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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: The Supreme One Has Returned
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1
It had taken far too long for this day to finally arrive.
They say that one's initial feelings change as time passes.
Yet even after forty years, the killing intent burning in my heart remained utterly unchanged.
"Single-handedly against the Demon Extermination Squad?!"
Like a Demon-Slaying Sword honed to perfection.
Squelch.
The Demon-Slaying Sword, soaked in blood, was yanked free from the masked demon.
The demon's eyes bulged wide; it was already dead, its head slamming limply into the dirt without a twitch.
Thud.
This was the moment the last elite of the Heavenly Demon Cult's vaunted Demon Extermination Squad returned to the earth.
Gazes around the Sword Demon shifted in the wake of his divine prowess.
The eyes that had once brimmed with public killing intent toward him now filled with awe.
"Was that guy really the last in the Demon Commanders' rankings?"
"But..."
"I asked if his skills match someone ranked twentieth!"
"Forgive me."
But one thread of killing intent remained unaltered.
The Blade Demon, vice leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult that commanded a hundred thousand demons.
He alone.
"What are the Demon Commanders doing? He murdered our cult's elites! Can't you bring his head before me?!"
Even under the Blade Demon's orders, the Demon Commanders merely exchanged wary glances—no one moved.
Of course. Even within the Heavenly Demon Cult, scarcely any Demon Commanders could take on the entire Demon Extermination Squad single-handedly.
Yet the Sword Demon had done just that, right before everyone's eyes.
How could they boldly raise their blades against such a Sword Demon?
Having swept his gaze over the Demon Commanders avoiding his eyes, the Sword Demon—drenched head to toe in blood—slowly advanced toward the Blade Demon.
"Stop him! I said stop him! Do you dare disobey your superior's command?!"
"Shut your mouth..."
The Sword Demon snapped at the fuming Blade Demon.
He hadn't uttered a word even while crossing blades with the Demon Extermination Squad's elites, so the Blade Demon fell silent too, glaring daggers.
In response, the Sword Demon raised his drooping sword, leveling it at the Blade Demon with eyes brimming with murderous resolve.
"The heads I want aren't those of other cultists. Only you, Blade Demon. Just you. If you've got the guts, stop barking orders and draw your sword."
The Blade Demon's pupils quivered at the Sword Demon's words.
No mere Demon Commander would dare speak that way to the vice leader.
It was blatant insult—and more than that.
All the cultists, frozen in the Sword Demon's awe-inspiring presence, now turned their eyes to the Blade Demon.
This was a brazen challenge to the Supremacy of the Strong, the iron law etched into the Heavenly Demon Cult's thousand-year history.
"Urgh..."
Amid the cultists' expectant stares.
In the end, the Blade Demon could not ignore it.
"Fine. If you crave death that badly, I'll grant your wish."
Snatching up the Great Sword with its crimson blade from beside him, the Blade Demon leaped instantly before the Sword Demon.
True to the Supremacy of the Strong that defined the Heavenly Demon Cult's millennial legacy, the vice leader's killing intent and demonic qi dwarfed even the Demon Extermination Squad's.
The Blade Demon's pitch-black eyes erupting with crimson light were so dense and overwhelming it was no exaggeration to call it the Heavenly Demon Cult incarnate.
'But.'
Whoosh.
The Sword Demon had known this all along.
And in this moment, sword in hand...
The Sword Demon had surpassed the Blade Demon's demonic arts.
"Wh-what is this...?"
Just as the Blade Demon emanated demonic qi, the Sword Demon unleashed every ounce of power slumbering in his dantian.
It had begun ten years prior.
Honing his strength in secrecy, time and again, all to surpass the Blade Demon for revenge.
"Now it's time to end this."
No need to hide anymore.
The Sword Demon had eclipsed the Blade Demon and gained the power to survive even shouldering the full weight of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
All that remained was to seize the vengeful blade he'd sharpened in his heart for decades and deliver judgment.
Gripping the Demon-Slaying Sword pulsing with condensed violet energy, the Sword Demon lowered into stance, channeling his demonic qi to plunge it into the Blade Demon's chest.
And then—
"H-heek!"
He kicked off the ground toward the Blade Demon, who raised his Great Sword in desperate defense.
Slash!
The Sword Demon's form blurred past the Blade Demon in the blink of an eye.
The instant his movement halted, the Blade Demon's treasured blade snapped in two and clattered to the ground—his arm soaring skyward at the same moment.
"G-gaaah! Aaaargh!"
Blood fountained from the stump as the Blade Demon crumpled.
Even a demon inured to agony had never endured a severed limb.
The Sword Demon approached and pressed the Demon-Slaying Sword to the Blade Demon's throat.
His eyes bloodshot from excruciating pain, the Blade Demon lifted his head.
"I regret it... I should have killed you... killed you long ago..."
