Crackle—.
The surroundings were filled with the sound of something crumbling. The smell of burning was thick.
The world had been scorched black.
Fwoosh—! Flames surged upward.
Flames of opposing colors repeatedly clashed, as if fighting over territory.
Just how dense and powerful the inner qi within both flames was.
With each collision, vibrations spread in every direction.
Thud—! Thud, thud—!
The surging energy gradually heated the air.
It was already at a level where an ordinary person could not even breathe, let alone approach, without meeting death.
Bizarrely, the sky was a mixture of red and black, yet
even so, they were separated from each other as if they were water and oil.
Roar—!
The colossal flame seemed to scream.
The flames gradually began taking the shape of a dragon,
and poured straight down onto the ground.
Crack—!
The moment the flames collided with the ground, the earth was crushed and began to split.
The fragments that flew out were half-melted.
Hot.
Everything blazed red in all directions.
The violently twisting flames devoured all the Black Flame scattered around before finally returning to their caster.
Shhhh—! Even after the unfurled flames had all returned to their master, the scorched and melted world remained as it was.
"...Huu...."
I looked at my opponent with exhausted eyes.
They had originally been the same flame. The Black Flame, which had taken on a black hue due to corruption, should have been far hotter and wilder than the flames I had possessed in the past,
yet before the red flames flickering before my eyes, it was devoured all too easily.
I forced a blank expression as I looked at him.
He still looked fierce. A man with a stoic expression.
An appearance that seemed like mine, yet was not.
To be precise... it would be more accurate to say that I resembled him.
Surely some time had passed, even if not much,
yet his face showed no signs of aging at all.
The man's crimson eyes turned toward me.
"It's been a while."
"..."
His words made me flinch unconsciously.
Those were the first words my father had spoken to me after years of separation.
"...Yes."
"I was certain she would come again. She is a far crueler person than I thought. To think she would send you to me."
The one my father spoke of was the Heavenly Demon.
The Heavenly Demon was in a state of concentration to recover after the battle of days past.
No doubt because the aftereffects of the battle were no trivial matter.
Recalling that, I observed my father.
The wound the Heavenly Demon bore now had been dealt by my father.
This was the man who had inflicted a wound upon the body of the Heavenly Demon, who had never been harmed by anyone.
On the contrary, my father even appeared unharmed.
That was how he looked on the outside.
But I knew his insides were not so.
"I know you are struggling greatly."
"..."
At my words, my father's eyebrows twitched.
I could already sense it just by looking.
That my father's body was being eroded by demonic qi. And not just any demonic qi—the Heavenly Demon's demonic qi.
Even so, setting aside that he could walk around like that, it should not even be easy to breathe.
The only thing keeping him going was his willpower.
The fact that my flames could not invade him even in that state meant, in the end,
that his power was simply that formidable.
"Third."
My expression crinkled slightly at his call.
"...Is it not time you stopped using that address?"
"You do not like it?"
"Do I still look like your child to you?"
At my question, my father made a strange expression.
"Were you not?"
At the implicit question of what was wrong, I shut my eyes tight.
"I... do you know that I killed Honghwa Gwanggeom?"
Honghwa Gwanggeom was the alias of the deceased Gu Huibi. The corner of my father's eye trembled faintly at this.
"Furthermore, I have come here now to kill you."
"..."
"In this situation, am I still your child?"
Even at my words, my father maintained his expressionless face.
He must have known well that I was involved in Gu Huibi's death.
Even so.
He would not even get angry?
"From the beginning... I wonder if you ever thought of me as your child."
If he had thought of me as his child, seeing me now, he might have been angry instead.
He might have burst out in outrage, asking how I could do such a thing.
He might have tried to turn me back, telling me to return.
But. Father did not.
Even when I had fallen to become a Demon.
Even now, facing me... Father did nothing. Truly, I would have preferred it if he had at least gotten angry.
Perhaps because I was burning with flames.
It felt as if my insides were searing hot.
"That day... why did you spare me?"
I asked my father.
Around the time my name began spreading through the Central Plains as I fell to become a Demon.
Father had come to find me.
In that moment,
I had a premonition of death.
For I had not thought that Father would save me, who had become a Demon.
I thought I would burn to death right there. That was what I had believed.
Father took in my appearance with his eyes, then turned his back and disappeared.
"Just why did you do that? After pondering for a long time, I realized. Perhaps you saw it as a good thing."
"..."
"The brat you had kept around because you needed him for the position of young master had disappeared on his own. Did you not see that as a good thing?"
Words spat out as if resigned. Father listened in silence.
"So even now... you do not get angry at me even once, do you?"
"Did you want me to be angry?"
"I wonder. I do not know, but if that were the case, would it not have been better?"
There was a time when I wished the world would look upon me with indifference.
That was what I had thought then.
But perhaps, on the contrary, I had wished for someone to care for me more than anyone else.
Though it is already too late for that.
"I see."
Father nodded at my words.
Even that action was stifling.
With a hollow expression, I asked him.
"What... was I to you...?"
What had I been to my father?
Had I merely been a good-for-nothing who only caused trouble?
Or the child of a concubine whom he could not bear to look at?
Had I truly been nothing but the shame of the Gu Family?
Perhaps because my inner qi had vanished all at once, my head felt dizzy.
Moreover, to my question, Father offered no answer whatsoever.
Was it not even worth answering?
Well. Father had always been that kind of person.
As I looked at him, a small laugh burst out, and at the same time,
fwoosh.
