2. Jaheo, the Violet Void — Yeon Hayeong
With the meal still being prepared, I decided to wander a little.
The Sex Fiend wouldn't receive me for some time yet, so I meant to stroll the grounds and turn over my memories of the past — which, from where I now stood, were memories of the future.
"The major events I remember perfectly well, so those don't matter... but even for me, remembering every last little incident is impossible."
The Great Righteous-Demonic War, the Heretic Sect's rebellion, the assassination of the Knight King, the Blood Tribulation — every catastrophe that had shaken the world, I remembered without exception.
But no memory was equal to the task of holding every last trivial thing.
So for now, I would dredge up the small events and ride them upward, while at the same time working backward through the great ones, anticipating what was still to come.
"...Then again, it really has been a while since I've walked this place."
The colossal mountain rising at the very heart of the city, and the pavilions raised upon it, made for a scene that wanted nothing in the way of beauty. This was New Mount Cheonsan, the holy ground of the Sacred Cult.
A mountain sitting in the middle of a metropolis was strange, admittedly... but it was said this mountain had stood there since time beyond memory. Some claimed an absolute master had carved down an enormous peak and shaped it into a mountain of this size, but with everyone from that era long dead, no one could say for certain it was true.
So I set my feet moving toward the pavilion at the heart of the garden... and found that someone had already taken up residence there.
A woman in white, the sides of her robe slit so high her thighs lay shamelessly bare, idly snapping the whip in her hand this way and that.
"...Jaryu Saekma's daughter... Yeon Hayeong, is it?"
At this point in time, she would have been known by the epithet Jaheo — the Violet Void.
The Sex Fiend of each generation never married, never even took a betrothal, yet she took as disciples the children she created artificially from her own genes and the seed of a powerful martial artist.
For her color was Sunjeong — Pure Chastity.
She would drain the vital essence of men until they were dry, but never, under any circumstance, would she surrender her maidenhood.
Whether her arts of lust were what made such a path possible, or whether she had simply carried that ideal from the very beginning, no one could say.
But every martial artist who reached the summit carried an ideal all their own, and hers had come to her as naturally as breathing.
It got so bad that martial artists who reached that realm were simply called madmen.
For a Sex Fiend, that madness happened to be her color, and her ideal.
And I, too, had come to carry a color of my own: Yeonsim — the Linked Heart.
Strange, isn't it? The reigning Sex Fiend never sank into indiscriminate, cheap lechery, and I, who came after her, was different from every Sex Fiend before me.
How had two such anomalies come into the world at the same time...
I watched her swing her whip a while longer, then started slowly toward the pavilion.
"Hm?"
As I drew near, she turned her head toward me as well. I offered Yeon Hayeong a light bow of greeting, and she tilted her head this way and that before waving a hand.
...Right. This was exactly the personality she'd always had.
Among the Sex Fiend's daughters she showed the most brilliance — and her temper was every bit as exceptional as her talent. Filthy-mouthed and utterly without manners.
The other disciples couldn't squeak a word of protest in the face of her skill, either... which was how things had come to this.
"Weirdo! Long time no see!"
"I'd hoped you might call me by my name by now."
"If you want to be called by name, get strong enough to deserve it."
A single exchange, and the memories of those days came flooding back.
Utterly unreasonable, she did exactly as she pleased — we were never close, but we knew each other's faces well enough.
Still wearing that mischief-laden smile, she swung her whip this way and that. It looked like random flailing... but deep within it lay profound, subtle mysteries.
Careless as she looked, she was a talent who could stand across from the orthodox sects' finest young masters and win without breaking a sweat.
"Same as ever, I see. This notion that anyone weak doesn't count as a person."
"If your strength falls short of your opponent's, there's nothing you can do. You just get overwhelmed helplessly and die. That's all."
Words that suited the Sacred Cult, which lived by the law of the strong, perfectly.
But... I had no intention of standing here and being pushed around.
"I suppose the Heavenly Blood Tournament will show which of us is stronger."
"Oh? So you're saying you think you're stronger than me?"
"Who knows? You can't tell until you try."
At so audacious a provocation, her appetite was clearly whetted; she dropped the whip and rose from her seat.
She descended from the pavilion at an unhurried pace, stopped right in front of me, and looked up into my face.
"If you beat me in this Heavenly Blood Tournament... or take first place, I'll grant you one wish."
"...A wish?"
"Yeah, well... not that a scrub like you could ever win."
Kihihit.
Wearing an expression that made me genuinely want to rap her on the head, she stuck her tongue out in a teasing bleh.
But now was not the time for that, so I simply let it slide with a mild, easy smile.
"Then that's how it'll be."
"In exchange — if you lose, you grant one of mine!"
She'd dressed it up as a wish... but it was plain she had something else in mind entirely.
I nodded at her proposal, then turned to go.
"Leaving already?"
"What, want to spend a little more time together?"
I tossed the question back with the kind of sly remark only a Sex Fiend would make.
We were people who had lived to covet our colors, and it was for that pursuit that we had been gathered into this place, after all.
