Chapter 1

The full moon hung luminous and round, its light spilling over a mountain sanctuary lost in silence.

An old Taoist stood on the stone terrace of an unlit hall, gazing up at the sky.

“Ha… what a tranquil night this is.”

A Taoist crown bearing a clear Taegeuk pattern (supreme ultimate). A worn white robe that spoke of modest living. A clear, refined face with gentle eyes. A white beard that fell to his chest. He cut a figure that could only be described as that of an immortal sage.

He was Yoo Gil-cheon, dharma name Profound Sage of Heaven— the current sect leader of Wudang, praised as the man who had attained the highest Tao of any Taoist in the Central Plains.

For once, he allowed himself to be absorbed by the soft moonlight washing over him.

And why not?

Evil spirits had not stirred from their lairs, and calamity showed not even the faintest omen. It was, by all accounts, a world at peace.

If there was one worry, it was…

“The Heavenly Demon.”

A shadow of concern passed over his otherwise serene face.

Heaven is truly indifferent. If You were to grant anything, why not grant only peace — why send someone like him into the world alongside it?

Not that the man had led his demonic cult on a campaign to conquer the realm.

He had come out into the martial world exactly once.

Starting from the foot of a western mountain and traveling until he reached the eastern sea, he had wandered for a considerable stretch of time, seeking out the powerful across every corner of the land.

And along that road — sword masters, blade masters, spear masters, fist fighters, palm fighters — every man who had been called peerless within his own domain had been felled, one after another.

— Tch. Not a single one worth a damn.

Muttering with what sounded like disappointment, he had simply turned around and gone back to where he came from.

Revenge?

Attempts had not been entirely absent.

There was the sight of a disciple from the Demonic Alliance — who had watched their lord, the self-proclaimed sovereign of the unorthodox factions, die — charge at him seeking retribution. And everyone saw what became of that.

Laughing that he had no intention of turning away a challenge, the Heavenly Demon had raised his hand, and three thousand warriors died without exception.

It was said that even now, twenty years later, the battlefield from that day still held a reddish hue.

The Orthodox Martial Alliance had watched. Or rather — stayed silent.

The duel had been straightforward and above board from the start, so there was no justification for vengeance, they said.

In truth, the near-dissolution of the Demonic Alliance — which had long been a thorn in their side — was a windfall they had no part in earning.

And in the midst of it all, the man himself had declared it uninteresting and was good enough to leave on his own. Why go looking for a fight?

And so he became the “Heavenly Demon” — acknowledged not only by the demonic cult, but by everyone under heaven.

After that, he never set foot in the martial world again.

Yet it was a peace that could shatter at any moment.

If he ever changed his mind and decided to set out on a conquest of the Central Plains, the general consensus was that no one could stop him.

Surely he’s dead by now?

He must be, right?

He was younger than Yoo Gil-cheon, true — but that was no guarantee of a long life. And there were always stories of martial artists falling into qi deviation while training demonic arts…

“Amitabha. That would be wonderful.”

Yoo Gil-cheon murmured his Taoist invocation with every fiber of hope in his body.

Whoooosh.

A breeze came then.

Cool and refreshing, it swept through the sanctuary from corner to corner, rustling the hair at his temples. Yoo Gil-cheon breathed his worries into it and looked back up at the moon…

“Hm?”

A shadow, dark as a dot, was superimposed over the round face of the moon.

A strange sight.

A night bird that couldn’t sleep?

“…Hm??”

But the shadow was growing — swelling as if swallowing the moon whole. It was accelerating, and the direction it was heading…

“Wh — ugh!”

Yoo Gil-cheon’s eyes flew wide. He stumbled backwards in shock.

That black shadow was plummeting straight toward him.

And the face — now unmistakably clear—

“B— Baek Gang-hwi?”

The moment he recognized the shadow, Yoo Gil-cheon’s eyes went as wide as lanterns.

But something was wrong.

It had been twenty years since the man had wandered the land and caused the Demonic Alliance massacre. He’d been fifty even then — which meant twenty years after, he should look like a white-haired old man. So why was there not a single wrinkle on that face? Why was the skin so taut?

In fact, he looked far, far younger than he had then. …Wait.

“It’s been a while, Timber-face.”

“……”

“That bone I broke back then — has it healed up properly?”

Grinning broadly as he greeted him was… the Heavenly Demon himself.

The Central Plains’ most latent catastrophe.

This damned plague — don’t tell me he’s actually achieved Reversed Aging?

Heaven wasn’t merely indifferent. This was outright cruel.

O Heaven, if you were going to hand things out, You could’ve at least been fair about it — so why give a legendary realm to this monster on top of everything else?

