The Mind's Eye and the Blood Flame
A vividly glowing crimson face. A girl tracing scarlet arcs through the air, dancing in rhythm with the flow of sword qi. Each time her trained hand met that blade energy, the two rebounded off each other like iron weapons clashing in midair.
She had embodied the pinnacle of illusion swordsmanship—deceiving the enemy's eyes, scrambling their senses—yet rather than simply overpowering it, the girl's crimson gaze was clearly grasping the true nature of the phantom blade and dismantling it piece by piece.
Those blood-red eyes dredged up an unpleasant past, one where she had been forced into humiliating submission. Crimson pupils that pierced through every flow of martial technique as if peering into the future itself. Those eyes could only be called the Mind's Eye—something attained solely by a master tempered through a hundred battles.
Swimming up through murky consciousness—
"Keh, keh-uk..."
The Sword Demon, Bukgung Seol, felt wronged. She had gauged Kim Jinhu's martial level from his mastery of the Iron Blood Sword Art and surmised that a genuinely formidable master must surely exist somewhere in this world. She'd assumed this was a strange otherworld where all manner of monsters roamed and bizarre Taoist arts and sorceries coexisted—but how could a brat that age possess such an exalted martial realm?! Even the Sword Demon, once hailed in her youth as one of Murim's most promising prodigies, could never have dreamed of reaching that level at so young an age...!
She had planned to subdue the insolent little whelp with a single strike, plant her foot atop its head, and burst into triumphant laughter. Consciousness slowly returned, and she barely pried her eyes open through a haze-blurred field of vision. Flailing her arms in shame, the Sword Demon found herself locking gazes with a man who was snorting in open disbelief.
"What are you doing...?"
"J-Ji-Jjinhu?!"
"Name, nickname, whatever—just stop stuttering it out like that. It sounds weird..."
The one who had spoken was Bukgung Seol's legal guardian, Kim Jinhu. When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a place called the "infirmary" within the Academy. It was operated with maximum government funding—befitting an institution where Awakened gathered and fatal accidents were a real possibility—and the facility far exceeded any ordinary school health office, comparable to the inpatient ward of a university hospital.
Having fainted, she'd had no opportunity to circulate her qi and steady her insides. Yet whatever emergency treatment had been administered, faint though it was, her gut felt at ease despite the internal injuries.
"Y-you... were you watching me this whole time? While I was unconscious?"
"Watching? Say it like that and I sound like a creep, kid. I got a call that you'd collapsed and came running straight here."
"N-no, that's not what I meant. I'm still not used to the language here... Thank you, Jjinhu."
He sat in a chair beside the bed, chin propped on one hand, waving the other in a lazy don't-mention-it gesture as he yawned hugely—a young man with a carelessly tied ponytail. Had he been nursing her this entire time, while she lay there unconscious? And having grown somewhat familiar with this world, she had come to understand something else: that Kim Jinhu led an organization as its head and was perpetually swamped with its affairs. In fact, she'd learned he was so busy he could scarcely carve out any personal time at all.
And yet, even in the midst of all that—
He came straight here... to see me.
A warmth brushed against a corner of her heart. Softly, Bukgung Seol shifted only her lake-blue eyes, stealing a glance at Kim Jinhu's face. The sloppily tied ponytail, the rough speech, the perpetually sullen expression—by any measure, Kim Jinhu looked like a street-corner gambler, a third-rate thug's lackey.
Jjinhu... Kim Jinhu is different.
Bukgung Seol knew. If Kim Jinhu had been born and raised in Murim, even having trained in the sword arts of the unorthodox path, he would surely have belonged among the righteous. Standing at the polar opposite of Bukgung Seol—a kind soul born with the very qualities of a chivalrous hero. Enough to rescue and care for someone who had not only tumbled into another world without warning but been reduced to a helpless little girl. A thoughtful, decent man, and Bukgung Seol's one and only benefactor.
She had once suspected him of being the Blood Demon's underling on the strength of the Iron Blood Sword Art alone. But a man of such upright character as Kim Jinhu would never join hands with the Demon.
He would never... join hands with the Demon.
At that moment, the demonic qi flowing through her meridians trembled violently once. She found it laughable that something so trivial had shaken her—but such was the life of the World's Greatest Sword, the Cheongang Geom-ma. Many heroes had sought to slay the Sword Demon, Lord of the First Demon Palace, yet not a single one had ever been shown her back.
