I woke early in the morning, packed all our belongings, and said to Father,
“You should return now.”
“Return where? I came out hunting with the Heavenly Demon in name, so I ought to catch at least one tiger before I go.”
As if that were truly the reason. It meant the time he had spent with me had not been unpleasant.
“I’m glad.”
“About what?”
“I prepared for a second day as well.”
“Stop talking nonsense and lead the way.”
“Yes.”
Father and I went deeper into the forest.
How long had we walked like that?
Father spoke to me again.
“Close your eyes again.”
“Yes.”
“The target is one hundred jang off to the right.”
Farther than last time.
“This time, feel the wind.”
“I feel it.”
Once again, he said something I had never heard even once in all my life.
“Carry your energy on the wind.”
Since learning martial arts, I had never once thought I should carry my qi presence on the wind. No one had ever said such a thing to me. No martial arts manual had ever written such a thing.
The thrill of new learning ran tingling through my body.
Of course, knowing it and putting it into practice were separate matters.
“First, release your energy.”
As I had when searching for the wild boar yesterday, I carefully let my energy flow out.
“If you are this slow and cautious, it will be nothing more than a petty trick. If you want to use it in real combat, you must extend your energy to the very end as quickly as possible.”
But carrying my energy on the wind was not easy. I could feel the wind, and I could feel my energy. But how was I supposed to merge these things that moved separately?
Moreover, the wind Father spoke of did not mean a gust of air blowing fiercely. He was referring to the flow of air around us as wind. Among the many currents, I had to find the air flowing straight ahead and carry my energy upon it.
Even though I floundered for a long while, Father said nothing. Nor did he urge me to hurry. He simply stood with his hands clasped behind his back, gazing at the distant mountains.
Why is it that people see a person’s life in their back? From Father’s back, I should have felt the strength of an absolute being, yet what I felt was loneliness and desolation.
“Not bad.”
“Yes?”
In that instant, the energy I had released snapped off at the right, one hundred jang away.
‘Huh! When did my energy reach all the way there?’
While staring blankly at Father’s back, it seemed I had unconsciously carried my energy on the wind and sent it flying. Perhaps because I had accumulated no small amount of insight from my life before regression, things considered difficult came to me easily.
“It happened without me realizing it.”
Father gazed at me with eyes that were somewhat stirred. Whether by coincidence or luck, it was not something that should have been achieved so easily.
Soon, Father spoke as if it were nothing.
“It doesn’t matter. That one has already fled far away.”
When the sun was sinking low and dusk began to gather on the ground, we encountered the one we had missed earlier.
“It’s that one from before!”
Since Father said so, I could only assume it was true. I could not tell. It wasn’t even visible to my eyes. I could only be amazed that Father had accurately grasped the size and energy of something so far away.
“It is one hundred fifty jang away. Find it by carrying your energy on the wind.”
I released my energy again and tried to carry it on the wind.
Seeing as I had succeeded earlier without thinking, it was not especially difficult for someone at my level. In the end, it was a matter of the mind.
I tried this way and that.
Then, suddenly, I realized.
I had only been trying to place my energy atop the wind. That was the problem. The deliberate act of trying to put it on.
I sent my energy along the path of the wind. As though walking side by side with a friend, as though mingling and playing together with the wind, I released my energy.
It flew as a separate energy for a time, but before I knew it, the wind and my energy began to harmonize together like two dragons coiling around each other as they soared.
‘Ah! This is it!’
I understood that carrying it on the wind did not feel like a person mounting a horse, but rather like making the two intertwine with one another.
Ssssss.
My energy rode the wind and arrived one hundred fifty jang away in an instant.
The moment I confirmed what it was, a thunderous tiger’s roar burst out from afar. In that instant, I flinched, and the energy I had extended snapped off.
“It really was a tiger!”
I was startled by the tiger, and Father was startled by me. It seemed he had not expected me to grasp his teaching this quickly.
Father, this is only the beginning. I would like to stroll leisurely along the lakeside with you, but we must ride the current. We must ride the rapids and fall beneath the waterfall. The enemy we must face may, at this very moment, be cutting through a typhoon alone in the middle of a distant sea. Father, please send me to the sea.
