Ch-385. **Chapter 385. Level Up**
—
*Brrrr—!*
The Primordial Heavenly Demon’s divine form trembled violently.
‘It… disappeared?’
He could not believe it.
Something he had been certain would succeed had failed.
Gone without a trace.
…Half of his soul.
The puppet he had sent into the ‘Gate.’
‘As if it evaporated—leaving not even the slightest remnant.’
But such a thing should have been impossible.
The Primordial Heavenly Demon was a master at dividing the soul or creating incarnations, and he had in fact transformed the Blue Bird’s feather into an enemy and forced it into the Gate before.
Likewise, he had split his own soul in half and sent it into Park Hyun-myung’s Gate.
The remaining half continued to move this body and confront the Demon God.
And yet, he had never once considered the possibility of failure.
Even if it was only half, he was still the Primordial Heavenly Demon.
The first great demon to ascend to the heavens.
The apex of ten thousand demons, feared even by the celestial realm!
A being who had shattered countless walls and surpassed every limit.
When the Blue Bird’s feather had faltered at the twelfth wall, he had been certain that half of his own soul would break through all of them.
‘There’s no doubt the twelfth wall was destroyed. But at the thirteenth, it was annihilated.’
If a puppet dies, all information it experienced should normally be transferred to the main body.
And even though it was a puppet, it possessed the same independence as the original—able to think and decide on its own, just like another Primordial Heavenly Demon.
Naturally, it should have acted with the same reasoning as himself.
Yet the moment it encountered the thirteenth wall, it vanished.
No transfer of information.
No lingering presence.
…It was gone forever.
How?
‘What in the world is inside that Gate?’
Hidden Traits were keys.
Possibilities.
But keys were meant to open doors.
Yet the idea that he had lost to mere keys was utterly unbelievable.
‘The thirteenth Hidden Trait is not a simple key.’
Therefore, it could not merely be a key.
If it were, it could never withstand half of his soul.
That was an absolute certainty.
The problem was that he could not even begin to reason it out.
What the thirteenth wall was.
What kind of existence lay beyond it.
…And yet, the Gate still stood wide open.
If he poured in the remaining half—his entire soul—he would surely find out.
But… the Primordial Heavenly Demon could not bring himself to try.
He had already lost half.
He feared that the unknown existence might erase the other half as well.
‘Am I… feeling fear?’
Fear.
He—who had mocked the heavens.
He—the omnipotent great demon who had toyed with all the gods, whom no one had been able to stop—
Was now afraid of something as trivial as a human’s potential.
*Crunch.*
He refused to acknowledge it.
Gritting his teeth, the Primordial Heavenly Demon thought.
Yes. It was because he had grown weak.
Being sealed for countless eons would do that to anyone.
Even he had been confined long enough for his ego and reasoning to fray.
Even so, though he had lost half his soul—
‘I must devour everything.’
The Primordial Heavenly Demon’s gaze turned to the Heaven-Shattering Demon God.
The size of one’s soul could be increased by devouring demons.
That demon would allow for a certain degree of restoration.
He would grow, and grow again, and grow further—then challenge it once more.
There was no wall he could not break.
Moreover, though he had failed to shatter the thirteenth wall, he had destroyed twelve.
That alone had established a framework—
A framework within which he could fully exert his power.
An ability that only a great demon could manifest, something a fake could never imitate.
—**Sixth Gate Opening.**
In that instant—
—**Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance.**
The sky collapsed.
—
—
The abyss shook.
Moments later, everything began to fall apart.
It felt as though the end of the world had arrived.
—Ah…
The Heavenly Demon Blade trembled finely.
As it witnessed the opening of the Sixth Gate, it let out a sound of awe.
—That… that is the ideal I wished to resemble.
The First Heavenly Demon had glimpsed the Gate of Truth.
There, he had seen the Primordial Heavenly Demon imprisoned within—and trembled.
It was truly the ultimate existence.
Thus, he had wanted to resemble it.
To surpass it.
But that rank had not been granted to him.
And so he sealed his own soul within the Heavenly Demon Blade.
Everything had proceeded according to plan.
He had passed half of the Five-Gate Opening to the Immortal of the Eight Houses.
Someday, when one who had completed the Five-Gate Opening was devoured by a Heavenly Demon who had perfected the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, the plan would finally be complete.
But this foolish Heavenly Demon had ruined it.
By forcibly becoming a Demon God, he had completed himself only halfway.
—At last, the time has come!
But it was fine.
Now, right before him, stood the archetypal existence he had longed for.
And it was severely weakened.
He did not know what had happened, but it had suddenly lost half of its rank.
Now… it was possible.
The evil god within the Heavenly Demon Blade—the First Heavenly Demon—synchronized with the Demon God’s body.
In an instant, the two souls merged, swelling even further.
*Crack!*
Through unification, he broke through yet another wall.
His skin split as molting began.
Soon, the entire body of the Heaven-Shattering Demon God was dyed crimson.
*Kaaaah—!*
No longer something that could be called human.
Countless ‘mouths’ covered his entire body.
He then looked at the Primordial Heavenly Demon.
The Primordial Heavenly Demon was drawing in the chaos of the abyss.
With the Sixth Gate opened, his mere existence warped innumerable spaces.
Then he compressed all that power into his fist.
A force capable of shattering the heavens with a single blow.
The Primordial Heavenly Demon intended to obliterate the entire abyss through overwhelming force.
To end everything.
