The Heavenly Demon Destroys the Tower - Chapter 94

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

Episode 94
Yu Do-a confirmed the number ‘1’ floating above Lee Kang-han’s head.
“Finally.”
She sheathed the sword she’d been holding.
Five instances of suicide that had left everyone in shock.
Yu Do-a’s severed head, rolling across the ground, bore a serene expression.
Some instances even wore a smile.
“How can someone cut their own throat……?”
“I always knew she was strange…….”
“Could she be…… insane?”
Such suspicions arose naturally.
Yu Do-a had brutally severed her own throat.
Lee Kang-han spoke with an expression of utter bewilderment.
“Why would you do that? What reason is there to forfeit first place by killing yourself?”
At this, Yu Do-a, whose gaze had been fixed on her own severed head on the ground, turned to look at him.
On screen, her expression was unreadable, but her voice came through with perfect clarity.
“Cheonma is exhausting.”
The same answer as before.
No matter what question he posed next.
it seemed unlikely he would receive anything beyond that.
When she stopped taking her life.
“Hmm. Well…….”
“It doesn’t seem like rankings change that quickly from just dying a time or two…….”
“Is there really any need to fight?”
Watching Yu Do-a, who had severed her own throat five times, the candidates regained composure and lost their will to battle.
Cheonma Valley, which had thrummed with tension only moments before, fell into a lull.
During those thirty minutes of ranking adjustment time.
The candidates merely observed each other warily, initiating no further major conflicts.
And time passed swiftly.
[The ranking adjustment period has ended.]
[Rewards will be distributed according to final standings.]
When the thirty minutes elapsed.
Messages appeared before each of them.
“Ah…… so it’s an S-rank trait after all.”
“S-rank is still better than nothing.”
“Yeah…… there’s no need to aim for SS-rank by killing people.”
“Besides, with Lee Kang-han and Yu Do-a holding their ground, what could we do anyway?”
The candidates exchanged words tinged with both regret and relief.
As they checked their rewards.
“Huh……?”
Flash!
Starting from the fiftieth rank.
the lower-ranked candidates began to disappear from Cheonma Valley, transformed into light in order of their placement.
“Those below go first, then…….”
“I’m finally sick of this place. Never want to see it again!”
Spit!
Before departing.
several candidates spat at Cheonma Valley before vanishing.
“It’s really over…….”
Shin Yu-ri, who had been watching the standings, let out a deep sigh.
“Kang-han, I’m truly grateful…….”
She gazed at Lee Kang-han, her eyes glistening with gratitude.
“I’ll definitely repay you when I return to reality!”
“No. Just stay safe and well.”
“This time I won’t forget—I’ll definitely reach out!”
When she left Cheonma Valley.
she wouldn’t remember what had happened here.
Yet she made a promise to herself, again and again, that this time she would recall it.
Shin Yu-ri bid Lee Kang-han farewell, then transformed into light and disappeared.
And so all the candidates departed.
Only Lee Kang-han and Yu Do-a remained in Cheonma Valley.
“Playing around, are we? Really.”
Yu Do-a opened her mouth after witnessing Lee Kang-han and Shin Yu-ri’s parting.
“She’ll forget everything anyway once she goes back. You know that, don’t you?”
“……Now that the Cheonma Valley trial is over, wouldn’t it be possible for her to remember this time?”
“No, no. She’ll forget for sure.”
“How can you be so certain?”
Lee Kang-han asked, and she answered slowly.
Her expression remained unreadable, but her voice carried a faint hint of laughter.
“How do I know?”
A soft chuckle.
A brief laugh carried through from beyond the screen.
“Because I’ve already played this game before.”
“Played it…… before?”
Lee Kang-han echoed the question.
“That’s right.”
Yu Do-a nodded lightly.
“Played it before…… So there was already a Cheonma? Then why did you draw again?”
“Well, that’s…….”
She didn’t seem to have any intention of hiding it.
She was about to tell Lee Kang-han the story when.
“Ah. It’s my time to leave. I was second place, wasn’t I?”
Her body shone with a pristine white light.
She recognized it was her turn to exit Cheonma Valley.
“Then…… see you later, Cheonma.”
Whoosh……!
Yu Do-a disappeared along with the pure white light.
At the same time, the entire screen flashed white.
[You have acquired the Geukma Seungcheon-do.]
With this message, the screen went completely dark.
* * *
‘She said she’d already been through the Cheonma Valley trial…….’
Lee Kang-han gazed into the empty space where the screen had vanished.
The crimson sword traces that had already disappeared.
‘I thought she was an unusual existence even when I first saw her…… but this is beyond what I expected.’
He turned over the content of the footage.
And reconsidered what she had said.
-I’m tired of Cheonma.
-I’ve played this game before.
She had been through the Cheonma Valley trial once before.
And the fact that she was tired of Cheonma meant…….
‘Could it be that she was Cheonma in the past?’
