Chapter 10
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Part 10: The Predecessor
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When the whistling ceased, what followed was an endless, bottomless silence.
The man who had been called "Big Brother" gritted his teeth.
When the whistling was audible, he had wished for it to stop as quickly as possible, but now that it had actually stopped, a tremendous sense of anxiety surged in alongside the silence.
At this rate, someone might lose their mind and commit a blunder.
Already, his subordinates to the side were rolling their eyes frantically, clutching their weapons with trembling hands.
He braced his lower abdomen once more and raised his voice.
"If you have business with us..."
*Clatter.* A blade dropped by one of his subordinates rolled across the floor.
He turned around in a hurry, then let out a brief sigh of relief.
The fool who had dropped his weapon was merely startled by his voice.
'Damn it.' He quickly wiped the cold sweat streaming down his forehead.
Their group was experienced in everything—kidnapping, human trafficking, contract killing—there was no illicit trade they didn't touch, and they had built a reputation accordingly.
And the biggest reason they had managed to secure a place for themselves in this underworld was that they had always strived never to entangle themselves with martial artists.
From the start, they wouldn't even show their faces in any affair that had the slightest connection to the martial world.
That was their secret to survival.
After confirming that his subordinate was staggering as he picked up his weapon again, he continued.
"If you have business with us, would you mind showing yourself?"
He felt his clasped hands trembling as he tried to appear as respectful as possible.
He had never faced one directly, but he had seen martial artists a few times before.
How his heart used to chill whenever he saw those Black Path martial artists from the organization they belonged to, walking around exuding killing intent and pressure.
But he had never felt a tension as horrific as this.
Is this what it feels like to face a martial artist directly? Or,
If not that, are they currently facing "something" fundamentally different?
"……!"
His train of thought was severed.
A figure had emerged from the far end of the alley.
The swaying gait was strangely overflowing with composure.
It looked like the attire of a scholar, but because the darkness was so thick, he could not confirm the details of the appearance.
But no one cared about the appearance.
"Gh-ghost?!"
There is a term called Ghost Fire.
It usually refers to balls of fire in the air mentioned in folklore, but it also signifies eyes filled with deep resentment.
And they had encountered such eyes often.
When snatching a child from a mother, when murdering a lover right before someone's eyes, when "disposing" of a strong-willed woman.
But those Ghost Fires were merely metaphorical.
Absolutely.
'It doesn't mean flames actually burning in the eye sockets!'
His subordinates screamed and collapsed to the ground.
He tried to hold his ground somehow.
But when "that thing" swayed closer, looked at them, and bared its teeth in a wide grin,
He ended up wetting himself while standing.
"Hahaha. Yes, it was here."
The mouth was filled with sharp, beastly teeth like saw blades.
"You smell delicious."
* * *
"Hmm?"
Yeon So-hyeon opened his eyes and tilted his head.
He remembered leaving the inn, and after that, he had smelled a delicious fragrance, and then…….
He sat up and looked around.
"……Is this an underground tomb?"
The space, illuminated only by a few faint beams of light descending from a ceiling of unknown height, was filled with stone coffins.
And each of those lidless stone coffins contained a corpse, each in a different state of decay.
And…….
"Ughhh……."
"Ughhhh……!"
The corpses were writhing and wailing.
Yeon So-hyeon wandered between the stone coffins, touching the corpses and showing interest.
"Hmm……."
Such composure.
"As expected, you are undoubtedly the vessel for the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic. Keuk-keuk."
Yeon So-hyeon was not particularly surprised by the voice that suddenly came from behind him.
This was already at a level that could no longer be called mere courage.
If one had to describe it, perhaps it was madness.
"Your voice sounds like it has mold growing on the vocal cords, Elder."
Turning around, he saw an old man.
He was an old man draped in rags so tattered it was difficult to tell what his original attire had been.
At Yeon So-hyeon's words, the old man threw his head back and burst into wild laughter.
"Accurate!"
The inside of the old man's mouth, laughing like a madman, was rotting and twisted, and indeed, his throat was full of mold of unknown origin.
Yet, even at such a bizarre sight, Yeon So-hyeon merely clicked his tongue softly.
"If you don't pay attention to oral hygiene, isn't that why not a single tooth remains?"
At his reaction, the old man knelt, slapped the floor, and burst into another fit of laughter.
"The more I see you, the more I like you!"
He nodded.
"This time, the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic has found a proper one!"
To which Yeon So-hyeon replied:
"Isn't it that the true master has found the demon monster?"
At those words, the old man clutched his stomach and poured out another round of wild laughter.
Rotten bodily fluids mixed with pus flowed from his eyes, nose, and mouth, but at least in this place, no one cared about such things.
The old man even clapped his hands, laughing for a long time until he eventually ran out of breath, panting as he took deep breaths.
"……Aigoo, I have seen all sorts of seeds over such a long time, but I have never seen one like you."
Then, the old man's eyes narrowed.
"But tell me……."
The temperature plummeted.
