Chapter 54
Chapter 54
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Chapter 5: Alien Ability (12)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The next thing to review in his mind after the report was his current situation.
The present is always an extension of past events.
What had he done in those past incidents?
He had tried to end the conflict between the Great East Guild and the Taihang Guild that had stirred up Taewon Prefecture.
He recalled each group and martial artist directly or indirectly involved in that fight. Among all those countless martial artists, not a single one had any connection to the woman standing before him.
In other words, her appearance had nothing to do with this disturbance.
No doubt about it.
She was a completely different existence from the martial artists embroiled in the great chaos.
None of the martial artists knew about Heavenly Might's regenerative ability.
But she did.
She had connected with Heavenly Might alone from a place utterly detached from all these events. From a very distant place, a very distant time. She had come to him from somewhere beyond the martial world.
That was the conclusion reached by the Shadow Squad's analysis.
Heavenly Might was certain of his judgment, backed by evidence.
Therefore, he realized he had made a grave mistake.
He should not have started with questions.
He closed the eyes of his mind and opened the eyes of his flesh.
His spirit awoke fully, as if reborn.
There was his lifesaver.
He needed to express gratitude first.
"Thank you."
The single word, infused with sincerity, strangely made his throat tighten.
He didn't know why.
It was something he should have said long ago.
Emotions he had buried for so, so long welled up, filling his chest. They felt like longing, or perhaps sorrow. It left him bewildered. It was a feeling he was experiencing for the first time, yet somehow familiar, as if he had gone through it many times before.
"......"
The dark shadow didn't stir in the slightest.
Heavenly Might parted his lips to offer thanks once more, then realized she wouldn't respond to such words.
She was not one to welcome his gratitude.
Why?
Why did he know that fact?
He closed his mouth and sealed away his doubts.
As if reflecting on his error, he lowered his head and gazed down at his right arm.
He stared at it intently, like someone searching for something hidden.
The peculiar gaze lingered for a long while.
He stopped his thoughts.
The surrounding objects faded away, and his fully opened senses converged into a single sound.
The beating of his heart filled the entire world.
Thump!
In an instant, everything before his eyes warped.
Like waking from a nightmare, a swirling vortex twisted all into a single point.
That single point became a devouring darkness.
Soon after, as if a locked door were opening, light seeped in from within the darkness.
Memories unraveled.
"Waaah! Waaaaaah!"
Heavenly Might heard a baby's cry from within the light.
A beautiful woman was pressing something against the baby's leg.
The viewpoint was ambiguous, as if watching from afar or from the center, seeing everyone.
Dreams are like that. Heavenly Might thought it was a dream he had long ago.
"Waaaaaah!"
The baby wailed shrilly.
Blood flowed from the baby's white leg.
The woman held a pretty, small knife. Though toy-like in size, its blade was as sharp as any other. The tip was slicing across the baby's leg.
Drip.
The flowing blood gleamed like red jewels. It was the pure, pristine blood of an infant.
"Why isn't it healing right away?"
The woman asked.
Behind her stood an aging man. He shook his head as he replied.
"I don't know, miss."
The servant who had attended her since she was a baby couldn't bring himself to stop her, even as she cut into his son's body.
She wasn't one to heed her servant's words. She had been broken—severely, irreparably—for a very long time.
"If he inherited his father's blood, he should have the ability too. Is there some condition?"
The servant, looking older than his years, couldn't find words to answer.
What could he possibly know?
He squeezed his eyes shut and bowed his head.
"Father's blood... blood!"
She twirled the small knife's tip toward her longtime servant.
"Yes, I need to take some blood."
She meant for him to give blood.
She gazed at him with eyes clear as beads.
The twirling knife tip could pierce the servant's body at any moment.
Her brows furrowed as she pondered where to stab, then her expression shifted whimsically into a smile.
"No. Rather than taking Tuno's blood, I should give mine."
She turned her body.
Standing before the baby, she placed her finger on the knife tip.
Stab!
With a flick of her wrist, a small hole pierced her finger.
Red blood beaded and fell. On the white and gold silk beneath the baby, red flowers bloomed.
"Eat up, my baby. It's Mommy's blood."
She pressed her finger to the baby's lips.
The baby thrashed.
Its cherry-small lips stained red with its mother's blood.
"Is it tasty?"
The woman's eyes sparkled like starlight. Dangerous curiosity filled them.
The steadily flowing blood finally trickled into the mouth with barely eight teeth.
The crying baby soon quieted. Even as an infant, its long lashes like a girl's trembled faintly.
"Oh! It works! The condition is blood! Blood!"
The wound on the baby's leg healed rapidly. Flesh gathered and closed in an instant. The scar was faint, leaving only the trail of dried blood.
"I should have known this sooner!"
