Chapter 385

Chapter 385
## Chapter 385: Advancement

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*Vrrrrm!*

The celestial manifestation of the Primordial Heavenly Demon shuddered violently for a brief moment.

‘It vanished…?’

He found the reality before him utterly inconceivable.

A move he was positive would culminate in triumph had been thwarted.

It had been erased, leaving not a single glimmer behind.

… Half of his very essence, his own soul.

The spiritual construct he had directed into the ‘gate’.

‘It was as if it simply ceased to exist, leaving no residue of its presence.’

Yet, this was logically impossible.

The Primordial Heavenly Demon was a master of soul manipulation, capable of partitioning his spirit or altering its ‘state’; he had previously converted a feather from the Blue Bird into a combatant to breach the ‘gate’.

In that same vein, the Primordial Heavenly Demon had split his spirit in two, sending one portion into the ‘gate’ belonging to Park Hyunmyeong.

The remaining half stayed to inhabit his physical form and confront the Devil God.

He had never entertained the possibility of defeat.

Even at half strength, he remained the Primordial Heavenly Demon.

The inaugural Great Demon to ascend toward the heavens.

The absolute peak of demonic kind, a figure that even the Heavens regarded with trepidation!

He was an entity who had demolished innumerable barriers and surpassed every known restriction.

Since the Blue Bird’s feather had been stopped only at the 12th barrier, he was certain that his own soul-fragment would pulverize every wall in its path.

‘I am certain the 12th barrier fell. Yet, I met total destruction at the 13th.’

Under normal circumstances, when a construct is destroyed, the sensory data and experiences it gathered should flow back to the primary host.

Furthermore, despite being a subordinate fragment, it possessed the same autonomy as his main consciousness—it was another version of the Primordial Heavenly Demon, fully capable of independent logic and choice.

It would have proceeded exactly as he would have.

But the moment it struck the 13th wall, it was snuffed out.

No data was sent back; no warning signs were felt.

… It was simply gone forever.

How could this be?

‘What truly lies within that gate?’

Hidden Traits function as keys.

They represent potential.

But a key’s only purpose is to unlock a portal.

It was fundamentally nonsensical that he could be bested by a mere instrument meant to open a door.

‘The 13th Hidden Trait cannot be a simple key.’

Therefore, it had to be something more.

A basic key could never have obliterated half of his soul.

By any standard, it was an impossibility.

The core of the issue was his inability to even guess at the truth.

What that 13th barrier represented.

What kind of entity dwelled behind it.

… The portal remained wide and inviting.

If he committed his remaining half—his entire surviving soul—he would surely find the answer.

However… the Primordial Heavenly Demon found himself unable to take that step.

He had already suffered a fifty-percent loss.

He was gripped by the dread that the nameless horror within might swallow the rest of him as well.

‘Am I actually experiencing terror…?’

He was afraid.

He, who had looked upon the heavens with contempt.

The all-powerful Great Demon who had manipulated the gods like playthings, whom no force could restrain.

To think he was being cowed by the mere latent potential of a mortal man.

*Grrrrnd!*

He refused to acknowledge that reality.

Grinding his teeth, the Primordial Heavenly Demon searched for an explanation.

Of course. It was because his strength had waned.

Being trapped for countless ages had taken its toll; it was only logical.

Even for a being of his stature, such a duration was enough to cause his ego and cognition to fray.

Even though half his soul was lost.

‘I simply need to consume everything.’

The Primordial Heavenly Demon turned his focus toward the Heaven-Shattering Devil God.

A soul’s magnitude could be restored by feasting upon other demons.

A demon of that caliber would provide a significant amount of spiritual recovery.

He would continue to feed and expand his power until he was ready to try again.

No wall existed that he could not eventually break.

Furthermore, while the 13th wall stood, he had successfully dismantled twelve others.

That feat alone had provided a necessary structure.

A framework that permitted him to unleash his true capabilities.

A power that only a true Great Demon could wield, something no pretender could ever hope to replicate.

—The Opening of the Six Gates.

Immediately.

—Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance.

The sky above seemed to cave in.

The void of the abyss shuddered.

Momentarily, a wave of total annihilation began to spread.

It was as if one were watching the literal conclusion of all things.

—Ah.

The Heavenly Demon Blade vibrated with a delicate intensity.

