The Legacy of the Heavenly Demon
Having successfully evaded the Heavenly Net, the Heavenly Demon disposed of the items he had plundered. During his travels through the Murim, he had gathered various useless trinkets, which he sold to fund the construction of his burial sites. He used the divine artifacts of the Nine Sects and One Clan as bait, ensuring that the existence of his tombs would not be buried by the passage of time.
In the process, he inscribed the insights he had gained during his journey into the fake tombs he created. He did this not only for the child who would one day come looking, but also for the descendants of his own sect whom he had left behind on the Heavenly Mountain.
The murals were drawn as a form of Formation Structure; to anyone who had mastered the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, the paintings would resonate with the inner cultivation formula and project the user's intent directly into their Upper Dantian.
To minimize the risk of the knowledge being lost, he included the same content in all nine fake tombs. Even if some were damaged, one could always find another to fill in the missing pieces.
Thinking of his second disciple left on the Heavenly Mountain, he wished he could go and deliver the teachings himself, but alas, he no longer had the time.
Having fought every absolute master of his generation—a level of combat experience unparalleled throughout history—the Heavenly Demon gathered the remaining medicinal herbs. From man-made elixirs like the Great Hwan-dan, Jaso-dan, and Taecheong-dan, to naturally formed treasures like Ice Crystals and Gongcheong-seokyu, he had scoured the entire world, using both wealth and force to collect them. He had even risked becoming a public enemy of the Murim to obtain them.
Now, he had to use these to create a cure for the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse.
Of course, there was no such thing as a miracle drug that could simply cure the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse upon consumption. The only way to escape the curse was to undergo Hwan-gol-tal-tae—the shedding of one's mortal bones—and transform one's body into a Seon-gol, a body of the immortals.
However, those born with the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse could not store internal energy in their bodies, making it impossible to practice martial arts to achieve such a transformation. The secret arts of the Seon-do (Taoist Immortals), which used the intent of the Upper Dantian to manipulate natural energy instead of internal energy, had vanished from this land due to the Bongsin Covenant.
That was why the Heavenly Demon had sent his son to Mount Bongnae, a place that straddled the boundary between the mortal realm and the immortal realm. With his son’s innate talent, he would surely awaken to the Seon-do on his own, simply by watching the immortals, without ever violating the Bongsin Covenant.
—The Upper Dantian through Seon-do.
He had proven the Heavenly Demon Divine Art—which he had only been able to theorize because he couldn't practice it himself due to his own Nine-Yin Severed Pulse—by mastering it to its peak.
—The Middle Dantian through Demonic Arts.
If he could complete the Lower Dantian with orthodox martial arts, he would achieve Hwan-gol-tal-tae, transcending the human flesh and being reborn with the bones of an immortal.
The problem was the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse: the moment the Lower Dantian was activated, the meridians would clog, leading to certain death. Therefore, the completion of the Three Dantians had to happen all at once.
A constitution where the meridians would block the moment energy was stored. To counteract this, he would ingest all the gathered elixirs at once, reaching Hwan-gol-tal-tae the very moment he began to store energy.
If anyone with even a shred of medical knowledge heard this, they would have called it insanity. Martial artists refine natural energy using internal cultivation methods to suit their own martial arts. Unrefined energy is no different from the internal energy of an enemy who practices a different style. In other words, storing unrefined energy in one's body is no different from being attacked by an Infiltration Strike.
That is why, when taking elixirs, one must take them one at a time, in amounts not exceeding half of one's current internal energy, and never add another until the first is fully digested. If more energy enters from the outside than one possesses, the existing internal energy can be corrupted by the energy of the elixir, like a rolling stone displacing a fixed one. And if one were to consume excessive elixirs without considering the maximum capacity of their internal energy—ignoring the energy consumed by daily training—they would likely suffer Ju-hwa-ip-ma (deviation) and become an idiot.
The Heavenly Demon had dominated the Murim, collecting 58 types of natural elixirs and 114 types of medicinal pills. To consume them all in the orthodox way would have taken decades. For an ordinary martial artist, that would be the better path. But for a body born with the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse, that was impossible.
