The Star That Should Have Vanished
I was a man who had lived through the Great War of Righteousness and Evil and returned from it. As an agent of the Secret Pavilion, which dealt in intelligence, I had plied every battlefield there was to ply, so there was no helping how much I knew about the Demonic Cult. That was simply what an intelligence organization existed for—to relentlessly dig up everything about its sworn enemy.
And so I inevitably knew a great deal about the Heavenly Demon Cult. Perhaps I understood the Demonic Cult better than its own followers did.
I knew the characteristics of demonic arts and the temperaments of those who practiced them. I knew the cultists' blindness and their fanaticism. I knew the Demonic Cult's hierarchy and its key figures. I even knew, to some extent, of the spies embedded in the Central Plains' murim whose identities would one day come to light.
But...
If I were to boast of knowing the Demonic Cult, there was one thing I absolutely had to know—and knew nothing about at all. The supreme sovereign of the Heavenly Demon Cult, the object of the fanaticism for which cultists staked their very lives: the Heavenly Demon. It was about him.
In truth, this was close to a contradiction. The Heavenly Demon was the Demonic Cult itself. He was its symbol and its center of gravity, a living god. To know the Demonic Cult was to know the Heavenly Demon.
But I did not know the Heavenly Demon.
It wasn't that my lowly rank had denied me access to the information. The truer answer would be that throughout that long and brutal Great War of Righteousness and Evil, the Heavenly Demon had never once shown himself.
I did not know the Heavenly Demon. I didn't know his face or his bearing, nor his temperament. His sex, his age, his name—none of it. Information concerning him had never once surfaced in the Secret Pavilion, as though it had been thoroughly expunged from every record. And for the record, when the Secret Pavilion did not know something, that meant no one in the Central Plains' murim knew it either.
But...
Gazing upon that death that could not be defied as it stood alone, trampling the very heavens beneath it, I could not fail to know. I knew who that being was.
"...The Heavenly Demon."
That being was without question the supreme sovereign of the Heavenly Demon Cult—the Heavenly Demon of this age. My spirit sense had identified him as a death that could not be defied, so what being in today's murim other than the Heavenly Demon could possibly be such a thing?
It was a murmur, barely more than talking to myself, but the senses of my companions—all of them masters of the Harmony Realm—did not miss it.
"...!"
The Heavenly Demon. After all, we hadn't even managed to uncover why eleven intruders had invaded the Dancheon Clan in the first place. And now, in the midst of that, the greatest monster of them all had appeared without warning—staying calm would have been the stranger reaction.
The Heavenly Demon's gaze swept across the room. His eyes were dark as a bottomless pit. They say the eyes are the window to the soul, and with the discernment I had honed since my days as Myeong-gae, I could claim some skill at reading the inner landscape of others.
But from the Heavenly Demon's eyes, I could read nothing. It was not the emptiness that Kunlun is so fond of speaking of. It would be more accurate to call it the abyss itself. The bottom of an abyss no ordinary being could imagine lay within the Heavenly Demon's inner landscape.
To know something meant reading and analyzing fragments of what the other party chose to reveal, but from a bottomless pit that devoured everything, there was nothing to read. That was why I feared him. Are humans not, by nature, creatures who feel terror before the unknown?
"You have suffered much."
The Heavenly Demon, who held dominion over the space by his mere existence, addressed Cheolsanmagun. In the same instant, Cheolsanmagun was engulfed in fervor. Surely this was what a lion chosen by god looked like. Among the many faces fear can wear, one is awe—and such was the devotion Cheolsanmagun bore toward the Heavenly Demon.
The believer, granted an audience with his god and receiving his praise, flattened himself against the floor. A Demon Lord who had attained the Transcendent Demon Realm. Even he, one foot already in that supreme domain, was no more than an ordinary man before the Heavenly Demon.
"Heavenly Demon, I have flawlessly completed that which you commanded."
Hearing those words, I understood the wellspring of the satisfaction that had gathered in Cheolsanmagun's eyes. I understood, too, why the ten supreme demonic masters had been picked off one by one like a ragtag mob. Everything unfolding before us meant it had all proceeded exactly as Cheolsanmagun had wished. Or, more precisely, exactly as the Heavenly Demon had commanded.
