NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 1037
<1037 – Lord of Darkness (15)>
The Head of the Four Heavenly Sword Clan, Four Heavenly Demon.
Sing only realized it for the first time once he stood before him.
That man was his father.
He was the illegitimate child of the clan.
Unacknowledged, a child that should not have existed.
He had never seen the face of the clan head even once since he was born.
In his childhood, the only people who made up the narrow world he knew were the martial artists who taught him the clan’s martial arts and the people from the subsidiary family who provided the minimum living expenses and leftovers.
It was quite unexpected to see the face of the clan head after returning to the Eastern Empire as an adult and a woman.
‘When I, as a man, grow old, will I have a face like that?’
A face that could be found by adding the flow of time to his past.
With a subtly altered appearance, he found the past, which was hard to recognize even in the mirror, clearly visible.
“That’s a resemblance.”
“What do you mean?”
Surprisingly, the clan head expressed the same sentiment while looking at Sing.
“I had a wife. A wife who was not officially recognized and, thus, could not meet her child.”
“…Our mother is a gisaeng.”
“No. I have never mingled with a gisaeng even once. I only mixed bodies with those who share my blood.”
Suddenly revealing family matters!
Sing felt an enormous sense of humiliation.
So, his mother was not a concubine but the daughter of the Four Heavenly Sword Clan?
A relative.
Or rather, family.
Was he merely the offspring produced by violating such a woman?
Facing Sing’s face, which was full of rage, the clan head nodded even more vigorously.
“That furious face. Even the coldly sharpened murderous intent resembles hers. If she was that age… Yes, there was a child named ‘Sing.’”
“You know… Sing?”
“Of course.”
“Liar. I’ve never seen a man like you.”
“You speak as if you were the same.”
“…Sing said that.”
“There’s no need to play dumb. If there was a child born before Sing, it could be that way. You deceived me well and gave birth to a child, sending them to the Western world.”
The clan head understood Sing, no, Sia’s existence within the scope he could comprehend.
He distinguished Sing and Sia as separate individuals.
The eldest daughter born before Sing.
A child concealed from the clan head and sent to the Western world.
Sing and Sia crossed paths in the Western world.
In pursuit of revenge, Sing taught Sia swordsmanship.
Sia, having learned his swordsmanship, returns to carry out that revenge.
“If you think of it that way, it makes sense. That appearance, which resembles your mother. Learning the swordsmanship of the Four Heavenly Sword Clan. The talent that evolved that further. That child must have wanted to find a means to kill me.”
With her superior talent, Sia was enhanced by Sing’s late gift of swordsmanship, creating a swordsman capable of defeating the clan head, under his line of sight.
It was a marvelous story.
Except for the fact that there was no grand arrangement like that, and only the lonely journey of the Lonely Eastern Swordsman who had to desperately flee to the Western world existed.
“What happened to my mother?”
“She died. On the day Lin died and Sing fled, cutting down the clan’s martial artists, she chose to take her own life.”
“…Is that so?”
The death of a woman whose existence he didn’t even know, whose face he had never seen.
Sing understood her decision.
The clan head was a madman.
He reveled in the power of a twisted lineage that produces children by violating family members, sponsored by the worst wizard in history, while acting as the head of the Ten Sword Clan, bringing the world to ruin.
No woman in the world would have recognized giving birth to such a person’s child.
Sing.
Especially if she shared the same character as him.
The sorrow and resentment of losing his younger sister were one thing.
What about the sorrow and resentment of losing his child?
He couldn’t arrogantly claim to understand those feelings.
But one thing he could be sure of.
“Then die.”
That he must kill this man with his own hands!
*
Sia’s swordsmanship is strong.
So much so that Sing, who stood by Oknodie for a considerable amount of time, could be regarded as an upper version of him.
If Sing had lived and continued to hone his swordsmanship, it would have been natural to assume he would reach that level, as their swordsmanship mirrored each other.
However, there was a significant difference between Sing’s swordsmanship, which was more focused on killing blows, and Sia’s, which was more refined.
Sia’s sword becomes a blade of sentient will, like petals of a flower that bloom and scatter at the end of a Sword Dance.
Like plants that sprout again at the end of a long spring.
Unlike Sing, who had only white ash in his vision, Sia’s vision held the promise of tomorrow.
“Emotions are weaknesses. Clear your mind. Leave not a single stray thought.”
Some say that those who live looking only at tomorrow cannot defeat those who live looking only at today.
Ziang considered the differences between Sing and Sia.
That saying is wrong.
It is the absence of tomorrow that makes people die.
When one fails to find a reason to endure hardship and move on.
Thus, they easily abandon themselves and entrust everything to the sword.
Unity of sword and spirit.
Path of the Sword Demon.
They cannot advance beyond that.
That is why Sing died.
Sia survived because she did not do the same.
“Sing probably did not foresee this realm. Did he fill in the missing areas with the experiences of the swordsmen of the Western world and his imagination? An intriguing swordsmanship.”
However, this realm was on par with the clan head, the Four Heavenly Demon.
She was still lacking to defeat him.
━━━
<Sing – Four Heavenly Swordsmanship>
<Spirit-Consuming Sword Technique of the Undead>
━━━
Facing Sia, who spread her resurrecting Sword Dance, the clan head unleashed techniques too vast in quantity to grasp the beginning and end.
The reviving sword energy surged like a torrential downpour from the skies, enveloping her.
As the head of the Ten Sword Clan, commandeering an impressive amount of elixirs, the techniques showed powers extending beyond humanity.
