- …It seems he had already reached his limit.

- …….

- …He is not dead, but his heart rate has dropped significantly. Even if he wakes up, his condition will likely not be optimistic.

- …I will keep that in mind.

- …Call me when he wakes up. I will check his condition again.

A brief conversation took place inside the thatched house.

Creeak—

Having finished the old man's diagnosis and first aid, Jerry opened the door and came out.

Huuup—

Fwooo—

“…Smoking in an enclosed space is not good etiquette.”

“What do you mean, enclosed? Look how high up we are… If you don't like it, you can smoke too.”

“……”

“Want one?”

“…I'll politely decline.”

Just as the hazy cigarette smoke embroidered the air before gently scattering and vanishing, that guy Jerry asked in a low voice.

“…Did you know?”

“What?”

“…He put it indirectly, but it seems he doesn't have more than a few hours left. It looked like he used up all his remaining stamina in the fight with you.”

“Well… more or less.”

From the moment I first met him, his reaction to sound was minutely slow.

That meant there was already something wrong with his hearing, the last bastion of his five senses, so I had guessed that the old man's end was not far off.

…Though I hadn't expected him to collapse so suddenly.

“…How cruel. To hasten a life that had so little time left.”

I paused for a moment, not immediately understanding his words, then asked just in case.

“Are you… seriously thinking I picked a fight with that old man on purpose to kill him?”

“…Am I wrong?”

“You son of a—!”

His nonchalant retort almost made me curse out loud, but given the situation, I suppressed the urge by taking a deep drag of my cigarette instead.

“…What in the world do you take me for?”

“…Weren't you someone who doesn't care about the means to an end?”

“……”

“…That's how I saw you.”

Fwooo—

He wasn't wrong, but I wasn't such a scoundrel that I'd mess with someone else's life when they had so little of it left.

On the contrary.

『…I have a regret. If only I had met you a little sooner, Orabeoni… Perhaps Father could have closed his eyes without worry.』

『…….』

『That is my regret.』

If possible, before that old man crossed over to the afterlife.

I had been in a hurry to let him know that a third path existed—one where he wouldn't have to suffer the divine sickness from the Demonic Sword, nor give up his five senses like that—and this was the result.

“I'm ticked off, so I'm gonna have one too.”

“……?”

“Give me a light.”

That girl Loxy, who had approached at some point, casually pulled a cigarette from the pack, stuck it in her mouth, and grabbed my hand to light it.

Fwooo—

“There's one thing I don't understand.”

Then, she exhaled a hazy cloud of smoke into the air just like me and began with a fresh smile.

“What is it?”

“From what I heard from the other side, it felt like this ‘Demonic Cult’ you're trying to re-establish is something of a public enemy.”

“Well, for now, that's right.”

“…Then what was that talk in the middle? About being sacrificed for Murim, or saving Murim. It seems there's a story I don't know.”

…It was an expected question.

‘The villains of 100 years ago.’

Just as Blindman Shim had mentioned, not only outsiders but nearly all Murim-in perceived the Demonic Cult in that way.

That guy Jerry seemed to have the same question, as he added a word to Loxy's query.

“…That was a part I didn't understand either. I thought I had solved all the puzzles with the fact that the old man was the successor to the Heavenly Demon… But I couldn't comprehend that statement.”

“……”

“What exactly is this destiny of the Heavenly Demon (Demonic Cult)? Didn't the Heavenly Demon lead the Demonic Cult to invade Murim?”

Pfft—

To someone who knew the truth, the story was laughable.

The Demonic Cult.

If not for the successive Heavenly Demons, Murim would have probably been destroyed long ago.

…And that was why I could better understand Blindman Shim's extreme choice to give up the succession of the Demonic Sword itself.

“The Great War of Righteousness and Demons that happened 100 years ago.”

Instead of answering the question directly, I threw one back at them, telling them to think about it.

“How many of those do you think there have been?”

“…Huh?”

“…What do you mean by that?”

The exact reaction I expected.

“The 17th.”

At the short answer that followed, Loxy's face and Jerry's brow colored with shock.

“It was the 17th Great War of Righteousness and Demons held on this land of Murim.”

“……”

“Of course, it was only a ‘Righteous-Demonic’ War in name.

The Demonic Cult and the Murim Alliance never once fought. On the contrary, they joined forces against a common enemy.”

…It went without saying, but this was a fact completely unknown to the public.

Just as those two had believed until now, the vast majority of Murim-in knew nothing of the truth of the Great War of Righteousness and Demons.

Including the Imperial Family, those who knew the full story numbered less than ten; it was a secret treated as top-class within Murim.

Neither the fact that the Great War of Righteousness and Demons had been repeating for over hundreds of years, nor the fact that a ‘clash between the righteous Murim Alliance and the evil Demonic Cult’ had never actually occurred.

“…Then. Who in the world were they fighting?”

Most people did not know.

* * *

The origins of the Demonic Cult trace back to ancient times.

A distant past when neither the Demon King nor The Order had appeared.

There was no established hierarchy like the Four Factions and One Clan or the Nine Factions and One Clan, and it was a Warring States Period where over twenty small nations in various regions fought over each other's territory.

In the fractured lands of Murim, wars broke out almost daily, and chaotic days continued where it was not strange for one’s country's territory today to become another's tomorrow.

Then one day, a strange rumor began to circulate in the already chaotic lands of Murim.

‘Magical Beasts that hunt people.’

That a hideous and giant Magical Beast had appeared in the Shandong region at the edge of the eastern coast, and that the surrounding Magical Beasts, influenced by it, were running rampant and hunting people.

A bizarre rumor, hard to believe.

The rumor spread quickly, soon reaching the northernmost edge of Murim, and though the entire Murim came to know of the bizarre rumor, people paid it little mind.