The Blade Demon's bloodshot gaze turned feral.
Just like the eyes of the Sword Demon as a child, forty years ago, watching his entire family slaughtered in the slums beneath Hwayang Port's docks.
"Haa..."
How long had he dreamed of this?
In forty years, he'd never once stopped yearning for it.
To sever the head of Demon Head Gyeok Jong-du, the butcher of his family.
"Gyeok Jong-du."
And he'd never forgotten the true name of the Blade Demon—the one who'd laughed in delight while picking off his loved ones one by one.
"...H-how do you know my name...?"
"I never forgot. Not for a second. The wretched name skulking behind your alias of Blade Demon."
Slash!
The Demon-Slaying Sword at his throat blurred for a heartbeat before whipping back.
The Blade Demon's remaining arm tore free, spraying blood.
"G-gaaah! Aaaargh!"
"I don't plan on letting you die easy."
Armless, the Blade Demon writhed on the ground.
The Sword Demon dragged his blade across the demon's flesh, carving shallow wounds.
To prolong the torment as much as possible.
"Urgh... uwaaaah! Aaaaaargh!"
Screaming in agony, the Blade Demon finally burst into tears.
Who could have imagined it?
The Heavenly Demon Cult's vice leader weeping like a frightened child.
In the end, even the Blade Demon was human.
A mere mortal who howled in pain and dreaded death.
"K-kill me... please, kill me!"
They say revenge is sweet.
"Haa..."
No—the sweetness was fleeting. A vast emptiness soon engulfed the Sword Demon's entire being.
This was what he'd craved so desperately.
Yet now that it lay before him, the sweetness faded, sapped of strength as if he'd forgotten how to live.
It was so absurd tears threatened to spill.
"Kill me..."
"To think I endured forty years of suffering... for trash like you. If it's your dying wish..."
The Sword Demon's eyes flared wide as he swung his sword.
Drenched in blood, the Blade Demon would perish even untreated.
But the Sword Demon refused to let him slip away so simply.
He wanted that neck for himself.
Slash!
The Blade Demon's head—smeared in tears and snot—tumbled free.
"Haa..."
"..."
Revenge was over.
With his own hands, he'd claimed the head of the enemy who slaughtered his family and shattered the peaceful slums.
But why...
...this gaping void in his chest?
"..."
Was it because the lifelong goal he'd ground his bones to dust pursuing had vanished?
'I don't want to live...'
The purpose for his remaining days felt utterly erased.
The Sword Demon turned, surveying the demons around him.
Then, in a faint, powerless shout:
"Is there no one here to kill me?"
The Heavenly Demon Cult's vice leader was dead.
Yet the arena remained eerily silent.
Clang.
At last, the Demon-Slaying Sword—his lifelong companion—slipped from the Sword Demon's grasp.
As if mirroring the void within, he sank to the dirt and stared at the Blade Demon's corpse for a long while.
Then, murmurs rippled from the surrounding demons, one by one.
"The vice leader's dead... Do we avenge him?"
"No—from where I'm standing, he dueled the vice leader fair and square before every demon here and won. Doesn't that make Sword Demon the new vice leader?"
"The law of Supremacy of the Strong!"
"Damn it, what do we do? How do we avoid punishment?"
The murmurs swelled into chaos.
Calls to kill him clashed with demands to install him as vice leader.
No consensus emerged; time dragged on.
As no one stirred, and he prepared to raise his sword against the entire Heavenly Demon Cult—
A voice thundered in the dazed Sword Demon's ears as he sat motionless.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ O Strong One of the Void Dimension, come to me.
Twitch.
The Sword Demon's brow twitched.
A peculiar voice, utterly unlike the demons' murmurs around him.
It rang directly in his mind, drowning out all other sounds.
⚙ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ⚙ Come to me and become my strength.
'A hallucination?'
But another resonant voice proved it real.
A chill swept over him; the Sword Demon whipped his head toward its source.
There, in empty air, dark blue lightning crackled into being, arcing wildly outward.
Crrrackle.
"Wh-what's that?!"
"Lightning?!"
The bizarre, unprecedented phenomenon seized the Sword Demon's heart.
He couldn't say precisely, but something to sustain his now-meaningless life lay beyond.
Crrrackle. Pop!
Moments later, the dark blue lightning vanished, leaving a yawning abyss of pitch-black void in its place.
The hole began sucking in the surroundings, inexorably drawing the Sword Demon toward it.
His seated body inched inward, bit by bit.
A hole that looked unnervingly sinister just to behold—yet the Sword Demon surrendered to it fully, as if he'd abandoned everything.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
And so the Sword Demon and that eerie hole vanished from the spot.
With legends proclaiming him perhaps stronger than even the Heavenly Demon Cult's lord, the Heavenly Demon, he faded from the martial world.