Seomun Hwa-rin's round crown pressed toward me.
I gently stroked her white hair.
"You seem to have grown much stronger than before. It was magnificent."
"…That will do."
Having said that in a satisfied voice, Seomun Hwa-rin weakly rested her forehead against my chest.
Thud.
She looked as if she had practically half-collapsed. Well, that made sense. With that many minor wounds, they amounted to a major one.
Wasn't he unleashing a barrage of fist strikes that didn't just churn up the ground but carved deep pits into it with every single blow?
A strike that was clearly faster and more powerful than before. And by now, the thunderous roar had become familiar.
He must have grasped the mystery of the Lightning Sound Sword.
As I had feared, he couldn't avoid a tough fight… but rather, he used it as a stepping stone to grow.
When I patted his head with a bit more enthusiasm as a sign of praise, Seomun Hwa-rin's strength seemed to melt away with every touch of my hand.
Glancing back, I saw the Transcendent Peak martial artists, who had been wearing expressions of death-defying resolve just moments ago, letting out sighs of relief.
Tang So-wol and Seol Ri-hyang were also peeking their heads out from among them, waving their hands in greeting.
So he had hidden the rising talents of insufficient martial level behind him and stepped forward to face the Slaughter King head-on.
No matter how one looked at it, the Orthodox Sects were still the Orthodox Sects.
I let out an inward sigh of admiration and gave a small nod to convey that they could rest easy, and from all around came bursts of hollow laughter and sighs of relief.
Soon, an indecipherable but lively clamor—filled with vigor rather than tension—filled the surroundings.
Tang So-wol and Seol Ri-hyang were making their way toward me through the crowd.
In the warm atmosphere where everything seemed to have concluded well.
There was one voice that rang out with particular clarity.
"Th-this is…"
"Huh?"
A voice that should not be heard. It was the sound coming from the Slaughter King, the one who had been struck through the heart by me and left sprawled on the ground.
It was surprising that he was still breathing after having his heart pierced, but it wasn't beyond understanding.
He was a Harmony Realm martial artist, even if his realm and body were hastily assembled. With his overflowing internal energy and Intent, it was possible for him to hold on a little longer than most.
Well. That only meant he was still breathing, not that he could fight.
What surprised me was that it was the Slaughter King, of all people, who had spoken.
The original who had become the eunuch of the same cohort, not the Slaughter King. All the other Slaughter Kings besides him were a kind of counterfeit.
In a previous cycle, he had built a deep bond with the Heavenly Demon, becoming a close friend who would entrust his future to him.
Though his martial arts and Enlightenment could be copied and crammed into other bodies, those poor souls had become beings like puppets, their self-awareness gone.
Those were all the Slaughter Kings I had faced until now.
But now—after three encounters and having cut down nearly seven Slaughter Kings without ever hearing his voice—that voice finally reached my ears.
How could I not be startled?
I wasn't the only one. Seomun Hwa-rin, who had been burying her nose deep in my chest and taking a long breath, straightened her back.
"…You."
"Let's at least hear him out. It's not like he can escape my sword anyway… and we don't have much time."
"Very well."
Without relaxing my guard, I turned toward the fallen Slaughter King.
And then I saw it. Not the glassy, lifeless eyes of before, but a gaze with clear intelligence behind it.
"What is this?"
"Perhaps it's because I am… cough!… the last remaining Slaughter King…"
Even as he spat blood, the Slaughter King said this. From that single sentence, I could infer several things.
First, that all the other Slaughter Kings entrusted to the Murim Alliance Leader were dead. And then——
"…You knew, didn't you? That the Heavenly Demon was mass-producing your kind."
"Yes… I suspect not just me, but all of us knew… cough! It's just that our consciousness was forcibly submerged…"
"Submerged, you say. Surely you don't mean the Heavenly Demon sealed your consciousness."
There is a possibility.
By the time one reaches the Harmony Realm, it would be no exaggeration to say their ego is not merely strong, but bloated.
Could someone like that be mass-produced and bent to another's will so easily?
Perhaps not.
No matter how much survival is the top priority for an absolute master of the Unorthodox Sects, that would be a difficult condition to accept.
What I mean is, even if the Heavenly Demon, who has long since crossed the line, deliberately turned a former friend into a puppet, it wouldn't be surprising.
