Flapping Your Wings
Throughout the shopping trip, Han Yujin tried not to make it obvious, but Lee Won-hee was clearly buzzing with excitement. Every time he showed her something and explained it, her eyes sparkled in a way that was utterly typical of a child her age. It made him smile without even meaning to.
She possessed a Heavenly Spiritual Root, so her talents were anything but ordinary. Coupled with the harsh environment she had grown up in, she was far more mature than her peers. But no matter how you looked at it, she was still only nine years old.
After they finished shopping at the department store and started heading back, Lee Won-hee suddenly stopped walking. Her gaze had locked onto a black cat perched on a nearby wall, and she couldn’t seem to look away. Naturally, Han Yujin stopped as well.
“Do you like cats?”
“Um, yes.”
“Cats specifically, or animals in general?”
“Both.”
“So you like animals, then?”
“...Yes.”
Even as she answered, her attention remained fixed on the cat. She stayed that way until it vanished with a flick of its tail over the far side of the wall.
Watching the disappointed look on her face, Han Yujin asked, “Want to adopt one?”
“No.”
The answer came back sharp and decisive, completely unexpected.
“Why not?”
As someone who swore by the power of animal therapy, Han Yujin asked the question almost on reflex.
“Here.”
He held out Mu-yong from within his coat. Lee Won-hee hesitated for a brief moment before carefully accepting the little creature and hugging it to her chest.
Jjik! Jjik—!
Mu-yong let out a small protest, as if asking why she was being handed over without permission, but it was mild enough to ignore.
“Still don’t like the idea?”
“...It’s not that I don’t like it. It’s fine.”
“Is it because you don’t think you can raise one properly?”
“...Yes.”
The moment she answered, something seemed to flash through her mind. Her eyes lost their focus, wandering aimlessly. She tried to hand Mu-yong back.
After taking the little beast back, Han Yujin organized his thoughts for a moment before speaking.
“Do you remember what I told you last time? That I would teach you how to better control your awakening ability.”
Lee Won-hee nodded silently after a slight delay. Her entire demeanor had sunk into a heavy stillness that was completely different from the bright mood she’d shown while shopping.
“You might be too young to fully understand this yet… but there are things in this world you cannot simply avoid. Let’s use an easy literary metaphor. Imagine you’re a bird.”
“A bird?”
“Yes, a bird with wings. Do you think a bird can fly freely from the moment it’s born?”
When the child shook her head, he added a concise explanation. Baby birds practice flapping their wings inside the nest, then throw themselves out of it despite the risk of injury. Only after that can they truly fly.
“If they avoid practicing flight just because it’s scary, they’ll never be able to fly. And a bird that cannot fly cannot survive.”
“But…”
“But?”
“I’m not a bird. So this ability of mine… it’s not necessarily wings, right? There are plenty of people who live perfectly fine without them.”
“That’s a misconception. There is no one in this world who lives well without wings or without practicing how to use them. Their wings are simply less visible. Do you truly believe those people live as comfortably as they appear? Do you think the world is that forgiving?”
Lee Won-hee thought for a moment, then finally shook her head and answered in a small voice.
“No…”
“Exactly. Everyone struggles, makes an effort, adapts, and lives by desperately flapping their wings. Even if the wings they were born with aren’t to their liking. Unfortunately, you will soon have to do the same. Even if your wings are unusually jagged and sharp, that is precisely why you need even more practice. If you keep putting it off because you’re scared, you might one day hurt not only others but yourself as well.”
The child flinched. Han Yujin’s hand naturally reached out and patted her head with a gentle thump.
For a moment, as their eyes met, Lee Won-hee looked as though she had seen some kind of vision. At the same time, for reasons she couldn’t explain, the tension inside her completely melted away, replaced by a warm sense of relief.
“If you practice, everything will be all right, so don’t worry. In fact, you’ll come to see it as a blessing. They are wings that others would kill to possess but cannot obtain.”
“...”
“Let’s go. You can hold him until we reach your house.”
