A Paradoxical Existence

A sparring match was a place of mutual exchange.

So that's what it was.

Ojeong had not been the only one to take something from their match. Sun Wukong, too, had come away with a realization. For some time now he had been forging a heart method through his yoryeok, and he had yet to finish it. The two currents still refused to coexist. Perhaps because demonic energy was the backbone of the thing — its grain ran differently from the internal arts that humans used. After about seven days of this, Sun Wukong was starting to get quietly pissed off.

This Teacher Sun, inferior to human tricks?

Of course he was. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of geniuses had inherited their learning and refined it across the generations. Could anyone knock out a finished art in a mere seven days? And this was no ordinary attempt — it was a radical experiment in blending the very concepts of two heart methods. Even Sun Wukong, who had stood equal to Heaven, could not casually walk a path no one had ever trodden.

And yet. That no one had walked a path only meant that someday, someone would. In the spar, he had glimpsed the possibility.

You carve the road with form and style.

Sun Wukong was a novice in the martial arts. He swung his fists, kicked with his feet, and tore around like a storm, and his enemies simply went down in heaps. That was what fighting had always been. So the structured forms of martial arts had struck him as something entirely new.

To wield an energy that refuses to be handled, they bore down even harder on form and style.

He copied everything — from Ojeong's opening stance to every last attack. It felt awkward at first. An opening stance, then a prescribed combat sequence bound to fixed forms and styles. The awkwardness lasted only a moment. He absorbed each technique the instant he unfolded it. By the tenth exchange he was performing the forms more perfectly than Ojeong himself.

What Ojeong had spent years — decades — drilling into his bones, Sun Wukong had not merely imitated in ten exchanges. He had taken it into himself and made it his own. The eleventh form he executed exactly as he envisioned it. It was as good as the founding of a new martial art.

Form and style are the backbone of martial arts. Now I understand.

How did humans handle inner energy so readily, a force so difficult to command? Even if internal energy was not yoryeok, at its root it was still something no human ought to be able to control. The reason a heart method made the impossible possible was an almost fanatical devotion to form and style.

It was an excessive obsession. A single breath. The briefest stir of qi. So excessive that the body had to move according to prescribed form and style, or it could not move the energy at all. It meant that internal energy could travel only along the most efficient shape, the most thoroughly proven path.

The heart method I was trying to build had none of that.

Sun Wukong considered how to apply this to his internal arts. Not simply governing his yoryeok through breath, but governing it the way humans did — fitted to form and style.

To do that, I'll have to find the most perfect shape, and the most certain path.

Because he was a novice in the martial arts, Sun Wukong paradoxically struck out along a new road.

It was the martial artist's ideal: to step beyond the standardized architecture of form and style, and unleash one's art as it flowed, as the body itself led.

Sun Wukong had come into being of his own accord. He had no biological parents. In the Daoist tradition, this was the ideal every practitioner yearned for — self-existence. A being who had completed himself. He was already a creature who had slipped free of every system.

To turn around and craft new forms and styles, to step back into a system, was the opposite act. And paradoxically, that was precisely why he could ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠create forms and styles that were perfect.

The repeated failures of geniuses stretching across countless ages. The most perfect, most efficient techniques, distilled from a thousand hard lessons — he could look upon them and see them for what they were.

Which meant:

I can cut out the trial and error entirely.

Sun Wukong sank at once into deep contemplation.

For a while, Sun Wukong remained lost in thought alone. He immersed himself in the work of applying what he had grasped in the spar with Ojeong to the creation of his internal arts.

When the mind concentrates on something, the spiritual senses grow sharper and more sensitive. He felt a gaze.

Gazes were familiar enough at the Namgung Clan Estate. The eyes of surveillance. Sun Wukong understood. His identity was still uncertain, after all. He had accepted it, to a point. As he had warned Muhwa before, so long as no one was outright peeking, he could not have cared less.

But the gaze on him now was peeking in the most literal sense. It was blatant.

Even that, by itself, would not have dragged him out of his thoughts in irritation.

From the empty air.

A gaze looking down from high above.

No human could look down from empty sky.

Sun Wukong snapped his eyes open and craned his neck to glare upward.

"......!"

An owl. The instant their eyes met, the owl beat its wings in a frantic, clumsy panic and fled.

"Huh."

Sun Wukong stared for a long moment in the direction the owl had gone. The mountain that rose behind the walls of the Namgung Clan Estate. His mind turned quickly, and a faint smile touched the corner of his mouth.

As I thought. The world changes, time passes — and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠things that ought to exist still do.

The demons of this world had been wiped out. The last of them, U-mawang, had knelt of his own will and gone to Heaven's thunder prison. But even with the demons gone, not every element that had composed that age had been erased. The humans of the present had existed since those days too, had they not?

Interest welled up in him. And on the other side of it, a certain incredulous amusement.

A young one, is it?

Daring to look at him — even meeting his eyes — and then running away?

Sun Wukong rose from his seat. It was late. As a guest registered with the clan, he was supposed to say something before going out at this hour. He had no need. The moment he took a single step, his form vaulted the wall in a breath and tore up the mountain.

Not human.

The owl cut across the open sky, twisting its neck to look behind. Its feathers felt soaked through with sweat. As an Earth Deity, as the numinous mountain god of Waryong Mountain, it had never felt anything like this in its life.

It understood by instinct. This was not a human being. The creature carried an energy as vast as the strongest among humankind — and it was not human!

