Tribulation Heaven (8)
The mantra for the Heavenly Person realm unfolds as follows.
Early Heavenly Person: Will of the Immortal, Standing Firm.
Mid Heavenly Person: Undeluded by Heaven’s Mandate.
Late Heavenly Person: Heaven’s Flow, Heart’s Accord.
Heavenly Person Grand Completion: Heaven’s Circle.
If a Nascent Soul first appears in the world as an infant, then from the Heavenly Person stage onward the Nascent Soul begins to merge with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
It is the realm in which one directly experiences the storms of the world through that same energy.
Therefore, from the Heavenly Person stage the Nascent Soul undergoes a fundamental change.
The purest infant form of spiritual power transforms and “grows” according to the cycle of birth, aging, sickness, and death.
Though called Early Heavenly Person, the stage is properly divided into the transitional “Will of the Immortal” and the true early stage “Standing Firm.”
In Will of the Immortal, one is born as a cultivator and sets the heart upon the immortal path.
The Nascent Soul’s form grows from infant to youth.
From Standing Firm the Nascent Soul becomes sturdy enough to leave the body and act independently, maturing from youth to young adult.
This symbolizes the beginning of the cycle of life and death; if life is a season, it is spring.
The mid stage likewise splits into “Undeluded” and “Knowing Heaven’s Mandate.”
In Undeluded the Nascent Soul’s form perfectly matches the cultivator’s true body, the moment when one’s vitality reaches its peak.
In Knowing Heaven’s Mandate vitality slightly declines, yet the ability to pierce heavenly secrets reaches its zenith, granting short-term foresight.
The Nascent Soul ages from young adult to middle age.
This symbolizes the transitional period of life and death; if life is a season, it is summer.
Late Heavenly Person.
Heaven’s Flow opens the ears to the voice of the heavens.
The expression is merely figurative; in truth the very sense that reads heavenly secrets blooms one stage further.
The Nascent Soul’s form becomes elderly.
This is autumn, the season of confirming the fruits harvested throughout life.
Heart’s Accord means the “heart” accumulated through the Heavenly Person stage has reached its extreme.
Madness has peaked, allowing one to faintly influence heavenly secrets.
Will alone can twist the phenomena of heaven and earth, becoming a natural disaster in itself.
The Nascent Soul’s form stands at the brink of death—this is winter, the end of the season.
Thus, completing the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter across the early, mid, and late stages allows the seasons to cycle endlessly.
Qi Condensation lays the foundation of cultivation.
Foundation Establishment creates the star.
Core Formation paints the sky.
Nascent Soul creates night and day, forming a single “day.”
Heavenly Person creates the four seasons, shaping the endless flow and “cycle” of that day.
Once the foundation of circulation is complete, the final step arrives.
Reaching Heavenly Person Grand Completion—Heaven’s Circle—attains the minor realm of containing the heavens within the body.
In a word, completing one’s own heaven as a cultivator is precisely the Heavenly Person stage.
That is why it is also called the stage of Unity Between Heaven and Man.
Following the Heaven’s Circle achieved through that unity.
The Four Pillars stage erects four pillars, forming the Four Divine Beasts and Four Directions, thereby creating the orientation of earth.
The circle of heaven.
The orientation of earth.
Heaven Round, Earth Square.
After forming Heaven Round and Earth Square through the Heavenly Person and Four Pillars stages, one turns oneself into a miniature world.
Then, through the process of Unity Between Heaven and Earth that fully merges the circle of heaven and the square of earth, one reaches the Integration stage.
Heaven-and-earth spiritual energy connects inside and outside the body.
At the same time, I realized that the spiritual energy of heaven and earth around me moved freely according to my will.
“I’m going.”
Countless Heavenly Person cultivators are held back at this stage.
It is not a realm solved simply by swallowing many pills and crudely gathering heaven-and-earth spiritual energy.
Rather, even Heavenly Person cultivators reach the mid stage with relative ease.
Because reproducing their own prime through the Nascent Soul is exactly what the mid stage entails.
Yet they do not know.
The feeling of looking back on one’s life at its end.
The feeling of seeing one’s life flash before one’s eyes at the brink of death.
Because the Heavenly Person stage grants such an unimaginably long lifespan, few besides those whose lives are nearly spent truly understand the autumn and winter of existence.
Yeon Wi judged me a Heavenly Person Grand Completion merely by the size of my madness, but she was mistaken.
