Had my words put him in a good mood?
“I shouldn’t only look after my other disciple; I must look after this one too.”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord flicked his fingers and unleashed the spacetime displacement technique.
When I had learned the spacetime displacement technique from him, I had said that I would serve him as my master, at least while I was here.
“My disciple. What troubles you?”
Rather than answering the Pungcheon Cult Lord’s question, which brimmed with mischief, I looked around.
It was the center of a battlefield, where blood flowed like a stream and corpses were piled high.
“Why on earth did you open such a place? Where is this?”
“Because I thought a place like this would suit you.”
Since I knew it was not mere playfulness, I asked him in a calm tone.
“Is this what my heart looks like to the Cult Lord?”
He had been staring at me intently, and now he asked in return.
“Isn’t the reason you grow stronger every time I see you because your heart is always a battlefield?”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord, stripped of mischief, was this kind of person. One who instinctively caught the scent of blood.
“I am sorry, but my heart is like this.”
This time, I imitated the Pungcheon Cult Lord and snapped my fingers. He liked to snap his fingers like that when opening the spacetime displacement technique.
Swoosh!
The location changed. This time, it was a beautiful field where pure white petals fluttered in the wind.
“My heart is like this.”
After looking around, the Pungcheon Cult Lord smiled and asked.
“It isn’t that you dream of such a place?”
Without arguing further, I too smiled faintly.
The Pungcheon Cult Lord picked up a fallen petal from the ground and spoke.
“Stay here long enough, and there are times you get confused whether this is the real world or that is. It must be because of the desire to remain in the space I created. What about you?”
“I am the same. There are times when I want to forget everything and flee here. Because when I rest here, it feels so wonderful.”
The sun and the sea, a sandy shore, and a comfortable chair beneath a broad-leaved tree. Perhaps the Pungcheon Cult Lord also had a space of his own, like me.
“If this place becomes a sanctuary, it will be paradise; if it becomes a refuge, it will be hell. Both this place and the outside world.”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord tossed the petals he held into the air and asked.
“Now, I ask again. What are you thinking? What do you intend to find out from the one behind this?”
Worry flickered across his face. I was grateful for his concern, but I could not tell him about Hwangwang.
“You are a man who carries storms with him. To think you have drawn in even those who cast Soul Subjugation Techniques upon the Soul Subjugation Demon Lord.”
“If anyone heard that, they would think those people appeared because of me.”
“If it were not for you, would this not have passed by unnoticed? In that case, one could say they were revealed to the world because of you.”
It was sophistry, yet it was also true. If it were not for me, Hwanyeo would have been remembered merely as the owner of the flower garden and then disappeared.
“Still, since this matter is related to the Blood Cult, I shall handle it myself.”
He was trying to protect me. He intended to take responsibility and put an end to this matter that began with the Soul Subjugation Technique. I was grateful that he cared enough to do this.
“I have something to ask the Cult Lord.”
“What is it?”
“What is the weakness of those who have mastered the Soul Subjugation Technique?”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord looked at me with an absurd expression, as if asking what kind of question this was.
“Now, after all this, you want me to reveal even my own weakness?”
“Is it not best to cast aside bad things quickly?”
“Gowol! Look, this is the Young Cult Lord you respect so much. Didn’t I tell you? He is not just a Young Cult Lord, but a wicked Young Cult Lord.”
Though he jested like that, the Pungcheon Cult Lord must have realized it was a question to uncover the weakness of the woman of the flower garden.
“Leave it to me. Just what are you trying to find out from that woman?”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord slowly began to walk. I followed him along a path covered with petals.
With every step, the Pungcheon Cult Lord seemed to go back against the flow of time, recalling that distant moment.
“I cannot forget when I first succeeded with the Soul Subjugation Technique. Not just me—anyone who has mastered the Soul Subjugation Technique would be the same. How wondrous it is to make people move according to my will? But after succeeding a few times, fear suddenly strikes. If someone stronger than me were to control me like this, manipulating my heart—what then?”
This was also the reason Seo Daeryong had once said the previous generation’s Soul Subjugation Demon Lord was the most terrifying among the Demon Lords. To die miserably while being controlled like a jiangshi was worse than dying cleanly by the blade.
“Do you know what happens when that period passes?”
I listened silently.
“Human hearts begin to look amusing. Seeing even the most steadfast people eventually fall to the Soul Subjugation Technique, one realizes human will is nothing special. Do you know what happens then?”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord stopped walking for a moment and looked at me.