"Hm."
The Heavenly Demon's gaze passed, one by one, over the corpses of the ten supreme demonic masters sprawled across the floor. Then it returned to Cheolsanmagun. Slowly, the Heavenly Demon's lips parted.
"You are something of a waste."
The words sounded careless, indifferent—but apparently they fell on Cheolsanmagun's ears quite differently.
"If I can become fertilizer for the Heavenly Demon's path, it will be the glory of three lifetimes!"
In a voice strained to its utmost, the man who had been unshakable from start to finish cried out, agitated. Hearing him, the Heavenly Demon gave a small, quiet nod and issued his command.
"Then die."
As though the Heavenly Demon's words had become a decree of heaven itself, Cheolsanmagun sprang to his feet. His sword rose toward the heavens, then in the next instant turned upon his own throat.
"Heavenly Demon! May you achieve the great design!"
Shff.
A sharp, clean slice.
Thud.
Tumbling end over end.
Cheolsanmagun's severed head rolled across the floor.
Crash.
The body that had stood there so unyielding crumpled, suddenly pitiful.
I saw it. I saw the joy—indescribable, impossible to put precisely into words—settled upon Cheolsanmagun's face. Joy, or pleasure. No—rapture was the proper word. I doubted any expression could capture it better.
And then...
Shhh—
Something began to stir within the void of death. I was too shaken in that moment—too far from any objective gaze—to tell whether this was visible only to me or to everyone present. What was certain was that something had crept up from the corpses of the eleven cultists and drifted toward the Heavenly Demon.
Even amid all this, my keen senses kept analyzing the situation, and I added an inference: my spirit sense, flung outward, had caught the souls of the cultists.
The souls reached the Heavenly Demon. I knew instinctively that this was no sinister sorcery like the Essence-Devouring Method. The souls had merely veiled the invisible chains coiled around the Heavenly Demon's body.
"Hm."
Souls and chains, canceling each other out, vanished together.
"At this much, I can veil Heaven's eyes, if only for a moment."
Hearing it from the Heavenly Demon's own mouth, this was clearly no hallucination. Before long, his gaze came to rest on me—the abyss was peering into me.
"So it is you. The star that should have vanished."
The abyss asked me.
"It would seem so."
Before I knew it, that was my answer.
"Well met. This Sovereign is Seol Cheon-sang, the Heavenly Demon of this age."
"Second son of the Dancheon Clan, Myeong."
In all likelihood, I was the first person in the entire Jianghu ever to exchange names with the Heavenly Demon.
Now I understood. All of this had sprung from me. Not from the Black Water Gate, nor from the Flame Blossom Pavilion—it stemmed, I suspected, from my very existence. To erase me, the Heavenly Demon had descended in person into the very heart of the Central Plains' murim.
"Heh."
A hollow laugh escaped me. Not at the situation before me. I laughed at the futility of my own past deliberations—of wondering whether I truly needed to reach the Sixth Stage, when I had spared Pahwang without ever knowing a being like this existed. Even after reaching the Fifth Stage, I had remained a frog at the bottom of a well.
The human body is a curious thing indeed; the hollow laugh that burst from me unbidden eased, if only somewhat, the tension that had been coiled around me.
"Not bad."
That was how the Heavenly Demon assessed me. Had I given myself to the demonic path, such praise might have been the glory of three lifetimes.
"Much obliged."
But I was no cultist, so I let the Heavenly Demon's assessment pass over me as though it were nothing.
Then—
Thud.
Clutching his sword, Clan Head Dancheon Gang stepped forward. He, too, was a master in the midst of stepping into the realm of Intent, so it was not that he failed to grasp the Heavenly Demon's majesty. As proof, my father's expression had frozen, heavy as stone. He was striving to hide it, but I could also tell that his hand trembled, ever so slightly.
Looking at Clan Head Dancheon Gang as he was now, I understood what resolve unto death meant. When I moved to overtake him once more, he barred my path.
