Where the Mermaid's Tears Flow [6]
"No time! Grab everything I list, and grab it fast!"
From this moment on, it was a race against the clock. We had to repair the ruined altar before the thing landed on the island, and hurl the curse-art once more to finish off the fake Dragon King for good.
"Got the fruit!"
"Liquor and incense!"
"We found the guitar and bass too! Someone packed them in case the live broadcast ran long!"
"Perfect! Everyone I just called out, follow me!"
Those coming with me were Tsukumo Momo, Yoo Min-seo, Sugawara Ryuko, Lee Jin-seol, and Soda and Jin-woo.
"I'm coming too! However I look at it, the safest place is right next to you!"
"Th-then am I included as well!?"
Of course she was. Dance and song were absolutely indispensable elements of any ritual, after all.
"Those of you remaining will hold the barrier — please wait at the hotel!"
"Y-you're abandoning us!?"
PD Choi Ji-hoon asked in desperation.
"Abandon you, my ass. Either way—"
I turned my gaze to the one-armed fake Dragon King cleaving through the sea as it closed in on the island. That disgusting bastard — even now, its arm was regenerating bit by bit, in real time.
"If that thing lands on the island, it's over."
I couldn't say exactly what would end, but instinct screamed at me that the fake Dragon King must not reach the shore. The moment it touched land, there would truly be nothing left to do.
"No time! Move!"
Before leaving the hesitating film crew behind at the hotel—
"Kim Do-sa... I wish you the best of fortune."
Professor Park Do-jun blessed my endeavor.
"And next time you invite me on as a guest, please, please make it a nice, normal, mundane story."
"Haha! I'll keep that in mind."
With our goodbyes said, we headed for the island's peak. The slower-footed — Yoo Min-seo, Tsukumo Momo, Soda, and Jin-woo — rode on the backs of the Inugami shikigami Migi and Hidari, summoned by Sugawara Ryuko.
"Ugh... my head... Huh? Ryuko? Why are you here?"
Halfway up the slope, Tsukumo Momo regained consciousness and recognized Sugawara Ryuko.
"Harro~ It looked like fun, so I followed along~."
"Wh-what kind of reason is that—!?"
Apparently the two were old acquaintances. But there was no time to fuss over such trivia — because the scene awaiting us at the summit was even worse than I'd imagined.
"Master!"
Having lost her left arm and shoulder — a full third of her upper body.
"Master! Master! Ahh, please...! Wake up...!"
"...Quiet, you foolish disciple..."
Kang So-hwa opened her eyes. Incredibly, she was still alive — a fatal wound no human could possibly survive. And the reason was plain to see.
Squirm. Squirm.
Scales had sprouted from the torn cross-section of her body, writhing grotesquely. Kang So-hwa was a native of this island, which meant she carried mermaid blood — and until she left, she would have worshipped the fake Dragon King. That, no doubt, was why the ritual had wavered midway through. The only reason she hadn't transformed into a monster outright like the villagers, and had held on to her human form, was the sheer strength of her will — and of her hatred for the fake Dragon King.
"...Ahh... the young Taoist master, ye be... Forgive me for the false warning... Never did I dream that monster would move like this..."
"Forget it. More importantly, how is your body?"
Swoosh.
Kang So-hwa reached for the arm that was no longer there, then smiled wryly.
"...I can't even bring myself to lie and say I'm fine... So, shameless as it is, I shall beg this of thee... Wilt thou slay yon monster in my stead?"
"That's why I came."
"Reliable, ye are... Time is short, so listen well. This old woman prepared a secret ritual to kill that monster. The name of the ritual is—"
"Diancang's Houyi Shari... is it not?"
Diancang, and the Houyi Shari. Astonishingly, the Diancang sect — long a staple of the orthodox great sects in martial arts fiction — was a real Daoist lineage. Unlike its portrayal in fiction as part of the mainstream orthodoxy, however, in the actual genealogy of Daoism it sat closer to a fringe tradition, with little connection to the true mainstream lines like Zhengyi or Quanzhen. And the secret curse-art Diancang possessed was precisely the Houyi Shari.
