Childhood Friend of the Zenith

I didn’t have many memories of my mother.

-Son.

Her voice was slightly high-pitched but warm, and she would gently brush my rough hair with her soft hands.

I remembered her watching me with a smile with my little sister in her arms, as she enjoyed the gentle breeze of spring.

By the time I realized that this memory of mine was called “reminiscence”, my mother was already gone.

My mother loved every season.

She seemed to love spring the most, but she loved the other three as well.

She loved spring for the blooming flowers.

Even during summer which made me annoyed due to the heat, my mother found beauty in it.

She would often sit on the living room floor, watching the summer rain pour down.

I could never forget her warm hand I held during fall and winter, as leaves and snow gently fell.

Yes, my mother loved all four seasons, and she loved the world.

At least, that’s how I saw it.

-Son.

She would lay in her bed during the night after tucking Gu Ryunghwa in, and closing her eyes.

-Are you sleepy?

-Mhm…

In response to my whiny answer, Mother would rub my belly and softly hum a song in my ear.

Maybe it was because of the comfort I felt from her singing, but I somehow always used to fall asleep almost immediately.

The only reason I was able to have a reminiscence in this dreary place, was only thanks to my mother’s warmth in the end.

Because of that…

-Son… I’m sorry…

The last touch of her hand I felt on my cheek, and the last sound of her voice still haunted me, like a shackle I couldn’t escape.

“…What do you mean?”

I bit my tongue, hesitating before I finally responded.

Why was the World Tree bringing up my mother?

“Are you saying that the beast inside my body is connected to my mother?”

I struggled to suppress my boiling emotions.

It has never crossed my mind that my mother would be mentioned in any of this.

Mother… is connected to this?

How could that be possible?

[ Calm down, apostle. ]

“You expect me to calm down after dropping a bombshell like that. How selfish can you be?”

I had never thought about it even once.

I may have endlessly thought about the beast’s existence inside me, yet all I discovered was its name.

I never considered it as very vital information.

Just what was the beast?

Initially, I assumed that it was something that came along with my Demonic Absorption Arts.

Doesn’t that make sense? Whenever the beast devoured the Demonic Qi from Demonic Stones, my Demonic Absorption Arts would activate on their own..

When I absorbed Demonic Qi, it was purified into normal Qi.

Because of that, I thought the bastard’s existence was part of the authority that the Heavenly Demon gave me, but my thoughts changed as time went by.

I started to think that the beast wasn’t related to the Demonic Absorption Arts, but my Destructive Flame Arts instead.

If the beast’s goal in the first place wasn’t to consume Demonic Qi, but to cleanse Qi instead, then it must be related closer to Destructive Flame Arts rather than Demonic Absorption Arts.

Regardless of which it was, the real problem was that I had no idea why this beast existed within me.

The Immortal Healer said this once.

Tao Qi was inside my Dantian along with my normal Qi, so it wouldn’t have been weird for my body to explode at any moment.

But it was Elder Shin who kept the chaos in check, stopping the Tao Qi and normal Qi from clashing.

Truthfully, if Elder Shin didn’t do that, then my body would have suffered intense pain whenever the Tao Qi raged out of control.

Elder Shin helped me by preventing my Qi from colliding with Tao Qi in my Dantian.

Another thing.

There was another matter on my mind.

It was about my Demonic Qi in my body alongside my Tao and normal Qi.

Becoming a Demonic Human means that all Qi inside one’s Dantian transforms into Demonic Qi.

However, as soon as Demonic Qi entered my body, my Destructive Flame Arts purified it almost immediately.

However, the purification process was slow, meaning Demonic Qi lingered in my body for a while.

This meant that, at any given time, three different types of Qi coexisted within me.

Elder Shin might have been dealing with Tao Qi, but what about the Demonic Qi?

I thought to myself.

Demonic Qi mixing with other Qi isn’t really a big problem to begin with.

The Heavenly Demon was able to turn even strong masters into Demonic Humans, because Demonic Qi and normal Qi could coexist.

But that’s if a person is a Demonic Human.

That is only possible after the Heavenly Demon turns a person into a Demonic Human.

Why do I say this?

…Demonic Qi eats away Qi and one’s body.