Even the corpses that had been letting out all sorts of unintelligible wails stopped moving.
Even the thin beams of light leaking from the ceiling seemed to grow thinner.
"I am curious what you know about the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic that makes you chatter so."
"……."
Yeon So-hyeon closed his mouth.
An ancient demon monster.
An object with power strong enough to twist time and send him back to the past.
The absence of causality.
The unreasonable.
A scripture of rebellion against heaven, woven by three immortals with their own skin, blood, and tendons.
Does he know about that demon monster?
Yeon So-hyeon looked the old man straight in the eyes.
Eyes like glass beads.
Unlike his bizarre and ugly appearance, those eyes were extremely calm and clear.
The eyes of a sage, where not a trace of madness could be found.
Looking into those eyes, Yeon So-hyeon respectfully performed a cupped-hand salute.
"Please, grant me your teachings."
"……Ho-oh."
At Yeon So-hyeon's action, the old man let out a small exclamation of admiration.
"Usually, those who become vessels for the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic show two types of behavior here."
The first type are the arrogant ones who think that the only thing they lacked was "power."
And the second type are those who are blinded by madness and can barely hold a proper conversation.
"You are different from them."
The address changed from "the guy" to "you."
"Is it such a special thing to admit what one does not know and seek teachings?"
At Yeon So-hyeon's modesty, the old man snorted and sat cross-legged in the air.
"I should say the same to you. The Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic, eh……."
He lifted his eyes to look into the void.
"Even this old man does not truly know the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic."
It was not something for someone who had been shouting loudly while knowing nothing about it to say, but Yeon So-hyeon nodded.
"That is the core of it."
The old man nodded.
"Indeed, that is accurate."
The old man continued, gesturing slowly in the air.
"This demon monster has simply existed since some point, but in truth, even its origin is unclear."
At those words, Yeon So-hyeon's eyebrows twitched.
"The thing itself chatters like this. That there were immortals in ancient times, that they were angry, that they went mad and peeled off their own bodies to create it, and so on."
The old man curled his lip.
"But even that cannot be certain."
"……Why is that?"
Strange light soared in streams from the old man's two eyes.
The tremendous pressure applied in that instant was enough to make even Yeon So-hyeon take a step back.
"Because this old man was also an immortal."
"……!"
The old man let out a self-deprecating laugh.
"To be precise, I was an immortal."
His aura subsided as if it were a lie.
"……Now I have fallen to such a state, becoming something less than dust."
Though his aura had subsided, the aftermath was enough to vibrate the air.
"Since I was trapped in this demon monster, the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic, I have spent eons of time contemplating and investigating this demon monster."
He saw the old man's hands trembling.
"Whenever I figured out one thing, it became two, and when I realized two, it became three……."
His gaze wandered through the void.
"Still, I did not stop; I could not stop."
His glass-bead eyes took on a deep, hollow light.
"……But I still do not know."
Yeon So-hyeon swallowed dryly.
He had been faintly feeling it since the incident where the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic turned back his time.
But the fact that it traps a being who was once an immortal in its belly, and that even after researching it for eons, the only answer is that there is no answer…….
"……."
It was as if he had glimpsed the abyss;
He felt dizzy at the sheer vastness of it.
"So the demon monster has found its master……."
The old man recited Yeon So-hyeon's words again, then let out a low sigh.
"From the past, countless vessels have tried to hold the reins of this demon monster and become its master, but they failed……."
His voice sank low.
"Every single one of those vessels was a person who shone like the stars in the night sky."
The breath escaping Yeon So-hyeon's mouth scattered into the air as if crumbling.
"And among them, there were many who were greater than I."
A being greater than one who had attained the rank of immortal.
"And there were many who possessed talents even more outstanding than mine."
A being with talent more outstanding than one who had become an immortal.
A heavy sigh flowed from the old man's lips.
"They all failed. They were consumed."
He lifted his head and looked at Yeon So-hyeon.
"But I saw a glimmer of hope in you."
Yeon So-hyeon's mouth opened heavily.
"……Why is that?"
The old man wore a cryptic smile.
"You have only just completed the 'Initiation Ritual.' You have merely arrived at the starting point of this long, arduous journey."
At those words, Yeon So-hyeon did not ask further.
His ego was not so fragile that he needed to seek his own hope in another. Instead, he asked something else.
"Then, what is this Initiation Ritual?"
At that question, the old man raised his long eyebrows as if surprised.
"You do not know?"
Yeon So-hyeon fell into deep thought at his words.
Before coming to 'this place,' he had visited an inn in Luoyang, wandered the back alleys, and...
The delicious scent.
And...
Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes widened.
At that sight, the old man burst into a cackling laugh.
Even amidst his laughter, his gaze remained fixed on Yeon So-hyeon, showing no intention of looking away.
Yeon So-hyeon saw madness welling up in those glass-like pupils.
Pointing a finger at Yeon So-hyeon, he asked with conviction.
"You.
Did you not devour it all?"
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