Prologue: I Am the Mad Demon
I am the Mad Demon.
Blood-Chasing Mad Demon Dokgo Jin.
That’s my name.
Blood-Chasing, because I hunt blood.
Mad, because I’m insane.
Demon, because I walk the heretical path of the demonic arts.
The world grandly calls me the Blood-Chasing Mad Demon, but I just call myself the Mad Demon.
Who the hell uses a nickname those idiots came up with?
Still, if those idiots tremble at the sound of it, that works just fine for me. So I’ve lived under the name Mad Demon.
And that life wasn’t half bad.
“Young Palace Lord! We’re in trouble!!”
“…What is it?”
“The… the Blood-Chasing Mad Demon has stormed in!”
“What…?”
Baek Seorin, daughter of the Ice Palace, felt her hands begin to tremble.
“Wh-why would the Mad Demon…?”
“I don’t know! Our palace warriors are doing everything they can to stop him, but it feels like he’ll burst through any second…!”
Baek Seorin chewed on her nails.
Of all times, right when Father is away…
“Young Palace Lord! You should flee for now and—”
“No. If even half the rumors about that man are true, running would be pointless.”
“Young Palace Lord!!”
Baek Seorin rose, gripping her beloved sword.
“…Pull our warriors back. Resisting him is meaningless.”
“Are you serious?”
Baek Seorin fixed the warrior with bloodshot eyes.
“Would one who carries the blood of the Ice Palace ever put a lie in her mouth?”
“…I misspoke. I will withdraw the warriors.”
“…”
Once the warrior left, Baek Seorin let out a long breath.
Why has the Mad Demon come here…?
This, too, was something the heir of the Ice Palace had to endure.
She looked down at the sword her father had bestowed upon her, trying to steady her heart—
when a thunderous crash exploded outside the great hall.
KWA-GWA-GWANG!!!
The warrior who had just stepped out came flying back in with a deafening boom.
“Cough, cough. Fuck, dust.”
“…”
A rough male voice cut through the cloud of dust. Baek Seorin tensed and clenched the scabbard until her knuckles whitened.
“…Is that you, Senior Mad Demon?”
“Senior, my ass. I’m no Murim man.”
“…”
When the giant emerged from the dust, Baek Seorin swallowed hard.
Wild, unkempt hair shooting out in every direction.
Muscles swollen so tight they looked ready to burst, burning a furious red.
And a demon-slaying blade as massive as the man himself.
Baek Seorin was certain.
This was one of the greatest public enemies of the Murim—the Blood-Chasing Mad Demon.
The Mad Demon fixed her with glowing red eyes.
“You the Ice Palace Lord?”
“…Excuse me?”
“A bit small for an Ice Palace Lord. Let’s have a wager match.”
“W-wait a moment. I’m not the Ice Palace Lord.”
“Huh?”
Thud. Thud.
With every step the Mad Demon took toward her, Baek Seorin retreated.
“D-don’t come any closer.”
“Hold still. I can’t see for shit.”
“I said don’t come closer!”
Clang!
The instant Baek Seorin drew her sword, the Mad Demon’s blade was already there, batting it aside.
Her sword spun away and buried itself in the wall, quivering.
“Kyaah!”
“Hmm…? You’re a woman.”
The Mad Demon squinted at her.
“Right… now that I think about it, the Ice Palace Lord does have a daughter. My apologies. I took a dose of Tang Clan poison recently and my eyes have been a little cloudy.”
“…”
Baek Seorin clutched her aching wrist and glared at him in silence. The Mad Demon spoke again.
“Answer me properly. My eyes are bad, so I might just start swinging first.”
“…What business brings you to the Ice Palace?”
“I’m looking for medicine.”
“Medicine…?”
Baek Seorin rose, still holding her wrist, eyes flicking toward her discarded sword as she bought time.
“…What sort of medicine from the Ice Palace…?”
“The Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade. I need that.”
“Th-that’s impossible! It’s our palace’s sacred relic!!”
“A sacred relic no one uses has no value. That’s why I came to put it to work… but the Palace Lord isn’t here. This is inconvenient….”
“…”
He kept muttering to himself, completely ignoring her words. Baek Seorin felt both bewilderment and raw terror.
The Mad Demon lived up to his name—a savage beast of a man.
Yet he was speaking with a strange formality, and the dissonance of a wild animal spitting out human speech made her skin crawl.
