Seolhwa thought long and hard.

What did I feel, watching the illusion?

The only answer she wanted to give was what she had said the moment she’d awakened from it.

Whether he wanted her to pity the Blood Demon.

Because the Yeon Hwi in the illusion was nothing more than a powerless, unlucky, pitiful, and wretched man. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝐰𝚎𝕓𝐧𝚘𝘃𝗲𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝕞

She had hoped that wasn’t the Blood Demon—because she wanted to hold not even a shred of pity for him.

“I’m sorry, but right now I’m only... confused.”

Even knowing he was not someone to be pitied, pity rose up.

Even knowing he was someone she must not pity.

“I see.”

Sama Cheon nodded as if he had expected that.

Contrary to his words, he did not seem to want a special answer; he accepted it at once.

Then he handed her something he had been fingering.

A thin sheet, no larger than a palm.

Seolhwa took it.

The paper was densely covered with ink so tiny and dark-red that it was hard to make out.

“Do you know the Ten-Thousand-Flying-Bird?”

“No.”

“A spirit creature so named because it is said to fly for ten thousand years without dying. This is written in its blood.”

Seolhwa looked again at the paper Sama Cheon had given her.

That such a bird existed was startling; that he had written in letters that small with its blood was more startling still.

“What does it say?”

“The Great Law. It’s normal that you can’t read it.”

“What Great Law?”

“A Great Law that nullifies the Heaven-Defying Time-Reversal Great Law.”

“!”

Seolhwa turned to him, eyes wide.

Nullify the Heaven-Defying Time-Reversal Great Law?

“You mean it nullifies the time that was turned back?”

“Yes. If you place it in the lit brazier at the moment the Heaven-Defying Time-Reversal Great Law is enacted, the previous Great Law is nullified.”

“If you had this, why didn’t—!”

She was about to ask why he hadn’t nullified it—then shut her mouth.

To nullify the Great Law, the Great Law had to be in Sama Cheon’s hands.

In all the dozens of lives he had repeated, Sama Cheon had never once held the Great Law.

“By the time I completed this, the bastard had already grown too strong to surpass. Each time I returned to life, I made one first and kept it on me—but I never once got to use it.”

“You said the Blood Demon came here.”

“Yes. He knows this exists now.”

“...”

Seolhwa’s face tightened.

A Great Law to undo the regression.

Even retrieving the incense burner from the Blood Demon’s hands to use it would be hard enough—but the fact that the Blood Demon now knew of its existence was another problem entirely.

If he didn’t know, they could attempt something, anything; but since he knew, the Blood Demon would surely have prepared a countermeasure.

It was, for all intents and purposes, as good as useless.

“I only have five sheets. The spirit creature’s blood is scarce, and writing it without a single stroke wrong is no easy task.”

Sama Cheon handed Seolhwa a small leather satchel, booklet-sized, its layered hides stitched together with thread.

She spread the layers and found the remaining four sheets inside.

“I carried them—now I’ll give them to you. If the Blood Demon truly intends to make you destroy the Great Law, you’ll have a better chance than I ever would to use one.”

Seolhwa kept the other sheet and tucked the leather satchel into her robe.

She would carry it; there was no telling when it might be needed.

“I have a question.”

“Ask.”

“Why didn’t the Blood Demon revive all of his family?”

Sama Cheon looked at her.

“If you mean his wife—”

“I don’t mean his wife.”

The younger sibling, mother, and father who had died before the wife.

“If he had turned time back to his childhood, he could have saved them all.”

“Ah.”

Sama Cheon gave a small laugh, as if he had only just understood.

“The Heaven-Defying Time-Reversal Great Law is merely a Great Law by which a human apes a god. It cannot be spun back however one pleases.”

“Then how?”

Sama Cheon held up three «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» fingers.

“Thirty years. Measured from the time the Great Law was completed, the furthest it can turn back is thirty years.”

“Then when the Great Law was completed...”

“It was when both he and I had reached sixty. The twenty-third year since he had been sold to me.”

Seolhwa’s lips parted slightly.

The illusion had ended when Yeon Hwi, sold as a slave, was watching Sama Cheon—who was absorbed in research.

Which was why she had thought the Great Law had been completed soon after.

“Do you see? Yeon Hwi is that tenacious a man. He could hide and curl up with his malice for over twenty years.”

“...”

Just as Sama Cheon said.

She did not know when Yeon Hwi learned that Sama Cheon was researching a law to turn back time; it did not change the fact that he had endured and waited for a very long time.

“I lost my family at thirty-two. He suffered his tragedy at thirty-five.”

Sama Cheon’s lip twisted into a bitter curve.

“He has never once turned time back to before thirty-three. He must have thought that if my family came back, I would never research the Great Law again.”

