Black Soul Pill
The spiritual medicine he had received from the family head was a pill gleaming with dark luster.
One of the three spiritual medicines the Seoho Gwak Family had obtained through a fortuitous encounter long ago.
As it turned out, the family's first and third sons had already proven themselves and consumed theirs.
Which meant...
It was originally arranged for the original owner of this body.
A medicine that would not clash with the nature of the inner force Gwak Yeon possessed. If it had been prepared for "this body," which had trained in the same mental cultivation method as his brothers since childhood, that was only natural.
Huuu—
Gwak Yeon swallowed the spiritual medicine and began circulating his breath.
Fortunately...
The mental cultivation method he had mastered in his previous life was somewhat compatible with this family's as well.
In terms of the method alone, it doesn't have particularly deep characteristics...
Meaning their natures did not conflict.
Huuu—
Gwak Yeon breathed, circulating the true qi throughout his entire body.
His caution was only natural.
Properly absorbing a spiritual medicine that contained a great deal of inner force was never an easy task.
It was a matter of gaining years—sometimes decades—of inner force in a single stroke.
Simply swallowing it was never enough.
Spiritual medicines contained the spiritual energy of nature itself.
Because that energy varied so wildly, one had to consider not only the nature of one's existing inner force, but also one's constitution, the properties of any previous medicines consumed, and even, in extreme cases, one's diet.
If one ignored all that and simply swallowed it carelessly?
The violently condensed energy within the medicine could erupt inside the body like a whirlwind. Qi deviation was a real possibility.
That was why, when someone took a spiritual medicine, they entrusted a trusted person with protective duty—so that while the consumer focused entirely inward, nothing from the outside would interfere.
This one probably isn't that dangerous...
But concentration was still essential.
The energy spinning like a top in every direction around the dantian, the pressure and nausea that made the whole body tremble, the rough beads of sweat forming on the forehead—these were common phenomena when taking spiritual medicines.
Now that the hot-yet-chilling yin-yang energy had passed down his throat, Gwak Yeon poured every scrap of his awareness into the slightest twitch of a hair, the faintest quiver of muscle and nerve.
Now the real process began.
Focus...
Focus.
And focus again.
And again...
Buuurp—
...Gwak Yeon suddenly opened his eyes.
He realized at once.
Burp?
His body had already completely digested every last scrap of energy contained in the spiritual medicine.
......Already?
That couldn't be.
Even though he had been pouring his consciousness through his entire body, Gwak Yeon found it hard to accept the change that had just occurred.
It made no sense.
But—
"Y-Young Master?"
"......?"
"......?"
Cheon Gang, who had been standing guard, glanced back.
They stared blankly at each other for a moment.
"Y-You've worked hard!"
"Hm?"
"I'll go prepare bathwater right away!"
"Ah."
Watching Cheon Gang discreetly pinch his nose and turn away, Gwak Yeon finally noticed the stench rising from every part of his body, strong enough to sting the nostrils.
"......Alright."
"Yes! I'll have the bath ready in no time, so please wait just a little! And... congratulations!"
Even after Cheon Gang hurried out, the foul odor continued to reek.
Looking down, Gwak Yeon saw that his clothes were completely soaked.
From the waste matter that had poured out of his entire body.
"............!"
Toxins and impurities that had accumulated throughout the body being expelled was one of the desirable signs that a spiritual medicine had been properly absorbed.
Together with the changes he had been feeling throughout his body for some time now, it meant only one thing.
"Ha... hahaha."
A hollow laugh burst from Gwak Yeon's lips as he finally understood everything.
"What kind of nonsense is this..."
Swallow it and the medicine is absorbed just like that?
He had never heard of such a thing. In his previous life he had seen far too many experts ruined by improperly taken spiritual medicines.
And yet—
When Gwak Yeon clenched and unclenched his fist, he could clearly feel a stronger energy gathering than just moments before.
Thump.
This sensation of his whole body floating lightly. The dense inner force piled in his dantian rising thickly once more from the tips of his toes to the crown of his head.
There was no denying it.
Gwak Yeon had just completely absorbed every last bit of the medicine's energy, and there was only one reason that had been possible.
This body that became a vampire.
A transformed physique.
Perhaps this body possessed an energy that could absorb the spiritual energy of medicines without any resistance whatsoever.
He could not know the exact principle.
"That madman really did create a monster."
A strange thrill tugged the corner of Gwak Yeon's mouth upward.
Muyeong Nogoe.
So that was why the bastard had gone berserk trying to claim this body, and why he had so bitterly regretted dying just before becoming this "vampire."