He should cry out at once, warn everyone that a calamity had arri — no. He shouldn’t.

He had seen what happened to the Demonic Alliance.

This was a man who never walked away from a fight that came to him.

He had already been the greatest under heaven back then — and now he was a monster who had achieved Reversed Aging.

Yoo Gil-cheon had just watched him fly all the way to Wudang without so much as setting foot on the ground. Fight him? Don’t be absurd.

If he mouthed off about justice and righteousness and picked a pointless battle, Wudang would be reduced to a handful of dust—

* * *

“Ascension to immortality?”

“That’s right.”

“But… what do you mean by—”

Having led the unwelcome late-night visitor into his room, Yoo Gil-cheon barely stopped himself from finishing the sentence with “that nonsense.”

The man across from him was Baek Gang-hwi, the Heavenly Demon.

A being whose martial might reached the heavens and whom all the world feared.

A transcendent — one whose casual, sweeping gesture could topple every master the world had to offer, even if you gathered them all in one place.

A man so powerful he could singlehandedly lay waste to every place he passed through without so much as issuing a mobilization order to his followers.

You insufferable bastard. Twenty years of quiet and now this.

The world said that Hyeoncheonja Yoo Gil-cheon had attained the highest Tao — but in this particular moment, decades of cultivation felt utterly meaningless as profanity clawed its way to the very tip of his tongue.

Why, of all people, did it have to be him?

Kunlun was right next to the demonic cult’s territory. Head a bit further south and there was Kongtong. In Sichuan there was Qingcheng. And on the road to Hubei, you’d pass through Shaanxi anyway — so why not ask at Zhongnan or Huashan first?

Why, of all places, did he have to trek all the way into the mountains to Wudang — deep in the very heart of the Central Plains — and pull this?

And never mind that Yoo Gil-cheon had always said age was no obstacle — this youngster was addressing him in informal speech without so much as blinking.

But you could only push back when you had something to push back with.

Standing stiff-spined in front of a monster who might single-handedly unify the realm was nothing short of recklessness.

Hadn’t it always been said that the wisest course with a madman was to stay well out of his way?

“So why, all of a sudden, ascension to immortality…?”

“I’m bored. Nothing to do.”

“…Ah.”

Truly a reason that suited him to perfection.

The purpose behind seeking ascension to immortality was boredom.

“Teaching the disciples has its limits too. I thought it’d be nice if one of them reached the level where they could kill me, so I tried teaching a few — but those kids have no talent. None at all.”

A hollow laugh threatened to escape him.

He’d taught them hoping they might eventually be able to kill him.

As if anyone he’d taught could manage that.

As if they could so much as scratch him.

“And it’s not like I can go out and conquer the Central Plains either. Tormenting the weak is just more trouble than it’s worth.”

Weak. And not worth the trouble.

Thank heavens for that.

Yes — thanks to him, the Central Plains had been this peaceful.

“So I thought, why not ascend to immortality while I’m at it. However I look at it, that’s the only thing left.”

“Well… you have achieved Reversed Aging, after all.”

Nodding absently, Yoo Gil-cheon suddenly realized his mistake.

“Then find it for me.”

“…Pardon?”

He nearly dropped the tea set he was holding, catching it just in time.

“Find it. The method for ascending to immortality.”

“……”

“What?”

“No, it’s just — that’s not the sort of thing you can simply go out and find…”

“Wouldn’t a specialist be better suited? If I go looking for it myself, it’ll only cause trouble. I’ll wait here.”

A thunderclap rang out beside Yoo Gil-cheon’s ear.

This insufferable madman!

So he’d grown closer to a child’s heart — fine — but this wasn’t some brat flopped on a market floor screaming for sweets. Telling someone to just go find it out of the blue? Am I your disciple? Your subordinate? Go find it — find what exactly!

“Ha, ha… surely you’re joking, my lord.”

“Joking? Hm. You’d rather I looked for it myself, then? How? Shall I shake things up a bit?”

“……”

“I’ll give you one year.”

The smiling Baek Gang-hwi’s pupils flickered with killing intent.

In an instant, winter descended on the room. The air froze solid, and the wooden pillars of the hall cracked and splintered — and Yoo Gil-cheon’s heart shrank immediately to the size of a dried pea.

This bastard… he’s serious.

Beneath that pressure, the hall that had stood for a thousand years nearly collapsed all at once.

A man in whom good and evil coexisted.

Good today, evil tomorrow.

No — within a single breath, he could become evil at any moment depending on his whims.

That smile that held cruelty alongside it…

Displaying the arrogance befitting the strongest being in the world — and in the face of that — Yoo Gil-cheon gathered his inner energy in an instant and released it, blasting the doors open with the force of his voice.