Another Earth Deity, then? A mountain god, like itself? No.

The owl could not make sense of it.

First I go back to the nest and offer a rite to the Grand Supreme Elder Lord. Something that is not human has appeared in the lower world.

It was piercing the clouds, racing across the heavens, when the feathers of its outstretched wings gave a sudden shudder.

An unbelievable sight filled its vision.

"......!"

Atop the thick branch of a great tree, a golden form shimmered into being.

"You fly filthy fast. I had a hell of a time chasing you down, Myodu-eung."

Beneath the wavering gold stood a human whose brows traced a gentle arc. There was a hint of mischief in the face — and the owl's breath caught in its throat.

The sinister energy spilling off him. It had heard of this. From the predecessor who had passed down the office of Earth Deity, over and over. In the old days, an Earth Deity could not leave its domain. Step outside your territory, and you were eaten.

......A demon?

Eaten by demons.

The owl's milk-white feathers trembled.

"W-who are you!"

"Can't even recognize this Teacher Sun. A young brat who only just became a mountain god, I see."

Myodu-eung flinched at the sense that he already knew what it was. Sun Wukong burst out laughing and stroked the owl's head as if it were something cute.

Myodu-eung's mind was in pieces. Fortunately, the hand was surprisingly gentle. Still trembling, it put on what dignity an Earth Deity could muster.

"Y-you — y-y-you — are you a d-d-d-demon?"

"Why would you think that?"

"B-because you're not human. And yet I can feel a weight of energy equal to the strongest among humankind. What's more, this strange feeling... this suffocating..."

"Have you ever seen a demon?"

"I-I've heard of them from my predecessor."

"A child born into the world after the demons vanished. You were born into a pretty good age."

Sun Wukong said it while he kept stroking Myodu-eung's head. The touch was unmistakably kind — and every feather on Myodu-eung's body stood on end.

The strange energy seeping faintly from Sun Wukong. A mountain god was born sensitive to spiritual power; it could feel what no human could. The yoryeok he gave off struck Myodu-eung head-on.

"Do I look like a demon to you?"

"From what my predecessor told me, demons are violent and vicious beyond measure, like beasts that have lost all reason... But sometimes there are beings more intelligent than humans, so at least an upper-rank demon should be capable of conversation."

Having said that much, Myodu-eung shut its beak under a sudden chill.

An upper-rank demon? Those were the truly vicious ones — the ones that went around devouring Earth Deities and mountain gods. Sometimes so silver-tongued they could even deceive an Earth Deity and eat it...

The thought reached that far, and the owl wanted nothing more than to slip out from under Sun Wukong's hand.

As if he had read its mind, Sun Wukong cackled.

"An upper-rank demon? This Teacher Sun is no such breed."

"Th-then... perhaps an immortal descended from the Heavenly Realm?"

Myodu-eung's voice turned exceedingly polite. As a mountain god, it possessed a measure of immortal power within its own domain — but it could not begin to compare with the genuine immortals who had ascended to Heaven.

"An immortal? I'm not something that shabby either."

Then what on earth was he?

Myodu-eung's thoughts were still spinning when Sun Wukong's voice rolled out like thunder.

"A Great Demon?"

The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven... Sun Wukong?

The words Great Demon were shocking enough. But at the name that followed, Myodu-eung's body went rigid. A faint thread of memory surfaced.

"......That madman Bimawen?"

The thought slipped out of its beak before it knew what it was doing.

In that instant, Sun Wukong's face twisted. It was the face of a malevolent spirit. Two crimson, sinister eyes, and a colossal energy that crushed down on every bone. Myodu-eung froze ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠solid.

A Great Demon — the presence of a Great Demon it had only ever heard of in stories. Before the power of those who trampled even the immortals of Heaven, Myodu-eung felt its life hanging by a thread.

Fortunately, Sun Wukong drew the energy back in a moment later.

"Hah. Looks like that predecessor of yours was one of the ones I beat the hell out of. I'll let it slide this once. You let that word out of your mouth again, and I'll boil you whole and eat you."

"I-I understand!"

Sun Wukong wanted to pluck every last feather right then and there, but he forced himself to hold back. What would a young mountain god like this even know?

From the start, he had not been the least bit curious about this brat deity's identity.

A mountain god. The Earth Deity of this domain.

It would have witnessed everything that happened around here.

Beings beyond humanity did not interfere with the human world — the mundane realm. They did not even pay it any mind. Except in a few unusual cases.

The exception was spiritual matters. A numinous Daoist or a shaman would offer rites to a mountain god and make prayers, asking blessings for the months ahead. A powerful force arose in those moments, and the mountain god answered it.

"Do you remember ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what happened recently down there — at the Namgung Clan Estate?"

"What do you mean by 'what happened'..."

"Was there no spiritual event? Nothing large enough for you to feel?"

The vanishing or extinction of a soul was something no human could know. A mountain god was different. It would have felt it keenly. If it was Sanzang's soul — the soul of one who had been a Buddha, carrying a colossal rank — there was no way it had gone unnoticed.

At Sun Wukong's question, Myodu-eung thought for a moment. Then its eyes went round.

"At the Namgung Clan Estate... there was. Just once. Yeongryeok swept through like a storm."

Sun Wukong's face lit up.

"What happened?"

Myodu-eung gathered its thoughts and carefully opened its beak.

"At that time..."