If there is something to be gained, then there is always something to be lost. (1)
It could not be fully expressed by simply calling it absurd.
“You…”
Heavenly Executioner opened his mouth for a moment, but could not bring himself to finish. Only after identifying it once more – what this violent emotion churning within him was – could he open his mouth again.
“You want me to show you more?”
Heavenly Executioner realized it.
All the curses he had ever heard hurled at him, the most atrocious curses imaginable, even the cutting words that perhaps denied his very existence.
Even all of them put together… none could enrage him more than the words Chung Myung had just uttered.
Blood rushed to his head. Driven by rage, he felt as though his consciousness might fade away into nothing.
And yet there was only one reason Heavenly Executioner did not go mad and run amok. He still did not understand.
“What did you do?”
Heavenly Executioner felt along the wound on his shoulder. A second wound had been carved into his flesh.
But this wound was clearly different in nature from the first wound carved into his neck. The first one could be described as a mistake resulting from disregard and carelessness towards his opponent, but this was not.
‘How….’
There was no way for him to understand. How on earth had that man’s sword been able to touch his body?
‘Could this even be possible?’
Of course, someone might say that it was possible because his opponent was strong.
But the emotion Heavenly Executioner was feeling now was entirely different from that.
If a person’s throat were to be cut by a praying mantis, could it possibly be understood? Even if one granted that a mantis was among the stronger insects.
No matter how he thought about it, it was impossible. After all, the only injury a praying mantis could inflict on a human would be a small scratch.
In other words, that meant there could be no such thing as a human being killed by a praying mantis.
‘But I have been wounded.’
That was why Heavenly Executioner was confused. It was a fact that the sword had touched him, but he could not analyze how that had been possible.
“Tell me, unbeliever. What on earth did you do?”
There was only one person who could resolve this question, so he asked. But all that came back was ridicule.
“Since when… did a Bishop like you do nothing but flap his mouth instead of fighting?”
“…”
“If you want to know, come at me. You learn through your body – that was your way, wasn’t it.”
Heavenly Executioner’s gaze grew cold.
A sense of danger? There was no way such a thing existed.
But he could not deny that a strange excitement was swirling around him. Perhaps it was because the faint scent of ‘death’ brushed against the tip of his nose as the concept rose to mind – a concept that might have existed around him all along, but that he had forgotten for far too long.
Heavenly Executioner’s eyes emitted a blood-red glow.
“Fine. I can find out for myself!”
Fwoosh!
Heavenly Executioner tore through space as he charged at Chung Myung.
Kwaaang!
Chung Myung’s Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword, which had blocked Heavenly Executioner’s straight punch, twisted as though it might snap at any moment. Had he not wrapped it in internal energy to the fullest, even the Dark Fragrance Plum Blossom Sword would have become nothing more than a shattered chunk of scrap metal.
But it had blocked the attack.
At first, he had barely managed to survive, quite literally clinging to life, only by a margin as thin as a sheet of paper. But things were different now. Chung Myung’s sword was already taking position where Heavenly Executioner’s attacks would land. Chung Myung, too, was slowly but surely adapting to Heavenly Executioner’s speed.
But everything up to this point had been within Heavenly Executioner’s expectations.
The instant after Heavenly Executioner, who had driven his fist into the sword from the front, disappeared, his figure appeared behind Chung Myung.
Kwaaaaaaang!
If his opponent adapted, all Heavenly Executioner had to do was increase his speed. An absolute gap could not be narrowed. What he had built up through years of perseverance could not be overcome with a momentary resolve or sudden realization…
Slaaash!
“…”
At that moment, the skin at Heavenly Executioner’s temple split open, and a fountain of blood burst forth.
‘What?’
Had he been cut?
“You….!”
Grrrk.
“Uaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Kwaaang!
Heavenly Executioner kicked Chung Myung with all his strength. Flung away like an arrow, Chung Myung was slammed into the ground once more.
