Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven - Chapter 374

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Third-rate Martial Arts Family, Greatest Under Heaven – Episode 374
It was years later when the Divine Dragon Immortal encountered Cheon-u Geom-sin Baek Cheon for the second time.
The young wanderer who had roamed without destination to mend his shattered dantian
had become a Demon.
At that moment, the Divine Dragon Immortal felt as though struck from behind.
‘How could a child blessed with heavenly mandate have fallen into demonic corruption…!’
He was a child born with heavenly mandate.
So even witnessing his pitiful form—clutching his shattered dantian and crying out desperately—envy had not stirred within him.
‘That is why I did not offer to mend his dantian.’
Whether I repaired it or not, the outcome would have been the same.
A child blessed with heavenly mandate would ultimately be completed in the form heaven desired.
Unlike myself, who after countless ages remained merely one in ten, he would become the greatest under heaven before even reaching a hundred years.
‘Fallen into demonic corruption. How. Why.’
Before jealousy, curiosity consumed the Divine Dragon Immortal, and he posed his question.
“Did you choose the demonic path to mend your shattered dantian? To ascend Kunlun while harboring demons—your audacity is remarkable.”
The child—no, the young man who had become a Demon—knelt before the Divine Dragon Immortal.
“Immortal, if I walk a mistaken path, I beseech you to sever it.”
He knelt but did not bow.
Thus the young man’s eyes met the Divine Dragon Immortal’s gaze directly.
…Unwavering.
Too clear, too righteous to belong to a Demon.
“The demonic path can never be righteous. Your path is mistaken.”
But could it truly be severed?
This was another matter entirely.
‘If his dantian is destroyed yet he refuses to abandon the martial way…’
Then demonic cultivation is his only form.
Knowing this, the Divine Dragon Immortal had not aided the child.
Jealousy had consumed his heart and clouded his vision.
Even without my intervention, heaven would surely bestow another form of opportunity.
“Child, how did you obtain demonic cultivation?”
“Through fortune… or rather, through calamity.”
Fortune or calamity.
‘Child blessed with heavenly mandate, you too are destined to shine brilliantly in the light. Yet why has heaven permitted you to wield the demonic?’
At their first meeting, jealousy had consumed his heart.
Now, at their second, curiosity filled it completely.
‘By nature, all demonic arts stem from Honeum, from beginning to end.’
The Divine Dragon Immortal knew the source of the demonic—the existence of Cheonma Honeum.
It was impossible not to know.
He had heard of it through Yeo Dong-bin, the friend he could only eternally admire.
‘The demonic cultivation this child has mastered must ultimately be a branch of Cheonma. All demonic paths converge into one through Cheonma—the great return of ten thousand streams to one.’
A being who received the Mandate of Heaven, destined to shine in brightness, had instead become shrouded in darkness and malice.
How could such a thing have come to pass?
Had Heaven itself decided to abandon the one to whom it had granted the Mandate?
I wondered.
The curiosity threatened to drive me mad.
“Child. You have walked a path chosen to survive, yet I will not sever it. Continue forward. Only remember—I am watching.”
The young man bowed his head before the Divine Dragon Immortal.
Then he drew the sword from his waist and planted it in the earth, swearing an oath.
“By the name of the White Sword, I swear. Though my body may be stained black, my heart—and the path ahead—shall remain white. I will walk forward pure and unblemished.”
Ordinarily, demonic qi is turbid and dark.
Yet the White Sword, despite radiating demonic energy, boasted a Sword Spirit as pure as freshly fallen snow.
As if symbolizing the path the young man would walk.
“…I shall watch.”
Child.
You who received the Mandate of Heaven that was never granted to me.
Show me.
What path will you walk?
How will you be completed? What being will you become?
‘Show me. Please.’
It was roughly a hundred years later that the Divine Dragon Immortal reunited with Cheon-u Geom-sin Baek Cheon, who had become the greatest master of his generation and a hero of Baek Do.

* * *
Though the Sun Demon Master had knelt first before Yang Hwi, he felt a sense of emptiness and dread.
‘Curse it all. I’ve been consumed. I only meant to use him.’
The Sect Leader candidate who had won the succession struggle must meet with the candidate from the Seo Lei Eum Sect and finally devour one another.
Pressed for time and unwilling to lose to the Seo Lei Eum Sect, he had accepted this mysterious eccentric.
But the situation had spiraled beyond his control.
‘They have all surrendered from their very hearts.’
Watching all his disciples kneel and bow was truly vertiginous.
And the greater problem was that the Sun Demon Master himself now genuinely wished to surrender.
‘What in the world is this aura?’
The eccentric who had once claimed to be the Injoong Sinma possessed an aura of absolute sanctity.
But now.
Having absorbed far denser demonic qi through the succession struggle, the Injoong Sinma was wrapped in an aura of terrible ominousness.
‘Merely to see it, merely to feel it, brings a piercing pain.’
Ominous.
Fear arose unbidden.
Could a being truly embody both sanctity and ominousness at once?
Perhaps he had carelessly drawn in a monster.
‘It is too late now. Too late. The stone has begun to roll; it will not stop until the slope ends.’
There was no point in questioning it now.
All my disciples had already fallen under that monster’s spell.
The Sun Demon Master bit his lip and cried out once more with all his might.
“Divine Immortal! Injoong Sinma! Please guide us!”

