"However, something entirely different awaited at the end of it all."
The Demon Physician, who had been gazing up at the sky with starlight-filled eyes, slowly opened his mouth.
"While climbing the stairs, I felt a sense of regret. Most of the news was that they had interfered with my plans and the Demonic Cult's… but I held your deeds in high regard. It is only natural that one comes to admire, without even realizing it, those who walk a path I could not walk myself."
That was why he had sighed.
Because the one who had always chosen the right path—however precarious—had finally crossed the line.
He had far surpassed the boundary between right and wrong, and had ultimately come to walk the demonic path alongside him. With a mix of relief and wistfulness, he had quickened his steps.
"The higher I climbed, the more severe the sights became. The traces of one who raged solely for the sake of rage, who harbored killing intent solely to unleash it, and who drove himself to his very limits—they grew increasingly blatant."
Right.
At the time, I had deliberately sought to fall into Qi Deviation. Already half-mad, I had struggled desperately to become completely insane—it must have been a truly horrifying sight.
"It was the same even at the summit. No, at that point, it was almost admirable. I couldn't understand how one could fight while carrying such a Simma within. If it were me, I would have failed to withstand the violent surge of internal energy and long since died, vomiting blood as my qi and meridians twisted apart."
The Heavenly Demon shrugged his shoulders with a light tone, as if making a joke. But when the atmosphere refused to lighten, he gave a bitter smile and lowered his head, turning his gaze this way.
A dark and unstable world where even the ground beneath one's feet was barely visible. The Heavenly Demon's gaze, still holding a faint trace of starlight, was fixed on a single point as if piercing through something.
His gaze was directed at me, yet he was not looking at me. It was a gaze that depicted something not present here—yet something that undeniably existed.
"However, the moment I raised my head. The moment I took in the sword scar you carved, White Moon Sword Lord—the imagery buried within it. My narrow vision collapsed, and the fog of delusion scattered in all directions. If this is not what one calls opening one's eyes, then what is it?"
And so the Heavenly Demon laughed. Not a perfunctory smile, nor a bitter one—but a laugh filled with pure, genuine admiration.
"I have lived a hellish life. Yet, while this old man was still crawling on the ground, you lifted honor from the depths. Fortunately, I am not so foolish as to see this and feel nothing."
The Heavenly Demon spoke, his gaze now fixed on me—no longer on something beyond.
"The clouds I looked upon beyond the severed rooftops flow on unchanged from before, yet why do I find myself unable to forget those who have flowed past, letting the years drift away?"
An ambiguous answer—it seemed directed at me, yet also as if he were speaking to himself.
"What exists at the end of karmic debt is emptiness. Unless you wish for a world where nothing remains after mutual slaughter, unless you wish to fill the world with those like me, this chain must be broken somewhere."
Having said this, the Heavenly Demon spread both arms wide in a defenseless posture. As if inviting me to strike anywhere.
"White Moon Sword Lord. I understand your unease. I clearly hold the lifelines of countless people, regardless of right or wrong. If I so decided, I could pull these strings at any time… and perhaps, unable to overcome a powerhouse who defies common sense like the current Demonic Cult Leader, I might be forced to pull them."
He speaks of the worst-case assumption despite having no intention of doing so. It was not difficult to discern what the Heavenly Demon wanted from me.
"An old man dull enough to need the answer key before he could understand, but even so, I now know for certain. What I truly longed for was never revenge. …I merely missed her. If I could see her just once more, if I could hold her in these arms again. That would have been enough."
People are not such honest creatures. Of course not. If we lie even to ourselves, what more is there to say?
What I held in my heart was the desire to protect, yet what I breathed out was killing intent.
What the Demonic Cult Leader held was longing, yet it manifested through twisted means like vengeance and Corpse Puppetry Arts.
Once one touches the very bottom of oneself and grasps that essence, one can no longer live as before.
Just as I had broken free from my obsession with killing intent, the Demonic Cult Leader cast off the madness that had accompanied him for so long. And he climbed to the Harmony Realm, arriving at where he stands now.
Though he may have wandered for a long time, he is an absolute master who has attained clear enlightenment. The Demonic Cult Leader opened his mouth in a voice that carried a decision.
"If necessary, cut me down. It is something I have no use for, as I intend to live out my remaining days as a physician. But I pray that what fills that sword is not a grudge against the Demonic Cult Leader, but righteousness."
The Demonic Cult Leader was saying he would die by my hand.
After a long wandering, he had barely managed to set down his heavy grudge, and yet if that path would save more lives, he would willingly stop in his tracks.
…Killing the Demonic Cult Leader is simple. He is an opponent who will not resist, after all. A single slash would be the end of it.
But is that truly the right thing to do? Is it what I want to do? In the first place, why must I kill the Demonic Cult Leader?
Such doubts seize my hand, leaving me to only fumble with the hilt.
I have thought about it before. Just as I had undergone the Fortuitous Encounter of regression and set down my Simma, could not another person, for some reason or another, attain enlightenment and set down their grudge?
It was precisely because such a thought had occurred to me that I had come seeking the Demonic Cult Leader in the first place.
And the Demonic Cult Leader has changed completely from the figure I knew before the regression. What is more, this change came about because of me.
Because I had changed, the future had shifted even slightly, and within that future, the Demonic Cult Leader had attained an enlightenment that should not have been possible, and so he too had changed.
