The Regressed Sword Demon Changes the Future

Prologue

Gangjeong County, not far from Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

Here stood a Daoist sect with a long and storied history, its name the Mysterious Profound Sect, the School of Hidden Sages.

Legend claimed it was founded by an immortal sage long ago, just before he achieved enlightenment and ascended to the heavens. While it was an unremarkable, mid-sized sect in the grand scheme of Sichuan, within Gangjeong County, it held its own influence and power.

And… it was also my home.

That home was now burning.

The sect I had left over twenty years ago, a place now faint even in my memory, was turning to ash.

How did it come to this?

The reason was clear.

War. The great war between the Orthodox Faction and the Demonic Cult—the Righteous-Demonic War!

Twenty-two years ago, without any warning or omen, the war that would stain the world with blood began.

The forces of the Demonic Cult, as if to make up for their long silence and peace, swept through the Central Plains like a tidal wave.

Less than a year after the war started, the Kunlun Sect of Qinghai, one of the Nine Great Sects and One Union, was set ablaze, and the Kongtong Sect of Gansu was torn to shreds.

The Orthodox Faction hastily formed the Martial Alliance. The Sichuan Tang Clan, one of the Seven Great Families based in Sichuan, along with the Emei and Qingcheng sects of the Nine Great Sects, joined forces to halt the demonic advance.

But it was not enough.

No, to be precise…

They couldn't even slow them down.

Three major powers from the great pillars of the Orthodox Faction—the Nine Great Sects and the Seven Great Families—had united, with the full support of the Martial Alliance, yet they could not prevent the fall of Sichuan.

And now, the small and mid-sized sects in Qinghai, Gansu, and Sichuan, which had fallen under the Demonic Cult's control, had to make a choice.

Would they die a proud but meaningless death in the name of the Orthodox Faction, or would they crawl between the legs of the demonic practitioners to enjoy a shameful peace?

The Mysterious Profound Sect chose the latter… or rather, I made them choose it.

Jang Baekseo. That is my name. I was an orphan, wandering the streets and destined for a meaningless death, when my master found me and took me into the Mysterious Profound Sect. I grew up there.

The Mysterious Profound Sect was my home, and its people were my family.

That was why I didn't want them to die. I prayed that my home would not burn.

So, I argued more loudly than anyone else in the sect.

We had to submit to the Demonic Cult.

The sect's elders and the Sect Leader hesitated, afraid of losing face, afraid of what others would think. I couldn't stand their pathetic indecisiveness.

So I pushed harder, taking the lead and pledging myself to the Demonic Cult.

Thus, the Mysterious Profound Sect barely managed to find shelter under the shadow of the demonic forces.

Most of the sect's members cursed me behind my back, calling me a coward with no righteous conviction…

To be condemned by the very people I sought to protect was a gut-wrenching feeling.

Not a single person in the sect truly wished for a dog's death in the name of some grand cause.

If that was the case, the choice was already made… To be blamed for taking the lead on something that had to be done was a painful and unjust thing. The more it happened, the more I focused on my martial arts and my duties within the Demonic Cult.

As time passed, I eventually fell out of contact with my old sect, not even exchanging a single letter.

And… well, a lot of things happened. Life-and-death struggles and training, love and hate, trust and betrayal. I lost sometimes, and I won sometimes. What was certain was that through it all, I grew stronger. At the end of that path, I had become the Sword Demon, master of the Sword Demon Palace, one of the Twelve Demonic Palaces of the cult.

Then one day, an urgent report reached me, the Sword Demon.

-The Martial Alliance has secretly launched an operation to retake Sichuan!

During the long twenty-two-year war, the Demonic Cult had erased one of the Seven Great Families and half of the Nine Great Sects in just two years.

But their unstoppable string of victories ended there.

From beyond Sichuan, in Gansu, Shaanxi, Chongqing, Guizhou, and Yunnan, all the martial artists of the Orthodox Faction gathered.

