Omen. (3)
Wi Seol-ah had a dream for the first time in a long while.
Dreams like this had occasionally come to her ever since she met “Big Sister,” but—
Today’s dream was especially vivid.
Perhaps it was the clearest dream she had experienced since that day long ago.
‘…Where… Where is this?’
By now, Wi Seol-ah had grown somewhat accustomed to this hazy sensation.
The feeling that this was not her own body.
The world seen from a third person’s perspective.
After experiencing it several times, she no longer found it particularly strange.
“Where are you?”
Wi Seol-ah reacted to someone’s voice.
It was a beautiful voice.
Wi Seol-ah knew whose voice it was.
“…I asked where you are.”
The woman spoke as though calm, yet made no attempt to hide the blazing emotions within her.
She had a beautiful face that resembled her voice.
And yet, despite her delicate appearance—
the place where she stood was a prison, caked in dust,
where not a single ray of sunlight entered.
Traces of torture filled the walls,
and the thickly congealed blood created a horrifying atmosphere merely to look upon.
That alone was enough for Wi Seol-ah to know.
This was another nightmare.
Just like this, dreams featuring that woman were almost always nightmares for Wi Seol-ah.
Because people invariably died.
The woman killed someone.
Or someone died for the woman.
The world collapsed,
and amid its ruins, the woman silently swung her sword.
For Wi Seol-ah, who knew how that woman’s story ended, watching it was like being sent to hell.
The woman did not cry.
Not when the person protecting her died.
Not when the family she loved died.
Not when her companions died, nor when those who had turned against her died.
The woman merely continued to swing her sword in silence.
Wi Seol-ah had thought that woman was cold.
If she were in such a situation, she did not think she could maintain such an expression.
And yet, that woman—
was rarely revealing her emotions.
‘Who is that…?’
It was blurry.
The person the woman was looking at was difficult for Wi Seol-ah to see, appearing only as a blurred figure behind a veil of fog.
Judging by the body, it seemed to be a man,
but the man did not answer the woman at all.
‘Is he… is he dead…?’
Fortunately, that did not seem to be the case. The man was breathing very faintly.
He seemed to be seriously injured somewhere, and his bloodstained appearance stood out.
For some reason, the sight made Wi Seol-ah’s heart ache, and she had to bite her lip.
“You surely know, don’t you? Where the remaining Demonic Humans have gone.”
The woman continued speaking, seemingly unconcerned by the man’s condition.
No.
Wi Seol-ah could tell.
It was not that the woman was unconcerned about the man.
She was simply enduring it.
Emotions that should never have been able to coexist—anger, regret, despair, longing—were all raging within her body.
Enduring all of them,
the woman spoke to the man.
“To you…”
The woman bit her lip for an instant as she spoke.
“If you have even the slightest bit of conscience left…”
Her following words trembled faintly.
Was that anger?
Or was it sorrow?
Or perhaps both?
Young as she was, Wi Seol-ah could not tell.
But it was certainly an intense emotion.
-Crack.
The woman’s fist clenched tightly.
Blood dripped from her tightly clenched hand, but the woman did not seem to feel any pain.
“This is your last chance. Everyone wants you dead, but if you help me just this once, I will stake everything I have to spare your life.”
The woman’s voice began to tremble more and more.
Please, tell me.
I have to do this, even if it must be this way.
The woman’s heart was clearly crying out those words.
Therefore—
“…So please.”
Tell me.
The woman held back with all her strength,
not allowing the final words to pass between her tightly clenched lips.
The man had heard everything she said, yet still did not speak.
Or perhaps he was unable to speak.
He merely let out a faint breath
and raised his head to look at the woman.
What sort of eyes did the man have as he looked at her? What emotions did they contain?
Wi Seol-ah wanted to see them, but she could not.
“So tell me. Hurry. Tell me where they are hiding.”
As she spoke, the woman seized the man by the collar.
Please, give me some kind of response.
Do something—anything.
The woman suppressed the words boiling inside her,
but the man still said nothing.
The woman then moved the hand gripping him and hurled him to the floor.
He rolled hard across the stone,
but the man did not even groan.
He still looked as though he had abandoned everything.
Watching him, the woman spoke.
“If I had known you were such an ugly human being, I would have killed you the moment I first saw you.”
There was certainly anger mixed into the emotions surging within her.
But Wi Seol-ah caught another tiny emotion, wobbling helplessly and unable to find its balance.
If only I had chosen a different method.
If only I had said something different to you.
Perhaps this would not have happened.
The woman’s heart was filled with contradictory thoughts.
“…I regret that so much.”