Shraaaaaak!
Even that failed to dissipate all the momentum, and his body was dragged along as he was pushed back, leaving a long trail across the earth.
“You wretched bastard!”
Kwang!
Heavenly Executioner kicked off the air. Transforming into a streak of lightning, he charged at Chung Myung, who had not yet managed to stop himself.
“I’ll crush you until not a single scrap of flesh remains!”
Whooooooosh!
A tremendous roar, like the sound of a great whistle, rang out as powerful demonic energy gathered in Heavenly Executioner’s right hand. Without a moment’s hesitation, he thrust out his hand.
Wooooooom!
Three streams of palm force, each having swelled to the size of a house, descended upon Chung Myung.
Boom! Boom! Booooooom!
Three explosions erupted almost simultaneously. For a fleeting instant, a triumphant gleam appeared in Heavenly Executioner’s blood-red eyes.
Slice.
Heavenly Executioner flinched and froze, then lowered his gaze.
The hem of his garment had been slashed in a long vertical line. Through the gap, a sword wound could be seen gushing blood. Heavenly Executioner stared blankly at the wound before slowly turning his head.
“Cough! Cough! Cough!”
Chung Myung came into view, repeatedly coughing up fist-sized clots of blood. He already looked no different from a rag, yet his gaze had not changed in the slightest from how it had been at the beginning.
“…Not yet.”
Chung Myung bared his teeth, one swollen eye half-open.
“Show me more. It’s still… still not enough.”
For an instant, a chill ran down Heavenly Executioner’s back.
‘What in the world is this man……’
He had thought there was nothing left in this world he could not understand, yet where on earth had someone like this come from?
Under Heavenly Executioner’s gaze, Chung Myung coughed up another clot of blood.
“Uweeeeeeeeeegh!”
The blood had turned black. That meant not only his internal organs but even his vital energy [원기(元氣)] had been damaged. Chung Myung knew this well.
But it did not matter.
Under normal circumstances, this was an opponent who should have killed him several times over already. Getting away with this much was a bargain.
Chung Myung raised his upper body and gripped his sword tightly.
‘They say life is full of unpredictable things.’
He had never even imagined it. He’d never imagined that something he’d done simply to take them down a peg before the Demonic Cult’s invasion would come back around like this.
‘Was it the Illusory Phantom Divine Lord [Shin Gun] – that old man?’
Chung Myung let out a hollow laugh.
Of course, that man was strong too. He was not denying that strength. But the strength of that man and the strength of Heavenly Executioner belonged to entirely different realms. There was no way he could apply the insights he had gained from fighting Illusory Phantom to his battle with Heavenly Executioner .
So that was not why Chung Myung had thought of him.
‘The problem is that this bastard and that old man are suffering from the same issue.’
If Chung Myung had not fought the Illusory Phantom, he would not have known what kind of situation Heavenly Executioner was facing now.
‘A hundred years……’
The Illusory Phantom Divine Lord had certainly been strong. But he had possessed one obvious flaw.
That was the fact that he had gone nearly twenty years without experiencing actual combat. And that he had been unable to handle the speed he had reached over those twenty years.
They might have seemed like separate problems, but in the end, they were one and the same. If the Illusory Phantom Divine Lord had consistently experienced actual combat, he would eventually have been able to make that speed his own.
However, as a side effect of spending twenty years in secluded cultivation, the Illusory Phantom Divine Lord had been unable to control his own speed. In that case?
‘What about a bastard who hasn’t experienced proper combat for a hundred years? Could he really be different just because his cultivation realm is higher?’
He could see it.
In a moment so brief that it would not be excessive to call it an instant – the very instant Heavenly Executioner reached his top speed – his consciousness failed to keep up with his own speed, if only for a fraction of a second.
Under normal circumstances, that should have been impossible. The human mind was not confined by the limits of the body.
