Everyone was shocked, not to mention the Darkness Palace Master.
Even then, the Darkness Palace Master was reaching his hand toward the Secret Vessel.
The quick-witted Geom Mugeuk immediately grasped the situation.
“Trying to break this? Not a chance. It will never break.”
Three hundred years ago, even when Heavenly Demon Hyeok Do-cheon had madly pounded on it with his fists, the Secret Vessel hadn't budged.
“And as you can see, hostage situations don’t work on these heartless and merciless Demon Sovereigns!”
Then, he shouted at the Demon Buddha.
“What do you mean, break it! Shatter it to pieces! I was inside that thing!”
The Drunken Demon looked back at the Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign and gestured that it was finally time to cover his ears.
The Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign smiled at the sight.
With Geom Mugeuk's appearance, the atmosphere changed in an instant.
“Have you still not given up on your older brother?”
A deep sense of relief could be felt from the Demon Buddha.
He had acted brave in front of the Darkness Palace Master, but how could he have truly meant it?
He had spoken boldly because he was certain the Darkness Palace Master could never break the Secret Vessel.
As someone who had suffered internal wounds and even coughed up blood, that Secret Vessel was his last hope.
Of course, even with that certainty, who knew what could happen in the world? What if the man really did smash the Secret Vessel to bits? The Demon Buddha’s heart had pounded as if it would burst.
At this moment, the person most pleased to see Geom Mugeuk was him.
Of course, he expressed it this way.
“The First Young Master could have become the successor. What a shame.”
The Demon Buddha glared at the Darkness Palace Master and said.
“Why did you hesitate? You should have just smashed it.”
Geom Mugeuk looked back at the Darkness Palace Master and spoke.
“See? That’s how vicious these people are.”
A sense of despair crossed the Darkness Palace Master’s face.
Three perfectly fine Demon Sovereigns, and now Geom Mugeuk as well.
On the other hand, his Great Annihilation of Greed had vanished, and his ultimate demonic arts, the Heavenly Star Soul Art and the Evil Heart Subordination Technique, had both failed.
On top of that, he had suffered severe internal wounds.
Now, only one move remained for him.
A single move he had saved for the final moment of his life.
Geom Mugeuk looked at the Blood Heaven Blade Demon and the Plum Blossom Sword Sovereign and feigned surprise.
“Well, why are the two of you here?”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon shook his head with a dumbfounded expression.
He thought it was truly typical of Geom Mugeuk.
To surprise people in such a way.
“I came because I heard all hell broke loose when someone went inside a lump of iron.”
“I didn’t go in, I was dragged in. Phew, if you knew what I saw, you’d be shocked.”
Geom Mugeuk glanced at the Darkness Palace Master.
He was staring at Geom Mugeuk with eyes shrouded in darkness.
“Curious about what I saw?”
Geom Mugeuk looked as if he was about to tell him, then said.
“I’m not going to tell you.”
For a moment, the Darkness Palace Master’s face twitched.
It made him realize anew just how infuriating this Young Cult Master was, right upon his return.
Seeing this, the Plum Blossom Sword Sovereign smiled.
“It seems the Young Cult Master hasn’t changed in the Secret Vessel.”
Geom Mugeuk asked her.
“Did you enjoy your journey?”
“It was the most enjoyable journey of my life.”
A pleasant smile formed on the face of the Blood Heaven Blade Demon, who was naturally standing beside her.
“Don’t let it end with just this once. You should travel often.”
“I intend to. Next time, I plan to visit the southern regions.”
Geom Mugeuk did not forget the one phrase the Blood Heaven Blade Demon had recently come to love most.
“How have you gotten even younger since I last saw you!”
He averted his gaze, but his smile deepened.
After greeting the two of them, Geom Mugeuk next attended to the Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign.
“Soul-Devouring, are you alright?”
“Yes, Young Cult Master.”
She too had suffered internal wounds, but they were not severe.
“Did those two bully and torment you for being the youngest? Forcing you to take the lead in dangerous situations?”
“On the contrary, I was overprotected.”
The Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign was so happy to see Geom Mugeuk again.
Because she had survived, the opportunity to become the first Demon Sovereign of the next generation's Demon Cult Master had also survived with her.