Then the Mad Demon, stroking his chin, opened his mouth.
“…Do you not have the authority?”
“What authority…?”
“The authority to hand over the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade.”
“…No one may touch that object unless they are the Palace Lord.”
“When does the Palace Lord return?”
“…I don’t know.”
“You don’t know…. Problematic. The deadline’s almost here….”
“…”
He said his eyes are cloudy. Maybe a surprise attack would work?
Baek Seorin quietly began to draw up her internal energy—
Bang!
“Kyaah!”
The Mad Demon stamped the floor with a crushing foot technique.
“I said my eyes are cloudy, not that my senses are shit. This old man is in a good mood, so I’ll let it slide once. Don’t even think about trying any underhanded tricks.”
“Y… yes….”
“Are you sorry?”
“Pardon?”
“Just now you tried something extremely cowardly. Don’t you think that was underhanded?”
“…I’m ashamed.”
“Then do you feel sorry toward me?”
“…Senior Mad Demon invaded our palace without permission, so—”
“I asked if you’re sorry?!!!”
The Mad Demon’s irritated roar made Baek Seorin’s whole body shake.
“Yes! Y-yes…!”
“Then you can hand the sacred relic over to me. Right?”
“…”
“Right?!”
“Yes! That’s right….”
“Good. Then I’ve received the sacred relic from you fairly and properly. I’d prefer you not send anyone after me. If I find a pursuit team, I’ll cut every last arm off. Understood?”
“…Yes.”
“Excellent. You’re a good kid who listens.”
The Mad Demon unhooked a pouch from his waist and dropped it on the floor.
Thud.
“If any warriors are hurt or any buildings I wrecked need fixing, use that. I stole it all from the Tang Clan, so it should be worth something.”
“…Thank you.”
“The relic’s down below, isn’t it?”
“…How did you…?”
“I told you. My eyes are cloudy, not my senses. With yin energy leaking out like that, how could I not know?”
“…”
“I’ll just smash the floor a little and call it even with that pouch. See you later.”
“Pardon?”
Baek Seorin didn’t understand. Her confusion was resolved almost immediately.
The Mad Demon lifted his foot high and drove it into the floor.
Kugung!!
“Not breaking easy, this thing.”
“Um… Senior Mad Demon….”
“Ah, I told you I’m not a senior!”
“…Great Hero Mad Demon.”
“Great Hero’s a bit itchy too, but better than senior. Speak.”
“Are you… planning to smash the floor?”
“That’s the idea.”
Baek Seorin’s face went white.
“Th-there’s a secret staircase leading down from here. Please use that. If you destroy the floor, the Ice Palace could collapse!”
“That’s why I asked for understanding, isn’t it?”
“No… that…! If the inner palace falls, the entire Ice Palace—”
“Ah, I don’t care. This way’s faster, so I’m doing it.”
“No… wait!!”
Baek Seorin’s desperate shout was slower than the Mad Demon’s next stomp.
Kugugung!!!
“Oh, finally cracked.”
“I… I don’t know anything…. Father….”
“See you next time.”
The Mad Demon dove through the shattered ice.
A moment later—
Kugugung!!!
With a tremendous roar, the Ice Palace began to tilt.
“…”
Watching the inner palace crumble, Baek Seorin muttered under her breath.
“Mad Demon, you son of a bitch….”
The shock of the collapsing structure knocked open the pouch he had left behind. Its contents spilled out in a cheap clatter.
The pouch he had so generously handed over was stuffed full of nothing but low-grade feather needles used as throwing weapons.
“Keh-heh-heh, so this is the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade….”
Having slipped out of the Ice Palace and found a quiet inn, the Mad Demon Dokgo Jin gazed with deep satisfaction at the blue orb resting in his palm.
Even with a master of his caliber suppressing the yin energy with his own internal power, a thin film of frost still formed on his hand. The sheer force of the cold radiating from it more than lived up to its reputation as the Ice Palace’s sacred relic.
“Hmm…. This should be enough.”
For a man who cultivated the extreme yang technique known as the Nine Yang Divine Art, yin energy was essential.
But a walking incarnation of bloodshed like Dokgo Jin never had women clinging to him, and until now it had never been a real problem, so he hadn’t bothered.
Until he clashed with the Tang Clan.
“…Those fucking bastards.”
