It was true that most Demonic Cultists besides the Heavenly Demon were nothing special, but that didn't mean there were no strong ones among them at all.
The Agwibu I had defeated the other day was also a bastard who, before the regression, had eventually reached Transcendent Peak and taken a seat as an elder.
There just wasn't an absolute master who had reached the Harmony Realm, but there were a few martial artists at Transcendent Peak.
The Blood Flame Fist Demon, Jeok Yeong-hu, was also a Demonic Cult elder who had risen to Transcendent Peak that way.
There was one difference from the Agwibu. The Agwibu was someone who would reach Transcendent Peak in the future, but the Blood Flame Fist Demon was an opponent who had reached Transcendent Peak quite a long time ago even by current standards.
Though it was a notorious reputation, there would be quite a few people in the Central Plains who knew that name.
I lightly ran my fingertips over the stone floor that had melted away like the trail of a crawling snake.
Naturally, no heat or Demonic Qi could be felt. Only a cold, smooth sensation came through.
As I quietly traced the floor, Tang So-wol crouched down right beside me and ran her hand along it as well.
"This is certainly unusual. Even if a fire large enough to engulf the entire house broke out, it shouldn't be enough to melt a stone floor."
"These are traces of demonic arts."
"What?"
With evidence like this right before our eyes, would it even trigger a seal? This time, without being blocked midway, my thoughts spilled out of my mouth as they were.
"I suspect it's the Blood Flame Death Cultivation."
"The Blood Flame Death Cultivation… Surely you don't mean the martial art of the Blood Flame Fist Demon?"
"You know of the Blood Flame Fist Demon?"
"Yes. Though not as well as young hero Cheon, I too knew that the Demonic Cult was behind the attempt on my life and looked into it. Isn't he the one who caused the Blood Calamity at the Kunlun Sect about thirty years ago?"
I hadn't known the exact timing, but it was true that the alias had become widely known because of the incident at the Kunlun Sect.
As I nodded, Seomun Hwa-rin narrowed her eyes and chimed in.
"If it's the Blood Flame Fist Demon, I've heard of him as well. Qinghai and Gangseo Province are far apart… but it was such a major affair that rumors did reach us."
"What exactly happened, Sister Seomun?"
It was a question from Seol Ri-hyang, who now knew the basics but still knew far less than she didn't know about the martial world.
At the sudden "sister," Peng Woo-jin and Eon Ga-hye, who had been dutifully calling her "elder," wore subtle expressions, but Seomun Hwa-rin continued speaking steadfastly.
"The Blood Flame Fist Demon, when he was young, claimed to be avenging his father, who had been killed by a Taoist of Kunlun. He burned to death every young disciple of the Kunlun Sect he could find."
"It's a pity that a Demonic Cultist would go too far in revenge, but it's not surprising… but are you saying a Kunlun Taoist committed such an act first?"
Seol Ri-hyang's eyes widened in disbelief. It must be because, by the common sense she had learned, the Orthodox Sects—especially Taoist martial artists—were not the kind to do such things. But.
"Isn't there an exception everywhere? It's only a rumor I heard, so I can't swear it's all true… but they say it happened when the spoiled son of a famous merchant guild paid a huge donation to enter the Kunlun Sect, yet couldn't fix his habits and caused an incident while secretly drinking."
"So he was a bad person from the start. Why did the Kunlun Sect accept someone like that? Was it really for money? I can't imagine a place like the Kunlun Sect being so desperate for funds that they'd embrace a troublemaker…"
"There may not be no financial reason at all, but more than that, it would be because of the Taoist teaching that one must accumulate good deeds to reach Ascension. Isn't guiding the lost a representative good deed?"
That was true. Though they had grown much closer to the secular world at some point, Taoists were still those who pursued good deeds.
Unlike the clans, which valued blood relations and embraced their own whether good or bad, a sect could choose whom to accept.
But that doesn't mean sects like Wudang or Mount Hua only pick out the talented.
Most of those accepted by Taoist sects are children abandoned because their families couldn't afford to raise them, or orphans who lost their parents to some incident.
It's extremely rare for them to take in a rich family's child for a fee and teach them martial arts, or to discover a child with genius talent by chance and snatch them up right away.
They take in those with nowhere to go. Those who would struggle to survive on their own if left alone… And a few who, after a long period of wandering, genuinely wish to become new people. Talent is something you happen to stumble upon by luck.
At first glance, it seems terribly inefficient. But when you consider that the principle behind their actions lies in accumulating good deeds, it all makes sense.
And taking advantage of this, wealthy families sometimes send their troublesome children to them.
