Exodus
In darkness without a single point of light.
“Keuaaaa…!”
The corpses that had broken free from the fleeing aberrant being scattered in fragments in every direction.
Even so, those that had offered their lives to the Cult through sorcery continued to writhe, thrash, and scream—crushed, shattered, smashed, and twisted beyond recognition.
“Uwaaaa…!”
Yet that grotesque spectacle did not last long.
Aaaahhh—.
Oooohhh—.
Spine-chilling wails rose through the dark. From the vivid silhouette of Amcheonjonza, pale white hands burst forth, seizing the fragments that could neither live nor die and dragging them down.
“Keuaaaaagh!”
“Kyaaaagh!”
The pieces shrieked and flailed, desperate to escape those grasping fingers.
It was useless.
Resistance meant nothing.
As though being pulled into the abyss itself, the fragments were dragged into the floor. A brief silence followed.
Then—
Kwajijik.
Kwadeudeudeuk.
The sounds of bone and flesh twisting, tearing, and being rent apart echoed through the space. From every maw of the abyss that had swallowed the pieces, dead black blood erupted and sprayed outward.
The deepest chamber filled with the wet sounds of the things that had broken away from the aberrant being being devoured.
This was the authority of Amcheonjonza.
The banquet of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture.
If there was such a thing as a living hell, this was surely it.
While those merciless sounds climbed the walls and rang clearly even into the connecting passage—
“Do you know what this deepest level was truly meant for?”
The question Geum-jil voiced was almost jarringly out of place.
“Among the common folk, the purpose of this Underground Great Waterway and the Imperial Lake is said to be this.”
He lifted a bloated arm from which rancid fat oozed freely and gestured all around them.
“To manage the flood control of Luoyang, which lies so close to the Yellow River, and to keep the water level of the East-West Grand Canal constant.”
But in truth, that was nothing more than a secondary function—an elaborate deception meant to conceal the real purpose.
Amcheonjonza—Yeon So-hyeon—knew that fact all too well.
“…It was the final, thrashing desperation of a collapsing former dynasty.”
The mighty must fall.
In the flow of time, in the march of history, every dynasty and every order inevitably meets its season of corruption and decline.
And that fate had been no less inevitable for the previous dynasty, the predecessor of the Central Kingdom.
“You know it precisely…!”
Geum-jil agreed, then coughed violently and spat up a handful of black blood. The fragment that had been severed from the colony was slowly withering into death.
“Hundreds of years ago, the final emperor of the former dynasty that once stood upon this land was beguiled by a mad Taoist.”
Even so, the story of centuries past continued to spill from Geum-jil’s mouth.
“He came to believe that if a vast lake were created in this thousand-year-old capital of Luoyang—seat of countless dynasties—the earth’s vital energy would gather into one place and form a dragon vein. And that this would restore the declining fortunes of the nation.”
Beneath the rising ghost-fire of his eyes, Yeon So-hyeon’s gaze narrowed.
“And so tens of thousands of slaves were conscripted for the construction.”
Geum-jil stared into empty space with his yellowed, spoiled eyeballs as he went on.
“But the emperor soon realized that a mere tens of thousands could never complete a project of such unprecedented scale.”
Why did it feel this way? Geum-jil’s words carried the weight of testimony from someone who had lived through that era himself.
“Yet it did not matter. In those days, commoners were reduced to slavery almost daily.”
Even as black blood streamed from him, Geum-jil smiled and continued.
“When tens of thousands proved insufficient, they dragged in tens of thousands more. And when that still was not enough, they dragged in yet another tens of thousands.”
From afar, the death-screams of the things that had once formed the aberrant being—now being devoured—sounded uncannily like the screams of the slaves who, centuries ago, had been dragged here to dig and dig again beneath the earth.
“And in the midst of that hell, the Cult was born in this terrible underground.”
Beneath the white mask, Yeon So-hyeon’s brow twitched.
“The Cult stands beside those who suffer, beside those who have been discarded. Therefore the birth of the Cult was inevitable. It was destiny.”
What Geum-jil now revealed was a history of the Demonic Cult that even Yeon So-hyeon had never known—the hidden truth of how the Demonic Cult had first begun.
Of course, for now it remained nothing more than Geum-jil’s one-sided claim.
“With the appearance of the Cult, our ancestors were able to preserve at least a minimum of dignity in this underground.”
At those words, Yeon So-hyeon let out a short, derisive laugh.
