Chapter 3
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Chapter 01.
Dark Heaven Venerable,
The Opening
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It is better to be violent if there's violence in our hearts than to put on the cloak of non-violence to cover impotence.
—Mahatma Gandhi [1869.10.2–1948.1.30]
Part 3. Awakening
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In a space devoid of a single point of light, within an darkness that makes one forget the passage of eternal time, I found rest, and my soul rotted to its very depths.
Void. A void without front or back, without top or bottom.
In that place, I existed amidst the stories woven by countless souls.
Though they clearly did not belong to this space and time, for some reason, I could see and hear their tales.
They were like phantoms conjured by a campfire, like a mirage on a summer day.
They were all different. Their races, genders, and ages varied. Some lived in cultures so mysterious and alien, while others existed within bizarre civilizations I had never even dared to imagine.
Yet, they shared a commonality.
Their stories shared a common thread.
A horrific tragedy.
Every single one of them was the protagonist of a story defined by that terrible tragedy.
If I dared to speculate, I thought they might be the vessels who came before me. Of course, there was no way to confirm it.
Time continued to flow.
At some point, there were no more stories.
Thinking back, perhaps there had never been a voice to begin with.
Were they merely stories I had concocted out of sheer boredom, or were they hallucinations created by a mind driven mad by the endless cycle of torture?
Thus, an unfathomable amount of time passed.
It was a duration that could be called an eon, or perhaps a *nayuta*.
If time did not flow in this place, then perhaps one could say it was nothing more than a single moment, a mere flicker of an instant.
Then, at some point.
A small light appeared in the distance.
From that light, a faint warmth originating from the living reached me, and I could feel the vitality of the mortal world.
I approached it as if bewitched. And when I was close enough to the light, I realized.
That this cold, desolate, and lonely darkness was the very depth and essence of my own soul.
That although I was moving toward the light, I was no longer a being that belonged there.
That I had been reassembled and reconstructed by the *Jeam Jincheon Classic*, a primeval demon monster of unknown origin.
And when I realized that, I knew.
I knew that I was now ready.
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He opened his eyes feeling refreshed, as if waking from a sweet afternoon nap.
As if all that time of pain and trauma had been a lie.
As if it had been a brief nightmare during sleep, he rose without a care.
His body was in such a comfortable state that the memory of being tortured and losing his limbs felt embarrassing.
He awoke as if he had just finished a deep, restful sleep.
“……Was it a dream?”
Of course, he knew well that it could not have been.
The heavy, wicked energy coiled nonchalantly in his *Dantian*, as if it were his own.
It was undoubtedly the energy of the *Jeam Jincheon Classic*.
The terrible *Demonic Qi* that had radiated from that thing he met in the underground prison was now settled in his *Dantian*.
Though, for now, it only permitted him access to a tiny fraction of its total power.
Even so, the pure *Demonic Qi* of the *Jeam Jincheon Classic* felt as vivid as a spark falling on clothing, making him realize with absolute clarity that everything had been real.
“Hmm…….”
His body, which had once been broken to the point of death, was currently in a state of absolute perfection.
He felt a sense of incongruity at how naturally his body moved.
He raised his fist before his eyes and clenched it, then opened it.
There were five fingers on a hand that was white and delicate, without a single blemish, let alone a wound or scar.
“Where is this…….”
He sat up.
A bedroom with an elegant atmosphere, deeply permeated by the scent of ink.
Despite it being a bedroom, the walls were filled with books, hinting at the owner’s temperament.
“……It’s my room.”
He felt as though he could know exactly which book was shelved where, even without looking.
It was the most comfortable space for him in his entire life.
This was his bedroom, the one he had used since childhood in the main family.
“……You said you would give me one more chance.”
The *Jeam Jincheon Classic* had clearly told him it would grant him one more chance.
But to return to the past.
He would have been satisfied just to escape that horrific purgatory.
He had intended to start by simply escaping that place.
Even though everyone precious to him had died and vanished, he would have been fine with that.
Just by not dying while being unable to do anything there, he would have considered himself granted a new chance.
But to return to the past……!
“……Hehehe.”
Before he knew it, laughter leaked from his lips.
The *Jeam Jincheon Classic*, the very thing that called itself the scripture of defying heaven, was a far more terrifying existence than he had imagined.
It had demonstrated the power to turn back time through methods beyond his comprehension.
He was suddenly curious about the true nature of the *Jeam Jincheon Classic*, but that didn’t matter now.
He had returned to the past.
He had been granted the ultimate opportunity.
“Hahahaha……!”
As if reacting to his laughter, the *Demonic Qi* of the *Jeam Jincheon Classic* growled and wailed.
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He sat on the edge of the bed.
He knew he had returned to the past, given his hands, which clearly looked like those of a teenager, and the appearance of the main family bedroom that had only existed in his memories.
However, he needed to know the exact time period to which he had returned.
