The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword
Clack.
Creeeak.
A colossal door gleaming gold swung open, and bright light poured into the darkness within.
"Please wait a moment."
Whoosh.
Thud!
Sizzle…
The figure who had opened the door struck the floor with a magic staff, and hundreds of magic circles inside gradually faded away.
This was the Empire's treasure vault.
Do-ha and Dimerof had asked to enter, so the warehouse keeper was dismantling the security magic.
"Barfram. You've gotten a lot stronger."
Do-ha looked at the warehouse keeper who had just released the wards.
Before Do-ha's disappearance, Barfram had been nothing more than a 4-Circle mage. In a little over ten years, he had climbed all the way to the 6th Circle. Judging by the sheer force of his aura alone, one could almost believe he was already at the 7th.
"Haha, it's all thanks to His Majesty the Emperor taking me in."
Of course, Do-ha had never formally accepted him as a disciple. He had simply saved a man on the brink of death, brought him into the Empire, and taught him a few spells. Still, in his heart, Barfram had always regarded Do-ha as his master.
"Do-ha."
"Yeah?"
"The emperor is Dimerof. You can't go around calling me emperor."
"Ah…"
Barfram scratched his head and glanced at Dimerof. Surely he isn't upset over that…?
"Don't worry. I'm fine. Honestly, even I sometimes wonder if this guy was never the emperor at all."
"Even so, it's truly good to see you again."
Barfram smiled as he looked at Do-ha.
When he had heard that the Absolute Being was dead, he had wept without end for a full week. As he had said, he had always held Do-ha as his master in his heart. And when word came that Do-ha was alive—how overjoyed he had been.
"Isn't your talent wasted just keeping a warehouse? Must get stifling, too. If you really want, I can change your post…"
"I refuse."
Barfram shook his head hard at Do-ha's words.
Change his post? What a terrifying suggestion!
"And abandon this cushy sinecure for somewhere else? I'll bury my bones right here."
"…"
"…"
His sheer brazenness left both Do-ha and Dimerof speechless. To call it a cushy sinecure right in front of the emperor… Well. That was the kind of nerve you needed to hold the post of Imperial Warehouse Keeper.
"You may enter now."
"Thanks."
"Appreciate it. Drop by Earth sometime when you've got a free moment."
"As it happens, some friends of mine went to Earth and said it was an interesting world. I've been curious myself… Do you go there often, Lord Do-ha?"
"I live on Earth."
"Pardon?"
Ah—so after stepping down from the throne, he moved to Earth? That would explain why he wasn't on the Western Continent.
"I'm from Earth. I'm a person from another world."
"Haha, still as entertaining as ever."
"I'm serious."
"Yes, yes, of course. Then when I eventually visit Earth, you'll be my guide? Hahaha!"
Watching Barfram laugh, Do-ha and Dimerof shrugged and stepped inside.
I'm telling the truth—why won't he believe me? Or… would believing it actually be stranger?
"You… need to take things in moderation."
Once they were deeper into the vault, Dimerof fixed Do-ha with a worried look.
This damn bastard had blackmailed him into letting them in—but if Do-ha cleaned the place out, the Empire would go bankrupt.
"Come on. You really think I'd strip the whole place bare?"
"I heard something from Je-u!"
He had been told that when Do-ha was making bait Demon Pills to flush out spies hidden in the Martial Alliance, he had completely cleaned out the Martial Alliance's stores.
How was he supposed to not worry?
"They said you only needed a few Demon Pills, but you filled entire crates and emptied the place."
"Please. If I'd only made a few, would the ones in hiding have shown their faces?"
Do-ha shrugged at Dimerof's words. It was precisely because the crates were full that the enemy had come out to deal with them. A handful of pills, and they would have stayed buried forever.
"Come to think of it—the Demon Pills then, and this now… It's the Blood Sect again."
Killing intent flickered in Do-ha's eyes. These vermin kept crawling out of the woodwork, murdering people wherever they went, and it was starting to seriously piss him off.
"Back with the Demon Pills, my realm wasn't high enough yet, so I held back. This time, I can't just leave them alone."
Grab.
"Don't you dare get any reckless ideas."
At Do-ha's words, Dimerof seized his arm, his face gone rigid.
There was only one pattern that followed whenever Do-ha spoke like this.
"Planning to go alone again, the way you went after the Demon God? Straight into the Northern Continent the Demon God Cult has seized?"
As he had said, the Blood Sect had nestled under the Demon God Cult's wing and made the Northern Continent their nest. To take the Blood Sect meant, in the end, fighting the entire cult.
The Baek Do-ha of the past could have done it. Not now.
Reaching the Profound Realm so quickly was remarkable—but he was not yet in the Life-or-Death Realm. There were already several Profound Realm masters inside the Demon God Cult. If Do-ha went alone, he would simply die a dog's death.
"If you're thinking of going alone again…"
Hssss.
Dimerof's gaze sank cold and still. He had failed to stop him last time. Not this time. He would not lose Do-ha—his friend, his brother.
"Why are you overreacting, you idiot."
Do-ha snorted a laugh at the sight of him. Watching Dimerof make such a fuss was both heartwarming and absurd. Who said anything about going alone?
Since his defeat by the Demon God, he had learned a great many things.
"This time I'm not alone, so stop worrying."
"Haa… Fine. All right. Je-u and I will go with you, so—"
"Have you lost your mind? Why would you two follow me? If both of you leave your posts, what happens to the Western and Eastern Continents?"
Dimerof and Namgung Je-u were the pillars holding their continents together. One might scoff that a single human couldn't matter that much—but their power and presence were not things to speak of lightly.
