The Red Echo Society
Red Echo Society.
Click.
The moment the door opened, night wind slipped in with a current of blue, moonlight-like qi.
It was the disciples of Cheongryu Sect. Sword Queen Yu Cheong-ran stood at the front, with Sword Master Han Cheong-hyeok trailing behind her like a shadow.
Yet the space between them was especially wide. No one said it aloud, but everyone knew. That empty place had always belonged to Lee Do-cheong, the man who had steadily held them all together.
Ding-drrring~
The Baedal-ui Hojok order plaque broke the silence first.
Cheongryu Sect, dine-in. Two bottles of Ice Blood Whiskey, large glasses. One Margherita pizza. Herb lamb ribs.
“I’ll have them ready shortly.”
Yeonhwa lowered her head, then slipped past the kitchen and headed to the back door, toward the jars.
The ice that had spilled out when the Nine Heavens Ice Blood vanished still breathed out a chill within the jar. When that ice was floated in a glass, the liquor cooled to the purest edge of the world; when you drank it down, it felt as if someone were embracing your whole body.
Han Cheong-hyeok lifted his glass first.
“My brother... liked things like this. He used to say liquor should be cold, and the side dishes hot.”
Instead of answering, Yu Cheong-ran raised her glass and listened to the soft clink of the Blood Ice striking the glass wall. Or rather, it wasn’t a sound she was hearing—it was the qi of Lee Do-cheong, still lingering here, still guarding them.
From the depths of the kitchen, Jangro Suksu watched the scene and said in a low voice, “Yeonhwa, roll the pizza dough thinner today. Those with deep sorrow can’t swallow food easily if the chew is too heavy.”
Yeonhwa was already far more skilled now, tossing and catching the dough with practiced ease.
You need to get full before the tears come. If you’re starving, even tears dry up. Looks like the Cheongryu Sect lot have decided not to cry, so we’d better do everything we can to make sure they can chew and swallow.
While Cheongryu Sect chewed and swallowed their grief in preparation to rise again, the courtyard of Red Echo Society remained as parched as faded red earth. Since returning from the purgatory, their time had stopped.
Leader Kang Jeok-woo had hung his saber on the wall and not moved an inch, while vice-leader Seo Han-muk had paused mid-wipe of his spear and stared blankly into space.
Jin Yu-ah, Wi Yeon-ho, Cheong No-yun, Do Ha-jin... the air beside them was dead.
The purgatory’s curse, which stole away the senses, kept gnawing at their souls even after they escaped the dungeon. It wasn’t just their senses—it was as though their very souls had been taken with them and left behind in that place.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Cheol-ya once again headed into Manhon Yeon-ok, into that vile purgatory that stole smell, touch, sight, pain, and taste.
But he had already experienced the terror of losing his senses, of hearing his heartbeat recede into the distance, and knew the feeling that pushed that fear away. So there was no hesitation.
Deep within the cracks of the purgatory, Cheol-ya pulled out food from Mugung Hyeoptak.
He imagined the long, stretching form of geon-rak cheese, and remembered the viscosity of the cream carefully simmered by Mugung Hyeoptak’s cooks.
In the flickers of sensation that returned in an instant, he suddenly understood it again. There was no true core to break here, no central point that could be erased. That was why, even if you closed it once, it opened again. It was truly nothing more than endless purgatory itself. Purgatory was just a vast void.
Slash!
Swish!
He cut.
And yet, it didn’t cut.
Slash!
Still, it didn’t cut.
No matter how many times he struck, only the surface was peeled away.
Even though he could clearly feel the true center of the purgatory, he still passed through it as if it were empty space. Cheol-ya understood it himself. Maybe it was still too early, but as things stood, he couldn’t fully seal the purgatory shut.
The purgatory, continually swelling like a mass of flesh, was exactly what it seemed to be: a place boasting infinite emptiness, rising from somewhere or other.
Once again, it seemed he would have to lull the purgatory to sleep for a while.
The purgatory only grew more and more vicious. Compared to the time when he had subdued it without Mugung Hyeoptak’s food, the monsters that emerged now were larger, and so was the purgatory itself.
As he cut down the flesh surging up around him and pressed inward, Cheol-ya’s eyes caught sight of something black inside the red purgatory—something different.
Something alien. Something that had not belonged to the purgatory. At the very least, something that had not existed in Cheol-ya’s memory of the previous Manhon Yeon-ok.
It might have meant that something had intruded, or that the purgatory had become even more feral, even more twisted. Still, he could see the flow of the purgatory’s qi gathering into it. Was that the core this time?
“Hup!”
Clang!
Even when he brought down a strike infused with the full force of a Transcendence realm martial artist’s sword-gang, his grip tore open instead, blood blooming across his hand. And yet he did not stop.
Again, and again, and again—
Clang! Clang! Clang!
“Hah...!”
Crunch—
At last, it began to break. As if confirming it was the new heart of the purgatory, the black core—once a round orb—split under Cheol-ya’s repeated cuts, the cracks he had carved widening farther and farther until they spread beyond the sphere itself, into the very space of the purgatory. The purgatory was breaking. For a moment, it was falling asleep.
Crash!
