Chapter 292: The Heavenly Demon’s Staircase

Victor and Rakshasa stood at the foot of the long staircase leading toward the highest reaches of Heavenly Demon Mountain.

From down there, it looked far worse than Victor had imagined.

The steps were wide, made of dark, almost black stone, and continued up the mountain until they disappeared among the mist and rocky formations. Small inscriptions were engraved along the sides and at certain points on the ground, but none of them emitted light or showed any obvious activity. If Rakshasa hadn’t explained it beforehand, Victor probably would have believed it was simply an ancient, excessively long staircase built to make disciples suffer during the climb.

He slipped his hands into his pockets and studied the path for a few seconds.

"I’m going to give it a try for a while," Victor remarked, measuring the distance to the first landings and trying to imagine how fifteen thousand times normal gravity could even work without turning someone into a bloody smear. "I’ll meet up with you afterward."

Rakshasa remained beside him, looking first at the staircase and then at Victor.

"Don’t overdo it," she replied, crossing her arms, knowing his personality well enough to understand that the request probably wouldn’t accomplish much. "If you reach a point where your body actually starts giving out, come back down. That formation doesn’t care how stubborn you are."

Victor smirked.

"I can always regenerate," he remarked, placing one foot on the first step and testing the sensation before actually beginning.

Rakshasa sighed.

"That’s exactly the kind of thing that makes me have to tell you not to overdo it," she replied, shaking her head. "I’m going to find my father. I want to ask whether my mother has said anything about when she’ll come out of secluded training."

Victor nodded.

"If she’s coming out today, let me know," he replied, finally shifting his full weight onto the first step. "I really want to talk to her."

Rakshasa gave a small gesture of acknowledgment and began walking away.

"Just try not to die before then," she remarked, heading back down the side path leading toward the Cult’s main buildings. "It would be inconvenient to explain to my mother that my man turned himself into minced meat trying to reach her."

Victor raised one hand without looking back.

"Trust me," he replied, already focusing his attention on the staircase’s energy.

Rakshasa chuckled softly.

"That’s another problem," she murmured as she continued walking, disappearing among the buildings shortly afterward.

Victor was alone.

Or almost.

He took the second step.

The difference was immediate.

It wasn’t merely a sensation of additional weight on his shoulders. The pressure affected his entire body uniformly, pulling his muscles, bones, blood, and even internal organs downward. His center of gravity seemed to change with every step, forcing him to constantly readjust his posture.

Victor took the third step.

Then the fourth.

By the fifth, he was beginning to understand what Rakshasa had meant.

"Okay," Victor muttered, rolling one shoulder as he felt the pressure increase again. "This is really going to get annoying."

He raised his eyes toward the staircase.

For an instant, a simple idea crossed his mind.

Jump.

There was no rule saying he had to step on every single stair. If he skipped twenty or thirty at once, he could save quite a bit of time.

Victor stared upward.

Then he imagined landing fifty steps ahead, being struck by an absurd increase in pressure all at once, and simply having his body crushed against the ground without being able to generate enough strength to lift even a finger.

"Yeah," he murmured, abandoning the idea almost immediately. "That would be a pretty stupid way to get stuck."

Victor sighed and resumed walking.

"One at a time," he added, placing his foot on the next step.

Fafnir materialized beside him shortly afterward.

As a spiritual projection bound to Gram, she didn’t seem to suffer from the formation at all. While Victor was already beginning to feel the increasing pressure on his leg muscles, Fafnir walked beside him as though she were strolling through a garden.

She looked at the staircase.

Then at the inscriptions.

Then at the surrounding mountains.

"This thing is quite a treasure," Fafnir remarked, her golden eyes following several lines of energy that Victor could barely perceive.

Victor stepped onto another stair and felt his knees protest for the first time.

"A staircase is a treasure?" he asked, continuing to climb without slowing down.

Fafnir made a small face.

"Not the staircase," she replied, pointing toward one of the symbols engraved along the side. "The formation surrounding it."

Victor glanced toward where she was pointing.

To him, it looked like nothing more than an ancient line carved into the stone.

"Can you understand it?" he asked, concentrating his senses more carefully as he tried to perceive the mana circulation hidden within the structure.

"More or less," Fafnir replied, leaning forward slightly to examine one of the inscriptions. "But whoever designed this knew exactly what they were doing."

Victor took another step.

The pressure increased.

