My shoulders throbbed as if bearing an unbearable weight.
My feet felt glued to the floor, refusing to move.
My entire body felt suffocated, as if bound by something.
‘Fuck.’
A curse slipped out naturally. The first thing I felt was helplessness. Caught by some unknown sensation, the thought that crossed my mind was that I couldn’t escape this suffocation.
I bit down hard and tried desperately to move.
Crack.
I poured all my strength into it, but it didn’t work. Even though I was exerting myself like this, my body wasn’t even trembling.
I even tried to draw up my internal energy.
‘My internal energy won’t move.’
As if there wasn’t a handful of internal energy left in my dantian.
I couldn’t feel even the slightest flow.
As if.
It felt as if the world itself was blocking me from saving the woman before my eyes.
My gaze trembled. Light continued to burst from Wi Seol-a as she staggered.
What was that? Some kind of internal energy?
No, it was different. I could tell just by looking.
She, who had been speaking with me all this time,
was gradually disappearing.
Her physical body remained, but the presence she harbored was vanishing.
Right before my eyes.
Where she was going, how she was disappearing, what would happen once she vanished—I knew none of it.
But there was at least one thing I did know.
If I left her like that, I would never see her again.
We meet like this, and she just disappears?
And Wi Seol-a, disappearing like that—
‘You expect me to just watch?’
Creak.
What a ridiculous thing to say.
I pulled more strength into my body. Even if I raised my power, my body remained stiff and frozen.
If there was any difference, it was that the more force I exerted, the more my body was being overloaded.
Rip—!
Muscles tore and bones strained. That pain coursed through me vividly, but
I couldn’t care less.
‘Fuck…’
I struggled to move, but the shackles were terribly tight.
If only I could use my internal energy, but I couldn’t even move my demonic energy, let alone my internal energy.
Please.
‘Move, somehow.’
What good is raising my cultivation realm?
If I can’t even save a single person I want to save.
While I continued to struggle as if shattering my own body.
“I know I am in no position to say such a thing to you, but…”
Wi Seol-a spoke to me.
“I have two requests.”
Requests? At a time like this?
I wanted to tell her to worry about herself instead, but my damned lips wouldn’t open.
As if she wouldn’t wait for my words, Wi Seol-a continued.
“Please cherish this child dearly…”
Not herself, who remained in the past.
She meant the current owner of this body, the Wi Seol-a of this life.
Her voice was filled with desolate, pitiful emotion. Because she had already given up on everything.
That must be why she reacted that way—because she intended to leave no lingering attachments to this world.
Hearing those words, I wanted to ask.
‘Then what about you?’
If she left after entrusting her current self to me like that,
what would remain for her?
For her, who had worn down her own body and life for others.
For her, who had staked everything on saving the world.
What remains when she disappears like this?
‘I still…’
had so much to ask.
How did she come to this era?
What happened to her after I died?
Why.
Why did she long for me and chase me all the way here.
These were things I wanted to hear directly from her lips.
And yet, I had to send her off like this?
I couldn’t accept that.
…I couldn’t let it happen.
‘Please, just move.’
My body began to creak and groan.
It meant I had reached the limit of physical strength alone.
Was there truly no way?
Like this, like this, was I supposed to let her disappear?
Before my very eyes?
Just as self-loathing surged from my toes to my throat,
Wi Seol-a spoke her second request.
“…Please call this child by her name.”
“…!”
Hearing those words, something heavy dropped in my mind with a thud.
Perhaps because I had never imagined Wi Seol-a would make such a request.
‘Call her by name…’
I don’t call anyone by name.
If asked for a reason, there was nothing that readily came to mind.
There might have been one in the past,
but searching for it now, it was nothing but ambiguous.
If I dug up the reason I had harbored,
I was simply afraid.
By calling someone by name,
I would engrave that person’s name and existence inside me.
Fearing that someone who had become important enough to engrave within me would see my incompetence and rotting insides, and flee in contempt.
I must have been so afraid of that.
As time passed and flowed to the present, the very fact of speaking someone’s name with my lips felt distasteful.
Somehow uncomfortable.
