Sword

The Sword Demon, who had survived a joint attack that should have killed him.

One arm and one leg were broken, and with his bones rarely intact, even breathing seemed difficult…

But in the end, he had survived. And having survived, he was now emitting an even more vicious killing intent.

A blood-red haze rose around the Sword Demon. Killing intent is Intent, and when Intent stirs, internal energy and the body naturally follow.

The Sword Demon's killing intent, having crossed all bounds, naturally merged with his Aura and settled into his sword.

Perhaps because their roots were the same. I knew it the moment I saw it. That I must not take even a single hit from that.

Just as wounds inflicted by a Demonic Cultist fester or heal slowly due to Demonic Qi, depending on the circumstances.

The moment that sword lands, no matter how small the wound, killing intent like Extreme Poison will seep in and ultimately bring the opponent to death.

The fact that he could refine an Intent meant solely for harming others to this degree was, if anything, a talent in itself… but.

This time, I couldn't laugh.

The Sword Demon steadied his stance with a faltering body. The injuries were clearly uncomfortable, and his balance genuinely seemed off… yet the arc his sword traced was nothing short of flawless.

Having watched all of this, Great Master Jeonghyeon spoke in a trembling voice.

"Heavenly Killing Star…"

"It's not to that extent."

"But you're accomplishing things that, according to what I heard from my master, are only possible for a fully awakened Heavenly Killing Star."

"That is…"

"If she is not the Heavenly Killing Star, then the killing intent born from Lord Cheon's Simma must have reached the heavens. This humble monk cannot discern the difference between a murderous fate bestowed from above and a will that began on the earth and touched the sky."

"…"

I agree with that to some extent. But it is also something I do not want to nod along to.

Because the very possibility that I could become something like that did not sit well with me.

This must be because the state of mind I awakened upon reaching the Harmony Realm stands in opposition to that of the Sword Demon.

The Sword Demon gasps for breath, leveling his sword at me.

I too grip my sword tightly and step forward, and Seomun Hwa-rin naturally falls in behind me.

I reached out a hand toward her and stopped her.

"This time, let me fight alone."

"…Is there really a need for that? He looks like he's about to collapse, but his poison has fully kicked in. It would be better if we all took him down as quickly as possible."

"No. That's exactly why I'm going alone."

I know. Because it's me, I can tell. The Sword Demon as he is now will never die a clean death, even if it kills him.

If we attacked together like before, we could bring him down far more easily and quickly. But one of us would surely die.

Even if his own neck went flying, he would try to land at least one slash on someone else.

And he would actually manage it. Though his body was more than half destroyed, his sword had been honed and sharpened sharper than ever before.

"That is why I must step forward."

"…You are saying that because you are confident you will not allow even a single wound?"

"Yes."

"And the others cannot do the same?"

"Correct."

"Arrogant."

"But is it not the truth?"

I would not go so far as to say I am the strongest… but at least against the Sword Demon, it is true.

Seomun Hwa-rin seemed to have much she wanted to say, well aware of this fact, but in the end she could only grunt in frustration, unable to utter a single word.

I walked past her and stepped forward, when Tang Jincheon's voice came from behind.

"Wouldn't hidden weapons or sorcery be of some help?"

"Of course they would. But I feel that taking down that one with my own strength is the only way it would hold any meaning."

"Is that so… If it looks dangerous, I'll join the attack immediately. So if there's something my son-in-law wishes to achieve, see to it that you accomplish it without putting yourself in harm's way."

"Yes."

With those words, no one tried to stop me any longer.

As I stepped forward alone, the Sword Demon's crimson gaze—his face hidden in shadow, making his expression impossible to read—twitched and stirred.

It looked almost as if he were smiling, but the traces of bloody tears beneath his eyes made it quite grotesque.

We stood facing each other with our swords raised, gauging the moment to strike—but only for a moment.

The Sword Demon's tightly sealed lips finally parted, and a voice that resembled mine, yet was twisted beyond recognition, flowed out.

"Why is life so full of suffering? Have you never asked yourself that?"

"So you could speak after all."

"It was a life where I grasped nothing. Nothing remains. Only this life I've kept alive in ugliness."

"Not me."

"Do you truly believe that?"

"…"

I don't want to attach any meaning to the boy's words. But before I even realize it, the thoughts come to me anyway.

That no matter how things stand now, this is the world after my regression.

That the things I lost before my regression will never return.

—I thought, and thought again. Why was I born into a world like this, in such a way?

"A pointless thought. There is no greater waste of effort than searching for meaning in what has already happened."

—And then I realized. Hell was not some separate place—this world itself was hell.

"Well now, that's quite an enlightenment."

I answered nonchalantly, but inwardly, I flinched.

It wasn't as if I could claim I'd never had such thoughts.

But the conclusion the Sword Demon had reached went a step further than that.

Suddenly, his shadow rippled with an even more ominous sway, and from the raised sword, blood-red Aura began to drip down in beads.

As if blood were dripping from a blade so drenched in slaughter it had become caked in gore.

Or as if the sword itself were weeping the bloody tears that flowed from his eyes.

"If a life is one of only loss, if this world is one of only pain, if that is simply the way things are—"

His voice was rough enough to be unpleasant to the ear, yet his tone itself was calm.

A trace of emotion crept into the words of such a man.

"Me too. And you as well."

At this very moment. I understood the opponent before me. The Sword Demon. My other possibility—deep in my chest.

"It would have been better if we had never been born."

"…"

If I had fished out from the bottom of the well in my heart the very first thing I wished for.

What the Sword Demon had fished out was the source that kept filling the well with killing intent.

Resentment.

That thick emotion seeped into me like poison.

At this very moment, I was the Sword Demon, and the Sword Demon was me.

