Sssss.

A murderous intent so immense it brushed across my throat.

I was only looking at him, and my soul was already trembling.

“Heavenly Demon...”

I spoke in a shaking voice as I faced those crimson eyes.

At my words, the corners of the Heavenly Demon’s mouth curved upward.

“You call me rather lightly.”

“...!”

My body locked up.

It was vile.

A calamity god, or maybe an evil god.

The presence of a god formed from hundreds, thousands of evil ghosts. I had felt it before, but that same vastness radiated from the Heavenly Demon.

If Yoo Cheongil was something beyond a general spirit—

...then the Heavenly Demon was beyond even a calamity god.

He was not some crude entity made out of foulness alone.

Things called god-class were not simple, brutish existences like that. They carried one more thing.

Awe.

Supremacy.

Greatness.

A soul holding a value no human being could dare comprehend or judge.

That was what people called a god.

Is the Heavenly Demon a god?

The Heavenly Demon standing in front of me held that kind of presence within him.

“...What do you want with me?”

Why was something that ought to have been inside the Divine Sword popping out here instead?

I asked, tense.

At that—

“You find it strange that I am here?”

He tilted his head at me as he spoke.

“There is no place I cannot go. No matter where it is.”

“...Ah. Right.”

The tone dripping off him was pure arrogance.

The supreme ruler of the DEMON CULT, the man said to have stood shoulder to shoulder with the greatest martial artist under heaven.

If it was someone like that, speaking this way was not exactly unbelievable, but—

“Do you need something from me?”

I assumed there had to be a reason the Heavenly Demon had appeared now.

There had to be some reason.

At my question—

“Need something...”

The Heavenly Demon lightly gripped his own chin as he spoke.

“I do.”

“What—”

“And it has to be done now.”

“What?”

“I will ask you one thing. Do you remember what I told you last time?”

“Which part?”

What the Heavenly Demon had said?

Of course I remembered it, but which part was he talking about?

Just as the question formed—

“The part where I told you not to trust Yoo Cheongil.”

“...”

Ah. That.

He had said that too.

I nodded.

“I remember it.”

“Only remember it?”

“No. I never trusted him that completely in the first place.”

It was a relationship where both sides were obviously hiding things from each other.

Complete trust?

There was no way such a thing could exist.

At my answer, the Heavenly Demon let out a faint laugh.

“Funny thing to say. For someone who says that, you seem to do whatever he tells you well enough.”

“I use what’s useful and spit out what needs spitting out.”

“That narrow way of speaking. You toss out your lack of a center as if it were nothing.”

I had nothing to say to that.

For someone I claimed not to trust, I had indeed been taking his words at face value.

Right now was the perfect example.

He said he would give me the stroke of fortune that was Reforging the Body, so I believed him, ate the Moonlit Night Herb, and even handed over my body.

“Hm.”

I lowered my gaze.

Below me, Yoo Cheongil was rotating energy through my body.

His eyes were closed, his lashes trembling as if he were fully focused.

Watching my body shudder every now and then with those heavy jolts, I found myself wondering just what the hell was happening inside.

That alone had already been hard enough for me to endure a moment ago, and Yoo Cheongil was controlling it?

If he pulled this off and actually completed Reforging the Body—

That would be like blowing my nose without lifting a hand.

Wouldn’t it mean he was remotely carrying out Reforging the Body for me?

And the funny part was—

I haven’t once thought he might fail.

The possibility that Yoo Cheongil might fail to pull off Reforging the Body using my body.

I had not considered it even once.

That’s a bad sign.

It was not good.

For all my talk about trusting only what deserved trust, it meant I had been giving him more faith than I ought to.

That kind of situation was not good.

I knew that perfectly well myself.

That was why I could not even properly refute what the Heavenly Demon had said.

“So. You said you needed something from me?”

I shifted the topic on purpose.

At that, the Heavenly Demon’s eyes narrowed.

The crimson light in them deepened.

My soul shook once more under that gaze, but I ignored it by force.

“That is enough. There is no value in saying more. Creatures like us do not move at another’s word to begin with.”

