Chapter 232 : Chapter 232
Chapter 232 - Demon Realm (2)
A tremendous power bloomed from the tip of the Holy Sword Bastian.
That power soon split apart and became a shower of Sword Qi.
The entire village was struck by a carpet bombing. The ground was gouged open and split apart, and heaven and earth trembled.
This was my show of force toward the Demon King.
It was a silent threat, telling him to give me some kind of reaction if he was watching this.
CLANG CLANG CLANG!
Old Master Heo Gyeong-woo stared at me with his mouth agape.
“Is this truly a power a human can produce?”
Then he shook his head in disbelief.
In truth, even if we were both Sword Masters, a vast wall existed between the two of us.
Whether one crossed that wall or not might come down to a hair’s breadth, but the result was the difference between heaven and earth.
I lowered my sword and let out a deep breath.
“Now I feel a little less stressed.”
“Still, it did not seem as though you scattered your Sword Qi at random. Did you not avoid all the buildings in an exquisitely precise manner?”
I nodded.
There was the remote possibility of a living being we had failed to detect.
I intended to confirm that possibility by checking every corner of the village myself.
After all, to understand this unknown world called the Demon Realm, I felt as though I wanted to grasp even at straws.
Just as I was about to step toward the village.
“Ji-han! Over there!”
“Yes. I see it too.”
A small movement appeared from one corner of the village, where the hazy dust storm was still blowing.
It was clearly in human form, and it was leisurely walking out through the dust.
What was astonishing was that I still could not feel any presence from it.
This was not because that being had completely concealed his energy.
He possessed no quality at all, as if he were a being of nothingness.
“We are finally encountering someone.”
“Is it a monster?”
“It does not matter, as long as it gives us even the smallest clue.”
Still, if possible, I hoped it was not a monster.
It would be even better if it was an intelligent being capable of conversation.
“Let us go.”
We, too, walked toward that being one step at a time.
He did not retreat upon seeing us, and so the distance between us gradually narrowed.
A boy.
By Earth’s standards, he looked to be in his early to mid-teens, and I could feel no particular emotion in his eyes.
What was clear was that he was not a monster.
He seemed to have something he wanted to say to us.
‘Thankfully, conversation will be possible.’
Just as I guessed, he spoke to us.
In an extremely dry voice.
“Did the old man do that just now?”
When the old Master shook his head, the boy immediately asked me the same question.
“Then was it you, sir?”
“Yes. I did it.”
“Were you trying to kill me?”
“I had no intention of doing that. I did it because I hoped someone might come outside if I did.”
“Then now that I have come outside, are you going to kill me?”
Even while saying such things, not a single expression or tone in him changed.
The look in his eyes was astonishing, as if emotional fluctuation itself did not exist within him.
“Before that, I want to ask you one thing. Why do you think I am going to kill you?”
“Because it is natural to kill people you do not know when you see them.”
He was not deceiving me, nor was he joking.
Astonishingly, the boy was speaking from the heart.
“Then you must be thinking of killing me now as well.”
“If it is possible.”
I could not understand at all how this damn world called the Demon Realm functioned.
“This conversation may become rather long.”
It seemed I would need to talk a great deal with the boy from now on.
***
In this place called the Demon Realm, they said that when one saw a person from another village, one of two things would inevitably happen.
Either I killed them,
or they killed me.
This seemed to be an irresistible instinct carved into the hearts of the people of this world.
“But this is strange.”
“What is?”
“I can stand here and talk face-to-face with you like this, sir. Killing intent should have risen in me long ago.”
I could not tell the child this, but that was probably because I was not a being of this world.
“There are always exceptions.”
“I heard there is no such thing.”
“More importantly, where did all the other people in the village go? The village next to this one, and the village beyond that, were all empty. Do you know anything about that?”
The boy answered with the same dry eyes and tone.
“A storm passed through.”
He said that one day, people had suddenly become strange.
The starting point had been unfamiliar outsiders who had appeared one day.
The people who had been bitten and killed by them had begun attacking the other villagers.
‘The Zombies I sent as the vanguard were active, then.’
It meant my intention to stir up this place called the Demon Realm had succeeded.
The boy said that after all the people in this village eventually changed strangely, they left for somewhere else.
“A few people from our village were probably sent above the world after that commotion.”
“What does that mean?”
“Because they achieved Killing Karma.”
The boy’s words were incomprehensible.
Only after asking the boy several more questions was I able to understand this world called the Demon Realm to some extent.
The people of the Demon Realm regarded being sent above the world as their lifelong wish.
To do so, they had to kill as many people as possible and achieve Killing Karma.
In that sense, it seemed that sending Zombies here had acted as a catalyst for achieving Killing Karma.
After all, while turning into Zombies, the people of the Demon Realm must have endlessly killed others, including the people of their own villages.
‘It seems accumulating Killing Karma is still valid even after becoming a Zombie.’
