Sword God Reborn

Chapter 269 : It has already begun

The Ghost Demon was speechless for a long time.

He was now approaching the age of ninety.

He had entered the twilight of his life.

Cheon Mubaeck waited quietly. Although there was no cup of tea, the time of waiting was not boring.

He lightly enjoyed the various colors that changed beyond the Ghost Demon's face.

Although he had been a great demonic master, full of spirit and vigor, when he had first faced Cheon Mubaeck. Such an appearance was now gone.

The person in front of Cheon Mubaeck's eyes now was just an old man.

Cheon Mubaeck had never not been an old man until now.

The person with the highest understanding of an old man's thoughts, an old man's emotions, and an old man's way of thinking in this world was Cheon Mubaeck.

'He is at an age where he should be enjoying the charms of his great-grandchild and running towards the end. Such a person is still energetically pursuing power and hegemony. Even in the twilight of his life, he constantly fights and even steps forward himself.'

Perhaps it could be called the greed of old age.

But Cheon Mubaeck did not think it was bad.

'Was greed a characteristic only of the young?'

Greed was a powerful driving force that made life move forward.

Even in that Ghost Demon, who was over ninety, a great driving force called desire remained and was operating.

Where did the driving force come from?

'The desire to want hegemony. That was sincere.'

Cheon Mubaeck had seen it. The color of emotion. It was unwavering and clear. It was sincere. The Ghost Demon sincerely and strongly pursued the hegemony of the demonic path.

But was that really just the hegemony of the demonic path?

'There is no one who is born as a second-in-command and wants to end as a second-in-command.'

Of course, there were also those who knew their limits and stopped there.

But what if someone from the side instigated them?

'He is a typical person who constantly pursues a higher place, a greater power.'

But did that desire really reach the belief of the hegemony of the demonic path?

No.

Look at those numerous colors of emotion.

'If the demonic path achieves hegemony, his own power as a powerful person of the demonic path will also become greater.'

Cheon Mubae-ck judged that the Ghost Demon was just packaging his own desire with the great belief of the hegemony of the demonic path.

The Ghost Demon was troubled. He was agonizing.

Although it was a demonic path that could not aim for the hegemony of the world, that great Dao would not disappear.

The Demonic Cult, which was in a crisis due to the power of Cheon Mubaeck and the Righteous Alliance. If he could take over that Demonic Cult? As Cheon Mubaeck had said...

'If I become the Heavenly Demon?'

In an instant, a thrill ran from his head to his toes.

The Heavenly Demon.

The pinnacle of the demonic path.

The Ghost Demon quietly raised his head and looked at Cheon Mubaeck.

Looking at the still smiling face, the Ghost Demon asked with a tired look.

"Are you planning to make me the Heavenly Demon? And to make the demonic path your puppet?"

Cheon Mubaeck waved his hand.

"A puppet, what. I'm going to kill the Heavenly Demon anyway. I'm going to kill the Blood Buddha too. I'm going to kill the other executives too. But, you know. Even if I kill them, the demonic path won't disappear. The Dao flows. Like the water of the Yangtze River. Then in tens, hundreds of years, a guy like Gun Cheon-ak or the current Heavenly Demon will pop out again and invade again. I'm tired of it. I'm really tired of it. I'm really tired of it."

"You won't be there then."

"I thought that a few hundred years ago too."

Since it was an incomprehensible answer, the Ghost Demon tilted his head, but he couldn't ask more at the deep bitterness that bloomed on his face.

Because it was a face that looked more like an old man than himself.

'I'm sick and tired of it. You demonic path guys.'

The demonic path does not disappear. It is a truth that is close to immutable. So Cheon Mubaeck thinks differently.

He limits the demonic path to a foreign sect.

'It's not something that can be done by just getting rid of them all.'

Can it be done by just beating them all to death? No. The doctrines of the demonic path, their nature, the martial arts they have accumulated over a long period of time, their thoughts, their perception, and their very nature must be changed.

Can Cheon Mubaeck do it alone? Not at all. Cheon Mubaeck was a person of the Orthodox path in the current martial world.

In the end, he needed someone to consult with closely. From within the demonic path.

Someone who would completely overturn the demonic path so far, revise the doctrines, change the rules, and change its very nature.

To do that, at the very least, one had to be at the pinnacle of the demonic path. One had to be a powerful person who could rebuild the collapsed demonic path.

"......!"

The Ghost Demon's eyes, who had noticed Cheon Mubaeck's intention, flashed.

"Are you suggesting we cooperate? With me?"