Even as raindrops hit the ground and sprang back up, the sword energy of the Four Heavenly Demon also collided with the ground and leaped back up.
Thus, differences in the quality of sword energy began to emerge even within the same realm.
It was the limitations of accumulated wealth and power.
“Your path is not wrong. Only I stand before you on that path. Wail at your destiny of being born too late.”
Even the clan head admitted it.
If Sia had been given more time, this victory and defeat could have reversed.
But he did not know.
Just as he had grown stronger with the power and years he possessed, Sia too possessed what he did not have.
Isn’t this the time to utilize the bonds of comrades?
━━━
<Sadi Chocolate>
<Energy Transmission of Terminal>
━━━
If the faltering sword energy possesses a strong will, something that could be called ‘intent’ within it.
Why wouldn’t Sadi Chocolate’s terminal, which probes into the mind of every being with a soul, be able to delve into the sword energy?
There is no reason.
This path is one no one has walked before.
Because Sadi Chocolate, the growth-type undead with no limits, it is her exclusive path.
“If it’s extinguished, just bring it back to life. There are resilient lives that can resurrect even after dying! Heh heh.”
With Sadi Chocolate’s assistance, the power embodied in her terminal gives Sia’s revived sword energy a chance to rise again.
Finally, she stood before the sword energy trying to sever that pulse.
━━━
<Ziang – Assassination Vision>
<Sticky Surface Cloak>
━━━
Marking a tiny amount of spirit onto a target to use as a tracking device or dispersing a certain amount of spirit on the ground to slow down an enemy’s steps or hands.
Dispersing the sticky mana as an umbrella, it buys time for Sing’s spirit to be revived.
Despite the numerous swords raining down, the pressure felt as if his soul were being eroded in real-time, yet he endured it.
“In this crucial moment, while you insisted on being alone and abandoned your subordinates, Sia, with their support, is different.”
The difference between a swordsman who only follows the wizard’s will and one who has comrades participating in their revenge.
It allowed Sia’s blade to pierce through the clan head’s ocean of sword energy, granting her the chance to strike.
In the end, the Four Heavenly Demon was pierced through the abdomen.
With an empty expression, he buried his head into the wall.
“You don’t realize what you are doing.”
“I know well. This is family revenge. Revenge for Lin. Revenge risking Sing’s life. And… revenge for our mother.”
“You are lacking. Compared to me, who bears the lives of countless billions.”
Billions.
It was a unit far too arrogant for a single human to speak of, as the Four Heavenly Demon opened his mouth.
*
The Head of the Four Heavenly Sword Clan faced the first wizard of the Eastern Empire seven hundred years ago.
“Oh, deity. There are many weird creatures that disturb the world, but since your good weird creatures do not punish those that disrupt the secular world, what’s the meaning of not acting?”
“Do you believe that slaughtering the bipedal monsters of this world with your one body will improve it?”
“I am confident it’s better than doing nothing.”
In the past, even the Heavenly Sovereign, who was not human in form, did not neglect the audacity of one human’s request.
“Then I will give you a chance. To understand how arrogant your belief is.”
The actions of the Four Heavenly Clan saved many lives.
At one time, the empire dealt a near-fatal blow to weird creatures, and many regions were freed from the horrors of the weird.
They achieved it.
One day, feeling the sense of achievement.
Disasters arrived without any forewarning.
Two suns in the sky.
Grains dying from drought.
“What is the identity of that sun?”
“A fixed hellfire sphere in the heavens. They call it the artificial sun and, in the East, it could also be called a super-large weird.”
“How can such an entity exist?”
“Because the highest authority capable of enforcing the laws of the world wished for it.”
The Four Heavenly Clan understood.
That it was the cruel plaything perpetrated by the Evil Dragon Omoshiroi of the Western world.
The Heavenly Sovereign revealed the truth.
“When the Eastern Empire forsakes peace, the Evil Dragon grows bored. And then offers new trials.”
“…!”
“To prevent disasters on the continent, there must be a maintained disaster, which is the weird. This time, the Yin-Yang Masters buried the sun as a sacrifice with its permanent realm and knowledge under the shadow of the moon, but perhaps disasters may come in the future that we cannot prevent.”
The shadow of the sun held in the moon wriggled hotly and vigorously.
The weird, born from the moon’s dark energy, poured out into the Middle Realm, unable to withstand that heat.
The Eastern Empire was attacked by more weird creatures and suffered from the emergence of stronger weird beings.
“You were right.”
“Understanding was all you needed. Offer that sword to me. To ensure that such tragedies never repeat again. And so someday, we may break free from this cruel bondage.”
The Four Heavenly Demon became the sword for the Heavenly Sovereign.
This marked the beginning of the rule of the Ten Sword Clan and the management of the weird, the ailments of the Eastern Empire.
*
“You are merely calling forth another disaster upon this land. Opening the prologue of a tragedy that cannot be borne.”
Both Sing and Ziank realized.
The steps of the Heavenly Sovereign and the Four Heavenly Demon resembled those of the Seonhwang.
Pursuing the salvation of the future at the expense of human sacrifice.
A will striving to bring liberation that surpasses millennia of despair over a history of a thousand years.
However, the Seonhwang encountered Oknodie and reconsidered his intent.
“Someone other than you will be able to stop that principal’s transgressions.”
Sing did not waver.
This path is not wrong.
The one advancing on that path first is not the Four Heavenly Demon.
At the end of the road Sing is walking lies the owner of a small yet huge shadow.
The Dark Princess, also known as the Princess of the Weird.
Because it is Oknodie.