BOOOOM—!

A massive body dropped to one knee.

One knee hit the shattered floor.

DRIP.

Blood soaked straight into the ground.

In the slow-spreading pool, the giant—Divine Spear, the Martial Alliance Leader—barely held himself upright with his spear.

“...Hoooo....”

A breath leaked out.

His condition wasn’t normal.

A deep sword wound had been carved across his upper body, and blood wouldn’t stop pouring out.

Blood ran from the cuts and punctures all over him, too.

And then—

“What a pity.”

The one who had done this to Divine Spear.

The Heaven-Breaking Palace Lord descended slowly in front of him.

“If one of your eyes had still been sound, you wouldn’t have fallen so lightly. No.”

WHOOOSH—!!

A sword flew into the Heaven-Breaking Palace Lord’s outstretched hand, and he caught it.

“At the very least—if you hadn’t been wavering over something useless, this wouldn’t have happened. Isn’t that right, Divine Spear?”

“......”

Divine Spear didn’t answer.

He just lifted his head and stared at the Lord.

The first moment.

That had been the problem.

The moment he met the Lord’s face.

That instant of hesitation had made this.

“I’ll ask you.”

The Lord’s voice was calm as he questioned Divine Spear.

“Where did you hide the key?”

“......”

Key.

At that word, Divine Spear let out a laugh.

“Hah... ha.”

At the low laugh, the Lord’s brow creased.

“Why are you laughing?”

“...So that’s why you came here.”

RUMBLE.

Divine Spear straightened the knee he’d been kneeling on and rose again.

His body was drenched in blood, but he steadied himself like it meant nothing.

“Were you trying to find the traces of the Heavenly Demon, Lord? And what do you intend to do with it once you find it?”

“Who knows. It isn’t something I need to answer for you.”

“Then my answer won’t be any different.”

“Is that so? How disappointing.”

UUUUUUM—!!

The Lord poured power into the sword in his hand, slow and deliberate.

“Fine. You don’t have to speak. Either way... you won’t be the only one who knows about the key.”

“......”

The Lord tightened his grip and was about to clash with Divine Spear again—

“...Mm.”

Suddenly, the Lord froze and looked off somewhere.

Divine Spear did the same.

The Lord, wearing a visibly displeased expression, spoke toward the place he was staring.

“Well, that changes things.”

The one who answered with a smile—

“Originally, I meant to do it the way we discussed.”

—was Baek Cheonin.

His black martial robes rippled as he approached Divine Spear and the Lord.

“But since I’m doing it anyway... I figured I might as well do it properly.”

“Deputy Leader. What are you talking about?”

“...Deputy Leader?”

At the Lord’s words, Divine Spear’s face twisted.

That single term—

Deputy ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ Leader—

was the problem.

“Ah. Right. I should introduce myself properly.”

Baek Cheonin spoke to Divine Spear, whose face had gone stiff.

“I am the Deputy Leader of DEMON CULT—”

He paused mid-sentence.

Because there was no longer any need to dance around it.

“Dokgo Hyeok.”

He finally said the name he’d always wanted to say.

“And I greet the master of the Alliance. I am—”

Dokgo Hyeok.

His true name.

And—

“—the new sky of our cult.”

That, too, was what he’d wanted to say.

“...DEMON CULT’s Deputy Leader? That can’t be.”

Divine Spear looked like he couldn’t believe a word of it.

Deputy Leader?

“So the seed of the Heavenly Demon remained.”

“AHAHAHA.”

The moment Divine Spear said “seed,” Dokgo Hyeok burst out laughing.

“Seed. Right. Sure. You’re not wrong. It remained. It survived even in that hell... and climbed all the way up here.”

“......”

“That expression looks good on you. Yeah. That’s the expression I wanted to see. That’s why I stayed alive.”

Heh. Heh. Heh.

Dokgo Hyeok laughed for a long time, even with Divine Spear right in front of him.

“Before anything else, I’ll say this—I don’t care much about revenge. We were weak, so we lost and disappeared. There’s no need to attach meaning to it.”

The Heavenly Demon’s defeat.

The Orthodox-Demonic War had ended with the orthodox side’s victory.

DEMON CULT was wiped out and faded into history.