“...Us?”

That word snagged in me.

The way he grouped me and him together felt wrong.

“What do you mean, us?”

“You already know.”

“...I don’t.”

There was not a single common point between us.

At most, we both had eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

What part of me was supposed to resemble the root of all evil?

The absurdity of it made the words come out sharper, and the Heavenly Demon covered his own eyes with one hand.

“What you can see. What you can feel. And—”

The tip of his finger pointed at my chest.

Right at my heart.

“What you can contain.”

“...”

“A body and a fate that can contain even a god. And hearing that, you still claim not to know?”

“...Hah.”

My expression twisted at those words.

Because I knew exactly what he meant.

“This cursed body of mine. Is that what you mean?”

The thing that let me see ghosts and feel them.

And more than that, let me contain things even worse than that.

That was obviously what he meant.

And when I said it—

“Cursed?”

The Heavenly Demon looked genuinely unable to understand.

“It is a blessing. How can you defile karma with such a filthy word?”

“...A blessing?”

This time, it was my turn to twist my face.

“You call this a blessing?”

“If not a blessing, then what is it?”

“A curse. A filthy, rotten curse.”

I saw things I should never have seen and felt things I should never have felt.

And because of that, I got entangled with things I never should have gotten entangled with, and it ruined my life.

What bigger curse was there than that?

And on top of that—

It carries into the next life too.

I had wanted to live an ordinary life, and instead it had kept poisoning even this one.

And he called it a blessing?

That was fucking ridiculous.

If anything, I wanted to know why the Heavenly Demon saw this miserable shit as a blessing.

“Why?”

So I asked.

“It is simple.”

The Heavenly Demon gave a very simple answer.

“If you can contain even a god, then put another way, it means you could become a god.”

“...”

I froze at that.

Because someone else’s words suddenly came back to me.

Would you not become a great being?

There had been someone who looked at me and told me to become a god.

A body and conditions that could become a god.

That statement dug sharply into some corner of my chest.

“Did you want to become a god?”

Was that what the Heavenly Demon had wanted?

Was that why he carried such a bizarre presence now, and why his soul had remained inside the Divine Sword?

That was the thought behind my question.

But—

“You are mistaken.”

This time, the Heavenly Demon denied it.

“...No?”

“Becoming a god was something I could have done at any time. Whenever I wished. But what I wanted was never something that trivial.” 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

“Then what—”

“I wanted to kill a god.”

“...What?”

He wanted to kill a god?

It made no sense.

“How?”

“How is there a separate method? You simply kill it.”

“...No.”

“I was born able to do it. What could be more blessed than that?”

“...”

Now I got it.

I finally understood what the Heavenly Demon had been saying.

That look in his eyes. That madness.

I felt it and swallowed dryly.

He’s not sane.

The Heavenly Demon was absolutely not sane either.

Granted, there was not a single martial artist who reached that level and stayed normal.

But this bastard is flat-out insane.

The leader of the DEMON CULT had wanted to kill a god.

He reacted as if that alone had been the reason for his life.

There was not much I could even say to that.

At most, there was one thing I could ask.

“So... did you kill one?”

Had the Heavenly Demon succeeded in killing a god?

I asked carefully.

At that—

“Regrettably, I did not.”

The Heavenly Demon shook his head.

“I was a hair’s breadth away. I failed to complete it, and so I never reached it.”

“...A hair’s breadth.”

“It is merely regrettable.”

“So that regret is why you remained in this land?”

Because he had failed to kill a god?

Was that why he had stayed behind here?

But—

“That too is mistaken.”

Again, the Heavenly Demon shook his head.

“...Then why?”

That was wrong too?

Then what was the source of what had kept him here?

“I am not a lingering attachment. If anything, I am sheer obstinacy.”

The Heavenly Demon looked at me with his hands behind his back.

“My failure to kill a god was my own inadequacy. I do not cling to such things. But the obstinacy I set in place for the sake of that goal still remains, and that irritates me.”

“What...”

“So there is something you will have to do in my place.”

