On the water surface.
There is only one person here now.
First, there’s a corpse lying dead with its back split open. The name of this corpse when it was a person was Jeonyang.
With limbs blown away from the impact of the fall, rather than a corpse it would be more accurate to call it a chunk of meat.
And beside him stands the girl who just moments ago fell to the water surface and shattered to pieces.
It’s not a height from which living beings can survive falling. When people fall into water from this height, they receive the same impact as hitting concrete.
And naturally for a young girl, the body would be crushed beyond recognition. But as if rewinding time, the body pulled itself together and returned to human form.
In short, not human.
In front of this girl, and buried in the chunk of meat, there is a person.
The person who held the title of Heavenly Demon barely survived thanks to the internal energy in his body. But his internal organs are almost all ruptured from the impact and he’s dying from total organ failure, however.
At least now.
He is the only living person in this place.
His face was a mess of makeup and blood, no longer looking human, and his left arm and right leg were cut off with blood flowing continuously. And with blood flowing from every hole in his body, anyone who saw would think this person was already beyond saving.
If a person were to see.
The girl with alien purple hair approached Jeongha.
“The question to ask at this time is this, right? If you want to live, won’t you make a contract with me?”
Innocent.
Such a tone made this place bizarre. At these words spoken like playing house by the waterside where corpses and dying people lay, Jeongha barely regained his senses.
Whether because he was at the boundary between life and death, or because Jeongha’s level had reached what’s called the Original Spirit state.
Of course, this doesn’t mean transcendent immortals with infinite lifespans who completely escaped reincarnation like in the xianxia novels the Outer God knows about.
It’s just using such terminology because martial arts passed through Taoism.
In other words, this world is neither wuxia nor xianxia. It just happens to have similar appearances. On this aspect, the Outer God who completely distrusts memories from when it was human is correct.
But at least, in the sense of stepping on the threshold of transcendence that has escaped the human realm, it could be called Original Spirit state.
So having lost too much blood, something comes into view beyond the person who can barely be seen.
As if the sea is spread upside down above the sky.
If they say the world was created from one chaos, that sea covering the sky above must be chaos.
There is a verse engraved on the wall that only cult leaders can see.
The 3rd Heavenly Demon.
The only one recorded to have conquered the martial world.
Martial God.
There is fear of an existence that cannot be escaped and despair that no matter what you do you cannot run away engraved there.
Officially Martial God is known to have ascended to heaven, but only traces remain of a human who was defeated while resisting something that could not be defied.
But Jeongha still called it.
He had confidence.
Even learning the Sunflower Scripture, there was no one left in this world who could face him alone.
Though his body was twisted by the Sunflower Scripture, and his mind twisted along with it.
Or even though the desire for power itself disappeared as the possibility that he hadn’t bloomed emerged.
His pride in being the best remained.
So thinking he could somehow manage, he called the ominous god.
Though many things were needed to call a god, this was the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. Among the Ten Halls, there was an organization that collected this world’s esoteric arts and spells.
The Moon House Hall.
There were both the methods and materials to call that ominous god.
Moreover, all the methods to control the summoned god too.
So Jeongha even took the materials Gu Seongyong had been preparing to become a complete Heavenly Demon.
The materials were descendants with purple hair like Eunjae. From Gu Seongyong’s perspective, Eunjae was the previous previous Heavenly Demon. When he became Cult Leader, thinking they were dangerous, he massacred those descendants but didn’t kill them all considering the Heavenly Demon’s singularity.
Instead he raised them to make into elixirs.
He stole that and summoned what’s called the Purple Mad God of the Four Seasons’ Chaos that Martial God so feared.
At first seeing the sight of the world splitting before his eyes, he prepared for an intense battle, but rather it was such a mundane being that preparing seemed foolish.
Not a trace of qi could be felt, and there was no world-overwhelming aura. Its movements were those of an incredibly clumsy ordinary person, and its only special ability was giving power to others.
At first he suspected it was deceiving him but.
When he saw how it preciously treated the child he sent with malice, completely unaware of what it was doing, his suspicions were completely dissolved.
Come to think of it, it said it wanted warmth, he thought.
Jeongha, who had been feeling the solitude of an absolute being, understood the Outer God. That’s what he thought.
Of course it was a misunderstanding.
And now he realized his misunderstanding.
He could see the chaos wearing a child’s skin.
It said to make a contract if he wanted to live.
Remembering how the child who was about to die from being broken recovered instantly, Jeongha urgently cried out.
“M-me, rather than me, make a contract with Jeonyang!”
But the Outer God denied Jeongha’s desperate cry.
“I can’t. As I said before, but since you don’t seem to remember, I’ll explain. First reason one. I can’t make another contract with someone I’ve already contracted with.”