If both of them emptied their continents at the same time, there was no telling what the enemies in the North might attempt. And there was still the traitor dragon Depnius. A mind as sharp as the Jegal Clan's—if both of them left their seats empty, the danger would only grow.
"Then who are you going with?"
"Canteas, obviously."
Do-ha said it as casually as if Canteas wouldn't wail himself hoarse at the news.
"Canteas may have recovered his true body, but even so, just the two of you—"
"Relax. I've got my slaves… no, my contractors."
"Contractors?"
"Baal and Metatron made soul contracts with me. I can use them."
"…?"
The offhand remark, tossed out while Do-ha was scanning the vault, made Dimerof tilt his head. What had he just heard?
Baal and Metatron…?
The Baal and Metatron he knew??? Those two had made soul contracts with Do-ha?
"What the hell have you been doing this whole time?"
Dimerof asked out of genuine curiosity. What kind of wandering could possibly end with the Rank 1 Demon Archduke Baal and the Archangel Metatron as subordinates?
No—calling them subordinates was generous. A soul contract made them slaves in all but name. And knowing Baek Do-ha's personality, he would absolutely have slipped something vicious into the contract terms.
"It'd take too long to explain."
"You scammed them again, didn't you."
"You bastard. Who are you calling a con man?!"
"I'm not making you one. You were born a con man."
"Wow… that's harsh."
"Ugh."
Dimerof shook his head as he looked at Do-ha. Once again, he was reminded: leave Baek Do-ha free to roam, and something truly catastrophic would happen. He had felt it every single time across more than forty years of knowing him.
"Besides, with this one item, I don't even need to cross into the Northern Continent myself."
"This item? Is that what you've been looking for? What is it?"
Suddenly Dimerof was curious what Do-ha was after. At first he had assumed Do-ha meant to walk off with Orichalcum, Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, elixirs, and the like. But they had already passed all of those by on the way in.
"I stashed something here a long time ago."
"What is it?"
"A sword."
"A sword? You've got Un-jeop-bi-jang."
Do-ha was already at a level where he could execute sword arts without a blade at all. This was a man who tore martial arts apart and rebuilt them from scratch. So why suddenly take a sword?
"Ah—here it is!"
Grab.
At the far end of a shelf, hanging so far back it was nearly falling off, he claimed a crude, battered sword.
"What is that scrap of junk?"
It was wrapped tightly in bandages, the surface mottled and stained. The dark blotches were old blood, blackened as it dried.
"This is a Demon Sword."
"A Demon Sword? Why is something like that here?"
"I put it away years ago. Figured it might come in handy someday."
"It doesn't look useful at all…"
"Want to draw it?"
Slide.
Do-ha held the Demon Sword out to Dimerof.
Ordinarily, this was not a blade one handed to anyone lightly. Not out of greed—because it was a Demon Sword. Draw it carelessly, and you might go mad and run amok, or simply drop dead on the spot.
But his brother was a Grand Master. Dimerof, who bore the epithet of the sword that cleaves the heavens, could draw a Demon Sword like this without serious consequence. If anything, drawing it was the only way to truly understand what it was.
Grab.
"…You didn't do something to this, did you?"
About to draw the blade, Dimerof eyed Do-ha with deep suspicion. Do-ha had always loved pulling pranks exactly like this.
"It's a little sad that a few childhood pranks still make you doubt me…"
"It wasn't a few."
Easily more than thirty. Nearly once a year, without fail.
Squeeze.
Crrrk.
It had been left undrawn for so long that the fitting had rusted shut. Strangely, though, the blade itself still radiated a keen edge as if it had been forged only moments ago.
Shwaaaaaa.
The moment Dimerof drew the sword, multiple auras began to pour out—sharp killing edge, murderous intent, and thickest of all, the reek of blood.
"…This can't be the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword."
Holding the drawn blade, Dimerof stared at Do-ha with a frozen expression.
The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword. The sacred relic of the Blood Sect, the Demon Sword passed down to the Blood Demon. Whoever wielded it was fated to call blood wherever they went—and further, to split the heavens and fill rivers and seas with the blood that spilled from a god's belly. In short, to become the Blood Demon itself.
"How did you get your hands on this?? Even the Blood Sect couldn't find it."
The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword currently bestowed upon the Blood Demon was a fake—a convincing replica, made only because the true blade had never been recovered. The Blood Sect had lost this sword centuries ago.
"Remember when I first smashed the Blood Sect's main stronghold?"
"You've smashed their main stronghold more than once or twice…"
Every time the Blood Sect relocated, he had hunted them down and slaughtered them all. Asking if he remembered was hardly fair.
"No—the original one."
"The Qilian Mountains in Gansu Province."
"That's the one. Chasing down every last Blood Sect rat as they scattered was a pain, so I just split the mountain in half. This sword dropped right in front of me. Must have been hidden inside the mountain. That's why even the Blood Sect never found it."
Crrrk.
Click.
Do-ha took the sword back and slid it into its scabbard. Now it was time to use this to reel in the Blood Sect.
"What are you standing there for? Let's go. Don't tell me the Demon Sword got to you."
"You bastard… As if that would ever happen to me!"
"I know it wouldn't. That's why I told you to draw it."
Slide.
Grab!
"Oh, right—I'm taking some of those elixirs with me. And the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron."
"Hey, you bastard! I knew you'd pull this!"
Do-ha snatched up elixirs and ore and bolted. Dimerof bellowed after him—then, watching Do-ha's retreating back, fell into thought once more.
According to legend, the Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword recognizes a being who calls for blood—and chooses its master of its own will.
The Heaven-Cleaving Blood Demon Sword had not merely been hidden in the mountain.
It had come down to Do-ha on its own.