Part 32 - Inhuman Demon Domain
"What do you think demonic energy is?"
The old immortal, who had withered away after becoming a Disciple of The Ruler Of Darkness, asked Yeon Sang-hyeon.
"Demonic energy, you say…"
Yeon Sang-hyeon stroked his chin.
"Honestly, there's no qi that's been studied less properly than demonic energy. It's overwhelmingly powerful in a domineering way, but beyond the fact that the energy itself is utterly wicked and ruins a person's humanity, almost nothing has been uncovered."
Perhaps the demons of the Demon Cult had more information about demonic energy.
Even the Luoyang Sword Clan, famous for obsessively gathering every scrap of information related to martial arts, had woefully little fundamental material on demonic energy.
Even Yeon Sang-hyeon—who had reached a realm close to that of a grandmaster in martial arts, the academic study of martial prowess—knew almost nothing about demonic energy.
The old man chuckled, kik-kik-kik.
"People think of it on the same plane—like how a martial artist handles qi, a demon handles demonic energy. But that is a profoundly mistaken way of thinking."
"Is that so?"
The old man raised a hand and stirred demonic energy into being.
"To begin with, this is not an energy that originates from the world you exist in."
Yeon Sang-hyeon's eyebrows twitched.
From the start, there were certain fields where proper research was fundamentally impossible.
Ghosts, the underworld, talismans, sorcery, Taoist arts, immortal arts, Buddhist arts, immortal methods—things people believed existed only in imagination.
Some called such fields mysticism, or metaphysics.
"Demonic energy is qi that flows in from the outer cosmos—beyond what mortal beings can ever dare to observe."
Yeon Sang-hyeon couldn't fully understand the words, but he grasped the intent.
"Demonic energy is a force that corrodes, decays, and distorts our universe—our reality."
***
The flames of the bonfires the Black Bone Sect had lit here and there in preparation for a night battle grew dim.
Flames growing dim was, by common sense, impossible.
And yet it was happening.
Even the torch in one's hand couldn't properly light the surroundings.
Shadows thickened.
Night deepened.
"Ugh…"
From the mouths of the Black Bone Sect members—who until moments ago had been seized by madness beyond mere bravery—groans began to leak out, one by one.
From wounds they had forgotten, horrific pain returned.
Fear returned—fear born from the desire to live.
The sorcery Geumju had used was snuffed out futilely by the demonic energy that originated from Yeon Sang-hyeon.
Clutching at wounds great and small, the Black Bone Sect members gradually backed away.
The wind that blew hard was cold as a blizzard, and it felt as though their whole bodies were freezing solid.
And above all—the gaze of the white mask looking down at them from atop that tower was terrifying.
"Tch…."
Geumju crushed down the primal fear rising from deep inside her.
She forcefully unleashed a qi wave, pouring internal energy into her shout.
"Anyone who runs dies! Fight!"
But the voice that rang out produced the opposite of what she intended.
"R-run!"
"It's an evil spirit! An evil spirit's appeared!"
The battle line the Black Bone Sect had formed collapsed like a sandcastle, as if it had never existed at all.
Fear paralyzed reason, and they began to flee without exception.
Some threw away their weapons as they ran. Some screamed the names of the gods they believed in. Some even fled not toward their own camp, but toward the very people they'd been crossing blades with until a moment ago.
"W-what do we do?!" At the adjutant's question from Hyunwol Pavilion's command, Se-a shouted.
"All personnel—hold your current positions!"
Even if she hadn't said it, most of them had already lost the will to fight.
Even Hyunwol Pavilion's elite combat agents—hardened through real battle—couldn't bring themselves to do anything about the people bolting past them.
But Yeon Sang-hyeon—The Ruler Of Darkness's Disciple—had no intention of letting them go.
"The curtain has risen, so it will not do for the cast to exit the stage as they please."
In earlier den raids, he had left a few alive by the narrowest margin to amplify fear within the Black Bone Sect.
Now, there was no reason for that.
[Stop right there.]
His will sank into demonic energy, and the voice that became a word of command mercilessly began to erode reality.
A Black Bone Sect thug who had been fleeing with a face smeared in tears and snot tumbled to the ground on the spot.
He could see it—white hands gripping his ankles.
"Aaaah…!"
He kicked at the hands with his other foot and shook them off.
But dozens more hands rose and seized his lower body.
[Die right there.]
The moment the words ended, those with the weakest hearts slammed their faces into the ground, blood pouring from the five orifices of their faces.
Instant death.
Even those who struggled a little, one after another, died as blood vessels in their brains burst and their hearts ruptured.
Against a word of command laden with The Ruler Of Darkness's demonic energy, an ordinary person with no internal energy had almost no chance of resisting.
In every alley, the Black Bone Sect members who had filled the area dropped dead in an instant, collapsing from all sides.
"…Yuanshi Tianzun."
At the unreal spectacle, Hyunwol Pavilion's on-site commander sought his god.
