The First Transcription
“You felt that just now?”
Moyong Taese’s eyes bulged as if they might pop from their sockets as he shouted at me.
But I had no time to care about that.
“Eighth Elder! We have to run!”
Too late.
Mumyeong’s frost-edged murmur scraped down my spine.
Five crimson figures vaulted lightly over the wall and settled in front of us.
“Haa?”
It was him.
The one who had killed me.
Right before my eyes stood the red-masked figure, exactly as in that nightmare.
“Ah… aah.”
Both hands shook violently.
Just looking at her made it hard to breathe.
I was choking to death on pure terror.
This was the one who had murdered me.
No doubt about it.
I never imagined I would meet the bastard who killed me a second time before even a full day had passed.
Long hair, gathered high, fluttered behind the red mask.
The hips and waist wrapped in red cloth belonged unmistakably to a woman.
“How is this possible? You should definitely be dead.”
Her voice trembled with agitation.
—Whirrrick.
Like a silver snake flicking its tongue, a soft sword thinner than paper coiled up from her wrist along her waist and hips and settled into her hand.
“Step back, Moyong Bi.”
Moyong Taese moved in front of me.
“Eighth Elder Moyong Taese?”
“You know me?”
Her brows twitched beneath the mask.
“The Eighth Elder himself is protecting him, and they even wiped out every last ant to stop information from leaking. At this point there’s no point pretending that one isn’t Moyong Bi.”
The red-masked woman crossed her arms and sighed.
“Ah, whatever. Just kill every suspicious bastard. That should solve it.”
“I tried to hide it, but I suppose there’s no meaning left in that now.”
Moyong Taese clicked his tongue and let the wooden sword fall from his hand.
“I may be the weakest among the Moyong Family’s eight elders, but that doesn’t mean I can just stand by and do nothing.”
A real sword slid free from his waist.
“Tell your employer this: as of today, Moyong Bi—who carries the blood of the Moyong Family head—is under my protection as the Eighth Elder.”
“What?”
“What, is that too hard a request for a hunting dog that has to watch its master’s face?”
Their gazes locked, the masked woman’s eyes flaring.
Her shoulders trembled.
“Ha… ahaha. Me, So Yeomgyo, watching someone’s face? Our dear Elder is really making my eyes roll for the first time in ages.”
The air froze solid.
The leader of the assassins had spoken her own name.
That meant only one thing.
She had no intention of leaving even a single ant alive here today.
“No more talk. Kids.”
—Ttaak.
At her gesture the subordinates shot forward like arrows.
“You bastards!”
Moyong Taese shoved me behind him.
Blue qi erupted from his body like a waterfall.
“Starting with Heaven-Earth Flash-Breaking Sword?! Aren’t you overdoing it, Elder?”
“Haah!”
At Moyong Taese’s shout, eight blue sword-lights raced toward her.
“Mm!”
So Yeomgyo’s eyes widened.
The blue sword-lights swallowed her afterimage in an instant.
—Kwa-kwa-kwang!
The first high-level martial art I had ever witnessed.
It went far beyond the primitive act of swinging a real sword; for the first time I saw sword-light charged with inner energy take solid form.
It was power that would have shredded a nobody like me without me even getting a chance to move.
Eight blue sword-lights cascade like a waterfall, devouring afterimages in a single breath.
No. Not enough.
Mumyeong’s voice rang inside my skull.
“Mumyeong?”
Host. I have something to say.
His voice was urgent as he continued.
—Chaaeng!!
The steel cry of clashing blades echoed in every direction.
“What?!”
Moyong Taese’s eyes went wide.
—Kaaang.
Four assassins had stepped in front of him.
They blocked his sword-lights with almost casual ease, shielding So Yeomgyo.
“They said to empty the mansion for one shichen, and they weren’t kidding. This much noise and still no one comes.”
So Yeomgyo sounded impressed.
“Damn it.”
Moyong Taese ground his teeth.
Mumyeong’s voice flooded my mind again.
Five more times. Within five collisions, Moyong Taese will definitely die.
“Die?”
He ignored my reaction completely and pressed on.