“I understand…”
Not only the memories of my childhood.
Even when I reached the peak of life.
Even when I looked back upon life in its latter half.
Even when I faced the winter of my life at the very brink of death.
Because I was the wretched one who died of a cold on a winter day, spouting the words of a civilized person from Earth, I could understand precisely because of that.
Interestingly, the beginning and end of a human life resemble each other greatly.
When death approaches, the body shrinks like an infant’s, and the mind grows as simple as a child’s.
The only difference is that an infant emerges from a human mother’s embrace, while an elder returns to the embrace of Mother Earth.
Yet if one recalls the essence, they are the same.
Every living being emerges from the womb of life and returns to nature, the source of life.
Thus, this world eternally circulates.
Wuuuung!
A circle formed within me.
At the same time my Nascent Soul endlessly shifted forms—from infant to youth, young adult, middle age, old age, and the state of death—before finally returning to its original infant shape.
It circulates.
This is Heaven’s Circle.
Wuuuung!
That the core enlightenment reached at the pinnacle of the Heavenly Person stage should be the memories of an ordinary mortal—I felt a strange irony as I drew upon the power of the circle.
Behind my head, heaven-and-earth spiritual energy circulated and formed a circular halo.
At the same moment the heavenly tribulation above changed, and within it another tribulation of the Heavenly Person level began to form.
The tribulation that raises one from Nascent Soul to Heavenly Person consists of five bolts.
From early to mid Heavenly Person, ten bolts.
From mid to late, fifteen bolts.
From late to Grand Completion, twenty bolts in total.
And I had become a Heavenly Person Grand Completion in a single leap.
Then how many bolts of tribulation would fall upon me?
“…Tremendous.”
Kurururung!
Fifty bolts in all.
Moreover, they were divided into azure and golden tribulations…
“…One hundred? Hahaha…”
I grinned and drew up even more power.
Just now I had reached the Heavenly Person stage through the Heaven Race’s art.
Now it was the Earth Race art’s turn.
The Blue Spirit Star Light Five-Color Great Law began to roar.
The core principle of the Earth Race art was similar to the Heaven Race’s.
However, from the Heavenly Person stage onward the Earth Race art begins its explosions from each individual cell of the cultivator.
Kwagwagwang!
My entire body explodes.
By detonating each cell and resonating their vitality with the Nascent Soul, the aging of the cells is imprinted upon the Nascent Soul.
Once every aspect of life—birth, aging, sickness, death—is imprinted upon the Nascent Soul through the cells, one reaches the same Heaven’s Circle as the Heaven Race and attains Heavenly Person Grand Completion.
For the Earth Race it was even easier.
The memories of the time when I had “aged” as a mortal remained vivid in my mind.
The memory of this soul, of hands covered in wrinkled skin, was far too clear.
Chwarararak!
Within the heavenly tribulation I grew, became a young adult, then elderly, then took the form of one on the verge of death.
Then I returned once more to my original form.
Thus I replenished my Nascent Soul through the Earth Race art as well.
Zuuuung—
Demonic energy settled into the circular halo behind my head.
Heaven, Earth, Mind.
The Three Powers had reached the Heavenly Person.
Kwarurung!
I looked upon the hundred bolts of tribulation falling toward me and simply extended my hand.
Jeo-eong!
All hundred bolts exploded at once.
I no longer feared heavenly tribulation.
An indescribable confidence, an endless power, seemed to well up from within.
Peong, peobeobeong!
I thrust the Colorless Glass Sword toward the sky.
With each thrust, exactly one bolt of tribulation burst apart.
Peong, peong, peong!
Again and again and again.
Thrusting, thrusting, thrusting.
Peobeobeobeong!
Thus I detonated every one of the hundred bolts.
“Now…”
I am a complete Heavenly Person.
Just as I thought this—
“Wait…”
Kiiiiing—
A strange sensation swept through my mind.
At the same time I felt the energies of Heaven, Earth, and Mind—which until now had been loosely intertwined—merge into one, completely.
“What is this!?”
The symbol of Heavenly Person Grand Completion that had risen behind my head.
Into the circle of the halo flowed spiritual power, demonic power, and the energy of the Invisible Sword.
At the same moment the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Mind achieved perfect harmony within the circle and drew the Triple Taiji!
Cheolkeong!
“…Aah…”
I feel it.
