Spirit Valley (7)
“So… you really did complete it.”
Kang Hwi's eyes went wide as he studied the formation inscribed on the ground.
Its appearance had changed considerably from before, but it was a genuinely restored spell array.
“Are you truly an immortal, stranger?”
At that question, I simply flashed a grin without a word.
I carved out my sleeping hours to throw this together, you know.
It had turned out decently presentable.
Fortunately, the records Yakseon had left behind included something worth referencing, so the finished product came out better than I'd expected.
“Ha. Well, well.”
I never imagined I'd be using a Formation Gate technique in a place like this.
If this counts as a fateful opportunity, then so be it.
Interpreting the array left behind by the immortal of the past had deepened my understanding of binding formations as well.
The level of formations that immortals established is leagues beyond that of modern Formation Gate hunters.
At this point in time, to raise a barrier of this scale, you'd need at least Gye-Seong, the sect master of the Formation Gate.
“All I did was make a few adjustments to the original array.”
The grand framework remains the same.
Imprisoning multiple subjects who satisfy a specific condition within an illusion.
The barrier arts I can deploy right now can neither select targets nor affect large numbers at once.
But.
Slipping past its core and quietly swapping the target's direction—that, I can do.
“The target of this array is no longer the ‘jiangshi.’”
The ones who would be sealed inside the array's illusion, cut off from the world, would not be jiangshi—but humans.
“The moment the array reactivates, every villager will be trapped inside the illusionary prison it creates.”
Since the array's targets are neither jiangshi nor water ghosts, it won't be affected by the aura they exude.
In other words, there's no need to worry about the array collapsing.
“While everyone's inside the illusion, the villagers and the jiangshi will be completely separated.”
“So we'll be safe for that duration, then.”
“That's right. Though the method is so brutal it won't hold up for more than a day.”
An illusionary prison is no place to linger long.
I know because I experienced it firsthand back in the Formation Gate, before my regression. I honestly thought I was going insane.
That's exactly why I'm executing this plan in the dead of night, while everyone sleeps.
“But there are people who cannot enter this illusion. You know who that is.”
“……”
Kang Hwi silently looked down at the sleeping child cradled in his arms.
“Did you get her to sleep properly? It'll be a real headache if she wakes up halfway through.”
“I fed her honey from the sleep flowers that grow outside the village. She won't open her eyes until around dawn.”
Kang Yul lay sleeping with faint, gentle breaths.
Inside that small head, the jiangshi's curse was holding its breath, lying in wait.
“Are you scared?”
“Scared of what, may I ask?”
“Of what you're about to do. And…….”
Sreeek.
Kang Hwi's sleeve slid down, baring his forearm.
Clear bite marks standing out against pale white skin.
“The jiangshi's curse that's been carved into you.”
When the array deploys, every person will be drawn into the illusion.
But Kang Yul, carrying the jiangshi's curse, would be rejected and cast out.
And that is why Kang Hwi deliberately let a jiangshi bite him, infecting himself with the curse.
All to protect his little sister.
“It would be a lie if I said I wasn't afraid.”
One night.
Kang Hwi must withstand the assault of countless jiangshi all by himself.
Until I succeed in slaying the host.
“But I believe in you, stranger.”
“……”
“So go finish it off quickly. I'll hold down the stragglers here.”
Over the past three days.
I taught Kang Hwi how to evade and how to run.
Even that didn't feel like enough, so I split my spare time into slivers and went out whittling down the number of lurking water ghosts.
“Remember just one thing. Your life is not yours alone. If you die, your little sister dies with you.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
“Don't try to fight them. Even if it means shoving your face into the mud, focus on nothing but staying alive.”
“I will do as you say.”
“…You answer well enough, at least.”
That was enough.
I'd given them everything I could give.
A path where both siblings survive—and where he doesn't drown in guilt.
At this level of effort, even Baek Seo-ha would have to acknowledge it.
“In thirty minutes, I'll reactivate the array from a distance. From that moment on, it's all you.”
I was just about to leave the village with what might be a final farewell when—
“Stranger.”
Kang Hwi stopped me.
“What is it?”
“Thank you… truly.”
The moment I turned around, he slammed his forehead straight into the ground.
I could see droplets falling, one by one, onto the earthen floor.
“It's too early to be thanking me. If anything, I'm the one who's lowered your odds of surviving.”
If I had simply released the seal that day as planned.
The jiangshi would have swarmed the villagers in a panicked frenzy, which would have lowered the odds of those two siblings becoming their targets.
“I've made you shoulder everything alone. Honestly, it's the kind of thing you should be cursing me for.”
“How… how could I ever resent the man who saved us.”
Kang Hwi spoke slowly, the rims of his eyes flushed red.
“Thank you for not letting me remain a shameful older brother. Thank you for giving everyone a chance to live….”
To say that a person can become a villain for the sake of something—
is to say that, as of yet, they haven't become one.
“Thank you for not making me into a villain… truly… truly, thank you….”
