Monochrome Sovereign [EN]: Chapter 1174

“I’ve never been here before.”

The man’s voice was low yet refined, pleasant to hear.

“Honestly, I often wondered, ‘Is it really necessary?’ The world we live in is good enough. It’s abundant and satisfying, and I believed it wouldn’t get worse, even if it didn’t get better. In other words, I didn’t want to fight.”

“……”

“But you know, no matter how much I thought about it, it felt unsettling.”

“……”

“There’s probably no one in this world who has studied the essence of demons [魔 – ma, often associated with evil or chaotic forces] as deeply and for as long as I have. It’s been like that since I was born. For me, who inherited the blood of a demon, to study the essence of demons is no different from contemplating my own ego and identity.”

“……”

“In the end, I realized what that unsettling feeling was. It was closer to a sense of rejection that arose because I was denying the instincts I had as a demon.”

Gyuhong [圭鴻] listened carefully to the man’s words, his attitude cautious.

The man chuckled and continued.

“In the end, people can’t escape their innate destiny. People in the sect say, ‘What destiny? Can you even eat it?’ Well, people think similarly, so even those on the continent have an instinctive aversion to destiny.”

“……”

“But that’s just an excuse from a fool who knows one thing but not two. Destiny begins with your innate nature. If I was born like this, if I have this kind of temperament, and if my actions lead to these results, how can I escape destiny?”

“Then…”

Gyuhong asked cautiously.

“Is the idea of forging one’s own destiny all an illusion?”

“Forging one’s own destiny is just extending the lifespan of your destiny, which is only up to this point. It’s impossible for anyone to escape their innate destiny.”

“…I see.”

“That’s why people hate these words. The more miserable their lives are, the more they tend to show that. If we live as we were born, does that mean we should accept our miserable lives as destiny? That’s how they interpret it.”

“I understand.”

“That’s also the ignorant nonsense of someone who knows one thing but not two. It’s not that living miserably is destiny, but they should look into their own innate nature that made their lives miserable. Yet, people always only focus on their surroundings and circumstances, cursing the heavens.”

“Isn’t the environment an element that can’t be ignored?”

“That’s why it’s even more important to know yourself well. What might be a miserable environment for someone could be a blessed environment for another.”

“……”

“In the end, it’s me who makes my environment hell, paradise, or nothing at all.”

Although he was a being walking in a place so high that one couldn’t dare to look up, Gyuhong couldn’t easily accept the man’s words.

In a way, it sounded like wordplay, or the ravings of an extreme fatalist. From the start, the truth of this world couldn’t be explained by one person’s enlightenment, so this man’s words couldn’t be called the truth of the world either.

However.

Gyuhong thought. His own nature, which made him feel resistance and disbelief even when listening to the words of someone he revered like a god, was truly unavoidable.

It had been like that since he was born. He would reject the words of anyone whose views differed from what he had seen and thought.

Of course, that was close to an instinctive tendency that most people showed, but he was particularly severe in that aspect. Even when he didn’t immediately believe the words of someone he believed to be a god, what else could it be but his innate nature?

“Look.”

The man pointed with his chin at the corpses piled up before them.

The corpses were in a truly gruesome state. There were well over five hundred of them, and not a single one had all their limbs intact.

Limbs twisted in bizarre directions were common; some corpses had their faces torn apart in all directions, looking like red flowers, and some had their spines torn out, looking like they had thick white ropes on their backs.

There were also many corpses with their abdomens mangled as if they had been eaten by beasts, and some with their entire skeletons shrunken into large balls.

It was a scene as if demons from hell had held a festival. It felt as if they had played with human bodies as they pleased, like a child playing with bugs, and then discarded them carelessly when they lost interest.

Even while looking at that gruesome sight, the man didn’t even blink. Of course, neither did Gyuhong.

“These people had their own missions. But can we say that those missions truly came from their hearts? Most of them were swept away, forced to come here, and met a miserable end.”

“……”

“If only the path had been left open, they could have lived together in a better world in the future.”

A small hint of pity appeared in the man’s eyes.

Gyuhong could tell that the emotions the man showed were genuine. It was genuine that this man had killed the five hundred Amisan [峨嵋山] monks, who were one of the pillars of the mainland martial world, while laughing wildly, and it was also genuine that he was saddened by the deaths of those who couldn’t accept their destiny.

That’s why Gyuhong was afraid of the man.

He was afraid of the man’s power, which had attacked Amisan single-handedly, causing damage close to annihilation without suffering a single scratch, but what was truly frightening was the unpredictable direction of his sincerity.

‘So that’s why he’s called a god.’

Even after reaching the level of a Saintly Demon, the world that Gyuhong saw was no different from before. It would probably continue to be like that.

But this man was different.

‘Originally, gods are emotionless, so the results of their actions can be interpreted emotionally, and because they are impartial, they can handle all matters fairly.’

Strictly speaking, this man had not yet become a true god.

However, Gyuhong was certain. That this man would soon become a true god.

That this man, who inherited the most sacred and greatest blood from the blood religion that had believed in the power of life itself for a long history, would reawaken the legend of three hundred years ago in this era.

Gyuhong truly believed that without a doubt.

