Just before Cheon Ha-rang reached transcendence, she felt a deep emptiness.
Why?
Was it too easy to reach transcendence?
Or was it because the Nameless, who had always been by her side, was absent?
…Who knows.
She wasn’t exactly sure why, but one thing was clear:
She wasn’t feeling great.
To transcend as an individual, one must achieve enlightenment, that’s the standard.
Harang was bypassing the process by taking on the Demon King’s achievements as her own.
And this caused a side effect.
The feelings (love) that lay dormant in Cheon Ha-rang’s heart,
The feelings she had been denying all along,
began to swell uncontrollably within her.
She couldn’t suppress them anymore.
But she didn’t reject those feelings either.
They were warm and cozy.
The emotion of love was so sweet, even she, who had lived for centuries, couldn’t bring herself to reject it.
*
“U-uh… Khem! It’s nothing!”
Cherry blossoms bloomed on Harang’s face.
“W-why?!”
And the Nameless looking at him started to twist his face like a demon.
“Why don’t you show me that expression…?”
It felt unjust.
Fundamentally, he and Cheon Mu-myeong were the same.
The only difference was whether he had encountered Cheon Ha-rang in childhood or not.
So, he should have received that gaze too.
No, he alone deserved it.
It was his own event that led to their meeting.
“So, why…!!!”
A voice filled with anger.
However, Harang, who had suddenly put on a cold expression, replied with a hint of annoyance.
“Nonsense.”
He raised his sword and added,
“Why would I have any good feelings for you, who just shares the same body?”
With a frown, Harang glanced up at the words drawn on the ground he established.
“And how could I think kindly of the one who stole my beloved disciple’s body?”
“It wasn’t stolen!”
The Nameless retorted, gripping his sword.
He lowered his stance, shifting his center of gravity dramatically backward.
Nameless Style – Divine Slaying Sword Technique
“I am merely reclaiming what is mine!”
The Nameless’s sword aimed at the sky, directed at Cheon Ha-rang.
With the shift of his rear leg’s weight, it translated to his front leg.
First Technique
Without resisting, he thrust his sword down while adding speed and weight.
Falling Heaven (落天)
-Thud!
After a moment of silence,
the sky, Cheon Ha-rang, began to fall.
“…Ugh!”
Cheon Ha-rang tried to resist her body being pulled down, but it wasn’t easy.
The sword she had forged herself in order to touch the sky.
Resisting after touching that sky was close to impossible.
And yet, the reason Cheon Ha-rang had endured until now was simple.
The Divine Slaying Sword Technique had one singular purpose, after all.
So mixing up techniques would entangle their sequence, rendering them ineffective.
Cheon Ha-rang desperately resisted the force pressing down on her, but eventually, she fell.
-Thud!
The sight filled the Nameless’s eyes with a strange light.
“Ha! So that’s how it was.”
With the Nameless who dropped the sky, the next action came naturally.
Nameless Style – Divine Slaying Sword Technique, Second Technique
Wiping the blood from her mouth, Cheon Ha-rang glared at the Nameless, who was preparing his follow-up attack.
‘I must evade the next move…!’
Harang reversed her grip on the sword and moved it towards the ground she had drawn.
Divine Slaying Sword Technique, Sixth Technique
Countless energies began to gather around Cheon Ha-rang and soon swelled and threatened to burst.
Breaking Heaven (破天)
After that, the Nameless swung his sword toward Harang.
-Crunch!
Unable to land a hit on the Nameless, Harang struck downward with her sword.
Heaven and Earth Division (天地開闢)
The sky, starting to shatter into pieces by the Nameless, was reassembled as Harang’s sword touched it.
The sky broke and healed repeatedly.
During this process, the dark energy began to expand violently, causing a great shockwave.
“Cough!”
Because of it, the Nameless’s body began to rise into the air and fly off with the wind.
However, resisting against such overwhelming strength was not easy.
Maybe it was Harang’s perfectly created sword technique that made it even harder.
“Cough!”
Blood seeped from the corner of Harang’s mouth.
It was the first time since meeting the Nameless that she had seen her own blood.
“…Damn it.”
This situation was frustrating for Harang.
Just after she touched the sky, the opportunity to achieve her goal had arrived.
Yet she was held back by that pesky insect.
“I don’t understand the reasons.”
Wiping the blood from her mouth, Harang grumbled.
She had noticed that the bug dwelling in the Nameless seemed to have infested him right after she reached transcendence.
And she also realized that the bug’s soul matched a significant part with the Nameless’s.
That pesky bug was probably the Nameless from another dimension or a different timeline.
After all, she had realized from the start that she was dragged here due to the existence of multiple dimensions or worlds.
Still, a lingering question remained.
“Why is that guy doing this to me?”
She had no idea what grudge he held against her.
While there were ways to find out, first, she had to subdue him.
“There really is no easy way to go.”
But then, why would it be easy?
No matter how much he was a pest, after all, the body’s true owner was her disciple, Cheon Mu-myeong.
She feared that if her sword touched such a body, she might lose the chance for the Nameless to return.
So the best way would be to convince him or only steal his consciousness.
“Ts.”
If that were possible, she would have done it long ago.
The first method, persuasion, failed because, as you can see, the guy wouldn’t even think of talking.
Whenever she tried to say something, he just swung his sword, and she didn’t have the patience to sit there convincing him.
After all, wasn’t this guy the one who stole the Nameless’s body?
