Piss-pants.
Perhaps it was because I had suddenly laid eyes on that ugly mug I hated so much.
The words that slipped from my mouth without my realizing it—
Crack—
Were enough to put a fissure in the mask he wore so tightly.
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Why don’t you relax your expression before you speak?”
Look at this bastard.
The moment I brought up the piss-pants incident, his face twisted.
So it seemed he hadn’t forgotten what happened back then.
‘I thought he’d been unconscious.’
Could it be that, surprisingly, some of his awareness had remained?
If so, it certainly wouldn’t have been a pleasant situation for him.
As expected, Namgung Cheonjun’s expression was rotting away, his mask shattered to pieces.
Judging by his state, either he had thought it was a dream,
or he had wanted to pretend it never happened.
“I even dried your pants for you so you wouldn’t be embarrassed. Shouldn’t you thank me first?”
“…Ghk.”
I had done it so Namgung Bia wouldn’t be embarrassed.
But if that was the reason, it would only make him angrier.
“…You bastard…”
See?
He gets angry right away.
Seeing that, I felt relieved.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like he had matured or anything.
Not that I had any intention of giving him credit even if he had.
“…No matter how many times I see you, I can’t bring myself to like you.”
“That’s quite a way to speak to the benefactor who saved your face.”
A sharp glare.
In the middle of our conversation, a force brushed past my cheek.
It was lightning qi.
A pungent lightning qi was flowing over Namgung Cheonjun’s shoulders.
‘It’s clear, unlike back then.’
Unlike the hazy lightning qi he had released during the martial tournament,
whether it was because his realm had risen or because he had done something ridiculous,
it was on an entirely different level from before.
‘Though it’s still not much.’
Even so, it was only so much.
He was still no more than an outstanding member of the younger generation,
and in my current situation, a younger-generation martial artist was insignificant unless he was one of the top two or three.
Just as I was considering whether to seize and sever the inner force flowing toward me—
Crack!
A greater force surged forth, biting down on and swallowing the lightning qi.
It was the same lightning qi,
but its presence was denser and far more immense.
As someone seized and devoured the lightning qi aimed at me, they stepped in front of me.
It was Namgung Bia.
“Cheonjun.”
Her voice came out cold, filled with deep anger.
It was a voice I hadn’t heard from her in quite some time.
“What are you doing?”
“…Big Sister?”
“What… are you doing right now?”
She hadn’t drawn her sword, but sword intent was flowing from Namgung Bia.
It was the aura of a swordsman who had surpassed the Peak realm and begun to wield their power with complete maturity.
To think she had not only gathered and controlled her power after breaking through the wall, but done so in barely a year.
‘…She amazes me every time I see her.’
To me, it was simply wondrous.
Watching, from the closest possible place, talents that might dare reach the heavens—
Every day brought something astonishing.
In my previous life, I had been filled with jealousy and self-loathing over such things.
But now, I was no longer like that.
Just as a thick lightning qi began to surround me as if to protect me,
Namgung Cheonjun frowned at Namgung Bia.
“I merely came to greet him.”
“This… isn’t a greeting.”
It was an obvious statement.
What kind of bastard greeted someone like this?
Of course, I had been the one to pick a fight first, but his purpose in coming here was obvious. There was no way this could end pleasantly.
Ha.
At Namgung Bia’s words, Namgung Cheonjun let out a hollow laugh.
His sigh was unusually deep.
“Big Sister still seems to be on that bastard’s side. I’m the one who shares your blood, not him.”
“…Cheonjun.”
Namgung Bia called his name once more, sounding uncomfortable.
The lightning qi flowing from Namgung Cheonjun disappeared.
He had shut off the power he had been releasing of his own accord.
With the threatening pressure gone, Namgung Bia also erased her sword intent.
Namgung Cheonjun, who had been staring at her, said,
“…If I’d known it would turn out like this, I shouldn’t have held myself back.”
Leaving behind that thoroughly sour remark, he turned his back and walked toward the thick darkness behind him.
Was it really ending like this?
Had he come all this way just to show me his face for something as trivial as this?
‘That can’t be it.’
I slightly furrowed my brow and watched Namgung Cheonjun’s back as he disappeared into the distance.
I wanted to know how that bastard had ended up in such a state.
‘Did he receive blood qi again?’
When I saw him at the banquet earlier,
I hadn’t sensed any blood qi in his dantian, so I had thought nothing had happened since the incident before.
But upon closer inspection, that wasn’t the case.
It meant the dantian wasn’t the only place I needed to examine.
The blood qi had not completely vanished from Namgung Cheonjun’s dantian.
The blood qi that should have been lying dormant in his dantian
had melted into Namgung Cheonjun’s body instead.
