For three centuries, the name Jin Mu-Won had become legend—a whispered myth passed through trembling lips in the murim world. They called him the Heavenly Demon, the one who mastered forbidden techniques, who rose beyond the limits of the human body and soul.
His enemies said he was sealed away, defeated by a coalition of grandmasters who dared not kill him, fearing that death would only immortalize him further. His followers believed he would return one day, when the world deserved him again.
Now, deep in the collapsed ruins of Mount Guhwa, something stirred. The mountainside cracked open like a rotted tooth. Black qi rolled out in waves, suffocating the wildlife. Trees withered. Birds dropped dead mid-flight. The sky dimmed.
In the heart of the cavern, a man awoke in a lotus position. His flesh was unmarred, his muscles coiled with power, his eyes aglow with violet light that pulsed with unreadable depth.
Jin Mu-Won breathed.
He opened his eyes slowly, taking in the silence of his prison. His fingers curled, testing the stiffness in his joints. He felt stronger—not just restored, but evolved. The seal that had trapped him had also concentrated his power, tempered it under pressure, refined it like the edge of a god-killing blade.
"The world thought it buried me," he said quietly.
He stood, his bones cracking from centuries of stillness. Dust slid off his skin like dead scales. He stretched, reached upward, and the ceiling of the cavern trembled.
With one strike of his palm, the mountain cracked open. He walked out into sunlight for the first time in three hundred years.
"Now," he said, tasting the air, "it'll remember."