And to ask for persuasion?
She wasn’t that good-hearted.
In fact, she was rather malevolent.
If that were the case, the remaining option was to seize his consciousness.
But that was no easy task.
It was hard to gauge just how much force was needed to bring about a fainting condition.
So instead, she had to call out his consciousness directly, rather than just making him faint.
Originally, the reason she had made shocking statements to the Nameless was so that he could miraculously regain his consciousness by hearing them.
Otherwise, there’d be no way she could suddenly confess her feelings.
“…Not that, it’s not a confession.”
She hadn’t confessed her feelings to the Nameless yet.
She almost did, but not yet.
Such important words need to be said face-to-face and privately, she thought.
Cheon Ha-rang, blushing like a strawberry, shook her head.
Anyhow, she had to find a way.
*
“AAAHH!!! What’s going on!! My house!!!”
Meanwhile, Lili, watching the Demon King’s castle crumbling down, screamed unexpectedly.
“Didn’t I go to talk with the Demon King?! Why is the castle breaking down!! AAHH!! My painting!!!”
Fired up, Lili spread her wings and flew towards the Demon King’s castle.
“If it’s just a minor thing, I’ll scold him…!”
Or maybe?
She might end up getting scolded instead for trying to scold Harang.
“Ah! This isn’t right.”
The situation was different now.
Feeling an immensely thick demonic energy, it seemed like the Demon King had awakened.
That meant she now had an extremely reliable ally!
Moreover, since Harang attacked the Demon King’s castle, he was undoubtedly the enemy!
“I’ll give him a good scolding!”
For example, locking Nameless and Harang in a room and not letting them out until results come about.
“Ehehe.”
As she was plotting maliciously, Lili soon arrived at the Demon King’s castle.
“Ahh…”
She witnessed the scene of a new king being born, or rather,
“Our god has descended upon us!”
*
In the distant past…
The Demon Realm, once the closest to death.
On the parched land, only decaying trees existed, and the environment was harsh for crops to grow.
The red sky didn’t provide the people health like the sun and moon, but instead slowly took away their lives.
Naturally, the Demon Realm became a place where ordinary beings couldn’t survive.
So those who lived in the Demon Realm, commonly known as the Demon Races, had to choose.
How could they survive?
Previously, they had survived by preying on existing creatures, but with limits reached, they now sought other means.
The thoughts didn’t take long.
“Let’s go to the humans!”
If they could receive even a little bit of what the affluent had, they could get help.
But was it overly optimistic?
They failed. No, rather, they were rejected.
The human king, who had fertile land and warm sun, turned down their request.
The reasons were lengthy.
It was hard to see them as the same race, given their differing appearances, and they too lacked food, leading many to starve to death each year.
A plausible enough answer.
To the Demon Races, humans they had actually seen didn’t look so happy.
There were many impoverished.
And fundamentally, unless they resolved it with their own strength, the problems wouldn’t ever be solved.
After all, how could they spend their whole lives living off others’ help?
Resigned to the unavoidable situation, the Demon Races began to return to their land.
This was human territory, where their different appearances would only evoke fear.
Then suddenly,
the demons observed.
Behind the human representative who was delivering such words, food was piled high, ready to burst.
There was so much that it began to rot from not being eaten in time.
*
Having returned to their land, the Demon Races thought.
What must they do to survive in this harsh environment?
Simply put, they needed to resolve it with their own power.
Then what power did they possess?
A constitution naturally stronger than humans.
An innate abundance of mana.
God gave humans rich lands while taking away their strong bodies, and to the Demon Races, granted them skeletal lands but strong physiques.
What did that mean?
The ruler of the Demon Races concluded.
“The primordial world operated on the principle of survival of the fittest. We’ve been foolish all along. Those weak humans who possess fertile land while we, the strong, are forced to exist in a barren land?!”
The incorrect world must be set right.
“And didn’t you all see?! Even the wealthy humans have their leaders hoarding all the food! This is survival of the fittest, the order of nature!”
They had to move toward a righteous world.
“Gods are surely looking at this! They must have given us strong powers for this reason!”
Thus, taking from others became their strength, their ultimate resolution.
The Demon Races began to move to survive in this land with their own strength.
Thus, a long war ensued.
And the strong Demon Races ended up losing.
Why?
The answer is simple.
The sudden appearance of the Hero brought about their downfall.
Then, why did the hero appear?
The answer is also simple.
God stood by humanity.
They forsook the Demon Races.
There were no gods for their sake.
In the end, they even forsook the principle of survival of the fittest to protect humanity.
Thus, the initial Demon King died.
This incident instilled an obsession with survival of the fittest in the Demon Races.
They naturally thought that their leader must be a being strong enough to surpass that Hero.
Thus, they held reverence for the Demon King, but also thought that the Demon King could be replaced at any time.
And today,
a new Demon King was born.
*
The sky that had once held a terrifying red hue faded into a gentle sunset tone, reflecting Cheon Ha-rang’s emotions.
And new trees began to sprout around the characters for love (愛) that blossomed upon the ground.
The previously barren Demon Realm began to change.
Made possible by one individual.
A person who wished to escape from the cowardly and inferior human race and grow horns above her head to become a Demon.
A new ruler, a new Demon King.
Their god.
“Ah… Harang!”
Lili, or more accurately, all the Demon Races watching this, shed tears.
Finally, light shines upon us.
The former Demon King recognized her and called upon her to relinquish the throne.
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