If a child is truly a hopeless delinquent that even the sect can't handle, they would naturally refuse, but for those at a manageable level, they would accept them.
But things don't always flow in a good direction.
They say that just when you're about to forget, all sorts of incidents and accidents tend to break out. Cases that end in murder are extremely rare, though.
With a complicated expression, Seol Ri-hyang nodded.
"I think I get it now. So they held a grudge against the Kunlun Sect for failing to properly manage a single disciple they'd taken in, right? And after defecting to the Demonic Cult and building up their strength, they carried out that revenge."
"Your reasoning is correct, but that's not something you can call revenge. Didn't they burn countless innocent people—not the actual target—alive? They say revenge has no justice to begin with, but this is nothing more than the tantrum of a madman and murderer who doesn't even deserve the word revenge. It seems the alias Blood Flame Fist Demon wasn't given for nothing."
"Ah… I'll keep that in mind. By the way, I guess the alias wasn't just because he was a Demonic Cultist who was good with his fists and liked setting fires."
Seol Ri-hyang tilted her head. This time, it was I who answered her.
"Blood Flame comes from the Yang Gang Qi Skill he mastered, the Blood Flame Death Cultivation, and the Fist part is because he mainly fights with his fists—that's true. But the Demon part isn't because he's a Demonic Cultist. It's because he did deeds worthy of the name."
"…Seomun unni is like that, and you too, Cheon Hwi—you're both so firm about it. I've heard the term Blood Calamity, but what exactly did he do to earn that kind of reaction?"
"It's a relief that you remember well. Then here's a question. What do you think happened to the Kunlun Sect martial artist who beat the Blood Flame Fist Demon's father to death?"
"Suddenly? Let me think…"
Seol Ri-hyang tapped her chin with her index finger and tilted her head.
"Well, since he committed murder, he'd have been dragged off by the government troops or locked up in the Kunlun Sect's prison, right? Since the Blood Flame Fist Demon went out to take revenge, I guess he didn't die."
"Close. He was locked in the Kunlun Sect's prison and only released about ten years later. …And he lived the rest of his life genuinely repenting his wrongdoings and helping others, right up until the moment he died at the Blood Flame Fist Demon's hands."
"Huh?"
Seol Ri-hyang blinked her wide-open eyes as if she couldn't understand what she had just heard.
But this was the truth. It was from the previous life, when I had once crossed paths with the Blood Flame Fist Demon and barely escaped with my life.
Feeling the need to learn more about the Blood Flame Fist Demon, I went around asking seasoned martial artists and survivors of the Kunlun Sect about him.
According to the information I gathered, surprisingly, the one who killed the Blood Flame Fist Demon's father had completely changed as a person after that incident.
He never turned a blind eye to injustice, and no matter how vicious his opponent, he would spare their life and make them pay for their crimes instead of killing them. Whenever he had time, he searched for the whereabouts of the Blood Flame Fist Demon, who had thrown himself into the Demonic Cult.
He was willing to give up all the wealth he had accumulated, and even his own neck if necessary, to do so.
Though the nature of ordinary men rarely changes, he who had writhed in guilt for over a decade in the Prison reportedly found peace of mind only when performing good deeds.
I don't know what he felt during those ten-odd years locked in the Prison, but it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say he had completely changed as a person.
The Kunlun Sect must have thought the same, as they accepted him as a main-mountain disciple along the way.
Thanks to that, when the Blood Flame Fist Demon came to the Kunlun Sect right after reaching the Transcendent Peak realm, he was able to avenge himself all too easily.
This was something that was hard for even the Blood Flame Fist Demon himself, and the Kunlun Sect, to accept.
"When you've spent your whole life sharpening the blade of revenge, only to realize you never even needed to, when you've completed your righteous vengeance yet the whole world points fingers at you, and when you face the emptiness of everything you've chased your entire life and your very existence is denied—that is when a person breaks."
"That sounds like you're saying he was fine before."
"What I'm saying is that he went even more insane afterward. The guy was already suffering from the side effects of the Blood Flame Death Cultivation, and this incident made him throw away the last shred of self-restraint he had."
The Blood Flame Death Cultivation is one of the strongest demonic arts among demonic arts. Since it's a Yang Gang Qi Skill, it heavily depends on one's constitution, but conversely, if one is born with sufficient yang energy, it promises power that ranks among the strongest of demonic arts.
The problem is that the flames of the Blood Flame Death Cultivation burn even its master.
As a demonic art whose flames grow fiercer at the sight of blood, it burns even the blood of the one who practices it.
That is why those who reach a certain level with the Blood Flame Death Cultivation feel a burning pain even when they are still, and the higher their realm, the worse it becomes.
