Obtaining Heavenly Demon Martial Arts in the Magic Era - Chapter 36

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

36
The Great Purification Campaign.
The operation launched by the Madou Myeongga began in secret, taking advantage of the predawn hours when all slept.
Mercenaries from the Madou Myeongga, having already pinpointed their positions, descended upon the locations of the martial artists.
“What in the hell are you doing?”
They tried to counterattack the sudden assault, but against elite operatives armed with cutting-edge Madou engineering equipment and weapons, they were hopelessly outmatched.
“Wipe them all out!”
Lightning flashed, and sparks flew.
“Hold the line! Don’t fall back. We have to buy them time to escape!”
An elder of the Cheongseong Sect, a minor faction, drew his blade with grim determination.
Flowing Star Chasing Moon.
The sharp Sword Energy gathering at the blade’s tip shot forth, aimed at the mercenary’s throat, but—
Clang!
With a hollow scraping sound, the Sword Energy shattered into fragments. The armor reinforced layer upon layer with Madou engineering repelled even a strike infused with such power.
“Hold the line! Don’t fall back. We have to give the sect leader and the children time to escape!”
The desperate cry rang hollow—the moment a specially crafted Electric Shock Staff, nearly two meters in length, made contact, the martial artists’ bodies went limp.
Zzzzzt—
“Aaaaaaaah!”
The Electric Shock Staff, imbued with potent electrical Magic, forced consciousness to shut down the instant it touched flesh.
Thump—thump—
“Zone one captured. Moving to the next sector.”
With both arms bound by Mana Restraint Cuffs, even the mightiest martial artist could not fully draw upon their Internal Energy.
As they were hunted down one by one like game animals,
Whoooosh—
Black Flame darker than pitch erupted skyward.
“Stop that thing!”
Rip—
The reinforced combat uniform designed for elite martial artists was rent asunder as easily as tofu.
“Who are you?”
A man wreathed entirely in black flames had appeared, and having instantly dispatched the invading force, he cried out.
“I am Cheon Song-gyeong, the twenty-seventh Heavenly Demon of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. Gather the wounded.”
“Hieeek! The…the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult…”
Among martial artists, the primal terror that came with the name Heavenly Demon never faded, no matter how many ages passed. The eyes they turned upon their savior were not those of gratitude, but shock and dread—yet Cheon Song-gyeong paid it no mind.
With overwhelming martial prowess, he dispatched the Madou Myeongga’s forces. Wherever he passed, not a soul survived. In the merciless grip of his hand, fear began to creep into the eyes of those he had rescued.
He looked down upon the martial artists he had saved with an emotionless gaze and spoke.
“Follow me.”
Led by Cheon Song-gyeong, they arrived at a vast underground cavern. There, the remnants of the martial world—those who had barely clung to life while fleeing the indiscriminate assault of the Madou Myeongga—had gathered.
“The Jegal Clan…! Even with all their vaunted intellect, they couldn’t foresee this calamity?”
“The Dang Clan is here too. Those devious bastards and their poisons.”
“Wherever you go, there’s always an eyesore or two mixed in. The Hao Sect, of all people.”
“Tch, a swarm of beggars trampling through and fouling the very air.”
When the fractured factions came together in one place after so long apart, they embraced one another in joy according to old alliances, and raised their voices in anger, their faces flushing with long-nursed grudges.
In an instant, the cavern erupted into chaos. And as the temperature climbed dangerously high,
Clap—
Cheon Song-gyeong struck his hands together with Internal Energy behind the blow.
Whooooom—!
A resonance that threatened to split eardrums reverberated through the cavern, and the air grew heavy and oppressive.
The cavern fell silent in an instant.
In the stillness so profound that even the sound of swallowing could be heard clearly, Cheon Song-gyeong stepped onto the raised platform.
“The righteousness of the Orthodox Faction, the freedom of the Unorthodox Faction, the dominion of the Demonic Cult—such worthless pride is a luxury we can no longer afford in the face of the crisis before us.”
His gaze swept across the crowd below.
The ones called the Madou Myeongga have spent long years laying their plans. And those plans will not be complete until every martial artist in this land has been erased from existence.
Do you truly believe the Madou Myeongga will differentiate between Orthodox, Unorthodox, or Demonic? To them, you are all nothing but prey. Therefore, you must understand that we are bound together as a community of shared fate under the single name ‘martial artist.’ Now is not the time for grand ideals and noble causes—we must focus solely on survival.”
He looked out over the assembled crowd and spoke with force.
“But if you insist on tearing out each other’s throats despite all this, I will remove you myself.”
The absolute charisma that Cheon Song-gyeong displayed that day was seared into the hearts of every martial artist present. An irrefutable, overwhelming aura. Beneath that crushing authority, a young Seon Young-hun, bloodied and sitting in the corner, swallowed hard; and among the Gaebang ranks, the boy Gwak Cheol’s eyes gleamed with admiration.
