By Zephyria 
HF 77
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* * *
Twelve-year-old Cheon Mu-gyeong came to his senses amidst the chaos.
The black cave, filled with a musty odor, was shrouded in a damp demonic energy that lingered like fog. The only light illuminating the surroundings was the faint glow from luminous stones embedded sparsely in the walls.
Among the orphans who wept for their parents and scratched at the rocks of the entrance with tiny, fern-like hands, begging to be let out, Cheon Mu-gyeong did not part his pressed lips.
His mother had passed away a month ago, so there were no kin left to long for, and his father was a presence that might as well not exist. Cheon Mu-gyeong was the cult leader’s biological son, yet he was less than the children of the five great demonic elders. Perhaps he was worse off than a mere cult member.
Everyone knew that the cult leader had designated Cheon Beom-yeong as his successor. Mu-gyeong knew that once Cheon Beom-yeong ascended to the position of cult leader, his own life would inevitably end.
There was only one way for the cult leader’s siblings to survive. They had to destroy their own dantian, lose all their cultivation power, and become cripples.
Generally, cult leaders took several concubines in addition to their primary wife. If a concubine without a strong backing gave birth to a child who showed no distinct talent for demonic arts, she would often have the child’s dantian destroyed at a young age just to preserve their life.
When a dantian was forcibly destroyed, the surrounding qi and blood were also ruined, meaning their lifespan was short. Even those lucky enough to survive for a long time spent most of their lives in frail bodies.
Cheon Mu-gyeong’s biological mother, Wol-ryang, had neither the cult leader’s favor nor any backing, but she refused to destroy her child’s dantian.
“Mu-gyeong, I have seen countless outstanding members of the divine cult. But in all my life, I have never seen anyone with talent as dazzling as yours.”
It was the night Cheon Mu-gyeong had reached the realm of half a gapza(1). That day was also just a few days before Wol-ryang died. She had always been proud of Mu-gyeong, but she felt an equal amount of guilt.
“You may blame this foolish mother who cannot even procure a single cheap spirit medicine for you.”
Because Cheon Beom-yeong had frequently consumed expensive spirit medicines from a young age, including the process of hair shaving and marrow washing, the internal capacity of his body was higher than Mu-gyeong’s. However, a large amount of internal energy did not automatically translate to a high level of martial arts. Realm was a stage of understanding; it had to be realized on one’s own.
“Spirit medicines are for the weak. Like that fellow Beom-yeong.”
Though he was only twelve, Mu-gyeong was much larger than his peers, already reaching nearly 5 cheok 7 chon(2) in height. Whenever Do-gyeon saw him, he would tease him, asking how he grew so quickly and if he was stealing all of Wol-ryang’s food.
“Why call him Beom-yeong? You should call him elder brother.”
“How can someone weaker than me be my elder brother?”
Mu-gyeong smirked as he straightened the sleeves of his light armor. Wol-ryang smiled back as if scolding him, but inside, her heart was burning black. No matter how heaven-sent Mu-gyeong’s martial talent was, before the power of Cheon Beom-yeong, he was nothing more than a tiger cub that had just begun to grow teeth.
To avoid the risk of poisoning, Wol-ryang had fed Mu-gyeong neutralized poisons from a very young age. She did the same for herself. However, since they had not achieved immunity to all poisons, everything that entered the mouths of the mother and son passed through Wol-ryang’s hands.
Since Cheon Beom-yeong had not yet become the young cult leader, he likely wouldn’t attempt an overt assassination, but they couldn’t afford to be complacent. There were countless ways to kill a person.
In the end, Wol-ryang lost her life to the iron guanyin tea served by the maid she had trusted above all others.
Wol-ryang had carefully selected the tea leaves herself. Until the moment she lost consciousness, she neither knew nor believed that the maid had laced the cup with poison.
The demonic physicians Cheon Mu-gyeong brought in visited her bedside many times, but they only returned with the news that the poison had already spread throughout her body and there was no way to treat it. It was true that there was no cure, but even if there had been, they would have been unable to treat her properly for fear of Cheon Beom-yeong’s family. This was a truth Cheon Mu-gyeong knew all too well.
