The Damaged Ones (1)
Whoosh—
I had grown into a move at the level where it was enough to carve through an entire region.
Even after exploding with the terrifying power of that move, Seo Hyul appeared right behind me, grinning with a smirk.
“What’s this? Again?”
I asked, staring at the guy.
Back then I would have been on edge, worried about falling prey to his Takhonmancheon.
But now it no longer scared me.
Seo Hyul seemed to sense that as well, and he was openly using Takhonmancheon to try to brainwash me.
[Haha, how interesting. You used to be such a good person… It’s truly pitiful how you’ve changed.]
His words made my eyebrows twitch.
It was just another probing remark.
But he was right.
My heart was nothing but ash.
My soul was only a remnant of charred coal.
Why did Takhonmancheon no longer frighten me?
Because I had gained Purple Soul Filling the Heavens?
Or the Dharma-Destroying True Word?
Or the possibility of the Imperial Emperor’s Decree?
All of those were merely external factors.
The truth was simple.
I had become damaged enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Goe-gun and Seo Hyul.
“Shut your mouth and tell me why you came. You’re just a leech who can’t see in front of his face now.”
Whoosh!
I swatted my hand and severed Seo Hyul.
Yet even though he was cut down in one stroke, he shimmered and reappeared somewhere else.
Projection? No, that doesn’t feel right… the feeling is far too vivid.
In the spot where Seo Hyul had been, his corpse still lay.
But I suddenly realized the corpse’s condition was strange.
I understood the principle behind why he kept appearing like a scarecrow around me.
“The corpse is nothing but qi and yin-yang fluctuations.”
Everything in the world flows through qi, soul, and name.
Even lifeless matter.
There are white in soil, souls in mountains, spirits in stars.
Even things without life exist on the soul level.
And as seen with the Star Vein Eye, everything also flows on the name level.
Yet before me, I saw only qi yin-yang flows composing Seo Hyul’s corpse.
“Oh Hye-seo. She lent you her power so you could send a projection with her strength, didn’t she?”
Definitely Oh Hye-seo’s power.
Seo Hyul smiled faintly.
[As expected, from Seo Do-wu. Correct. She did help me.]
“If you were coming anyway, why didn’t you bring Oh Hye-seo? Her personality, she wouldn’t have missed the chance for such entertainment.”
Thinking back to the first time I betrayed her, she was the type who chased stimulation and excitement.
So when the Great Collapse was happening to Kang Min-hee, she would have come to watch.
But her presence was undetectable within tens of millions of li.
[Haha, probably she learned a little of fear because of our last meeting.]
“...”
Indeed, even at this point Oh Hye-seo had already intuited the existence of such monstrous beings.
Even if emotions were unreadable in her, she would have found it difficult to face the power of a transcendent entity.
[Thanks to that, she has become quite dependent on me lately. We have become quite essential to each other.]
I recalled the thousand years later point in Seo Hyul’s words.
‘Called wife.’
It seemed he had married her.
At the time I had thought it was brainwashing, but in truth fate had bound them together somehow.
“So what now?”
But that was none of my business.
I glared at Seo Hyul with a growl.
Surge, surge!
As my emotions flared, something inside my shadows struggled to escape.
My inner demons seemed to manifest as curses and try to flee from me.
[Haha… originally we were only in a simple exchange relationship. Each of us prepared to betray the other while experimenting on each other. But after my vision was sealed and she suffered mental wounds… we became essential to each other and had to form an alliance. Do you understand, Seo Do-wu?]
I blinked at his words.
[Those who have lost their blessings can gather sufficiently to plug each other’s holes. You, like me and Jo Yeon, are also damaged in the heart… we can become allies to fill each other’s voids.]
I looked at Seo Hyul and smiled.
“That sounds almost like you’re admitting you have a heart.”
[Hahaha… do you really think I have no heart?]
I read the will hidden beneath his words.
—The heart is something that may or may not exist depending on necessity.
Now he was pretending to affirm it to persuade me.
Back then I would have dismissed it as the monster Seo Hyul having no heart.
But at my current level, something else was visible.
After countless millennia of suffering, I had been damaged once and for all.
Seo Hyul was perhaps a being who had to desperately deny the existence of the heart.
The heart was undoubtedly sacred and beautiful, yet it could also bring hellish pain.
If he had been damaged as thoroughly as me, perhaps his denial of the heart was to escape that pain more than anyone else.
I watched his essence and smiled bitterly.
“I see. Since I’ve seen it, keep talking, poor Seo Hyul. I’ll listen for a moment.”
I spoke with pity in my voice.
And what my pity touched.
He stopped smiling and opened his eyes.
His eyes were hazy; I couldn’t tell what he was looking at.
They looked emotionless and chilling, but I understood that “pitying him” had struck deeper than any provocation I had made before.
[…]
He stopped smiling and seemed to look in my direction.
[…Indeed, you are a high one, Seo Do-wu… how far have you seen through?]
“Enough to see that you’re a pitiful existence to some degree.”
[Then it will be easy to talk.]
Seo Hyul turned his emotionless face toward the approaching Kang Min-hee.