It had become ingrained in my body.
Not calling someone by name.
Engraving them within my body because I thought of them as that important.
‘…No. That’s not it. I’m just scared.’
I erased the excuses I had conjured.
I put on a ridiculous act of being strong, of having overcome it all,
but I knew my own essence.
In my previous life, I did so because I had been dissatisfied with myself.
Right after the war, I did so because I didn’t want to be shaken by someone’s death.
Now, in an era destined for blood tribulation and war.
In this land brimming with secrets of the world, not just the Heavenly Demon, because I had solved nothing.
I was trying to harbor no one in my heart. Even while desperately struggling to protect them.
Because I was filled with anxiety over whether I could truly protect them.
‘Then.’
Did Wi Seol-a make such a request because she had noticed my weakness?
Since I couldn’t do it in the past, was she telling me to change in this life?
Was that the meaning behind asking me to cherish the Wi Seol-a of this life, and to call her by name?
And yet.
‘Why aren’t you asking me to do it for you?’
She wasn’t asking me to do so for the person facing me right now.
It was desolate and sad.
Because she had lived her whole life not for herself, but for others.
Even at this moment, she wasn’t taking care of herself.
It was so heart-wrenching.
In the end, even now, you are the Divine Sword.
Because that image was lodged in my chest, I had hoped that at least in this life, she wouldn’t live such a life.
I had hoped she wouldn’t pick up the sword.
Hoped she wouldn’t learn martial arts.
Hoped she wouldn’t lose her smile, that she would live laughing.
Living for herself rather than others.
Living while doing what she wanted.
If possible, I wished to stand in the place where the Divine Sword should be.
So that I could bear what she should have carried.
That had been my resolve.
‘And yet.’
What had I achieved since regressing until now?
Nothing.
Truly, I had achieved nothing.
Wi Seol-a had ended up picking up the sword.
She learned martial arts, and as if the talent from her previous life wasn’t a lie, she reached the peak level in just a few years.
The child who always smiled was gradually losing her expression.
She said she picked up the sword to protect me.
In the end, she had picked up the sword once again for someone.
It just so happened that someone was me this time.
‘You stupid bastard.’
If I had said I would change things, yet the most important things remained unchanged,
what the hell was I even living for?
Wssss…
The energy felt from Wi Seol-a gradually waned.
Along with her energy, I saw Wi Seol-a slowly sink down.
She knelt and closed her eyes.
She was preparing to say goodbye.
‘Wait.’
I wasn’t ready for anything yet.
What the hell are you preparing for?
Through regression, I had come to live a life I couldn’t have dared imagine in my previous life.
I gained the nickname True Dragon.
In the past, I was merely called the young lord of the Gu family.
Now, embarrassing as it was, I was called by a rather impressive nickname.
This time, I wouldn’t live a shameful life.
I would go further, protecting those around me and safeguarding the future.
I had believed I would finally bring peace to myself as well.
That’s what I thought.
By now, my life had already become vastly different from my previous life.
‘So what.’
Crack.
Unable to withstand the pressure, the capillaries in my eyes burst.
‘So what are you going to do?’
Fame and honor.
And peace?
Meaningless.
If I can’t save that one woman before my eyes,
what meaning does any of that have?
Prrrck—!
I drew upon even more strength to overcome the pressure.
My body, already at its limit, screamed, but I paid it no heed.
If it breaks, I’ll fix it.
Right now, I only look ahead.
I’ll look further ahead after that.
‘Please.’
Even if I break free from here, what could I do?
If I go to her like that, what can I do? She’s already fading; would anything change if I reached her?
‘Please.’
It’s useless effort.
Even now, just watch and grieve.
Such thoughts raged through my mind, but—
rather than such rational thoughts,
a small instinct—that I couldn’t leave her like that—was far stronger.
Even if my life ended right here, right now,
I couldn’t leave her be.
The moment I thought that.
Shhh…
‘…Huh?’
I felt a sensation as if someone was embracing me from behind.
Warm hands briefly wrapped around my neck.
Then slowly took hold of both my hands.
That was the sensation.
