Chapter 27: Day 27

Kwakakaka!

A terrifying Demonic Qi erupted from Cheon Seo Ah, transforming into a massive storm that began to consume everything around her.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaa-!”

“S, save me!”

“Uwaaaaak!”

The ordinary people caught in Cheon Seo Ah’s Demonic Qi storm screamed.

Their cries were short-lived.

The storm’s powerful suction pulled them inexorably towards its center, where they were swallowed by the erupting Demonic Qi and reduced to puddles of blood.

The massive storm raged, a vortex of black Demonic Qi and crimson blood. From a distance, it resembled a scene of hell unleashed upon the mortal world.

At the storm’s eye, at the epicenter of the chaos, sat Cheon Seo Ah in the lotus position, an expression of utter ecstasy on her face.

She seemed to savor some celestial pleasure.

The life force of thousands of ordinary people surged into her like a tidal wave.

This immense energy transformed into Demonic Qi, coursing through her meridians like a wild horse before settling in her danjeon.

She had never felt such powerful Demonic Qi.

Experiencing this power, Cheon Seo Ah realized her earlier miscalculation.

She had thought the life force of a few thousand ordinary people insignificant, less potent than two or three Qi Condensation cultivators. She’d been wrong.

Of course, at a higher cultivation level, her assessment would have been accurate. But now, as a Foundation Establishment Demonic Beast, the vast life force of thousands was enough to fill her vessel to overflowing.

Lost in the overwhelming pleasure, Cheon Seo Ah finally spoke:

“Let us begin.”

Her eyes flickered open, radiating a black light infused with madness.

She produced two pills. One was the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, refined from the corpses in the Central Mountain Range and completed by her own hand. The pill she believed unusable due to the snake-human’s meddling. The other…

“How could I have forgotten this?”

The Ninefold Demonic Mask, still stubbornly affixed to her face.

The Ninefold Hell Body Explosion Art, the Demonic Art she cultivated.

Along with these two treasures, she had obtained another: the Hundred Hearts Pill.

A pill refined from the hearts of one hundred ordinary people.

For a high-level Demonic Beast, it would provide only a slight replenishment of Demonic Qi.

But for Cheon Seo Ah, at this crucial juncture, it would be a significant boon.

Without hesitation, she swallowed both pills.

Gulp-.

Her throat convulsed as the pills slid down her esophagus and into her stomach. There, they dissolved into a wisp of smoke that permeated her stomach lining before dispersing throughout her body.

The immense corpse poison within the Thousand Spirit Corpse Poison Pill, as if sensing an opportunity, began to rampage.

But it was futile. The Demonic Qi, converted from the absorbed life force of thousands, suppressed the poison.

Then, the Demonic Qi from the Hundred Hearts Pill further reinforced the control, reining in the rampaging poison.

The preparations were complete. Or rather…

“The initial preparations.”

To reach the next level, she needed to carefully guide this powerful Demonic Qi and form a Golden Core. The slightest misstep, the smallest lapse in concentration, would unleash the Demonic Qi, tearing her body to shreds.

“Focus. Focus.”

Repeating the word, Cheon Seo Ah guided the Demonic Qi flowing through her meridians towards her danjeon. The Demonic Qi, converted from life force, settled within. It surged through her meridians, then returned to the danjeon, coalescing into the nascent Golden Core.

How much time passed?

The Demonic Qi storm that had consumed the city gradually subsided. The city of Zuhang, once bustling with life, had vanished without a trace.

Rumble-.

‘It’s coming!’

Cheon Seo Ah’s expression hardened at the resounding thunder from above. It was coming. Heaven’s judgment. The Heavenly Tribulation. The world’s system viewed cultivators, those who defied fate and pursued immortality, as a virus to be purged.

But…

“Was it always this big?”

Cheon Seo Ah was taken aback. She knew the Heavenly Tribulation was formidable. Even high-level cultivators could be destroyed by Heaven’s judgment.

She had meticulously preserved the souls of the thousands she’d consumed, converting only their life force into Demonic Qi, to weaken the inevitable tribulation.

