Chapter 196 - Encroachment (1)

1

Of all the constellations I had met so far, the most powerful was unquestionably Hungry Ghost.

The Demon King of Autumn Rain.

The Saintess of monsters could pile up a mountain of corpses with a single slash. From the tip of her blade, red rain stained the continent—mountains and rivers dyed in blood. Mountain ranges sank into pools of blood, and rivers ran rich with its scent.

"Kahahaha!"

But I had a feeling my personal rankings were about to change today.

"That's my father! You dodge as nimbly as a loach!"

A fist missed me by inches.

WHOOOOM!

The roar was far too violent to be merely the sound of air splitting. Good God. If I hadn't braced my legs, the wind pressure would have swept me away.

"S-son!"

"Speak, Father!"

"Do we really have to do this to each other?"

I shouted in desperation.

"We haven't seen each other in so long. We could catch up a little more, have a pleasant father-and-son conversation..."

"I'm enjoying this more than anything!"

"Are you trying to kill your father?"

"If you die by my fist, it means that was the limit of your ability. Do not resent me. Blame your own weakness!"

An explosion rang out.

I looked back to see a snowy mountain collapsing beneath the aura Uburka had fired.

"This is insane."

I wouldn't dare compare him to Master's level, where she could sever the world's very edges with her mind, but in sheer destructive power, he was monstrous.

What would happen if that fist hit me? Considering which was harder—a snowy mountain's summit or my skull—the calculation was simple.

"Somebody save this father!"

I screamed.

"Everybody! There's an unfilial son here trying to burst his father's head! I taught him how to use aura and even passed down the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, and this ungrateful brat is killing me!"

"I! Show filial devotion with my fists!"

Spouting bullshit for the ages, Uburka took a stance. It was all too familiar to me.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

First Form.

Flowing Sword of Death by Starvation.

Aura rose from every direction and swallowed me. My eyes widened. His mastery of aura manipulation was beyond comparison with what it had once been.

"Oho."

The attendant spirit voiced his admiration. At that exact moment, my perception of everything slowed without end. His voice reached me as "Ohoooo," and before the blizzard could snatch away the end of it, I counterattacked.

'If I pit strength against strength, I'll lose.'

I drew aura up throughout my body.

If I relaxed my concentration for even a second, I would be defeated without being able to do a thing.

'Will it work?'

As time crept past, a way out occurred to me.

'Let's try it.'

My movement came faster than my decision.

I stepped forward.

CRUNCH!

Snow crumbled beneath my shoe. My aura rapidly seeped into the finely shattered snowflakes.

Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven.

First Form.

Flowing Sword of Death by Starvation.

I did not meet Uburka's attack head-on.

Instead, I seized control of it.

Ultimately, the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven burned through the practitioner's memories and mental images. No matter how many dozens of branches an attack split into, if you thoroughly understood the practitioner's mental image—which paths were fierce and which were soft—you could break it.

'The outcome depends on how deeply we understand the divine art.'

I quietly examined my opponent's offensive.

To my eyes, the aura flames appeared as vivid gestures.

Uburka had chosen two main avenues of attack.

'Shall we see who understands it better?'

One breath.

I first broke the flame rushing at me most fiercely. The agony of hunger. An attack carrying a child's scream.

'The orthodox approach.'

I deftly wielded the divine art. I envisioned the gestures of a mother forced to hear her young child screaming right before her eyes.

Pain collided with suffering. Like two hands strangling a neck, my aura seized Uburka's and twisted it.

The direction of the attack reversed.

"...!"

Two breaths.

Uburka's gaze grew fierce. He had grasped my intent: to make this a contest of understanding martial arts, rather than raw might.

"Father, you still choose only the most infuriating things to do!"

Uburka crammed aura into his voice.

Had an ordinary person heard him, his words would have sounded simply like ■. A single, meaningless syllable.

But aura bent and curved ■ this way and that. Only within our endlessly slowed time did ■ spread out flat. It was a sonic technique requiring considerable mastery.

"Do you intend to make me look like a stupid boar with nothing but brute strength?"

"Indeed."

Father and son, we freely flaunted our sophisticated conversation.

"If you don't want to lose, stop using the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven first."

"Absolutely not! I will defeat you with the divine art too! I want to crush the pride of a father who gets by on his martial arts, send you tumbling miserably into the abyss, and finally make you acknowledge me from the deepest depths of your heart!"

"This brat spent three hundred years mastering compulsive lying instead of the aura he was supposed to learn. Just behave and fall into my clutches."

"Uger!"

In the Earth Spiritfolk language, uger had a remarkably diverse range of meanings, roughly including [No], [Not really], [I've got a problem with that], [Fuck off], and [You damned swindler].

"I've waited more than three hundred and sixty years! I cannot lose again!"

"Whether it's three hundred years, three thousand, or thirty thousand..."

Three breaths.

I began taking control of Uburka's Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven. It was like painting colors over a sketch he had drawn—or, more precisely, adding my improvisation to his music.

"Your father has no intention of meekly handing over leadership of the Demonic Cult."

When Uburka expressed a child's pain, I pictured parents feeding their only child while starving themselves.

Which expressed the agony of hunger more keenly?

Which hunger better suited the screams of all people?

Two Flowing Swords of Death by Starvation intertwined within a single divine art.

"My child."

"What is it!"

"Your mastery is enough to establish a school of your own now. We can finally have a more profound conversation."

I deflected Uburka's punch with the back of my hand. I hadn't forced it aside. Having predicted the attack's path, my body was already prepared to dodge. The tap with the back of my hand was merely the final movement needed to evade it.

"Uger!"

Thoroughly incensed, Uburka lunged at me.

