Chapter 68 – Demonic Sect
The inn was one of those places that smelled like everything at once.
Sweat. Cheap ale. Old wood. Frying oil. A hint of fish that had died a long, long time ago and never fully left the walls.
Perfect.
No priests. No nobles. No one who'd recognise a boy who'd burned a district and a man who could punch a mountain in half.
So Sang-kyu sat across from me at a corner table, shoulders relaxed, seven mana cores humming inside him like a nest of caged suns. His hair was tied back, his clothes were newly washed, and he looked… content.
Mostly because there were nine empty plates stacked beside him.
"Are you… done?" I asked, staring at the pile.
He looked at the plates, considered, then gestured at the serving girl for another.
"Almost," he said.
Of course.
I pushed my own food around with a fork for a moment, then leaned forward, lowering my voice.
"How did you even get past the Veil?" I asked. "Safon to here isn't exactly a casual stroll."
He swallowed a mouthful of meat and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, thinking.
"The Veil is not barrier," he said finally. "Not like wall. It is… mood of sea. When mood good, ships pass. When mood bad, they vanish."
"Comforting," I said.
He grinned.
"In my case, mood was very bad," he added.
He set his chopsticks down and cupped his hands, as if holding an invisible boat.
"I paid for passage with a crew," he said. "They were men who had crossed before. Traders. Smugglers. People who knew the Argent Crown's ports, the currents, the storms. They said, 'We know the way. We know how to slip around the monsters.'"
He shrugged.
"They were half-right."
I raised an eyebrow.
"What happened?"
"The first days, nothing," he said. "Calm sea. Good wind. Men played dice, sang off-key, cursed the food. I slept. I trained. I thought, 'Ah, this is easy. Maybe crossing the world is simpler than crossing sect politics.'"
His eyes narrowed slightly, remembering.
"Then we reached the deep water," he said. "The place they called 'below the crown's sight.' No land. No birds. Just blue and black and deeper black under that."
He mimed a downward plunge with one hand.
"The air grew heavy. The crew grew quiet. Men who had been joking the night before suddenly remembered they had charms to touch and prayers to mumble. Then, in the night…"
He spread his fingers.
"Many tentacles," he said. "More than you can count without going mad. They rose from the water and… held the ship."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"Held," I repeated. "As in… gently? Or as in 'about to crush'?"
He made a fist.
"Like child holds insect," he said. "Curious. Careless. Very easy to close."
Of course it was.
I took a slow breath.
"Don't tell me," I said. "You beat it."
He tilted his head.
"I did not beat *it,*" he said calmly. "I annoyed a small part of it enough that it let go."
"By…?"
He lifted his right hand and flexed it, knuckles popping.
"I gathered all the Qi in my body into this hand," he said. "All of it. Every thread. Every drop. The way your mages gather mana for one stupid big spell, yes?"
"…Yes," I said carefully.
"Then I struck one tentacle," he said. "Only one. There was no space to punch the whole thing. So I made sure that one strike said everything I had to say."
He smiled faintly.
"The flesh tore," he said. "Blood like ink. The sea boiled where it fell. The thing… flinched. Not much. Just enough. The ship dropped back into the water, almost breaking apart. Men screamed. One man went mad on the spot and tried to eat his own fingers."
Of course they did.
I stared at his hand.
"You're insane," I said.
He shrugged.
"You burned a whole district," he pointed out. "Alone. In front of priests. In front of a duke's eyes. And you collapsed in the middle of it smiling."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
"…Valid," I admitted.
Melody laughed softly from where she leaned against the wall, invisible to everyone but me.
"He's got you there, Master," she said. "Madness recognises madness."
I ignored her.
"So that's how you crossed the Veil," I said. "Ridiculous brute force."
"Qi makes many impossible things slightly less impossible," So Sang-kyu agreed. "Once that… piece of the deep let go, the rest of the trip was storms and bad soup."
He picked up his chopsticks again.
"And then we reached your continent," he added. "And I discovered your people have terrible taste in breakfast."
"I'll add it to the list of national sins," I said.
He chuckled.
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been chewing on my brain since the arena.
"How did you get that strong?" I asked. "Seven cores. Punching deep-sea nightmares. Surviving being hit by my magic. That's not just talent."
He blinked slowly.
"I had time," he said.
"How much time?"
He thought about it, lips moving silently as he counted.
"About a thousand years," he said.
I choked.
The ale went down the wrong pipe. I coughed, eyes watering.
"A *thousand*," I wheezed.
He nodded.
"More or less," he said, completely serious. "I stopped counting properly after eight hundred. Numbers blur when you spend a few decades in one mountain."
"What do you mean 'more or less'—" I started.
He waved a hand.
"Time is strange when you cultivate," he said. "Sometimes you meditate for three days and it is three days. Sometimes you meditate for three days and the world outside says forty years have passed. Also, I died once. It complicates the math."
I stared.
"I'm not even going to ask about that yet," I muttered.
