Chapter 01

The scent of blood filled the Heavenly Demon Hall.

The once-glorious palace had long since become a massive slaughterhouse.

At its center, seated upon a throne drenched in blood, the Heavenly Demon parted his lips.

“Only this much, and you dared…?”

Between the shattered pillars, the corpses of those who had pointed their blades at him were piled like mountains.

Not long ago, they had been the elders and protectors of the Demonic Cult who knelt at his feet and swore their loyalty.

Shock, disbelief, and belated regret were grotesquely etched across their frozen faces.

Slowly lowering his gaze, he looked down at his own rapidly cooling body.

His left arm had been severed, and dozens of deep wounds covered him from head to toe.

A bitter smile surfaced within him as he reflected on his past.

He had been an orphan with no one in the world.

To avoid starving to death, he had fought like a beast over scraps of discarded food.

Even those scraps were stolen from him more often than not.

As a result, instead of his stomach filling, malice filled his heart.

One day, while throwing desperate punches fueled by resentment just to survive—

A martial artist approached him and extended a hand.

“You have talent for martial arts. Follow me, and I’ll make sure you never starve to death.”

Hope.

The hope of escaping hunger.

He had no choice but to follow.

The martial artist who took him in walked silently ahead without offering any explanation.

Their destination was a massive, gloomy mountain gate that bore no signboard.

Only then, overwhelmed by the sinister mixture of bloodlust and the smell of death, did he realize where he had arrived.

The Demonic Cult.

And yet, for a brief moment, he had been happy.

At least he would not starve there.

…What a foolish illusion that had been.

The Heavenly Demon let out a bitter laugh.

Life in the Demonic Cult.

There, death lingered even closer, wearing a far crueler face.

To survive, he swung his sword and climbed over countless corpses.

An endless cycle of struggle.

And at the end of that endless struggle, he became the man who stood above all others—the Heavenly Demon.

Yet not a single night had he slept in peace.

Not for a single moment had he been allowed to live for himself.

The Heavenly Demon was the lord of ten thousand demons.

He was the very reason the Demonic Cult existed.

If he stopped, everything would collapse.

But who could have imagined that the end of that relentless race would be such an ugly betrayal?

Even the Young Cult Leader raised his sword against me.

The Young Cult Leader, to whom he had passed down everything, was now nothing more than a lump of flesh lying cold upon the floor.

…It all would have become yours soon enough. Foolish boy.

It was all so empty.

Cough!

Dark blood spilled from his mouth as a violent fit of coughing overtook him.

His gaze drifted to the blood staining the back of his hand.

It felt strangely unfamiliar.

How long had it been since he had seen so much of his own blood up close?

The metallic scent tickled his nose.

Yet it was no different from the blood of the traitors strewn before him.

Just another disgusting smell.

That’s right. My blood was no different from theirs.

It has merely been so long that I forgot what it smelled like.

Was it the first time since crossing swords with Namgung Mugang, that stubborn bastard?

As a self-mocking smile appeared on his face—

“Ugh…”

Someone staggered upright from among the pile of corpses.

It was the Great Protector, who had served the Heavenly Demon like a shadow his entire life.

In a pitiful state, he slowly approached the throne.

Leaning back, the Heavenly Demon watched him come.

“…You’ve finally returned to your original eye level, Great Protector.”

The Great Protector collapsed to his knees before him.

The broken sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

“Heavenly Demon…”

“Why?”

The Heavenly Demon asked.

There was no anger.

No resentment.

Only unbearable emptiness and exhaustion.

The Great Protector raised his head with difficulty.

“This too… is merely the result of struggle. Was this not the Demonic Path you showed us…?”

With those final words, his head dropped lifelessly.

The Heavenly Demon looked down at the cooling corpse.

The result of struggle, huh.

A contemptuous smile tugged at his lips.

What a shallow imitation.

True struggle loses all meaning the moment one is defeated.

He felt no sympathy for the former subordinate who had failed to truly understand the path he taught.

Only contempt remained.

Contempt for the fool who had distorted his teachings.

Still… I wasn’t bored.

Though he had executed every traitor, the price had been everything he possessed.

Gradually, everything began fading away.

The smell of blood.

The deathly silence filling the Heavenly Demon Hall.

Even the pain.

His gaze settled on the sword clenched in his hand.