Huashan, Zhongnan, Diancang, Shaolin, Wudang, the Beggars' Union… the remaining Nine Great Sects and the Zhuge, Namgung, Hwangbo, Paeng, Moyong, and Jin families… all but the Tang Clan from the Seven Great Families rallied under the banner of the Martial Alliance and desperately blocked the Demonic Cult's advance.

Large and small skirmishes continued, with both sides trading blows, but the once-stalemated front lines did not easily shift. A tense standoff simply continued.

Or rather, it had continued.

And now, breaking the long stalemate, the Martial Alliance had made its move!

They had secretly gathered their forces and advanced to reclaim Sichuan. With a swift and daring surprise attack, the long standoff was shattered as if it were a lie, and Sichuan was once again engulfed in the flames of war.

And those flames could not be avoided by my old sect, the Mysterious Profound Sect, which had abandoned the righteous path twenty years ago to join the demonic forces, the sect I had forced to make that choice.

***

By the time I arrived, it was already too late.

The pavilions were ablaze, and the disciples were already cold corpses.

And the perpetrators of this tragedy greeted me.

"The Sword Star… and the Demon-Slaying Sword Unit, I presume…"

The one called the Sword Star, a woman, stared at me with indifferent eyes.

Sword Star Tang Yuha. One of the few remaining blood relatives of the annihilated Tang Clan. A true prodigy among prodigies, born into the poison-wielding Tang Clan, yet she had reached the pinnacle of martial arts with the sword!

"…Sword Demon…"

The Sword Star Tang Yuha looked at me with deep, cool eyes, their intent unknowable.

From the moment I received the intelligence about the surprise attack on Sichuan, I had predicted that the Sword Star would be part of this operation.

But why, of all places, did the Sword Star ignore all other strategic points and head straight for the Mysterious Profound Sect to burn it down?

Amidst the horrific sight of my sect in flames and its members slaughtered, that single question echoed in my mind.

So I decided to ask.

"Why the Mysterious Profound Sect of all places? Shouldn't someone of your stature have gone to a more important location?"

At my question, a fire ignited in Tang Yuha's eyes, which until now had been cold in an unreadable emotion.

"Because the Mysterious Profound Sect… is your home sect, Sword Demon!!!"

"!?"

The emotions in her eyes were fury and hatred, and with them, a faint disappointment…

"The shameful fall of Sichuan twenty years ago… the sect that, afterward, was more eager than any other to become a dog of the Demonic Cult… and as a result, produced the worst of all demons, the Sword Demon… Is there any place in Sichuan more important to burn down first?"

"…Ha, ha-ha. You're not wrong…"

It was all for nothing.

I just wanted them to live. I wanted them to survive, to remain there, not to disappear.

That's why I worked so hard. I didn't want the people of my sect to be dismissed as opportunistic, sycophantic traitors in the demonic domain… The culmination of that effort was my current position as the Sword Demon.

But…

"But in the end, it came to this…"

Yes, it came to this. It had all come to this.

Everything I had tried to protect was dead, burned, and gone. And the one who did it was…

"So this is how it ends…"

Tang Yuha… My connection with her went back to before she became the Sword Star and I the Sword Demon, even before the Righteous-Demonic War.

For it to continue like this… it was truly empty, truly laughable.

"…Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit."

""Sir!!""

At my soft call, thirty warriors materialized behind me, where there had seemed to be nothing.

"Kill them."

With the command, the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit flew forward and clashed with the Demon-Slaying Sword Unit.

The thirty members of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit against the Demon-Slaying Sword Unit, which numbered well over three hundred!

To any observer, it was a situation where the thirty-man unit couldn't even guarantee their own survival, let alone victory! But it was the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit that was pushing forward!!

"Keuk!?"

"St-stop them!!"

"Form a sword formation! They're masters!! Every single one of them is a transcendent master!!!!"

In the midst of the chaotic battle where over three hundred people were entangled, two figures stood facing each other.

