One Month

"Wh-what is this…? How is it that thou canst do such a thing!?"

Lilith's voice climbed all at once, nearly to a scream. Even so, Bihyung had no particular answer to give her. He had been able to do it from the very start.

After I gained the cultivation art, yang energy just piled up, and it happened on its own.

No. Strictly speaking, it wasn't the cultivation art. From the moment a yokai dantian formed inside him, an empty seat had already been waiting there — which meant he could have taken in yang energy and held it whenever he pleased. From the literal beginning, he had been capable.

That settles it. EX rank. It meant Transcendence.

Then, if he only heaped myth high enough, did that mean he could become a god?

…A god.

A familiar word, and yet it felt terribly distant. Any modern soul who had lived out a life on Earth would have felt the same, hearing in a single breath that they had drawn near to godhood. It seemed like something he would never reach — and, at the same time, like something he could snatch if he only stretched out a hand. A thoroughly contradictory feeling. Bihyung accepted it with pleasure.

"…Magnificent."

Lilith regarded him so, and went on in a low voice.

"A being who has already achieved Transcendence only now begins to compose his myth… Truly, I cannot begin to fathom how thy legend shall take shape."

A storm of thoughts tore through her mind. The Great Sage Equal to Heaven, once called a talent of the Heaven Beyond Heaven — his birth had been just the same.

A yokai born bearing yin and yang at once.

Heaven's mistake, they had called him. Not long after he was born, that Great Sage had waged war against Heaven itself and proven his own existence.

…That monkey stands at the very summit, even among the divine seats of the Celestial Realm. And yet even he could wield yang energy in earnest only around the time he was compiling the Development.

Lilith judged that alone to have been the swiftest pace among all the Acquired Gods. It was why he had been strong despite accumulating legend for a shorter span ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠than she, and why he had stood above every other divine seat.

And yet sooner still than even that Great Sage — this young half-yokai, who had not even finished compiling the Opening, handled yin and yang as he pleased. It was like standing before an existence that could not be comprehended.

And if one were to seize him at the Opening, and announce the beginning of his legend?

The moment that single imagining happened to surface, Lilith could not help but be aghast. She could not measure it. Not just anyone — she herself, who had accomplished myth.

Her trembling pupils rested on Bihyung. She mastered herself and opened her mouth.

"…O thou. To see thee wear so tranquil a countenance, it seems thou hast yet to divine thine own possibility."

"…?"

Meeting the question mark written across his face, Lilith laid out everything she had been turning over. The result was that Bihyung had no choice but to sink into a considerable dilemma.

…Feels like the board is getting bigger than I thought.

In the first place, his being able to handle yin and yang alike was nothing more than a gift from those beings of the Celestial Realm. Would things really come undone as easily as Lilith said?

Not a chance.

The divine seats of Heaven had brought him because they wanted something of him, so they would at least set a fitting power in his hands. Put another way, though, he might well have been saddled with a task those seats could not handle themselves. That the road toward raising strength enough to deal with it would be harsh and grinding was plain as day.

…Getting rolled through the dirt along the way is a given.

Ah, this life.

Still, it's not bad news.

To think he might achieve a caliber greater even than the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. He really might be able to crack the back of the skull of the divine seats who had dragged him here. The thought left Bihyung satisfied.

Grrrr…

The yokai nature steeped in his blood seemed pleased as well, whatever its intent. Bihyung nodded and lifted his head.

"Then I ought to be heading out soon."

He had learned what he came for concerning the Chair, his goal for the moment. On top of that, he had folded Lilith — a yokai who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had reached myth — into the Baekgwi Yahaeng. An unforeseen harvest, and a heaven-sent encounter.

To declare the journey's end, he raised his presence, meaning to shatter the domain of the Library Anomaly. And in that instant—

Hm?

A strange current brushed against him.

The Library Anomaly's domain is twisting, warping out of shape. Fallout from Lilith's descent?

It couldn't be helped. Lilith had been inside the Chair's body from the start, and from the moment he brought her in, her descent had already been a foregone conclusion. Rather than resent the situation, Bihyung looked for a way through it. And in that fleeting pause—

…Didn't the Great Sage Equal to Heaven gain the Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils inside the Eight Trigrams Furnace?

Those original game-breaking eyes rose in his mind.

The Eight Trigrams Furnace. Samadhi True Fire. Fiery Eyes, Golden Pupils… legend.

The thoughts crowding his head soon had him reaching out without meaning to. Chwak — and an ink-black Ruyi Spear filled his grip.

"Huh?"

Bihyung's eyes went round. He had left it back in the dormitory. How had it appeared?

