Chapter 239 : Heavenly Demon Cavern (2)
Chapter 239: Heavenly Demon Cavern (2)
The sound of the snow wind brushed through the interior, filling it completely.
The footsteps of the three who had entered the cavern continued precariously onward.
“Ugh, cold. This is vicious—absolutely vicious.”
Nameless wrapped his arms around himself in silence and hunched his shoulders.
Transparent ice walls—whether they should be called walls or boundaries was unclear—stretched endlessly in every direction.
“…I have never seen anything like this, not even in the North Sea.”
Seori slowly extended her hand to touch the ice wall, then flinched and pulled it back.
The cross-sections of the ice walls reflected like mirrors, repeating each of their figures dozens, hundreds of times over.
They were smooth—and hard.
A chill so intense that the word “cold” felt insufficient crawled up from her fingertips.
“…Hoo. I don’t know what kind of tastes the Heavenly Demon had, but it’s clear he wasn’t normal.”
“If I feel this much, an ordinary martial artist would have had their heart freeze solid the instant they inhaled and died.”
Nameless clicked his tongue.
He too had crossed countless lines between life and death, but even for him, this was the first time he had encountered cold energy of such an absolute degree.
No matter how much qi he wrapped around himself, the vicious cold pierced through the skin as if drilling inward, stabbing his entire body.
Even breathing properly was difficult—the air here felt like an alien world, utterly divorced from nature.
However, the truly dangerous aspect of this Heavenly Demon Cavern was not merely the snow wind.
Crack!
“Hk!”
“!!”
Suddenly, the icy ground beneath Seori’s foot collapsed inward, and her body was sucked downward.
It felt as though a colossal force had seized and dragged her.
The ice-formed ground concealed fractures everywhere—sheer drops plunging straight down from the ceiling.
Since she had not yet achieved void-stepping, she had no chance to struggle before the fall had already begun.
Grab!
In that instant, Sewoon’s hand shot out like a lightning bolt and caught the back of her neck.
“Again?”
“S-sorry.”
Sewoon frowned deeply as he spoke, as though this was far from the first time.
Dangling awkwardly, Seori looked thoroughly ashamed.
These hidden ice fractures—difficult to discern even for someone who had once been the head of the North Sea Ice Palace—were the single greatest danger here.
As Seori moved away from the fracture, Sewoon spoke flatly.
“I’ll say it again. Follow directly behind me. Unless you want that crack to become your grave.”
“…Understood.”
Seori nodded at his words.
Then she quietly began following in step with Sewoon.
Since Sewoon was leading the way, leaving clear footprints, she only had to step where he stepped.
But it was far from easy.
‘Damn it. Because of the formation’s effects, my mind keeps growing hazy—I can’t even extend my steps properly.’
The surroundings were no mere cavern.
Stray even slightly, and you would lose the path back entirely—its structure resembled a labyrinth.
If one failed to keep a firm grip on their consciousness, they would immediately collapse unconscious.
In this dreadful frozen ice hell worthy of the name Faint Silver Heavenly Demon, Seori clenched her teeth and pressed forward.
At that moment, Sewoon activated the Color Perception Eye and slowly swept his gaze across the surroundings.
His eyes, too, were taut with tension.
‘If I hadn’t absorbed the aura of the Silver Moon Great Axe, this wouldn’t have been easy.’
There was only one reason Sewoon could take the lead.
Swooo—
Because this was a space imbued with the Heavenly Demon’s aura, traces of the path were visible—traces only Sewoon, who had inherited the same lineage, could perceive.
Countless reflections of himself flickered across the mirror-like ice walls, shimmering like the cold trembling at his fingertips.
Yet Sewoon stepped forward without hesitation.
Unlike Seori, he had drawn up demon-subduing qi, keeping his consciousness firm and unshaken.
‘Why was it here?’
Even as he advanced, another question occupied his thoughts.
The Faint Silver Heavenly Demon.
An absolute being presumed to have possessed power comparable to the Blood Demon.
He had stood just one step away from unifying the Central Plains.
He had been on the brink of grasping everything.
And yet—he vanished.
Without warning. Without any omen.
‘The prevailing theory says he felt the impermanence of life and chose to leave the martial world, but…’
He was neither a Wudang Daoist nor a Shaolin monk.
Could such a thing truly have happened so suddenly?
Sewoon suspected it was something of an entirely different nature.
Step.
He stopped and looked at the guiding aura before him.
Within his Color Perception Eye, the Heavenly Demon’s energy glimmered faintly.
‘If he was going to disappear simply because life felt empty, he could have just vanished.’
Why, then—
Why go so far as to leave these traces behind for later generations?
Why create such a perfectly constructed formation-bound cavern, one that even with a treasure map, the unqualified could never enter?
‘Then it must mean there was a purpose. And if I had to guess…’
Sewoon’s eyelashes trembled faintly.
The riddle left behind by the Heavenly Demon was slowly revealing itself.
And then—
“Senior Brother.”
“…!”
At Nameless’s voice, Sewoon snapped back to his senses.
When he turned around, Nameless was pointing straight ahead.
“There.”
Sewoon slowly turned his head.
And there—
Ssssss!
Along with a spine-chilling, unfamiliar sound, black demonic qi spread out like fog, seeping upward.
A sharp glint flashed through Sewoon’s eyes.
“Seori.”
“I know.”
At his call, Seori pulled a folding fan from her robes and swung it powerfully.
Shhhwaaah!
The snow wind she created swept the fog away.
Revealed beneath it were two passageways, their interiors filled with pitch-black darkness.
