Chapter 305: Return (1)

Clang!

Along with the sound of a sword falling, Cheon Yujeong’s body slowly collapsed.

Originally, she wasn’t someone who would die even if her throat was cut.

She had been the host of Heavenly Evil, a being that had once transcended humanity to become a monster.

The concept that “she dies if her head and body are separated” never really applied to her kind.

However, in that final moment when we exchanged blades—

I instinctively realized that she had chosen death.

“Guh! Cough!”

Even as she continued to cough up blood from her mouth, her face looked more at peace than at any moment before.

She collapsed to her knees, then laid herself flat on the ground, her back resting on the earth.

Retrieving my sword, I quietly sat down next to her.

With hazy eyes, she asked me.

“…Why aren’t you leaving?”

I replied,

“At the very least, I’ll stay with you until the end.”

“…Really?”

She let out a faint chuckle, then suddenly said,

“Then, lend me your lap.”

“…….”

I granted her request.

Sitting cross-legged, I gently rested the back of her head on my thigh.

At that, as if overwhelmed by some peculiar emotion, she spoke incomprehensibly.

“Yeah… this was it.”

“…….”

“…….”

After that, silence lingered for a long while.

Cheon Yujeong quietly closed her eyes, feeling the breeze on the mountainside without saying another word.

Surprisingly, her dying breaths remained steady and even.

And when those breaths finally began to fade—

She spoke to me in a small voice.

“Don’t ignore… my warning.”

“I won’t.”

“For some reason… after you all died, I saw what came next.”

“…?!”

Startled by her sudden words, I widened my eyes.

“What did you see?”

“Heh… I’d love to tell you, but… there’s no time left.”

Cough!

After coughing up another mouthful of blood, she reached toward my face as if it were truly the last time.

“Don’t let your guard down. This isn’t over yet.”

With bloodied fingers, she touched my cheek and, with the last of her strength, whispered faintly.

“…Beware… of…”

“…….”

“And… I liked you.”

With those final words, her hand fell limp.

I sighed toward the corpse of Cheon Yujeong, who now quietly rested with her eyes closed.

“…Even so, in the end, you chose to die as a human.”

Usually, the awakened vessels of the Heaven-Defying Society or the Ten Heavenly Lords would have their bodies collapse, leaving no corpse behind.

But now, except for the darkened areas beneath her eyes, Cheon Yujeong looked no different than someone peacefully taking a nap.

“May you rest in paradise.”

I slowly lifted her lifeless body.

She had been the host of Heavenly Evil. If I left her body as it was, someone from the Heaven-Defying Society would undoubtedly come to make use of it.

It would take time, but cremating her and building her a grave seemed the proper way to honor her in the end.

Just then—

From her abdomen, a formless ‘something’ began to seep into me.

“…Ah.”

The fragments of the Heavenly Demon Founder that had been used up during the ritual of Bongseon—

Though their power had almost entirely faded, leaving only a faint trace, those fragments slowly began to merge with what was already within me.

‘My vessel… has expanded.’

The fragment of the Heavenly Demon Founder lodged just above my Dantian had now become almost like a second Dantian itself.

‘At this rate, I could probably draw upon vitality and still endure… Though it feels like a bit of a waste.’

Having survived with my life intact was already more than enough. I shook my head without regret.

Just as I was about to descend the mountain with Cheon Yujeong’s body for cremation—

“Heh… Hehehe… Like hell I’d let you leave….”

“…?!”

Suddenly, accompanied by a voice I vaguely remembered, a black shadow lunged at me.

But no matter how exhausted I was, I wasn’t so weak that I couldn’t dodge.

Activating my movement technique in an instant, I widened the distance and glared toward the front.

“Who’s there?”

“The host of Heavenly Evil… An endlessly useful material… There’s no way I’d let you take her.”

A voice soaked in both hatred and greed.

And then, I realized who it was.

“…Sixth Heavenly Lord?”

Sixth Heavenly Lord—Sangdo.

Once the priest of Heavenly Evil, who had been turned into a slave by the awakened Cheon Yujeong, now appeared before me.

I immediately assessed his state and clicked my tongue.

“Looks like you somehow managed to survive… but wouldn’t it have been better to just run and save your own skin?”

Though he had somehow escaped from Cheon Yujeong, the state he was in now was anything but normal.

His limbs looked like they had been stitched together like rags, resembling a grotesque zombie.

He had looked fairly clean the last time I saw him. Was this the cost of desperately struggling to escape Cheon Yujeong’s grip?

Either way, I had no time or patience to deal with the likes of Sixth Heavenly Lord right now.

