How the Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult Lives Chapter 1 : A Story of Those Whose Fates Were Entwined

Chapter 1: A Story of Those Whose Fates Were Entwined

A martial artist lived by righteousness and died for justice.

He did not hesitate to draw his blade against injustice, nor did he fear staking his life to protect the weak.

If one’s life itself had been chivalry, then was it not fine to die?

I had lived according to the teachings of my sect.

That was why I drew my sword, and I…… died.

An unprecedented demonic figure.

The Vice Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult, second only within the cult.

And the strongest under heaven.

Yet unlike those resplendent titles that all martial artists gazed upon with awe and fear, Yul Han himself was nothing more than a common man bound to the past, struggling in vain.

Since that day fifteen years ago, after exhausting every possible effort to find a way to set that incident right, he had finally uncovered a single vague possibility just five years ago.

Flesh Sold, Soul Returned.

It was a spell left behind by the Jeonjin Sect, a sect said to have been destroyed and erased a thousand years ago at the hands of the Heavenly Demon, the founding progenitor of the Demonic Cult.

This spell, which claid to sell the flesh and send the soul back to a desired point in the past, was sothing I had discovered in a dilapidated warehouse belonging to the Demonic Cult.

It had been buried beneath the floor of a storage house where, since long ago, the Demonic Cult had dumped useless books and objects plundered amid countless battles.

Deciphering this spell, which had been recorded in ancient script, alone had taken five years.

Now, the preparations were complete.

I had ground my teeth and endured for fifteen years, and amid that, spent five years preparing this very thing. There was no reason left to hesitate, no reason to waver.

The ti I wished to return to was fifteen years before the incident—no, another fifteen years further back from that point.

I judged that correcting that matter would require that much ti.

I drew in a deep breath, then began to unfold the grand spell.

Flesh Sold, Soul Returned began, true to its na, by selling the flesh and breaking the law of temporal causality.

Naturally, a soul that returned to the past could not enter its own body of that era.

That was the price paid for breaking the causality of ti decreed by the divine—one’s own flesh.

For that reason, a soul sent back into the past would enter the body of soone whose breath had just been cut short at that mont where causality had gone awry.

Gender, age, physical ability, financial standing—none of it could be chosen at will.

Perhaps because of such unfavorable restrictions, there existed no record of anyone having successfully cast Flesh Sold, Soul Returned since its creation.

But it did not matter. I was desperate enough not to care about such things.

What was amusing was that while I could not choose the body my own soul would enter upon returning to the past, I could impose conditions on the soul that would enter my body left behind in this era.

That was right.

Even the body I offered up as the price for breaking temporal causality would receive another person’s soul.

According to Flesh Sold, Soul Returned, the number of souls that could exist within a single ti period could not exceed the amount decreed by the divine.

Naturally, as my soul crossed over, that era would gain one extra soul beyond the ordained number.

To correct this, one soul was summoned into the present era.

The soul drawn from the past would then enter my body, which would be left behind here.

It might be confusing, but there was nothing bad about it for that soul either. One who had died would live again.

Even if it was a ti completely different from the one in which they had lived and died. Being alive was surely better than being dead and able to do nothing at all.

Thus, following the complex conditions of Flesh Sold, Soul Returned, I began engraving, one by one, the conditions that would apply to the soul entering my body upon the activated grand spell formation.

Remain calm before death.

I did not wish to see soone who gained my body thrashing about before death.

Do not covet.

The image of myself obsessing over wealth was…… horrifying.

Yet as I continued setting conditions, I realized they were becoming far too similar to myself. Did it really have to be so?

What if it were soone who possessed what I did not?

At the end of that thought, I engraved an impulsive condition onto the grand spell.

Be righteous.

And,

Be courteous.

Leaving behind conditions I myself would never possess even if I died and rose again, I let out a faint chuckle and engraved the final condition onto the spell.

Absolutely…….

Before I could even finish organizing my thoughts about the final condition, the fully activated energy of the grand spell surged over my entire body.

I closed my eyes and entrusted everything to that power.

I died.

No, I had died.

While crying out for chivalry in the na of righteousness and justice, I fought against a demonic foe and was struck by a blade…….

It was not long, but as I glimpsed that distant hidden world filled with severed breath and darkness, I had clearly realized it.

That I was dead!

Well, such things were understood in an instant, crashing over one all at once.

That had certainly been the case, yet now, I was once again alive and whole, breathing and seeing the world.

My throat went dry at this incomprehensible situation. As I turned my gaze in search of water, I spotted a water flask resting on a table so distance away.

At that mont, without realizing it, I reached out my hand.

And…….

The water flask flew through the air and landed in my hand.

I stared blankly for a long mont at the flask that had flown through empty space into my grasp before finally realizing it.

“Huh, Telekinetic Grasp!”

