He followed the attendant boy and arrived at a room where Hwang-gu, the Branch Leader, and several other beggars were seated. They appeared to hold high rank among the beggars, as each wore four or more knots at their waist.

“The translation of the message is complete, Young Master.”

This is going to be a huge pain.

Jin Cheon-hee replied instantly, “Should I step outside so I’m not in the way?”

His master had told him: Provide treatment, but avoid getting entangled in troublesome affairs. In the Gangho, knowing too much doesn’t always lead to good things.

The Branch Leader stopped him. “No, no, Young Master. We called you so urgently because you, specifically, are essential.”

“Uh…”

A matter where I’m essential. It must be something that requires a physician.

For some reason, he recalled one of the major events from the novel. Don’t tell me… it’s that?

The Branch Leader said, “Our Faction Leader was attacked by unknown assailants and is in hiding.”

“Attacked?”

“Yes, our Faction Leader had been traveling himself for a long time to retrieve a certain divine artifact. The message states that he succeeded in recovering the item, but at the same time, he suffered a severe internal injury from an attack by black-masked assailants.”

Jin Cheon-hee realized who those assailants were.

Little Heavenly Demon… was it you? If so, that ‘divine artifact’ must be…

It had to be a sacred object of the Demonic Cult. In the novel, the Heavenly Demon, in order to build his renown, had set out with other cult members. This was before he had become the Little Lord, one of the trials on the path to becoming a candidate.

“What about the assailants?”

“He says he eliminated all but a few of them. However…”

“However?”

“He wrote that one of the assailants was uniquely strong, which worries him. He wasn’t able to end his life and allowed him to escape. Still, he says he inflicted a grievous internal injury, so he likely won’t survive…”

This was strange. In the original story, the Beggar’s Sect Faction Leader was supposed to have died in this attack.

A butterfly effect. No, perhaps it wasn’t such a large variable after all. If Wang Gak-yeon hadn’t found Hwang-gu and asked Jin Cheon-hee for help, Hwang-gu would have died. And the Faction Leader, who was currently in hiding, would have died as well. The pursuit would have taken some time, but eventually, the divine artifact would have ended up in the Demonic Cult’s hands.

So, in the end, the Heavenly Demon Yeo Haryoon is injured, and the Beggar’s Sect Faction Leader is also injured?

And there was only one of him.

***

Arc 11: Like a Dog Caught in the Snow (1)

An avalanche thundered, not far away. The roaring sound of the cascading snow was deafening.

The masked boy assessed the avalanche’s power and scope.

Fortunately, it’s far enough away.

This was the protagonist of the novel Supreme Heavenly Demon, the boy Jin Cheon-hee called the Little Heavenly Demon. Yeo Haryoon.

Befitting a protagonist, the boy had grown significantly taller in the time since he was last seen. Yeo Haryoon dragged his leg, searching for a place to hide. He had no internal energy left to use lightness arts; he had simply bled too much.

“Keueuk…”

His elegant brow, usually so serene, furrowed in pain.

Fortunately, a small cave revealed itself. Yeo Haryoon buried his body deep inside it.

One strike. If only I had thrust one strike deeper, that old geezer would be dead.

It had been a perfect night for an ambush. The team members sent from the Divine Cult were all exceptionally skilled. Every last one of them was ambitious, eager to rise through the ranks.

That old geezer… he was a man weak to sentiment.

He was in the middle of searching for a divine artifact of the Demonic Cult, yet he was trying to descend the mountain carrying a child with a broken leg on his back. That child was, of course, a member of the Cult.

Realistically, what five-year-old child would break his own leg with his own hands just to deceive someone?

In the Sun and Moon Divine Cult, such a thing was entirely possible.

And how many people could ignore the sound of a child in the cold mountains, crying for its mother? At the very least, that old man wasn’t one of them. For all his status as the Faction Leader of the Beggar’s Sect, a man who held so much information, he couldn’t find it in himself to be heartless in the face of a child’s screams.

To be led astray by personal sentiment, to so easily show his back… he did not deserve to be a Faction Leader.

That had been the assessment of the ambush team’s leader.

‘The supremacy of the strong.’

It was the most important principle of the Sun and Moon Divine Cult. Compassion was a weakness. And that old man had fallen for the Black Blood Dispersing Toxin, that the child had plunged into him.

It didn’t matter how much of a master he was; once afflicted with that toxin, the story changed. The amusing part was that even as the ambush team swarmed him, the old man couldn’t bring himself to kill the child who had stabbed him in the back. He had merely given the child a single look, one filled with sorrow and pity.

He was soft, but he was strong.

Strong enough to kill every other member of the team, even as the Black Blood Dispersing Toxin blackened and hardened the qi and blood in his entire body.

But he was not so strong that Yeo Haryoon couldn’t kill him.

Why? Why couldn’t I deliver that final strike?

Yeo Haryoon entered the cave, pressing down on his wound, lost in thought.

The blood of the Star of Heavenly Slaughter, was even now commanding him to slaughter. Yet in the midst of that excitement and madness, Yeo Haryoon’s sword tip had hesitated for a fraction of a second.

This was the result.

Yeo Haryoon pressed hard on the wound. Blood seeped between his palms. It was deep.

I wonder if the divine artifact I sent reached hyung safely, he thought.