The power Shin Nyeo had displayed in Cheonma Valley was so overwhelming.
Even if there were several more trials.
It seemed certain that she would claim first place.
If she had wielded that level of power in the previous Cheonma Valley trial as well.
Yu Do-a would definitely have taken first place.
‘But then why did she make me Cheonma……?’
Shin Nyeo, who abandoned Cheonma even after committing suicide five times.
And acquired the EX-grade equipment, the Geukma Seungcheon-do, instead.
He couldn’t fathom why she would make such a choice.
At least not with the information he had now.
‘And what’s this about humanity’s savior, and why did she become Shin Nyeo?’
If she was tired of Cheonma, then why did she bother becoming Shin Nyeo.
And in Cheonma Valley, she was swinging necks left and right like that.
Suddenly calling herself humanity’s savior also made no sense to him.
Lee Kang-han turned over various questions in his mind.
Then concluded that he couldn’t arrive at an answer with the information he currently had.
‘I’ll just have to ask her directly next time.’
Yu Do-a, who despite her cold appearance, was surprisingly talkative.
It feels like one push and the answer will come tumbling out.
But racking my brains over information I don’t have yet
won’t help—better to ask when we meet again.
‘Either way, Shin Nyeo, Yu Do-a… besides Mother, there’s someone else I need to watch out for now.’
Lee Kang-han gathered his thoughts and
looked around the room.
The Cheonma Seongryul-jin enveloped the entire house.
Still completely sealed off from the outside world.
He couldn’t move an inch in here.
‘Can’t even get into the tower.’
So I guess I just have to stay put and wait for the Cheonma Seongryul-jin to absorb.
But Mother said it would be absorbed by the time I woke up.
‘Yet here I am, far from drowsy—my mind is perfectly clear.’
Like that time when I suffered from narcolepsy before,
I’d thought an irresistible torpor was dragging me under.
But now my body’s condition was at its absolute peak, as if I’d activated the Arena Prospect Bracelet.
‘So should I just wait for the Cheonma Seongryul-jin to absorb like this?’
Is it even absorbing right now?
As Lee Kang-han entertained this doubt,
a brilliant flash—!
The Cheonma Seongryul-jin blazed with intense crimson light,
“Ngh…….”
and the glow began to converge on his body.
Starting from his chest where the Demon Mark was inscribed,
a scorching, searing pain erupted.
It was agony on a wholly different scale than the heat he’d felt when he obtained the Sacred Flame.
There was no way to resist it,
and his vision quickly washed white.
‘So it’s not sleep followed by waking… it’s knocking me unconscious……?’
The pain was so intense, so overwhelming, he felt on the verge of losing consciousness.
Crunch—!
Lee Kang-han gritted his teeth.
Yes.
If he simply surrendered to the pain and blacked out,
he wouldn’t feel the agony anymore.
‘But I won’t collapse on Mother’s terms.’
—The Demon Mark inscribed on your body will absorb the Cheonma Seongryul-jin. You’ll be deep in sleep for a while… so rest well while you can.
Just before she left.
That was what Mother Yu Yi-su had said.
She’d probably said it expecting he would collapse from this overwhelming pain.
But rather than surrender to rest, Lee Kang-han was determined to hold onto consciousness however he could.
To do that,
‘The Cheonma Divine Arts… the Cheonma Divine Arts……!’
Thump.
Seated on the ground, Lee Kang-han
instinctively recalled the incantation of the Cheonma Divine Arts.
[In the beginning, there was no distinction between the Right, the Crooked, and the Demonic…….]
Dozens of times.
No—hundreds of times had he chanted this opening verse.
As he recited it now, the words spilled from his lips unbidden.
Zing—!
The light from the Cheonma Seongryul-jin flashed repeatedly,
and the world wavered.
Suddenly the landscape around him shifted entirely.
“Wh……?”
What is this?
Am I seeing things?
The moment he recited the opening verse of the Cheonma Divine Arts, what appeared for the first time was a pitch-black expanse.
At its center,
a single point of light floated in the darkness.
No, this isn’t light.
‘Stars…… that’s what they are.’
Lee Kang-han understood instinctively.
The darkness he was seeing now was the night sky.
And that tranquil cluster of light was stars.
The moment he grasped this—
‘…….’
Lee Kang-han’s breath caught in his throat without warning.
What lay before his eyes was merely stars.
Ordinary stars scattered across the night sky.
Yet why, the moment he gazed upon them, did an intense crushing pressure grip him?
Why did his very existence feel as though it were dissolving away?
[Cheonma Divine Arts has %%&$!$(& ]
Crackle…….
A message window had materialized suddenly.
Behind “Cheonma Divine Arts,” the characters were fragmenting.
His vision began to blur.
All sensation fading into mist.
“The essence of Cheonma Divine Arts is Yeokcheon…….”
Without his own awareness,
Lee Kang-han found himself chanting the verses of the Cheonma Divine Arts.
