The Ash-Swept Ruins of Gwangyang
Jekyeong watched him walk away with an easy, natural stride, staring quietly before slowly closing his eyes.
U-jam departed for Jimagwon without delay. Jekyeong estimated that his return would take at least half a year, and perhaps more than a year at most.
'I hope it goes well.' Jekyeong felt a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. The enthusiasm U-jam had displayed was genuine, but a surplus of zeal did not always guarantee excellent results. Moreover, U-jam was a temperamental ghost demon; it would not be surprising in the least if he somehow botched the task.
Even so, Jekyeong had entrusted him with the task because there was simply no better candidate. The other Great Demons of the trade network were far too conspicuous, and his own subordinates lacked the necessary strength. U-jam, capable of moving in absolute secrecy while possessing enough martial might to handle emergencies, was both his best and only option.
"Lord Dragon. I hear there was a massive clash at a place called Jabudo. This time, the Gakchung Clan joined the fray in full force..."
Ever since the Heumwon Clan and the Gakchung Clan had fully revealed themselves, Jekyeong had kept his senses sharply tuned to the shifting tides of the war. While this did not magically grant him access to classified secrets, he still carefully analyzed every scrap of rumors and reports that reached his ears.
"Two elders of the Heumwon Clan reportedly laid a trap in tandem with the Demon Court. The Insect King was forced to retreat after suffering heavy casualties, though the exact extent of their losses remains unknown."
Bolstered by powerful allies, the human race and the beast race locked horns in a grueling stalemate. If the beast race claimed a glorious victory in one sector today, news would arrive tomorrow of the humans utterly routing them in another. The waters of Yangseo Lake ran thick with crimson, and mounds of bloated corpses piled high enough to form new islands.
As the protracted war ground down their numbers, Jang Yeong arrived once more as an envoy of the Demon Court to beg for his intervention. Jekyeong, however, flatly refused him yet again. And so, time flowed onward—neither too fast nor too slow, but with relentless, steady momentum.
"You're back," Jekyeong said impassively, studying U-jam. The ghost demon's possessed flesh had tanned to a dark, weathered brown, and several fresh scars now marred his face.
"'You're back?' Is that the best greeting you can muster?"
"What are the results?"
"Hmph! Right here." U-jam tossed a jade slip. Jekyeong caught it and immediately swept his divine sense through its contents. A satisfied smile curled the corners of his lips.
"Excellent. It seems you didn't waste your time idling about."
"Of course I didn't! Do you have any idea how hard I—"
"But how can I be certain that these records are accurate?"
"What?" U-jam's face hardened, his brow furrowing in irritation. It was an intensely human reaction.
"Calm down. I have no intention of withholding your reward. I merely wish to verify the information myself."
"Verify it? How? Are you planning to march over there and see it with your own eyes?"
"Precisely."
"What?" U-jam clicked his tongue, realizing Jekyeong was entirely serious. "Didn't you make a grand show of telling me before that you couldn't possibly leave your territory unattended?"
"I did. Which is why we must slip away quickly and quietly, ensuring that absolutely no one notices our absence."
"Hold on. 'We'?"
"Yes. We," Jekyeong replied, giving U-jam a look that suggested he was asking an incredibly foolish question. "This is my first trip to Jimagwon. Naturally, I require a guide."
"You never mentioned anything about this."
"Well, you are hearing it now, so that settles it. Do not worry. I will compensate you handsomely for the extra trouble."
U-jam's eyes widened in sheer disbelief as Jekyeong's massive form dissolved into a shroud of pale fire, condensing until a pale human man stepped out from the embers.
"Let us depart."
"How on earth is this possible?" U-jam muttered, staring in awe at Jekyeong's flawless human form. "Is it a bloodline trait? Does the Gyoryong lineage possess such a technique?"
