Chapter 99: Heavenly Demon Tomb

Among the illusions Qing had briefly glimpsed while knocking people out were some real head-scratchers.

One Demon Cult leader had apparently fantasized about tearing down the sign for the legendary Shaolin Temple and replacing it with one that read “Heavenly Demon Sacred Hall.” Real original.

Another guy was commanding a massive fleet on the open sea. His command ship was too far off for Qing to get a look at his face, and even Choi Leeong had no clue who it might be. Still, Qing figured, anyone dreaming that big—crossing mountains and oceans—had to be one of the ballsier bastards in the cult.

Eventually, wading through these B-rate fantasies, she finally ran into the one person she was looking for: the kid. Ji Seungju.

“Yo. Kid.”

“…?”

Ji Seungju’s eyes shot wide open. Considering his usually blank face, that was practically a backflip of shock.

“What, why so surprised? See a ghost?”

“You… you’re alive?”

“What do you mean, ‘alive’? When was I ever dead?”

“But I distinctly saw your corpse. It was in a place modeled after the Divine Cult’s Mythic courtyard—back at headquarters.”

“Mythic what?”

“The estate where the Great Protectors reside. It seems someone wants you dead badly enough to conjure an illusion of it. Be careful. They might attack you on sight, even within this illusion.”

Someone cleared their throat pointedly. They were conspicuously leaving one person out of the conversation.

“Khm.”

“Purple Lightning Demonic Warlord. You’re alright as well. That’s fortunate.”

“I heard the Demonic Brain here was trying to dismantle the formation, so I came to help. How’s the progress?”

“I’ve managed to remove several key anchors,” Ji Seungju replied, sounding strained, “but I have no idea how many the architect embedded in total. I’ve applied the standard dispersal calculation by mapping the Eight Trigrams onto the Nine Palaces array, but…”

“Ah,” Choi Leeong interjected, “Coming over, I noticed the Earth-Fire current was active along the southern celestial axis.”

“Okay, then we just need to remove the four subsidiary nodes—the Spirit Gate, Spirit Spring, Exit River, and Flying Lock—in the South Heaven array. That should do it.”

They launched into a rapid-fire exchange of technical jargon.

From that point on, it was a conversation Qing couldn’t understand even if she tried. Which, naturally, she didn’t. She had zero intention of actually helping anyway.

Losing interest fast, she scanned her surroundings again. Still nothing worth looking at.

Boredom washed over her, and she let out a massive, jaw-cracking yawn.

Choi Leeong clicked his tongue. “Tsk tsk, are you trying to rip your mouth open?”

“What? I’m sleepy.”

“Then sleep properly, girl. A grown maiden shouldn’t be gaping like that so carelessly. If you’d married when you should have, you’d be a mother by now.”

Qing tilted her head. Doesn’t that nagging sound familiar? Do all old people turn into this?

But Choi Leeong wasn’t one of those familiar nags from back home.

Qing’s face hardened. “Who cares? Whether I become a mother or a father, what business is it of yours?”

“Such a filthy mouth on this girl. Why do you just get nastier and nastier? Just because you have a pretty face, you think you can act like this?”

“Whatever. So, how much longer is this gonna take?”

Choi Leeong looked at Ji Seungju.

Ji Seungju darted a strange look between Qing and Choi Leeong, then finally yielded to the old man’s silent pressure and spoke.

“On my own, I thought it would take at least another full day. But with the Warlord assisting, it should be much faster. Honestly, the lack of water is becoming a critical issue.”

People could survive for a while without food, but not long without water. That was true even for powerful martial artists.

Qing did some quick mental math. Okay, one expert takes a day. Two experts… maybe half a day?

Sweet. Means I can get a proper nap in.

“Since Gramps said to sleep, I’m gonna sleep. Wake me up when it looks like the formation’s about to break, okay? I wanna see what happens.”

Just in case, Qing added the instruction, then wriggled around in Choi Leeong’s arms, trying to find a comfortable spot for her head. She’d been wandering for ages and was long past needing sleep. Once she settled in, drowsiness hit her like a wave.