After Moyong Taese dies, the Host will die next. Easier than twisting a child’s wrist. I’ll be honest. Whether the Host lives or dies is none of my concern. But if the Host dies, I die too. And—
“You…!”
I do not want to die.
Mumyeong’s tone never rose or fell, yet something seething and wordless burned beneath it.
It was the exact same feeling I had: I do not want to die.
Does the Host want to live?
“Of course.”
Not a shred of hesitation.
Even if you have to pay any price for it?
A chill like ice water poured down my spine.
“What does that mean?”
Nothing special.
A lie.
This bastard was lying right now.
But there was no time to call him on it.
Did I want to live?
“….”
Silence was silent consent.
Then prepare from this moment.
“Prepare for what?”
There’s only one thing the Host can do right now, isn’t there?
My breath stopped.
As I hesitated, Mumyeong cut in coldly.
Prepare. A worm only gets one chance.
—Jjeoeong!
With the fourth collision Moyong Taese vomited black blood.
“Keok! Cough, cough.”
So Yeomgyo gave him not even a moment to breathe.
She cut the flow with exquisite timing and drove her blade into every opening.
She toyed with him thoroughly.
Moyong Taese spat blood and gasped for air.
“Haa… haa! How can there be masters of this level…!”
“If you want to stop me you’ll need to bring Guardians of the Nine Sects level!”
Crimson qi exploded from both of So Yeomgyo’s arms and coiled around her like red serpents.
“Let’s end this, Eighth Elder!”
It was a blood-colored storm.
With this single strike she meant to snuff out Moyong Taese’s life at once.
A slaughter-storm that pulverizes everything in its path. Crimson serpents climb her entire body and howl as they tear the air from eight directions.
Krrraaaah!!!
The red snakes raced up her body and shrieked.
They shredded the surroundings and flew at Moyong Taese from eight directions at once.
“Keuk!”
Moyong Taese poured every last drop of his inner power into the greatest ultimate technique he knew.
Two blue dragons tear free from the earth. A raging storm of sword energy smashes everything and surges forward like a tidal wave.
—Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwa!
A cataclysmic collision of overwhelming blue qi and crimson qi that overturned the surroundings.
“…Moyong Bi?!”
Moyong Taese spotted me still standing frozen nearby and his eyes flared in shock.
“What are you doing! If you stay there you’ll be caught in—! Keok!”
He tried to roar a warning but the storm of qi choked the words off.
—Kwa-du-du-du…
The earth shook.
The ground howled.
Stone fragments flew.
Targets: two. Target location: twelve paces ahead!
Mumyeong shouted.
—Pibit, pibit!
Shards sliced past my cheeks and tore the skin.
Vibrations raced up through the soles of my feet.
Haa… haa.
Every sound receded into the distance.
My legs trembled.
I swallowed hard.
Can I do this?
It was a contradiction.
It made no sense.
I had thought it impossible.
Something this fraudulent couldn’t possibly work.
But!
I had to.
Mumyeong’s cry rang rapidly through my head.
The formal activation name is four characters! You start by chanting them two characters at a time! I’ll give the signal—concentrate, Host!
Moyong Taese and So Yeomgyo.
The two masters’ strongest techniques, wrapped in ferocious red and blue energy, hung on the brink of collision.
—Kwa-du-du-du!!
Blue qi and red qi hurtled toward each other with savage force.
The axis of the earth trembled.
My soul felt ready to shatter.
My teeth chattered.
A pure-white shockwave filled my pupils—!
Begin!
—Paaat!
Both of my eyes began to flood with red.
“Euk!”
Blood vessels reversed throughout my entire body.
Every vein in my body contracted and stood out as if about to burst.
—Namsang
I chanted the first two characters of the four-character technique name of my life and struck the fuse of a powder keg.
Next, two more!
I shouted the two words he had taught me—the activation phrase that awakened the Heavenly Demon’s authority.
—Sammae
Both eyeballs turned into orbs of pure scarlet blood.
The movements of the two high-level techniques were rubbed off like rubbings and slammed straight into my brain.
—Kka-gak! Kka-ga-ga-gak!
