Chapter 286 : Battle, Ends
Chapter 286: Battle, Ends
The Heavenly Demon Soul stared wide eyed at the changed scenery.
Perhaps this was the first time he had been this surprised since being created by the Nine Divine Demonic Arts.
Pitch black darkness.
Nothing existed in that dark and damp place.
The grand method was successful and he had completely dominated Lee Jaseung. No, he thought he had.
But it was not so. The one who held control over this place was Lee Jaseung.
“Just how?”
Lee Jaseung’s answer was heard from the darkness.
“Just because the grand method succeeded, it does not mean everyone follows the laws of that success, right?”
As his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, he saw the figure of Lee Jaseung standing to one side.
“How is this possible?”
“Did you think I would just fight you recklessly?”
Lee Jaseung had thought many things after failing to reach the Mind Sword realm.
From the moment he returned to the Alliance until this very moment, he pondered how he could eliminate the Heavenly Demon Soul.
When the fight first began, a plan had come to mind when he noticed that the Heavenly Demon Soul still wanted him.
At that moment, Lee Jaseung made his decisive move.
It was to create this very moment.
“You are a soul, are you not?”
The Heavenly Demon Soul did not understand those words.
“A human cannot defeat a soul. But right now, I am also a soul, and you are a soul.”
It was a confrontation between soul and soul, in other words, he intended to defeat the Heavenly Demon Soul through a battle of willpower.
The reason Lee Jaseung could resist the grand method was because he had expected the Heavenly Demon Soul would try to dominate his body.
While learning the realizations of Yim Sayeon, he mastered how to maintain an absolute spirit.
Lee Jaseung staked everything on this.
If he had not been confident in enduring it, he would have taken his own life when the Heavenly Demon Soul tried to implement the grand method on his body. If his physical body were taken away, his survival would instead become a sin against this Jianghu.
The Heavenly Demon Soul looked around and asked.
“Where is this?”
“Where do you think it is?”
It was clearly a place he had come to for the first time, but a somehow familiar feeling was felt.
“Follow me.”
Lee Jaseung walked into the darkness.
The Heavenly Demon Soul followed behind him.
After walking for a long time, there was a small cave in the darkness. It was a small and low cave that one had to bow their head to enter.
The Heavenly Demon Soul followed Lee Jaseung into that place.
When they reached the end of the cave, the Heavenly Demon Soul saw it.
A single existence crouching there.
Surprisingly, it was himself. A self different from the current one, the Heavenly Demon Soul from that time long ago when he hid in Cheon Myeongin’s body to escape the grand method.
“Could this place be?”
“Yes, this place is your heart.”
“How can such a thing happen?”
He thought he dominated Lee Jaseung’s head, but at some point, Lee Jaseung had entered his own head.
The grand method he had implemented was undoubtedly acting as a passage to go back and forth between each other’s heads and hearts.
The Heavenly Demon Soul felt one intense emotion from his past self.
Anger.
The version of himself crouching in a corner of the cave like a wounded beast was raging. He could also know the reason for that anger.
Just as Lee Jaseung said... It was because he was abandoned.
“Do not look.”
The Heavenly Demon Soul was enraged. His current anger was due to the shame of having his weakness discovered.
“You bastard! Get out of here right now!”
The Heavenly Demon Soul let out a shout.
Rumble.
As the cave vibrated and collapsed, the surrounding scene changed.
The two were standing in the darkness where they originally stood at first.
The willpower of the Heavenly Demon Soul was also as strong as Lee Jaseung’s.
The fact that the location changed from moment to moment meant the willpower of the two people was also a close match.
Now the two had finally met the moment to decide the outcome through a battle of willpower.
The Heavenly Demon Soul shouted loudly.
“You crazy bastard! Did you dare to think you could defeat me, the Heavenly Demon Soul, with willpower?”
The moment radiance erupted from the Heavenly Demon Soul’s two eyes, the surrounding location changed again.
A single hut.
That place was Lee Jaseung’s heart again. It was also a very special place.
The place where the people Lee Jaseung loved most gathered to live. A symbolic place that became the only resting place for his desolate heart.
In the past, the stray thoughts of the Myriad Yin Orb had come here. They pleaded to be let inside the hut too, but Lee Jaseung did not grant it.
This very place was the core of Lee Jaseung’s mental world and simultaneously his only weakness.
“I will kill everyone in this place.”
The Heavenly Demon Soul ran toward the door of the hut.
The next moment, as the scene changed, the Heavenly Demon Soul crashed into a stone wall.
The surroundings had changed before he knew it.
