The Price of a Name
“It’s been so long. Has it been a few hundred years?”
“Indeed.”
At Cheon Seo-ah’s words, the Proxy answered with a gentle smile.
Kang Tae-shin, for his part, could not hide the bewilderment on his face as the exchange unfolded right in front of him.
What on earth was going on?
Who was that girl, and what was she, that the Proxy would lower himself like this?
While Kang Tae-shin was still struggling to make sense of the scene before his eyes—
“Incidentally… a worm has latched itself onto this monumental reunion with the Celestial Lady.”
Ssss—
The Proxy glanced at Kang Tae-shin and raised a hand.
With a roar of flame, black fire surged up at his gesture, coiling and billowing into the air.
Black flames born of a pact with one of the nine demons who rule the nine heavens
It was fire he could shape through the Ninefold Nine-Demon True Art—a Demonic Cultivation Art he had mastered by borrowing the power of one among the nine demons who held dominion over the nine heavens.
The flames that bloomed around the Proxy stretched out toward Kang Tae-shin without the slightest hesitation.
The heat those black flames carried was not something even a Class 2 ability user like Kang Tae-shin could endure. The moment that fire touched his frail body, he would vanish without leaving so much as a handful of ash.
Kang Tae-shin stared at the flames rushing toward him and felt death settle over him like a certainty.
The Proxy’s black fire was famous enough that every ability user—hero or villain—knew of it. A flame no one could extinguish. A flame no one could block. It spread like a plague in every direction, and once it touched its target, it would not die until that target had been burned to nothing.
With such a flame reaching for him, even Kang Tae-shin—whose heart burned with rage against villains—could not keep the terror from rising in his eyes.
But—
“Please don’t.”
Crack—!
Just before the Proxy’s black flames could swallow Kang Tae-shin whole, space itself split open. The rupture generated a violent pull that drank the black fire in without a trace, then vanished as if it had never been.
Kang Tae-shin, who had been bracing for death, stared in disbelief. The villain he had tried to kill—the one who had committed the taboo and great crime known as Heart Devourer—had saved him instead.
The Proxy, for his part, wore a perfectly calm expression, as if it were nothing at all that Cheon Seo-ah had blocked his strike.
“Celestial Lady, your heart is as soft now as it ever was.”
He even behaved as though he had known all along that she would spare that worthless worm, Kang Tae-shin. And when he thought about it, of course she would. The Celestial Lady had once saved even him—a stranger she had never met—simply because she found him pitiful, and then placed in his hands the power to take revenge.
To the Proxy, Cheon Seo-ah, the Celestial Lady, was nothing more than a softhearted girl who could not bring herself to crush a single worthless insect.
Still—
“Incidentally… we should move soon, Celestial Lady.”
The Proxy glanced up at the ceiling as he spoke. The guards of Tartaros, having sensed his presence, were already racing toward the underground levels. And not only the guards. Somehow word had spread, and he could feel heroes gathering on Tartaros from every direction.
With his power he could have swept them all away, but that was not what the Celestial Lady wanted. Quietly escorting her out of this place would be the better choice—for him, for them, and for her.
Cheon Seo-ah felt the same. Sensing the humans closing in from every side, she understood that lingering here would only become a considerable nuisance, and she nodded.
Except—
“Where exactly are we going?”
She tilted her head and asked. She had no home to return to. Before she could even make one, they had dragged her here over nothing more than a single heart she had pulled out and eaten—self-defense, no less, after the other party had tried to kill her first—and treated the act itself as the crime.
At her question, the Proxy answered with an expression that said there was nothing to worry about.
“To a home prepared for the Celestial Lady, of course.”
Like a gentleman, he extended his hand with formal courtesy. Cheon Seo-ah still could not fully grasp what he meant, but the sincerity in his words was clear enough. She simply smiled and took his hand.
“Shall we go, then?”
“Yes.”
Step. Step. Step.
Guided by the Proxy, Cheon Seo-ah walked through the tear in space. In that same instant, the Proxy, Cheon Seo-ah, and the warden vanished from within Tartaros.
KRA-KOOM—!
An explosion tore the door off its hinges, and through the wreckage a crowd of guards and heroes poured in. All they found was a completely ruined underground chamber—and Kang Tae-shin, collapsed under the weight of the shock, staring blankly into empty air.
“It’s beautiful.”
Through the tear the Proxy had opened, Cheon Seo-ah had left Tartaros for somewhere else entirely. She looked around as she spoke.
What filled her eyes was a garden in full bloom. Flowers of every color sat in perfect harmony, so lovely it was hard to believe such a place could exist on Earth at all.
“I cultivated this garden myself for the Celestial Lady. Does it please you?”
“It’s truly beautiful. To think you made a garden like this just for me… I almost feel bad.”
“There is no need for the Celestial Lady to feel sorry. Compared to the grace you have shown me, this is nothing at all.”
Cheon Seo-ah flushed as if embarrassed; the Proxy answered with a gentle smile. He was not wrong. Through the Ninefold Nine-Demon True Art she had given him, he had gained power—and with that power he had survived all the way to this day, until he could meet her once more.