I could see his shoulders trembling.
Before my regression.
Baek Seo-ha and her team had failed to stop Kang Hwi's sudden action.
In the end, the host's seal, broken far too early, had wrecked the array, and the villagers came under attack.
And they.
They had seized on the moment the water ghosts flooded the village to strike at the host.
Thanks to that, the subjugation had gone smoothly, without any real interference.
So what was the you of that world like?
You, who got what you wanted in that place—what expression were you wearing?
Baek Seo-ha never told me what happened after the raid.
This is nothing more than my own self-gratification.
How would you, facing a different ending, react?
What ripples would this small change send through the future?
Just a pebble thrown into a vast lake.
That's all it is.
Midway up Cheongun Mountain.
“‘A seal upon a rock shaped like a dragon's head’… is what they said.”
I let out a hollow laugh as I stared at the enormous dragon bone before me.
“This isn't a rock shaped like a dragon's head. It's an actual dragon's skull.”
Though its divinity had been eroded away by the sinister aura, leaving it drained of all sacred power, it was unmistakably the skull of a dragon.
No doubt Yakseon had crafted the Celestial Dragon Pill from this thing's horn.
What a world. It really does have everything.
A great hollow deep within the skull.
That was where the host—the origin of every last jiangshi in this valley—lay sleeping.
Once I put that thing down, the story would finally move forward, one way or another.
“Hm….”
Just as I was preparing to break the seal in earnest—
The fragments are drawn to each other!
A message I couldn't just brush aside.
“Drawn together… don't tell me—”
I immediately opened my subspace and pulled out the thing from my memory.
The reward from clearing the hidden route of the Graveyard of Knights.
Fragment 1 of 3
The moment I drew out the key fragment, a low, humming vibration began to grow steadily stronger.
“This fragment definitely had an effect that drew it toward other fragments.”
And its resonance was pointing, without a shred of doubt, toward that hollow.
The second fragment of this key is inside there.
I had no idea what this azure key actually was.
There had been no record of anyone finding such a thing in a gate in my past life, either.
Baek Seo-ha, who cleared this gate, was never said to have obtained a key fragment either.
Which means—
“This key… is connected to the Monarchs!”
I couldn't declare it with absolute certainty.
But piecing together the accumulated evidence, completing this key would bring me a step closer to the truth of the Monarchs' identities.
And for that purpose, if nothing else—
I would have to crush the boss waiting in that hollow, right here and now.
“First things first. Reactivating the array.”
A formation of this scale would be undergoing a change.
The water ghosts, acting on pure instinct, would almost all turn and head for the village.
While Kang Hwi tangled their feet—
I complete the subjugation of the host.
I formed a hand seal and activated the redefined formation.
Tiger-Trap Illusion
— the restored formation, redefined —
“…!”
The instant the array activated, the flow of qi shifted.
I swiftly restored the mana I had expended with a Ki-Cheong Pill.
From here on out, it's a race against time.
Every minute that dragged on raised the odds that Kang Hwi would die.
So there was no reason to hesitate—straight to the seal on the hollow.
The method Yakseon left behind went like this:
“To break the seal, one must first unravel the mystery held by the blue moon.”
“By my long study and analysis, the great and full blue moon brims with the energy of life. The dead ever hunger for the living—thus the blue moon is what stirs the creature. That much is certain.”
“Prepare a doll of woven straw, and soak it in the blood of the living. The more blood, the better.”
“It bears the form of a man, and carries within it the blood of a man. How, then, can we call it anything but human?”
“When all is prepared, cast them into the hollow all at once. And then—wait. Wait until the creature wakes and reaches for the life you have made.”
“Should it come to pass… its hunger will turn toward the world beyond.”
About ten minutes had passed since I'd thrown the dolls in.
A hostile presence began to seep, slowly, out from the hollow.
The air against my skin dropped past cold into a bone-deep chill.
“Here it comes.”
I could feel it.
Something monstrous was stirring in that hollow.
I seized the opening without hesitation and switched on the stream.
Chat messages popped up one after another, as if the viewers had been waiting all along.
“Sorry, but I'm in no state to explain the situation right now.”
The chill was growing fiercer by the moment.
The presence within the hollow was drawing closer.
“I'll say this just once.”
I steadied the window and spoke.
“Starting now—the subjugation broadcast of a B-rank gate boss begins.”
From the darkness of the hollow—
a pair of crimson lights turned toward me.
And at last, the thing emerged.
Shff… shff…!
A wild-haired warrior in tattered robes, straw and blood still clutched in its mouth.
A body shriveled like a mummy, skin corpse-pale, and a massive wedge driven into its chest.
Only the rust-caked sword in its grip betrayed the fact that this had once been a swordsman.
That thing is—
The boss of this gate.
Cheonmagwi.
“Open your eyes wide and watch closely.”
I stared straight into the camera and declared it plainly.
“Because when this broadcast ends… a great many things are going to change.”