Chapter 299 : Blood Demon’s Dream (2)
Chapter 299: Blood Demon’s Dream (2)
The Blood Demon’s Spirit Body slowly took shape.
Unlike when he had been drifting through fragments of memory, his once translucent form transformed into a complete, solid presence.
In the white-stained world, the Blood Demon wore a cold smile.
His gaze felt as though it pierced through everything about Sewoon.
At that moment, Sewoon finally spoke the name of his opponent—the name he had only just come to understand.
“Greed.”
A monster burdened with a horrific legend: one that devoured everything in the world, and when nothing remained to eat, even consumed itself.
That was the opponent’s true name.
The Blood Demon twisted the corner of his lips.
“It’s a nostalgic name, one I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Despite his casual tone, his voice carried a chilling sneer, as though he were mocking all existence itself.
Sssaaaah!
Sewoon drew up his Qi and immediately assumed a combat stance.
‘…Right. This place.’
In that instant, Sewoon realized that this was the Blood Demon’s Mindscape World.
His expression stiffened.
To be trapped within a mindscape world was tantamount to having been devoured.
In this place—where a martial artist who had reached the extreme of the Life-and-Death Realm manifested their own power as a world—the Blood Demon could wield destructive force far beyond what he possessed in reality. In contrast, Sewoon could only use a fraction of his original strength.
Destroying the heart where the core had once existed had instead become a fatal misstep.
This endlessly spreading white space, reminiscent of an infinite prison, was the Blood Demon’s finest trap—laid to capture someone who had reached the extreme of the Life-and-Death Realm.
“Isn’t it amusing? The method your master left behind at the cost of his life ended up killing you instead.”
The Blood Demon’s voice echoed throughout the entire space.
He was mocking the death of Yelü Sheng.
Sewoon struggled to maintain his composure and focused on observing the flow of his opponent’s Qi.
“In reality, it’s true that you stood half a step ahead of me. But now that you’re trapped here, there’s no possible way you can defeat me.”
Rumble!
The Blood Demon’s voice shook the space itself.
An absolute, irresistible power was embedded within his words.
Just as he said, this was the Blood Demon’s domain.
A space where everything moved according to his will.
“In endless despair, become my sacrifice.”
With those final words, the Blood Demon reached out his hand toward Sewoon.
At the same time, Sewoon scattered his Qi with all his might and drew Pure Yang.
Kugugugung!
Kwaaaaarrrr!
‘I have to go all out from the very first move…!’
There was no room to test his opponent.
The slightest lapse in focus would erase his existence without a trace.
Chwararararak!
Countless Formless Swords manifested beside Sewoon as he charged forward.
Brilliant golden Qi erupted from Sewoon’s body, wrapping around the blade of Pure Yang and every single Formless Sword.
Pa-bat!
Sewoon squeezed out the last of his strength and swung his sword at the Blood Demon.
The Formless Swords blooming in the void surged toward the Blood Demon’s heart.
Puh-puk!
Once again, without the slightest deviation, the heart was perfectly pierced.
However, at that moment—
“To use the same move that has already been countered. Did you truly believe it would work?”
“…!!”
Despite having his heart pierced, the Blood Demon did not let out a single cry of pain. Instead, he merely displayed a chilling smile.
Sewoon immediately tried to pull his sword back—
Kwaduk!
“!!”
It was as if flesh itself had seized the blade of Pure Yang; the sword would not budge at all.
He tried to shatter the heart to deal a decisive blow, but within the Mindscape World, there was no core.
The Blood Demon’s body was merely a manifestation of his will—physical attacks held no meaning here.
“Disperse.”
Pashssss!
With a single casual gesture, the Blood Demon returned all of the Formless Swords Sewoon had deployed to nothingness.
They failed to even touch the Blood Demon’s body, scattering uselessly in the void.
“Keugh…!”
A pained groan burst from Sewoon’s lips.
Through the blade of Pure Yang, Reverse Heaven Qi spread through his body like a virulent poison.
Dark purple blotches rapidly expanded across Sewoon’s skin.
Kwaddeudeuk!
Kkeugeuk!
As the Blood Demon’s overwhelming power flooded through his entire body in an instant, Sewoon’s bones and muscles screamed, and a horrific pain—like his blood vessels were being burned alive—dominated his senses.
Titing!
Pure Yang fell weakly to the ground.
“Cough—kh!”
Sewoon vomited a mouthful of Black Blood and collapsed.
It was a miserable defeat in which not even a single move had truly reached his opponent.
Sewoon had fought with everything he had—but this world was the Blood Demon’s domain.
All of his power was being denied as though it were nothing more than a child’s game.
‘My body… won’t… move.’
Like someone afflicted by paralysis poison, he could not move a single eyelid or finger.
Sewoon looked down at his body, now completely covered in blotches.
His flesh already resembled that of a corpse.
“Ah, how beautiful. Yes—this is the one future I desired above all else.”
Yet the Blood Demon did not immediately take his life.
As if savoring and enjoying Sewoon’s pain and despair, he merely gazed at him with eyes filled with rapture.
Meanwhile, Sewoon struggled desperately to break free from the restraint, but he could not escape the Blood Demon’s power even slightly.
‘With my current strength… there’s no chance.’
Realistically, it was already a situation without an answer.
Only a hopeless ending filled his mind.
But still—
He had to try.
Not a trace of surrender could be found in Sewoon’s eyes.
Seeing that expression, the Blood Demon seemed only to enjoy himself even more.
“Fine—struggle to the very end. Watching you desperately flail while pretending not to notice that death is right before your eyes is truly a sight to behold—.”
Rather than killing Sewoon outright, he placed greater value on savoring Sewoon’s despair.
The deeper Sewoon’s despair grew, the more powerful he himself would become.