“Even then, driven mad by grudges, did they turn the living into things that could neither live nor die, unite as one heart and mind to destroy the world, and call that ‘dignity’?”
A low growl answered him, as if the demonic energy of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture were howling in accompaniment.
“No.”
Yet, unexpectedly—
“It was not so.”
Geum-jil answered the mockery with calm composure.
“You must have heard of the Fairy Cult and the Medicine Fairy as well?”
Why were the Fairy Cult and Yeon So-hyeon’s mother, Yak So-yu, being mentioned now? Yeon So-hyeon offered no reply. There was no need to speak of anything that might reveal his own identity to Geum-jil.
“Our ancestors, too, began no differently from them.”
But Geum-jil paid the silence no mind and pressed on with what he had to say.
“Just as the Fairy Cult had the Medicine Fairy, our ancestors had a Saintess.”
His voice grew distant, almost dreamlike.
“Our ancestors followed the teachings of the Saintess. Those who were less poor helped those who were poorer still. Those who suffered less tended those who suffered more.”
The words were devastatingly human.
“The dynasty of that time treated slaves as less than livestock, yet within the doctrine our ancestors could still remain human.”
It was a story so shocking that it was almost impossible to believe it concerned the Demonic Cult of the present day. How much of it was truth, and how much falsehood? Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes narrowed further.
“In the end, at that time—”
Even beneath that gaze full of suspicion, even as his long-rotted flesh continued to collapse, Geum-jil did not stop speaking.
“A total of one million people were conscripted. Yet completing the Imperial Lake and the Underground Great Waterway proved impossible.”
That much aligned with the history Yeon So-hyeon already knew.
“To mobilize slaves for a project of such scale in a nation that was already twisted, rotting, and collapsing… From the very beginning it was a plan born of madness.”
The former dynasty that had forced the construction forward met its end that way. Whether the reckless works had merely hastened the dynasty’s destined fall, or whether the incomplete pits had gathered even a little of the earth’s vital energy and slightly prolonged that terrible age—no one could know now.
“The newly risen dynasty promised a new era and moved the capital from Luoyang to the present Imperial Capital.”
The new dynasty—that is, the current dynasty of the Central Kingdom—proclaimed its ambition to end that nightmarish age and abolished the institution of slavery as well.
“We cheered in this underground! Though countless souls had perished here…!”
His voice trembled.
“Those who survived—our ancestors—blessed and celebrated that day!”
Collapsed under his own bloated weight, Geum-jil stretched a hand toward the empty air; his entire body shook violently.
“We believed that faithful devotion and our good faith in humanity had finally borne fruit!”
Having heard that much, Yeon So-hyeon squeezed his eyes shut tightly beneath the mask. He already knew, without needing to hear it, what came next in the story—and how it would end.
“But!”
A twisted laugh burst from Geum-jil’s mouth.
“Our ancestors never left this underground! They never saw the light of the sun again!”
The former dynasty had fallen. A new dynasty had risen. Yet the construction never stopped. It continued.
And from Geum-jil’s lips came, with perfect accuracy, the family name Yeon So-hyeon had already anticipated.
“The Yeon Clan of Luoyang!”
That had been the name by which the Luoyang Sword Family was once known.
“There was no liberation! Those bastards never set our ancestors free!”
At the atrocities his own family had committed in the past, Yeon So-hyeon clenched his teeth hard.
“Instead they shoved into our ancestors’ hands contracts that promised future wages, claiming they were no longer slaves!”
Geum-jil spat black blood and howled.
“In the end, for our ancestors who would finish their lives underground without ever seeing the sun, those contracts were nothing more than meaningless scraps of paper!”
His yellowed eyeballs turned pitch-black with blazing demonic energy.
“They were founding meritorious subjects of the new nation—the Central Kingdom—so our ancestors’ protests meant nothing, and their cries rang hollow!”
Had the predation of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture ended? At some point the screams echoing through the passage had fallen silent.
Yet still, throughout this entire underground space, Yeon So-hyeon could hear the wails thick with grief and despair.
“When our ancestors refused to cease their resistance, the Yeon Clan systematically and collectively suppressed our Cult!”
“They branded our Cult the Demonic Cult and cast us as a religious group that deluded the people during a time of chaos!”
Those were the cries of resentful spirits trapped in a cycle of grudges that had spanned generation after generation, across hundreds of long years.
Within the wails of the resentful spirits that the Jeam Jincheon Scripture conveyed to him, Yeon So-hyeon recognized that the history Geum-jil was pouring out was true.