He had served on that brutal northern battlefield and spent more than half his life there.
He had witnessed bizarre phenomena—suspected to be the work of foreign tribal sorcerers—more times than he could count.
He had seen rice in his bowl turn into maggots before his eyes after a blood-drying fight in the rain.
He had seen soldiers afflicted by unknown disease become covered head to toe in boils.
But none of the horrific sorcery he had seen was as grotesque—nor as terrifying—as what unfolded now.
"L-look over there!"
Se-a turned to where the adjutant pointed.
"The corpses…?!"
Not only her—everyone watching couldn't believe their eyes.
From the deep darkness pooled on the ground, white hands rose and began dragging away the dead.
The bodies that were pulled sank down into the darkness—into their own shadows.
From the shadows that devoured the corpses came a low growling.
Some shadows seemed to wail.
At the sight—twisting all reason, transcending common sense—several Hyunwol Pavilion members collapsed where they stood.
Some vomited.
Some burst into tears.
So this is…
Seeing it, Se-a finally understood why no corpses had been left behind at the Black Bone Sect site attacked by the Dark Heaven Venerable One.
Just what in the world…
With trembling eyes, she looked back up to the top of the tower.
"Beg! Pray to the unfeeling heavens!"
The monster in the white mask erupted into manic laughter.
"I have come at the call of the simple folk you tormented and killed!"
That laughter felt as though it shook the thick clouds that smothered the sky.
The Black Bone Sect survivors who had been barely clinging to life all met death beneath that laugh.
Se-a's knees buckled, but she barely managed to stay upright.
Before seeing him with her own eyes, she and Hyunwol Pavilion's key figures had analyzed him again and again.
A master, perhaps—someone of tremendous martial skill who had reached the Wall.
He must have received great help from many capable allies.
Some even claimed the rumors had been exaggerated.
But none of that analysis mattered.
That thing was an existence wholly outside the normal track.
"…That is the Dark Heaven Venerable One."
That was the true face of Yeon Sang-hyeon—the Luoyang Sword Clan's ridiculed First Young Master.
***
Geumju had no intention of sitting still and taking it.
"What are you idiots doing?! Attack him, now!"
None of the Black Bone Sect's underworld martial artists had stepped forward until now.
It was for this moment.
"Move, all of you!"
Dozens of martial artists from the Black Bone Sect—along with hastily hired underworld fighters—revealed themselves at once, executing movement art.
The sight of them swarming from roof to roof was enough to make one's hair stand on end.
"There were that many martial artists in the Black Bone Sect?!" Se-a gasped.
"Looks like twice as many as our intelligence suggested", the on-site commander said, unable to hide his shock.
With that number, even if the opponent had crossed the Wall, it was enough strength to test him.
And Geumju was there as well.
They didn't know his origins, and the Dark Heaven Venerable One used uncanny abilities beyond reason, but the enemy's forces were nothing to dismiss.
"We have to help—"
"There's no need, miss."
The one who stopped Se-a was Gyu.
Se-a's face brightened at the sight of her appearing, supported by agents.
"Gyu!"
"I've returned safely."
Gyu offered a faint smile.
She looked a mess, but her injuries didn't seem severe.
Se-a helped her sit and asked.
"What do you mean, there's no need to help?"
"That… no…"
Gyu shook her head and corrected herself.
"The Dark Heaven Venerable One is a real monster."
"But Geumju over there has reached the realm of a master—"
"No. Please believe me."
As Se-a looked at Gyu, she felt a shock.
Gyu had been so bold even before Geumju.
Even with death right in front of her, she had never retreated an inch.
But deep in her eyes now was fear—so thick it couldn't be denied.
"For him, whether he's crossed the Wall or not doesn't even mean anything. I can tell. I've seen countless masters."
Everyone nearby listened intently.
"If I tried to oppose him…"
Gyu gave a hollow smile.
"I probably wouldn't even be worth a single move."
"What are you—"
Before anyone could ask further, an enormous killing intent erupted from behind them.
As if the killing intent so far had been a joke, killing intent exploded around the Dark Heaven Venerable One.
"L-look over there!"
At someone's shout, all eyes snapped to the tower where the Dark Heaven Venerable One stood.
And their mouths fell open.
"...!"
Those who had scaled the tower in an instant unleashed a barrage of merciless attacks—but the ones flung away were them.
They couldn't even see the Dark Heaven Venerable One's strikes.
Each time something like black lightning flashed once, one of the Black Bone Sect's fighters was blasted out of the tower.
Limbs scattered through the air.
Entrails sprayed.
Near the top of the tower, the rising blood mist threatened to cover everything.
"H-he's really a monster…"
At the mutter, Gyu shook her head.
"Not yet. From what I can see, this is only the beginning."
She added, calmly.
"He hasn't even shown his true strength yet."
At her level voice, everyone fell silent, left with nothing to say but stare up at the tower.
It was a one-sided slaughter.