Information crashed in like a tidal wave.
Pain as if my brain were being shredded to pieces slammed through me.
Mumyeong had also called this the “Heavenly Demon’s Authority.”
The innate ability of the Heavenly Demon.
Or perhaps one of the martial arts of the Demon Cult—he didn’t know.
He said that when he had been the Heavenly Demon himself he might have known, but as the incomplete, jumbled fragment he was now, he could not tell.
But what did that matter?
What mattered was that I could use it right now.
I didn’t care about the cause.
I didn’t care about the reason.
Extra worries were a privilege reserved for those who survived; a mayfly that didn’t know if it would see tomorrow had no right to them.
—Kwa-reu-reung!!
“Kkeuaaak! Aaak! Aaaaak!”
Bloody tears reversed and poured out.
—Puk!
The blood vessels in my right arm burst.
—Kwa-deuk!
The blood vessels in my right thigh burst.
Was this what it felt like to have shards of glass driven one by one into the brain?
Unable to endure the flood of information, my right eyeball ruptured.
The falling blood melted the dirt floor together with blue smoke.
“Geureuk, geureureuk!”
Black blood boiled up along the corners of my mouth.
The world reflected in my raised red eyes was dyed crimson.
The world slowed.
Everything split into hundredths of a second and was engraved one by one.
—Ppa-gak ppa-ga-gak.
With a acrid stench my brain began to burn.
It was nothing like Dang Sowui’s Plum Blossom Spinning Dagger.
Whether my flesh suffered or not, once the process began it did not stop.
My two eyeballs moved grotesquely, each on its own, greedily scanning So Yeomgyo’s and Moyong Taese’s every motion like madmen.
A gloomy, damp voice different from Mumyeong’s—the same voice I had heard when So Yeomgyo first killed me.
So this was the Heavenly Demon.
The leader of the Heavenly Demon Cult and its founding cult master.
This was the essence of the Heavenly Demon that was Mumyeong’s origin—nothing left but a wish.
An indescribable mass of multicolored, incomprehensible knowledge was driven into me through my eyes.
It felt like forcing a gigantic waterfall into my eyes and packing it in whether my stomach burst or not.
“—! ——!!”
I wept.
Tears mixed with blood and bloody tears ran down the line of my jaw.
It had been impossible from the start.
How could a worthless piece of trash like me, something people kicked aside without noticing, copy and take the high-level techniques of two masters? Such an absurd plan…!
Host! Don’t stop. If you stop halfway it’ll be worse than just dying @#[email protected]!!
Mumyeong’s screaming voice receded into the distance.
Was this what it felt like to have a blunt needle dig into your pupils and embroider them?
In the hellish pain, regret and resolve repeated thousands of times in a single instant.
—Jureuk.
Blood flowed from both corners of my eyes.
Bloody tears fell to the ground.
I had lived like a worm.
Whenever things got a little hard I had thought “this is enough” and backed away—a worm’s life.
I remembered myself smiling like an idiot and walking past while people ignored me and snickered, pretending I hadn’t heard.
I pretended not to hear.
I pretended not to see.
I pretended not to feel.
I spent half a year’s savings on a fake secret manual.
Believing it was real, I trained for half a year.
I took the disciple entrance exam, proudly demonstrated it, and was laughed at by everyone.
Still I smiled as if it were nothing and tried again.
But no one ever looked at that effort.
But.
I clenched my teeth.
The die had been cast.
Was I going to end this life just like this?
This was the hope I had barely managed to seize.
I was clearly alive and breathing right now.
I existed here.
To get out I would do anything.
I would scrape and eat the mud beside the gutter if I had to.
Even if you have to pay any price?
That had been Mumyeong’s question a moment ago.
“Fuck, isn’t that obvious!”
It hurt so much I cried.
I vomited blood and howled.
“Yeah, any price at all—so that I never—!”
The answer to that question was meaningless.
Through the life of mine that was paved with regret, the answer had already been decided.
“I will not go back.”
“—! ——!!”
Together with the blood, my body shot desperately forward.
The Heavenly Demon copies martial arts.