* * *
Beneath the mask, Yang Hwi’s lips curled into a smirk.
‘Better results than expected?’
I had drawn out Seon-gi with the intention of ruling these Madu creatures through fear—ones I would slaughter wholesale later—but the effect was remarkably potent.
No, it seemed to have struck a fatal blow.
‘They all cultivate demonic arts and revere pure demonic qi as sacred.’
Conversely, I wondered if they might feel from Seon-gi the same revulsion that Baek-do-in felt toward demonic qi.
My prediction proved correct.
‘Fear springs from the unknown, after all.’
At such a young age, I possessed martial prowess that rivaled not only peers of similar years, but even the master of the Great Thunder Sound Sect.
I had demonstrated myself to be a possessor of inexplicable talent.
‘Add fragments of Seon-gi to this, and I become nothing but an entity of mystery.’
A being radiating an aura of unparalleled holiness simultaneously wielded an aura of ominous dread.
It was only natural that others’ fear would transform into reverence.
That very current was what manifested as their worship now.
-Kill me, kill me, kill me, kill me.
-Please spare us. I beg you. Save us….
-I will devour their blood and flesh!
‘Bear with me just a moment longer, everyone. I’ll sever every last neck for you.’
The whispers of consciousness lingering within the absorbed demonic qi.
I soothed such thoughts briefly and examined the power I had absorbed.
A contest of sorts—a lonely one.
The final poison remaining in a jar filled with poisons becomes absolute poison.
Such was the technique of solitary poison.
‘For absorbing merely peak masters—fewer than ten of them—the satiation is extraordinary.’
Since this was my first time harboring demonic qi in my body, I couldn’t precisely gauge the extent.
The unfamiliarity and strangeness made me hesitant.
Yet it was certain that this was tremendous power.
‘And I didn’t even absorb their life force completely.’
No wonder people so easily fell to the demonic path.
A path where one could gain great power simply by closing one’s eyes for a moment.
That path was the Demonic Way itself.
…In that instant, a surge of impulse rose within me.
To defeat the monster called Cheonma, I had to become stronger by any means necessary.
Then.
Then so be it.
‘…I should spit it all out.’
As I bit my tongue, the taste of blood filled my mouth.
Sim Ma arrived in an instant.
I must not be swayed by it.
Power not built by oneself is merely a tool.
This was something I must not forget.
‘Yes. It is merely a tool. Only a fool discards a blood-stained blade out of squeamishness. A tool is nothing but a tool… a tool….’
I closed my eyes.
Sim Ma was fading and transforming into a different form.
“Ooooooh!”
“The Deity bestows grace upon us!”
“The energy, the energy…!”
Sacred energy soared skyward while demonic qi spread outward.
The disciples of Dae-roe-eum Temple were intoxicated by the supremely pure demonic qi, their eyes glazed over.
‘Merely a tool. A tool. Demonic qi is nothing but a tool.’
The commotion around me did not reach my ears.
The flow beginning from the initial thread was propelling my spirit forward.
‘…I have found the path.’
More than a year had already passed since I reached the pinnacle of perfection.
Yet in truth.
More than a year was also a period of stagnation.
‘My skill as a Sim Sang-gyeong master continued to grow. But I could not find the path to ascend further.’
Had I possessed leisure, I would have walked slowly to find a certain path.
But this was a time when I could not be certain of leisure.
Therefore, an unavoidable impatience followed.
…Now I understood—this was one reason why I had hastily consumed the Seon-dan upon witnessing Seon’s final moment.
‘I see. Sim Sang-gyeong is the realm of the mind. Impatience too is of the mind. Thanks to it, I have found it.’
A ladder to ascend higher.
A new path I had never experienced in my past life.
…A clue to advance toward Cheonmu-sip-jon.
-Keeeeeeee!
The hawk’s cry fills my mind.
Sim Sang-i, the Divine Bird, was spreading its wings.
The first function of Shatter Heaven Divine Bird is Tread Heaven.
The heart that must surely touch.
For the second function, such a name seemed fitting.
Defy Heaven.
The heart that would defy the heavens.
The reason was simple.
‘Even if it is demonic qi, if I merely treat it as a tool.’
Even if it is a force that defies heaven itself, if it cannot resist and I simply grasp it in my hand and wield it.
‘For a swordsman, the blade is a companion. For a warrior, inner energy, qi—these are the same as the swordsman’s sword.’
The second function, Defying Heaven.
Demonic qi.
I had become capable of controlling the Heavenly Demon’s qi.

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