Dark Clouds - 4
What the county magistrate had done was no mere soul-summoning ritual. His actions were no different from those of a demonic cultist. Following the monk's instructions, he had erected an altar and laid out the prescribed offerings. All to attract the attention of... something.
It would have been fine if it truly had been a god, but unfortunately, it wasn't. And so, nothing like flooding half the Great Bashan Mountains or summoning storms of flame across the land occurred. The thing merely drifted in the empty air, gazing down at Jang Cheon.
"......"
The others still couldn't see it. For it to fully descend into the present world would take at least a few more days. For now, it was more accurate to call it a blasphemous clump of gathered energy.
Jang Cheon, no expert in the Nine Great Sects' Taoism, couldn't grasp the precise mechanism. He simply sensed it, much like how innate essence could coalesce to birth all things—like how that mass of energy would eventually transform into something.
Its gills twitched.
"Ah... hung...ry... so... hung...ry. Give... to me."
A pure white tendril extended from the gills, vibrating. The vibration burrowed into the nostrils of the corpse below, transmitting new signals to the dead brain. Thus, the cadaver's flesh parted its lips.
"Give... to me. Hung...ry. Danger... close. Bad."
"Have you come to your senses?!"
The county magistrate had surrendered to madness. He pummeled Cheon Sohyang with meaningless punches before finally clutching the corpse to his chest. Thanks to that, Jang Cheon got a closer look at how the body—once called Yu Ga-myeong—moved.
Each time the magistrate embraced it, things writhed beneath the skin. Still half in the realm of unreality, slowly filling the inside...
"You... who? Who?"
"......I can't bear to watch any longer."
"Ah..."
Meanwhile, Cheon Sohyang didn't need to see it directly. Her martial realm wasn't as profound as Jang Cheon's. Instead, she felt a faint heat at the nape of her neck, and with it, a new vision briefly opened before her.
Her sight slipped beyond the present world. Secret knowledge whispered to the girl.
Its name was the Gray Death God Fish. Closer to vermin swimming the interstellar void, endlessly seeking a host. The offerings on the altar were bait to lure it. This woefully inadequate corpse was meant to be its vessel.
Knowledge from the Flame Flower Divine Bird slipped softly into her mind. The Gray Death God Fish was in its larval stage. An extremely young embryo. If it found a proper host and endured eons before molting, it would become...
Her vision widened. Deeper into the void. It touched upon something hideous coiled between the stars. Grasping the heavenly pillars, awaiting awakening from its eternal dream...
"......Ah?"
When she came to, she was clutched in someone's firm grip. Her body tilted backward, off-balance. And before her eyes stood the man she'd always longed to see.
In her daze, Cheon Sohyang reached up and stroked his cheek.
"Ajussi."
"Ack! What are you doing?!"
Jang Cheon recoiled in alarm and steadied her. As her senses slowly returned, she took in the surroundings. It was already a scene of devastation.
Ajussi protected me, she could only surmise. The altar lay half-shattered amid traces of slashing strikes. The cave walls were brutally gouged. And before the corpse knelt the county magistrate, sobbing pitifully.
Cheon Sohyang approached him. Her heart tangled in complex emotions.
"Ga-myeong-ah."
This man was undoubtedly vile. She had originally come to kill him. And even now, if she had to strike him down, she wouldn't hesitate. The family of the slain Yi So-jin would surely wish it so.
Only the wail of a father who had lost his son granted the briefest reprieve.
The cries faded. "Ga-myeong-ah, Ga-myeong-ah." No matter how many times he called, Yu Ga-myeong did not rise. The Gray Death God Fish had failed to manifest. The black death sword's energy had cleaved it apart.
And so the county magistrate could only mutter in his shattered voice.
"I knew all along."
"Knew what?"
"It didn't matter if this truly wasn't my son. It... it didn't matter at all. I just wanted Ga-myeong to move. Just once more, to hear Ga-myeong's voice. For him to greet me, to eat with me, and..."
"For that, you would kill people..."
"......Of course I could kill them!"
He whirled around with a snap. Blood streamed from his eyes, making him look less like a man of this world. The face of a demon who had lost all hope.