Right now.
Within the Heavenly Person stage, the Three Powers have achieved perfect harmony.
At the same time, upon obtaining the Triple Taiji, I felt as though I myself were being completed, regardless of the cultivation process or the amount of power gained.
And simultaneously—
Kwarurung!
I felt a volcanic force erupt from my entire body.
“I see.”
I stopped attacking the sky.
Kwajijijijik!
The characters of Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder that had risen from Kim Young-hoon’s body strengthened the disciples of the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect and reinforced the Consoling Lightning Festival they performed, reducing the current tribulation’s power from Integration Grand Completion to early Integration level.
Yet even at early Integration level it exceeded what Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon could withstand, and as I ceased resisting, the tribulation began to fall.
“Seo, Seo Eun-hyun! What are you doing…!”
“…!”
Jeon Myeong-hoon shouted at me, while Kim Young-hoon flinched as though sensing something upon looking at me.
I formed a hand seal.
“Until now I have only crudely created new stances for the Danak Sword Art.”
But today I grasped the new completed form of the Danak Sword Art.
The Danak Sword Art will ultimately be completed with a total of thirty-six stances.
Danak Sword Art.
Twenty-ninth Stance.
“Great Thousand Path to the Other Shore.”
If One Destruction Leading to This Shore is a self-destructive technique that loads the Nascent Soul into the sword and “explodes” it, then Great Thousand Path to the Other Shore loads heaven-and-earth spiritual energy into the sword through the power of the Heavenly Person stage, exploding it over a thousand times per second while containing every ounce of my strength through Ocean of Righteousness, Mountain of Grace.
Because the explosions of my Nascent Soul and heaven-and-earth spiritual energy are continuous, if I do not ceaselessly swing the sword and release the explosive force outward, my Nascent Soul will be shattered by the blast—a technique that stakes one’s life.
A sword dance that cannot be stopped until every trace of qi in the body is exhausted, aside from vitality itself!
“Seven more stances remain.”
Having created Great Thousand Path to the Other Shore, once I fill the remaining seven pieces the sword flow of the Danak Sword Art will be complete.
Anticipating that moment, I poured every bit of the volcanic power erupting from the Triple Taiji into my sword.
The reason I created such a dangerous technique—one that requires ceaselessly squeezing every drop of qi from the body without rest—was singular.
“Rest for now, both of you.”
Because my entire body felt as though it would explode from the volcanic power gushing from the Triple Taiji.
Buung!
Through the twenty-second stance of Danak I performed an endless sword dance.
Seureureung!
With a single swing of the sword, a force akin to the Heavenly Overturning Emperor advanced as though to cleave the sky.
Kwagwagwang!
The sword qi collided with the heavenly tribulation as though to split the sky itself.
The vast majority of the falling tribulation was halted by this single strike and fell no further.
I continued the endless sword dance.
Kwang, kwang, jeo-eong!
Light flashed, and the tribulation began to vanish bit by bit.
Yet I did not stop.
[Graaaah!]
At this moment.
I was a living volcano.
Power erupted endlessly, as though infinite.
Bearing the Triple Taiji upon my back, I unleashed Danak without end.
Kwarurung!
With each massive sword qi I sent forth, dozens of spatial rifts appeared in the sky.
With every strike the sky literally split, and the tribulation shattered into pieces.
Mountain Beyond Mountain, Entering the Mountain, Ascending the Veins, Wandering the Peaks…
Layer upon layer of mountains, heroes among mountains…
Mountain Beyond Mountain is Endless, Foolish Old Man Moves Mountains, Ocean of Righteousness Mountain of Grace, One Destruction Leading to This Shore, Concealing the Path, Diamond Ten Thousand Two Thousand, Great Thousand Path to the Other Shore…
Countless sword stances continued.
And all of them combined into a single strike.
Danak!
Flash!
The sword tip scorched the void and poured forth every stance at once.
At the same moment the sword strike became a beam of light, a sword wind greater even than the tribulation, and began to devour it.
Kugugugu!
The sight of the tribulation shattering was almost unreal.
“Huu…”
Power still overflowed.
The tribulation appeared to have vanished.
Yet I knew.
The malice left by the master of heavenly punishment would never end with something so trivial.
“Still remains.”
In the sky, heavenly secrets remained twisted.
As long as those heavenly secrets and that heavenly mandate remained.
The tribulation would continue to target us.
