Qinghai had always been a land where the heavens seemed thin and the earth breathed malice. The elders whispered that this land remembered the first sin—its mountains, black and jagged, were the bones of forgotten gods, and its wind was the sigh of ancient slaughter.
Ruling this land was the Primordial Demon Sect.
Where other sects cultivated serenity, they cultivated Chaotic Origin Qi—a demonic power that devoured purity and grew fat on darkness. Fear, hatred, jealousy, murderous desire… to the rest of the world, such things were poisons. To the Primordial Demon Sect, they were nourishment.
But Chaotic Origin Qi demanded more than ordinary wickedness. It demanded a heart that had drowned in hell and crawled back.
So deep beneath Demon Emperor Peak, the clan built the Demon Thought Pool—a psychic vortex of carved resentments, sealed curses, and accumulated malice. Only the direct bloodline were thrown into that abyss. There, a child either learned to hear their own will within the storm… or the storm consumed them.
That was the heritage of Cheon Mu-geom.
And on that night, that heritage was reduced to fire and ruin.
Ruuumble… rrrrmble… BOOOOOOM!
The grand hall shook as righteous warriors poured through the shattered gates. Flames devoured centuries-old banners. Bodies lay scattered like abandoned scriptures—elders, disciples, servants. The smell of charred Qi and fresh blood clawed at the lungs.
Mu-geom lay half-crushed under collapsed stone, ribs broken, meridians torn. His vision wavered, but he saw everything.
"Hold the line! Buy the Patriarch time!""Poison—! They used poison on the inner disciples—!""The vassal clans betrayed us—!"
Shiiing…!
A razor of pure sword-light slit a defender's throat.
The Divine Dragon, Yoo Hyun, advanced with steps calm as a temple bell. Behind him came the Poison Phoenix, Tang So-ryeon, her sleeves shimmering with toxins that made the air ripple faintly with death. And at the center of the invading force walked the Fist God, Yi Song-baek—his presence a silent declaration that judgment had arrived.
But none of them were the first sight that seized Mu-geom's breath.
It was his father.
Patriarch Cheon Woo-yeon stood alone at the center of the hall.
His veins bulged black due to deadly poison combination of Blood iron, Slaughter Heaven, and the Tang Clan's Dead Lotus poison. His skin was split with hairline fractures of seared Qi. His breath came rough, each exhale a struggle between inevitability and refusal.
Yet he stood straight.
He spat blood and smiled like a demon who refused to die.
"Hahaha… the six vassal clans betray us. And the righteous heroes arrive like hyenas to claim the corpse." His eyes blazed with contempt. "Tell me—do you still dream of my father's shadow? The Limitless Sword Demon carved nightmares into your ancestors. Do they still echo in your bones?"
His sword hummed in his hand.Woong… woong… WOOOOONG…
Yoo Hyun raised his own sword in a calm salute. "Your lineage devoured the world once. Today, the world devours you."
Before Woo-yeon could answer, another voice slid into the space between them like a knife.
"Devours? Old friend, you misunderstand."
A man stepped forward. The Blade King.
Woo-yeon's expression froze, then twisted. "You…"
The Blade King's smile was soft and poisonous. "You always were too sentimental. Brotherhood, oaths, shared wine under the same sky… all very touching."
"You swore to stand with our clan until death," Woo-yeon said. The words were low, like pressure before a storm.
"I did," the Blade King agreed, shrugging. "But I never specified whose."
His gaze sharpened, turning inward as if savoring an old memory. "Do you remember when your father—Cheon Woo-jin, the Limitless Sword Demon—used the Golden Chaos Needle on me? You thought he healed my mortal wounds out of brotherhood."
Woo-yeon's knuckles whitened.
The Blade King chuckled. "We reversed the needle's flow using your clan's own Heart Sutra. Every drop of his Origin Qi, every wisp of his demonic cultivation… siphoned." He leaned forward slightly. "Your revered grandfather died believing he saved my life. In truth, he was my finest cultivation resource."
For a moment, the hall itself seemed to recoil.
Mu-geom felt something snap inside him, even as a crippled observer. The image of his grandfather—demon of the sword, pillar of the clan—dying with trust in his eyes and treachery in his veins, slammed into him like a blade.
Woo-yeon's killing intent surged so violently that even the flames bent away.
"You… used my father's demonic dao—our clan's Heart Sutra—to murder him?" Woo-yeon's voice scraped like steel dragged across bone.
The Blade King tilted his head, eyes gleaming. "Murder? No. He offered a hand. I simply pulled him down with me. Is that not the essence of your demonic path? To take, if the other is foolish enough to give?"
