Chapter 195: Three Calamities (10)

Biyeon placed her hand on the ground.

“Kneel.”

Lee Taebaek’s command bore down on her body with crushing weight. It was beyond imagining.

If it had been the weight of a thousand catties, she would have brushed it off and stood right up. Even ten thousand catties wouldn’t have fazed her.

But a single word from Lee Taebaek’s mouth. Each syllable froze her blood solid.

Was this the ultimate technique he’d mastered in the meantime, the Ice Skill? No. Her body wasn’t stiffening from the cold.

Crunch, crackle.

Sounds of bones breaking and shattering echoed inside her. The harder she struggled to stand, the more they snapped with dull pops. Biyeon wasn’t so fragile that a fracture would bring tears. After all, she was the Heavenly Demon.

Yet she stared in utter bewilderment.

It was a first in her life. Someone overwhelming her purely with fighting spirit. The situation left her shocked.

Her mind rang. Her heart, undisturbed by emotion for decades, now wavered. A single drop falling into mirror-still waters created massive ripples.

“Ha.”

A hollow laugh escaped her.

“Haha, hahaha!”

It had been ages since she’d laughed so freely. The last time was probably when the former Heavenly Demon spotted a cockroach mid-meal and scurried behind her.

Those memories with her predecessor were Biyeon’s most cherished. So precious, she’d wrapped them tight like a bundle and tucked them away. She avoided revisiting them often, fearing the colors would fade.

And now, she dredged them up at a most incongruous moment. Because Biyeon felt ecstasy.

The humiliation of submitting unwittingly to invincible power? It didn’t even register. Instead, she wanted to praise her past self for sparing the up-and-coming Lee Taebaek in the City on a mere whim.

“…Do you know what people call me?”

“Heavenly Demon.”

Lee Taebaek dismissed it. Biyeon shook her head slowly. Sweat beaded on her temple, trembling.

“Beyond Heavens.”

She continued. It had been decades since she’d used her lips more than her magic.

“A grandiose title. I never cared much for it myself. But I never denied it either. How else could those I defeated claim even the heavens?”

Boom! The earth suddenly twisted. Biyeon had slammed her fist into the pavement. The ground cratered around her like a meteor strike.

“For the one who saved me from death, I had to remain as Beyond Heavens at least. Only then would her name soar high.”

“……”

Lee Taebaek listened silently.

The shrine grounds shook nonstop, but he showed no hint of agitation. Biyeon’s spine chilled, yet she pressed on.

“That’s why I expanded the Demonic Cult across the Central Plains. In truth, I held all of jianghu underfoot.”

“……”

“All that glory and prestige, I channeled under the name ‘Demonic Cult.'”

Biyeon rested a hand on one knee.

“Around then, I changed the organization’s name. Naturally, there was backlash. I dealt with them all.”

“The reason you left jianghu for the outside world, Lake City.”

Lee Taebaek finally responded. Biyeon, resisting the Curse Speech, briefly lost her balance. Each time he spoke, reality and illusion blurred, inducing vertigo.

“You wanted to leave ‘that person’ behind in jianghu along with the name Demonic Cult.”

He struck the core.

“Leaving jianghu’s skies in jianghu.”

“……”

“The Beyond Heavens you imagine isn’t ‘heavens above heaven.'”

“…You.”

“It’s another heaven beyond the skies.”

Lee Taebaek’s gaze wasn’t fixed on the present. His eyes traced Biyeon’s past. Was it the influence of the 「Major Patch」 status window that had appeared before? Now he could see every detail of this sahā world.

“All your actions stemmed from infinite respect for the former Heavenly Demon.”

“……”

“And infinite love.”

Biyeon felt utterly exposed before this man.

“Your endless pursuit of strength was a desperate struggle to keep the prestige of the one who defeated you from fading.”

Yes.

“The stronger you grew, the higher her evaluation rose. Not as the Heavenly Demon who led the Demonic Cult to ruin, but as the great figure who planted the seeds of revival.”

“You know well.”

She had no choice but to nod.

This man spoke only truths.

“The Demonic Cult was ‘hers.’ Kergel is mine.”

Biyeon added.

“Return light before death.”

The light just before sunset shines brightest.

“…Her time as cult leader was the Demonic Cult’s twilight. It will be remembered as its most radiant history.”

“Well said.”

The Heavenly Demon doesn’t even appear in Reycons. With no detailed backstory, Lee Taebaek had vaguely assumed she’d ascended or something.

‘This Biyeon now.’

