The Incompetent Hero and the Return to Yeom Kingdom (5)
The inner energy Seollin had cultivated underwent a dramatic transformation — into something far stronger, far more noble, and impossibly pure.
It was nothing like the Seollin of mere moments before. The change ran so deep that one could only call it a difference of rank — of species itself.
And as her inner energy shifted so radically, her body followed, reshaping itself to keep pace. Antler-like horns sprouted from Seollin's head, and a pale mist of clouds coiled around her form.
She looked for all the world like a legendary dragon that had taken human shape — and Seollyun, caught between shock and fury, screamed.
"What is that… What is that?! What-what-what-what-what?! What the hell is that power — that form?! There's nothing like that in the Dan clan's secret records!! Did Father teach you something he never taught me? Seollin!!!"
Anxiety and a thin, bitter inferiority bled through every word.
Seollin watched him for a moment, then let out a soft sigh.
"Of course not…"
She clenched and unclenched her hands, studying her own body.
This is incredible… It doesn't even feel like my body. So light… and overflowing with power. Like I could do anything — like omnipotence itself is flooding every inch of me.
Only moments earlier, poison and hidden weapons had wrecked her body so thoroughly that continuing the fight had been impossible. Now it was different. The pure, overwhelming energy — and the body remade to match it — was already knitting her wounds shut at a startling pace.
More than that: the Death Poison that had been eating through her flesh was being purified by that same pure energy, drawn together into a single point and expelled from her body.
Drip…
The poison that left her gathered at her fingertips into a single small black droplet — the residue left after purification.
Seollin studied it for a beat, then extended her hand and set it on her finger. Carefully, she brought the residue to her lips.
It hurts!
Please, save us! Clan Head!!
Clan Head! Why would you put us in a place like this!!
Aaaaaaagh!!!
Countless lingering thoughts still clung to the Death Poison's residue. The final moments of the Dan clan martial artists who had been sacrificed to create this poison flashed through Seollin's mind.
Betrayed by her own brother. Dying in agony. A single tear slipped free before she could stop it.
"I won't let any more of the Dan clan's martial artists be sacrificed."
"Don't spout nonsense!… I won't lose! I absolutely cannot lose!… If only to prove that everything I've done meant something!!!"
Once more, Soul-Severing Threads scattered through the air.
But Seollin made no move to dodge. She simply took hold of the cloud robes wrapped around her and flicked them lightly — like a whip. The cloud fabric drank in every last thread.
"!"
"I'll give them back."
She swung the cloud robes again. The Soul-Severing Threads they had absorbed poured straight back at Seollyun.
These were threads steeped in Death Poison. Even a man who wielded that poison himself would find bare exposure to it all but fatal — so Seollyun scrambled to evade them.
Watching him, Seollin drew a single dagger. Then, following nothing more than instinct — the flow of air her eyes could now see — she tossed it with an almost casual flick of the wrist.
"Dragon Fang."
The name she had given the technique was almost laughably simple: the dragon's tooth. But the dragon's energy coiled around the dagger lived up to it, taking the shape of a great serpent with jaws yawning wide to swallow its prey as it streaked toward Seollyun.
Whiiing… KRAAAAAASH!!!
This was no longer the silent reaper that stole a life from the shadows. It was a dragon itself — lofty, absolute — crushing an opponent's power head-on in a single blow.
"Kh! Myriad Flower Rain!!"
The Dan clan's ultimate secret art. A technique that wrapped every manner of hidden weapon in overwhelming Gang-gi and utterly pulverized the enemy.
It was a secret Seollin herself had not yet fully mastered… but that no longer mattered.
The cloud robes around her looked as if they could stop nothing at all. In truth, they were armor so dense that almost nothing could pierce them.
Ting!! Thud-thud-thud-thud!!
Seollyun's Gang-gi-laden hidden weapons failed to punch through the cloud robes and fell limp to the ground.
"How…"
Even his ultimate technique had failed to break through. The shock hit Seollyun hard — but he did not give up. He had already paid too high a price in blood to stop now.
Myriad Flower Rain was undeniably powerful. But the technique was built for wide-area annihilation. Against a single target it still hit hard, yet there were stretches where force was simply wasted.
So he concentrated it. Deeper. Greater. Sharper. He poured all of that Gang-gi into a single dagger — one blade that might pierce those cloud robes.
"HRAAAAAAAAH!!!"
With a great battle cry, he hurled the dagger. By pure chance, its form resembled a secret art the Poison Sovereign Dan Seolpung himself had once created.