Under Cheon Song-gyeong’s command, an alliance without precedent in history was formed.
Its name was the All Martial Arts Alliance.
Here, there was no Orthodox Faction, no Unorthodox Faction, no Demonic Cult. There was only a single shared purpose: survival. It was the moment when the martial world truly became one.
After the All Martial Arts Alliance was established,
The Martial World forces broke free from their one-sided predicament and launched a counterattack.
“Gaebang Master, Hao Sect Leader. Brief us.”
With Gaebang and the Hao Sect combining their intelligence networks, there was no secret they couldn’t uncover. They struck the Madou Myeongga’s key installations with ruthless guerrilla tactics. When they repeatedly targeted the “Mana Stone facilities”—the very source of the sorcerers’ power—the momentum of the Madou Myeongga faltered visibly.
“These vermin…!”
At last, the pure-blooded Illumina of wounded pride—the household lords of the Madou Myeongga—led their elite forces directly to the enemy’s hideout. They had come for open war. From that day forward, fighting like hell itself began.
Crash-boom-boom-boom-crash!
Burst-burst-burst-bang!
Merciless magical bombardment followed. The high-ranking sorcerers beyond Fifth Circle were living siege weapons in their own right, unleashing firepower without mercy. From the magical formations that blanketed the sky, endless long-range barrages poured down, cutting off the Martial World forces’ retreat.
To turn the tide, the most carefully selected masters of the Martial World stepped forward to face them.
They were the sect leaders themselves.
As if waiting for this moment, the household lords of the Madou Myeongga moved to block their path.
“We’ll sweep away the relics of this old age ourselves.”
The power of the Madou Myeongga’s household lords was on another level entirely. True to their pure-blooded Illumina heritage, they wielded Artifacts and exclusive secret magics as naturally as breathing. Even the sect leaders, burning through their techniques without restraint until they bled, found themselves in a hopeless situation—no decisive victory possible in the short term.
As days stretched into days with the leaders of both sides locked in combat, the indiscriminate magical bombardment laid low the Martial World fighters and innocent bystanders alike, one by one, coughing blood as they fell.
‘This is… the limit.’
At last, when the worst casualties loomed imminent, Cheon Song-gyeong made his choice.
“Survive. Survive, and by any means, carry forward the lineage of the Martial Way.”
With those brief words, Cheon Song-gyeong burned his Dantian Core and every ounce of life remaining within him.
Crack-ahhhhh-boom!
The Heavenly Demon’s Sword Energy, compressed and detonated in an instant, tore through the defensive barrier of one household lord standing before him and severed his head in a single stroke.
Crunch.
A single blow—a victory no one who had watched him struggle would have believed possible.
Shocked by the impossible sight, the other household lords abandoned their immediate opponents and hurled themselves toward Cheon Song-gyeong, drowning him in magic from all directions. Dozens upon dozens of spells rained down on him from every side.
A moment of utter desperation. Yet a thin, cold smile played at the corner of Cheon Song-gyeong’s mouth.
Suddenly, a towering pillar of Black Flame erupted from his body, tearing through the underground cavern and soaring toward the heavens.
The ultimate expression of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, ignited by the burning of his own life.
Cheon Song-gyeong, using his own life as kindling, drew the household lords of the Madou Myeongga rushing toward him all at once into the hellfire and consumed them.
Crash-boom-boom-boom-crash!
Thus the Great Purification Campaign ended with the mutual destruction of the Madou Myeongga’s household lords and the Heavenly Demon, leaving wounds that neither side could ever wash away.
Years passed into the present day.
The successors of the Madou Myeongga, who had not fully witnessed that terrible history of blood, inherited the position of household lord. They did not know the overwhelming terror the Heavenly Demon had shown.
They dismissed the Martial World survivors as mere relics of an old age, cockroaches that had gotten lucky, and even now they clashed with Martial World fighters in scattered locations.
But they did not know. On the day Cheon Song-gyeong burned away into the Black Flame and saved the lives of the other sect leaders and the survivors, every Martial World fighter who lived through that moment swore an oath.
“All of us are indebted to the Heavenly Demon for our lives. When that day comes—when the one who wields the Black Flame returns, the true successor of the Heavenly Demon—”
“Then all of us in the Orthodox, Unorthodox, and Demonic factions shall gladly make him our sole sovereign.”
And now. In a dilapidated underground bunker in Yongsan where not even sunlight reached, Seon Young-hun, the Master of Gaebang, had carried that faded oath of that day in his heart throughout his life, and his hands trembled with overwhelming emotion.
At last he reached out and firmly grasped Cheon Do-hyeon’s hand.
His eyes grew red.
“And now…… at last, this is the moment that oath comes true.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————