He mentioned it—and said revenge didn’t interest him.

Yeah.

Revenge wasn’t the goal.

Because Dokgo Hyeok’s aim had never been that.

The Heavenly Demon had died because he was weak.

Failing to achieve his purpose in the end only meant one thing—

his strength hadn’t been enough.

“I’m not like him.”

Dokgo Hyeok’s point was simple.

“If he lost because he was weak... then this time, we win because we’re strong.”

BZZZZZ.

Dokgo Hyeok clutched his chest.

And his eyes bled red.

“Deputy Leader... this isn’t the time—”

The Heaven-Breaking Palace Lord’s face twisted as he spoke.

But even he couldn’t stop Dokgo Hyeok.

“This is my greeting gift. I wanted to give it to you. Please—chew on it, deeply.”

His lips curled up, like he was drunk on madness.

Red-stained light in his eyes.

And when Divine Spear saw it, his gaze wavered faintly.

Red eyes.

Those nauseating, distant pupils—

they were the same eerie gaze the previous Heavenly Demon had possessed.

Divine Spear tightened his arms.

His body moved on instinct.

He had to kill that thing.

He forced power into his battered body and tried to drive the spear forward—

KUUUAAAAAA—!!!!!

The air warped under the vile surge blasting out of Dokgo Hyeok.

\*****

“Why are you like that?”

Thousand-Mile True Sight asked as he watched me sweating cold.

“...It’s nothing.”

I wiped at the sweat, forcing myself to.

Why was that kind of pressure spreading?

I stared at the distant presence and kept swallowing hard.

Something was wrong.

‘That’s energy that’s been steeped for hundreds of years.’

If I measured it by my past life, it was obsession piled upon obsession for centuries, minimum.

It was the kind of thing that should’ve accumulated evil through countless eras of war and grudges—

until it became a god.

We called those—

disaster gods.

Something that could spread calamity across an entire region just by existing.

Earthquakes.

Storms.

Tsunamis that washed everything away.

Monsters that could bring every kind of disaster and leave people staring into ruin.

Calling it a simple ghost was wrong.

Its range was too wide.

Too violent.

That was why we gave it the name “god.”

‘That energy is a disaster god.’

Judging by the amount surging into the sky, it was at that level.

And that was the problem.

‘Why is that here—’

Why would disaster-god level energy be spreading from over there?

My whole body trembled.

That divine pressure twisted my insides into knots.

Malevolent aura was invading my entire body.

It was poking at my instincts.

If something that huge was spreading across the ground, it would affect the dimension itself.

‘...Malicious ghosts will gather.’

Malevolent aura calls malicious ghosts.

And if that much energy was pouring out, there was no way the ones nearby wouldn’t react.

‘Wait.’

Malicious ghosts respond to malevolent aura—

With that thought, I snapped my eyes around.

‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’

The moment I checked, my eyes went wide.

The spies.

Something was happening to the ones HEAVEN-BREAKING PALACE had sent.

‘Their energy spiked.’

The aura they carried was swelling, violently.

Were they reacting to the energy surging up?

‘This is bad.’

A rotten sign.

Feeling it, I spoke to Thousand-Mile True Sight immediately.

“Strategist.”

“Speak.”

“Something’s wrong. From now on, we need to be careful with the spies we separated—”

I was trying to raise the warning—

“GRAAAAH—!!!”

WHACK—!!

“What—?!”

One of the spies we’d pulled aside convulsed—

then slashed a nearby Martial Alliance warrior with his sword.

And that wasn’t all.

GRAAAAH—!!!

Other warriors—other spies—went berserk too, hacking in every direction.

This was a problem.

Why were they suddenly doing that?

I narrowed my eyes, trying to understand—

“Proceed to the second operation.”

Thousand-Mile True Sight spoke calmly, despite the chaos.

At that, several warriors moved instantly.

WHACK—!!!

Heads fell.

Two commanders, already assigned, swung their swords without hesitation.

So it had been planned.

Had he even anticipated that they might go berserk?

WHOOOSH—!!

A commander’s blade snapped through the spies, cutting fast.

But—

KRAK—!

“...!”

In the instant the commander struck—

the sword stopped halfway in.

