It was unexpected.
I had not thought the Blood Heaven Saber Demon would ask if I intended to kill him too.
How should I answer? After pondering for a moment, this was my reply.
“My demonic path neither breaks tables in inns nor kills friends.”
For an instant, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon could say nothing.
After staring at me for a while with a complicated expression, he asked quietly,
“Am I your friend?”
“Yes.”
Even without elaborating, he would know I did not mean it in the ordinary sense of the word.
“You asked what I would do then? I’ll tell you plainly too. Without reading the room, without being considerate of you, Elder, I’ll just say it. This and that is why I don’t like it. You’re far too old-fashioned! It’s far too tedious. Where did all your old charm go? Find it! Then we’ll put our heads together and find a way for us to suit each other.”
“What if we can’t find a way? What if I still don’t change?”
“If you try and still can’t change, then there’s nothing to be done. We’ll have to live off our old memories. But if you don’t even try? Then we’ll have to have it out. No matter who’s in the wrong or what the complaints are, won’t we feel a little better after beating each other up?”
The Blood Heaven Saber Demon stared at me for a moment, then burst into loud laughter.
“Hahahaha.”
It was the most hearty laugh I had heard from him since meeting him.
After laughing like that for a long while, he suddenly stopped and said to me,
“There is something I once said to you that I must amend.”
“What is it?”
“That my life has been filled only with misfortune… It seems that may not be entirely true.”
In that moment, I clearly heard it.
The sound of the door to his heart opening a little wider.
I will continue to listen for that sound. Hearing the sound of that door opening often, from many people, will be the moment I grow, and it will become a weapon as important to me as the Nine Flames Demonic Art. Hwa Mugi, what sound are you hearing now?
* * *
Late that night, after even the Blood Heaven Saber Demon had left, an unexpected visitor came.
Surprisingly, it was the Pungcheon Cult Leader.
“What brings you here at this late hour?”
“I have something to say to you.”
“Please come in.”
“It is something private. Let us go this way.”
The surroundings darkened and then brightened, and we were in another space. It was the very same demonic art the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable had used several times. This demonic art of the Blood Cult lineage was known to him as well.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader looked at me and asked meaningfully,
“What do you think? Does this martial art not look familiar?”
His eyes told me that he knew everything, so I should speak honestly.
“This is my first time encountering such a martial art.”
“That cannot be. Did you not see this space when you fought the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable?”
“What do you mean?”
At that, the Pungcheon Cult Leader’s expression turned cold.
“You killed the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable in this space.”
“I do not know what you are talking about.”
I flatly denied it, but he continued making his claim with certainty.
“Because he died in the space where the Soul-Seizing Art had been deployed, it looked as though he had died of qi deviation. You cannot deceive my eyes.”
“Do you have proof?”
“I have no proof. I cannot even guess how you did it. But it is certain that you killed him.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because I cannot read you.”
Inwardly, I was surprised. I had never looked down on the Pungcheon Cult Leader, but I had not thought he would believe I had killed the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable for a reason like this. This belief came from the confidence he had in his own instincts.
“You killed the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable. I cannot read you either, so I, too, could die.”
“I did not expect someone wiser than anyone to make such a misjudgment.”
He truly had me figured out with precision.
“I am not trying to provoke you, so relax. I do not want to die in a place like this, as the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable did.”
Moreover, he did not overestimate his own ability.
“I will say it again. You misunderstand.”
Ignoring my words, he continued speaking.
“There can only be one reason why the Soul-Seizing sorcery did not work. You must have received the Nine Flames Demonic Art.”
“If you are so certain, why did you not tell the Demon Venerables? If you announced that my father secretly passed the Nine Flames Demonic Art down to me without the Demon Venerables’ knowledge, there would have been an uproar. Especially since I hear you are close to the Demon Buddha.”
“Where are there friends in the murim? People meet each other because they need one another at the time. The Demon Buddha is likely the same.”
“Then what do you need from me?”
“This matter is my goodwill. I came today to make sure you do not forget my goodwill.”
The moment I heard that, I understood. Something had arisen between the Pungcheon Cult Leader and the Seven Demon Venerables. Or perhaps, from the beginning, their relationship had not been as close as I had thought.