After saying this,
the woman quietly looked down at the man lying on the ground.
Her jumbled emotions curled up as though they might explode at any moment,
but the woman continued to endure them.
Leaving the man behind,
the woman turned and walked out.
Her steps were filled with hesitation,
yet she maintained a resolute air, as though determined not to let it show.
Just as it seemed she truly intended to leave like this—
Sss.
At the sound of movement behind her, the woman immediately turned her head.
The man was moving his ruined body with a creaking sound.
The woman stared at him, her eyes trembling violently.
Tap. Tap-tap.
Whether he knew of that gaze or not,
the man began writing something on the floor with his trembling fingertips.
One line.
Then another.
Each time he wrote something on the floor,
blood gushed from his mouth.
As though writing those words was something he must not do.
“What are you doing…!”
After seeing the man’s condition, the woman cried out and hurried toward him,
but her body suddenly staggered.
The woman herself did not appear to be in good condition either.
“Wait…”
As though she had realized something from the man’s appearance, the woman barely regained her balance and rushed toward him.
But after the man finished writing all the words,
Bang-!
With the sound of something bursting, his body collapsed.
The woman supported him with all her strength and pulled him into her arms.
“Please… Please…”
The woman desperately tried to examine the man,
but his body was growing cold,
and his eyes were losing consciousness.
It was already clear that the man’s life had ended.
‘…Why…?’
Wi Seol-ah did not understand.
If someone was imprisoned in a place like this, he had to be a bad person.
But she could not understand why the woman was displaying such emotions toward him.
There was one thing she did understand.
What the woman was feeling now was certainly sorrow.
So many emotions had raged within her, merging together in one place and boiling as though they would burst.
But now, the only thing left in the woman was sorrow.
A deep, dark sorrow.
‘I want to wake up…’
Wi Seol-ah wanted to wake from this dream immediately.
The emotions she was feeling now were far too heavy for her to bear.
What had the man wanted to convey to the woman just before he died?
The words written in blood on the floor had disappeared when the woman moved to embrace him in desperation.
They had surely been information the woman needed.
But—
The words no longer mattered to the woman.
Drip.
Drip, drip.
Drops of liquid fell onto the floor.
It was not blood.
‘Is she crying…?’
Wi Seol-ah could see it.
The woman, who had not shed even a single tear through all those cruel circumstances,
was embracing the man and crying.
The woman had been sobbing quietly, but slowly, she began to weep aloud.
At the same time, Wi Seol-ah trembled, unable to bear the emotions she felt coming from the woman.
She had never experienced pain this deep.
It was different from the pain she felt when she had to hold up her arms after being scolded by Hong Wa,
or the pain in her hands from swinging a wooden sword.
The pain felt by the heart was so deep that it could not easily be endured.
‘I want to get up… Please…’
Dreams were never on Wi Seol-ah’s side.
She could not wake simply because she wanted to, so would she have to endure this again?
‘Young Master…’
Thinking of Guyang Cheon, Wi Seol-ah squeezed her eyes shut.
Of course, closing her eyes did not end the dream.
The woman, who had been howling as though crying out to the heavens,
covered her throat and stifled her voice, as though trying to swallow her emotions.
Someone had approached.
“Alliance Leader.”
At the voice of someone approaching the prison,
the woman composed herself and answered.
“…What is it?”
“…The thing you were looking for— Ah.”
The middle-aged man stopped speaking when he saw the person the woman was holding.
“The Demon Emperor…”
Before the man could say anything else,
the woman slowly rose to her feet.
She gently laid the dead man’s body on the ground.
The man tried to lower his head.
He could not face the woman’s expression at that moment.
“Beggar King.”
“Yes, Alliance Leader.”
“If there are any remaining Demonic Humans, tell them this. Tell them that the Demon Emperor is dead.”
“…Understood.”
As though she had no lingering attachment, the woman left the prison.
Left alone, the Beggar King looked at the Demon Emperor, whose eyes were quietly closed.
“Farewell.”
With only those words,
the Beggar King spoke briefly before disappearing from the prison after the woman.
And Wi Seol-ah, left alone in the room,
looked down at the man’s lonely corpse.
She still could not see his face.
Yet for some reason, the sensation felt familiar.
The woman’s intense anger and heavy sorrow had departed with her.
They should have remained inseparably bound to the woman,
so why was Wi Seol-ah alone here?
‘…Why…?’
Even though this was a dark and frightening place,
for some reason, it did not feel entirely terrifying.
Left alone, Wi Seol-ah
reached out her translucent hand toward the man.
There was no particular reason.
She simply felt as though she had to.
