Chapter 257: A Human Will Inevitably Die

TL: FoodieMonster007

"Detective Seo was so cool," Lee Ahn said as we returned to my residence together. I was taking her to see the new place I moved into after becoming the Young Cult Leader.

"You seem like a completely different person from when I first saw you."

"That's because I've worked hard in the meantime," I replied. Since Lee Ahn would be offended to be called second-best when it comes to effort, I added, "But don't think, 'I should work harder too.' You're already overworking yourself enough as it is."

"I refuse. I'm not going to just overflow a little. I'm going to work hard enough to overflow torrentially."

I could guess what Lee Ahn was thinking. She must feel like she's the only one falling behind while everyone else pulls ahead.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?"

"I'm only just now getting to see your new residence. In the past, I would have visited on the very first day you moved." She seemed sorry for the late visit. Her already slumped shoulders drooped even further.

"If we're going by that logic, then it's the same for me. I didn't even do a 초giant dao after coming to my new house, did I?"

"You were busy, Young Master."

"You were the busier one. What's more important, looking at a room or our work? The answer is obvious. So there's no need to feel sorry at all." I led her into the house. Its scale, much larger than before, startled her.

"Ah! It's really big."

"This person here is the Young Cult Leader of our Cult!" Passing maids came out and politely greeted Lee Ahn. Lee Ahn accepted their greetings with a smile. She was even more surprised when she entered my room.

"It's so different from the room I expected." The bookshelves filling the walls, the large bed with pure white bedding, and the desk and chair by the sunlit window seemed different from her expectations.

"This isn't your taste, is it, Young Master?"

"This is my taste."

"I never knew. You should have told me."

Before my regression, I did not have anything like 'taste'. I did not care whether the bed was large or small, or whether there were bookshelves or wardrobes. My only interest was in becoming the successor.

That was why I grew distant from the succession. I saw nothing. I did not see people properly, and I did not even care what was in my own room. At the time, I thought I was passionate, but thinking back now, I feel it might have been an escape into passion.

"There are so many books." She took an interest in the bookshelves first.

"Now that I'm the Young Cult Leader, I have to look knowledgeable."

"This book is incredibly thick."

"Don't take it out! It's for decoration. It's a pain to put back."

"I can't even pull it out if I wanted to. To think there's a book that requires inner arts to remove!" She examined another bookshelf. "There are a lot of books here that Elder Blade Demon has, aren't there?"

She had once borrowed and read books from the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.

"Yeah. I wrote down all the books he has there and filled this shelf with the same ones. The Elder knows books well, after all."

She took a book from another bookshelf and looked at it intently. "There's a book like this, too." The book she held was titled 'Escaping a surround the perimeter'.

"Have you read it?" I nodded.

"I've read it."

"Do you think you could escape if you followed this?"

"I didn't read it to escape. I read it to prevent escapes."

She laughed at my words. "You're someone who can order 'Deploy the surround the perimeter!', Young Master, but I might get trapped in a surround the perimeter by the Murim Alliance, so please lend me this book."

"By all means."

"Please lend me this one and this one too." She picked out a few books. She used to read mostly poetry collections, but the books she chose now were all about secret methods for surviving in the murim.

"Do you still read books these days?"

"I try to read for at least a quarter of an hour before bed. I have to build up indirect experience somehow." It seemed she was still worried about becoming a frog in a well.

"Lee Ahn."

"……"

She turned towards me.

"You think having a lot of worldly experience is better, don't you?"

"Of course. Isn't it?" Lee Ahn's eyes widened.

"That's right. Someone with a lot of worldly experience is cool and reliable. They have insight, and they can offer new teachings or experiences to those around them. However, it also means they've gone through and suffered all sorts of dirty things to get that way. They experience all the dirty and cheap things and see the very bottom of humanity. They even come to harbor distrust and disgust for mankind. In a person's life, could such experiences be only a good thing?"

Before my regression, I went through many things. Yes, thanks to that, I became stronger and survived. So what? Can I say my life is better than Lee Ahn's, who has silently walked the path of a bodyguard? I might have a higher chance of survival if thrown somewhere, but that does not mean it is a better life.

"What I'm saying is that you don't have to feel so regretful about your life, lived silently while walking a single path. You don't need to have all the miscellaneous wounds and pains packaged under the name of experience. You can fight without them, and you can win without them. I believe it. A moment will come when the life you've lived through hard work will protect you more powerfully than any other experience."

