Chapter 269: The White Lion (2)

I saw raindrops falling on my sword.

It’s raining.

My eyes captured all those water drops falling slowly, moment after moment. Because I enhanced my cognitive ability with aura to focus, my heartbeat and my senses were now far faster than those of an ordinary person.

I charged the sword with my red aura and struck the water droplets. My red aura instantly coated the droplets. Then, I launched them in Uburka’s direction.

Splash!

The drops of red water hit and burst on Uburka’s cheek. As if a child had thrown a water balloon on his face as a prank, red paint dripped down Uburka’s cheek. He could have easily avoided my attack, but he accepted it as a pleasant joke.

𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Uburka smiled brightly. “It’s no use showing off your peak aura mastery. I am already familiar with it. By mixing aura into the water droplets that fell on your sword, you seeped in your aura’s sadness and resentment into each and every one. The droplets that you threw at me weren’t just some of the countless drops of rain that would wash away, but the ones that felt dirty and gloomy. It makes me feel pitiful. Amazing. Your aura mastery is exquisite.”

“Uburka.”

While Uburka was busy complimenting me, I composed myself. I had a habit of intervening when the situation turned awkward. I somehow always tried to get on the good side of people when I first met them.

I threw away each and every layer that made me who I was and started thinking as a cult follower. I was now the Young Heaven of the Heavenly Demon Cult, not just Kim Gong-Ja.

“Do you think I made those aura droplets?” I asked.

“What?”

“Raindrops are just lumps of moisture that can’t endure their weight and fall to the ground. There’s no other reason they fall. They’re just water, force, and gravity. That’s why they’re called raindrops.”

When the Heavenly Demon mentored me, she had told me a story about snowflakes. It was my turn to recite the same story to my followers.

“I loaded grudge and resentment into my aura, and turned drops of water into a projectile weapon. Since I mixed my own aura with the rainwater, it’s not natural. Isn’t this truly the demonic cult’s way to use aura? But you’re wrong, Son.”

To the Righteous Faction, the land was absolute. To imitate the land meant that a martial artist had to transform into a speck of dirt.

But what was land to the demonic cult? It was an enemy that made them dig their nails into dirt to bury their younger sister’s body. The enemy had made their younger sister catch the town magistrate’s eye on that quiet day. It hid in the landowners’ ledgers and ridiculed their pathetic lives even if they and their entire families worked themselves to their bones. Their enemy never became theirs. This only made them realize how worthless their lives were.

The Sword Emperor, my other teacher, had explained this to me, and I was passing it on to my descendant now.

I said, “I did not mix my own grudge and resentment.”

“Then whose grudge and resentment did you mix?”

“The people’s.”

All the resentment and grudges of people living in the universe gathered to form the sky, which was called Demonic Heaven.

“The Young Heaven is the agent of the Demonic Heaven.”

So the emotions mixed in there weren’t mine, but I could dare say they were. They perhaps belonged to someone who had once lived, or someone who had yet to live. These emotions were resentment and regret.

“This is the Demonic Heaven’s sword!” I said as I swung my sword.

Thousands of red raindrops shot at Uburka. What I was entrusted with, what I had to keep, what I had to act on behalf of—all of these precious things struck my son.

Boom!

The sound of the explosion was unbelievably loud and resembled a scream. It swept away Uburka, and the jungle shook violently.

***

In the drenched forest, the birds were unable to fly. The branches shook, and the water droplets scattered all at once.

Uburka was at the center of the crater created in the jungle. He laughed and bumped his fists together.

“I see. So that’s how it is. Then...”

Uburka stood up, flickering in the rain. The white giant smiled, revealing his pure white teeth.

“I will show you our world this time.”

The rain intensified. This was the most humid jungle on the continent, so rain was a daily occurrence during this season. Light rain, downpour, misty rain, or torrential rain always drenched the region. Schools of piranhas raged in the nearby rivers, and freshwater eels bit and swallowed them. Heavy rain now fell in the jungle.

“

Ug.

”

In an instant, low water fog covered the jungle. The river flowed under the fog, and it was impossible to see even an inch ahead.

Pop!

Occasionally, a piranha would jump out of the water and disappear into the fog again. Under the water, the fish’s flesh was being torn apart.

“

Ug.

”

The bases of the palm trees were submerged in fog. Since the roots of the trees were concealed by the gray, the trees seemed to hang in the sky, as if a sculptor had carved temple pillars out of wood to worship some god. Millions of trees were shrouded in fog, transforming the entire area into a damp temple of gray mist.

“

Ug.

”

There I was at the bottom of the fog. Floating palm trees had become temple pillars that surrounded me. The Asuras were chanting “

Ug

” as they circled me.

I see.

I looked up at the sky and realized that those dark clouds weren’t just rain clouds brought by the sea breeze.

Rumble...

Lightning flashed between the clouds. The dark clouds crashed against each other, swallowing each other’s thunder.

I was wondering why Uburka ganged up on me instead of requesting a duel like usual. He wanted to fight me with the Demonic Heaven Formula Arts, not the Demonic Heaven Arts.

The moment I realized this, the call of rain erupted from all over the jungle.

“

Ug! Ug! Ug! Ugor! Ugor! Ugor! Ug!

”

“

Kerukke, ug!