"…You bastard," Woo-yeon breathed.
His sword trembled—not from fear, but from a fury so absolute it bordered enlightenment.
Mu-geom, broken on the ground, felt it. In that moment, his father no longer seemed merely human. He was something standing at the crumbling edge between man and calamity.
"Mu-geom," Woo-yeon said suddenly, voice turning softer as his gaze flicked to his trapped son. Even across the ruined hall, Mu-geom felt the weight of that look. "Remember this."
His fingers tightened around his sword. "A demon does not rage because he is evil. He rages because the world demands he kneel—"
His eyes burned, not just with hatred, but with clarity.
"—and he refuses."
The Divine Dragon stepped forward. "Enough words."
Woo-yeon's grin sharpened. "Then let us speak with swords."
His blade rose.
The Blade King watched, eyes narrowing. "That resonance… natural sword?" His lips curled. "So you have reached that realm."
Yoo Hyun's expression tightened. Yi Songbaek's brows drew together. For a brief instant, even the righteous heroes seemed to understand that what was about to happen would not be easily forgotten.
Woo-yeon's sword resonated with his resolve.
Clang.
The sound rang like a funeral bell.
A thin line of black blood slid down his cheek. Where it touched the floor, the stone blistered, then melted.
CRRRKKKK… CRAAACK…!
His bones shattered and reforged. Black lightning crawled under his skin. His hair whipped around him like the mane of a waking god.
The demonic Qi he had suppressed all his life surged free, no longer a refined flow but a primordial tide. Darkness rolled off him in waves.
The earth trembled as if groaning under a weight it could not bear.Above, the sky itself seemed to wail—the air dimming, sound thinning, light bowing.
When he drew his sword again, it was no longer merely an object.
It was a natural sword—a blade that existed in harmony with heaven and earth, yet stood in defiance of both. Demonic energy covered it like a second skin, so dense that the edge seemed to slice the concept of distance itself.
WOONG… WOOOONG… WOOOOOOOOOONG!!!
The sword hummed like a star dying.
The Blade King exhaled, a note of genuine admiration flickering in his eyes. "Natural sword… truly. If you had reached this realm without poison gnawing your core, old friend, we would not be standing here today."
Woo-yeon's voice thundered:
"Chaotic Origin Sword Art—Heaven–Earth Rupturing Slash!"
SWOOOOOOOOOOOSH—!!!
Space cracked.
The ground split open like a carcass.Time shuddered. The earth wept and the heaven's wailed.
A righteous elder simply ceased to exist—no blood, no ash, just absence.
Yi Songbaek roared, Qi blazing. "Heavenly Fist Aegis—!"
BAAAAAAAAAANG—!!!
Golden light surged, forming a colossal fist that met the descending slash. Cracks raced across the luminous construct like a frozen lake breaking.
"You… monster!" Yi Songbaek snarled, forced a step back.
Woo-yeon laughed, blood streaming down his chin. "And still, you breathe. A shame."
His blade rose again.
Mu-geom felt it then—clearly, indelibly. Under the savagery, beneath the hatred, the sword moved with a terrifying inevitability. Heaven and earth, cause and effect, life and death—everything was contained within that arc. It was not chaos pretending to be order; it was a demonic order that had broken free of heaven's script.
In that instant, something imprinted itself into Mu-geom's soul.So this… is the true shape of our Chaotic Origin Sword Art.
Later, much later, he would call that flash of comprehension enlightenment—the seed from which his own sword, "Unrivaled In This Age," would sprout.
But enlightenment could not alter what came next.
A whisper of steel.
Mu-geom's voice cracked the air. "FATHER—BEHIND YOU!!"
The Divine Dragon was already there.
SHHK—!
A slender sword slid cleanly through Woo-yeon's back.
The hall froze.
Woo-yeon looked down at the blade jutting from his chest. His breath hitched—but not in fear.
"A dragon's fangs," he murmured. "Sharp indeed."
"For the sake of the world," Yoo Hyun whispered.
Woo-yeon chuckled weakly. "And who decided the world was yours to save?"
He staggered.
His gaze found Mu-geom's.
Mu-geom's throat tore as he screamed. "FATHER!!"
Woo-yeon smiled—gentle, tragic, and full of quiet madness.
"Run away son," he breathed. "And when the heavens reject you—make them kneel."
Then he fell.
Something inside Mu-geom broke with a sound too soft for anyone else to hear.
As darkness swallowed him, his thoughts burned:
I will kill you all.
His voice came out as a blood-wet whisper no one heard.