But the Slaughter King denied my hypothesis.
"That's not it. The Heavenly Demon… he probably doesn't know. This is something beyond his will…"
"…?"
An unnatural silence. I was dumbfounded by the Slaughter King's attitude—starting to speak, then stopping himself—but soon a thought struck me, and my eyes widened.
"Ah."
A seal.
If the Slaughter King's self-awareness was perfectly intact, but simply couldn't break through to the outside.
I wasn't sure whether his memories had been fully inherited, but if his martial arts had been passed down, carrying within them the previous cycle's own mental impressions—
Then it would only be natural that he could at least guess at the existence of regression and his own identity.
The Martial Princess had said that regressors had existed before, and that regression was a Fortuitous Encounter granted only to those who had suffered despair deep enough to touch the heavens.
This is because he is reversing time along a design laid out by transcendent beings—one that has now been abandoned.
Then what of the Slaughter King?
Limited, inefficient, and even that incomplete… but the Slaughter King is also a kind of regressor.
The only difference is that his regression was half-failed, carried out not by the hands of transcendents but by the Heavenly Demon's.
That must be why, in addition to the seal that prevents him from directly or indirectly mentioning the regression attached to me or the Heavenly Demon, he was subjected to a second seal—one that locked away his consciousness.
And the Slaughter King said that the second seal was released when he became the sole Slaughter King.
In other words, there cannot be more than one Slaughter King.
The moment my thoughts reached this point, they also touched upon something slightly different.
"…Is that so."
The moment I regressed.
Where had this cycle's Cheon Hwi gone—the one who had been sharpening his vengeance beneath the heel of those unorthodox bastards?
The answer was simple.
He had been devoured by the current me and vanished.
The young Cheon Hwi was gone, leaving only the Sword Demon, who had weathered every storm imaginable.
It was possible that the me of this timeline could have remained as I was, merely recalling memories from before the regression—or perhaps both versions could have coexisted in my mind, sharing the same body.
At a point where something as absurd as regression was possible, this much was nothing at all.
But all these possibilities were ruled out, and it seemed that the me from before the regression had devoured and overwritten my younger self.
Perhaps, like the Slaughter King, my younger self's consciousness was lying dormant deep beneath the surface.
Maybe he was watching my every move through a blurred vision, as if from the depths of dark water.
In a single timeline, only one version of the same person can exist.
If I assumed that the heavens, which had now averted their gaze, had established such a rule… then both the regression I experienced and the Slaughter King's sealed consciousness could be explained in one stroke.
The deeper I dug, the more my head spun.
The current me was undoubtedly a powerhouse with no equal even in the Central Plains. If I excluded the Heavenly Demon, I could dare to call myself the foremost not only in the Outer Murim but across the Western Regions I had never even visited.
Yet even someone like me could only feel helpless before the power left behind by the beings above the heavens.
If this was merely a fraction of the power left behind on earth, then just how strong was the original body?
I knew that this was the realm of immortals and Buddhas who had transcended humanity, but I couldn't help feeling a strange sense of helplessness.
The Illusion Witch had once said that her ascension to immortality had been blocked at some point.
I thought I understood the reason now.
In the distant past, there would barely be one or two Harmony Realm martial artists in an entire era. Now, if you combined the Murim and the Imperial Court, there were probably dozens.
If ascension hadn't been blocked, then that many more people would have shed their mortal shells, and those who possessed such absurd power would have multiplied over time as well.
It went without saying that some of them would harbor malicious intentions.
If there existed beings who abused regression with ill intent, turning the world into chaos wouldn't be a difficult feat either.
The heavens are merciless. A vast force that flows only according to the natural order, with no concept of good or evil, and no compassion.
The heavens must have judged as they watched the number of those who reached the realm of immortals and buddhas continue to grow.
For the sake of preserving the natural order, ascension had to be severed.
…And the Heavenly Demon is burning with fighting spirit against beings like these.
Having undergone countless regressions, having long since uncovered both what I know and what I don't, he must understand the heavens even better than I do.
And yet, he genuinely intends to land a real blow.
I cannot deny that his methods are gravely flawed, but I have no choice but to acknowledge the poison energy and patience he harbors.
Perhaps it's because the higher one climbs, the more one sees. I can no longer hate the Heavenly Demon as blindly as I once did.
