Streams of light kept shooting into the sky.

The light rising with violent tremors was vicious somehow. Alien, ominous to the extreme.

If it had been a radiant light, there was no way it would feel this wrong.

Something foul and revolting. A kind of light that felt like it should never be able to exist in this world.

Looking at it, I let out a sigh.

“Ah... I can’t believe I’m seeing this again....”

I had seen this light in this life already. Which was exactly why I never wanted to see it again.

The Bridge of Thought-Forms.

That was what Chief Baek had called it. I agreed with the name too.

[...What in the world is that?]

[This is....]

Yoo Cheongil stared at the light with widened eyes. Seeing that, I moved my lips and answered.

“Evil spirits.”

[What?]

[...Cheongil. Look inside it.]

Seongheon pointed at the light with a trembling hand. Yoo Cheongil followed his gesture and looked closer.

[Huh!]

Only then did Yoo Cheongil seem to confirm it. Seongheon seemed to have a pretty sharp eye for this sort of thing.

KYA-A-A-A-A---!!!

Evil spirits screamed inside the soaring pillar of light. Right. That light was all evil spirits. Spiritual energy—or thought-form energy, sometimes called evil energy—was spewing upward like light.

“Impressive, I guess.”

The real question was—

“Where the hell did they gather that many evil spirits?”

Enough evil spirits to form a pillar that size. How had they even amassed that number?

“Even for the Central Plains, this is insane.”

This place might be more steeped in death than my previous life, but that many evil spirits meant something different. It meant they had stuffed an enormous quantity of them into the stakes.

“...Those heretic bastards.”

What the hell were they trying to do to go this far? I was watching it with that question in mind when—

[...Kid.]

Yoo Cheongil spoke to me.

[Can we really leave it like this?]

He had seen how bad the situation was. Hearing him, I answered evenly.

“Yes. Well. Ordinary people can’t see it anyway.”

The Wudang people nearby were probably in complete chaos, but what was I supposed to do about that? At the very least, to anyone without divine energy, it would feel like nothing more than a minor earthquake.

Still—

“But if we leave it like this, it does become a problem.”

That many evil spirits were pushing back and surging upward. And they weren’t just rising. They were condensing and gathering again in the sky.

There was only one thing that meant.

“The birth of a Calamity God.”

Countless masses of evil energy gathering, thought-forms boiling over, and another god being born.

It meant calamity was descending. And with that much—

“...This is a headache.”

For now, there was a high chance Shaanxi would be destroyed. The land would rot and become a place where life couldn’t survive.

A Calamity God brings calamity. And if the starting point was Shaanxi, there was nothing more to say.

[Then what will you do?]

“What else? We leave it alone.”

[What, you little—?]

Yoo Cheongil’s brow furrowed. He really did have a terrifying face when he made that expression.

“We can’t touch that right now.”

[What the hell does that—]

“If we interfere carelessly, I’ll only make things more troublesome for myself.”

[So you’re just going to leave it?]

“Yes. We have to leave it.”

We had to.

“That’s why I set up the formation.”

[What?]

I’d already put a move in place beforehand so I could stop it without touching it myself. How could I just leave it alone after all that?

“There was a reason I had those kids do what I asked.”

The thing I had asked my companions to do.

It was time to use that.

“By now...”

Shouldn’t it be right about time?

The moment I thought that—

KUGAGAGAGANG---!!!

The tremors suddenly grew enormous, and then, in an instant—

SNAP—!

[Huh?]

[Uh...?]

The surging force vanished. Good.

“It worked.”

The energy had stopped. The reason was simple.

“It’s been a while since I last did it, so I thought it might fail.”

I rubbed at my chest with one hand. I felt a faint rustle inside. Talismans.

“I’m better at making these than I expected.”

I had made talismans and asked my companions to place them around the area where the stakes were driven in.

Talismans inscribed with phrases using my own blood. They weren’t on my grandmother’s level, but they were effective enough.

And they had introduced distortion.

This was the result.

“It blocks the path the thought-forms use to rise.”

I looked down at the ground. By now, lines were already spreading out in every direction from the stakes. These too were lines ordinary people couldn’t see.

Even the points of the six-point star were beginning to shake.

The distance to the incomplete stake. The force. The cracks born from that imbalance.

And then—

PAAAAAAA—!!!!

The lines snapped apart, and the spell formation broke down. The tremors began to fade. The twisted, chaotic sky returned to normal in an instant.

[Oooh....]

Yoo Cheongil let out an admiring sound when he saw it.

[You always have a plan.]

He looked surprised that I’d already prepared for this, but—

“Don’t relax yet. It’s not over.”

[Huh?]

The real thing started now. I was still looking at the sky. Wasn’t there still a problem up there?

“Can’t you see it?”

KYA-A-A-A-A-A-A---!!!!

The thought-forms shot upward into the sky, then broke apart. Which meant the evil spirits that had barely managed to condense and gather were now scattering.

And if that much scattered—

This entire region would become a disaster.

It might not be on the level of a Calamity God descending, but it was still guaranteed to turn into a complete hellscape.

So—

“I have to deal with it.”

I had to handle that. In the way that profited me as much as possible.

FSSSSS—!!!!

Goosebumps rose all over my body. Feeling my body go cold, I focused slowly. Click. Click. It felt like something inside me was coming undone.

I loosened the ring I had tied shut again. As I did, words I’d heard once floated back to me.