But Heavenly Executioner was precisely the opposite. The mind, still confined by the limits of being human, was unable to handle the power and speed of a body that had grown far too powerful.
So all he had to do was strike. At that single instant.
“Easier said than done…”
Chung Myung bared his teeth and laughed.
He could not hold it in. It was so funny that he could barely stand it. If he could, he wanted to throw his head back and laugh until his throat burst.
“What’s so amusing?”
Heavenly Executioner asked, his face twisting.
“It’s true that you wounded me. But compared to the wounds you’ve suffered, it must be nothing more than a drop in the ocean. The fact that you’re the one who will die in the end hasn’t changed. Have you lost your mind so completely that you’ve forgotten that?”
Chung Myung’s gaze fell upon Heavenly Executioner.
“Running your mouth however you please. A mere small fry.”
“…What did you say?”
“Do you really think I’d laugh over something as trivial as taking your head?”
Heavenly Executioner’s eye twitched, as though he doubted his own ears. Chung Myung continued.
“But it’s all right. I’ll forgive you. I’m in such a good mood right now. At long last… yes, at long last, I’ve grasped a thread.”
Chung Myung beamed, baring his bloodstained teeth.
Gods exist.
If one were to call an immense power beyond human means, an irresistible force against which no one could struggle, a God [신(神)]… then the Heavenly Demon undoubtedly deserved to be called one.
At times, Chung Myung had wept at the sheer unfairness of it, and at others, trembled before its overwhelming might.
Because he had been far too immense for the strength of mere humans to contend with. That single sword strike that had barely reached him only after Chung Myung poured everything he had into it. But he could not hope for such a fluke to happen again this time.
He needed something. A way for human strength to reach a God.
And now, Chung Myung had finally realized it.
“What if.”
“…What if?”
Chung Myung asked quietly as he looked at Heavenly Executioner.
“If the Heavenly Demon had never existed in this world, who would have been called the Heavenly Demon?”
“…..What are you talking about? If the Heavenly Demon did not exist, then the Heavenly Demon would merely be a concept that could not exist.”
Chung Myung grinned.
“No. You would have been the Heavenly Demon.”
Heavenly Executioner’s face hardened as he realized what Chung Myung was trying to say.
“What blasphemous nonsense is this filthy bastard spouting….”
“Isn’t it obvious? The Heavenly Demon ultimately refers to a demon [마(魔)] that human beings cannot contend with. So, strictly speaking, you too could be said to possess what it takes to be the Heavenly Demon. It’s only that a more powerful being renders that qualification meaningless.”
“So… what exactly is your point?”
“I was just thinking. Between you and the Heavenly Demon who would have been called the ‘First,’ which one of you would have been stronger?”
“…”
There was no way to know. But the thought itself held meaning.
Perhaps the God who manifested upon the earth had, in the beginning, been nothing more than Heavenly Executioner. If that were the case, then at the distant end of the path Heavenly Executioner was walking now, there must also be an ending in which a human became the Heavenly Demon.
“What meaning is there in a question whose answer cannot even be known?”
“It has meaning. Because it means that the Heavenly Demon, too, is merely human.”
The question and the answer did not connect. They merely took the form of a conversation, while each arrived at a different answer.
But that was not what mattered.
What mattered was this.
“If he is still an existence that can be called human, then there is one law he cannot escape.”
Heavenly Executioner’s heart pounded as though it would burst.
He must not ask any further. He must not hear the answer, either. And yet, despite knowing that, he eventually opened his mouth. The doubt he had thought had disappeared. No – the tiny fragment of doubt that had already shattered and scattered to pieces. It caused a stinging pain, as though responding to the man’s words.
“…What is it?”
“If there is something to be gained… then there is always something to be lost.”
Chung Myung gripped his sword.
“Let’s find out, then – at the cost of your life.”
Something flashed in Chung Myung eyes – something that now ought rather to be called delight [환희(歡喜)].
Special Spinoff Chapter 60 >>>
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