Sword Star Tang Yuha and Sword Demon Jang Baekseo. Even as the fierce battle raged, neither the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit nor the Demon-Slaying Sword Unit dared to step within a ten-zhang radius around them.

Everyone knew.

That space, which would become the battleground for two masters who had reached the realm beyond the heavens, was already like another world, a place untouchable by mere mortals like themselves!!

Finally, after a standoff that was both short and long, the two absolute masters clashed.

***

How many exchanges had we traded?

The battle in the periphery between the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit and the Demon-Slaying Sword Unit had long since ended.

And the victor was the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit.

It was an obvious result. The Demon-Slaying Sword Unit was certainly an elite force of the Martial Alliance, but compared to the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit, they were less than a drop in the bucket.

This was because the members of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit were all Sword Fiends, candidates who had once challenged the trials to become the Sword Demon.

They were Sword Fiends who had pushed through trials that tested the limits of humanity and crossed the line between life and death, but ultimately failed to become the Sword Demon!

The level of martial skill of each and every one of them was on a different plane.

But that didn't mean there were no casualties. The thirty-man unit was now down to twenty-five after accounting for the dead and severely wounded, and even those twenty-five were not unscathed…

But none of that mattered now.

'Because…'

"This will be over soon."

I said, casually wiping away the blood flowing from a cut on my forehead.

Tang Yuha, standing about five zhang away, didn't answer, instead gasping for breath.

At the end of a fierce exchange that surpassed several hundred moves, we had left deep and numerous sword wounds on each other's bodies, like lovers exploring each other's flesh and leaving marks of their lips.

And these were not just any swords, but swords imbued with terrifying internal energy.

Even if we blocked and deflected with our protective qi, the wounds could not be small, and there was a limit to how much bleeding could be stopped with internal energy.

Thus, both Tang Yuha and I were stained crimson with our own blood and the blood splattered from our opponent, looking no different from men of blood.

Tang Yuha's once jade-white skin was now pale, and on it was a mixture of dark, clotted blood and fresh, crimson blood. Her beautiful martial robes were cut and torn, a complete mess.

In particular, a large part of her right forearm, the one holding the sword, had been gouged out, causing massive bleeding.

Even so, the sword Tang Yuha held tightly was already soaked more in the blood flowing from her own arm than in mine.

Of course, my body was not in good shape either. I was just as cut, torn, and messed up as Tang Yuha, but I had no fatal wound like the one on her right arm.

"…Grrrk!"

Tang Yuha's expression twisted, as if she couldn't accept her own defeat.

"Why? Can't accept it? Does your pride hurt, seeing yourself, who was called a genius and a prodigy since childhood, defeated by the unremarkable Jang Baekseo?"

"…That's not… it!!"

A moment of silence passed.

"…Whatever. What does it matter? It's all in the past, all over… Let's just end this now."

As I finished speaking, a dark, ink-like sword qi rose from the sword in my hand.

In response, a brilliant white sword qi rose from Tang Yuha's sword.

A brief pause.

And then, without either of us moving first, we lunged at each other.

KWWAAAAAAAANG!

A massive roar and shockwave, as if a fragment of a giant star had streaked across the sky and slammed into the earth, shook the burning pavilions of the Mysterious Profound Sect.

The shockwave blew away all the flames, and then the weakened, burnt pavilions and walls shattered and scattered in unison.

Even the members of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit, all masters of the transcendent realm or higher, struggled to keep their balance. After the shockwave and gale subsided, the two men and women who had fought a life-and-death battle stood facing each other, less than a foot apart.

Clang!

Finally, Tang Yuha's severely mangled right forearm tore off and fell, and naturally, the sword in her hand fell to the ground with it.

The blow, which had cut down from her left shoulder to her right waist, was a fatal wound that even the most renowned divine doctor in the world could not possibly heal.

As proof, Tang Yuha's eyes, which were always cold and calm but never empty, grew dim, and soon her body slumped forward, naturally falling into my arms.

I neither pushed away the Tang Yuha in my arms nor dodged her body, but accepted it.