Houyi was the name of the hero revered as the Divine Archer in ancient Chinese myth, and Shari referred to his legendary deed of shooting down nine suns — the three-legged crows. True to its name, the Houyi Shari was a technique that gave ritual form to that very feat: Houyi felling the suns themselves.
The reason Kang So-hwa had chosen the Houyi Shari to kill the fake Dragon King was easy to guess. Among Houyi's legends was the tale of how he shot dead Hebo, the river god who devoured human sacrifices from the Yellow River. Curse-arts shaped from the deeds of myth and legend inevitably carry the attributes of the being they depict. In the Houyi Shari's case, that meant bonus effect against sun-related entities, bonus effect against gods who receive human sacrifice, and bonus effect against water deities.
And the fake Dragon King — a water god who fed on human sacrifice — was the perfect mark for it.
"Th-that's right...! Such discernment, to recognize the secret art of a fringe line like Diancang at a glance... Then from this moment I shall teach thee the use of the Houyi Shari... I know it is a sin against my sect, but there is no other way now—"
"There's no need to strain that wounded body. I already have the method down."
"Wh-what didst say!? How could thou—? D-don't tell me, art thou of Diancang?"
"Let's call it something like that."
Where I had actually learned the Houyi Shari, of course, was Dongbin's Dao Study Room — but a long explanation would have been a waste of breath, so I let it stand.
I left Kang So-hwa in Lee Jin-seol's care and gave the others their instructions, and we readied the ritual.
...The siphon that draws in energy from the surrounding leyline is still intact.
Fortunately, the most labor- and time-intensive part had survived undamaged. All I needed to do was complete the Houyi Shari separately and connect it here.
"Bring the table!"
"Here!"
On the table Jin-woo brought, I set up the gathered fruit, liquor, and incense, along with a tablet — an overturned cutting board scrawled with a marker-drawn, inverted three-legged crow. I arranged several auxiliary talismans around it, and in place of a ritual robe draped a loose, roomy coat over my shoulders. The form had drifted from the proper rites in every possible way, but circumstances being what they were, there was nothing for it. What was lacking would have to be papered over with Do-ryeok, concentration, and sincerity.
Glu-glu-glu-glug...
Following my earlier instructions, Yoo Min-seo poured clean bottled water into my hands. I purified them, then planted the incense in a flowerpot in lieu of a censer and lit it.
Now came the important part.
At my signal, Soda and Jin-woo scrambled to set up the sound equipment. Power was solved with the mini generator they'd brought for outdoor broadcasts. Soda took the microphone at center stage; on the left stood Jin-woo with his bass, and on the right Tsukumo Momo with her guitar.
"Back in my nobody days I sang everywhere — supermarket grand openings, rural festivals, you name it..."
Soda let out a hollow laugh as she watched the fake Dragon King bearing down on the island.
"Never dreamed I'd live to see the day I'd sing in a situation like this..."
"I'll hear complaints later — if we live through this, so get ready."
"Dammit...! Shouldn't we at least sing scripture or a hymn!? You say it's a ritual, so why this song!? It's a dude's song in the first place! Jin-woo should sing it — why me—!?"
"Haha, sorry... I'm not the vocalist..."
Even with all of us about to die, Soda cracked jokes left and right and kept the mood afloat. I owed her for that, so I sent a blessing her way — in my own fashion.
"Ah, shit! So many complaints! You want to gripe, you take over as Master of Rites? No? Then get back there and sing!"
"Eeeei—! When I was a young boy—"
Banter over. The instant the first line's cue arrived, Soda came in precisely on the beat.
"...to join the Black Parade!"
"Not bad."
Her husky voice was a little rough for a woman's, which suited it, I thought. The Houyi Shari itself required no song. But from time immemorial, song has been the bridge between gods and humans — a processional into that separate world we call ritual. Both the formal liturgical steps, and the song Soda was singing now, played the same role: within the I-myeon the fake Dragon King had cast, they steadied the surrounding spiritual currents and raised the ritual's completeness. The song choice? That part was just my taste.
