The Human Fleet and the Dawn of Great Chaos (1)
While staying in the Magyo, you inevitably hear all sorts of tales, but they're not all from the Western Regions.
"Heard of Journey to the West? A boy who died brought back this one book."
"There's this guy called the Tripitaka Master, and the yokai are after this Shaolin monk."
"Why? Because if they eat a monk with strong dharma power, the yokai can achieve eternal life!"
I wasn't from Shaolin, but the contents of that actual book called Journey to the West followed that plot. Immortality. There was no reason for yokai not to target him, and in truth, Tripitaka suffered attacks from countless yokai. Some female yokai didn't just want to eat him—they lusted after his vital essence, his virginity. Stealing the essence he'd built up by abstaining from lust for so long could turn them into immortals in an instant.
That story came to mind.
Just as the yokai devoured Tripitaka's flesh to attain immortality...
My own flesh might now exert some influence on murim folk—or even ordinary people.
Wish for it, and it shall come to pass. Consume my blood and flesh, and earnestly desire what you crave. Even if it defies common sense or natural order.
"Hoo."
I knew it for certain now.
"It seems my body has become the elixir of an immortal."
Various experiments had made it clear. Yugiyeon would never open her eyes again, but thanks to that, I'd become acutely aware.
"I've become a being detached from the common sense of the existing murim. Perhaps... I'm no longer human."
"No way."
Moyong Seol stated firmly as she threw her arms around me.
"When I get this close, your heart races, and red blood flows through your veins."
"The blood may be red, but it's far from ordinary."
I pricked the tip of my finger with saliva. When someone's indigestion acts up, doesn't squeezing a drop of blood from the finger make the stagnant energy dissipate? That drop vanishes naturally, but I made sure mine fell precisely into a certain someone's mouth.
Drip.
The instant the blood touched Yugoein's lips, his body began to warp with grotesque sounds. The man who'd been bisected by a sword strike. His meridians were so damaged that even acupuncture couldn't subdue the blood flow.
"Look, my lady."
Shhh.
A miracle was unfolding in him.
"This isn't healing or resurrection. Something... is happening. That's the only way I can put it right now."
Reversing time? Summoning his past self? For a dead body, perhaps the lingering soul wished to "revive in perfect form"?
"If I express it in the utmost terms I can manage, it's like returning to the moment before death—but only the body."
"......."
Moyong Seol's expression hardened as she watched Yugoein's body regenerate ever so slowly.
"What moment is that? If the body acts on instinct, it probably recalls its most 'perfect state' based on bodily instinct."
No one could do otherwise.
"The perfect state the body remembers. Before being murdered and dying."
If someone saw the target they'd killed revive just from a drop of a certain person's blood, they'd go beyond shock and reach for the sword at their waist again.
"Yugoein will likely revert to how he was before entering our room."
"Doctor. Once I confirm he's revived, I'll kill him right away."
He wasn't just any dead man—he'd schemed against me.
"Just like Yugiyeon 'gave up,' I'll make him the same."
"...Mm."
As Moyong Seol focused on Yugoein, I turned my gaze aside. Yugiyeon was asleep. Not the corpse with its throat slit, but peacefully, like someone who'd suffered a heart attack and drifted off quietly. That was her wish.
In the repeated cycle of death and revival, Yugiyeon had given up on living. She'd wished simply to "remain dead." She'd craved death so desperately that she'd forsaken the will to live, and even after consuming my blood, she'd stayed dead.
What if she changed her mind later and revived? After a quarter-hour passed (※15 minutes), I dropped another drop of blood, but Yugiyeon never rose again. Having been slain by Moyong Seol multiple times even while laid out in her coffin, she'd realized no amount of struggling would let her live—and chosen death.
We'd made it that way. If we granted wishes as they desired, we could subtly steer the "direction" of that wish to produce the outcome we wanted.
Yugoein would be no different.
"Ugh, mmph...!"
Yugoein slowly opened his eyes and made a sound. Far superior to Yugiyeon, he swiftly released some of his sealed acupoints and spoke.
"Wh-what...!"
"That's what I'd like to ask."
"I-I clearly...!"
"Died."
"......!!"
