The last memory the Heavenly Demon had left behind.
Though he could not see the process, he could tell that the Heavenly Demon had managed to bring down every single Spirit Beast.
As if proving the ferocity of the battle, the scene was a gruesome mix of human and Spirit Beast corpses, along with the death of a colossal sacred tree.
Within that scene, as the Heavenly Demon quietly stared down at the corpse of the last Spirit Beast, a man who had barely survived rose to his feet from behind him.
His eyes were as sharp as a starving beast's. His half-white hair, carelessly let down, was matted with blood, and one of his arms was missing—yet it did not seem to be a weakness.
An old wolf, covered in countless scars, that had survived to the very end.
That was the first impression of the only other man besides the Heavenly Demon.
…that is, until I looked closely at his face.
"Th-this, Cheon Hwi! That! That person!"
"What is this?"
Seol Ri-hyang jumped up and down, pounding my arm. I, too, rubbed my eyes in disbelief, but… the scene before me did not change.
"Isn't that you, Cheon Hwi?!"
"It certainly looks that way…"
In my memories, it was hard to sense a proper Aura from him. But the atmosphere he gave off. The Balance that did not waver even without one arm. Above all, looking at those eyes filled with killing intent and poison energy, there was no way I could not recognize him.
That man was me, having reached the Harmony Realm through a different path in a different time.
If I had to put it into words, he was closer to the Simma I had faced at the Kunlun Sect.
But how? To reach the Harmony Realm, one must be able to look at oneself completely, and I was not a person as filled with killing intent as I thought.
A Simma is, after all, not the complete version of myself.
So how in the world…?
"Ah."
The other me looked around once, then wore a somewhat relaxed expression. I realized the truth when I saw the sword he held in his intact arm shift from Ink Color to white, as if the ink were being washed away.
"Demonic arts."
"Hmm. Honestly speaking, if it were you, Cheon Hwi, I think you would have done well even if you had practiced demonic arts."
"I'm not the kind of person who's filled with resentment."
"But you're also the kind of person who carries a pit far deeper than most people's in your chest."
"…"
I closed my mouth and looked around. Tang So-wol wasn't there, nor were Seol Ri-hyang or Seomun Hwa-rin.
There was only the already dead, the half-dead me, and the relatively intact Heavenly Demon.
Everyone lives their life carrying their own well in their heart. I named that well Simma.
You can't completely turn away from it while living, and depending on the situation, it can quench our thirst… but a well that's too deep sometimes swallows its owner whole.
But one person. If even just one person is allowed into your heart. If there's someone who can catch you before you fall into the well.
That way, a person doesn't easily fall into the well. …Unfortunately, it seems that doesn't apply to me in this timeline.
As I let out heavy sighs amidst the dark red energy flickering around my eyes, now that I had become a Demonic Cultist.
I and the Heavenly Demon began conversing with each other. Unfortunately, I couldn't hear the contents.
I could certainly hear something with my ears, but my mind couldn't recognize it. Just like the Heavenly Demon's memories from before.
Well, of course. I claim to be a proper Buddhist disciple, a Taoist, and a successor of orthodox Taoist arts, but didn't I end up improving the Grand Ritual with the help of the Illusion Witch, who can only use Sorcery?
The Heavenly Demon, on the other hand, had the knowledge but had to contain vast memories without anyone's help, and the medium was an ordinary ring, not a sacred object like a secret manual.
I had long known that some degree of degradation was inevitable.
It's just that, now that I appeared in the Heavenly Demon's memories, it felt stifling anew.
Still, since a realm is a realm, it's fortunate that he looks fairly intact for someone who became a Demonic Cultist.
…But then again, so this was a possibility that existed—me and the Heavenly Demon working together like this.
It was probably possible because I had no memories of being harmed by the Heavenly Demon, but while I was feeling complicated about a situation I truly never imagined.
After talking for a long while in front of the dragon's corpse, me and the Heavenly Demon nod as if we've reached some conclusion.