A blade glowing with a faint azure light.

Once it had been pointed at him.

Afterward, it had spent half his life in his hands, cutting down countless enemies.

Namgung Mugang…

The name of the man who had given him that sword surfaced clearly in his mind.

In the end… I couldn’t keep my promise.

He remembered the day they had cast aside everything and crossed swords.

His lifelong rival.

The only man he had truly acknowledged from the depths of his heart.

How many times had he dreamed of their final duel?

Of seeing its conclusion?

Never had he imagined he would perish like this because of ugly betrayal and the suffocating shackles of the Demonic Path.

A faint smile appeared on his bloodstained lips.

Self-mockery and longing intertwined.

I truly miss those days…

That was his final thought.

His blood-soaked eyelids grew heavy.

At last, the world sank into darkness.

The man who had raced endlessly along the path of survival and struggle to stand at the pinnacle of the Demonic Path—

The Heavenly Demon, Cheon Myeonghyeon.

Thus ended his life.

Leaving behind only the regret of a promise unfulfilled.

* * *

Endless darkness.

Ah, so this was death.

Just as a light ceases to shine when extinguished, people said that when a person dies, everything disappears.

They had been right.

The name Heavenly Demon, which once shook the world.

The peerless martial arts he had built through countless brushes with death.

Even the pain of betrayal and the emptiness of his final moments.

None of it held any meaning anymore.

An absolute void where everything slowly faded away.

Perhaps this was the perfect rest he had longed for throughout his life.

Calmly, he accepted the end of all things.

A life spent running without pause.

If its destination was this infinite darkness, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad ending.

Everything dissolving and returning to nothingness.

That was the natural order.

How much time passed?

Or did time even exist here?

Then, within the eternal stillness—

A tiny point of light appeared in the distance, smaller than the eye of a needle.

…Light?

He had thought all perception had vanished.

Then what was that?

A hallucination?

The light was faint, yet undeniably real.

And strangely, he felt compelled to move toward it.

He did not hesitate.

After all, he had nothing left to lose and no regrets remaining.

The final fragment of his consciousness naturally drifted toward the light.

It grew closer and closer.

And the moment he was swallowed by it—

A violent dizziness struck him as countless sensations flooded in like a storm.

“Ghk!”

The first thing he felt when he regained awareness was pain.

His head felt as though it were splitting apart.

Every bone in his body creaked as though dislocated.

“Huff… Huff…”

Each breath burned his lungs.

Then—

…Breathing?

A dead man should not be able to breathe.

Forcing open his heavy eyelids, he looked around.

His blurry vision revealed hundreds of swords stretching endlessly before him.

So many swords were embedded in the ground that it resembled a graveyard of blades.

At the same time, unfamiliar memories poured into his mind like a flood.

Namgung Cheon.

The youngest son of the Namgung Clan.

That was the name of this body.

“Namgung…?”

He muttered the name.

It was a familiar one.

One of the Five Great Noble Clans under Heaven.

The clan renowned as the greatest sword family in the martial world.

In his memories, the Namgung Clan had always stood at the center of the jianghu, wielding immense influence.

…They were formidable, indeed.

The memories that followed were not Namgung Cheon’s, but those of the Heavenly Demon.

The Great War between the Orthodox and Demonic factions.

At the time, he had been the Young Cult Leader.

And the Namgung Clan had been one of the central pillars of the Orthodox Alliance.

They had always been a troublesome enemy.

Always at the forefront, blocking the Demonic Cult’s advance.

Even he, as Young Cult Leader, had personally entered battle many times to suppress their momentum.

Each time, he paid a considerable price.

And then…

Among those vivid memories of war, one figure stood out above the rest.

A young man who had already mastered the Namgung swordsmanship and wielded a blue Sword Aura.

Namgung Mugang.

The man expected to become the next Clan Head.

The father of this Namgung Cheon… and the current Clan Head.

To think he had reincarnated into the body of the son of his former rival.

A laugh escaped him.

The thought of seeing Namgung Mugang again felt strangely amusing.

Though, of course, the man would never recognize him.

Nor did he intend to reveal himself.

It was merely a curious twist of fate.

This is no time for sentimentality.

Quickly returning to reality, he examined the Namgung Clan through Namgung Cheon’s memories.

The Clan Head, Namgung Mugang, had been absent for a long time.