Now, she intended to add one more thing to that.
The next Demon Sovereign whom the Cult Master trusts the most.
Just as the current Cult Master had the Fist Demon, she wanted to stand in that position for Geom Mugeuk.
Geom Mugeuk looked at the Drunken Demon and belatedly made a fuss.
“My goodness! Who on earth did this to our Drunken Demon?”
Geom Mugeuk glared at the Darkness Palace Master and said.
“Was it you? It was you, wasn't it? You bastard!”
Just then, the Drunken Demon’s voice came from behind.
“Why don’t you stop acting?”
“Acting, you say?”
The Drunken Demon couldn't hold back and shouted.
“If you were this worried, you should have come to me first! You should have checked on me first! I’m the most badly injured! How can you show up at the very end and pretend to be worried!”
Geom Mugeuk stealthily approached and lightly touched the Drunken Demon’s broken arm.
“My, my, what kind of Demon Sovereign goes around breaking his arm?”
Even the three Demon Sovereigns who had arrived later could guess how difficult this fight had been from that fact alone.
For a Demon Sovereign, breaking an arm was an unimaginable event.
“I fell over drunk.”
“You should be more careful.”
The Drunken Demon looked down at Geom Mugeuk’s hand holding his arm.
He could feel Geom Mugeuk’s emotions from that faintly trembling hand.
Thank you for staying alive, brother.
At that moment, the Demon Buddha spoke calmly.
“The Drunken Demon saved us.”
The Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign nodded in agreement with a similar expression.
“This is why I came late. The hero always appears last, and it's for the hero that one waits until the end.”
Leaving the needlessly proud Drunken Demon, he turned toward the Evil Heart Laughing Demon.
From behind, the Drunken Demon shouted.
“I’m not the last one!”
Geom Mugeuk pretended not to hear and looked at the Evil Heart Laughing Demon.
It was undoubtedly he, who had been in charge of the outside, who had brought the two joining Demon Sovereigns inside.
His precise judgment must have saved them all.
The Evil Heart Laughing Demon smiled and asked.
“Did you have a good trip?”
It was because of the Evil Heart Laughing Demon that he could comfortably visit the world of three hundred years ago.
“Thanks to you, I had a good trip.”
The Darkness Palace Master watched with his own eyes, yet he could not understand their relationship.
He had heard countless reports that Geom Mugeuk was close with the Demon Sovereigns.
But seeing it in person was shocking.
He exchanges such jokes with the Demon Sovereigns? They exchange such looks of trust? They were looks he had never once experienced.
Not even from Hwe, his own subordinate.
After Geom Mugeuk finished his greetings with the Demon Sovereigns, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon asked with a curious expression.
“What on earth happened inside that lump of iron?”
He had told the Darkness Palace Master he wouldn’t tell, but he spoke honestly to the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“The Secret Vessel showed me the time when the Heavenly Will Palace started the war three hundred years ago.”
He did not say he had gone to three hundred years ago himself.
They would probably just think the Secret Vessel had shown him the past.
As everyone looked surprised, Geom Mugeuk asked the Darkness Palace Master.
He no longer concealed the name.
“What kind of person is Hwa Mugi?”
It was the first time he had mentioned Hwa Mugi directly to anyone.
The Darkness Palace Master’s eyes widened.
He never expected that name to come from Geom Mugeuk.
Even the Divine Maiden Palace Master, Ga Ye, had only known of his existence, not his name.
“The Secret Vessel told me that name.”
The Demon Sovereigns could tell.
The being that Geom Mugeuk had vaguely feared was this person, Hwa Mugi.
The Darkness Palace Master was not the final enemy.
The Darkness Palace Master’s gaze turned to the Secret Vessel.
“This Secret Vessel is our divine relic, so why to you?”
“To be precise, it’s the divine relic of the Heavenly Will Palace. You are a descendant of the Darkness Palace, which was under the Heavenly Will Palace.”
The Darkness Palace Master was curious.
Why on earth had the Secret Vessel absorbed Geom Mugeuk and not him? In what way had the Secret Vessel revealed the truth? And what else had it revealed?
“Have you nothing to say to me?”
The Darkness Palace Master gave no answer to Geom Mugeuk’s question.
