Twitch!

Mookbi looked at Gi Uhui with puzzled eyes.

Gi Uhui’s face had gone deathly pale. She had just finished her tea and had been rising to go to bed, but she froze in that ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) exact posture.

Mookbi’s face turned serious as well.

“Physician?”

“.......”

“Physician!”

“......Yes.”

“What’s wrong? Are you hurt somewhere?”

“No.”

Gi Uhui let out a deep sigh.

“No. It isn’t that.”

“Then why......?”

“I suddenly felt a little unwell. It’s only a feeling, so you don’t need to worry too much.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

Gi Uhui smiled. It was a beautiful smile, but to Mookbi, it somehow looked awkward.

“I truly am. Even if I were sick, would a physician fail to treat her own body?”

“That’s true, but.......”

“Don’t worry. Vice Commander Mook, you should go rest as well. You worked hard today, protecting me again.”

Mookbi smiled.

“Not at all. If anything, I’m sure you were the one troubled by keeping me company.”

“No. Truly, no.”

“Hoho, then sleep well. I’m in the room right next door, so don’t forget to call me immediately if anything happens.”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll go. Rest well.”

And with that, Mookbi left the room.

THUMP!

Gi Uhui collapsed onto the bed where she stood.

Her complexion went pale again. In her beautifully shining blue eyes lingered sorrow, fear, and an unknowable pity.

“......Commander Yeon.”

Spirit Eyes allowed one to see what ordinary people could not.

It was an inborn power—if one had to put it into words, a preternatural ability. She had been born with it, yet because it could be interpreted neither through medicine nor martial arts, it could only be explained with the stale phrase that it was uncanny.

Her Spirit Eyes were special.

From childhood, tormented by all manner of people wearing masks, she had wished to look into another person’s true heart.

And so her Spirit Eyes told her whether another person’s words were true or false.

Of course, they did not tell her constantly. Like receiving a divine descent in fleeting moments, this power, which she could not control on her own, would sometimes reveal the truth Gi Uhui desired and the other person’s emotions.

And recently, the person whose inner heart Gi Uhui had most wanted to know was Yeon Hojeong.

But her Spirit Eyes did not work on Yeon Hojeong. No, they did not work on Yeon Wi either.

She could not look into someone whose martial arts had broken through human limits, someone whose spiritual force had developed enough to wrap an absolute defensive barrier around the upper dantian. Her innate preternatural ability was remarkable, but it was by no means omnipotent.

And yet, in this moment.

She could see, and she could feel. It was her first time seeing the emotions of someone so far away, but she had no room to feel that first astonishment.

Drip, drip.

Clear tears flowed down both of Gi Uhui’s cheeks.

No one would know why she was crying.

Except for the one person she had looked into directly—the one person her Spirit Eyes had caught.

*****

“Hah! Wh-what is this?!”

Ga Deoksang’s jaw fell open.

Everywhere around them was a sea of flames. Fortunately, it was not large enough to reach the village, but if they did not suppress it quickly, the range looked likely to double.

“Damn it! Move! Forget stealth or whatever else and hurry!”

“Yes!”

More than two hundred members of the Beggars’ Union, gathered through their lightning-fast communications network, scattered in every direction. They were moving dirt and water.

It was a distance well over a hundred li from the Martial Alliance, but considering the full size of the Central Plains, it could be called quite close. That was why so many Beggars’ Union members had been able to gather with one message.

BOOOOOM! BOOOOOM!

Yeon Wi landed at the center of the burning area in a single breath and fired palm force in all directions.

The absolute Inner Qi of sword spirit was protecting him perfectly from the intense heat. People said smoke was more dangerous than fire, but the breathing of a master of the internal path was deeper and longer than ordinary people could even imagine.

Without taking a single breath, Yeon Wi used mighty palm force to suppress the fire at terrifying speed.

“As expected, he is remarkable.”

Ga Deoksang clicked his tongue at Yeon Wi’s quiet divine might.

It was not something possible merely because one’s martial arts were strong. Without the eye to instantly see the vulnerable points of a burning area and the ability to read the flow of flames, no one could do such an absurd thing.

“Damn it, the Fire energy is too intense. It’s hard to sense anything. Where in the world is Young Master Yeon?!”

PABABABAK!

Ga Deoksang climbed to the top of the largest intact tree nearby and looked in every direction.

In that instant, his eyes widened. He had discovered a strange trace near the eighth ridge, where the sea of flames burned.

Why only there?

Everywhere else was on fire, yet only that spot had been hollowed out in a circle. If it looked that large from this distance, then in reality, a radius of about twenty zhang had escaped the attack of the fire demon.

Ga Deoksang shouted.

“Clan Lord Yeon! Northeast!”

“I know.”

Though Yeon Wi was a great distance away, his calm voice slipped softly into Ga Deoksang’s ear. It was tremendous Inner Qi.

“I sensed Hojeong’s Inner Qi. He is far more intact than expected. In that case, putting out the fire comes first for the moment.”

“Our field agents are still coming! We can handle it!”

“I know. I only mean to put out the flames at the center first for faster suppression. It will be over soon, so do not worry.”

“Ah, yes!”

Yeon Wi’s words were exact.

Once he seized the center of the fire demon, the flow of Fire energy abruptly broke. Even a fire made deliberately was still fire, but when he severed its qi meridians at the center, the fire demon that had been raging fiercely faltered greatly.

PAAAAAK!