As I reached out my hand, a poetry collection pulled itself from the shelf. The book floated through the air and into her hands.

"So read what you want to read, too." I had seen her glance at that book twice.

Lee Ahn stealthily approached me, stared intently, and said, "It seems bloodline really is a thing."

I stared back at her with a 진Ji Han expression befitting her words. Then, as if suddenly embarrassed, Lee Ahn avoided my gaze and feigned indifference. "The bed is really wide and nice. It's soft, isn't it?"

"If you're curious, lie down on it."

"How dare I lie on the Young Cult Leader's bed! You thought I'd say that, didn't you?" She threw herself onto the bed.

However, her body floated just above it.

"Not with the clothes you wore outside! Now I understand why Elder Blade Demon didn't let me lie down." I floated her back to her original spot.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, she said with a 진Ji Han face, "I recently selected five people for the Ghost Shadow Squad. I looked at their 인Chengdu and their skills. As you said, I'm aiming for an elite organization rather than just numbers."

"You're doing well."

"Oh, and I'm leaving the cult tomorrow with Green Mask and his subordinates. I'm going to find people to join the Ghost Shadow Squad. I should have left earlier, but I postponed it to see the Sanzu Hall Director's inauguration ceremony. While I'm out, I'll also go see Strategist Go and the Heavenly Wind Cult Leader." She was officially stepping into the jianghu.

Sensing the worry in my gaze, she smiled and said, "Don't worry, I have nine tails, don't I?"

"Come back stronger!"

She rose from her seat, gave a polite clasped hands greeting, and said, "Yes, Young Cult Leader!"

I devoted myself to my martial arts training. Across both my lives, before and after my regression, this was the period I trained my martial arts the most diligently. Perhaps knowing I was immersed in a martial arts trance, Father postponed all the various events within the cult.

The Nine Calamities Demonic Art and the Heavenly Space Secret Art. I could not help but train these martial arts diligently.

First, with the Heavenly Space Secret Art, the more I trained, the more a time difference seemed to be created between the outside and inside of the Spacetime Manipulation Technique. However, the difference was still minuscule, so it was not yet at a stage where I could use the Heavenly Space Secret Art for actual training.

Using the Spacetime Manipulation Technique, then using the Heavenly Space Secret Art again, and then training martial arts inside it required using inner arts three times over. In comparison, the time difference between the outside and inside was not yet significant, so the time it took to recover my inner arts was longer.

I felt impatient, but I did not rush. This was not a martial art that could be achieved overnight, and consistency is the lifeblood of training. Repeat and repeat again. If I do that, I will find myself at the next stage before I know it.

Next was the Nine Calamities Demonic Art. Once I became familiar with its heart law, I began training in earnest, starting from the First Stance. It was an esoteric and profound martial art, but I calmly analyzed the oral formulas and progressed little by little. Today, I planned to unleash the First Stance for the first time.

The Nine Calamities Demonic Art, First Stance, the Human Destroying Stance. From the very first technique, it was simply annihilation. It meant that if you are human, you will surely die.

I gazed at the wooden dummy in front of me and calmed my mind. When I felt my body and mind were ready, I drew the Black Demon Sword.

SHAAAAK.

In a single moment, the dummy's head flew off. The sword form was faster than the Blue Sky Strike, the fast sword style of the Soaring Sky Sword Art. So, was the First Stance a success? It was a failure.

I slowly approached and examined the headless wooden dummy. A faint sword line remained on its back. There were no marks on the left or right sides.

The Human Destroying Stance was a technique where, at the moment of execution, four streams of sword qi flew in simultaneously from the opponent's front, rear, left, and right.

Imagine it. In a flash, what if sword qi flew in not from one place, but from four places at once? And it was not sword qi aiming for the same spot. They flew from four directions, each aiming for a different place. The frontal sword qi would fly towards the neck, the one from behind towards the back, the left sword qi towards the waist, and the right sword qi towards the legs.

However, only the frontal sword qi flew properly, while the sword qi from the other three directions failed to manifest correctly. I closed my eyes for a moment and recalled the oral formulas. After organizing them in my mind, I unleashed sword qi at a new wooden dummy.

I examined the wooden dummy again. This time, its back was severed, but the neck was intact. I repeated it over and over, but the First Stance would not unfold as I intended. I was missing something.