Jekyeong offered no reply. He had no desire to explain himself, nor did he have any obligation to do so; it was far simpler to let the curious fool invent his own explanations. Fortunately, Jekyeong's stony silence quickly dampened U-jam's inquisitiveness.
"Tell me more about Jimagwon."
"It is all recorded in the jade slip."
"Dry, written records can never compare to a vivid, firsthand account."
Though he grumbled, U-jam complied. "The situation over there is far worse than Yangseo Lake. I had heard rumors of how bad it was, but the reality surpassed my wildest expectations."
Surprisingly, the ghost demon proved to be a rather gifted storyteller. Without resorting to cheap exaggeration, he simply recounted his experiences from his own perspective, yet his words painted a remarkably vivid picture of the desolate region.
"Madmen possessed by demonic energy, known as Fire Demons, are running rampant. Most of the local humans spend every waking moment fleeing from them. I heard that quite a few of those refugees, driven to utter despair by the endless flight, eventually choose to succumb to demonization themselves."
"Out of despair?"
"Well, rumors have been circulating. They say that among those who became Fire Demons, a select few have managed to transcend and reborn as true Demon Humans..."
A Demon Human—literally, a human who had successfully integrated demonic energy. Unlike the vast majority of possessed cultivators who were consumed by the corruption, lost their sanity, and self-destructed, a Demon Human retained perfect rationality. Furthermore, the moment they underwent this transformation, they often shattered their cultivation bottlenecks, instantly ascending to a much higher realm of power.
On the surface, becoming a Demon Human sounded like a miraculous stroke of fortune, but the reality was far grimmer—at least, according to the orthodox human sects. They referred to this process as demonization. In their view, undergoing demonization to become a Demon Human was synonymous with being devoured by the demonic entity. The original soul was consumed and erased, leaving behind nothing but a hollow shell and residual memories puppeted by the demonic corruption. Thus, choosing to become a Demon Human was essentially a form of suicide.
Of course, this was merely the humans' biased perspective. There was no way to discern the absolute truth without experiencing demonization firsthand.
"Have you ever encountered one of these Demon Humans?"
"No. I ran into Fire Demons a few times, but I never saw a Demon Human. Personally, I think the rumors about them are pure nonsense, but who can say for sure?"
U-jam went on to describe the Fire Demons he had encountered. His descriptions matched Jekyeong's own past observations perfectly: mindless, bloodthirsty maniacs who rampaged indiscriminately until their life force was utterly spent.
'Are the Fire Spirits still pulling the strings behind the scenes, or is this solely the result of the corrupted spiritual energy?' Jekyeong recalled the vengeful Fire Spirit he had encountered in the past. That entity had unleashed a curse upon Jimagwon before vanishing, but was it truly the sole survivor of its ancient clan?
"In any case, with danger lurking around every corner, the humans in Jimagwon rarely travel in groups. You never know when the person standing right next to you might lose their mind, so most travel strictly within small family units, or completely alone."
Indeed, after crossing the border into Jimagwon, Jekyeong saw virtually no signs of human life. He occasionally detected faint traces of cultivators using his divine sense, but as U-jam had noted, they traveled in isolation. They moved with extreme caution, some creeping through the shadows with the dark, predatory stealth of hunters stalking prey.
"This land may seem quiet, but the murderous intent lurking beneath the surface is far thicker than anything in Yangseo Lake. The struggle for survival here is infinitely more savage than the war raging back home."
They walked along a road that had long since been reclaimed by the wilderness. Jekyeong recognized this path. Once, it had been frequented by bustling merchant caravans and weary travelers; now, no matter where he looked, there was nothing but shimmering heat haze and desolate, howling sandstorms.
"That is Gwangyang City," U-jam said, pointing toward a jagged silhouette on the horizon. "I heard it was quite a bustling metropolis in its prime, but as you can see, it has been reduced to that pitiful state."
"..."
Jekyeong quietly studied the city, a place both familiar and foreign to him. Despite the distance, his enhanced vision clearly captured the scorched, crumbling battlements and the shattered remnants of the grand gates.
