Monochrome Sovereign [EN]: Chapter 935

Yeon Ho-Jeong’s expression remained unchanged. His eyes didn’t waver either.

However, he received a shock that made his head spin.

‘Reverse time?’

It was absurd.

It would be far more realistic to say that someone had been brought back to life through ultimate medical skills. In fact, there were many stories in the past about creating Jiangshi [reanimated corpses] through a combination of potent drugs, secret arts, and extreme medical skills.

Just looking around Yeon Ho-Jeong, there was someone working under Moyong Gun who was a descendant of the annihilated Jinju Eon family. The Jinju Eon family was a tragic clan that had tried to gain more powerful martial arts and bodies by adopting the strengths of Jiangshi techniques, only to be destroyed.

In other words, that much was not impossible in this martial world.

However, reversing or going against time was something that was not permitted to anyone.

Time was not a substance, nor was it even an ambiguous concept like qi [life force]. It was something beyond all that. It was impossible to reverse time with any technique in the world.

Yes. That was the truth and the principle.

However, Yeon Ho-Jeong couldn’t say that it was completely impossible.

It was because he himself had regressed to decades ago. He had the experience of literally reversing time, not just going to another world with the same environment, so he couldn’t say it was nonsense.

“Reverse time? How many people have you fooled with such nonsense?”

Cheon Gyo-Hong burst into laughter.

Unexpectedly, his laughter, which didn’t use demonic energy, was quite pleasant to hear.

“If it were a lie, we would have been happy. We wouldn’t have had to search the world to find it. Furthermore, we wouldn’t have had to live in hiding for so long.”

“……?”

“Do you know about the Blood Sect?”

“I know as much as others do.”

“That means you don’t know.”

Cheon Gyo-Hong turned his gaze to the sky. The clear yet dark sky looked like the sky seen from the underworld.

“Talking is good, but there’s no need to give information that could harm future generations.”

“My interest is waning.”

“Our Blood Sect was torn apart by a war three hundred years ago.”

“I know.”

“There were three noble families that supported the Blood Sect. They were called supporting families, but in reality, it was the Three Dukes who moved the Blood Sect. The Blood Sect headquarters did nothing. They just performed rituals for the gods and continued research to become superior beings.”

Did he mean that such information was irrelevant?

It was unknown. However, it was clearly useless information for Yeon Ho-Jeong. Information about a mysterious organization that no one knew was nothing more than a story.

“Still, the status of the Blood Sect Leader was absolute. The Three Dukes moved the Blood Sect, but the Blood Sect was a place that could not exist without the Blood Sect Leader.”

“Then why did it split?”

“Because of the Blood Jade.”

“……?!”

“Three hundred years ago, or even before that, the Blood Jade refused the Blood Sect Leader’s Soul Transfer.”

Yeon Ho-Jeong frowned.

Did that mean that a mere object had a will?

More than that, what did it mean by ‘refused’?

“No one in the history of the Blood Sect has ever fully opened the Blood Jade. If we had fully opened the Blood Jade, the world would already be ours.”

The world Cheon Gyo-Hong was talking about was not just the Central Plains. [The main region of the martial arts world]

It was literally the world. He was saying that everything under the sky, all the land without end, would have belonged to the Blood Sect.

“If you draw all the power of the Blood Jade, you can reverse time. Of course, the only person who actually made it possible was the first sect leader who founded the Blood Sect.”

“The first sect leader……”

“The first sect leader learned demonic arts for the first time at a young age. At a time when the concept of demonic arts didn’t even exist, someone who didn’t know a single martial art suddenly awakened to demonic arts and reached a level where it was difficult to find an equal in just twenty years.”

“……!”

Yeon Ho-Jeong’s eyes shook.

A person who didn’t know a single martial art suddenly awakened to demonic arts?

That was obviously impossible. Furthermore, it was hard to understand that someone who hadn’t learned martial arts until a young age became the strongest in the world in just twenty years.

However, Yeon Ho-Jeong saw himself in those words.

In the eyes of others, Yeon Ho-Jeong would not be much different from him.

A young man with insufficient talent and an immature ego suddenly changed his personality, mastered his family’s secret arts in an instant, and even learned martial arts of unknown origin and became rapidly stronger.

In less than ten years, not even twenty, he reached the realm of the Martial God, the realm of the Limitless, and now he is one of the top absolute beings in the world, receiving the enthusiasm of everyone.

Was this possible?

If it wasn’t a talent given by heaven, if it wasn’t truly a revelation from a god who ruled the heavens, this would never have been possible.

“It’s hard to be sure if he actually reversed time using the Blood Jade. But if it wasn’t for time reversal, he wouldn’t have been able to do such a mythical thing. Well, there were many people who became followers because they were moved by his story.”

“……”

“Since then, the Blood Jade has become one of the three divine objects of the Blood Sect. It was the most important treasure among the three divine objects.”

Cheon Gyo-Hong’s eyes deepened.

“That was stolen by you, no, by the Mad Thinker.”

“……”

“Although it is the power of soul transfer, it was not eternal. In the thousand-year history of the Blood Sect, no one has ruled for more than three generations using the Blood Jade. Of course, that alone is amazing.”

Three generations.

Even if one person’s lifespan is sixty years, one cycle, three generations is one hundred and eighty years. In other words, they rejected the lifespan given by heaven and used a technique that went against the natural order, changing into a new body and ruling the Blood Sect just like the previous generation.

It was truly a fictional story that one might hear while drinking at an inn.

“Then, the Blood Sect Leader three hundred years ago was not chosen by the Blood Jade, which means……”

“That’s right. He was the first of the first generation. He was the only person among the successive Blood Sect Leaders who did not use soul transfer even once.”