That was a simple task.
The clues were already abundant around him.
“Hmm…….”
He scanned the books packed into the bedroom.
It seemed like a quick, passing glance, but in reality, it was not.
The information on every book that had been in his bedroom was accurately preserved in his mind.
When this book had entered his room.
At what point it had been arranged in which position.
He accurately compared the scenes in his memory with what he was looking at now.
It was a simple task.
He finished verifying it in the time it took to take a few breaths.
“……Seventeen years old, February.”
His youthful voice sounded unfamiliar.
His eyes deepened.
He looked back on his life, which had been full of trials and tribulations.
And he reassembled it over and over again.
It was a gaze like that of an immortal, who could read countless future moves at a glance just by looking at the initial state of a Go board.
“…….”
The small noise from outside was what pulled him, who had been lost in thought for a long time, back to reality.
“……Has the Young Master risen?”
“Well, what does it matter? Won’t he just be clutching his books the moment he wakes up anyway?”
“……Truly. To think that the Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Clan, known as the First Clan of the Central Kingdom, is in such a state…….”
“It’s no wonder people call him ‘The Swordless One’. It’s truly pathetic.”
“Still, he used to be rumored to be quite brilliant…….”
“That was all just a mere rumor.”
“Born as the Young Master of the Great Luoyang Sword Clan, which is called a Heavenly Clan, isn’t he just doing as he pleases?”
It was none other than a conversation between servants gossiping about him.
One might expect him to be angry hearing such things, but his eyes were utterly indifferent.
Originally, he had never cared about the talk of the world, nor had he been swayed by it.
However, his current self was stained to the very ends of his soul by the madness and *Demonic Qi* originating from the *Jeam Jincheon Classic*.
In other words, the surface of his mind was like the calmness of a lake of unfathomable depth.
But deep down, it was in a state like holding a volcano that could erupt at any moment.
“……Hey, is anyone there?”
He deliberately called out to the servants in a loud voice.
But no one responded to his call.
It was natural.
The quarters where he stayed were one of the secret places of the Luoyang Sword Clan, and the soundproofing technology applied here was undoubtedly the best in the Central Kingdom.
Yet, he had been able to hear the servants whispering outside so vividly.
“Is this also a power derived from the *Jeam Jincheon Classic*…….”
It was likely that it wasn’t just his hearing that had been affected.
He took his time calmly.
He repeated experiments and observations.
It did not take long for him to reach a conclusion.
A dramatic increase in overall physical ability.
All physical capabilities, including stamina, strength, and the five senses, had been enhanced.
“……Amazing.”
He looked into the mirror.
What was there was not his previous, weak body.
A body like steel, which only those who have trained to the limit could possess, was there.
His body, with every single muscle fiber clearly defined, felt almost grotesque.
As he admired his body for a moment, he soon noticed a new fact.
“Ho……?”
The mirror reflected his face, wearing an expression twisted in a way that was eerie to behold.
Is this what the face of a demonic being, pickled in killing intent and with *Demonic Qi* surging to the marrow, looks like?
“My, my.”
He peered into the mirror and changed his expression little by little.
“Like this…….”
He lowered the corners of his mouth a bit more.
He smoothed out the wrinkles on his forehead.
He lowered his wide-open eyes slightly.
“……It has become an even more grotesque face.”
*Keuk-keuk-keuk*, a wheezing, gravelly laugh leaked out.
He had to correct his laughter as well.
“I have plenty of time…….”
He raised his hand and rubbed his face as if kneading it.
First, he needed to relax his muscles a little.
Heat rose from his roughly rubbed face, and he felt the muscles in his face becoming flexible.
Then, he looked into the mirror again and began practicing his expression.
“Hmm. I need to make a more ‘human-like’ expression…….”
After staring into the mirror for a long time, his own appearance seemed so ridiculous that laughter flowed out naturally.
It was a laugh mixed with a sharp, metallic sound: *Keuk-keuk-keuk*.
Having wrestled with his own face while staring into the mirror, he opened his mouth.
“……Come to think of it.”
In the mirror was his face, wearing an expression that wouldn’t be strange if it caused a child to have a fit.
He muttered in a puzzled voice.
As if seeking an answer from his reflection.
“What does it mean to be human?”
What the mirror reflected was his face, which anyone would have to acknowledge as that of an unparalleled, beautiful young master, no matter how grotesque an expression he made.
Yet, what he was looking into was something else entirely.
The space where his eyes had once been was hollow and empty, twisted in agony as they wept tears of blood. Where his nose had been, only two gaping holes remained, leaking pus and gore. Not a single patch of skin on his face remained intact, and in his throat, a tongue with only its root left hung limp.
It was not a reflection in a mirror.
It was his own state of mind that he was peering into.
Wounded, twisted, distorted, and corrupted...
It was the madness of the Darkness-Suppressing Heaven-Shaking Classic that he harbored within.
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