As the intro lyrics ended, I lit the incense, offered purified incense at the altar, and laid the bow upon it — the bow that was the heart of this ritual. It was the object Kang So-hwa had defended to the end even while losing her left arm, the special ritual implement prepared to draw out the art's full power, twelve parts out of ten.
As the song awakened the darkness of the night, I formed the hand seal — a secret seal handed down through the Diancang sect of Yunnan. Cut off from Daoism's great houses of Zhengyi and Quanzhen, Diancang had developed a fiercely independent style, and this seal was part of it.
How did I know their proprietary seal method?
Dongbin's Dao Study Room taught me the whole thing in a day.
"The Hero of the Crimson Bow and Ten White Arrows!"
Forming the seal, I began the incantation — and in the same breath set my Do-ryeok churning inside me, circulating it along the channels the art demanded. Daoism holds that each of the body's organs and parts embodies yin and yang and the five elements, and that the spirits of vital energy dwell within them. In this case, the Do-ryeok was circulated through the organs and body parts bearing each corresponding quality, the circulation itself standing in for the ritual's symbolic expressions. In other words, the Houyi Shari demanded incantation, hand seal, and Do-ryeok circulation — all three ritual expressions performed simultaneously. A mad curse-art, frankly speaking.
And it wasn't enough to run the three roughly in parallel: the resulting interactions had to be controlled to the finest degree, without a hair's deviation.
Argh. THIS is why it's a fringe tradition — the difficulty of its secret arts!
Look at the Vairocana Mantra Barrier, or the Ksitigarbha Ten Wheels Sutra art! Easy to write, fires off reliably even for a clumsy caster, and the power scales right along with my own growth. Arts like the Water-Walking Step or Environmental Transmutation take long, grueling training, sure — but once mastered, they're simple to use.
Great. Looks like I'll be stuck using niche, barely-optimized arts like this from now on, huh...!
Even as I grumbled internally, the ritual's framework wove itself together without a single thread out of place. And the moment the seal, the incantation, and the Do-ryeok coursing through my body completed the design all at once—
"The Divine Arrow that Felled Nine Suns — Cleaving Heaven, Vanquishing Calamity!"
As Master of Rites, I declared the ritual's completion and manifested the curse-art.
FWOOSH-ROOOOAR!
The longbow on the altar flushed crimson and transformed.
"Guh!"
The instant I seized the bow, the Do-ryeok in my body began flooding into it as if down a drain. Mercifully, the yew bow itself attested my standing as proxy for the previous Master of Rites, Kang So-hwa, letting me connect to the leyline without delay.
"Unbelievable... Such a complex and difficult art, in a single attempt...!"
In answer to Kang So-hwa's awe, I drew the bowstring of the still-empty bow. That motion was the signal: leyline energy began rushing in from the surrounding sea and the island itself, gathering at my fingertips.
"Yes...!"
The moment I tasted victory—
"Huh!?"
The fake Dragon King raised its hand. It had noticed the curse-art that threatened it taking shape. Its fingertip swelled, and from one of the tentacles forming its arm, a compressed round of condensed flesh shot out like a bullet.
"You're kidding me!!"
The leyline hadn't finished gathering. I couldn't fire yet. And then—
"Master!"
"Master!"
Kang So-hwa planted her broken body in front of me, and Lee Jin-seol leapt in after her. The instant Kang So-hwa flung out her one remaining right hand, a cascade of talismans scattered and formed a great barrier. Lee Jin-seol followed by hammering the ground with her foot, and the earth itself rose into a wall.
"Hrrgh!"
Whether the curse she'd been suppressing had reactivated in the effort, Lee Jin-seol vomited blood.
"Kabe."
Finally, Sugawara Ryuko summoned a colossal monster resembling a wall, and a triple-layered barrier stood between me and the incoming shot. The black bullet slammed into it a heartbeat later.
KAGAGAGAGAGAGAK!
The compressed tentacle-round ground through the three stacked walls with a hideous shriek.