If Demonic Qi enters a normal person’s body, it blocks their Qi, causing the body to gradually decay.

I had seen this firsthand with the Sword Queen in this life, and I remembered others who had suffered the same fate in my previous life.

Demonic Qi was deadly to a martial artist.

It was true that the Heavenly Demon had absolute strength, but the Demonic Cult’s swift conquest of the Central Plains was largely due to the overwhelming might of Demonic Qi.

It was as if Demonic Qi was specifically designed to annihilate martial artists.

But what about me, who had such a dangerous QI inside my body?

I am not a Demonic Human.

I knew how to control them, but I wasn’t a Demonic Human yet.

By all accounts, my body should have begun decaying the moment Demonic Qi entered it.

Things had been unusual ever since I absorbed a Demonic Stone for the first time in this life.

Demonic Absorption Arts gave me the power to absorb Demonic Qi from Demonic Stones, and my Destructive Flame Arts purified it Qi into normal Qi.

I had assumed my body was simply capable of handling Demonic Qi, even though I wasn’t a Demonic Human.

But was that really the case?

Maybe something, much like Elder Shin, was stopping the Demonic Qi from damaging me.

That was a thought I had recently.

If something like that really lived inside my body…

Then it has to be the bastard that used to growl every day.

I had known about the beast’s irritating presence inside me for a few years now.

Aside from its constant whining about hunger, the beast hadn’t seemed particularly dangerous.

Considering how the beast occasionally gave me information to help me, I started to think it might not be so bad after all.

But this bastard… was connected to my mother all along?

The World Tree said that I had to learn about my mother if I wanted to learn about the beast.

That made me frown,

“That is absurd.”

[ Why do you think that? ]

“I’ve only encountered this beast in this lifetime.”

There was no way I would have been unaware of a creature like this within me in my previous life.

But if this bastard was truly linked to my mother, why was I only discovering it now?

I thought that the beast was related to my regression.

“This bastard didn’t exist in my past life, so why would it be connected to my mother…”

[ Do you really think that it didn’t exist in your past life, apostle? ]

“What do you mean by that?”

I furrowed my brow at the World Tree’s words.

Was I really sure that this bastard didn’t exist in my past life?

[ Have you never considered the fact that it’s been asleep the whole time? ]

The World Tree’s words made me pause and wonder.

That would have been even weirder if that was the case.

“Even if that were true, it is rather strange.”

The act of a beast sleeping for the whole time in my past life, only to wake up after my regression.

Isn’t that even stranger?

“You never mentioned this when I met you in my past life.”

Back when I met the World Tree for the first time, it vanished shortly after showing me the way out of this world.

It didn’t tell me what the flames to burn away the burdens were, nor what it wanted from me.

“So…”

[ Do you believe nothing has changed in this new life of yours? ]

“A change?”

[ Think about the changes you’ve gone through. ]

The World Tree asked, but I couldn’t think of anything on top of my head.

It was because there were too many changes to be more accurate.

It wasn’t just one or two events.

What is it… what could it be?

If the beast had truly been inside me all this time, then something about my regression must have triggered its awakening.

…Where is it?

I searched through my memories.

Changes in me before the beast woke up.

Mount Hua…

Back when I found the flower that belonged to the Black Palace in Mount Hua, I consumed it and absorbed the power within it along with it.

I also took in the Demonic Qi writhing inside the Sword Queen’s body.

I thought that might have been the cause.

But it has to be before that.

Elder Shin was with me during this time, and judging by how he was shocked by the existence I had inside my body, it was safe to say that it was before this.

Then what was it?

Was it because I absorbed the Qi from Mount Hua’s treasure?

In some ways, that’s the first time I-

“…Huh?”

In the midst of my thoughts, I realized that wasn’t my first time gaining power from outside sources.

The first time…

…The Golden Sky Yeon Clan’s secret vault.

Was the power I experienced from the Formation in Sichuan.

A massive snake filled the entire room.

That snake offered me a marble, a power to strengthen my foundation and elevate my abilities.

But I was rather uncomfortable for some time after consumption, because a strange Qi was mixed within my Flame Arts.

“…Wait.”