Just thinking of the Tang Clan, whose roots lay in Sichuan, made Dokgo Jin grind his teeth.
Veins bulged across his body and his blood energy began to run wild. He forced himself to calm down.
“Hoo….”
Among the countless poisons the Tang Clan had dumped on him was one that further amplified extreme yang energy.
Already practicing an extreme yang art, Dokgo Jin had first been pleased when his yang energy grew stronger. But as his blood energy started rampaging more and more often and his madness deepened, he realized he couldn’t go on like this. So he had come looking for the Ice Palace.
Because he had heard the stories of its sacred relic, the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade.
“…With this I might even achieve a yin-yang body and ascend to immortality. Heh-heh-heh.”
After that bit of nonsense, the Mad Demon scanned his surroundings.
If anything interrupted the circulation he was about to begin, his blood energy could twist and he might fall into qi deviation. He took no chances.
He raised his internal energy and spread his senses. Every living thing nearby registered clearly—from the dozing waiter downstairs all the way to ants in the distance.
“…”
Retracting his energy, the Mad Demon placed the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade in his palm, sat cross-legged, and began.
“Hoo….”
He exhaled a long breath, drew power from his dantian, and started circulating his energy according to the formulas of the Nine Yang Divine Art.
After completing a full grand circulation, he began to accept the yin energy seeping from his fingertips, little by little.
The rough heat of his yang energy collided head-on with the freezing cold pouring from the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade. Inside his body the two forces slammed into each other with savage force.
Guh…. There was this much yin energy?
Yin energy so intense it felt ready to freeze every meridian in his body raced through him. Dokgo Jin frantically poured more yang energy into the channels to warm them again.
The yin energy from the jade then swept through the rest of the eight extraordinary meridians and finally surged toward the last two—the Conception and Governing vessels.
Shit…. Where the hell is it going?!
Feeling the yin energy charge furiously toward the Baihui point at the crown of his head and the Huiyin point between his legs, Dokgo Jin stood at a crossroads.
Those two points were called the Gates of Life and Death for many reasons, but chief among them was that they were directly tied to life itself. A mistake here could kill a man outright.
This wouldn’t end with mere qi deviation—he might actually die. Dokgo Jin checked the yang energy remaining inside him.
Not enough yang…. Was the relic’s yin energy really this strong?!
In the end he made his choice.
If he had to pick only one, better to live even if the Huiyin point was overrun by yin. He poured every scrap of his yang energy into the Baihui point at the top of his skull.
Even if I become a eunuch, I live first…!
After burning away the yin energy that had rushed toward Baihui with his own yang, Dokgo Jin began hammering the Baihui point itself, desperate to survive.
The yin energy from the jade was already violently stimulating the Huiyin point, which had been clogged with impurities. He needed to smash the impurities blocking Baihui with his yang energy so the grand circulation could complete.
Guh…!
Unbearable agony flooded Dokgo Jin’s body. In the depths of a despair so black he wanted to die right then and there, he kept pounding on Baihui without end.
Please… please…!
In that endless torment, just as he was about to give up everything—
Ah…!
The impurities sealing both Baihui and Huiyin shattered, and true qi began the grand circulation.
His senses of the world rose an entire level. A godlike feeling of omnipotence washed over him as everything looked different—
when suddenly—
Kukwakwa!
Wh-what the fuck!
The yin energy of the Ten Thousand Years Ice Jade, having passed through Huiyin, completely absorbed every last drop of Dokgo Jin’s yang energy.
Guh…!
At last the yin energy finished its circuit through the eight extraordinary meridians and settled peacefully into his dantian.
Dokgo Jin lost consciousness.
“Ugh….”
A high, clear voice escaped as Dokgo Jin came to. The first thing he saw was the mass of impurities his body had expelled.
And above that filth, a pure white arm.
Slender, delicate, with skin as fine and soft as a newborn’s.
The moment he saw it, something flashed through Dokgo Jin’s mind.
No way… did I achieve Bone and Body Reconstitution?!
Memories slowly returned—the piercing of the Conception and Governing vessels, the shattering of the Gates of Life and Death.
“Khahahaha! At last I— wait?”
Joy boiled up and laughter burst free, only for him to realize the voice itself had changed.
His hand rose to his throat—
“Why the hell is this here?”
Dokgo Jin stared at the soft, bare breasts hanging from his own chest.
“…I became a woman? Me?”