Observing the Opening of the Six Gates filled the observer with a sense of awe.

—That is the very summit I once sought to reach.

The First Heavenly Demon had caught a glimpse of the ultimate threshold.

Witnessing the Primordial Heavenly Demon constrained there made him tremble.

It was truly the final, most absolute form of existence.

That was why he had sought to copy it.

To go beyond it.

But that level of divinity was not granted to him in his current state.

This was why he had bound his own spirit within the Heavenly Demon Blade.

The strategy had been moving perfectly.

The intent was to impart half of the Opening of the Five Gates to the Eight Houses’ Immortal, and then have a Heavenly Demon who had perfected the Heavenly Demon Divine Art consume whoever finally achieved the Opening of the Five Gates, thus fulfilling the grand design.

However, this witless Heavenly Demon had sabotaged the masterpiece.

By rushing into the state of a Devil God, he had become a flawed, incomplete version.

—Finally, the moment has arrived!

But that was irrelevant now.

The ancient entity he had craved for so long was standing right there.

And it was profoundly compromised.

He wasn’t sure of the cause, but the creature had suddenly dropped half its spiritual rank.

Now… success was within reach.

The malevolent spirit within the Heavenly Demon Blade, the First Heavenly Demon, began to sync with the Devil God’s vessel.

In a heartbeat, the two spirits fused, bloating into something even more monstrous.

*Cr-crack!*

By achieving this union, he stepped past yet another threshold.

His outer layer split as he underwent a horrific molting process.

Before long, the entirety of the Heaven-Shattering Devil God’s form turned a deep, bloody scarlet.

*Kaaaaaaaa—!*

It was a nightmare that could no longer be associated with the human shape.

Gaping ‘maws’ erupted across every inch of its surface.

Then, it locked its sights on the Primordial Heavenly Demon.

The Primordial Heavenly Demon was currently drawing in the chaotic essence of the abyss.

By merely existing with the Opening of the Six Gates active, he was warping the surrounding dimensions.

He then funneled every scrap of his might into his fist.

The capability to crack the firmament with a single strike.

The Primordial Heavenly Demon was now set on obliterating the entire abyss with this sheer, brutal force.

He meant to put an end to everything.

That strike would extinguish all life within the void.

But this was the opening.

The flawless moment to consume him!

Unbeknownst to the Primordial Heavenly Demon, the First Heavenly Demon had lived solely for this split second.

“Wait… what are you doing right now…?!”

In that instant, everything changed.

Without warning, the Primordial Heavenly Demon fell into a state of visible alarm.

It appeared as though something was disrupting his control.

“How… how can you possibly displace me…!”

It seemed the soul of the body’s original host was fighting back against the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s spirit.

A vulnerability.

A perfect gap in his defense!

The Heaven-Shattering Devil God did not waste this once-in-an-eternity chance.

In a blur, the Heaven-Shattering Devil God compressed the distance and struck.

Crossing the space toward the Primordial Heavenly Demon at the speed of a lightning flash, every ‘mouth’ on his body yawned wide.

The perfected version of the Soul Absorption Great Method, designed to pull in every scrap of energy.

From the first moment he had seen the Primordial Heavenly Demon within the gate of truth, the First Heavenly Demon had pursued a single goal.

To feast upon the Primordial Heavenly Demon!

Every preparation he had made was for this specific outcome.

This current form was that of the Soul Absorption Devil God, a shape sculpted specifically to ingest the Primordial Heavenly Demon.

Even if the transformation wasn’t entirely finished.

‘You are also nothing more than a half!’

The same held true for the Primordial Heavenly Demon.

Now that half of his massive spirit had vanished into thin air, the impossible was possible.

He could be absorbed!

Simultaneously, he began to draw in the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s vast energy.

And then.

… Their gazes locked.

“……?”

What?

Those eyes.

They did not belong to the Primordial Heavenly Demon.

They belonged to something recognizable, a separate entity entirely.

Despite clearly having his very essence drained away, the man showed no sign of distress.

Quite the opposite.

“It’s been a while, malevolent spirit of the Heavenly Demon Blade.”

He spoke with an eerie calmness.

Only then did the Devil God realize his catastrophic oversight.

He hadn’t stopped to wonder why the Primordial Heavenly Demon had suddenly lost half of his spiritual standing.