His foot sank a few millimeters into the stone.

"Because it increases gravity?" he asked, forcing his body forward once again.

Fafnir shook her head.

"Because it isn’t simply increasing gravity," she explained, following beside him effortlessly. "If it did that indiscriminately, the mountain itself would start suffering along with you. This formation identifies whoever enters its area, isolates the target, and concentrates the pressure on them."

Victor became a little more interested.

"So each person experiences their own individual pressure?" he asked, reaching the next step and noticing that his breathing was beginning to grow slightly deeper.

Fafnir nodded.

"Exactly," she replied, running her hand along one of the stone pillars beside the staircase. "Furthermore, it adjusts the force gradually. It doesn’t release all the energy at once. It seems to have been built by a genuinely talented magical engineer."

Victor smiled.

"I’ll ask Rakshasa who built it," he remarked, advancing another step. "Maybe I can steal a few ideas from here."

Fafnir gave him a look.

"You’re inside your wife’s family home, and you’re already thinking about stealing formations?" she asked, seeming simultaneously surprised and entirely unsurprised.

Victor shrugged.

"Learning isn’t stealing," he replied, feeling a small crack form beneath his foot as he advanced. "If I copy it exactly afterward, then we can discuss it."

Fafnir chuckled and continued accompanying him.

The ascent continued at an unhurried pace.

Victor soon realized that the staircase wouldn’t allow him to maintain his speed for long. Every new step required his body to adapt to the previous pressure before receiving the next increase. At first, it was almost comfortable. Then it began to grow heavy. A few more steps, and muscles that normally didn’t need to work so hard began participating in every movement.

And that was still only the beginning.

Some time later, Rakshasa was walking calmly through the main courtyard of the Demonic Cult.

The place was bustling with activity. Disciples trained on stone platforms, several masters discussed techniques near the buildings along the sides, and smaller groups crossed the pathways carrying weapons, documents, or crates of materials. Rakshasa passed among them without any hurry, receiving discreet bows that she acknowledged with nothing more than small nods.

She was looking for her father.

Actually, she wanted to accomplish two things.

First, discover whether Seo Baek Hyang had given any indication of when she would end her secluded training.

Second, convince Yu Jin Cheon to prevent Victor from doing something stupid if he decided to turn the staircase into a personal competition against the mountain itself.

Rakshasa knew that man.

If he reached his limit, Victor would probably think something like just ten more steps until one of his bones broke.

She crossed the courtyard, climbed a short flight of steps, and entered the main hall without announcing her presence.

"Daddy, I need you to help me get that old hag down from the summit, or Victor is going to kill himself climbing those stairs—" Rakshasa began, already speaking as she entered, completely accustomed to treating the place as an extension of her own home.

"That old hag can hear you."

A female voice answered from somewhere ahead, interrupting her sentence so calmly that Rakshasa stopped immediately.

She froze.

Her eyes slowly moved.

Then she found the source of the voice.

Seo Baek Hyang was sitting beside Yu Jin Cheon.

The former Heavenly Demon held a small teacup in one hand, drinking peacefully while her long black hair cascaded down her back. Her dark hanfu was perfectly arranged, and her expression was so serene that anyone who didn’t know her could easily believe nothing was wrong.

Rakshasa knew her mother.

She looked at her father.

Yu Jin Cheon didn’t look well at all.

A thin layer of sweat covered the side of his face.

His posture was far too rigid.

The hand holding his drink had remained in the same position long enough to make it clear that he wasn’t even drinking.

Rakshasa narrowed her eyes.

Stupid old man, she thought, quickly trying to assess the situation. What did he do this time to piss her off?

Seo Baek Hyang placed her teacup on the table.

Slowly.

Rakshasa immediately smiled.

"Mother, what a surprise to see you—" she began, opening her arms slightly, deciding that acting like a loving daughter was probably the best strategy available.

Something passed beside her face.

Rakshasa didn’t even see the sword being drawn.

A thin line appeared on her cheek.

A single trickle of blood slowly ran down her skin.

She stopped speaking.

Yu Jin Cheon closed his eyes.

Seo Baek Hyang remained seated.

The sword was already back in its sheath beside her, as though it had never been drawn.

"An insolent daughter who moans like a whore and disturbs her own mother’s rest," Seo Baek Hyang said, picking up her teacup again, her voice so gentle that it only made the situation worse. "What am I supposed to do with you?"