He was a person who knew nothing but killing. He knew that no matter how precious a divine artifact was, once it was in his hands, it became nothing more than a tool for murder.

Following his blood, following his fate, he killed… and after killing, what was left?

The boy pondered the same thought he’d had since his very first memory.

Just then, a low growl echoed from the depths of the cave. The rank smell of a wild beast stung his nostrils. It seemed the cave was already occupied.

A bear, black as a mountain, was growling from the darkness.

He didn’t know if he had the strength left to kill it. But Yeo Haryoon drew his sword.

***

Who do I save first?

Jin Cheon-hee went to the White Qilin medical office to prepare his things. As it was an affiliated office, he could get most of what he needed. Outside, the members of the Beggar’s Sect were forming a pursuit team.

No, let’s rephrase. In this situation, can I even save that Little Heavenly Demon bastard? If I go to save the Heavenly Demon now, I’ll be marked as a Demonic Cult spy. Still, he’s the protagonist, he won’t die easily… right?

When he was reading the novel, even when a crisis came, he’d always thought, “He’s the protagonist, he’s not going to die. There’s way too much of the story left.” But now that it was reality, that guarantee was gone.

People died easily.

Would Yeo Haryoon really overcome this crisis and return alive, just like in the novel?

Ugh, I know I’m the one changing the plot, but can’t things just follow the original story for once? Shit.

His dilemma didn’t last long. There was only one person here he could fully trust. One person with outstanding skill, excellent tracking, and superior lightness arts.

“Oh, all set?”

It was Wang Gak-yeon. She was warming herself on the heated parts of the ondol of the medical office’s guest room, munching on a roasted potato.

She laughed, “Puhehe,” and held out the potato to him. The steaming hot potato looked delicious. It was impossible to believe this was the same girl who, just a few shichen ago, was felling fiends with a single arrow.

This is the Murim, I guess.

He should have been used to it by now, but it was still hard to accept.

“This is a very difficult favor, but can I ask it of you? It’s fine if you refuse.”

“Why are you being so formal? Just spit it out.” Her lips curved in a mischievous grin.

***

When he finished his preparations and stepped outside, a woman was standing among the Beggar’s Sect disciples. She was dressed in the tattered clothes befitting a beggar, her hair tied back with a simple straw rope. She looked to be in her mid-to-late thirties.

She had a large scar on her face and wore the symbol of the Beggar’s Sect, a Dog-Beating Staff, at her hip.

“Shit, I knew that old geezer would stir up trouble.”

Her speech was as rough as her appearance. However, the number and style of knots at her waist revealed that she was no ordinary member.

She was the Beggar’s Sect’s Successor, the one destined to be the next Faction Leader. Seol Gyeon.

Her real name was Seol Hwa, wasn’t it? Using the character ‘hwa’ for ‘flower.’

But her known pastimes included gambling, stealing food from dogs, and getting drunk and singing loudly in the streets. She had been a martial prodigy from a young age, mastering the Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms by the tender age of twenty, and had supported the major and minor affairs of the Murim from the shadows. But at some point, something happened, and she supposedly snapped.

What kind of conduct does one expect from a beggar? As long as they begged well and slept well, that was that. But as a sect that declared itself part of the Righteous Faction, there was a minimum line one had to observe. Especially for the one who would be the next leader.

She began committing acts that were bizarre even by a beggar’s standards. It started with her getting drunk and pissing on the walls of the Martial Righteous Alliance. That behavior continued for ten years. People no longer hesitated to call her Seol Gyeon, the “Seol Gyeon.”

Of course, I know why she snapped.

The Gangho was a truly strange and tragic place. Jin Cheon-hee scratched his head.

People think she’s a literal dog.

When the Beggar’s Sect had all but given up searching for the Faction Leader, she was the last one who kept looking. She gave up her position as leader and searched alone for eight years. And she finally discovered who the real culprit was.

Yeo Haryoon. The Heavenly Demon.

The Gangho was shocked, but that was all. No one stepped up to settle the Beggar’s Sect’s grudge. Not even her fellow beggars. Not even the man who had claimed the leader’s seat she had vacated. Everyone told her to give up.

Seol Gyeon had said, “Kehehe, you know why my moniker is ‘Dog’? Because once I bite, I never let go.”

For two years, Seol Gyeon hid and prepared her revenge. And the trap she laid worked quite well. She’d managed to corner the Heavenly Demon.

But the title of this novel was Supreme Heavenly Demon. As the protagonist, the Heavenly Demon would not die. In the end, Yeo Haryoon’s hand pierced Seol Gyeon’s solar plexus.

Vomiting crimson blood, Seol Gyeon had said, “The great Heavenly Demon, using his True Origin Qi just to catch a single dog! The whole world will laugh! Hahahahaha—!”

Drenched in madness, Seol Gyeon had laughed.

The Heavenly Demon Yeo Haryoon had watched his old nemesis die. And, like a true protagonist, he had given her a respectful burial.

As a reader, it had been a truly bizarre scene.

In the Gangho, it was common to sacrifice one’s life to avenge one’s sect. Even if the opponent was the Heavenly Demon, an opponent one could never defeat, it was the way of the Gangho’s grudges that one still had to try.

But did Seol Gyeon really have to go that far?

Jin Cheon-hee knew why she had become the “Seol Gyeon.”

It was all karma, an ordeal that had begun with that same Faction Leader.