“People begin to look amusing.”
Had he been ashamed of who he was then? His gaze, which had been fixed on me, turned toward the distant mountains beyond the path.
“When people begin to look amusing, the world begins to look amusing as well.”
“How did you overcome it?”
“Overcome? I could not.”
The Pungcheon Cult Lord confessed his honest feelings.
“They say becoming a master changes you? That is like the groundless assumption that growing old brings wisdom. It is that a wise youth becomes a wise old man.”
For the first time since I had known him, the Pungcheon Cult Lord sighed.
“You would have been different. Even if you had mastered the Soul Subjugation Technique, you would not look down on others. But ordinary people like us are different. There is always a price to pay for stealing another’s mind.”
Perhaps he was confessing that he had been like that when he kept Gowol bound in shackles.
I know. Though he told me he had not overcome it, he already had. Because when he released Gowol’s shackles, he began to see people differently than before.
“Somewhere in that woman’s heart, there will surely be arrogance, conceit, and emptiness. She will look down on your heart, look down on people, and look down on the world. Somewhere in that heart, there will be a pitch-black, gaping hole.”
A pitch-black, gaping hole in the heart.
I know all too well what that means. In my life before the regression, there had been such a hole in my heart too. A hole so endlessly deep that nothing could fill it.
Then the Pungcheon Cult Lord spoke suddenly.
“Thank you.”
He believed that he had begun to fill that hole thanks to me.
“If it were not for you, I would still be in the leader’s hall of the Pungcheon Cult. Looking at the same divine objects every day, living in fear of losing them, with Gowol bound tight. At the time, I thought it was the most comfortable life in the world, but it was a life that was never comfortable. Now, I realize it was I who wore the shackles.”
Pure white petals showered down upon us.
“How was it? Was it helpful?”
What thanks could I offer to a man who had even given me his weakness?
Yes, this one phrase would be answer enough.
“Yes, Master.”
As if to ask when he had ever been serious, the Pungcheon Cult Lord laughed heartily and said in a loud voice.
“It has been a while since I came here; shall we stay a bit longer before leaving?”
I stayed for quite some time to let him fully enjoy the feeling of being a master today. Though it was spring inside, winter was approaching outside.
* * *
I entered the Maryongwon, where the Demonic Troops resided.
The Demonic Troops passing by recognized me and greeted me politely.
It had been a while since I had seen these brutes.
They were not the Demonic Troops of the past. Their eyes and movements held discipline and spirit.
And it was all thanks to this man.
“I had heard that you returned, Young Cult Lord.”
The Demonic Troop Commander, Jang Ho, welcomed me with a stately bearing. They say people change according to their station; the Jang Ho of the past and the man before me now felt completely different. Now he suited the position of Demonic Troop Commander more than anyone.
“I came because I wished to see Commander Jang.”
“I should have come to see you first. I apologize.”
“A busy man has no need for that. It is an idle man like me who should come.”
Jang Ho laughed. He knew well how busily I moved. I was someone he could not see even if he wished to pay his respects.
In any case, seeing the grisly scar on his face felt so welcome that I realized it truly had been a long time.
“How have you been?”
“I am unchanged. Rather, this warrior and Lord Seo have grown busy, so we cannot even gather for drinks.”
“Lazy people are the ones who pretend to be busy.”
Jang Ho laughed again. Like Seo Daeryong, he likely had little cause to laugh when among his subordinates. Both organizations absolutely required the authority of their leader. Yes, laugh comfortably like that when you are with me.
Whether it was Gwonma or Jang Ho. When these usually taciturn men smiled like this, I could not help but feel my own mood lift.
“You have kept my faith.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did I not say so? That you would become the greatest Demonic Troop Commander in history.”
“You overpraise me.”
It was not overpraise. He was already hearing such words.
My words seemed to remind Jang Ho of the past.
“I have not yet achieved my wish.”
“What wish?”
“When you seated me as Demonic Troop Commander, I said it then. That I wished to become a person like the Young Cult Lord. The kind of person who seems capable of overcoming any difficulty when we are together. I have not achieved that wish.”
“Is that not already achieved?”
I spoke to him as he showed a puzzled look.
“A difficult matter has arisen, so I have come to find you. I need your help.”
Jang Ho’s expression brightened. The words “I need your help” were surely more pleasing to him than any praise.
“I heard that in the Demonic Troops’ training, there is also training to counter sorcery and illusion techniques.”