But.

"Ugly to look at, ugly to hear."

I dismissed it with those words and thrust my sword forward.

A strike that crossed the shortest distance, aiming for the Sword Demon's one remaining intact wrist.

Of course, even with his half-shattered body, he naturally swung his sword to deflect it.

No—looking more closely, his swordplay itself had grown far sharper.

Kang!

The pain radiating from my grip is considerable. I'm someone who never loses in terms of Technique power no matter where I go, but the current Sword Demon seems to be a move ahead of me.

However, what does that matter?

I keep swinging my sword. Strongly, softly, swiftly, unpredictably.

I unleash with my own hands every martial art and Mystery that has melted into the Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art.

But all of it is blocked. Because what I know, the Sword Demon also knows.

In the air, sword clashes against sword, scraping past each other, sometimes only cutting the hems of each other's robes.

Yet the situation is no different from before. No—it's gotten a little worse.

Swords that failed to withstand killing intent strong enough to take on a fixed form would often spring out of my grasp, regardless of my will.

Time and again, my blood ran cold at his monstrous, head-first recklessness that charged into even the slightest opening.

So I discard it.

The Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art… I discard the sword I have built up until now.

-What a foolish thing to do.

My sword path changed abruptly. But far from matching him as an equal, I was being pushed back even more openly than before, and the Sword Demon's sneer grew wider.

It doesn't matter. As long as I don't die right now, that's enough.

I discard all knowledge of sword arts.

I forget all of it—how to respond to such mysteries, what must be done to maintain distance from the opponent, and the entire path that leads to taking the enemy's life.

Instead, I simply swing the sword as my heart dictates.

Even if it's clumsy, crude, and broken apart before long, it doesn't matter. What matters is what I seek to place within the sword.

"Perhaps, as you said, life is nothing but suffering, and this world may well be hell. But I do not regret having been born."

The first affection I ever received. My parents endured much for my sake, for each other's sake, and gave so much away.

Even if their deaths carved a well in my heart, what they handed to me does not disappear.

Though much time has passed, and through my regressions it may have grown faint.

The memories of my parents still remain within me as one of the few good memories I have.

Even if that end is an unjust death.

Kak!

The sword that had been pushed back the entire time suddenly clung tight, deflecting the Sword Demon's techniques here and there.

"No matter how much the world wishes for my despair, not all who live within it are wicked."

There was a young man who rose up for me, a worthless orphan.

There was a wanderer who took pity on my circumstances and taught me a few moves of martial arts.

Their small acts of chivalry may not have borne fruit, may have reached a pitiful conclusion…

But still, they became the pillar that let me live through the present.

Clang!

Sword and sword collided head-on. Under normal circumstances, the blade should have been sent flying by the power strengthened by the killing intent it carried, but it held its ground.

"Whenever we lose something, it hurts as if our own flesh is being torn away—because they had given us a piece of themselves."

The reason I had crumbled helplessly before the deaths of Seol Ri-hyang and Seomun Hwa-rin, the reason I had spent days obsessed with revenge until my sword ran dry of blood—

It was because, before I knew it, they had become my family, and the Iron Blood Faction had become the home I returned to.

No matter how painful that end had been, I was happy. Because for the first time, I realized I could hold someone in my heart.

Krang!

The Sword Demon's blade began to waver. He could no longer respond cleanly to a path of the sword that had completely changed, yet was not far behind his own.

"And as long as you don't die, there's always a next time."

On the night the Iron Blood Faction burned, after losing Seol Ri-hyang and Seomun Hwa-rin, I thought the rest of my life would hold only days of pain and days of less pain.

But Tang So-wol slipped into my heart so naturally, without giving me a moment to resist.

Even if that end didn't turn out the way I'd hoped, I had once again taken someone into my heart.

The word "absolute" didn't exist.

Swick.

A thin sword wound traced across the Sword Demon's limp left arm. It looked like he was offering up an arm that wouldn't move in a dangerous moment, but regardless, it was the first time my sword had touched him.

"No matter how painful living is, no matter how everything you try to protect slips through your fingers, and no matter how all that remains in the end is a deep wound—"

What flashed past in that instant was the memory of everything since my regression.

So much had happened.

I had confirmed what I already knew, and I had discovered what I had never known.

I was certain that I would once again hold Tang So-wol, Seol Ri-hyang, and Seomun Hwa-rin close in a corner of my heart.

Just as I had learned that the Lord of the Black Alliance, whom I had thought of as a burdensome and narrow-minded man, and Sama Yuryeon, who I had thought could not stand me, had even considered taking me in as an adopted son.

Creak.

The Sword Demon, unable to keep up with my sword—a sword he did not know—was pushing himself harder, moving more recklessly.

From somewhere in his body came the sound of something breaking.

"Looking back, whether I was aware of it or not, I never existed alone."

When I think about it, the person I am was never completed by me alone.

I was influenced by others, learned things from them, and what I filled myself with and the parts that changed—all of that came together to complete me.

Surely I, too, must have been that kind of existence for others.

"In the end, people are destined to love people."

This is my answer.

The vast gap between the Sword Demon and the me of now—it came down to whether I had turned my gaze not only to what I had lost, but also to what I had received.

The moment I reached a conclusion about who I was, the path of the sword I was swinging changed on a far greater scale.

The Crazy Wolf Life-Stealing Art was, in the end, nothing more than a collection of martial arts I had stolen and reshaped to suit my own tastes.

In the end, I had merely been stealing and using someone else's martial art.

But the sword path I now swung was different.

A single sword stroke born only from me, representing everything I was.

For the first time, my own sword traced its arc across the world.

Thunk.

A faint moonlight illuminated the shadow's heart.

The sword slipped from the Sword Demon's hand and fell.