Then another me raises the sword. A Sword Force made of Demonic Qi stretches out long and splits the dragon's belly open.
The Heavenly Demon reaches a hand into the exposed chest area, rummages around for a while, and pulls out a massive inner core as large as a person's upper body.
When the Heavenly Demon strikes it down, the shattered fragments transform into an enormous amount of Natural Qi and envelop the surroundings.
The piled-up corpses decay in an instant and turn to soil, and the sticky blood becomes a clear stream.
The scenery that had been unspeakably horrific just moments ago transformed in an instant into a peaceful landscape of small hills and a winding river that resembled a dragon.
Only then did I let out a faint smile, as if finally relieved, and after giving the Heavenly Demon a casual wave, I departed for somewhere.
The Heavenly Demon, without even bothering to respond to me, merely stared blankly up at the clear sky with his usual impassive expression.
Seol Ri-hyang, who had been frozen by the sudden change in her surroundings, finally spoke up.
"Cheon Hwi. This… could this be…"
"It probably is. A Spirit Beast on the level of a divine beast would possess an enormous amount of Natural Qi. There must be some meaning in smashing it apart rather than absorbing it."
No matter how powerful the Heavenly Demon is, he wouldn't just throw away power of this magnitude. And I certainly wouldn't just stand by and watch either.
There's definitely something here. Something I don't yet understand.
While I was retracing the memories of the Heavenly Demon I had seen so far, wondering if I had missed something, the Heavenly Demon suddenly raised his fist and pressed it against his own temple.
"Hm?"
For the first time, a faint smile appeared on the face of the Heavenly Demon, who had maintained a deadpan expression all along. And then.
THWACK!
The Aura he detonated shattered the Heavenly Demon's head completely.
Thud.
The body, having lost its head, crumpled to the ground—the first being to spill blood within the nature created from the dragon's inner core. The Heavenly Demon was dead.
A satisfied smile, as if he had accomplished everything he needed to do. That was the last will of the Heavenly Demon, who had taken his own life for the first time.
Well, as expected, the Heavenly Demon's regression continued even after he had prevented the destruction caused by the Spirit Beasts.
Having felled countless Spirit Beasts, the Heavenly Demon had now regressed past boyhood and back into infancy.
Watching his parents abandon their newborn child, he looked up at the sky.
There was no faint smile like before. Only confusion and despair remained.
What followed was a jumble of memories. One moment the infant Heavenly Demon would suddenly become a young man, and the next he would helplessly watch a war against Spirit Beasts that he should have been able to prevent.
Then, suddenly growing younger again, he was hailed as a Heavenly Martial Body thanks to the martial arts he had accumulated through his regressions, and became a joint disciple of the Nine Great Sects and One Gang.
And then, without warning, he beat every Sect Leader of the Nine Great Sects and One Gang to death.
Time skipped forward in leaps and bounds, sometimes jumping entirely to the next cycle, showing only disconnected scenes flashing by in rapid succession.
Among them were memories of being close friends with the Slaughter King, and memories of using the Slaughter King as a test subject.
There were times he slaughtered Spirit Beasts again, times he stood on the side of the Spirit Beasts and brought ruin to the martial world, and even times he abandoned everything and quietly died alone.
The Heavenly Demon repeated this cycle, trying everything he could, attempting one thing after another.
Thanks to that, he knew every secret there was to know, had practiced most martial arts at least once, and there was no corner of the Central Plains he hadn't visited.
At a glance, it looked like the same mad rampage as at the end of his previous memories.
But there was one clear difference from before… the current Heavenly Demon could no longer go mad.
He had endured a number of deaths that no ordinary person could bear, and had trained his martial arts for countless eons.
No matter how pathetic the Heavenly Demon's Martial Talent was, the Enlightenment he had accumulated over that time must have reached a height far beyond even my current self.
Of course, his mental discipline would be anything but ordinary.
A being like the Heavenly Demon, no matter how much of a Demonic Cultist steeped in demonic arts, would surely be free from Qi Deviation.