The solution the Heavenly Demon found was simple.
—Make it so it doesn't need to be refined.
He would shove every single elixir he had brought into his own stomach. He, who had mastered the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, would melt the energy of all the elixirs into the energy of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art to form a Nae-dan (Internal Core). Just as one boils rice porridge for a patient who cannot chew, he would refine the energy within his own body. He would devote the rest of his life to refining the energy into a form meant for only one person, without the need for digestion. Just as a spirit beast leaves behind an internal core, he would use his own body to forge an elixir for only one person. This elixir would be preserved within a formation where time flowed backward, never losing its potency.
—Even if I can never see you again, I have no regrets.
Sitting cross-legged under the Bodhi tree. Even after 10 years, 20 years, nailed to that spot, like a practitioner waiting for the Maitreya Buddha who would arrive someday.
—You are my enlightenment.
Seong-jin could see the Heavenly Demon sitting cross-legged. But this was merely a fragment of memory contained within his intent; it was not reality. There was no way the Heavenly Demon would react to Seong-jin’s voice.
Time flowed rapidly. Despite his profound martial arts, wrinkles deepened on the Heavenly Demon’s face. In proportion, the stored elixirs vanished quickly. Finally, having refined all the elixirs, the Heavenly Demon spoke his last words in the final moment of his life.
—I entrust those left on the Heavenly Mountain to you.
The memory ended. The mental world constructed by his intent collapsed, and his consciousness returned to reality. Under the Bodhi tree he had seen in his memory, in the very spot where the Heavenly Demon had sat, he saw the Heavenly Demon, still in the posture of meditation, turned into a mummified corpse.
Seong-jin approached the mummy and placed his hands over the dried, withered ones. As he did, the form that had endured for so long crumbled and scattered like smoke. When everything vanished, a single medicinal pill remained in his hands.
Tears fell onto the hand holding the pill. The pill, melted by his tears, was absorbed directly through his skin, and Seong-jin, with an instinctual, conditioned reflex, began to circulate the energy—a perfect fit, like a custom-made garment.
The energy coursed through his entire body and settled into Seong-jin’s Lower Dantian. His body, which had been screaming from internal injuries, fell silent in an instant. Then, the Upper, Middle, and Lower Dantians resonated, and his entire body began to twist.
His youthful, underdeveloped skeleton transformed into a form resembling the Heavenly Demon. The pain that had persisted his entire life subsided. Seong-jin realized in this moment that he had surpassed the Three Talents and reached the Four Directions, the fourth stage of the Seon-do.
He saw the giant fox rushing toward him. Seong-jin, having reached the Four Directions, could read the Gong-gwa-gyeok (Good and Evil Deeds) points accumulated in Maegu’s soul.
Target: Maegu
Current Score: -668 points
The points she had accumulated in her life had not only entered the negative, but reached a staggering 668.
—Hand over the Heavenly Demon’s legacy!
Even though the Grim Reaper had been hovering before his eyes just moments ago, he was now afraid of nothing. After all, he was no longer alone.
The moment Seong-jin took a step, he was already on Maegu’s back.
—What are you doing! Get off!
Chukji (Earth-Folding Step). His Chwi-pal-seon-bo (Eight Drunken Immortals Step) had also reached the 4th Star, allowing him to move vast distances without any pre-movement, incomparable to before.
‘And I can continue to use it as long as my internal energy allows, without worrying about internal injuries.’
Maegu thought Seong-jin had jumped onto her back in one go, but it was far more than that. During a single breath, Seong-jin had repeated Chukji over a dozen times, striking the pressure points of the Zhuge Clan’s rampaging Jiangshi (zombies). The Jiangshi, which had been moving by using the flow of energy, stopped moving the moment their bodies were struck.
It was such a rapid speed that Maegu hadn't even realized he had finished suppressing the Jiangshi before he was on her back.
“668 points.”
—...What are you talking about?
“That is the weight of the sins you must repay. Count your sins together with the others.”
At the same time, Seong-jin stomped his foot on Maegu’s back.
The giant fox’s waist bent like a bow.
