Chapter 1591. Rocking (1)

On a certain Assembly training ground, covered in the veil of darkness...

Kang Jin-Ho stood still while gripping the Crimson Destiny and Azuremourne.

It felt like the sensation of the swords’ coldness registering in his palms calmed him down.

In all honesty, though—weapons were meaningless to him in his current realm. Even barehanded, he could still fight as if he was wielding swords. He no longer needed a medium to channel the materialized sword aura and sword light, after all.

Yet he still preferred wielding these two swords because of how familiar they felt in his grip.

Familiarity, is it...?

Kang Jin-Ho chuckled helplessly.

Evolving and advancing forward meant one was stepping away from the familiar to enter the realm of the unknown. One must change the ways they had been relying until now, and one must reawaken their body that had fallen into the grips of indolence from repeating the same actions over and over again.

Since that was the case, Kang Jin-Ho found it ironic that he still relied on the familiarity from the past. That didn’t mean he wanted to stop using the Crimson Destiny and Azuremourne, however.

Forcibly abandoning his swords now wouldn’t help him advance naturally. Just like how leaves fell with the changing seasons, he’d eventually stop relying on these trusted weapons in the future.

Only then would Kang Jin-Ho feel certain that he had taken another step forward.

“Fuu-woo...”

Kang Jin-Ho exhaled briefly, then began moving his swords slowly. To him, tempering his physical body no longer served as training. He could push his body to the absolute limit, but the only outcome would be crippling fatigue and not much else.

He had already reached the limit of what repetition and torturous physical training could produce quite some time ago.

Yet, here I am, chasing after what is apparently meaningless.

Indeed, it was ironic. And inefficient, too. But that was what martial arts were all about.

The starting line was training the physical body in logically efficient manners. In the end, though, an expert would reach a stage of training the immaterial mind through seemingly illogical, inefficient ways. These experts, who initially stayed within a fixed set of rules governing cause-and-effect, would wander into a realm of vague concepts once they had stepped past a certain threshold.

Countless people kept blindly wandering into this indefinable ocean of concepts, not knowing where to go next.

I mean, think about it.

The experts who had finally reached this realm did so by walking on the paths laid out by their predecessors. However, from this moment on, they had to pave their own path. With no one to tell them what was right or wrong, they would have to stumble around blindly.

Obviously, walking such a path would be incredibly difficult.

No human would falter if the path ahead promised rich rewards with every step taken. But this uncertain ocean wasn’t like that at all; even one misstep would lead to losing everything. And such a thing happened with alarming regularity.

Even so, experts still had no choice but to walk forward and carve out their path. It was no different for Kang Jin-Ho. He, too, had to walk this path in the past.

Some people would continue to torture their bodies, while some others would enter a meditative state to dig deeper and deeper into their inner selves. Meanwhile, some experts would seek out paths already trod by their predecessors, and another group would simply refuse the paths and stop moving altogether.

Only a handful out of the many would bravely sail on this uncertain, endless ocean of martial arts to complete their own martial art. And those exclusive few experts would earn the label of “Grandmaster” in the martial world.

Shaolin’s Bodhidharma, Wudang’s Zhang Sanfeng, and the Demon Cult’s Heavenly Demon were all experts who had established and completed their martial arts.

But it was not possible to enter this exclusive club just because one had created a new martial art and jotted everything down on a secret manual. The creation of new martial arts wasn’t as hard as it sounded. What was important wasn’t the creation of something new, but the creation of something better.

Kang Jin-Ho closed his eyes and concentrated.

He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t see the path he must walk.

In the past, when people called him Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor, he never had to walk this path. All he did was repeatedly polish what he already possessed until it had become unbearably sharp.

But that was enough to earn him the title of Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor.

However, he couldn’t do that now.

If being an ordinary Demon Cult leader satisfied him, and having enough strength to protect his life satisfied him, and if he didn’t mind turning a blind eye to everything else...

Those things would have been enough for him.

But the current Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t do that. He now had far too many things to protect, after all.

Kang Jin-Ho opened his eyes again and stared at his hands still gripping the swords.

Isn’t it funny?

Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more laughable it seemed.

He had climbed to the lofty position of the Demon Cult’s leader, yet not once did he fight to protect something or someone. In a way, one could say he was like an empty shell of a man—yet here he was, struggling like crazy just to hold on to everything he had touched until now.

Who could have imagined that less than ten years spent in the modern era was enough to transform him to this degree?

Kang Jin-Ho slowly looked up. The starless night sky greeted him back.

Right. There was a time when I...

He used to miss the sight of this dark night sky so much back then, didn’t he? Because the starless night sky was the symbol of the modern era. The era he couldn’t return to.

After his return, he used to look at this night sky many times just to remind himself that yes, he was back.

However, when did I stop doing that?

Since when did he start taking the starless night skies for granted?

He thought he had acclimatized to the modern era as a modern-era man now. He believed he had finally shed most of his past self. However...

Nothing in this world is for free.

The price for discarding his Zhongyuan self to regain his modern-era self was that Kang Jin-Ho had lost his previous intensity. What he had left was merely “Kang Jin-Ho.”

Yes, just him.

That was why he couldn’t help but wonder. Did he really rack his brain and prepare himself as much as possible? Had he really done everything in his power to protect what he held dear?

He slowly shook his head. He knew better than anyone that he hadn’t done that.

Yes, I’ve gotten too complacent.

Life in the modern era certainly gave him peace, but that also made him weak. What would Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor say if he saw the current Kang Jin-Ho?

—Do you want to know?

Kang Jin-Ho’s eyes snapped open. He could see a tall, long-haired man in a crimson dragon robe standing proudly before him. This man’s expression was as arrogant as a human expression could get. But the aura gushing out from his entire body was truly remarkable.