At that, Geom Mugeuk did not hesitate to draw the Black Demon Sword.
“Alright, I respect your wishes.”
The three Demon Sovereigns standing behind him simultaneously raised their inner energy, preparing for battle.
Seeing their readiness to charge at any moment, the Darkness Palace Master quickly said.
“He! Is not someone you lot can handle.”
Of course, Geom Mugeuk knew very well why he was so confident.
With those five souls and their inner energy vested in him, how could he imagine losing to anyone?
“If you’ve heard about him, you should know this is no time to be leisurely.”
The Darkness Palace Master tried his best to separate Geom Mugeuk from the others and send him to the Main Sect.
That was the only sliver of hope he had for survival.
“Why don’t you run to your father right now? I will go. But before I do, I have to kill you first. I will go after I see you die completely before my eyes. That’s why I came out in the first place.”
As important as that place was, this place was just as important.
However, the Darkness Palace Master interpreted Geom Mugeuk’s composure differently.
“That can’t be it. It must be because you can become the Cult Master if your father dies.”
At the conversation between the two, the Demon Sovereigns’ eyes grew cold.
Not because they suspected Geom Mugeuk of having such intentions, but because of the martial skill of that man, Hwa Mugi.
From their conversation, it seemed Hwa Mugi possessed the power to kill even the Cult Master.
And Geom Mugeuk seemed to agree.
“As you can see, the bloodline of our family isn’t the type to meekly give up their position.”
The Darkness Palace Master smiled coldly.
In his mind, Hwa Mugi’s defeat was never a possibility.
“You will all die anyway. Not just you, but the Martial Alliance and the Unorthodox Alliance will all be wiped out. You have ruled this martial world for far too long. A new era is about to dawn.”
Geom Mugeuk stared at him and said.
“Even if that happens, it won’t be your success. It won’t be your era either. At best, you’ll become Hwa Mugi’s subordinate.”
Fury surged within the Darkness Palace Master.
That was the last thing he wanted to hear.
“Do you know why you failed?”
The words he didn't want to hear were just beginning.
“You spent too long only in the darkness. The darkness has devoured you.”
“Of course, it should. Because I am the Darkness Palace Master.”
“Because you are the Darkness Palace Master, you should have come out into the light. When you turned your back on the light, only then could you have seen exactly what your darkness was.”
Geom Mugeuk began to shake his heart.
“Since this is the end anyway, let me be honest. I was disappointed when I met you in person."
"You weren’t as cool as I thought you’d be. Oh, of course, seeing the methods you’ve chosen so far, I did predict you’d be a person of little consequence."
"But I thought you might have a different kind of coolness in person. But you didn’t. And I figured out why.”
The Darkness Palace Master felt humiliated and ashamed.
“You’ve been fossilized in that darkness for so long. You’ve even forgotten what it means to be cool.”
“Shut up!”
At the barrage of crude insults, the Darkness Palace Master roared.
“I have lived my entire life sacrificing for the great cause of my Palace. I have lived solely for the sake of vengeance!”
But that great cause did not work on Geom Mugeuk.
“Then why didn’t you name a successor?”
“What?”
“If your true purpose was for a great cause, you should have named a successor. If you could not achieve it, you should have passed on that will to a successor to achieve it."
"Because that noble will would not change even as the years pass. But you did not name a successor. Shall I tell you why?"
"It wasn’t because you fought for a great cause. It was only greed to become the head of the hidden forces and rule this martial world.”
The Darkness Palace Master glared fiercely at Geom Mugeuk.
One could never know just how infuriating this Geom Mugeuk was without experiencing it firsthand.
Eventually, the Darkness Palace Master began to tell his story.
“This was my father’s dream.”
The moment a faint memory flickered across the Darkness Palace Master’s face, the Soul-Devouring Demon Sovereign knew.
When she had entered the Darkness Palace Master’s mind during the earlier fight, the person he had looked up at with a bright smile was his father.
Had he come this far with just that single good memory?
“The power we obtained was beyond what an ordinary human could handle. Many died because of that power."
"Only after learning that only a human born with the energy of the Heaven Killing Star could accept that power, I spent my life searching for that destiny."
