Chapter 70
"For now, just confirm it for me. The enemies are basically like monsters, right? Like what pops out when a gate opens."
This wasn't curiosity—it was a literal check. Good question.
"Think of the enemies as nature itself."
"Huh? Nature itself? ...That's kinda too abstract."
I opened my mouth to explain properly, but it wasn't necessary. For the dim student who couldn't get a feel for it, our one-shot instructor was about to demonstrate personally.
The ground where Yujin stood literally caved in, dropping him into the abyss.
"Whooooaaaahhh!!???"
A scream laced more with bewilderment than terror. No one expects the floor beneath their feet to just vanish out of nowhere. With so many other worries in life, no one frets about sinkholes.
But here, this was reality.
"Control your qi! You can do it if you just focus your mind!"
"Wha? Huh? Uh?"
Hearing my voice, Yujin trembled in his eyes but gritted his teeth, seizing control of the surrounding soil's qi to form a makeshift floor. Lacking the finesse or leisure for a smooth landing, there was a dull thud! echoing through the hole.
"You okay? No injuries?"
"Y-Yeah, I'm fine! But what the hell is this? A monster's doing?"
"No. The ground beneath you just willed itself to kill you."
"What?!"
He wouldn't get it. Sure, people spout metaphors like "the earth is in pain" or "the heavens are angry," but that's all figurative. Nature having a will is just fable-like superstition. Sophisticated modern folks don't buy that crap.
But inside this world's Taeguk Fragment, the story's different. Every natural element here gains its own will. Literally every grain of sand, one by one.
And these natural things crave endless expansion, filtration, refinement. Just like living creatures devour others to grow, the nature here does the same.
"Soon the air itself will try to kill us. One wrong breath, and your lungs shatter."
"Th-Then what do we do?"
Kiru stepped in to explain for me.
"Subjugate every single strand of qi around you. Eat them before they eat us."
"...Sorry, I don't quite get it."
"You've been here a few days, kneading this world to your whim, right? You still remember that sensation?"
"Of course."
"Do it again, exactly like that. When the world shifts on its own terms to devour each other, we knead it on our terms."
Of course, now that the world had begun moving with its own will, we couldn't manipulate the whole thing like pliable clay anymore. But slicing off parts and bending them to our will? That was doable.
"Imagine the mundane, boring world we know. Then seize the qi."
Impossible to even imagine in our original world. But we'd already kneaded this place to our liking before. Body and soul remembered—not the head. We carved out chunks of the world, claimed them as our own, and fixed them in place.
Yujin said, "Wait, are we the ones creating the gate ourselves?"
Kiru replied, "Bingo! This space is our gate—and our territory. The three of us are the lords of this little world. In here, we are the law!"
And outside our territory? Lawless chaos. The "struggle of all against all" didn't just apply to us. It might sound like we're some big deal, but reality's different. Plenty of things out there want to impose their law.
A bolt from a cloudless sky split a tree in half. The flames from the lightning wriggled unnaturally, like a gecko, gnawing at the wood. After devouring enough, the flame-gecko slithered down to the ground, aiming for another tree—its fiery footprints scorching the soil, seemingly controlling the qi to avoid sinking.
But it never saw the groundwater erupting from below to swallow it whole. And that groundwater? Immediately sucked dry by a tree extending branches like grasping hands.
Reading about it in text was weird enough, but seeing it with my own eyes? Mind-blowing. Yujin's face was pale with shock. Only Kiru looked unfazed.
"Not that strange. The actors are different, but nature's always been like this."
True enough. Humanity's dominance made us forget—we distanced ourselves from raw survival of the fittest, or rather, total predation. But nature's always been ruthless. Blink, and die. Don't blink, and still die. Extending that to the inanimate? Nothing odd.
"Nature itself as the enemy—not even creatures. Scary stuff."
"Don't freak out. This stage is still manageable. Their patterns are simple, and they're too busy eating each other to team up."
