I Couldn't Let Go
“Aaaaaaargh!!!”
Lightning exploded before my eyes.
My entire body was being fried alive.
The lightning spear buried in my abdomen thrashed like a living serpent of pure light, whipping and writhing with insane force. It strained against my grip with everything it had, thrashing to break free and burrow deeper into my gut. Right now it was swelling past its limit, moments from detonating.
“Ghk… aaah… aaaaargh!!”
That swelling spear was being crushed by my inner energy. Unable to expand any further, it only spat out continuous arcs of lightning that seared me alive.
[Host! Let go of it!]
Mumyeong screamed inside my skull.
[If you keep holding it like this it could detonate inside your body! Pull it out of your stomach and throw it! Even if it explodes at close range you can still survive with your protective qi—why are you clinging to it like a fool!]
“No! Absolutely not!!”
Even as every capillary in my body burst, I struggled with everything I had not to release the spear.
“If I let go… if I pull it out and throw it…!”
There was a child behind me.
I could see people watching from the collapsed rubble. I could see the little dolls swaying at the child’s waist.
“Everyone dies…!”
[You madman! Have you lost your mind!]
Mumyeong roared, voice thick with fury.
[Let go this instant! Or you’ll die!]
“No! I can’t—!”
The lightning spear began to drive into me with frenzied force. The spear itself, like some divine artifact given life, stretched its own energy outward.
“Khuhk!”
Crimson blood sprayed from my nose.
The moment my strength faltered, the spear swelled as if it would burst at any second. Every meridian in my body boiled over at the foreign invasion.
The direction the spear was aiming for was unmistakable.
Mumyeong screamed.
[Damn it! This bastard is going for the Jade!]
A bone-chilling demonic energy rode my meridians and shot madly toward the Jade.
A thought I had never heard before rang through my ears.
Then a thunderous cry ripped through my eardrums as if to tear them apart.
Every blood vessel in my body rose to the surface of my skin as if I had fallen into qi deviation.
“Gyaaaaaah!!”
Mumyeong’s voice hammered urgently through my mind.
[I’m sealing the meridians in sequence starting from the central vessel! This bastard has been after the Heavenly Demon Jade from the very beginning! That was his only goal all along!]
Mumyeong’s murky, icy energy began spreading along my meridians like a single drop of ink blooming through clear water. It collided head-on with the invading power of the Thunder Emperor of the Eight Demon Dragons.
Two forces locked in a death struggle for control of my body, slamming into each other and trying to shove the other out.
Muscles twisted and tore. My arm warped out of shape.
Mumyeong spoke rapidly.
[I’ll block from Guangchu and Yintang first! Then divert circulation through alternate meridians—no, it’s already blocked! What about I’an, Sam’an?!]
His voice rose in pure panic.
[Through the Sugu point is already impossible. No. No, no! The Chonghui is being swallowed too! It’s not just the Jade—it’s going for the brain as well!]
That damp voice echoed through my skull once more.
At last the voice began to mix with Mumyeong’s, warping and corrupting as it did.
Mumyeong shouted.
[Host!! This is not the time to worry about other people! At this rate everything will be swallowed!]
He screamed as if in despair.
[Not just the Jade—this monster is going to devour your entire body whole!]
Sensation vanished from my left arm.
“Ah.”
I looked down in shock.
My left arm spun like a wooden puppet on strings. The hand turned toward me.
It clamped around my throat.
“Kh! Khaaargh!!”
The grip that had been tempered through merciless training began to crush my neck with enough force to snap it clean. Every vein and tendon stood out on the surface of my left arm as if about to burst.
I fought with everything I had. I tried to pry the choking left hand free. But the fingers that had started to open clamped down again under a will far stronger than mine, tightening around my throat once more.
“Kh… ghk!!”
My consciousness blurred. Strength drained from my grip. The black lightning that had been crushing the spear—trying to keep it from exploding inside me—began to unravel.
The lightning spear drove in with mad hunger. It swelled to the absolute limit, ready to burst at any moment. The hand around my throat only grew stronger.