“Many among our ancestors somehow escaped this hell!”
Yet even after leaving the underground, the hell continued.
“But under the suppression that stretched across the entire Central Kingdom, they could not even return to their hometowns and were forced to flee without end!”
Beyond Luoyang. Across the North China Plain. Past Yi Province. Even into the lands beyond the world.
Still their hell never ended.
“In the chaotic early days of the newly founded Central Kingdom…! As our Cult’s influence inevitably swelled day by day, the hunt targeting our Cult finally began!”
In the great chaos when one dynasty fell and another rose, countless people became martial artists to protect themselves—became people of the murim. The Nine Great Sects grew stronger than ever. To turn their swollen power outward, the new imperial court needed a common enemy.
That was the beginning of the Demonic Cult hunts.
That was the beginning of the Murim Alliance.
“And so we decided.”
Geum-jil wore a smile thick with resentment.
“If they so desperately wanted a Demonic Cult… then we would become the Demonic Cult.”
The remaining demonic energy in Geum-jil’s body boiled and seethed.
“So we searched and searched for a way. A way to become a true Demonic Cult…! A means by which we could bring an end to this hellish world and open a new one…!”
And in the end, decades ago, someone within the Demonic Cult—pressed into a corner—must have found that method: a way to make contact with a certain ‘existence’ from beyond this universe.
“…Decades ago.”
Yeon So-hyeon, who had kept his silence, finally spoke.
“The mass suicide on the day the Demonic Cult fell—was that a sacrificial ritual?”
“Yes!”
It referred to the mass suicide that the Murim Alliance’s advance force had reportedly witnessed when they pushed the Demonic Cult’s forces as far as the entrance of the Hundred-Thousand Great Mountains—the incident in which thousands of cultists were found as corpses overnight.
“It was the day of the great contract! Every one of us was both the offering and the one who received baptism!”
Madness.
Demonic energy.
An endless hatred that had grown from soil composed of obsession with grudges and the lust for power.
“From that day, our Demonic Cult was reborn as the true Demonic Cult!”
With a volume that seemed impossible for a body already collapsing, Geum-jil shouted at Yeon So-hyeon.
“Amcheonjonza! Our grand ritual has already begun!”
Even as he spewed black blood, even as his limbs crumbled—
Geum-jil roared.
“No one can stop it now! Across the entire Central Kingdom, every cultist who has been waiting for the prophesied hour will answer the call!”
Yeon So-hyeon was not surprised. From the memories of his previous life, he already knew that the Demonic Cult’s uprising in Luoyang was nothing more than the first signal of the chaos and confusion that would soon sweep the entire Central Plains—the Age of Chaos.
“If there is one regret… it is that with my own hands…!”
Geum-jil raised an arm that had already been shattered beyond recognition, its shape dissolving, and made a grasping motion toward empty air.
“I could not repay our ancestors’ grudges upon that most detestable Luoyang Sword Family—the beginning of this entire history…!”
Even after hearing that history of grudges and hatred—
“Do not regret it.”
Amcheonjonza shook his head with absolute firmness.
“Not only you, but no one in the Demonic Cult will ever be able to bring down the Luoyang Sword Family, nor will any of you ever realize your long-cherished wish.”
“I know! You will stand in our way just as you do now!”
White hands burst from the shadows and seized Geum-jil.
“But!”
His gaze turned toward Yeon So-hyeon one final time.
“Remember it, and remember it again, Amcheonjonza…!”
Even as the hands of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture dragged him under, he smiled.
And at the same time, he wept.
“The countless cultists of ours that you will kill and devour from now on…!”
Udeudeuk, wagueujak.
“We whom you call demonic humans…!”
Even as he was chewed and vanished, Geum-jil’s cry did not cease.
“Were once the weakest of people, the kindest who believed most deeply in humanity, and those who most desperately needed help…!”
A short while later.
Every terrible sound that had filled the underground vanished completely, and in that space only Amcheonjonza remained, demonic energy of the Jeam Jincheon Scripture streaming from him in continuous rivulets.
Feeling the putrid wind that drifted through the passage, he lifted his gaze and looked up at the ceiling.
The weakest of people sometimes become the most evil of people.
Whatever Geum-jil had ranted, whatever origin the Demonic Cult claimed—
The First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family, Yeon So-hyeon.
Amcheonjonza would not stop.
Nor would he hesitate.
The demon that devours demons.
The evil that annihilates evil.
To become both demon and evil—that was the path he himself had chosen.