But…

“This isn’t a Foundation Establishment tribulation…!”

She muttered, her voice strained. The tribulation looming above was far beyond what a Foundation Establishment cultivator would face. What had gone wrong?

Could it be…

‘Because I’m a Demonic Beast?’

Did Heaven, the world’s system, not tolerate those who pursued immortality through Demonic Arts, through the unorthodox path?

“Don’t… f*ck with me…!”

Cheon Seo Ah gritted her teeth. Heaven did not tolerate her existence? Heaven did not recognize her? Bullshit.

She would defy Heaven itself.

She would defy it again and again, proving them wrong.

She would achieve immortality, the dream of all cultivators, and prove that she was right. She would prove that immortality could be achieved even through Demonic Arts!

“F*ck… Heaven-!”

With a final defiant cry, a massive bolt of black lightning, a warped, unnatural tribulation, descended from the storm clouds above.

The souls she had gathered were useless. The black lightning tore through the barrier of souls she had erected and struck her directly.

Consumed by the black tribulation, Cheon Seo Ah lost consciousness.

#

“Where…?”

Cheon Seo Ah, no, a young man, slowly opened his eyes, a look of confusion on his face. He was in a familiar place. Too familiar. He was in…

“My apartment… in the modern world.”

His first apartment after becoming an adult. A tiny seven-square-meter space, nothing special. But it was his, paid for with his own hard-earned money. This small space held a significant meaning for him.

Why was he here? He’d clearly…

“…been swallowed by the tribulation.”

Had it all been a dream? A nightmare? Staring blankly at the ceiling, a chuckle escaped his lips.

“As if.”

The young man transformed into a young girl. Black hair, black eyes. Clad in clothes more suited to a martial arts novel than the modern world, she was Cheon Seo Ah. The moment she recognized herself, the surroundings shifted.

The bed beneath her began to melt, followed by the furniture in the tiny apartment. As they dissolved, the walls ignited, crumbling into ash.

In their place, the desolate graveyard appeared. The place she’d first awakened in the cultivation world. The hell she called ‘Solitude.’ A desolate landscape of tombstones.

But something was different this time.

Why… why did you kill me? It’s not fair. It’s not fair.

Why did you abandon me? I begged you to save me. Why didn’t you?

It hurts. It hurts so much. It hurts! It hurts!

The earth churned, and from beneath, mangled corpses clawed their way out.

The first was the man she’d killed to escape Solitude.

The next, the one who’d begged for his life as he was being devoured alive.

More and more appeared, surrounding her, their bodies grotesquely mangled, beyond recognition as human. Each corpse had a gaping hole in its chest.

They stared at her with resentment, their bodies intertwined. Blood gurgled from the holes in their chests, pooling on the ground, rising steadily. It reached her knees.

“So what, you f*ckers?”

Cheon Seo Ah sneered at their pleas.

They cried about injustice, about pain, about becoming vengeful spirits trapped between worlds.

They wanted her to join them in death.

Bullshit.

The world operated on the principle of survival of the fittest.

Even in the modern world, with its talk of human rights, a world infinitely more peaceful than the cultivation world, this principle held true.

How much more so in the cultivation world, where such concepts were meaningless?

She simply wielded the power she possessed. She simply followed the natural order. They didn’t want to die? Then…

“You should have become stronger.”

They questioned why she ripped out their hearts?

“You should have taken better care of them.”

They resented her for killing them?

“Resent me all you want.”

They wanted her to die with them? They wouldn’t find peace until she did?

“F*ck that. Why should I die? I’m going to live until I’m old and decrepit.”

With each retort, the corpses began to crumble, dissolving into dust that she inhaled, the rising blood absorbed through her skin.

Cracks spread across the darkness, across the illusion of Solitude.

Cheon Seo Ah looked at the fracturing darkness, fragile as glass.

“What a f*cking tribulation.”

But this…

“This won’t break me.”

She grinned and reached out, and the fractured darkness shattered.