Mumyeong roared.
[Damn it all! If it’s come to this then—!]
His energy condensed, wrapping thickly around the Jade and my vital organs.
“Moyong Bi!!”
In the distance I saw Eun Seollyeong and Jegal Sea racing toward me, faces white with horror.
Strength slipped from my fingers. Frothing blood at my lips, I still fought with the last fraying threads of will to keep my grip closed around the spear even as my vision went gray.
“I… can’t… let go…!”
“Mister Bi?”
At the edge of my fading sight I saw the child’s doll, eyes wide and round, looking up at me. A scrap of the jerky we had been sharing still clung to the little animal doll’s mouth. It was a grimy, well-loved thing.
Mumyeong screamed.
[Host!!!]
“…Hah!”
I opened my eyes.
I was in a white room. The room was utterly silent.
“…Hah… hah….”
My ragged breathing filled the space as if I had just broken the surface after diving too deep.
Through the open window came the dying cry of a cicada as early autumn set in.
At first I thought it was a dream. But the bandages wrapped around my abdomen, the faint scent of medicinal herbs, and the countless marks where needles had only recently been pulled free told me otherwise.
More than anything, I knew this room.
“The Jegal Family…?”
I listened beyond the window. Outside, as befitting one of the Five Great Families, countless people came and went. It seemed to be around midday.
My body felt light.
“Mumyeong must have used his restoration ability.”
Mumyeong himself seemed to be asleep. I felt none of that cool presence that always gathered at the nape of my neck whenever he manifested.
If my count was right, the full moon had risen only the day before yesterday. Using the recovery now meant I would not be able to call on it again until the next full moon.
I rose from the bed and opened the door.
“Ah.”
“Ah.”
Eun Seollyeong stood right in front of me. She held a small basin of water and a towel.
Her expression was as cold and still as ice.
“You’re already awake?”
“Eun Seollyeong. Why are you here?”
My head was still foggy. I could form no proper thoughts. I simply stared at her.
“Go back inside. I will summon the physician again. The weather is turning cool. You must not move about carelessly.”
She gestured to a maid standing farther down the corridor.
“Tell the physician I personally summoned to come here at once.”
“Ah… th-that person, my lady?”
The maid hesitated.
Eun Seollyeong spoke as if she already understood the reason for that reaction, her voice quiet and even.
“If you say I called for him, he will come without a word of complaint. Do not be afraid. Deliver the message.”
“Y-yes. Understood.”
Once the maid had gone, Eun Seollyeong looked at me. She blinked her silver eyes and extended one long, pale finger.
I felt the tip of that white, almost translucent finger touch the bare skin of my chest where my robes had fallen open—cool enough to make me shiver.
The scent of autumn leaves being gathered and burned in the courtyard rode the crisp early-autumn breeze and brushed my nose.
She gave me a gentle push back into the room. I let myself be guided inside. She closed the door. The noisy world beyond was cut off, and silence settled over the chamber once more.
I lay back down on the bed. My eyes were still vacant, pupils unfocused.
Eun Seollyeong studied me for a long moment, then sat on the edge of the bed without a word and began dampening the towel.
She brushed her cascading silver hair aside and wrung out the cloth. She folded it, rolled up her sleeve, and I felt the cold, wet towel wipe across my forehead.
“Why am I here? If my memory is right, at the end I—”
“It is exactly as you think.”
Her hands moved as if indifferent, yet the towel cleaned my face and the nape of my neck with extreme care.
“You took a direct blow from the fourth of the Eight Demon Dragons—the Thunder Emperor. While you were being electrocuted and dying in real time, Jegal Sea and I managed to recover you and escape all the way here.”
My steady breathing and hers blended with the soft sound of the towel being rinsed, filling the quiet room.
I hesitated. But she read my thoughts faster than the hesitation itself and spoke.
“It is not your fault.”
She put force into the words.
“It is not your fault.”
If I claimed I did not remember, that itself would have been a lie I told myself. I had seen it all with my own two eyes.