"It is a ghost town," U-jam remarked, smacking his lips. "There are still a few humans lurking inside, but they hide like rats in the floorboards, making them a pain to root out. If I hadn't been so pressed for time, I would have happily settled down there for a while to hunt."
"Are there any Foundation Establishment cultivators among them?"
"Who knows? Most likely not."
"Then you have nothing to regret," Jekyeong replied dryly. U-jam snorted in annoyance at the rebuke. Jekyeong found the ghost demon's behavior quite intriguing.
'Is this a trait unique to ghost demons?' Even when U-jam had first possessed a body, Jekyeong had noted how remarkably human he seemed. Now, that resemblance had only deepened. From his speech and mannerisms down to his subtle emotional outbursts, he was indistinguishable from a mortal. Aside from the unnatural black rot mottling his skin, one would never guess he was anything other than a human cultivator.
"I need to find a suitable vessel and swap bodies soon. This shell is reaching its absolute limit." U-jam ran a hand over the black rot on his cheek, accidentally releasing a wisp of cold, sinister ghost qi. It was a clear sign that the possessed Qi Condensation cultivator's body was failing. Within a month, the flesh would begin to liquefy and slough off the bone.
"Do as you please." The vessel U-jam currently occupied had been prepared by Cheongo. Though the spiritual bird had not done so intentionally, its hypnotic abilities were exceptionally potent at systematically dismantling a cultivator's mind. While Jekyeong could not replicate Cheongo's delicate precision, a crude imitation was simple enough. He merely needed to use Soul Search to violently tear apart a target's soul. Unlike the mind, damaging the soul inevitably caused physical degradation to the vessel, but it would easily last U-jam a month or two. And if it failed sooner, they could simply harvest another one.
"Perfect. Let's move." U-jam quickened his pace, leading the way with a light step, while Jekyeong followed silently in his shadow.
Stepping through the shattered gates, the full scale of the city's ruin came into view. The bustling, vibrant metropolis Jekyeong remembered from years ago had vanished without a trace. The streets were cracked and choked with debris, completely devoid of human life. Only the drifting ash and the fitful, scorching wind offered a silent testament to the horrors that had unfolded here over the years.
'It truly has been abandoned.' The Gwangyang City of his memories overlapped with the pathetic ruins before him. 'Gwangyang City was once the joint enterprise of the Heavenly Fire Sect and the Yangbu Cultivator Family. Have they completely forsaken this place?'
As Jekyeong scanned the ruins for a familiar landmark, his mind drifted back to a young boy who had once pestered him here, offering his services as a local guide. What was his name again... Ju-hyeong? Had the boy managed to escape, or had his bones already turned to ash in these streets?
"Have you found any?"
"Yes." Even while lost in reminiscence, Jekyeong had not neglected his task. His divine sense, blanketed across the entirety of Gwangyang City, quickly pinpointed the survivors hiding within the ruins. Spreading his consciousness so thinly reduced his precision, but Jekyeong's divine sense was naturally far superior to that of ordinary cultivators at his level. Unless a Foundation Establishment master specializing in stealth was hiding nearby, nothing could escape his notice.
"A late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator. Find me one in the best possible physical condition." A chunk of blackened flesh sloughed off U-jam's cheek and hit the ground with a wet slap. Perhaps overexcited by the prospect of a fresh vessel, his ghost qi was beginning to churn violently.
"Control yourself," Jekyeong warned, his brow furrowing. U-jam hastily suppressed his energy, but the damage was done. With more than half the flesh on his face gone, exposing the yellowed bone beneath, and black smoke writhed like living worms from his wounds, he looked less like a human and more like a grotesque specter.
"Suppress your energy and cover your face."
"Is that really necessary? If anyone spots us, we can just slaughter them and turn this place into a literal city of ghosts."
Jekyeong stared at him in silence for a moment before speaking.