With dark circles under his eyes, Cheon Mu-gyeong stayed by his dying mother’s side, consumed by helplessness. He sought out the cult leader, but he could not even cross the threshold of the heavenly demon hall. The cult leader had forbidden any audiences.
Mu-gyeong could not understand the cult leader.
Had he not taken her in because he held her in his heart? How could he be so indifferent…?
“…Have you come?”
Cheon Mu-gyeong snapped back to attention at the clear sound of his mother’s voice. Though she sounded exhausted, her tone was as beautiful as always, and a great look of hope spread across Mu-gyeong’s face. He believed that his mother had overcome the poison through her own strength.
Just as he was about to call her “Mother” while looking at her as she gazed at him tenderly despite her struggle, she spoke.
“I have waited endlessly, day after day. I missed you, my lord.”
In that moment, Cheon Mu-gyeong felt as if the qi and blood from the soles of his feet to the top of his head were being overturned. He felt the sensation of his blood flowing backward.
My lord… She had always called the cult leader that. She had served as a wife to a man who had never once treated her like one.
Mu-gyeong had denied it until now, but in the face of her final flicker of consciousness, he had to admit it. His mother had loved the cult leader.
Watching her smile quietly like a shy flower despite her blackened, dying face, Mu-gyeong clenched his fists. A grinding sound echoed as if his knuckles were about to shatter.
“Now that I have seen you… I have no regrets. But if I may ask one thing…”
As the light gradually faded from her eyes, she reached out her hand. Mu-gyeong barely managed to unclench his fist to meet the hand wandering through the air in search of warmth. He held her hand tightly so that she would not be left alone. Since she had reached the point of mistaking him for the cult leader, she would not be able to hold onto life much longer.
“Just as you promised that night… to love me forever, please… Mu-gyeong…”
Her voice was barely audible through her gasping breaths, but Mu-gyeong’s face was completely drenched in tears. He suppressed even his sobbing, fearing he might miss a single moment of his mother’s end. He sent her off, engraving every detail of her into himself.
“Please… take care of Mu-gyeong, the fruit of my lord… and my love…”
Her vacant gaze drifted toward the void, and her lips remained slightly parted, clinging to the words she could not finish.
In the end, her last words vanished without ever reaching the cult leader. Mu-gyeong reached out with trembling hands and gently closed her eyes.
The culprit who caused the death of his powerless and innocent mother was likely himself. If he had destroyed his dantian and lived quietly, his own safety might not have been guaranteed, but his mother might have survived. However, that was not what Wol-ryang wanted, nor was it something Cheon Mu-gyeong could do.
Just as a butterfly emerging from a cocoon flaps its wings without being taught, martial arts were an instinct for Cheon Mu-gyeong. Therefore, Wol-ryang’s death was because his own strength was insufficient. At the age of twelve, Cheon Mu-gyeong realized how cruel the price of defeat in a world where the strong survive can be.
Mu-gyeong’s bloodshot eyes held nothing but pure rage.
From that day until now, with eyes that had not cooled a single degree, Mu-gyeong looked around the demon-taming cave where he was confined. Mu-gyeong knew he had to pass five stages of trials, but it was not known what kind of trials they were.
From the entrance of the demon-taming cave, twelve tunnels branched inward. Feeling the presence of instructors emerging from several of them, Mu-gyeong headed toward the furthest tunnel where no presence could be felt. He judged that it would be better not to encounter the instructors, as the pressure from Cheon Beom-yeong’s faction would likely reach them.
Mu-gyeong’s realm was still at the level of a demonic hand. In terms of the orthodox sects, it was equivalent to the first-class level, and the wall of the True Demon, the peak realm, blocked his path. However, reaching the realm of a demonic hand at the age of twelve was unprecedented in the history of the demon sect.
Around that time, Namgung Won of the Namgung Clan, the pride of the jianghu, was making a name for himself as the prodigy of the Central Plains, yet even he was only approaching the peak realm at the age of twenty.
The orthodox practitioners were unaware that an even greater demon was growing in what they called the demon’s den. And that demon, bypassing the trials of the demon-taming cave, headed deeper through a tunnel, down into the underground where only profound darkness stretched.
