Sisters?
Sisters?
Decia's first memories were unlike anyone else's.
While everyone else first awakened to recollection at the age of three, she alone carried every memory intact from the moment of her birth.
Birth in the green culture fluid.
Into Decia—who had been nothing more than a single cell—the flow of heaven and earth sank its roots, and she became life. Two great stems, Metal and Thunder, drove themselves deep into that tiny existence.
Bubble, bubble.
Among the incubation pods lined in a row, Decia's place was the tenth. To her right stood a cold wall; to her left, in the ninth pod, a baby slightly larger than herself lay with eyes closed.
Nain.
From the first instant she saw her, Decia could not look away. Those chubby hands, that small head, that quiet form curled with knees drawn up and eyes gently shut. In an incubation chamber drowned in cold white, Nain alone pulsed with warmth.
"……."
Decia pressed herself flat to the glass and watched. What was this feeling? Her still-infant brain had no way to name it.
Four years passed that way.
All the siblings climbed out of their pods and stood on solid ground for the first time. Decia toddled after Nain wherever she went. Nain always liked to be out in front. Decia clung to her back like a shadow.
"Oppa!"
"Decia, hang on a second. There's something I want to try…."
Saying so, Nain jammed a metal chopstick into a 330-volt outlet.
Zzzzzzt!
Flesh sizzled. Nain's body juddered and shook.
"Ugh-gh-gh-gh!!"
The result was only natural. Nain had no talent for body refinement, and none whatsoever for the Thunder path. With practiced calm, Decia pried the chopstick from Nain's hand.
"You can't sense Thunder Spiritual Qi like that. Why don't you just sit down and meditate instead?"
It was advice born of pity for a sibling who kept throwing themselves at pointless things. Nain only laughed.
"No way. I definitely felt Thunder Spiritual Qi just now! Can't I try one more time? Please?"
Looking up at her with those pure eyes, Nain left Decia speechless. There was a hunger and an innocence in Nain that reason and logic could not explain. Decia found herself wondering just how far that hunger would go.
Thud!
Ugh-gh-gh!!
Just once more….
"……."
Nain was a maniac for cultivation. Even burdened with the heavenly defect of Five Spiritual Roots, the desire to push forward burned in them larger than anyone else's.
"Glub—glub…! Cia! Save me!"
They bound themselves in chains and hurled their body into the sea.
"Mmph, mmph!"
Determined to sense Earth Spiritual Qi, Nain climbed into a pit they had dug themselves. Instead of stopping them, Decia picked up a shovel with a blank face and poured dirt over Nain's head. Soil rose to Nain's chin, then covered nose and mouth.
Fwoooooosh!!!
"Kyaaaaaaah!!!"
They even thrust an arm into flames burning at hundreds of degrees. Flesh blackened and charred down to the bone, yet in Nain's screams Decia felt a dazzling hunger for achievement. She never stopped the madness. She helped it along.
Because that figure was truly, utterly beautiful.
"Are you two out of your minds? Decia, why aren't you stopping this—why are you egging it on…."
Eun Seolhwa stared at what had once been Nain's left arm, now reduced to ash. Cold fury flickered in her eyes, then softened into something like pity.
"…You can do other things. Just take better care of your body. Physical regeneration is an expensive procedure."
Nain and Decia both nodded. Inwardly, each was thinking something else entirely.
Maybe I should try skydiving bare-bodied this time?
Mom worries too much. As long as I'm here, nothing will kill her.
Over the next five years, Nain underwent thirteen regeneration surgeries. Even so, the craving for cultivation never faded—it only surged higher. At ten years old, Nain remained stuck in the Pre-Qi Refinement Stage. At nine, Decia had already reached the Peak of Qi Refinement.
"You're really going?"
"Yeah, Unnie. You'll be fine without me, right?"
"Heh. I'm more worried about you. I don't know if our little sister—who's clueless about everything except cultivation—will manage."
Nain pulled Decia into a soft embrace. Decia savored the warmth and squeezed her eyes shut.
Unnie…?
Memory rewrote itself. Every recollection of the previous life flipped over.
A little girl with pure white hair convulsed as electricity coursed through her. A girl bound in chains, wet hair hanging, cried for help. An older sister who had thrust her own arm into flame screamed.
And still—those unbreakable, shining eyes looked down at Decia.
Yes.
From the very beginning, we were sisters.
