Right after the Heavenly Demon opened the Demon Gate and disappeared.
The woman urgently ran over and supported Ouyang Cheon.
“Young Master Gu…!”
He collapsed, staggering. The moment she touched his body, Wi Seol-a could not help but feel it.
—the demonic energy boiling up from Ouyang Cheon’s body.
“No….”
Watching that, she let out a groan.
In the end, it had come to this.
She had wished so dearly that Ouyang Cheon would not become a Demon.
Ouyang Cheon had ultimately become a Demon.
She saw Ouyang Cheon’s eyes looking at her.
Unlike usual, when his pupils had been black or red.
Now, Ouyang Cheon’s pupils were purple.
This was the symbol of a Demon.
Seeing that, the woman found herself sobbing without realizing it.
“No… no….”
Tears welled up in her eyes involuntarily.
It felt like they would spill over with the slightest tap.
Then, Ouyang Cheon moved.
He raised his hand and reached it toward the woman.
“Are you alright…? Young Master Gu…!”
The woman urgently called out to him, but Ouyang Cheon simply stretched out his hand and caressed her cheek.
“Ah….”
“What are you bawling about.”
Rough fingers passed across the woman’s eyes.
He was wiping away her tears.
“I’m fine, so stop sniveling. Anyone would think I’m dead.”
“...”
While the woman bit her lip hard.
Ouyang Cheon quietly looked at her.
She, too, had withdrawn the white energy she had been spreading throughout her body.
As the situation settled, the woman felt a sudden surge of anxious emotions.
Because the eyes with which Ouyang Cheon looked at her were subtle.
She thought it must be because he was tired.
That it must be because he was startled from facing the Heavenly Demon.
The woman tried to think so herself, but
she had to realize that it was not so.
“Hey.”
“…!”
“We have some things to talk about, don’t we?”
At Ouyang Cheon’s words, the woman swallowed a hollow breath.
What should she say? What should she do?
[Unni….]
Inside, Wi Seol-a was calling out to the woman, but now was not the time to answer that voice.
Then.
Suuuuu.
“G-Young Master Gu?”
A change began to be felt little by little in Ouyang Cheon’s body.
The woman urgently tried to examine Ouyang Cheon’s body, but
her outstretched wrist was caught by Ouyang Cheon. It seemed to mean not to touch.
The flow of demonic energy was visible in the woman’s eyes.
The demonic energy flowing through Ouyang Cheon’s flesh had begun to move gradually.
In the moment she wondered what this change meant.
“Suuh….”
Ouyang Cheon exhaled somewhat heavily.
The change began to occur not only in his energy but also in his body.
In his dark black hair, a faint reddish color began to show little by little,
and the color of his pupils was also returning to their usual black.
“This is….”
In other words, this meant his demonization was being undone.
To the woman, this was impossible.
Once one became a Demon, they did not change until death.
How terrible was the demonic energy spreading from a Demon who met death?
Only by reaching that point was one freed from demonic energy.
Yet now, Ouyang Cheon was undoing his demonization by himself.
How could he do that?
While the woman watched with an expression of surprise.
Ouyang Cheon, having gathered all his energy, opened his eyes once more.
“…Hoo.”
“H-how….”
The moment the woman tried to ask Ouyang Cheon the reason.
She closed her mouth at the gaze they met again.
Quietly—at most, they were meeting eyes for only a few seconds, but that time felt so terribly long.
Should she make excuses?
That it wasn’t so. That it was a misunderstanding.
That it wasn’t what he thought.
The woman recalled countless times.
She had thought such a day would come, but
the resolve she had made even before that was to disappear before such a thing happened.
That way, to him too….
“What should I call you.”
“…!”
“What should I call you?”
At the words Ouyang Cheon uttered flatly.
The woman had to put on an expression as though she might cry at any moment.
It was a tone of certainty.
He was already certain.
“…Ah… ugh….”
“You weren’t the type who couldn’t speak. Why is this one broken?”
“It’s just….”
“Forget that. I have a lot I want to ask, but first, I want to ask the important thing.”
Where should she start? How far could she speak?
What would he ask?
Would he ask what happened?
Why she was like this.
Why she hadn’t said anything.
If not that.
Why she killed him.
If she was satisfied doing that.
If she knew what he had done for her.
Would he burst out with such resentments?
She could barely breathe just imagining it.
Her hands began to tremble, but the woman forced herself to endure.
He had the right to say such things.
She had merely been running away because she didn’t want to hear them.
“Do you still.”
At the voice that soon came, the woman squeezed her eyes shut.
Then.
“Do you hate me?”
Ouyang Cheon’s voice was heard.
What had he just said?
Had she heard wrong?
The woman’s eyes gently opened.
The expression she soon made was a flustered face, as though she had heard wrong.
The woman looked into Ouyang Cheon’s eyes.
“Wh-what do you mean…?”
“No, I was just wondering how much you hated me to follow me here. Can’t you forgive me a little? I tried hard in my own way.”
At his appearance of scratching the back of his head, as if embarrassed.
The woman couldn’t get a single word out.
Such words….
“What do you mean. You… you shouldn’t ask me something like that.”