Kurung, kururung!
As though proving my thought correct.
From the sky where I had swept away the tribulation, heavenly secrets rippled once more and began producing new tribulation.
“Jeon Myeong-hoon, Young-hoon hyung-nim. I will deliver the final strike.”
I spoke to the two of them, eyes blazing.
“With that I will deal with the heavenly secrets, so please hold back the tribulation for a moment.”
“…”
“Haha, well. I shall give it a try.”
Jeon Myeong-hoon could not continue speaking, seemingly overwhelmed by the volcanic power I radiated, while Kim Young-hoon chuckled and nodded.
Tadat!
The two leapt toward the sky and each struck at the falling tribulation.
Kururung!
At the same time the tribulation split.
“…Hm?”
Yet I suddenly furrowed my brow.
The tribulation was strange.
It moved as though alive, dodging Jeon Myeong-hoon and Kim Young-hoon.
“That’s…!”
I let out a hollow laugh.
Indeed.
Though it had not pursued us to the Water Realm, I could feel it.
The master of heavenly punishment…
No.
Jeong-ryeo!
That malice was undoubtedly Jeong-ryeo’s.
The intricate movements of the lightning power closely resembled the way Jeong-ryeo manipulated electricity within the brain, so there was no doubt.
Yes.
Jeong-ryeo’s malice had seeped into the tribulation, intending to veer away from the “strong” us and fall instead upon the “relatively weaker” disciples of the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect.
Jeon Myeong-hoon was flustered, yet the tribulation was already falling.
Just as I was about to abandon the final strike and sweep the surroundings once more—
Wuuung!
From the sky a massive yin-yang shape emerged and blocked the malice of Jeong-ryeo that had been scattering in all directions.
Kugugugu!
At the same time, from the direction where Yeon Wi’s soul had been flung, she rose.
“Hwaaaah!”
Wearing Yeon-jin’s body, she bled from the seven orifices and blocked the tribulation scattering in every direction.
Yet in the next moment the tribulation moved once more as though alive and concentrated upon Yeon Wi.
The Taiji shape she had summoned crumbled, exposing her to the tribulation.
Pajijik!
Flash!
Red lightning and golden saber light flashed on either side of me, and Kim Young-hoon and Jeon Myeong-hoon arrived beside me once more.
Jeon Myeong-hoon spoke.
“Seo Eun-hyun, please! Say it’s ready!”
“…Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
I looked at him.
And I looked at Kim Young-hoon.
“Young-hoon hyung-nim.”
Grin.
I grinned and spoke.
“First let’s save that one, then deliver the final strike.”
Having heard the plan through heart voice, Kim Young-hoon nodded.
“Understood.”
“Good. Then let’s go!”
In the next moment, having received my intent, Kim Young-hoon became a beam of light and seized the napes of Jeon Myeong-hoon and myself.
Paaat!
Kim Young-hoon became light.
With a sensation as though time itself had been severed, Jeon Myeong-hoon and I found ourselves already held by Kim Young-hoon and inside the tribulation.
“Go!”
Kim Young-hoon infused power into the Radiant Light Path upon our bodies and hurled us upward—toward where Yeon-jin’s body was.
Yet the tribulation was falling from above, and we had to ascend.
No matter how we wore the Radiant Light Path, we began to halt at some point.
[Jeon Myeong-hoon.]
I spoke through spirit speech and looked at him.
[Go.]
I clasped my hands together on the spot, and Jeon Myeong-hoon, realizing my intent, lit up his eyes.
[…Thank you.]
Pajik!
Jeon Myeong-hoon stepped upon my clasped hands, and after I clad his body in the Invisible Sword I flung my clasped hands upward.
The recoil sent me plummeting downward, falling even below Kim Young-hoon.
Clad in the sword, he ascended and arrived where Yeon Wi was.
[This time… I won’t let you die…!]
Blood vessels bulged in his eyes.
[Never! No one!]
Embracing Yeon Wi tightly, Jeon Myeong-hoon cried out with a frenzied expression.
[I won’t let anyone touch my family!]
Kwajijijik!
At the same time the red lightning rising from Jeon Myeong-hoon’s entire body became six hands and began devouring the tribulation falling toward Yeon Wi and himself.
Kwajijijik!
The tribulation was entirely absorbed into Jeon Myeong-hoon.
A bizarre sight in which the countless bolts of tribulation were consumed solely by him.
