The Fire Dragon's Gift, the Dragon Pearl

Huff. Huff.

Rough breaths tore out of my chest. Scalding ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heat flooded everything around me. The sheer, blistering force of it felt as if it could burn my skin clean off, and I could barely keep my senses together.

“Guhh…”

The body of the squad leader, a Transcendence Realm expert who had been leading our group only moments ago, was melting before my eyes. In a way, his death—throwing himself in front of the others—might have been mercifully clean. But after that instant of terror passed, all I knew was pain as my entire body caught fire, and I stared straight ahead.

There was a colossal being coiled around the mountain range.

Its long body resembled boiling lava, and its eyes glowed a deep, mysterious red. Around its mouth, the afterglow of the flame breath that had just wiped out the three-man squad of Kunlun Scouts still writhed and shimmered.

“This is insane… Why did we come this far in the first place…”

Fire Dragon.

A disaster-class entity ranked as a God.

It was an absolute existence dwelling in the deepest reaches of the Kunlun Mountains, a disaster zone of Profound Class territory. I had never imagined I would face it head-on, and yet here it was, standing before me with terrifying dignity. I had grown overexcited after hunting the beasts that lived in Kunlun and getting too carried away with my results; that was the mistake that had brought me this far in.

“I told you we should’ve turned back while we could…”

Regret came far too late.

I closed my eyes and prepared for the death that was about to come.

Once I gave up on ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠everything, even the agony that had felt like it was burning me alive began to fade little by little.

“Yeah. I was never going to get anywhere near the Peak Realm in my whole life anyway. Dying now isn’t such a loss.”

I was long past forty. As a boy, I had stepped into Murim and, by luck, managed to enter a minor sect. There, I had been exceptional—far better than the other disciples who entered with me.

Was that the problem?

Wanting to seek a bigger world, I had kicked away the sect I first joined and set out on my own. The place I eventually found was Kunlun, the sect I belonged to now. At the time, Kunlun was constantly taking in new disciples. Compared to most prestigious orthodox sects, which imposed strict conditions on entry and accepted only a handful of disciples, it was unusual.

I should have thought it over once more then.

But back then, I had proudly passed Kunlun’s entrance trial and taken it as proof of my talent. Not long after I joined Kunlun, a tremendous change struck Murim. It completely transformed the world I had known until then into something else entirely.

That change was the appearance of the Illusion Gate.

The Illusion Gates were phenomena that appeared in the mountains, rivers, and lakes of Central Plains Murim. Wherever one manifested, it spewed forth beasts that had existed only in legend until then—creatures that had never before existed in Central Plains. And that change brought a huge upheaval to my life as well.

That was right.

I had been able to enter Kunlun so I could hunt those beasts. But that life wasn’t a bad one. I was far stronger than I had ever been when I belonged to that small, struggling sect.

Still, my limit was plain to see.

Hyeonseong, a martial artist of the Peak Realm.

That was me, a man who had failed to even approach the threshold of the Transcendence Realm by the time he passed forty. Maybe this kind of death had been waiting for me all along. Maybe it was fate.

Then, at that moment—

—Oh? How interesting. To remain so detached in the face of death. And after taking my breath and surviving it even once.

At the thunderclap of a voice booming directly inside my head, blood burst from my mouth. The resonance carried in the voice of a being so powerful was far too much for a human body to bear. But something even more astonishing was waiting.

“How…! A beast… speaking…”

A beast speaking the human tongue. I had never heard of such a thing. Barely managing to open my eyes, I looked ahead.

Crackle.

With extreme flames writhing around its mouth, the Fire Dragon was staring directly at me. The reflection of myself in its red eyes was hideous beyond words.

—How laughable. Do you think the tongue of humans is difficult? I am far above such trifles. Do not judge me by human standards. That is the human problem, after all. You think yourselves the masters of the world. And yet, humans are also remarkable. With such small mortal bodies, you still manage to build up useful strength. And sometimes, like you, there are those who do absurd things beyond all reason. You humans call that a miracle, do you not?

To still be breathing after being struck by the Fire Dragon’s breath was worthy of the word miracle. I gasped through ragged breaths and said to the dragon,

“You talk too much. That means you don’t mean to kill me.”

I had spent long enough surviving in Murim to know what I was hearing. There was no killing intent in the Fire Dragon’s voice. My head, which had felt as though it might split open at any moment, no longer hurt either.

—You do catch on quickly. Yes, I’ve grown curious about you. You seem to possess a soul strong enough to endure my breath.

The Fire Dragon paused in thought, then said,

—Very well. I’ve decided. I’ll make you the human who relieves the boredom of my endless life.

At those words, a brilliant light burst from the Fire Dragon’s mouth. The radiance intensified until I could no longer see, but in the final instant, through the fading glare, I caught sight of something.

It was—

“A… Dragon Pearl?”

The Fire Dragon’s voice echoed again.

—Burn completely, so that you may live again.

Fwoosh.

Another massive blaze crashed down over me.

But this time, unlike before, the flames were warm.

***

The leader of the Martial Alliance and the Heavenly Demon of the Demonic Cult met in the same place.

For centuries, the two leaders had stood as enemies in Murim’s history, so to see them standing side by side was beyond shocking. More than that, despite meeting, they did not even break into a fight.

That, too, was unbelievable.

And the facts announced by the Martial Alliance Leader and the Heavenly Demon turned Murim upside down.

The Martial Alliance and the Demonic Cult decided to bring an end to the war that had lasted for centuries. A more dangerous enemy than each other had appeared. The beasts emerging from the Illusion Gates were absurdly powerful.