“Hmm?”
Tears finally fell onto her trembling shoulders.
“You should curse me…. Call me a wretched woman. Say it’s because of me. That’s what you should say. Why… why are you asking that?”
“What are you saying right now? Why would I curse you? Was that your taste?”
“I….”
“Ah, stop sniveling and just answer what I’m asking. You’re really stifling.”
Ouyang Cheon cut off the woman’s words, unable to bear the frustration.
And he asked the woman the same question again.
“Do you still hate me?”
“...”
Her wrist was still held.
Though there was a mountain of things to ask in this situation, the first thing he asked was merely this.
When pouring out resentments wouldn’t have been enough.
When cursing and beating him to death wouldn’t have been enough.
To think that all he asked was that.
She wondered if perhaps he was cursing her in a roundabout way, but
Ouyang Cheon’s eyes were the same as usual.
They were the eyes she had so desperately wanted to face.
The woman, gazing into those eyes of Ouyang Cheon, finally managed to draw out an answer.
“No….”
Perhaps because it was a word spat out after being suppressed hard.
Her pronunciation was somewhat slurred and full of trembling.
But it was not a lie.
At first, she didn’t know.
No, perhaps she had hated him then.
She must have.
How could she like him when their first meeting was like that?
But at least.
The emotion she had harbored in her heart while looking at him until the moment she died was surely different from hatred.
“I don’t hate you…. I didn’t hate you.”
Words spat out with a trembling voice.
Ouyang Cheon, hearing that, released the strength holding her wrist.
“That’s a relief.”
And he smiled.
The first thing he asked was something like that.
He smiled just from hearing that mere answer.
At that single smile, the woman felt her heart sink with a thud.
“...”
Words filled her mind.
She wanted to hold him.
Memories surfaced as she looked at him. The first and last moment she had held him.
The day she had embraced his bleeding, dying body.
Not the time when, recalling that, she had hugged his coldly cooling body and wailed.
She wanted to hold the him of now.
Did she have the right to hold him?
No. She likely had no such right.
Even so.
Even so, right now, she wanted to hold him, if only once.
Even knowing it was selfish.
The woman moved as if entranced.
The moment Ouyang Cheon made a puzzled expression at her movement.
“…Won’t you stop there and help a little?”
She froze.
A voice was heard from behind.
“Though it is quite a sight to behold, I am also in a bit of a hurry, you see.”
Ouyang Cheon turned his head to check the owner of the voice, and there was Bi Ui-jin, dripping with cold sweat.
“Hm?”
“…Ah.”
It was something both had completely forgotten.
******************
Thud, thud.
Thick smoke rose, and at its center was a red coffin.
The ominous-looking coffin opened, and someone carefully raised their body.
Crack. Crack.
With every small movement, the sound of bones echoed.
Someone who had raised their body from the coffin repeated movements several times, as if their body were unfamiliar.
Pop. Pop.
Each time, the sound that had continued gradually faded as the movements were repeated.
By the time the sound finally could no longer be heard.
The figure emerged from the coffin, piercing through the smoke, and took a step.
Muhui, having confirmed it, urgently approached and knelt.
“…Are you alright? Is there anywhere uncomfortable?”
The figure, who had been looking over their body here and there at Muhui’s words, answered.
“It is a worthless body, but this is enough.”
“I apologize.”
“It is nothing for you to apologize for; from the start, there is only one body that could satisfy me.”
Heh, heh.
The figure let out a laugh.
Only after all the smoke disappeared could the owner of the voice be examined.
The figure, sweeping back their hair and checking their body, was surprisingly Jang Seon-yeon.
No, that was not it.
He was not Jang Seon-yeon.
He had merely donned a mask; he was by no means such an uncivilized existence.
Where had the pupils Jang Seon-yeon possessed gone?
Blood-red pupils had taken their place.
On one cheek, there remained bumpy skin like that of a reptile.
Whether he knew it or not, he gently swept his cheek with his hand, and the remaining traces disappeared.
He also repeated blinking his eyes several times.
Then they had returned to the pupils Jang Seon-yeon had possessed.
Afterwards, he asks Muhui.
“Muhui.”
“Yes….”
“Did you relay my words as I instructed?”
“Yes. I have already spoken to the Pavilion Master and the Alliance Leader.”
Rustle.
Jang Seon-yeon—no, the Blood Demon—slowly walked out and threw on the clothes Muhui had prepared beforehand.
“It has been a long time since I walked on my own feet; the feeling is new.”
A smile rose as if pleased.
How many years had it been?
Perhaps well over several hundred years had passed.
It didn’t seem like that much time had passed.
No, perhaps it was rather because he had never been particularly attached to the flow of time that it felt less real.
“…Master.”
At Muhui’s voice that suddenly came, the Blood Demon turned around.
“Yes.”
“May I dare ask something?”
What was she going to ask?
The Blood Demon looked down at Muhui with an interested expression.
This meant permission.
“I wish to ask… what is the reason you are moving directly now, having come to this point.”
“The reason.”
At Muhui’s question, the Blood Demon stroked a beard that did not exist.
The sight was rather comical, but Muhui did not laugh.