In the darkness, that place was precisely the heart of the Heavenly Demon Soul.
It was in front of that first cave from earlier. As the location changed suddenly, the Heavenly Demon Soul crashed into the wall next to the entrance.
This time, Lee Jaseung jumped into the cave.
“No!”
At the same time as the Heavenly Demon Soul’s cry, the surroundings changed again.
Lee Jaseung, who was running inside the cave, stood on a wide grassy field.
He saw the figure of the Heavenly Demon Soul running far ahead. It had changed back to Lee Jaseung’s heart.
Both Lee Jaseung and the Heavenly Demon Soul were desperate.
It was a situation where they could not attack each other directly. If so, there was only one way; they had to strike the opponent’s weakness to destroy their spirit.
Lee Jaseung focused his entire spirit.
The scene changed back to the Heavenly Demon Soul’s head. This time, the Heavenly Demon Soul did not follow. The aspect of the fight had changed.
Because each other’s concentration was so strong, they came to exist separately in the other’s head. Of course, they could know what actions the opponent took inside their own heart.
The Heavenly Demon Soul arrived at the hut first.
Slam!
The Heavenly Demon Soul broke the door of the hut and went inside.
“I will eliminate everything!”
The next moment, the Heavenly Demon Soul stared wide eyed.
The inside was empty.
At that moment, Lee Jaseung was meeting the Heavenly Demon Soul inside the cave.
“You were abandoned.”
The Heavenly Demon Soul shouted.
“No, that is not true!”
Lee Jaseung sat before the Heavenly Demon Soul.
The Heavenly Demon Soul’s two eyes were burning.
Instead of provoking it, Lee Jaseung hugged it without a word.
The Heavenly Demon Soul held in his arms struggled like a madman.
But Lee Jaseung did not pull away from the Heavenly Demon Soul. He hugged it even more powerfully.
“It is okay, it is okay now.”
He spoke softly as if soothing a child.
“He did not abandon you because he hated you. He abandoned you because he had no other choice.”
Lee Jaseung did not amplify the past hatred of the Heavenly Demon Soul, but instead eased his heart.
“Really?”
“Yes, that person truly cherished you.”
He wanted to hear those words from someone. Because he had not heard that single word, he had continued to accumulate only hatred.
Eventually, the movements of the Heavenly Demon Soul slowly stopped.
The next moment.
Ssssss.
It began to scatter like mist and disappear.
The current Heavenly Demon Soul revealed his form to one side. He looked around with a pained face. He felt that his spirit was collapsing.
‘I lost.’
He lost in the fight against Lee Jaseung.
“Why was there no one in that hut?”
At the Heavenly Demon Soul’s question, Lee Jaseung answered.
“They were in that place.”
“What?”
“It is just that they were not visible to your eyes.”
The Heavenly Demon Soul made an expression that he could not understand.
“Everyone only tries to see what they want to see. You too tried to see only what you wanted to see, not as things truly are. Only the targets who would be torn to pieces and killed by your hands. But the people you wanted to see did not exist in that hut from the beginning.”
That hut created by Lee Jaseung was for those he wanted to save even if he were torn to pieces and even if this Jianghu were destroyed.
In that place, the Heavenly Demon Soul, conversely, looked for targets to kill. That was exactly the reason the hut looked empty.
The Heavenly Demon Soul realized.
That he suffered defeat in the battle of willpower with Lee Jaseung.
If his willpower had been stronger than Lee Jaseung’s, or at least equal to it, his past self in the cave would not have been visible to Lee Jaseung’s eyes either.
But his self in the cave existed before Lee Jaseung’s eyes. Moreover, in his weakest form. Lee Jaseung destroyed it in a single strike with understanding and affection, not hatred and oppression. It was a perfect defeat.
“Disappear!”
Lee Jaseung’s final word.
The body of the Heavenly Demon Soul began to scatter and disappear.
But the Heavenly Demon Soul did not give up until the end.
“It will not end like this.”
Just before completely disappearing, white radiance erupted from the two eyes that always revealed only black light.
He succeeded in using his final demonic art.
The Lee Jaseung in reality snapped his eyes open.
He was still standing in the middle of the training ground, but the dark Qi of the Heavenly Demon Soul had completely vanished from his body.
And surprisingly, the Heavenly Demon Soul was before his eyes. The Heavenly Demon Soul, who dreamed of becoming massive, had become small like a lizard. The appearance of a small demon.
