Chapter 104 Demon (4)
Yoon-seok looked in the mirror. At least there was no indication of evil over his head. But it was just that it wasn’t fun to bully someone. Yoon-seok knew there was nothing more to it than that. Nevertheless, was he nervous? He let out a sigh of relief.
“…”
Suddenly, he felt depressed. Why did he put off something so easy until now? Well, the reason was extremely simple: he was scared. He was scared that he would end up becoming a notorious evil. Just like the phrase ‘when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you,’ maybe he would end up becoming someone like Kang Hyung-woo or Lee Chang-hoon.
So he kept his options open and saw what he wanted to see. Although he didn’t think of himself as righteous or a completely good person, just as other people were judged as evil, he defined himself as evil.
“But we’re over the first obstacle for now.….’
Having the will to face himself head-on. In the true sense, that was just the first step.
It seemed the fog in front of him had finally cleared.
Yoon-seok recalled his memories one by one. It felt like he could look back at the past in a rational manner.
“…”
After killing, and more killing, Yoon-seok stopped lying to himself. Nothing could explain what he’d done so far as justice. If he had to put it on good terms, it was a necessary evil. Well, if he were to dive into the details, the term necessary evil wouldn’t be right after all. The motivation of Yoon-seok’s work was his desire for utopia.
‘Does that make me a demon……?’
He was starting to understand now why Cheon-ma insisted on using the word ‘Demon’ instead of other fancy words.
‘I guess she needed some other word that is neither good nor evil.’
What was good and evil in the first place? Was breaking the law evil? Then was abiding by the law being good? In the end, it was a standard to those who considered all aspects. Perhaps knowing that they chose not to be either good or evil.
And this was the fundamental difference between Yoon-seok and them.
‘Demon.’
The one who breaks what needs to be broken. The one who doesn’t think of themselves as righteous. The one who silently walks on their path. Yoon-seok decided then. If that was what it took to become a demon…
He would become one himself.
Yoon-seok questioned the past. What in the world did the Heavenly Sect want to destroy? At that time, Cheon-ma replied — the world full of hypocrisy. Yoon-seok asked why, and Cheon-ma smiled and concluded in one sentence.
—Because I don’t like it.
A simple reason. Maybe he wasn’t that different from her either, because Yoon-seok didn’t like it either. This world was full of people who could calmly smile while stepping on others after seeing them scream. So he decided to change it and punish those whom he thought were inappropriate for the world.
Nevertheless, he constantly contemplated whether his actions were good or evil. How unnecessary. In the end, neither the judgment mark, the laws of society, and even the bracelet could distinguish whether it was good or evil. What mattered was what he thought.
‘What is evil?’
The answer came easily.
‘Those who trample over others.’
Although there wasn’t much of a difference from the evil he defined on the Judgment Sword, there was a slight change. It didn’t matter if they enjoyed it or felt guilty. If they believed in exploitation and tried to harm the innocent, they were a villain. Yoon-seok finally made up his mind. If he had to be evil to get rid of evil, he would gladly accept it with a smile.
That was the right mindset as a person who walked on the Demon Path.
Whoosh!
Yoon-seok pulled out his sword and infused it with the eight-colored sword energy. It was still dazzling with many different colors. Yoon-seok pondered on what Cheon-ma said.
‘She told me to find my color and focus on it…’
Then which of these colors suited him?
‘It’s probably not this.’
Gentleness involved a mindset in embracing all things. However, Yoon-seok had no intention of enduring everything regardless of good and evil. The blue energy faded accordingly.
‘Neither illusion nor speediness.’
Yoon-seok’s path wasn’t multiple, nor invisible. Thus, the yellow and white energy faded. Yoon-seok repeated the same task over and over again.
It wasn’t dominance either. It wasn’t his path to be ruling over someone. Strongness and heaviness? They might be after the same thing, but they were certainly different. He couldn’t describe himself with these words. He decided to move forward even though he would be shaken a hundred times.
Then what was left was lightness and bluntness. But considering their nature, they weren’t able to define him.
Whoosh!
Soon after, Yoon-seok finally realized. It was nonsense. After all, this was not finding his color but fitting himself into a certain color.
‘I still have a long way to go.’
In the end, this was also a type of being At One With the Sword. It wasn’t just about unifying the sword and the body like what he was used to. The only difference was that he had to attach his whole self to the object called the sword. Yoon-seok closed his eyes and spent countless hours observing himself.
When he opened his eyes again.
Whooooooosh!
In front of Yoon-seok, a sword that he had never seen before was floating and exuding presence. Soon after checking the color of the sword, Yoon-seok smirked. Neither black nor white.
‘Gray….’
Although he’d struggled because it was neither one nor the other, gray was the color that suited him the most in the end. But he wasn’t disappointed. He accepted it wholly. If he could accept himself after looking into the mirror, he now knew that gray was one of the decent colors. Was that the reason why?
Yoon-seok was quite satisfied with the murky hue. It laid on neither side but always shook and bent, but its nature didn’t change at all…in a way, it might be the most human color.
‘Then I won’t be able to call it the eight-colored sword anymore.’
