Night fully claimed the Black Blood Mountains.
The blood moon hung swollen and low, close enough to feel as though it pressed against the peaks themselves, its light spilling across the sect like a fresh wound torn open in the sky. Obsidian spires drank deeply from that crimson glow, and every shadow stretched unnaturally long, thick and viscous, as if reluctant to release the light once it touched them. Along the winding mountain paths, lanterns of condensed crimson qi flickered in disciplined rows, but their glow was weak—almost ashamed—beneath the moon's oppressive radiance.
In the Throne Hall of Eternal Night, silence ruled.
The vast chamber was carved from the mountain's heart, its ceiling lost to darkness high above, supported by pillars etched with the histories of conquered sects and fallen masters. Each carving bore scars where blood had once been smeared into the stone, offerings made in eras long forgotten. The air was cold, heavy with accumulated killing intent, a pressure that crushed the unworthy before they could take ten steps inside.
At the center of it all sat Cheon Ye-mok.
He did not recline, nor did he rest his weight lazily against the throne. He simply occupied it, as though the throne had been shaped around him rather than the other way around. Man and seat appeared inseparable, a single existence forged through centuries of dominion.
The throne itself was ancient—an artifact of conquest. Its frame had been forged from the fused blades of a thousand defeated masters, each sword broken in personal combat and reforged in blood. Chains fashioned from the bones of apex demonic beasts coiled around its base, their surfaces polished smooth by time and ritual. Centuries of blood offerings had darkened the structure until it gleamed like obsidian veined with red, alive with the whispers of the dead.
Cheon Ye-mok had sat upon it for two hundred years.
The world believed he would sit upon it forever.
His crimson eyes remained open, unblinking, reflecting the emptiness of the hall. That gaze alone was enough to stop hearts, to force knees to the floor, to remind all who stood before him that resistance was a meaningless concept.
Disciples did not enter this hall without summons.
Even the five great elders—his direct disciples—approached only when called.
Tonight, he had summoned one.
The massive doors at the far end of the hall creaked open, their ancient hinges protesting as if resentful of movement after centuries of obedience. The sound echoed once, twice, then faded into the vastness.
A single figure stepped inside.
Baek Cheon-il.
His eldest disciple.
White hair bound into a severe topknot, his features bore the marks of time without succumbing to weakness. His face was calm, disciplined, carved by decades of restraint. The deep crimson robes marking his rank as First Elder flowed behind him like a restrained flame, heavy with authority and blood-soaked legacy.
He walked the long approach alone.
Each measured step echoed sharply against the stone floor, a reminder of the distance between master and disciple—a distance neither time nor loyalty had ever bridged. When he reached the foot of the thirteen obsidian steps leading to the throne, he dropped to one knee without hesitation.
"Master."
The word carried absolute reverence.
Cheon Ye-mok regarded him in silence.
The pause stretched, deliberate and heavy, long enough for lesser men to feel their souls unravel under its weight.
"Rise."
Baek Cheon-il stood.
His posture was flawless—respectful but not servile. He had learned that balance over eighty years at his master's side. To kneel too deeply was weakness. To stand too proudly was death.
"You requested my presence."
Cheon Ye-mok's voice was low and even, calm enough to seem gentle—yet it carried the crushing weight of mountains shifting in the deep earth.
"The Thousand-Year Blood Wine," he said. "Is it ready?"
Baek Cheon-il inclined his head.
"It is, Master. Sealed exactly as you instructed a century ago. The nine sacred beast hearts have fully merged with the Blood Spirit Spring essence. The fermentation is complete."
He hesitated, then continued carefully.
"The wine's potency exceeds all previous estimations. Even a cultivator at the peak of the Profound Realm would gain a glimpse of the Transcendent threshold."
Cheon Ye-mok nodded once.
A single motion.
Enough to shake the fate of sects.
"And the ceremony."
"All proceeds as planned. Delegations from the Blood Shadow Sect and the Ghost Blade Clan arrive at dawn. The demonstration platforms have been reinforced threefold. The outer blood mist formations have been doubled, as you commanded."
Another pause followed.
This one was different.
Baek Cheon-il hesitated—only for a breath, a fracture in his perfect discipline. To anyone else, it would have gone unnoticed.
Cheon Ye-mok saw it immediately.
"Speak."
Baek Cheon-il lifted his gaze and met his master's eyes.
"Master… the complete Heavenly Demon Arts. The final volume." His voice remained steady, but the air around him tightened. "Will you name an heir during the ceremony?"
The question lingered like a blade suspended mid-fall.
Cheon Ye-mok did not answer at once.
His gaze studied the man before him—not merely as he was now, but as he had been.
A boy pulled from a frozen battlefield, fingers numb and bleeding, clinging to his robes in wordless terror.
An orphan who had survived only because Cheon Ye-mok had found him useful.
A disciple molded through pain, loyalty, and fear into a weapon worthy of standing at the sect's summit.
Eighty years of obedience.
Eighty years of devotion.
Eighty years spent beneath an unyielding shadow.
"I have not decided," Cheon Ye-mok said at last.
Baek Cheon-il's expression did not change.
But something shifted behind his eyes.
Something old.
Something patient.
Something that had been growing, unnoticed and unaddressed, for decades.
"I understand, Master."
He bowed deeply, lower than protocol demanded.
"Will there be anything else?"
Cheon Ye-mok regarded him for a moment longer, then dismissed him with a slight tilt of his head.
Baek Cheon-il turned and departed without another word. His footsteps echoed once more through the hall before the doors closed behind him with a heavy, final thud.
Silence reclaimed the chamber.
Cheon Ye-mok remained alone.
His gaze drifted through the empty hall, over the pillars, the carvings, the dried stains of ancient blood. He knew what stirred within his disciples. He had always known.
Ambition was fire.
It was the forge through which true strength was born.
He had nurtured it in all five of his direct disciples—fed it, restrained it, sharpened it. He had allowed it to burn just enough to push them higher, to ensure the sect's dominance would not wither after his passing.
But fire, left unchecked, consumed everything.
Even the hand that kindled it.
He rose from the throne and moved toward the great arched window overlooking the sect. The stone beneath his feet was cold, unmoved by centuries of footsteps. Beyond the glassless opening, the sect stretched endlessly below—terraces, halls, training grounds, and blood-soaked monuments bathed in moonlight.
Lights burned steadily.
Disciples slept or cultivated in disciplined silence.
Demonic beasts prowled within their enclosures, restless beneath the moon's gaze.
The blood moon watched them all.
Tomorrow would come.
The ceremony.
The wine.
The assembled eyes of Murim, watching for weakness, for cracks, for blood.
He placed one hand against the cold stone of the window frame and felt the faint, constant thrum of the grand formation pulsing through the mountain.
His empire.
His creation.
His cage.
A faint smile touched his lips—not warm, not cruel. Merely an acknowledgment of inevitability.
Change was coming.
He felt it in the wind sliding along the peaks.
In the silence between heartbeats.
In the eyes of his eldest disciple.
The blood moon reached its zenith.
And for the first time in two hundred years, the Heavenly Demon did not sleep.