Henan Province, Heavenly Center Mountain.
On the wide ridgeline leading to the Central Peak, a fierce bloodbath was raging.
"Chaaat!"
"Charge!"
"No matter what it takes, we end the Heavenly Demon here today!"
"Waaah!"
A horde unleashing all sorts of clamor.
The Orthodox Murim factions, led by the Nine Great Sects, had gathered in full force.
What stood out was the opposition.
A group clad uniformly in uniforms emblazoned with the character for "Heaven."
They were the demonic cultists of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Combining both sides, their numbers reached roughly a thousand.
But the cultists weren't charging at the Orthodox forces.
Their target was the same.
The Heavenly Demon.
"Attack! We must pin the Heavenly Demon down here!"
"Your sacrifices will save the Murim world and the Central Plains!"
The elders positioned at the rear spat as they bellowed.
They were the Four Great Elders, the Heavenly Demon's One Above Ten Thousand subordinates.
Those who should have been most loyal to the Heavenly Demon were the most fervent in urging on the cultists.
Standing at the center between the two forces was a single man.
The Heavenly Demon was there.
"Have you ever seen such wretched bastards!"
The Heavenly Demon was rampaging in fury.
He had every reason to.
The Orthodox scum were one thing, but he couldn't forgive the elders and subordinates who had suddenly betrayed him.
"Elder Baek! Jang family bastard! Gold family bastard! Hwang family vermin! Do you think you can betray this lord and walk away unscathed!"
Kwarung!
Along with his rage-filled shout, a strike of Heavenly Thunder smashed into the cultists.
The next instant, a similar bolt of lightning struck the Orthodox warriors charging from the opposite side.
"Kuaaaak!"
"Uwaaak!"
The warriors scattered like autumn leaves in the wind.
They were the so-called elites from both the cult and Orthodox sides, but they were woefully inadequate against the enraged Heavenly Demon.
"Why did you betray me!"
The Heavenly Demon roared.
"I treated you well and the conquest of the Murim world was going smoothly. Why betray this lord!"
"Because you're too strong!"
One of the elders shouted back.
"If things continue like this, it's not just the conquest of Murim—the entire world will perish!"
"What? What nonsense is that, Hwang family vermin!"
"Don't you understand, Heavenly Demon? You're strong. Too strong! Even if we mobilized the full might of the cult, we couldn't guarantee we'd be able to control you!"
"Then isn't that a good thing! What's the problem with your lord being strong!"
"What if you harbor ill intentions? What if the heart demon or killing intent overtakes you and you seek to destroy the world?"
Elder Hwang narrowed his eyes.
"Then no one on this land could stop you."
"No, why would this lord go mad?"
"Because you've mastered the Divine Art of the Heavenly Demon, the demonic art of demonic arts!"
"No, does mastering the Divine Art of the Heavenly Demon mean you automatically go insane? Did you hear that from the founder himself?"
"The Greed Demon has already taken root in your body!"
There was a legendary monster called the Greed Demon.
True to its name, it devoured everything in the world until it ultimately consumed even itself.
The term Greed Demon was a metaphor drawn from that beast, but to the Heavenly Demon, it was utterly absurd.
"You damned fools! So I've been eating a bit more lately, and that's why? Greed Demon? Treating me like a monster just for eating heartily?"
"You devour a hundred men's portions in a single meal—is that normal?"
"It's autumn! The season of indulgence! Salmon are fattening up, cows and pigs are getting prime marbling!"
"So you eat a hundred men's meals because of that?"
"No! This is so unfair, damn it!"
The Heavenly Demon raged with his entire body.
His fury soon turned into a storm of qi that swept away the warriors charging from both sides.
"Uwaaak!"
"Kek!"
"So!"
The Heavenly Demon shouted.
"You're saying just because I eat heartily, I might destroy the world—is that it, or just hot air!"
"The Greed Demon is merely the precursor! It's just the beginning! And when the true demon manifests, it will be irreversible!"
"Elder Hwang is right!"
The cult elders wore resolute expressions.
"Thus, we have made our tearful decision!"
"Even crushing the loyalty we once held for you above all else!"
"Is that something to brag about? This is exactly why we shouldn't pamper doddering old fools stuffed with trivial knowledge!"
The man who had ascended to the Heavenly Demon's throne in his thirties, Jeok Muryong, slammed his fists together fiercely.
"So? Huh? Even overlooking the betrayal, do you think this paltry number can capture this lord?"
"As arrogant as the rumors say, Heavenly Demon!"
"The warriors of Wudang, Mount Hua, Shaolin, and Mount Zhongnan will judge you!"
"Shut your mouths, you lot!"
Kwarururung!
A bolt of lightning even greater than before smashed into the warriors surging toward Jeok Muryong.
"Kuaaaaak!"
"Keuk!"
From the Mount Hua Plum Blossom Sword Guard to the renowned masters of the Nine Great Sects, none escaped severe injury as they were hurled away.
The aftermath of the lightning caused one side of the ridgeline to collapse, nearly triggering a massive landslide.
The Orthodox Murim warriors scattered in panic to evade the torrent of earth.
"Save me!"
"Run!"
Kwagwagwagwa!
A spectacle of destruction beyond words.