Yet the tribulation I had once erased reappeared, its power slightly weakened.
Now the tribulation’s power began to rise once more.
And from beneath the earth I drew up the power I had been preparing all this time.
The power of destruction I had accumulated through endless use of Foolish Old Man Moves Mountains spewed forth a pitch-black aura of death.
That aura of death resonated with the Yin Soul Ghost Curse.
“Huuu…”
Hong Beom had called my curse a curse poison.
And Jeong-ryeo had said that if one elevates the mind to the rank of fate, curses do not work.
That meant curses elevated to the rank of fate do work, and the calamity of Myeolsin Geopcheon was a kind of curse at the rank of fate.
Moreover, it was a poison that acted upon destiny.
What is poison?
Poison is “excess.”
In this world, in truth, “poison” does not exist.
Only “excess” and “deficiency” exist.
And everything excessive becomes poison.
Ordinary poison, bacteria, medicine, sugar, salt—even oxygen.
Excess becomes poison.
The same holds for qi.
And cultivators, who gather heaven-and-earth spiritual energy far beyond ordinary living beings, are powerful poisons from heaven’s perspective, hence the purification that is heavenly tribulation.
Yet have you never thought this?
We are poison to heaven.
But heaven may also be poison to us.
If the gathering of powerful force is poison and thus heaven sends tribulation to purify it.
Then why can we not purify the incomparably powerful force that is destiny?
If heaven sends us tribulation, why can we not send tribulation to heaven?
“O heaven.”
Kugugugu—
“I.”
I activated Myeolsin Geopcheon.
Yet this time it differed from the original Myeolsin Geopcheon.
The original Myeolsin Geopcheon used sacrificial offerings to move heavenly secrets and bring down heaven’s calamity.
This Myeolsin Geopcheon makes “heaven” the sacrificial offering, turning “me” into the calamity directed at heaven.
“I shall become your tribulation!”
Of course this can only be symbolic.
Whether I declare heaven the sacrificial offering and myself the calamity, in the end I have no power to affect heaven.
Before heaven I was merely an insect.
Yet that was enough.
As a result of the ritual, at this very moment.
The rank of fate opened.
For a single instant!
[Receive it!]
For a single instant!
Path-Crossing Tribulation-Heaven!
The Invisible Sword surpasses rank and, in this single instant, reaches the rank of fate!
I soared toward the sky, passing Kim Young-hoon, passing Jeon Myeong-hoon who embraced Yeon-jin, scorching the tribulation and tearing through space as Tribulation Heaven.
I felt the volcanic power that had filled my entire body being completely consumed by this single strike.
“―――――!”
Indescribable pain filled my body.
“Please, please!”
A strike close to a gamble!
Indeed, no matter how much one offers, can a mortal body reach the rank of fate!?
Yet at that moment—
Kwajik, kwajijijik!
Suddenly I saw a vision.
A shadow surrounded by seven-colored lightning, shedding tears of blood, seemed to push me forward from beyond Shattered Heaven Peak.
In the next moment I felt something shove my back, and I “entered” somewhere.
Kugugugugu!
Thus, even as my entire body burst apart, I ascended.
Pouring forth every bit of the shock force accumulated through Foolish Old Man Moves Mountains and every curse, sharpening my will to become poison and send tribulation to heaven!
And finally, I reached a world so vast and immense that it cannot be described in words, and upon arriving there at last, I swung toward the source of the tribulation!
Flash!
“…!”
Whoooosh—
When I came to my senses, I realized I was falling from the sky.
With not a single trace of power left in my body.
Falling in that state, I looked at the sky and grinned.
“Destiny…”
Do you see, O heaven?
This lowly one.
“Has cut it…”
Whoooosh—
I have defeated you.
Of course, having squeezed out every ounce of power from my body.
If I fell like this I would die.
Yet I held no worry that I would meet such a miserable end by falling.
“Seo Eun-hyun!”
“Seo Eun-hyun!”
Kim Young-hoon and Jeon Myeong-hoon flew toward me simultaneously, caught my falling body, and descended to Shattered Heaven Peak.
“…It’s over.”
Bathed in blood, I looked at the sky and chuckled.
The sky was filled with spatial rifts, split in every direction by my sword strike.
Yet the heavenly secrets visible between those rifts had already returned to normal.
As I gazed at the sky.