“Let us make one thing clear. As of now, Cult Leader, you have not shown me any goodwill.”
“What?”
“It is not that you will not tell the Seven Demon Venerables, but that you cannot. Because you have no proof. Will you go to the Seven Demon Venerables and say this? ‘Because I cannot read the Second Young Master, the culprit is the Second Young Master!’ Your pride alone would stop you from saying that.”
“At the very least, I could convey my suspicion that it might be you.”
“Then that would actually work in my favor. ‘His skill is enough to kill the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable? The Cult Leader may already have passed the Nine Flames Demonic Art on to him? There is no proof, so we cannot be certain, but somehow we cannot treat him recklessly.’ It will help me seize control of the situation going forward. You have, in fact, hindered me.”
“What?”
As if he had not expected such a situation, the Pungcheon Cult Leader could not refute me.
“If you show me goodwill, I will gladly accept it. But show me real goodwill.”
He had been pushed on the defensive for a moment, but even so, the Pungcheon Cult Leader was not flustered. He knew well the lesson life had taught him: never make any decision when the situation is unfavorable.
“Let us meet once more before I leave.”
The moment he finished speaking, the surroundings changed, and he left at once.
Watching his back, I smiled. Because rather than the scent of conspiracy, this thought came to me first.
“Our Cult Leader came to me of his own accord to offer me goodwill like this.”
* * *
In the large, splendidly decorated room provided by the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult, there were only the Pungcheon Cult Leader, the sacred objects, and the shackled man.
“What do you think?”
The shackled man, who had been sitting before the Yin Thunder Bell like a stone statue, raised his head toward the Pungcheon Cult Leader. Words no one else could even imagine came out of his mouth.
“You fucking idiot, why are you asking me that?”
Insulting the Pungcheon Cult Leader like this was a crime worthy of having one’s limbs torn off.
But the Pungcheon Cult Leader smiled as if it were nothing out of the ordinary and raised one finger.
“You are the only one in this room. Who else would I ask?”
“Ask the reaper standing behind you when you’re going to drop dead.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader raised another finger.
“When I asked, the reaper answered thus: I will die after you die, so regrettably, you will not see my death.”
“Must be nice to live long, you pig bastard.”
At the man’s curse, the Pungcheon Cult Leader raised a third finger and laughed pleasantly.
“Now you have two left!”
The number of curses or instances of speaking down the man could direct at the Pungcheon Cult Leader was set at five per day.
Of course, it was not because the Pungcheon Cult Leader had some perverse taste that made him rejoice at being cursed at. Nor was it because this shackled man possessed a keener sense of smell than anyone else.
The reason the Pungcheon Cult Leader kept the man alive despite his excessive rudeness was that he possessed a mind more brilliant than anyone’s. At first, he had not known. He had not known this man would be someone so intelligent.
But after spending a long time in the same room with him, he came to know. The man’s true value was not his ability to smell scents, but his outstanding judgment and brilliance.
From the day he learned that the man was smarter than the Pungcheon Cult’s strategist, the shackled man became the true strategist of the Pungcheon Cult.
He received advice while being cursed. Most of the man’s advice was accurate, and in time, it returned as profit.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader did not try to make the man obedient by inflicting pain on him. That was because the shackled man had little attachment to life, and he knew that if pressured in that way, the man would gladly choose death.
He was a man with no attachment to life, but he did not commit suicide. Once, the Pungcheon Cult Leader had asked him the reason, but he never said a single word about it to the end.
“Why are you in such a bad mood?”
“Would you feel good if you were me?”
Watching the Pungcheon Cult Leader raise a fourth finger, the man grabbed his shackles and shook them. The clanking sound rang throughout the room.
When the Pungcheon Cult Leader flicked a finger, the surroundings darkened and then brightened, and the place changed. It was a green field.
There, the Pungcheon Cult Leader unlocked the man’s ten-thousand-year cold iron shackles. The key that could open the shackles hung around the Pungcheon Cult Leader’s neck.
Once the shackles were removed, the man’s expression eased as well.
Freed, the man ran about here and there in a frenzy like a puppy on a snowy day, then flopped down on his back and looked up at the sky.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader came over and looked down at him.