“Do not neglect your training in releasing energy. The more strands you can release, the longer your life will be.”
“Yes, I will keep it in mind.”
I will create more strands than you, Father. I must.
“This time, close your eyes and feel my energy.”
I closed my eyes and released my qi presence, sensing Father’s qi presence.
Just as my qi presence had found the tiger, I sensed Father’s.
Slowly. Very slowly.
I carefully examined, one by one, the energy spread around Father.
My mouth slowly fell open.
“Father? What in the world is this?”
Father was standing at the center of a spiderweb. Dozens of lines extended in every direction with Father at their center. Strands of energy stretched so far I could not even search their ends.
If someone wanted to approach Father in secret, they would have to avoid that spiderweb, and that was absolutely impossible.
And Hwa Mugi defeated Father, who had reached this realm? How on earth?
I truly did not want to, but once again, I could not help but marvel at that bastard.
* * *
That night.
“My hidden trump card is this.”
What I took from the leather pouch was liquor. And not just any liquor, but Father’s favorite.
I took out a clean cup I had packed carefully and filled it with liquor.
“Good.”
“It is too strong for me.”
In truth, I liked liquor and could drink well. In my previous life, while searching for materials for the Great Art, I would take a sip whenever things became difficult, and before I knew it, my tolerance had grown considerably. I merely said it was strong because I had no intention of boasting about my capacity to Father. If we drank through the night, Father would collapse first.
“There is no such thing as a demon who whines that liquor is too strong.”
“What does it matter if I can’t drink? Better a venomous heart than venomous wine.”
“A venomous heart?”
At the words “venomous heart,” Father asked with a sneer,
“Could you kill me in order to survive?”
After a brief pause, I answered.
“No. How could a child kill his parent?”
To be honest, this too was a lie. If there were sufficient reason to kill him, I could kill Father. Today was the first time we had held a proper conversation; how could he be more precious than my own life?
This time, I asked,
“Father, could you kill me?”
“If this is something one must agonize over, then one should not carelessly speak of having a venomous heart.”
I felt it in Father’s eyes. He could kill me without a single moment’s hesitation.
“Then I suppose I should learn venomous wine instead.”
After drinking, I grimaced at how strong it was, and Father looked at me with a strange gaze.
That night, I sat alone and practiced the energy release Father had taught me.
‘This is fun.’
Now, I could carry my qi on the wind and send it far away fairly quickly.
My energy wandered through the pitch-black darkness, searching. The act was incredibly exciting.
‘This is a tree, and beneath it is a rock…….’
I could even feel the movement of a tiny insect crawling there.
I sent my energy somewhere else again. The more I trained, the faster my qi moved.
The qi that had been rapidly searching the surroundings suddenly stopped. It had passed through something that felt foreign.
‘What was that?’
I pulled my qi back, then passed it through that place again.
But the foreign energy from before had vanished.
I opened my eyes and stared in that direction. In the darkness, I could feel no trace of anything.
‘What on earth was it? There was definitely something there.’
At that moment, Father, who had been lying down, was looking at me.
“You have not slept?”
“Why were you looking there?”
“I felt something over there. I am not sure what it was.”
Father looked at me with startled eyes, then turned over to face the other way.
“Let us sleep now.”
“Yes.”
I lay down with the campfire between Father and me.
‘What was that?’
Judging by Father’s reaction, he definitely seemed to know something……
“!”
In that instant, I realized.
‘Hwi! It was Uncle Hwi!’
I had sensed the concealment of Father’s personal bodyguard. When I tried to sense him again the second time, he had moved away.
Once I thought that, a thrill ran through my entire body.
I had detected the presence of someone I absolutely could not have sensed just two days ago. Of course, Hwi had not been in a situation where he was desperately trying to hide himself, but simply noticing his basic concealment was an incredible improvement.
If I continued training and became able to release dozens of strands of energy at once like Father, any concealment technique would become powerless. The process of searching would be omitted, and there, here, over there—one would simply be discovered.
Perhaps because I had drunk clumsily, I could not fall asleep easily that night.
When I grew exhausted while searching for materials for the Great Art, I would drink, and at such times, I often looked up at the stars in the night sky. The stars of those days that had kept company with my loneliness were shining unchanged tonight as well.