His body no longer felt entirely his own.
He even found himself yearning for the burning pain that had seared through his chest moments before.
Lee Kang-han felt his flesh slipping beyond his control.
‘If I surrender now, if I let go of consciousness here…… it won’t just be sleep. Something far worse is waiting……!’
If he released the thread of consciousness now,
then it would not be the twenty-four-year-old Lee Kang-han
but something else entirely—an ineffable, wholly alien presence—that would inhabit this body.
When Lee Kang-han fought desperately to reclaim his mind,
Burst!
A blinding white light erupted from the Cheonma seal carved upon his chest.
“……What?!”
Then,
the mouth that had been unwillingly reciting the chant froze silent,
and his blurred vision snapped back into focus.
And then—
[Cheonma Divine Arts upgrades to 3 stars.]
[Cheonma Divine Arts upgrades to 4 stars.]
[You have obtained the skill ‘Cheonma Divine Palm’.]
The system messages that had appeared garbled before
now registered with crystalline clarity.
‘Cheonma Divine Arts rose two stars in an instant…… and I gained Cheonma Divine Palm as well.’
All that Lee Kang-han had done
was recite the Cheonma Divine Arts and gaze upon those stars—nothing more.
Yet in that brief span of time,
his cultivation had leaped two stars forward, and he’d acquired a palm technique to boot?
‘……What on earth are those stars?’
A single star hanging alone against a dark void.
His martial mastery had ascended dramatically from merely glimpsing it for a moment,
yet Lee Kang-han could not bring himself to look upon it again.
The terror of losing his body, of watching his existence fade—
once was more than enough.
“Exhale…….”
Only after his breath steadied
did Lee Kang-han notice that his entire body was drenched in sweat.
He began to remove his upper garment,
then recalled what had just transpired.
Clearly, when he was struggling desperately to maintain his consciousness,
a brilliant white light had torn free from his chest.
Whoosh.
He looked down at his chest.
“This character…….”
There, above the Demon character,
a new character had been inscribed.
He moved closer to the mirror to make out what it was.
There, glowing faintly, he saw the character for “overcome.”
‘The meaning…… it was the character for conquest.’
And this character,
he’d also seen it on the Geukma Seungcheon-do, the second-place reward that appeared in the footage earlier.
‘I was puzzled why the sword used a different character instead of Geukma.’
They called it the extreme realm of magic—
the apex reached when one’s demonic power attained its limit, known as Geukma.
Yet the blade given as second-place reward from Cheonma Valley bore a different character, which had troubled him.
To think this character for “overcome” would be inscribed on his chest.
‘……Did Yu Do-a do this?’
Her mother had clearly been watching together.
So instead of just inscribing the Demon character, she must have hidden the “overcome” character as well.
He didn’t know why she was helping him,
“I owe her my life…….”
Without her foresight, he would never have lasted through that ordeal.
Lee Kang-han recalled that helplessness from moments ago, and felt cold sweat trickling down his spine once more.
Then.
Whoosh…….
The character for “overcome” that had appeared on his chest began to fade slowly.
Only the Demon character remained.
“……Exhale.”
Since gaining the Cheonma Body, he’d endured hardship before.
But he’d never felt crisis quite like this.
The power of Cheonma.
Perhaps it wasn’t purely a blessing after all.
‘Is this why they say Cheonma is tedious—because of things like this?’
As Lee Kang-han recalled Yu Do-a’s words,
Whoosh…….
The Cheonma Seongryul-jin drawn across the room began rapidly fading.
Until moments ago it had been slowly absorbed,
but now it was gathering into Lee Kang-han’s demonic power in an instant.
‘I don’t feel any sense of strain at all.’
Perhaps it was because the Cheonma Divine Arts had upgraded by two stages.
Lee Kang-han felt no particular burden as the Cheonma Seongryul-jin was absorbed.
The Cheonma Seongryul-jin drawn throughout the entire room vanished in the blink of an eye.
And beyond that,
Swish-swish-swish…….
Even the Cheonma Seongryul-jin in the living room and by the entrance
gathered into Lee Kang-han’s demonic power in an instant.
‘At this rate, I’ll absorb it all in no time?’
True to Lee Kang-han’s expectation,
within minutes, all the Cheonma Seongryul-jin had been drawn in.
Flash……!
The electricity came back on, and the lights turned on throughout the house.
And then,
“Huh? The house, the house is visible again!”
“Hold on, just a moment!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“Cheonma! Are you all right?!”
From the direction of the entrance,
Shin Yu-ri’s urgent voice rang out.
The Cheonma Demolished the Tower (Serialized)
Author │ Yeom Bi
Publisher │ Kim Ju-hyeong
Published by │ J-Ple Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyeok
Address │ 204, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul (Guro-dong, Daelung Post Tower 1st)
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Yeom Bi 2025
This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. in accordance with a contract with the copyright holder, and the content may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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