After handing Mu-yong back to her, Han Yujin did his best to keep the mood light, chatting about random things all the way to the child’s home.
Taking care of a child was no easy task for him, either.
There was no need to take a long vacation. After lounging around the safe house for a few days, even activities like playing games or browsing communities—things he hadn’t done in a while—quickly lost their appeal.
This much was enough to regain a sense of reality.
So on the night he decided to return to the Great Rift the following morning, he thought:
‘My karma reserves are still insufficient, and I don’t particularly want to stay long in another world again right now…’
He pondered whether there was a world he could visit lightly, like a casual scouting trip without expecting significant gains. Suddenly, one world came to mind.
Icapa Pangea, ruled by demon worshipers.
Could he defeat that middle-aged man now?
It was nothing but useless curiosity mixed with competitive spirit and a desire for revenge. Yet precisely because of that, this was the perfect time to try.
“Huu…”
Now that he had decided to go through with it, his heart was pounding.
Even after all these years, the anger and frustration he had felt back then still smoldered like live embers inside him. It was only natural that his pulse would race.
Say that you’re dead.
With a heart that had regained its youthful vigor through games and online communities, he muttered those words to himself. He shared spiritual wine with Mu-yong and drank the spirit liquid wine and jade dew wine to stoke his fighting spirit.
Lying on the bed, he activated his ability. Naturally, the Illusory Maze Formation was already installed in the safe house.
Soon after, he regained consciousness in a dark but cozy waiting area. He checked on the sleeping Mu-yong, left her behind, and gathered everything he needed. Then he reached out to the ever-changing door and successfully fixed its form.
It was exactly as he remembered.
The arch-shaped frame was finished with metal, while the interior was filled with brilliantly colored crystals. The glossy black metal embedded at the center resembled an upside-down growing tree.
Confirming the silver letters floating upward, he smiled faintly and pushed the door open without hesitation.
After watching the door he had passed through vanish, he looked around.
He stood on a road paved with blue-gray stone tiles that cut through a silent, desolate forest beneath a dim sky. The clothes on his body were practical yet refined, like those of an adventurer from a medieval fantasy game.
The moment he confirmed his surroundings, he sensed a presence rapidly approaching.
The other party clearly sensed him at the same time.
The creature that had been flying through the air suddenly lowered its altitude and landed on the ground, as if to verify the identity of the stranger who had appeared out of nowhere. It called out to Han Yujin, who was pretending to look in a different direction.
“What the hell is this guy…?”
The words were the same as before, but the tone was completely different.
“How did you get in here?”
There was far more wariness than curiosity. Han Yujin had not bothered to conceal his presence.
Stopping his feigned ignorance, he looked directly at the middle-aged man. He was exactly as he remembered—fierce features, reddish-brown eyes, and a luxurious black robe embroidered with gold thread. The occasional glimpse of an insect-like illusion swirling within those eyes was utterly repulsive.
“What’s your name?” Han Yujin asked casually.
The middle-aged man, who had been watching him with a slightly sinister gaze, answered curtly.
“Nicolad Haxen Tikrasma.”
“That’s complicated.”
“Who are you? Reveal your identity and purpose. If you don’t…”
“If I don’t?”
Han Yujin smirked and added, “I’m surprised you’re not asking whether I want power again like last time.”
“...Like last time?”
At that moment, the middle-aged man’s gaze swept through the air as a strange red energy radiated from his entire body.
It spread naturally at first, then sharpened into a focused probe that effectively blocked Han Yujin’s own scanning attempt.
“You dare use detection magic against me?”
The instant he growled, the insect illusions wriggling in his eyes became vividly clear. The space itself seemed to distort as they tried to burrow straight into Han Yujin’s eyes across the distance.
“Yes, I figured it wouldn’t be that easy.”
The Six Paths of Reincarnation rose and began to circulate within Han Yujin’s eyes.
“This way, my revenge will actually feel satisfying.”
Light exploded outward.