Leaving the inner force in his dantian untouched,
while faint blood qi circulated through his flesh—
It was a sight I had seen countless times in my previous life.
‘Back then, it had been demonic qi, not blood qi.’
Moreover, since his inner force was being converted into demonic qi,
it was difficult to say the two were exactly the same.
But just as inner force naturally seeped into the body of a martial artist who had reached the early Peak realm,
demonic qi could also become naturally mixed into the flesh.
If one claimed that similar-looking energies were essentially the same,
then there was only one reason I knew of for him to look like that.
‘Demonification.’
Namgung Cheonjun
was currently in a state no different from a demonic cultivator.
If the power bestowed by the Blood Demon was called blood qi, it might be awkward to call him a demonic cultivator.
But to my eyes, he didn’t look much different from one.
He might not have been driven mad and turned into a lunatic under the influence of madness,
but—
‘He was already a madman to begin with, so it might not show.’
Alternatively, he might not be seized by madness at all.
For example, the Sword Demon, who had once been a master of the Demonic Cult,
had been insane with bloodlust from the very beginning, so becoming a demonic cultivator had not changed his nature.
Namgung Cheonjun might belong to the same category.
Or perhaps—
‘Blood qi might have nothing to do with madness.’
Since it was an energy I didn’t understand in detail,
I had to account for many possibilities.
But regardless of that—
‘Why had he ended up like that?’
With so many things erupting after the martial tournament,
perhaps the problem was that I hadn’t bothered to pay attention.
‘Wasn’t drying his pants enough?’
I had taken care of a grown man who had pissed himself.
What more was I supposed to do for him?
He ought to have a conscience.
Even if Namgung Cheonjun had truly become a demonic cultivator—
No, since it was blood qi, should I call him a blood demon?
In any case, even if that was what had happened,
I had no intention of doing anything about it.
The only thing I could tell at this point was—
‘The Blood Demon is moving.’
I didn’t know what intention lay behind those movements,
but Namgung Cheonjun ending up like that could not have been entirely his own fault.
Above all—
‘It leaves a bad taste.’
His condition.
The energies I had seen with my own eyes.
His body, which had undergone a transformation.
Every part of it looked unpleasant.
It gave me the urge to seize him right then and there and drain out his energy.
‘The thought of absorbing it… Is that because of the bastard’s appetite?’
Could it be because there was a pig inside his body that ate anything and everything?
Or was it because he had rarely shown such overwhelming hostility toward me?
Besides,
it seemed no one but me had noticed.
Was that because I had received the same blood qi from the Blood Demon?
“Haa.”
A sigh escaped me.
‘If you’re an old has-been living in the back rooms, then stay quietly holed up there.’
If you were someone who had caused trouble centuries ago, you should have stayed buried in the ground.
Why remain alive this long, only to make things troublesome for everyone?
‘I’m already a man liable to go mad from other things.’
It wasn’t as though the Blood Demon were the only problem.
My life was already busy enough from day to day.
I had hoped there wouldn’t be room for some disaster from a previous generation to intrude on top of that.
As I held my throbbing head and sighed,
a cold, white hand reached out and covered my forehead.
It was Namgung Bia’s palm.
“…Are you all right…?”
Her careful tone held a trace of anxiety.
She was worried that what Namgung Cheonjun had done to me might have upset me.
‘She’s so foolish.’
Though she was still inexperienced,
I covered Namgung Bia’s hand with my own and spoke.
“I’m fine.”
“…Okay.”
Namgung Bia still wouldn’t know why I was acting this way.
I had only done it because I looked exhausted.
‘Then what should I do?’
If he had merely fallen because he was intoxicated by his own power,
then, honestly, I didn’t want to concern myself with it.
If he had gone that far because he had been drunk on his power,
I had neither the desire nor the reason to do anything about it.
It was related to the Blood Demon, so it did concern me,
but—
‘I didn’t particularly want to get involved.’
In truth, if not for the look in his eyes and his final words,
I would not have paid it any mind.
—If I’d known it would turn out like this, I shouldn’t have held myself back.
His gaze as he spoke had been dull,
and the fragment of emotion mingled with his aura
had been so vivid to my senses
that I had to wrap my inner force around myself so it wouldn’t reach Namgung Bia.
I didn’t want such a disgusting emotion to touch her.
I recalled Namgung Cheonjun’s face.
‘I hope he doesn’t cross the final line.’
How many times had it been now?
He had probably crossed it at least three times.
Including the words that bastard from the Hidden Dragon had delivered as his last words,
and all the times he had stubbornly found excuses to endure and hold himself back—
I had reached the limit of leaving him alone.
‘It means there won’t be a next time.’
That warning would not reach him.