“There’s no way I could let it go. Unless I defile that wretch’s corpse and soul for eternity… I’ll never be satisfied.”

“Tsk… What a nuisance.”

Still holding Cheon Yujeong’s body, I prepared for combat.

I had no idea what gave him the confidence to act like this, but this time, I would send him properly across the river to the afterlife—

It was then.

“How dare a dying old man think he can inconvenience our precious patron?”

Thud!

“Guh… K-Kuhk!”

Suddenly, a dagger was driven into Sixth Heavenly Lord’s side.

“…Huh?”

I was baffled by the fact that the ambush had struck Sixth Heavenly Lord, not me.

Widening my eyes, I turned toward the one who had launched the attack on Sixth Heavenly Lord.

“You… you’re here?!”

“Ah, it’s been a while, Patron.”

“So Soryu?!”

With a tone that didn’t match at all, and a smiling face—

So Soryu, that crazy woman from the So Clan (or more accurately, what I called her), had suddenly appeared here in the southernmost part of the Central Plains!

“P-Poison…!”

Sixth Heavenly Lord’s body began to tremble as though the dagger that had pierced his side had been coated in a deadly poison.

“Ah, you’re holding out better than I thought? I laced the blade with Extreme Bone-Melting Powder, so normally your innards would have already dissolved by now.”

So Soryu chuckled and began to twist the dagger’s handle cruelly.

“Guh! Guhack!”

“…….”

As shocking as Sixth Heavenly Lord’s sudden reappearance was, So Soryu’s presence was even more surprising.

And she wasn’t the only one who appeared right after.

Thrust!

A shadow loomed over us, and in an instant, a long blade pierced straight through Sixth Heavenly Lord’s heart.

The woman with striking red hair.

Seeing the familiar face of my personal subordinate after such a long time, my lips parted slightly.

“Myeong-oh?!”

“It’s been a while, Lord.”

Myeong-oh, who had appeared behind Sixth Heavenly Lord, smiled menacingly as she gave a polite bow.

“Others will be here soon. Please wait just a little longer.”

Sixth Heavenly Lord, horrified, stared at the blade sticking out of his chest.

“H-How can an awakened one appear… in broad daylight…?!”

“Ah? I thought I stabbed you pretty stealthily, but you noticed?”

Sixth Heavenly Lord desperately tried to twist his head around to look behind him.

“N-No way… A successful specimen? Are you saying a successful specimen has appeared?!”

Ignoring the pain in his side, Sixth Heavenly Lord’s expression began to fill with ecstasy.

“I can’t believe this! A successful specimen! This proves that the heavenly moment is approaching…!”

Crunch!

Myeong-oh, clearly unwilling to hear any more, lifted her blade and sliced Sixth Heavenly Lord clean in half.

“…Ugh.”

The sheer brutality of it made my shoulders flinch slightly.

Soon after, Sixth Heavenly Lord’s corpse began to melt away under the effects of the Bone-Melting Poison.

Clicking my tongue in my mind, I stared at the melting remains.

‘He didn’t die completely.’

He had willingly carried out the ritual despite knowing he’d be bound by Cheon Yujeong.

Surely, he had prepared some other vessel or means of revival.

I took my eyes off Sixth Heavenly Lord.

Whether he returned or not later was something I would deal with then.

Soon, familiar figures approached from the base of the mountain.

Baek Sang-ah, Gu Chil, and So Cheon.

All of them called out, welcoming my return.

“Young Master Jin!”

“Y-Young Masteeer!”

“Myeong-ohhh! Save meee!”

…Though So Cheon’s last cry sounded particularly desperate.

Regardless, seeing their faces made me feel as if I had just crossed a massive mountain.

“Time to go back… to Ten Thousand Mountain.”

It truly had been a long, long journey.

I cremated Cheon Yujeong’s body and scattered her ashes by a nearby river.

On the mountainside, I built a burial mound and carved her name into it.

Yoo Cheong, the current master of Yoo Family’s Sacred Mountain, had readily accepted my request to build the grave.

And so—

[Cheon Yujeong (天有情)]

Though others who didn’t know the full story might wonder why I had built a grave for such a wicked woman…

Well, it wasn’t a bad idea to keep my memories of her to myself.

Only after completing her tomb did I receive the long-overdue update on the situation in the Central Plains.

“One year… huh.”

While Cheon Yujeong and I had been fighting in that sealed space, half a year had already passed in the outside world.

Which meant, it had been well over a year since I had first opened my eyes in Hainan Island.

“What’s the current situation in the Central Plains?”