The blood flowing from her body soaked my already blood-soaked clothes even more, but I had no thoughts about it. I just…

"…Why do you have that look in your eyes?"

The Sword Star… no, Tang Yuha asked.

"I don't know… It's all over and in the past… We're enemies now… I feel pathetic."

"…If it was going to be like this anyway… if it could have been like this… why did you… back then…"

Her words trailed off, but I knew what she was trying to say, and I could feel the depth of her resentment to my very bones.

And soon, Tang Yuha's body grew cold.

She was dead.

The Sword Star Tang Yuha had died at the hands of the Sword Demon Jang Baekseo.

I had killed her.

I carefully lifted the body of Tang Yuha, which had already lost all warmth and breath.

With carefully controlled true qi, I blew away the blood that stained her face. Her unclosed eyes seemed as if they were still asking me something.

I tilted my head back to suppress something boiling up from my throat.

I had lost my sect.

I had lost all my masters.

And now, I had even lost an old connection.

It was all my own doing, the result of my own actions.

I infused my internal energy into Tang Yuha's cold body and burned it in an instant.

I just stared blankly as Tang Yuha scattered into the sky as a cluster of light in a single moment.

"Yes… what can be done now? It's all in the past… it has all happened…"

Waiting for me as I turned around after finishing everything were the survivors of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit.

One of them stepped forward and looked me in the eye.

"Our mission here is over. The dead will be temporarily buried here and later recovered and returned to their families. Those with minor injuries will take care of the more severely wounded and quickly move to support the other fronts in Sichuan."

""Sir!""

As I passed the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit and was about to take the lead, the member who had stepped forward spoke.

"Baekseo, don't forget who you are! Your duty!! Your responsibility!! Never be confused about what you must protect!!"

His words were not those of a member of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit, but of a comrade who had once aimed for the same destination of Sword Demon, a rival who had pursued the same dream. When I looked back, not only the one who had stepped forward, but all the other members of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit were looking at me with the same eyes.

"Heh!"

A small laugh escaped me. My heart, which had been stained by a dark yoke, felt a little lighter.

"Shut up, Choyu! And call me Sword Demon or Palace Lord, not Baekseo!"

Since he didn't call me Sword Demon, I answered him as Baekseo, not the Sword Demon.

At my response, the man who had stepped forward, Choyu, smiled, and that was the end of it.

As if the atmosphere and conversation from just a moment ago were a lie, we had returned to being the Sword Demon and the members of the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit.

"We hurry. Let's go."

Just as I was about to turn my steps towards a new battlefield!

"Enemy attack!!"

New enemies appeared.

***

"Cough, ptoo!"

I spat out the bloody phlegm that had collected in my mouth.

I was completely caught. To think that the Martial Alliance would… just to kill me.

"Heh heh heh… To think that four of the Eighteen Stars of Demon Suppression would come just to kill me…"

The Eighteen Stars of Demon Suppression!

Even before the Righteous-Demonic War, there were many powerful figures in the world of martial arts, and gossips always debated who was the strongest among them. But that was an evaluation made in a time of peace!

Once the war began and blood was washed away with blood, powerful figures who could single-handedly turn the tide of battle and achieve brilliant victories began to emerge. At some point, the Orthodox Faction began to call these eighteen martial artists with such transcendent martial prowess the Eighteen Stars of Demon Suppression, with respect and awe.

The Sword Star Tang Yuha, who had died at the hands of the Sword Demon Jang Baekseo, was also one of those Eighteen Stars.

And now, before me, stood three other members of the Eighteen Stars of Demon Suppression.

"Ho ho, what can we do? It just means that the Sword Demon is such a great warrior that we had no choice but to do this."

The gray-haired man who spoke such annoying words with a hollow laugh, this kind-looking old man of short stature, was none other than the leader of the remaining bloodline of the annihilated Tang Clan and the grand-uncle of the deceased Tang Yuha, the Poison Star, Tang Chuyeong.