Great Master Gakjeong had said this: in all things under heaven, there are those that change and those that do not. The two interlock to create a vast flow, and the future that follows is something one dare not presume to predict.
If I killed the Demonic Cult Leader, the variables would shrink by a little. The world would bring me a future more familiar to me.
But that must not be. The future most familiar to me is the one in which I failed to overcome the Heavenly Demon.
And above all, I did not wish to kill the Demonic Cult Leader—one who had wandered far longer than I, though in a way similar to mine—simply because I did not know what would become of him.
At least up to this very moment, the Demonic Cult Leader had never crossed the line. He was a victim who had not yet become a perpetrator.
…If that is so, then what I must cut down is not the Demonic Cult Leader.
After a deliberation short if brief, long if lengthy, I raised my sword.
Swoosh!
A pale white aura bloomed over the ink-black sword. It became the moon of a moonless sky, illuminating the Demonic Cult Leader's face. That utterly serene expression.
"I am grateful that you hold me in such high regard, but I fear I cannot set aside my grudge against the Heavenly Demon."
"…I see."
"However, I will give it my all."
"That is enough."
The Demonic Cult Leader quietly closed his eyes. I pointed my sword at him and focused my mind.
What I called to mind was the sensation of severing the connection between the Blood Buddha and the corpse puppet.
To sever that which has no form, one must first grasp a sword that has no form.
Woong—
A translucent sword-shape rose above the blade dyed white. As the two swords overlapped, a clear sword cry rang out.
Remember this. My sword is a sword meant to sever what cannot be severed, to reach what could not be reached.
The sword strike I sent across the distance carried only a fraction of my mental image. So now, in this moment, I pour out everything.
"Kuh!"
Vast internal energy surged forth, my Meridians burning as if set ablaze, and my head—wringing and wringing my Intent dry—throbbed as if stabbed by a blade.
At the same time, Intent concentrated to its limit began to distort the space around the sword.
It touched.
Swoosh.
The sword strike that split the darkness grazed the Demon's heart.
The Demon collapsed limply, a satisfied smile still on his face, yet there was not a single cut on his robes, let alone blood bursting from his chest.
"Young hero Cheon? What was that just now…"
"Surely not? No, how is that possible? But if it's Hwi…"
Tang So-wol, who had been watching silently, tilted her head in puzzlement, while Seomun Hwa-rin, having realized what I had done, widened her eyes and began muttering over and over.
Having exhausted my Simnyeok to its limit, I returned the sword—which had already regained its original color—to my waist with a weary motion.
"I'll explain later. For now… could you help me up? I can barely stand."
I had done everything I could.
All that remained was to leave the rest to the heavens.
***
The warm morning sun tickled his skin, and the Demon opened his eyes.
"…Am I alive?"
The Demon groped at his chest, a dazed expression on his face.
He had definitely been cut. And by Cheon Hwi's sword—a blade that radiated an overwhelming presence, at that.
It was no ordinary sword. It was a blade that had reached its absolute peak, forged by concentrating nothing but the Intent to cut.
Anyone struck directly by it would not survive. At least, that was true for someone like himself, who lagged half a step behind Cheon Hwi…
"Ah."
Regardless of all that, he was a Martial Artist who had reached the Harmony Realm. The moment he rose, he habitually observed his own body, and only then realized what had been cut.
His own faults. The seeds of cracks he had planted in the innocent at the bidding of his madness. Every connection linking him to the nameless Sorcery that had not even become Corpse Puppetry Arts was severed.
No, to be precise, the sword strike that had traveled along those connections had cut away the cores of the Sorcery planted within the bodies of those who had been his patients.
As things stood now, no one—not the Demon, not anyone else—could make those he had treated go berserk. Had not the seeds he had planted vanished?
Whether it was the Demon or someone else, no matter how much water was poured, nothing would ever grow again.
"I have received a great favor."
The Demon murmured this and looked toward the direction of the Beast Palace. Then he raised his eyes to the sun he had thought he would never see again.
The open sky was enough to clear one's mind just by looking at it.
"If so, it is a debt I must repay someday."
If grudges beget grudges and continue the chain, then favors must surely do the same.
To give to others more than one has received. If one does that, then someone, like oneself, will live a life of giving to others.
The Demon decided what he would do with his life until the day came when Cheon Hwi would need his help.
With a smile that flowed out of its own accord, he took a step forward.
He himself did not know where he was headed. He simply went where his feet carried him, treating people within reach of his hands.
As a physician—the kind he had dreamed of becoming, the kind those who loved him had hoped he would be.
***
Was it because he had drawn on his Intent too heavily while severing the Demonic Cult's connections? It took him quite a long time to return.
It was only after the sun had risen that he arrived at the Beast Palace, where Seol Ri-hyang was waiting.
"Everyone else stayed up all night somewhere without me."
"That's…"
"Tang unni and Seomun unni have their eyes sparkling, but Cheon Hwi is the only one who looks haggard."
"There were circumstances."
"Yeah. Sure there were. There must have been circumstances."
Having reached a truth she didn't want to know (not really) through a perfectly sound deduction (not really), Seol Ri-hyang's eyes rolled back.
"Cheon Hwi!"
"It's a misunderstanding."
"Get over here!"
It was summer.