Still—
“Come to think of it, I still don’t even know your name.”
“Ah…”
As Cheon Seo-ah looked up at him with innocent eyes, the Proxy showed, for the first time, a flicker of genuine fluster. When she tilted her head in confusion, he forced the words out with difficulty.
“I apologize, Celestial Lady. As I am now, I do not ‘know’ my name.”
“You don’t know your name?”
“That is…”
“Ah!”
As the Proxy hesitated, Cheon Seo-ah let out a soft sound of realization.
Come to think of it, what she had given the man standing before her was the Ninefold Nine-Demon True Art. It was a Demonic Cultivation Art that even a cultivator of outstanding talent and spiritual root could never fully master—because the art itself borrowed power through bargains with the nine demons who dwelled in the nine heavens. And each time that power was lent, the demons demanded a price. As for the man in front of her…
“So the demon demanded your name as the price for lending you its power.”
“Yes.”
At her words, the Proxy wore a bitter smile. He had sworn that if he ever met the Celestial Lady again, that would be the moment he told her his name. Of all things, the demon he had bargained with had demanded that very name as the price. Refuse, and the demon would reclaim the power it had lent—so he had no choice but to accept the deal. He had known it was the only way to see her again, and still he had accepted it. He regretted that choice even now.
If he had refused the bargain, what then? He might have heard his own name spoken from her lips.
As the Proxy’s expression darkened, Cheon Seo-ah’s face grew sad as well. This pitiful man was still pitiful even now. And so—
“Then would it be all right if I offered you another small bit of help?”
“Celestial Lady—!”
The Proxy cried out in alarm. He had not yet repaid even the grace of the past—and now he was to receive her favor again? As her Proxy, he could not accept it. But Cheon Seo-ah had already decided she would help him.
“In that case…”
Without waiting for his answer, she brought her hands together and began to form a strange series of seals.
It had been hundreds of thousands of years since she last used the Ninefold Nine-Demon True Art. But for Cheon Seo-ah, to whom forgetfulness did not exist, weaving the seals that summoned the demons who offered their bargains of power was effortless.
The moment her sequence of seals reached its end—
BOOM—!
A crushing pressure erupted in an instant, pressing down in every direction with Cheon Seo-ah at its center. At the same time, nine vast presences made themselves known—presences far too familiar to both Cheon Seo-ah and the Proxy. And from farther off, she could feel hurried auras racing toward them in alarm at those nine sudden powers.
“Oh dear. It seems I’ve startled them without meaning to.”
It could not be helped. Without knowing which of the nine demons had taken the Proxy’s name as the price of their bargain, summoning all nine at once was the best option.
The nine demons who had been dragged forth made no effort to hide their irritation. For some worthless scrap of a cultivator to dare call forth every one of the nine demons—was that not the height of arrogance?
As the nine demons settled into place in the form of swirling black mist, each ready to vent its rage—
“It’s been a while, everyone.”
Cheon Seo-ah smiled as she spoke. The moment that clear, innocent voice spread in every direction, a violent reaction tore through the churning black mists.
Most of that reaction was fear.
The power of the nine demons who dwelled in the nine heavens easily surpassed the Taiyi Stage and could be said to brush against the Daluo Stage. That such beings would bare their terror made the Proxy look at Cheon Seo-ah with eyes that said, As expected of the Celestial Lady!
Cheon Seo-ah, for her part, looked over the nine demons one by one as she continued.
“There’s no need to be so afraid. I only called you all here because I have one thing to ask.”
Wummm—!
At her words, a strange ripple spread from the roiling black mists. Feeling that ripple, Cheon Seo-ah smiled again.
“One among you made a bargain with this poor child, taking a ‘name’ as the price. Everyone else may leave.”
Wummm—!
At her second statement, another ripple rolled out from the black mists—and of the nine clots of darkness, eight vanished without a trace.
The black mist that remained—no, the demon wearing the shape of black mist—kept pouring out waves of pure grievance. It had been a fair bargain. In exchange for the name, had it not granted that human power equal to the price?
“I know. It was a fair bargain. I have no intention of undoing it. I simply mean to offer you a suitable price in return if you give this poor child back the name you took.”
Wummm—!
“Hmm. I see. Then how about this?”
Ssss—
Cheon Seo-ah nodded and drew a small spirit pill from her robes.
Lightning Spirit Qi compressed to its limit, fused with the souls of a hundred thousand cultivators
It was a pill refined from Lightning Spirit Qi compressed to its absolute limit and bound together with the souls of a hundred thousand cultivators. She herself had occasionally taken such pills as a kind of health tonic—and the moment the Proxy saw it—
“Ah…!”
A low sound escaped him. At the same time, hot tears spilled down from both of his eyes. Cheon Seo-ah glanced at him and nodded, satisfied.
“With this, the deal is done.”
Whirl—
The instant the words left her mouth, the black smoke snatched the spirit pill and vanished.
Her business finished, Cheon Seo-ah turned to the Proxy, who was still weeping, and spoke.
“Can you tell me now? Your name.”
“Of course, Celestial Lady. My name is…”
At her question, the Proxy’s lips slowly opened.