And then there was her old family... no, her old clan. Yes... Kim Jinhu is different from them. Those who carried the bloodline of Cheongang, the surname of Bukgung. A stronger heir, a stronger successor—and through that, the fulfillment of the clan's and the First Demon Palace's long-cherished ambition. That was all the Cheongang line had ever craved. "Family" was nothing more than an irrelevant existence that happened to be bundled inside the same clan. Bukgung Seol had always been, first and last, nothing but the successor of the Cheongang Geom-ma and the house of Bukgung.
And so she had never once felt the reality of "family" the way ordinary people did. Nor had anyone ever genuinely worried for her—it was an utterly unfamiliar experience.
"............"
Suddenly, thinking that way—
"U-um... Jjinhu. Th-that... I'm grateful you watched over me, but... going forward..."
"What?"
"N-nothing. Never mind..."
"What is it? You're being anticlimactic."
It was only natural for a comrade to stand guard over an unconscious warrior's safety. But—
Thinking about how Kim Jinhu had watched over her in such a defenseless state...
"......Ah."
A strange embarrassment, subtly different from her usual humiliation, welled up from somewhere deep. A new world. A new body. New relationships. All of it was a heart-pounding plunge into the unknown. True, it was a bizarre bond stitched together by the despicable schemes of that vile, cunning Blood Demon and a cascade of coincidences, and she still didn't know what to call it—but the time spent alongside Kim Jinhu hadn't been bad for the Cheongang Geom-ma, and for Bukgung Seol it had been a comfortable, easy time. So an unconscious, warm smile crept to the corner of her mouth—
"Oh, right. Bukgung Seol."
"......?"
"Come to think of it, you got dog-piled, didn't you?"
"......Hah?"
Wh-what did she get? Bukgung Seol stared, mouth hanging open, her bewilderment blowing clean past its limits. The warm smile she'd been sending Kim Jinhu only moments ago vanished in an instant.
And kindness and pettiness, as it turned out, could coexist in a single man. Kim Jinhu, who had finally gotten a sliver of free time only to be forced to sprint all the way to the Academy, had a great deal of pent-up frustration—and naturally, a wicked smile bloomed across his face.
"You begged for a sword saying you'd beat someone up, then got beaten like a dog. I'm embarrassed on your behalf, kid."
"D-dog-piled...?! You're saying I got dog-piled...?! Jjinhu! How can you spew such vile filth so carelessly...?!"
"That's what I heard?"
"Lies! Slander! Orthodox sect trickery! Are you actually believing that garbage right now, Jjinhu?!"
"No, that's literally what happened."
"Jjinhu! What do you take me for?! I did not lose! Take it back this instant! Someone interrupted at the end, that's all—we never got to finish!"
If that woman flinging Taiji Fist around—some "mentor" or whatever—hadn't barged in at the very end, she would most certainly have won...
"............"
Would she... have won?
Bukgung Seol couldn't be certain of that either. She couldn't bring herself to finish the sentence. And when a person loses their words, they tend to curse or cry.
"I-I didn't lose... I didn't lose...!"
Voice quavering, on the verge of tears. As the sense of injustice surged too high, this damned body—so slavishly faithful to its instincts—began reacting on the spot. And Kim Jinhu was merciless.
"You had a weapon, even if it was just a bamboo sword. Your opponent was bare-handed, right? I'm a swordsman too, so it feels weird saying this, but wouldn't the armed side have the advantage?"
"W-well... th-that's, that's true... but still..."
"You took internal injuries. I don't know how you managed that in a mere sparring match, but your opponent was so untouched she apparently woke up before you and left first?"
"N-no, that... my injuries were nothing... They healed right away..."
"And you took my bamboo sword and came back all banged up in a single day? So how do you think I feel, having carelessly handed it over? Won't I blame myself?"
It was a storm of sound logic.
"J-Jjinhu...! I-I-I'm sorry..."
"Now then, defendant Bukgung Seol. I'll hear your apology later. Your defense?"
"Th-thaaaat..."
Trembling, quavering—
"──Hal...!!!"
It was a pitiful defense. But the judge was not moved to pity.
"Your bamboo sword is confiscated."