In my lifeti—no, saying it like that felt awkward. My previous life. That should be right, I supposed, since there was no better way to put it…….

Anyway, sothing happened that I could never even have dread of in that previous life.

“Th-this is insane!”

Just like the words I blurted out in shock, it truly was madness.

Forcing myself to calm my startled, ragged breathing, I set the water flask down and spread my hand open.

Smooth, slender fingers completely unlike the thick, rough hands of my previous life imdiately caught my eye.

But that only lasted a mont. Between my fingers, shimring like heat haze, I felt an imnse amount of True Energy wavering and leaking out.

Such dense True Energy that it seeped out of the body—this was sothing I had only ever seen in storybooks.

‘Then… could it be?’

After steadying my breath, I cautiously applied strength to my hand. The True Energy that had been rising like a mirage gathered together and stood up, glowing blue.

“F-Ford Energy!”

It was the term for internal power that flowed outside the body and took on a fixed shape. When wrapped around a sword, it was commonly called Sword Energy; when wrapped around a blade, Blade Energy.

It was my first ti ever attempting Ford Energy, but I had not even known that such vivid Ford Energy could exist.

It was so distinct that it felt as though, if it condensed just a little more, sothing would actually take shape…….

‘Condense more?’

With a half-disbelieving thought of ‘just a little more’…….

“M-my heavens!”

There was no need to even focus my mind. Just by thinking it, the amount of True Energy gathering above my hand skyrocketed.

And then…….

Fwoosh.

Along with a faint sound that gently rang in my ears, the color of the Ford Energy gathered above my hand began to blaze red, as if crimson dye were spreading through it.

“F-Force Energy!”

It was a miracle that I did not faint on the spot.

I once again forced my breathing, rough from shock and excitent, to steady itself.

‘Slowly. Slowly.’

Repeating ‘slowly’ over and over in my mind, I cald my heart and exhaled.

“Huu…….”

With the composure I barely managed to recover, I hurriedly searched for a Bronze Mirror.

I was curious just what kind of person could possess such power.

“Hm…….”

First of all, pale. As if he had been trapped in a cave and never gone outside, his skin was fair and delicate.

“How could a man be this…….”

I forcibly tore my gaze away from the skin and examined his overall appearance.

He looked around the sa age as . Mid-thirties. A sharp jawline, red lips, a high-bridged nose.

Not a great beauty, but a face that would certainly be called handso enough. And the eyes…….

“Hm…….”

The gaze was so cold and savage that a groan slipped out on its own. It was like the eyes of soone desperate to kill.

If there truly were a legendary mass murderer, would he not have eyes like these…….

‘No way!’

The fear that surged up in that instant rapidly cooled my excitent. At the sa ti, a chill ran through , and my head cooled sharply.

The thoughts that had been unable to function properly since I woke up, overwheld by shock and agitation, finally began to turn normally.

But as my head cooled, knowledge that was mine yet not mine suddenly surged into my mind like a wave.

“Huk!”

Like being struck by lightning, realizations pierced through my entire body, starting from my head.

Five days since I opened my eyes in another person’s body.

That was the ti spent engraving into myself knowledge and abilities that felt like mine despite not being mine.

And another unexpected reality I ca to realize was the misalignnt of ti.

“Thirty years…….”

It was the gap between the ti I had died and the present, which I learned early in the morning of the sixth day after waking in this body, by asking a strange martial artist who had brought a letter.

The problem was that these inexplicable circumstances were no longer startling.

“Abnormal…….”

That was right. It was not normal. To wake up in soone else’s body, having skipped ahead thirty years, and yet not feel flustered.

At first, it had not been like this. My heart had nearly leapt out of my throat from shock and confusion.

But after accepting the knowledge that felt like mine yet was not mine…… it changed.

It felt like a nine-year-old child turning overnight into an old man who had experienced everything life could throw at him, leaving nothing left to be surprised or flustered by.

I simply thought, ‘So be it.’ Absurd as it was, that perfectly described my current state.

As I let out a hollow chuckle, my gaze fell on the letter in my hand.

It was the letter left behind by the strange martial artist who had inford of the thirty-year gap.

“What kind of letter would require coming at such an early hour……?”

Curious, I unfolded it. Inside was a short ssage.

I hesitated the entire ti I stared at the letter.

I had inherited everything of this body, but not its mories.

Absurdly enough, I had received the first martial techniques this body had ever learned, the techniques derived from them, even the minute details where mistakes could be made—but none of the mories of living.

Aside from the three characters etched clearly into my mind, ‘Ya. Yul. Han.’, I knew nothing about what position the previous owner of this body held, what he did, how he lived, what his personality was like, or what kind of relationships he had ford.

Even so, I hesitated…… because of the four words attached at the end of the letter.

If there were no exceptions, then I could not refuse to attend.