Absolute Regression
Chapter 20: We Are Demons
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TL: FoodieMonster007
The beginning is crucial when you receive a new sword.
A sword communicates with a martial artist. With a peerless treasured sword like the Black Demon Sword, the depth of that communication is incomparable to other swords.
A sword never rejects a martial artist. However, if the communication is not well established, one cannot draw out the sword's full power.
The same is true when one fails to properly understand the sword's nature. For instance, a person with extreme Yang inner arts using a weapon with extreme Yin energy, or a person with demonic arts using a Buddhist weapon.
The way the sword is handled is also important. Wielding a rough sword like the Black Demon Sword gently, or a gentle sword like the White Flower Sword roughly, also prevents one from unleashing the sword's full power.
In my life before returning, I had seen a sword synchronize with its master and weep on its own. The sight was truly magnificent. I thought to myself that I wanted a sword like that too.
Can I synchronize with this sword like that?
After circulating my qi to calm my mind, I drew the Black Demon Sword.
Even without any true qi infused, the sword's own sharp energy made the surroundings feel cool.
[It's good to meet you. From now on, I am your master.]
I slowly infused qi into the Black Demon Sword. It was the first time my inner arts and the Black Demon Sword met.
Then, the enhanced sword qi began to form.
A wave of blue, like the sky, rippled along the blade.
It's definitely different!
It was different from the color of my enhanced sword qi until now. I expected it to become deeper and darker because it was the Black Demon Sword, but instead, it was a brighter, more radiant blue. Just as small things can be more moving, I was extremely pleased with the change in my enhanced sword qi's color.
I like you.
I hoped my feelings would be conveyed directly to the Black Demon Sword.
After withdrawing the enhanced sword qi, I unleashed a technique from the Soaring Sky Sword Art.
The Black Demon Sword is not a gentle sword. I had to operate the technique with the most powerful and fierce momentum possible to match the sword's nature.
The Soaring Sky Sword Art felt different when performed with the Black Demon Sword.
After finishing one round of the technique, I spoke to the sword in my mind.
[For now, we'll survive with this sword art. Later, I'll teach you a truly amazing martial art. Let's hold on until then. Got it?]
I strove to communicate with the Black Demon Sword.
It was not something that could be achieved just by conveying my feelings. I trained and trained until the Black Demon Sword felt natural in my hand.
I ate and trained. I trained as soon as I opened my eyes. Sometimes I trained without even eating. I even slept with it in my hand. I trained even in my dreams.
For a while, I devoted myself solely to training.
Today, as I left my house to go to the training grounds, the scene before my eyes startled me.
Hundreds of demonic practitioners filled the large open space in front of my house.
They were the Blade Demons, subordinates of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon. I couldn't tell if the Blood Heaven Blade Demon had sent them or if they had come on their own, but their feelings toward me were certainly hostile.
Their cold gazes and the demonic qi they emitted poured down on me.
I unknowingly clenched my jaw. Even in my long life before returning, I had never received the energy of so many people at once. Good energy would have been overwhelming, but this was clearly killing intent.
If I endure any longer, I will suffer internal injuries!
Nevertheless, when I didn't back down, their demonic qi grew even stronger. The demonic qi truly struck my body like a downpour. Just as my whole body felt like it was being torn apart, a certain secret art suddenly came to mind.
I began to employ a certain incantation while completely accepting the demonic qi.
The Meridians Strengthening Art.
It was one of the few secret arts I had learned in my life before returning, an art that could strengthen one's meridians.
The meridians, the pathways for true qi, are the most important part of a martial artist's body, but they are also the most difficult part to strengthen.
The Meridians Strengthening Art was a secret art where multiple martial artists simultaneously released their internal energy to strike the target's entire body, thereby strengthening the meridians. The more people there were, the better the effect.
Opportunities to receive so much demonic qi at once were rare, so I took the risk and unleashed the Meridians Strengthening Art.
I had hoped I could use it someday, but I never thought that day would be today.
When I closed my eyes and feigned a pained expression, the bastards thought they had me. They excitedly poured out even stronger demonic qi.
More, more, more!
I furrowed my brow in proportion to my delight.
Those bastards must have wanted me to retreat. They must have wanted me to hide inside my house to escape the demonic qi. They probably wanted to pressure me here for days, turning me into a coward who couldn't even step outside.
I took a step forward, and then another, while performing the Meridians Strengthening Art.
In response, the demonic qi poured down even more intensely.
The meridians all over my body convulsed. My true qi circulated through me at a terrifying speed, following the incantation of the Meridians Strengthening Art.
The proficiency of the Meridians Strengthening Art now moved past the second stage and into the third.
More, more, more!
Their demonic qi erupted violently with each step I took forward. It was a battle of momentum, a battle of pride.
How many steps had I taken like that?
The Meridians Strengthening Art had already passed the fourth stage and was heading toward the final fifth stage.
Normally, such rapid progress would be impossible. The most difficult part of the Meridians Strengthening Art is for the practitioners' minds to align and create a single, unified energy.
The emotion carried in the demonic qi flying at me was singular. Hostility.