Just as her small fingertips were about to touch the man—
-Are you truly all right?
Another voice reached Wi Seol-ah’s ears,
and her eyes opened.
She had awakened from the nightmare.
******************
In the deep hours before dawn,
Wi Seol-ah looked around with hazy eyes, still heavy with sleep.
Not far away, a small candle had been lit,
and two old men were engaged in conversation.
“I asked whether you truly thought this would be all right.”
“Is there some reason it cannot be done?”
Perhaps because she had woken in the middle of it,
sleepiness continued to overwhelm her.
Wi Seol-ah wanted to know what her grandfather was talking about behind her,
but she could not withstand the encroaching drowsiness and fell asleep once more.
Wi Seol-ah had fallen asleep, unable to overcome her drowsiness.
The Sword Venerable quietly watched her.
“…What are you doing?”
“Nothing. It seemed the child had woken slightly, so I put her back to sleep.”
The Divine Physician did not know how the Sword Venerable had put Wi Seol-ah to sleep from where he sat some distance away,
but he did not bother asking.
There was a more important matter to discuss now.
“I may be brazenly called the Divine Physician, but I am not truly a god.”
“I know.”
“No, it seems the Alliance Leader does not understand. I am saying there are things I cannot do.”
“But if you accepted this request, does that not mean it is something you can do?”
“…Hah, Alliance Leader…”
At the Divine Physician’s lament, the Sword Venerable spoke.
“I want that child to grow up as an ordinary child.”
“That is the most difficult wish of all.”
At the Sword Venerable’s words, the Divine Physician had to click his tongue inwardly.
Behind them, a child was sleeping.
Looking at the vast space within that child, the Divine Physician nearly let out a cry of dismay.
It was far too vast to be called a human vessel.
It was so wide and so high that it seemed empty.
Perhaps that was why the Sword Venerable had asked the Divine Physician for help.
He wanted him to close it.
To close that enormous vessel, which anyone would covet.
The Divine Physician could not understand the Sword Venerable’s request.
“…I hope you understand that this does not fall within the realm of medicine.”
“I know. That is precisely why I sought you out.”
The Divine Physician—
or the old man known as the Imperial Physician—
had the true name Zhuge.
It was a name now vanished, or perhaps lost.
The name of an ancient prestigious family.
A clan that had explored and advanced the realm of formations,
and studied and researched the Demonic Realm.
Knowing this, the Divine Physician found the Sword Venerable deeply discomfiting.
Only a handful of people in the Central Plains would know such a thing, yet the Sword Venerable happened to be one of them.
“…If I grant this request, I will give you what you desire.”
“Ha. Where do you intend to obtain a White-grade monster stone?”
Despite the Sword Venerable’s confidence, the Divine Physician could not easily believe him.
What the Divine Physician had spent years searching for
was the core of a White-grade monster.
Since no White-grade Demonic Realm Gate had appeared for an extremely long time,
the core of a White-grade monster was practically impossible to obtain.
Yet the Sword Venerable was saying
that he could give one to the Divine Physician.
“…I am not lying. If you wish, place a restriction on me.”
Looking at the Sword Venerable, the Divine Physician let out a deep sigh.
He understood the man’s desperation to some extent.
After all, the reason he himself sought a White-grade monster core
was because of his grandson, whom he loved dearly.
“…I will say this again, but much preparation will be required. It is especially impossible to do it here.”
“I have already informed the Gu Family Head. I told him that I would leave once your preparations were complete.”
The Divine Physician was currently caring for the people of the Gu Family.
And the Divine Physician was a man who would never abandon patients entrusted to his care, no matter what happened.
Therefore, if he left, it would be only after all the people here had recovered.
The Divine Physician did not bother hiding his dubious expression
as he asked the Sword Venerable,
“Where do you intend to go?”
Since the matter would not proceed smoothly,
it would require extensive preparations and expense.
Moreover, because it had to be carried out in secret, everything would have to be done with the utmost confidentiality.
An ordinary place would not suffice.
The Sword Venerable answered the Divine Physician’s question.
“…We will go to Qinghai.”
At the Sword Venerable’s words, a place came to mind for the Divine Physician.
One of the Nine Great Sects and One Union.
Qinghai, where the Kunlun Sect was located.
But the place the Sword Venerable intended to go could not be Kunlun.
That place was home not only to the Kunlun Sect,
but also to the main estate of the Zhang Family, which was currently in Henan.
******************
And so, the next day arrived at noon.
“I will convene the Council of Elders concerning the First Young Master.”
At the Gu Family, a council of elders was summoned with the Family Head at its forefront.