"Will you pursue power as the pinnacle of the demonic path, or will you die at my hands as a mere tool of the demonic path?"

"..."

The Ghost Demon closed his mouth.

It was a very difficult question, and he could not answer it right away. But Cheon Mubaeck smiled and got up from his seat.

"Think about it carefully. It's about time the Dark Sect also pursued the hegemony of the demonic path. What is the Seven Demonic Sects? What is the Seven Demonic Sects? It's enough if there's only one sect."

Cheon Mubaeck, who had muttered so, left the Ghost Demon behind and came out of the pavilion.

When he glanced back, the Ghost Demon was still closing his eyes.

A fragment of all sorts of emotions. No matter how attractive the condition was, he would not come over easily.

'Because the emotion that came to mind when he mentioned the Heavenly Demon was real fear.'

Would his personal desire overcome his fear of the Heavenly Demon?

'Well, it doesn't matter if he can't.'

To be honest, Cheon Mubaeck's view was that it would be good if he did, and not bad if he didn't.

Cheon Mubaeck had just thrown a bait.

'An old man who will die soon anyway. An ugly old monster, a sinister raccoon, how can I trust him?'

But the plan to limit the Demonic Cult to a foreign sect was not a lie.

Because Cheon Mubaeck had other means.

No, this was the real one.

'If the Sword Sect becomes the only demonic path, and Jang No becomes the Heavenly Demon, it would be more than perfect.'

Cheon Mubaeck smiled.

The Ghost Demon...

'Just live and die as a tool.'

Whether in the demonic path, or in the grasp of Cheon Mubaeck.

It was a fate that had already been decided.

* * *

Cheon Mubaeck stayed at the mansion of the North Sword Society for a while.

First of all, the physical condition of Tang Su-gun, Hwangbo Sung, and So-hang was not good enough to move right away.

And anyway, the mission of the Demon Repelling Squad had been accomplished.

He had killed the King of Assassins. The Wolya Faction was now over. So there was no need to move in a hurry. Cheon Mubaeck also had to carefully observe what decision the Ghost Demon would make.

Also, Cheon Mubaeck had replayed the fight with the King of Assassins, and the subsequent fight with the Ghost Demon, once again.

If you just inferred from the results, it was Cheon Mubaeck's overwhelming victory.

Although there were people who would ask why he was replaying a fight he had already won, for Cheon Mubaeck, every fight was an important turning point.

'It's itching.'

Cheon Mubaeck had a strange feeling.

You know that feeling.

It's not really itchy, but it's a feeling of something itching inside your skin.

That was exactly how he felt now.

His lower dantian, middle dantian, and upper dantian were all itching.

It wasn't that the flow of his internal energy had suddenly changed, or that the amount had increased.

Even after practicing breathing exercises, the itching did not disappear.

Cheon Mubaeck concentrated and observed his own body.

'It seems to be because I made that Taegeuk.'

The lower dantian cannot surpass the middle dantian. The upper dantian also cannot surpass the middle dantian.

Although they could be mixed through the blood vessels and qi meridians, the energy could not penetrate into a different dantian.

In the first place, the phenomenon of the different internal energies of the upper and lower dantians being connected through the qi meridians was impossible without Cheon Mubaeck's unprecedented power of divine energy.

'But now... yes. This was it. Putting aside the divine energy, the extreme yin qi has penetrated into the upper dantian, and the demon-subduing qi has also entered the lower dantian?'

Of course, it was a very small amount. An extremely small part that Cheon Mubaeck could only see if he concentrated and concentrated.

This was the reason for the strange itching.

Cheon Mubaeck was dumbfounded.

'Is this even possible?'

Even for Cheon Mubaeck, he sometimes encountered situations he couldn't understand, and this was one of them.

The energy of the upper dantian had entered the lower dantian, and the energy of the lower dantian had entered the upper dantian, but there was no collision?

This wasn't being connected through the middle dantian, but had just penetrated?

'It would be a normal situation to have fallen into qi deviation a hundred times over...'

His mind snapped to attention.

Cheon Mubaeck was quite flustered.

He had thought it was a kind of fortuitous encounter. The act of combining the three energies into one using Taegeuk.

The problem was that it was clearly from the outside.

He had combined the three energies, which he had drawn from his internal dantians, outside.

But they were combined like this inside his body?

His spine chilled anew.

'If I had fallen into qi deviation during the fight with the Ghost Demon, it's terrifying just to think about it.'

It was truly a godsend.