"Hahk!"
They broke quickly — but they bought me the time to dodge. The round plowed through the ground where I'd been standing, and its terrifying power sent a chill crawling up my spine.
Still, there was no room to relax.
"That son of a—!"
The fake Dragon King fired a second round. It had aimed for the gap right after my dodge, and evading cleanly was out of the question. Worse, I was mid-Houyi Shari — I couldn't use any other art.
GRUUUUMBLE-CRUNCH!
That instant, Wang Lingguan manifested and took the round with his own body.
KRAKOOOOOM!
But the shot's power was too great; the guardian deity's clay frame burst apart in a single breath.
"Wang Lingguan!"
"Like I'd leave you to it!"
Immediately after, Kang So-hwa stepped into Wang Lingguan's place and intercepted the round with her own body. And in that instant, her form transformed — into something immeasurably larger and mightier than the mob before the hotel. A half-human, half-mermaid giant standing more than five meters tall, she blocked the shot as Wang Lingguan had.
"GRRRRRAAAAAAGH!!!"
KRAKOOOOOM!
Kang So-hwa's massive frame was driven backward, gouging a trench through the earth — and stopped, dead, before the round could touch me.
"Khh...!"
But the price was horrific. Everything below her neck nearly pulverized, Kang So-hwa collapsed to the ground. Yet in the words she forced out as she fell, there was no trace of pain, no trace of fear.
"Avenge it...!"
And in answer, I loosed the completed arrow — no, the Houyi Shari itself.
A silent white meteor flew, cleaving the world in a horizontal line. The fake Dragon King belatedly gathered its remaining arm into a single point and answered with a black meteor of its own.
KWAGAGAGAGAGAGAGAK!
White meteor met black, and the shockwave shook the island once more. The duel of black and white, staged once again — but this time, two things were different. One: the caster of the curse-art was me. And two...
"Too hasty. Too greedy."
...the black meteor's output had dipped, because the thing had spent two of its arm-forming tentacles on suppression and defense.
"Should've kept your hands to yourself if you wanted to live, huh?"
PEEEEEEEEEEW!
The deadlocked struggle between black and white star collapsed in the space of a heartbeat. The white meteor split the black one clean through and flew on, striking the fake Dragon King dead-on. Dazzling white light detonated.
"W-we won!"
"Did we win!?"
I let their voices wash past one ear and kept my tension strung taut, staring the thing down. Where the light had died—
—the fake Dragon King, both arms and a portion of its upper body gone, was still standing.
"Damn it..."
I'd seen it just before the white light erupted. In the instant before the curse-art struck, the thing had altered the shape of its body, concentrating its tentacles at the point of impact to minimize the damage. But it didn't matter. As a result, it had lost more than two-fifths of its body. One more shot, and this time it would be finished for certain.
Just as I readied the next strike, the realization hit.
"...The leyline...!"
The leyline of the island and its surrounding waters was drained dry. Recovery would take hours at best — maybe days.
"Is— is something wrong?"
Yoo Min-seo had noticed and came closer.
"...The leyline around us is nearly empty."
Without its support, no amount of wringing out my own Do-ryeok would let me fire the Houyi Shari again. Yoo Min-seo considered for a moment, then spoke up.
"Um... then, could we lend you our spiritual power instead?"
"Your spiritual power?"
It was honestly a good idea. Yoo Min-seo had talent enough that even the Great Demon King would approve of her — naturally, her total reserve of spiritual power was considerable too.
"A good idea. There are plenty of psychics here, after all."
Sugawara Ryuko endorsed the suggestion, her gaze sweeping over Yoo Min-seo, Tsukumo Momo, and Lee Jin-seol.
"...It's certainly possible in theory."
But there was a problem. Right now, the Houyi Shari and the leyline-drawing ritual operated as a single set. To avoid throwing the flow of power into confusion, those lending their spiritual power would have to piggyback on the leyline-drawing ritual itself. Which meant the power had to be transmitted from the four ritual sites prepared across the island for exactly that purpose.