A bolt from the blue. Bukgung Seol wailed in utter despair, like an otter driven from its home by a summer downpour.
"Taking a sword from a swordsman—more precious than life itself...! Aren't you a swordsman too?! How can you do this, Jjinhu!"
"Because of our Seol, Jjinhu's been holding nothing but kitchen knives every day—he's not even a swordsman anymore. So I'll just take the bamboo sword then?"
"No, Jjinhu! Don't take my beloved blade, the Hell Sword Demon Dao...!"
"You already named it...? It's fine. From today the Hell Sword Demon Dao becomes the Hell Jjinhu Dao, and it'll live happily ever after."
"JJINHUUUUUU...!!!"
Well. That was how it went.
I, Bonjwa, the Blood Demon Cheon Yujin.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Listening to the roar of the Forged Blood Art as it climbed toward its climax, I put strength into my tiny fingers and clenched my fist tight. Power overflowed. It was still a body that struggled to so much as walk without channeling internal energy—which meant, conversely, that with internal energy backing it up, it could exert superhuman strength.
"......Heheh."
The corners of my mouth trembled faintly at the intense euphoria surging up from within. Since creating the Forged Blood Art, I had passed through more varied battles than I'd anticipated—but the Forged Blood Art was, in the end, a martial art. And martial arts are tempered far more fiercely when crossed against another living martial art than when trading blows with monsters or shadows. A sparring match with the demonic qi awakener, Bukgung Seol. An unexpected harvest—such tremendous progress that I nearly found myself hoping another demonic qi practitioner of her caliber would drop out of the sky somewhere...!
"I've... completed the Blood Flame Realm."
When I had first advanced into the Blood Flame Realm, I never imagined I would complete the First Stage in less than two months. Who could have guessed that driving the Forged Blood Art to its limits—no, beyond them—would prove to be a stroke of fortune? That said, the Forged Blood Art was a new martial art that I, Bonjwa, had forged with my own hands, one whose framework had to be built from the ground up, layer by layer. I had completed the First Stage, but I had not yet firmly determined how to advance into the Second. Given the right catalyst, I could forge the Second Stage of the Forged Blood Art anew. Well—I would think about that later.
The Blood Flame Realm had reached its end. This sensation of my entire body's blood qi burning hot as molten lava... this feeling of omnipotence—I simply wanted to drown in it...!
"Hwa-haha, kehuk, hahahahahat!"
"O-Oppa."
"Hahahahahahat, ha... Hm?"
I had been laughing myself silly when my younger sister Sea's voice reached me. Well, Bonjwa was in an excellent mood today. Even if I had gotten a nosebleed and cracked skulls with Bukgung Seol hard enough to black out—
'Another nosebleed?! That's it. Oppa, we really need to get this checked out again.'
Dragged along by Sea, who was raising hell about a full examination, I had ended up at Rachel's lab. But today, with the Forged Blood Art's advancement putting me in such a splendid mood, even if I had to take a shot—
"........."
N-no. On second thought, no shots...
"O-Oppa. Th-this is..."
I was shaking my head when Sea spoke in a trembling voice, and only then did I turn my gaze from the ceiling I'd been staring at while cackling, toward her. Sea's elegant face was scrunched up as if she flatly refused to believe what her own eyes were showing her. Flipping through several sheets of paper, reviewing them over and over, she finally managed to open her mouth.
"L-look at this.... What is this? Oppa... wh-why are your blood pressure and temperature like this...?"
I glanced at the results sheet she held out. Blood pressure and body temperature were both recording abnormally high values. However—Bonjwa simply smiled. It was the expected result, after all. Normally, readings like these would point to something seriously wrong with a person's health, but for a practitioner of the Forged Blood Art, this state was actually optimal. The Forged Blood Art tempers the blood itself, harboring flame within the heart and the great vessels. It wasn't that my arteries had narrowed or my body had malfunctioned, driving the numbers upward. My blood was simply hot, so my temperature naturally ran high—and with blood qi pulsing through thoroughly tempered vessels, elevated blood pressure was the only possible reading.
"Ah, that..."
Bonjwa tried to explain, the smile still on my face. But at that moment—
Thud.
A pen dropped and rolled across the floor.
"......Ah."
The doctor who had dropped it. Rachel Lee's face had gone paler than a plaster statue.