He smiled.
"Safon was always at war," he said, as if that explained everything. "Always has been. Still is, probably. Our land is cut into pieces—big, small, rich, poor. We call them domains. Each has a daimyo. The strongest rules. If you are not strong enough to keep what you have, your neighbour takes it. If your neighbour is weak, you take theirs. Simple."
He took another bite of meat, chewed, swallowed.
"Wars bloom like weeds," he said. "One lord's ambition grows, and suddenly a valley is on fire. Another lord fears losing face and burns a town to show strength. Cults grow in the cracks. Demonic sects offer power to boys who are tired of kneeling. Righteous sects offer salvation to boys who are tired of killing. Sometimes they are the same boys."
His gaze went distant, looking past me.
"I grew up in that," he said. "Not noble. Not rich. Just… there. Fist was cheaper than sword. Food was cheaper than books. If you wanted to live, you learned to make someone else die instead."
"Cheerful childhood," I said.
He shrugged one shoulder.
"I fought. I lost. I fought again. I learned my body first. Then I left my domain and discovered the world was bigger."
He pointed vaguely eastward.
"I walked north until the snow tried to kill me," he said. "Then I walked south until the sun tried to kill me. In the south, people spoke different words. Different gods. They bowed to statues and talked about Dharma and cycles and letting go of desire."
He snorted.
"Nice people," he said. "Kind. Patient. They believed Qi should be used gently. Slowly. Teach commoners to breathe, to accept their place, to bear suffering with grace. 'If you cultivate wrong, you will disturb the wheel,' they said. 'Do not grasp.'"
"And you?" I asked.
"I grasped," he said simply. "I listened, learned, then twisted their teachings to see what happened if I *did* grasp. If I refused to let go. If I used Qi not to endure the world, but to punch it until it changed shape."
Of course he did.
He picked up a fresh plate as the serving girl hurried over, eyes wide at his appetite.
"Seven decades," he said, once she left. "About that much, wandering, learning, stealing techniques. By the time I crossed the sea, my path had already stepped into… dangerous places."
He wiped his fingers and then, for the first time, went still in that particular way cultivators do when they're explaining something fundamental.
"Your world counts mana in tiers," he said. "Tier one, two, three. School levels. Spell strength. That sort of thing."
"More or less," I said.
"In Safon, for Qi, we speak in realms," he said. "Stages of how much of yourself you have rewritten. The names change from sect to sect, but the bones stay the same."
He gestured with his chopsticks like he was sketching steps in the air.
"First is the Body Tempering Realm," he said. "Children start there. You strengthen skin, muscle, bone. Pure physical training. Almost no Qi usage yet. You teach your body what 'strong' feels like. Punch wood. Lift stones. Run until you vomit. If you stay in this realm too long, you break. The flesh cannot take endless abuse."
He flexed his hand, scar tissue pale along the knuckles.
"Next is the Meridian Opening Realm," he continued. "Inside you, there are lines—meridians—that move life-force. Most people never feel them. In this realm, you bleed, sweat, breathe, and meditate until those lines open. Qi can circulate properly without tearing things apart."
I imagined mana circuits, overlaid with another network underneath.
"After that," he said, "comes the Qi Sea Realm. You take all that wandering Qi and gather it into one place—the dantian. Lower belly. You form a Qi sea there. The bigger and denser the sea, the more explosive your power."
He tapped his abdomen.
"In your terms," he added, "it is like forming a second mana core that cares only about fists and survival."
"Comforting," I muttered.
He smirked.
"Then, the Martial Soldier Realm," he went on. "Once your Qi sea is stable, you let it leak into the rest of your body in the right patterns. Your muscles drink it. Your bones soak it. You become sharper. Faster. You can move for days and your legs do not complain the way they should."
He rolled his shoulders, joints cracking pleasantly.
"After that: Martial Master Realm," he said. "At that point, one Qi sea is not enough. You split. Refine. Two cores. Two seas. Mana mages would panic at the idea. Martial artists smile. With that, you can start manifesting Qi outside your skin. Blades of air. Armor of intent. A fist that lands without touching."
I thought of him punching an Outer-touched thing until it staggered.
"Yes," he said, catching the look on my face. "Like that."
He raised three fingers.
"Martial King Realm comes next," he said. "By then, your presence walks into a room before your feet do. Any enemy weaker than you will feel their breath catch when you look at them. Your Qi reaches the maximum of seven cores. Any more, and you start to resemble the things you fight."
Seven.
Of course.
I could feel them in him, layered, braided, humming.
"After the King," he continued, "is the Earth Lord Realm. There, your Qi build-up exceeds what your flesh was born for. Your body begins to… ignore normal aging. Not fully immortal. But time slows. Old wounds fade. If a child reaches this realm, their growth in Qi never really stops. Very dangerous. Many die or become monsters."
He said it like someone speaking from experience.