…So I had an ability like this, too.

What did it matter? The very thing he had been thinking of had come to him of its own accord. He spun the Ruyi Spear once and laid the shaft across his shoulder.

He closed both eyes and entered Complete Weapon-Body Unity. From the shoulder down, the whole of his right arm became one with the spear, and within that union he read the legend the weapon was showing him.

Fwoosh — the flames of the Eight Trigrams Furnace began to surge. True to the hell-raising delinquent he had been, there was not a shred of remorse in him, only the thought of getting out and smashing the skulls of those who had suppressed him.

When I obtained this legend, I was told the Great Sage would let me work a miracle under oppression.

Then this was that moment. A situation he had never seen coming had decided to screw him over, trying to pin him here and lock him in. If this wasn't oppression, what was?

So. Grant me a miracle, Great Sage Equal to Heaven.

As if in answer to that wish, he almost thought he heard a monkey cackling somewhere. He understood at once. It was a fragment of emotion sent by the Ruyi Spear.

The thing is enjoying this.

A divine armament that, alongside its former master, had broken through countless ordeals and at the end achieved the immense feat called myth. As he came to understand, little by little, the meaning of ruyi — as one wishes — the Divine Weapon-Body Unity covering his shoulder began to spread across his upper body, a little at a time. From the right shoulder into the chest, then along the shoulder blade and around to the back. He no longer had any sense of what this achievement ought to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be called.

I'll just call it Assimilation.

Still too short of the mark to be called true unity, and yet he had drawn a little closer to the weapon all the same. Drawing on the legend he felt from the Ruyi Spear, Bihyung immediately raised dao-power laced with Samadhi True Fire.

The flame kindled within him roared up along his meridians and soon gathered near his eyes. Tsss… Hot. It felt as though his eyeballs would melt clean away. He did not have a body as stupidly tough as Sun Wukong's, nor a deathless life. Even so, reading that legend, he endured without yielding, and the fruit of it began, little by little, to settle around his eyes.

Fwoosh. Before he knew it both eyes were bloodshot, and a faint gold had come to rest in the pupils. Far too crude to be called Fiery Eyes, Golden Pupils. Even so, they were more than enough to find a path through the warped gap in the anomaly.

I can… see!

By then both eyes were weeping blood under a power they could not bear, and yet, strangely, it no longer hurt. Rather, a cool, refreshing sensation washed over his mind. Bihyung gazed upon it, then swung the spear.

Hwooom — there was no sound of anything being cut, no sign of anything breaking. Even so, along the trajectory the spear had passed, space began to scatter like mist before the wind.

"Oh ho?"

"This is…"

Lilith, as though she had grasped what lay within the technique, wore a look ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of keen interest, while the Chair could only gape in astonishment. Of course. The single move Bihyung had just shown was a long way from ordinary.

A god's Authority. The very symbol of Sun Wukong, the Great Sage Equal to Heaven. A technique swung from a height one step closer to it sat far beyond anything a mortal eye could follow.

…Kh!

But it seemed he himself had yet to cast off the mask of a mortal. Merely harboring a degraded, nerfed pair of Fiery Eyes and Golden Pupils was enough to rattle his insides to pulp and make his soul feel as though it would crumble. Only after the legend flowing from the Ruyi Spear cradled him did he recover, if only a little. Only then did a quiet chuckle slip from his lips.

The gods of the Celestial Realm, so tremendous — and among them the Authority of the Great Sage Equal to Heaven, said to boast the highest seat of all. This was the moment he understood it, if only a little.

If I can take this as a foundation, and apply that legend and that power in my own way, and fuse them…

It was around the time Bihyung set his course ahead. Softly, the surroundings melted away. The Library Anomaly — its domain gradually collapsed, and the light called reality began to fall across the four quarters.

But something was off.

"…Hm?"

"Huh?"

When Bihyung and the Chair looked around, a great many people had them surrounded. For the record, the moment they returned to reality Lilith had gone back into the Chair's body, and so she did not see it.

Whoa. Would you look at that lineup. Fancy.

Faculty, the Guardian Corps, and even the Head of the Elder Council together with figures from the student council — the spiritual pressure rolling off the crowd was by no means faint.

But… what's going on?

As Bihyung tilted his head in puzzlement, a welcome face came toward him, parting the crowd.

"…Top Cadet. Do you kick up an incident everywhere you set foot?"

"Pardon?"

As his head tilted even further, unable to keep up, the cadet in charge of Class A let out a hollow laugh.

"Good to see you. It's been a month, hasn't it?"

…Pardon?

How long did you just say?