Yugoein's eyes darted rapidly.
"W-wait...! L-let's talk!"
Even someone who'd hatched a foolish plan seemed to wise up after dying and reviving once.
"I-I mean...!"
"If you don't want to die completely, answer my questions honestly. Any lie, and you'll die again."
"......."
"And never wake up."
Permanent death. Even after tasting death once, most people couldn't fathom eternal oblivion without fearing another death.
"Just one question. Exactly one."
Like with Yugiyeon, I aimed a long needle at his eye and asked.
"What is the Magyo to you, that you'd scheme against the Moyong Sega?"
"......."
"What did the Magyo ever do for you?"
"That's...."
Yugoein furrowed his brow to answer—
"...Huh?"
—then stopped, letting out a puzzled voice.
"Why, exactly, did I...?"
His eyes shook violently, as if he couldn't comprehend, as if an unbelievable situation had unfolded.
"I-I with the Magyo...."
The moment he tried to speak.
Slash!
Moyong Seol whipped out her sword in an instant, severing Yugoein's head.
"My lady?"
"Get back!"
She tossed her sword aside and charged at me, tackling me down—as if shielding me from an exploding thunderbolt with her body.
And then.
Whoosh!!
Yugoein's body suddenly burst into flames. Not ordinary flames, but jet-black inferno.
Unnatural to anyone who saw it. Demonic flames laced with magi—ma-yeom, one might call it—eerie and foreboding.
"......."
The flames didn't explode; instead, they bubbled up from within, incinerating Yugoein's body. I held Moyong Seol close, soothing her.
"It's fine. You're unhurt. In fact, because you killed him, it didn't 'explode.'"
"Explode...?"
"Yes."
It was a demonic art. Among them, the most insidious.
"Yugoein and Yugiyeon. No wonder their minds were so dim—they'd fallen to the Cheonma."
Even after the current Cheonma's defeat by the Sword Saint, this technique kept him at the pinnacle of the Magyo.
In the Magyo, they call it the "Black Sun."
"He was under Seophonsul."
That explained their seeming lack of intelligence.
"And the one who cast that Seophonsul... there's likely only one culprit."
Throb.
My heart pounded. The Godok within me—the Extreme Yang essence infused with that demonic qi—quietly resonated.
"The Cheonma."
The Cheonma had ensnared Yugoein and Yugiyeon with Seophonsul.
"He bent their loyalty to him while dumbing their minds down to his level."
[Meanwhile, in the Magyo.]
A lavish chamber. Filled with expensive fabrics and ornaments imported from the Western Regions. In the center of the room—not anywhere else—sat a wide bed, and atop it, a woman in lotus position: the Magyo's eldest princess, slowly opening her eyes.
"......."
Whoosh.
The eldest princess dispelled the black flames rising from her hand and stared at the wall.
A map of the entire Central Plains sprawled across it. Her gaze fixed on Yodong Castle, far east on the opposite side from where the Magyo lay in the western Xinjiang, and she bit her lower lip.
"...If only I'd grown a little stronger, faster."
She reached for her head. A jet-black aura flickered in her hair, only to wink out repeatedly moments later.
"......."
Drenched in sweat in an instant, the staggering princess forced herself up and headed somewhere.
Inside a decorative box storing ornate jewelry, amid chests full of gems, she flung open a particularly out-of-place wooden box.
"......."
It was a wooden butterfly ornament, crudely carved. No artisan's skill, no delicate touch of a martial artist—just dark red bloodstains, as if splattered during the carving and soaked in.
"......I'll definitely."
The princess clutched it tightly in both hands, pressing it to her chest and bowing her head.
"Put you back where you rightfully belong. So please, just wait a little longer. And...."
Crunch.
"Beside you, it won't be that woman—it'll be me—"
Knock knock.
At the sound from outside, the princess returned the wooden trinket to its box, wiped her sweat with her sleeve, and stood.
"What is it?"
"El-Eldest Princess!"
Sima Jun (Mae No) burst in, face pale with panic.
"The Ch-Cheonma...!"
"...What did Father do to make even you, Mae No, so flustered?"
"He ran away from home!"
"?"
The princess tilted her head.
"???"