She was the polar opposite of the image he’d conjured. A killer, perhaps, but no psychopath reveling in holocausts. Not that she had a sudden change of heart—she was selfish.

But the root of that selfishness being love delivered a shock beyond shocks, a total reversal. Biyeon spoke again. The air warped, her voice ringing like tinnitus.

“I am Beyond Heavens.”

At last, her eye level matched his. She’d pierced the Curse Speech and stood fully.

“The title meant little at first. But now I’ve changed my mind. I’ll embrace it. No matter what, those three characters will grace my tombstone.”

Biyeon had overcome 「Operator Authority」 through sheer willpower alone. She’d conquered the colossal system forming this world.

Just hours ago, she’d been knocking on the demigod realm’s door, transcendence within reach. Yet ultimately, between god and human, she chose the latter. Human, not god.

She’d shown no emotions, living dryly. Some say the path to transcendence demands it, but not her. She chose it deliberately. Her heart brimmed with memories and feelings larger than anyone’s.

That person who reached out in hell. Who shared hot rice with her amid crows. They’d bicker, misunderstandings piling up, only to act like nothing happened the next day.

Biyeon wanted to remember it all. Take it to her grave.

Yet this world refused to let her. It imposed excessive power upon her. She’d once been grateful. That strength had piqued the woman’s interest.

But as time together accumulated, the woman—the former Heavenly Demon—likely thought Biyeon’s power irrelevant. She embraced Biyeon as a person.

A transcendence flower blooming in a corpse field is still life. Even a flower drinking blood.

She affirmed it.

Affirmed Biyeon.

Even in her final moments, worrying only for Biyeon before departing.

Bestowing the gift of life, then vanishing somewhere.

“Do you really want to become a god?”

Lee Taebaek suddenly asked.

Biyeon pondered briefly before answering.

“I don’t know.”

“If you could, why?”

“To find her again from a god’s perspective.”

“You sound convinced an afterlife or ‘another world’ exists.”

“If not, I planned to become a god and create one. But… now I understand.”

Biyeon let out a hollow chuckle.

The chains binding her heart had snapped. Freed from unprecedented gravity, she felt light.

“Gods do exist.”

She gazed at Lee Taebaek.

“Not those half-baked deities infesting the City, but true gods. The essence of this world has already seeped into the City.”

The Heavenly Demon had approached cosmic truth. Her overwhelming power granted that vision. She’d overcome his Curse Speech, allowing her to meet his eyes and speak.

“Lee Taebaek, facing you makes it clear. The divine realm I pursued doesn’t even reach the feet of the god I now perceive.”

“I see.”

Lee Taebaek sounded indifferent.

But his faint smile betrayed no displeasure.

“Still, I won’t yield the City’s skies.”

Biyeon extended her arm. She flipped her palm up and raised her fingertips. Mana began condensing at her body’s extremities.

“I.”

From “this seat” to “I.”

Even her self-reference changed.

Discarding her status.

“Must remain as Beyond Heavens. Only then can her existence stand eternal in jianghu’s long history.”

Mana compressed the air. A rod formed in her hand. Formless Sword. Utterly unlike the Mind Sword she wielded casually. Lee Taebaek sensed it instinctively.

The Biyeon who chose to remain human…

‘Is several times stronger than the ascended one.’

Her fierce human attachment to life had shattered the vessel she’d unknowingly limited herself to.

If he had to liken her now.

Yes.

“God-Slaying Sword.”

What she held was a blade to fell gods.

“Today, I challenge the heavens.”

Biyeon formally requested a life-and-death duel with courteous demeanor. She’d shed the “mage” identity she’d clung to since moving to the City. Now, as a lone swordswoman, she challenged “truth” itself.

Lee Taebaek pressed the Para Blade’s deployment button firmly. The umbrella unfurled. His other hand gripped a blade.

“Before we clash, one thing.”

He smiled faintly.

“The other world you so desire does exist.”

“……”

Biyeon flinched, then curled her lips.

“You deliver.”

“I’m probably the first man to hear that from the Heavenly Demon.”

“Believe it or not, biologically I’m a woman. A fine specimen stirs something.”

“Sure. Confessing honestly at the end—quite the sight.”

Lee Taebaek flicked the blade into empty air. Snowflakes bloomed from the severed space.

“Let’s begin.”

Biyeon shattered the stone tile. Lee Taebaek’s face rushed at her retina.

Their collision sent ripples far and wide. Across every corner of the City. Even folk in outlying buildings poked heads from windows.