The Heavenly Demon Divine Art from the memories of the mural unfolded from the tips of Seong-jin’s feet. Seong-jin had engraved every detail of the mural left by the Heavenly Demon into his mind, and all that content had accumulated in his mental world, completing the demonic cultivation formula settled in his Middle Dantian.
Martial arts techniques are only completed when the flow of energy and the movement of the body are in harmony. And since the flow of energy follows a person’s intent, the power changes depending on the heart with which one performs the technique. As a child, Seong-jin had created the initial formula, but he had never been able to practice it due to the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse. This meant he didn't know the results of actually practicing this formula.
However, the mural in the tomb depicted the entire process of developing it, so Seong-jin was able to skip all the trial and error and experience the perfected martial art through the mural.
—Heavenly Demon, God...!
Maegu was astonished to see Seong-jin, who had just recovered the Heavenly Demon’s legacy, using the Heavenly Demon Divine Art without any practice. Before her astonishment could even finish, Seong-jin snapped Maegu’s waist and sucked her into his gourd bottle.
It was overwhelming power. Even for Seong-jin, who had freely handled martial arts with the innate talent of the Nine-Yin Severed Pulse, it was a level of power that made him think he might need a little practice.
“I’ll save the adaptation to this transformed body for later.”
Right now, escape was the priority.
Kugugugu...!
As the Heavenly Demon’s legacy, which had been the core, disappeared, the formation inside the cave was gradually being undone. It was a formation that had created a vast field of silver grass inside the cave and even distorted time. If something like this suddenly disappeared, the naturally formed cave would not be able to withstand the aftermath and would collapse.
If he didn't want to be buried alive, he had to get out before then. Seong-jin hurriedly put the sprawled Jiangshi into the gourd bottle and picked up Zhuge Hyuk, who had been reduced to a rag among the rubble.
Human affairs to humans. While it was fine for Seong-jin to intervene in beating the beast Zhuge Hyuk into a human, it was better to leave the judgment of the human Zhuge Hyuk to the Murim Alliance.
Having neatly gathered even Zhuge Hyuk, Seong-jin looked at the collapsing cave, offered a deep bow, and left his father’s tomb.
* * *
Meanwhile, Zhuge Rin was struggling alone outside the third tomb.
‘What do I do...’
The situation was that the Zhuge Clan’s martial artists, led by Zhuge Hyuk, had lost contact after being trapped in the formation along with the Green Forest bandits led by the Green Forest Palace Ghost, Im Cheol-woo. As the Zhuge Clan Head and the Green Forest King arrived at the third tomb and began to confront each other, it was starting to look like a child’s fight escalating into a fight between adults.
The problem was that the Zhuge Clan Head and the Green Forest King were absolute masters, giants of the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions, respectively. It was on the verge of becoming the first fight between absolute masters since the Heavenly Demon’s rebellion. Depending on the situation, it could mean the start of a Great War between the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions right here.
“Someone is coming out of the formation! It’s the Murim Alliance!”
“Really?”
She had brightened at the news that the Hwasan Sword Dragon and the Jeomchang Single Sword had brought out the Arangdae.
“The Zhuge Clan’s martial artists are still left inside!”
“Why...?”
She became devastated at the news that Zhuge Hyuk hadn't come out.
“But they say all the Green Forest bandits inside have been suppressed!”
“Really?”
She brightened again.
“Emergency! Emergency! The death of the Green Forest Palace Ghost, Im Cheol-woo, has been confirmed. Everyone prepare for battle with the Green Forest King!”
“Why...?”
She became devastated again and was preparing for battle with the Green Forest.
And so, at the moment just before the forces of both sides clashed.
Kugugugu...!
The formation was undone, and the cave began to collapse. Regardless of the justification, everyone had gathered because of what was inside. While everyone’s eyes were focused on one place due to the unexpected situation, a man appeared from the entrance of the formation.
“Are you throwing a party?”
He was wearing clothes that didn't fit his physique, as if he had stolen a child’s clothes. He was a man who looked very much like the wanted poster of the Heavenly Demon that she had seen in her house once.