Kerukke, ug! Kerukke, ug!

”

“

Ugor!

”

“

Kerukke, ug! Kerukke, ug! Kerukke, ug!

”

“

Ugor!

”

The Terras struck their weapons on the ground, hit palm trees with their fists, and kicked rocks with their feet, awakening anyone who was asleep in the jungle. It was a wild rhythm. As Asuras, their aura burned an intense shade of red.

“

Kerukke, ug!

”

Thuuuud! Thuud!

When Terras struck the trees, aura shook the tree from within. The palm tree became a huge musical instrument that reverberated loudly.

Good

.

Fog was an invisible and intangible wall that separated this continent from the underworld. Thus, the river, shrouded in fog, became a hellish landscape. The area rising from the fog became the land of the living, but what was there to rely on when even the ground was covered in fog?

It’s great.

The palm trees bent down. The trees that hung lazily in the sky, piercing through the fog, were the only ones that escaped this hellish underworld. All of those trees were temple pillars that sang of the gods’ grace and glory. Small animals, snakes, squirrels, and spiders that lived in the jungle all took refuge in the palm trees.

Demonic Heaven Formula Arts.

Extra Form:

Bloody Ashen Cloud Fog.

The Asuras weren’t even done. Even though they made the sky rain to scatter thick fog, they turned the jungle into a very unfamiliar stage.

“You’re getting a lot better,” I exclaimed as I witnessed the Asuras’ form. “It’s beautiful.”

The gray sky cast its dark clouds low, very low.

Rumble.

On one side of the clouds, lightning struck, but the clouds nearby swallowed it, raining down a thunderstorm. An endless fog shrouded the jungle. The flowing river, the rocks lying in the river, the rough bushes, and the insects chirping under the bushes—the fog swallowed them all.

Now they whispered their conversations in secret. The insects, birds, and beasts were invisible in the fog, and they passed by only occasionally as ominous shadows.

Zirr... krrr, kieee, kiee... Kee... Krrrrr... Grr... Bieeeeee...

The dissonance of shadows was unintelligible. I could only see the sky covered in dark clouds and the ground enveloped with dark fog. Between the lowered sky and the high ground, the bent-over palm trees were hanging with some difficulty.

“

Haha.

”

I lifted my sword and used it to swirl inside the fog. The fog didn’t disappear at all. Instead, it became a darker shade of gray, forming a river of fog.

This isn’t just ordinary fog. It’s made of aura.

When I tried stirring it a little more, the fog began to take on a blood-red hue, revealing the color of the Terras’ aura.

“The fog is strong enough to cover this entire area... You guys are surely utilizing every bit of the energy dragon you slurped.”

Blood dripped down from the fog when I cut at it, flowing like a stream in the ashen fog. Wherever it flowed, the fog grew redder until it eventually dyed the ground bright red. In an instant, I was sucked into another world.

“Is this my underworld?” I murmured.

Uburka stepped through the mist-shrouded river. It sounded as if he was walking on chimes, not water. “No, Daddy. This is our origin.”

I tilted my head. “Origin?”

“

Ugor.

When we first opened our eyes and looked at the world, this was what we saw.” Uburka looked around. “The sky wasn’t blue. There was no reason to look up at the blue sky, so it had to rain for us to be interested. The sky was always gray when it rained. Therefore, to us, the sky was nothing but a strange mass of dark clouds, burping out lightning bolts to solve its indigestion.

“The land? The land was terrifying. We didn’t know what kind of beast would harm us. Even the smallest bug was strong enough to poison our children to death. It was where demons, big and small, roamed. In the distance, an unknown beast roared. A Terra who said he would return by night didn’t return for some reason. Why? We didn’t know. We didn’t know anything. We didn’t know why the beasts roared or why the Terra wasn’t returning. The world was full of the unknown. It was no different from thick fog. Sometimes...”

Uburka looked around the primordial world dominated by endless gray.

“Sometimes there was something to cling to, like these palm trees. All we had to do was find something to cling to. If it saved me and gave my family a home, then it was a god. We were just drifters wandering between hell and the underworld, looking for divine spirits to cling to.”

I smiled. “It wasn’t easy raising you. The only words you guys knew how to say were water, sky, earth, those kinds of things...”

“

Ugor.

This is the world we saw, so we didn’t need a lot of words.”

It was raining. Even if it was the Asuras’ aura that brought the dark clouds, the raindrops falling from the clouds looked gentle. I opened my mouth and let some rainwater fall on my tongue. Refreshing. A much cleaner energy than old aura soaked me.

“If we stay here, nothing will happen,” Uburka said. “Daddy, you love us. No one among our species doubts that love, but wasn’t it difficult?”

“What do you mean? Well, I’m having a hard time facing this mass of immoral sons who gang up on their daddy...”

“Since you led us out of that forest, many things have happened. Our civilization developed. We were conquered, and our entire species was enslaved. Surely, you don’t think that no one died during those moments. Those tortured to death, those who suffered accidental deaths, those who died tragically, those impaled on spears while resisting the Shellmounts, those who died dressed as gladiators and were mocked by the audience, those who died attempting to escape, and those who died because they couldn’t flee... Do you perhaps feel like all of that is your responsibility?” Uburka asked.

A long silence followed.