Chapter 47 - You Will Fill the Void

A short while later, Neung Hyu entered.

“Your subordinate has come at your summons, Demon Supreme.”

Our eyes went to his waist. Sure enough, the ghost fan that ghost sorcerers carried was missing.

“Where is your ghost fan?”

“I lost it yesterday.”

The Soul-Seizing Demon tossed him the ghost fan he was holding.

“This is mine. Where did you find it?”

Not daring to question the Soul-Seizing Demon, he directed the question to me.

“Several bodies were discovered yesterday. This was found with them.”

Neung Hyu flinched at my answer. His surprise was different from the ordinary shock of learning that a personal possession had been found at a crime scene.

He, too, failed to ask where the bodies had been found or what had killed them.

‘Ah, so Neung Hyu is the one who disposes of the bodies!’

That was the moment I confirmed that the Soul-Seizing Demon was practicing the Heart-Soul Great Art.

“Under the circumstances, you will have to come with us for questioning.”

Neung Hyu was not afraid of me. He looked to the only person he feared, awaiting his decision.

The Soul-Seizing Demon merely watched him in silence, but I could tell he was using an unusual form of sound transmission.

Soon, Neung Hyu spoke to me.

“Understood. Let us go.”

He submitted to arrest without protesting his innocence or resisting.

I politely bade the Soul-Seizing Demon farewell.

“Thank you for your cooperation. Until next time.”

He nodded without a word. His expression was so utterly calm that I could not tell what he was thinking.

* * *

As soon as we returned, I ordered Neung Hyu questioned.

The special investigators took turns questioning him, but all he would say was that he had lost his fan. He said nothing else whatsoever.

“I doubt it will be easy to make him talk.”

I nodded at Seo Daeryong’s words. One look in Neung Hyu’s eyes was enough. His loyalty to and fear of the Soul-Seizing Demon were so strong that neither persuasion nor interrogation would work on him.

“Without evidence that he killed them, we won’t be able to hold him for long.”

“He’s only a lackey anyway. It’s the Soul-Seizing Demon we need to catch.”

Perhaps sensing the resolve in my eyes, Seo Daeryong spoke worriedly.

“Be careful. You’re dealing with the Soul-Seizing Demon.”

“Do you remember what I told you all when I first took office? That I would go arrest even my father if he did something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s the one who should be careful. Go tell him that.”

“I wish I had that kind of courage.”

That day, someone I had never expected came to see me in my office.

Seo Daeryong entered looking so startled that he even stammered.

“Th-the Cult Leader is here.”

I was startled, too. I had never dreamed Father would come here.

“Show him in at once.”

Seo Daeryong went out, and Father soon entered my office.

“Father? What brings you all the way here?”

“I was passing by.”

Not a chance. He had come because he had something to tell me.

“I have tea, and wine as well.”

“Wine in broad daylight? Let us have tea.”

I made and served the tea myself. Meanwhile, Father stood by the window behind my desk, looking outside.

“Please have some tea.”

Still gazing out the window, he said,

“You must not touch the Soul-Seizing Demon yet.”

I knew then that this was what he had come to tell me.

He knew I had gone to the Western Illusion Formation and arrested Neung Hyu. He also knew that, with the bodies discovered, I had no intention of leaving the Soul-Seizing Demon alone.

“Why not?”

“Because your martial arts are not enough to kill him.”

“I can cut him down when his guard is lowered. If that doesn’t work, I’ll stab him in the back.”

“Getting behind him will be harder than killing him.”

“Is the Soul-Seizing Demon that powerful?”

“He is both the weakest and the strongest.”

I understood what he meant.

If I could overcome his soul-seizing sorcery—in other words, learn a martial art immune to his sinister sorcery or attain a martial realm beyond its reach—he would become the easiest opponent. Without his sinister sorcery, his martial arts would amount to little.

From that perspective, the Soul-Seizing Demon would be the weakest Demon Supreme to Father. His sinister sorcery would have no effect on Father at all.

“Will you help me overcome him?”

“It cannot be done in so short a time.”

“As you’ve seen, don’t I learn faster than you expected?”

“That is nowhere near enough. There are two ways to block the Soul-Seizing Demon’s soul-seizing sorcery. The first is to learn the Nine Calamities Demonic Art. How much it can block depends on the practitioner’s aptitude, but for you, even the fifth level would render his sinister sorcery ineffective.”

“I don’t want to hear the second. Let me block it with the first.”

Pretending not to hear my request to be made his successor, Father explained the second method.

“The other is to achieve complete mastery of the Heavenly Demon’s Body-Protection Art. Neither is possible for you now. That is why I am telling you to stand down.”

A solution came to mind then. There was one method I knew because I had returned to the past.

‘Father, there is actually a third way.’

A way a hundred times easier than the first two.

The real problem lay elsewhere.

“Is the Soul-Seizing Demon indispensable to the Cult?”

Father must have sensed the killing intent beneath my calm question.

“Of the Eight Demon Supremes, he is the one the orthodox factions find most difficult to deal with.”

It was an indirect answer, but he was saying the man was indispensable.

“Even though he tears people’s hearts out while they’re alive for his great art? Did you know about this?”

Father shook his head.

“I only just learned of it myself.”

How would Father handle this?

Surely even he could not like a bastard who ripped the hearts out of living people.

But as the leader of the Cult, he could not casually eliminate the man who would be its strongest asset against the Orthodox Martial Alliance. This was not something to leave to Father. It was a problem I had to solve.

“You told me to inform you before killing a Demon Supreme, didn’t you?”