… He had ignored the source of that change.

And now.

What stood before him was.

The ‘catalyst’ and the ‘fountainhead of malice’ for this entire cycle.

“You… are…”

The dark deity of the Heavenly Demon Blade.

And the Heavenly Demon who had merged with him.

In an instant, they understood.

*Vrrrrrrrrrr!*

A wave of sheer panic washed over them.

An intensity of fear that eclipsed anything they had felt before.

The nagging sense of familiarity they had felt from the start finally made sense.

The man looked at him with eyes full of dawning horror.

The shroud that had obscured the truth fell away, and every buried memory came rushing back.

Memories of being toyed with, of being butchered.

A recollection of being destroyed in a way that was both agonizingly pathetic and utterly futile.

Yet, that wasn’t the most horrific part.

It was the thing that every creature in the abyss feared on a primal level.

The being who had cast all of them down into the dark in the first place.

“Des… truction…!”

Because he was staring directly into the face of ruin.

The Primordial Heavenly Demon hadn’t been deceptive.

In terms of his dedication to preserving ‘equilibrium’, he was quite earnest.

Only through that could he confront and consume the Devil God.

【Level has increased!】

With the 12th barrier broken, my stalled progression resumed.

I had reached level 8.

Only one more milestone remained before level 9.

Once my own form hit level 9, I would be able to reach level 10 alongside Randolph.

And the second level 10 was attained, transcendence would be within my grasp.

I had high hopes.

The 13th wall.

‘Heavenly Being.’

If I could dismantle that as well, I felt the goal would finally be reached.

But I fell short.

I had suspected this might happen, but the letdown was still sharp.

‘What a pathetic coward.’

It was due to the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s decision to only risk half his soul to enter the gate.

He didn’t put everything on the line.

To someone like me, who always gambles everything, his caution was a disappointment.

To think such a creature was hailed as a Great Demon.

Still, he hadn’t lost half his essence for nothing.

Back when the ‘Blood Fiend King’ made his attempt, didn’t he leave a legacy behind in his passing?
My Hidden Trait had transformed into ‘God of the Blood Fiend King’ because of it.

【Hidden Trait ‘He Who Descends Upon Heaven’ has been created.】

This situation was identical.

A new Hidden Trait had emerged.

Perhaps that was why.

Ejecting the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s soul from my inner space was far easier than I anticipated.

The Primordial Heavenly Demon was currently attempting to wipe out this entire abyssal pocket.

I couldn’t permit him to follow through with that plan.

More importantly.

*Shiver-shiver-shiver!*

The Devil God finally seemed to have regained his memories.

The events that transpired on the Island of the God.

Right then.

A shift occurred within the trembling Devil God.

The terror in his eyes was rapidly replaced by a completely different emotion.

It was pure, unadulterated fury.

The kind of look reserved for a mortal enemy who can never, under any circumstances, be forgiven.

“I will never forgive you, Destruction…!”

His gaze wasn’t the only thing that shifted.

The Devil God, who was currently internalizing the power of the Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance.

*Whish—*

*BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!*

… He triggered a self-destruction.

Perhaps the returned memories were too much to handle.

Or perhaps the sheer weight of his terror had pushed him over the edge.

… Even I didn’t expect him to suddenly blow himself up.

Given his immense will to survive and his obsession with power.

Predicting he would choose his own end was difficult, even for me.

The problem was that the explosion wasn’t isolated.

If it had just been the Devil-form host self-destructing, it would have been manageable.

The crisis was that the gathered energy from the Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance detonated alongside him.

It all happened in a fraction of a second.

In a colossal eruption, a level of energy beyond comprehension washed over me.

It was a destructive force unlike anything I had ever felt.

In terms of raw, immediate power, it exceeded even the aura of despair that Randolph commanded.

An unstoppable, absolute, life-extinguishing force that could reduce the entire world to rubble in a heartbeat.

That power went off right in my face.

He had focused the entire blast on a single point just to ensure my death.

Naturally, there was no window to shift forms, no time to fight back.

I could feel the spark of my existence slowly flickering out.

Soon.

A notification I had encountered once before materialized in my vision.

《’Park Hyunmyeong’ has died.》

《Game Over》

And so, once again, I perished.

But unlike the previous time, this felt far more final.

I was facing a death that could not be undone.