"Above that is the Sky Lord Realm," he said. "You stop being bound entirely to the ground. You can manifest Qi around you, step on it, fly. It looks impressive. It costs a lot of energy. Many young idiots die trying to show off."
He lifted his hand, fingers curling, as if gripping an invisible wind.
"Then, the Spirit Saint Realm," he said. "At that point, your Qi and your soul are… close. You can push your spirit out, just a little, and strike another's Qi directly. Shatter their cultivation. Stop them from ever walking the path again. Very useful. Very cruel."
Yeah. That tracked.
He took a breath.
"And above that," he said, "things get… strange."
"Strange how?" I asked.
"We call it the Transcendent Realm," he said. "But that is a lazy label. Many forms live there. My path, the one I walk, is called the Demonic Sect path. But there are others. The Heavenly Decree Sect, who write laws into the sky and make the world obey. The Order of the Iron Fist, who turn their bodies into living weapons that tear holes in reality when they punch. The Zie Zhong school, who say nothing at all about what they do and only smile."
He grimaced.
"I don't trust the ones who smile," he added.
"Fair," I said.
He nodded.
"For me," he said, "Transcendence meant letting my Qi tangle with… other things. Emotions. Shadows. The parts of myself I did not want to admit existed. Rage. Fear. Hunger. The Demonic Sect teaches: 'If you deny these, they rule you from beneath. If you grasp them, you may wield them.'"
Melody hummed thoughtfully.
"Sounds like something you'd be good at, Master," she teased. "You already collect bad decisions like pretty rocks."
I ignored her again.
"So Transcendent is…?" I prompted.
"Standing with one foot in the human path and one in something else," he said. "Once you take that step on my route, you reach what we call the Half-Demon Realm."
His gaze dropped to his own hand again.
"In Half-Demon Realm, the Demon Sect's power gives you spikes in strength when your negative emotions flare," he said. "Anger, grief, hatred—they act like fuel. They flood your Qi, trigger massive explosions every time you fight. You become a bomb that walks and breathes."
He gave a small, humorless smile.
"Very useful on battlefields," he said. "Very bad for people you care about."
I believed that.
"And the top?" I asked. "Demon Realm?"
His eyes went a little distant.
"Demon Realm is the peak," he said quietly. "At that point, a demon can twist the laws of nature around their 'demonic will' itself. Fire that burns only one family line. Rivers that flow backward for everyone but you. Space that folds so your enemies never arrive where they intend to. Each one becomes a calamity-level existence."
I swallowed.
"And you?" I asked softly. "Where are you?"
He hesitated.
"Half-Demon," he said at last. "Mostly. One step, maybe a half-step, from pushing into full Demon. I've danced on the edge a few times. Every time, it almost ate me."
He reached for another plate while saying it, because of course he did.
"So, to summarize," I said. "You are a thousand-year-old half-demon martial artist who can punch sea monsters, break cities, and possibly rewrite physics if you get in a bad mood."
He chewed, nodded.
"That sounds about right," he said.
I leaned back, letting that settle.
Martial Realms.
Body Tempering to Meridian Opening. Qi Sea. Martial Soldier. Martial Master. Martial King. Earth Lord. Sky Lord. Spirit Saint. Transcendent. Half-Demon. Demon.
A ladder made of bones and mistakes.
Mana cores stacked on top of that.
If I tried to walk both paths fully, I'd either become something like him.
Or something much worse.
He finished his ninth plate and finally slowed down, wiping his mouth with a cloth.
"You asked," he said, "how I got strong. That is the long answer. War. Time. Bad choices. Demonic Sect. Luck. Stubbornness."
I drummed my fingers on the table.
"Then the important question," I said. "Out of all of that… which path is actually good for me?"
He went very still.
The noise of the inn seemed to fade around us—the clink of mugs, the murmur of other conversations, the creak of floorboards. For a second, it felt like the table was the only real thing in the room.
So Sang-kyu studied me.
Not just my face.
My posture. The way my hand rested near Melody's hilt. The faint hum of my S-rank mana core. The trace of Ark and mono-edge clinging to my aura. The frayed places in my soul where death and regression had rubbed it raw.
His eyes narrowed very slightly.
"Good for you…?" he echoed, voice soft.
He leaned forward, forearms on the table, expression suddenly serious in a way that had nothing to do with food or jokes.
"Tell me, Harbard," he said. "Do you truly want what is good for you…"
He paused, a small, sharp smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"…or what will let you cut deeper, burn brighter, and live long enough to regret it?"
He held my gaze.
I opened my mouth to answer—
—and the inn's door slammed open hard enough to rattle the walls.
"Master Harbard!" someone shouted from outside, voice high and panicked. "The duke's men—there's been a summons—"
The serving girl stumbled into view, eyes wide, scanning the room until they found me.
"Th-they're calling you to the palace," she gasped. "Right now."
So Sang-kyu's smile widened, slow and knowing.
"Ah," he murmured. "Looks like the world wants to answer before you do."