly greater strength. No one alive had been capable of mending a vessel that had once stood at the Life-or-Death Realm.
"Ha… haha."
Do-ha sorted through the chaos in his head — then suddenly burst out laughing.
"What is so amusing?"
"Right… now I understand."
Still covering his face, Do-ha laughed that cold little laugh and nodded. At last he knew why he had become able to command the fires of Hell.
"You… you really are a madman. You injected your own life force into me — your enemy?"
"…"
Until now he had assumed the Demon God had used residual power to heal him. That was wrong. To treat Do-ha's catastrophic injuries, the Demon God had spent his own life force. Which meant the being standing before him could be treated as a genuine entity — stripped of demonic energy, nothing more.
The Demon God had poured in pure life force alone, healing the wounds while withholding any demonic energy for fear of what Do-ha might do with it.
Even without demonic energy — even with nothing but life force — anything that carries demonic energy would still have responded.
The Demon God was the Demon Realm itself. Even powerless life force would draw Hellfire and demonic energy the way a magnet draws iron.
"You really are insane. No matter how badly you wanted revenge, using your own life force…"
"You should not have come here. If you die in this abyss, your body will become an empty shell."
"Heh. Are you worrying about me right now?"
"What deranged nonsense. If you vanish, my revenge becomes meaningless. So leave. I am life force itself — you are still no match for me."
"Wow. Listening to that silver tongue of yours, you really are the Demon God."
Do-ha's smile turned colder still. It sounded almost reasonable — but as he had already realized, the Demon God's life force held no power of its own.
Shaaaaaaa.
"…So you insist on leaping to your death."
Do-ha said nothing. He simply formed a Heart Sword. The Demon God's expression iced over.
"Hey, Demon God. Your plans… seem to have gone pretty far off the rails, haven't they?"
"…"
Do-ha's grin widened. The Demon God's face went rigid.
"You used your life force because you thought I'd never get my power back… so what now? I got it back."
"What are you trying to say?"
"If I kill you in this abyss, half of your life force disappears. That's why you're trying to drive me out. You're nothing but a shell with no demonic energy left."
Crrrk.
The sound of grinding teeth came from the Demon God.
"You played yourself into a corner, Demon God."
Kwaaaaaaaa!
Tremendous energy surged up from Do-ha as the corner of his mouth lifted.
"Your pathetic little scheme is helping me."
Kwaang!
"You bastard, Baek Do-ha!!!"
Do-ha shot forward like a bolt. The Demon God screamed.
"Yaaawn."
Canteas, who had fallen asleep stretched out on the bench, sat up with a yawn.
"Ah — you scared me. How long have you been standing there?"
Still mid-stretch, Canteas looked over at Selenia, who stood with her arms folded. She had gone to Alfheim — when had she come back?
"I've been here a while. If you're tired, sleep more. I'll stand guard."
"Nah, I'm done sleeping."
"How long has he been like that?"
Selenia pointed at Do-ha, who floated in midair in a cross-legged meditation posture. She had returned home to find him already like this.
"Hmm. About fifteen hours."
A check of his phone confirmed it — a little over fifteen hours.
"Did he have some kind of epiphany? Or did he just suddenly start doing this?"
"Neither. He ate an Immortal Peach."
"Huh? An Immortal Peach?? The one I'm thinking of?"
Selenia whipped around to stare at Canteas in shock.
"Yep."
"D-don't tell me he crossed into Seon-gye and stole it…?"
"Come on, Do-ha wouldn't go that far… well, he would, but he didn't this time."
"Then how did he get an Immortal Peach? The Queen Mother of the West oversees those."
"Some immortal had secretly stolen a few. Do-ha took them off him."
"An immortal stole Immortal Peaches?"
Selenia let out a disbelieving laugh. It was not that she doubted Canteas's word — the sheer absurdity of it was what made her laugh. Even an immortal who stole Immortal Peaches would be executed on the spot.
"There was a guy like th— wait. Now that I think about it, you have a connection to an immortal too, don't you?"
"…Don't tell me. Dool?"
Decades ago she had shared drinks with Dool. If there was any immortal she had a tie to, it was him alone.
"That's the one. Apparently he used to manage the Immortal Peach Orchard. He'd stashed a few discarded ones, Do-ha found out, and took them."
"Ahh. Then Do-ha obtained them well."
"?"
Canteas tilted his head at Selenia's words. He had clearly said Do-ha took them — how did that become obtained? Elves were supposed to be a virtuous race. Something about her seemed a little off lately…
Then —
Flash!
Kwaaaaaaaaaaaa!
The stillness shattered. Do-ha became a single shaft of light and rocketed skyward.
Shhhhhh.
Paaaaaang!
A raw, guttural cry.
An immense surge of energy erupted from Do-ha's body and blasted outward in every direction.
"What was that?"
"What kind of energy was that just now?"
Canteas and Selenia both cocked their heads at the same time. An energy they had never felt in their lives had just burst from Do-ha's body.
"I thought I heard something like a scream… did I imagine it?"
"I think I heard it too."
Shhhhhh.
Do-ha, who had risen high into the sky, began to descend slowly toward the ground.
Then —
"Puhahahahahaha!"
— he suddenly threw his head back and roared with laughter.
"?"
"He's finally lost it."
Neither of them knew that a portion of the Demon God's life force had just been erased. They could not understand why Do-ha was laughing.