As a result, the clan was in turmoil.

Schemes and plots were everywhere.

The sons of a tiger who failed to live up to their father’s name were running rampant.

…Neglect, or tempering? Hard to say.

There was no need to understand Namgung Mugang’s intentions right now.

It had little to do with him at the moment.

What mattered was the reality of the body he now inhabited.

Namgung Cheon.

He was little more than an invisible youngest son amidst the clan’s power struggles.

Neither particularly diligent in training nor known for any remarkable talent.

People whispered that he possessed talent but lacked ambition.

And in truth, they were right.

Namgung Cheon hated competition.

Avoided difficult matters whenever possible.

And simply drifted through life quietly.

Why…?

The Heavenly Demon could not understand.

No matter how talented his older brothers were.

No matter how unstable his position.

He was still a direct descendant of the greatest sword clan under heaven.

That name alone should have been enough to grant him countless opportunities.

Digging deeper into the memories, fragments of Namgung Cheon’s childhood surfaced.

There had been moments when he displayed extraordinary insight into the sword.

But those flashes quickly disappeared.

And he willingly buried himself within the shell of mediocrity.

…I see.

A possibility crossed his mind.

Perhaps Namgung Cheon had understood too early.

The storm that talent inevitably attracted.

The desperate struggle required to survive within it.

The jealousy of siblings.

Endless tests and competition.

Perhaps he had become so sick of it all that he chose to abandon everything.

Concealing his brilliance.

Hiding behind the shadow of ordinariness.

Seeking a peaceful, uneventful life.

Ridiculous.

To bury one’s own potential with one’s own hands.

He could neither understand nor sympathize.

It was the exact opposite of the life he had lived.

A coward who runs from fear will never find peace.

He will merely become prey for someone stronger.

A smile formed on his lips.

Your weakness has become my opportunity.

So I won’t thank you. This is merely the natural result.

This body.

Its talent.

Everything Namgung Cheon should have possessed.

From this moment onward—

It all belonged to him.

Slowly, he rose to his feet.

Beyond the dim glow of oil lamps stretched countless swords.

Sword Soul Cave…

A rite of passage every blood descendant of the Namgung Clan underwent around adulthood.

Its primary purpose was the Selection of the Sword.

What nonsense.

A sword choosing its master?

And it’s amusing that not all the swords here even belong to the Namgung Clan.

The cave housed more than Namgung swords.

There were blades belonging to rivals who had crossed swords with Namgung warriors.

Legendary swords collected over generations.

A true treasury of blades.

And a graveyard.

For some mysterious reason, every sword within radiated a powerful aura.

So that’s why Namgung Cheon lost consciousness.

Someone with weak mental fortitude would struggle merely to endure the pressure filling the cave.

Thus, despite being called a sword-selection ceremony, most participants earned recognition simply by enduring and tempering their minds.

But if one were truly chosen by a sword…

Though it happened only once every few decades—

Those who received a genuine sword selection gained immense status and support within the clan.

Their chances of becoming Clan Head rose dramatically.

…A test disguised as a ceremony.

He recalled Namgung Cheon’s final memory.

Namgung Cheon had reached the deepest part of Sword Soul Cave—

The Ten Thousand Sword Mound.

And there, overwhelmed by the pressure of the swords, he had lost consciousness.

The entrance alone should have been difficult. Why did he come all the way here?

He pondered briefly, but it wasn’t important.

Only one thing mattered.

The former Heavenly Demon had been granted a second chance.

A new beginning.

In his previous life, he had lived constantly on the run, fighting to survive.

Even at the peak of the world, true peace had never existed.

Only suspicion.

Betrayal.

And endless struggle.

But now things were different.

This insignificant body of Namgung Cheon.

A person no one paid attention to.

Perhaps this was the perfect opportunity.

A chance to start everything anew.

His gaze slowly swept across the swords filling the Ten Thousand Sword Mound.

Hundreds of blades radiating their will.

To the former Namgung Cheon, it had been an unbearable terror.

Compared to the countless threats I faced in my previous life, this is nothing.

A smile spread across his face.

It didn’t matter if this body was ordinary.

I am a man who rose from nothing and created everything with my own hands.

The one who stood at the pinnacle of the Demonic Path.

Because he—

Was the Heavenly Demon.