Father, too, could not sleep.
I could not know his inner thoughts exactly, but perhaps he was feeling stirred by my talent, which absorbed martial arts like thin paper soaking up water.
“Father, among the Demon Venerables, whom do you trust the most?”
I had not necessarily expected an answer, but Father responded.
“Why do you ask?”
The day our family was annihilated.
Hwa Mugi ravaged the Heavenly Demon Hall.
The Heavenly Demon Hall.
A place guarded like an iron fortress by three strange formations, six mechanical formations, and carefully selected demons.
And again, centered on the Heavenly Demon Hall, the Eight Demon Venerables and their subordinates protected the Heavenly Demon from eight directions.
To the north were the Demon Swords of the Northern Heaven Sword Clan, led by the One Blossom Sword Venerable.
To the south were the Blade Ghosts of the Southern Blade Sect, led by the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
To the east were the Iron Fists of the Eastern Fist Gate, led by the Undefeated Fist Demon.
To the west were the Ghost Artificers of the Western Illusion Array, led by the Soul-Seizing Demon.
To the northeast were the Faceless Guests, who wished to resemble the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon.
To the southeast were the Drunken Guests, drunk alongside the Great Drunken Demon.
To the southwest were the Poison Fangs, who researched all manner of poisons with the Poison King.
To the northwest were the Mad Monks, who raved over the Demon Buddha’s bewitching deception of the masses.
At the time, I thought the enemy had broken in from outside.
But that was not true.
Later, I found that the outside had never been breached that day. It was certain that someone among the Eight Demon Venerables had let Hwa Mugi into the inner court where the Heavenly Demon Hall stood.
There may have been one traitor, or there may have been more. The identity of the traitor was never revealed in the end, but it does not matter who it was.
Because I regard all of the Eight Demon Venerables as traitors.
After Father’s death, the choice the Eight Demon Venerables made was not revenge, but seclusion. Not one of them stepped forward to seek vengeance. If even one among the eight had acted, I would not have felt such betrayal.
Yes, I understand. Seeing Hwa Mugi’s overwhelming martial might as he stood upon the Heavenly Demon’s corpse, you likely could not bring yourselves to dare think of revenge.
You are human too, so I understand. I understand.
So you, too, should understand.
From now on, even if I use you as much as I please, even if I treat you as expendable tools to be used and discarded, I hope you understand as well. Would that not be fair?
“If I become the Heavenly Demon, I will seize the Eight Demon Venerables and tighten my grip around their throats.”
“What?”
Father sprang upright. At the force of it, the grass lying around us all stood up at once. I quickly sat up as well.
“Your reason?”
Because they are much farther away than you think, Father. You can accurately sense a tiger hiding one hundred jang away, but you do not know how distant the hearts of those smiling before your eyes truly are.
I could not bring myself to say that, so I gave another reason.
“There is severe corruption connected to them. Not only among the parties themselves, but also among those who borrow their authority and act with impunity.”
Father listened to me in silence, so I continued.
“Of course, in order to run the cult smoothly, we must acknowledge their authority. But they have crossed the line.”
Even at this time, there were several incidents and accidents related to the Eight Demon Venerables.
“Hasn’t the time come to set discipline properly, just once?”
Father said nothing, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
From that attitude, I could guess Father’s true feelings.
Father, too, felt some agreement. He certainly had dissatisfaction with the Eight Demon Venerables. If not, he would already have thundered at me for being insolent the moment I said we needed to discipline the Demon Venerables.
“If you harbor needless greed, your crotch will split and your belly will burst, and you will die.”
“Haha, with a long road ahead of me, I cannot allow that. I will walk slowly and eat little.”
He had called it greed, not nonsense or ravings.
I guessed Father’s inner thoughts. The edge of Father’s blade, still undrawn, was pointed in the same direction as mine.
Do not worry, Father. I know them better than anyone.
In order to obtain the last material, Bimahon, I returned to the cult and spent many long years there. Because it was a matter of the distant future from now, I know everything about the Eight Demon Venerables. What kind of lives they lived, and what kind of ends they met.
‘I will put them in their proper places.’
And so the night passed, filled with as many thoughts as there were stars in the night sky.