The Twilight Bargain
“Hah!”
The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a burning twilight.
I had never witnessed a dusk so blood-red in my life. Wherever the crimson light touched, it scorched hot enough to sting. The shadows where the light failed to reach had gone chillingly, unnaturally cold.
—Kki-gi-gi-gi-gik…
The death-throes of cicadas faded into silence. Absolute quiet. In a world where only the endless, dying cries of cicadas repeated without end, no other sound existed.
“Where am I? I was definitely…”
A butterfly fluttered past my eyes. That tiny movement made me flinch hard. I shoved myself upright, clenched my fists in the foundational stance of the Vajra Demon Subduing Fist, and locked into position.
“What the hell.”
My entire body was soaked in cold sweat; I was panting hard. My knees throbbed so fiercely I could barely stay standing. I felt them carefully. They were fine.
“What is this feeling?”
It was as if both my legs had been severed clean off. A phantom ache kept pulsing, distant and relentless. I scanned my surroundings. Everything was drowned in that intense blood-colored twilight—so fierce it erased the original colors of every object, as if the world itself were on fire.
It was a highland forest at the height of autumn.
—Kki-gi-gi-gik…
A cicada dropped to the ground and thrashed as it died. The sound of its dying scraped against my eardrums. Above it, a butterfly with silver wings drifted in quiet circles.
“A hallucination…?”
I forced down the panic clawing at me and tried to think rationally. Moments ago I had been standing in front of the jade stele in Obi Cave. That was an undeniable fact. So my presence here made no sense. The only explanation was hallucination. Yet everything felt far too real for that.
A narrow path of white sand, as if someone had scattered it deliberately, stretched ahead. The silver-winged butterfly flew along it, as though beckoning me to follow. When I didn’t move, it circled my eyes in silent urgency before gliding forward again.
“….”
I started walking after the butterfly. Over rocks and more rocks, a mountain stream ran through a small valley. A sheer cliff rose before me. Atop the impossibly high cliff, on a towering boulder, an old man and a middle-aged man sat facing each other, playing Go beneath the twilight. The butterfly drifted to their side.
The old man wore a tattered dark-red martial robe and a long white beard that reached his waist. The man was dressed entirely in pitch-black clothes, his black hair cropped very short.
—Kki-gi-gi-gi-gi…
The cicada’s desperate dying cries continued, thin and unbroken, as if they might cut off at any moment.
—Ttak. Ttak.
They were playing Go. At first I watched simply because there was nowhere else to look. It did not take long to realize how grotesque the game was.
—Ttak. Tta-dak. Ttak. Ttak. Ttak-ttak-ttak.
They placed stones at a frenzied pace. No thought existed between moves. It was as if they were racing to see who could slam stones down faster—a pure speed-game form. The instant one hand left a stone, the next stone was already striking the board. White and black stones were captured and piled up in an instant on both sides. A senseless slaughter that raised goosebumps for no reason I could name. They neither cheered nor grieved. They simply kept capturing, and capturing again. Severing necks, and severing them again.
“Familiar, isn’t it?”
The middle-aged man looked at me and smiled faintly. Mid-fifties, perhaps. A kindly smile. At the same time, it was the most inhuman, vacant smile I had ever seen on a human face. When I said nothing, he spoke again in the exact same tone.
“Familiar, isn’t it?”
No rise or fall. The same flat voice, eyes fixed on me.
“Familiar, isn’t it?”
Even the old man had stopped playing. Both of them stared at me with empty eyes.
“W-what do you mean by that?”
I forced the words out under a pressure that felt like it would choke me.
“Capturing the stones, I mean. It’s really quite similar, isn’t it? You should find it familiar.”
“Similar to what? I don’t understand your meaning.”
“What else could it be?”
The man laughed without sound.
“Similar to the way you tore out the throats of dozens of Blood Cultists.”
The old man in the dark-red robes clicked his tongue.
“I would ask you to refrain from teasing a child who knows nothing while seating him beside us. Mara Jin.”
The old man was addressing the middle-aged man with the deference due a superior.
“From the game onward, you have an unusual number of requests today, Heavenly Blood Demon.”