"As many as it took. Five, ten—I'd kill them all! If I could get Ga-myeong back, I'd pledge loyalty to the demonic cult itself, not just this petty sorcery. With traitors swarming everywhere, what difference would one more make?"
There was no answer. Cheon Sohyang quailed under his fervor, but Jang Cheon saw no need to respond. To him, these were obvious excuses. How many times had he heard such words while slaying his enemies one by one?
To keep his disciple from being wounded by them, she needed a firm heart. So he merely watched the magistrate's ravings with an expressionless face.
Taking the silence as permission, the magistrate sneered and continued.
"The Cannibal Young Lord of An-hui Province came to Shanxi. The monk who left just recently was the same. Peel back the facade, and the entire world is full of such scum. They'll butcher others without hesitation to save a single hair on their own heads! I only realized it too late myself!"
"So-hyang, what do you think?"
"......"
Her master let his disciple ponder in silence. Knowing her final outburst could harm no one. He detached himself, like an immortal on the clouds gazing down at mortals.
The magistrate saw through his attitude at once. And so he bellowed.
"Are you any different?!"
It wasn't aimed at Cheon Sohyang. He stared straight at Jang Cheon.
He knew nothing of Jang Cheon's circumstances. This was their first meeting. So his ignorant shout pierced Jang Cheon's heart deeper than expected.
"If it were your parents and child like this, you'd cast aside human decency like a rag too!"
Jang Cheon's face hardened. Reflexively, memories surged.
Was it the drinks from last night? Or the bright full moon?
"Don't lump me in with you. I did it justly..."
He had avenged them. Thoroughly. So much that enemies' comrades, brothers, and friends swarmed from across the land.
Jang Cheon could swear it. Even if he turned back time, he'd do the same. He could claim it was righteous vengeance. That it had to be done, that he had the right to repay what was done to him.
But as those words rose to his lips, for some reason, Cheon Sohyang entered his vision. Unthinkingly, Jang Cheon shut his mouth.
Thus, the magistrate got one more word in.
"You're the same. You martial artists or these demonic freaks. Relying on strength, doing as you please... all the..."
"Don't insult ajussi!"
"Heh heh. What a dog-eat-dog world."
Ignoring Cheon Sohyang's cry, the county magistrate breathed his last. The girl belatedly voiced her rebuttal to the corpse, but Jang Cheon no longer heard. He was pondering why he'd shut his mouth upon seeing her.
That child has nothing to do with it. I separated her from my vengeance, from my grudge.
My disciple was born far too late. She bears no responsibility.
Yet then, why was she going to the graves to atone? Why did seeing that make his heart so uneasy? Since when had such things begun to bother him?
"....."
Jang Cheon desperately sought the source of this feeling. And he recalled the most similar moment of displeasure.
It was then.
"I hope your heart changes someday."
"If something other than hatred could bloom in your heart, so strong as it is... how wonderful that would be."
When he had lost to Cheon Yomyeong. When he heard those words.
The hallucination of Cheon Yomyeong mocked him from within.
"What's this? So cold and ruthless before me, yet you melt into softness? You spat such venom about repaying every detail of your grudge, yet before that little girl, you act like a meek lamb!"
His nape stiffened. Cheon Yomyeong's illusion smirked vilely.
"Have you decided to forget your wife and children now, Black Arrow Eight Methods Jang Cheon?"
"......No such thing."
Reflexively, he answered. Not shouting. Calmly, he drew his half-sword and plunged it into his chest.
Burning pain coldly awakened his mind. Everything sharpened into clarity.
His disciple was going as head of the Cheon Family to atone. And he was still exacting blood debt. To properly avenge his grudge, he must accept no atonement. He had sworn never to forget his hatred, and he had never spoken with a forked tongue in his life.
In the pain, Jang Cheon reaffirmed it all. Indeed, nothing pierced heart demons like this.
By the time he steadied his brief turmoil,
"Ajussi... snap out of it. Ajussi......"
He saw his disciple sniffling before him. Cheon Sohyang strained with all her might to pry the half-sword from his hand. Blood trickled from her palm.
Jang Cheon stared blankly before asking.
"Why not just leave it be?"