Some asked whether it would not be easier simply to avoid the gates.

That was a truly foolish question.

The problem was that the beasts were not confined to the gates themselves. Once the creatures poured out of an Illusion Gate, they gradually expanded their territory over time. Because of that, the damage they caused to human lives kept growing larger and larger.

The first to react most sharply to this were the martial artists.

Most sects in Murim were founded in famous natural environments throughout the Central Plains. They preferred places rich in natural qi, since they intended to spend their lives training their martial arts there. That meant they were the first to collide with the beasts.

In any case, even after the Martial Alliance and the Demonic Cult made their announcement, the sects were cautious at first when the beasts began appearing. They merely slaughtered the beasts that invaded their surroundings and focused on protecting themselves.

But the situation was about to change.

Slash.

In one stroke, I cut down the beast known as a Hwanyo and, without hesitation, sliced open its belly. Inside, there was a tiny, glowing stone.

“This is exactly why everyone’s going to lose their minds over beast hunting.”

The glowing stone in my hand was no ordinary rock. It was what would later be called an Illusion Stone. The reason it shook Murim so violently was simple.

“Because refining this turns it into an incredible elixir.”

Elixirs made by refining Illusion Stones could greatly enhance inner power. As a result, every sect began hunting beasts in a race against one another. And the value of Illusion Stones alone was not the whole story. The hides and bones harvested from beasts became superb weapons and equipment for martial artists.

“Even a Hwagyeong master with a body like indestructible diamond can be torn apart by a beast’s claws.”

Armor made from beast hides would also become a necessity for martial artists. To increase one’s inner power, one needed Illusion Stones, and to obtain Illusion Stones, one had to kill beasts. To kill beasts, one needed the byproducts left behind after hunting them.

The three forces had begun to bind together perfectly.

The great hunting era was about to begin.

Murim would face an unprecedented crisis because of the existence called beasts, but at the same time, it would enter an era of unprecedented prosperity. That would drive the great sects to begin gathering forces for beast hunting.

Thinking back, even my own proud acceptance into Kunlun in my past life could be explained that way. I only realized it much later, after far too much time had already passed.

“Hah… Thinking about how I was treated like a bottom-rung lackey makes me sick.”

I brought the Illusion Stone in my hand straight to my mouth and bit down on it without hesitation.

Crack.

The moment I swallowed the stone, my body began reacting. The beast’s unrefined power surged through my blood vessels and was sucked madly toward my dantian. Anyone else who saw it would have thought I’d gone mad. An unrefined Illusion Stone was practically poison.

Vwoom. Vwooom.

Before long, a response came from within my dantian. The energy contained in the Illusion Stone was absorbed there directly. That, too, was astonishing.

“Even an Illusion Stone refined by a masterful alchemist would only yield about seventy percent of its power.”

And yet I had simply swallowed the stone whole and absorbed every last bit of the power inside it. I placed a hand lightly over my dantian. I could feel an immense existence settled there.

The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Dragon Pearl.

“A human who carries a Dragon Pearl… If that got out, I’d be dissected on the spot.”

When I opened my eyes again after the final moment in which the Fire Dragon’s breath had wrapped around my entire body, I could only stare in shock. The place I had awakened in was none other than the sect where I had spent my childhood.

And the timing was exactly when I had left the sect in my previous life, saying there was nothing more to gain there.

At first, I thought it was all a dream.

A midsummer night’s dream—one of those ephemeral, half-remembered things that vanish with dawn. But it did not take long to realize that wasn’t the case. The Fire Dragon’s Dragon Pearl, lodged in my dantian, had begun to radiate a mad, overwhelming presence.

So I had not dreamed. I had regressed to my younger self.

It seemed that an existence above all others truly did possess power enough to pull off something this absurd.

“Well, I suppose even ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the fact that beasts are spilling out of the Illusion Gates is ridiculous enough.”

The Fire Dragon had sent me back to the past for a clear reason. The moment I became aware of the Dragon Pearl, the words the Fire Dragon had left behind surfaced in my mind.

—Live again. And become the strongest of all. After that, come fight me once more. I will be waiting until then.

“Have you lost your mind? Go back and fight that monster again? As if.”

I shook my head hard. There was no way I would ever meet that terrifying Fire Dragon again. As for the Dragon Pearl it had kindly bestowed upon me, I fully intended to use it well.

Thus, I had been given another chance.

A chance to become stronger than the man I had been in my previous life.

“For now, I’ve absorbed the Illusion Stone. Then let’s take care of the byproducts.”

The hide of the Hwanyo was worth quite a lot. Talismans made from Hwanyo hide would become essential for constructing formations that kept beasts at bay.

Of course, not yet.

Swish. Swish.

I stripped the Hwanyo’s hide with practiced hands. It was a task I had done to death in my previous life, so I finished it in no time. After collecting the beast’s byproducts, I looked around.

“It’s getting darker. I should head back.”

It was common knowledge that beasts grew even stronger at night. Of course, most people would not know that yet, since beasts were still poorly understood.

Thud.

Using my movement technique, I left the forest where I had hunted the Hwanyo and headed back toward the sect where I was staying. Moving at high speed, I soon saw a large estate ahead of me.

Swish.

I lifted my head and looked up at the wooden plaque.

Jigeom Sect

The name of the sect in Hubei where I had stayed before entering Kunlun in my previous life. It was also the place where I still lived now. I stood there for a moment, staring at the estate, then started walking again.

“Senior Brother!!!”

The junior disciples who recognized me greeted me cheerfully. I gave the Hwanyo hide in my hand a little shake.

“You lot. I brought back the price of our meals again today.”