"Being a martial artist is a profession too. Especially for a follower of the Demonic Cult. If all you want is to contemplate the world's suffering, you can renounce worldly life and enter a temple. The Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven is the will to remain amid pain. We dwell among people."

Every time Uburka threw a punch, another snowy peak shattered.

Yet not a single blow struck my body.

RUMBLE!

With the two of us at their very center, avalanches erupted to the north, south, east, and west.

Like petals blooming around a flower's pistil and stamens.

A blood flower.

The blizzard collapsed in white.

"Good heavens..."

Twenty paces away, the Black Dragon leader murmured in a daze. Was she astonished by Uburka's monstrous strength? Or impressed by my delicate feat of keeping him barely under control?

Without paying it any mind, I continued speaking to Uburka.

"You must be careful. Our Demonic Cult can easily degenerate into an exhibition hall for showing off pain. At any time, to any extent."

"An exhibition hall for showing off pain?"

"I'm telling you not to fight over who suffers more. Watch yourself, again and again, so your pain doesn't become a source of power for your own benefit. I know you're not that sort of child, but I'll say it anyway."

Four breaths.

I succeeded in occupying every one of Uburka's attack routes.

Though he was still moving, the paths his aura could take were narrow.

"Ngh!"

Uburka clenched his teeth. His red aura blazed fiercely, trying to open up space by any means, but I deftly caught the flames' tips and guided them where I wanted.

"If you bear all the pain alone, the people around you will wither. The more they cherish you, the more they'll waste away. They want to tell you to stop, but what argument can they make when you say you'll shoulder the world's suffering? If pain proves our humanity, then you become the only human."

Was Uburka following what I was saying?

I wasn't sure.

Nevertheless, I kept the flames going.

This advice might be premature, but as the Black Dragon leader had said, too early was far better than too late.

"Don't claim to act for the world while making your own people feel small. That's putting the cart before the horse."

"..."

"Find partners. Find fellow travelers. Persuade people with your vision. If you've climbed a mountain and gained enlightenment, it's time to descend. Find people you can entrust your heart to, who can think on your behalf. Talk to them often. If you're going to become human, become human together with them."

"People like that..."

"Already exist."

Five breaths.

I spread my aura.

"Look, my child!"

My eyes were reflected in Uburka's.

Like mirrors reflecting mirrors, our eyes held each other without end.

"Why do you think I shared my vision with you?"

Aura erupted.

It wasn't my power.

It was the torrent of aura Uburka had poured forth.

I had merely controlled its flow.

"So we could share the same sky!"

And with red brushstrokes, I painted the scene I had long dreamed of.

Uburka was an endless supply of paint, and I was a single brush.

A feat possible only through the same method of aura manipulation, the same demonic art, and the same mental image descended upon the white mountain ridge.

Formation Art of the Demonic Heaven.

First Formation.

Playhouse in Flames.

Six breaths.

The surrounding scenery changed.

Red aura swirled, taking on countless forms.

Candlesticks. Candles burning atop them. Even the wax melting from the candles.

Ornate floors and stairways. The decorations adorning the mansion. Everything.

"Wait. This place...?"

The Black Dragon leader was stunned.

To her dark eyes, the scene appeared familiar.

Hundreds of candle flames burned, and shadows made of aura hid between the candlesticks.

"Heehee."

A familiar sound.

Laughter that slid like candle wax.

"Are you it?"

"Who's..."

"With us..."

At that moment, the scene crumbled.

In terms of time, it had probably lasted only a little over three seconds.

Even Uburka's tremendous reserves of aura had a limit, and my exquisite control had its restrictions. Maintaining objects, sounds, an entire space with just the two of us was difficult.

But we had done it.

Even if it had lasted barely an instant.

I had succeeded in recreating the Infernal Mansion.

"..."

Uburka looked around, spellbound.

The scenery had already reverted to the snowy mountain.

But everyone here knew that what they had just witnessed was neither a hallucination nor a delusion.

"Uburka."

I gathered the little aura remaining in my body.

"This is the formation art I told you about three hundred and sixty-three years ago. It isn't simply putting a mental image into aura and firing it out. It's manifesting that mental image through aura."

Passing the Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven down to Uburka.

Bringing Cavefire plays into full bloom and spreading them among the Earth Spiritfolk.

It had all been to bring into the world a level of mastery impossible for me to achieve alone.

"No matter how hard I struggle, I couldn't maintain it for even a second alone. My aura would run out in an instant, and it would fade before filling even a space ten paces across. Even combining my aura with yours, three seconds is the limit. But what if twelve warriors joined us?"

"..."

"What would happen if twenty-four, hundreds—no, a thousand Earth Spiritfolk performed the formation art together?"

Uburka imagined the scene I described.

His gaze was tracing some landscape.

"By common sense, it's impossible. But the Earth Spiritfolk have shared mental images over the past several hundred years. Refined them. In this world, we alone should be able to accomplish it. We're musicians who have come to share the same score."

"That..."

Uburka opened his mouth.

"That would mean singing of suffering, but..."

"It would be beautiful."

"Ugor. It would be beautiful."

It was an exciting prospect.

"Come down the mountain with your father."

I smiled.

"Even if we sing of suffering, our lives will still be joyful."

"How strange. How is that possible?"

"Your father is an impressive man. You're impressive too. I acknowledge you, and you acknowledge me. When someone striving with all their might to be the best acknowledges and likes me, how could each day not be a joy?"

I offered Uburka my right hand.

"I'll be a little happier because of you, and you'll smile a little more often because of me."

"..."

"Let's go down, my unfilial boy."

Uburka took my right hand.

[You have created a new skill!]

At that very moment, the Tower's voice rang out.

[Forming a skill card!]