That power would kill everything within this abyss.
But now—this was the chance.
The perfect opportunity to devour him!
The Primordial Heavenly Demon did not know, but the First Heavenly Demon had been waiting for this moment alone.
“Hmm…? What are you doing right n—?!”
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, the Primordial Heavenly Demon began to panic.
It seemed as though something was interfering.
“H-how can you push me out…?!”
It appeared that the soul of the body’s owner and the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s soul were colliding.
A gap.
A perfect opening!
The Heaven-Shattering Demon God did not miss this once-in-a-lifetime chance.
In a blink, he folded space and charged.
At light-speed, he reached the Primordial Heavenly Demon, and every ‘mouth’ on his body opened.
The perfected form of the Devouring Art—one that swallowed everything.
From the moment he had seen the Primordial Heavenly Demon within the Gate of Truth, the First Heavenly Demon’s goal had been singular.
To devour the Primordial Heavenly Demon!
Everything had been prepared for that one purpose.
This form was the Devouring Demon God, designed solely to consume the Primordial Heavenly Demon.
Though only half-complete—
‘You, too, are only half!’
The same applied to the Primordial Heavenly Demon.
Now that half of its vast soul had inexplicably vanished, it was possible.
He could absorb it!
At the same time, he began to draw in the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s aura.
And then—
…their eyes met.
“…?”
What was that?
Those eyes.
They were not the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s.
They belonged to something else—something familiar.
Despite being devoured, it showed no panic at all.
Instead—
“It has been a long time, evil god of the Heavenly Demon Blade.”
It spoke calmly.
Only then did the Demon God realize his mistake.
He had not considered the cause behind the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s sudden loss of half its rank.
And now—
What stood before him was the ‘cause’ and ‘culprit’ of it all.
“Y-you… are…”
The evil god of the Heavenly Demon Blade.
And the Heavenly Demon fused with him.
In that instant, they both understood.
*Brrrr—!*
Fear surged forth.
A terror incomparable to anything before.
That inexplicable sense of déjà vu he had felt from the very beginning.
As the veil lifted, all memories returned.
Memories of being toyed with.
Of being slaughtered.
Of being trampled with cruel, hollow brutality.
But that was not the most terrifying part.
What terrified him most was—
That which all abyssal beings instinctively feared.
The being that had drowned them all into the abyss.
“D-destruction…!”
Because he had seen destruction itself.
—
—
The Primordial Heavenly Demon had not lied.
At least, when it came to ‘balance,’ he had been sincere.
Only by maintaining it could he confront and devour the Demon God.
【Level Up!】
When the twelfth wall shattered, the level that had been stagnant rose.
Level 8.
Only one step remained until Level 9.
Once my body reached Level 9, I could advance to Level 10 together with Randolph.
And the moment Level 10 was completed, transcendence would become possible.
That was why I had hoped for it.
The thirteenth wall.
‘Heaven.’
If even that were broken, I felt I could finally reach it.
But it failed.
I had anticipated it to some degree, yet the disappointment was great.
‘A coward.’
The Primordial Heavenly Demon had entered with only half of his soul from the start.
He had never staked everything.
To me—who had always bet everything—that choice was disappointing.
And this thing called itself a great demon?
Still, losing half was not without gain.
When the Blood Demon King had challenged it before, had he not left something behind even in death?
A Hidden Trait that evolved into ‘Blood Demon King’s Divinity.’
【Hidden Trait ‘One Who Brings Ruin to the Heavens’ has been created.】
This time was the same.
The birth of a new Hidden Trait.
Perhaps because of that—
Pushing the Primordial Heavenly Demon’s soul out was easier than expected.
Right now, the Primordial Heavenly Demon was trying to destroy this entire abyssal domain.
I could not allow things to proceed as he wished.
More than anything—
*Tremble, tremble, tremble!*
The Demon God finally seemed to remember.
The events that had taken place on the Island of Gods.
That was when it happened.
A change came over the Demon God who had been trembling.
The fear-filled eyes shifted into something else entirely.
Rage.
The gaze one has only when facing an unforgivable, eternal enemy.
“Only you… I will never forgive, Destruction…!”
It was not just his eyes that changed.
Before long, the Demon God—who had been absorbing the power of Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance—
*Hiss—*
*KRAAAAAAANG!*
…self-destructed.
—
—
Perhaps the memories he recalled were too overwhelming.
Or perhaps the fear had reached its peak.
…Even I had not anticipated that he would suddenly self-destruct.
He had been a being with an intense desire to live, an overwhelming hunger for power.
Even for me, predicting that he would choose death was difficult.
But that was not the only problem.
If it had merely been a Demon-Godified being self-destructing, it would have been manageable.
The real issue was that the power of Asura Heaven-Shattering Dance detonated together with him.
It happened in an instant.
An explosion accompanied by unimaginable force swept over me.
A destructive power I had never experienced before.
At least in terms of instantaneous firepower, it surpassed even the aura of despair Randolph possessed.
An unavoidable, absolute force capable of reducing the world to ruins in an instant.
And it exploded right in front of me.
Focused solely on killing me.
There was no time to transform.
No time to resist.
I felt the flame of life gradually fading.
And then—
Words I had once seen appeared before my eyes.
《‘Park Hyun-myung’ has died.》
《Game Over》
Thus, once again, I died.
This time, unlike before—
more definitively.
I came face to face with an irreversible death.
This guy has died twice
The hidden condition has been fulfilled