I wasn’t kind enough to pass it along for no reason.
I merely muttered it while watching the direction in which he had disappeared,
carefully controlling myself in case killing intent leaked out and reached Namgung Bia.
I hoped, for his sake, that he wouldn’t make some foolish choice.
But judging from what I had seen, that seemed unlikely.
I stood still, watching the darkness,
then spoke to Namgung Bia beside me.
“For now.”
“Hmm…?”
“Go back first. I have something to take care of.”
“…”
Namgung Bia looked at me with clear eyes, as if searching for something in my words.
But soon, she nodded,
and I left her behind as I walked away.
******************
My steps toward the garden were swift.
As if hungering for the boundless darkness, I plunged into the forest,
and the forest I entered was dark exactly as I had hoped.
Several ancient trees had grown tall enough to block even the moonlight.
In other words, it was a forest where not a single ray of light seeped through.
As Namgung Cheonjun hurried through the forest, someone’s voice rang in his ears.
—Did I not tell you not to reveal it carelessly?
The voice was much like telepathy.
It was the calm voice of a woman,
but upon hearing it, Namgung Cheonjun could not help but twist his expression like an evil spirit.
“Did I not tell you not to meddle in my affairs?”
—Thunder Dragon, I do not know what thoughts you harbor or what your goal is, but I clearly told you that it is still too soon.
“Whether it is too soon or not is for me to decide.”
—…If you continue to act this way, I will have no choice but to take back the divine fire bestowed by that being.
At the woman’s words, Namgung Cheonjun’s footsteps came to an abrupt halt.
One might have thought her words had touched a nerve,
but his face held not anger, but ridicule.
“Do you have the authority to do that?”
—…Thunder Dragon.
Rarely, anger seeped into the woman’s voice.
But Namgung Cheonjun paid it little heed.
“Just because that being calls you the Dancer, do you really think you’ve become something special? In truth, you’re nothing more than a parrot delivering the words of a great being.”
—Watch your tongue. No matter how intoxicated you are by that power and how far from your senses you may be—
“I’m watching it even now. As you said, I am the one who received the divine fire, after all.”
It was power he had taken for himself,
pushing aside even that smug Paeng Woojin
and the divinity that had been nothing but fucking annoying.
The day after being utterly defeated by that bastard, when he had followed Paeng Woojin underground—
That day, Namgung Cheonjun had encountered a great being and received power.
In other words, he had been chosen.
The power to crush the vermin who had stolen his sister away.
As if to prove that the power was no lie,
the lightning qi that had once refused to be grasped had grown stronger,
while his dantian had become wider and sturdier.
Even the wall of the Peak realm, which had seemed impossible to overcome,
had crumbled with shocking ease.
‘Just a little more.’
So, just a little more.
Until the newly acquired power permeated his body—
He only needed a little more time.
He merely had to get through this short period.
The being had told him that
once his flesh had assimilated with the power
and the energy had returned to his dantian once more,
only then would a new world unfold before him.
‘When that happens, I’ll finally…’
He would tear that bastard limb from limb and burn him.
And afterward…
he would take back his beautiful Big Sister.
And after that…
“…Hoo…”
Suppressing his boiling desires, Namgung Cheonjun exhaled.
His Big Sister was still beautiful.
She had also grown far stronger.
He remembered the enormous lightning that had devoured his lightning qi.
Just as her appearance blossomed more beautifully with each passing day, she was gradually growing into a powerful person.
Was that not perfection itself?
‘She really is my Big Sister.’
That was precisely why he could not hand her over to some mere piece of vermin.
His sister, caught in that bastard’s schemes, was being deceived.
She was listening to his empty stories and thoughts, gradually pushing him away.
Therefore, he had to set things right.
That was what this power was for.
“…How much longer do I have to wait?”
How much longer until the complete assimilation that being had spoken of arrived?
Namgung Cheonjun asked the Dancer again, wanting to know the answer.
—…
For some reason, the Dancer answered with silence.
Her calm voice and the way she treated him had always displeased him,
but she had never failed to answer him like this before.
Namgung Cheonjun questioned it and asked again.
“Why aren’t you answering…?”
“What answer?”
The reply came from somewhere else.
A chill instantly ran down Namgung Cheonjun’s back.
He hurriedly drew up his inner force and turned around, but—
“…Ghk…!”
A hand shot out and seized Namgung Cheonjun by the throat.
“I’m asking you. What answer?”
He struggled desperately, but having only his throat held made him feel as though his entire body had been bound.
And then—
The place Namgung Cheonjun faced, unable even to breathe properly,
was illuminated as if by the dark forest itself.
“Not going to answer?”
A pair of glowing, blood-red eyes looked up at him, brimming with killing intent.