"That's... rather dangerous, wouldn't you say?"
Sugawara Ryuko covered one eye.
"Besides the mob at the hotel, the other villagers have all transformed into anomalies and are still wandering the island. And above all—"
"Right — the flow has to be synchronized in real time, and over that distance, communication is impossible."
Think of it like batteries. Two 5-volt batteries of the same spec can share a circuit just fine — but connect batteries of different specs, and current flows backward into one of them, risking a breakdown or an explosion. Why else do martial arts tales always warn that rituals of many people funneling their inner power into one are so dangerous? Ryuko and Lee Jin-seol are skilled enough psychics to regulate themselves, but Min-seo and Momo are practically civilians. If we stood shoulder to shoulder, trading words and matching breath, maybe. Over distance, like this? Lives would be on the line. And inside an I-myeon, every form of communication is severed.
"...I-I'm fine with it! I can do it! I'm your student, aren't I, Teacher?"
At that, Yoo Min-seo clenched her trembling hands into fists.
"The same goes for me. After all, I already owe Kim Do-sa my life once."
Tsukumo Momo smiled as if it were nothing, but the corners of her eyes were shaking.
God, how I wished the Fire-Tipped Spear would come zipping in right about now, gleaming and chipper — "Ooh~ been waiting for this one, Partner!"—
The world doesn't work that conveniently, though...
I had no intention of pinning groundless hope on long odds. So in the end, was I supposed to push those two onto a bridge that could kill them? Not a chance in hell. What I wanted was to find a ritual in Dongbin's Dao Study Room that solved exactly this problem — but the fake Dragon King was already nearly at the shore. Even for me, there was no time to learn a new art.
"If I use my shikigami, I can ferry everyone to the ritual sites quickly enough — but you should make your choice fast."
"......No other way, huh... Fey."
-Hmmm~ So thou art truly the man We acknowledged. Thou hast shrewdly discerned that the answer to this situation is We.
Fey was, right now, the greatest power source I could put my hands on.
"Under a provisional contract—"
-Nay. Didst thou believe the scale of the ritual thou intendest could be borne by a mere provisional contract?
"Figured as much... Fine, then let us contract: a festival of one hundred souls or more, once a month! An MZ-style clause, like the provisional contract — that works, right?"
-Good. We accept.
One mercy, at least: that tiresome festival condition could be fudged through the broadcast.
Except...
-However...
"...However?"
-We shall add several conditions.
"...And here we go."
Damn it — this is exactly why you never let on how desperate you are in a negotiation...!
-Wh-what face of despair is that? Cease. They are conditions of no great consequence. First: henceforth, whenever thou callest upon Us, thou shalt append the epithet 'beautiful, graceful, and beyond all venerable'! And next: every morning upon waking, thou shalt begin thy day with words of praise for Us. And furthermore—
This brat...! The type in any relationship who grows ten times more demanding the moment you're desperate...!
-Ahem. Thus, some ten conditions in all. They have piled up a touch, granted, but as thou hast heard, none are so very grand. And in reward for the added conditions, We shall, as a special favor, grant thee the sacred sword of the lake—
At that moment—
Ring!
A text message arrived on my phone out of nowhere. ...Now that I thought of it, something similar had happened before. Right — back when I was banging my head against the question of which demon had been summoned at Seonhwa High...
"...No way!"
I hurriedly pulled up the message, and there it was:
Recommended for you — the one who wishes for a connection that never cuts out, anywhere!
Miraculous technology that links person to person across any mystery, anomaly, hazard, or I-myeon domain!
Nikola's Hyper-Radio Communication — connecting people to people, even at the end of the world.
"...Ha! So this is how you show up?"
After Lü Dongbin and Solomon, now Nikola Tesla...
"You could at least be consistent! This is too much even for you!"
And would that be a dealbreaker? As if.
-Wh-why? What ails thee?
I looked at Fey, who was wearing a faintly anxious expression, and declared with my head held high:
"Not buying it!"
This is exactly why the terms of a contract at signing must never differ from the terms disclosed beforehand.