Descent of The Demon Master [EN]: Chapter 1855

Drip! Drip! Drip! The sound of water droplets burrowed into his ears.

No.

It felt as if the sound was being transmitted directly to his nerves, not just his hearing. His senses, sharpened to the extreme, picked up not only the sound but even the air vibrations created as the water droplets hit the floor.

He could hear it.

The sound of his heart beating.

The sound of air entering and leaving his lungs.

Even the sound of his blood flowing, which he had never heard in his life, was vividly captured.

Bator realized.

That ‘understanding’ was always ambiguous.

He had always trusted his body implicitly. But he didn’t know the slightest thing about what his body was.

What were his bones made of? How much did the muscles surrounding his bones weigh? How much blood flowed through his body?

It was ridiculous.

Belief could only be the result of understanding.

To believe and trust something, one had to understand it and discern its value.

How could one trust a shield and go into battle without knowing how strong it was or how much impact it could withstand?

How could one fight with a sword without understanding how sharp it was?

But Bator had been doing just that until now.

He had believed his body was strong, but he hadn’t understood how strong it was. And he hadn’t understood where his body’s strength came from.

No.

He hadn’t tried to understand.

To him, his body wasn’t an object of belief but an object of blind faith.

A firm belief that surpassed faith had supported his body, his martial arts, and him.

But now, all of that had turned into mere illusion.

How should he express that feeling?

A scholar who had discovered that the theory he had researched his whole life was wrong?

A fanatic who had discovered that the god he had believed in with all his heart didn’t actually exist?

No words would be enough to express the emotions Bator was feeling right now. But in that deep despair, Bator grasped a ray of light.

‘Let go.’

A phrase he had heard countless times.

‘Empty yourself.’

A phrase he was tired of hearing.

Yet, something he couldn’t do.

Knowing and understanding something in your head was very different from being able to execute it.

The way for a person to fly in the sky was very simple.

If the lift generated by swinging one’s arms up and down was stronger than the weight of the body, a person could fly in the sky.

But who could do that?

Knowing and doing were different things.

Everyone knew that if they abandoned what supported them and re-established themselves, they could move forward, but that was not much different from trying to fly in the sky with a human body.

How far had he fallen?

How much despair had he felt?

Bator, who had been sinking and sinking to the bottomless depths, finally faced the source that made him who he was.

‘I understand.’

What he had been missing.

‘I realized.’

What he had to do.

‘I…’

A faint smile formed on the lips of Bator, who now looked like a dried-up corpse rather than a living person.

“I… am…”

The moment his mouth opened, his hardened lips cracked.

But it seemed that even the blood flowing in his body had almost dried up, as no blood flowed even when his dark red flesh was exposed.

His consciousness faded in and out, and his breathing was so shallow that it seemed like it would stop at any moment.

Nothing remained of Bator’s god-like appearance.

But what had truly disappeared was not the perfect robustness that resembled an iron tower, but the unwavering, perfect arrogance.

The light faded.

Just as the massive stone walls that had stood for hundreds of years cracked and crumbled, Bator, who seemed like he would never collapse, began to lose himself.

And at the end of that…

Bator reached out his hand.

To a distant place.

Slowly, even more slowly, towards a place that his hand could never reach.

‘I…’

Bator’s smile deepened.

The self-confidence that had supported him was nowhere to be found. The arrogance that had looked down on others was also gone. All that remained on his face now was gentleness.

‘I was wrong.’

He understood his body.

He let go of his obsession with his body.

He transcended the body that had supported him.

What a joke.

Why hadn’t he realized that even that was an obsession?

It wasn’t about transcending the body. No matter what kind of body he had, no matter what kind of body he was with, he was just him. What he had to transcend was not the body that had supported him, but just himself.

Bator as a martial artist.

‘How do you make a fist again?’

The open fist slowly clenched. The hand, bending one finger at a time starting from the pinky, formed a circle, and the thumb firmly supported the four bent fingers.

‘It started from here.’

Yes. This was the origin of his martial arts.

Everything started from here. Everything.

No tiger could be a tiger from the start.

He hadn’t started with a perfect body either. In his immature days, when he didn’t yet have a body that could support him.

Even then, he had clenched his fists.

And with those two fists, he had paved his own path.

‘Why didn’t I know?’

His martial arts didn’t start from a perfect body.

It started from these two fists.

‘I…’

Bator, who had created the perfect form of a fist he had been thinking about, closed his eyes.

It was in his heart.

His original form.

“I can start again.”

Kooooooo!

At the same time as those words, black, red, and blue energies flowed out of Bator’s body like water, swirling and raging.

Transcending meant becoming free.