That was the promise Father had required when he allowed me to teach Yi An the Heaven-Soaring Sword Art.

“I’m informing you now. I will kill the Soul-Seizing Demon. Of the Eight Demon Supremes, he will be the first to die.”

Before my return, the Soul-Seizing Demon had lived longer than any other Demon Supreme. Now his fate would be the exact opposite.

“This is different from killing someone in a fit of anger because you don’t like them. It’s worse than a madman running around killing people. He’s killing people systematically and regularly, in his right mind. If he had some grand purpose, I could at least understand it. But he’s doing all this shit just to make himself a little stronger, isn’t he? He’s not human, Father. You have your position with the Eight Demon Supremes to consider, so leave this to me. You’ve put the sword in my hand. Let me swing it through to the end.”

I did not know how much Father would sympathize with what I had said. I wanted to walk the same road as him, but for this matter, I chose to think of it this way:

On a long journey, moving from one road to another, sometimes you had to part briefly from your companions before meeting them again.

Father stared at me in silence for a long time. Then he left the room after saying something I had never expected.

“If your ability reaches that level... you will fill the void he leaves behind, so there should be no great problem.”

“!”

He had given me permission to kill him. In a single breath, he had advised me to act once I was strong enough and burdened me with filling the void myself.

A smile formed on my lips. Since he had already gone, I thanked him inwardly.

‘Thank you, Father.’

Father was Father, after all. Yes, ours was not a journey that would diverge over something like this. We were still walking the same road.

It would never happen, but if I became a father in this life... for one brief moment, I thought I would like to give my son the same thrill Father had just given me.

Of course, I would live alone in this life as well.

* * *

“Please, please spare me. I have children. If I die, my children...”

The man quietly looked into the pleading woman’s eyes.

She stared at him in terror.

The look in this ordinary-looking man’s eyes was utterly frightening.

But thinking of her children, she gathered her courage. She was raising them alone. Without her care, her young children would die before the winter was over.

“Please let me go. I’ll do anything you say. Just let me go. Please! Spare me.”

Tears streamed from her eyes.

Then she saw the man’s eyes turn black. Within those black shadows, she saw her children.

For an instant, she beamed with joy, but soon her face began to fill with anguish.

Her children suffered from hunger, were beaten by other beggars, and were dragged away by a madman to endure torment.

“No! Please! No!”

The man’s eyes were cruel. As though determined to wring every last drop of sorrow from her, he conjured even her children’s final moments.

They lay dying on the street in the freezing winter. From their lips came the words, “Mommy, I’m hungry.”

“Aaah! No!”

When her sorrow and despair reached their peak, even her heart was taken from her.

Her heart beat in the man’s hand.

Her grief at never seeing her children again, greater than her grief at losing her own life, became bloody tears that spattered everywhere.

Her breathing stopped, and the ordinary-looking man’s internal energy increased ever so slightly.

* * *

The next day, I took Neung Hyu from the interrogation room to the Western Illusion Formation.

I had decided to use the third method to kill the Soul-Seizing Demon.

But doing so would take roughly two months. I had to reach a certain place on a set date. Until then, I needed to buy time by whatever means I could. Just two months.

This time, I brought only Seo Daeryong. He had said he was too scared to go, so I dragged him along against his will. I had to keep taking him with me. The next Pavilion Master of Yellow Springs Pavilion needed a variety of experiences.

The black portions of the Soul-Seizing Demon’s eyes had grown grotesquely large as he greeted us.

“I have ruled Neung Hyu innocent. We found no evidence that he killed them.”

“Then you need only release Neung Hyu. Why have you come?”

“There is something I wish to tell you.”

“Speak.”

“Please dismiss everyone.”

I had Seo Daeryong wait outside. What I was about to say was important enough that the other man might respond by killing everyone who knew it to silence them.

Once we were alone, I spoke.

“I know you are practicing the Heart-Soul Great Art.”

“What is the Heart-Soul Great Art? I have never heard of it.”

He lied without the slightest change in his eyes. Having risen to the position of Demon Supreme through manipulating people’s minds, he showed no emotional disturbance whatsoever.

“Stop practicing it.”

“Second Young Master, what on earth are you talking about?”

His words rang out loudly from every direction.

“If you refuse my proposal, you will die.”

The Soul-Seizing Demon laughed as though I were ridiculous, and my words echoed back as if mocking me.

“You will die if you refuse, you will die if you refuse...”

The words about dying came in the voices of several people I knew.

Steadying my mind with the Heavenly Demon’s Body-Protection Art, I spoke firmly.

“I will not be the one to kill you.”

“I will not be the one, I will not be the one...”

Again, my words repeated in various voices, mocking me.

“I will persuade Father.”

At the mention of Father, the echoes abruptly stopped.

Silence settled over the room.

The one and only person he feared.

Only Father could restrain him, even temporarily.

“Every morning, I’ll go pay my respects and ask him: Please kill the Soul-Seizing Demon. The next day, I’ll go and tell him again: A man who tears the hearts out of living people only disgraces the Cult. The day after that, I’ll tell him: I’ll give up the succession, so please kill him. The next day, and the day after that, I’ll use every argument I can to persuade him. Then one day, when you make a grave mistake with Father, he might just agree.”

The moment I finished speaking, the Soul-Seizing Demon’s black pupils shrank to pinpoints. It was a bizarre sight, as though his pupils were being sucked somewhere else, leaving only tiny dots behind. At the same time, powerful ghost qi erupted from his body.

KHEE-HEE-HEE-HEE.

With that ghostly sound, the surroundings darkened, then brightened again.

Before I knew it, everything around me had changed completely.