"Don't be absurd. Whether you vanish or not, I couldn't care less — so just go."
But the jab didn't land, and she snorted, fixing me with a look of pure incredulity.
As expected... it doesn't work on her, it seems.
With that brief exchange, I took my leave of the place.
Under any other circumstances, I would never have accepted such an offer.
My color was still Linked Heart, after all.
But if I went on thinking and feeling as I had in my previous life, I would end up living a life no different from the last one.
Meet women, share hearts with them... join bodies, then part without a word — someone would nurse a grudge, and someone else would be left grieving.
Only after dying once and being handed a new chance did I come to understand.
That was a passable color, but it could never be the answer — and its end could hold nothing but ruin.
"So this time... I will take them all into my embrace. Not one left behind."
Bonds pile up and up, and those bound by them help one another.
Alone, a single mistake can bring everything crashing down, and clawing your way back is nearly impossible — but with connections built high beneath you, you can challenge fate as many times as it takes, can't you?
I would give up on no one.
If even the slimmest chance appeared, I would take it, and I would throw myself at everything with passion, always.
Because I had learned that living the same life as before was not an option.
The process might coarsen me, might push me to act a little high-handed — but if that was what it took, then that was what I would do.
Some might call it greed... but this was the Linked Heart I had newly come to embrace.
"And for that, I'll need to raise my martial cultivation first."
My current level was, at best, the fully ripened Climax realm. To speak of seeing the world through the same eyes as Jaryu Saekma, I would need to at least set foot in the Transcendent Climax.
"As it happens, I'll be receiving essence before long."
Essence-receiving was the hour when the reigning Sex Fiend bestowed upon her disciples the dregs of vital essence left over in her body.
Call it sorcery or what you will, she could draw that turbid essence out of her own flesh.
She bestowed that turbid essence upon her disciples, and they took it into themselves — simple training, on its face... yet a dangerously perilous one, for if you absorbed the turbid energy mixed into the essence the wrong way, it could carry you straight to death.
It was the time every disciple hated most... but for me, it worked differently.
"Filtering out turbid energy is easy enough."
Wandering the world, I had seen and learned a great deal, and my realm had climbed along the way.
I never reached the Profound Realm, but I had attained the fully ripened Transformation Realm... a cut above the current Sex Fiend.
With the enlightenment of ascent and the experience I had gained before my regression... I could hold my own, to a degree, even against a Transcendent Climax martial artist right now.
In a word... there was nothing to fear at all.
"I was planning to quietly grab a meal and be on my way."
"...Anyone watching would think you came looking for me because you missed me."
"Well, didn't you?"
When word came that the food was ready, I made for the dining hall and took my seat... and before long, Yeon Hayeong appeared.
Apparently the smell of food didn't carry in this place, and curiosity had gotten the better of her.
"By the way, why put yourself out over meals? We can live just fine on essence alone."
"Because a single warm meal holds so much within it."
However capable a person might be of living without food, a meal, for a human being, was never merely the act of filling one's belly.
Ingredients are trimmed and prepared, dishes are crafted... and by the time that dish arrives at the table, countless stories have passed through it.
Right now, I was not eating rice so much as... eating their stories.
You fill yourself with those stories, share hearts with whoever sits across the table, and let the conversation carry on.
And little by little, you grow closer.
As it has always been.
"...It's just food. What could possibly be held inside it?"
At my words, she tilted her head, eyeing the dishes laid out across the table.
Glistening pork rich with sheen, all manner of seasoned greens and vegetables, a red broth steaming skyward, and rice white as fresh snow.
She stared at it all with eyes that plainly said she couldn't imagine anything being held within any of it.
"Strange. I don't feel a thing."
She kept studying the food, and at last settled into the seat across the table.
"I'm eating too!"
"...Weren't you just going on about how we don't need to eat?"
"If our scrub of a fellow disciple gained some kind of enlightenment through a meal... I figured I could gain something far greater, since my talent's the better one!"
So she'd decided to make "scrub" my permanent title, had she.
Grinning, she swayed her body left and right like a wobbling matryoshka.
Apparently... she was waiting for permission.
"...Ridiculous. And yet, I find myself liking it."
In my previous life, she and I had been nothing more than faces to each other... but with this newfound closeness, a flicker of interest had kindled.
The moment interest stirred, my engine naturally began to turn... and I nodded, drawing out a fresh spoon and holding it out to her.
"Then by all means. If you can come to resonate with my color, that's a good thing in its own right."
"Uh... yes! No taking it back now — you said it!"
She faltered for a moment, clearly never expecting to be allowed... but mischief soon spread across her face as she picked up her spoon.
The portion was, in any case, too much for one person and just shy of enough for two.
Training would come soon enough, and a stuffed stomach would only be a burden, so yielding this much cost me nothing.
"Mmmph—! 'Ere, hab 'way mo'!"
...
It was a meal that was disgracefully loud on exactly one side of the table... but I was grateful, all the same, not to be eating alone.