“Yes, we conduct special training in preparation for unorthodox experts.”
“Soul Subjugation Techniques as well?”
“There is a special unit composed of those with innately strong mental fortitude.”
“Support me with them.”
Joy flashed across Jang Ho’s face. He had not accompanied me in anything recently; finally, there was something in which he could be of help.
“When do you need them?”
“Right now.”
Shortly after, I came out leading over twenty Demonic Troops, including Jang Ho.
I could feel the tension from Jeokyeon and the guards waiting outside. The mobilization of the Demonic Troops meant that a truly dangerous undertaking was underway.
* * *
Hwanyeo could not leave the flower garden.
It was because of the Young Cult Lord’s threat that if she left before the investigation ended, he would spread wanted posters of her throughout the Central Plains.
More than anything, she must not be revealed to the world.
But neither could she remain trapped here indefinitely when she did not know when the investigation would end.
Just then, a man pulling a cart entered the flower garden. He had come to deliver saplings and flower pots. As he unloaded a flower pot from the cart, he sent a telepathic message to Hwanyeo.
—Reporting. The Pungcheon Cult Lord has returned to the main headquarters of the Demonic Cult.
In that instant, Hwanyeo’s expression grew grave. The Pungcheon Cult Lord, who had been absent, had returned at this very moment?
‘Could it be?’
Had he realized she had unleashed the Yin-Yang Soul Reversal Technique upon the Soul Subjugation Demon Lord? If it was the Pungcheon Cult Lord, he might have noticed that the demon lord had been afflicted by the Yin-Yang Soul Reversal Technique. No, perhaps he had sensed something from the very beginning and summoned him for that reason.
—I believe you must leave.
Despite the worried message, she remained calm.
—Do not panic.
—My apologies.
After a moment of thought, she gave an order.
—Stand the Blood Spirits by, and tell Gwishuk that we may have guests.
The man flinched in surprise, but soon replied politely.
—Understood.
Having received his orders, the man pulled his cart and left the flower garden.
It was precisely when Hwanyeo picked up the delivered flower pot to move it that—
The wooden wind chime hanging beneath the eaves made a sound.
Hwanyeo picked up the flower pot that had been unloaded from the cart and headed toward the back of the flower garden.
The moment she turned the corner, her figure vanished in an instant.
*Ooooom.*
She was walking toward a place where a low, resonant sound could be heard. The surrounding walls squirmed as if alive, and grotesque protrusions jutted out.
It was as if she were walking inside the belly of a monster.
When she entered this place, her appearance had changed as well. Her lips had turned bright red, and her eyes were frighteningly slit.
That was not all that had changed. The flowers in the pot she held had transformed into carnivorous plants that captured and devoured insects. Judging by their eerie aura, insects were likely not all they ate.
After passing through a complex passage like a maze, she came to a small space.
When she entered that place, where a ghastly atmosphere lingered, the wall in front began to squirm and protrude.
*Screeeeech.*
A man thrust his face forward. It was a bizarre sight, as if he were struggling to push his face through a transparent membrane. Naturally, his voice was strange as well.
“He is wondering why you have not returned.”
It was a message from her younger brother.
“Tell him I cannot return yet.”
“He will be curious about the reason.”
“Later. Tell him I will explain later.”
“He is worri—”
Before the message could finish, she waved her hand.
As if flicking the man away, the wall tightened, and the protruding face disappeared.
She threw herself backward, lying down.
The floor squelched and bulged before wrapping around her like a comfortable bed.
This place was her favorite and the only space where she could rest comfortably.
She closed her eyes for a moment and fell into thought about how to handle this matter. The problem was the Young Cult Lord. The fact that she could not read his thoughts agitated her.
*Screeeeech.*
Again, a face pushed out from that wall. A face struggling to break through the membrane.
—I told you I would handle it.
The next moment, she flinched. It was not the face of the subordinate who handled the connection to her younger brother. The face pushing through the membrane seemed somehow familiar.
*Rip!*
Someone thrust their face through, tearing the membrane. Surprisingly, it was Geom Mugeuk. When their eyes met, Geom Mugeuk smirked and said.
“So there was a villain among those who like flowers?”
At that moment, Hwanyeo’s eyes snapped open.
It was a dream.
She had fallen asleep for a moment and dreamed. It was her first time dreaming of someone simply because she was conscious of them.
Then, from the outer flower garden, she heard someone calling for the owner.
“Owner! Owner, are you there?”
It was the voice of the protagonist of her nightmare.