Flashback 9
"No!"
Baek-cheol did not refuse. He was innately dull and straightforward. For the sake of greater pleasure, he would gladly be deceived. He would one day fight to the death against the one he had set as his goal anyway. Postponing it for a little while was no great hardship. He could simply seek out the next target sooner. He hadn't even noticed that Heuk-yo was an Outer God, so he decided to bestow a grand reward upon the lowly creature who had come up with this clever notion. It was a warning.
"But you'd best remember this! Death is painful! Even if you've brought it upon yourself!"
A warning delivered in an eerie voice, granting a second chance. The truth guaranteed by the god of slaughter and strife. Whispered sincerely into the depths of the opponent's soul. Heuk-yo felt it. Both as I-hwa, and as her true spirit, distant beyond measure.
Yet precisely because of that, she considered it a blessing. If she could receive even the slightest punishment for herself—for trampling so willfully the perfect life she might have had, the precious love Jang Rang had bestowed upon her.
"I won't hesitate."
Heuk-yo replied with a smile. And she thought: Looking back, I've always worn smiles like this—fake ones. When the day comes that I meet Jang Rang again, I don't want to smile like this. I want to smile for real. Smiles meant to deceive others are easy. I know just how much to flex the cheek muscles, the precise way to pull the tendons. But a genuine smile... that's clumsy for me. How do humans even smile? She touched her cheek. Tugged at the corner of her lips with a single index finger. Then, as Baek-cheol's sword came flying toward her, Heuk-yo smiled once more. It wasn't a happy smile. And so I-hwa died.
*
The moment the long agony ended, Heuk-yo opened her eyes again. Whenever her connection to the fragment severed, she always returned to her prison. A stifling, enclosed space with only the tiniest hole pierced through it. But what tormented Heuk-yo most now was something else entirely.
"Jang Rang... Jang Rang, quickly."
The instant the link broke, she forged a new fragment. She poured her soul into devising a way to remain with Jang Rang forever. A way to live eternally at his side without further pretense. A scheme to bind Jang Rang and her together until the world's end. And every time she reached that point in her thoughts, the answer always emerged.
She wove the fleeting inspiration into threads of black light. He was a swordsman. No matter where he went, a sword hung at his waist. So the thing that could spend the most time with him was none other than... a sword. Sharper than anything, more useful than anything—a tool made solely for Jang Rang.
"I'll... become a tool."
She had no right to remain at his side in human form. It was enough to be held in his hand. With dying eyes, Heuk-yo shaped her new fragment. Far more like herself than before, it resembled a shard of inky darkness at a glance. It was agonizingly cramped for containing such a vast consciousness, like being bound head to toe in iron chains. She wouldn't even have freedom of movement. Unable to assert her own will, she would simply be swung at others' command.
At last, Heuk-yo found it satisfactory.
"Even if it hurts more... that's fine."
With Jang Rang, forever. Together.
*
Finally, the interminable reminiscence drew to a close.
"Ah..."
Before the dazed Jang Cheon, Heuk-yo personally sealed away his memories. So he wouldn't realize she was I-hwa. So her eternal, unconfessable shame could be buried in darkness. So the day they met in the corner of Geumroe-ok could remain his "first" encounter with her.
By the time Jang Cheon regained his senses, his gaze had turned icy.
"Was this your doing? How could you orchestrate such a thing?"
"...This girl merely longed for the day she would meet her master again. During the endless years those Shaolin monks shut me away in that pitch-black chamber, what else was there for me to do? I could only scheme to free my precious master from that filthy pigsty of theirs."
"And what is this one?"
"A prop for the staging."
The red-eyed woman smiled brightly. A smile both refined and chilling.
"Don't you recall our first memory? I put special care into the production."
Jang Cheon looked at the decapitated corpse. A young man—a swordsman, no less. An appearance too similar to someone. Even the color of the martial robes on the body matched that day.
"......"
Demonic Sword Heuk-yo. An artifact said to bewitch people into committing crimes. Or the signature weapon of the murim criminal Black Arrow Eight Methods master.