Like a shining halo, six realms of emotion revolved upon a ring that seemed to gather every color in the world and forge it into pure white. Their boundaries blurred as they spun.
The charging insects touched the light and recoiled as if meeting extreme resistance. They could come no closer. Then a wave of intent, carrying some form of realization, rang out like the toll of a temple bell. The insects were torn apart and ground into dust.
An inhuman roar that could never have come from a human throat erupted from the middle-aged man.
His skin turned black as coal. His eyes transformed, now seemingly composed of far more numerous and vivid insects. Dark red energy blazed upward from his entire body like flames.
“How dare you cause a disturbance against me in this sanctuary—!!”
It was an early Decisive Stage aura. Han Yujin’s form, bathed in the reverse glow of the Six Paths of Reincarnation and rendered nearly featureless, seemed to flinch for a split second.
But that was all.
He calmly extended his hand toward the middle-aged man charging at him as though intending to engage in close combat and cast a spell. He deployed a mid-grade technique with the ease of a basic one.
More than a dozen threads of extremely condensed light and heat shot forward like rays of sunlight, engulfing the charging middle-aged man.
The man’s grotesquely repulsive eyes widened. He stopped abruptly and cast a spell of his own. A hole tore open in the air, and from within it, the hideous maw of a darkness-formed beast lunged forward to devour everything in its path. Yet the moment it met the heat rays, the darkness was ripped apart and collapsed.
The middle-aged man, now covered in thorns and blades of darkness, took a strange stance from behind the beast and dealt with the remaining spell. Surprisingly, he managed to sever every single heat ray with a form far more solid and sharp than the summoned beast itself.
At that exact instant, a flash of light exploded into flames.
-KYAAAAA… AAAAGH…!!
A piercing scream tore through the air as a black silhouette writhed within the flames. Believing the man wouldn’t die from this, Han Yujin immediately cast his second spell.
A small golden lotus floated gracefully above his palm before surging forward. It exploded in a brilliant flash, unleashing countless razor-sharp metal sword energies solely toward the front. The devastating blasts continued without pause—two, three, four, five—connecting all the way to nine successive explosions.
The explosions had been perfectly controlled. The downpour of metal sword qi completely shredded the targeted ground, pulverizing it into powder. Even the blazing flames and the jet-black silhouette within them were swept away entirely, leaving nothing recognizable behind.
When the aftershocks finally subsided, the scene was too horrific to be fully described by the word “tragic.”
Having completed his Dragon Heart refinement, Han Yujin was no ordinary late-stage Dharma Soul practitioner. At the very least, the speed and power of his spells were easily on par with the Decisive Stage.
The middle-aged man who had faced him directly could not even leave behind a proper corpse.
“...He died in two hits?”
Han Yujin muttered, feeling both refreshed and slightly empty.
At the spot where the corpse should have been, dark red energy began to squirm repulsively, gathering into a mass. As it rose upward and gradually took human shape once more, it gave off a truly unpleasant feeling befitting a demon worshiper.
“Hahaha…!”
The emptiness vanished instantly. Han Yujin deployed a new mid-grade spell.
Black-blue waves of dharma power burst outward, radiating terrifying cold and crushing weight. They wrapped around the reviving middle-aged man, forming a perfect sphere that began rotating at ferocious speed, grinding everything inside like a blender.
“If you can endure even this, I’ll spare… No. I’ll play with you even harder!”
The moment he raised his hand, lightning flashed and turned the world black and white.
The lightning did not stop at a single strike. It remained connected to Han Yujin’s hand, repeatedly exploding with thunderfire as it rapidly took the shape of a dragon. Fierce swirling dark clouds appeared overhead and rapidly expanded their range. A roar like a dragon’s cry erupted, and a massive spear of lightning—resembling heaven’s punishment—came crashing down.
The lightning spear melted directly into the rotating Deep Sea Cold Ice Suppression Prison, producing an indescribable shattering sound and erupting with countless flashes of light.