To think he had fought the Ghost Demon in this state. If the fight had intensified to the point where he had to use all his internal energy, things might have gone terribly wrong.

Cheon Mubaeck carefully moved his internal energy.

First, he had to return the opposing energies that had penetrated into each dantian to their original positions.

It was by no means an easy task.

With a concentration that had reached its extreme, a meticulous operation was needed.

He had to move the formless energy, which was invisible to the eye, with just his will and a single mental art.

Cheon Mubaeck concentrated with all his might.

First, the demon-subduing qi that had been sucked into the lower dantian...

'Huh?'

In an instant, Cheon Mubaeck's eyebrow twitched.

The moment he tried to slightly move the demon-subduing qi, that demon-subduing qi relentlessly dug deeper and mixed with the extreme yin qi. Then, this time, a stronger itching was felt.

'What is this...'

If it had been mixed like a loner among the extreme yin qi before, it was not now.

It was overlapping with the extreme yin qi as if it were one body.

Even Cheon Mubaeck, no, even a great celestial being could not touch this.

'This, I see. I'll retreat for now, and then the upper dantian...'

He carefully operated the Hevean Shaking Soul Art.

The extreme yin qi that had entered the upper dantian was even more dangerous.

The brain.

A cold qi rising in the brain? Even if you thought about it with common sense, wasn't it dangerous?

But soon, Cheon Mubaeck let out a sigh.

"What on earth is this?"

Unable to hold it back in the end, an absurd voice came out of Cheon Mubaeck's mouth.

An absurd and strange phenomenon.

The extreme yin qi that had penetrated into the upper dantian had also started to mix in the same way as the lower dantian.

Even Cheon Mubaeck did not dare to touch this.

"Hah. I almost had to reincarnate again."

If he had touched it wrongly, he might have met that egg face again before he had even reached the sword's extreme.

Cheon Mubaeck quietly observed for now.

"The energies are mixing and assimilating. Just like how I made Taegeuk with the three energies outside."

It didn't seem dangerous in its current state.

But it was a variable.

A variable that Cheon Mubaeck did not know. A variable that was not in the vast knowledge of the great Cheon Mubaeck.

Therefore, Cheon Mubaeck had no choice but to be careful.

"There's no problem for now, but... well, well. The meaning of the three dantians is disappearing... huh?"

In an instant, Cheon Mubaeck's eyes flashed.

The boundaries of the three dantians were collapsing.

"Is this, by any chance...?"

It was then.

He felt a presence from outside. It was not a presence that was trying to hide, but a presence that was openly announcing its arrival.

It was the Ghost Demon.

Cheon Mubaeck vaguely felt his emotion from the Ghost Demon's footsteps.

Since it was an important moment, Cheon Mubaeck temporarily pushed the strange phenomenon that had occurred in his body to the back of his mind.

If the fact that had briefly come to mind was true, it was a good thing for Cheon Mubaeck, not a bad thing.

Before long, the Ghost Demon opened the door and came in.

Fatigue was keenly felt on his shabby, drained face, but his eyes were burning fiercely.

A grin appeared on Cheon Mubaeck's lips.

"Have you decided?"

"Do I have a choice? If I don't follow your suggestion, you're planning to kill me, aren't you?"

"I've been saying it all along. I'll kill you if you give me all the information. Your death is a basic matter anyway. I've just opened a path for you."

The Ghost Demon spewed a fierce light from his eyes.

"If the Heavenly Demon dies and the demonic path collapses, your forces will have to become stronger."

"Have you decided?"

"You'll have to move right away. Heavenly Dragon Sword Hero."

"Move?"

"I came to the North Sword Society in person to catch you. To kill you in cooperation with the King of Assassins."

"So you got caught."

"I am the second-in-command of the Blood Demon Valley, the leader of the Dark Sect, and the second star among the five most brilliant stars. I have moved."

Only then did Cheon Mubaeck's face also become strange.

"You're not the only one who has moved."

The Ghost Demon's head slowly nodded up and down.

"The warriors you lead are called the Demon Repelling Squad, right? An indiscriminate attack on the personnel belonging to the Righteous Alliance has begun. The Blood Buddha probably went there. To kill Namgung Jincheon and to completely wipe out the Namgung Clan."

"..."

Cheon Mubaeck sighed.

"I thought there was still some time left..."

Cheon Mubaeck stretched and got up. The Ghost Demon's hard voice cut through the heavy silence.

"It has already begun. The Righteous-Demonic War."

Cheon Mubaeck sighed.

It was now time to get really busy.

(End of Chapter)