[At first I thought it would be better to let that being rampage. But seeing its unexpected power changed my thoughts. For my goal, some chaos is necessary… but it is not the Great Collapse. So how about we combine forces and expel that being beyond the Gwanghan Realm?]
“...”
I considered Seo Hyul’s suggestion.
Normally I would have dismissed it without value.
But things were different now.
‘If I expel Kang Min-hee into the Void Space or Star Realm, there will be far fewer casualties.’
In truth, the vast Star Realm was the absolute majority realm.
The Central Sky was only a force that affected the entire Star Realm because it was the corpse of a great being, as the Saint had said.
Its width was an infinite universe.
Even after the Great Collapse, finding fragments of the Colorless Glass Sword had been possible because it was still early after the creation.
At a point tens of millions of years later, I would never have been able to find the Colorless Glass Sword.
In that sense, expelling Kang Min-hee into the dying Void Space or the infinitely vast Star Realm would reduce casualties.
At the very least, expelling her beyond the Gwanghan Realm would buy me time until I challenged for the Star Shattering rank.
“The opinion is good, but…”
As Kang Min-hee drew nearer, I dodged and asked.
Seo Hyul, having merged with the riverbed itself thanks to Oh Hye-seo’s help, continued speaking while revealing his projection body on the ground filled with river veins.
“How exactly do you plan to expel Star Shattering rank Kang Min-hee from the Gwanghan Realm?”
[I will pull it with my wife in the Star Realm. Push it, Seo Do-wu.]
‘Is Oh Hye-seo in the Star Realm now?’
I asked with a straight face.
“I won’t think she’ll be willingly expelled to the Star Realm. You have a plan, don’t you?”
[Yes… well. It wasn’t what I wanted, but an existence capable of catching her while she struggles has somehow been born.]
“No way.”
I laughed hollowly at Seo Hyul.
[I suppose you have guessed it. Exactly that no way.]
“You mean combining forces with Goe-gun Jo Yeon?”
I asked incredulously.
Indeed, at this point Goe-gun possessed two puppet clones at the Integration level.
[Her] and the Wondrous Castle were those.
And Goe-gun could still exert near-Star Shattering level power even at the present time through the connection of the Wondrous Castle and [Her].
Moreover, at the thousand years later point, both [Her] and the Wondrous Castle would rise to near-Star Shattering level.
Thus Goe-gun in the thousand years later point would possess two near-Star Shattering puppets.
Simply by strength, combining me, Seo Hyul, and Goe-gun would not be an empty boast for expelling Kang Min-hee from the Gwanghan Realm.
But Goe-gun was not sane.
How could one persuade such a person?
Seo Hyul continued.
[First, Seo Do-wu. You know the name and ability of the secret art I use.]
“…”
[My Takhonmancheon cannot brainwash Seo Do-wu or Goe-gun. Both of you are lunatics, so even if I try to insert my array, it won’t take root because it won’t form a normal consciousness flow.]
“…”
[But that Takhonmancheon cannot enter does not mean there is no brainwashing.]
“What do you want to say?”
[Seo Do-wu, you have a soul companion, don’t you? And among your companions, you have his disciple who has mastered Goe-gun’s consciousness technique. If Seo Do-wu, I, and Do-wu’s companion combine our forces, we can temporarily restore Goe-gun’s consciousness to normal.]
‘Me, Kim Yeon, Oh Hye-seo, Seo Hyul combining to restore Goe-gun’s consciousness to normal… suspicious.’
“You can’t guarantee that you won’t brainwash him while he’s temporarily sane?”
[Haha… don’t worry about that. I won’t brainwash him.]
—In any case, I won’t be able to.
I read the hidden meaning in Seo Hyul’s words and felt a little relief.
‘Probably even if temporarily restored, Goe-gun’s madness would flare again thanks to the Wondrous Castle, so Seo Hyul trying to brainwash him would be meaningless.’
But I couldn’t know everything.
Seo Hyul was a guy who hid things.
“How can I trust that?”
[I interpreted the curse placed on me by my wife and learned the truth. The great being’s curse on my eyes grew in real time according to my ‘evil deeds.’ At first it was simply a thousand years, but now it has grown to roughly… twenty billion years.]
“…”
[And I realized there is only one way to break this curse. This curse is not on my main body but on my ‘mask.’ That is, after erasing all personal identities outside the main body, starting over from the beginning allows the curse to be broken.]
“Why are you telling me this… because of that curse?”
[Yes, Seo Do-wu. Thanks to this curse, I can no longer find my main body. The great being’s curse was not merely blocking sight but preventing me from finding my main body.]
I felt that Seo Hyul’s words were true.
It was not simply because his speech and thoughts matched.
Because he had never lied about his own essence.
At his next words, my eyes lit up.
[Therefore I propose this, Seo Do-wu. After expelling that being from the Gwanghan Realm, help me recover my main body.]
It was an opportunity to find Seo Hyul’s main body.
He smiled faintly, returning his expressionless face to its original state.
[Until I find my main body, I will never betray Seo Do-wu.]