I will kill heaven.I will kill fate.I will kill the world that allowed this.
SLASH
Mu-geom's neck fell, Everything went black.
He awoke choking on air that was too clean.
Silk sheets. Pale sunlight. Lotus carvings on the ceiling he knew from a lifetime ago. The scent of sandalwood. His hands—small, unscarred. His Qi—weak, sealed, clumsy.
Sixteen-year-old bones.
Mu-geom laughed—a jagged, disbelieving sound. "I'm… back…?"
The door slid open. His mother stepped in, her face softer and younger than in his last memories, before grief had carved permanent shadows under her eyes.
"Mu-geom? You were shouting. A nightmare?" Lady Han's voice was full of genuine concern.
He lurched forward and embraced her with a desperation that shocked them both. She stiffened—her son had never been one for open affection—then slowly relaxed, patting his back.
"Mother, A very bad dream indeed," he whispered into her shoulder.
The scent of her—jasmine and old sandalwood—stabbed him with a sweetness that felt like a cruelty.
"Eat, rest," she said gently. "Your father has summoned the elders and direct line for the noon audience."
He nodded, forcing a smile. "I'm fine now, Mother."
When she left, the smile fell away like a mask dropped on a battlefield.
A shadow peeled itself from the corner.
Bak knelt on one knee, face plain and forgettable, presence muted. Only his eyes betrayed him—sharp, predatory. He was not just a guard; he was a legacy.
Behind him stood an invisible institution: the Asura Slaughter Manor—the infamous assassination force ruled by Mu-geom's maternal grandfather. A place where children were forged into blades, where death was craft and art. The orthodox sects spoke the name in a low voice, as if saying it too loudly might draw its gaze.
Bak's loyalty was not sentimental; it was enforced. Somewhere deep in his brain nestled a Gu worm, a delicate horror that would devour his mind at even the hint of betrayal.
"Orders, Young Master?" Bak's voice was an oil-slick rasp.
In his previous life, Mu-geom had been too weak, too naïve, to ever truly use Bak—or the Asura Slaughter Manor—properly. He had been a link the manor tolerated, an extension of their influence into the Primordial Demon Sect, not a commander.
This time, he saw clearly.
"Tonight," Mu-geom said, his tone calm as still water covering a deep drop, "the Shaolin courier carrying the Dragon Heart Elixir will pass through Serpent's Gorge. The true elixir is with the scout, not the main transport. You will intercept. Retrieve the jade vial. Leave no witnesses."
Bak bowed his head. "No witnesses. Understood."
"There is more." Mu-geom's gaze turned inward, seeing not the room but a lattice of plans. "In the western slums, there is a beggar group. Orphans. Street rats. Take twenty. Choose those with the fiercest eyes—the ones who already bite to live. Move them to the abandoned mine shaft on the western border."
Bak's lips twitched. "For training?"
"For culling," Mu-geom replied. "Then training. Not as soldiers." He smiled faintly. "As knives. I do not need loyalty. I need obedience. If you must, borrow methods from the Manor. Use the Gu."
Bak's eyes gleamed with a dark understanding. This language, he understood. "It will be done."
When the shadow slipped away, Mu-geom sat in the quiet of his small room, feeling the weight of his own heartbeat.
Remorse is for those who have the luxury of ignorance, he thought. I have already seen the ending. For me, malice is not a flaw. It is a tool.
Hours later, under the shroud of night, the jade vial was laid into his palm. Warm. Glowing. The Dragon Heart Elixir was a contained heresy: pure Buddhist energy, refined and sealed to repair meridians and widen channels. It smelled of cold spring water and temple bells.
If this works, I will stand where I could not.If this fails, I will die twice.
He uncorked it and drank.
Winter lightning tore through him.
The elixir surged along his meridians, seeking paths that were cracked and blocked from childhood. It collided with the remnants of Chaotic Origin Qi in his marrow—a residue of the Demon Thought Pool and the clan's demonic lineage.
They did not blend. They clashed.
CRACK! KRRRK! ZZZZT!
Pain flared white. His meridians shattered like brittle glass. His dantian felt as if it were being ripped in opposing directions. He collapsed, convulsing, every breath a jagged blade.
So this is it…? he thought, vision dimming. After all that… to die like a fool choking on stolen medicine?
Beneath the agony, something stirred.
From the deepest layer of his being, where the memory of his father's final sword still smoldered, a cold, dense killing intent rose. It was not wild rage; it was a focused, cutting will that had been honed by watching everything he loved die.
The demonic dao he had inherited—not as a technique, but as a witness—began to move. Not against the elixir, but around it, redirecting, grinding, repurposing.