Well, he didn’t like the name Gray Sword either. He contemplated for a while, but he couldn’t think of a proper name. Soon, Yoon-seok decided to test the power of the newly acquired sword energy. If he threw around the sword energy carelessly, it’d only destroy the place that Sword Demon had prepared.
Whoosh!
Yoon-seok sent it into the sky. Then, as if a typhoon was blowing, the air was pulled in from all sides into Yoon-seok’s sword.
“Co-Sect Leader! What’s the matter?”
Sensing the uproar from the backyard, the Sword Demon looked over the fence. Then stiffened in place. All the flowers and trees in the backyard were being sucked in by the wind force alone. Of course, that wasn’t the point. He could always replant them again.
‘U-unbelievable…’
The Sword Demon watched in awe. The gray sword energy swirled through the brilliant light and surged into the sky.
Boooooooooooom-!
Gray light pierced through the clouds and broke into the sky. As warm sunlight shone through the clouds, the Sword Demon thought.
“Hurray! Hurray! Hurray!”
Maybe at this moment, a new era might begin.
“We’ll take care of the situation, so you should return.”
After kneeling and cheering three times, the Sword Demon came to his senses and said this.
“Situation?”
“Yes. Originally, no one could break the plaza’s barriers. I’m sure the challengers who saw it will come here. If you hadn’t changed your mind about remaining hidden, I think it’s better to leave this place as soon as possible.”
The sky was always grayish, as if it were coated by dark clouds. Just now, Yoon-seok wasn’t just cutting through the sky. With the effect of b Divine Ultimatum}, he’d done what others couldn’t. Was that the reason why?
Challengers with extraordinary energy from all sides were slowly gathering. Curiosity, persuasion, requests, eliminating competitors. Whatever the reason was, Yoon-seok would not welcome it.
“I understand. Please tell Ashton I’ll be back in seven days.”
“Roger! I hope you will be healthy every morning, and I will wait upon your return!”
Yoon-seok left the Sword Demon behind and returned to the waiting room. The other side of the waiting room with the large hole was unusually quiet upon his return.
‘Did she go somewhere…?’
Yoon-seok looked over the hole, but Namgoong Soso was nowhere to be seen. However, a note had fallen onto the floor. Yoon-seok picked it up. There was no one other than her here, so as expected, the note was left by her. Many characters on the page seemed to have been modified from existing Chinese characters. Still, thanks to the Tower’s consideration, he could read them without any issue.
—I’m writing this because you haven’t returned in days.
The following contents, which were written starting with this introduction, were unnecessarily lengthy, but he could summarize. She went for a trial while Yoon-seok was gone and won the trial against herself, and she thanked him for his help.
Two, she met people from her home ground at the United Plaza, and she went back to Moorim due to an emergency.
“…”
After reading the contents, Yoon-seok smoothed his chin with a mixed expression. Namgoong Soso finally overcame the 9th-floor trial? This was good news, so he shouldn’t feel bothered. But…
The fact she went back to Moorim.
‘What a coincidence.’
Cheon-ma also said something came up, and she was going back. But was it his imagination to think that both of their Moorim trips were somehow connected?
‘Maybe something happened over there.….’
Maybe he might get an answer if he asked the Sword Demon, but it wasn’t the right timing to go back now. Well, it wasn’t like he couldn’t do something about it if he were bothered.…
Yoon-seok just decided not to pay attention to it. It was just a guess anyway. Even if his guess was right, it was something to do with Moorim and not Earth, so it wasn’t his place to be involved.
‘I need more solid standards in the future.’
He wasn’t confused anymore. He wasn’t seeking to be good; he just hated evil. So he decided to dream of a utopia without evil and see the end of the Tower. However, he still needed a code of conduct. Until now, he was too old-fashioned. Well, that was before he reflected on himself, so that might be a given.…
It had to be different now.
Yoon-seok thought again and again. Where does the line of evil lie? How can he identify them, and what will the Judgment Sword do? Was it a judgment or desire? Which one was his top priority? A long line of answers was immediately given.
‘Still, ascending the Tower will be the first.’
A world where the strong prey on the weak. To punish evil, he needed to match their power. Not only that, but if the day arrived where he could make wishes in the Tower, all his worries would be solved. Of course, it just meant that he wouldn’t let himself become overly obsessed just to find them.
It didn’t mean that he would let evil go if he encountered it on the way. However, he decided to judge after checking all the sins properly, as long as the situation wasn’t inevitable like a duel trial.
‘Of course, this part is tricky.’
Yoon-seok frowned. There was no need to think about it if there was a mark. But what if there wasn’t? It was impossible to get everyone he met to confess their sins, to the point where he thought it would be nice to have the skill to identify the crimes committed by the other person just by looking at them.
Suddenly, something flashed in Yoon-seok’s mind.
‘No, if I don’t have it, I can just make one.’
Skill Synthesis, the power that creates new skills. However, he didn’t have enough AP to synthesize immediately. That was why he ended up putting it off until the next time, but…
「Get ready. The free fight is about to begin.」
Well, it wouldn’t take too long.
Comments