Yeon Wi, who had been tucked under Jeon Myeong-hoon’s arm, stirred.
“Uh, uh… Where is this? Jeon… No, Geum Myeong-hun sa-hyung?”
Yet Yeon Wi fell asleep once more; it was Yeon-jin who had awakened.
Looking up at Jeon Myeong-hoon, Yeon-jin spoke.
“Ugh, sa-hyung. Could you put me down, please?”
“…”
Jeon Myeong-hoon looked down at Yeon-jin, then suddenly began to shed tears.
He set Yeon-jin down, then abruptly embraced him.
“Kwaaaaaah!”
A scream filled with grief, resentment, and relief burst forth from the depths of Jeon Myeong-hoon.
“Hwaaaah! Aaaah! Aaaaaah!!!”
“H-hwa! S-sa-hyung?”
Though flustered, Yeon-jin somehow comforted Jeon Myeong-hoon, who cried out to me while shedding hot tears.
“Seo Eun-hyun!!!”
“…What… is it.”
“…I’m sorry.”
Drip, drip drip drip drip…
Once more realizing that his sect had been destroyed.
Jeon Myeong-hoon cried endlessly and shouted.
“I’m sorry, Seo Eun-hyun. I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I’m sorry!!! And…”
That apology was not directed solely at me.
It was an apology offered to his family who had died, whom he had failed to protect.
At the same time it was an apology for having doubted me.
For a while he remained buried in Yeon-jin’s chest, sobbing.
“Still… many emotions remain unquenched.”
I watched Jeon Myeong-hoon’s intent for a time, then caught my breath.
Even though heaven’s punishment had ended, human emotions remained.
“…Jeon Myeong-hoon.”
His intent was bleak.
A terrible vortex of the abyss where dark red, red, and dark blue—every negative intent—mingled.
Perhaps no one else would even dare to comfort him upon seeing that abyss.
They would not know how.
Yet I quietly opened my mouth.
“It is not your fault.”
Whether true or not.
Recalling the time I had lost everything to Won Rip, I looked at Jeon Myeong-hoon about to enter the same abyss I had once known.
Perhaps the only one here who could understand his anger was me.
“It is not… your fault.”
Spitting out a mouthful of blood, I chuckled.
“It’s just… that the world is… messed up. So…”
Looking at Jeon Myeong-hoon’s intent, I continued.
“Forgive yourself, Jeon Myeong-hoon…”
When a person is driven mad by anger, by madness and pain.
I know best how miserable that makes one, so it is a comfort I can offer.
And Jeon Myeong-hoon’s intent began to settle.
He slowly raised his head, slowly.
And quietly answered.
“…You don’t understand how I feel either.”
“I know.”
People cannot understand one another.
No matter how close, no matter how similar the experiences.
Because we are others, we cannot become one another.
Yet.
“Still…”
He raised his head, tears streaming.
“…Thank you.”
Crunch…
He embraced Yeon-jin even more tightly, his tear-streaked face twisting as he spoke.
“Thank you, truly thank you. Truly… thank you!”
Though Yeon-jin seemed to have trouble breathing and coughed, Jeon Myeong-hoon paid no heed and held him, while Kim Young-hoon watched and laughed heartily.
What that thanks meant.
Thanks to me, thanks that I, Yeon-jin, and everyone in the Golden Divine Heavenly Thunder Sect had survived.
Thanks for his own situation…
“There are many meanings, but… what does it matter.”
“…Yeah.”
After answering him.
Bathed in blood, I smiled and closed my eyes.
Thus we.
Overcame the destiny sent by the master of heavenly punishment.
“That’s enough…”
“Seo, Seo Eun-hyun? Don’t die!”
“Wait, Deputy Seo?”
This, my eighteenth regression…
“Seo Eun-hyun!!! Don’t die!!!”
“No!!! Wait!”
…was what I thought.
Whoosh!
Spitting blood from my mouth, I spoke.
“…I’m… not… dead… yet…”
Cough, cough…
Somehow, I had a feeling this life would be quite long.
With that premonition and a smile, I lost consciousness at the sight of the two rushing toward me in alarm to check my condition.
* * *
Kurung, kururung…
[This is the place reached by Terminating Ones who have not realized fate, through a miraculous probability…]
I opened my eyes.
A space filled with seven-colored lightning.
There, I saw a familiar afterimage and opened my mouth.
“…Yang Su-jin.”