Outside, in a secluded meditation garden, an old man's eyes snapped open.
That…?
Cheon Woo-jin, the Limitless Sword Demon, stood slowly. For a moment, he had felt something—an ancient malice and demonic resonance leaking from the inner quarters, sharp enough to make even his seasoned instincts flare.
An intruder? At this timing? Someone dares step into our nest?
He stepped once.
Space folded.
The next instant, he was in Mu-geom's room.
He saw not an intruder—but his grandson writhing on the floor, body torn between luminous Buddhist energy and writhing demonic Qi.
For the first time in many years, Woo-jin was genuinely taken aback.
That malice… was from Mu-geom? he thought. The oppressive weight he had sensed a moment earlier, the one that had made him reach instinctively for his sword—it had come from this boy?
On the floor, Mu-geom's eyes fluttered open. For a brief moment, Woo-jin looked into them—and what he saw were not the eyes of a sixteen-year-old.
They were old.They were tired.They held the vicissitudes of someone who had gazed at the abyss along with its despair.
Despair, yes. But also something else: a cold, restrained comprehension of the demonic path that should have taken decades to cultivate.
Woo-jin's pupils narrowed slightly.
"…Interesting," he murmured.
Without another word, he knelt beside Mu-geom and placed a hand on his grandson's back.
His Qi flowed—not to overwhelm, but to guide. Limitless force, tempered by deliberate control, slid into the frenzied clash inside Mu-geom's body. He nudged the chaotic Qi, weaving it into the path of the elixir, forcing the two to carve out broader channels instead of annihilating each other.
"The demonic dao is not license to be consumed by your own darkness," Woo-jin said quietly—not as a lecture, but as a simple statement of truth. "It is the art of using what others throw away. Rage, hatred, fear… are the scraps heaven discards. A demon picks them up and forges them into blades."
Mu-geom heard the words dimly through the fog of agony.
To use even one's own malice as material, not master… so that is how he stands at the peak, he thought. And Father… Father reached for that realm in one slash…
Gradually, the tearing sensation shifted. His meridians, once brittle and blocked, began to stretch, reforging themselves under the combined pressure of demonic chaos and Buddhist purity. Like a twisted tree forced to grow straight because the wind would not allow otherwise.
When the process finally slowed, steam rose faintly from his skin.
Mu-geom lay panting, staring at the ceiling. Power hummed in his core—raw, potent, coiled. The Peak of the First-Rate Realm, sixty years of internal energy swirling in his newly forged dantian. Sword Qi nudged at his fingertips like eager ghosts.
He turned his head.
Cheon Woo-jin was watching him.
The old man's gaze was sharp enough to cut steel. "Are you really mu-geom?" he asked quietly.
It was not a casual question. He had seen the depth in Mu-geom's gaze—a weariness and resolve that did not belong to a pampered young master.
For a moment, Mu-geom considered telling the truth.
I am the boy whose future you couldn't protect. The one who watched our clan burn. The one who saw you already dead.
He let those words die unspoken.
He lowered his gaze, allowing some of the darkness in his eyes to fade, but not vanish.
"I am simply myself, Grandfather," he said evenly. "Cheon Mu-geom. Your grandson."
Woo-jin held his gaze for a long breath, searching. He saw that the boy was not lying. The name was true. The blood was true. But beneath it lay something vast and coiled.
In the end, he nodded once. "Then do not waste what you now carry."
He rose and vanished, as if the air had forgotten he was ever there.
The next day, Cheon Woo-yeon summoned him to the private training ground.
His father and three uncles stood watching.
"Your Qi… is no longer stagnant," Woo-yeon said, eyes narrowing. "Demonstrate. The first form of the Chaotic Origin Sword Art."
Mu-geom drew his sword.
He did not perform the form as a student might. He breathed it.
Stepping forward, he let the memory of his father's last slash unfold inside him, not as pain but as guidance. Where others would see chaos, he saw the pattern beneath—the demonic order that refused heaven's structure.
Woong… shiiing… woong…
His blade drew a circle in the air. The motion was so smooth, so complete, that for a heartbeat it felt as if nothing existed outside that arc. Air did not resist; it yielded. Space within that circle thickened.
He transitioned into a variation that did not exist in the sect's manual—a fragment of insight he had stolen from the moment his father's Heaven–Earth Rupturing Slash had torn the world.
"I name this sword," he said softly, as the final trace of his blade sealed the circle, "Unrivaled In This Age."