The demonic qi, which had seemed like it would pour down endlessly, gradually began to subside. There was a limit to the qi the Blade Demons could pour out.
When the demonic qi completely vanished, I opened my eyes. The Meridians Strengthening Art had just completed the final fifth stage. Thanks to that, my meridians had become incomparably stronger.
I could see the Blade Demons staring at me. They all had shocked and dismayed faces. They surely hadn't expected me to endure their demonic qi until the very end.
Ganging up like a pack of dogs and abruptly unleashing their demonic qi was a cowardly and cheap trick, but I decided I would forgive them, just for today.
I walked slowly toward them.
Even with hundreds gathered, only the sound of my footsteps could be heard.
Tension filled the air. It felt as if the place would instantly become a sea of blood if someone shouted, 'Kill him!'
And the victor of this battle of wills was me. By withstanding the demonic qi that had flown at me, I had already broken the Blade Demons' momentum.
The Blade Demon at the front stepped aside to make way. Then, the Blade Demons standing behind also moved aside, like a line of dominoes falling. I walked through the path the crowd created.
The expressions on the Blade Demons' faces were varied. Some were surprised, some were appalled, some were impressed, and still others were angry.
However, none of them who met my gaze dared to make a provocative move.
I said nothing. I had won the battle of wills, but I knew that if I needlessly provoked their pride, the Blade Demons would go berserk.
And so, I walked out of that place in silence.
As I took my final steps, I felt a change in the Blade Demons' emotions. They were showing respect for my courage in overcoming their demonic qi and walking through their midst.
Demonic practitioners are simple. They trample the weak and worship the strong. It would be more accurate to see this not as a cowardly trait, but as something closer to their fundamental nature.
When I had completely left that place, I finally let out a sigh.
"……"
I hadn't exchanged a single word with them, but it felt as if I had fought a great war.
I then went to meet someone.
I walked across the red carpet to the front of the empty grand chair.
I didn't dare walk up the steps and sit down, but I was curious what it would feel like to sit in that spot and look down at this place.
Just then, a heavy voice came from behind me.
"Do you wish to sit?"
The owner of the voice was my father.
I answered without turning around.
"No, I don't want to be trapped in that chair."
"You're about to spout more sophistry."
I smiled, turned around, and bowed my head respectfully to my father.
Father walked past me and up toward the grand chair.
"Come up here."
Father called to me from beside the grand chair.
I slowly climbed the steps and stood next to my father.
"……"
It was a moment where I could have made some pointless, flippant remark, but I quietly sat down. It was a seat I had wanted to sit in at least once.
"How is it?"
I looked down at the scene visible from the grand chair. The pillars to the left and right of the central red carpet and the evil spirits carved into the walls first caught my eye. Although it was decorated with splendid and magnificent ornaments, the view of the hall from here felt desolate for some reason.
"I thought it'd be incredibly exciting, but I feel nothing at all."
Then, my father said something unexpected.
"So did I."
I turned my head to look up at my father. A hint of regret for past years might have flickered in his blunt gaze, but my father's expression was as unchanging as ever.
"The Blade Demons gathered earlier. I don't know if the Blood Heaven Blade Demon ordered it, or if they conspired among themselves to come, but…"
Father cut me off.
"They went on their own."
"So you knew."
As expected, my father knew everything. I, the Eight Demon Supremes, all of us are under my father's surveillance.
"They showed me blatant hostility. I held my ground, trying not to be overwhelmed by their momentum. I was fine while I was enduring it, but once I left that place, I started to tremble."
"Were you afraid of them?"
"No, I don't think I was afraid of the Blade Demons. I think I was afraid my judgment might have been wrong. If someone had gotten excited and charged in, starting a fight, I might have died there. Even if I had survived, I, who had slaughtered the Blade Demons, could not have become the successor. I suppose that's why I was afraid. At the fact that a moment where I have to make a choice with everything on the line might come again…"
I conveyed my honest feelings just as they were.
I wanted to convey these feelings to someone, and that someone was my father, not Lee Ahn. Why? Emotionally, Lee Ahn is the closer person.
"When I had that thought, I wanted to see you, Father."
Father tossed out casually.
"A demonic practitioner is not one who looks back. They are people who only look forward."
A life of only looking forward, without looking back… I know better than anyone what kind of life that is.
As you say, Father, I won't look back, but I won't only look forward either.
We stood there for a long while, gazing at the scene from the grand chair.
"The view from here is too desolate. Is there really a need to have those statues of evil spirits?"
"Because we must not forget that we are demons."
Feeling a sense of dissonance at those words, I wondered if I wasn't fated to live as a demon.
"How about statues of beauties instead? The famous Four Flowers of the Central Plains, I mean. We could place one in each corner."
I snuck a glance and saw my father looking down at me as if I were pathetic.
"Seeing as I'm spouting nonsense, I suppose it's time for me to get up. Please sit, Father."
I stood up from the grand chair and slowly descended the steps.
When I turned around at the bottom of the steps, my father was still standing beside the grand chair.
Meeting his gaze as he looked down at me, I asked calmly, "May I kill the Blood Heaven Blade Demon?"
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