"This is not a fight for you to step into."
My father Dancheon Gang was, in this moment, doing his duty as Clan Head. I felt it anew: he was, without question, a good father and a good Clan Head.
"Father."
For the first time, I called him "Clan Head"—I, who had never held a seat of my own. The Clan Head's frozen, heavy gaze settled on me.
My father, as he stood now, was right. As the head of a renowned martial clan, his bearing was beyond reproach. But...
"This fight is mine."
And at the same time, the Clan Head was wrong. This fight was mine, and mine alone.
Father's eyes and son's met. I was the stubborn mule who had once made even that crusty old beggar Chwipung-gae click his tongue in exasperation—my father was hardly going to bend me now.
"Look after the family."
At my resolute words, Dancheon Gang gave the smallest shake of his head and reined in his steps.
"Survive."
They say a child must one day leave its parents' embrace. For me, that day was now. Unlike my life as Myeong-gae, when I had turned my back on the clan against my will, this came of my own will and my own choice. There was no regret left in it.
"I will do my best."
I could not bring myself to answer, "I will." I did not wish to leave my final words as a lie. That said, I had not persuaded everyone, either.
"We'll strike together."
With those words, Brother Chun-baek took his place at my side.
"I concur."
Ma Sok stepped in beside him.
"We can't very well hand the whole family over to you just yet."
Offering that excuse, Uncle Yeo Wol joined us as well. But...
"Please fall back."
I turned them away, as gently as I could. The Heavenly Demon's existence defied comprehension, but everyone in the hall knew one thing: there was no overcoming that being with a mere combined assault. Their senses, expanded upon reaching the Harmony Realm, would surely have told them so—it was a fact impossible not to know. I knew they were only venting their defiance.
"Look after the family."
Leaving those words behind—
BOOM!
My body hurtled toward the Heavenly Demon. If the Heavenly Demon was a death that could not be defied, then what I was doing now was best described as defying a fate that could not be defied.
BOOM!
"Not bad, but not exceptional."
KRA-BOOM!
"Which is why I cannot tell."
The Heavenly Demon said he could not tell, but I knew: even as he received my attacks at full power, he had not moved a single step. Thirty exchanges of offense and defense had unfolded in an instant, and not one blow had told. Even the endless sparring I had once endured with Pahwang, back when I first reached the Fifth Stage, had never been like this.
I did not know the wellspring of this vast gulf, and so no breach presented itself. But I could not be broken. This was my home. And those watching from behind me were my family and my friends.
Just as I steeled my heart and poured strength once more into the sword in my grip, blades came rushing in from every quarter around the Heavenly Demon.
Shriek!
At his back was Uncle Yeo Wol, who had used the Cloud-Treading Steps to swiftly claim the Heavenly Demon's rear. From his right charged Ma Sok; from his left, Yi Chun-baek. Their movements were blindingly swift, and their strikes, wreathed in sword-force, were savagely fierce. Three masters of the Harmony Realm were hurling themselves at the Heavenly Demon, unleashing the killing strikes of their lifetimes.
But—
FWOOSH!
"Gahk!"
"Kgh!"
"Kkh...!"
CRASH!
The Heavenly Demon swung space itself, and every attack came to nothing. Wreathed as they were in body-protecting qi, the three could not endure it, and each was flung back a good fifty feet in a different direction.
"My, my. Do try not to die. There is nothing to be gained from heaping more karma upon myself just now."
Perhaps the Heavenly Demon spoke true: the three fallen figures stirred. Their lives had been spared. But the damage seemed grave, for they could not easily rise.
Having brushed aside the Harmony Realm masters like a man shooing mayflies, the Heavenly Demon turned his gaze on me.
KRAK.
"...!"
The bones of my left arm crumbled to pieces. I did not understand the principle behind it. If I had to guess, it was Intent carried to its extreme. For me, who had only just set foot in Intent, the difference in caliber was immeasurable.
"I have many questions for you, so do not fret over dying to a single stroke."
The Heavenly Demon's languid, unfeeling voice drew near me like an emissary of the netherworld.