Chapter 47: You Fill the Void

TL: FoodieMonster007

Neung Hyu entered the room a moment later.

"Your subordinate has come at the call of the Demon Supreme."

Our gazes turned to his waist. The ghost fan that shamans carry was indeed not there.

"Where is the ghost fan?"

"I lost it yesterday."

At that, the Chaos Demon threw the ghost fan he was holding to him.

"This is mine. Where did you get this?"

He did not dare ask the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme, so he questioned me instead.

"Several bodies were discovered yesterday, and this was found with them."

Hearing my answer, Neung Hyu flinched. It was a different kind of shock than the surprise of having one's belongings found at a crime scene. Neung Hyu also did not ask where the bodies were found or what the cause of death was.

Ah, so this Neung Hyu is the one in charge of disposing of the bodies!

In that moment, I confirmed that the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme had been using the Great Mind Control Technique.

"Since this is the situation, you'll have to come with me for questioning."

Neung Hyu was not afraid of me. He looked at the only person he truly feared, awaiting his decision. The Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme just stared at him silently, but I could tell he was sending telepathy in a peculiar way.

Soon after, Neung Hyu said to me, "I understand. Let's go together."

He did not protest his innocence or resist. He allowed himself to be arrested obediently.

I bowed politely to the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme.

"Thank you for your cooperation. I'll see you next time."

The Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme nodded silently. His expression was perfectly calm, making it impossible to know what he was thinking.

As soon as I returned, I ordered an investigation into Neung Hyu. The Special Investigators took turns interrogating him, but he only repeated that he had lost the fan and said nothing else.

"It won't be easy to make him talk."

I nodded at Seo Daeryong's words. I could tell just by looking at his eyes. His loyalty and fear toward the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme were too strong for any persuasion or interrogation to work on him.

"We don't have any evidence that he murdered them, so we can't hold him for long."

"He's just a minion anyway. If we're going to catch someone, it has to be the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme."

As if reading the intent in my eyes, Seo Daeryong said worriedly, "Please be careful. Your opponent is the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme."

"Do you remember what I told you all when I first arrived? That I'd go after my own father if he did wrong."

"……"

"Then he's the one who should be careful. Go and tell him. Tell him to be careful."

"I wish I had the courage for that."

That day, an unexpected person came to visit me in my office. Seo Daeryong entered with a shocked expression and even stuttered his words.

"The, the Cult Leader is here."

I was startled too. I never dreamed my father would come here.

"Show him in at once."

Seo Daeryong left, and soon after, my father entered the office.

"Father? What brings you all the way here?"

"I was just passing by."

That couldn't be true. Father had come because he had something to say to me.

"I have tea, and I have alcohol."

"What's with drinking in the middle of the day? Let's just have some tea."

I prepared the tea myself and brought it over. In the meantime, my father stood by the window behind my seat and looked outside.

"Please have some tea."

Father spoke while still gazing out the window.

"You must not touch the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme yet."

I knew it. He had come just to say this. He knew that I had gone to the Western Illusion Sanctum, arrested Neung Hyu, and would not let the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme go now that bodies were discovered.

"Why not?"

"Because you can't kill him with your martial arts."

"I can just cut him down when his guard is down. If that doesn't work, I'll kill him by stabbing him in the back."

"Getting behind him will be more difficult than killing him."

"Is the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme that strong?"

"He is both the weakest and the strongest."

I understood what he meant. If one could overcome his soul-stealing techniques, he would become the easiest opponent. This meant learning martial arts that his evil arts could not affect or reaching a level where such arts were ineffective. Without his evil arts, the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme's martial arts were nothing special.

From this perspective, the weakest Demon Supreme to my father would be the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme. The Chaos Demon's evil arts would be completely ineffective against my father.

"Will you help me surpass him?"

"It's impossible in a short period of time."

"As you've seen so far, don't I learn faster than you thought?"

"That's not nearly enough. There are two ways to block the Chaos Demon's soul-stealing techniques. The first is to learn the Nine Calamities Demonic Art. The degree to which one can block it depends on the practitioner's aptitude, but if it's you, his soul-stealing evil arts won't work on you once you reach the fifth level."

"I don't want to hear the second way. Please let me block it with the first."

Father pretended not to hear my request to be made his successor and explained the second method.

"Or, you could achieve complete mastery of the Heavenly Demon Defense Art. Both are impossible for you right now, so I'm telling you to back down."

At that moment, a solution came to my mind. It was a method I knew because I had regressed.

Father, there's actually a third way.

It was a method a hundred times easier than the first two. The problem actually lay elsewhere.

"Is the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme an absolutely necessary existence for our Cult?"

Father must have felt the killing intent hidden in my calm question.

"Among the Eight Demon Supremes, the one the orthodox sects find most troublesome is the Soul-Stealing Demon."

He spoke indirectly, but he meant that the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme was absolutely necessary.

"Even though he's ripping out people's hearts while they're still alive for his grand technique? Did you know about this?"

Father shook his head. "I only just found out myself."

How would my father handle this? Even if he is my father, how could he possibly like a man who tears out living hearts?

However, as the leader of the cult, he could not carelessly eliminate someone who would be our Cult's strongest asset against the Murim Alliance. This was not a matter for my father, but a problem I had to solve myself.

"You told me to inform you before I killed a Demon Supreme, didn't you?"