“You bear a burden far too great for a human. A wretched fate. A pitiful one.”

“Let me ask you.”

Words spoken to me by that light they had called a great being.

“You who were born human, yet bear a burden greater than that—will you become a god?”

What had I said back then?

Ah, right. I’d answered like this.

“What kind of crazy shit are you saying? Are you an evil spirit too?”

I remembered Chief Baek recoiling in horror when I said it with obvious irritation. As if asking how I could dare speak that way to such a being.

Even that had seemed ridiculous to me.

A ghost was a ghost. What did rank matter? That was the sort of mindset I’d been living with back then.

“Hahaha.”

At that, the bastard had laughed.

“Good. Yes, that’s right.”

“There is no need to become a god. Gods are no different from humans in the end. So do not forget your burden. You are one who has work to do equal to it.”

If I had a regret, sometimes I wondered what would have happened if I had listened to those words back then.

If I had—

“I wouldn’t have to do this kind of shit either.”

SKRIIIIITCH—!

It turned completely.

The energy in my body stopped at once.

SNAP—!

The sound stopped too.

The screams the evil spirits had been letting out vanished, and the things writhing in the sky went rigid.

Then, in that instant—

SAAAAAAH......!!!

The eyes of the evil spirits all turned toward me. Every single time I felt that, it made my skin crawl.

I looked at them and smiled.

“Well? Don’t I look delicious?”

A body that ghosts crave by nature. A mind whose force was overwhelmingly strong.

My grandmother had defined my soul as something so innately suited to divine energy that it could hardly have been born more so, and every evil spirit drooled over it.

That was why I had spent my life living with it sealed off like this. I kept it adjusted to a level where I could merely see ghosts in moderation.

Because if I didn’t—if I opened my spiritual energy all the way like this—

—KYA-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A---!!!!

Every evil spirit in the area would come pouring toward me.

KWA-A-A-A-A-A—!!

A mass ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) of evil spirits rushed at me in an instant.

[Kid!]

Yoo Cheongil reacted in shock, but—

“It’s fine.”

I raised a hand. Yoo Cheongil was not the one who would save me.

KWADUDEUDEUK—!!

The evil spirits charged in. Feeling that, I poured force into my soul.

And then—

—KYA-A-A-A!!

The evil spirits trying to bite and tear at me all began pouring into my body instead. Murky energy flooded my soul.

Feeling it, I endured the sickening fullness.

“...If this goes wrong, I’m dead.”

The density of evil energy was too high. It was dangerous—more than enough to fill my vessel and overflow it. I hadn’t even absorbed half of it.

Ordinarily, if you took this many evil spirits into your body, your soul would be corrupted and your mind would break, or your true self would simply die. I knew that better than anyone.

But—

“...Could you help out now?”

I had one thing I was counting on.

“At this rate, I really am going to die.”

I said I was going to die, yet I kept swallowing evil spirits without stopping. And after devouring them for quite a while longer—

[How absurd.]

A voice rang out.

It wasn’t Yoo Cheongil. It wasn’t Seongheon either. It was deeper, with a tone that seemed to hold no emotion at all.

[Are you trying to use me?]

The Heavenly Demon.

The one inside my body through the Divine Sword.

I remembered it. Back in Henan, when I swallowed all those evil spirits. My body hadn’t broken then. If anything, my energy had increased.

And I remembered the sight I’d seen when I entered the spirit-dream the Heavenly Demon had created.

The Heavenly Demon seated atop a heap of countless evil spirits.

He had suppressed all the evil spirits that entered my body. I had seen that, and that was why I had tried this now.

And if the Heavenly Demon refused?

Then I’d die.

But—

I had also been certain the Heavenly Demon would save me.

Because he needed me.

And as proof—

[It truly is ridiculous.]

I felt the Heavenly Demon move inside me.

[Still, I owe rent. I will help you this once. But remember this.]

FSSSSS—!!!

Something happened inside me.

[There will not be a second time.]

And then the bloated, stuffed sensation in me vanished in an instant.

—KYA-A-A-A-A-A-A......!!!

The screaming died down with it.

“...Oh.”

I pressed a hand to my chest and let out a sound of admiration.

“This really is usef—”

I’d been right to make use of the Heavenly Demon. I had that thought for barely an instant when—

KUGUGUNG—!!

A violent tremor ran through my body. A sensation suddenly struck my dantian. It felt as though enormous amounts of energy that hadn’t been there before were surging into it.

“What is this...?”

What was this energy now? My energy was suddenly increasing. I was still reeling from it when—

[Now that I think of it.]

The Heavenly Demon’s voice rang out again.

[It would be a little wasteful to help you and leave it at that.]

“What?”

His voice carried a hint of laughter as he spoke to me.

[I should gain something as well. That would make it a proper transaction, wouldn’t it?]

“What do you me—”

[I have paid more than enough rent. Be satisfied with this as well.]

The Heavenly Demon did something. The moment I realized that, an amount of energy incomparable to before rebounded inside me. The problem was that the amount flooding in was vastly beyond what my dantian could handle.

An amount of energy too much to endure even after reaching Transcendent Peak.

Energy that exceeded the vessel would naturally rebel and run wild.

KUGUGUGUNG---!!!

“Khk...!”

Thud.

A terrible agony hit me, and my knees buckled on the spot.

And just like that, my consciousness cut out and I collapsed.