“If you seek a reason, it is simply because the time has come to move.”
“The time you were waiting for?”
“Yes.”
The distant past.
The Blood Demon was sealed.
To the world, they say the Blood Demon was killed.
The truth was different.
He was not killed.
He was merely sealed.
Those who judged that the Blood Demon could not be killed in the end chose the method of sealing so that he could not revive again.
Do you know how intricate and powerful a formation was needed to seal a single Blood Demon at that time?
Not only were his body and energy separated and scattered into the world.
His five senses, mixed into his soul, were torn apart and scattered so they could never reattach.
After emptying the frame and inside of his soul, they stacked several layers of formation on top of it.
Normally, it shouldn’t have unraveled even after several centuries, let alone much longer.
The Blood Demon broke free of the seal merely less than a hundred years after the Blood Demon War ended.
Contrary to expectations that it would hold for centuries.
It took merely less than a hundred years.
Ridiculously, it was a story the Blood Demon had already expected.
Blocking him with a formation made by mere humans was an impossible tale, after all.
A hundred years. Even that was an impressive tale.
However, though he was freed from the seal, his body and energy.
Not to mention, his five senses had not returned either.
He was not worried.
In the end, they would circulate and return.
That was what flow was, and it was a story that would unfold according to the order set by the world.
All the Blood Demon had to do was endure.
Time passed in that manner.
And the time came.
The scattered fragments of the Blood Demon had come back across the long time.
“I hadn’t expected the fragments to be mixed into other souls, but it is not a bad thing.”
The Blood Demon’s five senses, which had wandered mixed into the flow of reincarnation for a long time.
As if they had been waiting, they had gathered in one era.
Was this, too, a predetermined sequence?
Thinking so was endlessly amusing.
Someone flitted through the Blood Demon’s mind.
A man with deep blonde hair.
“Did I not say so? That it is a futile act.”
He had called it futile, yet the back of the pathetic man who had walked on desperately, unable to believe it, came to mind.
Behold, does the flow not circle back and head in its predetermined direction?
“There may be slight variables, but even so, they will be nothing more than struggles that leave no mark.”
Splish.
He passed over the damp floor. At this, Muhui followed.
“Yes, you asked why I am moving now.”
“Yes.”
“Because the world is urging me on.”
“…The world, you say?”
Beings each harboring one of the Blood Demon’s five senses were born into this world.
From the moment they were born, the Blood Demon had sensed this.
Not a single sense missing, all of them.
Do you truly see this as coincidence?
No, it cannot be.
The fragments that should have been born around the time of the Blood Demon’s revival were not born at that time.
They were postponed.
Because it was not yet time.
To have them descend all at once after several hundred years passed like that means—
“Kuh, kuh.”
The Blood Demon merely laughed.
Because it was an obvious tale, it was simply hilarious.
The Blood Demon looked up at the ceiling.
It was the tightly sealed ceiling of an underground chamber, but the Blood Demon’s eyes saw beyond it.
The sky that would be spread out, and the place higher than that.
“Are you so afraid?”
A chilly wind suddenly brushed past.
“What is there to fear? It is quite enjoyable.”
Smiling faintly at the one who would not answer, the Blood Demon turned his head to look at Muhui.
Muhui lowered her head to avoid meeting the Blood Demon’s gaze.
Though covered by a veil, Muhui’s face was clearly visible to the Blood Demon.
Seeing that, the Blood Demon spoke.
“It seems your younger sisters have met each other.”
“…!”
At the word younger sisters, Muhui’s shoulders flinched.
She had to kill the emotion boiling up inside her as well.
It was jealousy.
As she bit her lip slightly and erased the emotion.
The Blood Demon, watching Muhui, tilted his head.
“Why are you so angry?”
“Ah, it is nothing. How could I….”
At Muhui’s action, the Blood Demon thought.
A pitiful creature.
After all, unlike the children who were divided body and energy.
Muhui was one who possessed merely a few of his scales.
Jealousy—a truly narrow emotion—but the Blood Demon did not blame Muhui.
He looked carefully at Muhui, then turned his head to gaze at the entrance.
“Right now, I simply wish to feel the wind.”
He would have remained here a little longer originally.
A variable had appeared that bothered the Blood Demon.
The predetermined flow remained the same.
But he could feel something jumping out and disrupting it slightly.
“How curious.”
A variable inserted into an absolutely immutable tale.
It was something Yeon Il-cheon had longed for so desperately but ultimately failed to do.
The Blood Demon briefly recalled someone with a fierce appearance.
A truly strange child.
Not only did he harbor a fearsome existence within him.
For half of him was not human.
Not to mention, he carried several stigmata of another realm.
If one bore so many stigmata on a single body, one’s soul should have burned up long ago, yet he was breathing perfectly fine.
Moreover, the person himself seemed unaware of what state he was in.
If that was not a variable, what was?
Having confirmed that the variable the Blood Demon had so longed for and anticipated was there.
The elated Blood Demon could not help but take a step involuntarily.
“This time, I shall go see for myself.”
Anticipation swelled.
“To find everything I have scattered, you see.”
Including the five senses.
The Blood Demon was seeking to find his own body and energy.