Father had said he wanted to see my interpretation of the Nine Calamities Demonic Art. At this rate, how could my Nine Calamities Demonic Art ever surpass Father's? The only thing I could rely on was the Heavenly Martial Body, but even I could not be sure if I could wield a Nine Calamities Demonic Art that surpassed Father's.

As I was wracking my brain, I had a sudden realization. The greed of wanting to learn a Nine Calamities Demonic Art stronger than Father's was actually holding me back. Added to that greed was the desire to be acknowledged by Father, weighing down my ankles even more heavily.

This is not my way.

I immediately left the training ground.

When I entered the Heavenly Demon Hall, Father was looking out the window with his hands clasped behind his back.

"Come up here."

"……"

I walked the path of blood, climbed the stairs, and stood side-by-side with Father. It always felt good to stand here next to Father and look out at the cult's Jeong Gyeong, and now I stood here as the Young Cult Leader.

"I have decided to double the amount of poison production in the Thousand Poisons Forest."

"Why is that?" I asked, feigning ignorance.

Father looked at me. He knew I had been in contact with the Poison King recently, so he must have guessed that I had influenced this decision. His gaze turned back to the window. After a moment of silence, Father said softly, "Do not provoke the Poison King. He is a man who could be the beginning and the end of everything."

I knew what that meant. A war could start because of him, and a war could also be ended by him. Martial artists have no choice but to be sensitive to poison. A lifetime of training could be ruined by a single poisoning.

"I will keep that in mind."

Father turned to me and asked, "Why have you come today?"

"I came because I have a favor to ask of you, Father."

"What favor?"

"Please use the Human Destroying Stance on me."

Father flinched, surprised by the unexpected words. "You finally become the successor, and now you want to die?"

"Of course not." I opened the front of my robes. "I'm wearing Top-Quality Heavenly Silk and even the Ghost Armor. I'm asking you to use just enough power not to kill me."

"The reason?"

"I want to experience it directly to get a feel for it." Normally, I should have learned more from Father. However, since he had only given me the bare minimum interpretation because he wanted to see my version of the Nine Calamities Demonic Art, it was a reasonable request for him to grant.

"Very well."

Once Father gave his permission, I stepped back to create some distance. Words like 'Are you ready?' or 'Here I come' were all omitted.

Father immediately drew the Heavenly Demon Sword from his hand.

"……"

A truly short and light sound of wind. In that moment, I was startled. Four demonic spirits had attacked simultaneously from all directions.

Father's Human Destroying Stance was not just four streams of sword qi. It was a sword qi where terrifying illusions of four demonic spirits appeared simultaneously from the north, south, east, and west and swung their swords. They were fearsome enough to freeze the body just by seeing them.

KAAANG! KAANG!

I blocked two, one grazed me lightly, and the other hit my body squarely.

PAK! PWAAK!

When the sword qi collided with my protective enhanced qi, I was sent flying and rolled across the floor.

"……"

It really hurt. I had blocked it using Top-Quality Heavenly Silk, the Ghost Armor, and even protective enhanced qi, but my back hurt so much it felt like it would break. It was a good thing Father had controlled his inner arts. If he had unleashed it to its limit, I could have died from this single move. Even if I had not died, I would have suffered a fatal wound.

It was the first time I had felt the terror of the Nine Calamities Demonic Art, and at this moment, I was curious about something.

"By any chance, if my realm in the Nine Calamities Demonic Art rises, will these demonic spirits also manifest in my Human Destroying Stance?"

Father nodded. "Similar, but different demonic spirits will appear."

Similar, but different. He meant that because I would be interpreting the Nine Calamities Demonic Art differently and completing the martial art, different demonic spirits would appear.

My heart began to pound. Seeing the Heavenly Demon Soul is still a long, long way off, so I want to see my own little demonic spirits, even if just in the Human Destroying Stance.

"Is this sufficient?" Father asked.

"It is more than enough." I massaged my back, bowed, and was about to turn away when I asked him, "By any chance, have you given those demonic spirits names?"

That sneer formed on Father's lips. "The Poison King likes to name things. I suppose I've been influenced, since I've been spending a lot of time with him lately."

After politely bowing to Father, I turned away. The achievement in my martial arts is not mine alone. If I produce a Human Destroying Stance different from Father's, he too will receive some inspiration from my Nine Calamities Demonic Art. By influencing each other, we will both grow stronger.

At the end of the path of blood, I said to Father, "When I visit again, I will bring four friends with me."