The Outer God approached Jeongha lying on the ground, crouched down to meet his eyes while raising one finger.
“And two. Jeonyang already has no warmth.”
And raised a second finger.
Jeongha understood the meaning clearly, though it was as he had mistakenly thought until now. Jeonyang was dead.
“No, but. He’s so warm…”
The Outer God expressionlessly reached out and placed its hand on Jeongha’s cheek.
“This is human body temperature.”
Jeongha knows too. Though Jeongha’s body is a mess and feeling burning pain like his body is on fire, the corpse he’s holding has already grown cold.
Though the water wasn’t that cold, it had stolen enough warmth to distinguish between a corpse and a living person’s warmth.
While Jeongha was realizing the cold reality despite not wanting to, the Outer God asked him.
“Want to make a contract?”
With his already heavily clouded eyes, he couldn’t see the Outer God’s expression. But his divine eye, brightened because he was dying, clearly showed what was inside the girl’s body.
He couldn’t help but understand why Martial God left such desperate scars underground – chaos was looking down at him here and now.
“At this point? When Jeonyang is already dead.”
Jeonyang’s last words heard while falling still lingered in Jeongha’s ears.
“If you don’t want to, that’s fine. I don’t force anyone. I just want humans to do what they want to do.”
The Outer God’s hand fell from Jeongha’s cheek.
Jeongha was extremely sleepy. If he closed his eyes now, could he follow Jeonyang?
Thinking that, he turned his eyes away from the Outer God whose demeanor was growing cold.
No, he tried to turn away.
Splash!
Then the sound of someone landing on the water struck Jeongha’s ears.
He looked that way with clouded eyes.
It was Gu Seongyong.
“You fool! You violated the taboo! To think you’d summon into this world the prime culprit that brought Martial God to such a miserable end! Did you think a monster like you could become Heavenly Demon if it was here!”
As he extended his sword creating internal energy, the water surged following the mighty force.
Well, there’s no way Jeonyang’s half-submerged corpse would be safe, and the corpse was swept away with the water.
To Jeongha, it seemed like that was separating him from Jeonyang.
Killing intent frosted his eyes.
Illogical hatred filled Jeongha’s chest.
After checking Jeongha’s condition and judging him practically dead already, Gu Seongyong pointed his sword at the purple-haired girl.
Gu Seongyong knows information about something that Martial God, presumed to have reached the Fire God realm, saw at the end of that martial way.
Something that gave enough fear and despair to break someone like Martial God.
Gu Seongyong has personally confirmed Martial God’s dwelling. If the girl before his eyes is the same being that Martial God saw, then the greatest threat is right in front of Gu Seongyong.
Moreover, of all things, she has the same face as Eunjae’s bloodline whom he killed before.
Though there’s a possibility this girl before him isn’t chaos, he was certain someone with that face would resent him. His life experience until now unconsciously made him think so.
Because in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, others were either enemies or subordinates.
Of course, the reality was exactly opposite.
Choseol had begun being processed to become materials when she was just a baby. So she knew nothing about the world, and didn’t even have a proper personality.
Rebecca had personality remaining in her body, but even if Choseol had personality remaining, she wouldn’t have had any thoughts seeing Gu Seongyong.
Even to the Outer God watching the situation through the harvesters, Gu Seongyong was just a human.
No, rather in this situation, he was a gift.
“I’ll make a contract.”
With a voice full of hatred, Jeongha glared at Gu Seongyong and opened his mouth.
A faint smile appeared on the Outer God’s lips.
“I’ll give myself to you. In exchange, when you finish everything later, I’ll take everything you have then. How about it?”
Originally they were words without any power. But after tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of repetitions, the sentence gained power.
“Good.”
The contract concept between just two – the Outer God and the subject – twisted the world, and Gu Seongyong didn’t have enough power to break laws to interfere with it.
Crack.
The skin hardened like pottery. The entire body changed like pottery. And through the center of the chest, an inhuman blue arm burst through.
Crack.
Like a bird breaking out of its shell, a woman with blue skin emerged through Jeongha’s body of completely mismatched volume.
And opened her eyes.
The whites were dyed black, and the pupils shone brightly.
Though clearly not human no matter how you look at it, a woman so beautiful you couldn’t take your eyes off her stood there.
She moved her naked body a few times then bent down to pick up Jeonyang’s sword stuck beside the corpse. But the sword snapped with a crack.
She didn’t mind and pointed the broken sword at Gu Seongyong.
And the next moment.
Without any warning, a purple flash melted everything in front and pierced through space.
Afterwards, just a lower body without an upper body remained.
The sword glowed red hot and melted.
Watching that, the Outer God asked.
“Why use a sword?”
She who was once he answered.
“A woman can’t hit with bare hands, right?”
Heavenly Demon has returned.