I had been tempered too far. I possessed a body strong enough to cross life and death again and again. Because my spirit was equally unyielding, I had been able to keep clear, clean thought even on the very brink of death. And every landscape burned into that clear mind and vision had been etched into my brain with damnable transparency.
I blinked.
“…Eun Seollyeong. The fact that you’re saying that means… everything I remember is true.”
She said nothing.
I spoke in a hoarse voice.
“…Yeah.”
The sensation of strength draining from my grip was still vivid. I remembered the lightning spear swelling with pure white light. I remembered Mumyeong’s frantic shouts as every last scrap of protective qi and even demonic energy was forced to its absolute limit. In the distance Eun Seollyeong had thrown herself over a wide-eyed, screaming Jegal Sea and pressed them both flat to the ground.
Then the massive explosion of lightning had swept everything away.
Behind me there had definitely been a child who shared the same kind of past as me.
“…I debated until the very end whether to show you this, but… I felt it might have some connection to you….”
Eun Seollyeong quietly set something down in front of me.
In the silence I looked at it.
It was a pair of animal dolls. Scraps of jerky still clung to their mouths.
I did not cry loudly. I did not wail.
For the first time I understood.
When you are truly sad, when you are truly in pain, when your insides twist and you want to smash your head against the wall until it splits—tears do not even come out properly. If I opened my mouth to vomit, I felt as though my organs themselves would pour out instead.
Without a sound, tears cut silent tracks down past my tightly closed lips.
My nails dug into the flesh of my clenched fists until blood welled and ran.
“Gh… ghk… uh….”
I drew a breath.
“Hup… uu… uuuh….”
I ground my teeth. Even if I had sobbed aloud there was no one who would have told me to stop, yet I refused to make any sound as if silence itself were a matter of life and death. Wet, ragged breaths forced their way out between teeth clenched hard enough to draw blood.
Eun Seollyeong reached out a hand. She hesitated.
Then she drew it back and clenched her own fist.
The door opened.
“The patient is already awake? Heavens, I’ve worked in the imperial palace and seen every diagnosis under the sun, but this one is truly a case that demands observation—!”
A physician in brown robes came rushing in, voice bright with excitement, only to clamp his mouth shut in a hurry.
“Ah… shall I come back later, then…?”
Eun Seollyeong looked at me.
I bit my lip and forced the words out one by one.
“Don’t… mind me.”
I sucked in a harsh breath.
Eun Seollyeong spoke to the physician.
“Physician Seo Yeong. Wait a moment.”
She held out both hands. Those white hands gently enclosed my tightly clenched fist and coaxed it open. She lifted a clean white towel and carefully wiped away the blood that had pooled in my palm. The cool cloth stung where it touched. Then her cool fingers stroked over the same places, taking my hand in hers.
As if tapping the soft buds of a willow, she pressed several points along my wrist in quick succession; the faint pain that had lingered in my palm was drawn away. Through her fingertips I felt her pure, clear energy seep into me. It was endlessly gentle.
Barely louder than a breath, she whispered by my ear.
“…I, more than anyone, know exactly what you are feeling right now. And that is precisely why I cannot bring myself to say anything careless.”
She continued slowly.
“I am not accustomed to dealing with people. Because of that, I have many shortcomings. Many inadequacies. Knowing this, even while walking a cursed path where time itself has stopped and I travel alone, I have always tried to learn and improve… yet through every one of those years, never have I felt the lack of Jegal Sea’s silver tongue as keenly as I do today….”
I looked at her.
But she did not meet my eyes.
Eun Seollyeong turned to the physician beside her, long lashes blinking once as she spoke.
“You may examine him now, Physician Seo Yeong. Forgive me for summoning someone who had only just been granted rest from the imperial palace all the way out here.”
“Oh, please. Who am I to refuse when you call?”
Physician Seo Yeong’s face was lined with age, yet he grinned as brightly as a child. He unfolded a bulging medical bag at the bedside and said,
“This isn’t just anything—it’s an absolute condition handed down through our ancestral family for generations. Of course I had to come! Isn’t that right, Princess?”