I wrapped my body in Black Flame once more.
"There is no need for further conversation."
"..."
Seeing me like that, Father also wrapped himself in flames.
Immediately, heat erupted from my father's body and soared to the sky. At the same time, my body began to be pressed down heavily.
It was the effect of Red Heaven activating.
As if refusing to lose, I also activated Black Heaven and began gradually drawing upon my body's power.
Demonic qi swirled at my fingertips.
Condensing it, I formed Flame Prisons.
Not just one.
Not only above my palms, but I created countless Flame Prisons above me,
and fired them straight at Father.
It was a force more than enough to devastate the surroundings, but just before reaching Father, the Flame Prisons vanished as if they had never existed.
"..."
Even though all that energy had disappeared in an instant, no wind pressure came, and not even the faintest sound was heard.
Frowning at that, I gritted my teeth and leaped.
As I moved, I examined Father's hand.
The reason was there.
"That is..."
The Gu Family's secret technique that can only be used when the Nine Flames Fire Wheel Art reaches its extreme.
The power that had wounded the Heavenly Demon's body.
The power called the very flames of the entire Gu Family.
As long as that power existed,
I could not defeat my father.
No, even without it, I could not have defeated him from the start.
I knew that all too well.
Even so, I had come to the Gu Family alone.
To finish off the father that the Heavenly Demon could not kill?
As a Demon, that would have been the justification.
But it was different.
I...
Not to kill my father,
had come here seeking to die by my father's hand.
Fwoosh—!
I poured out flames repeatedly.
Having contained emotions packed down tightly, absurdly, the flames looked even blacker.
Was it an illusion?
It probably was.
The massive flames surged forward without rest,
but they did not touch my father in the slightest.
I clenched my molars as if they would shatter.
Kwaaa—!
The flames erupting from my father's feet blocked my path, but I forced my way through.
It was hot.
Even though my body had mastered fire arts, Father's flames were exceptionally hot.
My collar burned away.
The flames that broke through my protective astral qi burned my skin as well.
I felt as if I would lose my mind to the pain, but I still did not stop.
Seeing me charge recklessly, a strange light flickered in Father's eyes.
I gathered flames at my fingertips.
I condensed all the inner qi I could muster into a handful.
This was different from the Flame Prisons.
It was not such a sophisticated martial art, but merely something condensed from emotion.
I would die here.
Any more was impossible.
Even if dulled to slaughter, the mind was not infinite. Even if one lived for another, it was insufficient as a reason to endure.
It had been long since my goal had grown old and begun to vanish.
What was I living for?
It seemed like there had been something in the beginning.
Now I could not remember it well.
I was exhausted, so exhausted, and wanted it to end now.
Would this death serve as atonement to someone?
"No."
Self-loathing sprouted at this childish wish.
This was nothing like atonement, but merely a way to indulge my own selfishness.
But by now, none of that mattered anymore.
Thinking so, I stepped forward.
The red flames grew stronger the closer I drew to Father.
He seemed to truly intend to burn me.
I had wished for that, yet at the same time, a bitter feeling rose within me.
I had not wanted this kind of relationship.
To think that my life would end by the hand of the father I had so feared and resented.
I go pathetically until the very end.
As that thought brushed past, a laugh escaped me unconsciously.
Only when I thought it was an ending befitting me.
Thud.
Fwoosh—!
Flames taking the form of a dragon and a tiger coiled around me. Was it to bind my legs?
I immediately exerted force to break free. Flames splattered, obscuring my vision. I swept this away too.
Then Father was visible right before my eyes.
Wrapped in red flames that I, too, should have originally possessed.
With crimson eyes and crimson hair, he looked at me.
What kind of expression was that?
I could not tell.
Father's hand moved.
It was the hand upon which the Gu Family's secret technique was activated.
The moment it touched my body would be the end. Feeling this, I reached out my hand.
If I were to die, what expression would Father make?
Would he wear that same expressionless face?
That seemed likely.
It was hard to imagine him making any other expression.
In that moment of thought, Father's hand drew near.
A large, coarse hand.
It should have been fast, yet for some reason it only felt slow.
Was I trying to recall my life in flashbacks?
I wished I would not.
If I were to recall memories, they would only be filthy and sordid,
or merely miserable ones.
Right now, I just wanted to close my eyes.
Eventually, before my hand could reach, Father's hand reached me.
Just as I thought this was the end,
swish—.
"...!"
In an instant, the flames surrounding Father's body dissipated.
The flames disappearing meant, in other words, that he had released his power,
and the protective astral qi enveloping his body had disappeared as well.
There was no time to assess the situation.
In the moment I hurriedly tried to release the power in my hand,
Father grabbed my hand, which he had been about to withdraw.
Kuwung—!
My fist met my father's chest, and shock spread.
Huuuuk—! Wind pressure burst into the surroundings.
I had to struggle to comprehend the situation that had unfolded.
"This... what is this...."
I raised my creaking head.
Eventually, upon checking Father's face,
"...!"
Blood was flowing from the corner of Father's mouth.
Just before the attack landed, I had hurriedly tried to release my power.
Because I could not fully withdraw the energy,
that force struck his defenseless body directly.
In a situation where instant death would not have been surprising. Yet amidst it all, Father stood firm on both legs without staggering in the slightest.
"Wh-... what are you doing...!"
Perhaps because I could not properly process it.
Words would not come out.
Then.
I felt something rest upon the crown of my head.
It was Father's hand.