“This very instant! Go and find the method of ascending to immortality! Search the entire world if you must, but find it without fail!”

It was a lion’s roar to rival those of Shaolin.

The Heavenly Demon is searching for a method of ascension.

Wudang cannot answer him, and the next to face his wrath will be… you. And you. And you. And you.

The message echoed outward to every corner of the Central Plains, and the entire martial world united as one.

The orthodox factions moved to survive. The unorthodox factions moved for fear the sparks might reach them.

And the demonic cult — upon hearing that their terrifying lord wished to leave of his own accord — reportedly had no reason to object.

So they’ve been suffering too.

And so, the entire martial world’s united effort to send the Heavenly Demon off to immortality began — and heaven was moved.

Before a year had passed.

Starting with the Maoshan Sect, renowned for their ritual arts, the Five Great Taoist Orders combined their efforts to sift through the ruined records of the Quanzhen Sect. With support from the Beggars’ Sect and the Grey Underworld, testimony and texts were gathered from across the land — and at last, the method of ascension was completed.

A magnificent achievement.

Yet not a single soul coveted it. On the contrary, people volunteered to serve as its escort, ensuring nothing untoward occurred.

The method of ascension was something even a Taoist who devoted his entire life to the arts of cultivation would struggle to accomplish — but what sort of lunatic would covet something belonging to Baek Gang-hwi?

“My lord! We found it! This is the method of ascension!”

Yoo Gil-cheon called out in a loud, clear, confident voice, offering the document up with both hands.

“Oh? You actually managed it.”

“We did.”

Baek Gang-hwi looked at the booklet with eyes bright with interest and said:

“This is the real thing, right?”

“……”

In truth, a few characters had been changed.

What business did someone like him have ascending as a demonic immortal?

Did they need the trouble of being scorned even in the immortal realm?

But on that day, Yoo Gil-cheon set aside every last scrap of his pride as a Taoist.

If not me, who would walk this thorned path.

“It is! I swear!”

“Good. Then clear out the Taegeuk Cave. Block the entrance with a large boulder — no one is to approach. And prepare a generous supply of grain-abstaining pills and the like.”

“Of course — …Pardon?”

“I need to train. Didn’t Gonyang do it here too?”

“……”

“I won’t take a single step out of the Taegeuk Cave until I’ve achieved ascension. Remember that.”

Yoo Gil-cheon, harboring a murderous fury, personally swept and scrubbed the Taegeuk Cave.

You brazen — ! The Taegeuk Cave isn’t a closed-door training ground for the demonic cult! If you want to ascend to immortality, go do it in your own home — why come and freeload off Wudang!

But.

On the other hand, part of him thought — perhaps this is better.

At least while the man was training for ascension, peace would be maintained.

On this day, the martial world — in recognition of Wudang’s solitary burden — revived an old custom, one in which weapons were left untied at the trees outside the main gate as a gesture of respect.

The tradition of the Sword-Releasing Pool, which had long since become little more than a hollow name, began anew.

And so, after the Heavenly Demon entered the Taegeuk Cave —

Yoo Gil-cheon sealed the entrance with the largest boulder on Wudang Mountain. And just in case the man failed to ascend and came back as a ghost seeking revenge, he plastered paper talismans over every inch of it with meticulous care.

Then, twenty years after the Heavenly Demon had entered the Taegeuk Cave, on a certain day —

Yoo Gil-cheon, whose lifespan had run its course and whose inner energy had begun to scatter and dissipate, leaned on his walking stick with a curved back and stood before the Taegeuk Cave, surrounded by the leaders of the various sects.

Such was the nature of time.

Where there is birth, death must follow.

Feeling that his allotted years were nearly spent, Yoo Gil-cheon had made it his last mission — like a dying duty — to confirm whether the Heavenly Demon still lived.

“Open it.”

At his command, dozens of martial artists pushed the boulder aside, and the interior of the Taegeuk Cave was revealed.

Within it sat the Heavenly Demon, back straight, posture unwavering.

“My lord……”

He called out, but there was no answer.

Not even an eyelid so much as trembled.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Yoo Gil-cheon, leaning on his walking stick, approached with care and gently reached out his hand — and the Heavenly Demon’s body, crumbled to ash, scattered on the wind that swept through.

“Ah… aah……”

Tears of joy ran from the wrinkled eyes of Yoo Gil-cheon, who had by now reached the threshold of his nineties.

Creak — crack — crack —

Drawing upon the very last of his strength, Yoo Gil-cheon straightened even his curved back until he stood upright, and roared out toward all the world beneath heaven:

“The Heavenly Demon is dead!”