Back then, Magical Beasts were nothing more than a disorderly rabble, busy devouring each other.

They were thought to be unremarkable beings that could be defeated anytime if people joined forces.

…Instead, they feared the king of the neighboring country coveting their territory and the subordinates who could aim for their position at any time.

But that situation did not last long.

Like a snowball rolling down a winter slope, the rumor they had dismissed as nothing important began to grow exponentially in size.

The rumor of a strange Magical Beast appearing in a corner had, before anyone knew it, turned into an urgent request for help against a ‘horrifying Magical Beast’ that had swallowed two nations whole.

Only after direct requests for aid and ceasefire agreements came from neighboring countries that shared a border did the Murim realize the gravity of the situation.

But by the time the many nations of Murim realized the severity of the situation, they had already missed the golden window.

While people ignored and turned away from its existence, the horde of crazed Magical Beasts, which had bred by feeding on human bodies and learned Murim's unique Traits, had become veterans of hunting humans.

Facing the collective attack of Magical Beasts for the first time, Murim began to collapse helplessly.

And into that terrible, chaotic era, ‘two heroes’ appeared.

One was the of the Murim Empire, who unified all of Murim based on his overwhelming leadership.

The other was the , who, despite being ignored by the people, had faced the monster head-on ever since it first appeared on the Shandong Peninsula.

Having learned of each other's existence out of necessity, they recognized each other's power and abilities at a glance and understood their respective roles without any particular explanation or conversation.

The Emperor searched far and wide and discovered that the identity of the horrifying Magical Beast agitating the surrounding ones was a ‘Primordial Demonic Beast’.

He found out that it was a disaster-class monster that had never appeared in the lands of Murim before, but had already destroyed several regions and nations in other parts of the continent.

As soon as he unified Murim, he declared an all-out war against the Primordial Demonic Beast.

He gathered all of Murim's strength and formed a frontline against the horde of crazed Magical Beasts commanded by the monster.

And the Heavenly Demon,

performed an irreplaceable role in the deepest part of that frontline.

Huuup—

“…An irreplaceable role?”

As I paused and took a drag from my cigarette, Loxy, unable to wait, pressed on.

Fwooo—

“…The first Emperor of Murim managed to find a few survivors who had witnessed the Primordial Demonic Beast in person.”

“……”

“Not a single one of them was sane. Strong or weak, it didn't matter; all of them were steeped in terror.”

“…So the Primordial Demonic Beast's mental interference also worked on humans.”

Nod—

“They repeated disjointed words, spewed contextless exclamations, and would try to commit suicide the moment you looked away… all for the sole reason of having seen the Primordial Demonic Beast directly.”

“……”

“The only person who could be free from that dreadful mental interference was the ‘First Heavenly Demon’.”

Born with extraordinary qualities, only the Heavenly Demon, who was immune to the Primordial Demonic Beast's mental interference, could face the monster.

The Heavenly Demon humbly accepted the role that only he could fulfill.

“…And so, the war between the two heroes and the Primordial Demonic Beast continued for a long time, until the corpses of the sacrificed formed several mountains.”

“……”

“The Heavenly Demon's sword, swung with the resolve of mutual destruction, reached the Primordial Demonic Beast's heart. In the end, the Primordial Demonic Beast sank back into the abyss of the eastern coast from which it had risen.”

“……”

But even that was not the complete end of the disaster.

The sword the Heavenly Demon plunged into the Primordial Demonic Beast's heart only sealed its rampaging power; it couldn't completely extinguish its existence.

“Fortunately, the Heavenly Demon didn't sacrifice his life without a plan.”

“……”

“He left behind a bloodline to succeed him and, together with the first Emperor, made provisions for Murim's future.”

That bloodline succeeding the first Heavenly Demon was the Demonic Cult.

And the provision he left with the Emperor was a plausible crisis called the ‘Great War of Righteousness and Demons’.

“The first Heavenly Demon intuited that even if he succeeded in sealing it, the seal would not last forever. He determined that to seal the Primordial Demonic Beast again when it was eventually freed, he had to desperately prevent Murim from becoming fractured and divided as it was before.”

“……”

“After all, the situation had gotten so dire precisely because they were unaware of the terror of the Magical Beasts and spent their time fighting amongst themselves.”

…Of course, there was the option of leaving detailed records of the Primordial Demonic Beast, but a threat sleeping unseen beneath the sea is bound to be diluted by the passage of time.

He believed that for Murim to consistently gather its strength as one, it needed a powerful, centralized system based on the Imperial Family, along with a powerful external enemy.

Therefore, the first Heavenly Demon entrusted the role of the villain to his successors, the Demonic Cult.

Whenever the seal on the Primordial Demonic Beast weakened and crazed Magical Beasts began to appear one by one, they would reseal it, continuing the tradition through the generations.

In the end, the 17 Great Wars of Righteousness and Demons that occurred in the land of Murim were not instances of the Demonic Cult attacking Murim.

They were the sublime process of the Heavenly Demon of that era sacrificing their life to re-seal the Primordial Demonic Beast.

Despite protecting Murim with their lives, having to bear infamy to maintain Murim's unity —that was the destiny of the Heavenly Demon and the Demonic Cult.

“…That's one fucked-up destiny.”

A brief silence fell after Loxy's low-voiced remark.

I lightly stomped out my finished cigarette butt and stared at the closed door of the thatched house.

…I felt sorry for them, but unfortunately, I wasn't telling this story because they had asked. I was telling it for someone inside to hear.

Creeak—

Sure enough. The firmly shut door gently opened.

“…A moment. I would like to have a word with you.”

Cheong-yi requested a conversation with me.