Above the forked paths, like hanging plaques, four characters were engraved.
Chapter 239: Heavenly Demon Cavern (2)
Heaven and Earth Opening.
The instant Sewoon saw the inscription, he understood.
‘It has begun.’
At last, he had reached the first gate left behind by the Heavenly Demon.
Within Sewoon’s heart, a razor-sharp tension reared its head.
Deep inside the cavern, above the passageways that split into two, a single clear inscription was carved above each.
Heaven.
Earth.
Nameless and Seori alternated their gazes between the gates of Heaven and Earth, their heads aching with worry.
“It looks like the first gate is telling us to choose the correct one of these two paths…”
“Ghn… If we pick the wrong one, we’ll probably be met with horrific traps and mechanisms.”
A grave tension filled their exchanged looks.
Up to now, this Heavenly Demon Cavern had proven itself to be a meticulously constructed hell without reprieve.
If they made the wrong choice, the consequences would be disastrous—it was obvious at a glance.
As both hesitated, unable to step forward easily, Nameless cautiously asked Sewoon.
“Hoo… Heaven and Earth. Which one is the right choice, Junior Brother?”
Nameless repeated the question carefully, but no matter how long they waited, Sewoon did not answer.
Unlike the other two, Sewoon was not looking at the passageways.
His gaze was directed elsewhere.
‘Everything the Heavenly Demon left behind must have had a justifiable reason. If so, what I should be focusing on right now isn’t the passages themselves, but…’
Heaven and Earth Opening.
That phrase was what Sewoon was endlessly contemplating.
In truth, even to Sewoon and the others, Heaven and Earth Opening was an unfamiliar expression.
‘In the Central Plains, it’s usually called Opening Heaven and Dividing Earth. They don’t say Heaven and Earth Opening.’
Opening Heaven and Dividing Earth originated from the myth of the Primordial Creator recorded in The Chronicle of Three and Five Calendars, written by Xu Zheng.
—In the beginning, the world had no separation between Heaven and Earth and was like a great egg. The creator of all things, the Primordial Creator, grew inside it like a fetus, and after roughly eighteen thousand years, split the egg open. The light and clear essence rose to become Heaven, while the heavy and turbid matter sank to become Earth.
Sewoon’s eyes deepened.
In that moment, he began to pierce through the implication behind the words Heaven and Earth Opening.
‘The gates of Heaven and Earth are already before me. That means what remains is the Opening. That must be the key.’
Opening meant the moment the world first came into being and was opened.
If that was the case—
‘Walking through a door already made by someone else isn’t the correct answer.’
Neither of the two paths before them was correct.
No matter which one they chose, they would have met a miserable death.
At that instant, a faint smile rose to Sewoon’s lips.
It was a smile of certainty.
“So that’s it.”
“Huh?”
“…You figured out which passage it is?!”
Nameless and Seori asked in unison, startled.
But Sewoon did not answer and instead slowly stepped forward.
Yet he did not enter either of the two passages.
He stopped precisely at the center.
‘Opening means breaking open an unopened, unknown fissure. It means to find a new path, not follow one already prepared.’
Crunch!
Sewoon silently clenched both fists as if they might burst.
And then—
Woooooong!!
The air trembled, and the entire network of ice walls forming the cavern began to shake as if struck by an earthquake.
“…Junior Brother?”
“Why all of a sudden?!”
Nameless and Seori jumped in shock at the sight.
From Sewoon’s body, the surging waves of Reverse Heaven Qi—pushed to the extreme of the Manifestation Realm—erupted wildly.
As the overwhelming release of inner power shook the space itself—
Screeeech—!!
Sewoon finally spun like a thunderbolt and slammed both fists downward at blinding speed.
Straight into the ice beneath his feet.
Kwarreung—!
Kwarrrrr!
With a colossal roar, the ground split apart like a drought-stricken field.
Neither the Gate of Heaven nor the Gate of Earth—
The very center of the cavern shattered and collapsed into fragments.
A rupture so massive it could not even be compared to the earlier cracks.
“Gah!!”
“W-what?!”
That—
Was the new path Sewoon had created.
Shaaah—!
As freezing air poured down along with collapsing ice walls—
“Waaaaaah!!”
“Hiiik—!!”
Paaah!
The three of them began to fall into a bottomless abyss together with ice shards swirling like a blizzard.
Nameless and Seori screamed at the sudden catastrophe, but Sewoon did not waver in the slightest.
To the two of them, it was no different from suicide.
But Sewoon knew.
This was not a fall—it was a leap.
Not choosing a path within a given framework, but shattering that framework entirely and piercing straight into the essence.
‘If I were him—yes, if I were the Faint Silver Heavenly Demon, I would have made the same choice.’
And then—
Woooong!
With a strange resonant hum, the falling bodies of the three floated gently upward.
“W-wha…?”
“?!”
Nameless and Seori, whose faces had been drained white of all color, were stunned as a warm sensation suddenly flooded their limbs.
Shaaah!
“What—what is this?”
“We stopped?!”
An unknown current of air rose from below, wrapping around their bodies and holding them suspended midair.
Just as Sewoon had predicted.
The path the Heavenly Demon had expected of his successor was precisely the choice Sewoon had made.
Step.
Guided along that current, the three were forcibly carried to a new space and set foot upon it.
Nameless and Seori were so shaken they could hardly regain their senses.
But Sewoon, without the slightest hesitation, surveyed the second location they had newly arrived at.
“This place is…”
For some reason, a strange light flickered in Sewoon’s eyes.