The blade had bitten in, then stalled.

“GRAAAAH—!!!”

Like hardened qi had coated the neck, it hadn’t severed cleanly.

The spy tried to swing back—

WHACK—!!

The commander forced it through and took the head anyway.

It took effort, but it did cut.

I saw the commander’s eyes shake.

They’d gotten tougher than expected.

‘Did that energy affect them?’

The surging aura seemed to have changed their bodies.

I knew this phenomenon.

‘...They’re stained.’

Being stained by malevolent aura itself.

People possessed by malicious ghosts sometimes had their bodies seized in an instant and produced absurd strength.

It wasn’t that they exceeded human limits or awakened some special power.

It was closer to burning their bodies on raw vitality.

People can show impossible strength when facing death.

That’s just the instinctual body pulling out everything it has.

And when that happens, the strain destroys muscle more often than not.

This was the same.

But—

‘They’re doing it right now, in this situation?’

Malevolent aura had erupted, and the energy was eating into people everywhere.

It had happened in an instant.

If I had to name the cause, it was that disaster-class energy I was feeling right now.

‘This is insane.’

What do we do?

If that energy keeps spreading—

‘The malicious ghosts in this region could swarm.’

Malicious ghosts reacting to it could gather and set off something catastrophic, and it wouldn’t even be strange.

‘They can’t feel it yet because it’s far...’

But at that volume, it might start affecting even people with no divine sense at all.

While the commanders were cutting down the spies, I had to think fast.

‘What do I do?’

With energy at that level—

‘...Do I have to?’

Something I hadn’t done in this life.

Something I’d done until I was sick of it in my last life.

Do I have to do that?

‘...Use power?’

If I tried, maybe I could.

I didn’t have time to think long.

GRIT.

I clenched my teeth hard.

No choice.

I was about to drag out what I’d been hiding—

[Ahae.]

“...!”

Yoo Cheongil called me.

At that voice, my body went rigid.

[A gift has arrived.]

‘What?’

A gift?

And was it my imagination?

Yoo Cheongil sounded like he was smiling.

I turned my head.

“Who is it—!”

The warriors reacted.

Someone was walking toward us in the distance.

An old man with black hair, wearing black martial robes.

The only strange thing—

his right arm was missing.

“...That man—!”

Thousand-Mile True Sight froze.

Like he recognized him.

“Sword Demon...!”

At Thousand-Mile True Sight’s words, everyone reacted at once.

“Sword Demon—?!” 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

“If it’s Sword Demon... from the Orthodox-Demonic War....”

It was panic.

And I wasn’t different.

‘Sword Demon...?’

Sword Demon.

A known absolute master—said to be Heaven-Beyond-Heaven level—who had served under the Heavenly Demon.

He was infamous for having fought Blade God Peng Dojun on equal ground at the point where the Heavenly Demon was defeated.

Meaning his skill was well known.

The problem was—

“If he’s Sword Demon... wasn’t he killed by Sword Emperor Ui Yangyeon?”

It was already public knowledge that Sword Emperor Ui Yangyeon had killed Sword Demon.

So why was a DEMON CULT figure suddenly here?

And—

‘He’s wrapped in malevolent aura too.’

Not even comparable to the other spies.

Malevolent aura coiled around his entire body.

“......”

Sword Demon lifted his low eyes and looked at someone.

Thousand-Mile True Sight.

“Found you.”

With those words—

a chill crawled up my spine.

Murderous intent, enormous.

SSSS.

Sword Demon gripped his sword with his left hand.

Cold.

Ominous.

My breathing sped up.

The commanders had already moved, launching themselves at him.

Disaster-class energy surging.

Sword Demon appearing.

The unexpected kept stacking—

[Good.]

Yoo Cheongil spoke shortly.

[Ahae.]

His voice reached me again.

[Take up the Divine Sword.]

My hand moved on its own.

The sword wrapped in cloth at my waist.

My hand went there.

GRIP—!

The moment I seized the Divine Sword—

[Sleep.]

Yoo Cheongil spoke to me, voice trembling with something like ecstasy.

[From here on—]

And then, the words that made my blood run cold.

[It’s time for the moon to be reborn.]

Strength drained out of my body with the last syllable.