Within that circle, there was no heaven or earth, no righteous or demonic. There was only the domain of the sword—a small, absolute world where his will was the only law. The Chaotic Origin Qi inside the circle did not thrash; it obeyed.
The silence that followed was profound.
Woo-yeon's eyes were wide, stunned. "That… is not part of the canonical forms. You didn't merely learn the art… you have seen its soul and begun to shape your own path." His voice was hoarse. "How?"
Mu-geom met his gaze.
"I grasped the end of the chaotic sword path," he said, the words double-edged.
'Watching your last sword, Father… it showed me what our chaos can become when it refuses to bow. I merely… followed the imprint it left behind.'
I watched you die, he added silently. And in that moment, your sword taught me a truth even heaven would not dare to write.
His uncles exchanged looks—pride, unease, calculation.
"The quarterly trials are in three days," Woo-yeon said at last, a fierce pride and a flicker of something like greed in his eyes. "Show them what it means to bear our name."
Later, in the outer disciple training grounds, Mu-geom faced a crowd of nervous youths.
He did not speak much.
Mu-geom walked to the training ground, looking out at the bustling, arrogant vitality of the Primordial Demon Palace. He saw it all now with new eyes. The "trusted" steward who would later open the back gates for the Alliance? There he was, hurrying across the courtyard. The "loyal" captain of the guard who would secretly poison his own men's food? He was drilling his men.
He felt that the Palace was already in a trap, puppets dancing on strings pulled by their future executioners. It was just that no one beside him knew it yet.
But he did. He saw every snare, every traitor, every weakness. And he would use them all—the elixir, the assassins, the traitors, even his own family's darkness—as kindling for the fire that would consume his enemies. The Great Demon's ascension would not be a rebellion. It would be a reckoning.
As he walked in the training ground, he saw outer disciples looking at him with pity not knowing his change.
'These guys think that in the quarterly inspection in 3 days, I would be the only direct descendant who would be shamed. In the past, I might have been touched but after seeing the amount of betrayals we faced, What I need right now is loyal dogs not mutts who dare to pity their master'
"You, you, you," he said, pointing the tip of his sword at the three weakest.
They stepped forward, unsure, eyes flickering.
"Attack me," Mu-geom said.
They obeyed.
They died.
Shhk—thud.Shhhk—thud.Shink—thud.
Three heads tumbled. Three bodies crumpled. Blood soaked the dust.
The yard went silent.
A senior disciple shouted, face flushing red. "Young Master! They were just outer disciples! Did you have to kill them?!"
Mu-geom looked at him, expression smooth, almost bored.
"The weak are meat," he said. "Strength is sin in the eyes of the world—but in the eyes of our demonic dao, strength is the only virtue." His voice cut through the air like a thin blade. "Evil thoughts, murderous resolve, ruthless will—these are fodder. The question is: who eats, and who is eaten?"
Fear, he knew, was the most potent fertilizer for growth in an unorthodox path. And he would make sure they grew into a forest of blades, loyal only to the one who held their leash—him.
He sheathed his sword, the motion slow and deliberate.
"You will become strong," he said to the trembling disciples. "Or you will be culled. This is the only law. The heavens have their righteous dao. We have ours."
Fear flickered in their eyes—but so did something else. Ambition. Hunger. The first stirrings of a forest of blades waiting to grow.
That night, Mu-geom sat by his window and watched the moon hang over Qinghai's jagged ridges, its light cold and thin like the edge of a knife.
In the glass, his reflection blurred—a boy's face layered with the shadow of a man who had already seen his future burn.
He thought of the Demon Thought Pool beneath the mountain, the demonic scriptures etched into its walls, whispering that sin was a currency and the world merely a market. He thought of the Asura Slaughter Manor, his maternal grandfather's domain, where children laughed while learning to kill. He thought of the Dark Emperor Sword that had once chosen him in the Sword Garden—a blade that had not answered any hand since the Founder himself—and the faint, hungry hum he sometimes felt when he touched its hilt.
Woong.
The sword at his side resonated, ever so softly. It had tasted slaughter in the life he'd lost. It would drink far more in the life he'd been given.
"Tomorrow," Mu-geom murmured, eyes half-lidded, "I begin writing a different script."
He let his thoughts settle, not into rage—but into intention.
Malice is not a disease to be cut away, he thought. It is a resource. The heavens discard it because they fear it. The demonic dao picks it up and turns it into a blade. Those who learn to wield it… will carve their names into the bones of the world.
With the taste of iron on his tongue and his father's last sword still etched into his soul, Cheon Mu-geom closed his eyes.
The first page of his second life had been written.
The rest would be written in blood.