Beyond the Ultimate Demon, transcending demonhood.
A Heavenly Demon who had reached such a state was someone who could not go mad even if they wanted to.
Then, for what purpose did he repeat what could charitably be called eccentric acts, or to put it bluntly, the deeds of a madman?
The answer was already set.
"…This. You're looking for a way to stop the regression, aren't you?"
"Yes. Until now, I thought preventing the destruction caused by the Spirit Beast would be enough, and I focused only on that… but I've come to realize that wasn't the truth, so I'm trying to find another way."
Now the Heavenly Demon was moving beyond the Central Plains, into the Outer Murim, and even to the distant Western Regions.
But no matter how thoroughly he scoured every corner, the information he sought was not easily obtained.
Fragmented pieces of small information—such as the fact that there had been several other regressors throughout history, the conditions under which regression occurred, and the existence that orchestrated it—were surprisingly quick to come by.
Yet how to actually stop the regression remained beyond his reach.
All he could think was that this was nothing but meaningless torture.
Naturally, his obsession only deepened, and the Heavenly Demon began testing far more varied methods.
He smashed the Imperial Court and ascended the throne himself, offering sacrifices to the heavens; he abandoned the Heavenly Demon Divine Art in pursuit of ascension, trying to reach the end of the Daoist martial arts.
He truly tried everything conceivable, and in many cases he reached absurd futures, but… the result remained the same.
It was hard to believe a single person could have produced such countless possibilities, each paired with a closed conclusion. Among them, one thing stood out especially.
"Cheon Hwi. No matter what happens, as long as you're not killed directly by the Heavenly Demon, you survive to the very end?"
"So it seems."
Perhaps it was simply because I was looking at myself that my eyes lingered more often… but strangely enough, I survived until the very last moment.
Sometimes I was with Tang So-wol, sometimes Seol Ri-hyang or Seomun Hwa-rin stood by my side.
And truly, I had no idea what kind of terrible circumstances led to it, but on rare occasions, I was even with the Illusion Witch.
In any case, at the moments the Heavenly Demon considered the end—such as when the world was destroyed by a Spirit Beast, or conversely, when the Heavenly Demon completely shattered the Central Plains.
And at various other decisive moments. Precisely, up until the moment he concluded that this regression's approach had been wrong.
I survived, more often than not.
There were cycles where I became the Heavenly Demon's companion, cycles where I fought to the very end, and cycles where I had no particular connection to him at all.
Either way, I clung to life by the skin of my teeth. Of course, it was rare that I came out of it unscathed.
"So this time around, I'm missing an eye."
"Be grateful it's not both."
"What, are you dissatisfied that you survived with Seomun Hwa-rin instead of Seol Ri-hyang?"
"No? It's just that you never once thought of me, and that's a little irritating."
"…"
I never expected to be grumbling about something from a round so far in the past that I couldn't even remember it anymore.
Anyway, how many times did those meaningless memories flicker past, meaningless as they were?
It was the round where I had stirred up the Spirit Beasts, driving them to slaughter everything beyond the Central Plains, all the way to Tianzhu and the Western Regions. Even regions so unfamiliar I didn't know what to call them.
The divine beasts, whose very existence was akin to natural disasters, had grown even stronger, withering the entire world or freezing it over, leaving even those who had hidden well with no way to endure.
And so, the world met its end not in the sense of the fall of civilization, but in the sense of the extinction of humanity.
It was some time into that round, when nothing of humanity remained visible except for the Heavenly Demon.
Just as the Heavenly Demon was beginning to prepare for suicide, doors of light suddenly appeared all over, and began to suck in the Spirit Beasts that had been living comfortably in their own world.
Where they disappeared to, I don't know. All I could tell was that the stronger the Spirit Beast, the longer it held out, but in the end, no one managed to hold out to the very last.
Naturally, this was not a natural phenomenon. Yet it was too grand and powerful to be attributed to the power of another Spirit Beast.