Had he known, he would never have told his story to the slave.

Perhaps, after more than twenty years of dull, thankless chores, he had thought the man a friend.

Under a bright moon, on that one night, Sama Cheon had seated the slave, Yeon Hwi, across from him at a wine table and poured out his story—and had regretted it ever since.

“I tried moving the completion earlier, but the baseline of the very first creation of the Great Law did not change. Thirty years. That was the maximum span he could turn.”

Even after turning back and back again, he could not save the family of his childhood.

“Is it not a truly desolate thing?”

He had gotten his hands on a Great Law that could turn back time—yet he could not undo everything in the past.

“Perhaps that’s why. That may be when he began to go mad.”

Sama Cheon’s smile held scorn.

It amused him—bitterly—that even after killing him to seize the Great Law, things had not gone the Blood Demon’s way.

And yet, as if he were a god, he sought to wield the world with the power won by regression.

No one knew the Blood Demon better than Sama Cheon—and for that very reason, no one understood him better.

To Sama Cheon, it was laughable.

****

Evening, as the sun began to set.

“Young Master.”

He had completed every item on the Cult Lord’s schedule and was returning to his quarters.

Someone was waiting for Yu Gang in front of them.

A face he had never seen.

Judging from the martial attire, he seemed a low-ranking warrior.

In the Demonic Cult, can even a low-ranking warrior come to see the Young Master at will?

As he thought that, the warrior approached and bowed deeply.

“It has been a long time, Young Master. I am called Jamun.”

“Have we met?”

Not the first time, but glad to meet again?

“You may not remember me, Young Master, but I remember you clearly—the child who did not cry, who simply watched his mother in Lady Dan’s arms as she breathed her last.”

“!”

Shock washed over Yu Gang’s face.

“You... knew my mother?”

“I was the one who left the No-Trace Unit’s seal upon you. At the time I served in the No-Trace Unit, and I was ordered to kill Lady Dan and her son.”

“!”

Jamun raised his gaze to Yu Gang.

Only then did Yu Gang notice it.

The sword scar slashing across Jamun’s left eye—and the pupil clouded with lost sight.

And the left sleeve that hung limp and empty.

****

Yu Gang’s steps wandered without destination.

In his staggering gait there was none of the vitality that always overflowed from him.

Do you know who gave me the order, back then, to kill Lady Dan and the Young Master?

He should never have returned to the Demonic Cult.

He should never have sought the truth of his birth.

He should have remained Yu Gang—former disciple of Mount Hua, the one and only disciple of Ouyang Do.

Commander of the Demon-Slaying Corps of the Martial Alliance.

That is how he should have lived.

He should have learned that there are times when not knowing is its own kind of blessing.

The present Cult Lord.

Why had he come back to the Demonic Cult?

He should have thrown that wretched necklace—whatever it was—into the river long ago.

What lingering attachment had made him keep it for so long?

“...”

Lifting his weary eyes, Yu Gang looked at the hall that loomed before him.

It was neither his quarters nor the Cult Lord’s.

It was Seolhwa’s.

She had not stayed there even three full days, but in this vast stronghold of the Demonic Cult, it was the only place where a trace of her remained.

Seolhwa...

Seolhwa. Seolhwa.

Yu Gang swallowed hard, suppressing the sob that threatened to burst out at any moment.

He wanted to fall into her arms and be comforted.

To say he had no family waiting to return with him.

That it was his father who had cast him away.

That his mother was already dead, and that he had never known a parent’s love from the beginning.

He wanted to spill everything and collapse into her embrace.

Yet at the same time, the Cult Lord’s words would not leave his head.

Stay in the Demonic Cult—for that child’s sake.

To stand against the Blood Cult that Seolhwa meant to face, the strength of the Demonic Cult was indispensable.

If he remained and became the Heavenly Demon, he could lend Seolhwa tremendous power.

For Seolhwa’s sake.

If Seolhwa needed it...

Even knowing she would not be in that darkened residence, Yu Gang’s steps toward the hall did not stop.

His eyes, full of turmoil, wavered this way and that like his lost steps, when—

“Where are you going.”

“...!”

At the low voice from behind him, the light returned to Yu Gang’s eyes in an instant.

He turned at once to the figure standing there.

“......”

It was Seolhwa.

Under a violet sky where dusk had begun to settle, she stood with the hem of a white long outer robe fluttering.

Yu Gang’s clear eyes brimmed, suddenly wet.

“What are you doing here.”

Seolhwa reached her hand out to him.

A cold wind blew from the diagonal.

The pale breath that slipped from Seolhwa’s lips, framed by a faint smile, stretched long and thin as it trailed along the passing wind.

“Let’s go back.”