Jeok Muryong's martial prowess had already reached the heavens.
"Just as expected."
Elder Hwang nodded as he spoke.
"Truly, your overwhelming might makes you the supreme under heaven, past and present—none would dispute that."
"Ha! Trying to butter me up now?"
"Do you think so? We anticipated things would come to this from the start."
"Oh? Then you must have foreseen how you'll die too."
"No, we foresaw your end!"
Kugugugugu!
"...?"
Suddenly, bizarre patterns began glowing beneath Jeok Muryong's feet.
A massive circle spanning a dozen jang radiated pitch-black light.
"A spell formation? Mystic Gate Concealment Array?"
"Indeed! The formation of the Bottomless Abyss, handed down from ancient esoteric Buddhism!"
Elder Hwang cried out with eerie eyes.
"We planted divine tree branches imbued with mystical power deep in the earth to create the spell formation and lured you to its precise center."
"The power to activate it? The blood and souls of those dying here today!"
"Without the cooperation of the Orthodox Murim, it would have been impossible. That alone shows how dangerous you are to both righteous and demonic alike!"
"Futile nonsense!"
Jeok Muryong tried to launch his body in an instant, but black energy erupting from the spell formation ensnared him.
"Hup!"
Jeok Muryong unleashed all his internal energy and latent power.
But it was futile.
"If the spell formation's power had been based on internal energy, we couldn't have held you."
"Borrowing the power of esoteric Buddhism was the right answer, it seems."
"You bastards!"
Jeok Muryong vented his rage, but the black energy coiling around him relentlessly dragged his body into the bottomless void.
Pajijijik!
Even amid it all, Heavenly Thunder qi lashed out in all directions.
Dozens of nearby cultists perished in screams in an instant.
Witnessing it, the elders' hairs stood on end.
"Monster...!"
"Exerting that much power even now?"
"But that's at an end too."
Tsutsutsutsu.
Pat!
The pitch-black space contracting toward the center shrank completely and vanished.
Jeok Muryong's figure along with it.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"...And thus, the Heavenly Demon, the absolute terror of the Central Plains Murim, vanished. Through the sacrifice of the Orthodox Murim's elite suicide squad and the heroic cultists who turned their backs on him."
Fifty years later, Heavenly Center Mountain.
Where the ridgeline once stood was now a deep gorge.
The heirs and daughters of the era's top Murim clans—those hailed as Divine Dragons—gazed in awe at the scars of destruction etched into the canyon.
"So that's the trace left by the Heavenly Demon?"
"Turning a mountain peak into a gorge..."
"That's what they say."
The graying middle-aged man guiding the Divine Dragons spoke.
"I was a fresh-faced rookie in the Murim world back then, so I don't know the full details. Just that the Heavenly Demon was so overwhelmingly strong and tyrannical that even his own cultists turned against him."
"That event led to the birth of the Murim Alliance, right?"
"Yes. Immortal Hwang, once an elder of the demonic cult, served as the first Alliance Leader."
"He passed away recently at the age of one hundred twenty, didn't he?"
"Mm. Since that battle here was fifty years ago..."
"So what happened to the Heavenly Demon?"
The other Divine Dragons chided the one who asked.
"Idiot. What have you been listening to?"
"The Heavenly Demon is gone. The Murim heroes slew him."
"Ah, no. Still, it's not certain. Being sucked into that Bottomless Abyss doesn't mean he definitely died."
"He's human—he's definitely dead! You dimwit."
"You wanna go?"
"Enough, all of you."
The two Divine Dragons about to lunge at each other halted at the middle-aged man's rebuke.
They couldn't help but glare murderously, though.
The middle-aged man stared faintly into the gorge's darkness.
"Even if the Heavenly Demon lives, he'd be in no state to do anything by now."
"Yeah... you're right."
"Whether he returns or not, if he does, protecting the Murim world and the realm will be your generation's duty."
"Of course!"
"Leave the future of the jianghu to us, senior!"
The Divine Dragons bowed proudly.
Another fifty years passed.
The middle-aged man died, and the Divine Dragons either became clan heads, were poisoned, lived unremarkably, or died by some stray blade.
The world and the jianghu flowed on without great upheaval, just as in any human realm.
Another fifty years.
Those once called Divine Dragons all perished, and none remained who remembered that day.
Some clans were wiped out, others declined.
Yet time marched mercilessly onward.
Another fifty years.
The Murim Alliance fell to internal strife, and a new self-proclaimed Heavenly Demon arose, dyeing the world in blood.
Even foreign powers eyeing the Central Plains rose up, plunging the continent into ceaseless chaos.
Another fifty years.
New demonic cult fell through heroes' sacrifices, and foreign forces were driven beyond the walls.
Brief peaces and transient turmoils repeated thereafter.
Murim folk fought, feuded, and allied endlessly.
Forces renamed Blood Cult or Esoteric Buddhism vied for hegemony one after another.
Thus, dozens more years passed.
The events became mere grumblings of old folks in back rooms.
No one grew curious about Heavenly Center Mountain's gorge anymore.
None remembered that ancient Heavenly Demon.
Yet despite such vast time.
Despite the Murim world and even the ruling states of the Central Plains changing hands multiple times.
The Heavenly Demon, Jeok Muryong, still lived.
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