“You big-headed cult leader bastard, get out of the way! You’re blocking the sky!”
“It is a fake sky.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader raised the final fifth finger.
Having used all five chances, the man’s tone became respectful.
“Cult Leader, I miss that fake sky very much. Please move aside.”
His attitude changed in an instant, as if he were acting.
The Pungcheon Cult Leader stepped aside and asked,
“I expressed goodwill to the Second Young Master, as you advised. But he demanded more concrete goodwill.”
The man was looking up at the sky. Through the long, disheveled strands of hair hanging down, his eyes were infinitely clear.
“Will the Second Young Master truly become the successor?”
“You said the Second Young Master killed the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable?”
“I am certain.”
“If such a person does not become the successor, then who would? A young man barely around twenty cannot kill the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable.”
“It is remarkable skill, but…”
“Are you afraid? That the Second Young Master might kill you too, Cult Leader?”
If anyone else had said this, his head would have flown from his shoulders on the spot. But the Pungcheon Cult Leader nodded obediently.
“It would be a lie to say I am not afraid. If a man can kill a Demon Venerable, whom could he not kill?”
At some point, the Pungcheon Cult Leader had begun to speak frankly with the shackled man.
“There is another reason you must secure the Second Young Master.”
“What is it?”
“Do you truly think the Cult Leader of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult does not know that the Second Young Master killed the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable?”
“He knows?”
“Of course he knows. The Heavenly Demon of this generation is an extraordinary man. A man with grand ambitions too. Why do you think such a man has remained quiet until now?”
“Why?”
“Think! Do not merely waste food!”
“Was that not an insult just now?”
“It was not. My voice was merely loud.”
“Be careful.”
“I will. I was telling you to think.”
“I refuse. You do the thinking. If I think as well, what reason would there be for you to remain alive?”
The man looked at the Pungcheon Cult Leader with an openly irritated expression. Even so, the words that came out were polite.
“When an extraordinary man remains silent, it means he is preparing a decisive blow.”
“Unifying the Central Plains?”
“That much, I do not know. In any case, this matter must either have been ordered by the Heavenly Demon, or it was something he knew about and pretended not to. Among the Eight Demon Venerables, the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable was the one the Murim Alliance considered the most troublesome. Just as the people of the Central Plains fear you, Cult Leader. And yet he allowed his son to kill the Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable? This means the Heavenly Demon has made up his mind to replace the Eight Demon Venerables one by one. After replacing the Eight Demon Venerables with his own limbs, where do you think the Heavenly Demon will strike?”
“Us?”
“The Heavenly Demon of this generation will not wage war against the Murim Alliance while leaving us at his back. He will either drive us to the vanguard, or eliminate us and then begin the war.”
“Damn it!”
“A wind of change is blowing through the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult. If we do not feel this wind, we die. The Soul-Seizing Demon Venerable died because he was holed up in another world and failed to feel this wind. We must decide whether to hide from the wind behind the wall called the Eight Demon Venerables, or hide behind the wall called the Heavenly Demon.”
“You think it should be the Heavenly Demon?”
“The Heavenly Demon’s side will win.”
“Why?”
“Because there is no way a remarkable man like Geom Ujin would have begun a fight he had no chance of winning. So you must side with the Second Young Master no matter what. First, win his favor by giving him a gift.”
The Pungcheon Cult Leader nodded.
“What should I give him?”
“Give him the thing you least want to give. Only then will we live. Now, no more advice!”
The man lying down shouted,
“Stop disturbing me and withdraw!”
Because this space was the only place where the man could feel freedom, he shouted while gazing at the fabricated sky.
“Aaaaaaaah!”
Unlike the man trying to release his stifled feelings even in this way, the Pungcheon Cult Leader stood with his hands clasped behind his back, lost in thought.
A short while later, having decided what to give, the Pungcheon Cult Leader said to the man,
“That is enough!”
The created space began to disappear.
The startled man sprang to his feet and shouted,
“No! Please! Just a little longer! You goddamn bastard! No!”
Despite that desperate cry, which even broke the rules, the green field vanished, and along with it, the man’s freedom.