Return of the Mount Hua

I wish it would last. (10)

ROTMHS Glossary || About page

“Have you forgotten, Second Bishop?”

The Archbishop asked calmly in a steady, tranquil voice, as if even the Second Bishop’s openly revealed killing intent were nothing much to him.

No, that might be a wrong interpretation born of failing to understand the Archbishop. Perhaps, to the Archbishop, everything other than the Heavenly Demon held no value. Even his own life.

“Faith is not about seeking rewards. Faith is not about searching for meaning. Faith, by its very nature, is sacred.”

Heavenly Executioner’s expression twisted. Even at this sight, the Archbishop merely went on speaking in an even tone.

“Why must we attach meaning to their deaths? To die while waiting for the descent of the Supreme Heavenly Demon is the greatest blessing a believer can enjoy. Why do you not see that regarding this as punishment and suffering is, from the very start, proof that doubt has taken root in your heart?”

“Ha…. Haha.”

Heavenly Executioner shook his head.

“Doubt? You call that doubt?”

“Do you intend to deny it?”

“You stupid fool!”

Boooom!

Heavenly Executioner’s demonic energy burst explosively in all directions.

“Do you intend to justify everything under the guise of faith?”

“That is still better than those who excuse their lack of devotion under the hollow pretense of ‘enlightenment’.”

The Archbishop rebuked him coldly.

“This is your last chance. Repent. I have no desire to kill one of the few, who know His greatness, with my own hands.”

At the Archbishop’s words, Heavenly Executioner’s lips twisted into a bitter smile.

Anger? He felt no such thing. He had no reason to.

From the beginning, he and the Archbishop were almost complete opposites. Looking back, it was astonishing that he had managed to live facing the Archbishop for so long.

Expecting values hardened over long years to change easily would be nothing but greed. Heavenly Executioner spoke as though making a declaration.

“Archbishop. I will go to the Central Plains, leading those who follow me.”

“I cannot permit that.”

“I am not asking for your permission. If you try to stop me, I will break through.”

The Archbishop’s lips twisted in a strange way. In the eyes that had seemed so calm, a chilly light flickered.

“So you cast aside even your last chance.”

“I’m simply pursuing my faith in my own way.”

“…”

“If the Heavenly Demon truly thought of us, He would not have wished for us to shrivel and wither away in a place like this. If this is truly the outcome He desired, then He is not worthy of our devotion.”

“A God does not prove Himself. He simply exists.”

“Then rot away here. I will go and seek Him.”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than the bishops who had retreated began to slowly close in around the Heavenly Executioner. Watching this, he felt an uncontrollable urge to kill and, at the same time, a faint wave of sorrow.

A believer who has lost his God is, in the end, such a weak being.

Some doubt, some howl in despair. If one could exist wholly on one’s own without a God in the first place, there would be no need to lean on faith.

‘Is this truly what You wished for, O Heavenly Demon.’

Heavenly Executioner’s hand became enveloped in dense demonic energy.

He advanced. Even if it meant staining his hands with the blood of the believers.

The question the young bishop had conveyed to him through his death. It was now time for Heavenly Executioner to give that question an answer.

“Come.”

Before long, the great hall was thickly dyed with the bishops’ demonic energy.

And then Heavenly Executioner realized it. That at some point, he had turned to look behind him.

‘What…..?’

How in the world was he supposed to describe this sensation?

It was closer to the feeling that the world had been cut clean through and then patched up back together. The act of turning around had nothing to do with his own will. It was as if another self had secretly moved his body.

His thoughts did not run on for long.

His gaze had already followed the wide-open door. The place where the highest of the cult had gathered to sit in judgment upon the cult’s most exalted being. A door that, by rights, no one should ever have dared to open stood flung wide.

It was truly a bizarre sight. The open door felt like a crack that should never have existed.

Heavenly Executioner’s gaze was wholly seized by the one who then stepped through that open door.

“Who is that?”

The first emotion he sensed was a chilling degree of ‘unfamiliarity’.

It was a face that did not exist anywhere in his memories. In this moment, when a completely unfamiliar existence stood in a place where no outsider should ever be allowed to enter, an indescribably suffocating sense of wrongness swallowed Heavenly Executioner whole.

As if uncontrollable muddy waters were swirling violently through his mind, Heavenly Executioner gasped for breath. And then he recognized. He felt it. He realized it, understood it.

That it was impossible for him to be shaken to this extent merely because the person who had appeared before his eyes was an unfamiliar stranger.

Some premonition beyond conscious recognition surged in.

This was truly a monumental encounter.

The unfamiliar figure moved his feet. No sound or sign accompanied the motion. Though he plainly stood there in front of their eyes, there was nothing of substance one could feel from him. The frayed hem of his clothes, his roughened skin, and faded hair from being caked in dust made that stranger look like a human being, and yet like something not human at all.

More than anything…..

‘Those eyes.’

Could eyes like those truly exist in this world?

They seemed to hold far too much, and at the same time, nothing at all. The only thing drifting in that gaze was an absolute nothingness that had gone beyond mere emptiness.

The emptiness and futility radiating from his eyes seemed not only to swallow Heavenly Executioner, but completely suffocate him.

He tried to do something, anything, but Heavenly Executioner could not move. All he could do was remain frozen, as if crushed beneath a boulder that had lain unmoving for ten thousand years.

But it seemed not everyone was like Heavenly Executioner.

“Who are you?”

One of the bishops in the great hall stepped in front of the man, blocking his path. He lashed out in a voice tinged with displeasure and anger.

“Just what kind of place do you think this is, to dare set foot here?!”

No matter that he belonged to a generation that had never gone through the Great War, a bishop was still a bishop. There were not many who could stand calmly before the wrath poured out by such a man.