Of course, that doesn't mean my course of action will change.
After all, isn't the Heavenly Demon burning the Central Plains and piling its corpses into a tower?
As long as everything I've sworn to protect remains on this land, I must bring down the Heavenly Demon.
If I, like the Heavenly Demon, were to repeat regression endlessly, perhaps my thoughts would differ.
But that's a matter for when the time comes.
What matters most to me has always been what is held in my arms right now.
I steadied my mind with a deep breath and opened my mouth.
"I roughly understand the situation. Time is short, so if you have something to say, say it first."
"…Thank you."
The Slaughter King forced back the blood he was about to vomit and continued speaking.
"Mu-a-mu-mang."
"Hm?"
"If you intend to face the Heavenly Demon… remember these words…"
"What do you mean?"
"Please… stop before you go too far…"
With those final words, the Slaughter King's breath ceased.
I looked down at his corpse for a moment. His eyes were wide open, but the expression on his face was one of peace, not resentment or pain.
Then I slowly closed his eyelids and let out a long sigh.
"For now… I'll remember this."
Muamu-mang. I had no idea what it meant, but there was no way the last moment of the self-awareness I had fought so hard to reclaim had been wasted on nonsense.
I decided to look into it separately and rose to my feet.
Despite the commotion around us, the women had been waiting quietly by my side for the Slaughter King and me to finish our conversation. I gave them a faint smile.
"Well. Looks like it's truly over now."
Only then did their expressions relax. I confirmed this, then scooped up Seomun Hwa-rin, who was still leaning half her weight against me.
"W-Wait, you? In front of everyone like this, it's a bit embarrassing."
"What are you talking about? You have many injuries, so you need to receive treatment right away. I'm taking you to a physician, so prepare to be lying down for a while."
"Ahh."
Only then did Seomun Hwa-rin realize she was injured. Her face scrunched up slightly.
Now that the tension had eased, the pain and fatigue were finally catching up to her, belatedly.
As they moved along, with Tang So-wol administering emergency first aid, Seomun Hwa-rin, who had curled up to make it easier to carry, glanced back and asked.
"By the way, you."
"Yes?"
"I did break quite a few things in the process of dealing with the Slaughter King, though…"
"Ah."
This was Seomun Hwa-rin, who had previously shown the power to blow away a small building with a single punch and slam a house-sized Spirit Beast into the ground.
And hadn't she been swinging her Fist Strikes wildly, faster and stronger than ever, infused with the Mystery of the Thunderclap Sword?
Naturally, the place where she had fought was now a mess—so much so that calling it "destroyed" would be an understatement.
It wasn't just a matter of buildings being broken. You'd have to worry first about bringing in soil to fill the craters she'd left behind.
"Uhm… Do I need to compensate for this later? Considering the reconstruction of the Seomun Clan, I can't exactly rule out financial concerns… You're probably more used to this sort of thing than I am, aren't you?"
"Hmm."
What flashed through my mind in that instant was the Murim Alliance's front gate, cleaved clean in two as I cut down the eunuch and the Slaughter King in a single stroke.
To be precise, everything along the path from where we stood to the front gate had been split in two.
Property damage far more spectacular than even Seomun Hwa-rin's handiwork.
But I wasn't worried.
"The Murim Alliance Leader will handle it somehow, so there's no need for concern."
"Is that so? Surely even he can't just wave away damage of this scale."
"Yes. It's truly fine. …There's a suitable pretext I can use."
The Blood Poison Wine that the Murim Alliance Leader had stockpiled out of distrust for me. If I converted that resentment into a monetary value, it would roughly cover the repair costs.
"I think I can roughly gloss over it."
"…"
Seomun Hwa-rin looked at me with a complicated expression, then squeezed her eyes shut.
She was surely admiring my logical and well-reasoned calculations.
Or not.
***
A few days later. The Imperial Court officially lent its strength to the Orthodox-Unorthodox Alliance, providing funds to cover the Murim Alliance's repair costs.
The Murim Alliance Leader's loyalty had grown.
"Isn't this also because I defeated the Slaughter King and protected the Martial Princess? If you're grateful, you could just say so, Alliance Leader."
"Y-You…! Why don't you just get lost!"
The Murim Alliance Leader swung his staff in a fit of rage.
Of course, he was subdued within a few exchanges.
I just can't understand it…