“You always say that, yet you still stay here to keep this old man company.”
“That’s because I acknowledge you.”
“Then let me say it again.”
Heavenly Blood Demon took a black stone.
“Would it not be better to spare him rather than kill him? Frankly, it has been a long time since I received such an abundant offering—starting with the sheer audacity of calling himself the Heavenly Demon. Whether by his will or not.”
No. It couldn’t be.
Mara Jin answered Heavenly Blood Demon.
“There are aspects I like—offering dozens of Blood Cultists as sacrifices, the way he killed the Golden-Haired Divine Ape. That’s why you and I have been watching him. The reason I haven’t killed him immediately is because of those things as well.”
Their words drove into my chest like ice. Heavenly Blood Demon, still looking at the board, furrowed his white brows.
“You say that, yet you refuse to lose even a single stone.”
I finally understood what the Go board meant. The white and black stones piled at their feet. They had been playing for my life—whether to kill me or spare me.
My mind reeled. Cold sweat ran down the back of my neck. The silver butterfly flew through the mist before my eyes.
“I win by two points.”
Heavenly Blood Demon captured the final stone. Mara Jin looked down at the board, then nodded, accepting defeat.
“Hmm. A bet is a bet. Very well, Heavenly Blood Demon. Then—”
Mara Jin looked at me.
“We shall spare this child.”
Without my even realizing it, they had decided whether I lived or died.
“Who are you people?”
Crushed by their presence, I spoke in a hoarse voice. Mara Jin’s face lit up with interest.
“Oh? Are you asking for my true name, Fourth Young Master of the Moyong Family?”
I was stunned.
“How do you know that?”
“No, no. From the moment you placed your palm on the jade stele, that ceased to matter. I asked whether you were inquiring after my true name. Let me ask once more. Were you curious about my true name?”
Even while speaking human words, it did not feel like a human conversation. His bright yellow eyes constantly studied me the way a bird of prey studies how best to swallow its prey whole—utterly without emotion.
“Enough.”
The old man’s dark-red robe flared as he stepped between our gazes.
“Mara Jin. I clearly won the game. How about ending the games?”
Heavenly Blood Demon’s deep eyes fixed on Mara Jin. Still wearing that smiling face and empty stare, Mara Jin turned his head to look back. Silence stretched. Neither looked away.
“…Hmm. Fine.”
Mara Jin nodded and stepped back from me.
“We shall set aside the question of who we are, Young Master of the Moyong Family. Heh heh.”
Even in that brief moment I was soaked through with cold sweat, as if I had bathed in it. Mara Jin chuckled softly.
“I’ll be direct. You came here because you want the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo, correct?”
My head cleared. The goal I had forgotten under the tension returned. I still did not know exactly who they were, but I could guess: beings connected to the martial arts of the White Lotus Demon Sect, using the jade stele I had touched in Obi Cave as a medium.
“Yes. I want the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo.”
Mara Jin smiled at the faint tremor in my voice.
“Yes. We have been watching you. So I know better than anyone why you want it, and how badly.”
“You’ve been watching me?”
“You offered me a sacrifice.”
“There must be some mistake. I never did any such thing.”
Mara Jin laughed.
“Even if you did not intend it, you clearly made an offering to me. On a day when an odd-numbered date coincides with the new moon, setting fire and burning toward the northwest under the twilight is an offering to me.”
Lightning split through my mind. After the battle with the Blood Cultists, I had hurriedly set fire to erase their traces. I had also burned the Green Forest corpses they had hung from the trees in their atrocities. Behind those flames had been a twilight as vivid as blood.
“Damn.”
“You seem to remember now. I knew it was coincidence as well. I meant to ignore it, but the madness and emotion in it…”
He rested his chin on his hand with a soft sigh.
“It reminded me too strongly of the old Righteous-Demonic War. I couldn’t look away. And when I looked into it, sure enough—”
Mara Jin glanced at Heavenly Blood Demon.
“—he was connected to this side. That’s why you, who are not quite yourself, are still blocking me, isn’t it? Whether he intended it or not, he claimed with his own mouth to be your descendant—and he even resembles the wretched temperament of your younger days. Am I wrong?”