She sighed in regret.
The woman's facial features were indistinct.
Dreams are like that.
He knew she was beautiful. He could clearly see her expressions, her gaze.
Yet he didn't know who she was.
The more he tried to look closely, the more distant she became. The more he sought to know, the more unknowable she grew.
"Hm? Wants more?"
The baby clutched her wrist with its tiny hands. Like suckling milk, it bit and suckled her finger.
A red gleam began to swirl in the baby's pupils. Thin blood vessels rose on the clear, pale sclera.
"What."
She yanked her finger out roughly.
The baby kept smacking its lips. Then it burst into wails again. "Waaah!" The cries grew fiercer.
"Mood's ruined."
Suddenly, as if a curtain parted, her face sharpened into clarity.
She wore the face of a black witch.
And in the next moment, he realized it was an illusion.
She had the face of the mother who saved Heavenly Might in the snowy carriage and died.
"Gasp!"
And he felt it.
In his arm, his body, everywhere—something akin to internal energy yet utterly different coursed through him.
'Blood.'
No.
He had hated the smell of blood since long ago.
Perhaps from that time.
It's a dream.
Reality would be different.
No.
Awakened memories are reality itself.
Overcoming the dreamlike shock of the memory, he focused on the sensations.
Even in a body detached from where it should be, fated only for eternal death, something remained. The primal force that should flow with blood.
Not some unknown mystery, but something he had known since long ago.
Something he had known even as a crawling infant.
Something he seemed to lack, but actually possessed more deeply.
Something everyone had. Something abundant around him. Something that scattered yet reborn.
Two characters so obvious that recalling them felt awkward.
Life.
The power of life was there.
Following his heart, the life originally within his body pulsed.
He synchronized that pulse with his severed right arm.
The arm, devoid of pulse, twitched.
This was unlike skills learned and acquired.
He hadn't gained a new regenerative ability.
It was a memory extending from before his birth, from a very, very distant past.
Recalling it made it his own.
What enabled it was the black woman's blood.
The blood he drank from her was profoundly thick.
It held an inexpressibly immense density of life.
Far more than the cruel mother's blood. Incomparably potent.
Ting.
He flicked the sheath with his left thumb, drawing the golden sword half a handspan.
Gripping the blade, he cut his wound and sheathed the sword.
He held his dripping hand over the stump of his right arm.
Like the drops falling to the baby's lips.
His blood—now empowered by her, far stronger—seeped into his right arm. Color returned to the bluish flesh. With just that much blood, the severed body was reviving.
'Now I can reattach it.'
Heavenly Might knew this instinctively.
A prickling sensation spread from around the shoulder stump, as if drawing the fallen arm back to the earth.
When he tentatively pressed the arm against it, his body and arm didn't respond.
The key was conviction.
He trusted the ability in her blood, the profound life within it.
Though severed, his arm was always under his control.
The fallen arm would reattach if he willed it. As long as he supplied blood, it wouldn't rot and decay.
With enlightenment, his eyes opened as if anew, his mind cleared.
Plans stacked up rapidly, layer by layer.
He bit the collar of his upper garment with his teeth and tore off a piece.
With his left hand, he lifted his right arm.
He wrapped it in the torn cloth like a bundle and slung it over his shoulder.
He wouldn't reattach the arm now.
The woman, silent until then, asked without turning her face.
"What are you doing?"
"I'll reattach the arm later."
Heavenly Might's voice was polite and warm.
It was his true voice, one he himself had forgotten.
"Why?"
"Because it needs to live before it dies."
His tone was bright. That, too, was unlike him.
"You're a strange one."
She shook her head slightly.
She walked toward the darkness. Their meeting today was over. Now each would go their own way. He understood her intent. Her receding back looked small and lonely.
Heavenly Might bowed deeply.
"I won't forget."
Her back sank into the darkness.
'Don't make promises you can't keep, baby.'
He heard her voice one last time.
He couldn't tell if it was truly her words or a hallucination dredged from some memory.
He took a step forward to call out, then stopped.
She was already gone. A technique beyond lightness skill, elusive as a ghost. She had melted into the darkness itself, becoming one with the cave shadows.
Heavenly Might turned in the opposite direction.
The air currents revealed the exit's location.
His senses remained heightened, his body in perfect condition—save for the missing right arm.
He dashed through the darkness.
He heard water sounds. Dawn had passed; it was around the hour of the snake. He knew without checking. The sunlight's energy seeping into the cave told him.
Light appeared through distant rock crevices. Reaching the cave mouth, he turned and gazed briefly into the deep darkness.
'Let's go. To die.'
He turned again.
Sunlight dazzled. So bright it made him squint instinctively.
He stepped out of the cave with firm strides.
Many unfinished matters awaited him.