Not being able to sleep properly and having to feel the burning pain at all hours made a person grow sharper and more prone to anger over trivial matters.
At the time, the Blood Flame Fist Demon had kept his sanity through his fierce will for revenge, but once that was lost, all that remained to him was an unburned grudge and a martial art that set everything it touched ablaze.
"And so, having completed his revenge, the Blood Flame Fist Demon once again sought out the Kunlun Sect and began burning alive, one by one, every last one of the young disciples he had raised—those who had helped his enemy."
"Ah…"
Seol Ri-hyang nodded with a flustered expression. In her lifetime, if she had saved people, how many might have received her help?
At least it wouldn't have been just one or two. Dozens… perhaps hundreds of people might have been cruelly burned by the Blood Flame Fist Demon's hands.
The Kunlun Sect hadn't been sitting idle either, but since he thoroughly avoided fighting them and only targeted the weak, it must have driven them mad with frustration.
Only after slaughtering more than half of the Kunlun Sect's rising talents of that generation, and countless commoners from the surrounding villages, was the Blood Flame Fist Demon finally caught in the Kunlun Sect's Heaven's Net.
It is said that not only the elders who had reached Transcendent Peak, but also the Sect Leader of that generation, who had attained the Harmony Realm, had stepped forward to behead the Blood Flame Fist Demon, so there was no way out for him.
The problem was that Qinghai, unlike other regions of the Central Plains, directly bordered Xinjiang, where the Demonic Cult was based.
Hearing the news, the Demonic Cult's reinforcements rushed over, and in the end, the Blood Flame Fist Demon slipped away.
Of course, in that process, all of the Demonic Cult's Peak Realm masters died… but regardless, the Blood Flame Fist Demon, who had reached Transcendent Peak, had returned alive, hadn't he?
Afterward, the Blood Flame Fist Demon continued his massacres, both large and small, and was called a Martial World Criminal.
But at some point, it was said he ceased all external activities.
Everyone assumed that he had either burned himself up, unable to withstand the side effects of his demonic arts, or that he had been beheaded by a passing righteous warrior.
After all, cases like that were quite common.
…But based on what I had learned while interrogating the Demonic Cultist alongside Tang Jincheon the other day, I could form a slightly different hypothesis.
The Heavenly Demon. The timing of when he entered the Demonic Cult and rose to prominence matched exactly with when the Blood Flame Fist Demon went quiet.
And now, seeing him move stealthily from the shadows—so unlike the Blood Flame Fist Demon—I was certain.
He was deeply captivated by the Heavenly Demon, living his life following his orders.
However, unlike the Blood Flame Fist Demon's own story, this speculation was caught by the seal and could not be spoken aloud.
I was beginning to understand the conditions of the seal. The reason they had been lenient about the Blood Flame Fist Demon was probably because many people knew about him—like Seomun Hwa-rin or Tang So-wol.
Conversely, since no one knew of the Heavenly Demon's existence, even the slightest mention triggered the seal strongly.
Letting out an internal sigh, I turned to look at Peng Woo-jin and Eon Ga-hye, who had been quietly listening to the story.
"We seem to have a good understanding of the enemy we'll be facing now. What do you plan to do?"
"There's no reason to turn our backs on the enemy now that we've come this far."
"I share the same sentiment."
The two answered without hesitation. But after speaking, they began stealing glances at Seomun Hwa-rin.
"Hm?"
Seomun Hwa-rin tilted her head, not catching the meaning. I let out a dry laugh and continued.
"Right. With Senior Seomun Hwa-rin, an absolute master of the Harmony Realm, helping us, whether it's a Transcendent Peak or a Martial World Criminal, or even the Yang Gang Qi Skill, none of it seems all that dangerous."
"You speak of… me?"
Only then did Seomun Hwa-rin realize why everyone had been looking at her with such expectant eyes, and she faltered.
She glanced around for a moment, taking in the people gathered there, then set her hands on her hips.
A triumphant expression. Slightly raised heels. The corners of her lips trembling as if she were holding back a laugh.
Anyone could see she was showing off as she tilted her chin up with a haughty flick.
"Indeed! Leave it to me! Whether it's the Blood Flame Fist Demon or whatever else, my fists are stronger!"
"Ooh…"
"We couldn't feel more reassured."
Peng Woo-jin and Eon Ga-hye clapped their hands in admiration.
…But why? Seeing Seomun Hwa-rin so excited only made me more uneasy.
***
While chasing the Blood Flame Fist Demon, I ended up isolated with Seol Ri-hyang.
"Are we screwed?"
"Not yet, so shut your mouth!"
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me.