Seollin did not simply stand and watch. She drew a dagger of her own and loaded it with energy — a Gang-gi utterly still and quiet, the opposite of the roaring strike from moments before.
"I think I understand how to use this power now."
Whiiing!
A green line was drawn through the air. It shot from Seollin's fingertips, shattered the dagger Seollyun had thrown, and punched clean through his shoulder.
"Ghk…"
"I didn't use poison. I have no intention of killing you… not anymore."
"It's not… over yet!…"
Whiiing! Thwip-thwip-thwip-thwip!!!
"The dagger I threw wasn't the only one. As long as you don't understand that… Dan Seollyun, you're no longer a match for me."
Eight more green lines drove down. Eight hidden weapons pinned Seollyun's limbs and locked him in place.
"Nngh…"
Even as his body shook, the will in Seollyun's eyes refused to break. Just as Seollin had endured the Death Poison through sheer force of will, Seollyun would not surrender either.
Seollin understood that — so she flicked her fingers once more.
Thwip-thwip-thwip!
"Ghhhk!!…"
More green lines slammed home. Seollyun's clothes soaked through with red. At the same time, Seollin swept her cloud robes around him and bound him completely.
Once she was certain he was fully subdued, Seollin turned to every Dan clan martial artist who had been watching the fight's outcome and raised her voice.
"…All of you, listen!"
Qi carried the words, and Seollin's voice thundered through the entire Dan compound.
"Dan Seollyun, traitor of the Dan clan, murdered his own father — Clan Head Dan Seolpung — and, in a further act of base ingratitude, sought to seize the position of Clan Head for himself! Beyond that, he sacrificed the martial artists of this clan to forge a foul and unholy poison! Therefore I, Dan Seollin — daughter of Clan Head Dan Seolpung and his rightful successor — do hereby inherit Clan Head Dan Seolpung's will, effective immediately!!"
A ringing declaration. Every soul present had already watched her rise from a crawling Imugi into a true dragon. Not one raised an objection.
A few — men who looked to be Seollyun's close retainers — tried to resist. They were subdued almost at once.
"…Ha…. Haha… Hahahaha!…"
Watching his own people fall one by one, Seollyun began to laugh — hollow, empty.
"Hahahahahahaha!!…"
"…Is something funny?"
"Yes! It's hilarious. How could it not be!…"
As if he had abandoned everything — or as if pure resentment still burned — he ground his teeth and spoke.
"In the end, I was nothing! I forsook the bonds of blood! I cast aside even those who believed in me! And still I couldn't even defeat you — you who laugh without a care in the world and run wild like some unbroken colt! How am I supposed to keep from laughing?!"
"…"
So that's how he saw me.
The thought crossed Seollin's mind for only a moment before she answered quietly.
"I… was never once offered the position of Young Clan Head by the Clan Head."
"…!"
"Father believed that even if you couldn't use Blood Awakening, you — Dan Seollyun — should be the one to succeed him and lead the Dan clan someday."
"…Lies!…"
"You think I'd lie at a time like this?"
An Imugi trains for long ages to become a dragon. But not every Imugi becomes one. Only those who cast aside their greed and recover their purity can rise as dragons.
"…Lies…. It's a lie. That can't be…"
"…"
And those who can guard that purity across the long years are rare. That is why so many Imugi never become dragons — and why the bitter regret of those who failed becomes the raw material for a poison as vile as Death Poison itself.
"Yes. The Dan clan has been subdued. I don't believe they'll be of any further use."
Around the same time Seollyun fell to Seollin, a bird beastman watching the Dan compound from afar was filing a report through a communication orb.
"Yes. It would seem… you need to hurry, Lord Red Oni."
Report complete, he spread his wings to leave Sichuan. But in that instant, his body refused to move.
"Wh-what…"
"I stopped time. While you were speaking through that communication orb, that is."
"What did you say?!"
"I'm joking, of course."
Step. Step.
Light footsteps approached. The figure was a woman with white hair and red eyes — a rare sight in Yeom Kingdom. Lucy.
"Honestly, Hero… don't you think the way you handle people is a little rough? Ordering me to check whether any Beastman Alliance agents might be lurking in Sichuan. And there really was one… I'm genuinely impressed, you know? I think I'm starting to understand why the Goddess chose him."
"You… who are you…"
"Ah — my introduction? My name is Lucy Wenlertera. A fragile, kind, pretty, gentle member of the clergy. And on top of that…"
Lucy reached out and gently stroked the bird beastman's head. An irresistible, deep drowsiness washed over him; his body trembled.
"…I'm also a dream demon who can give you the most wonderful dreams."