"Hmph! When we reclaim the land of Sichuan, it wouldn't set a good example if the traitor didn't meet a fittingly miserable end! Therefore, you must die here!"

The middle-aged man who snorted loudly and didn't even bother to hide his anger was the current successor of the mysterious Yeomhonmun sect based in Guangxi, a warrior who had burned countless demonic practitioners to death, the Flame Star, Kang Mujeong.

"…Did Junior Sister Tang… close her eyes in peace?"

The one asking if the end of the deceased Tang Yuha was peaceful was, like Tang Chuyeong, the leader of the remnants of the now-annihilated Emei Sect, a young-looking nun called the coldest sword Emei had ever produced, the Comet Star, Abbess Yunhyeong.

"Heh heh heh!! You must be desperate to reclaim Sichuan…"

And the three hundred members of the Demon Subjugation Sword Unit and the two hundred members of the Demon Extermination Sword Unit they led, plus the one hundred and fifty members of the Tang Clan's suicide squad brought by Tang Chuyeong… no matter how elite the Wandering Soul Sword Demon Unit was, they couldn't overcome such a difference in numbers, and yet they fought bravely to the end… and in the end, they all breathed their last.

And I, too… was already on the verge of death.

"Truly… terrifying, so terrifying… How could you have so much strength left after fighting Yuha…"

Tang Chuyeong muttered words filled with admiration, fear, and regret as he looked down at his left hand, which was missing three fingers.

"Hmph!! What's so scary about a damn traitor!! Tsk, for a traitor, he's unnecessarily strong, making us bleed like this!!"

Kang Mujeong grumbled while bandaging a deep sword wound on his chest with his internal energy, refuting Tang Chuyeong but ultimately admitting my strength after the three-on-one battle.

"…Amitabha."

Abbess Yunhyeong looked relatively unharmed on the outside compared to the other two, but she had actually suffered the most significant damage.

This was because she had taken a fatal attack I had launched at a moment of weakness head-on to protect the other two, suffering severe internal injuries.

"Heh heh heh, you cowards sure make long excuses."

And my body, after fighting a desperate battle against three masters of the realm beyond the heavens, was in a state of near-death.

My left arm was shredded to pieces, half-torn off below the elbow, a mere lump of flesh. There were five holes the size of a thumb joint in my chest, and one of my eyes was a mangled mess.

Besides that, my entire body was riddled with countless large and small sword wounds and hidden weapons, to the point where counting them was meaningless.

I had already shed all the blood I could, and was only clinging to life through sheer will, grit, and a martial prowess that had reached a transcendent level.

But that, too, was now at its end.

I couldn't even stand anymore, so all I could do was lean against a stone monument remaining on the grounds of the Mysterious Profound Sect and gasp for breath.

It was a choice between dying slowly, or dying quickly when those three launched their final attack—a choice between dying and dying!

But it seemed they had chosen the former.

Tang Chuyeong, who had relaxed his battle stance, slowly walked towards me. Then he plopped down on the bare ground and started talking.

"…If it was going to be like this… if I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have opposed it…"

"…Hmph, old man, what's the use of regretting the past when you're so old? The past is the past… people can't know the future… who would blame you…"

"…"

After a brief exchange that only I, Tang Chuyeong, and the now-dead Tang Yuha would understand, I finally realized.

'I've lost everything.'

I lost my sect.

I lost my masters.

I lost my old connection.

I thought that was the end of it, but it wasn't. Laughably, I still had more to lose.

I had lost all the comrades who had shared my joys and sorrows.

And now…

'I'm about to lose my own life as well…'

I couldn't see anything anymore. Even though my eyes were open, only darkness filled my vision.

Only the cold touch of the stone monument behind me was faintly perceptible.

And now, even that sensation was fading.

Suddenly, a piece of a long-forgotten memory, buried in time and now unfamiliar even to recall, surfaced in my mind.

'Was I… fourteen… years old?'

A memory from over thirty years ago, when I was still a young disciple of the Mysterious Profound Sect.