That was when it happened.
The moment the newly gained inner energy circulated through his entire body—
The energy that stimulated not only his dantian and meridians but every part of his physique surged upward and lightly tapped his upper dantian.
"............Kh!"
Had it stimulated the memories this body held?
Suddenly—
The memories of the original owner of this body, Gwak Yeon, began pouring down like a meteor shower.
As the night deepened—
Two wine cups that held shared moonlight clinked together.
"—And then that boy Yeon stood right in front of me and answered so boldly. Haha."
Gwak Seo-ryong laughed, and the man facing him grinned right back.
"So you gave the Black Soul Pill to the boy Yeon?"
"Yes. I told him to take it within the day."
"He should have finished it by now, then?"
"He should have."
"A shame I won't get to see it."
"You should have stopped by a day earlier. Since you were the one who obtained the Black Soul Pill yourself, it would have been better if Elder Brother had handed it over the way you did with the others."
Indeed.
The middle-aged man with the striking salt-and-pepper hair sticking out in every direction was none other than the elder brother to whom Gwak Seo-ryong, family head of the Seoho Gwak Family, spoke with formal respect.
Gwak Un-pyeong
Though not the family head, he was a man recognized as a master even across the entire Central Plains.
His only brother in the world.
Looking at that Gwak Un-pyeong, Gwak Seo-ryong let a faint regret show.
"If you had, you could have also watched the spar between the changed boy Yeon and the boy Ho-shin."
"Haha. That's the twentieth time you've mentioned it."
Gwak Un-pyeong grinned and took a mouthful of wine.
As the scarred muscles of his face moved, a bitter smile rose.
"You know better than anyone that my circumstances don't allow me to set fixed dates for coming and going, Family Head."
"You're not surprised?"
"That the boy Yeon has changed?"
"Yes."
"Haha. There's a reason the saying 'look at someone with new eyes' exists. A young man in his prime growing day by day is nothing to be shocked about."
"Heo..."
"What, surprised that your uncultured older brother can quote the classics?"
"Yes."
"Shall we risk our lives in a spar for old times' sake?"
"Well, the numbers don't add up. My life has gotten rather expensive these days."
"Kwahaha!"
The brothers exchanged banter for the first time in ages.
Being together like this felt like returning to their youth.
Empty wine bottles had already piled up.
Among them Gwak Un-pyeong found a new bottle, drained it straight from the neck, then slowly opened his mouth.
"That boy Yeon... thinking about it again, he always had sharp eyes."
Gwak Un-pyeong spoke as if recalling the past.
"Maybe that's why he was so timid. This world tends to look terrifying to those who can see what others cannot. Just like this body of mine used to. Hahahaha!"
Gwak Seo-ryong smiled as he watched his older brother start with a serious expression and finish with a hearty laugh.
He thought to himself that the reason he had not been completely stunned by the boy Yeon's change might have been because he had already watched the change in the older brother sitting before him now.
"Anyway, people will start gathering under the boy Yeon soon enough."
"Yes."
The brothers looked at each other and snorted with quiet laughter.
Both of them were thinking of the family rule that had begun in their generation.
"The family head of the great house shall be determined by the results produced by the pavilions of the successors."
This was the rule that had allowed Gwak Seo-ryong to become the current family head of the Seoho Gwak Family instead of the stronger Gwak Un-pyeong.
And the rule was still in effect.
Iljeongak
Iyeongak
Samho-gak
Whichever of these produced the greatest achievements would become the next family head.
"Is Jeong-pal still at Mount Song?"
"Yes."
"He took every warrior belonging to his pavilion?"
"He did when he first set out, at least."
At those words Gwak Un-pyeong snorted a laugh.
"That boy Yeon surfaced at a rather good time."
For some time now the family's public spars had always been events between the first and third sons.
Yet at the very moment the eldest had led all his people away on a warrior's training journey, the second son had suddenly appeared, dueled the third, and won.
And he had done so right when the winner was required to spar against the heir of the Jusan Baek Family—an important situation indeed.
"Do you think it was coincidence?"
Gwak Un-pyeong asked. Gwak Seo-ryong thought for a moment before answering.
"He seems very interested in family affairs. The moment he returned he went through the piles of documents lying around, and when I told him about Father he grew furious and immediately went looking for the target."
"Is that so."
Gwak Un-pyeong grinned and drained his cup.
"That's enough of the recent news."
The moment he set down the empty bottle, his atmosphere changed completely.
"Take this. I stopped by today only to deliver it before leaving."
He drew something from his robes.
A blood-soaked scrap of paper.