“Cough!”

From far away, an old nun crawled out, writhing from the collapsed hermitage.

Gyuhong slightly bowed his head to the man.

“I will take care of it.”

“It’s alright.”

The man, who had stopped Gyuhong, walked forward leisurely.

In an instant, the man was in front of the nun. The distance was over twenty yards, and there were five hundred corpses piled up in between, but there was no way to know when he had crossed it.

“Impressive.”

The man seemed genuinely impressed.

“I knew that your heart hadn’t lost its strength. But I was going to let you go quietly since you were in a state where you could collapse at any moment. But you stubbornly mustered your strength and escaped from there.”

The nun, who had barely managed to stick her head out and was still buried under the collapsed hermitage, had a deep sense of shame on her face.

If she had been in this state after fighting properly like her disciples and fellow nuns, she would have been frustrated but not ashamed.

She had been swept away by an unknown martial art that the man had emitted, suffering a fatal internal injury. She hadn’t even been able to throw a single punch or swing a single sword, and had been rendered incapable of fighting in one blow.

It was truly a god-like martial art. She hadn’t even been attacked directly, but just being swept away had put her in this state?

‘Could Master Muheo [無虛] display such divine power?!’

A subtle fear bloomed within her shame.

It wasn’t fear towards the man, but fear towards the fact that an unimaginable martial art actually existed.

Thump!

A terrifying aura rose from the body of Bok Ho [朴虎], the head of the Amisan sect.

Although she had suffered a fatal internal injury, she still emitted power. She wanted to get out of here immediately and swing her fist at the man.

The man waited for her leisurely. His appearance, with his hands behind his back and a smile on his face, was truly like that of a nobleman.

Crack! Crack!

Bok Ho, who had finally revealed herself after clearing away the pile of rocks that had crushed her body, was panting.

Her left arm was already broken, and her back was covered in blood. The blood that flowed from her broken head and stained her cheek had hardened and turned brown.

“Who the hell are you…”

Bok Ho coughed up blood as she spoke.

The color of the blood she spat out was excessively dark. Her vital energy was damaged, and death was imminent.

Still, Bok Ho shouted.

“Who the hell are you!”

The man tilted his head.

“To ask such a foolish question when death is right in front of you. The people of the continent are truly strange.”

“What is your name! Are you a disciple of the Blood Fiend Cult?!”

At that moment, Gyuhong shouted.

“How dare you, old hag!”

Thud!

Bok Ho’s body staggered from the tremendous voice that flew like an arrow and struck her.

Her eyes wavered.

‘This is absurd…!’

The Amisan sect’s mastery of subduing demons [降魔 – xiangmo] was second only to the Shaolin Temple. The Shaolin Temple’s martial arts were superior in their inherent power, but the Amisan sect’s Buddhist divine arts were superior in their powerful defense against demonic external arts.

Yet, her dantian [丹田 – the energy center of the body] felt like it was about to tear apart from a single shout mixed with internal energy. Even if it had reached its peak, demonic energy [魔氣 – maqi] was still demonic energy, but the Golden Cauldron True Energy [金鼎眞氣 – Jinding Zhenqi] that she had somehow managed to hold onto felt like it was scattering instantly.

A power that overwhelmed the opposing force. It was the true power of a demon who had reached the level of a Saintly Demon.

Whoosh!

Gyuhong, who had approached the man from behind, shouted in a solemn voice.

“This man is the patriarch of all demons [萬魔 – wanmo], and the direct descendant of the Blood God [血神 – xueshen] who will unite the Three Dukes [三公家 – sangongjia] in the future and establish the true blood religion! He is the one who embraces all demons under heaven, the one who will hold all the land in his hands, and the one who will reach the heavens and taint even the principles of all creation with demon!”

Bok Ho coughed up blood again.

“That’s nonsense…!”

“And I, the disciple leader, we are.”

Gyuhong’s eyes sank.

“We are merely servants who support the human god who will scatter the Blood God’s life throughout the heavens.”

Bok Ho’s eyes shook greatly.

He calls himself a disciple leader, yet he proudly calls himself a servant.

A disciple leader is a powerful figure in the Central Plains martial world, second only to the Saintly Heavens. How could such a person claim to be someone’s servant?

“Could it be…!

Bok Ho’s face was filled with shock.

“Are you… the Blood Fiend Cult Leader [狂血敎主 – Kuangxue Jiaozhu]?!”

Crack!

The demonic energy that had seeped in exploded, shattering her left knee.

She knelt down without realizing it, but Bok Ho didn’t feel any pain. The mental shock was too great.

The man slowly knelt on one knee and made eye contact with her.

“Listen, young nun.”

“…!

“The teachings of Buddha are nothing but an illusion. They are nothing more than a heretical path that is neither a religion nor a study.”

“Shut your mouth, you fiend!”

The man’s hand touched Bok Ho’s head.

“There will be no afterlife, but if you are reborn as a lowly creature, come into my dominion.”

“You fiend!”

“Farewell.”

Crack!

Bok Ho’s head was shattered in the man’s grasp.

And so, the Amisan sect, except for some of its forces, disappeared from the face of the earth at the hands of a single man.