It meant throwing off shackles and restraints and returning to the original form in one’s heart.

For Bator, overcoming the wall meant that.

Where was he?

Where did he come from?

The beginning… yes.

The beginning was a meadow.

A blue meadow with no end in sight. An endless blue sky and pure white clouds that seemed like they would leave a mark if you touched them. And under that sky, a meadow like a mother that accepted everything.

In that meadow, a small boy practiced his fist.

A sky so high and a meadow so vast.

In that, the boy was small and insignificant. But the boy’s feet touched the earth, and the boy’s fist pierced the sky.

Bator looked at the boy.

Bator looked at Bator.

That small boy was Bator’s past, what Bator had lost, and something that was not Bator.

‘I lost it.’

Freedom.

The boy’s appearance gradually changed. Transparently… more and more transparently.

No, to blue.

Bator silently watched the scene.

His body bent, and fur grew. But the scene looked sacred rather than gruesome.

The boy, who had finally become a complete beast, put his four feet on the ground and looked up at the sky.

Blue fur fluttered in the meadow’s wind.

Bator, who had been watching the scene, smiled without realizing it.

‘A blue wolf.’

It would be different.

The blue wolf was the soul of the meadow warriors.

Someday, Bator would also die and become a blue wolf of the meadow, running and running across the endless land.

Yes, that was how it should be.

But he had forgotten.

That freedom.

The freedom of the meadow that was not bound anywhere.

Since when had he stopped hearing the sound of the meadow wind?

Since when had he stopped longing for the scent of the meadow grass?

‘Freedom.’

He, who had pursued endless freedom, had been trapped in the shackles of his body since some time ago.

Like a fortress that was built with high walls and completely isolated himself from the outside, he built his body and separated himself from the outside.

What he gained was comfort.

But what he lost was freedom.

Why hadn’t he known?

That freedom did not come to those who sought a place to settle. That he was someone who could find himself on the path of eternal wandering.

Kooooooo.

The energies that had flowed out wrapped around Bator’s body.

Softly and carefully, as if a mother was holding a newborn baby.

The energies that had been unable to mix and had flowed separately slowly began to merge into one.

Magi [magical energy], or blood energy? Or something else…

What did it matter?

Freedom was acceptance.

There was no reason why he couldn’t be Bator just because he possessed magi, and there was no reason why he couldn’t be Bator just because he didn’t possess evil energy.

The meadow accepted everything.

Anyone who stood on it was a child of the meadow.

Those who had lived in the meadow their whole lives, and those who had left the meadow far away and returned to it old and tired.

Just children of the meadow.

The meadow did not reject anything and gave itself to everyone.

Kooooooo.

The wolf’s appearance began to change again.

The fur disappeared, the sharp teeth disappeared, and even the claws of the wolf, which had become soft, slowly changed into the appearance of a child.

Bator.

The Bator of his childhood looked up and looked at the Bator of the present.

And then…

The appearance of that young Bator slowly grew.

The thin arms and legs became thicker, and large muscles formed on his lean chest.

The Bator, who had fully grown, quietly looked at the Bator of the present with eyes that were no different from when he was a boy.

A hollow laugh escaped him.

They were the same.

But different.

They might look the same, but their souls were not alike at all.

Despite having the same appearance, an endless sense of freedom was felt from that Bator.

Was that truly the appearance that Bator had wanted?

Was that his true desire that even he didn’t know?

‘No.’

Obsessing over that appearance was also not freedom.

Bator was just Bator.

The Bator who had forgotten himself, the Bator who had forgotten the meadow, and the Bator who had been obsessed with his own body.

Yes, he was just Bator.

‘I am just me.’

He didn’t regret the past.

Just… yes, just…

“I…”

A gentle smile formed on Bator’s lips.

“I am moving forward.”

Towards another self that he had not known until now.

Kooooooo!

The swirling energies that had been mixed together began to be dyed in one color.

Blue.

Just blue.

The energies, dyed in a blue light that resembled the color of the meadow, wrapped around Bator’s body and pushed him up into the air.

Don’t forget.

That facing a wall meant that you had walked all the way to that wall.

Even if you hadn’t walked straight, every step you had taken until now had brought you here.

He didn’t deny himself but just accepted himself.

For one more step forward.

Whoooooosh!

Blue energy flowed out of Bator’s body like a mighty river. The flowing blue energy dyed Bator’s world in a complete blue light.

Like an endless blue meadow.

On that vast meadow.

A small child, standing proudly on the earth with two legs…

Smiled at Bator.

Soon, the blue energies that had erased even the boy’s appearance completely filled the stone chamber and enveloped Bator’s body.

Boundlessly blue, and even more blue.