A complex look flashed across Yeon Ho-Jeong’s face.

If the Blood Jade really existed, it was truly a demonic object that went against the natural order. The problem was that the demonic object might be related to him.

His very existence was against the heavens. Yeon Ho-Jeong had a hard time defining his own existence.

“And then, the Mad Thinker stole the Blood Jade.”

“……Just what.”

Yeon Ho-Jeong stammered.

“What position did the Mad Thinker have in the Blood Sect that he was able to steal the Blood Jade?”

Cheon Gyo-Hong’s lips curled up.

Although he said he would treat him as an unrelated third party, he was still convinced that Yeon Ho-Jeong was the Mad Thinker. He couldn’t understand that martial art and skill unless it was the Mad Thinker himself.

He spoke in a heavy voice, hoping that the Mad Thinker, who was asleep in the other’s memory, would hear him.

“The Mad Thinker was the eldest son of that Blood Sect Leader who couldn’t handle the Blood Jade.”

“……!!”

“He was also a monster with the greatest talent in history, and a peerless genius who had compiled all the demonic arts of the Blood Sect by the time he reached a young age.”

Yeon Ho-Jeong’s eyes shook as if an earthquake had struck.

‘Master……’

The Mad Thinker, the Four Directional Unrivaled. [A title indicating unmatched skill in all directions]

Furthermore, he was the first Martial God of all time and a hero of the Central Plains, known as the Yellow Dragon Emperor, who suddenly appeared three hundred years ago and ended the chaos of the Blood Sect.

It was difficult to think that he had lived for three hundred years. At first, it was.

However, lately, he had begun to think that it might really be possible. In fact, when he opened the Yellow Dragon, the content that you had told your young self in the past clearly showed that you were a person from three hundred years ago.

Suddenly, Yeon Ho-Jeong recalled what Cheon Gyo-Hong had said before the fight.

‘The worst traitor of our sect, no, the Blood Sect! A demon who erased the footsteps of the thousand-year Blood Sect! A thief who reversed history and a seed of destruction!’

‘Stealing the Blood Jade and running away is enough to call you a traitor for all eternity, but to appear here as a half-baked devil who couldn’t even die! Aren’t you ashamed, you bastard!’

The worst traitor. A thief who reversed history.

That’s right. From the perspective of the remaining Blood Sect remnants, his master was someone who could be called that.

Yeon Ho-Jeong was puzzled.

He said that his master was the greatest genius and monster in the history of the Blood Sect. Why would such a person leave the Blood Sect and instead turn his sword against them?

For countless common people, his master was a hero who would be remembered for all time, but it was difficult to understand that someone who had lived his whole life as the successor of the Blood Sect would suddenly betray his family and turn his sword against them. There must have been some reason.

‘The Four Divine Arts are also strange.’

His master had said that he was the successor of the Four Divine Martial Arts (四神武), the strongest ancient combat technique, and that the successors of the Four Divine Martial Arts were called the Four Divine Martial Generals (四神武將) and roamed the battlefields.

If his master had compiled all the demonic arts of the Blood Sect, as Cheon Gyo-Hong said, he wouldn’t have needed to learn the Four Divine Martial Arts.

No, before that, he wouldn’t have been able to learn the Four Divine Martial Arts. Each of the Four Divine Energies (四神氣) was a total of sacred energy, so those who had practiced demonic arts could never learn the divine secret arts.

There was something. Something that no one could imagine.

Cheon Gyo-Hong continued.

“If it had just ended there, yes. We could have moved on. We would have been scrambling to recover the Blood Jade somehow, but we wouldn’t all be so united in hatred.”

“……”

“However, the Mad Thinker modified the Five-Colored Hell Demonic Art, the worst demonic art in the history of the demonic martial world, and created a bizarre art that was the nemesis of all demonic arts in the world! The martial art he created was completely different from the martial arts of Buddhism or the divine arts of Taoism! It was a blade of exorcism (破魔) that surpassed even the principle of mutual generation and restraint, and was thoroughly designed to destroy demonic arts!”

Cheon Gyo-Hong’s eyes lit up.

“What does that mean! Isn’t it a will to uproot us even through generations! It can’t be explained except as the twisted desire of a petty person who is ungrateful and doesn’t acknowledge his own roots!”

Yeon Ho-Jeong’s lips curled up.

“I didn’t expect to hear words like ungrateful or petty from your mouths.”

“You can think whatever you want. The Mad Thinker went too far. To turn his sword against the Blood Sect with his overflowing talent, what is it if not a great sin worthy of ten thousand deaths?”

“I think it was rather a great choice. Who knows what would happen if you let crazy fanatics like you loose.”

Cheon Gyo-Hong smiled.

“Yes, it may look that way to you.”

“No matter what great reason you have, what you did cannot be defended.”

“If that’s the case, the Mad Thinker would be the same.”

Cheon Gyo-Hong’s expression changed again.

A terrifying ghost expression, with ghostly fires (鬼火) blooming in both eyes, was extremely eerie.

“If he hadn’t created a martial art that destroyed demonic arts, maybe I wouldn’t be part of the Mad Blood Clan.”

“What?”

“The Mad Thinker was the eldest son of the Blood Sect Leader. Then where did the second son go that he couldn’t become the master of the Blood Sect?”

“……?!”

“When the evil and the myth, who were consumed by betrayal and at the same time possessed by deep desire, tried to hold that bloodline accountable, it was the Mad Blood Demon Family (狂血魔家) that took that bloodline and protected the legitimacy of the Blood Sect.”

Yeon Ho-Jeong’s eyes trembled.

“Do you understand? I am the descendant of the Cheon family who almost died because of you, the Mad Thinker!”