When I thought about it, it was questionable whether the people of the Demon Realm could truly be called people.
Even this boy gave off no human energy whatsoever.
Rather than people, it seemed more fitting to call them demonfolk.
“But, child. If you are sent above the world, what comes after that? What happens there?”
“How would anyone know that? No one has ever gone above the world and returned.”
“Then why do people try so hard to accumulate Killing Karma?”
“Faith.”
“Faith? Faith in what?”
“Seeing how you say things like that, sir, you must lack faith.”
The boy’s words only left me confused.
“Ji-han. In any case, it seems what we must do has been decided.”
“Yes.”
For now, we had to be sent to that place called above the world.
I did not know where it was, but it had to be a higher dimension than the place where we currently were.
I became certain that it was the way to get closer to wherever the Demon King was.
***
The boy was the only survivor of the village who had not yet been zombified.
And he was still too young to accumulate Killing Karma.
The last thing he had said still lingered in my mind.
“If I do not die before I become an adult, then I want to kill a great many people with my own hands. But if many people have already been sent above the world by the time I become an adult, what should I do?”
It meant he was worried there would be no one left to kill.
At the sight of him making such a declaration without the slightest concern, a laugh escaped me.
It was not something I needed to concern myself with.
The fate of the demonfolk would be either to kill or to be killed.
In any case, even through my conversation with the boy, I could not learn how vast this place called the Demon Realm was, or how many demonfolk lived here.
However, I could guess at least that this place was rapidly being destroyed due to the outbreak of Zombies.
And that many of the demonfolk who had lived here had already been sent above the world.
The place we were heading for now was a nearby temple.
The boy said that temples built throughout the world were the places where one could be sent above the world.
“Ji-han. You think this temple is a portal, do you not?”
“We will know once we go, but most likely, yes.”
We continued moving along the road network.
Since meeting the boy, we had already passed through three more villages.
As expected, we could not find any living beings.
The boy’s worry that there would be no one left to kill in the future was not entirely groundless.
Still, I held some hope that we might meet someone else at the temple.
After all, it was effectively a base area for moving to a higher dimension.
“Do you think the Demon King is in that place called above the world?”
“I am not sure. Perhaps there is another world above the world above. That thought comes to mind.”
“That is a familiar structure. Almost like……”
“Yes. Like a tower.”
“Then the Demon King is at the highest point of that tower. Is that it?”
“We will know once we go.”
Until now, contrary to my expectations, I had not felt the danger of the Demon Realm at all.
I had only learned that it was a bizarre world.
And before long, the temple drew near.
The sight of its tall, towering spire was impressive.
Whether there were truly people there could not be known even through qi sense.
That was what demonfolk were like.
However, through my five senses, I could detect that something was there.
And when we had drawn close enough to the temple, I came to realize one thing.
The destruction of this world had progressed far more than I had thought.
“Ji-han! Th-those are!”
“They are monsters.”
“You do not seem surprised at all even after seeing them!”
Because I was already familiar with them.
They had human forms, but their reason had been paralyzed.
They were zombified demonfolk.
‘But do they still retain the instinct to be sent above the world?’
The fact that they had made their way to this temple was astonishing in itself.
Then the horde of Zombies began rushing toward us.
Their sharp teeth were bared, and their eyes were seized by madness.
When I raised the Holy Sword, the old Master grabbed my wrist.
“You intend to kill them without even trying to speak with them?”
“Because it is impossible.”
“As expected, you know something. Then will you leave them to me? Unlike you, I have yet to properly warm up.”
It was difficult to estimate the combat strength of the Zombie demonfolk, but there was no way old Master Heo Gyeong-woo, a Sword Master, could not handle them.
“Then warm up properly.”
“Thank you.”
The old Master immediately plunged into the horde of Zombies and began performing a sword dance.
CRASH!
Black blood sprayed in every direction as the Zombies’ arms and legs were severed, and their heads were cut off.
The Zombies whose bodies had been cut apart thrashed madly, while the ones whose heads had been severed trembled and collapsed.
Then I immediately sensed one sense of incongruity.
The dead Zombies had vanished somewhere without a trace.
The Demon Realm was a place where laws different from those of an ordinary world existed.
This was the only way I could understand the Demon Realm.
CRASH!
The old Master advanced again and again against the surging horde of Zombies, cutting them down.
It was truly a state of selflessness in which he had become one with the sword.
As the monsters disappeared, the area around the temple gradually became quieter and cleaner.
And a short while later, something astonishing happened.
The old Master, who had been fighting the Zombies, suddenly vanished.
He had not been defeated by the monsters.
After all, until just a moment ago, the old Master had been displaying overwhelming power.
Then the conclusion was clear.
‘He was sent above the world.’
Wondering whether one layer of the Demon Realm’s mystery would be peeled away if I went up there, I too walked toward the temple step by step.