It was when I was assigned the task of cleaning the stone monument inscribed with the golden words of the sect's founder in the backyard of the Sect Leader's Hall.

I had been playing around with a junior brother, hit my head hard on the monument, and fainted.

'What… was… written… on that… stone…'

As the flame of my life flickered out like a small ember, a wildfire suddenly blazed for a moment, and my mind became clear for a very brief instant.

'Gyeon-mi-gae-hyeon—See the future and change the present.'

Finally recalling that small fragment of memory, Jang Baekseo smiled faintly, and then quietly breathed his last.

"…!"

Is this what death feels like…

"…hyung…!"

It wasn't as painful as I had thought.

"…Senior…!"

But what is this noisy sound that's been going on?

"…Wake… up… hyung…!"

This is my first time in the afterlife, so I don't know if this is normal, but if it's going to be this noisy all the time, it doesn't seem very pleasant…

"Wake up, Senior Brother!!!!"

At that moment.

Paat!

My eyes opened.

'My eyes opened? Wait… wasn't I dead?'

I thought I was dead, but what is this trickery?

I opened my eyes and looked around.

"This is… the Sect Leader's Hall??"

To be precise, it was the flower garden in the backyard of the Sect Leader's Hall.

"What in the world…"

This was a place that shouldn't even have a shape left after my bloody battle with the Sword Star… but that wasn't the only strange thing.

'My body… is fine…'

After the duel with the Sword Star, followed by the relentless bloody battle with the three members of the Eighteen Stars of Demon Suppression, it was harder to find a part of my body that was intact… But now, for some reason, I was perfectly healed without a single scratch.

"What is this…"

As I wondered if this is what happens when you die, the voice that had woken me up sounded again.

"Senior Brother!! Thank goodness. I'm so glad you're okay!!"

A small figure ran into my arms and hugged me tightly.

"Ah, child, who are you??"

The child in my arms looked up with a start and burst into tears again.

"Waaah! Senior Brother must have hurt his head!!"

And when I saw that small child's face, I froze on the spot as if struck by lightning.

"So… hyun?"

"Yes! It's me, Sohyun! Hehe, thank goodness, your head is okay!!"

Jang Sohyun, the youngest disciple of the third generation of the Mysterious Profound Sect, with a large age gap… a cute child who was particularly fond of me.

But it was strange. Something was wrong.

That's because…

"Sohyun… why are you so young? No, no, more importantly, how are you ali…"

"Huh? Young? What's young?"

She was young. Too young. At most, she looked to be about seven years old. Seeing that youthful appearance, I realized another strange thing.

'My body's senses are strange!'

My line of sight is too low. The five senses I feel are dull, and my hands are strangely soft. No, that's not all.

'Internal energy!! Where did all my internal energy go!?'

Almost all the internal energy I had spent a lifetime accumulating was gone! Staggering in this incomprehensible situation, I suddenly saw my reflection in a small artificial pond nearby and froze completely.

"…Th-this is me!?"

"Senior Brother… is your head really okay?"

"Uh, uh, ye-yes, I'm fine…"

Reflected in the pond was the image of a boy who looked to be about fourteen years old.

What was more surprising was that the boy was me! It was my fourteen-year-old self.

Stagger.

My legs gave out.

I collapsed in the middle of the neatly arranged garden and struggled to understand this bizarre situation.

Next to me, Sohyun lowered her head, peeked at my face, and then plopped down next to me, groaning 'Eung~' in imitation of me.

"Eung~!!"

If this is reality… then does this mean I've traveled back in time to the past?

Or else…

Swoosh.

I lifted my head and looked at the blue stone monument standing in the center of the flower garden.

The very same monument I had leaned against in the moment of my death!

And the words 'Gyeon-mi-gae-hyeon' carved on that monument in a bold and powerful script…

See the future and change the present.

"…"

I still don't know what happened.

But one thing.

I knew just one single fact.

'What had happened has now not happened, and what had passed has not yet passed.'

I have been given a chance to change the future.

(End of Chapter)