Having finished what he had to do, Yeon Wi moved at once toward where Yeon Hojeong was.

Are you all right, you brat?

Even for Yeon Wi, finding Yeon Hojeong’s Inner Qi from this distance would have been difficult. It was possible because the root of their internal force was the same, allowing him to sense it more keenly.

HOOOOOOONG!

Yeon Wi narrowed the distance in a single breath, then felt a humidity so thick it nearly choked him.

The fire had grown quite fierce, and yet only this place was heavy with moisture. It made no sense.

Is this the source of Water energy Hojeong spoke of—the Black Tortoise Qi?

PAAAAANG!

When Yeon Wi descended at the source of the humidity, he finally saw his son.

......!!

Yeon Wi’s eyes trembled.

HWARURURUK! HWARURURUK!

The threatening sound of flames burning from far away tickled his ears.

The sky was dark, but the surroundings were bright because of the fire blazing on all sides. Yet the place Yeon Wi was looking at seemed so dark that neither firelight nor moonlight could approach it.

Yeon Hojeong was there.

His body was drenched in blood. In his hand, he held an axe dripping with blood.

His hair, wild from the fierce battle, was soaked through and clung at random to his nape and shoulders. It was a truly wretched sight.

Yet Yeon Wi could not move his feet easily.

SHHHK.

Like an apparition, or an illusion.

Around Yeon Hojeong, who stood with a blood-soaked body and an axe in hand, looking up at the sky, darkness wandered like mist.

It had to be an illusion. But despite knowing that it was an illusion, that terrifying darkness did not fade.

Drip. Drip.

The sound of blood and flesh falling from the axe and striking the ground rang out eerily.

It was an overwhelming sight.

The fire demon, the moonlight, even thunder could not penetrate the place where Yeon Hojeong stood.

He stood wrapped in darkness. In a realm of illusion where not a single ray of light entered, it seemed only he existed in full.

Yeon Wi’s eyes deepened.

“Hojeong.”

His son—the child of his who had lived and returned from an extraordinary future, and an extraordinary past.

Standing in that inhuman place, what was he looking at? What was he thinking, and what future was he seeing?

Even Yeon Wi, who had begun to understand his son completely and live a life more exemplary than any parent under heaven, found it difficult now to read his son’s heart.

But one thing he did know.

Are you sad?

His son was grieving.

He did not know the reason. Rather, if his son had been screaming like a demon, overcome with rage, Yeon Wi would have been worried, but he would have understood.

But grief? What was his son grieving over?

Had he seen an old enemy he had encountered again despite returning to the past, realized the dreadful fate that forced him to live a life filled with the stench of blood, and grieved?

Was he grieving because he could not become a vicious ghost as he had before? Or was he grieving because he had realized he had already strayed from the Orthodox Path?

Why, exactly, was his son grieving?

“You came.”

Startled, Yeon Wi looked at Yeon Hojeong.

Before he knew it, the darkness that had been wandering around his son had vanished. There stood only his weary son’s bitter face.

Yeon Wi walked toward Yeon Hojeong.

Step. Step.

The father’s footsteps were heavy, as if speaking for the state of his own heart.

The distance to his son was not far at all. Yet to Yeon Wi, it felt as distant as ninety thousand li.

As he slowly closed that distance that felt so terribly far, Yeon Wi’s gaze moved past Yeon Hojeong.

......!

There lay a man who had been horrifically ruined.

Shockingly, that man, already stripped of the shape of a human being, was still alive. Whatever had been done to him, though his arms and legs had been broken into dozens of pieces and his abdomen had been opened, he was still breathing faintly.

It was a truly dreadful sight. It looked like a corpse left behind after a beast had torn into it and eaten its fill.

.......

Yeon Wi closed his eyes.

And when he opened them again, his son was already in front of him.

Yeon Wi asked calmly, “How is your body?”

“I’m fine.”

He had expected an answer saying he was fine. Even so, Yeon Wi felt that his son’s words, his voice, somehow sounded unfamiliar.

Yeon Wi looked once more at the someone who was not dead—no, who could not die.

Twitch. Twitch.

He was still alive, but not for much longer. Before even half a gak passed, his breath would cease.

Yeon Wi’s gaze returned to Yeon Hojeong.

His son’s face, which had been bitter beyond measure, had at some point turned expressionless. It would also be fair to say it had gone numb.

Whatever it was, it was not a human face. It was like looking at a wooden doll that happened to resemble a person.

.......

There were many things he wanted to ask. There were many things he wanted to hear.

Silently watching Yeon Hojeong, Yeon Wi took the axe from his hand.

TING!

The ruined hand axe fell carelessly to the ground.

Yeon Hojeong looked at Yeon Wi.

“Father?”

“It is an ugly thing. Holding something like that must be why your face has become so ugly as well.”

He did not mean the axe itself was ugly. He meant it was ugly because of the blood upon it, because it was an object swollen with the nameless enemy’s vengeful spirit and the rage Yeon Hojeong had vomited out.

Drip, drip.

Yeon Wi’s hand, which had gripped the axe, was also covered in blood. But he paid it no mind.

With his clean hand, Yeon Wi took Yeon Hojeong’s hand.

“Let us go.”

He led Yeon Hojeong and walked toward the Martial Alliance. Yeon Hojeong held his father’s hand and walked as his father led him.

While following behind his father, while taking his son away, neither of them said anything.

It was not a beautiful night.