Dismantling the formation took way longer than she’d expected.

When Qing finally woke up after sleeping like the dead, the scenery was that same damned palace hall illusion. Ugh.

Choi Leeong looked visibly tired, apparently having trekked back and forth between illusory mountains, fields, and this palace the whole time. Well yeah, the old man’s been constantly on the move, no wonder he’s tired.

Even Qing, comfortably nestled in his arms, started to feel a little awkward.

“Gramps, if you’re tired, maybe take a break?”

“Is a master someone who gets tired from a single sleepless day? No need for pointless worries.”

“Or just put me down. I can walk and run just fine now, you know?”

“If you wander around out of curiosity and step in the wrong place, all the work we’ve done could be for nothing. Just staying put like this is helping.”

Oh really? If you say so.

Now fully justified, Qing shamelessly enjoyed the ride.

The process of dismantling the array was completely opaque to an outsider. Muttering incomprehensible words, they’d stop, turn, sometimes move backward or sideways, then stop at a specific point and kick the empty air.

After a kick, an iron ball would sometimes pop out of nowhere and roll across the floor.

It was an endless repetition of this bizarre routine.

And to top it all off, she was starving!

But just as she was about to whine about being hungry, she saw Choi Leeong’s face. His already sunken eyes looked even more hollow now, dark shadows pooled beneath them.

Even Qing hesitated… before opening her mouth anyway.

“I’m starving to death here. What are we gonna do about food?”

“What can we do? We starve.”

“Aww, this sucks! Seriously, those bastards who set up formations should just have their dicks cut right off. Why can’t they fight fair instead of pulling cheap tricks like this?”

“Yes. You’re right,” Choi Leeong ground out, clenching his teeth. “Utterly detestable bastards.”

As she sat there, stomach rumbling, a stray thought occurred to Qing.

Wouldn’t it be faster if we woke up a few more people to help? Surely there must be other formation experts among these Demon Cult losers.

Huh……?

Come to think of it… I knocked out several people earlier when I was looking for the Heavenly Demon Soul.

Did they not wake up?

Gramps woke up just fine.

Just as Qing was pondering this, a voice drifted over, breaking her train of thought.

“Mom.”

“Hoo hoo, my son.”

“Mom.”

“Yes, mother is right here. My son.”

Qing followed the sound and frowned at the bizarre scene.

A beautiful woman with a venomous expression. Pure hatred radiated from her face, yet she was gently stroking the head of a grown man resting on her lap, her voice dripping with affection.

The son’s face, however, was familiar.

“Ah! That fucking bastard! Look at him, living the high life!”

It was the Supreme, smiling brightly like an idiot.

“Gramps, put me down for a sec. I swore I wouldn’t let that asshole off easy.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. If I intended to stand by and watch that happen, why would I be going through all this trouble?”

“Tch.” Qing clicked her tongue.

That bastard claimed he reached the ‘Natural Realm’ or whatever, and here he is, trapped in a formation playing happy family with his mommy.

It was surprisingly unexpected. She figured the Supreme Wannabe’s deepest desire would be sitting on a throne declaring himself emperor, not… this.

Voice dripping with distaste, Qing asked, “Is this really the illusion the Supreme is seeing? This formation shows the thing you want most, right? This is what that psycho bastard wants?”

“When you consider it, the Supreme is pitiful too,” Choi Leeong murmured. “He never once felt his mother’s embrace. That unresolved longing manifests like this.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s the karma of the Divine Bloodline. Tsk tsk.”

Choi Leeong explained. The mothers chosen to bear the Divine Bloodline couldn't be ordinary. They needed strong bodies, abundant energy, clear minds, and powerful innate essence. Often, the most suitable women across the Central Plains were kidnapped and forced to carry the child. Because of this, few mothers felt any maternal love. The face they showed their own child was filled with loathing, and when they opened their mouths, harsh blades poured out—their tongues truly wielded the skill of world-class swordsmen.

“Mom.”

“Yes. My son. My lovely son.”