It felt like all of these things could be a reason, but the experience I had in Golden Sky Yeon Clan was unique.

It was because the existence in front of me right now was a World Tree, and I was reminded of how I had seen a beautiful tree with white leaves, though it wasn’t as large.

With that realization, I started explaining to the World Tree of my experience.

“…I visited the secret vault of the Golden Sky Yeon Clan once.”

[ I see. ]

“I saw a tree with white leaves there.”

I explained how I gained power from a giant snake within the vault.

[ I see… So that child gave you that. ]

“You seem to know the snake in that room.”

[ I know it well. ]

The World Tree’s voice was tinged with sorrow.

[ I am very grateful for that child for protecting me, so how could I not know? ]

My eyes widened in shock at the World Tree’s words.

The Demon with the shape of a giant snake and the tree with white leaves inside that room, all seemed to have relations with the World Tree in front of me.

The World Tree had said that all traces of it had been erased, so how had those remnants endured?

…But more importantly,

“…So did the beast wake up because of what happened in there?”

This was the first thing I needed to ask.

The World Tree’s roots shifted, pressing against its chest after hearing my question.

[ Do you know about resonance? ]

Was it for an explanation?

[ What you consumed that day, was the dream that child had, and a seed of mine. ]

“…Pardon?”

[ The child had been holding that marble with great love, to rise above the sky. ]

“Please make it easier for me to understand.”

[ By consuming my seed, you allowed a ruler’s essence to merge within you. ]

Craack-!

The tree’s root moved towards my chest, pressing against the spot where my Dantian lay.

[ The entry of another ruler’s power caused a resonance within you, awakening the beast. ]

“…Resonance you say.”

[ It too, is a ruler of a world, so it reacted to my power. ]

“…!”

I instinctively rubbed my Dantian after hearing the World Tree.

This whiny growly beast is also a ruler of another world?

Then, I was reminded of what the Blood Demon said to me.

-The ruler of Abyss…

That’s what the Blood Demon called the growling beast.

The ruler of Abyss.

Back then, I had dismissed those words, unable to grasp their meaning, but now, I was certain about the term “ruler.”

The Abyss.

Ruler.

According to the World Tree, the beast within me was a ruler of another world, just as the tree once had been.

Perhaps this bastard was way more important than I thought?

“Wait, but why is such a thing inside me?”

It was bizarre to think that a ruler from another world resided within my body.

And the fact that the bastard was coonnected to my mother.

Mother.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

It meant that my mother wasn’t just an ordinary woman.

I remembered my mother’s lifeless face fading into the Demon Gate suspended in the air.

That moment marked my transformation, the moment I stopped trusting anyone within the Gu Clan.

[ Apostle. ]

The World Tree’s voice was gentle, almost hesitant.

“…You said you knew about my mother, right?”

[ I do not know much. As I said earlier… I am just an existence that was erased from that world. ]

“But that means you do know a little.”

My voice grew more desperate.

It was something I had pondered many times before.

I didn’t think that my mother had something special.

“Please tell me. About my mother…”

But, of course, everything seemed to be intertwined.

It felt like all of my experiences were connected.

If me being a child of Gu Clan was a reason, and the fact that everyone around me ended up miserable because of my burdens, I had to hear it.

I had to hear secrets about me I didn’t know about.

I gazed at the World Tree, which fell silent for a moment before speaking again.

[ I may have been erased from that world, but I do know a little. It used to be my world after all. ]

[ From what I feel, it seems like you have run into two calamities so far. ]

“Two times?”

I considered what the two calamities might be.

If the first was the Blood Demon, then what was the second?

The Heavenly Demon…?

Was it the Heavenly Demon after all? That was the only existence that I could think of as the second calamity.

Unless, of course, I was a calamity myself, as Yeon Il-Cheon had hinted.

As I had that thought in my mind,

[ You said you wanted to learn about your mother, correct? ]

The World Tree began talking about my mother.

A frown creased my forehead as I listened.

…Why is she being mentioned?

We were just discussing calamities, and now you’re bringing up my mother?

Right as I questioned,

[ Your mother- ]

The World Tree spoke.

[ She is the second calamity that fell upon your world. ]

Hearing the World Tree, it felt as if the world around me stopped.