This was prime time to snowball our power. Screw up now, and it'd get ugly later. Soon, things that had eaten enough to spark faint egos would form their own territories and expand—like us. Eventually, territories would clash. War.
To survive this all-against-all, we couldn't just sit as petty lords. We needed to become kings.
But we had the edge. We'd claimed territory faster than anyone—time to roll that snowball.
"Scatter. Expand this territory as much as possible. It'll check enemy growth too. If you spot promising sprouts, subjugate and erase them immediately. Got it?"
Disperse at once!
The woman he loved. Hwa Yujin's heart bore unmistakable, unhideable love for Joo Hyowon.
Yet if someone asked what she was to him, Yujin would first say:
'A mysterious woman.'
He admitted that very mystery was her charm. But it was too vast and deep to just gloss over—Hyowon's secrets were absurd.
"How do you even know about this place? Even the Five Heroes and all the researchers didn't."
Hyowon claimed this was her first time in the Taeguk Fragment too. Yet she had impossibly detailed knowledge. Who among humanity could uncover such intel?
...Rumors said she'd once been in a crime syndicate. But that was unrelated. What criminal outfit could access this?
"...I don't wanna believe it, but Hyowon..."
"You think she's another Eight King in disguise?"
Kiru's voice cut in like a car crash. We'd scattered to expand the territory efficiently—why was she here?
"Ah, I figured you didn't need help with this grunt work~ Anyway, Yujin, I wanted to chat with you. Hyowon gets extra prickly with me, right?"
"Haaa..."
Probably 'cause you keep provoking her. Though it was nice seeing Hyowon jealous.
"With my case as precedent, another Eight King posing as human wouldn't be weird. I'm wondering if she's collaborating with them."
"Half right."
"...Aha. So even if she is an Eight King, you'd have no qualms teaming up?"
"I trust Hyowon. She asked me to, so I do. She'd never betray or deceive humanity."
"Sentimental. What if you're wrong?"
Yujin spoke like a groom vowing eternal love at a wedding.
"Then I'll take responsibility—kill her myself and follow her."
To do that, he'd need insane strength, he muttered—like a guy resolving, 'Now that I have family, time to hustle harder.'
Kiru sighed. "You're more extreme than I thought. In some parallel world, you might've made a great criminal."
"What kinda nonsense is that? What do you take me for?"
In a way, she'd nailed it—but neither realized.
"Enough about me. Let's talk you. Rare chance to chat with an Eight King on equal footing."
"What do you wanna know?"
"Why do you Eight Kings attack us humans?"
"We want order."
Yujin tried an open mind, free of bias—but as a human, Kiru's words didn't compute. You're the ones wrecking order.
"No, no. Not social order. Natural, qi-based order. To us, your outer world is absurdly chaotic and mutable. Endless divergences, killing each other? Clashing, repelling qis. So we want to unify the world's qi under our purest form."
"...Just ego."
Nice words, but it boiled down to destroying the world in their image, their logic. No thought for the lives lost. Straight-up invaders.
"Ahaha, don't put it like that. Valuing human or life over qi? That's human thinking. To us who judge by qi, life and death look the same."
"I see. That's a shame."
If values could align somehow, negotiation might work. But no? Then fight we must. Couldn't call Eight Kings evil as individuals—but incompatible foes? Fair.
"Well, can't say that mindset holds forever."
"What do you mean?"
"Eight Kings have been out here over a century. 'Rivers and mountains change every decade,' right? Why assume we won't?"
With that opener, Kiru—Ganwang—continued.
"My goals changed. Partly 'cause I basically died and came back. Least now, I don't crave reshaping this world."
"Then what do you want?"
Ganwang spoke to the man who'd reached her Eight Kings' home as human.
"To see what you lot create anew."
"...No clue what that means."
"Don't sweat it now. One thing: you have the power to make something new. Something special."
Yujin couldn't buy it. Him, special? He'd have preened once—but with Hyowon beside him?
Pressing got no answer from Kiru. And no time to drag it out.
Monsters appeared, intent on imposing laws counter to Hyowon's.