“Though a large-scale battle hasn’t broken out yet, the war has already begun.”

“At present, the main force of our cult has advanced in three divisions.”

The Center Army of ten thousand, led by Young Cult Leader Cheon Yura.

The Right Army of five thousand, led by First Elder Saber Demon Pa Uryang.

The Left Army of five thousand, led by Great Elder Cheon Yeongha.

Since the Left Army was practically a support unit, the actual combat forces were the combined fifteen thousand of the Center and Right Armies.

“Currently, our cult has effectively taken control of the entire Gansu Province.”

“What about Gongdong Sect?”

The Gongdong Sect, stationed in the south of Gansu Province, had acted as a dam holding back our cult.

They had been among the mid-tier powers of the Nine Orthodox Sects.

“They tried to set up a defensive line but were crushed in a single battle and fled to Shaanxi Province.”

“…As expected.”

Whether mid-tier or upper-tier, no orthodox sect currently had the strength to block our cult alone.

If there was any chance, it would have been Shaolin Temple joining forces with Venerable Buddha.

But since Venerable Buddha had already entered Nirvana, that was a meaningless assumption.

“Currently, Gongdong Sect, Jongnam Sect, and Mount Hua have gathered near Xi’an, joining forces with other sects in Shaanxi Province to form a defensive line.”

The combined forces of these three sects totaled about twenty thousand.

Back when Yura first declared the cult’s advance into the Central Plains, countless warriors had already gathered in Xi’an.

From their perspective, Xi’an was the natural place to establish their defense.

And I had heard their numbers were still increasing by the day.

“How’s the atmosphere at the front? Our cult should be deliberately avoiding open battle.”

“Huh? How did you know that?”

Myeong-oh looked genuinely surprised that I had pierced through to the truth so quickly.

Of course, I already knew the general strategy from the plan Yura had shared with me, but I confidently acted like I had deduced it on my own.

“With my wisdom and insight, such things are obvious.”

Myeong-oh, seated on Gu Chil’s right, nodded sincerely.

“…Indeed, with your wisdom, Lord, it makes sense.”

“Yeah, as irritating as you are, it’s totally like you, Patron.”

So Soryu, seated on Gu Chil’s left, also nodded in agreement.

Gu Chil, who had been sweating coldly while stuck between the two sides, forced himself to nod with a proud expression.

“……Huh?”

Seeing a more approving reaction than I had expected, I widened my eyes in surprise.

Sitting next to me, tending the campfire, Baek Sang-ah grumbled with a displeased look.

“…Well, I mean, Young Master Jin has accomplished things up until now. This matter included.”

“……Hmm.”

The unexpectedly dry response only made me feel even more ashamed….

Myeong-oh spoke up.

“Surprisingly, the atmosphere isn’t too bad. There are a lot of opinions that it wouldn’t be so bad to just gather up all those bug-like orthodox sect bastards and wipe them out in one go.”

“I see.”

I nodded and came to a conclusion.

“Since a major battle hasn’t broken out yet, I’ll have to stop the war before it’s too late.”

“How? Honestly, at this point, turning the army back won’t be easy, you know?”

Of course, Baek Sang-ah had a valid point.

But there was still a way.

“We need to go to the one who holds the final authority to stop the war.”

“……!”

At this moment, there was only one person who could be called the final authority.

However, both Myeong-oh and So Soryu shook their heads with negative expressions.

“It won’t be easy. Ever since we left, the entire Ten Thousand Mountain has gone into full wartime status. Until the war is over, they won’t let anyone into the cult’s territory, not even fellow cult members.”

I shrugged and replied.

“We can just sneak in.”

At those words, everyone around looked even more dumbfounded.

“I told you, that’s not easy! Even if you could break through that boundary, how would you get past the Heavenly Demon Pavilion? Right now, no one is allowed to approach the Heavenly Demon Pavilion.”

“Well, don’t worry so much.”

I stood up from my seat with a wide grin.

“Because as I am now, I can do it.”

***

Seven days and nights later.

The inner depths of the Heavenly Demon Pavilion.

There, still meditating alone, the Cult Leader Cheon Taejong slowly opened his eyes at the presence of someone approaching.

Now fully grown into a young man, he sharpened his gaze toward the intruder who had deceived all the Guardian Lions protecting the Heavenly Demon Pavilion.

“Your skills have improved tremendously, little brother.”

The intruder, called little brother, politely cupped his fists toward Cheon Taejong.

“It has been a while.”

And then he spoke the most unforgivable words.

“Father-in-law.”

Twitch!

A faint twitch appeared at the corner of Cheon Taejong’s eye.

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