Though the size became small, it emitted a much more vicious gaze than the original. No soul was contained in it. Only the stray thoughts of the Heavenly Demon Soul were clumped together with hatred. In the final moment, this was what the Heavenly Demon Soul put into it.
— I will eliminate the most precious thing in your life!
He was trying to kill Baek Seolyoung.
Sensing that intention, Lee Jaseung’s two eyes slit long.
The moment the Heavenly Demon Soul crossed through the air, Lee Jaseung also threw his body at the same time.
Lee Jaseung barely caught the Heavenly Demon Soul with both hands.
Black smoke flowed between his fingers. It was slippery and seemed like it would escape his hands at any moment.
Was it because he was holding it? He could read the thoughts of the stray thought.
— From now on, I will not die by anyone’s sword or fist until I achieve my goal.
In other words, it meant he became temporarily invincible.
He would be eternally extinguished after achieving his goal.
The Heavenly Demon Soul was transformed a lot from his previous appearance. And this was the mutual destruction method of that transformed Heavenly Demon Soul.
— The price for daring to resist me...
The thought of the stray thought did not continue.
Lee Jaseung opened his mouth wide and then bit off its head without mercy and ate it.
Neither the Heavenly Demon Soul nor the people watching knew Lee Jaseung would eat it. No, even Lee Jaseung himself did not know.
When the stray thought said it would become invincible, his instinct shouted.
That the only way to stop the bastard was to eat him up.
The hesitation was not long.
Lee Jaseung was eating up the clump of stray thoughts as if biting into a rib.
He knew he might die if he ate him, but Lee Jaseung did not stop. He munched and ate it up.
If I can save her by dying? Yes, I can die a hundred times.
Black smoke flowed between his chewing teeth. As Lee Jaseung sucked in the surrounding air, those smokes were sucked back into his mouth. It was a determination not to spit out even a single handful of smoke.
Since the body itself was a clump of powerful Demonic Qi, Lee Jaseung was currently essentially eating the most powerful poison in the world.
It was so disgusting he wanted to spit it out at any moment.
But Lee Jaseung endured. He endured thinking of Baek Seolyoung, and he endured thinking of the baby.
Like that, he ate up the clump of stray thoughts without leaving anything.
Lee Jaseung let out a belch.
He thought it was all completely digested.
Ssssss.
Black energies began to gather together inside Lee Jaseung’s stomach.
Eating him up could not eliminate the bastard.
Lee Jaseung’s stomach became bloated.
The thing that clumped together again tried to pierce through Lee Jaseung’s body and pop out. If it tore the stomach and popped out, he would die, and Baek Seolyoung would also die shortly after.
But Lee Jaseung realized he had no more ways to stop it.
I am sorry.
Lee Jaseung thought of Baek Seolyoung.
She would speak with a smile. That she was glad Seol was safe regardless. That she was glad she could die together with you.
Lee Jaseung thought of Seol for the last time.
The moment he tightly held that tiny hand Seol reached out.
He truly wanted to watch his daughter grow up.
Seol, please live happily.
The very moment a smile was formed on Lee Jaseung’s lips,
Slice.
A refreshing sound cutting through Lee Jaseung’s heart.
Something cut the clump of stray thoughts.
The clump of stray thoughts split in half began to slowly scatter. The thing that did not disappear even after being chewed and swallowed was completely dead.
Lee Jaseung was able to know.
That he used the Mind Sword to cut the stray thought.
It was not that he had fully realized the Mind Sword realm. The Mind Sword is a supreme realm where one can cut the person before them with only the heart.
Right now, Lee Jaseung had essentially cut the inner demon inside his own heart.
It was a moment that would remain long in Jianghu history.
As the first person of the Jianghu to use the Mind Sword inside his own body.
But the joy was short-lived. As the stray thought inside his body completely vanished, Lee Jaseung collapsed.
His body began to turn pitch black in an instant. It was an unavoidable side effect of putting something inside his body that should never have been put in.
Baek Seolyoung, Yim Sayeon, and the three subordinates ran out.
Baek Seolyoung, running in the lead, shouted desperately.
“You can’t die! Please!”
* * *
There were those watching that scene from afar.
They were the man who defeated Lee Jaseung and the old man who was with him.
Another black form showed itself behind the man’s back.
Surprisingly, that was also the Heavenly Demon Soul.
But it was on a different dimension from the Heavenly Demon Soul that fought Lee Jaseung earlier. It was massive and emitted much more powerful Qi.
The man was precisely the first Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect, Cheol Murin.
Cheol Murin looked up at the Heavenly Demon Soul and spoke.
“Your work has disappeared.”