As if reality itself had shattered, the space burst apart, and after hurling everything outside, the purgatory collapsed again into a single tiny point, spiraling tighter and tighter before disappearing.
Rumble, krraaaash!
Manhon Yeon-ok spat out all foreign matter, everything it had been unable to make its own.
Cheol-ya was thrown out too, flung through the torn seam of the purgatory.
The seal force waiting outside met him there.
“Cheol-ya exit confirmed! Manhon Yeon-ok is shrinking rapidly! Manhon Yeon-ok cleared! Good work, Cheol-ya!”
The air was lighter than the purgatory’s crushing weight. His senses returned again. He was back in Murim. Manhon Yeon-ok—cleared.
And yet something still sat wrong with him. Was it that black orb-like core he had never seen before? Or...?
Outside, Cheol-ya took out his order plaque with a bloodstained hand.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Ding-drrring~
Cheol-ya — five Margherita pizzas, three cauldrons of spicy Namman-si stew, two tubs of Blood Ice, four tiramisu cakes. Deliver to Red Echo Society.
Cheol-ya was heading to Red Echo Society. When Jangro Suksu confirmed it through the jade plaque from the kitchen, he shouted at Yeonhwa, “Yeonhwa! Get the pot on the fire right now! Make it twice as spicy as usual this time! Those Red Echo Society brutes don’t have taste buds anymore—they’ve got dead nerves. If it’s not spicy enough to scorch their tongues, they won’t even know what’s going into their mouths!”
“Master, if we make it too spicy and ruin their stomachs, what then? Shouldn’t we send milk too?”
“You little rascal! You think a martial artist’s stomach will fall apart because he chewed on a few chilies? Right now they need not medicine for the stomach, but the pain of knowing they’re alive!”
Even as he barked, Jangro Suksu personally whipped the mascarpone cream for the tiramisu with his internal energy.
“If we’re going to drag those idiot Red Echo bastards out of the mud, this cream had better be softer than clouds. Go get the cocoa powder ready!”
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Cheol-ya slung the takeout over his shoulder and opened the doors to Red Echo Society.
“The purgatory has been cleared.”
Even at Cheol-ya’s flat announcement, the martial artists of Red Echo Society did not cheer. They only stared at him with dead eyes. Wordlessly, Cheol-ya laid out the food. The rich scent of geon-rak and the steam of spicy stew filled the room.
“Eat.”
Kang Jeok-woo looked at Cheol-ya.
“Why should we keep going... again?”
Cheol-ya thought for a moment of the illusions he had cut down in the purgatory. The shadows of the dead.
“If you stop, you become purgatory.”
Red Echo Society was beginning to resemble the purgatory itself. Losing their senses. Losing their color. Unable to see one another.
“If you stop, those who died inside will be lost forever.”
Jin Yu-ah’s hand stopped moving.
Wi Yeon-ho lifted his head.
Do Ha-jin’s eyes wavered.
“Eat.”
Cheol-ya spoke again.
“Chew. Swallow. Feel it. It doesn’t matter if your senses haven’t returned. As long as your stomach is full, you’re still alive.”
Kang Jeok-woo picked up a slice of pizza with trembling fingers.
One bite.
“...There’s taste.”
Seo Han-muk scooped up some stew.
Cheong No-yun dropped ice into his glass.
Jin Yu-ah lifted tiramisu into her mouth and slowly closed her eyes.
What had not flowed before began to move, little by little.
Sorrow did not vanish.
But the frozen heart thawed, just a little.
The purgatory was infinite. Someday it would open again, and swallow someone else whole. The Blood Ice had been cleared, but another Hyeol-mun would surely open again.
Then what was a martial artist supposed to stand on and move forward?
Not upon the dead. Upon memory. By swallowing memory, chewing memory, and sharing memory.
Whether Red Echo Society would rise again remained to be seen. They didn’t even know whether Cheongryu Sect would one day face another Hyeol-mun. But a martial artist moved forward. Even when there were times to stop, they stopped to understand.
And once again, the bell of Mugung Hyeoptak rang.
Ding-drrring~
Baedal-ui Hojok order!
Gangho still lived by eating, even today. Anew, and yet again.
At that moment, in Mugung Hyeoptak’s kitchen, Jangro Suksu took a sip of the remaining stew and wiped the sweat from his brow.
“Yeonhwa, there are times when cooking is stronger than a blade. I thought this Baedal-ui Hojok or whatever was just making a mess of Gangho, but now and then it really is useful for keeping the lives of faraway bastards hanging on.”
Yeonhwa smiled and handed her master a towel.
“As expected of you, Master—you’ve discovered another use for the delivery platform! At this rate, Mugung Hyeoptak’s going to hit number one on the Baedal-ui Hojok best-restaurant rankings soon enough.”
“Rankings? Number one? What nonsense are you spouting now. Hurry up and scrub the pots! We don’t know what hungry ghosts will come stomping in tomorrow!”
Out there, someone would be fighting again, sacrificing themselves again, disappearing again—but Mugung Hyeoptak’s stove, waiting for them, burned bright today too.
Ding-drrring~
Another order came in.
Gangho ate again today. It ate, and eating, it set out once more upon the road.