It was the promise my father had made when he allowed me to teach Lee Ahn the Soaring Sky Sword Art.

"I'm telling you now. I am going to kill the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme. He will be the first of the Eight Demon Supremes to die."

In the world before my regression, the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme lived the longest. He would now live the complete opposite fate.

"This is different from killing someone in a fit of anger because you don't like them. It's worse than a madman running around killing people. This is someone killing people systematically and regularly with a clear mind. I could at least understand if the purpose was grand, but isn't he doing all this just to get a little stronger? This isn't human, Father. You have your position with the Eight Demon Supremes, so please leave this to me. You've given me the hilt of the sword, so please let me swing it to the end."

I did not know how much my father would sympathize with what I said. I want to walk the same path as him, but for this matter, I decided to think of it this way. On a long journey, you sometimes have to part with your companions for a while before meeting again on the path ahead.

Father stared at me silently for a long time. He then left the room after saying something completely unexpected.

"If your skills are up to the task…… you will be the one to fill his void, so it shouldn't be a major problem."

"!"

It was permission to kill him. He had advised me to step up if I had the skill and pressured me to fill the void, all at once. A smile formed on my lips. Since he had already left, I thanked him in my heart.

Thank you, Father.

As expected of my father. Yes, I was not one to part ways over something like this. Father and I were still walking the same path.

It's unlikely, but if I were to become a father in this life… for a brief moment, I thought I would want to give my son the same kind of thrill my father just gave me.

Of course, I'll be living alone in this life too.

"Please, please spare me. I have children. If I die, my children…."

The man stared silently into the pleading woman's eyes. The woman looked at the man, terrified. The gaze of this ordinary-looking man was terrifying.

But she mustered her courage for her children. She was raising them alone. If she was not there to care for them, her young children would not survive the winter and would die.

"Please let me go. I'll do anything you say. Just please let me go. Please! Spare me."

Tears streamed from the woman's eyes. Just then, the woman saw the man's pupils turn black. In those black shadows, she saw the faces of her children.

For a moment, she smiled brightly with joy, but soon her face began to fill with agony. Her children suffered from hunger, were beaten by other beggars, and were dragged away by a madman to suffer.

"No! Please! No!"

The man's eyes were cruel. He orchestrated her children's final moments as if intending to extract all her sorrow. The children collapsed on a cold winter street, breathing their last. The words 'Mom, I'm hungry' escaped their lips.

"Aaaah! No!"

When her sorrow and despair reached their peak, her very heart was stolen from her. Her heart was beating in the man's hand.

The sorrow of no longer being able to see her children, greater than the sorrow of losing her own life, splattered in all directions as tears of blood. Her breath stopped, and the ordinary-looking man's inner arts increased by a tiny amount.

The next day, I took Neung Hyu from the interrogation room and went to the Western Illusion Sanctum. I had decided to use the third method to kill the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme.

However, to do so, I needed about two months. I had to arrive somewhere on a specific date. I needed to buy time until then, no matter what. Just two months.

This time, I only took Seo Daeryong with me. I had to drag him along by force when he said he was too scared to go. I had to bring him. The next Sanzu Hall Director needed various experiences.

The black pupils of the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme who greeted us were bizarrely large.

"Neung Hyu has been judged innocent. We couldn't find any evidence that he killed them."

"Then you should have just released Neung Hyu. Why did you come?"

"I have something to tell you."

"Speak."

"Please dismiss those around us."

I had Seo Daeryong wait outside. What I was about to say was important enough that my opponent might react by trying to kill me to silence me.

Once we were alone, I said to him, "I know that you, Demon Supreme, are using the Great Mind Control Technique."

"The Great Mind Control Technique? What's that? I've never heard of it."

He lied without a single flicker in his eyes. As a man who had risen to the position of Demon Supreme by manipulating people's minds, there was absolutely no emotional wavering.

"Stop the grand technique."

"Second Young Lord, what on earth are you talking about?"

His words echoed loudly from all directions.

"If you refuse my proposal, you will die."

The Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme laughed as if it were absurd, and my words echoed back, mocking me.

"You will die, you will die…"

The word 'die' was heard in the voices of various people I knew. I controlled my mind with the Heavenly Demon Defense Art and said firmly, "I am not the one who will kill the Demon Supreme."

"Not the one, not the one…"

Again, my words were repeated in the voices of many people, mocking me.

"I will persuade my father."

The moment my father was mentioned, the echoes abruptly stopped. Silence fell upon the room. The only person he feared. For the time being, only my father could restrain him.

"Every morning, I will go to pay my respects and make a request. 'Please kill the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme.' The next day, I will go and say it again. 'A man who rips out living hearts only diminishes the prestige of our Cult.' The day after that, I will go and say, 'I will give up being the successor, so please kill him.' The next day and the day after that, I will persuade him with all sorts of words. Then one day, when you, Demon Supreme, make a grave mistake against my father, he might just agree."

The moment I finished speaking, the Soul-Stealing Demon Supreme's black pupils shrank to the size of a dot. It was a bizarre sight, as if his pupils were being sucked away somewhere, leaving only a point behind. At the same time, a powerful ghostly energy erupted from his body.

KIHIHIHIHI.

A ghostly sound echoed as the surroundings flickered between dark and light. Before I knew it, the surroundings had completely changed.