A complicated feeling stirred in Jang Cheon. Was it the sight of the corpse? No. Was it Simha burning after so long? No, not that either. Unthinkingly, he glanced at his disciple beside him.
Cheon Sohyang watched him with cautious eyes. Eyes full of unspoken questions. Eyes worried for him, yet terrified of disturbing his mood.
Jang Cheon understood. This was why he felt complicated.
"You must cherish her greatly."
"It's none of your concern, Heuk-yo."
"Oh, of course."
She waved brightly at Cheon Sohyang—who, of course, couldn't see her.
Jang Cheon thought it resembled his own past. The things he kept hidden from the girl. The countless acts he'd committed for revenge. He had no regrets. Never had. Yet if he were told now to confess them to his disciple, he could never speak of such deeds. No one remained as witness to those events. Only his sword, grinning there with that creepy smile.
Heuk-yo was, in effect, his witness.
Jang Cheon spoke to Cheon Sohyang.
"We should... bury that one. Poor soul."
"That corpse? He must be the Life-and-Death Great Emperor..."
"Likely. Now I know. He was just tragically used."
"Don't worry, master. He was unmistakably wicked. Surely you would have punished him yourself."
He ignored the whisper from behind. A strange mix of confusion and clarity coexisted within him. Questions piled up like mountains. How deeply was Heuk-yo involved? What had happened in the murim while he was imprisoned? And why had she called him back now?
As those thoughts reached him, Jang Cheon suddenly realized something: he no longer had a purpose.
Indeed, none.
The Cheon Family Manor had fallen long ago. Rebuilding his own clan was a distant dream. The Central Plains had changed too much to adapt to. Now even Outer Gods had appeared.
All that remained to him was...
"Ajussi...?"
His disciple. No longer a child, but grown tall before he knew it.
"It's nothing. I'll tell you about my sword in time. For now, take care not to be bewitched by it. If possible, circulate your inner energy as a precaution."
Jang Cheon cautioned her. Heuk-yo was originally a demonic sword, and she often showed dislike for those close to him. She rarely caused real trouble, but three hundred years had passed.
"Got it."
The master and disciple laid the unfortunate young man's body to rest in a suitable spot. They didn't pry into the details. For one called the Life-and-Death Great Emperor, it was a rather pathetic end.
"Well then, master."
With everything settled and Heuk-yo at his waist once more, the old sensation returned. A bizarre feeling. As if he could do anything. Ever since he'd first gained that strange power of immortality, being beside this sword always brought it on.
Omnipotence.
Heuk-yo whispered as if to say she could grant anything he desired. Sweetly, calmly, into his ear.
"What do you wish to do right now?"
Before, when she'd asked that, he'd spoken of unfinished vengeance. He wanted blood oaths from all tied to his affairs. And indeed, it had come to pass—all except Cheon Yomyeong and the Cheon Young Division Leader.
But now, Jang Cheon felt calmly settled.
He had come to this land for one reason alone. Heuk-yo must suspect it. So from here, he shouldn't answer himself.
"Sohyang-ah."
Did the grave still remain? It might have vanished in the long years. No one to tend it.
The tomb of his wife and parents. A small mountain once owned by the clan.
Cheon Sohyang had come from Seongdo to that mountain. Not Jang Cheon himself.
Cheon Sohyang.
So he called her once more.
"Sohyang-ah."
His disciple answered from the ashes.
"Do you truly seek atonement?"
"...Yes. Without doubt."
To receive forgiveness, even belatedly, for a distant ancestor's sin. From her ignorant childhood onward, Cheon Sohyang had always thought of it. When she grew up, if ajussi permitted, she wanted to do just that.
The girl's resolve did not waver.
"I'll... go to the grave and pray."
"So be it."
Jang Cheon's reply was also meant for Heuk-yo. With that, he began walking alongside Cheon Sohyang.
Heuk-yo followed a step behind, watching Cheon Sohyang intently. With somewhat complicated eyes.