But in that moment, Heavenly Executioner clearly saw that the bishop blocking the way did not exist within ‘his’ gaze.

As if the bishop standing in his way simply did not exist, ‘he’ continued his slow steps exactly as before. As though that alone were the reason for his existence.

“Can you not hear what I’m sayi…”

Instead of reacting, ‘he’ slowly stretched out his hand.

It was the sort of motion one would make when brushing away something bothersome. No, even that was too grand a description. It was a light, small movement that seemed almost meaningless.

What followed was an unbelievable phenomenon.

Splat!

The bishop’s body, which had been blocking his way, turned into a fountain of blood in an instant and scattered in all directions.

Splash!

Red blood spattered across Heavenly Executioner’s face, almost as if someone had flung it at him.

And yet Heavenly Executioner felt nothing at all. Not the heat of the blood, nor its metallic tang. Blankly, he touched his own cheek. His fingertips came away smeared with sticky blood. That blood, already beginning to cool, was the last trace that the man called bishop had ever existed in this world.

The result lay plain before his eyes, and yet he could not comprehend a single part of it. He had watched without missing even a heartbeat as a human being turned into blood, but he had no way of knowing by what principle, by what process, such a thing had happened.

“….This…….”

Only one thing had been permitted to him. To accept everything that had occurred. To simply accept a phenomenon he could not understand.

Yes, was this not what the world called faith?

Squelch.

The unfamiliar man, wearing nothing on his feet, stepped down into the pool of blood gathered on the floor.

Squelch. Squelch.

Those footsteps were now turned towards the Heavenly Executioner. Knowing this, he still could do nothing.

His movements, his breathing, even the simple act of existing had become difficult to control on his own. It had been that way from the moment ‘he’ has appeared. It felt as though everything that existed in this place could do so only with his permission.

Splash. Squelch.

At last, he came to stand right in front of Heavenly Executioner.

Squelch.

In that moment that felt like eternity, where Heavenly Executioner couldn’t even breathe, ‘he’ simply walked past and continued on his way, without so much as casting him a single glance.

It was as if the world had frozen and come to a halt. In that moment, everyone except ‘him’ could only look upon what was happening before their eyes as if it were a dream.

Thud.

One person collapsed as if crumbling, falling to his knees on the spot.

“Oh… Ooooh. Ohhh….”

It was the Archbishop.

The face always covered with a mask of tranquility was now drenched in tears.

“Have You… come? At long last… at long last, have You finally come?”

He, the highest and most exalted in the cult, could no longer remain merely on his knees. He crawled on all fours towards the man. He did not dare trespass upon the path where the man walked, and instead, beside that path, he prostrated himself in full five-point obeisance [오체투지(五體投地) – glossary], bowing his head to the floor.

“The lowly servant of the cult… at last beholds the Exalted One.”

‘He’ passed by the weeping old bishop without the slightest reaction.

Squelch.

His blood-soaked feet at last stepped onto the worn steps.

Step. Step. Step.

After slowly climbing the five steps, he turned and sat upon the jade throne. Then, he slowly leaned his body back against the backrest.

Watching the man sink into it in languid repose, they all came to understand. That throne had existed from the very beginning for him alone.

There was only one action left for all of them to take.

Thud. Thud.

The bishops’ knees gave way one by one, folding as if collapsing on the spot.

Some were overwhelmed with joy, some were paralyzed with terror. Others struggled to suppress lingering doubts that had not yet fully left their hearts.

Whatever they might be feeling, their actions were all the same.

Reason and explanations alike had faded to nothing. By his sudden appearance alone, by mere existence, he had convinced them all.

The Heavenly Demon. The one who would proclaim the end of the world.

“Ah…….”

At last, even Heavenly Executioner lowered his stiff knees to the floor.

He understood.

Why he had waited for so long. And how he and the Grand Elder had been able to remain together despite being so ill-suited to one another.

Everything that countless years had stolen from him returned in that moment. A hazy film of tears gathered in eyes long weathered and faded by time’s relentless winds.

“The Heavenly Demon manifests. Ten Thousand Demons Pay Homage*.”

Heavenly Executioner prostrated himself and bowed his head low.

“The servants of the cult dare to behold the Heavenly Demon!”

All the bishops struck their foreheads against the floor in unison.

It was an overwhelming sight, but the Heavenly Demon did not so much as cast them a glance. His gaze was fixed on some far-off place. His eyes, like the dried-up bed of a lake, seemed no longer capable of holding anything at all.

The emptiness that coiled around the Heavenly Demon spread out in all directions. A void as vast as the great sea slowly pressed down on them all, to the point that it was hard to even summon the concept of defiance.

How much more time passed?

After sitting on the jade throne for so long, simply existing there and nothing more, the Heavenly Demon faintly twitched. Something small rose up in those once-empty eyes, as if he had barely, just barely, fished it up from some remote, unfathomable depth.

The emotion that at last surfaced was faint, but dramatic.

The faintly trembling gaze was like that of a man agonizing to understand what it was he had just dredged up from within himself.

A very dim light came to rest in those unfocused eyes.

“…san.”

His voice, thick and hoarse, rang out softly. It was so quiet that no one could have heard it without straining their ears.

“…..Hwasan.”

In that moment, the wheel long frozen in place, began to turn once more.

Towards an end no one could foresee.

Hiatus Announcement >>>

________

*천마현신 (天魔現身) – cheonma manifests in flesh. 만마앙복 (萬魔仰伏) – ten thousand demons revere/submit/prostrate. 

________

CHEONMA YOU ARE FINALLY HERE!!! Oh wow, as someone really biased, i love all the chapters involving the cult. But this was truly epic.

________

Please, subscribe/donate on Patreon or Buymeacoffee – support my work and help me buy official cookies to purchase the chapters. My schedule is on the About page.