So much so that even Kang Jin-Ho shuddered at its mightiness!

—That’s surprising.

Indeed. It was surprising.

Why did Kang Jin-Ho get so surprised by the appearance of his old self? And why did he get flustered by the sudden appearance itself?

After all, he was the one who had summoned “him” here, wasn’t he? What an amusing turn of events this was.

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor didn’t exist separately since Kang Jin-Ho was him. Whether he existed as a separate ego inside Kang Jin-Ho or as some other existence within Kang Jin-Ho’s mind space, in the end... This creature was nothing more than a product of his imagination.

It was not possible for a different person to live inside another person, after all.

Even if Kang Jin-Ho had completely accepted himself and erased his past self, he could bring out Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor whenever necessary. Like right now.

Heavenly Crimson Demon King’s probing gaze chased after Kang Jin-Ho.

—You’ve become weaker.

“...Probably.”

—How pitifully weak. So much so that looking at you pains me.

What a biting evaluation that was. However, Kang Jin-Ho had no choice but to accept it. After all, it wasn’t Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor’s evaluation but his own, delivered as his past self.

—Has the modern era been peaceful for you?

“...”

—You have forgotten, my other self.

The corners of Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor’s lips began twisting into a sneer filled with sheer arrogance. The tyrant who trampled the world with his merciless feet and pillaged it to his heart’s content now mocked Kang Jin-Ho standing tall on the ground.

—It seems you’ve forgotten what must never be forgotten. Despite experiencing so much, in the end... You’ve reverted to your pathetically frail old self in the past.

“But I am...”

—This was why I did not want to give you my everything. And my predictions have proven correct.

Kang Jin-Ho bit his lip as Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor spread his arms slightly.

—Now, behold.

“...”

—This is the world of peace you’ve been longing for. A world where wars are fought endlessly. A world where one defeat means you stand to lose everything. Yet in this world, you’ve let yourself get lost in peace.

Kang Jin-Ho couldn’t say anything to defend himself. That evaluation was spot-on, after all.

—What a worthless fool you are.

An incredible burst of aura suddenly flooded out from Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor. Kang Jin-Ho tensed up to a bone-breaking degree while facing this aura head-on.

He could now tell. Without a doubt, Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor was powerful.

However, Kang Jin-Ho was also powerful now. In terms of one’s martial prowess alone, he was almost a match to Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor, and unleashing his aura alone like this shouldn’t be enough to suppress Kang Jin-Ho—even if that aura was from when Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor was at his prime.

At least, that should have been the case. But this outcome proved how incorrect Kang Jin-Ho’s calculations were.

How is this possible?

How could Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor be so powerful like this? How did he emit such a terrifying presence?!

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor should have been nothing more than a stage in Kang Jin-Ho’s life, one he had already completed. If Kang Jin-Ho really was a more evolved and improved version of himself from the past, then Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor should have been a mere fragment of his memories, yet...

Yet this fragment was suppressing Kang Jin-Ho so ruthlessly. With only his aura alone!

—You should never have forgotten this one thing.

Rather than a sneer, rage now filled Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor’s expression. The vivid rage unleashed toward Kang Jin-Ho felt like sharp blades mercilessly cutting into his flesh.

—It has always been survival of the fittest. The strong preys on the weak! No matter how much the eras change, no matter how much time passes you by, this truth will never change!

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor growled menacingly.

—How can a fool who has given up being strong protect anything? Look at you. You’ve lost your competitive, fighting spirit. You’ve lost your drive. A frail fool. Yet you think you can protect?

“But I...!” Kang Jin-Ho gritted his teeth. “I’ve never given up on getting stronger!”

—Do not make me laugh!

An incredible fighting spirit gushed out from Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor.

—I fought against the entire world! When the Demon Cult got in my way, I trampled it! When the trash of orthodox sects tried to stop me, I fought the entire orthodox faction!

“And that’s why you’ve lost!”

—Have I? Really?

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor sneered again.

—Yes, you could say that. However, what about you? As a weakling, you hide in the enemy’s blind spot, waiting for them to destroy each other first! All the while desperately avoiding the possibility that they can join hands at any time to destroy everything you hold dear!

Kang Jin-Ho shuddered in silence.

—Yes, you might have regained your humanity. Yes, that might be true. However, as a martial artist, you are...!

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor’s clear but emotionless glare pierced straight through Kang Jin-Ho. It felt as if his soul was being frozen from how icy that glare was.

—You’ve become a piece of trash.

“...!”

What a biting assessment that was. So much so that it felt like blood was rushing up to Kang Jin-Ho’s head.

—Are you having fun? Acting like the mighty leader among these weaklings stained by peace and convenience and only know how to play games? Disgusting, my future self. That’s what you are. If I had known I’d end up this way, I would never have returned to the modern era.

“...! Shut up!”

—Designating only those you know you can take on as your enemy just so that you can act in leisure and comfort? Is this the life you’ve wanted in the modern era? Oh, Kang Jin-Ho. Kang Jin-Ho! It seems you’ve become a pathetic loser in the end.

“I said, shut the hell up!”

Kang Jin-Ho’s eyes grew bloodshot.

—You foolish bastard. Do you still not understand?

Heavenly Crimson Demon Emperor’s sneer burned painfully into Kang Jin-Ho’s retinas.

—You tried so hard to reject me and deny me. Yet everything you’ve achieved until now was the result of you picking up the vestiges of what I have achieved and reusing them. In other words... You’re nothing more than some dregs I’ve left behind.

That was when something inside Kang Jin-Ho crumbled to pieces.