The Heavenly Demon Soul licked his lips as if in regret and disappeared into Cheol Murin’s body.
Cheol Murin tried to recover the Heavenly Demon Soul that was in Cheon Myeongin’s body with his own Heavenly Demon Soul. Because the simplest way to eliminate a Heavenly Demon Soul was for a stronger Heavenly Demon Soul to absorb it.
But surprisingly, Lee Jaseung had overcome the Heavenly Demon Soul with his own power.
The old man standing next to him spoke.
“Did you see him chewing and eating the stray thought created by the Heavenly Demon Soul earlier? It truly feels like seeing your younger days.”
“I was not that poisonous.”
“You were more. Yes, you were a hundred times worse.”
“Your exaggeration has increased lately.”
“Hahaha. It is because I am old.”
The old man was precisely the existence that made Cheol Murin into a Demon God, he was precisely Heaven.
Cheol Murin was the one who ultimately became a Demon God as the first Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Sect. He came to live an immortal life by becoming a Demon God, but he loved one woman too much.
Because he could not forget her even as time passed, the immortal life became a great pain to him instead.
Heaven, unable to watch him suffer, made her reincarnate eternally to be united with Cheol Murin in order to protect that love.
And she, who was reincarnated in the contemporary era...
“Please save that man.”
“Can I change a human’s lifespan recklessly?”
“It is a life you decided, is it not?”
“I cannot give special treatment because he is the person who will be your father in law in the future.”
She who was reincarnated was precisely Lee Jaseung’s daughter, Lee Seol.
The reason he helped Lee Jaseung earlier was also because of that.
He wanted to help him even now. He wanted to save at least his life. Even for her sake.
Cheol Murin tried to persuade the old man again.
“Even if I do not help specifically...”
The old man’s gaze turned toward Lee Jaseung again.
Lee Jaseung’s finger, which was thought to be dead, twitched and then began to move again.
The old man spoke with a smile.
“Is he not a bastard with very good grit, resembling you?”
Lee Jaseung’s skin, which had turned pitch black, was finding its original color.
“Dear!”
“My Lord!”
Everyone shed tears of joy when Lee Jaseung regained consciousness.
His martial arts rose one level again as he cut the stray thought with the Mind Sword, and thanks to that, he was able to discharge all the Demonic Qi filled in his body.
Baek Seolyoung hugged Lee Jaseung softly as if holding a baby.
And she spoke softly in his ear.
“You worked hard, Seol’s father. And thank you so much for staying alive.”
Tears flowed from her eyes. The tears fell on Lee Jaseung’s cheek.
Her warm tears merged with those flowing from Lee Jaseung’s eyes.
Mujin looked up at the sky with reddened eyes, and Ma Young-gi bowed his head while looking at him. His judgment to trust Lee Jaseung was right. Yes, there is no younger brother better than an older brother.
Mook Young, who did not reveal his form but paid the most attention throughout the fight, ultimately did not release his stealth. It was because he did not want to show himself shedding tears.
In that way, the final fight came to an end.
The old man watching that scene with Cheol Murin asked abruptly.
“Are you not tired?”
“Why would I not be? Sometimes...”
Love with her is a continuation of waiting. She was not born in a good environment every time. She was not beautiful every time, and her personality was not good every time. There were times she remembered him, and times she could not remember. That love was never smooth.
And a heart wrenching parting always waited at the end of that love.
Cheol Murin had been continuing such love for a thousand years.
“I could let you end it now.”
With that, he looked up at the sky. It was a statement that he could cut the bond of reincarnation that would not end and leave the human world completely.
“What about her?”
Then the old man shook his head. Meaning he must leave her behind.
Cheol Murin looked at the appearance of Lee Jaseung and Baek Seolyoung hugging each other again and said abruptly.
“You like liquor, right?”
“Yes. Very much.”
“I like it about a million times more than that. The fact that I can meet her again.”
The old man gave a smirk.
“Seeing that your exaggeration is increasing, I guess you are also getting old. So you buy the liquor today.”
The old man walked ahead while humming a song.
“I have no idea of the correlation that I should buy liquor because my exaggeration increased.”
“Shh! Any more is leaking heaven's secrets.”
“Hahaha.”
Cheol Murin followed behind him while laughing as if it were absurd.
At the final moment, Cheol Murin glanced back.
Lee Jaseung and Baek Seolyoung were shedding tears of joy while tightly hugging each other.
A thin smile formed on Cheol Murin’s lips.
Watching their deep love, a thought occurred that he suddenly wanted to see his lady desperately.
You two, please raise your daughter well.