In that instant, the Blood Demon spread both arms wide and burst into Mad Laughter.
“Kuahahaha! By offering you as a sacrifice, I will ascend to the realm of the gods! Yes—beyond the Life-and-Death Realm, I will advance to the ‘Martial God Realm’!!”
The Blood Demon’s voice shook the battlefield.
By offering Sewoon as a sacrifice, he rejoiced at the thought of reaching the realm beyond the Life-and-Death Realm—the realm he had sought while repeating countless regressions over thousands of years.
His eyes were steeped in madness.
They brimmed with absolute certainty that the desire he had accumulated over millennia would finally be fulfilled.
“In endless despair, become my sacrifice!!”
The Blood Demon thrust out his right hand, rampaging with Reverse Heaven Qi, toward Sewoon.
Screeeech!
Along with a terrifying Shadow Rending Sonic Boom, destructive energy surged as if it would devour everything.
Sssaaaaaah!
And yet—at the very moment death truly stood before him—
‘This is strange—.’
Sewoon felt an unfamiliar sensation.
There was no fear of death whatsoever.
The final strike his opponent was unleashing upon him—
‘Why does it feel like I’ve seen this somewhere before—?’
An inexplicable sense of déjà vu washed over him.
And then—
Kuuung!
His heart thundered violently, and the time of the world began to slow at a rapid pace.
Just as the Blood Demon had once done—
Sewoon, too, was overturning the cosmic law of ‘time’ itself, transcending space.
Kuuung!
The sound of his own heartbeat filled Sewoon’s ears.
At that moment, a single streak of light flashed before his eyes.
And then—
Chwaaaaaa!
The blotches that had abruptly covered Sewoon’s body began to vanish as if being purified.
No—it was not that they were disappearing.
Just as the monster called Greed devoured everything—
Sewoon, too, was devouring all of the Blood Demon’s power.
‘What is this?!’
The Blood Demon recoiled in shock.
Sssaaaaaah!
It was not only the energy that had invaded Sewoon’s body like a virulent poison that was being absorbed.
Even the force of the Blood Demon’s palm strike—unleashed to take Sewoon’s life—had vanished completely.
The essence of the Blood Demon’s power was the ability to devour everything.
Yet before this unknown power, he had fallen to the level of mere prey.
For the first time, panic crept across the Blood Demon’s face.
Conversely, Sewoon finally became aware of the source of the new power surging within his body.
‘The moment I twisted the law of time, it awakened—the Heavenly Aperture.’
That was right. The source of all this harmony was the Heavenly Aperture.
Sewoon had believed the Heavenly Aperture to be a Heavenly Punishment—a shackle that hindered his growth.
But that was wrong.
The Heavenly Aperture was absorbing the Blood Demon’s power and making it its own.
It was not a shackle, but rather a vast vessel capable of absorbing and assimilating everything.
“How can you—?!”
Seeing the Blood Demon’s flustered reaction, a question suddenly arose in Sewoon’s mind.
The opponent before him claimed to have repeated destruction endlessly.
Then why—why had a variable appeared only in the previous life, within that infinite existence?
Sewoon naturally understood the reason.
‘Because something else intervened—.’
At that moment, the memory of the Heavenly Demon he had met in the ice cavern surfaced.
Even in death, the Heavenly Demon had left behind his will through intent for the sake of a successor.
Ah… so that was it.
The Heavenly Aperture was—
‘The Heavenly Aperture is not a shackle. It was an arrangement for this very moment.’
And Sewoon could easily guess who had carried it out.
Kwaaaarrr!
In that instant, the power erupting from Sewoon’s body multiplied explosively.
His body radiated a force that seemed capable of embracing everything—and annihilating everything.
Sewoon’s energy belonged neither to the orthodox path nor to the demonic path.
It was the beginning of a new power that transcended all causality.
The Blood Demon’s face twisted into something like a Ferocious Corpse Deity as he beheld that inhuman power.
“No—no!! Why you?! Why—how could this be?!”
The Blood Demon realized it instinctively.
Sewoon was reaching the next realm beyond the Life-and-Death Realm—the very realm he himself had pursued through infinite lives.
“I will not lose.”
Sewoon’s gaze shone without the slightest wavering.
Chwaaaaaa!
A power obtained by emptying everything.
Sewoon had finally succeeded in making the Heavenly Aperture a part of himself.
“I had already won.”
For Sewoon, who had awakened to the law of time, the past, present, and future were now connected as a single path.
And he realized one truth.
The Heavenly Aperture embedded in his body had been arranged by none other than himself.
From a future timeline where he had already defeated the Blood Demon, that future self had left it behind for his past self.
It was the final—and only—power capable of defeating the Blood Demon.
The Blood Demon mocked his own past and future, yet his future self had already surpassed the Blood Demon and found a way to save his past self.
That was the true reason a variable had arisen amid the Blood Demon’s endless cycles of life.
Chwaaaaaa!
Kwaaaarrr!
A new energy overflowed from every inch of Sewoon’s body.
Heaven-Filling Divine Overlord Qi.
When divine power filled the hole-pierced sky, it blanketed all of heaven and earth and tore open a new firmament.
The ultimate power Sewoon had obtained began to encroach upon his surroundings.
Kwaaaarrrr!
Kwagagaga!
“This is impossible…! How could this be?!”
The Blood Demon stared in disbelief at the unimaginable scene unfolding before his eyes.
The Mindscape World he had constructed began to crack.
Then, at last, Sewoon moved.
“Blood Demon, I will now annihilate everything you are.”
With those words, Sewoon lightly drew down Pure Yang.
Chwaaaaaa!
Kwaaaarrr!
“……!!!”
Sewoon’s sword—having ascended beyond the extreme of the Life-and-Death Realm and into the Martial God Realm—split half the horizon apart.