“What?”

At those words, I frowned.

So it was this again in the end?

“...You’re telling me to clean up after your kind again?”

And this time it was the Heavenly Demon?

What a joke.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because only you can.”

“Hah.”

Irritation rose in me.

“Find somebody else. There should be plenty of people in the world who can see ghosts.”

“I know. There are plenty who can see. But only I and you can contain them.”

“And how are you so sure of that?”

“Because I was able to reach you.”

Easy for him to say.

What, did he believe in fate or something?

“I don’t know about any of that. I have no intention of doing it. Do you not see that I’m already in the middle of something with that old man Yoo?”

Back then, neither the Heavenly Demon nor an evil god meant a damn thing to me.

They had looked like nothing more than evil ghosts trying to use me.

“This is not a request.”

“...Then what, a notice? A threat?”

“As I said before, I know that is not what would move someone like you. This is merely—”

The Heavenly Demon paused, then smiled as he finished.

“A forewarning.”

“...What?”

“You will become the Heaven of the DEMON CULT in my stead. And in the end—”

Sssssss—!!!

A black haze rose from his body like shimmering heat.

It was foulness and killing intent.

And—

...Demonic energy?

It was that same vile force he had used on Strange Demon before.

“You will complete the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and place even gods beneath your feet.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

I furrowed my brow.

“Learning even one martial art is already a pain in the ass, and what, now the Heavenly Demon Divine Art? What a fucking joke.”

So this lunatic was talking about perfecting a martial art too?

Absurd.

“Cut the bullshit. The little master of the DEMON CULT is already on the move right now. And on top of that—”

His daughter was alive and well too.

I almost said it, then held myself back.

“...There are plenty besides that, and I never had the Heavenly Killing Star in the first place.”

The crimson eyes that had been like the symbol of the Heavenly Demon.

I did not have the mark that proved possession of the Heavenly Killing Star.

“Have you forgotten? Heavenly Killing Star. That pitiful shell does not even qualify as a pretext. Something else is what matters.”

Not the Heavenly Killing Star, but karma.

Whether one bore divine eyes or not—that was supposed to be the reason, but—

“No matter what reason you try to stick on it, it changes nothing. To begin with, I’m not even of your blood.”

The Divine Sword could not even be carried unless one belonged to the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline.

And the Divine Sword was the Heavenly Demon’s very symbol.

So the only reason I had been able to carry it around at all was because the Heavenly Demon had shown consideration.

So that I could use the Divine Sword.

Which meant the Heavenly Demon contained within the Divine Sword had permitted it.

At my words—

“You are entertaining a rather amusing misconception.”

The Heavenly Demon smiled brightly as he said it.

“I never permitted any such thing.”

“...What?”

For a moment, I just stared.

“You never permitted it?”

He had never permitted me to touch the Divine Sword?

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Then—

“How am I using it?”

How was I able to use the Divine Sword?

At my utterly bewildered question, the Heavenly Demon stared straight at me and answered.

“Ask your father. You will hear a very interesting answer.”

“What?”

“Looks like time is up. Remember this.”

“Wait—”

“You.”

The Heavenly Demon began to fade.

I tried to grab him in a rush, but—

“Before long, you will take my place.”

He spoke in a low voice.

Then—

WHOOOOSH—!!!

He turned into smoke and was drawn straight into the Divine Sword.

“...No...”

I stood there blankly, stunned.

The words I had just heard were too much to process.

Ask my father and I would know?

I froze at the incomprehensible statement.

Then—

KUUUUUNG—!!!

“...!”

A sound burst from the direction of my body.

SHHHHHHHH—!!!

With that heavy noise, an alien smoke spilled out from it.

What the hell was that this time?

Smoke was pouring from my body’s mouth and ears, and then—

Sssss!

“...Ugh!?”

My soul-form lurched violently and was sucked back into my flesh in an instant.

The sensation made me want to vomit.

And after that, once I had been pulled fully back inside—

“Hahk...!!!”

When I opened my eyes,

a hell of a lot had changed.