DDBM Ch 1

Jeon Suyeon stared at the flickering, dimming light of the night pearl.

‘I’m dying.’

His life as the Celestial Demon’s lover was now over.

In his fading, reddened vision, he saw his severed arm lying on the ground. His blackened, dead hand tightly gripped the dagger he always carried, as if it were a lifeline.

Lowering his sluggish gaze, he noticed the emptiness below his waist. His lower body had already been devoured and vanished into the maw of the monster. Only the dull ache he felt with each breath told him he was still alive.

Dozens of monsters had appeared, each scale on their bodies measuring a cheok in size, their forms resembling nine-headed dragons.

This joint monster sealing had failed.

‘So this is how… I die.’

The joint monster lair first appeared in the Central Plains a hundred years ago, and within it lurked the monsters. If they weren’t eradicated within four days, the monsters escaping from the opened lair would slaughter and devour the people.

And now, with the sealing failed, countless senior disciples, junior disciples, and even his master had all been killed by the monsters.

His senior brother’s chest had been ripped open, spilling blood; his close friend’s head had been severed. His master had dissolved into nothingness, his flesh and bones melted by the monster’s venom. Most died without even a scream, and those who barely survived became the monsters’ prey.

The only reason Jeon Suyeon was still alive was because he was a Lunar Person, possessing the highest compatibility with the Celestial Demon. He had survived at the cost of everyone else’s lives, a necessity for the Celestial Demon.

“Suyeon… You’re still… alive.”

At that moment, amidst the bloody carnage, a handsome face with a hint of beige appeared before his eyes.

The Celestial Demon, Ki Yooshin.

Relief and sorrow simultaneously flashed across Suyeon’s face.

‘At least I hope the Cult Leader survives.’

After that, Suyeon couldn’t hear the Celestial Demon’s voice. Only his chillingly cold expression remained, flickering like a shadow in his blurred vision.

At the same time, his internal organs began to burn as if on fire, and his heart swelled and expanded.

‘This is…’

When a Solar Person forcibly absorbs the internal energy of a Lunar Person, the Qi and blood flow within the body fluctuate wildly, and the pain he was feeling now was precisely that sensation.

It seemed the rampaging Celestial Demon, having found a still-living Lunar Person, was trying to seize even the little remaining internal energy.

‘Ha… Huuh.’

Were there still tears left to shed? Hot tears streamed down his cheeks. Simultaneously, his life flashed before his eyes.

From his desolate childhood as an orphan with nothing, to his years as the Celestial Demon’s lover. He had served him with all his heart, yet now, just to survive, the Demon was killing him so cruelly. A deep sense of betrayal made his teeth clench, his stomach churning.

Even when the monster ripped off his arm, it hadn’t been this painful. The agony of his muscles and nerves melting made him want to go insane. As the silent darkness, swallowing even his screams, enveloped Suyeon, his mind began to cloud, the line between the anger and sorrow of betrayal blurring.

‘If you’re going to kill me, just kill me cleanly! Did you have to do it like this?!’

Grief and resentment transformed into hatred and rage towards the Celestial Demon.

‘You said the full moon, Dongryeo, and I were your immortal lovers….’

Jeon Suyeon’s twenty-nine years, short or long depending on perspective, ended at the hands of his lover, the Celestial Demon. And on the cold, hard stone floor, no less.