Toward the information that had clearly cost no small sacrifice, Gwak Seo-ryong reached out his hand.
"This is..."
"Yes."
His older brother answered.
Gwak Un-pyeong, who had chosen to pursue the family's long-cherished wish alone rather than become family head, was currently tracking the shadowy forces of the martial world connected to their father's death.
"At last I've found a new trail of those bastards who deserve to be chewed up and spat out."
Gwak Yeon.
That is, the original owner of this body had lived a life that seemed to have little connection to the desperate pursuit of shadowy forces.
A grandfather steeped in madness.
The family legacy built by that martial-obsessed grandfather before he left the world early.
An estate so vast it was almost boundless.
More than a dozen pavilions that seemed to pierce the sky.
Countless commissions arriving every day from a hundred large and small groups.
The foremost great family of Hangzhou, where laborers and warriors alone were numerous, and the guests and retainers who came and went numbered in the dozens.
Gwak Yeon had been a child who seemed to have fallen into that place by mistake.
He liked flowers.
He liked warmth.
He liked laughter.
He liked treating people well.
But in this place, none of that meant anything without martial strength.
The expectations people had swollen because of the eccentric yet powerful eldest son turned into disappointment after a few tears. After a few spars with the genius third son, he became the family's headache.
—That weak stick of a boy.
Whenever two or more of the family's warriors gathered, those words came out. Their father, busy handling the family's great affairs, may or may not have known; it no longer mattered.
By then, few of the rumors surrounding him were true anyway.
Some claimed that after a humiliating spar with the third son in childhood he had locked himself in his room and spent nights soaked only in tears of misery.
That was not true.
It was true that he had cut off contact with people and shut himself in his room, but he had not spent those nights only in tears.
—I hope my son... will be happy.
—You have good eyes, so if you practice diligently you will surely achieve something.
The dying words of his mother, who had left the world early from illness. And the advice of Wi Jong-geuk, the current leader of Biryongdang, who had treated him without discrimination despite his cold appearance.
Gwak Yeon had simply taken those two words as his lantern and tried to change.
It was a belated effort, and a half-hearted practice of swinging a sword alone because he feared people's gazes, yet he still moved desperately.
And that was not all.
Look at the recent rumors surrounding him. The story that he had gone out for fun to a restaurant in Hangzhou, coincidentally run into the leader of a black-path faction, and fallen to his knees in fear.
That too was only half true.
He had indeed fallen to his knees in fear... but it had not been a coincidence while out for fun.
From the beginning he had gone there on purpose.
In other words, he had sought out the leader of a black-path faction in order to overcome his own weakness and build courage.
Even after suffering that humiliation he had earnestly begged his escort warrior Cheon Gang never to take revenge in his place until he himself went back.
All of it was for the sake of becoming stronger.
But people did not care.
So the final rumor had appeared as well.
The last rumor that, on the night before the public spar with the third son Gwak Ho-shin, he had secretly fled the great family under cover of darkness.
That one was not true at all.
Gwak Yeon had not run away.
Of course he had been afraid and terrified of the spar with his younger brother Gwak Ho-shin, but he had come to this mountain in order to build courage before the match.
A mountain where entry was forbidden.
A mountain thick with rumors of ghosts and blood-drinking wolves. That was why he had come. He had thought that if he faced something even more terrifying, he might be a little less afraid of the duel with his younger brother.
In other words—
The original owner of this body had clearly fought with everything he had until the very end.
Right here, in this place.
"......"
Gwigok Mountain—Ghost Crying Mountain.
Gwak Yeon had returned to the very place where his previous life had ended and his new life had begun.
How coincidental, he thought.
"So that was it."
He murmured as he recalled the end of the original owner's memories that had flowed in together with the absorption of the spiritual medicine.
"Though late... rest in peace."
By then the wolves of Gwigok Mountain were already gathering around him, drooling.
Wolves with crimson eyes pushed through the undergrowth and surrounded him.
Grrrrr...
Sniff, grrr!
Awoooo—!
Keheung!
These were the ones that must have driven the original owner of this body all the way to that cliffside cave.
Had they sent a signal that they had found prey?
Watching the dozen or so wolves steadily increase in number—
Thump.
Gwak Yeon's heart pounded.
It felt awkward to call it pity, and too weak to call it revenge.
After all, he had never even met the original owner of this body.
Still—
"This... is perfect for secret practice."
Using the vampire abilities he had not been able to employ during the spar as an excuse, he scratched his own arm. The blood droplets that welled from his forearm began to take on crimson shapes and ripple.