My body was alone. Aside from Wi Seol-a, there was no one nearby.
It was warm.
So warm that, for an instant, I had the illusion that my weary body and my mind, storming like a typhoon, had quieted.
And.
I felt the pressure that had bound my entire body disappear.
My hands moved.
My feet left the ground.
I dashed forward and embraced Wi Seol-a.
“Ah…?”
Ignoring the pain of moving my body,
as I embraced Wi Seol-a’s small form.
“H…how?”
Wi Seol-a made a surprised sound in my arms.
“How… how can you move….”
“Wi Seol-a.”
“…!”
While holding her tight, I called her name near her ear.
She, who had been speaking in surprise,
closed her mouth, perhaps flustered at having her name called.
“…Where do you think you’re going on your own?”
“…Ah….”
“Even if you’re leaving, you should at least hear everything people have to say.”
Hearing the words I forced out, Wi Seol-a
slowly wrapped both hands around my back.
“…I suppose I really am meant to die.”
“What?”
“They say when something too happy happens to a person, they die before long. If this isn’t that, then am I perhaps dreaming?”
“…”
I put a little more strength into holding her.
Warmth filled my embrace.
I could feel her heart beating.
Even so, I couldn’t stop her energy from disappearing.
What should I do?
What can I do now….
[…Embrace her.]
A voice was heard in my ear.
It was a somewhat familiar voice.
‘This voice…’
Just as I recalled the owner of the voice and my eyes were about to widen.
[There is no time. Quickly, hurry…]
An urging voice fell in my ear.
There was no hesitation. I knew there was no time to agonize.
Hum.
I activated the Heavenly Demonic Absorption Technique. Unlike earlier, when my internal energy wouldn’t move,
this time it was activating properly.
“Young… Master Gu?”
Then Wi Seol-a, sensing something, called out to me.
“…Stay still.”
“What… are you doing?”
If she knew what I was doing, would she try to stop me?
She definitely would.
She might even scold me and tell me not to.
Imagining that sight, it might be somewhat amusing, but…
‘Since when have I ever listened to others?’
I had no intention of listening.
“You acted selfishly too. I’ll do as I please.”
“…Ah… no. I am….”
The energy that had been bursting from Wi Seol-a and scattering into the air changed direction and headed toward me.
I could see the energy entering my body, but
I felt nothing.
Nothing. It meant that even though the energy was entering my body, I couldn’t feel any sensation.
“I’m not sure. If this is right.”
“Young Master Gu….”
“What will happen if this continues. I don’t know that either.”
“Then…!”
“But even so.”
I couldn’t see what expression Wi Seol-a wore.
I couldn’t see her face while holding her.
“Sorry, but I don’t think I can let you go like this.”
“…”
Hearing my words, Wi Seol-a gave no answer.
However, I felt Wi Seol-a’s hands wrapped around my back grow a little tighter.
That was enough.
A thought suddenly crossed my mind.
…If only we had lived slightly different lives.
The words Wi Seol-a had said to me kept lingering in my ears.
Would we have lived better lives then?
You.
And me too.
Gradually, the light bursting from Wi Seol-a faded, soon returning as if nothing had happened.
Only then did I relax my hands and shift my posture to look at Wi Seol-a.
Wi Seol-a had her eyes closed.
“…”
When she opened her eyes again,
it would be not the Wi Seol-a I had faced until just now, but the Wi Seol-a I had known since entering this current life.
Would this Wi Seol-a remember what just happened?
Or would she know my secret as well?
For now, rather than such thoughts, I ran my hand down my own chest.
‘…What happened?’
I had absorbed the energy into my body, but
whether in my dantian or my heart, I couldn’t feel her trace anywhere.
There was no other way to figure it out.
I had simply followed what the voice told me to do.
“…”
The unknown voice that had spoken to me.
I wondered how I could follow someone else’s words so easily, but—
I had heard that voice before.
Not even once.
Since it was a voice I had never erased from my mind in my entire life, it was only natural.
If I wasn’t mistaken, the owner of that voice was surely
the one who had left me in the distant past.
“…Mother.”
Because it was Mother’s voice.