“Mom.”

“Yes. I love you too. My son.”

The fury etched on the woman’s face as she spoke was unmistakable. Yet her voice remained sickeningly sweet. It was genuinely creepy.

“Okay, but why does his mom’s face look like that?” Qing asked.

“He likely never saw her make any other expression in his life. He probably can’t even imagine her looking any different.”

Qing was speechless, mouth opening and closing uselessly.

The mother glared with pure resentment, while the Supreme looked blissfully happy.

Qing let out a deep sigh and swallowed the curse bubbling up.

Seriously fuck, these Demon Cult fuckers… from the very top down to the bottom feeders, there isn’t a single normal bastard in the whole damn cult.

It took quite a while longer after that for the formation to finally be dismantled.

Enough time for Qing to be hungry, thirsty, doze off, wake up, and for her head to ache too much to even fall back asleep.

She was just sitting there, eyes hollow and head pounding, when Choi Leeong suddenly stopped.

“The formation is disappearing.”

“Ah. Really…” Thought I was gonna die from the hardship, went the unspoken end of her sentence. A ridiculous thought for someone who’d mostly just been sleeping in someone else’s arms.

At this point, she could congratulate herself on achieving the feat of wearing down the triangle of her conscience into a perfect circle.

Like paper catching embers, the world around them began to burn away at the edges. Ash fluttered down from all directions, and through the haze, the dim tomb chamber gradually reappeared. Even though the torches had long since burned out, the chamber wasn't completely dark; small pinholes apparently drew light from outside—a testament to Ban Chi's skill, said to have reached the level of an immortal.

The Demon Cult members began to break free from their illusions.

Regretful sighs, heartbroken sobs over lost visions, frustrated shouts echoed in the stone chamber. Some simply collapsed, weeping, murmuring names only they understood.

This was why Ji Seungju had called the formation so vicious. It trapped people with their desires, making them unwilling to leave, and then inflicted terrible anguish upon release. It was the very essence of malice.

And because of that, Qing now had her chance.

“Up we go.”

Qing hopped lightly down from Choi Leeong’s arms.

“Child?”

“It’s over. My long national humiliation has ended…”

Simultaneously, Qing stomped the ground hard.

Moon Maiden Step—anti-gravity movement.

Her shadow fell over the brilliantly glowing triangular pyramid, the Heavenly Demon Soul, shining alone in the dimness.

Finally, Qing grasped the luminous artifact.

She took a huge breath, and her voice boomed, filling the tomb chamber.

“Alright! Attention! Everyone, do you SEE this!”

Instantly, every eye snapped towards her.

Eyes still dazed from the broken illusions quickly found the divine artifact in Qing's hand, and faces shifted through a spectrum of reactions.

Some widened their eyes in shock. Some just blinked dumbly in confusion. Others immediately dropped to their knees and slammed their heads to the ground.

She even met Ji Seungju’s gaping stare and gave him a quick wink. She didn’t need to hear him to read his lips.

Damn it.

Now, where was the Supreme? Ah, there. Still hasn't snapped out of it.

He was just standing there blankly. Seriously? At the most important moment? Well, maybe smashing the Heavenly Demon Soul will finally get a reaction worth watching out of him.

Qing took another deep breath. This was it, the finale. Get out of the tomb, smash this thing, run like hell, and finally say goodbye to these damned Demon Cult bastards.

Just as she was about to launch into her dramatic exit speech—

Choi Leeong’s shout cut her off.

“No! Child! Put it down immediately! Quickly! One without qualification must not touch the Divine Artifact! You mustn’t!”

It was a desperate scream, raw as if he were vomiting blood. His wide eyes trembled, filled with unmistakable terror.

Terror? Fear? Qing read the raw fear on his face. But why?

“Put it down! Please! Are you trying to die in front of your father a second time!”

Suddenly, her hand felt… itchy.

Qing stared down at her own hand, bewildered.

“Uh…?”

She made a dazed sound. Anyone would, watching a self-illuminating triangular pyramid slowly, undeniably, sinking into their own hand.