…Just like the regression had been.
Perhaps it was because he was a being who was neither a Spirit Beast nor quite a human.
In a world where now neither humans nor Spirit Beasts remained, only the Heavenly Demon stood alone.
And he realized. The essence of the world was that even as forms changed, the ceaseless flow itself remained unchanged.
Even if the master of the Central Plains were a Spirit Beast rather than a human, the heavens had remained silent…
But if one completely blocked off a single flow by killing and exterminating all humans, even the heavens would have no choice but to turn their gaze back, if only a little.
The Heavenly Demon, who had seemed powerless and resigned in some ways, his mouth split open as if it would tear, and Mad Laughter poured forth.
Though he did not know where the Spirit Beasts had vanished to, it was certain that in that single moment, the heavens… those who dwelled above had exerted their power and briefly connected with the mortal world.
It was a power that even the current Heavenly Demon dared not face, but… through his repeated regressions, he had come to learn one secret.
That the power gained through Defying Heaven was preserved to a certain extent even across regressions, and could be accumulated beyond the previous limits.
Using this, the Slaughter King had brought his memories into the next cycle, and the Heavenly Demon himself was also gradually advancing toward a realm beyond Harmony that no one had ever touched.
What if he continued this Defying Heaven and amassed tremendous power? And thus, one day, reached a level where he could contend with the power that had briefly revealed itself beyond the gate of light?
The Heavenly Demon's long-frozen expressionless face cracked, and his mouth split open as if it would tear.
And in the world of annihilation where no one remained, a gasping laughter echoed alone.
The Heavenly Demon, who had only ever accumulated a demonic power with no place to go. This was the moment he finally realized his first target of vengeance, and the method to achieve it.
The Heavenly Demon, who had been laughing uproariously, slowly opened his mouth in a world where no one was listening.
"I am…"
A demonic fiend who would one day stain that lofty sky black. A monster raised in indifference. And a regressor who had set foot in the deepest depths of demonic arts.
He cast aside his original name and the countless aliases he had been called until now.
"I am the Heavenly Demon."
Instead, he uttered a declaration he repeated to himself.
The Heavenly Demon reached toward the sky as if craving something. His fingertips began to curl.
It looked like a gesture of clenching a fist. However, it was no ordinary gesture.
The Simma of the Heavenly Demon, accumulated over a long time—that sticky pain and resentment-laden Intent, losses so old their memory had faded—scratched at the clouds in the sky above and scattered them.
A single drop of blood, drawn by fingernails digging into his palm, fell onto the Heavenly Demon's face.
Plop.
Blood trickled down the corner of the Heavenly Demon's eye. As if shedding tears of blood, he continued speaking.
"Someday, you will face the master of all demons."
He knew it instinctively. From this moment on, every regression and every future was fixed to end in annihilation at the hands of the Heavenly Demon.
At the same time, the world in his memories ground to a halt. He thought it was about time for the end, and prepared to leave.
Crackle—
Cracks began to spread across the surrounding scenery. Sensing something was wrong, I immediately pulled Seol Ri-hyang into my arms and focused my Intent to cut this space apart. Then I swung a single sword strike.
Swick.
The sensation of cutting something invisible. My consciousness then shot upward as if plummeting into the sky.
I thought I would wake from the world of memories just like that.
—How cold of you. What's the rush to leave so soon?
From the fragments of the shattering scenery, a single black hand shot out and grabbed me and Seol Ri-hyang.
And when I came to my senses, we were in a pitch-black space. Together with a familiar man.
The Heavenly Demon.
This wasn't the figure from the memories I'd just been watching—this was the Heavenly Demon as I knew him.
He must be the Heavenly Demon of this cycle, the one who had shown us his memories.
"Sword Demon. I think I've shown you enough. Now I have a proposal for you."
With those words, the Heavenly Demon extended his hand directly—not with Aura, but with his own flesh and blood.
"Will you stand with me?"
"…"
As if he were asking for a handshake.