Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Part 2 Prologue
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"......What happened to my little sisters?"
The scholar asked in a self-mocking tone, fully able to predict their tragic ends.
[Your eldest little sister went out to slay the demon heads in hopes of restoring even a sliver of the family's honor, only to encounter a demon from the previous generation. She was torn limb from limb and died. Your second little sister, after losing her twin sister like that, lost her mind and wandered the streets until she froze to death one day in a fierce downpour.]
"Is that so......"
It was.
It was only natural.
With the family torn into factions and effectively wiped out, there was no way those children could have survived unscathed.
[But fortunately, your youngest little sister is still alive.]
The scholar's face brightened.
"Really?! My Na-ni is alive? Where is she now?"
[Your youngest became addicted to narcotics. Probably to escape reality. To earn the money she needed for them, she's living as a prostitute in a Luoyang brothel.]
The voice soothed him gently.
[At least she's alive. That's good. That's good. I'm glad I can finally deliver some good news.]
"Kuhuhu......"
The scholar burst into laughter like he was coughing up blood.
No, he sobbed as if laughing.
Each heave of his body made the chains tightly woven into his shoulder blades wail with a gloomy screech.
The chains, as thick as a grown man's forearm, gleamed with a deep, inky blackness.
They were undoubtedly made of mucheol, the unbreakable metal known as ink iron.
After shedding tears mingled with blood for a while, the scholar made excuses to the voice.
"I...... I had no choice."
It was the path they had chosen, and the result.
"I had long since resolved to sever all ties with the world and its fates."
[I already know. Your resolve. And the process that led you to it.]
The scholar fell into reminiscence for a moment.
He recalled memories that had settled deep in the darkness.
Though now distant memories, they were as vivid to him as if they had happened yesterday.
[The human world is undoubtedly filthy and ugly. What made it so is humanity itself. Ending the age of myths and establishing civilization to usher in the age of history was humanity's great fall.]
"......I wanted to become a Laozi."
[You wanted to remain a fleeting figure like him. The founder of Daoism, the great philosophy, yet leaving no trace of himself, ultimately ascending to immortality on feathered wings and vanishing.]
"I simply wanted to live without striving or desire. I had no wish to meddle in worldly affairs."
[And so you lived as the Swordless One. The firstborn son of the Sword Clan, yet you never touched a sword, holing up in your room with books as your only joy. Even your wife understood that, didn't she?]
"......Come to think of it, what of my wife? What happened to Unjeong?"
He and his wife, Mo Yong Unjeong, had never truly shared their hearts.
But even so, she had never treated him harshly.
Despite the harm caused by her useless son-in-law, she had shown him much consideration to let him live in peace.
Though they were merely a nominal couple who never shared a bed, she was one of the few people he was deeply grateful for.
[She ultimately lost in the political struggles. All her faction was purged.]
"......Did she lose her life?"
[It was recent. While attending to the Fear King in his bedchamber, she bit off his manhood and tore it to shreds. Even on the execution ground, she laughed boldly. What a remarkable woman. Had she been born in chaotic times, she surely would have become a great sovereign.]
The voice guffawed.
"......She lived without a shred of shame under heaven, yet heaven did not aid her in the end."
The voice sneered.
[Nonsense. What she needed wasn't heaven—it was you. You abandoned her.]
"......At one point, I divined my own fate."
The scholar lifted his sightless eyes toward the sky.
"I was born under the dominion of the Heaven Killing Star. If someone like me meddled in worldly affairs, many would shed blood because of me."
The voice replied.
[Still don't you see? That fate of yours has already come to pass.]
"......What?!"
The scholar suddenly realized.
Everyone he cherished had been wounded, suffered, and died.
He had tried to do nothing for them, but because he did nothing, they all fell into ruin.
"......In the end, I, a mere mortal, could not escape the yoke of solemn fate."
The only tiny, trivial difference was that his own hands were not directly stained with blood.
[Do you understand now?]
The scholar bowed his head.
"......Then from here on, I have no choice but to leave it all to heaven's will."
[You fool!]
It was a thunderous roar unlike any he had heard before, rumbling loud enough to shatter eardrums.
[Still don't you see?]
Unlike the tone until now, the voice was clearly agitated, filled with anger.
[Heaven and earth are not benevolent—they do not care for feeble humans!]
The voice berated the scholar without restraint.
[If so, then humans must help humans. Even the sages are not benevolent! Doesn't that fit you perfectly?]
The scholar pushed back against the voice.