“I heard there’s a snake in the hidden depths of the demon-taming cave that has lived on demonic energy for hundreds of years. If this young master catches it and eats its inner core, how would that compare to the spirit medicines that other young masters eat? Hehe.”
Do-gyeon had said it without much thought, and Mu-gyeong didn’t necessarily believe it. However, as long as he could not overcome the wall of the heart demon(3), he had no intention of seeing the light of the outside world.
Even in a situation where he had lost his sight and relied on his remaining senses, he did not stop walking. From then on, Cheon Mu-gyeong closed his eyes, realizing he did not need vision, and for nearly a year, he did not lift his eyelids.
Within the labyrinthine demon-taming cave, the lowest floor was a place that even demonic masters had not found. Compared to the upper levels where the trials took place, the concentration of demonic energy was excessively dense, making it easy to become a madman.
It took Cheon Mu-gyeong several months to grow accustomed to the demonic energy of the lowest floor. There were numerous times when the demonic energy rampaged inside his body, causing him to lose consciousness and nearly die. However, Cheon Mu-gyeong never encountered a hundred-year-old snake. Instead, the place was swarming with demonic creatures—demonic hands and demonic insects imbued with demonic energy.
After tearing apart and eating anywhere from dozens to hundreds of them, there were no longer any demonic creatures that dared enter Cheon Mu-gyeong’s domain.
As he did every day, Cheon Mu-gyeong ran his hand along the cave wall with his eyes closed. He could have simply dismissed it as a bumpy wall, but over a long period, he began to connect those contours into one.
He presumed they were traces of sword marks left by someone. The trajectory of the lines contained a volatile flow, winding around the entire wall and possessing a spirit that stretched outward. But could this truly be called a sword mark?
The trajectory of the lines, which shifted from sharp to coarse and were unpredictable, felt like a record left by someone who needed no weapon and used only their own body.
When he realized the traces on the wall were not simple sword marks, Cheon Mu-gyeong clearly recognized what was engraved there.
The so-called Way fundamentally has nothing.
(As for that which is called the Way, it originally possesses nothing.)
The so-called Dharma is merely an empty sound.
(As for that which is called the Law, it is but a meaningless sound.)
The greatly enlightened one is silent. The great swordsman has no sword.
(One who attains great enlightenment is silent; one who attains the great sword has no sword.)
The way is in the mind, not in the hands.
(The Way is in the heart, not in the hand.)
In that instant, Cheon Mu-gyeong snapped his eyes open.
A crimson flash erupted from his eyes, and the wall of the realm that had blocked him was shattered into pieces. Darkness no longer held any meaning for him. Having reached the stage of discerning objects through qi, the minute cracks in the rocks and the bone fragments of demonic creatures came clearly into view.
The phrases densely engraved on the cave wall were also bathed in the crimson light. Every single character was a sword path carved not with a sword, but with a hand. Since the strokes continued without a single break, it seemed as if every form of martial arts was contained here.
Cheon Mu-gyeong was certain that this was the legacy of the first heavenly demon. Cheon Mu-gyeong had never been granted the heavenly demon divine art by the cult leader. However, a realization more certain than any secret manual was right here.
Was the manual within the cult even the correct one? There was no way a person who did such a thing would have simply left the heavenly demon divine art as a manual.
Cheon Mu-gyeong laughed, releasing dark red demonic energy toward the records of the first heavenly demon, which seemed to press down on him with overwhelming pressure. The cult leader would never master the heavenly demon divine art. And he would become the first cult leader to die at the hands of his own child. He would make him pay the price for killing his mother.
Cheon Mu-gyeong was thirteen years old at the time. Mu-gyeong began to circulate his energy to reach a new realm.
‘I am different from the cult leader.’
Before reaching a state of self-transcendence, Mu-gyeong made one final, firm vow.
‘Even if I gain power, leave this place, and take over the divine cult, I will cherish the one who becomes my partner more than anything in the world. A proper man should cherish the one he loves above all else.’
I will become that kind of man.
* * *
(1) Refers to the accumulation of approximately 30 years of internal energy.
(2) Approximately 170cm.
(3) Inner demon, Transcendental Realm.