Nain stroked Decia's hair. That cool hand rested warm against the crown of her head.
"You'll take care of yourself out there, okay?"
"…Yeah."
"Ugh."
Decia staggered under a sudden wave of dizziness. She clutched her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut.
Nain—curled trembling inside the capsule—did not miss the opening. Like a cat stretching long, she shot free of the capsule in one motion and bolted into the bedroom, white hair whipping wildly behind her.
Panic slammed the bedroom door shut. Nain's body slid down the wood and crumpled. Her heart hammered. Cold sweat poured.
I-Insane. Just meeting a person face-to-face and I'm this wrecked?
Her heart felt ready to burst for real. The mere fact of sharing space with an actual living human sent absolute revulsion surging through her. Only then did Nain understand this was not something she could laugh off lightly.
Forget social life or relationships—her body itself could no longer stand in front of people.
She sat frozen with that realization for a moment. Then, from the far side of the door she leaned against, came a soft knock.
"Hiiik…!"
"…Unnie?"
Nain let out a thin scream and scrambled away from the door. Without even getting to her feet, she scuttled backward across the floor on hands and heels.
"Unnie. It's me. Decia."
Decia?
The familiar name stopped Nain cold. A name packed with childhood memories.
Years without contact, and now she shows up out of nowhere? And why is she calling me Unnie?
Questions piled up—but the situation refused to give her time to sink into them.
"Unnie?"
Decia called again. Nain stayed silent. Even when she tried to open her mouth, her lips would not part.
"Hii—hiiik…."
Only ragged, breathless whimpers escaped. And on the other side of the firmly shut door, Decia felt everything. Her spiritual sense already filled the house completely.
The small hand that had once stroked her hair, the soft arms that had held her, the pure white hair so like Eun Seolhwa's—all of it was exactly the same. That figure of Nain looked no different at all from the older sister she had parted from as a child.
And yet—
She could see the slender body trembling in clear terror, the chest rising and falling in short, panicked breaths. It was nothing like the bold, bright sister she remembered. Those once-sparkling eyes had been swallowed by a flood of emotion and grown terribly clouded.
Decia felt something complicated and bitter turn over on her tongue.
Ten years is a long time. The girl who once held pure eyes and pure feeling had changed.
Under the sect's roof she had studied and met a great master. She had known senior and junior brothers of maturity and intelligence, and tasted how wide the world could be. She had competed with gifted peers her own age and learned how cruel the path of cultivation truly was.
The sect's harsh discipline cut off contact with the outside. For the first five years she had cried and fretted, wanting to see her sister. But only for a while. The breakneck pace of sect life burned the longing away fast.
Nain had never been the type to reach out first, and neither had Decia. The other siblings were hardly social either; no one kept in touch. Only Eun Seolhwa checked on Decia now and then.
She broke.
Decia had seen the same thing many times in the sect. People who lost their destination on the long road of cultivation and snapped. Dreamers who stared too far into the vastness and went blind.
"I won't keep you long. Mom asked me to check on how you're doing."
"…?"
Beyond the door, Nain held her breath. She forced her still-racing heart to slow and focused on Decia's words.
"She said she can't get through to you. There's only a year and a month left until the Second Selection now."
Nain remembered the recent incident—the call she had placed herself, only to freeze with her mouth shut.
…So she was worried enough to send Decia in the middle of a busy season?
She had brought this on herself. No—Nain felt wronged. The one who made conversation with people impossible wasn't her; it was this stupid scroll—
"Also, Mom's Qi Gathering Tribulation has been scheduled. January first. You already know, right?"
"……!!"
Nain jerked upright in pure shock. Her heart, only just calmed, hammered hard again—not from tension this time, but from excitement.
"…That's all I came to say. Take care, Unnie."
Through her spiritual sense, Decia had already scanned Nain's realm: Pre-Qi Refinement. Fifteen years, and not even a single Spiritual Star of Qi Refinement achieved. Hideous talent. She worked her mouth once in front of the sealed door, then turned away.
The house she had not visited in so long, the sister who had not changed—memories rose in soft clouds. Decia shook her head and brushed them off.
…All of it. Nothing more than the frayed edges of a childhood dream.
She erased the lingering attachment and headed for the front door. One last hesitation made her glance back at the closed bedroom—then she reached for the front latch.
Creeeak….
"W-Wait…!"
The bedroom door opened. A voice—very thin, and very familiar—reached Decia from behind.