“….”
Heavenly Blood Demon stroked his beard and said nothing.
—Kuuuurrrrung.
The world was shaking. Far beyond the burning twilight, everything had been trembling and collapsing for some time. Heavenly Blood Demon clicked his tongue at the sight; Mara Jin’s eyes gleamed with interest.
“Moyong Bi, the existence with you is truly remarkable. To interfere enough to shake Maseonrim itself. He must be thoroughly alarmed. Heh heh. I’m starting to understand why you, Heavenly Blood Demon, have always found him so particularly distasteful.”
“….”
Heavenly Blood Demon narrowed his eyes and stared hard beyond the twilight. From far away, a faint, ghostly wail echoed. It was the voice of some being I had forgotten.
[—! Come out! You must not get involved with them—!]
—Kuuuurrrrung!
The shaking grew stronger.
“Khuk!”
The clearer the cry became, the more fiercely my knees throbbed. What was this feeling? As if everything below my knees had been cut away.
“Time is short, so I’ll speak quickly. The Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo you desire—this one alone requires my permission.”
“Your permission?”
Mara Jin laced his fingers together.
“For the other demonic arts of the White Lotus Demon Sect, Heavenly Blood Demon is the root, so I will respect his judgment. But not this. Because the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo alone is a demonic art rooted in me. You want it as well? Then I will gladly give it to you. However—”
He raised one finger.
“Just one thing. Grant me a single wish. In accordance with that, I will also pass the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo on to you.”
—Kuuuurrrrung…
The world was collapsing. Heavenly Blood Demon had remained silent the entire time, watching from behind. More precisely, from the moment Maseonrim began to shake, he had ignored us completely, focusing only on something beyond the sky.
Mara Jin licked his lips.
“My wish is very small and simple. Compared to obtaining the tremendous power of the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo, it is a childish condition.”
“What is the condition?”
Had I ever concentrated so completely on another person’s words in my entire life? The sky writhed and heaved. It was growing dark. The twilight was dying, and the world was plunging into rapid darkness. In that darkness, Mara Jin’s yellow eyes gleamed as he whispered.
“The deadline is before the fifth night from now. There is a successor to the Guardian of the Emei Sect who has not yet undergone the coming-of-age ceremony. Obtain a lock of that person’s hair, and on the final edge of the fifth day, when the blood-tinged twilight is at its most vivid, burn it toward the northwest. Then the Patcheon Hyeolma Gunrimbo will without fail become yours.”
Mara Jin drew a black dagger from his waist and tossed it at my feet.
“If you accept, stab your knee with this dagger while speaking your name.”
“Why the knee… of all places?”
“Because,”
Mara Jin tapped his fingers together,
“I have already taken everything below your knees as collateral. If you accept the proposal, I will temporarily return it. I can hardly turn into a cripple right now the person who will be running around to grant my wish, can I?”
Only then did a half-forgotten memory surface. When I touched the jade stele, everything below my knees had exploded as if severed. The being before me was speaking as if he had already blocked every possibility and was still offering a fair chance. Mara Jin looked at me as if he already knew what I would choose.
From the darkness he said,
“Well then. What will you do?”
I picked up the black dagger.
“I’ll make two things clear first.”
“Oh?”
I tore a strip from my sleeve, fashioned a gag, and brought it to my mouth.
“First. The price for creating this dogshit situation and yanking me around—I don’t care who you are. I’m powerless now and have to take it, but someday I will absolutely repay you. That’s how I’ve lived until now. Man or woman, young or old—no exceptions…!”
Mara Jin looked intrigued.
“My, my.”
Heavenly Blood Demon seemed taken aback by my words. I spoke each phrase as if chewing and spitting it out around the cloth in my mouth.
“Second. With that in mind, remember this well. My name is Moyong Bi! Fourth son of the Moyong Family, and a man who, if it means surviving, will surpass every Heavenly Demon and Blood Demon in history—whether of the White Lotus Demon Sect, the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, or the Blood Cult!”
I shoved the cloth between my teeth, bit down hard, and drove the dagger into my knee with all my strength as I roared.
“A man who will rise above them all!”