"But it is also said that heaven's net is vast and though sparse, lets nothing slip through. Even without my intervention, those who commit evil deeds will face judgment according to the law of cause and effect."
[Cause and effect, cause and effect, you say?!]
Repeating "cause and effect," the voice erupted in mad laughter.
The skull-splitting roar made the scholar forget his pain, clutching his ears with the arm that had lost its fingers and wrist.
The vibrating ink-iron chains rang through his very bones.
[Since you speak of cause and effect, let me show you an old tale.]
Light bloomed before the scholar.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar landscape unfolded vast and wide.
Though blind, he could see everything the voice showed him.
In ancient times, in the mythic age, there were those who had lost everything to humans.
Even then, humans were cruel and selfish.
In the end, a few who turned away from the horrific human world devoted themselves solely to cultivation.
They believed in a cause and effect that transcended time and space, that a great order would one day make the wicked pay.
One day, having attained enlightenment, they became immortals.
And they realized the truth of the world.
Cause and effect,
the absolute order they believed in,
was nothing but an illusion.
Those whose lifespan ended merely turned to a handful of ash.
Their souls and vitality simply returned to nature.
There was no afterlife, no hell, no inescapable judgment.
The wicked committed their evils, lived in luxury, and died.
Sometimes they died before their time due to their own misdeeds.
But that was only some cases.
Most good people lived in agony and died without reaching a full lifespan.
Those who squeezed out their blood and pus lived in bliss, even claiming their share, and died.
It was utterly unjust.
There was no heaven to right the tilted scales.
There was no great cause and effect.
* * *
[Do you understand now?]
The voice asked again.
[Have you seen the truth?]
The scholar gave no reply.
The truth he faced was far too cold and merciless.
Heaven's punishment, judgment—mere "fictions" fabricated by those living without a speck of hope.
There was no salvation for them.
Not every wicked person paid for their deeds.
In the end, if only humans could save humans,
then only humans could punish them as well.
"Then, then......!"
The voice asked him.
[Do you want power? The power to judge them? To make them pay the true price?]
"Yes."
[Do you want a chance? A chance to change everything? To save them all?]
"Yes."
[Even if the price is your soul suffering eternally without refuge?]
"Yes!"
A beastly roar erupted from the scholar's throat along with blood.
"I'll take that power! I'll seize that chance!"
As he thrashed wildly, the ink-iron chains clanked and screamed.
A roar burst from his throat.
"I'll make those swayed by mere desires pay the price! I'll bring iron retribution to those who take pleasure in others' suffering!"
The scholar's roars showed no sign of stopping, only growing louder.
And in proportion, the presence of the voice grew ever stronger.
[Finally, you awaken! Finally, you face yourself! Then behold me!]
That voice shook even the scholar's soul.
Feeling his soul tremble like a leaf in a typhoon, the scholar stared into the pitch black with his hollow eye sockets.
[We—we can give you power. We can give you a chance.]
It was in the deepest darkness.
From the fathomless abyss at the bottom of the profoundest dark, it gazed at him.
It was a single book.
It was a single scripture.
Its cover made from the skin of one who harbored resentment toward humanity,
its contents written in the blood of one who resented the heavens,
its binding woven from the sinews of one who resented the earth—a scripture born of grudge.
[Though our pursuits differ, our paths align, so contract with us, and we shall grant you a new chance!]
"I accept the contract!"
[You will never again walk upright in the light, never again lift your face to gaze at the sky. Will you still contract with me?]
The scholar had no other answer in mind from the start.
"Yes. I entrust my soul to you."
The voice—the scripture—burst into狂 laughter, satisfied with his reply.
[O fated one. This scripture's name is the Subduing Darkness, Shaking Heavens Scripture, the heaven-defying tome that, in place of the indifferent and lazy heavens, devours all darkness in the Sahā world!]
Darkness surged from the scripture.
In an instant, it consumed the scholar's soul.
As his consciousness faded, the scripture's mad laughter shook his ears.
[From this day, you shall breathe in darkness, wield the sword of judgment from within darkness, becoming the Sovereign of the Dark Heavens who punishes all the karma of the world!]
* * *
The next day, the guards discovered the scholar dead, his body drenched in blood.
Strangely, the corpse was unbelievably light, as if it could not possibly be human.
As if...
something vital had been utterly drained away......
Chapter 01.
Sovereign of the Dark Heavens, Grand Opening
It is better to be violent if there's violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.
—Mahatma Gandhi [1869.10.2–1948.1.30.]