"Then, to control the power contained within the Heaven Killing Star, I tried for a long time to find the Six Paths' Primal Energy."
"And you dare to mock a life like mine, you who have lived comfortably, born as the son of the Heavenly Demon?”
The Darkness Palace Master’s anger erupted.
Blood trickled from his mouth as his internal wounds flared up.
In contrast, Geom Mugeuk was calm.
“Trying to inherit and fulfill your father’s dream? What a dutiful son. I, on the other hand, am an undutiful son trying to stop my father’s dream.”
Though he meant it sincerely, to the Darkness Palace Master, it sounded like mockery.
A deep, dark energy flowed from the Darkness Palace Master’s eyes.
One could feel that he had made up his mind about something.
“How do you think I designed my end?”
“You’re not the type to end things coolly, so you’d probably be thinking of taking everyone down with you. With something lame like a Self-Destruction Art.”
He had expected him to have prepared a Self-Destruction Art, and that expectation was correct.
Light began to flow from the characters drawn on the Darkness Palace Master’s face.
He had thought it was a great art to steal the Six Paths' Primal Energy within his body, but it was not.
Ghost Gate Explosion Heavenly Art.
It was by no means a lame Self-Destruction Art.
It was the most powerful Self-Destruction Art, one that borrowed even the power of ghosts.
As the characters on the Darkness Palace Master’s face and body lit up, indecipherable characters began to be carved into the floor and the air.
Those in the room were trapped within the characters that filled their surroundings.
“You will go with me into eternal darkness.”
The moment he was about to unleash the Ghost Gate Explosion Heavenly Art, the three Demon Sovereigns were already moving.
Swish!
Thwack!
A stream of finger techniques flew toward his face.
It was the Evil Heart Laughing Demon’s Blood Calamity Finger.
The dark energy that always protected him blocked the Blood Calamity Finger.
“You cannot stop me!”
While the dark energy surrounded and blocked him, the light of the Ghost Gate carved on his body and all around grew even more intense.
In this moment of the Dark Arts’ self-destruction, it was ironically shining more brightly than any other martial art.
Swish! Swish-swish! Swish!
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
The Blood Calamity Finger, flying as fast as light, struck the same spot it had hit before.
Thwump!
The finger techniques, which continuously hit the same spot, pierced through the dark energy.
Thwack!
The moment the Blood Calamity Finger struck the Darkness Palace Master’s face, the dark energy weakened.
Splurch!
As if waiting for that very moment, the Plum Blossom Sword instantly pierced through the dark energy and impaled his chest.
Slaaaaash!
Simultaneously, the Heaven-Slaying Blade cleanly split him from his shoulder to his chest.
Splaaaaat!
His body split open, and blood gushed out like a fountain.
The Darkness Palace Master, who was internally wounded and hiding within his dark energy, intending only to unleash his Self-Destruction Art, could never have blocked the attack of the three Demon Sovereigns.
Geom Mugeuk walked over to him as he lay collapsed on the floor.
The Darkness Palace Master, in his fading consciousness, left his final words.
“You will not be able to stop him.”
Geom Mugeuk readily admitted it.
“Yes, I won’t be able to stop him.”
And he was not at all ashamed to say it.
“Instead, my father will stop him. The Alliance Leaders will stop him, and the Demon Sovereigns will stop him.”
Geom Mugeuk looked back at the six Demon Sovereigns lined up behind him.
After making eye contact with each one of them looking at him.
“Just as these people here have done.”
Geom Mugeuk’s gaze turned back to the Darkness Palace Master.
“Your darkness was one that hid itself while sacrificing all its subordinates. A darkness that doesn’t face the light is a darkness that should disappear from this world.”
The Darkness Palace Master opened his mouth to say something, but only blood gurgled out instead of words.
Geom Mugeuk’s final words were polite.
“So, hold no more lingering attachments to this world, and return to the eternal darkness you so love.”
Though great attachment still remained in the Darkness Palace Master’s eyes, he could not defy the call of death.
His eyes slowly closed, and soon, his breath ceased.
The dark energy that had been faintly hovering around also scattered into the air and vanished forever.
It was the moment when even the Darkness Palace Master, the final leader, died.
Now, only one person remained.
Hwa Mugi.