Did It Really Need to Be This Strong?
The deeper they pressed into Eumgwerim, the thicker the resentful spirits' aura grew. The Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand never stopped devouring the yin qi, though, and so the party could still endure.
Whoosh! A fragment of the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand tore free, flashed out, and swallowed a coil of black energy whole. As if that were nowhere near enough, it split into dozens of small serpents and spilled in every direction at once.
Hwan Mong and the others could only stare, struck dumb. A blood spirit, once its link to the body was cut, was supposed to fray little by little and at last suffer grievous harm. Severing one completely from the flesh was a feat possible only at the realm of an Earthly Daoist. Yi Yeok handled the Heavenly Dragon Flying Sand as if the whole business were nothing worth mentioning.
"That Namyak Temple?"
Before long, Yi Yeok's party stood before it.
"Did it really need to be that blue?"
The high walls were the color of hewn celestial sapphire, a blue so pure it could never have occurred in nature — and the purity itself was what made the sight unpleasant. The temple looked long abandoned. There was none of the incense smell that clung to such places, only a bleak, antique chill hanging in the air. On the main gate, a golden mark had been cut in sharp relief.
Yi Yeok narrowed his eyes and tested the aura rising off Namyak Temple. Nothing here was alive. Something else scraped at his nerves, though: a powerful, pure energy seething beneath the temple. It was so strong that the resentful spirits of Eumgwerim could not touch it at all. If anything, it was wiping their gloom clean away.
"Probably the sap of some special spirit herb. Gives off that blue light at night, and it's poisonous to anything that gets into a soul. I'd say its job is to draw the resentful spirits in slow and snuff them out."
Yi Yeok nodded at Hwan Rang's explanation. Every blood spirit he had sent out came sliding back into his body like a tide going out, and vanished without a trace. It had only been a short while, yet he had taken in even more energy than the day before.
"No one else around, and I don't see any demonic beasts either. Anything here actually dangerous?"
"The danger's inside the temple."
Hwan Rang answered with a grave face.
"It's empty."
"Empty's why it's worse."
"And what's that supposed to mean? Say it so I can follow."
"You'll know soon enough."
Yi Yeok let out a short, dry laugh.
"Then shall we go in?"
"We came all this way. Course we go in."
Hwan Do grinned and backed him at once. Hwan Mong was not smiling.
"Don't get careless. Even we don't know exactly what's waiting in there."
She had not finished before Yi Yeok kicked lightly off the ground and cleared the wall in a single bound.
Inside, everything was drowned in the same blue light. Farther in, a great Dharma hall stood with a solemn weight to it. The paint was peeling in patches, but the blue wrapped the building so completely that the damage was easy to miss unless one looked hard.
A moment later Hwan Mong and the others came over the wall after him. Yi Yeok was already at the hall. The fierce, pure energy pouring from within needled at him. The door was not locked. The instant it cracked, a blinding gold flooded the temple and spilled past the walls, striking hard across ground that had been nothing but gloom.
Yi Yeok took the light full in the face and felt no particular threat in it. Hwan Mong and her companions flung themselves aside and hauled their blood qi up to armor their bodies, the way one flinches from a poisonous mist.
What is this? There's soul-energy in it, but something else is mixed through. Is this the power of faith Hwan Mong was talking about?
To a believer of the Buddhist path, even a single ray is glory beyond measure.
To anyone who does not believe, it is no different from poison.
It was Buddha's Light. Yi Yeok was wholly unbothered. Hwan Mong and the others looked at him as if seeing him anew.
The door swung wide. Buddha's Light packed every corner of the Dharma hall, and at its center sat a colossal, majestic Buddha. It was only a carving. It felt alive.
The moment Yi Yeok raised his head and met the statue's eyes, a shock like his skull splitting lanced through him. A vast force filled his mind, and thoughts that were not his own pressed in, trying to invade his soul.
"What... is this..."
He took a step back before he knew he had moved.
Am I afraid?
He could hardly credit it. Nothing in the world, and no one in it, had ever made him afraid. Yet the step his body had just taken was fear, and nothing else.
He steadied himself and set one foot forward again. The statue's light flared hotter. For an instant his whole body seemed to freeze, and the urge to turn and run rose sharp in him. Yi Yeok clenched his teeth and drove the art out at full strength.
Unleashed at full power. The aura vanishes completely — and the light, robbed of its mark, begins to fade.
The Buddha's Light dulled, as if it had lost its target. Even so, another step forward did not come easily.
"Strong..."
He drew a breath, half in admiration. A single statue, and it held power like this.
From outside the hall, Hwan Mong called in alarm.
"Phantom, you all right?"
"I'm fine. That statue's wrong."
"Don't let the Buddha's Light into your soul. If you can't hold it off, you might end up a believer of the Buddhist path. Or something worse."
None of them thought the Buddhist path itself was some horror. Faced with a power this uncanny, though, the rejection came up out of instinct. This peculiar strength was surely why the Buddhist sects had been able to split the world with the Daoist ones. There were even Daoist masters who had been converted and raised up as Dharma-protecting guardians.
A bad feeling gathered in Yi Yeok, and grew. He knew he could not stay here long.
Where is the damned thing? Find it and get out.
Then Hwan Rang bellowed.
In that same instant the whole of Eumgwerim shuddered, and countless resentful spirits came surging toward Namyak Temple like a tide.